Huntington Library Event

I had a lot of fun at the Huntington Library event on Saturday. Events like this are a little bit different, because the sky is reasonably dark for a suburban location. There aren't dozens of street and store lights there like you have in Old Town Monrovia. That lets you try for objects beyond just the moon and planets. So, while we definitely did a lot of moon and planet watching, we had other things to see.

The moon was visible before dark, so that's the objects telescopes went to first. Once the sun went, I could see Venus, low to the west-southwest.

The thing about the Huntington is that there are a lot of trees and large buildings. Venus was quickly dropping behind one such building. I moved my telescope (carefully) a few times to give us an extra 10 or 15 minutes with the Evening Star. It's a narrow crescent, now.

Once I lost Venus behind the building, I returned to the moon. Jupiter was already up, but it was behind a large tree. From my location, Jupiter wouldn't become visible until almost 10pm.

One of the people who was enjoying our telescope asked about seeing other objects. She said she was hoping for some constellation viewing. So I grabbed my green laser pointer and spent a short five minutes pointing out the easiest constellations and asterisms of the fall sky: The Big Dipper, low and only barely visible above Dibner Hall. I did the old "Arc to Arcturus," then showed the Pointers, which we followed to Polaris. Not quite all of the stars of the Little Dipper were visible.

I then swung above, to point out the Summer Triangle, then the stars that contribute to the Triangle: Deneb and Cygnus, Vega and Lyra, and Altair and Aquila. For Cygnus, I then moved on up to the head of the Swan, Albireo. Then we got a little telescopic view of Albireo. Then a telescopic view of Vega. Then I scootched over to M57, the Ring Nebula.

Later, we moved on to M13, the Great Hercules Cluster.

As the evening wound down and I had another break in the visitors, I took a quick peek at Jupiter, then used my finderscope to pick out candidates for Uranus. By that I mean that I knew that Uranus was in the same finderscope field as Jupiter, and I knew Uranus should be about as bright as Jupiter's Galilean moons. So I moved the telescope to each star that appeared to be 5th-6th magnitude, increased the magnification, then checked to see if it appeared disc-like or stellar. I eventually did find the right one. That was pretty cool, although only a few folks actually got to see it.

Sidewalk Astronomy in September

Friday, September 17--The folks supporting PATS will have telescopes set up around Paseo Colorado on Friday. The Old Town Astronomers will probably also be set up along Colorado, separate from PATS. Visit http://www.otastro.org for more information.

Saturday, September 18--In Old Town Monrovia.

Possibly a glimpse of Venus as it is quickly diving towards the sun. Jupiter, a little later in the evening. Moon viewing during the whole evening.

Some Old Town Astronomers will also be set up September 18 for an event at the Huntington Library and Gardens.

By the Way, September 18 is also "International View the Moon Night." No, I don't know how they think of these things.

Pacific Astronomy and Telescope Show

Third annual PATS show is returning to Pasadena on Septembers 18 and 19. Great chance to see a whole lot of vendors and telescope options. They'll also have telescopes set up for free viewing on Friday September 17 and Saturday September 18, probably around Paseo Colorado.