Yay! We were able to open! The weather last night turned out to be far better than what was forecast. Here's what we were able to see:
Through the 14-inch scope
- Albireo: Albireo is a double star system in Cygnus. The two stars (one blue, one gold) can't be resolved with the naked eye, but through our telescopes we are able to see the pair. The system is about 430 light-years distant.
- M13 (the Hercules cluster): We also looked at the globular cluster, M13. M13 can be found in the constellation of Hercules and is about 22,000 light-years from Earth. There are about 150-160 globular clusters located in the halo of our galaxy. These clusters contain some of the oldest stars in the Milky Way.
- M57 (the Ring Nebula): M57 can be found in the constellation of Lyra and is located about 2,300 light-years from Earth. Planetary nebulae are the remnants of lower mass stars after they've used up their nuclear fuel. The Ring Nebula appeared as a delicate smoke-ring in the eyepiece.
- NGC 6826 (the "blinking planetary"): NGC 6826 is a another planetary nebula, but this one is located in the constellation of Cygnus. It's called the blinking planetary because when you have it centered in the eyepiece, it appears to blink "on" when you look away from it and "off" when you look directly at it. The effect happens because our peripheral vision is more sensitive than our forward vision.
- Jupiter : We were able to make out cloud bands on the planet and the four Galilean satellites- Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto.
- Saturn : The lovely ringed planet also made an appearance.
Sincere thanks to Iadviga and Ryan for their assistance with the event.
And of course, an astronomically-sized thank you to everyone for attending! I loved all the enthusiasm and the great questions.
