August 9, 2025 Seagrave Observatory Night
by Jim Hendrickson, Francine Jackson & Matt White
Before the scheduled open night last evening, I went up to the observatory and inspected the Alvan Clark telescope. Upon a visual and functional inspection, I could not find any operational issues with the telescope. A functional test revealed that all the clockworks were working as designed, and the RA axis was moving normally. A visual inspection revealed a missing screw on the governor (which we knew about) and the bent weight rod on the pressure plate which is also a pre existing condition. The weight rod can slip, and get in the way of the sector arm, although Mike and Jim have indicated that this wasn’t the case last Saturday evening. Another possibility would be that the RA lock wasn’t tight enough, but I’m not convinced that is the case either. The most likely cause is either the pressure plate worm was not fully engaged, or the RA slow motion control was not set to the “sweet spot” causing the object to drift out of view. The targeted object will drift out of the field very quickly if the RA slow motion is not in the correct position. I did find a screw to replace the one missing in the governor. As for the pressure plate rod, I’m going to use a small amount of blue Locktite to keep the rod in the north position. If you tighten it down, the bend faces south, exactly what we don’t want to happen.
As soon as the sky got dark enough, I trained the scope over to Vega and locked it down. After fine tuning the slow motion control, the scope held the target rock steady. As soon as the moon came out of the trees, we trained over and showed it for the rest of the evening. Our last guests left around 11:00 pm.
On the Seestar, I showed M57, M16, M17, M27, M31 and M102. I tried to show M57 with the Clark, but it was hiding and I couldn’t see it.
We had almost 40 people come through last evening.
Matt
It was a beautiful Saturday night, and Matt White, Mike Kerr, Jim Hendrickson and Francine Jackson welcomed the public.
Matt and Mike, while waiting for the Moon to rise, showed the bright star Vega, until the Moon appeared, when everybody wanted a peek through the 8-inch Clark.
Jim, in the 12-inch dome, was able to show M13, M27, M11, the double-double, and other deep sky objects.
Francine spent her time going between the two open domes, answering questions, and making the public aware of what was visible in the telescopes.
Throughout the night, about 25 visitors spend time with us on a clear, moonlit, Seagrave Saturday night.
Francine
Saturday, August 9 could have been the best night of the year. Skies were clear and transparent, free of the wildfire smoke that had persisted for the previous few days. The temperature was in the low 70s with low humidity and light breeze.
This was my first session using the motorized roof on the 12-inch Meade, which works well, but no longer allows the operator to push the roof farther back on the rails, and it blocks a considerably large chunk of the south. Many objects in Scorpius and Sagittarius are no longer accessible.
The sky is now beginning to get dark enough to start observing by the 9pm start time even when there are no bright planets or Moon available. The first object to appear was Vega, which I aligned the telescope on. I moved to the Double Double and boosted magnification for the first object to show. As the sky darkened, I turned to M13, then had a request for a nebula, so I turned to M27. One of the visitors had talked about seeing a supernova remnant on a previous visit, likely the Crab Nebula, which led to a brief discussion about stellar evolution. We then checked out M57, which was somewhat easier to see. The light from a 99% gibbous Moon limited us to view only the brightest objects available. I then showed M11, one of the finest open clusters in the sky,
About 25 visitors came, some visiting the scope two and three times. A boy of about 10-12 years in age, filled with curiosity but a little shy to speak up at first, came with his mother, and they spent considerable time with Francine and me at the telescope. This was their first visit, and they were very interested in returning on future Saturday nights.
Observing conditions remained ideal later into the evening, and the rising Sturgeon Moon cast a pleasant light over Seagrave Observatory. Two or three fireflies flashed occasional signals from the back woods, while the crickets and katydids put on a particularly active chorus.
When most of the visitors left, I decided to showcase T Lyrae as the last object of the night. I used the scope's coordinates to slew to the notable carbon star just 2° from Vega, which showed a deep red hue rivaling that of the red lights in the observatory. By this time, though, it was already after 11:00pm, and Matt and Mike were already closing the dome.
Jim
