More sidewalk astronomy at the park

Everything finally converged and we had a great night for star gazing in the park. Roy R. led the night walk tonight and I set up the Orion and Celestron scopes up in the courtyard. It was crystal clear tonight so I was able to give both scopes a pretty good workout. I'm not yet familiar with the Celestron's hc so I was limited in what we could look at with it but found the moon, venus, and jupiter just fine with it. Alignment is a breeze and seems to be pretty accurate. I used the 'skyalign' mode that requires one to center three bright objects in the ep. The hc then figures out what they are and that's it. I used the moon, venus, and sirius which was visible about dusk. The hc did not list jupiter at first since it was near the zenith and out of reach by the scope. It moved enough by 7:45 that we were able to see it and three moons just fine. Europa and Io were actually aligned so all four were visible, it just looked like three. Calisto was particularly bright. Mare Crisium was an obvious feature on the moon. Wrinkle ridges in the mare were very apparent. I tightened up the 3" mount and it behaved much better. I was able to slew it around to both the Orion nebula and andromeda galaxy fairly quickly. I wasn't familiar enough with the Celestron hc to find anything except planets with it. I need to get out early saturday and play with it some more.
I had both scopes set up low in case young children showed up but everyone was older tonight. Older and better informed! We had some nice discussions on how far it was to venus etc, why the moon was in a different orientation here than in Minnesota, whether we were going to crash into the Andromeda galaxy, and how far were Jupiters moons from Jupiter (I didn't know that one).
Shirtsleeves were fine early but it was cool enough later for a long sleeve shirt. Two chairs worked out fine. Some viewers sat while looking but most just stooped over. Several had binoculars and used them.

First light at the park

After last night's debacle with Venus, tonight was a total success. Last night it finally cleared and I went out about 7:30 to catch a glimpse of Venus. I got the ETX all lined up, got Venus in the crosshairs and settled in for a good look. Just in time to see it disappear behind my neighbor's carport! Sigh.
Tonight was the regular night walk at the park. It wasn't clear, far from it, but I thought it might clear at dark like it did last night. So... I packed up my old kit bag and headed south. Melissa drew the short straw and led the party on their night walk while I got the scopes set up. I was optimistic and had both set up. Right on cue, Venus popped out about 6:30 followed shortly after by Jupiter. Oh boy! We're going to have fun. Five minutes later Venus and Jupiter both disappeared behind dark clouds. The clouds appeared just as the sun set and decided to stick around. Both Venus and Jupiter popped out periodically but never long enough to get the scope lined up. I gave up completely on the Celestron since there weren't any stars to line up on. The Orion 3" was at least agile enough to move into position when the opportunity presented. Jupiter was behaving badly and not only popped in and out of visibility, it was too high to reach with the alt-az mount, and the moons were all hiding. Eventually it got low enough to reach with the 3" and came out long enough to snag with the red dot finder. Once I got it centered and focused, all was well. I could see it almost 100% of the time, occasionally even spotting the 2 storm bands. Venus never did cooperate. About 7:30 the night walkers came in and I had a good time showing off Jupiter to about 12 park visitors, a nice mix of adults and kids. Note to self: drop the tripod a few inches and get a step stool for the little guys. Only the taller visitors were able to watch. Even with the clouds and no Galilean moons, everyone seemed pleased and wanted to come back later when it was clear. The night walk was successful too: screech owl, great horned, 3 coyotes, an armadillo, bats, and even a scorpion.
I need to spend some time with the Celestron to familiarize myself with its operation, even if its during daylight. I also need to tighten up the mount on the 3" orion. It's just too wobbly. The Celestron still needs a bolt for one of the tripod legs.
A good plan would be to set up the Celestron on some nice target like Jupiter and leave it, while using the 3" to quickly move to other targets of interest. The mount isn't a dob but it's not hard to move around.
All in all, not a bad night for 'first light'.

A Quadrantid - I think

The annual Quadrantid meteor shower was heralded for last night. It was nice and clear, the moon had set, not too cold (high 40's), no wind, so even though I had a sore throat coming on, I gathered up my stuff and went out back at 3:00 am to take a look for myself. I watched from 3:00 and gave up at 3:30: too cold and not enough meteors to hold my interest. That and I was afraid I'd aggravate that sore throat. It's better today though. I did see one fairly bright one. I'd guess it was at least magnitude 1, maybe even 0 or -1. The limiting magnitude was a bit less than 4. I could usually make out Upsilon Ursa Major which CdC pegs at 3.8 magnitude. Occasionally I even had difficulty with Delta UMa, where the handle meets the bowl. The quad I saw left a trail about as long as the dipper's handle and ran from about the general area of Canes Venatici to the edge of Leo, roughly NE to SW. I was watching in an area roughly 45 degrees in diameter, with loads of light pollution. The worst time was when my neighbor's motion light picked me up and lit up the white fence post just to my right like a beacon. That only lasted a few minutes and then I was back in my nice 'dark' viewing spot. I would have liked to have been out longer and might have if I had a good backyard lounge chair and a blanket. Perhaps if we are back in MO in April and the viewing conditions are good I'll try to catch another shower and try to document it even better.