No Quiet Areas at the Eden, NY Library September 25, 2009

The librarians were not shushing anyone tonight. Ooohs and aaahs could be heard throughout the night. It was difficult for those in attendance to stay subdued with all the amazing telescopic views. Celestial Show Time (CST) was 8:30 to 10:30PM.

Alan Friedman, Scott Smith and daughter Sarah, Irene Z., Marilou Bebak, and I ventured out to rural Eden, NY a predominately farming community that over the past number of years is increasingly becoming more suburban in some areas. This Friday observing event was organized through the Buffalo Central Library and was held at the Eden Library (http://www.buffalolib.org/libraries/Eden/index.asp). It is a very nice library branch and a wonderful site to do some observing except for some troublesome lights.

I arrived around 7:30 to begin setting up the large screen projector, projection screen, 10” Zhummel equipped with Alan’s Astrovid camera, and the Televue NP 101. Alan arrived shortly after in his cool hip little mini Cooper and his 130mm Zeiss Refractor with Astrophysics mount, and newer member Irene arrived with her 8” Dobsonian. Marilou was on the scene by 8:30 and began answering many of the visitor's questions. Poor Scott and Sarah got lost enroute but stumbled upon us around 9:00 with his 10”Dob and I believe a 5” Vixen Newtonian Reflector.

Some very nice ladies on staff with the library provided cookies(many in the shape of stars) and hot chocolate for all who attended. They also kept us quite well fed as well. Absolutely no healthy snacks were provided(Sorry SUG, president of the Healthy Eating Observing Club(HEOC).

The skies were quite good escept the library staff could not figure out how to turn off the extremely bright parking lot lights. We didn't let that deter us from putting on an extraordinary astronomy roadshow.

We were inundated almost immediately with visitors and the crowd grew very quickly within the first half hour or so to about 175-200 people of all ages. As we knew we didn't have the moon for long with it being low in the sky and a significant treeline to our south, we all first featured La Luna. The crowd loved it! I had my “Live Moon Theatre” and red arrow laser pointer out to identify some lunar topography. I did my mare, crater, rille, rima, lunar ray, albedo, terminator, limb, sea, marsh, bay, mountain, etc.. lunar feature song and dance routine. They seemed to enjoy all the different named features especially the Lake of Death, Lake of Dreams, Marsh of Sleep and the Bay of Love as well as some of the Apollo landing sites. Projecting the moon works quite well from an educational stand point as it helps orient the viewer when they go to the scope and see the various objects under greater magnification and detail.

I was scrabbling a bit between manning the TV101 and keeping the 10” Dob with Astrovid aimed on the moon. I REALLY COULD HAVE USED THE SUG”S ASSISTANCE. SUG we currently have a position open with the Buffalo Astronomical Associations's Traveling Astronomy Roadshow. No salary, no health benefits but amazing enjoyment and satisfaction.

We all then moved on to Jupiter with its posse of Galilean moons. Sorry librarians we couldn't keep the crowd silenced. Numerous choruses of "Is that really Jupiter", "That is so Cool!", "Those are really its Moons?", "How far and how many stars does that galaxy have?", etc... From there we stayed with the standard brighter objects due to the amount of light pouring in from the parking lot light. M11,M31, M13, Albireo and I did give some a view of Comet Christensen and M57.

Were were treated to a wonderful Bolide which lite up the night sky and ground and ended with an amazing brilliant white explosion above the library. At first my head was down when I noticed a bright light illuminating the entire area and my body and scope were casting a shadow. I quickly looked up and witnessed the end of the show. At first it resembled what is best described as a single firework type rocket display. It was then confirmed later by John Riggs who was observing about 40miles to the north that he had witnessed it himself and said it was the brightest he had seen in over 30 years. Over the next day others from the club reported seeing it too. What was really strange is that it appeared to be very close by, as if it was above the library roof in the sky just across the street. I did really think it was just a single firework that someone had set off in the neighborhood.

Here's Marilou on the left with some happy guests:


Well we finished up the night around 11PM by the time we had it all packed up.

Alan and I headed back to my house for a post observing Bass Pale Ale and recounted the wonderful evening to my wife. We partook in only one cold one as we have another Solar Program tomorrow at 10am at the Reinstein Library (http://www.buffalolib.org/libraries/reinsteinjuliab/) .

(Can't seem to fix the whacky variation in font style and size)