Less than ideal weather conditions for viewing a "super" Moon
by Dave Huestis
There was much publicity in the press regarding the Supermoon on June 23. It’s amazing the hype this non-event really gets. (Note: At the closest perigee the angular diameter of the Moon is 33.3 arc minutes. At minimum apogee it is 29.5 arc minutes. A difference of only 3.8 arc minutes. Only 0.06 degrees!! No one can convince me they can notice this slight difference in real time.) Jim Hendrickson emailed me and thought we would be inundated at Seagrave on our open night of Saturday June 22. The Bruins were also playing that night, so I thought more people would stay home and watch the game.
So Jim, Alex Bergemann and I arrived at Seagrave Observatory just before our open time of 9pm. Already there were about 6-8 vehicles waiting out on Peeptoad Road. There was a mini traffic jam. Alex got out and opened the gate. All the cars followed us in. Alex opened up the observatory and proceeded to the dome to open up. Jim followed to help Alex. I remained in the anteroom museum and gave an impromptu presentation about the history of everything Skyscrapers and Frank Seagrave, using items on display for talking points. There were already a dozen or more visitors waiting patiently to get a look at the Moon.
With the dome prepared for our guests to enjoy the heavens, everyone was invited upstairs. We left the lights on initially for everyone to take in the majesty of the Clark refractor. The Moon was still below the southeast tree-line, and there were some clouds blocking it as well. Saturn was also hidden behind clouds.
After a few minutes the clouds moved off and Saturn became visible. Alex expertly acquired it and treated our guests to a great view of Saturn using a 25 mm eyepiece, providing a magnification of 107x. With some hazy skies providing atmospheric stability, Alex increased the magnification to 142 using the 18mm eyepiece. Everyone was really impressed with the image being provided by the beautiful Clark.
Soon everyone had seen Saturn, and the Moon finally rose above the trees and the clouds moved off. While they did take looks through the widest field we can provide through the main instrument, the best view was through the finder scope which showed the entire lunar disk.
Visitors came and went throughout the evening. We estimated we had 60 folks visit us. Since we had so many guests, some who arrived closer to our 11pm closing time, we did not begin to shut down until 11:20 pm.
Supermoon Saturday was a very productive night for the Skyscrapers crew. Many folks said they would be back to observe with us again.
