Astronomy at WaterFire Arts Center
by Jim Hendrickson
On Friday, April 15, we participated in the second night sky event at WaterFire Arts Center in an unusual occurrence of two consecutive clear weather sessions. The event was also scheduled for Thursday, but was postponed to Friday due to clouds. It was attended by Francine Jackson, with a 4-inch refractor, Jim Hendrickson with a 3-inch refractor, and Curtis Lotter with a 4-inch tabletop Dobsonian telescope.
Sunset was at 7:26pm, but we were greeted to a beautiful waxing gibbous, nearly full, Moon.
Although light pollution is of little concern when there is a bright Moon available, the staff at the Arts Center were helpful in mitigating local lighting issues by turning off the parking lot lights south of the building, and redirecting an unshielded light on a garage to the southeast that was causing direct glare during the previous event.
Although the exhibit “Planet Earth The Environment and Our Future” at WaterFire Arts Center was well-publicized, with features in the Providence Journal and WPRI Channel 12 in the days prior, attendance was lighter than it was the previous week, with about 25 visitors to the telescopes. With a lighter crowd, many visitors spent a good amount of time observing with us, and may have even spent more time with the telescopes than viewing the exhibits downstairs.
Sometimes it’s easy to underestimate the value of a night sky viewing session when the only object available is a bright Moon, but it’s well worth planning some of them specifically with this in mind, as nothing can compare to the view of an easy-to-see Moon through a low power telescope, and giving guests the ability to take photos of it with their phones.
On this night, the craters Tycho and Grimaldi were quite prominent, and I mentioned during our next Lunar Observing Workshop how I don’t recall seeing Grimaldi so conspicuous before.
Towards the end of the viewing session, we gazed at the Orion Nebula, for what is perhaps our last view of it for the season.
We were also invited to participate in the TroopTop networking social held on the third Thursday at WaterFire Arts Center, but the first event on April 21 was clouded out. We’re still looking for volunteers to bring telescopes and share the night sky on the third Thursdays in May, June and July.
