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Late Thursday night or actually the early morning hours of Friday 19 Nov 2021 the lunar eclipse was observed by more than 50 spectators at Turner Farm Observatory Park in Great Falls, VA. In fact, more than 300 people have visited Observatory Park and the Roll-Top Observatory in the month of November. They have come to see the skies in a relatively dark environment and listen to presentations on celestial wonders (through the Fairfax Co. Parktakes series of educational activities).
In the early morning hours Mary Blessing took a photo of the telescopes and observers outside the Roll-Top Observatory, saying "Fun but cold!". She and others used there cell phones to capture the lunar eclipse through their telescopes. At home Bill Burton took the included photo using his iPhone and an 8-inch Newtonian telescope. This photo made it into the Washington Post.
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On September 18th Jeff Kretsch took a picture of the sun's corona using a Coronado PST and a handheld Lumix Camera at f1.7 1/500 second. This was after SpaceWeather (https://spaceweather.com) issued an alert:
A CME HIT EARTH'S MAGNETIC FIELD TODAY:
"Minor G1-class geomagnetic storms are underway on Sept. 17th following the predicted arrival of a CME. The strike was, at first, seemingly weak and inconsequential. Now, however, Earth is passing through the CME's magnetized wake and experiencing geomagnetic disturbances. If storm conditions persist, auroras could become visible in northern-tier US states after nightfall."
The solar storms center around sunspot AR2871 (that was actually an old sunspot AR2860, returning after a two-233k trip around the far side of the sun. During its previous appearance in late August, the sunspot produced 1 M-class flare and 21 C-class flares. Since then, the sunspot's dark cores have diminished, but the surrounding storm system still has an air of menace.
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It's that time of year again when the earth passes through the orbit of comet Tuttle-Swift, creating the Perseid Meteor shower. This year the peak of the shower is between Wed Aug 11th and Thrs Aug 12th.
Analemma Society in cooperation with the Fairfax County Parks Authority will present free public viewing of the Perseid Meteor Shower at Great Falls Turner Farm Observatory Park on Wed Aug 11th from 9pm - 1am. If the weather is cloudy and rainy, the park grounds will open the following night Thrs 12th from 9pm - 1am.
If the sky is clear, there should be excellent viewing conditions for the Perseids. The moon is only a thin waxing crescent setting in the west shortly after sunset, making late night viewing of the Persieds in the eastern sky ideal. Come bring your lounge chairs or blankets and watch the night sky, looking for those streaks of light from pebble size remains of Comet Tuttle-Swift.
The debris left from the comet - mostly balls of ice and small pebble rock - orbits the sun every 133 years. But the debris has spread out so that each year when the earth goes through the orbit, some of the debris rains down on the earth, creating the meteor shower.
The Perseid Meteor Shower gets its name from the direction the meteors appear to come from: their streaks in the sky as they burn up in our atmosphere at about 90km high, trace back to the constellation Perseus.
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Turner Farm Observatory Park will be open by volunteeres of the Analemma Society for a free public viewing session of the annual Perseid meteor shower Wednesday night August 11th from 9PM to 1AM. The session is weather dependent and may be rescheduled for Thursday, August 12th. Check the @AnalemmaSociety twitter account or http://www.analemma.org/Analemma Observing Update Tweets/ for updates prior to the event.
The predicted peak of the Perseid meteor shower this year is during the daytime over North America on August 12th, so both Wed 11th and Thu 12th are good nights for observing. Meteor showers are best viewed with your unaided eyes, laying in a lawn chair or on a blanket looking up at the sky. We recommend you bring chairs and/or blankets to set up on the grass field at the park. Binoculars are also useful for viewing the night sky while sitting or lying down.
The event is sponsored by the Great Falls Analemma Society and is free with no registration needed. We plan to open the Roll-Top observatory for viewing the planets and celestial objects in the night sky as a side activity beside viewing the meteor shower.
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Once again the seasons turn and Analemma Society held a noontime celebration of the 2021 Summer Solstice on June 20th at Turn Farm Observatory Park. The photo below shows visitors standing around the new analemmatic sundial created by scout Kenny Dieffenderfer & Scout Toop 1547 just days before the Solstice event.
photo by Dr. Jeff Kretsch
A wide variety of events were held, including understanding the distance between planets, cutting out paper sundials (below left), and seeing celestial visitors that have landed on earth (below right)...no not aliens, but meteorites. Alan Figgatt, Nathan Offenbacher and Jeff Kretsch worked the telescopes inside the Roll-Top Observatory. The Jamestown and Analemmatic Sundials were used. Cal Powell had the meteorite display table. Mary Blessing did a solar system exercise, and Robert Anderson did the sundial cutout table and helped with the sunspotters. Fiston Keita with NOVAC brought his H-alpha scope for direct observng of the sun. Mo from Riverbend handled attendance and assisted with setup and cleanup.
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