Last week I ran a star party for an honors club from
our local high school. I have never seen such an inquisitive group. I
answered questions about, for example, star formation (its conditions
and causes), star life, and star death (in all its forms), neutron stars
and white dwarfs, the difference between globular and open clusters,
what is visible in amateur scopes, how autoguiding works, what kinds of
cameras are used for astrophotography, and "what app do you use to talk
to your telescope." The group stayed for nearly two hours under a clear
sky in a local park. They saw Jupiter and its four largest moons, M42
and the Trapezium, Gamma Leonis, and the Pleiades. Three of them saw
Sirius B, and five of them M66.
For a telescope, I used the
relatively new metallic orange C8. I am continually delighted with the
quality of its optics, and it has held collimation since I tweaked it
when it was new nine months ago. It sits on the mount at just the right
height for a standing person of average height. It is large enough to
show interesting things but small enough to carry fifty yards into the
park to set up without trouble. After it cools down, the views are
fantastic. I keep dew off with a dew heater around the skyward end.
The
C8 was mounted on a Tak EM-10 equipped with a form of Temma 2 goto.
The mount's serial cable ends in a Firefly-BP Bluetooth adapter. The
Firefly pairs with my Samsung tablet, and the telescope is controlled
with SkySafari. This works wirelessly and beautifully. Having a star
party wait while one finds something to look at is a real downer,
especially if it's cold outside. Between the Goto and the finderscope,
the crowd stayed happy. Also essential was a green laser pointer, the
best tool I've ever seen for public discussion of the sky.
All in all it was a wonderful night!
Astronomy and astrophotography by Val Ricks for the love of the sky and its Creator. For a better view, toggle F11 and turn off the lights.
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