Local stargazers ready for spectacle in the sky
KITCHENER — If you want to feel like a tiny spectator to a dance that’s been going on since the universe began, this is a good month to begin.
Astronomy fans across the region are getting ready for the cosmos to put on a show, starting with the Perseid meteor shower beginning Wednesday night. In less than two weeks, it’ll be an even bigger performance — a total solar eclipse, something that hasn’t touched the continental U.S. since 1979.
“An eclipse is the closest thing I’ve ever had to a religious experience,” said Jeff Collinson, a local eclipse chaser who will drive 24 hours to Casper, Wyoming, to see the rare spectacle on Aug. 21.
“I’d say it’s the most beautiful thing in nature. It always leaves me completely speechless. It’s an emotional high.”
Because Waterloo Region will only get a partial eclipse, people like Collinson will drive to locations across the U.S. to witness the two and a half-minute eclipse. For those folks, it’s worth the long hours of travel for a phenomenon that brings darkness in the middle of the day and lasts just a few brief moments.
On Wednesday night, the sky will put on a display that requires no travel at all. The K-W Astronomy Club is hosting a stargazing party at the University of Waterloo’s Columbia Icefields Sports Field to celebrate the annual Perseid meteor shower.
Caused by the Earth crashing through the debris trail of the Comet Swift-Tuttle, this annual event can produce 80 visible meteors an hour, and is best viewed with the naked eye. The shower will peak on Aug. 12, and fade after that.
Sometimes, ‘bursts’ can produce a lot more action — there were up to 200 meteors per hour last year, in some locations.
“You’ll be sitting there, and then it’ll just start happening, ‘Bam, bam, bam,’” said Sergio Mammoliti, a vice-president with the K-W Astronomy Club. “Your best bet is to just lean back and look up. You can do it from your backyard.”
Although the astronomy club will have telescopes on hand for Wednesday’s gathering, Mammoliti recommends just using your eyes to take it all in. A telescope or binoculars are “essentially like looking through a straw,” he said, cutting off too much of the sky.
Later this month, the St. Clements resident will join thousands of others expected to travel to an airfield in St. Joseph, Missouri, where he’ll take in his first total solar eclipse.
For astronomers, the chance to see a total solar eclipse within driving distance is something to get excited about. Collinson has travelled around the world to witness six eclipses already, and says it’s become an addictive hobby.
“It’s a natural phenomenon that everybody should see at least once in their lifetime,” he said. “It’s truly awe-inspiring.”
Mammoliti, meanwhile, is bracing for an emotional experience.
“I’m driving 15 hours just to see it. It’s a big deal,” he said. “People have been brought to tears by this . ... You get to see a shadow racing across the Earth at 1,000 kilometres an hour.”
Mammoliti’s fascination with space began when he was kid who dreamed about being an astronaut. His mother bought him a telescope at around age ten, and he’s been hooked ever since.
“There are more stars in our own galaxy than there are grains of sand on the Earth,” he said. “You kind of get a sense of being very small, and it’s very humbling. It’s incredible that we’ve come from being in caves and looking up there to actually understanding the physics of what’s going on.”
If you’re stuck in Waterloo Region during the Aug. 21 solar eclipse, he recommends making your own pinhole camera, or looking at how the leaves of a tree filter the light onto the ground, creating a crescent shape.
But if you want to look at the phenomenon directly, you should use eclipse glasses — cheap eyewear that will allow you to look safely at the eclipse without the harmful rays that can cause permanent eye damage.
Stargazers have been snapping them up for weeks in anticipation.
“I’ve already sold hundreds of them,” said Brian Dernesch, owner of KW Telescope on Manitou Drive in Kitchener. “I’ve ordered 900 more, but more than 400 of them are already spoken for.”
The KW Astromony Club is hosting a Perseid meteor shower viewing party at the University of Waterloo’s Columbia Icefields sports field Wednesday night, from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. The event is free and open to all ages.