Audubon Society: Caratunk Wildlife Refuge
by Francine Jackson
It has been several years since we’ve been invited to conduct a stargazing night with Audubon Society of Rhode Island. In early October, we were contacted about having a night before the end of the year. We selected three dates in late November to early December to coincide with the best opportunity for viewing Mars. They selected Thursday, December 1, 2022, which was the date when Mars was closest to Earth, at just 0.54 AU away.
Francine Jackson and Jim Hendrickson participated, each bringing a small refractor, and Francine giving an indoor presentation before the observing program.
Five people were registered, but only three showed up in time for Francine’s 30-minute presentation, which covered the December constellations and planets, as well as pictures from recent missions, including some recent Webb images, and Earth and Moon from the ongoing Artemis 1 mission. The remaining two guests arrived after the presentation, in time for observing.
The weather was ideal. Early scattered clouds cleared away, and there was steady seeing, with no wind, and temperatures in the 30s.
We set up the telescopes in the field immediately to the east of the barn, which has a clear view from northeast to south. There was extraneous light coming from the barn, but we were looking in the opposite direction, and with bright Moonlight present, it wasn’t a hindrance. Besides featuring Mars and Jupiter, a waxing gibbous Moon was present just a few degrees from Jupiter. We managed to catch Saturn just before it went behind the trees, The Pleiades and Coathanger cluster were shown, and by the end of the session, Orion had risen just high enough to get a quick look at M42.
Towards the end of the observation session, one of the guests reported seeing a bright Geminid meteor.
When it was time to pack up and leave, we contacted the caretaker, Jim, who lives next door (but was not able to attend the program) to lock up the barn after we left. It turns out he enjoyed our company and stayed and chatted with us for about an hour outside, talking about all manner of things related to science and technology.
