As long as I can remember, I've always had an interest in Astronomy.
When I was a boy, I would browse the "book fair" at school for selections about the planets, and the same would be true whenever we'd visit book stores in various malls and shopping centers.
My home church growing up had a complete set of encyclopedias in its library, and I would browse those volumes as well for entries on the planets, and some of them even had pictures.
In high school -- at the Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science in Columbus, Miss., -- I took an Astronomy course during my junior year, and through that course I was able to attend my first star party in French Camp, Miss. It's also the trip where I met the lovely girl who would later become by wife.
It was at this star party though where I think I truly got to see the night sky in all its glory for the very first time.
You see, I'm from the city, and as any good astronomer knows, trying to view the night sky in the middle of city light pollution is about as feeble as trying to mow your yard in the pouring rain with a low-powered push mower. You just won't get much accomplished.
This star party was literally out in the middle of nowhere, and the only lights that were used had a red film over them to cut down on as much light as we could. And the result was the best night sky, covered in stars, that I had ever seen.
Let's fast forward to the fall of 2009. I had just been named the sports editor at the Herald-Leader in Siloam Springs.
While trying to familiarize myself with the Herald-Leader and our Siloam Sunday section, I discovered Dr. David Cater's Astronomy column that was being published in the newspaper.
I loved it -- and how unique! A local Astronomy column that gives readers an idea of what's happening and what can be seen in the night sky in our area.
Nearly 10 years later, Dr. Cater's Star-Gazing column is still one of my favorites to read at the beginning of each month, and I hope you, our readers, enjoy it as well.
For several years now, I've been wanting to ask Dr. Cater if I could join him for a night of star gazing and just had never gotten around to doing it.
But a few weeks ago, I made the decision that I was going to give him a call and see if we could work something out. Sure enough, he was more than happy to oblige and we began looking at our calendars, and Dr. Cater also began looking at the weather forecast. You need a clear night, and our first attempt to look at the stars had to be postponed.
However, on Saturday, June 8, while watching Arkansas pummel Ole Miss in the first game of a super regional in Fayetteville, I got a call from Dr. Cater. Tonight's the night!
Around 11 p.m., I went out to his house along Highway 16, and when I arrived Dr. Cater flagged me down with his red light and showed me where to park. Ah, the red light, yep, that was a good sign.
We went back to his backyard where Dr. Cater sets up his astronomy equipment and telescope. He told me that when he moved to Siloam Springs around 25 years ago, this setting was ideal for star-gazing because light pollution was minimal.
Obviously Siloam Springs has grown since then and as he pointed out, so has its brightness at night.
"The sky is gray," he said, "not black."
Darkness is important when star-gazing. Dr. Cater mentioned there are places he's been in New Mexico that are "so dark you can't even see your feet at night."
We started out looking at our own moon, which ironically, can sometimes wash out other viewing objects with its brightness.
The moon was a half moon, so it wasn't overpowering, but we needed to look at it first before it disappeared behind the trees. We saw it wide-angled and then a close up with increased magnification. I was able to see the large crater Theophilus, that had a mountain in the middle of it, which to me appeared as a tiny speck.
Before we got too much farther along, Dr. Cater explained to me that the moon and the planets move through their orbits along the plane of the ecliptic, and he showed me this plane with his green laser pointer. Sure enough, in a huge sweeping arch was the moon, and the gas giant planets Jupiter and Saturn following along.
Dr. Cater explained the reason we see them along this plane is because scientists believe the Earth was knocked off its spin axis by some enormous object, possibly the size of Mars, and some believe this object reformed into our moon. Had this not been the case, the planets would be visible along the night sky at the equator, Dr. Cater said.
Moving on, Dr. Cater turned his 'scope to Jupiter, which was very bright even to the naked eye. However, it was clearly a planet because it did not twinkle.
Looking through the lens, it took my breath away to see the biggest planet in our Solar System. I could see Jupiter's cloud bands, and four of Jupiter's moons were visible as tiny balls.
I had to do a double-take, looking away from the telescope and back at Jupiter with the naked eye. Simply amazing!
Saturn was coming up shortly, but before it made its way to a visible position a little after midnight, we took a look at some stars.
There were two stars with similar visual brightness to the naked eye. One of them, Altair, is around 26 light years away. The other one, Deneb, is near 2,600 light years away, meaning the light I am seeing was generated nearly 2,600 years ago!
I've heard Dr. Cater mention that the night sky is nature's own "time machine" and he's not kidding!
Anyway, these two stars have similar brightness for us to see because one is so close and the other is one of the brightest stars we know.
We also looked at Mizar, which is the middle star in the Big Dipper's handle. Actually it's a double star as we saw through the telescope. But there's more. Mizar is actually a triple star -- we were only able to see two though.
OK, by this point Saturn was ready to go. Earlier in the evening, Dr. Cater had been concerned that Saturn would not be high enough to be able to see, but what a treat.
For the first time in my life, I looked through a telescope and saw Saturn, and it's breathtaking rings, and full separation from the planet and its rings. Simply breathtaking. Also clearly visible was Saturn's famous moon Titan.
Another astronomer friend, and my former boss Kent Marts, once said that he's had people cry tears of joy seeing Saturn and its rings for the first time. I must admit I wasn't far away from that moment myself.
Jupiter and Saturn were the only planets visible on this night. Dr. Cater said we could have attempted to find Uranus, but the light pollution and brightness of the moon would have made that difficult. Those things also made looking at galaxies all but impossible.
From there, we looked at several more stars and constellations, such as Cygnus the Swan (the Northern Cross), where Deneb is the star marking the tail of the swan and the double star Albireo is the head.
Also, another word about the Alibireo. It's a double-star system where one star is blue and another orange. Dr. Cater opined that might be the prettiest thing in the night sky today. I wouldn't argue with him.
We also made out Acquila the Eagle with Altair being the nose of the eagle.
Dr. Cater showed me the famous "double-double," where two stars actually revealed themselves to be two pairs of stars. It wasn't an easy thing to resolve but luckily turbulence was low and I did see it.
Before wrapping up for the night, we turned the telescope back on Saturn one last time. The planet had risen higher into the sky and one last look was worth the wait.
"It will continue to get better as the summer moves on," Dr. Cater said.
It was a great night, and in between star gazing I enjoyed visiting with Dr. Cater about his life and journey to Siloam Springs. He explained he's from California and was teaching out west before taking a job at John Brown University in the 1990s in the psychology department.
Astronomy has always been a hobby though, and a hobby has turned into a passion, which is clearly evident by his knowledge and commitment to star gazing.
Folks, to view the night sky some times means getting up at all hours of the night, during frigid temperatures in the cold season, or traveling thousands of miles to witness a spectacular astronomical event. One such time for Dr. Cater occurred just recently in August of 2017 during the total eclipse when he traveled to Oregon along the line of totality. In all his years of observing, Dr. Cater said this moment was the highlight. "I almost wet my pants," he said with a smile.
Again, it was a memorable night star gazing, and I plan on taking Dr. Cater up on his invitation to come back out sometime and do it again.
For years and years, Dr. Cater has told our readers that the night sky is the "best free show around" and I couldn't agree more. You never know what kind of wonders you might see. Clear skies!
-- Graham Thomas is the managing editor for the Herald-Leader. He can be reached at [email protected]. The opinions expressed are those of the author.
Sports on 06/26/2019