NorthWest Florida Astronomy Association

A small patch of  blue sky tempted us to roll the dice and head out to Henderson Beach for the Friday night sky view.  By the time we got set up, the blue patch was a little larger and it continued to get bigger throughout the evening.  Frank  brought is 8″ SCT, Tom had his ancient and trusty 6″ Newtonian,  new member Brian Richey brought his 8″ dob and Tony unleashed the college’s 12″ SCT.

Early birds examine “The Evening Sky Map”

Brian and his 8″

 Over 100 guest observers braved the cloudy skies and were rewarded with views of the ever popular Saturn, Mars and several deep sky objects.  The ‘Walmart’ haze kept the sky bright enough that low contrast objects like the Ring Nebula were difficult to see, but bright star clusters were obvious and plenty.  The great globular cluster in Hercules (M 13) as well as the colorful Alberio were viewed as well.  Carefully using his LASER pointer, Tony conducted constellation tours while the guest observers viewed the evening’s sights through the college’s Meade.

The first Henderson Beach State Park sky view of the year was a great success.  Club members arrived well before dusk as a dry run for June’s Venus transit.  Sight lines and angles were verified to ensure as much visibility as possible for the very rare event.   Early bird guest observers were able to take advantage of the daylight setup to safely view the sun.  There was a nice sun spot group visible.

The public started to arrive in force around 6:00 P.M.  and by the regular start time when the park rangers normally start off the formal introductions, one stopped by to tell us that cars were still backed up out onto US 98 waiting to get into the park. 

The club was well represented with Tom Haugh, Bob Gaskin, Ken Leone, Dennis Hausch, Matt S. all bringing scopes.  Chuck L. shepherded one of the library scopes as well.  Once again the club passed out Evening Sky Maps curtesy of  http://www.skymaps.com/.   These have proven to be very popular with our guest observers.

Bob Gaskin answers questions during setup.

Tom Haugh conducts Evening Sky Map orientation.

The crescent Venus started off the evening low on the western horizon.  It is quickly closing on the Earth in route to the transit on the 5th of June.  As the sky darkened, Mars and then Saturn got the attention of the crowd.  Saturn is usually the evening’s favorite object and more often than not elicits a vocal response from the observer.  It did not disappoint.  The library telescope targeted the moon and had a long line of observers.

Ken's home-made dew shield awaits dark skies.

Bob selects the next object.

Once the bright planets had been viewed by everyone, deep sky objects were attempted.  However, as the sky got darker, the sky glow became more and more of a problem.  The sky had been clear all week, but the heat finally got the best of the atmosphere and the gulf haze finally made an appearance.  M-13 (the Great Hercules Cluster) was just barely visible; you could see a slight glow, but that was all.  Luckily, by then the crowd had thinned and it was time to wrap-up the evening.

The park rangers reported an attendance in excess of 200 visitors.  The guest observers kept us busy all evening and the club members had a very good time.  We would like to thank the park staff for a well run event and we look forward to our next Henderson Beach State Park sky view in August.

The weather cooperated fully with the Tuesday event at Bluewater Bay Elementary School.  We had a very good turnout of students, parents and teachers.  We had an even better turnout of equipment as we set a NWFAA Star View record with 16 telescopes on site. 

Club members Dave Halupowski, Frank Atchison, Tom Haugh, Ken Leone and Dennis Hausch all brought scopes.  However, an additional 10 were brought by our guest observers and the final one was the excellent iOptron Maksutov that the school owns.  There were several quick lessons on setting up and aligning the scopes as the sun set and there were plenty of excellent questions to answer.   

The moon provided the first target of the evening.  Venus, now in a crescent phase, quickly became the focus as the sky darkened and then Mars and Saturn in turn as each became visible.  All were well observed with a few other celestial objects thrown in for variety.

We would like to thank the teachers and staff of Bluewater Bay Elementary School for their invitation.  The enthusiasm of the guest observers along with the sheer number of telescopes made this a very fun event.

The Edge Elementary School observatory tour and star gaze was a mixture of good and bad.  The weather did not cooperate at all, but the tour went on anyway.  In fact, we had too many guest observers to handle all at one time.  All counted, students, parents and teachers came to about 75 guest observers.  The classroom is not that big and the dome is smaller than that.  So, we had to split our guests into three different groups.  This would have been perfect had the skies been clear. 

As it was, Prof. Tony R. took one group up into the dome.  He demonstrated the telescope and equipment and explained the procedures used to record the imagery that the observatory uses for its research projects. 

In the classroom, Tom H. and Frank A. presented a slide show on the history of the observatory and an introduction to astronomy using club members photography. 

That left one group waiting for shift change.  If the skies had been clear, they would have been the group outside observing.  With as young as some of the students were, the wait became too much and a few of the families left early. 

Although, we received a lot of positive feedback, the families that left early definitely got shorted.  We will obviously have to enforce a head count in the future so that  no one leaves disappointed.

Eglin Elementary School’s astronomy night started off much earlier in the day with Tom H. giving two classroom presentations to 3rd and 4th grade students.  Along with some basic astronomy highlighting the evenings visible objects, he presented some of the club member’s imagery, a telescope display and provided free March star charts to be used for the evening’s event.

The three ...... astronomers troubleshoot a balky Azimuth drive.

Later that day Tom , Frank A. and Bill B. set up scopes across the street from the school.  The skies cleared once a single large cloud passed and the assembled students, parents and teachers were treated to a grand view of the Jupiter – Venus conjunction. 

On the other side of the sky Mars was plainly visible.  Other objects viewed were the Pleiades and the Great Nebula in Orion.  One parent had brought along a newly acquired telescope and after a quick lesson on scope/finder alignment joined in the action providing an additional view of the evening’s sights. 

Right as the evening wound down, Frank was able to take a quick image of the Orion Nebula through his Meade 8″.

 We would like to thank Eglin Elementary School teachers for the invitation and the rest of the school staff for their warm welcome and support so we could share our passion for the night sky with their students. 

And finally, we would like to thank one of the base’s security teams for their role in making the star gaze safe for all of us.  We were especially glad that they were able to stop by later during their evening rounds so we could give them a quick view of what the students were looking at.  Thank you guys.