2023-04-23

5:00PM

Very memorable night. I started this weekend off by teaching Soren the basics required to operate a telescope and read star charts. While teaching him, I gave him the challenge of finding and observing M44 as his first DSO. The clouds opened up before sundown, and the moon was visible as a sharp crescent high above our heads so I encouraged Soren to put his skills to the test by observing the moon. He jumped at the opportunity, and quickly setup in the backyard.

6:45PM

He continued to track the moon for the next few hours, swapping eye pieces and getting familiar with using the scope. After dinner, he went back out and, noticing that Venus was bright and visible, changed his target and got a good observation on it with the 10mm eye piece all by himself.

As Venus and the moon started dropping in the west, they fell behind the branches of our backyard trees and he re-positioned his scope to be ready for M44 when it becomes visible. After sitting out with Carly, Gwen and Soren for about a half hour (we were hoping to catch a glimpse of a meteor from the Lyrid shower, even though it was a long-shot); it got dark enough for Gwen and Carly to go in.

9:17PM

I helped Soren recognize Leo and Gemini in order to find Cancer. After a bit of direction, he was able to spot the two dimmer stars representing the middle of Cancer and slewed his scope to δ Cancri. He then tried to use the Dec and RA knobs to find M44 (which should be NW). After a couple of failed attempts, he got too cold and ran indoors to bundle up with a warmer jacket.

I took this opportunity to investigate why he was having trouble. When he slewed to δ Cancri, he forgot to tighten the lock-screws on both his RA and Dec axis’, and as he was working the knobs for both, the telescope began drifting way off course. I slewed back to δ Cancri for him. When he came back outside he didn’t have any trouble finding M44 after that!

9:46PM

Soren went to bed (it was a school night), and shortly after I came back out with the AT102ED. My targets for tonight were NGC4631 (Whale Galaxy) and NGC4656 (Hockey Stick Galaxy). It wasn’t hard to find them SE of Canes Venatici, however I wasn’t able to get more than an detection. The glow of the sky seemed to be more intense tonight than what I was expecting (I was quick to blame the new street lights installed in our neighborhood).

After trying to get a better view of them, I sat back and noticed a stark beam of light shooting straight up from behind Angie’s house (from the direction of the closest street light). At this point I was getting angry. I knew that those new lights were almost omni-directional and would illuminate the tops of the trees in our yard, but to send beams of light straight up is ridiculous! I then looked out to the north over Belle Fourche, and my jaw dropped.

The whole skyline to the north was lit up, and what was more strange was the light appeared to be moving closer. It took me a minute to realize that it must be the northern lights! I ran into the house to get Carly and Soren (neither of them fell asleep yet) and we ran to the front porch to observe.

None of us had ever seen the Northern Lights before, and this introduction to it was spectacular. As we watched to the north, waves of light seemed to pulse from north to south above our heads through ‘wisps’ of what could have been mistaken for light clouds. The lights were steadily moving from north to south and passed over our heads out of sight. I asked Carly to kiss me so we can say that we “kissed under the Northern Lights”.

Carly and Soren went back to bed, and I walked back into the back yard to continue to watch. I have to admit, that I got choked up and had to fight back tears. The ‘wisps’ of the lights seemed to spiral into a ‘vortex’ to the south of Spearfish, and the light was all around. I stood there gazing in a surreal stupor for a good half hour as the effect began to diminish, then I packed up the scope and went to bed.

What a cool night! To have Soren grab his first few observations (super-proud dad mode kicked in), and to see the Northern Lights for the first time. What a blessing!