Last week, Wendee and I led a small group. Uncle Guy, our putative name for the 14-inch telescope, performed very well, and for the first time some of the children actually got to operate the hand paddle controls. It is a beautiful telescope, delivering sharp images and allowing the children to gaze at lots of interesting objects. On this night we concentrated on Jupiter and his moons just a few days after the 8th of January, the night in 1610 when Galileo realized he really was onto his great discovery of the moons. Meanwhile, in other parts of the observing field different telescopes were set up. Most of the operators had green laser pointers that could point out interesting objects in the sky.

 

In 2006 I returned to Roslyn School,
from which I graduated in 1960, to share my enthusiasm for
astronomy with the children gathered in the building’s huge gymnasium. Experiences like this led to my
enthusiasm for sharing the sky now with others.

 As I was looking toward the East, I spotted one of the pointers pointing out Sirius, then jump to a slowly moving light hurtling across the sky from the southeast, in Lepus, towards the north. I recognized this at once as a fireball, but it was really taking its time perusing the constellations, breaking off pieces as it went. The object was so lovely, moving almost leisurely until it gradually faded and disappeared. I explained to the children that the object’s disappearance didn’t mean it had vanished; in fact it is likely that some small pieces of it may have survived to strike the Earth. And another thing: it was moving so slowly that it may not have been not a natural meteor at all but a satellite or part of a rocket returning from orbit. It would be pretty hard to decide if this was a reentering satellite, but it could have been a small one like one I might have seen from Plattsburgh, New York, during July of 1965. In any event, the view was magnificent.As the object moved northwards slowly, it continued to release fragments before it disappeared from view.

Our group just stared in silence—we had seen first-hand evidence that the sky is not just there—it is happening!While that meteor was not the brightest I’ve ever seen, it was certainly in the top ten, an amazing, ethereal sight.

One of the best things about observing is that you never know what is going to happen. A fireball like that does not happen very often, but a bright meteor falls frequently enough that it makes the sky that much more interesting.Now that we have a hiatus before the next major shower (the Lyrids at the end of April) we can hope for more of these lone meteors scratching the sky as they burn themselves out at the top of our atmosphere.