Failed Astronomy

Some nights, things just don’t work out. I had one of those nights on Sunday.

After a long week of cloudy skies, Sunday daylight broke with hints of sunshine on the top of a fog bank. As Diane and I sat in Starbucks having coffee and coffee cake, my spirits began to rise with the glucose and caffeine levels in my blood stream.

Confidently, I said that the clouds would burn off by noon and we had the potential of a clear sky for the evening. That was a nice thought because we were very close to new moon and the Geminid meteor shower was scheduled to peak before midnight.

I set about to cautiously think about an observing evening. Maybe the night would turn out well.

As I worked around the house during the afternoon, I was overjoyed to see that the sky was bright blue. The recent rain had pushed out haze and left the sky cloudless.

I looked up Hill Country State Natural Area on the internet and saw that a public hunt was scheduled to start on Monday. The park would be closed at 10 PM. That was good enough for a nice night of Herschel observing, but it was a little disappointing that the park would not be open for the peak of the meteor shower.

I called the park office, intending to let them know that I would be at our observing site that evening, and that I would be out by the 10 PM closing time. The nice ranger on the phone told me that the park would actually be closed beginning at sunset, not 10PM. Not wanting to argue, I thanked the ranger and started to think of other options.

“Oh well”, I said to myself. “I have observed from a pull off on the park road before”, and I decided that I could do it again. Yes, I knew that I could expect to have 15-20 cars with bright headlights come by, but the rest of the time I would have 5.5 magnitude stars visible. It could be a nice night of Herschel observing (maybe I could finish the December list in O’Meara’s book) and then I could settle down to watch meteors toward 10 or 11 PM. The drive home would be 10 minutes shorter as well!

I arrived at my observing spot about 6:30 PM. Diane begged out because she had some work to do as Santa’s Elf. No one else answered my email on the San Antonio Astronomy Yahoo group when I posted that I would be out near the park. I planned on being by myself. I was.

When the sky turned dark enough to see the “faint fuzzys” on the Herschel list, I pulled out the O’Meara book and reached for my trusty digital recorder. But that recorder was back in my house in Helotes, 40 minutes away. Oh Well! I looked at a couple of the objects, but lost interest fairly quickly, knowing that I was not set up to record my observations. I looked at a number of Messier objects with my 16 inch scope. But I was a bit bummed out.

About that time, I realized that the rising Orion constellation was dimming noticeably. I looked straight up. The Milky Way had disappeared too. I looked further west, and Jupiter was shining brightly and those constellations were all present.

So it was just a local cloud.

Except that about 15 minutes after the sky cleared, there was a general dimming of all the stars and then they all winked out. They stayed that way. It was 8:45 PM. I never saw another star.

On this little trip, I had experienced loss of an observing field to a “hunt” on the State Natural Area park lands. I had to set up where bright car lights spoiled my night vision every 10 minutes or so. I forgot to bring a little recorder which spoiled my ability to run the list I had intended on. And finally I was shut out by a thick bank of clouds that suddenly formed from a perfectly clear sky. The sky has stubbornly remained cloudy all week long, ever since.

I just thought I would post this, to remind me how special it is when everything works out splendidly! Surprisingly often, the weather, the moon, the place, and the gathering of friends are all perfect. As I sit here today, I am planning on that all working out for this Saturday evening.

Wishing you Dark Skies and a Merry Christmas,
Eternally the optimist,

Risk