Observing Reports by Knuck

Weekend Under the Stars at Bernie’s

August 4 – 8, 2010

“Weekend Under the Stars”, WUTS, sponsored by the Laramie and Cheyenne Astronomical Societies at Foxpark, Wyoming for the last 20 years, was cancelled this year.  It was cancelled on short notice because the Foxpark site was suddenly pre-empted by the Forest Service.  They needed that open meadow as a staging area for pine beetle mitigation.  WUTS has always been one of my favorite star parties.  It is very relaxed and informal.  The same good friends return year after year.  I look forward to retuning next year.  But, for this year, WUTS became BUTTS (Bernie’s Under The Twinkling Stars).

In the face of the last minute cancellation my closest observing friends and I searched out an alternative.  We thought about going to the Nebraska Star Party.  But, it was a long drive and we hadn’t allowed enough time on our calendars.  We checked out sites in the Pawnee National Grasslands that would have been reasonably dark but not as dark as Foxpark.  We also thought about going to Starpoint Observatory at Clayton Lake State Park, New Mexico.  There skies are as dark as the Okie-Tex Star Party.  That is because Starpoint is only about 30 miles from the Okie-Tex site.  The forecast looked especially favorable for Starpoint.  However, the driving distance to Starpoint tipped the balance in favor of accepting Bernie’s invitation to stay at his mountain home near Kremmling, Colorado, called Moondance.  The sky conditions are very similar to Foxpark.  There are a few house lights visible in the valley.  But, Bernie’s is well above the valley floor and those lights.  It is an excellent observing location.  Bernie was a gracious host and we are most grateful to him for inviting us.

We had two good nights on Thursday and Friday.  The highlight from Thursday was observing three transits of Jovian moons.  Early in the evening there was a shadow transit by Ganymede.  Later in the evening, Ganymede was visible passing across the disk with no shadow.  Before Ganymede had completed its transit, Io began a shadow transit.  Within an hour the disk of Io began to transit. Ganymede was still in transit.  So, for a time you could see the two moons in front of the planet and Io’s shadow on the planet.

I was also able to get a sketch of an object I had been trying to get for sometime, Caroline’s Rose (NGC7789).  It is named for its discoverer, Caroline Herschel.  She was an 18th Century Astronomer and the sister of Friedrich Herschel, King’s Astronomer to George III.  She was the first woman to be awarded a Gold Medal by the British Royal Astronomical Society, in 1822.  No other woman was so honored until 1996, when Vera Rubin received the award.  Caroline’s Rose is an open cluster of stars with some curving dust lanes in front of the core and some curved spaces between chains of stars further away from the core that suggest the petals of a rose.

Here is the link to my observing log:

Butts Observing Log