NorthWest Florida Astronomy Association

The last Henderson Beach Sky View of 2013 started, as usual, with setting up telescopes 3 hours prior to sunset.  Dean Covey, Dennis Hausch and Tom Haugh provided safe views of the sun to the sparse guest observers.  Solar activity was on the low side with only a couple of small sunspot groups visible.  H-alpha scopes showed only a few limb prominences.

Once the sun set and the sky darkened, the solar scopes and filters were replaced for night time viewing.  As the crowd of guests assembled, Tom handed out sky charts and briefed their usage as well as sky view etiquette and some safety rules.  Ultimately, Dean, Dennis and Tom were joined by Frank Atchison, Ken Leone  and Dave Halupowski as each added their scope to the group.

Since October 12th was 2013’s International Observe the Moon Night (IOMN), and the crescent Moon was high overhead, it was the first target of opportunity.  It was quickly joined by a similarly crescent Venus in the western sky.

Guest observers lined up to view Epsilon Lyrae, the Great Andromeda Galaxy, the Ring Nebula and M-13 in Hercules as well as many other celestial objects.  Dave had a video camera attached to his scope and hosted a crowd of guests watching the objects that he was viewing.

The park rangers reported an attendance exceeding 100 people.

We would like to thank the Henderson Beach State Park rangers and volunteers that make our events here so successful.  We also look forward to next year and continuing our series of public sky views.

Edwins Elementary School is located across the street from Fort Walton Beach High School. With football season here and the associated lights necessary for games, practices and security, a night time sky view was out of the question for the students. So, we chose a star that could not be overwhelmed by stadium lights: the Sun.

Tom Haugh gave a classroom presentation about the sun to each group of students prior to the class adjourning to the athletic track to view our nearest star. Club members Bob Schritter, Frank Atchison, Dean Covey, Dennis Hausch and Chuck Lynch manned the telescopes setup outside. White light, spectroscopic and Hydrogen Alpha views were all available to the students.

There were a couple of small sunspot groups visible as well as several prominences on the solar limb. The clouds stayed away for all but a couple of minutes, unfortunately, several students were not able to take advantage of the H-alpha telescope during their turn.

We would like to thank the staff and students of Edwins Elementary School for their invitation and warm welcome. We are also very grateful to the teachers who provided us with an excellent lunch during the noon time break.

Once again, we started the Henderson Beach Sky View with solar observing.  Setting up 3 hours before sunset,  Dennis Hausch, Dean Covery, Frank Atchison and Tom Haugh provided safe viewing of our nearest star: The Sun.  Even though this was only the second time we set up earlier than normal for solar viewing we had quite a few more guest observers.  Dennis and Dean brought Hydrogen Alpha telescopes while Frank and Dean provided white light views.  Unfortunately, the sun was fairly quiet and there were only a few small sunspots to view.  Tom brought his spectroscope to give the guest observers yet another way to view the sun.

As the sun dropped lower in the sky Ken Leone, Dave Halupowski, Chuck Lynch and Ken Sharp added their telescopes to the collection. Meanwhile, the filters came off, the H-alpha scopes and spectroscope were packed away and night time preparations started.  Tom passed out star charts as the crowd grew and briefed each small group on how the sky view would proceed.
As the sky darkened, the first targets of the evening were a thin 3-day old sliver of Moon and the planet Venus.  Arcturus  and Vega came next as the sky continued to darken.  Saturn, as usual, was a crowd favorite.  By then, the sky was dark enough for the deep sky objects to start making their entrances.

The Ring Nebula, The Great Hercules Cluster, the colorful Alberio as well as many other Messier objects were all viewed.  The ‘Tea Pot’ of Sagittarius was outlined and by then, surprisingly, the Milky Way made an appearance as it was visible from the southern horizon nearly to the zenith where it was overpowered by the sky glow.  This is the first Henderson Beach Sky View where our galaxy was obviously visible.  Fortunately, we ran out of guest observers before we ran out of objects to view.

Once again the  park rangers estimated the attendance exceeded 100 guests.  We would like to thank them for coming out and the we would like to thank the Henderson Beach State Park staff for a thoroughly enjoyable afternoon and evening.

Most of the time NWFAA members do their observing at night.  Even when we setup early for solar observing at our public star gazes it is usually late afternoon.  So a start time of 10:00 AM was a little early for some of us.  But we had plenty of telescopes pointed into the bright sky for Hurlburt Field’s annual family picnic.

The day started out clear and warm.  It proceeded to get a little cloudy and hot – really hot.  The clouds were quite broken so when they did intervene, the break from the sun was very welcome.  Did I mention that it got hot?  Luckily we were in between some of the food vendors and one of the water attractions so we had a constant stream of guest observers.

Dennis Hausch, Frank Atchison, Bob Schritter, Tom Haugh and Ken Leone provided the troops with views of the solar disk and several sunspot groups.  Dennis brought his Hydrogen-Alpha scope and everyone else displayed white light views of varying magnification.  Chuck Lynch rounded out our participation and took over a scope when someone needed a break.  Did I mention is was hot?

This was just a standard summer family picnic: hot dogs, balloons, music, military parachutes filling the skies and all the kiddies watching to see who’s Dad would assemble his M-16 the quickest. We would like to thank the base for inviting us to share our passion for astronomy. We were honored to participate in the bases annual family picnic.  Thanks to Frank for the pictures.

Once again, Camp Kolomoki provided clear and dark skies for the Girl Scouts.  The site is a club favorite, so we had plenty of scopes set up for the guest observers to take advantage of the view.  Tom Haugh handed out sky charts and gave a quick safety briefing prior to sunset.  The first group of girls then adjourned to have supper.  The second group of scouts then arrived and received their charts and briefing.  Meanwhile Frank Atchison and Dennis Hausch set up and aligned their personal scopes.  Professor Russo brought NWFSC’s 12″ Dobsonian.

Just as the sun set, dinner arrived for the astronomers.  They were treated to a baked chicken dish that was excellent.  Just as we finished dinner the first set of girls rejoined the throng.

Since Alberio was not visible Dennis zeroed in on Iota Cancri as an example of disparate stellar colors.  By then Tom had finished alignment of his scope and started the guest observers at his telescope with M 41.  Other objects presented included Jupiter (just before it set into the western trees), Saturn, Alcor and Mizar with a host of Messier objects rounding out the itinerary.  Frank had a constant line of scouts at his Meade 8″ SCT. In between objects Professor Russo provided briefings on several constellations configuration and historical lore.

One by one the guest observers adjourned to their camps and we wrapped up the evening with another successful Camp Kolomoki star gaze.