Serendipity
Roger Curry Nov 20, 2000
Greetings!
Just wanted to pass along an incredible coincidence.
I was working with my astronomical society's vice president to
set dates for 2001's public observing programs. We rotate
between three public parks and the events are publicized through
the park's newsletter. We always do the programs on Friday
night and we try to take the Friday closest to First Quarter Moon
during the calendar month.
A problem arose with November, since the 1st Q date would
fall on Nov. 23 and put it into conflict with the Thanksgiving
holidays. So--do we move it up a week and have a bright
full moon, or go back a week and try to show off some of the
brighter DSO's? My friend asked me to check on Jupiter
and Saturn to see if they would be observable next year on
the 30th (full moon).
I brought up Guide and set my date and the time as 8 p.m.,
about half way through the observing session, then clicked
on the planet icon to bring up Jupiter. Jupiter was just a few
degrees off of the horizon at that time, so I tried Saturn.
Instead of Saturn, I got the Full Moon. I thought I must have
clicked the wrong button and did it again and again landed
squarely on the full Moon. So I time stepped the Moon in
15 min increments and out popped Saturn from behind the
Moon!
It appears that the east coast will get a fine show! It shows
first contact with Saturns rings at 00:19:15 (1 Dec 00) UTC
(from Jacksonville, FL which is -5 from UTC) and it will take
about a minute to completely occult the planet. Saturn will
emerge (ring) at about 01:22:11.
Because of my "discovery" of this event, we have changed
the venue to an oceanside park to get the best horizon for
the start of the occultation. I hope to have a low-light
video camera at prime focus of a telescope with the video
signal fed into a video recorder and a video projector so
we can show the live event to everyone at the same time.
I can not even think of how small of a chance it would be
to randomly pick a date and time and to find a major event
underway!
Great program, Bill.
Roger, in Jacksonville, FL
---------------
Roger Curry
Jacksonville, Florida
Visit the NEFAS Web Site at www.nefas.org
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