Talk about celestial bodies

The Saturday night visitor sessions at the Emil Buehler Trust Observatory at Bergen Community College in Paramus, New Jersey have become a hot ticket as of late.  The Astronomy Club at BCC openly invites the public every Saturday night, weather permitting, to join them and view the heavens.  Two weeks ago Mars and Earth were within 43 million miles of each other, a position that they will not reach again until 2018. That Saturday night’s session at the observatory was heavily publicized by the Bergen Record newspaper and other New Jersey media. The night sky was completely cloudless and it would have been a perfect night for Bryan and I to catch a glimpse of the red planet through the observatory’s 15-inch reflecting telescope. I say would have because there were over 700 people in line to take a peak and we were discouraged by the estimated two hour wait.

            Last Saturday with no particulary noteworthy celestial phenomenon occurring, we thought it would be a better opportunity to take advantage of another cloudless night and a certainly crowdless observatory. When we arrived a little after eight pm we saw an extended family of eight, including one very enthusiastic five year old, also waiting to go inside. Later, sometime after nine when we all left, there must have been at least fifty people in the nearby auditorium waiting to climb the stairs to the second story at the science building where the observatory is located. The almost full waxing moon meant that it would be an optimal night for lunar observation but signifigantly less so for planetary or distant star viewing. Fortunately our group had two excellent astral guides from the astronomy and physics departments who worked and focused the telescope on two lunar craters, Tycho and Copernicus and on one binary star system (it sounded like Calabria?).  The moveable dome has an open window section that can be rotated at will and with a GPS control the telescope can be positioned through that opening and focus on the object. I was a little less interested in the craters and more intrigued with the binary stars. It was explained to us that that the stars were of different sizes and that we would see distinct colors, an indication of their luminosity. I had what I thought were reasonable expectations. I knew that squinting through a telescope would not reveal a Lucas Films vision of a distant star. The five year old was not so restrained. After every opportuity to put his eye to the lens he exclaimed, "Awesome!". When it was my turn I was surprised at the strong colors of these stars. They looked like two red and blue Christmas lights and not like the hazy dim orbs that I expected. My interest in astronomy is not a momentary fancy. Guess who might be getting a telescope for Christmas this year?