Harry Potter and the first quarter moon

by Jane Houston Jones


Tonight many bookstores stayed open until sometime after midnight to sell the new and fourth Harry Potter book. It was a first quarter moon, too, just the very best time of the month to share moonviews with an attentive and captive bookstore crowd.

Three of us sidewalk astronomers brought five telescopes to our favorite independent bookstore tonight. We usually go there on the first quarter Sunday night, but knew there'd be a bigger crowd tonight. Parents and kids began to arrive shortly after we arrived at 8:00 pm. There were activities inside the bookstore for the kids, but alot of them stayed out with us and looked at the moon through our telescopes over and over again.

The moon was high and a marine layer was playing hide and seek with us. Butting up against Mount Tamalpais some of the time, and then obscuring the moon at other times. Most of the time, we had moon to show. Nice bright first quarter moon to show.

Four reflectors - three 6 inchers, my Red Dwarf and my mom's Aubergine and Steve Overholt's 6 inch Tinkerbelle and 22 incher showed views of the moon from different magnifications ranging from 40 to 150x, depending on the upper atmospheric conditions, which ranged from rock steady to jelly views. Our AP Traveller was showing nice detail at 136x. The Traveller was focused on Julius Caesar and Arzachel alot of the time. The kids loved the illumunated peak within Arzachel. Mojo liked the rimae near JC in the Traveller.

I concentrated on Plinius, Arago, Ritter and Sabine and the Mare Tranquillitatis region in the twin 6 inchers. I showed the general area of the Apollo 11 landing to the kids. Buzz Aldrin was at this bookstore last night, so I got many requests for Apollo landing areas, and the oft asked for but never delivered view of "the flag" or "the footprints" on the moon. I aimed my twin 6 inch Pierre Schwaar reflectors at the same areas, with different magnifications from 40 to 120 power. These little F5 scopes were perfect for the 100 - 150 young astronomers who took moon looks tonight. No ladders were needed. These kids kept their feet on the ground as they sailed to the moon. Some dressed in their favorite Harry Potter character costumes. Many had their brooms, wizard capes and hats on. A friendly, inquisitive crowd of nice kids and great parents were fun to be with tonight. They were thrilled to have telescopes to look through. We also had the obligatory kook or two, and pampered pooches, who sniffed the bases of our telescopes as we fidgeted and hovered nervously nearby. Two sets of local TV cameramen took time off from their filming to look thru the eyepiece. One tried to film the moon view through the eyepiece. I guess I'll have to wait to see the film at 11:00 to see if he was successfull.

The highlight of the night was at 9:17 PM when a rocket launched from Vandenburg AFB made a visible and spectacular southern arc in the sky, less than a week since the fireworks display we observed from Yosemite's Glacier Point when the space debris re-entry caught us by surprise. One friend who was with us at both events this week, Glacier Point and Bookstore noted with amazement that I seemed to be able to order these incredible events at will! I commented we astronomers have some mightly cool contacts!

Yellow and wide and huge, the trail was an awesome sight. We all watched the separation. I caught it in my red dwarf reflector for a little while. Soon the color changed from yellow to a deep aqua. Minutes after it was over, the contrail and exhaust were still visible, an inky aqua against a black sky. Magic was in the air, wizards on brooms stopped to look through each telescope. The left for the next telescope with special smiles on their faces.

It was a feel good night. Four hours of mooning with a great crowd. Dozens of people got their first telescopic view of the moon tonight. I love it when that happens!