June 16, 2014 edited June 17 & June 23
The following is from the Merit Badge Requirements.
8. With your counselor's approval and guidance, do ONE of the following:
1. Visit a planetarium or astronomical observatory...
2. Plan and participate in a three-hour observation session that includes using binoculars or a telescope. List the celestial objects you want to observe, and find each on a star chart or in a guidebook. Prepare an observing log or notebook. Show your plan, charts, and log or notebook to your counselor before making your observations. Review your log or notebook with your counselor afterward.
3. Plan and host a star party for your Scout troop or other group such as your class at school. Use binoculars or a telescope to show and explain celestial objects to the group.
4. Help an astronomy club in your community hold a star party that is open to the public.
5. Personally take a series of photographs or digital images of the movement of the Moon, a planet, an asteroid, meteor, or a comet. In your visual display, label each image and include the date and time it was taken. Show all positions on a star chart or map. Show your display at school or at a troop meeting. Explain the changes you observed.
Scouts and parents, of these five activities, #2 and #3 seem to be the same. #1 requires travel to a planetarium, and often the planetarium shows are entertainment, not learning. Mr. & Mrs. Engelbrecht will check with the Ruth Patrick planetarium in Aiken to see if they can put on a learning session. For #4, there is a local astronomy club but I don't know if they are open to scouts leading their observing session.
All in all, #2/#3 or #5 seems most practical and educational for Augusta. Mr. Engelbrecht and Mr. Blake will work with you as you plan your activity. Show us your plans and we will help you adjust your plans so there will be success instead of disappointment.
For #5, it will be the Moon or Saturn/Mars, Saturn and Mars being close together from June until August 27. You may take
1) at least six photos during one clear evening over four hours with your camera fixed on a tripod, preferably with the horizon visible, or
2) one photo per night at the same time for ten nights during a month, of Saturn/Mars, or
3) one photo per night at the same time for eight days of the Moon, starting from soon after a New Moon or, in the early morning, starting ten days before a New Moon.
For the second and third options, the time of the photos must be within 10 minutes of each other.
If you choose to photograph Saturn/Mars, you must first do some trial photos to see if your camera can see both these planets and preferably some nearby stars like Antares and Spica. Saturn and Mars remain visible within an hour after sunset until August 27. Another challenge as you tackle #5 is identifying which of the bright, evening stars are really Mars and Saturn. If you search the World Wide Web, there are web sites to help you. You can arrange to come to Mr. & Mrs. Engelbrecht's apartment 12311 Culebra Road #6104 San Antonio, to use the Stellarium program which lets you see planet motions during two months. (706) 421-6044
For #2/#3, a group of scouts working together on one three-hour observation session is the best plan because three hours is a large commitment of time. This is not suitable for scouts who can't focus their attention for the three hours. The three hours may be broken up into two sessions on different nights, but one of the sessions must be conducted with dark sky, away from lights. Each scout must be able to explain the various things that you plan for the three-hour session, even if you didn't come up with the ideas. Late summer is a better time than early summer because the days are getting shorter and parents don't want to be up until midnight. But doing this before school starts is a big advantage because we will be up late. On the other hand, the maximum of the prolific Perseid meteor shower is expected during the night of August 12. The Perseus constellation will be low in the NNE sky, so a dark horizon in that direction would make these meteors most visible. They come at a rate of once a minute at 3 A.M. but at 11 P.M. they may be once every four minutes.
The best merit-badge activity for Item 8 may be a combination of planetarium and a one-hour observing session in a dark place, maybe within three days of the Perseid peak on August 12.
Finding a place away from streetlights and big lit areas like mall, I-20, and car dealerships, but a place that is safe for a group and not too far away and not down in a valley, is the leading need. Thanks to Mr. “Ranger Dave” Quebedeaux, we know that Lake Springs Park at Thurmond Lake has good observing conditions but the web site says it is day use, so we need to ask Mr. Quebedeaux if he can make special arrangements.
Some activities for #2/#3: get several binoculars together, especially binoculars that fit on a tripod. Just after sundown, look for satellites during 45 minutes. When it is dark, there are particular things to look at. Mr. Engelbrecht has a 60mm telescope (a small telescope) that can see the rings of Saturn, and Mr. Blake may have a telescope to use. There are lots of reference books that your adult leaders have, and we will use them to look for things--some of the looking will be unsuccessful, and we will learn WHY it was unsuccessful. Scouts may wish to look for random meteors, but that only happens once an hour!
For #2/#3, the event might be clouded out and have to be rescheduled. This web page, https://sites.google.com/site/solderandcircuits/home/scouts-astronomy-merit-badge, will be the place to post the event details and any reschedule.
More info to come when we see how many scouts are interested.
Two astronomy programs Mr. Engelbrecht has on a Linux computer: Celestia for an orientation to the Milky Way and Stellarium for sky views with planets. These are both interactive.