SFU Trottier Observatory Starry Nights
It was my first time joining the weekly free observation events, supported by RASC Vancouver, at SFU’s Trottier observatory, home to a 27” PlaneWave Instruments CDK700 telescope. Unfortunately, UBC is currently without an observatory, something the UBC Astronomy Club is working hard at rectifying.
Just outside the dome, amateur astronomers set up their telescopes aimed at various targets above, happy to share their scopes with anyone interested in taking a look. Throughout the night, there must have been at least 10 scopes of various sizes set up, and I think around 80 people attended. Pretty remarkable for what turned out to be an intermittently cloudy night!
I was invited to this event by my colleague Jeff, who I recently discovered is an avid astronomer, and he brought his beautiful 5” Televue NP127 refractor, mounted on an equally beautiful (and beefy!) wooden tripod with an AZ mount complete with digital setting circles (DSCs) for push-to ability. He showed me how the two-star alignment worked, using his iPad to navigate around the sky. It was remarkable to nudge the scope and see the change reflected on-screen - I’m tempted to outfit my Stellarview M2C mount with DSCs now.
We set up around 8:30 pm and waited for the skies to darken; in the meantime, Jeff introduced me to some of the people he knew from past events. I enjoyed chatting with fellow astronomers and look forward to observing with them again at future events. Astronomy can be at times a lonely hobby, and it’s always good to make more connections.
These nights are primarily for outreach - there are lights everywhere and the skies are not adequate for hunting down the faint fuzzies. On this particular night, ominous clouds rolled in from the east but did not linger, so at least patches of the sky were reasonably clear. We managed to find some of the brighter showcase objects, including M3, M13, M57, M81/82, along with Vega, Albireo, Arcturus, and Mizar. Jeff was able to find the Messier objects with ease, using his DSCs, while I struggled to hop around in the light pollution. Streams of people came to look through his scope, and I snuck in some views myself. Nothing much to report; pinpoint stars and great contrast, as you’d expect from Televue’s flagship.
The highlight of the night for me was viewing Albireo and Beta Cygni B. The two stars, the former a dazzling red and the latter an ice blue, look incredible, especially in a good refractor.
I’ll be back to these events. I didn’t get a chance to view through the observatory scope - and I’d especially like to view the planets through a 27”!