A Wow!

The August workday and a Notchview Public night turned out to be a terrific and productive one for Arunah Hill. The workday consisted of lots of mowing and a lubrication of the Gaertner telescope. We then used the historic scope to observer a couple of big sunspots, which we proudly showed off to a couple of pairs of geocachers who wandered onto the hill.


Thanks to Ray Burk, Matt Paine, Jonathan Klinkowski , Barry Herveux, Steve Pielock, and Tom Walker for all their hard work. One good mowing and we should be in pretty good shape for AH Days.


We did see some signs of mouse penetration into the telescope shed, but I think Tom had a good idea of what we need to do to deal with it. Fortunately, we found no damage to any of the scopes in the shed.


After some rest and lively discussion up at the pavilion (OK, I'll admit being the target of some of the humor... one flag indeed!), we moved on to nearby Notchview for the public observing. Dan Carnevale was already set up. We all even got to do some birdwatching and got to watch an American Kestral. The staff at Notchview treated us to a wonderful dinner highlighted by chicken and faccachia bread that was terrific, and zucchini chocolate cake.



I screwed the Hydrogen Alpha filter into the Genesis and slowed the scope onto the sun. As the sun popped in to focus, I was BLOWN AWAY by two large prominences dancing on one limb of the sun, while another 5 smaller flares could be seen around the sun. It was the most solar activity I had seen in many years! I got to share this view with several people as the public arrived for the Notchview Star Party... and the reaction ranged from a grumpy "ho-hum" to several "wow... that's amazing!". I was definitely in the latter camp!

As sunset fell, Venus popped out, brilliant, followed by Saturn then Mars. We turned the telescopes on planets, and our public star party was rolling. Tom and Jonathan keep the Arunah Hill 18" busy, Dan C had his wonderful refractor on the computer drive, and Steve Hershberg had his SCT slewing on objects as they emerged from the deepening twilight. We soon had a happy crowd.


I did a green laser sky tour as the milky way became dazzling after twilight. M-13 was naked eye and was a breathtaking object in the scopes. Cruising along the milky way yielded numerous Messier objects, all dazzling to the public. A few stray meteors and quite a few satellites added to the wonder of the evening.


Notchview is a wonderful spot for a public star party, with great horizons, dark skies, and creature comforts... real bathrooms and a warm house. Thanks to all who helped make this event such a big success.

-Ed