HMNs enjoy a guided star tour with Zack Perdue

On October 7, 2023, Zack Perdue led a stargazing party at Starry Meadows Farm in Linville. Seven Headwaters Master Naturalists attended, along with four guests. Our two hours together passed quickly; we ended our stargazing when the unaccustomed cold finally got to us!  We saw the Milky Way, Cassiopeia, Ursa Major (the Big Dipper), the Great Square of Pegasus, and Jupiter rising over our barn with just our eyes and binoculars.

We all enjoyed Zack’s laser pointer shining into the sky to show us stars and constellations. We also enjoyed looking through his refracting telescope. Many trills, ooohs and aahs, were heard after a first glimpse through those lenses! We saw the bands of Jupiter through the refractor. Also, Saturn and one of its moons. We learned that Cassiopeia is a constellation in the Milky Way, and Pegasus is one of the largest constellations. We especially enjoyed seeing images on our phones/tablets connected by Wi-Fi to Zack’s EvScope, a telescopic camera that can take very long exposures. 

Using the EvScope we saw the M51-Whirlpool Galaxy with another galaxy interacting with it, – so very cool! Also M57 Ring Nebula, M13 Hercules Globular Cluster, Helix Nebula, M31 Andromeda Galaxy, and Jupiter. M57 is a planetary nebula not related to planets but is a cloud of gas. Nebulas are formed when a star, during the last stages of its evolution before becoming a white dwarf, expels a vast luminous envelope of ionized gas into the surrounding space.

Zack explained the Whirlpool Galaxy, a spiral galaxy with star-forming arms. The smaller galaxy is interacting with it, not just passing by, and the tidal forces trigger new star formation. I heard other words between Zack and those gathered around him: compressing hydrogen gas, black holes. Most was over my head, and I’m still eager to look up more about all this, so let it just be said that I’m filled with absolute wonder when listening to the starry conversations and gazing at the night sky!     

– Sharon Landis, Cohort VII, October 2023

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