Observing Reports
By Ray Kaville
October 10. I was wrapping up work on the car around 7pm. My son was over and heading out. I mentioned the aurora chances and he recalled a night where we watched from the front yard. All red. He also attended the Bowbriwka event years ago.
About 5 minutes after he left, I was looking at the “sunset” and marveling at how bright it was. Then it got brighter. Over in the west it ramped up quickly including white/gray spires from time to time. Spread across the sky from west to northeast and just kept growing. Even with the neighbors’ bright lights it was immense. I wandered down to the street to see if it was viewable and it got better yet. As I was shielding my eyes from glare bombs and car coming up the hill, one of the students next door stopped his car and said “Am I crazy or is the whole sky RED?” I told him it was the aurora borealis. He exclaimed “What?” So much for college at Quinnipiac. I told him to park and come over. Immediately he walked right into his rental and never said a word.
Lasted from about 7 to 7:30 or so and out at the street the white spires became intense as they meandered to the east. Been checking for awhile, but it seems to have dissipated. Helluva night though.
October 15. Okay, so I got jazzed and managed to find my two little digital cameras that should do a decent job on this beast. I ordered two new batteries and a charger for the Nikon 4500 and charged them up. Works. Packed all the electronics in a bag and grabbed a bottle (of water) and around twenty before 7 I beat it over to the best flat, high, and wide open spot I could think of. Passed the observatory which now looks like a house in the woods and headed up to the airport. Almost missed the driveway after being blinded by the stadium lights that are now installed. There was a football game. Headed towards the fire department and I stopped between a couple of cars along the road. Could not find my 10x50s so I was hand holding the 15x70s. Good news is it wasn’t that bad. The guy behind me had his two kids out running around, but he also had his spotting scope set up and pointed just about where I wanted to look. There was a voice from the far tree line (towards Rt 63) and someone was down there with a scope. Their conversation was about the comet. They’d both had it in their sights. What luck! I wandered over and chatted him up, got a look through his scope and identified just about where it was. WOW! What a gorgeous comet! That tail had to be three fingers long off the nucleus. He was just about to hit the road so I found a place between me and the stadium lights by the front of my car and overheard another conversation. Two more folks had found it! After a while I opted to stop panning and ask. I got the exact location (he was using binocs too) and swung up where he said (about 5 degrees right of where I was looking) and BAM! There it was! Dropping the binocs I could easily see it naked eye even with the nearly full Moon and the stadium lights! I’ll be back out the next couple of days and hopefully I’ll find a decent spot nearby.
By Chris Predom
On Sunday, December 8, I saw this interesting feature on the Moon, a backward Z with a dash through it. I included a screen shot of the app Moon Globe showing what the feature is, at the intersection of Purbach and Regiomontanus. The app only gives approximate lunar lighting. It does not show correct Sun angle lighting for your area.
