Purposeful Stars, Timely Moon, Beautiful Heavens

“I want to see the Milky Way.”

Her tone of voice made it clear that some late nights and early mornings were coming. Carolina night skies are not always cooperative, but we were in a high-pressure dome and with clear nights and low humidity predicted for days. Thus began a series of observing opportunities with eyes, binoculars, telescopes, and astro-video tools.

The purpose of the created stars parallels Psalm 19:1-6, Isaiah 42:5, and dozens of other scriptures, but they all refer back to Genesis 1:14-19 when God, the Creator, fashioned the heavens on the fourth day of creation. That is a foreign concept today but finding geologic activity and heat on planets that should be dead (according to naturalism), mature galaxies as far as the James Webb Telescope can image (not supposed to happen with the Big Bang), and the expanse/variety of the universe speaks of God’s hand. This is quite a contrast to the naturalistic view that says all this came about with no direction.  My Lovely and I teach and demonstrate about the amazing heavens in many places overseas, but when we are home, we have the opportunity to do it just for the sheer joy of observing.

Back to early August in North Carolina!  The Milky Way always beckons at our mid-north latitude in late summer. Our property has a wide swath of sky from north-northeast to south-southwest, which means the Milky Way runs down the middle of the sky in early August evenings. Wonderful pictures of our own galaxy or objects in it are in two of our favorite books by astronomy experts (“Taking Back Astronomy” by Jason Lisle and “The Heavens — A Different View” by Danny Faulkner). However, there is nothing like lying beneath the skies to see it for yourself. We did it three evenings this August, twice with eyes and binoculars and once with a 12.5-inch Dobsonian telescope. From below the rising constellation Perseus in the North to Scorpius setting the South, we were able to identify favorite constellations, globular clusters, and nebulae. Even more, we could identify major sections of the Milky Way in which the objects appear.

On the last night of the Milky Way observations, I rigged the Dobsonian telescope with astro-video in place of a regular eyepiece so we could view several objects “live.” I use quotes because the astro-video camera has a chip that is placed in the light path, where the eyepiece normally goes. Every 1.8 seconds the chip is scanned 128 times and turns the added result into a video signal. I can vary the sensitivity and the total time of the scan series. Then I can take the resulting video signal to show the image on a 12-inch color monitor beside the telescope. I use settings that are modest for the little camera, and my integration time is typically 7 or 14 seconds.

At our age, as much as we love using our eyes and telescopes with regular eyepieces, it is a physical challenge to see faint images. So, instead of going to a huge and expensive telescope, we let the color-sensitive chip on the astro video camera do the work so we can see real color, real arms of galaxies, and eye-popping detail of globular clusters and nebula. So, some quick cell phone images of the 12-inch color monitor are shown below with their description. All the images are unfiltered and low-quality, but it gives you a good idea what we see. The same views could be sketched, which I do if there is enough time. Typical sketches take 20 minutes but can take over an hour. On this night we danced through the objects and talked about them but did not sketch.

The Swan Nebula, as shown, is named for its shape. It’s upside down in the image, but you can see the arch of the ‘swan’s neck, the body, and the tail in the busy starfield. We go back to it every year if we can and never get tired of it.

M22 is a globular cluster that is a little East and North of the peak of the Sagittarius constellation (The Tea Cup). It rivals the size and density of M13, which can be seen near the Hercules Square that is much farther north.

The Dumbbell Nebula looks like a faint white bow tie in a 8- or 12-inch telescope, but the colors explode using astro-video tools. It is one only a few objects that amateurs can see with astro-video on smaller scopes that shows an array of reds, greens, and even a little blue.

The Trifid Nebula has a very unique dark lane that divides the object in three sections (stellar clouds in front of the object block the light from parts of the nebula). It’s another favorite of mine to sketch. We also observed a wide-angle view of the star field around it, which shows a beautiful curved cross. It is on my ‘bucket list’ to sketch this summer if we get an early evening in early September that is clear.

The last image is the brightest nebula in the sky (the Lagoon Nebula). It is named for the dark lane that slices it from the upper left to lower right in my poor quality image.

All that took place within two hours on one beautiful night, but my wife was not done yet. The night of August 27, which was expected to be clear, she wanted to see the waning moon, Mars, Jupiter, and Taurus together in the eastern sky. So, 5 am rolled around as we stumbled out of bed to catch the sight. It was another night of giving thanks for a wonderful opportunity to see the created heavens. The quick sketch below shows the results.

******************************

Have questions or want to learn to observe the created heavens? We can start you with a free 12-lesson course that you can download from the cwm4him.org site under downloadable courses in the drop-down menu. Look for AOBV or Astronomical Observing with a Biblical View.) We use the same lessons overseas as we teach teachers and students in the Philippines about the heavens. Or feel free to contact us. If you are local, come see us one of these fine nights to enjoy a tour and explanation of whatever the sky will permit us to see. Do you have a small telescope? Come and learn to use it with us.

If you want more information on biblical creation, several pages on the site take you to the cell phone application of a high-school level course on biblical creation, which is also compared to naturalism or evolution.

Our summation is this: only Eternal God could create what we see. And it was a wonderful August to observe and give thanks.

Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.