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stargazing

Did You Stargaze?

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Celebrate the IYA

Time for another trumpeting of the International Year of Astronomy.  There are events going on all year, helping folks reconnect with the sky.  If you haven’t checked out the site above for a list of what’s happening to celebrate astronomy, or participated in an event, what are you waiting for? As they like to say in the cruise ship commercials: get out there!

So, the first step is to go outside tonight and look at the sky.  Let me tell you what it will be like when you do it.

First, you’ll procrastinate. Have dinner. Maybe watch a TV show or play a game or something. But, there’ll be this little niggling nag in the back of your mind, telling you in a sweet voice, “You should go out and look at the stars.”  You’ll ignore it for a while, but eventually you’ll say to yourself (and your star muse), “Okay. Okay!”

Now, assuming that it’s clear out tonight (and that’s always a big consideration, you’ll find yourself stepping out after it’s dark. Well, dark is a relative term. If you live in a city, there’ll be a wash of light across the sky. If you live in the suburbs, you’ll have what we term the “city nebula” somewhere in the distance.  If you’re out in the country or the middle of nowhere (not always the same thing), it’ll be dark. Nice and dark.

In any case, no matter where you are, you’ll see sky objects. At this time (in the second week of June 2009), you won’t be able to miss the Moon.  So, take advantage of that. Get a pair of binoculars and check out the lunar craters and mountains and valleys.

In a week or so, the Moon won’t be brightening so much of the sky, so it would make sense to go out every night for the next few weeks and check out what else you can find in the sky.  And, if you’re reading this after June 2009, step outside tonight and go exploring!  You’ll find stars out there… thousands of them. And, if you are observing from a reasonably safe place (and you’re dressed warmly), simply lie down (or sit back) and gaze. The most amazing things will race through your mind as you do so.  Try it!

stargazing, stargazing equipment

Friday Musings

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Stargazing

Summer is almost here (for those of us in the Northern climes) and I imagine a lot of folks will head out for some star gazing while the weather’s good. Where we currently live, stargazing also means mosquito-slapping time. No sooner do you get the scope set up than the little bloodsuckers show up for a snack. I remember back in 2001 we were out doing some Mars gazing in the back yard. I had set up my scope and apparently an APB had gone out to the mosquito community — they were swarming in! So, I decided to break out the mosquito coils. If you haven’t seen these things before, they are some sort of clay material that has a mosquito repellent baked into it. You set them on fire and they send up smoke and supposedly ward away the skeeters.

Since the little pests were pretty numerous, I set up five or six coils around the area where I had the scope. We proceeded to check out Mars and some other cool sites, and the coils worked pretty well. It must have looked pretty funny to the neighbors to see us out there with a scope aimed at the sky and what looked like burnt offerings sending little coils of smoke up around us. Wonder if they thought we were appeasing the Mars gods.

But, those are the kinds of things you do when you go stargazing. You slap on bug spray (or Avon’s Skin so Soft — apparently it wards away bugs, too, so there’s a lesson there somewhere), you bring a jacket for when it cools down. You bring your favorite beverage, some food, music, and oh yeah — the star charts. If you’re lucky enough to have a GoTo telescope (with computer, essentially), you use the star charts as backup. It’s a great thing, star gazing. And, you don’t even need all that stuff. You can just do it with the old Mark I eyeballs… oh, and some skeeter repellent.