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Star Party Stories and November’s Night Sky · Star Trails: From Backyard Astronomy to Cosmic Wonder

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  Howdy Star Gazers and welcome to this episode of Star Trails.
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  I'm Drew and I'll be your guide to the night sky for the week starting November the 3rd
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  to the 9th.
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  Today's show is going to be a little different from our usual format.
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  Last weekend I attended a star party hosted by my local astronomy club, so I thought it
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  would be fun to take you inside the party where I had the chance to chat with astronomy
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  enthusiasts of all ages from seasoned star gazers to curious newcomers.
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  And later in the show we'll take a look at what you can expect to see in the night sky
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  as we kick off November.
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  So grab a comfortable spot under the night sky and let's get started.
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  Being at a star party is like stepping into a shared dream, a mix of curiosity, excitement,
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  and a touch of nostalgia.
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  Tonight the Midlands Astronomy Club converges at one of their secluded observation sites.
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  The twice yearly gathering is a chance for family, friends, and those curious about the
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  hobby.
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  After an hours drive northward with daylight waning, I arrived at the club's dark sky
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  sanctuary just in time to join the familiar faces that bring these nights to life.
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  Seasoned observers, club veterans, and newcomers.
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  Telescopes of all kinds already point skyward waiting for nightfall.
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  Skies are clear for now, but a front is forecasted to arrive this evening and that could bring
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  clouds or even rain.
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  The real star of the event is the food and will enjoy the cookout even if observation
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  is impossible.
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  Club President Mike Roberts, who normally plans the club's monthly meetings and topics,
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  has one of the most important roles of the night, manning the grill.
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  Ever since I was a kid I've always looked at the sky and that's true of most of us.
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  Most of us have been doing this for our entire life and I just like getting out there and
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  looking, looking at the sky.
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  But it's not just about looking at the stars, it's about sharing that fascination, connecting
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  with others who feel the same pull of the cosmos.
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  Hap Griffin was one of the original members to build an observatory on the site some years
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  ago.
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  It's a chance for people like us that are just enamored by the night sky and getting
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  together with people that are interested in the same things that you are under a really
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  magnificent night sky is just the best.
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  Between Hap's observatory and his neighbor, Frank, an impromptu gathering space is formed.
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  Astronomers huddle together, guitars in hand, sharing melodies and stories beneath the darkening
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  sky.
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  Most of these club members have known each other for years.
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  I'm a relative newcomer but before I knew it someone handed me a guitar and invited
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  me to join in over the murmur of cosmic chatter.
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  The cloud was a big deal because they hadn't really discovered how to do agriculture yet.
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  You know what I mean?
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  So yeah, that was important to them.
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  That's a mega centaurious.
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  That was my next guess because they had that color.
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  Yeah.
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  That dim copper color around there.
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  But that's with a homemade telescope.
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  I figured that, I ground figured it, polished it and figured it.
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  And that's the scope that I built.
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  It's carbon fiber tube.
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  Wow.
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  F3.9.
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  That's beautiful.
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  As you can guess, it doesn't take long before the talk turns to telescopes.
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  Well, I joined the club when I was 13 or 14 years old.
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  I've been in astronomy since 1985 as a first grader.
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  That's past club president Wes Mein.
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  I started with a department to store telescope from the old service merchandise.
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  You probably remember this in the 80s.
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  It showed me the craters of the moon and I thought only PhD scientists could see that.
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  But that was my ticket.
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  And I just, that telescope, looking back is far inferior to what I own now.
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  But I treated that thing like it was my own low-observatory or monarchy observatory.
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  I just felt like I discovered the moon myself.
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  For many, telescopes are more than tools.
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  They're extensions of a passion for the stars, each scope reflecting its owner's unique
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  story.
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  Okay.
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  The center here gets corrected, color corrected and aberration corrected, bounces off the
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  primary mirror, back toward a mirror mounted in the center of this corrected lens.
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  Amateur astronomer Steve Dornberg takes pride in using what would be deemed a vintage scope
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  nowadays.
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  His blue, gray and gold Dynamax scope looked futuristic in the early 80s, but has since
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  graduated to retro cool status, judging by how many Gawkers he gets when he sets it up.
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  Well, assuming I can keep my optics from fogging up, I'll get my eight-inch Schmitt
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  Cassegrain made by Dynamax, which is no longer in production, out here and we'll take a
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  look at some stars.
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  And this is a...
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  Pesto?
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  This is a Dynamax.
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  It's a competitive Celestron.
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  Okay.
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  It's called Dynamax.
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  It's no longer in business.
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  In an era when most astronomers are using some sort of computer-assisted guiding or a smart
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  scope, Steve relies on methods more in line with the age of his scope, which still renders
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  beautiful views of planets and deep-sky objects.
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  Absolutely.
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  The optics, I mean, I've taken meticulous care of the telescope in the years that I've
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  had it, and it's all about the optics at the end of the day.
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  I don't have a lot of the G-Wiz computer technology because it simply didn't exist when I bought
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  the telescope.
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  But it can track.
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  I do have a...
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  It does have a drive motor on it.
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  It can track if I line it properly.
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  And other than that, I have a Tyrion Epoch 2000 star chart in here that I can look things
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  up.
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  It is not totally current.
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  Some of the stars may have drifted a bit in 24 years, but they should be relatively
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  close.
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  My right ascension and declination may be a bit off of, hey.
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  Across the field, a crowd has lined up to view the setting sun through a solar scope.
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  Look, close one eye, look at the other.
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  There you go.
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  Good to see you.
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  You see the big white ball?
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  Yeah.
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  Okay, the big white ball is the sun.
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  Oh.
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  Do you see black spots on it?
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  Yeah, I do.
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  Those are sunspots, and they are bigger.
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  Guests quickly learn that if a scope is pointed at the sky, chances are they'll be invited
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  to peer into it.
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  When you come to a star party, there's going to be generally a number of different types
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  of telescopes to look through if you're trying to get an idea for a telescope that you might
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  want to buy if you're a beginner.
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  It's great to look through a lot of different types of telescopes because there'll be a
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  half a dozen different types of scopes here, and you can see what the pluses and minuses
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  are of each and things like that.
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  So a star party is a great chance to actually kick the tires, so to speak, on other people's
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  equipment, and they're happy for you to look through it or they wouldn't have brought it.
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  Oh, we got bands.
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  Band?
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  Oh, we got bands.
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  All right, repeat the view.
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  Oh, my God.
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  Guests, you need to see that.
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  Yeah, yeah, don't touch anything.
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  For Paul Romanosin, who has been the club's observation chairman for 20 years, education
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  is at the core of the club's mission.
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  Well, one of the things is if you have a telescope for long enough, you need motivation to take
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  it out.
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  So the reason to take it out is to show people stuff.
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  Do you see the ring?
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  Yeah, it looks like a little...
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  It looks like what you're looking at.
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  Did you see the bands on the ring and the...
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  I mean on the...
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  Did you see the little dots on either side?
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  Did you see the moons?
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  Those are the moons, eh?
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  Well, we do programs for schools.
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  We got an outreach that's coming up, two more.
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  We try to do them on the round the first quarter moons, so there's something that's got nice
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  visuals.
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  How you doing?
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  The clouds that were threatening earlier have officially rolled in, covering up the handful
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  of twilight targets that were being studied.
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  But no one is singing the blues.
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  Some of our best star parties have been where it did cloud up, and we just all sat around
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  and talked.
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  And number one, we were supposed to watch a meteor shower, I think, and a bunch of us
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  got together.
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  And it was cloudy.
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  We didn't see a single meteor.
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  But we sat around and talked, and I thought, here are people that know what I'm talking
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  about, and they...
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  And I know what they're talking about.
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  When I mentioned some big technical term or some concept, the fact that they understand
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  what I'm talking about and that they're talking about the same things that I'm talking about,
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  it was just...
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  It was enlightening.
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  It was like, hey, the light went off.
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  I've got to be a part of this forever.
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  Drizzle has begun, and several of us hastily toss our gear into cars and prepare for the
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  long ride home.
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  For most newcomers, the experience has been worth it.
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  I saw Saturn, and I saw the moon right next to Saturn.
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  I am very surprised to see in these telescopes how you're able to see a different side of
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  Saturn.
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  And I also enjoy the solar telescope.
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  That was very surprising.
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  I actually didn't expect to see a spat on the sun.
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  I saw the moon, and I saw the sun earlier.
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  I saw Saturn pretty close.
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  It was pretty unique.
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  The sky to these stargazers is a canvas that stretches into infinity.
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  It's alive with stories that reveal new wonders.
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  Each time they look, they see something new, a brightening star, a comet, or simply the
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  vastness of space itself.
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  The sky is not painted on.
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  It actually has depth and meaning.
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  So if you look at the sky through a telescope or a pair of binoculars, and then you increase
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  the magnification on it, you're going to see farther out.
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  You're always going to be able to see more.
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  And there's stuff happening out there all the time, and stars are getting brighter, and
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  they're getting darker, and they're moving, and they're doing all kinds of things.
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  And so the sky is really a never-ending source of fascination.
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  There's a lot of stuff going on out there.
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  Here it's rarely just about what you see.
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  It's the moments of shared wonder and the camaraderie that binds them together, under
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  a sky that feels a little less vast when shared with others.
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  I hope you enjoyed that report from the field, and special thanks go to all the folks who
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  agreed to be interviewed.
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  You can learn more about the club at their website, midlandsastronomclub.com.
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  This first week of November promises to be great for early evening stargazing sessions,
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  as the moon's faint crescent and early set times allow for dark skies by mid-evening.
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  Also, daylight saving time ended today for observers in North America, so we have an
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  extra hour of evening darkness for stargazing.
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  Hopefully, you didn't bank on seeing the so-called Halloween Comet C2024S1.
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  Astronomers were predicting this one to be bright enough for daylight viewing, and then,
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  as comets sometimes do, it was vaporized on its trip around the sun.
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  Flying as close as 850,000 miles away from the sun, this comet was considered a sun-grazer.
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  Maybe they should have called it Icarus.
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  Comet C2023A3 Sushenshin Atlas is still out there, but it's fading fast.
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  You may still be able to catch it with binoculars in a dark western sky for another week or
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  so.
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  On November 4, the moon will be in a thin, waxing crescent phase, creating a beautiful
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  sight in the southwestern sky alongside Venus, appearing about 45 minutes after sunset.
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  Venus will be just a few degrees above the moon, providing a striking view for early
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  evening observers.
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  The moon will be at first quarter by the end of the week, so if you're out moon-watching,
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  scan your scope or binoculars along the terminator.
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  That's the dividing line of night and day on the moon, to catch detail in 3D relief.
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  The torrid meteor shower will be visible from now until mid-month.
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  Known for producing a few bright fireballs, the torrids are best observed around midnight.
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  Although not as prolific as other meteor showers, it can reveal about 5 to 15 meteors per hour
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  under ideal conditions.
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  Venus is low in the southwestern sky after sunset and bright, gradually setting about
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  2 hours after the sun as it moves eastward through Ophiuchus.
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  Saturn will be visible in the south after sunset, situated in Aquarius.
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  The ringed planet's position makes it a reliable sight for early evening viewing.
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  Jupiter rises later in the east near the constellation Taurus, shining brightly throughout the night.
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  Its proximity to the Pleiades starcluster and Aldebaran, the Eye of Taurus, adds extra
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  allure to the view.
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  Mars will begin its ascent around midnight, showing its reddish hue as it moves closer
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  to Earth.
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  This time of year offers up some classic deep sky objects loved by both new and veteran
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  stargazers.
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  First up is the Andromeda Galaxy M31, the closest large galaxy to our Milky Way.
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  In dark skies, you can spot it with the naked eye as a faint oblong smudge high in the northeast
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  after sunset.
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  With binoculars or a small telescope, you'll see more structure and appreciate the grandeur
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  of our neighboring galaxy, located more than 2 million light years away.
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  To find it, start with the constellation Cassiopeia, shaped like a W, and guide your view right
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  toward the Andromeda constellation nearby.
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  Another highlight is the Pleiades starcluster, also known as the Seven Sisters, which rises
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  in the eastern evening sky within the constellation Taurus.
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  The cluster looks like a small, misty dipper to the naked eye, and through binoculars,
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  its individual blue stars shine beautifully against the dark sky.
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  It's easy to find near the bright orange star Aldebaran.
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  Orion, rising later in the night, brings us the breathtaking Orion nebula, M42, located
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  just below Orion's famous belt.
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  Even without any equipment, you'll see a soft glow in Orion's sword, and through binoculars,
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  M42 reveals itself as a cloud of gas and dust, a stellar nursery where new stars are born.
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  The nebula is one of the easiest and brightest deep sky objects to observe, making it a favorite
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  during the late night and early morning hours.
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  Finally, don't miss the double cluster in Perseus, located between Perseus and Cassiopeia.
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  This pair of neighboring starclusters glows faintly to the naked eye, but reveals a stunning
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  array of bright blue stars and binoculars.
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  It's a treat on crisp autumn nights, and it's easily accessible from northern skies.
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  That's it for today's episode of Star Trails.
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  If you found this episode informative or entertaining, please share it with a friend.
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  The easiest way to do that is by visiting our website, startrails.show, where you can
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  find all of our episodes, including transcripts, night sky maps, and more.
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  Until next time, keep looking up and exploring the night sky.
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  Clear skies, everyone.