Astronomy and the New Year, What is New and What is Not!

Not new but ever increasing is the problem of the cosmic glows that seem to arise from near the horizon near the places that we observe. One new or expansion of an existing glow near one of our astro-photographers is the "Obrien Nebula." Another observer has the "Wally Nebula" blocking a portion of the sky. This year the club will be analyzing the deep dark mysteries of these anomalies of the universe with spectrum tools to see what can be done to reduce the effects of these ever growing objects near the horizon. Let’s see we could wish for power outages every time we want to observe or take matters into our own hands and show the offenders how they could better spend their money on better service to their customers or reduce their prices because their power bills are less or just keep the addition money saved as increased profits.

The local observing site just outside my back door just recently received a boost in the site darkness as the landlord of apartment building on the other side of the alley saw the light is the saving money option to increase his profit margin by stop paying the power company the money they require to keep the parking light operational. This now means that I can look to the southern sky without having to resort to the 5mw laser to knockout the photo cell and turn it off. One drawback to this new darkness is that all the other more distant street lights come into play along with the new awareness of the ever expanding nebula of light (the sky dome) over Champaign which seems to have gotten much brighter. A reminder of this occurred earlier this month when standing at the elevated entrance to my sunroom with its more than 400 white LED lights on the ceiling that evenly provide just below reading level of a bluish white light. Normally with those lights and no clouds in the sky you can not see objects outside because tinted windows act like one way mirrors when it is dark out. That happened the first time I went out to see if it was clear enough to look at the comet. It was but it was early and the comet was just coming out of the glow. At the next commercial in the TV program I went back to the entrance to the sunroom and to my amazement I could see everything in my back yard, the snow was that sick yellow color we all dislike. The difference here wall the sky had clouded up with some dense, probably low white clouds that also took on the that sick yellow color that comes from sodium exterior light fixtures. Obviously the comet was no longer visible but I noted how bright the light colored rocks of the alley were. Just before Christmas I noted the alley rocks were only slightly brighter with an early evening full moon. Something must be done to inform those who own these lights that there are alternatives.

On the brighter(more positive) side of things also on my quest for what is up this week I noticed that the full moon and Mars were playing chase as they came up, however as the night progressed it was easy to see that Mars was going to win the race to the western horizon. I know there are many technical terms that can be thrown out to explain this but sometimes it is just fun to lay back and watch, by the way the sunroom is a wonderful place to look through the glass roof at the moon with those 400 LED’s off (it has a built-in moon filter, heated floor and oh yes a nearby restroom.

Come in January to the CUAS meeting at the Staerkel Planetarium and see the events of the upcoming year take place along with commentary, it is warm, always has clear skies, padded seats, no bugs and of course restrooms. At our February meeting we help those who received telescopes (club members or not) learn how to use their scopes and answer that question of, "What do I do now?" and other questions. The meeting is always fun and even if you are still in the just looking mode you might find out what would be a good purchase for you, ranging from come to some public observing sessions that we have on the first quarter moon Saturday every month to buying your dream scope, camera and a dark site to use them.

An event that you might want to put on your calendar is a February 20 evening viewing session at the Staerkel Planetarium of the lunar total eclipse, it lasts about an hour. Come and enjoy as this is not an event that happens locally every month or year or longer. All the Planetarium’s facilities will be open, some refreshments (hot cocoa) inside and of course a variety of telescopes will be available outside.

Later in the year we are trying to get some interesting speakers to come and talk about the things that interest them in the general topic of astronomy. These might be people who build telescopes, review telescopes, use telescopes to find objects that might hurt us in the future and people with titles like professor, company president, researcher and others. They will tell us about the amazing things that out there starting just 100 miles away and at distances that are hard for us to fathom. Come to each meeting with a question or a 2 minute summary of something that you read or saw concerning astronomy. Remember the only question that is stupid is the one that you do not ask. Looking forward to seeing you at the meetings and/or hearing you at an observing session this year.

– Guy Hampel, President, Champaign Urbana Astronomical Society