Friday, May 1, 2026
Weather: Clear, 50°, calm wind
Participants: Francine Jackson, Jim Hendrickson
Attendees: 4
Observed: Venus, Aldebaran, Sirius, Jupiter, Moon
Photos: https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjCSWoz
Report by Jim Hendrickson
Questionable forecasts all week led to doubts that we would be able to conduct our second scheduled, but first attended astronomy night at River Bend Farm in Uxbridge. By 9:00am Friday, all of the forecasts indicated that we should experience a narrow window of mostly clear sky conditions at the 8:10pm time of Moonrise, but trending to mostly cloudy later on.
Francine and I arrived just before 7:30pm to get set up. We walked around the barn to check out the garden, where we saw some Koreanspice viburnum and forsythia, while the scent of Koreanspice viburnum filled the field on the westerly breeze.
Upon setting up my 80mm refractor, we saw a lone sparrow foraging in the field just in front of us, so we started with a little bird watching. Our friends Ruth and Marc from North Smithfield arrived soon after and joined in on the avian observation.
Sherine Hamade and Savannah Salonich joined us just as our feathered friend departed.
With a chorus of spring peepers everpresent beyond the treeline to the west, I turned to Venus. At medium magnification in my small scope, it appeared as nothing more than a brilliant speck against the golden sky.
We spotted Aldebaran, 6.5° south of Venus, just above the trees, then Sirius was seen shimmering vividly in the southwest. As this was likely the last time we’d be able to see this prominent star of winter until much later in the year, I turned the scope to it to demonstrate atmospheric scintillations and the prismatic effect on starlight, as our night sky’s brightest star shone all colors.
Francine brought out the Astroscan as the deep orange Full Flower Moon became visible through the trees across the canal from the observing field. The presence of the Moon brought out conversations of last month’s Artemis II mission.
Jupiter was still well-positioned, so that became the next target. Using the 9mm eyepiece to gain 53x on the giant planet, a pair of cloud belts became visible, along with the moons Europa and Ganymede to Jupiter’s west, and Callisto far off to the east.
Savannah set up a small tabletop refractor on the wooden table near the tree, and she described seeing the rays from crater Tycho with excitement.
Back on the Moon, I went to low magnification (12x) to highlight a wide field of view as some light clouds began to pass in front of it.
As if scheduled perfectly to close out our night, a curtain of cirrocumulus cloud, beautifully backlit by the full Moon, obscured most of the sky just as our event was coming to an end.
All in attendance were planning to visit Seagrave Memorial Observatory for Skyscrapers’s May presentation the following night. The next schedule
