A Full Supermoon, the last of 2020, in Saint John at 9:04 PM (Image: Chris Curwin)
Astronomy by the Bay continues to admire and teach about the vast cosmos while quarantining and physical distancing during COVID-19.
“We’re living in a time now where technology is so important; I don’t think it could have happened without technology at the moment,” said Chris Curwin, amateur astronomer with Astronomy by the Bay and member of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada.
Instead of the club’s regular in-person meetings and night sky viewings, Curwin has been attaching his smartphone to the eyepiece of his telescope via a special adapter and streaming the view live to his Facebook and Youtube channels at 8 o’clock every Sunday night.
Chris Curwin’s simulcast command central (Image: Chris Curwin)
Curwin, fellow Saint John astronomer Mike Powell and Hampton astral photographer Paul Owen also discuss astronomy topics to their audience on the livestreams.
“The two of them stream their telescope view to me, and then I broadcast it out, so how could we do all that without, without technology today?” said Curwin.
The trio are currently leading a four-part workshop series about how to best choose a telescope.
“We talked about the optical tubes and next week we’re going to talk about how they mount on a telescope, and then after that it will be accessories like eyepieces,” he explained. “We’re trying to give people enough information to be informed enough to go out and buy something that’s quality”
The show has been held every Sunday night since last October and is watched by people all across the country, with some viewers even from the United States. The Starlink Satellite train, the Comet ATLAS and Comet SWAN are some examples of astronomical phenomena from the last few months viewed on Astronomy by the Bay’s livestreams.
Curwin keeps his page updated on a regular basis and runs contests encouraging audiences to take pictures of astronomical sights and send them in for prizes. He plans to continue the livestreams and the group is investigating into how they would hold star parties at “dark sky” sites such as the Irving Nature Park once restrictions further lift.
A Waxing Gibbous Moon on May 2 taken with a Huawei phone at the eyepiece of a Celestron 8 ” telescope (Image: Chris Curwin)
He has also been doing test runs for how to hold viewing parties while practicing physical distancing.
“We set up a telescope at a location, install what’s called an electronic eyepiece,” Curwin said. “The eyepiece has a video signal that comes out of it, it’s a powered eyepiece, the video signal will go out on a cable to a 12-volt television or a monitor, usually something out of a recreational vehicle/RV and then we would send the signal directly to it.”
Whatever is shown in the eyepiece would then be visible on the television.
“If you have a cable that’s 10 feet long or 20 feet long and keep people at the proper distance away, we actually can take the television and mount it on a music stand,” he said.
“It is something positive, something to take the weight from all the things that has happened,” explained Curwin. “Looking up is always great because you place yourself in it, you get very humble when you’re out underneath the stars and at everything that’s up there; problems all of a sudden become very tiny.”
