 | www.ccas.ws Founded 1986 |  Lat: N 41° 40' 42" Lon: W 70° 11' 37" | |
| New Mailing Address: P.O. Box 207 Harwich Port, MA 02646 | Werner Schmidt Observatory D-Y High School 210 Station Avenue South Yarmouth, MA 02664 | ||
| | www.ccas.ws Founded 1986 | Lat: N 41° 40' 42" Lon: W 70° 11' 37" | |
| New Mailing Address: P.O. Box 207 Harwich Port, MA 02646 | Werner Schmidt Observatory D-Y High School 210 Station Avenue South Yarmouth, MA 02664 | ||
*Refresh this page! The Cape Cod Astronomical Society is an excellent source for information on studying the night sky and heavens. We have provided hundreds of useful links throughout this website to steer our members and astronomy friends to helpful information. This website is created with Internet Explorer, therefore, some features of this website may be masked if you are using another browser like Mozilla or Netscape. Be sure to refresh any/all pages of this website as the information and photographs are updated frequently. Observatory telephone number is 508-398-4765. Other contact telephone numbers (including Observatory Director Mike Hunter) can be found on the Membership Info page. Our e-mail address is info@ccas.ws. CCAS meets at 7:30 pm on the first Thursday of every month in the library at Dennis-Yarmouth Regional High School, Station Ave, South Yarmouth, Massachusetts. Meetings are open to the public. CCAS supports the Cape Cornerstone Project, the D-Y Regional High School Astronomy Club, and dark skies. This website is set up for easy viewing with your monitor display set at 800 by 600 pixels.
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Marveling at the night skyA visit from Larry Brookhart's Harwich Junior AstronomersSchmidt Observatory - (4/9/07). We arrived at the Observatory at 6:30PM, long before the last rays of the Sun were to drop below the horizon. Already about seven families from Harwich and 15 grade schoolers were busy chasing around the Observatory grounds and blowing off some energy while Larry Brookhart set his school made 10" scope on planet Venus burning in the western sky. As the students took turns "ooing and awing" at the yellow planet I asked a few kids which was further away, the Sun or Venus? Why is this planet yellow and so bright? Of course a few tried to answer the first question saying the Sun of course is further. But the answer is, at this moment Venus is further than 1.16 times the distance Earth to our star the Sun. How come?? Others were surprised to learn Venus is always surrounded by a cloud of yellow sulphuric acid gas that reflects the Suns rays in yellow and absorbs all other colors. Neat. Well by this time, dusk was being overcome by darkness and we had a a good view of Orion and his belt, the Big Dipper and and some power house stars like Sirius and Procyon that worked their way through the mercury vapor light stream coming off the parking lot and High School. Observatory Director Mike Hunter and Matt Jones had finally gotten the telescope in the dome to track and the kids lined up for the best view they will find of Saturn on Cape Cod. Wow. Later Mike used the laser pointer to find more star features. Yes it was a successful evening for these Harwich junior astronomers. Hopefully, they will all remember their visit to the Schmidt. |
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You could drive 80 miles to Cambridge to hear these interesting astronomy lectures held every Thursday at 4 PM at the Harvard University campus, Phillips Auditorium, Building D, Center for Astrophysics (unless noted otherwise) or you can see the lecture online using services on this frame.
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