A dozen HAA members and more than fourteen telescopes waited for clear skies that never came at Murray Street Park in Grimsby. Members of the public began arriving around 7:00 to check out the telescopes being set up and ask many good questions about astronomy and telescopes.

Views of the Toronto skyline (including the CN Tower) alternated with glimpses of the moon drifting in and out of clouds. A few lucky observers managed to catch Saturn and M42 for a few seconds, but as the clouds gradually thickened, the crowd thinned out and we packed up at about 10:00.

In total, it was estimated that we managed about 50-60 ?Galileo Moments? tonight.

Ann Tekatch

Nice summary, Ann – indeed, what promised to be a nice observing session, early on, turned into a telescope clinic instead. There were many questions about the pros and cons of the different styles of scopes on hand, and the Moon made enough appearances that comparisons could be made.
Thanks to all the members and guests who turned out to make this a worthwhile evening despite the clouds.

Glenn

Jackie F. and I started “The 100 hrs. of Astronomy” a little early.I set up my scope at the Tim’s in Dundas at sunset on Wednesday night.I had many curious folks come over to ask what I was doing. I explained to them that it was I.Y.A. and the 100 hrs. of astronomy was to start on Friday and I was concerned that the weekend weather may not be condusive to doing astronomy.I soon was busy showing people the Moon and Saturn in the still quite light sky’s. As the sky darkened, I had two very interested gentelmen asking to see more. I made an attempt, and succeeded to show them M42,M45,M44,as well as the Double Cluster.This was surprising, as the light pollution at this location is extremly bad, as is the case with most sidewalk astro sites.Jackie showed up about 8:45 and helped me show many more of the neighbourhood people views through the scope, and answered many questions about astronomy. We packed up about 11:30 and had a total of 50 or so Galileo moments, and many great memories.

As part of the International Year of Astronomy, observatories around the world are participating in the 100 Hours of Astronomy (April 2-5, 2009).

Today, Friday April 3, 80 observatories around the globe are participating in a 24-hour live webcast organized by the European Southern Observatory (ESO).

(From APOD) The webcast event follows night and day around the globe to visit some of the most advanced observatories on Earth and in space, exploring the universe in visible light and beyond. The Gemini North Telescope (Hawaii, USA) and the large observatories at the summit of volcanic Mauna Kea are scheduled for the first stops in the program beginning April 3 at 09:00 UT. Others on the schedule include the Swift Satellite and Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, the Himalayan Chandra Telescope (Hanle, India), and the 10-meter South Pole Telescope and IceCube Neutrino Telescope (South Pole, Antarctica).

Here is the link to the webcast.

If you miss some of the events, this link also has some recorded sessions for playback at a more convenient time.

And don’t forget that the HAA is also doing our own things with our general meeting tonight (Fri Apr 3) and a public observing night in Grimsby (Sat Apr 4 – see Glenn’s posting below). There may also be some sidewalk astronomy occurring over the weekend so keep an eye on this blog for details as they become available.

Members of the Hamilton Amateur Astronomers will be sharing an evening of Astronomy, telescope equipment demonstrations, and viewing of Saturn, the Moon, and other celestial objects.

We will be setting up in Grimsby on April 4th,

(note: the event was a success. there will not be a repeat of it on April 5)
with a rain/cloud date of April 5th, at 8 PM,

and will remain until about 11 PM.

Currently, the rain and clouds are forecast to clear out late Saturday afternoon making for a clear night.

There is a nice promo article in this week’s Grimsby Lincoln News:
http://www.thegrimsbylincolnnews.com/news/article/246033

(The article does say it starts at 7pm – but G&G can be there for any early arrivals)

Those who come early will be able to see what it takes to assemble and set up a telescope.

If you have a telescope, bring it along: we can help set it up and point it at Saturn for you. If you have binoculars, by all means bring them too. Binoculars are an excellent and easy to use way to get more from the sky.

As part of the International Year of Astronomy, we will also have some handouts to interest children and adults.

Detailed directions can be found here:
http://amateurastronomy.org/sites/grimsby_murray/map.php

As the weather for the weekend is looking “iffy” at best, forecasting cloud and rain Fri. Sat. & Sunday,I am going to set up my scope at the park in front of the Tim Hortons on King St. in Dundas.If the sky is clear this afternoon as predicted. I should be there by sunset or shortly after. Please feel free to join me with your scope, or just stop by for a look through mine.

This pretty open cluster skimmed barely above the treeline. Probably as low as I can get in the southern direction from home. It’s in the constellation Puppis and has a little planetary nebula NGC 2438. The cluster is fairly rich with about 150 stars that range from mag 10 to 13. Also nearby is another open cluster M47… which can probably seen in the same field of view with binoculars.

Imaged with the C6-SCT @f6.3 and QHY-8

Crop showing Planetary Nebula NGC2438

Larger version:
http://www.weatherandsky.com/main.php?g2_view=core.ShowItem&g2_itemId=5075&g2_imageViewsIndex=3

KerryLH

This is my first post so please forgive any mistakes I may make. Three weeks ago, I ordered a 12″ Skywatcher Collapsible scope from KW Telescope. By this weekend, it still hadn’t come in so they lent me their “test-bed” version. I will need help learning how to collimate it correctly, but I gave it a go and was able to use it tonight for the first time. It was amazing! I have never seen so much detail in the Orion nebula, or so many small craters on the moon (I’m used to a 80mm refractor). Collimation wasn’t bad up to about 110x. I am looking forward to Grimsby on Saturday and would appreciate any help from other members on how to collimate properly. Maybe I’ll even have my own 12″ by then.
Hopefully see you all there.

Some members of the HAA club executive were available and invited for an astronomy presentation requested by 97th Hamilton Wolf Cubs, last night.

The format was designed to support their ‘Astronomy’ badge requirements, and is in 5 parts.
* A cub with an astronomy badge has learned about how to find the North Star, and how to show someone else how to find the north star.
* We taught them about Meteors, and had a sample meteorite to pass around for inspection. There was a discussion about the northern lights, (Aurora Borealis) and its southern counterpart (Aurora Australis), planets, (and what the controversy about planets is all about), nebulas, comets, satellites, eclipses, and galaxies.
* How to use a planisphere, a star map, and how to locate several constellations in the sky, in this case, Orion, the big dipper, Cassiopea, Little Dipper, and Cepheus.
* Aboriginal legends about the night sky and constellations are read, learned and re-told.
* The phases of the moon, and what the moon does to cause the tides.

We were prepared with sufficient written material, meteorites, hand-outs and star maps to do the evening’s presentation without a clear sky, but we were lucky that it was a good night, with just a few low clouds to the west.

We set up a few telescopes, and some of the cub parents brought telescopes.

After the meeting, when the parents returned for their kids, they all had a chance to see Saturn, the Orion Nebula, and the Perseus double cluster.

Lighting at the church, was, as expected, pretty bright, and as a result, I could not point at the Pleiades, as all I saw was a white glow from the light, but other items were visible.

If you are a club member, have participated in a public night of the HAA in the past, and would like to volunteer for a future event like this, and have some week-nights free during the Winter season, a telescope, or a desire to talk about an aspect of astronomy to a keen audience, contact me and I will include you on a mailing list. We need about 6 volunteers for each event.

Regrettably the clear skies that greeted us at the start of our venture from Hamilton didn’t follow us to North Toronto, but approximately 40 members and guests enjoyed the trip to York University.

After stops for refreshments and appropriate enticements for the York students, we arrived around 8pm and were greeted by Dr. Paul Delaney and 2 of his undergrad students: Christian and Ian. All were very knowledgeable, friendly and patient as they showed us around the observatories and the 2 main scopes: a 40cm Meade LX200 and a 60cm f/13 Cassegrain.

York’s 40cm LX200 and opening the dome in hopes the sky may have cleared.

HAA member Brenda standing beside York’s 60cm to show scale of this big scope.

As part of their very active outreach programs, they host free weekly public observing nights on Wednesdays at the observatory. So if you missed this trip, you can go down on any Wed night and join one of the public nights.

And for the IYA, they are running a 2-hour live web cast from the observatory on Monday nights. From this link, you can participate in the blog at any time and at select times, see what is being captured by the telescopes or the all-sky camera.

After our tours, we retired to one of the staff lounges where donuts were served and Paul held court to a captive audience. He answered questions on a wide range of topics including Mars exploration, telescope design, imaging technology, space tourism, manned missions to the moon and Mars, and more. As always, he was very gracious and very accommodating. He also had a selection of the official IYA Galileo moment cards and planispheres which he made available to anyone who wanted them.

Dr Paul Delaney entertaining and educating the group which he does so well.

Some of the goodies that were provided.

We extend our deep and sincere thanks to Paul and his students for such an enjoyable night. Even though we weren’t able to observe, I hardly seemed to miss it with all the other interesting things being shown and discussed.

As we all know, March 20 is the Vernal Equinox (start of spring in the northern hemisphere). It is also Sun-Earth Day and NASA is celebrating it by encouraging daytime astronomy.

They will be hosting a live webcast on NASA TV ( HERE ) for 1 hour, starting at 1pm (EDT) on Friday March 20. If you can view it during this time, it should be very interesting for all members and the public. There are also some promotional videos on this page.

It is also expected to be rebroadcast at 8pm on their Educational channel ( HERE ). But check the first link above for details/confirmations.

If you watch this and enjoy it, feel free to post your thoughts, or use one of the emails on the “About Us” page and let us know.