It's time to party! 'Star Party', that is

Sky Watch: Keeping an eye above the horizon

 


With April showers and May flowers behind us, summer nights will soon be upon us. This year Tehachapians can look forward to two community star parties where we can get together to learn about the sky, telescopes, binoculars, and especially to share our wonder of the limitless vistas.

The annual Brite Lake Star-B-Que will be held on the weekend of July 11-12. The lights will be shut off around the lake, and the parking lot will be full of telescopes and stargazers until dawn. The public is welcome from 6 p.m., with dark occurring around 9 p.m. Astronomers love to share their telescopes, and some of these will be quite large and/or sophisticated. However, even a small telescope can put on a fine show in the right hands.

In addition to hardware shows-and-tells, will be lectures on how to understand the sky. The event is sponsored by the Antelope Valley Astronomy Club with support from the Greater Tehachapi Astronomers, Tehachapi Valley Recreation and Parks District, and the NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassadors Program.

Another star party will be held on the Saturday night of August 22 at Aviator Park at the Tehachapi Airport. This will be an evening with a first-quarter moon, which provides a particularly stunning target for the young-at-heart and beginning astronomers. This event is sponsored by the Friends of the Tehachapi Airport, and the City of Tehachapi.

Gearing Up

I have often been asked how to get started in astronomy. Invariably, people want to start talking about telescopes – what’s the best kind, who makes the best, how much do they cost? But, the fact is that buying a telescope isn’t the place to start as a budding astronomer at all! The first thing to do is to go down to the newsstand and pick up a copy of Astronomy or Sky & Telescope magazine. In there you’ll find a star chart and plenty of objects highlighted for the month. You’ll also find a wealth of information in articles and ads with links to endless streams of knowledge.

The next thing to do is to buy a good pair of binoculars. Telescopes have greater light-gathering ability and see deeper into the universe.

However, binoculars have some important advantages, including:

Affordability: I bought a pair of 7×50 binoculars at Walgreens for $10!

Portability: No telescope is as “grab-and-go” as binoculars.

Ease of Use: Although one should be shown how to properly use binoculars (lectures will be provided at the star parties!), they’re easier to master than most telescopes.

Versatility: Binoculars lend themselves to more uses than a telescope, including watching aircraft, rockets, and other wildlife.

“Two eyes are better than one,” to quote Astronomy magazines’ Phil Harrington. Both eyes working together generate a more vivid image for the brain, even without any true depth perception.

A wider field of view allows you to take in the huge expanses of stars and dust clouds.

Binoculars are described by two numbers separated by a multiplication sign (×). The first number describes the “magnification power,” or how much larger the image appears. The second number describes the diameter of the big objective lenses in the front (expressed in millimeters); the larger the lens, the more light it can gather. Thus, “7×50” binoculars magnify an object seven times, and have 50 mm objective lenses. (For the technical among you, our pupils are about 10 mm in diameter. Squaring the ratio of the objective lens and pupil diameters gives us the increase in light gathering power; in this case, 25.)

What kind is best for astronomy? Why, the biggest ones you can get, of course! However, if they are too big to hold steady by hand, you’ll need a sturdy tripod. The conventional wisdom is that 7×50s are the largest that can be held steady by hand. Today, with newer plastic lenses that are as good as glass, and strong plastics replacing metal, many 10×60s can be handheld quite well.

A word of caution about quality – all binoculars are not created equal. If you buy a $10 pair, carefully inspect them before leaving the store. In particular, make sure that both of the oculars point in the same direction! Ask if you can take them outside. Focus on a distant object and make sure you comfortably see only one image. If there is any tendency toward double images, try another pair.

You’ll recall that I said that the best binoculars are the biggest that you can hand-hold. To that end, a truly amazing innovation is the image stabilized binoculars. Point my big 15×70s at a target, press a button, and the image freezes (or nearly so) even though your hand is still shaking away! They run on only two AA batteries. The downside is that prices start somewhere above a grand. However, I bought a used a pair for $750 and have been delighted with them. I use them far more than my telescope!

Once you’ve seen all that you can with your binoculars and have become thoroughly familiar with the sky, which should take the better part of a year, you will surely be keen to acquire your first telescope – and will have learned a great deal about them before doing so!

Almanac

Summer officially begins with the Summer Solstice at 9:38 a.m. on June 21. After that, the days begin to slowly shorten.

Venus will continue to shine brightly in the west at dusk. However, watch Jupiter as he dives toward her as June progresses. By the end of the month, they will be only 1/2 degree apart, both fitting within the eyepiece of a telescope! This will be a fascinating chance to compare the two, since Jupiter and Venus are so often mistaken for each other.

Saturn has the midwatch, having risen before nightfall and shining brightly all night. Its rings are still quite broad on to us.

Mars is passing behind the sun this month, which makes me wonder how NASA/JPL’s Deep Space Tracking Network manages to maintain contact with all of those space probes when the sun is so close to view. I must ask about that.

Sunrise: 5:41/Sunset: 8:03 (June 1)

 
 

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