Astronomers are hardy souls, bearing cold and late nights to pursue our pictures. But you seldom hear of the other frustration: cloudy nights. The 13 stout-hearted students of Spring 1999’s Astro 113 class here at Carleton College can tell you about clouds, however. We had class eleven nights and four of them were clear.
That didn’t stop the class, however. They learned a great deal about pulsars, galaxies and planets from computer labs. But they agreed: they wanted to work on the telescopes. Finally, the weather cleared. The class leapt at the chance and we dashed outside to our pad complete with concrete piers for mounting telescopes, power and ethernet. Quick studies they students learned to use the telescopes and cameras in almost record time. So despite the clouds and rain and frustration, their perseverance paid off and they present to you, Gentle Reader, their pictures.
–John Weiss, Lab Asst.
Amanda Kirchner and Jennifer Rosenbaum
These are some of the pictures that we took while observing for Observational Astronomy. These were taken by Jennifer Rosenbaum and Amanda Kirchner using a 8″ Mead LX-200 telescope with CCD camera. High points of observing: “You get to take really cool pictures!” The down points: “All the mosquitoes and dew!”
M13
Another M13
The Ring Nebula in Lyra
Erica Richardson and Erika Pearson
Despite some pretty serious problems, like having the camera fall out of the telescope (ack!), Erica and Erika (and Henry on the third picture) managed to get these pics:
Albireo
Ring Nebula
M51 – The Whirlpool Galaxy
Gabe Ellwein and John Gingrinch
M57, The Ring Nebula
Another Ring Nebula Pic
Noel Henderson-James and Henry Duwe
M104, The Sombrero Galaxy
The Spiral M101
Matt McCall and Paul Riedner
Globular Cluster
Earth’s Moon
The Moon was nice that night
Who We Are:
The Prof | ||
Joel Weisberg | ||
(Take Astro!) | ||
The Class: | ||
Wes Bramhall | Larua Cleavland | |
Henry Duwe | Gabe Ellwein | |
John Gingrinch | Noel Henderson-James | |
Amanda Kirchner | Matt McCall | |
Erika Pearson | Erica Richardson | |
Paul Riedner | Jennifer Rosenbaum | |
Michael Stweart | ||
The Lab Assistants | ||
Ryan Hennessy | Kristen Portle | John Weiss |