Astronomy at Orchard Ridge: The Sun, The Moon, The Planets, and the ISS

Astronomy students w/ Moon,
getting ready to see the ISS.

June 5th was an eventful evening at Orchard Ridge. We had the opportunity to view the Sun, the Moon, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, and end the day with a flyby of the International Space Station. In addition, we had the Solar System Event lab, which on it's own was another mind boggling experience that sheds some light on how vast and empty our solar system really is. It is somewhat difficult for us to swallow the idea that a solar system with a unique planet such as Earth can be considered empty, in the cosmic perspective of things, it does seem that way.

We started off the evening with a viewing of our Sun, and were able to see 3 sunspots and quite the number of flares, though "tiny" around the edges of our star. As always, we used our Coronado PST solar scope for safe viewing with an H-Alpha filter. It's always a treat when we are able to see not only the flares around the edges, but also the granules and some flares on the front side of the Sun. A lot of these flares may look tiny to us, but each can engulf up to 3-4 Earths!

Safely viewing the Sun on May 29.


Sun June 5 through the Coronado PST. Sunspots didn't appear in photo.

Our first stop during the Solar System
Event, SOL. Joe is comparing the
size of Earth to the Sun.

After class, we started our Solar System Event lab. We constructed the solar system starting with SOL at Farmington Rd. Our scale model of the Sun (which by the way is very beautifully and brilliantly made) gives us a two-dimensional realization as to how large the Sun really is compared to Earth, and all the other planets. You can only imagine how a 3D model would look, and how even tinier it would make us feel. To me, this is the first part of a bigger realization of how truly small we are in our own neighborhood of planets. The Sun is massive, its flares would engulf us several times, and as Johannes Kepler once realized, it is in total control.

Sprinkling some asteroids.

Midway through, we stopped to sprinkle the asteroid belt. This is the part where it hits most people (or it should) on just how small asteroids and solar debris truly are in comparison to the solar system itself. We are sprinkling salt and pepper particles in an orbit that is roughly quarter of a mile away from Farmington Rd. Just imagine shrinking yourself to our scale model; Something the size of our space shuttle would be equivalent to the size of a bacteria. Now imagine you are that bacteria, venturing through the asteroid belt on our scale. What are the chances that you are going to run into one salt particle as you make your way to Jupiter?

At Jupiter, discussing
the scale of our
Solar System.

I believe the whole experience comes into perspective the moment we talk about our nearest star. On our scale, we are but nanometers tall (atomic scale); our buildings, space ships, and monuments are barely in the micrometers (bacteria, cells). We live on a planet that is the size of a small marble which is "floating" in space in an orbit around a star which without, we nano-particles wouldn't even exist. Our technology has ventured us to the outreach of our solar system, beyond the Kuiper Belt where a tiny bacteria we call Voyager 1 is moving at a pace of milimeters per year. On our scale, Voyager 1 is only at I-75, no where close to reaching our nearest star, and it's been 30+ years since we've launched it. As Joe put it, it would take many generations of people on a space ship to make it to our nearest star. In a way, it sort of is a lifestyle, one where the spaceship we build will be the only familiar home to the children that would be born on such a ship. Many will never know what it's like to be on Earth, and many will be born, live their lives and perish before the ship ever makes it back to tell whichever new civilization (if any still remains on Earth) about our nearest star. The saddest yet most humbling part of all this, is that there are billions of stars in our galaxy alone. I'll let that sink in.

The Moon on June 5, 2014. First quarter phase.
Taken with Nexus 5 camera through Orion 6" SkyQuest.

Saturn through telescope.
Best image I got so far.

We decided to have an optional viewing after lab. The twilight sky was brilliant, the Moon, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn were immediately visible right after the Sun dipped below the horizon. We were not able to see Mercury as it was very low by the horizon and of course trees and such were in our way. Though the summer skies are still quite bright around dusk, we were still able to enjoy the views of the Moon and the planets through the telescope.

Not long after, the stars began to appear. The brightest ones like Vega, Spica and Arcturus were among the first to be seen. It was a great evening for viewing. It was difficult to see any stars in the northern sky because the Sun had set in the northwest. It was still bright in that portion of the sky.

Fish-eye view of the ISS rising from the southwest and moving over our heads.
Top: Constellations, stars and planets labeled as the 15 second exposure made the stars show!
Note: ISS passing close to the Moon. Gaps in stream line are due to delay in taking photos
(I was busy watching the real thing!)

The grand finale of the evening was the flyby of the International Space Station. The ISS appeared in the southwest at 9:50 pm, and was visible for 6 minutes, reached an altitude of 84 degrees and disappeared in the northeast. It is always quite the sight, to see a bright star-like object zipping across the sky and knowing that there are 6 humans in that thing looking down upon us.