Neptune at the Bonebrake Center

Tonight there was an astronomy outreach program at the Bonebrake center in Salem.  Since I'm friends with two of the ringleaders and one is an avid geocacher we decided to go early, have dinner at Angies Cafe and do some geocaching in the area.  We snagged a few, had a great pork steak bbq dinner, and met the crew at dusk.  I helped Joe Schuster and Jason Stotler set up their scopes and helped a bit as the night progressed.  They had a nice small crowd of mixed adults and kids. We were treated to clear skies, a quarter moon, and views of Saturn including Titan. Jason and I managed to get a glimpse of M31 in my 10x50 binocs but I was unable to catch Neptune.  It was just too low and the sky not quite dark enough.  Later at home around 11:00 I was finally able to verify Neptune. I thought it was a little brighter than the 7.8 given by Sky Safari and was able to see it easily in my 10x50s. There were not enough stars of Aquarius visible unaided due to the quarter moon glare so star hopping with my binocs from Fomalhaut was a bit tedious but I got 'er done! Uranus would have been a bit brighter but it was still too low to be easy to catch.  Maybe later in the valley although seeing anything in the East is difficult down there.