Members and guests are welcome to the Ragland Observatory’s monthly open house at 8:30 pm, Tuesday evening, July 20th. I’ll send out a reminder the day before on the club’s directory ( keep Jim Blowers advised if yours has changed) and on Richastro.org.        

      We’ll have a 9 day old Moon that will display big craters such as Plato, Copernicus and Clavius; also the Carpathian mts. Saturn is still with us in the early evening. Bring and share personal telescopes if you like. See the “observatory” page for directions.

                                        John Barnett, Obs. Director

Bill Jeffries, John Barnett, and Terry Barker brought telescopes to let the crowd explore Mars, Saturn, Rigel, The Orion Nebula, Mizar, and Alcor. The sky was challenging, as the library is on a small plot of land right off the intersection of two major roads. We had two street lights on either side of us, and there were three parking light lots on the side of the building we were set up next to.

Our hosts had no control of the lights, but they came to our rescue with a cardboard box that they taped over one of the lights. I was able to unscrew another one from its socket, so we were able to make do.

The sky cooperated though–it was gorgeous, and the crowd was big and enthusiastic. We’ve been helping this library with Yuri’s night for several years now. They really get into the event, and it’s reflected in the large crowds they have every year–there were probably 200 people there over the evening. RAS is glad to help out, and I’m sure we’ll be there next year. Many things to the staff, include Doug D’Urso, for inviting us.

RAS sends a scouting committee of two or three members, and we look for projects that show some use of astronomy in the subject matter. This year, Jim Browder and I were the committee. Then, we hand out checks, totaling in the neighborhood of $200. And better yet, we get to give out the checks at an awards assembly. No matter which high school the fair is held at (this year it was at Powhatan High), the auditorium is always full of kids enthused about science.

As the representative of RAS, I’ve given out the awards for about ten years now, and I have to say, this is one of the highlights of my year. It’s always thrilling to hear the students cheer a winner from their school, and to see the excitement on the kids’ faces when they hear their name announced. If you’ve ever been to a US FIRST Robotics competition, you know what I mean.

I also give out “Milky Way” awards–which is always a hit. After I give out the monetary awards, I award Milky Way candy bars to students who can answer each of two questions. One is always a “gimme” –the students know it’s coming, so it’s a good way get things rolling. The fair is always held in late March or early April, so I ask what astronomical event occurred X days ago. Then, I try to get a little more challenging. I try not to make it too easy, yet cover something that they had to have been paying attention to, about something happening in astronomy.

I thought maybe this year I’d really push it, and ask about something that happened historically–what was the name of the satellite that Russia launched 50 years ago? I was not disappointed–5 or 6 kids yelled out the answer withing seconds. I was so gratified, because I had a backup question ready, and I really didn’t want to resort to it. Hooray for our education system.

Here are the winners. Sometimes we’re disappointed and there are not many astronomy projects to pick from. This was a good year.

Justin Lau, The Effect of Solar Wind Speed on the Strength of Geomagnetic Substorms, Moody Middle.

Isaac Steincamp, Celestial Motion: The Difference Between Stellar and Planetary Motion, Manchester Middle.

Anisha Rohatgi, The Effect of Distance of the Light Source on the Intensity of Skyglow, Moody Middle.

Zachary and Benjamin Terner, The Effects of Coronal Mass Ejection on Muon Event Frequency at a Local High School, Godwin High.

Over the course of the night, we must have had 400-500 kids and adults. Ken and Betty Wilson, John Barnett, and Jim Browder brought telescopes–and they all stayed busy.

Jim Browder set up the club’s Stellacam II, and set up his telescope to view the Orion Nebula. Jim had added  a small LCD TV to his tripod setup, so multiple people could see the image at the same time.

Why was the display so good? Well, the Stellacam is not your average video camera. It’s capable of capturing time lapse photography in real time, so the image you see has its photons multiplied many times, and the resultant image is just astounding. Instead of the nebula appearing as a little fuzziness, as in an eyepiece view, the clouds appear opaque, and large. Jim got many “wow’s” from the viewers.

In the bottom picture, you can just see a couple of people looking at a display of the crescent moon on the TV below the telescope.

With the weather being perfect, temperatures in the mid-70′s, the large crowd, a clear sky, the many telescopes, and the Stellacam, it was just a wonderful night to be at the skywatch. And to top it all off, we got a view of the ISS (International Space Station), low on the horizon around 9:25. It was a gorgeous night.