Making Memories

 Thanksgiving is a time for memories. Most often good one, families sitting together sharing meals, visits with relatives and friends. For others it might simply be watching movies or sleeping the afternoon away after a really big meal.

    I’m thankful for the fact that memories are still being made in my family. If I might entice you to come along with me, I’d like to take you back, just a couple days, to something that I know will stay with me for a long time.

    My daughter and her family haven’t been to Pittsburgh in nearly three years. Their oldest child is just over three and he now has a younger brother. It was Thanksgiving and the family was coming out to visit Pittsburgh. Everyone was excited and their schedule was rapidly filling up. Ann Marie and I were anxiously looking forward to our time with them in the days ahead.

    The house had been cleaned, rugs swept and washed, baseboards wiped and shelves dusted. Piles of books and papers scattered around the house were put away and the recently washed clothes had been put in their proper drawers and hung in the closet. If I say so myself, the house looked better than it had in a long time!

    One of the things I wanted to do was to show Mateo, my first grandson, the planet Saturn through a telescope. We both share a love of the planets. While he is only three years old, he knows their names, the order in which they orbit the sun and he feels bad that Pluto has been designated down to being only a dwarf planet. Some children gravitate towards dinosaurs; Mateo has been pulled towards the stars! Of course, a lot of what children find fascinating comes from what their parents present to them, after that, it is their own minds and imaginations which take over. This wise young lad also has a fascination with trains; his parents are leading him well!

    The day was looking great, not a single cloud was in the sky. The house was clean, cookies were cooling on a rack on the kitchen counter and the makings of hot chocolate sat beside them. I went outside and set up the telescope. Night was coming! Now all we needed was “the family”.

    I popped outside a couple times, looking to see if I could locate Saturn. The first time out I could see Jupiter, nestled in the limbs of a tree. Saturn would be further west, unencumbered by branches but unlike its brighter neighbor Jupiter, it wasn’t visible yet.

    Going back out again a half hour later, the ringed planet was visible. I turned the scope and lined it up. There it was, yellowish in color, just a small object in the wide eyepiece I was using, but the rings were visible!  Young children often have a difficult time focusing through telescopes and binoculars. It is something they have to learn how to do, some pick it up quickly while others need to practice. I wanted to present Mateo with the largest view of the planet as possible; a stronger eyepiece was needed.

    Luckily the air was nice and steady; the views with the higher-powered eyepiece looked great. Just as I was focusing on the planet, I bumped the scope. The planet slipped away, right as their car pulled up. The time required to remove two children from car seats gave me the time to relocate and center the planet!

    After exchanging hugs and kisses we took a quick look through the telescope and then we went in for cookies and hot chocolate. (There are priorities!) Mateo said he saw the rings and I’m happy to go with that! Inside, he ran around the house, having fun spinning the world globes. We sat around the table and talked while we snacked. What a nice evening, spending time with people you love, people you haven’t seen in a while, making memories!

    The family had other obligations later on so this night’s visit just a short one. As they were leaving, I moved the telescope over to Jupiter. The planet was a nice sized orb in the eyepiece, bands could be seen crossing its surface and the four brightest moons were in a nice line. Mateo saw them and counted the moons. The telescope was set so that he would be able to easily look into it; the adults had to crouch down a bit. But, this was for Mateo, not us!

    After my daughter’s family had left, Ann Marie and I tore the telescope down and put it away. Even though there were no clouds to be seen in the sky, I was floating on “cloud nine”!  I had shown Mateo Saturn, he had seen the planet’s rings and, he had seen Jupiter and its moons. In reality, to him, I think the most interesting thing he saw was the red buttons on the control paddle. It isn’t important, as long as he remembers the night.

    I can only hope that someday, way off in the future, he will think back to this night and possibly tell his own child about it as he shows them Saturn though his own telescope. Making some more memories!

    One more thing, just before they left after dinner a couple nights later, a train went past. Mateo and I went outside and watched as it crossed the intersection below the house. How’s that for a memorable ending to the visit?

We're Moving!

 Standing on top of the hill in the neighborhood cemetery, the morning was quiet. In the valley below, a few cars were on the road but there were no sounds. The sky above was full of stars.

    Behind me, Orion was sinking into the trees with the bright orange planet Mars sitting above. To “his” right was Aldebaran and to the left Sirius.  The constellations Gemini and Auriga were above. High overhead was Leo. It was like a winter night.

    In front of me, in the ESE, was where I was concentrating. I was waiting for the thin crescent moon to rise over the horizon. Approximately 3% illuminated, this will be my last chance to see the moon before the new moon, tomorrow.

    The Big Dipper’s handle led me down to Arcturus, a bit lower and off to the right was Spica. The moon would be rising below the pair. The time I had for Moonrise was 5:37. I started searching the horizon a few minutes earlier even though I knew it would appear about 5-7 minutes after the stated time.

    The camera was sitting on its tripod, the lens focused and pointing towards where I thought the moon would show up. An approximate time was set for the exposure, all I needed now was the moon!

    Below me, I saw the silhouette of a person walking on one of the roads through the cemetery, his flashlight flickering as he walked behind the monuments. I wondered if he would pass me but he took a different road. Beside him and a single deer I saw as I arrived, I was the only living thing here…

    Scanning my binoculars back and forth, I spotted the illuminated tip of the crescent at 5:44, seven minutes after the predicted time. I went over to the camera and started shooting. The moon appeared right where I had aimed the camera!

    I always find it fascinating to watch as any celestial object comes over the horizon. To see the motion of these objects is exciting to see. Being so close to the horizon, the motion is that much more noticeable! I was watching the earth spin and to a lesser amount, the moon orbiting the earth! Evidence of the coming sunrise was visible on the moon. How cool is that?

    Coming home, Orion was well below the trees, the planet Mars was tangled in their branches. Only a few stars were still visible but off in the east, the thin orange crescent was still visible. A half hour later, it had disappeared in the brightening sky, gone except for in my memory!

Ghosts of the Past

The November meeting of the Amateur Astronomers Association of Pittsburgh was held at the Allegheny Observatory, perched on a hill in Riverview Park. We haven’t had a meeting there in quite awhile. There were about 18 members that braved the downpours outside. The early darkness of Standard Time along with the pounding rain made the drive difficult. The other club members attended via the wonder of Zoom.

    The original observatory was built in 1859, on a hill overlooking Allegheny City, now Pittsburgh’s Northside.  

The present observatory was built in 1912 a few miles away. 

    This month’s meeting was devoted to the club's annual photography contest. It was extremely hard to pick your favorites out of the submitted shots. The members have a lot of skills, and the photo contest shows it!

    As the pictures were being shown, I noticed someone in the shadows, in the back of the auditorium, I thought I recognized him. It looked like Albert Einstein, could that be…maybe it was just one of the ghosts of the observatory!

    After the meeting, a few of us stayed behind and got a quick view of the new telescope in the Keeler Dome. Behind a locked door, we climbed a narrow set of stairs to another locked door which led us up a smaller set of stairs into the dome. The telescope towered above us as we climbed up the steps. A 24” PlaneWave telescope, it is the 4^th scope to take residence in this dome.

    Since it was still raining outside, we didn’t get to see anything through the scope but we did get to see how quickly it can slew from one side of the sky to another! While looking at the telescope and the 100 year old dome it is under, I was reminded of all the ghosts that roamed these halls. John Brashear served as the Acting Director of The Allegheny Observatory when it was located closer to the city. He and his wife Phoebe’s ashes are interred beneath the Thaw Telescope at this location. The halls here have been walked by hundreds of famous and learned scientists and astronomers, I’m happy to say that I know a couple of them!

    The ghosts are also memories of times spent here. The time I viewed Saturn through one of the big scopes, club meetings that were held here and the Christmas/Holiday parties held in the basement. Being taken on tours and seeing the multi-storied library and wishing that someday I’d have one just like it. Seeing the offices and workrooms, the machine shop and of course, being able to see the telescopes and the equipment used to do the research, soaking in the history that exists in the building!

    John Brashear’s statue sits in the hallway, greeting visitors as they enter the building. Like many before me, I rubbed his foot for luck as I passed the statue. John Brashear is a man that the people of Pittsburgh looked up to, the same way as many of the members of the AAAP do!

    Before we left, we squeezed through a small wooden door and a narrow unfinished corridor and went out onto the roof of the observatory. The biggest dome of the three, the Thaw dome was in front of us. The rain had slowed down a bit and we went out and looked around and then hurried back inside.

    After that, I returned to the main floor, got my hat and jacket and went out to the car, leaving the history and the ghosts behind.

The Final Lunar Eclipse of 2022

 The gear was sitting by the door; camera bag, tripod, a notebook, pens, binoculars and a flashlight. A winter jacket and a large cup of coffee would be taken also. The alarm was set for 3A.M. and then I slipped under the covers to get a few hours of sleep before the eclipse started.

    The eclipse actually started at 3:02, but I really was only interested in the portion which involves the darkest part of the earth’s shadow crossing the moon, the umbral eclipse. This started at 4:09. Totality started at 5:16 and would continue until the moon set.

    Some haze was covering the moon as I went to bed; I was hoping it would clear up as night progressed. After shutting off the alarm, I went out to see that the sky hadn’t improved at all. I made some coffee, got dressed and took my gear out to the car. I'm glad I had the winter jacket since the temperatures were in the 30’s.

    The moon was already dropping into the trees at my house. Mars and a few stars could be seen once I arrived at my “viewing spot”, the local cemetery. The haze interfered with photographs so I just enjoyed watching the shadow cross the moon’s disc. As the bright sliver of sunlight got smaller, the darkened portion of the lunar disc turned a dim rosy color.

    With the binoculars I could see the planet Uranus to the upper left of the moon, about 2 moon diameters away. (It looked like a star…) 

    Since the sky conditions weren’t cooperating with me, I turned my camera elsewhere and took some other shots. These turned out much better than the eclipse shots did!

    An hour and a half later, with the moon now sunk below the trees and heading towards the horizon, the sky in the east had turned orange. While standing outside the polling spot, waiting to cast my ballot, the sky had rolls of pink clouds scattered across it. The day was definitely off to a good start!

Notes

 Picture this, you are out somewhere and an idea pops into your head. If your anything like me, (?) you pull out your pen and your notebook and scribble a note. Now, I have to admit, I don’t see a lot of people walking around with pens and notebooks in their pockets, now days the phones take preference.  Still, I’d like to think there are a few out there!

    I have been writing notes for decades. It came from my profession. Being a machinist, I had to do lots of basic math problems and often needed to figure out angles and the lengths of their sides, trigonometry. A simple calculator would do the trick, but I always felt that to fully understand the problem, a sketch was usually necessary.

    I also needed to remember the numbers I had just figured out, the memory banks aren’t quite as good as I would like them to be. A notebook was always on my work bench and a writing implement was always near-by.

    For my own thoughts and notes, things that had nothing to do with work; I started carrying a small notebook in my chest pocket. Naturally, a pen was clipped in beside it. Its contents consisted of things such as, quotes I’d come across in books, dreams I had the night before, grocery lists and ideas about things I might write about.

    Dealing with that last subject, when I got home or had some free time, I’d sit down and review what I had written in my notebook. Then I’d take my pen and start writing my thoughts onto a sheet of paper.

    Looking back at some of these sheets, my original drafts, they were really a mess. Written in long hand, with words crossed out and others written above the lines with arrows pointing to insertion points, they were downright sloppy.

    When I finally got what I wanted, I would drag out the typewriter and type it onto a piece of nice paper. More recently, I type it into the computer, which gives me a lot better control over keeping track of them.

    I still start my essays with cursive, and to make it even better, I tend to write with a fountain pen. (It’s what I’m using right now!) My buddy and I recently went and bought ourselves some new pens. Mine is a fine tipped Lamy pen, chrome blue in color, filled with pale blue ink! It’s a very smooth writing pen. I have to say, it looks and feels nice also.

    It’s appropriate, since today is National Fountain Pen Day. The first Friday of November, a day dedicated to the use of this style of pen and, to promote the act of writing. Put your thoughts down on a sheet of paper and in honor of the day, use a fountain pen! Hopefully you’ll enjoy the experience, I always do!