By Nick Sweeney, 14, Columbus, OH
While at Medomak Family Camp for a week I was able to interact and learn from two astronomers, Bruce Berger and Kelly Beatty, for the first time. I was not sure what exactly we were going to be doing for “Astronomy Week”. My guess was that we were going to be looking at some planets and several stars, and that that would be it. It turned out to be far more exciting than I had anticipated. What made it the best was how passionate Bruce and Kelly were about astronomy. Their energy made me and others want to learn about things that we had never heard of before.
The first thing that tingled my curiosity was that the telescopes seemed so simple and compact, for telescopes that is. I got to see two types of telescopes while I was there – a Reflecting telescope and a Refracting telescope. I thought that the reflective telescope was the most interesting because all it used was a couple mirrors that when put in the telescope focused on the object of your choice. Bruce even taught me how to make the mirrors for this type of telescope by grinding two pieces of glass with a special sand in between. When you do this with the side of one piece of glass on top of the middle of the other piece you can create a concave shape on the lower piece. After a lot of grinding and polishing, it gets a coat of aluminum or silver and becomes the mirror.
I live in Columbus, Ohio so I am used to a lot of light pollution, which only lets me see several constellations. In Washington, Maine it was clear, and we were able to see lots more stars, satellites, and even the northern lights.
Image via Wikipedia
My favorite part of the week was when we learned about daylight astronomy. Some of the stuff was so weird that it sounded science-fiction. Two of the weirder things were moon-bows and the rare green flash. I thought that moon-bows were cool because the light of the moon still manages to create a rainbow under the right circumstances. Also, when you take pictures of moon-bows the light from the camera makes it look like a normal rainbow, except there are stars in the sky. The green flash sounded like a myth the way people talked about it. It can only be seen on a perfect sunset, with clear skies, and nothing blocking the horizon. Only then will you see a tiny bit of green as the sun sets. Astronomy week has inspired me to try to see the green flash in my lifetime.
During Astronomy week I got to see double stars, clusters of stars, planets (my favorite was Saturn), and much more. Now I have learned how and when to locate stars like Arcturus, Polaris, and Vega using a star map on a wheel that I have made, with help from Kelly. I have also been inspired to download an app for my IPad that lets me learn more about things that I got a glimpse of, like special galaxies, sun spots, and nebulas. I also had lots of fun launching up rockets we made out of paper. They shot up hundreds of feet in the air and released streamers to have a gradual landing. This past week was a once in a lifetime experience thanks to Bruce, Kelly, and of course the universe.
Editors Note: This is the first blog entry written by our ‘students’ during Astronomy Week 2011 at Medomak Family Camp. Kelly & I had a blast with the families, kids, the heavenly dark Maine sky, and of course the rockets. As always, we love sharing our passions and knowledge about the earth, solar system and beyond. We hope if you’re reading this that you might have a look around the camp’s website and think about joining us next summer. – Bruce Berger
