 |
Stars: Albireo (3 methods), Antares (3 methods), Arcturus, Mizar-Alcor (3 methods), Kaus Borealis, Vega We had William for a sleepover on this night. We hiked at Polly’s Cove on this warm but breezy day. Not many clouds in the sky. The landscape at this location was uneven rock terrain with low growth juniper and other plants, perhaps because of being windswept. Because of my knee challenge, we took it slow over the up-down terrain. They went a little further than I did. From Polly's Cove we drove the short distance to Peggy’s Cove for another hike along the rocks, but this time a much shorter one. The boys went further along the rocky coast than my knees would allow. The breeze was holding up, no sign of going down. Jerry had made reservations for 6:00 PM but given they had space we entered the Sou’Wester Restaurant at 5:30 PM. |
 |
After dinner, we drove to the Swiss Air Monument and set up a telescope. We were going to observe sky objects 3 ways - naked eye, binoculars and telescope. With the ocean as the horizon, William had a full view of the southern skies. We began our observing list using the 10 objects we had provided the summer when he was camping at Kejimkujik National Park but clouds prevented him from seeing anything. All stars in familiar constellations were easily seen in all directions, not just the south. William found his "William" constellation - Cassiopeia - and easily found the Big Dipper visually. We visually identified Mizar-Alcor before using binoculars to look at them; Jerry then showed it to us in the telescope. Using the Dipper's pointer stars, we found the Little Dipper. Once Vega appeared, we then looked for Altair and Deneb to complete the Summer Triangle. The Milky Way was glorious! We found Cygnus and Aquila. In Cygnus, I pointed out the star Albireo which we then found with binoculars. The blue and yellow stars were quite bright and even more so when viewed thought the telescope. With Aquilla visible, I then showed him how to find the Coathanger asterism. William's thrill of the night was seeing all of Scorpius above the horizon. He visually recognized Antares by its redness, viewed it with binoculars then saw it and its starfield through the telescope. We used binocs to view M4. His second thrill was the Teapot also in full view well above the horizon! We used binoculars to find M22 just off the Teapot lid star (Kaus Borealis). The skies were so good that night we could actually see M7 (Ptolomey's Cluster) and the adjacent M6 (Butterfly Cluster) using our eyes. We used binoculars first to see these two beautiful open clusters; Jerry was then able to provide a telescope view off them. I showed William how to find M8 (Lagoon Nebula) by using the Teapot's spout. It was then time to turn to the northern skies. I pointed out the Square of Pegasus then showed how to use the two vertical lines of stars in Andromeda to find M31 (Andromeda Galaxy). We were able to find the faint fuzzy naked eye, with binoculars to see the whole galaxy then Jerry had it centred in the telescope FOV. You can't see his face in this photo but one can imagine it given his upraised arms. All he could talk about on the way back to the car and four the rest of the evening was seeing the Teapot and Scorpius all above the horizon. From everyone's perspective, it was a glorious, successful night under the stars. Once back at our house, I helped William write his observations in his astronomy logbook. |
