What can you expect to see at the Community Observatory this weekend?

The big news is that we have switched to our Winter Schedule of 7:30-9:30PM on Friday and Saturday nights. With the Sun setting just at 6:24 PM it will be dark by our 7:30 opening. The Sun will continue to rise later and set earlier until the Winter Solstice on December 21st when the Sun will rise at 7:17 AM and set at 4:45 PM. That gives us a day length of about nine and a half hours compared to almost fifteen hours on the June 21st Solstice. The Moon isn’t going to be an issue since it doesn’t rise until after we close. With a potentially clear sky and benign weather it should be a great weekend for viewing the sky. Bring your kids and they won’t be up late.

This will be a good weekend for observing the heavenly bodies in our own Solar System. Saturday morning features a solar viewing from 10 AM until Noon. We will be in front of the Sherwood Demonstration Garden on the path to the observatory. Venus has been glowing magnificently in the West for the last few months. That is about to come to an end with it setting soon after the Sun. Saturn will still be visible and spectacular and it should be visible soon after 8 PM. The elusive Neptune will be a tiny blue dot that is impressive for what it is rather than what it looks like.

This is the best time of year for observing the Andromeda Galaxy. At <<only>> 2.5 million light years it is the closest full-sized galaxy to the Milky Way. Edwin Hubble used the 100” Hooker Telescope on Mount Wilson near Pasadena California 102 years ago to prove that, contrary to the prevailing theory of the time, the Andromeda “Nebula” was another galaxy outside of our own. He observed a type of star called a Cepheid Variable. Those stars have a predictable brightness that is directly related to their period. Their period is the time it takes to brighten, dim, and then return to maximum brightness. You can easily observe the period and calculate the brightness. Compare the intrinsic brightness of the star with how bright it appears to us and you can easily calculate the distance. He calculated that Andromeda was over a million light years away and well beyond the expanse of our home galaxy. The image today is the Hubble Space Telescope’s image of the Andromeda Galaxy and two of its smaller companion galaxies.

Join us Friday night and Saturday morning or evening. Be sure to check communityobservatory.com after 3 PM before you come. If there is any chance of a weather closure we will post it there. Come prepared to pay $2 to park.

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