Sky this Week

A film crew for the BBC and Discovery Channel was in Boulder yesterday and put out a request to film local amateur astronomers and their equipment. The local astronomy clubs in Denver, Boulder, and Longmont quickly assembled a few representatives and we gathered with telescopes and imaging equipment for about a 4 hour chat with the crew. Not great weather, it was windy and cold and the sky was about 50% obscurred. We all had a great time irregardless. The crew was rather annoyed occasionally as we’d be talking loudly and laughing as we always do while out observing with friends. A couple fellow imagers, Brad and Cheyeenne, managed to get some great images of the comet. It appeared to me to be even brighter last night than it was last weekend. Unfortunately I broke off a pin on the DIN connector to the Stellacam and got nothing but blank screen. According to the crew, the segment will air on the BBC late this year and on the Discovery Channel early next year.

Several of us from the Boulder and  Longmont Astronomy club set up our scopes to show the moon and saturn for a student astronomy club at the Boulder Day School in north Boulder, Colorado.  I demonstrated some of my imaging equipment to them and here are the resulting images. The sky was clear, temperature around 45°F; no wind; transparency was very good; and turbulence was good (6/10). 

Saturn image was taken with Celestron Nexstar11, Televue 2.5X Powermate, and Phillips 740K webcam.

Below image of the moon was taken with Celestron Nexstar11, F6.2 focal reducer, and Canon 300D.

Last evening I packed up the scope and met fellow members of LAS at the Shaw Heights Midddle School star party in nearby Westminster, CO. We often provide telescopes for local schools who do star parties in the spring and fall. This was the first time we have done so in winter; we had some doubts whether anyone would show up in the cold. The weather was wonderful, temperatures in the 40s, clear skies, no wind – not dark though, Westminster is quite close to metropolitan Denver.  About 60 kids and about as many parents attended the event which was coordinated by Laboratory for Space Physics in Boulder.  Lots of interest and good questions from both the kids and their parents.  There were even -4 and  -7 magnitude Irridium flares just 2 minutes appart to wow the crowd.