Eyes Full Of Stars

I was heartened to see the signatures of Neil Armstrong, Eugene Cernan and Jim Lovell attached to a letter challenging the US leadership to step-up a plan to enable continued activity both in low earth orbit and beyond. If you haven’t read it already, here is a complete copy:

The United States entered into the challenge of space exploration under President Eisenhower’s first term, however, it was the Soviet Union who excelled in those early years. Under the bold vision of Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon, and with the overwhelming approval of the American people, we rapidly closed the gap in the final third of the 20th century, and became the world leader in space exploration.

On the morning of April 12^th, 1961, the chimes atop the Kremlin’s Spassky tower greeted the new day. A day that would see the name Yuri Gagarin rise from virtual anonymity to worldwide acclaim. Monday is the 49^th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin’s pioneering single orbit trip around the Earth. With a total flight time of 108 minutes, his journey opened the first chapter in the history of manned spaceflight.

Born in the western Russian village of Klushino on March 9^th 1934, Yuri Gagarin lived with his 3 siblings and parents. His mother was an avid reader and his father was a carpenter. Later, as German forces invaded their country, Yuri’s father joined the Russian Army. Soon afterward, his mother relocated the family away from the war zone.

Leaping across the sky as March gives way to April, we find the constellation Lepus, the hare. Like the animal it represents, Lepus lies still and inconspicuous below Orion’s feet poised to escape if detected by the hunter’s dogs Canis Major and Canis Minor. Lepus hosts a couple of interesting deep sky objects – the globular cluster M79 and Hind’s Crimson Star.

I was setting up my 20″ mirrored reflector last night for some Astronomy Adventures guests and I thought “hmmm, I wonder if I can catch the pup?” So I popped in a 6mm eyepiece and with the Paracorr in place, it yielded about 523x. Dang, Sirius was bright! It took a while to get the scope tracking just right. Even a little bit of wander translates in to big error at this magnification.

After checking all around and hoping the diffraction spikes weren’t laying on top Sirius B, I saw it!