Astronomical Society of Eastern Missouri

Our first annual Trivia Night will be held Saturday, May 17, 2008 at the Elks Lodge in O’Fallon, Missouri.  Doors open at 6:30 pm and games begin at 7:00 pm.  The theme will be "The Universe" with questions about stars - sports stars, Hollywood stars and more.  Download the PDF flyer here for complete information.

What sounded like a foursome turned into a small party at Bob and Barb Judd’s house. I arrived just before sundown and found Glen Greenway already waiting. I opened the shed on the 32 inch to give it some air, and then proceeded to unload my 16 inch dob for its’ first photons in about 3 months.
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As it got darker, we spied Mercury just above the treeline, and then folks started showing up. Jim and Yvonne Roe, Mike Malolepsy and Linnae, Jim Melka, Tom Richards, Lee Paul of Belleville, and of course Bob and Barb. On top of this group of 11, there were a few kids and neighbors.
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The site is fairly dark, but there are neighbors not so far away, and the highway is visible fairly far in the distance. The neighbors are courteous, but I’m not sure just how dark-adapted I ever was during the night. The meeting that night was for the astrophotography SIG, but most everyone got some good eyepiece time at the 32 inch when invited.
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The Orion nebula put on a very nice show. It was near the meridian and showed great. Several of us saw color in the 32inch. Mars was also high overhead. The temperatures were not bad, and the winds were not bad, although it tended to show its’ bad self at the higher magnifications.
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The seeing was not great for testing magnification on Mars or other objects. Transparency was fair to great. It seemed to improve gradually during the evening, most of the time being just fair. Galaxies were okay in size, but lacked detail. We kept looking at the Flame and the Running Man, to see if they would pop out. When the Flame finally showed later on (and not real great), we popped the H-Beta in my 16inch and went horse-hunting. It didn’t take long, which was a real surprise to me.
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The river of IC-434 was noted by everyone (with the filter only). Not that it was obvious, but several of us could see the missing notch in IC-434 with averted vision. It took patience and lots of eye flickering;. There were times that the notch couldn’t be seen, and times that it could. Unfortunately, the great transparency didn’t last long, and it was time to move on. We also stole peeks during the night at M81 and M82, Coddington’s nebula (Galaxy), tiny M79 (gc in Lepus), NGC 253 (Silver coin galaxy), Gamma Andromeda, M47 (oc in Puppis), M35+2158, M31/32/110, M74, and others.
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Comet Holmes was just barely visible in my 8×50 finder, and completely *disintegrated* in the 16inch eyepiece. We also had a lot of fun popping in Mike M’s various *toy* eyepieces (Naglers and Panoptics). While my eyepieces don’t exactly measure up, I was the most ready to give my 2x barlow the heave-ho. A nice 9mm and/or 12mm might have to be in my future. The 2x barlow paired with my 17mm Plossl can’t hold a candle to the real deal.
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While at home that afternoon I had worked up a list of about 15 objects to bag, but about 15 minutes into the night I wadded it up. My 3 sets of red light batteries were all failing (just a little cold temperature was enough) and I forgot to bring a table (and the ‘Cruiser with fresh batteries was a long walk away). Excuses, excuses…. I really just needed some selfish photon time, and wasn’t going to ‘work’ a list unless it was easy! I had my coveralls on and did not add a coat until around 9:15. I was only working what I had in memory tonight.
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At around 10pm the moon came up on the horizon. We watched it boil awhile thru the scope and then packed it in. Best of show for the night was M42 (by far), and the surprise of the night was B33 / IC 434.
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It was great to be out, and I was very thankful that the temperatures were moderate and the companionship was plenty. Hoping we have many more good sessions in 2008.
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Jim Twellman

Jim Twellman earned the Star level award from the Astronomical League for 50 more hours of publice outreach (bringing his total to 60 hours) spreading the good news about astronomy to the public in general and school groups in particular.  Jim Roe (r) presents a certificate of the award to Jim at the January 12, 2008 meeting of ASEM.