Seagrave Memorial Observatory 2011 Season Opener
by Jim Hendrickson & Dave Huestis
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Seagrave Observatory “season opener”, first open night of 2011
A day-long overcast finally cleared off about 30 minutes before sundown on Saturday, our first opening after the snow and mud from the long, harsh winder finally subsided. This would be the final night of winter, with the equinox occuring at 19:21 the following evening. The evening would also be highlighted by a noteable event known as "super" Moon, where the full Moon occurs close to perigee. Throughout the day, and even during the week leading up to Saturday, the media promoted this "rare" celestial event.
The evening began early with about a dozen members and guests gathered in the parking area to view Mercury just over the trees to the west. Jupiter was already lost in the trees, but Mercury was close to maximum elongation, and was approximately 13 degrees in altitude when we first spotted it using Dave Huestis’ binoculars.
Bob Horton arrived with a home-built 4.5-inch Newtonian mounted on a Super Polaris mount. He first set it up in the parking area but then moved to the Crawford observing pad just north of the meeting hall in order to get the earliest look at the rising Full Moon. After Bob set up his scope I gave him my 6-inch mirror so that he could inspect the polish and determine if I was ready to begin figuring.
As the sky darkened, Sirius become prominent just east of the meridian, and was sparkling at a fairly high frequency, indicating that seeing this night would not be ideal.
When Alex Bergemann arrived, I joined Dave and Alex in the anteroom of the observatory where Dave began to give about a dozen guests a historical perpective of Skyscrapers and Seagrave Observatory. Alex is our youngest new member whom Dave is mentoring. Continuing upstairs, with the scope still covered, more guests trickeld in as we began the process of opening the telescope. At one point we had over 20 people in the dome, which was a bit more crowded than I have seen in recent times, and also a bit too many to manage with operating the scope, so Dave directed some of them to return after checking out the scopes in the back.
At this point the sky was dark enough, although the moonlight was prevalent. Standing at the northern side of the dome and looking over the scope through the open slit, I could see that the scintillating Sirius had calmed somewhat, although still not very steady. As usual, Dave enlisted the help of a guest to rotate the dome westward a bit towards Orion, whose sparkling stars framed by the interior of the dome slit created a stunning visual impression. Dave turned the scope, engaged the drive and we were off observing.
I was quite pleased to see that after 3 months of non-use the Clark governor was tracking impeccably. Trustee Jim Brenek had run the drive several times during our winter hiatus to make sure that things would be working even more smoothly for our spring opening as they had been during our last visit in December.
After the first group of guest had seen Orion, I took in my look and then proceeded into the back lot. Upon turning to the north after stepping out of the observatory I was immedilately greeted with a more open northern horizon due to the recent and ongoing clearing of the trees along our northern and eastern borders with the neighbor's property.
I stook on a small, flat stone just at the beginning of the clearning and evaluated the sky conditions and newly opened views as light from the Moon begin streaming through. Bob Forgiel joined me and took out his smartphone to show me recent photos he had taken of some more finishing work to his home observatory and the packaging of his Meade LX200 telescope just before he shipped it out for repair. A little later on, Bob brought out a small equipment case and poped it open to show us his nwe SBIG 8300C. I certainly look forward to seeing the images produced by it.
Shortly after, Tom Thibault and I entertained a handful of guests at the 12-inch Meade, folloiwing the Orion Nebulas is it sank into the trees to our west. It was clear that interest in seeing the "super Moon" brought most people out tonight, and by this time it was high enough to be seen from the Clark. When M42 was too low in the trees to observe we switched to M35. Tom told me about his upcoming trip to Kennedy Space Center to view the April 19 launch of STS-134, the final flight of Endeavour. I wished him clear skies and an on-time departure of the Space Shuttle.
Bob Horton was still set up at the Crawford pad and the crowd was thinning out. For the first time of the night I managed to take a peek of the Moon. Telescopically, the "super" Moon showed nothing out of the ordinary, but we mused about how we can promote other celestial events into things that would captivate the public's interest as this month's full Moon did.
Bob was done for the night and I helped Tom close the 12-inch Meade. Returning to the Clark with my new Tele Vue 3.7mm Ethos-SX in hand, I got to the top of the stairs to hear Dave exclaim that Alex had navigated the Clark to Saturn on his own. This is no easy feat given how the finder on the Clark is mounted high so that young Alex needed to climb a good way up the rolling ladder, and the finder is also not a low-power, wide-field type common on newer telescopes, so centering even a bright planet in the main scope can sometimes be tricky for an experienced viewer.
I took in my first telescopic view of Saturn this season (I had actually observed it from Everglades back in December, but only at a low power barely sufficient to see the rings), but the seeing was still a bit unsteady. Dave was about to turn the white lights back on to pack up the scope, but I told him that I wasn't done with "super" Moon yet. I popped in the Ethos, unlocked the scope, and slewed westward to the Moon. At a whopping 720x and a 9 arcminute field, the seeing wasn't really conducive for this first-light test, but momentary steadiness did produce glimpses of the lunar "simulator experience" as the stunningly wide, yet close-up view really does give the impression that you are in lunar orbit.
Wrapping up a succesful season opener, Dave, Alex, and I closed the Clark for the night. Several minutes later as Dave and I continued our typical post-closing chat in the parking area, the impact of the "super" Moon really struck. The Moon was noticeably larger throughout the evening, but glancing back at the white siding on the top of the Clark dome, the illumination from the Moon was distinctly brighter than a typical full Moon.
