On Friday March 14, BSAS had a star party at Montgomery Bell State Park in Dickson, Tennessee from 5-9:30. The weather forecast looked poor with clouds and wind, but the sun kept shining between clouds, so Ranger Runkle and I agreed to not cancel and see what happened.
I arrived at 5:00 and setup for solar viewing. I showed about 12 sunspots to several park guests and one mother & son who came specifically for the star party, till the sun set into the tree tops. Then switched to tree blossoms on a distant hilltop.
Clouds and haze came and went, but
I searched for Venus in the bright sky. I was about ready to give up as I was pretty sure it would be down in the tree branches, but “never give up, never surrender“, there was the thinnest crescent Venus I’ve ever seen shining brightly threw the branches. I was able to show it to the 5 people that were nearby.
Jupiter was next to be seen in the slowly darkening sky. We had great views of its cloud belts and 4 Galilean moons.
When our moon rose above the trees, I gave everyone some closeup views of Mare Crisium, Tycho & the south polar region and talked about the Blue Ghost and IM-2 landings and future Artemis missions.
An unexpected highlight for me and my guests was a bright pass of a Starlink satellite chain. I counted 20-21 satellites. Presumably either Starlink Group 12-20 or 21 that were launched this past Sunday and Wednesday on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and are now slowly separating from each other.
Even though I was the only astronomer to come, the people that came all got to see a wide variety of targets as the sky got very clear for most of the dark time. I received many thanks for showing them so many things.
Targets viewed:
Sun and 12 to 15 Sun spots.
Thin crescent Venus down into the trees.
Jupiter and cloud bands clear
3 Galilean moons to one side and 1 moon on the other side.
Mars
Orion Nebula
Trapezium, very clear
Betelgeuse by request
Sirius by request
Pleiades
Auriga’s goat “kids” asterism
M36 star cluster in Auriga
Mizar A & B and Alcor
The Moon
Mare Crisium, location of Blue Ghost lander.
Tycho and ejecta rays
~10 separate satellites
A 20+ Starlink satellite chain!
Two or three meteors
I had about 20 total viewers. 8 came specifically for the star party. Others were just in the park. 2 guests came from Hopkinsville just for this star party. 2 came about 5:30 for the sun viewing and star party.
It turned out to be a great night of viewing. Our fickle weather was just teasing us.
“I’ll be back.” I have 4 more star parties scheduled in Montgomery Bell this year.
Chuck Schlemm
Moon Society Nashville Outpost
Barnard Seyfert Astronomical Society
NASA Solar System Ambassador