University of Miami Astronomy Club



CURRENT MOON

Dark Sky Trip - October 2009

Our first trip of the semester turned out to be a major success. We had over 40 members come out to the Everglades National Park with us. As we arrived we met up with the Southern Cross Astronomical Society (http://www.scas.org) who also had about 20 members of their own already camped out with telescopes and astrophotography equipment.

As we arrived and looked up to the sky we were able to see, with absolute clarity, the Milky Way as bright as ever. There were thousands of stars visible. The deepest space objects were bright and clear through our telescopes.

We turned the telescopes first to the moon, a Waxing Gibbous. After we viewed Jupiter and it's 4 Galilean satelites. Next came the Ring nebula, Lagoon Nebula and other planetary Nebulas. The Caldwell 14, a double star cluster, was exceptionally bright and clear with over a hundred visible stars through the eye piece. The Andromeda Galaxy, M31, was bright and clear. Also visible was M33, M15 and M22. We waited until about midnight for the Orion Constellation to rise so we could view the Orion Nebula which was blue, bright and beautiful.

The entire night was filled with good fun and music, we played guitar and sang along to the songs.

Everyone was finished viewing by about 12:30am so we packed up the telescopes and headed back to Miami.

I'd like to personally thank all the last minute drivers who helped out, there were definitely more people than expected who came, so thank you for helping out!