Each month, our Sharing the Sky Foundation puts on a star party at the Corona Foothills Middle School.  There, we meet with  group of children gathered from all over Tucson to look at the sky.  In addition to using Uncle Guy, a 14-inch SCT donated from Meade Instruments, and a wonderful 14mm accompanying eyepiece from Explore Scientific, participating teachers bring their own telescopes.  Thus, we have lots of scopes, and usually a good sky to enjoy.

Happy New Year, and The IYA Continues

Tonight at midnight, the International Year of astronomy came to an end as 2010 began.

Or did it?

A Superb Eyepiece

Explore Scientific’s new 14mm wonder is rapidly turning into my favourite eyepiece.  I first got to use it at last summer’s Adirondack Astronomy Retreat on Minerva, my old and oft-reconditioned 6-inch f/4 reflector.  The eyepiece is a gem.  Its generous 100-degree field allows wide fields of sky to appear at once in any telescope.  On Wednesday, December 9, a small number of high schoolers arrived at the WADLO (Wendee and David Levy Observatory) at Corona foothills Middle School) to use it.  The views were spectacular—from the Double Cluster in Perseus, to the great galaxy in Andromeda, and even M33 in Triangulum, were sharply defined in the crisp, cold sky.  Believe me, this is one terrific, superb eyepiece.

In the last two weeks I have lectured twice to audiences at the University of Arizona.  The first lecture, on Monday, December 7, was titled “My Life and Hard Times as a comet hunter.”  It is still a little weak on the hard times part—and there were a few fine ones I should have shared.  One episode I did not refer to was about the night I found object No. 2 in my catalog. It turned out to be the Eskimo nebula, which, at that time of the year, was low in the east before dawn.  I had just suffered through the first phase of what is now known as the “observatory crisis,” during which Isabel K. Williamson, then-director of observational activities, had threatened to cancel my membership because she thought I had broken the observatory barograph.  Anyway, I was so excited about finding the nebula that I resolved that no matter what, all would be well on my return to Montreal.