Recent ASNH Activities, continued
Public Observing at Hammonasset Beach State Park
On Saturday evening, April 6, ASNH members brought their telescopes to the Hammonasset Beach for a public observing night sponsored by the Meigs Point Nature Center. Members of the Thames Amateur Astronomical Society also participated. The event took place in the parking lot at Meigs Point, a location where there is a very good view of the horizon in all directions and fairly dark conditions, since this is at the end of the 2.5-mile beach, jutting out into Long Island Sound.
The evening began with a dramatic view of a very thin crescent Moon (just 1-1/2 days old) low in the western sky over the water. We also observed Mars as a tiny red ball, and then turned to springtime deep-sky objects as the darkness settled. Among the objects viewed were the Orion Nebula, the Sombrero Galaxy, the Beehive Cluster, globular cluster M3, double stars Mizar and Alcor. A nice crowd of about 50 people came to look, and they were enthusiastic and asked many good questions. A meteor or two flashed by, leading to whoops by those who happened to be looking in the right direction. Toward the end of the evening, everyone was delighted to see the International Space Station passing overhead.
It was a nice clear night and quite warm for early April–an ideal night for astronomy.
Outreach Event at Camp Cedarcrest
For many years, ASNH has been holding observing events for the scouts and their families at Camp Cedarcrest in Orange on camping weekends. We held our latest observing night on Friday, May 10. The viewing conditions were not ideal, because it was just one night before a full Moon, and trees block views near the horizon in most directions. Still, we were able to show dozens of children and adults good views of the Moon. There were craters clearly visible along the one edge that was still in partial shadow, and rays from Tycho and Copernicus were clearly visible on the bright lunar surface. Many of the campers were very excited to look at the Moon, enthusiastically remarking about how close it looked and how much detail they could see. We were also able to show them a few other objects, including orange Arcturus and the Mizar-Alcor pair. The official curfew for the young campers was 10 pm, but a few of them were able to stay up for a nice view of the International Space Station, passing overhead at about 10:20.
Young’s Park Pubic Viewing on June 8
We finally had a successful night of public viewing!!
Our members started showing up at 7 pm to set up. By 8 pm there were many people waiting for it to get dark. Some even brought lawn chairs. As the night progressed, many more ASNH members showed up with their scopes and 4 families brought their new scopes for us to help show them how to use them. Leo Taylor is our go-to guy for showing someone how to set up their new scope and start using it. There must have been 40-50 people that came out because the Branford Sound paper gave us a nice article with and a large picture. I believe there was also something in the news about Jupiter being larger than normal. We stayed later than normal because of all the interest to see Jupiter, which didn’t make it over the trees till later. All-in-all, it was one of our most successful night in a long time.
-Donna Pursley
