Alachua Astronomy Club, Inc.	Member Astronomical League	Member International Dark-Sky Association
	FirstLight's First Ten Years
	29°39' N,  82°21' W Altitude: 50 Meters (more or less)		Updated Jan. 17, 1999
(Click logo for home page)	Founded: September 1987		(Developed with Netscape 4.x)

Club Address

Club Info

Club Meetings

Star Parties

Special Events

Club News

Astro News

What's Up

UF Ast Dept

Astro Links

Observer's Column: Watermelon Pond

by Bruno Pancorbo

What a lucky day we had Saturday, April 28. The skies cleared up for only two days in that week. As usual Joe and I went to Watermelon Pond to check out the skies. When we got there, a policeman was talking to some men. Later we found out they were looking for frogs in the pond. They tried to look through the scopes, but they were so drunk I wondered what they saw!

As the night progressed, we observed many objects in Ursa Major. I started with the Whirlpool Galaxy. Its arms were easily detected in my 12.5 inch Dob. Later I went hunting for an NGC object that I usually see from my backyard, NGC 3079, a bright edge on galaxy again in Ursa Major. I made some drawings and then looked for NGC 3072, a galaxy located about 30 arc minutes from NGC 3079. This was very faint; in fact Joe didn't detect it. I think I saw it but only for instants at a time.

Around 2:00 a.m., a police car came over. As usual, he was flashing its lights in our eyes ruining our night vision. He stopped besides us and asked some questions. When he saw the telescopes, he came out of the car. I showed him Jupiter that was rising in the East. Because I didn't want to ruin my night vision, I only found the planet in the eyepiece, but when the policeman started screaming with excitement, we couldn't resist the temptation. This was the best view of Jupiter I ever had. The atmosphere was very steady giving us sharp and colorful views of the planet.

After some time we left the planet just for the moment to concentrate on the Milky Way that was shinning overhead. I looked at the Dumbbell planetary nebula; it looked better than any picture I have seen. It was so bright everywhere that it was hard to see the dumbbell shape. It looked like a circle instead. Then I moved to the Ring Nebula. It was equally impressive, but I could not see the central star. I read that many people have seen the center star with telescopes like mine, so I never waste the opportunity to check it out.

At the same time Joe was checking out some objects in the South. He found the Omega Centauri Globular Cluster; an impressive object even at low altitude. By now it was about 5:00 a.m. and the skies were clearing up. We went back to Jupiter, but the contrast was not as good as earlier.

Before we packed the instruments back into the car, we saw Venus looking red low in the sky. We left around 6:30 a.m., very tired and sleepy but happy, nevertheless, for the great view we had earlier.

Star party in Watermelon Pond May 22. For some reason we have been very lucky every time we go to "The Pond." The sky was clear and the mosquitoes probably stayed in Gainesville. As usually, we concentrated on galaxies, but this time we checked some nebulas with Joe's new nebula filter and his 22mm Panaoptic. Those filters really work dimming the surrounding stars, but they excel when looking at faint nebulas.

The highlights were a transit of one of Jupiter's moons and a rocket launch — we think — at 2:00 a.m. I first saw a bright red light (magnitude 5?) about 20 degrees ESE for about 30 seconds. Then it became dimmer and it moved up. At this point, we look through the telescopes. I saw a rocket separating from the main rocket. The rocket continued its trajectory for about 20 seconds, forming in front a white cloud that expanded outward from the rocket. Suddenly the cloud disappeared from the inside out and, after a bright spark, the rocket was gone.

Does anybody know about any launch schedule that day?

(NASA launched a GOES weather satellite from Cape Kennedy early Tuesday morning, May 23, 1995 at 1:54 a.m. EDT using an Atlas I rocket. Designated AC-77/GOES-J, this is the second spacecraft launched in a new advanced series of geostationary weather satellites for the NOAA. Learn more about this satellite by pointing an Internet Web browser to NASA's GOES-J Launch Web page at URL http://www.lerc.nasa.gov/Other_Groups/PAO/html/goes.htm. Ed.)

Any way I had to work the next day so I stayed only till 2:30 a.m. Joe stayed at the pond. I hope he is still alive!

---

Notes:

Dob  A Dobsonian telescope, an instrument with an altazimuth mount (up-down, left-right) with Teflon bearings.
NGC  New General Catalog.
arc minute  1/60 of a degree.
[Ed.]

	Return to AAC Home Page
	For comments and suggestions send e-mail to webmaster@floridastars.org © Copyright 2000-2003 Alachua Astronomy Club, Inc.