Observing Reports
By Michael Amato
On Saturday April 11, Rose took me to NEAF for my 80th birthday present. I ran into Andy Poniros at NEAF along with his friend Tony. Rose took a picture of the three of us. Andy told me I just missed seeing the Barkers there, but he did see and talk to them. When we first arrived, Rose and I went to the telescope field to look through both the H Alpha and white light scopes to observe the Sun. The left side of the Sun had many solar flares coming out of it which impressed Rose since she never observed the Sun in H Alpha. We then looked through a solar scope which had a white light filter. The left side of the Sun had a large spot on it and the right side had a group of smaller spots. We then went back inside and listened to several talks. Astronaut Hoot Gibson gave a great talk about his experiences in outer space. The other speakers all were very interesting also. One disappointment was Astronomer Michelle Thaller’s talk was moved to Sunday, so we didn’t see her lecture. We visited the inflatable planetarium for a one-hour show where the speaker showed us the night sky for all four seasons. That was really impressive. Finally, before we went home, we went back out to the field where a man had his scope looking at Venus in broad daylight. Venus is just starting its waning gibbous phase and Rose I were able to notice that. This turned out to be the best 80th birthday I ever had LOL.
On the evening of April19, Rose and I observed the conjunction of the crescent Moon and the Pleaides just after sunset. The Pleaides were just to the lower right of the Moon and even though the Moon was only 9% lit, we both had difficulty picking out the open cluster. It actually was faint in both of our 10X50 binoculars. After that, we swung our binoculars to the left and observed Aldebaran and the Hyades. The Hyades were easier to see because the Moon was about 5 degrees away. We ended the evening by looking at Venus which was well below the conjunction. It was cold outside, but it was worth it.
On the evening of May 18, Rose, my brother Anthony and I observed the conjunction of the crescent Moon and Venus from our own locations. It was a beautiful sight and the image taken by Anthony shows the nice earthshine. It was another enjoyable night of viewing.
On Monday evening, June 1, I was browsing around the constellation Lyra with my 5.1″ Short Tube Newtonian Reflector. I came upon Vega and I noticed there was a small sprinkling of faint stars around Vega. I wanted to know if this sprinkling of stars was known, so I went online to a detailed map of Lyra to see if they are marked on the map. Sure enough, the star map did show a small sprinkling of stars around Vega and they were not named. I’ve been looking at Lyra and Vega for many years and this was the first time I ever saw these stars. It proves that surprises always await you when you look up.
During the week of June 2-9, Rose, Anthony and I enjoyed the conjunction of Venus and Jupiter with Mercury nearby. We looked at the planets from our three different locations. Rose captured this image on June 9 with her cell phone. This three-planet gathering was very enjoyable to observe.
On Tuesday night June 9 after Sagittarius had risen, Anthony took out our Seestar 30 scope to image M8. This tiny scope produced this image, and we agreed we did not expect this to come out so well. We kept the scope on M8 for a long time until we got this image. I still can’t believe a $354 scope can produce images like this. Between our Unistellar and Seestar scopes, my brother and I are able to do first class astronomy even though we are both senior citizens.
On the morning of June 28, I observed the large sunspots on the Sun with my 62-mm Sunspotter Solar Telescope and they were huge! I then contacted my brother Anthony about the Sun and he quickly brought out our Seestar 30 telescope and the result was the image below. I also took out my eclipse glasses on June 29, and I was able to see the sunspots with my naked eye. My brother and I are lucky we can do astronomy day or night.
