Starry Nights @ SFU: April 15 2009

On April 15 2009 we held what turned out to be the most successful SFU star party to date! The evening started off quietly, and as the telescope owners were setting up we wondered how many guests would come out to see the stars on a night when the Vancouver Canucks were in the very first game of the playoff season! However, before too long, we heard voices of youngsters approaching, and soon we were in the midst of a group of about 75 guests, mostly families whose children had attended SFU astronomy workshops for grade-school kids!

Many thanks to those who brought telescopes and shared their passion for astronomy and knowledge of the night sky with our many guests: Ron Jerome (co-President of the Vancouver Centre of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada), Wayne Lyons, Leigh Cummings, Michael Young (all members of the Vancouver RASC), parent Greg Pogue, and Pouyan Khalili who very skillfully worked both the physics department's 8" Meade telescope, and a 60mm refractor. Special thanks to parent Chris Tan, who took the pictures which are featured in the gallery to the right.

We saw a wide variety of celestial objects, with Saturn easily the favourite, with its majestic rings nearly edge-on, and with moons Titan and Rhea easy to spot even in small telescopes and binoculars. A real treat was viewing the rings of Saturn in the 60mm refractor that SFU is donating to schools which attend our grade-school astronomy workshops, and which workshop families can earn for free by attending four SFU star parties: the rings were crisply displayed in the 10mm eyepiece, which provides 70x magnification in this 60mm f/12 telescope. This really demonstrated the capabilities of this quality starter telescope, and its very serviceable tripod. Everyone who compared the rings in the big telescopes and in the 60mm refractor was amazed to see them about as well in the little scope! Also popular with our guests were the Auriga star clusters, and the galaxy pair M81 (Bode's Nebula), and M82 (the Cigar Galaxy); the galaxy pair was especially nice in Ron Jerome's telescope with his wide-field eyepiece, which afforded a view of both galaxies in the same field. Our guests were intrigued to learn that the light which entered their eyes from these distant galaxies began its journey 12 million years ago!

Starry Nights @ SFU: Blogs & Pics

Spring Star Party, April 15 2009!

Starry-eyed
@ SFU since Nov. 2007