What can you expect to see at the Community Observatory this weekend?
This weekend should be ideal for visiting the observatory, with clear, cloudless skies expected. The New Moon occurs on Thursday, September 10th, leaving only a thin crescent that will set early Friday and Saturday. The Sun is setting shortly after 7 PM so it will be very dark by the time we open at 9 PM.
We are in the shoulder season between Summer and Autumn. That means that the Milky Way with its marvelous nebulae and clusters will still be overhead and the fall constellations are rising in the East. Those Fall objects that are coming into view again include the Andromeda Galaxy, the Pegasus Globular Cluster, and the Double Cluster in Perseus.
My personal favorite star is Capella which is rising in the Northeast during our public viewings this season. It appears to be a star about the same temperature and color as our Sun. But the similarities end there. It is actually four stars with two large yellow giant stars that orbit each other every 104 days and two faint, distant red dwarf stars. It appears to be about 20 times the diameter of our Sun and 137 times as bright. It is the sixth brightest star in the night sky and the third brightest in the Northern Hemisphere. The image today is that star from NASA’s APOD (Astronomy Picture Of the Day).
We have another supernova. It is called SN 2025rbs and was discovered on July 14th. It is in the galaxy NGC7331 which is 40 million light years away. That means that a white dwarf star circling a red giant star had stolen enough material for the hydrogen on its surface to fuse. This type of supernova doesn't cause the destruction of the star. The photons released have been traveling for those millions of years across the expanse of space to enter our scopes. We should be able to see some of those photons during our public viewing this weekend.
Saturn is back and should be visible shortly after our 9 PM opening. We were able to see the rings, the gap between the rings and the planet, cloud bands on the planet, and four moons last week in our newly acquired 14” Celestron scope. It was the highlight of the night for most of us. Venus will also be visible for a bit after we open. It is catching up with us and will pass between us and the Sun on October 24th. After that, it will reappear in the morning sky. It will be visible as an increasingly narrow crescent between now and then as the side opposite us is illuminated.
We held our first “Astrophotography” class last Sunday night. Fourteen enthusiastic students learned how to take pictures of the night sky with their cell phones. We will likely offer this class again in the future.  Stay tuned.
Join us Friday or Saturday from 9 PM until 11 PM. Be sure to check here or on our website after 3 PM on the day you plan to visit to make sure that we don’t have a weather cancellation. Expect to pay $2 to the college for parking.

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