Howdy Star Gazers and welcome to this episode of Star Trails.
I'm Drew and I'll be your guide to the night sky for the week starting November the 3rd
to the 9th.
Today's show is going to be a little different from our usual format.
Last weekend I attended a star party hosted by my local astronomy club, so I thought it
would be fun to take you inside the party where I had the chance to chat with astronomy
enthusiasts of all ages from seasoned star gazers to curious newcomers.
And later in the show we'll take a look at what you can expect to see in the night sky
as we kick off November.
So grab a comfortable spot under the night sky and let's get started.
Being at a star party is like stepping into a shared dream, a mix of curiosity, excitement,
and a touch of nostalgia.
Tonight the Midlands Astronomy Club converges at one of their secluded observation sites.
The twice yearly gathering is a chance for family, friends, and those curious about the
hobby.
After an hours drive northward with daylight waning, I arrived at the club's dark sky
sanctuary just in time to join the familiar faces that bring these nights to life.
Seasoned observers, club veterans, and newcomers.
Telescopes of all kinds already point skyward waiting for nightfall.
Skies are clear for now, but a front is forecasted to arrive this evening and that could bring
clouds or even rain.
The real star of the event is the food and will enjoy the cookout even if observation
is impossible.
Club President Mike Roberts, who normally plans the club's monthly meetings and topics,
has one of the most important roles of the night, manning the grill.
Ever since I was a kid I've always looked at the sky and that's true of most of us.
Most of us have been doing this for our entire life and I just like getting out there and
looking, looking at the sky.
But it's not just about looking at the stars, it's about sharing that fascination, connecting
with others who feel the same pull of the cosmos.
Hap Griffin was one of the original members to build an observatory on the site some years
ago.
It's a chance for people like us that are just enamored by the night sky and getting
together with people that are interested in the same things that you are under a really
magnificent night sky is just the best.
Between Hap's observatory and his neighbor, Frank, an impromptu gathering space is formed.
Astronomers huddle together, guitars in hand, sharing melodies and stories beneath the darkening
sky.
Most of these club members have known each other for years.
I'm a relative newcomer but before I knew it someone handed me a guitar and invited
me to join in over the murmur of cosmic chatter.
The cloud was a big deal because they hadn't really discovered how to do agriculture yet.
You know what I mean?
So yeah, that was important to them.
That's a mega centaurious.
That was my next guess because they had that color.
Yeah.
That dim copper color around there.
But that's with a homemade telescope.
I figured that, I ground figured it, polished it and figured it.
And that's the scope that I built.
It's carbon fiber tube.
Wow.
F3.9.
That's beautiful.
As you can guess, it doesn't take long before the talk turns to telescopes.
Well, I joined the club when I was 13 or 14 years old.
I've been in astronomy since 1985 as a first grader.
That's past club president Wes Mein.
I started with a department to store telescope from the old service merchandise.
You probably remember this in the 80s.
It showed me the craters of the moon and I thought only PhD scientists could see that.
But that was my ticket.
And I just, that telescope, looking back is far inferior to what I own now.
But I treated that thing like it was my own low-observatory or monarchy observatory.
I just felt like I discovered the moon myself.
For many, telescopes are more than tools.
They're extensions of a passion for the stars, each scope reflecting its owner's unique
story.
Okay.
The center here gets corrected, color corrected and aberration corrected, bounces off the
primary mirror, back toward a mirror mounted in the center of this corrected lens.
Amateur astronomer Steve Dornberg takes pride in using what would be deemed a vintage scope
nowadays.
His blue, gray and gold Dynamax scope looked futuristic in the early 80s, but has since
graduated to retro cool status, judging by how many Gawkers he gets when he sets it up.
Well, assuming I can keep my optics from fogging up, I'll get my eight-inch Schmitt
Cassegrain made by Dynamax, which is no longer in production, out here and we'll take a
look at some stars.
And this is a...
Pesto?
This is a Dynamax.
It's a competitive Celestron.
Okay.
It's called Dynamax.
It's no longer in business.
In an era when most astronomers are using some sort of computer-assisted guiding or a smart
scope, Steve relies on methods more in line with the age of his scope, which still renders
beautiful views of planets and deep-sky objects.
Absolutely.
The optics, I mean, I've taken meticulous care of the telescope in the years that I've
had it, and it's all about the optics at the end of the day.
I don't have a lot of the G-Wiz computer technology because it simply didn't exist when I bought
the telescope.
But it can track.
I do have a...
It does have a drive motor on it.
It can track if I line it properly.
And other than that, I have a Tyrion Epoch 2000 star chart in here that I can look things
up.
It is not totally current.
Some of the stars may have drifted a bit in 24 years, but they should be relatively
close.
My right ascension and declination may be a bit off of, hey.
Across the field, a crowd has lined up to view the setting sun through a solar scope.
Look, close one eye, look at the other.
There you go.
Good to see you.
You see the big white ball?
Yeah.
Okay, the big white ball is the sun.
Oh.
Do you see black spots on it?
Yeah, I do.
Those are sunspots, and they are bigger.
Guests quickly learn that if a scope is pointed at the sky, chances are they'll be invited
to peer into it.
When you come to a star party, there's going to be generally a number of different types
of telescopes to look through if you're trying to get an idea for a telescope that you might
want to buy if you're a beginner.
It's great to look through a lot of different types of telescopes because there'll be a
half a dozen different types of scopes here, and you can see what the pluses and minuses
are of each and things like that.
So a star party is a great chance to actually kick the tires, so to speak, on other people's
equipment, and they're happy for you to look through it or they wouldn't have brought it.
Oh, we got bands.
Band?
Oh, we got bands.
All right, repeat the view.
Oh, my God.
Guests, you need to see that.
Yeah, yeah, don't touch anything.
For Paul Romanosin, who has been the club's observation chairman for 20 years, education
is at the core of the club's mission.
Well, one of the things is if you have a telescope for long enough, you need motivation to take
it out.
So the reason to take it out is to show people stuff.
Do you see the ring?
Yeah, it looks like a little...
It looks like what you're looking at.
Did you see the bands on the ring and the...
I mean on the...
Did you see the little dots on either side?
Did you see the moons?
Those are the moons, eh?
Well, we do programs for schools.
We got an outreach that's coming up, two more.
We try to do them on the round the first quarter moons, so there's something that's got nice
visuals.
How you doing?
The clouds that were threatening earlier have officially rolled in, covering up the handful
of twilight targets that were being studied.
But no one is singing the blues.
Some of our best star parties have been where it did cloud up, and we just all sat around
and talked.
And number one, we were supposed to watch a meteor shower, I think, and a bunch of us
got together.
And it was cloudy.
We didn't see a single meteor.
But we sat around and talked, and I thought, here are people that know what I'm talking
about, and they...
And I know what they're talking about.
When I mentioned some big technical term or some concept, the fact that they understand
what I'm talking about and that they're talking about the same things that I'm talking about,
it was just...
It was enlightening.
It was like, hey, the light went off.
I've got to be a part of this forever.
Drizzle has begun, and several of us hastily toss our gear into cars and prepare for the
long ride home.
For most newcomers, the experience has been worth it.
I saw Saturn, and I saw the moon right next to Saturn.
I am very surprised to see in these telescopes how you're able to see a different side of
Saturn.
And I also enjoy the solar telescope.
That was very surprising.
I actually didn't expect to see a spat on the sun.
I saw the moon, and I saw the sun earlier.
I saw Saturn pretty close.
It was pretty unique.
The sky to these stargazers is a canvas that stretches into infinity.
It's alive with stories that reveal new wonders.
Each time they look, they see something new, a brightening star, a comet, or simply the
vastness of space itself.
The sky is not painted on.
It actually has depth and meaning.
So if you look at the sky through a telescope or a pair of binoculars, and then you increase
the magnification on it, you're going to see farther out.
You're always going to be able to see more.
And there's stuff happening out there all the time, and stars are getting brighter, and
they're getting darker, and they're moving, and they're doing all kinds of things.
And so the sky is really a never-ending source of fascination.
There's a lot of stuff going on out there.
Here it's rarely just about what you see.
It's the moments of shared wonder and the camaraderie that binds them together, under
a sky that feels a little less vast when shared with others.
I hope you enjoyed that report from the field, and special thanks go to all the folks who
agreed to be interviewed.
You can learn more about the club at their website, midlandsastronomclub.com.
This first week of November promises to be great for early evening stargazing sessions,
as the moon's faint crescent and early set times allow for dark skies by mid-evening.
Also, daylight saving time ended today for observers in North America, so we have an
extra hour of evening darkness for stargazing.
Hopefully, you didn't bank on seeing the so-called Halloween Comet C2024S1.
Astronomers were predicting this one to be bright enough for daylight viewing, and then,
as comets sometimes do, it was vaporized on its trip around the sun.
Flying as close as 850,000 miles away from the sun, this comet was considered a sun-grazer.
Maybe they should have called it Icarus.
Comet C2023A3 Sushenshin Atlas is still out there, but it's fading fast.
You may still be able to catch it with binoculars in a dark western sky for another week or
so.
On November 4, the moon will be in a thin, waxing crescent phase, creating a beautiful
sight in the southwestern sky alongside Venus, appearing about 45 minutes after sunset.
Venus will be just a few degrees above the moon, providing a striking view for early
evening observers.
The moon will be at first quarter by the end of the week, so if you're out moon-watching,
scan your scope or binoculars along the terminator.
That's the dividing line of night and day on the moon, to catch detail in 3D relief.
The torrid meteor shower will be visible from now until mid-month.
Known for producing a few bright fireballs, the torrids are best observed around midnight.
Although not as prolific as other meteor showers, it can reveal about 5 to 15 meteors per hour
under ideal conditions.
Venus is low in the southwestern sky after sunset and bright, gradually setting about
2 hours after the sun as it moves eastward through Ophiuchus.
Saturn will be visible in the south after sunset, situated in Aquarius.
The ringed planet's position makes it a reliable sight for early evening viewing.
Jupiter rises later in the east near the constellation Taurus, shining brightly throughout the night.
Its proximity to the Pleiades starcluster and Aldebaran, the Eye of Taurus, adds extra
allure to the view.
Mars will begin its ascent around midnight, showing its reddish hue as it moves closer
to Earth.
This time of year offers up some classic deep sky objects loved by both new and veteran
stargazers.
First up is the Andromeda Galaxy M31, the closest large galaxy to our Milky Way.
In dark skies, you can spot it with the naked eye as a faint oblong smudge high in the northeast
after sunset.
With binoculars or a small telescope, you'll see more structure and appreciate the grandeur
of our neighboring galaxy, located more than 2 million light years away.
To find it, start with the constellation Cassiopeia, shaped like a W, and guide your view right
toward the Andromeda constellation nearby.
Another highlight is the Pleiades starcluster, also known as the Seven Sisters, which rises
in the eastern evening sky within the constellation Taurus.
The cluster looks like a small, misty dipper to the naked eye, and through binoculars,
its individual blue stars shine beautifully against the dark sky.
It's easy to find near the bright orange star Aldebaran.
Orion, rising later in the night, brings us the breathtaking Orion nebula, M42, located
just below Orion's famous belt.
Even without any equipment, you'll see a soft glow in Orion's sword, and through binoculars,
M42 reveals itself as a cloud of gas and dust, a stellar nursery where new stars are born.
The nebula is one of the easiest and brightest deep sky objects to observe, making it a favorite
during the late night and early morning hours.
Finally, don't miss the double cluster in Perseus, located between Perseus and Cassiopeia.
This pair of neighboring starclusters glows faintly to the naked eye, but reveals a stunning
array of bright blue stars and binoculars.
It's a treat on crisp autumn nights, and it's easily accessible from northern skies.
That's it for today's episode of Star Trails.
If you found this episode informative or entertaining, please share it with a friend.
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find all of our episodes, including transcripts, night sky maps, and more.
Until next time, keep looking up and exploring the night sky.
Clear skies, everyone.