Astronomy Update – An Evening with a Girl Scout Troop

Astronomy Update – An Evening with a Girl Scout Troop

Penn Dixie

By Ernie Jacobs

On Saturday June 10th Penn dixie had the pleasure of hosting an outstanding group of young ladies (and their moms) from Troop 31339 from Orchard Park. The troop contacted Penn Dixie to work on their Sky Badge. The special event, marked the first successful astronomy program of the year, the weather was perfect. We took them on a tour of the night sky, identifying various stars, constellations, and we were able to view many awesome celestial objects. We had three telescopes set up, two for visual observing and one for imaging. We also had an opportunity to discuss the upcoming eclipse on August 21st.

Here are few pictures from the evening. Note: All images of celestial objects were captured during the event at Penn Dixie by Penn Dixie’s Jim Maroney.

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Members of the troop trying out eclipse glasses as the Sun was setting. Picture taken by Ernie Jacobs.
final jupiter penn dixie 6_10_17
An image of Jupiter captured during the event. Image was captured and processed by Penn Dixie’s Jim Maroney.
M13 Penn dixie 6_10_17
Messier 13 – The Globular Cluster in the Constellation Hercules. M13 is about 145 light-years across, 25,100 light-years away, and contains several hundred thousand stars. Image captured and processed by Penn Dixie’s Jim Maroney.
mizzar penn dixie 6_10_17
The Visual Double Star Mizar and Alcor located in the handle of the Big Dipper. Mizar itself is actually a quadruple star system and Alcor is a binary star system. Together they comprise a sextuple star system! Image captured and processed by Penn Dixie’s Jim Maroney.

Hopefully this marks an improvement with regard to our luck with the weather. Our next event is this coming Saturday June 17th at 8:30 pm. We hope to see you there!

Clear Skies!

Ernie Jacobs

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