Locale: The cabin (200 klicks north of Winnipeg)
Conditions: Excellent transparency, very good seeing,
Equipment: Pentax 8 x 40 binoculars; reclining lawn chair
Time: 12:19 am to 1:40 am
We packed up on Friday evening and travelled up to Pelican Inlet. The forecast was for solid rain all weekend, and I left my usual optics behind in the city. Sure enough it rained all day Friday and Saturday morning, but then the skies cleared, the sun beamed, the meadow steamed, the trees shook themselves clear of water, and the lake sparkled with whitecaps from a steady Westerly breeze.
As I worked in the back yard to prepare a small spot for my planned astro deck, I noted two grey owl chicks in a tall spruce checking out my movements. As the wind blew the tree top ever so slightly, their heads moved to compensate in a miniature tandem ballet as they kept their stares locked upon me. The chicks are already the size of small chickens, and just developing their famous tufted ears. Mama showed up sporadically all day long to bring them mice, and an unlucky ruffed grouse, with with they ate with leisure. Daddy was nowhere to be seen, having long flown the “coop”.
I stayed up with the family and around midnight, noted the sky’s extreme clarity which always seems to accompany a long deluge of rain. I grabbed my binoculars and chair and began to stargaze and practice my star hops. It was the kind of night wherein the stars don’t sparkle much, and dim clumps of stars appear very readily with the naked eye. In some cases I used averted vision cues to prompt me to examine those targets more closely.
I love observing in spring, as there are no insects and the temps are nice, the human activity is also minimal. I did the entire observation session in my pajamas,
Ursa Major – I was able to split Mizar and Alcor with no drama, and then jumped over briefly to Cor Caroli. Back to Ursa Major, I jumped to Tania Australis (uUMA), which appear with other stars as the second set of gazelle tracks in the southern part of the constellation.
Spica and Arcturus, in their usual spots, so useful for a two-star alignment when I am armed with more forbidding scopes, ushered in more niceties to the South and East. I note that Virgo and Leo have begun their drop into the West at this time. I’ve got to get more big telescope time somehow to grab their riches of galaxies. Looking south over the lake and at maximum depression, I was able to spot some of Scorpius dancing on horizon. Welcome back Scorpius, loaded with rich and unusual astro goodies!
Moving East, I noted the summer triangle with Vulpecula and Delphinus, in proximity to the plane of the Milky Way. From the relatively sombre and quiet solitude of Ursa M to this segment of the galactic plane, with my humble binos is to witness a riot of stars, and on this evening, so numerous that one simply has to stare for a while and recalibrate landmark stars, which become lost in the embarrassment of riches.
As Andrey said once “Why can’t all evenings/sessions be like this?”
In Delph, Job’s coffin made itself apparent. Just to the south Theta Delph and a small cluster of companions of similar magnitude were noted.
I moved up into Cygnus to search for the Veils and the N. American and gamma Cyg nebuli, but I couldn’t confirm this on this evening.
Mama Grey Owl welcomed me back to the south side of the cabin with a few low hoots to remind me that her kids needed their sleep and that perhaps I should go to bed myself, so I quietly moved the chair back to the deck and packed it in.
As always, thanks for reading to the bottom.
Ian
I never leave home without a pair, cause you never know. Watching the owl family must been very special to. I see them hunting from home and at the desert, but never saw a chick.
