Observing with that Christmas telescope

The hol­i­day sea­son is upon us. Most folks are filled with the joy that rises out of mass con­sump­tion, but I am feel­ing a few mis­giv­ings. I know that more than a few tele­scopes and binoc­u­lars will be sit­ting under trees on Dec. 25. Many of these mar­velous opti­cal instru­ments will sit idle until March as their own­ers hud­dle with cold-weather dread inside their houses.

The uni­verse is filled with won­der­ful things to see dur­ing the cold, dark days of Jan­u­ary. Buy a pair of ther­mal under­wear to throw into the box with your tele­scope pur­chase, noble gift givers. While you’re at it, clip this col­umn and pin it to the thermals.

The Moon

The moon has the advan­tage of being bright and easy to find. Unfor­tu­nately, our celes­tial neigh­bor is approach­ing full moon dur­ing Christ­mas week. Look­ing at the full moon in a tele­scope is guar­an­teed to cause eye strain. By the time the moon shrinks a bit, it’s vis­i­ble in the morn­ing, which means you’ll have to get up at an ungodly early-morning hour to see it.

The best time to check out Luna is dur­ing the cou­ple of weeks right after new moon when it’s not so bright and vis­i­ble in the early evening.

The first new moon after Christ­mas is Jan. 13. It won’t be con­ve­nient to observe until two days later dur­ing the early evening of Jan. 15. Go out at about 6:30 p.m. and look for its beau­ti­ful, thin cres­cent low on the south­west­ern hori­zon. (Don’t wait too long to go out that night. The moon will soon set behind the trees.)

Binoc­u­lars will show its craters, but that new tele­scope will give best view. Always observe the moon along the curved line (called the ter­mi­na­tor) between the lit and unlit moon. Point­ing a tele­scope solely at the lit por­tion will pro­duce a quick case of eye fatigue. Look for craters, moun­tain ranges, and the flat plains of frozen lunar lava called maria.

Each evening dur­ing the next week, the moon will get a bit higher in the sky. It will also get a bit fat­ter. As the ter­mi­na­tor marches across the face of the moon, new details will be exposed along its length. Most book­stores sell astron­omy books that include lunar maps. It’s fun to iden­tify for your­self the var­i­ous craters and moun­tains that you’re see­ing each night.

The Plan­ets

The best tele­scopic plan­ets are nicely placed for observ­ing dur­ing the early evenings of late Decem­ber and early January.

Jupiter is cer­tainly the best planet to observe in tele­scope or binoc­u­lars. Look for it in late Decem­ber as the bright­est star-like in the south­west. (You can’t miss it.) Binoc­u­lars will show three or four of its bright­est moons lined up around the planet. A tele­scope will show the moons and a lot more. Look for the brown cloud bands that look like hor­i­zon­tal zebra stripes stretch­ing all the way around the planet’s disk. At high mag­ni­fi­ca­tion, look for oval storm sys­tems at the bound­aries between the light and brown por­tions of the planet’s atmosphere.

If all you see is a fuzzy blob, please heed the advice below.

Look for Sat­urn as a some­what dim­mer point of light in the south­east just before morn­ing twilight.

Sorry, binoc­u­lars won’t help you on Sat­urn. How­ever, even the small­est of tele­scopes will show the disk of the plan­ets with its fab­u­lous rings around it. At high mag­ni­fi­ca­tion, look for the shadow of the rings on the planet as a gray­ish stain. You also might be able to see the largest break in the rings, called Cassini’s Divi­sion, as a dark line inside the ring and extend­ing all the way around it.

Above all, be patient when you are observ­ing plan­ets. Allow your tele­scope to reach the ambi­ent tem­per­a­ture by tak­ing it out­side a good hour before you intend to look through it. Many nights, tur­bu­lence in the atmos­phere will make the view fuzzy. On those nights, con­tent your­self with low mag­ni­fi­ca­tion and try again the next clear evening.

And that’s just the begin­ning, bud­ding stargaz­ers. Over the com­ing weeks, you can revel in the Great Neb­ula in Orion, a place where stars are born. You can watch a star die by point­ing your tele­scope at the Eskimo Neb­ula. You can feast your eyes on glo­ri­ous star clus­ters and dis­tant galax­ies. Watch this space for more details.

I remem­ber well my own jaw-dropping won­der at my first looks through a tele­scope, and the joy I felt at find­ing the objects myself. I envy you.

Tom Burns is the direc­tor of Perkins Obser­va­tory. He can be reached at tlburns@owu.edu.

Posted by Tom Burns on Dec 10 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Comments can be made below.