Observing Reports
By Michael Amato
On the evening of June 29 at my friend Rose’s house, six of us enjoyed the close encounter between the waxing crescent Moon and Mars. During a period of forty minutes, Mars moved from the Moon’s upper right to the Moon’s upper left. With binoculars, the view was spectacular! Good food and astronomy in one night.
On Tuesday morning, August 12, my brother Anthony and I got up at our own locations to observe the conjunction of Jupiter and Venus before dawn. His image with his digital camera is below. While he was viewing from his location I took out my 5.1″ Short Tube Newtonian reflector to see if I could fit both planets in the same field of view. Seeing both planets in the same field of view was a special treat for me and I viewed it for about ten minutes through my telescope. I also used a ruler as a primitive quadrant, and at 5:15 a.m. the conjunction was about 27.5 degrees above the horizon. Unfortunately, this wasn’t high enough for my friend Rose to see it from her location although she tried her best to see it. But all was not lost. She did see a nice Perseid meteor go across her sky. It turned out to be another great moment in astronomy for us.
On August 14, a big thunderstorm passed by east of me. I took this image with my phone. Anthony and I watched it as it went over Long Island Sound. Very Impressive.
On Saturday evening, August 23, I observed M73 in Aquarius. At one time, M73 was considered to be an open cluster but now it is considered to be only an asterism. As I looked at it with my 5.1″ reflector, it still looked like an open cluster to me. This doesn’t mean I disagree with the astronomical community. I’m sure they’re right about it being an asterism but it really does look like an open cluster.
Two mornings before dawn, I decided to take out my 5.1″ reflector because the skies looked so pristine. On Tuesday September 2, I first looked at Jupiter and the surrounding area at 4:45 a.m. I viewed Jupiter and only one of its moons which was odd considering the pristine sky I was looking at. I then checked out the area between and around Castor and Pollux. I noticed there was a faint sprinkling of stars near the two stars which I know wasn’t any kind of open cluster, but it was still very interesting to look at. Finally, I had to switch over to my 10×50 binoculars to view the Hyades which were almost directly over my head. They looked so great in this pristine sky. I don’t think I ever saw them this beautiful except from a dark sky site.
On Wednesday morning, September 3, I arose at about 3:20 a.m. and was immediately greeted by M45, The Pleaides. They were also almost over my head, so I viewed them through my binoculars and they too were great to see. I decided to try to view them in my richfield scope and after struggling mightily, I was able to acquire them in my eyepiece. Now I was seeing M45 at its best. Before going back to bed, I used the doubler to enjoy the nebulosity around the Pleaides and it was very prominent. The sky between 3:00 a.m. and dawn is much better for viewing when living in light polluted skies. Finally, a few hours later, I observed the Sun with my Sunspotter Solar Telescope. There were three big sunspots on the Sun’s face with two of them getting ready to rotate off the Sun’s face and the third one looking like it would be earth-directed soon. This is what astronomy is all about!
On Sunday, September 8, there was a total eclipse that was seen on the other side of the world. Because of this, I watched the eclipse online and it gave me a nice show. The eclipse itself was a very dark one showing a very deep red color. This contrasted wirh the numerous images of the eclipse that showed it to be bright red. I rated it on the Danjon Scale as 1.5. I always said if you can’t see a lunar or solar eclipse live and in person, then just fire up your computer and look at it online. It’s the second best way to observe an eclipse.