Two Star Parties in Canada to celebrate SwB3

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Thilina Heenatigala

About Me
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Member Since: Nov 2009

Report

We actually ended up doing two “Seasons Without Borders” Star Parties to represent Canada; one on Sunday June 20th and the other on Tuesday June 22nd. The first took place at Humber Bay Park, a spit of land sticking out into Lake Ontario, overlooking the downtown core of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. About 35 people attended (from the “Single Horizons” club) and skies cleared just in time for some spectacular viewing.

We run a desk top computer & 22” LCD screen to present our initial, basic “Astronomy 101” talk on the universe (beginning with the AWB’s tremendous, Hi-Def Video), then turn our seated audience towards a second monitor hooked up to the sensational “MallinCam,” mounted on my friend, Gord Skerratt’s 10” Meade LX-200.

The AWB logo was attached prominently on the tube, and we made sure our guests knew they were representing Canada in AWB’s World-Wide, “Seasons Without Borders” Star Parties.

Our guests got to view close-up views of the Moon & Saturn before we “cranked up” the MallinCam’s sensitivity and started looking at Deep Space objects. I wasn’t sure how much luck we’d have – so close to the light-polluted downtown core of Toronto. But the MallinCam proved to be an astounding performer. We not only filled the monitor with a blazing display of stars in Globular Cluster M13, we also managed to acquire an unbelievable image of M57, The Ring Nebula. Despite the fact you could see little more than Vega in that part of the sky, the image showed “The Ring” in brilliant colour, and the central 15th magnitude star was easily visible (along with several background stars!)

My only regret is that I was so busy, I forgot to take pictures! So to make up for that dismal mistake, I held another party for friends & neighbours in our backyard (in the rural Ontario hamlet of Cedarville). About 10 people showed up, and although we had to wait a while for the skies to clear, we eventually viewed another spectacular series of images thanks to the MallinCam (and my partner, Michelle Goodeve, remembered to take some pictures!)

Hope everyone else had as much luck as we did. Cheers till next time!

Report by: Glenn Norman (President Why Fly Inc.)

Some photos from the event: