Mike Suchcicki

Special to Pensacola News Journal

Dewey Barker is very patient with the reporter who asks, as it turns out, what might be considered a silly question by most astronomers.

“Why don’t you guys hold your stargazing events during a full moon? Wouldn’t that be more spectacular?”

Barker, who is the coordinator of stargazing events for the Escambia Amateur Astronomer’s Association, and who has a lot of experience teaching astronomy to newcomers, chuckles slightly.

“We don’t schedule during the full moon because of the way the light strikes its surface,” Barker said. “To look at the moon fully lit up is like looking at a light bulb that’s turned on. You don’t see any details.”

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That’s why the EAAA schedules its stargazes on weeks when the moon isn’t full.

For its public stargazing events at Casino Beach on Pensacola Beach, for example, the group sets up when the moon is at first quarter.

Stargazes at Fort Pickens, in the Battery Worth picnic area, occur during the new moon.

Events at Big Lagoon State Park are during the weekends of the third-quarter moon.

“Where the edge of the sunlight comes in at an oblique angle and strikes the moon, you see lots of detail,” Barker said.

The organization, whose mission is to bring local amateur astronomers together and to educate the public on the joys and wonders of astronomy, has been staging stargazes at Battery Worth almost since the group began in 1976. In 2008, the group added gazes on the sidewalks of Casino Beach, and then, in 2011, the Big Lagoon events were added.

About six to eight telescopes are set up in the selected area and the public is invited to gaze at celestial objects and outer space wonders. Usually, Barker said, the Casino Beach gazes focus on the moon and planets, while the Battery Worth and Big Lagoon events train the telescopes on nebulae and galaxies and clusters.

“It’s simply because of the light pollution,” he said. “At Casino Beach, the moon and the planets usually are the best things you can see, while Fort Pickens and Big Lagoon are more of what are called dark sky sites.”

The events on average attract about 200 spectators, although Barker said some events, timed around major festivals like Taste of the Beach, have lured up to 600 or so.

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Usually before the Fort Pickens stargazes, Pensacola State College astronomy instructor Lauren Rogers presents a short “sky tour” at the amphitheater.

"I use software called Stellarium to show visitors what they’ll be seeing in that night’s sky, plus several other things that can’t be seen from that time and location,” Rogers says. "It gives everyone a nice overview of what to expect.”

She said the public is always enthusiastic and are interested learners.

"Many people we get at the beach gazes are tourists who just happened to run across us,” she said. "They didn’t expect to be drawn into a group of astronomers for a sky tour, but they’re usually super excited about what they can see. Choruses of 'Whoa!' and 'Oh my God!' are common. They love seeing Saturn’s rings and Jupiter’s cloud bands. Many people are also interested in being able to see other galaxies outside of our own Milky Way.”

Barker said, “For a lot of people it’s helping them make that connection that they didn’t realize was out there. They see the pictures in the magazines and on the internet, but when they actually get to see it with their own eyes they get a little bit more of a connection, especially when they have an astronomer that can explain the details and what they’re seeing.”

“Many at the stargazes haven’t ever looked through a telescope before,” Rogers said. “It’s always gratifying to show people something they’re interested in that they’ve never seen before.”

“We’ve had men on the moon, machines on mars, orbiters around Jupiter and Saturn,” says Barker. “Our stargazes help them relate better. We’ve put equipment around those objects and now you’re seeing what those probes and stuff saw."

Barker says the public is welcome to bring cameras to the stargazes; members can help them take photos of the moon and planets through the telescopes.

“We even have brackets to hold their cellphones, if they want to use their phones to take photos,” Barker says.

The EAAA’s stargazing season runs from April through October, and Barker encourages anyone looking for a great evening out to come and gaze along with his group.

“I’m often telling guys that a stargaze makes a great date night,” he says. “After all, you can tell your date that you’re literally going to give her the moon and the stars.”

Mike Suchcicki is a freelance writer for the News Journal.

Want to go?

What: Stargazing events by the Escambia Amateur Astronomer’s Association

When and where: 7 p.m. Friday, Sept. 7, and Oct. 5, Battery Worth Picnic Area at Gulf Islands National Seashore; Friday and Saturday, Sept. 14 and 15, Casino Beach pavilion area, Pensacola Beach; 7 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 29, Big Lagoon State Park

Cost: Free

Details: Visit eaaa.net, or call 850-450-7767 after 4 p.m.

Want to take up stargazing?

Dewey Barker, stargaze coordinator and education chair of the Escambia Amateur Astronomer’s Association, has a simple bit of advice for someone looking to take up stargazing and astronomy as a hobby:

Don’t buy a telescope.

Say what?

“Usually if someone is just getting started in astronomy, I recommend getting a decent pair of binoculars,” Barker says. “Now, sure, you can wind up spending quite a bit of money on binoculars, but the advantage that I point out to people is that you can use the binoculars for other things. If you spend a lot of money on a telescope, then you can look at the stars and that’s about it. But you can use binoculars for bird-watching, hunting, sporting events, that kind of stuff.”

Also, he said, “Things are going to look better in the binoculars because of the wide field of view. The telescope, of course, has a narrower point of view.”

For people who might scoff at what they perceive to be the lesser range of binoculars, Barker said, “They don’t realize that a lot of the binoculars we have out today are equivalent to what Galileo was using to look at the skies in the 1600s."

After that, Barker recommends simple research.

“Get Astronomy magazine or Sky & Telescope,” he said. “Download some star maps. Learn the constellations. If you don’t know where to point the thing, you’re going to run into a lot of frustration. It’s like moving to a new city where you don’t know the roads. Once you take the time to get to know them, it’s easier to drive around. The night sky is the same thing."