McKenzie Lake Star Night - January 2018

We hosted the special Moon Edition of the McKenzie Lake Star Night and had a great time.  Many people turned out with their kids to view our spectacular celestial neighbour!

We spent a few minutes discussing what was shining down on us in the sky.  We covered the typical Winter constellations of Taurus, Orion and Gemini.  We also spent a few minutes talking about the Orion Nebula which is beautiful at this time of year.

We then moved onto the main topic of the Moon.  The first thing we covered was the different phases of the Moon and when they occur.  We discussed the major basins and maria that cover the near side of the Moon.  Next we talked about some of my favourite craters, including: Gassendi, Aristoteles, Ptolemaeus, Plato, Tycho and Clavius.

After the discussion on our Moon we moved to some extraterrestrial moons throughout our solar system.  There are some amazing moons out there that may be a good place to look for life!

After the presentation split into two groups with several people coming outside to view our Moon through the telescopes that were setup.  Another group stayed inside the warm building with hot chocolate and made their own moon!

Making a Moon

The weather was cool but the sky was very clear.  The Bay of Rainbows was beautiful and had some great definition as the terminator cut right through the middle of it.  The image below was an eyepiece projection of the view we had last night.

Waxing Gibbous Moon, January 26, 2018 (Image Credit: Philip Tracey)

A few of the children were able to point out Tycho sitting prominently in the southern hemisphere.  Plato and the mountains to the south of it were spectacular as always.

The moons that were being made inside were amazing!

Moons

Later in the evening we noticed Gamma Tauri nearly occulted by the Moon as it was only a few arcminutes away.  The Orion Nebula was visible but not nearly as beautiful as it could be with the urban and lunar light pollution throughout the evening.  We looked at the Pleiades with a wide field telescope and could see all the significant stars of this great open cluster!

It was a fun night for all who came and we look forward to having another community event in February or March!