By the Light of the Moon

Four members of NMH’s Observational Astronomy class and Physics and Astronomy Teacher Hughes Pack headed out to the observatory on a recent clear, cold night. Check that—a frigid night. The thermometer waned from 6 to 3.5 degrees Fahrenheit and the waxing gibbous moon shone brightly during the two hours they gazed upward at the Orion Nebula and attempted some lunar and constellation astrophotography.

But though fingers and toes lost feeling, students’ perseverance was rewarded: Jason Chow ’09 captured this image of the moon with the program’s Nikon digital camera directly attached to a 40mm Plossl eyepiece with a moon filter attached and mounted at the Newtonian focus of a 12-inch diameter Meade LightBridge Truss Tube Dobsonian telescope.

While Jason was working to get his pictures, students also used a 12.5-inch Newtonian focus reflector to observe the Orion Nebula through a very high quality 35mm Televue eyepiece fitted with an Oxygen III filter. “The filter allowed them to see much of the nebulosity surrounding this amazing celestial object which lives just below the sword in Orion’s belt,” says Pack.

Also busy was Gabe Isserlis ’09, who worked with his personal Nikon D40 DSLR camera mounted atop one of NMH’s polar aligned telescopes. He was imaging the Orion constellation region of the sky. With his camera riding on the back of this motor-driven telescope, he was able to take some cool 3- to 8-minute exposure images.

Joe Donnelly ’09 and Summer Yang ’09 were the other hardy souls who braved the cold to view the universe’s wonders. By the way, keep your eyes on the skies this Friday, December 12, when the full moon wil appear larger than usual. Read more.