2017 0131 Blue Moon Viewing from Southmost Observatory

Javier R. Garcia

The Brownsville Public library invited the community for a gaze at the night sky to view the blue moon which gets it's name from the rare occasion when two full moons occur within the same month.  The last major event where hundreds of people attended was last August when we had a solar eclipse.  Last night's event was well-attended by a few dozen people.  The next solar eclipse in the United States will not occur again until 2024.

The moon-rise occurred shortly after sunset.  There was plenty of librarians and assistants nearby to greet visitors and answer questions.  There was also a crossing guard by the driveway near the observatory to ensure safety.

Here's our first close up at the blue "blood" moon as it rose above the trees over the horizon.  Even though I used a gate to hold the camera still nothing can replace a good sturdy tripod but we never expect professional quality on the Bronsbil Estacion blog anyway.

Librarian Tom Robinson explained the blue moon phenomena and answered questions from visitors.  Tom took his first look at the moon at the age of 10 when his father let him look through his surveyor scope and he's been a star gazer ever since.  

 A large screen monitor was placed outside of the observatory to display video-feed from the telescope.

 Sharing fun facts about the surface and rotation of the moon.

Here's the inside of the observatory with the telescope and young astrologer who can adjust the viewer as the moon rises in the sky.  The flash from my camera lit-up the inside of the pitch-black dome.

As Mr Robinson spoke about the telescope he explained that within the scope is a large highly polished Newtonian lens made of thick curved glass mirror which makes for powerful magnified viewing.  The library intends to plan for future viewings by watching a calendar of celestial events.  Another librarian said that fall or winter seem to offer the best times and conditions for these nightly views.

The moon after it cleared the trees continued to rise but was later obscured by scattered clouds but by then the event was coming to a close so no one arrived or left disappointed.

This observatory is the fruition of a decade of funding and planning through monies that became available from community development block grants.  The observatory's grand opening was in 2017.  I'm sure I'm not the first person to notice that the trash receptacle kind of looks like a miniature observatory.

A powerful 20x-80x set of binoculars on a tripod was set-up outside with a guide to adjust its sights to follow moon as it rose in the sky.  That tiny dot above the girl's head is the moon.  While it would be great if they let people take a look through the actual telescope inside the observatory that just isn't feasible with so many people at once but maybe in the future that might be possible.  The view through the binoculars was amazing as was the screen monitor live-feed transmitted from the dome's interior.

This was my first observatory experience in Brownsville, Texas.  We can be assured that librarians at Southmost Branch Observatory will be on the lookout for the future planet gazing events to view things such as an aligning of planets, rings around Saturn, a dance of Jupiter's moons, and meteor showers which wont be cataclysmic. All we have to hope for are clear skies!  



































You can try to insert Uranus jokes in comments below if they're funny enough.  Thanks for reading.