A January Starparty...

by John Reed

An informal starparty was held at the CAAS property on the 24th.  There was some interest in trying to make it Friday the 23rd, but a small band of clouds passed over Arkansas that evening, not allowing it to clear until after 11:00.  However everyone tried again Saturday with success.  It was fairly clear in spite of El Nino churning up the weather.

As usual Bill Franke had his Astro-physics set up with his camera already attached.  Thomas was preparing to observe some more Herschel's.  Chris and David didn't arrive until later.  Ron Barron arrived later still along with Jane Jackson, her grand-daughter and Carl Freyaldhoven.  Carl and Jane heated hot dogs in the microwave; we all nibbled them in between setting up equipment.  The air grew chilled.  I plugged in the tiny fan to cool my 18" mirror attempting to cool it to the dropping air temperature.  A few clouds scuttled by at sunset, but as it grew darker the cirrus disappeared along with the deep red of twilight.  It was going to be a suitable night.

Ron Barron expressed an interest in photographing the sky.  I checked my Rubbermaid tote and found I had packed my camera tracker, which allows a small camera to follow the sky's motion.  It quickly attached to his tripod and he was soon set up to take pictures of the starry vault with his ultra wide angle lens (17mm).  After twilight was totally gone, its pale ghost lingered on in the form of the zodiacal light.  This pallid glow could be seen from the western horizon extend-ing up nearly to the planet Saturn.  It is wider at the bottom and narrows as it stretches up the curve of the sky follow-ing the slight angle of the ecliptic.  As some of you know this glow is not of our atmosphere like the aurora, but rather resides out in the plane of our solar system in the form of tiny motes of dust.  This dust reflects the sun's light like a billion tiny moons allowing us to see it…faintly.  However it photographs well if you have a wide enough lens.  I look forward to seeing Ron's picture.

When my 18" dob was finally cooled down, I turned it toward the planet Saturn which is getting closer and closer to the western horizon.  As February progresses it is going to set earlier each night.  Even on that night it was already past the meridian (it's highest point) and was on the way down.  There was not going to be a better time to view it.  Also, the seeing or steadiness of the air is sometimes better earlier in the evening than later.  Jane's grand-daughter really enjoyed the view at 200 power.  The rings are now fully tilted toward our view, making it easy to see the razor thin Cassini division between the rings.  An ink-black shadow traversed the disk of the gas giant just above the rings: their shadow cast upon the planet.  The planet in turn cast its shadow on the rings just before they passed behind the disk.  Beautiful.  Subtle cloud bands swam across the globe making it look like a yellowish marble spinning in space.  Several moons were visible as small sparks of light.

Later Chris began photographing the Owl nebula in Ursa Major (the Big Dipper).  He was using Bill Franke's ST-7 CCD camera in lieu of his own camera, and the instru-ment seemed to be working well.  With a guide star found and the ball of distant gas centered on the light sensitive chip, his mount was soon happily clicking away guiding the exposure.  The ST-7 is an amazing machine, which watches the image with one chip, while another takes the picture.  If it "sees" that the image is about to shift, it sends commands to the mount to speed up or slow down just a bit, so that the picture always stays on the same spot within the frame of the photograph.  Chris set it going and left to get warm.  Some of you may have seen the shot on his web page.  Amazing!

Much later Orion climbed from the eastern glow of Little Rock, brandishing his club and proudly wearing his starry belt.  I turned the 18" toward this belt and looked at the wispy green swirls of the Orion Nebula (M- 42).  It is a mixture of gas and stars that extends for lightyears across space, glowing due to ultraviolet light from nearby stars.  I mentioned that I was in that area and Thomas, who had been quietly observing all this time, handed me a small disk of glass surrounded by a thin metal ring.  A filter.  "Its my H-Beta" he says and promptly returns to his observing chair with no further comment.  Those of you who know Thomas know that this is his way.  Well, you might ask, what in the heck is an "H-Beta"?  It turns out that this is a very narrow band pass filter which only lets through one color of light, rejecting all others.  This is a good thing.  Light pollution, star glow and a slight glow from the air itself are all blocked, letting through only the light from certain faint nebulae.  One nebula in particular that this filter works well with is the Horsehead.  It turns out that just south of the eastern most belt star of our winter hunter there resides a dim almost non-existent cloud of celestial gas which in turn is partially covered by an ink black dust cloud that appears to be in the shape of a horse's head -- at least from our view point in the uni-verse.  We would never-be able to see the dark Horsehead nebula if it weren't for the faint glowing nebula behind.  Kind of a 3-D sort of thing.  Well anyway this object is very faint visually, even though it shows up well on film.  I personally have never seen it directly.  With Thomas' filter in place I carefully slew the scope over to where it should be.  As I looked, expecting nothing, my mouth dropped open in shock.  There in faded relief was a delicate equine profile from the depths of space.

As usual time caught up with us sometime in the "wee" hours and a cot in the warm club house drew out interest more than the sparkling winter sky.  We all went to bed except for Chris and his clicking mount, which continued to click on and on into the cold January night.