StarWatch: Moravian University Astronomy

StarWatch for the greater Lehigh Valley

OCTOBER 2024

OCTOBER STAR MAP | MOON PHASE CALENDAR | STARWATCH INDEX | NIGHT SKY NOTEBOOK

CURRENT MOON PHASE

1468 OCTOBER 6, 2024: The Most Remarkable Fynn: I first met Fynn in a Morning Call newspaper clipping from The Center for Animal Health and Welfare in Easton. Rabbits are very difficult to photograph, but here was this two-pound, perfectly formed miniature Dutch staring into the camera like no one would ever steal his right to party. Several days later, my wife and I met him in person, then named Gizmo, a nine-month, purebred, Grand Prize winner at the 2014 Great Allentown Fair. We bonded almost immediately. We were told that after the fair concluded, Fynn had been purchased by a family that owned a dog, and he and Fynn just had not gotten along. His introduction into our rabbitry made it evident that the dog had been the loser. Fynn was a sprayer. * I remember coming down into our garage one morning to greet our herd of three bunnies, and Fynn got me on the face, shirt, and jeans. Then there was a mad dash back and forth in his cage as if he was trying to escape the inevitable chase of the dog, but it was only me trying to calm him down. I went upstairs, washed, changed, and returned to the garage, and Fynn did it again. Ironically, Fynn never sprayed my wife. Our washer and dryer did some extra duty that first month, and I came very close to returning him; but we had dealt with difficult rabbits before, and they had always come around. Fynn was no exception. * The settling process accelerated once he was transferred to a larger condo cage, and within several months, Fynn, the sprayer, became Fynn, the lover. Upon greeting our herd in the morning, our other two rabbits, a brother and sister pair, would acknowledge my presence, but Fynn would dance, running around his cage, jumping over his grass hut, climbing up on the wire walls, and yes, sometimes spraying, but generally not at me. I had to pet him first, and he would show his affection by licking my hand with his small, dry, rough tongue. Often we would rub noses. It was the same when I held him while watching TV, a virtual licking frenzy as he attempted to groom me while I petted him. When I went to pay attention to the other two bunnies, he often thumped and rattled his food bowl, insisting that he be the last bunny petted too. Most of the time, Fynn got his way. * His eating habits were also very different. About four years into his Becker residency, we noticed his food bowl was consistently being placed under his drinking spout, saturating its contents. One day, I moved it to the center of the cage, and I could see that he was frustrated, maybe even angry. He quickly pushed it back to its original position and began to eat, taking a short sip of water after finishing each morsel of food. I have never seen or heard of dogs or cats doing that, and none of our other rabbits have ever eaten that way. He had learned that on his own. * Fynn would spend days meticulously chewing on his woven grass hut, engineering a perfectly circular escape route in case of danger. When the hut became too old, Fynn would simply chew it into dilapidation, and we would give him a new one, with his initiating the same process over again. Rabbits are very repetitive and they enjoy a routine. In the morning, many times he would move his hut to the center of the cage and hop around its perimeter. * Can a small two-pound Dutch rabbit teach humans how to conduct their lives with a giving spirit? It may seem too simplistic a proposition to consider seriously, but aren't many of our core values straightforward: love, respect, and acceptance? I have seen that giving spirit reflected in the attitudes of most dogs and several of our rabbits, but never to the extent that Fynn had displayed them. Loving Fynn for my wife and me was as simple as breathing. * To our deep sadness, Fynn passed, hopefully to that Great Heavenly Carrot Patch on August 29 at the Methuselah age of ten years, seven months. A photo of him sleeping on my lap can viewed here. Ad Astra!

OCTOBER 13, 2024: Chaco Retreat

If you ever have the chance to visit Chaco Culture National Historical Park near Nageezi, New Mexico, take that opportunity. Just getting there is an adventure in itself, as you maneuver your vehicle on a washboard dirt road hoping that a rouge nail doesn't take out a tire. Except for the signs, you would think that somehow you got the directions wrong. You would think that no one could live there and thrive. * The high desert is unforgiving, barren, and windswept, unless you have the trained eye of a Native American. It's the sort of place you would want to avoid, home to animals and insects foreign to city dwellers living in more comfortable surroundings. Then a round Navajo hogan greets your eye against the brown sandy soil, steer and horses graze on dried grasses near the road's edge, and you realize someone does reside here amongst the brambles and tumbleweed. It is mostly empty though, and the emptiness makes the trek to Chaco even more formidable from a psychological perspective. You cross a dry wash, an arroyo that could sweep your car away from the churning waters of a distant rain. And then when you are ready to turn around and go back to the highway, the familiar green National Park sign mounted on a masonry wall greets you and gives you a sigh of relief. * Chaco Canyon is a place of soaring stone structures and forgotten lives. On a seven-mile loop road you can witness the remains of an ancient Puebloan culture that is now home to coyotes, elk, prairie dogs, hares, and snakes. Always present is Fajada Butte, a sacred place used as a solar calendar and observatory and perhaps the foremost reason why these inhabitants decided to settle in this hostile environment. * The most significant of the many settlements dotting the canyon floor and surrounding mesas is Pueblo Bonito, a huge D-shaped complex whose use is still disputed. Was it for living quarters, storage for crops, used for religious ceremonies or all of the above? The precise answer has dissolved with time and the people who lived there. It is hauntingly beautiful with colors of tan, ochre, red, and brown walls. Walking inside takes you into a lost world again begging the question of its utilitarian purpose. * Visiting Chaco is like going on a retreat. It is a place that calls you to meditate upon life and your significance within its framework. The modern world is distant and far away. Only the blue sky, the ancient structures, the call of a raptor, and the dry, moaning wind remain. It is almost transcendent in its atmosphere. * Chaco offers you a place to evaluate priorities. It invites you to touch your own spiritual center. Because Chaco Canyon and its environs was once abundant with life, you wonder where the people have gone and what their vision of life entailed. Maybe drought, war, famine, and sickness had a part in their departure. If you sit quietly, you can perhaps feel the sadness of having to abandon your traditional home for a safer and more food secure future. * Today, you can marvel at how Chaco flourished in so unwelcoming an environment. At dusk you might hear a flute player, his melody mysterious and haunting, the somber notes echoing among the nearby canyon walls. Near dusk you can almost see and hear the past, dogs barking, children playing, and its residents settling in quiet conversation, preparing for the night. * Chaco is a wondrous place. Its desert and surroundings call us to slow down and reflect on life and expectations. It presents a veil between the present and the past that you can almost penetrate until the lone call of a coyote brings you back into the present. Ad Astra! This article was written by Susan Becker.

Casa Chiquita in mid-October near sundown. Gary A. Becker image...

A morning view of Kin Kletso, just off the path of downtown Chaco where most of the major Ancestral Puebloan Great Houses are located. Gary A. Becker image...

The Pueblo Alto Complex is composed of New Alto in the distance and more ruined Old Alto to the right of this image. Like Penasco Blanco about two miles distant in the direction of New Alto, these Great Houses were far from souces of fresh water. These sites date back to the early construction periods in Chaco Caynon. Gary A. Becker image...

1470 OCTOBER 20, 2024: A Comet's "Tail": I can't say that I get overly excited about comets these days. "Comets are like cats," according to acquaintance David Levy, who has discovered or co-discovered 23 of them, including the famous Shoemaker-Levy 9 interloper that crashed into Jupiter in July of 1994. "…they have tails, and they do precisely what they want." That pretty much sums up my experiences with comets, not just because they're fickle, and we need to deal with the light pollution in the Lehigh Valley, but also many times because of media hype that makes them seem like they are the last best chance to view a spectacular astronomical phenomenon. For me, comets tease rather than please. * So when I heard about C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS) discovered by Chinese astronomers and named in Mandarin for "Purple Mountain," the Purple Mountain Observatory where it was first detected (That's the Tsuchinshan part), and ATLAS, an acronym for Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System, protecting us from unwanted natural space calamities, I thought, "Ho-hum." The "C" stands for a single-apparition comet one that probably will never return to the sun, and the 2023 A3 means that it was the third comet discovered in the first half of January 2023. C/2023 A3 was closest to the sun on September 28 at a distance of 36 million miles. I had hitched my enthusiasm to a bunch of sungrazers and other comets like ATLAS that got close to the sun, with great expectations, only to have the sun literally disintegrate them with its intense radiation. "Once bitten, twice shy" has become my mantra with these squirrely objects. * Fortunately, C/2023 A3 made it around Sol. It became a stunning object for southern hemispheric observers, and now that it has crept north, we are able to witness its diminishing display. * I have not seen it with my unaided eye—keep in mind the moon was full on the 17th—but my Moravian University students could do that with their younger, more sensitive vision under intense moonlight just this past Thursday. We found a spot outside the city lights, which provided the kinds of memories I like to give my learners when they enroll in my course. * Here is the skinny on viewing Comet ATLAS, as most of us have called it. Even though it is supposed to be fading, it has held its own quite nicely with a long, beautiful tail in images and binoculars. Students on Thursday, October 17, were able to record it with their smartphones, hand-held, although providing support to steady the camera is advisable. You'll need a location with a perfect southwestern horizon, and the key to determining that will be your ability to witness brilliant Venus low in the SW during dusk. The comet will be above and to Venus' right but moving during the next week over Venus and eventually just to its left by October 26. You will need to wait until Venus sets and it gets darker. With binoculars, scan about three fists held at arm's length, stacked upon one another above the horizon to get to the correct altitude, and then start viewing back and forth with binoculars. The other method is what my students did. I told them the general direction, and they photographed that part of the sky with their hand-held smartphones and found it almost immediately. After viewing ATLAS, they used binoculars to enhance the comet's appearance and visibility. * Very little comes easily in astronomy in light-polluted environments, but for those who make an effort, I think you'll be successful. Give ATLAS a try, but do it very soon before it fades. My current pictures are below, with more to follow if the weather cooperates. Ad Astra!

1471 OCTOBER 27, 2024: Night Moves: CAUTION: The Person near the side of the road may be packing—a telescope and a camera, that is. During these last several weeks, photographing C/2023 A3 (Tsuchinshan-ATLAS), better known as Comet ATLAS (See last week's StarWatch 1470), has brought back some fond memories of going out to record the darkening twilight sky when an astronomical apparition occurred. I have been immersed in constructing a personal backyard observatory for the past five years, and time and energy don't always sync to allow me these opportunities. ATLAS, however, was different because it probably was the best comet to grace our local skies in the past several decades, and it was visible in the evening when I was still semiconscious after a day's work. * I have a portable astrophotography setup that allows me to track an object along with the Earth's rotation (spin) so that the stars and objects I am attempting to capture remain stationary in the sky. I like to remain close to the ground, so I don't attract attention or lights from passing cars. It also makes my equipment a little more stable and dampens any chilling, uncomfortable breezes present. * I had two favorite spots from where I usually imaged the heavens. The closest one to my home was only several blocks away, and it has now become a housing development as my locale has evolved into a bedroom community for Philadelphia and New York City, according to a recent NY Times article. * An older woman would always call the cops when she detected my presence. She would peek from a side window, lifting a Venetian blind one rung, her eyes just visible, peering outward to ensure justice was being served. I'd wave occasionally, probably not my smartest move, and within a few minutes, a police car would come silently rolling up. The officer, always polite, would ask me the standard questions. After multiple occurrences, the questioning stopped, and I eventually got to know the individuals, not by name, but by voice since it was dark. The officers also began showing interest in the images I was snapping. * The funniest evening transpired when one of the officers was so engaged in my photographs that he asked my permission to contact some of his buddies to come over and look. These weren't his neighbors but other patrol cars in the vicinity. Within a few minutes, it looked as if there was a major police action occurring in the neighborhood (a little exaggeration here). That woman must have been absolutely apoplectic at witnessing the response as the officers huddled around me trying to glimpse what I had just recorded on my camera's digital sensor. * Another memorable incident occurred when I took pictures at a more rural location about four miles from home. I had been there multiple times and knew I was being watched. Finally during one session, an off-road vehicle approached and stopped near me, and a young man dismounted retorting the famous, "What are you doing here?" question that I had heard so often. After a quick explanation that I was an adjunct instructor at Penn State University's Fogelsville Campus (sorry, Moravian University) and what I was trying to accomplish, the tensions melted away, and he began showing an interest in my pursuits. Then he abruptly stopped and said, "My girlfriend just took an astronomy course there a few semesters ago." "I must have been her teacher," was my response. He immediately contacted her and she came over. We had a nice little reunion watching several bright planets set in the west. That same field was where I got my best image of Comet ATLAS just a few days ago among the echoing cries of two or three coyotes calling to each other as the twilight sky faded into a beautifully clear evening. Check below for the image of ATLAS taken from the locale just mentioned in this blog. Ad Astra!

[October Star Map]

[October Moon Phase Calendar]