Feb 11, 2023: RIT Astronomy Club visits the Observatory

Michael Richmond
Feb 12, 2023

RIT has its own student-run Astronomy Club. They arranged to come to the Observatory tonight in order to take advantage of a rare clear night during this very cloudy winter.

A total of five student members braved the cold air (the temperature was about 30 F at the end of our observing) to look at objects through our 12-inch telescope. Our targets included

• Mars: only about 10 arcsec in diameter, but with a high-power eyepiece and some patience, we were able to see small variations in color and brightness across the disk.
• Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF): the famous "Green Comet" appeared more impressive on the video display from our finderscope than it did to the eye. We were able to detect an extension to the northeast, which is the base of the tail (or maybe the outer region of the coma).
• Orion Nebula: very pretty! We could see the Trapezium and traces of gas spreading out in all directions. No mention of color, though.
• Uranus: definitely not a star, but so small that we could see no detail. Its blue color is very unusual for a celestial object.
• Andromeda Galaxy: a bit disappointing, actually, since the disk is so diffuse as to be practically invisible. We could see the nucleus, but our eyes didn't pick up any interesting detail -- just a fuzzy blob.
• M35: this open cluster is perhaps a bit too big and sparse for our telescope's field of view; it might be better through a smaller instrument.
• Double Cluster: we concentrated on just one of the two neighboring clusters, but it was very pretty!