6/29 - Moon Viewing on Johnson Avenue

[Before talking about the 6/29 viewing, I should note that there have been a few public observing sessions that I haven't had time to blog about. Two of those were a blast, because I was joined by guests from France who - on each occasion - met French speakers and had a great time.]

So, 6/29: Fantastic as usual! The night started out a bit cloudy, but the clouds were thin, providing some lovely views of the Moon with black wisps floating over the bright surface. The crowd was great and varied in age from two to senior. (The crowd varied in species as well, with a couple of dog owners holding their pets up to the eyepiece for a look.) The sky didn't clear up in time for Saturn, but the Moon was pretty spectacular, and at times there were large groups of fascinated teens taking a peek at our huge natural satellite. One person asked about the possibility of seeing the International Space Station with the naked eye. I already responded to that individual by email, but for those of you who are interested, many satellites are frequently visible to the naked eye. For information about where and when to find them, check out www.heavens-above.com and enter your city.

Cheers!

6/16 - Saturn on Johnson Avenue, Way Too Bright for M57

Finally the clouds cleared up! I had some great Chandra X-Ray Observatory material from the guys at Columbia University to hand out (I ordered a ton more - people are eating up the handouts), and had a great night of clear skies and good transparency, with seeing pretty decent. Tried for the Ring Nebula and was exactly in the right spot between Sheliak and Sulafat but the skies were just way too bright to find anything. Great night!

6/2 - Saturn & Moon Viewing on Johnson Avenue

Those of you who have attended Riverdale Sidewalk Astronomy events on the corner of Johnson Avenue & 235th Street may recall that at some point during the night a bright streetlight obstructs and overpowers whatever we're looking at and we have to move the telescope a few feet to the side. It's not such a big deal, but what was great about 6/2 was that the waxing gibbous Moon and Saturn were both clearly visible on either side of the streetlight! It just took a small azimuth slew and an even smaller altitude adjustment to jump back and forth between the objects. It was a bit cloudy at times, but Saturn was generally sharp and the Moon tends to look kind of cool behind an occasional thin and moving layer of clouds. Great night out! Thanks to everyone who came!

5/30 - Saturn & Moon Viewing on Johnson Avenue

Fairly clear skies and decent transparency led to some nice views of the Moon beginning around 8pm, and Saturn around 9pm. The crowd was great tonight, easily hitting 100!

The Ted Barker Solar Observatory was dedicated at the UACNJ site today. Looking forward to some great H-Alpha solar viewing soon!

5/25 - Saturn on Johnson & 235th Street

Busy night - I gave out 75 fliers to viewers in the first hour of my being outside! The seeing tonight was only so-so, but Saturn still looked pretty sharp and elicited the usual "Wow!" reactions. Titan was visible, but was much fainter than usual.

Separatel,y I'm thinking that it may be time to find another location to split my time with. (Not because I've hit everyone who walks by Starbucks, rather to just share the sky with different crowds of people.) We'll see...

5/21 - Saturn Viewing on Johnson & 235th

Saturn looked pretty awesome at 240 tonight, and with cooperative weather, the crowd was great! I would estimate at least 50-60 people viewed tonight in the span of about an hour! Tomorrow night I head off to Hope, NJ for some serious dark sky observing. Hope the weather holds up. (Mild pun intended...)

5/15 - Solar Observing on Johnson Avenue

I saw the faintest sun spot (my first!) today. It looks the size of a couple of dead pixels on a computer screen, but I'm sure it was a sunspot!

5/10 - Saturn on Johnson & 235th

Remember those "You know you're an X when..." lists? Well, when it comes to astronomy, you know you're an astronomer when you're constantly looking up as you walk around outdoors. And you know you're an astronomer in New York City when you're constantly looking up outdoors, thinking 'Will those clouds break already?!?!' Last night they finally gave way to clear skies, and I took the opportunity to share Saturn with about 50-60 people on the corner of Johnson & 235th Street, my usual public spot in front of Starbucks. I had a great time, with perhaps one highlight being the little kid who claimed to have found a new planet in the eyepiece when he moved the telescope a bit. I'm fairly convinced that he had pointed the telescope at a street light. Very clear views, the Telrad did its thing admirably and the new 7.5mm eyepiece also provided some spectacular 320x viewing. (Oh, and I met a guy who has an XT6!)

5/2 - Moon Viewing on Johnson Avenue

Tonight was my first night out with the telescope (i.e. carrying it) since knee surgery last week. Walking with the scope was no problem, and although the cloud cover made me hesitant to go out, I'm glad I did, as we had a solid ~200 people look through the scope tonight! The weather was great, and the view of the Moon was pretty clear throughout most of the time I was out.

As an added bonus, there were a few instances where I saw birds flying between the scope and the moon, creating a great shadow on the Moon's apparent surface in the eyepiece. As always, if you would like to be in touch, email me at riverdaleastronomy@gmail.com.

4/17 - Saturn on Johnson Avenue & 235th Street

Finally a gorgeous evening! Clear, and very mild weather. We had a fantastic crowd throughout the night, probably around 60-70 people over the course of an hour and a half outside. Spent the night trained on Saturn, with some folks very interested in learning more about astronomy, the telescope, and the planets. The cloud cover, transparency and seeing all added up to a great night out. Looks like I'll need to make more copies of the handout, something I'm happy to have to do.

4/5 - Great Night on Johnson Avenue!

It's been really cloudy for the last few weeks, but today was a great exception!

I spent most of the day outdoors yesterday, enjoying the perfect weather. One of the upsides of being outside was noticing the brilliantly clear skies throughout the afternoon and evening, highlighted by a bright moon that my wife spotted around 7pm. As soon as we got home I packed up the telescope and brought it out to Johnson Avenue & 235th Street in front of Starbucks, where it quickly drew attention, questions, and some funny looks through the window from people drinking their coffee.

The Moon and Saturn stood out as perfect targets, particularly because of their proximity to each other. With Saturn less than 20 degrees behind the Moon (my estimate), it was easy to switch back and forth between the two objects to give people different views. The stream of viewers was steady, at times building up a crowd of 10-15 people around the scope. There were a number of highlights (the "WOW!"s and "That looks so fake!"s are always fun), including a group of teenagers who, once one of them took a look, became very interested and stuck around asking questions and taking turns at the eyepiece for a while.

If you have questions, comments, or if you have a telescope and would like to join us for a sidewalk event one evening, email riverdaleastronomy@gmail.com.

3/19 - Clouded Out on Johnson Avenue

I think the gods were conspiring against me tonight. The skies were mildly clear until just after I had the scope set up. At the point clouds rolled in, the transparency went to zero, and I spent the evening chatting with a friendly astrophotographer. It was mild out and the company was good, but the closest I came to seeing something interesting was aligning my finder scope on Sirius (which disappeared about 10 minutes later).

Note to self: Clear Sky Clock is more accurate than I gave it credit for...

We'll be out tonight... somewhere!

The Clear Sky Chart is showing excellent viewing conditions for tonight. Depending on what time we head out (probably between 8pm and 9pm), we will either be at Seton Park or at the usual spot on Johnson Avenue & 235th Street.

Given the conditions, we may end up at the darker park location with significantly lower horizon views, though much less foot traffic.

[To clarify, there are things that I am interested in seeing that I'll never find in a bright area but that I may find in a dark location. Given the great conditions expected tonight, I'll probably try for those objects. The Moon and larger planets are usually visible in less-than-optimal viewing conditions.]

3/13 - Looking at the Sun on Johnson Avenue & 235th Street

Now that the clocks have changed I was finally home from work in time to use the new solar filter. A recurring problem that I've been experiencing is that people have been interested in seeing through the scope before it has finished cooling down. Anyway, I only gave the XT8 around 20 minutes to cool down before putting the solar filter on and having a look. Not bad at all! The sun is pretty wild, even without bereft of sunspots as it was today.

I did have the fortune of seeing a solar transit - of a bird! It was surprisingly majestic, as the shadow of the birds slowly flapping wings crossed the sun. I had a great time out today, a lot more foot traffic than late at night (obviously), but with less to see. Some of the most interesting views for people were just carefully holding up the solar filter and coming to terms with the fact that the apparent size of the sun is just about the size of the moon, rather than the huge area that we imagine.

One thing that someone mentioned was that the Sun was a pretty average/small star. We spoke about it a bit, but I figured that it would be best post a correction here. The Sun is not an average star! From UniverseToday.com: "It's not the biggest or brightest star in the Universe, but it's actually brighter than 85% of the other stars in the Galaxy. In fact, if you looked at the 50 closest stars in a volume around the Sun, our star would probably rank 4th." There you have it.

Johnson Avenue & 235th Street, Moon & Saturn

It was 8 degrees and windy, but this was a great night out! I first targeted the Moon, standing on the northeast corner of Johnson Avenue and 235th street. Lots of foot traffic and very clear views on the terminator. This was actually my first viewing of the lunar surface through the XT8, which was marvelous. Next time the skies are clear I need to take the scope out for a personal lunar viewing session. The detail is fabulous! At least 40 people viewed the Moon, and my family came out mid-session to see the new scope and find out what all the fuss was about. Despite the weather, they certainly enjoyed themselves.

As the night drew on I switched to the northwest corner of the intersection to target Saturn, which was clearly visible around 60 degrees in the ESE sky. (It was fun trying to help people see it with their naked eye, particularly after viewing it at 240x in the scope. Those who were able to spot it naked eye appreciated the abilities of the scope that much more.)

This was the night that made me realize that I needed to have some literature available for those who are interested. It needed to have basic information about who we are, what we look at, interesting information about what we look at, and answers to some frequently asked questions like "What is a light-year?" and "Can you see the flag on the moon?"

I took care of that (the genesis of this blog...), and for my next sidewalk session will be handing out informational/educational flyers and star charts.

2/25 - Johnson Avenue, Just South of 235th Street

Couldn't resist clear skies after having such a positive experience with the Inwood Astronomy Project. I took the scope out at around 7:30pm to share Saturn with the world, setting up where I found a clear view of the planet (right next to a floodlight!) on the side of the Key Food parking lot.

A lot of people were floored by the view, but unfortunately, a number of very interested people showed up before the scope had finished cooling down, which didn't leave much to see - beyond what looked like a golden dot in a swimming pool. It turned out that partway through the night someone who had enjoyed the 850 million mile close-up view announced in Starbucks that there was "a guy outside with a telescope showing people Saturn." Traffic went up significantly, and I stayed out until it got way too cold.

*Also showed one guy M42 (Orion Nebula) on request. That's the beauty of a Dob. Turn, point, and you're viewing.