Astronomy Night at Providence Canyon State Park

Last night’s Astronomy Night at Providence Canyon State Park was truly the most magnificent star and planet viewing I have ever witnessed. I have been using Google Sky Map on my phone to look at stars and planets from my backyard, along with my telescope, and I have been disappointed that I haven’t been able to see what I expected to see. I always got that disappointed feeling that I wasn’t using my telescope correctly.

But I now know that I was using my telescope correctly, and it was just the fact that Columbus has a tremendous amount of light pollution blocking the faint light of the stars. At Providence Canyon, I was able to see Jupiter and Venus more clearly and brighter than I have ever witnessed, and for the first time I was able to see the four moons of Jupiter! I didn’t quite know what to expect, because I assumed Jupiter’s moons would be quite small compared to the massive planet, but through the telescope at least, the moons looked like four large planets ¼ the size of Jupiter or even possibly larger!

The most amazing thing I witnessed on Astronomy night was four satellites crossing over the night sky. I had never actually seen a satellite moving, and was quite surprised at how fast they moved. Dr. Rosa Williams noted that some satellites can rotate around the Earth in 90 minutes, which is exactly how fast they must be moving, because within a blink they can appear and then be gone.

Sirius was also a star that surprised me. I didn’t realize just exactly how bright it was. And Betelgeuse was another star that was quite astonishing. I knew it was a red giant, but I never quite realized how red in the sky it appeared, quite possibly as red as mars if it was comparative in apparent size.

I was only disappointed in viewing of the nebulas. A helpful Astronomy volunteer was able to find The Crab Nebula with one of the telescopes, and informed me that it was visible, but was extremely faint and looked like a small finger print smudge on the glass. I’m not even sure if I would say it was that bright, unfortunately.  However, to my surprise, The Milky Way Galaxy was extremely bright and very unmistakable as a large band over the night sky.

Now I know the secret to viewing the night skies – the darker the setting, the more one will see. I do plan to attend another Astronomy Night at Providence Canyon State Park , and perhaps even a viewing at Callaway Gardens. Hopefully the weather will be cooperating.