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I am, at heart, a simple observer. I eschew high-tech approaches to backyard stargazing — no CCD camera, no high-end gear, and only last year did I buy my first “Go-To” telescope mount. I’m content to set up a scope and just savor the evening’s offerings, be that the Moon, a bright planet, or a delicate nebula. What transpired two nights ago exemplifies my Thoreau-esque approach to observing. Sunday evening was warm and clear, and as twilight deepened I found myself fixated by Venus perched just above the treeline in the west. I’ve been admiring this sparkler all winter, following its slow climb through January, its northward arc during February, and its ongoing plunge toward the horizon as it slips between the Sun and Earth.
I couldn’t resist glimpsing the planet’s thin crescent, so I grabbed my trusty 4½-inch reflector for a peek. I wanted a sense of what Galileo saw during his 1610 observations of Venus, so I chose a low-power eyepiece that yielded about 20×. The planet was a gleaming white fingernail emblazoned on the cerulean sky, like a tiny crescent Moon but far more dazzling. I hope to look again in a few days to see the planet’s semicircle even thinner. As it turned out, Sunday night also marked a launch of the Space Shuttle Discovery from Florida. These days every shuttle heads for the International Space Station, and as such they rocket up the East Coast to match the station’s high-inclination orbit. The shuttle fires its main engines for a bit more than 8 minutes, in that short time reaching a height of 60 miles and traveling 900 miles downrange. Because this was a night launch, everyone from Florida to Maine got a chance to see the engines’ brilliant exhaust plume before they shut down.
Assured that the liftoff would occur on schedule, my wife and I hustled over to a local park with a clear view to the southeast. We scanned the low sky for a couple minutes but saw nothing. Then, suddenly, it was there! Bright and yellow-orange, the distant flame glided northward for only a few seconds before snuffing out. But we watched some more, catching an occasional outburst from Discovery’s auxilliary thrusters. In a half hour I’d gone from retracing Galileo’s 399-year-old discovery to witnessing something uniquely Space Age. Simply amazing! When we arrived home minutes later, the young night still beckoned. So I headed out back to savor Orion and his celestial companions. After letting my eyes adapt to the dark, I carefully traced the Hunter’s faint stars to gauge my sky’s darkness — a little warm-up for the GLOBE at Night star-counting activity, which runs March 16th to 28th. I struggled to glimpse a few stars at magnitude 4½, about the norm for my suburban location. I’ll try star-spotting again on the next clear night and then fire off my results to the GLOBE at Night website. I hope you’ll do likewise. All you need is 30 minutes, a clear sky, and a downloadable sky chart. Not only will you have the satisfaction of seeing a little electronic flag marking your observation on the project’s master map, you’ll also have the satisfaction of participating in a worldwide effort to monitor the gradual loss of true darkness due to light pollution.
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