MY MOST UNUSUAL OBSERVATION!
If memory serves me
correctly, my most unusual observation occurred on the night of October
17, 1986. I did keep some notes
on this strange spectacle, but don’t have them on hand any
more. Mars had put on a good
show that year, and I decided to take a look at it once again. It
was a Friday evening, about 8
or 9 o’clock, and I had my 6" f/10 Newtonian reflector set up in
the driveway. My observation of
Mars was quite routine that evening, but something happened
that made me forget all about
the red planet!
As I tired of looking at the
small red orb in the eyepiece, I glanced about for something else to
look at before breaking down
the telescope for the night. Since the Moon was full, nothing
much looked promising, but I
decided to take a look at the full Moon. I don’t know why I wanted
to do this, since there isn’t
much to see during this part of the Lunar orbit. I swung the ‘scope
to have a look anyway, and to
my amazement, I noticed a very, very tiny black dot traveling
across the face of the Moon. I
was incredulous, thinking that I had seen an artificial satellite
transit the Moon’s face. The
object was almost at the limit of my vision, crossing centrally, and
seemed to take 20 seconds or so
to exit. As I was standing at the ‘scope congratulating myself,
I looked into the eyepiece once
again. ANOTHER very small black object had just entered the
Moon’s face and was marching
across.
This time, I realized that
there just couldn’t be TWO satellite transits so close together, so I
carefully looked at the sight
and tried to imagine what I was seeing…. My chagrin was finally
eased when a trio of these
extremely small dots entered the Lunar disk, and began their pass
in front of the Moon. They were
traveling together in a clump, and I came to realize what they
actually were.
I was undoubtedly
witnessing a transit of small helium filled balloons. It was early in
the
evening on a Friday night in
October. Probably somewhere there was a High School football
game in progress, and a festive
release of these balloons had taken place. The balloons would
have been very high, and quite
unobservable… except when passing before the bright face of
the Moon. That is my
conjecture, and I am satisfied with it. It was a very interesting
evening to
say the least!
Bob Frybarger (Secretary)
AMATEUR ASTRONOMERS OF JACKSON
910 Edgewood Street
Jackson, MI 49202-3804
(517) 784-9061
BFRYBARGER@AMERITECH.NET
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