VVO Observing Report
March 21, 2009
John A. Sillasen
Surprisingly clear skies allowed the team to view the Great Orion Nebula, M42 for many, many cycles of visitors to the Van Vleck Observatory. Finally, after what seemed like group after group of eager visitor's we were able to view the splendid edge on view of the ringed planet with its ghostly, nearly invisible edge on ring. The visitors were treated to many different magnifications allowing one young man of less than 10 years of age, declare seeing 20 bands in the clouds of Saturn. The low power view with the moons in alignment with the ring system as well as the surrounding moons was almost even more of a treat for our visitors. Dean and Al took groups outside to point out the objects they viewed with a green laser pointer. This was a very useful and educational adjunct to viewing inside the observatory as I always point the object out we are viewing through the dome slit, but knowing where that is and visualizing the whole sky around the object is a very different thing. Admittedly, I had positioned the scope on all objects this night. T. Karpf was extremely helpful in providing coordinate info in both RA/Dec and Alt/Az for perspective. My team concentration was on how to view through a telescope and getting a group through the observatory with minimal wait times - yet assuring that each viewer spent adequate time at the eye piece. Future sessions will concentrate on finding objects.
The final group that stayed throughout was treated to an ASGH Van Vleck first - a view of M65, an edge on galaxy in Leo. It took an 'all lights out,' no flashlight dark adaptation for many, but all 10 visitors who stayed for this treat got to see the galaxy. The addition of the light pollution filter may have helped the contrast but it is no where to be found since the August report below.
Staffers were: J. Sillasen, A. Johnson, E Obrien, J. Shull, T. Karpf and D. Kavalkovich. Al helped me open and close. Also assisting in closing were T. Karpf and D. Kavalkovich
VVO AC20 Observing Report
August 18, 2008
John A. Sillasen
Despite the threat of cloud cover for part of the evening, the sky remained
clear throughout the session. There was some haze and moisture that got in
the way of finding things that were low on the horizon. The weekend was
Wesleyan University's Homecoming Celebration and traffic was busy and parking a
premium.
Unfortunately, that did not translate into increased visitors at the
observatory. Ed O'Brien only counted 12 visitors.
The evening started off with Francis O'Reilly setting up the scope for the first time with Julian Shull supervising. The initial target was Jupiter and the Gallilean Moons. Tracking was dead on! Although Julian's 35mm Panoptic Eyepiece showed a lot of scintillation in the atmosphere, the view never failed to please.
Later on, the target was M27, the Dumbell Nebula was put into view. Unfortunately, the clubs light pollution filter was no where to be found and wasn't used with the public. M27 is generally a poor target without a filter in these skies but the moisture in the air helped bring it out. I had my Thousand Oak's LPB-2 filter and as I was covering the lobby, I didn't know the club filter wasn't to be found. When I put my filter in - the view became a Wow! from the staff. The filter needs to be left in the cabinet so wherever has it - please return it!
Lastly, we switched to a rich swath of the Milky Way star field in Aquila very near Altair. A group came in late and I targeted this area to their questions and satisfaction talking about power, field of view and constellations versus asterisms in smaller fields.
ASGH was represented at the session by Francis O'Reilly, Julian Shull, Tom Karpf, John Sillasen, Dean Kavalkovich and Ed O'Brien,
John A. Sillasen
ASGH VVO Public Observing Committee