SSP July 10-14

by Stacy Jo McDermott

July 10: Observing plans called for hunting down M objects in summer constellations that I had not previously checked off. When I headed for the SSP on this day, my intent was to be heavily into finding down these items the first night. However, I was not prepared for the full effect of the heat and my body's reaction to it. (I did however read up on heat exhaustion, heat stroke, drinking plenty of water, sunscreen, etc - so in that sense I was prepared.) I thought that I would be able to set up everything as soon as I got to SSP though a bit more slowly than I usually do. Well, after setting up the tent, that was when the fat lady sang for the afternoon. I would have to finish setting up during twilight when the heat was dissapating.

The evening consisted of doing nekked eye observing (re-familiarizing myself with constellations in a dark sky area) and binocular viewing from my chair. Both actually were quite satisfying in the sense that it was it was easy for me due to being slammed by the heat.

Sagittarius was (as always) a beatiful sight to behold. I revisited the M objects throughout it, taking in the wide field of view my binoculars (7x50) gave me. Transparency was very good and the temperature was perfect for night observing.

July 11: My observing started about 10 PM. Target: Ophiuchus - M9, M10, and M12. Ophiuchus is a rather large constellation that I had trouble getting a clear mental visual of the outline shape. I spent about 20 minutes just connecting the dots with my finger to become familiar with it. The M objects in this constellation presented a challenge to me and my star hopping skills. However, with SkyAtlas 2002 in hand and the patience of Mr. Brad Franzella allowing me to look through his finder scope (much better that my finder scope), I was able to find these objects and check them off my list.

After finding what I could in Ophiuchus, I went tripping around the Milky Way for about an hour.

July 12: Thursday night, I started off La Bella Luna. It was in a wonderful 3.5 day old phase and many crators, valleys, mare and peaks could be seen. I've grown to appreciate lunar viewing more as I work on the AL Lunar certficiate. Also, it's quite fun to bump up the power to as far as it will go on my 120mm and see how far I can get into a crator.

After the moon set, I was off again to find left over M objects in summer constellations. Again, Ophiuchus was the target and the objects needed to complete this constellation were M14 and M 107. (I had found M19 and M62 last summer). Now that I was a bit more comfortable with the constellation itself, it was easier to hop around. M14 was very pretty and I think that it is my favorite M object in Ophi. M107 was actually easier to find that I first thought it would be. It was nice as well, but for the satisfaction level, M14 has a "stunning" next to it in my notes.

Next it was on to Vulpecula to find M27, a planetary nebula. This one required my skills of yoga contortions as it was high in the sky most of the time I was up. In locating it, I saw a lot of Alberio in Cygnus...as it was my starting point. And, even though it took me a long while to locate M27, I was never disappointed in having to start over from Albireo as it is my favorite double star due to the incredible contrasting colours of blue and yellow. Having finally found M27, I was pleasantly surprised to see how good it looked in my scope.

Again, as a tasty treat after hunting the above, I tripped around and ended up on the Andromeda galaxy and the clusters in Cassiopeia. Thus ended another good night.

July 13: Observing for Saturday night was geared toward the public star party. With so many scopes, it was hard to decide what to point my scope at - since I had such lovely views of the moon the night previous, I decided to target the moon for most of the evening. All the people who stopped by were very nice, outgoing, interested and asked wonderful questions. Some of them were very surprised at the amount of detail that they could see on the Moon. One young boy and his dad came by and asked about the phases. I was able to use both of them in a demostration on phases of the Moon and they both had fun being the celestial bodies. Both have just started in the hobby of astronomy and you could tell it was a bonding experience for each of them. After the Moon set, I pointed the scope to Albireo to show the contrasting colours of the two stars. A few people were still wondering around and one woman said that she was inspire! d by the whole event. While I didn't get to my observing plans for this particular evening, it was a fulfilling evening none-the-less.

Overall, I was pleased with my progress in my observing plans. While I had planned on being more aggressive, life taught me to slow down (but did it have to use stiffling heat??!). I took with me from SSP that it's OK to not to get to everything on your list...the stars will be there for the next time I'm out.

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