The thread below starts by my asking for some good newbie crowd pleasers for the first real star party for friends I hosted last night. It concludes by saying it was a great success overall (didn't squeeze in any open clusters, which won't happen again, but did spend a good deal of time on the ring before mars stole the show), and my PS says, "never underestimate the unplanned, such as a spontaneous sattelite spotting game that unfolded as my friends waited for me to find the next object."
But what I didn't realize was that it was I who had the biggest surprise...unbeknownst to me....let me explain.
Soon after twilight. I pointed out how to find the north star (always a good place to start), using the big dipper pointer stars. Oh, so easy everyone sees the bright north star? yes, who wouldn't it's so bright and easy even though it's light out. GREAT..I thought...well, privately I thought, "huh? why the f*?# is it THAT bright? Plane? no, not moving. I guess I don't normally spend much time looking north when backyard observing...still it's hard to gague magnitude while it's still light out, but that's odd." someone else came over in about 45 minutes and I pointed it out to them too and I just remember thinking in passing, that it's a lot dimmer now that its dark.
But this morning there was a posting to my local club list...actually it was a week old, but i only saw it by chance this morning called "bright light in the sky". maybe i only bothered to read it because i had that little nagging suspicion i might have seen something out of the ordinary, but didn't know it. the answer was, "iridium 6". huh?
I looked it up, and for some reason (I've only been in this 18 months or so), I had NO IDEA what an irridim flare was (i thought it was like a chance meteorite type sighting, not predictible flare of discarded satelite reflective materials)...research after observing is probably the most rewarding aspect of this hobby! looked it up at heavens-above.com and guess what...EXACTLY the right time, EXACTLY the right location and lasting less than a minute. What luck! it was 6* away from true North, so in the twilight, that WAS the north star since it blew polaris away out of sight because it shone at -7 magnitude. All I did was thought, "plane? no, not moving. they're waiting...so point out "polaris" and move on...and forgot about it"
what fun that I had the biggest surprise in store...i thought I was just going to introduce others to new stuff, not suspecting I would be totally baffled and learn something totally new ... no prior knowledge of these AT ALL. It happens again with irridim 4 tonight at the same spot (for me). I'm all over it!
TomL
But what I didn't realize was that it was I who had the biggest surprise...unbeknownst to me....let me explain.
Soon after twilight. I pointed out how to find the north star (always a good place to start), using the big dipper pointer stars. Oh, so easy everyone sees the bright north star? yes, who wouldn't it's so bright and easy even though it's light out. GREAT..I thought...well, privately I thought, "huh? why the f*?# is it THAT bright? Plane? no, not moving. I guess I don't normally spend much time looking north when backyard observing...still it's hard to gague magnitude while it's still light out, but that's odd." someone else came over in about 45 minutes and I pointed it out to them too and I just remember thinking in passing, that it's a lot dimmer now that its dark.
But this morning there was a posting to my local club list...actually it was a week old, but i only saw it by chance this morning called "bright light in the sky". maybe i only bothered to read it because i had that little nagging suspicion i might have seen something out of the ordinary, but didn't know it. the answer was, "iridium 6". huh?
I looked it up, and for some reason (I've only been in this 18 months or so), I had NO IDEA what an irridim flare was (i thought it was like a chance meteorite type sighting, not predictible flare of discarded satelite reflective materials)...research after observing is probably the most rewarding aspect of this hobby! looked it up at heavens-above.com and guess what...EXACTLY the right time, EXACTLY the right location and lasting less than a minute. What luck! it was 6* away from true North, so in the twilight, that WAS the north star since it blew polaris away out of sight because it shone at -7 magnitude. All I did was thought, "plane? no, not moving. they're waiting...so point out "polaris" and move on...and forgot about it"
what fun that I had the biggest surprise in store...i thought I was just going to introduce others to new stuff, not suspecting I would be totally baffled and learn something totally new ... no prior knowledge of these AT ALL. It happens again with irridim 4 tonight at the same spot (for me). I'm all over it!
TomL
