I had planned to help out Paul Z. and Rich S. and possibly some other amateur astronomers over at the Penn Dixie Paleontological and Outdoor Education Center ( http://www.penndixie.org/index.html ) but the weather was pretty miserable in Hamburg all day and it appeared it was going to be a complete wash for the evening observing session. Fortunately around 8 PM I happened to walk out my back door and looked over Lake Erie to the western horizon and it appeared to be clearing. Our scheduled start time was 8:30PM. I thought I'd take the chance so I hurriedly loaded up my Televue NP101 and headed over to the Penn Dixie site which is only about 5-10 minutes away. The skies continued to clear except for a low lying fog off the lake.
When I arrived I was I was greeted by Gerry Bastedo , the Director of the site, Paul Zimmer and Rich S. They didn't look too confident of having any clear skies but I told them it was right behind me as I drove over here. They had already put in a full day of activities at the site- "5TH ANNUAL DIG WITH THE EXPERTS" ( http://www.penndixie.org/events/2009/may.pdf ) and didn't seem to have much energy left in them. At about 8:45 PM the skies were clear and the we were up and running with my TV101 and Rich's 14" Meade Reflector. Unfortunately due to the earlier weather all the visitors departed except one father with his son and his son's friend.
Well the race was on with the advancing clouds in the distance, but we were able to show them, much to our and their delight, their first glimpse of Saturn through a telescope, Binaries stars: Algieba(gamma leonis), Mizar and Alcor, epsilon Lyrae-"Double Double", Globular Clusters- M3, M13, Asterism- Napolean's Hat in Bootes, and I was actually able to find the Planetary nebula-M97 in Ursa majoris, in spite of the significant light pollution. The OIII filter really helped. Although only 3 visitors for the night we already an unexpected great 1 1/2 hours of observing. We all left by 10PM and the Sky was completely cloudy over. Rich gave the guys a little tour of the night sky with his green laser too.
All in one day I stood upon 400 million years old fossils and 30 million year old photons from the Leo Triplet passed my corneas and danced upon my retinas. There's something kind of cool about that!
Leo Triplet image courtesy of Mike Israel- fellow Buffalo Astronomical Assoc. Member-- Great image Mike!
Oh my, you had the best experience ever. I am totally floored. Fossils under your feet and in the sky above - I am insanely jealous but at the same time glad that you could do this! I want to dig for fossils with my hands sometime in my life I never knew you could actually do it. Astronomy of a different sort!
ReplyDeleteSounds like you gave these remaining fossil diggers a very nice show with 2 quality scopes! These folks had an incredible day and I am glad you got to enjoy part of it Miguel!
Wonderful write up - I really liked the dancing photons; they are cute little guys!
Thanks Richie. The digging for fossils is rather relaxing. I've done it a handful of times at this site and it is rather relaxing. Quite fun when you find a fully intact Trilobite.
ReplyDeleteI did grow up on the shore of Lake Erie and spent a lot of time searching for fossils on the beach when I was a kid. As I got older I found the girls down the beach in bikinis much more interesting. And so the interest in fossils ceased for a while. The same thing actually happened with astronomy. When I was 15 I met this beautiful girl who was much more interesting to look at. Even more than Saturn! Imagine that. That was the end of astronomy for 30 years. She did occassionally fall for my "lets look at the constellations from the backyard on the blanket" line. I ended up marrying that cute girl 8^)
Nice to know you finally got around to astronomy again! But now that we are older we are the fossils and others are attempting to figure us out!
ReplyDeleteMy wife never fell for the blanket/constellation line!
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