Starry Nights @ SFU: February 27 2009

Starry Nights @ SFU: Blogs & Pics

Venus-Moon Conjunction and Comet Lulin - February 27 2009!

We had great skies in the evening of Friday, February 27 2009, perfect timing for viewing a gorgeous conjunction between Venus and the crescent Moon! By happy coincidence, when viewed in a telescope Venus displayed a crescent phase that was very close to that of the three-day old Moon! This was a very exciting evening as we also managed to observe Comet Lulin before clouds rolled in.

We hosted families with young children (who especially marveled at the mountains and craters on the Moon!), out-of-town teenage wrestlers attending a competition at SFU, and other guests from the community beyond SFU, as well as many students, staff, and faculty from the university itself. At least 50 guests stopped by to get a look at some exceptional celestial sights. The gallery to the right starts with images of the first few of us to arrive and setup but, before long, as the last frame in the gallery shows, we had lineups of guests patiently waiting their turns at the telescope! Many thanks to Aaron Springford for the beautiful portrait of the conjunction, and to Aaron and Nastenka Calle Delgado for the images of our guests.

We started at 5:30, well before sunset, gathering at the top of the steps overlooking Convocation Mall, with a clear view to the west, and held a competition to see who would be the first to spot brilliant Venus and the thin crescent Moon (hats off to Caroline!). We observed these two bodies by eye, through binoculars, and the SFU physics department 8" telescope.

Earthshine was especially vivid this night, and many people could make out craters on the dark side of the Moon through our telescope. We observed the conjuction until 7:30PM, and then at 8PM we relocated our gear to just beyond the eastern edge of the AQ, where we had an unobstructed view to the East, so that we could hunt for Comet Lulin.

The comet turned out to be easy to find, despite being quite diffuse and faint in our light-polluted suburban skies, since that night it was parked just a few degrees from Regulus, the brightest star in Leo the Lion (at the base of the lion's head). We had many guests look through the two 8" telescopes that were setup (thanks to Gwen Eadie, President of the SFU student Astronomy club, and Aaron Springford, for bringing Gwen's scope, and helping out, as always!). The star-like nucleus of the comet was easily discerned, and many of us agreed that the comet had a distinct though faint greenish hue! For more information on Comet Lulin, checkout the Sky and Telescope feature story on the comet

Too bad that the clouds rolled in around 9PM, which cut the viewing short (we had planned to take some CCD images of the comet, blast!), but despite its early end this evening of Moon, planet, and comet gazing was a great success!

Starry-eyed
@ SFU since Nov. 2007