Waiting for the meteors

Last night’s public Perseid meteor watch at Binbrook Conservation Area was our best ever. Thanks to Mario’s efforts, we had comprehensive media coverage and a record attendance estimated at up to 800. In spite of the intermittent cloud cover, great views of the moon and favourite deep sky objects were available through the many telescopes set up around the field.
The Perseids put in an appearance, too, with many “ooohs” and “aaaaahs” heard from the crowd throughout the night.

Lunar observing

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Added August 16 by John Gauvreau

I have received several comments from the public that attended the Perseid Event. All have been very favourable. Here are a few samples:

“3 may not be much, but being my first ever meteor show viewing, the experience was indeed amazing.”

“I wish to thank you for the excellent opportunity provided to us by you to observe the Perseid Meteor Shower last night at the Binbrook Conservation Area. We thoroughly enjoyed the experience, and although we could spot only 3 meteors, it did give us a rare insight into outer space.”

“We went and had a lovely evening. Thank you for organizing this event for the public. Wishing you a wonderful day!”

Clearly there were many happy people that night, thanks to the HAA volunteers who put in a lot of work to make that event happen. Thanks everyone!!!!!!

While camping in Algonquin Park the strongest aurora in years lit up the northern sky. Although conditions were partly cloudy the green glow can be seen under long exposure photography. This aurora was created by sunspot 1261 which erupted into an M9-class solar flare reaching Earth one day later on August 5th.

The notice was rather late in heading out to the members since I only became aware that I would be available, and the skies favourable for observing quite late in the day. However 3 other intrepid members joined me at Binbrook for observing under clear, crisp summer skies.

Tony and Vince were waiting at the gate when I arrived, and Gary joined us at our observing location on the hill a little later. A setting crescent moon was nicely accented with Earth-shine and a red-orange sunset which was a positive omen for the good seeing we were going to enjoy.

Between us, we enjoyed many views, particularly some of the summer nebulas such as Lagoon, Swan and Eagle. While they were faint in our scopes, we also spent some time with the classic galaxies such as M51, M101, M66, M65, and the Leo Triplet – though these latter galaxies were particularly hard to see since they were already setting in the west by the time we observed. And being the friendly and helpful group that we are, Vince was able to give some useful pointers to Gary in regards to helping him set up his scope – thanks Vince!

A nice night, lots of interesting views and good conversation – yes, even when we were bemoaning our PC’s or cursing the mosquitoes.

Hope to see you under the summer skies soon.

Check the comments on this post for links mentioned in my talk.

Heres the link to bob’s M10 and M12 in sky&tel

Sky & Tel community gallery.

A comparison of The Whirlpool Galaxy (M51) photographed on two separate dates. The supernova can be seen in the top photograph taken at the Binbrook observing site on June 5th. An earlier photograph positioned at bottom shows the Whirlpool galaxy pre-supernova taken on May 8th in Burlington.

If you have a dob, or a camera on your scope, you can snag a photo of a 14th magnitude supernova just discovered a couple of days ago.

Here’s a link to an article about it
http://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/highlights/123110228.html

Here’s a list of the top 50 double stars in Bootes

http://www.eaglecreekobservatory.org/eco/doubles/boo.html

Yeah, i know it’s raining right now, but at about 9PM, if it’s clear, the ISS, magnitude -3.7, will pass almost directly overhead (elevation, 89 degrees)

Watch in the nortwest tonight about 9:07 PM. and it should be going almost straight up on the sky.

In case you cannot see the horizon, be there at exactly
21:10:09 and see it due overhead.

Here’s the numbers from heavens-above

3 May -3.7 21:07:15 10 WNW 21:10:09 88 N 21:12:37 13 ESE

This means it will reach 10 degrees altitude at 9:07 PM, EDT,
and reach the highest altitude (overhead) at 9:10:09 PM,
and fade out at 9:12:37 PM as it enters the Earth’s shadow, altitude 13 degrees.

Steve

This from Sky & Telescope Magazine

www.skyandtelescope.com

Friday morning, if you have a location without much glare, you should take a peek at the sky. The Lyrid meteor shower is annual, and a burst might only
cover Ontario, but it’s bragging rights to say you saw it, and astronomicity either way, if you look.

Not much point looking in the evening… this is a ‘morning shower’.

Even though moonlight will interfere with this year’s Lyrid meteor shower, skywatchers should be alert for a possible outburst on the mornings of April 22nd and 23rd.

Nearly 20 members along with a wide variety of scopes and binoculars descended on the Gateway Niagara Tourism Centre on Sat 9 April for a night of bringing Astronomy to the people. The weather cooperated and we had mostly clear skies which allowed us to share wonderful views of the first quarter Moon, Saturn, double stars, nebulas and more.

This was our second year at the Gateway Centre since we had great participation last year, and this year was just as successful, if not more so. We easily exceeded more than 200 people (probably more than 300) stopping by on their way to one of the restaurants inside or buying gas nearby. We often had line-ups at many of the scopes and all of our members were actively engaged answering a plethora of questions. Kevin had one of those little hand counters (great idea) and recorded more than 116 visits to his wonderful 10″ DOB.

As usual we met a lot of really nice people who showed fascination and deep interest in astronomy and the objects they were seeing. For most it was their first time seeing the Moon in such detail or the rings around Saturn. Both are always crowd pleasers. Since it was a tourism centre, many of our visitors were passing through from substantial distances, some from as far as Windsor and Oshawa.

Grimsby Public Night April 2011

I met one couple who are now living in Canada, but were originally from Columbia and were fascinated in how much our sky differed from theirs near the equator. We also met Lisa and some of her friends and family who were surprised to see us there, but had a real and recently discovered connection. They so much enjoyed our chance meeting, they went home, got on warmer clothes and returned for the balance of our stay. Sadly they had recently lost a relative, John Huchra, who was a professor and researcher at Harvard University. He had been a very active observer, past president of the American Astronomical Society and had been one of the early pioneers to map the galaxy distribution out a substantial way from our Milky Way galaxy. And another we met passing through, was a good friend of Dan Falk who recently was a featured speaker at one of our meetings.

We were well comforted with a warm building, convenient washrooms, – and most important, a Tim Horton’s who generously provided a free box of baked goods for us to enjoy as we were having fun with the public.

Our thanks go to all of the members who generously gave of their time, experience and enthusiasm, and did such a terrific job of representing the club and our hobby.