Exciting observations from Hastings

I had an absolutely exciting experience recently when I was in Hastings, Neb.

I visited my friend, Dan Glomsky, who is the director of the J.M. McDonald Planetarium at the Hastings Museum. He was showing me the new all-digital projection system they had recently installed.

Dan is also the director of the observatory at Hastings College and he mentioned that the observatory would be open that evening for a friend to take some astro photos and wanted to know if I would like to come by. Well, you don't have to tell this Missouri boy twice to do anything that exciting.

When I arrived, Dan had their 14-inch telescope hooked up to a laptop computer which he used to direct the scope in finding astronomical objects. (Will someone please tell my wife I want one of those setups for Christmas?)

After I was sufficiently able to stop drooling long enough to have a look through the eyepiece, we observed several Messier objects and had a quick look at Saturn.

We closed out the evening looking at an object I had wanted to see for a long time, M1, the Crab Nebula which is a supernova remnant. That is the stuff left over after a massive star explodes. In this case the star exploded in 1054 AD. It was dutifully recorded by both Chinese and Arab astronomers as a "guest star."

The explosion was so bright it was visible in the daytime and continued to be visible in the night sky for two years.

We also looked at my old friend M42, the absolutely fantastic Great Orion Nebula which is a massive star forming cloud of gas and dust. It is the second "star" in the sword of Orion, the Hunter.

I would like to have observed M31, our neighbor, the Andromeda Galaxy--if you can call 2.3 million light years in the same neighborhood. But it would not rise above the eastern horizon until after 5 a.m. the next morning. Alas.

SKY WATCH:

Full moon tonight, April 9. That should effectively wipe out any early evening viewing for the next couple of nights. However, it you look slightly above the moon just after it rises at about 8 p.m. MST you should find the very bright star Spica, in Virgo, the Maiden.

It should be bright enough to punch through the blinding moonlight. In the west before moonrise look for the tiny Pleiades star cluster, the Seven Sisters. It is just to the right of the "V"- shaped face of Taurus, the Bull with bright Aldebaran serving as the "eye" of the bull.

Keep looking to the left of Taurus to find the red giant Betelgeuse above blue Rigel, both in Orion, the Hunter.

The constellations of spring are now crossing the meridian in the early evening and the summer constellations are starting to rise at midnight while the stars of winter are exiting stage left.

PLANETS:

Saturn is still just below the right triangle of stars making up the hindquarter of Leo, the Lion. It will be about halfway up the sky in the east at moonrise. About a half-hour before sunrise look in the east just above the horizon for a brightening Venus which has made the trip from being the evening "star" to now being the morning "star." Above and right of Venus look for Jupiter. If you have binoculars, you might be able to find dim, blueish, Neptune to the lower left of Jupiter in the same binocular field of view. If you have a very clear eastern horizon look about two binocular fields of view to the lower right of Venus for a very dim Mars. If you are on a roll and find Mars, look to its lower left, in the same field of view, for a very dim Uranus. Don't worry if you can't find them now. Toward the end of the month they will all be visited by the moon which will make a ready and available help in finding them.

NEXT TIME:

More astronomical blathering.