by Jane Houston Jones
So we drove two miles from our house in Monrovia, Calif. and set up two telescopes in Library Park on the corner of Myrtle and Lime streets. This is a charming and bustling downtown area in a lovely town nestled in the foothills of the San Gabriel mountains. This morning by the way, the mountains were covered in a blanket of snow for the first time since we moved here a few months ago. Lots of people are out and about on a Saturday night. We stopped the car in a bus zone, put on the hazard lights and unloaded our telescopes as the setting sun was illuminating the San Gabriel mountains just a mile up the road. http://www.ci.monrovia.ca.us/ at 5:30 p.m. We then parked the car a few feet away and set up our telescopes.
Before 6:00 p.m. PST we were showing the moon. By 6:30 p.m. Saturn was out. I showed Venus while waiting for Saturn to become visible, and Mojo showed the moon.
This was our first sidewalk astronomy outing in our new town but we were happy with the views and the many viewers. Dogwalkers, families speaking both English and Spanish, old couples, teenagers, one deaf man all stopped for a look. 148 people stopped by for views in less than two hours.
We showed Saturn (and 5 moons), Jupiter (and 4 moons) to people walking around downtown in our new town. How did we decide on the count of visitors? Mojo had a clicker and that's how many he clicked. We figured most people stopped by both telescopes and we only have one clicker, so that number is good enough for us.
I also showed Venus, Mars and Jupiter in addition to rotating with Mojo between Saturn and the moon. The clear and steady skies made the moon especially nice. Watching the craters on the floor of Clavius become visible...the sunlit rims of the crater walls against the dark crater floor was lovely. This was Rupes Recta night, too! It never looked more like "Huygens sword" than tonight. Christiaan Huygens thought the south end of Rupes Recta looked like the handle of a sword (in the 17th century) with the straight fault being the blade. That is what I saw tonight. I didn't see Rima Birt or the little dome to the north of it tonight, but I did look in-between viewers whenever I could.
We had steady skies and awesome views. Our two telescopes were 12.5" f/5.75 and 14.5" f/4.8 Litebox travelscope reflectors using 100 to 125 power with Vixen Lanthanum eyepieces for good visitor eye relief. Being our first time on a street corner in Monrovia, we just caught the accidental astronomers on their way to a movie, dinner, or out with the family or the dog. What did we see on Saturn from town?
After conferring with charts (later that night) we confirmed 5 moons visible near Saturn. First we saw Titan, Iapetus and mag 11 TYC 1879-2374-1, which we hoped was a moon but wasn't. Hyperion was nearby but too dim for the sidewalk. Then we all saw a moony triangle comprised of Tethys, Rhea and Dione. Mimas? Enceladus? Right there on the chart but too faint for the sidewalk at 11th magnitude, especially under a bright light.
The bright light made a great sun prop to explain the first quarter moon. Lots of people "got it" when I showed my fist, representing the moon against the streetlight, representing the sun and me, representing earth. They could see the part of my fist facing the sun-streetlight was illuminated.
All in all, a very enjoyable first quarter moon Saturday night.
Posted on shallow-sky Tue Mar 2 22:23:14 2004 PT
Converted by report.pm 1.0 Fri Mar 12 21:41:17 2004 PT