Sky-watching Events

[jeffblaylock]

Some interesting celestial events coming up this year could be extra-special when viewed from the Bend.

My favorite:

February 20-21 — Total eclipse of the moon. Less than six months after last August's total lunar eclipse, we have yet another that occurs during the late-night hours of February 20-21. This eclipse will favor much of North America, occurring during convenient evening hours, although Europeans will also be able to enjoy a view of the darkened moon before it sets. Totality will last for a bit less time than usual (50 minutes), as the moon slides to just within the southern portion of the Earth's umbra, perhaps leading to a potentially bright total phase highlighted by a brighter southern limb. Adding to this spectacle, a planet (Saturn) and a bright star (Regulus) will be close to the totally eclipsed moon forming a broad triangle.

I caught a partial lunar eclipse from Big Bend last year.



Would be pretty neat to see a total eclipse from the Rim or the desert backcountry.

[xseption]

Wonderful photo! That's one aspect of nature that I had not considered in conjunction with BiBe.

~ edd

[JimNewOrleans]

Yes, that is an aspect of the BB environment I have definitely enjoyed.  About 4 yrs ago I took my Meade ETX telescope and tripod with me.  Walked out about 1.5 mi on mule ears, dropped pack and set tent, then went back to car to get the scope and tripod.  Whew.   You can carry a telescope in a pack, about the size and weight of a large heavy thermos, along with 8 AA batteries, but the tripod is a different story – not too heavy, but large and unwieldy, best you can do is strap it to the outside of the pack.  Anyway, was awesome – especially moonless nights.  Even without a scope, if you lay on the desert floor, or sit on the rim, after about an hour when your eyes fully adjust you can see man made satellites zip silently by, and see deeper into the sky than I have been able to any where else.  Looking North or NW from BB is sometimes hazy at long distances from airborne dust, but looking south is crystal clear.  Problem is, if you take a scope into the back country you aren’t going to take anything else.   So, when I do it again, it will be when I have a couple of extra days to car dump camp, as opposed to backpacking.   However, no trip to the bend is complete, for me at least, without a few hours a couple of nights in complete darkness watching the sky.   Thanks jeffblaylock for posting this, I usually check astronomy.com before trips but forgot to this time – I will be there for the February 1 — Venus/Jupiter conjunction, so hope it’s visible from that perspective (although I must admit that seeing early evening or late night events are a LOT easier than rousing out of the bag before dawn!).  I have a cheap ($60 ) software program I bought from Comp USA called ‘starry night’ a few years back that is absolutely GREAT for amateur use.  You can look for events, by location, but even better is the ability to input coordinates of a location and a date, and you can see exactly what the sky will look like, in each direction, at that location on that date.  You print it out, and it’s really cool.  ( Their web site is www.starrynight.com, and they have beginner and advanced versions there )  There’s free shareware that does less fancy  versions of this available on the internet; if really interested you can search sights like astronomy.com or http://astrotips.com/,  or majorgeeks.com.

[STARLITDARKNESS3]

Jim, I have starry night as well.  It came with my Meade Scope three years ago.  You are correct, it is a great program to use.  I am hoping for another star party this March.  Orion is prominent even in March and Andromeda is always a sight from the darkness of BIBE. 

[RichardM]

Check the Heavens-Above (star charts, satellites, etc) thread for links to star charts, satellite viewing opps, etc.

(You'd hope that in my line of work I'd at least know how to spell satellite)