My first Magazine Sky & Telescope - 01.2019

OBSERVING IN THE PARK by Tony Flanders Suburban Stargazing: T he W intry N orth Cassiopeia and southwestern Camelopardalis are treasure troves for bright-sky observers. am a creature of two worlds. For most of my child- hood I lived in Manhattan during the school year and spent summers at my family’s country home in upstate New York. As long as I can remember, I have felt equally comfortable exploring the sidewalks of a giant city and wandering through the woods miles from the nearest road. Likewise, I have been fortunate enough to pursue astronomy under some of the darkest and clearest skies on our planet. Yet I still enjoy observing near my cur- rent city home in Cambridge, Massachusetts, one of the most densely populated cities in the United States. It’s amazing how much you can see from a city or suburb if you know what to look for. I 62 SUBURBAN OBSERVING SITE With a spectac- ular view of downtown Boston, Robbins Farm Park in Arlington, Massachusetts, is a favorite spot for stargazers, dog walkers, and people enjoying the night air. JA N UA RY 2 019 • SK Y & TELESCOPE Like most Cambridge residents I have no backyard, so I do my local observing in city parks. My current favorite is Robbins Farm Park in Arlington, the next town out from Cambridge. Consisting mostly of single- family homes separated only by driveways, Arlington is typical of the inner suburbs of any major city in the northeastern U.S. On a good night averted vision shows stars down to magnitude 5.0 near the zenith, and my Sky Quality Meter reads anywhere from magnitude 18.2 to 18.7 per square arcsecond. I can glimpse the Andromeda Galaxy without optical aid, but the Milky Way is invisible. For tonight’s tour we’ll be observing stars and star clusters, the objects most resistant to light pollution. Skyglow reduces any given telescope’s ability to resolve faint stars, but that can be counteracted by using bigger scopes and/or higher magniﬁ cations. I observed all the deep-sky objects in this article with a 130-mm reﬂ ector,

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