To quote just a little of Ray Stevens, a singer, songwriter, and comedian, is a great way to sum up the evening in the skies – “Yes, they call [it] the Streak…lookatthat-lookatthat”.
No doubt that since this night was the peak of the Perseid Meteor Showers we had over 40 people in attendance with a dozen astronomers, but having Mars and Saturn also present made for an evening full of things to observe – even the International Space Station made a brief appearance!
while not our picture, we did have several sightings of meteors such as this during the evening.
Clearly the top event of the night was the Perseid meteors. The best time to see them is past midnight to dawn, when the skies are darkest and constellation Perseus, the locus or focal point of the shower is high in the sky. But, we were treated with some really nice, bright, and some times long-lasting, streaks. Of course, you have to be looking up at the moment that they appear, for they appear for only a moment and then disappear. You have to be patiently scanning the sky to have a good chance at seeing one. Many a person was just leaving the field for the evening when they would hear “lookatthat…lookatthat”, only to turn around and miss the meteor.
the Moon – Saturn and Mars can just barely be seen above the tree tops
We had a good mix of telescopes, this time. I was able to set up two of them: a 2.5 inch diameter refractor (spyglass type where you look through lenses) and a 6 inch diameter Newtonian reflector. I was hoping to bounce back and forth between them to have people view through both and compare what they saw, but we had so many people come through that at times I had to abandon the refractor scope or have it fixed on the moon, which was near first quarter that night. Saturn, Mars, and the star, Antares, in Scorpio, formed a near right triangle in the sky. The name, “Antares,” is a contraction of the phrase “Anti-Ares.” Ares, in this case, is the Greek name for the god of War. The Roman equivalent is “Mars.” So when the star was named, it was referring to the red planet, Mars, because Antares has almost the same orange-red color and is similar in brightness. This was a great time to compare them side by side! All month, Mars, Saturn, and Antares are together in that triangle formation.
The night was not great for faint objects like galaxies and globular clusters due to the moon being in the sky and the sky itself wasn’t that transparent – a term to describe how well can you see through the atmosphere – like seeing through a dirty versus a clear glass window.
The next scheduled star-gazing night is on Friday, September 23 – the first full day of fall!
Thank you to Craig Austin for this Star Gazing post. Craig is often present during Moose Hill’s Star Gazing Nights, along with a few members of the Astronomical Society of Southern New England, and other local amateur astronomers. We are grateful for those who share their scopes and knowledge with anyone who is interested in learning more and seeing the night sky from our open field.