After attending the FAAC Monthly general meeting Thursday I drove to HJRO to open up. Some members had asked if we’d be open, so I arrived and three of us viewed the crescent moon through my binoculars.
Clouds were moving rapidly through the sky and haze seemed evident from the view when I first arrived. Conditions were improving as the clouds were swept away with brisk winds.
Art, Rick and I spent most the time talking early on. We had observed earlier in the week and talked about the club meeting and upcoming plans for the transit of Venus event, where Venus passes between the earth and the sun and we can view it’s disk against the setting sun. (Of course one must have a proper way to view this event and we have telescopes with safe filters for this.)
We had a phone call from Tim Campbell as well. He said he was running late and couldn’t make it out. I replied at that time, the sky didn’t look to good and he wasn’t missing much. But this was before I took the photo of Saturn and before the clouds really cleared away.
Maybe thirty or forty minutes after telling Tim the viewing wouldn’t be very good, the sky improved and viewing became much better. This night might have rated as one of the best ten nights of seeing and viewing as far as sky quality, but recent excellent nights, probably would displace it from the top ten nights of the last year at HJRO. We had a few good nights in the winter, and a few really good nights as recently as this past week. Some of the nights this past week would have to be in the top five I’ve seen at HJRO this year. Warmer weather and no mosquitos is another plus.
At about 10 pm the three of us sat in a few chairs and were startled a bit by a rustling of leaves from some animal that seemed to run by under Rick’s chair. We thought it might be a rabbit as there are a few around the area who eat grass at night near the observatory. We thought we could see the rabbit nearby and Art and Rick tried shining a light at it. I decided to get my 7 by 35 binoculars and take a closer look and it turned out the imaginary rabbit in the distance was just a lawn marker flag waving in the wind.
Shortly afterward we saw a cat out in the field nearby, we figured this cat ran by our chairs and we mistook it for a startled rabbit.
- The UFO
Then perhaps five minutes later, Art looked up to the south east and said, "what the heck is that?" Rick and I couldn't see it at first and Art was pointing and said “look where I'm pointing”, then we saw it. A light flickering glow, like a high altitude aircraft, but it was moving faster than a satellite. It seemed to be moving in a straight line like a man made satellite.
Art had spotted an actual UFO (since we never identified it). It flew at a rate that seemed to be faster than a jet and silently for the most part. We could hear a steady wind as there were wind gusts at that time. I wasn't sure if I heard a jet sound. I guessed out aloud, "maybe it's some kind of experimental military aircraft."
Was it a men in black moment? Was the cat an alien that landed in the nearby field?
UFO details.
The “craft/light” seemed faster than a satellite, faster than the ISS, but still taking nearly 90 seconds to go perhaps 100 degrees across the sky, mostly across the sky. A bit faster than an orbiting man made object. It disappeared below the trees in the north, near the school board building. I was tracking it a bit with my binoculars, but it stayed out of focus as I tried to adjust the binoculars, but it only popped into focus for maybe 2 seconds or less. It had a crumpled look almost like a bunch of wrinkles or panels were in it’s dark shape with the bottom half perhaps light. I guessed from the view this might have been some kind of home made UFO, like a trash bag with a candle in it. Rick remarked that the object moved in the direction of wind gusts to the north and it likely was some kind of bag.
A Late night guest
At about 11:30 a guest dropped by, he was running track and came by to ask about the gate access. His name was Jeremy and he was a former student of Lincoln Park High School. He never saw the inside of the observatory, it was out of commission when he was going to school here.
We spent about 90 minutes talking and viewing. We gave him a tour of the observatory and aimed the C14 at Saturn. The view was much better than I had expected, based on wind and haze and clouds we saw earlier i the evening.
Fine details could be seen using the 10mm eyepiece (391x) and even 8mm (nearly 500 power) on the c14.
We only looked at Saturn and Mars through the big C-14 telescope.
I also briefly aimed the Vixen telescope at Saturn to show Jeremy a really low power 26x view of the planet. I also showed him many iPad astronomy apps and we talked about Android astronomy apps as well. We visited for perhaps 90 minutes. Jeremy enjoyed the tour and said he’d visit again and bring a younger nephew who he felt would enjoy a tour of the sky as well.
Jeremy spent some time looking at Saturn through different power eyepieces and I showed him how I can take a photo of Saturn with a very high powered eyepiece setup on the C14. And I took the following photo. This was taken at 888x and the iphone image was processed a bit in an application for the iPad called Filterstorm.
By the end of this evening’s viewing the others had left. I started to close up and move some of the things I took to HJRO back to my car. Suddenly police cars started rushing up and down Champaign street. It looked like some kid of high speed chase, but I didn’t see the other cars they wee chasing.
Apparently a mysterious night visiting cat and possible UFO were not enough excitement last night - more excitement had to happen. I had to have a spot light shine on me with red and blue lights flashing before the night would end.
Two police cars turned down Lafayette street to chase someone or something. A third police car, joined in and then turned and rolled into the parking lot fast. It raced up and then stopped with lights still flashing and a strobe light taking away any night adapted vision I might have while loading up. The Police officer probably saw my car from a distance and guessed I was the bad guy racing away from them. The police spotlight was shining on me as I was putting an eyepiece bag into my trunk. The police officer quickly jumped out of the patrol car and asked me "who I was" and "if I had rushed out of the Parking lot earlier". If you see blue and white lights and a spot light and a UFO, you better hope your not abducted/(arrested) next. If arrested late at night, it's better I suppose to be arrested by an officer, than some cat like alien flying a UFO.
I replied that I was a volunteer for the Lincoln Park observatory. I thought, "I’m glad I have my FAAC badge on". The Police officer seemed satisfied with my response and quickly drove off to continue his pursuit.
The scout cars were long gone chasing bad guys into the night, and I finally left in peace, without cats, rats, rabbits or aliens.
When I arrived at my house, the sky still looked good at 2am. Some clouds were up about 6 degrees above the northern horizon, but much of the sky at 2am was still clear.
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