Oh my goodness, last night made it the sixth clear observatory night in a row! The stars sparkled and the cool air made us feel like fall had finally arrived. The observing log still hasn't shifted much over the past few weeks, but what we looked at is listed below.
If you want to explore the sky on your own, here is a link to the October/November star map.
- Waxing crescent Moon : We looked at the nearly first quarter Moon through the 8-inch scope. It seemed like lots of folks got some nice photos of our satellite companion (thanks, Viga!).
- Jupiter : Once again, heat coming off the roof made the image a little fuzzy, but we were able to make out cloud bands on the planet and three of the four Galilean satellites- Io, Ganymede, and Callisto. This time Europa was behind Jupiter and not visible while we were watching.
- Saturn : Saturn looked lovely and we were easily able to make out the moons Titan and Rhea. Dione and Tethys were fainter, but also visible.
- M57 (the Ring Nebula): After Saturn, we went to the Ring Nebula. I've described this lovely planetary nebula in earlier posts. Last night I was asked how long the nebula has been expanding. According to NASA, the star at the center of the Ring Nebula ran out of its nuclear fuel about 4,000 years ago. The nebula will continue to expand for another 10,000 years, after which time the material will be returned to our galaxy to create new stars and planets.
- M31 (Andromeda Galaxy): The last thing we looked at was the Andromeda Galaxy. This object is a neighboring galaxy located about 2.5 million light-years from us. It's a spiral galaxy like our own Milky Way, but it's larger. M31 is about 220,000 light-years across compared to the Milky Way's 100,000 light-year diameter. Through the telescope M31 looked like a small fuzzy ball with a star-like center. The bright center is the core of M31 and the fuzziness is the light from the hundreds of billions of stars that make up the galaxy.
Sincere thanks to Iadviga. The events would not be possible without her skillful collaboration.
And as always, thank you to everyone who attended. Your kind words about the observatory nights mean more to me than I can express.
