The O-TEAM: A Thousand and One Nights - Part 2

Once upon a time, at a tiny cul-de-sac, in the village of North Falmouth, Cape Cod, Mass -

"This morning - was something to remember"...

So the note goes, written in pencil, on an official Edmund Scientific observing notes template, on the warm, sunny morning of 8 May 1983, by one, Mike Petrasko - one-third, of that notorious 3-member "gang" of optical aficionados, the "O-Team".

But, I think the tone of the note, was an understatement;

as observing sessions go, this one was outstanding, on several accounts! We had a guest for this session, a friend of Mike's, Shawn, who had never really had an opportunity, before this, to observe the sky with a telescope (and - he may not have, since!)

I arrived, on location, at around 2:00am. The others - Mike, Muir, and Shawn, were just waking from a short night's sleep, camped out at the center of an unused, undeveloped, someday-to-be, cul-de-sac neighborhood called, "Camelot Court", in North Falmouth, Mass. We had chosen this location for its proximity, open view of the sky, and, for its relative isolation from outdoor lighting - and other, unwelcomed intrusions.

In the span of 3 hours of telescope time, we had assessed, 5 Messier objects, an unknown open cluster, an unknown globular cluster (to us, at the time), and 8 sporadic meteors.

The wee hours of the night present some of the best opportunities for the amateur observational astronomer: fewer episodes of sporadic lighting, fewer people, less traffic, increased meteor activity, and, most of all, quiet.

M57, The Ring Nebula in Lyra imaged on ATEO-1 processed by Utkarsh Mishra (left), and M27, The Dumbell Nebula in Vulpecula imaged on ATEO-1 processed by Michael Petrasko (right).

Our, "optical ambush", begins with M57 - the "Ring" nebula, in Lyra. Though this emission nebulosity does, indeed, appear ring-like through the eyepiece, that is an illusion of perspective. This structure is, in reality, a spherical shell of excited gas molecules, outlining the shock bow from a centralized supernova event. M56, to me, has always appeared to be, a lone "Cheerio", floating in the darkness! It sits, almost squarely, between the two, lower corner stars of the "lyre" shape, Gamma and Beta Lyrae. It can be observed well with a 4" telescope.

The next object was M27, in Vulpecula - the "Dumbbell" nebula.

This, also, can be seen easily in a 4" inch scope. I know this, because Mike had a 4" Edmund Scientific Astroscan, at the time, and usually found these objects before I did. It is a twin-lobed remnant, also of a supernova. Burnham's Celestial Handbook describes it as, "large and shining", at several times the size of M57. About then, we broke out some nutrition to keep up our ambitions: "Nutty Bars", "M&M's" (plain), and a bag of "Doritos". Now, there's some "energy food"!

Edmund Scientific's Astroscan 4" f/4.2 reflector telescope (left) with the original observing log entry this post was adapted from back on May 8th, 1983 written by Insight Observatory Co-Founder Michael Petrasko when he was 17 years old. Image credits: Astroscan - Glenn Votava, Observers Log - Dale Alan Bryant.

Next on our list was M13 - the Hercules cluster (globular cluster, not referring to the cluster of galaxies within that constellation). Easily seen in good binoculars, this is one of my favorite collections. Of stars, that is. A nearly, perfectly symmetrical, uniformly dense, globe-shaped cluster of stars within the halo of globular clusters that orbits the Milky Way galaxy. Well, that's a technical description – but, see it for yourself, and you'll likely choose other, more prosaic wording, I'm sure of it.

M11 - is an open star cluster in the constellations Scutum. Open star clusters are loose congregations of stars, bound together, gravitationally, as are globular clusters, only, not as tightly. It's commonly called, the "Wild Duck" cluster (for reasons I never quite grasped). I have a favorite open cluster, not on this list: the double cluster, NGC'S 864 and 889, in Perseus. At over 7,000 light-years, the stars in the cluster appear as tiny, brilliant, and colorful jewels.

M13, The Great Hercules Globular Cluster imaged on ATEO-1 processed by Utkarsh Mishra (left), and M51, The Whirlpool Galaxy in Canes Venatici imaged on ATEO-1 processed by Michael Petrasko (right).

Next up, M51 - the "Whirlpool" galaxy. M51 is another "Grand Design" spiral galaxy, in reference to its near-perfection. Actually, it's an interactive pair of galaxies - the larger one, slowly consuming the smaller of the two. Located in Canes Venatici, its brightness and relative isolation in the darkness make it an easy target for small scopes.

As for the unknown open and globular clusters, I could only guess at what they would have been; likely, something in Ophiuchus - an area, rich, in such wonders.

And that leaves eight meteors; possibly, or not, connected to the Eta Aquarid meteor shower. Meteors are a fascinating subject, all on their own. The months of April and May have, historically, produced some very large fireballs and bolides, in historic times. Ask Mike or me, about that, sometime!

Dale Alan Bryant
Senior Contributing Science Writer

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Get Ready For the April Fireballs!

"Meteor"; "meteoroid"; "meteorite"; "falling star"; "fireball"; "shooting star"; "comet"; "asteroid" -- what does it all mean!?

Here is a simple and intuitive answer, provided in this beautiful infographic from the American Meteor Society.

Regarding this terminology: excluding "comet", and "meteor" - all of the others refer to the same type of object, which, is "asteroidal" in nature; that is, composed of rock, metal, or a mixture of both. Their origins are, usually, from comets, as well as from the asteroids within the Asteroid Belt. The Asteroid Belt lies between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Comets originate from the Oort Cloud, and from the Kuiper Belt. All are remnant matter left over from the formation of the Solar System.

Meteor Terminology - American Meteor Society - www.amsmeteors.org - Graphic concept and design by Vincent Perlerin and Mike Hankey for AMS - 2013.

Note that the word, meteor, refers to the "light" emitted from a meteoritic object, and not the meteoritic object, itself, that is producing the light; therefore, a meteor and a falling star, technically, are not the same thing. In other words, a meteor is created by an object called a "meteoroid" (which, of course, can be "asteroidal", or, "cometary" in nature! 😁)

The April Fireballs, are a small collection of asteroidal and cometary debris that orbits the sun in an elliptical path. About the 15th, of every April, some of this material enters Earth's atmosphere, and combusts, in a spectacularly bright meteor called a "fireball".

Dale Alan Bryant
Senior Contributing Science Writer

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The Great Fireball of 1966

At around 7:15pm on Sunday, April 24, 1966 - forty-eight years ago tonight - I was 8 years old and just passing by the open front door to our house, which faced due west, at 55 Haddon Ave., Falmouth, Mass. I remember that the sky was still light and absolutely cloudless (about 30 minutes after sunset) when I noticed a ball of light about the size and brightness of the full moon approaching from just slightly to the left, or, south. I remember feeling frozen in place as I watched this thing – I thought it was maybe a burning aircraft – moving parallel with the rooftop of the Hall School which was about 200 ft. away, directly across the street from the house. My brother, Barry, and cousin, “Binky”, yelled over to us as they crossed the front yard later that night, that they had seen a “flying saucer” earlier, just above the Falmouth Public Library, which was just across the street to the south. Something was mentioned about the Lawrence High School just across Shiverick’s pond to the west, and the Falmouth Fire Department was mentioned also. Funny that I did not connect these two events! (This is the night I had run out the front door into the street and stubbed my big toe!)

Sky and Telescope Magazine Cover - June 1966

The object was very bright and seemed to have what I thought of as “sparks” coming from the trailing end, which was teardrop-shaped. It had a long, even, white train of smoke trailing behind it, much like a thick contrail, which crossed the entire length of the sky. At times, the object's trailing edge became greenish in color, the leading edge yellow-orange, while the main body remained white. It seemed to pulse slowly several times, brightening with each pulse and I wondered if something else was going to happen to it. During these moments of brightening, the “sparks” separated from the main body and trailed it by at least two or three diameters. I remember thinking how strange it was that these sparks, or fragments, were detaching from the object and that they became visible only after they were some distance behind it. The fragments themselves alternated green and orange and left short trails of their own. I distinctly remember thinking that I couldn’t account for what it was I was seeing and I was especially boggled by the fragments trailing behind the object, seems to ignite only after they were some distance away. I wished that I could predict what was going to happen to the object next but I had had no similar prior experience with anything like this. I felt quite at a loss for an explanation for what I saw. Later that night, I heard my mother on the phone, tell someone that there had been an announcement about the object on TV, about halfway through The Andy Griffith Show. I don’t know what channel it was or what the station call letters were.

The object seemed to move perfectly parallel to the school rooftop, which was just a degree or two below the object, as it moved in a South to North direction. I was struck by the object's slow speed – about the speed of any plane I might have seen on the horizon at any other time. It seemed to take a long time to move across my entire field of view, which was clear all the way from the south to the north, except for the low school rooftop. The rooftop spanned almost the entire length of the western horizon but was itself only about five degrees in height and perfectly flat. I don’t remember hearing any sound at all. I remember thinking that the thing was going to explode at any time after it had swelled again and again. I remained quiet the whole time, not wanting to call out or call attention to the thing, but just watching and waiting to see what was going to happen next. I don’t remember anyone else being around, anyway. Again, it seemed as if the event was endless and it struck me how the object seemed to go through many changes during its flight. I estimate the duration of the flight at about 30 seconds. Finally, it seemed to break apart completely and fade out just before disappearing below the tree line in the NNW.

A similar, nearly identical incident occurred in the summer of 1979 or 1980, during the late afternoon (I don't remember the date), which I also witnessed while at work at Quickset Harbor. A similarly sized object had entered the atmosphere - I estimated somewhere over Maine or Nova Scotia - at the NNE tree line and disappeared over the Atlantic Ocean, at roughly the SE tree line. I was able to time the duration of this object's flight - or as much of it as I had witnessed - at 45 seconds. The object's train, speed, and its color approximated that of the 1966 incident. My sister, Linda, claimed to have seen the object while in a friend's boat on Vineyard Sound, just outside of Falmouth Harbor.

I feel very lucky to have seen such rare and wonderful things.

Almost three months after the 1966 incident, on Friday, July 1st, Barry and Binky’s band, “The Beau Brines” opened for “The Animals” at the Cape Cod a-Go-Go, in Yarmouth, MA. On Christmas of that same year, I received my second telescope, a 3-inch Newtonian reflector. It had a white cardboard tube with a screw-clamp ball-and-socket tripod mount. I saw the moon for the first time with this instrument. I also had a black-tubed 3-inch alt-azimuth reflector a year or two earlier, but other than burning my retina with it trying to locate the sun, I only remember using it to try to locate the moon. I didn't find the moon but I did find the sun! This was also the year that I got to sit in the pilot’s seat of John Glenn's Mercury space capsule, “Friendship 7”.

Dale Alan Bryant
Senior Contributing Science Writer

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