Astronomical Society of Eastern Missouri

        February is  one of my favorite months.  the weather can be miserable but it is this month forty- seven years ago that my journey into astronomy began.

       Valentines Day 1961, here in St Louis at Union Station I boarded Missouri Pacific’s Texas Eagle bound for San Antonio,Texas and Lackland Air Force Base for basic training. I had had a course in Astronomy but honestly I didn’t get much out of it. Part of the problem for a beginner is scale. How big is the object I’m looking for? Moving a constellations star pattern from a sky map in a book to stars in the sky can be daunting. East and west are reversed, on a desk a sky chart in a book is a mirror image of the sky so even after the course the Big Dipper was the only thing I could find with any certainty.

      A few days into our training around five in the morning there was a surprise fire drill. Responding as we had been trained,dressed in our skivies we jumped out of bed, grabbed the top blanket off of our cot, slipped our feet into a pair of brogans and clopped out the closest door. There it was, beautiful, big, unmistakable right in front of me, Scorpius. I was excited, now I had found something in the sky besides the Big Dipper, I had found Scorpius! I couldn’t have missed it, there it was right in front of me in the early morning sky as I  went out the door. Wow! Now I began to understand the size of of a constellation and what I should be  looking for.  Wrapped in my blanket I absorbed every detail of my new find.  Then calmly, with great authority I spoke out casually to no one in praticular, " Oh look. you can see Scorpius."

     This Febuary will be an exciting month:

     01   Watch as Venus  passes Jupiter in the early morning sky.

     04    the Moon will pass 4 deg south of Jupiter Midnight our time. then at 6am passes south of Venus.

     06/07    New Moon  9:44 CST. Annular solar eclipse occurs 18 hours after New Moon. About half the Moon’s shadow will skirt the southern half of the Earth.

     09   The Moon passes 3 deg north of Uranus. 4AM CST.

     10   Neptune at conjunction with the Sun 8 PM CST.

     13   The Moon is now crossing Earths orbit behind us producing a First Quarter Moon, at 9:33 CST.

     16   The Moon passes 1.6 deg north of Mars, 2 AM CST.

     20/21  Full Moon 9:33 PM CST. Total lunar eclipse begins 7:43 PM CST. Total eclipse begins 9:01 PM CST., ends 9:52 PM CST.  Also look for Saturn, near opposition and near the Moon during the eclipse. Visible through out North America.

     24   Saturn at opposition. 4AM CST.

     28   Last Quarter Moon. The Moon is now crossing the Earth’s orbit ahead of us.  The Moon passes south of Antares 9 PM CST.

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