last Night in the Park

Last night was my last night in the park for this season. We head north in the morning. After gradually clearing skies during the day, the clouds started moving back in during late afternoon. I decided I might as well risk it anyway and got 3 scopes set up by 7:30 and began waiting for dark (and a clearing in the clouds). About 8:00 I was about to pack it in and began putting my ETX away. As I was walking back after depositing it in the car, I noticed the clouds had parted enough for Jupiter to peek through. Maybe there's a chance I thought! A group of about 18 youngsters and a few adults showed up with Roy and Mary about 8:45 bringing lots of questions and more than a few WOWs. Jupiter's moons and storm bands put on a good show. One couple of birders from PA were particularly enthralled and kept us entertained until about 9:30. It could have been clearer but all in all it wasn't a bad night for the last event of the seaason. So long Bentsen until Fall rolls around again

Celestron Studies

It was only partly cloudy tonight so I thought I'd head down to the park about 6:15 to see if I could figure out what the alignment problem was with the Celestron. It got steadier cloudy but the moon eventually popped out and I tried a one object alignment. It worked. I did a slew to Serius and although it wasn't visible, the scope went to the right general area and then I returned to the moon and Bingo. There never were any stars tonight so I packed up about 8:30 and headed home. I was able to explain the scope to some guys that rode by on bikes and visited for a few minutes. I chalked the alignment failures up to using stars that were too close to each other.

Back in the Park

Between our trips back to Ky and a very cloudy winter so far, it hasn't been a good time for astronomy in the park.  We got back from mom's funeral on Thursday, had lunch in Mexico with the extended gang for March birthdays (David and Harold Lee) on Friday, it was cloudy Friday night and this morning so I thought it was going to be another bust.  But after lunch it started clearing off and this evening it was spectacularly clear with no moon, a perfect night except for the high wind.  I headed down to the park about 6:00 after a quick house warming at Ken and Lee's new place down the alley from us in Lot #333 GGG.  I got set up with the Celestron and Orion scopes and started waiting for sundown which occured around 7:00.  I made a quick dash out to the open field to look for Comet PanStars but didn't have any luck.  I didn't even spot Mars.  I suspect that there were some low clouds in the West even though it seemed fairly clear.  A little after 7:00 'the gang' showed up so I started aligning the Celestron.  Jupiter, Sirius, Rigel, and Procyon were all visible so I should have had an easy time of it.  First problem was Jupiter was too high.  I managed to bang the OTA against the tripod (again).  I quickly switched over to Sirius and used those three stars for alignment.  Unfortunately it failed, twice.  I gave up on the Celestron and suspect there may be a problem, either with the scope or with the operator.  It was getting close to 7:30 so I grabbed my ETX out of the car, did a quick and dirty alignment, and centered on Jupiter.  Between the ETX and the little Orion I managed to get at least one 'wow' out of Jean over Jupiter's moons.  She was able to see all four even though Io was almost lost in the planet's glare.  The first group of Judy, Jean, Steve, Jan, Ken, and Lee eventually left about 8:00 (except for Judy who stayed to help) and we waited for the 'official' tour group.  They eventually showed up around 8:15 just as clouds were starting to drift in.  We had about a dozen children ranging in ages from about 3 to teen and 2 or 3 adults.  The kids were mostly underwhelmed but one young girl about middle school age wanted to know what a comet was.  She seemed quite interested.  The adults seemed pleased to be able to see Jupiter's moon, the Pleades, and the Orion Nebula (baby star nursery).  I gave them a quick tour of the Orion myth of the hunter and his two dogs chasing the seven sisters and being charged by Taurus the bull.  We wrapped up about 9:15 for a total of about three hours.
Next time I need to try to remember to pick up a couple of new batteries for the red dot finders, some sort of a step stool or at least set up a scope lower to the ground for little kids.  I also need to repair my crutch tripod which got kind of beat up this trip, and take a look at the Celestron in the daylight to try to figure out why its not wanting to align properly.