NorthWest Florida Astronomy Association

This was our largest group sky view yet, as 60+ 4-H’ers were scheduled for the summer camp.  We had three scopes arrive early enough to setup for solar observation.  It would prove to be fortunate.    After setting up the scopes we adjourned to the dining hall to share the evening meal.  The staff corralled the campers in the meeting hall and we gave a brief introduction to what they would see during the solar observation session.

The youngsters were divided up into groups.  One group would come out and view the sun, and one group would work on construction of air pressure powered rockets.

There were only a couple of small sun spot groups on the suns limb, but with 3 scopes we were able to provide three different fields of view and one-by-one the kids viewed their star up close and personal.  Meanwhile clouds were building on the northern horizon.  The second group rotated into solar mode and started their turn.  About then the staff started getting calls from spouses that it was raining up north and it was headed our way.  The last few viewers were looking at the sun through thickening clouds and the approaching front looked ominous.  We all decided that it was time to call it a day and quickly started to load everything for departure.

Then from over the top of the cloud wall, and almost directly overhead, the International Space Station made a very bright pass; an exciting exclamation point to close out the star gaze.

This past Saturday night we held a star gaze for the Girl Scouts at Camp Kolomoki near Defuniak Springs, FL.  The camp is one of the better dark sky sites in the panhandle and although Mother’s Day kept the turn-out low we had a very good star gaze.  We started off, before dark, with a view of the sun; a small group of sunspots was visible.  The crescent moon was high overhead and we looked at it before the sun set.

The evening viewing started off with an excellent pass by the International Space Station.  It was quite bright and very high in the sky.  The pass took on a little more importance when the young ladies were reminded that one of the six crew members currently on orbit was U.S. astronaut Catherine Coleman.  In addition to the ISS, several satellites were seen as well as a couple of sporadic meteors.

We had six scopes setup across the dam and kept the girls busy going from one scope to the next.  We took in most  of the easily visible targets including M44, Saturn, Sirius, the still visible crescent moon, etc.  Also, Professor Russo gave a talk on identifying some of the northern constellations.  As usual, the Moms present had just as good a time as the scouts.

This year’s annual ‘Scout-o-rama’ was held on Saturday the 16th of April.  The local boy scout council hosts a ‘merit badge midway’ during the event to introduce different merit badges to the scouts.  With several of our members being astronomy merit badge counselors, we support the scouts by setting up a display and, if the weather is clear, telescopes with appropriate filters to view the sun.  The scout-o-rama is usually held in tandem with an overnight campout and,again if clear,we transition to nighttime viewing.  This year the campout was not held but the daytime event was well attended and the number of boys and parents coming by kept us hopping all day.   

We had five scopes set up, all with different views of the sun.  It is now quite apparent that the new solar cycle has started as there were several excellent sun spot groups viewable.