Cruising Cassiopeia

It was finally clear tonight although it was quite breezy so I pulled out my trusty lawn recliner and 10x50 Nikon binocs for a little observing.  I decided on Cassiopeia since I knew from previous experience that it was in about the right spot for my backyard observatory.  It was in good position along with Perseus and Capella.  It took awhile but I was finally able to make out all five stars in Cas unaided. I used them to find M33 in the 10x50s.  It was visible but barely. I was able to see a few mag 8 stars in Mellotte 20 around Alpha Perseus also in the 10x50s. The Pleiades was visible unaided and a nice sight in binocs.  The neighbor's security light kept blinking on and off and it was generally pretty bright out.  Disgusting.  I gave up about 9:20 and went in to finish watching Dinosaur13 on TV.  Also pretty disgusting. Two years in the pen for not filling out forms. It would be good to know what REALLY went on behind the scenes.

A Picnic in the Park

Today was family day in Bentsen Park and tonight was a special star party event.  Or so it was planned.  Unfortunately family day was scheduled on a full moon (bad), and the weather didn't cooperate either: cloudy (worse). But we had a decent crowd and were able to talk to the visitors about amateur astronomy equipment while the sky was still light and they could see the equipment. Later on the summer triangle peeked out from the clouds and I was able to align the Celestron. About all we could do is to center Altair and show the visitors what a small area they were looking at through the telescope by comparing the view with that on my iPad. The full moon was finally high enough about 7:30 to be visible above the treeline but then it quickly ducked behind some clouds, not to reappear the rest of the evening. The night wasn't a total loss though, the mosquitoes weren't bad, we saw a tarantula out hunting for bugs, and I got the scopes all checked out and ready for the next clear Saturday evening.  Maybe next time?