by Jeff Barbour
Pick a number. Pick a number between 5.9 and 6.1 billion. Say, 6,057,203,451. Now let each one of this number represent a single sentient human being. A being whose corporeal form dwells on one small planet, orbiting an average star, within one larger than average spiral galaxy, again within what may ultimately turn out to be a single example of as many universes.
Now pick another number. This time a fraction. Let this pick represent the number of sentient human beings on our Blue Planet that take to the Night Sky in earnest. How many out of, let's say, one million human beings, do you think would sacrifice a whole evening, mid-week, away from comforts of home and warmth of hearth to stand in the chill of the night and ponder the subtly manifest glories of a ridiculously small portion of a single universe? One hundred? One thousand tops, - right? So OK, let's say 541. 541 out of 1,000,000. Some .05%.
Do the math... Throughout our world there may be 3,276,947 ardent amateur astronomers. And yesterday, from my small perspective, first 2 then 12 came together to stand beneath the chill of the Night Sky, and in a most affably social way, ponder the subtly manifest glories of a ridiculously small portion of a single universe.
Let's start our story first with that two...
In September of 2000 and after a three-decade hiatus, I returned to take up my place among the ranks of the 3,276,947 ardent amateur astronomers whose corporeal form dwells upon Sol's Blue Planet. Within a very short time what were once the few solitary nocturnal vigils of my youth became a matter of social engagement. I attended my very first star party (with the fine folks of the Santa Cruz Astronomy Club). Meanwhile, a growing body of posts on the internet (initially at Alistair Thompson's 150 millimeter reflector site and later on JTB's Amateur Astronomy Homepage) made me part of the international amateur astronomy community. By January of 2001, I began email exchanges with a small number of other amateur's. Included among these was one with someone known simply as "theAstronomer" who observed out of Ohio.
Now relationships such the one I have with theAstronomer usually exist only in that "quasi-realistic" medium called by some "cyberspace". Within that realm, one hears the voice of one's own imagining while reading newsgroups posts, email messages, or when engaged in the haltingly semi-realtime banter of internet chat rooms. Though personal photos may be shared as email attachments or as part of websites or "personality" profiles, none such existed of theAstronomer. So yesterday as I awaited T's arrival at San Jose International Airport, I can hardly be criticized for not recognizing her as she passed me by as I waited in the main reception area on the way to baggage collection.
Needless to say, I caught up with T in baggage claim. And in so doing 2 of 3,276,947 ardent amateur astronomers made acquaintance in corporeal form...
T and I arrived on site at the Montebello Open Space Preserve well before sunset. Now ordinarily this would not be such a good thing. Can't really setup Argo in the Sun. (Black tube and all...) So the best you can hope for is to loll about enjoying the scenery and conversation. However on this occasion, and very much to my personal surprise, several scopes were already setup. And aimed most precisely toward a particular, and very brilliant star. Our very own Sol.
It didn't take long to wander in the general direction of Rich's "ST" 92.5 - complete with Baader filter. And of course, it wasn't much longer before T and I were "getting up close and personal" with the latest batch of solar blemishes. I was immediately struck by the amount of fine detail visible at and around the various sunspot groups. Shouldn't have been quite as surprised when T started explaining precisely what I was seeing...
At the outgoing edge a large facula appeared with visible granulation. Sunspot group 9365 displayed a tri-lobed umbra surrounded by a single regular penumbra. Various smaller constellations of dispersed umbral regions were also visible on the globe. Finally there was evidence of the Wilson effect at the exiting group along with some granulation toward the limb. - T.
Now T has been at this sunspot thing for quite awhile. Rich, T, and I discussed the relative merits of Baader versus other types of filters. The sense I got was that although the Baader's offered sharper, more-solar images, bandpass filters (such as those sourced by Orion B&T) tend to better reveal granulation. Baader filters also have the merit of being less expensive and are quite easy to work with in terms of assembly.
Now I already spend far too much of my so called life behind the eyepiece, solar astronomy could easily begin to consume far too much of what little remains.
Within a half hour of the Sun's dissappearance behind the western hills, first Venus, then Jupiter, and finally Mercury, Saturn and Mars fell under our inspection. James mentioned that the jet stream was flowing in torrents over the SF Bay Area. This did little to make planetary views appealing. Rich for instance, went to a lot of trouble to setup that 6 inch APO of his and seemed perhaps slightly more dissappointed than the unknown fellow down the way who had just put together an 18 inch Starmaster truss tube dob. For you see despite the poor stability, the sky - for around these parts - was reasonably clear and free of clouds. There was the promise of some truly "mediocre" deepsky viewing before us...
Made a tour of the various scopes in my immediate vacinity. Chuck had setup his fine 10 inch Mewlon cassegrain. Alan had setup his homebuilt "super-planetary" Newtonian - complete with "flex-paraboloid" 8 inch primary. All views of Jupiter through the various scopes showed about the same. 150x showed the main belts with the occasional glimpse of the NTB. The Galileans lined up nicely west of Jupiter. It's possible the 6 inch APO gave a slightly finer view - but then, for whatever reason, I tended to spend more time at the AP's eyepiece...
Speaking of Alan's newt. Seem's he recently wrote an article for Sky and Tel regarding turbulent air flow over the surface of the primary and its effect on "seeing" at the eyepiece. Alan stepped me through a little experiment while viewing the Castor matched pair. Darned if the gap between the two flaring spurious images didn't alternately widen and narrow half a minute after turning on and off the FFU. Quite impressive. Alan explained that the effect is even more easily demonstrated during 7+?10 seeing than the 6-/10 seeing we experienced at the time.
So OK, I need to wrap up. Before doing let me say a few things about that large faint NGC globular cluster in Bootes. Seems 10 inches of cassegrain reflector does a right fine job of showing maybe two dozen resolved stellar components whern a 6 inch is just able to show the cluster as a large faint nebular glow...
And finally Omega Centauri... Round about 11:00 just about every scope went "full tilt". (You should see them starmasters with their big flashing mirrors pointed right at ya!) Anyway, for the very first time I've seen something more than a hazy glow in the field of view. Chuck's ten inch actually resolved several dozen stars. While Rich's 6 showed something more than the scintillation of the same number. Meanwhile Argo, - T spent at least twenty minutes contemplating this fine globular at the eyepiece. The report is "some stars across the core". Personally, I thought the AP made resolution more prominent - although a good deal of scintillation was apparent.
One final observation, T's ten years of almost nightly observing has given her quite an eye for structure and detail on all sorts of studies. Galaxies, disparate doubles, globulars - you name it - the Lady has it!