Perseid Shower etc

I haven't done much observing lately in our horribly light polluted subdivision but two things gave me some incentive.  First was the excellent essay in the July 2019 S&T by Christopher Cokinos on observing the moon. His situation of moving from a dark sky rural area to light polluted Tucson was similar to my own and I immediately connected. Second was the occasion of the Perseid meteor shower. I woke up this morning about 4:00am which isn't unusual but this time I slipped out back to my small spot that is free of direct street light.  It's still light enough to almost read by but it would have to do. I grabbed a patio chair and looked up. The moon was low in the west and not a bother and I could actually see several brighter stars. Within a half hour I had spotted three or four bright streaks coming roughly from the direction of Perseus over my right shoulder. I figured the limiting magnitude was about 3 since I could see 4 of the 5 bright stars of Cassiopeia but not mag 3.3 Epsilon Cas. Not too bad a finish for a night when earlier I had made a contact with NF5U in Dallas with 5w during the NAQCC sprint for August.
This short session was a far cry from a night earlier in the month when we were camped in Cap Rock Canyons State Park in Texas. On the night of Aug 1, 2019 my Sky Quality Meter registered 21.54 and I was able to see the beautiful Milky Way in all of its glory. This compares with 20.51 in Sydney MT 28 July 2019, 21.62 4 June 2019 at Frank's camp, 2 June 2019 UT camp 21.68, 31 May 2019 Santa Fe 21.38, and on 29 May was 21.26. Clovis NM 27 May 20.77, 25 May Lk Arrowhead SP TX 18.3. 22 May 2019 Red Rock Cyn OK 19.26. 4 May 2019 Lane Springs 21.38.

Going lower (frequency wise)

Friday July 27 2018 marked the arrival of my latest electromagnetic spectrum sensor. This was a bit lower in frequency than my optical instruments - a brand new Yaesu FT-991A amateur transceiver! This is sometimes called a 'shack in a box' and covers ham bands from 160m to 70cm. Earlier in the year I had finally succumbed to outside prodding and my own curiosity and took the amateur radio license exam - and passed with 100%. A few days later I received my new Technician Class license, KG5ZID. I jumped back into my SDR mode and quickly had the little receiver attached to wsjt-x.exe software in the PC and was receiving FT8 digital mode signals from all over. A ham-it-up upconverter for the amateur bands under 6m and a couple of home brew antennas (one for 6m and one for 2m) stuffed into the attic and I was off and running. K9ZVZ sold me an extra Wouxun KG-UVD1P hand held xcvr to round out the 'shack'. Fast forward to today when I came across an article in Feb 2018 QST on a new ham satellite - AO-91. This is basically an FM repeater in space that works on the 2m and 70cm bands. It receives on 435.250 and transmits on 145.960. I read the article while at the dentist office getting my old bridge repaired (ugh). When I got home I looked up AO-91 on Heavens Above and guess what? It happened to be rising low in the south and headed north! I grabbed my HT and went to the front porch, tuned the radio to the downlink, and bang! I heard ham chatter where there normally wasn't any!! I couldn't quite make out a complete call sign and the signals disappeared when the satellite pass was complete so I don't know where the stations were located but I am sure they were passing through AO-91.
So now I can add radio satellites and 2m to my 'viewing pleasure'. One thing about 2m is it isn't bothered by street lights!

Eps Cas unaided

We had some rain and a little snow yesterday but today was clear and sunny so I decided to give my light poluted observatory another shot. Tonight I was able to spot eps cas unaided. It wasn't easy and I had to use averted vision but there it was, a mag 3.3 unaided in south Texas. Unbelievable! I was going to try for some of Matt Wedel's objects in Cassiopeia but I stopped at IC1805 which wasn't even on the list. This is the Heart Nebula and I saw it as a faint cloudiness. To find it I started at eps cas and the 4-star Y shaped asterism about a degree NE of eps. About a half binoc field to the right brought me to mag 7.1 HD14010 and its brighter companion. Another field to the right took me to the faint cloudiness of IC1805 or at least that's what I told myself at the time. While looking for some sort of distinctive asterism that I could use as a waymark, I spotted an obviously Scorpio-looking group of 8 stars between mag 6 and 7 that turned out to be where the famous Double Cluster in Perseus is located. The double cluster isn't much in 10x50s and nothing at all like what I remembered in Colorado a few years ago but the asterism was nice. I was getting a bit chilly - it warmed up to low 60s but then dropped again after the sun went down - so I decided to close out with M31 again. I found it fairly quickly by using the bright triangle of Cas to point the way and once again M31 presented itself. It seemed somewhat brighter tonight and I was able to make out a small arc of three mag 7 - 7.6 stars nearby. Mag 5.3 32And was clearly visible in the field and is near the SW extent of M31 but I could only see the center portion of the galaxy.
That was enough for one night. I opened up the garage door, turn on the lights, packed up my observing chair and gear, and called it a night. Very nice.

Stars in the NE

It's been awhile. It is so blasted light polluted in my neighborhood of Mission Texas I get depressed whenever I step outside at night. Needless to say I don't step outside at night very often if I can help it. Tonight was an exception though. It has been very clear and not too warm so I thought I'd see what I could see. I had been inspired by an earlier episode of Startalk that featured an interview with a Hawaiian navigator (Nainoa Thompson) and the voyages of the Hokule'a. Mr Thompson navigates in open ocean for 1000s of miles the old way - without instruments of any sort.  After setting up my trusted reclining observing chair, my 10x50s and SkySafari in my lap, I waited to see what might reveal itself as I allowed my eyes to accomodate. It was 7:30 and about as dark as it was going to get in my driveway. Capella soon popped out low in the northeast. I watched for Mirfak and eventually was able to make it out above and to the left of Capella. Once I had Mirfak, or Alpha Persei, in my sights, I pulled up the binocs for a closer look. "Not bad for Texas" was my first thought. I was able to pick out nearby HR 1059, a dim magnitude 6 star, but not any of the magnitude 7 stars in the field of view. Undaunted, I searched for the Queen of Ethiopia about 20 more degrees to the north. I was able to eventually make out 4 of the 5 bright stars of Cassiopeia unaided. I wasn't able to see the 3.3 magnitude Segin although I did finally convince myself that I could occasionally glimpse it. Bright Vega and dimmer Deneb a bit farther to the West completed the night's arc across the sky from East to West looking North. A limiting naked eye visibility of magnitude 2 sure makes for a dull night sky but it is what it is and I tried to make the best of it. I finished off with a win by grabbing a glimpse of our neighboring galaxy. Andromeda was easy enough to find using the stars of Cassiopeia as pointers and surprisingly bright in my 7x50s. It was close to the zenith at 8:00 so at least there wasn't quite so much murk in the way. It was enough to cheer me up and at least the mosquitoes weren't hungry tonight!

The great Eclipse of 2017

Today was a day several years in the making. I remember a couple of years ago, Tom Heffron mentioned that there was going to be an eclipse in 2017 that was going to pass right over our house in MO. In the meantime, we ended up selling that house, moving to south Texas, and finding out that the path of totality was going to be about 70 miles north of our old place! I decided that no matter what, I was going to be somewhere on the path of totality come Aug 21, 2017. We had several choices, starting with cousin John Lee in Oregon, the Pat Rafferty in Idaho, Judy's cousin Val in Wyoming, the kids in Columbia MO, or dad in Paducah KY. We started summer out with a trip to KY, MO, Iowa (camping farmer), and MT (Kelly), then on to Swift Current SK and Westcan7 mega geocache event. After just about more fun than I could handle, we spent a month in the Townsend area, helping people move and geocaching as well as staying cool. When Aug 21 got close, I contacted Pat who invited us out to the ranch for a few days to watch with some other friends of theirs. We had a grand time catching up with the Raffertys and then came the big day. The weather was perfect - not a cloud in the sky. We got my ETX set up to track the event, cameras to document the affair, and loads of beer and wine to keep us hydrated. As totality approached, cameras clicked, eclipse glasses tried out, and a hush settled over the small crowd of 8. At the moment of totality there was a collective WOW. The nearby horses looked at us like we were nuts but otherwise went about their usual business of grazing. We spent another evening enjoying Bear Paw Ranch hospitality, then said our goodbys and headed south once again. We stopped off in WY, UT, and NM for more geocaching and sight seeing which was all great but just didn't quite measure up to those few moments of totality in August. What a sight!
By the way, there was nothing fancy about the picture. I took a number of shots through my ETX leading up to totality primarily to compare against that awesome annular eclipse from a few years ago in NM, but I decided to heed the advise of others who said to simply enjoy the view. At the last minute, after my WOWs were finished, I grabbed my nearby Canon POS, pointed it in the geneal direction of the sun, and snapped a picture using auto settings. As luck would have it, it turned out pretty good.

A New Handbox!

A few weeks ago I found a new Autostar I 497 handbox for sale on eBay for $99 and bought it. I still don't quite have it setup right but it's getting close and works well enough for now. The last week or so I've been trying out ASCOM and installed the software so that it works with CdC but still haven't tried it out with the new handbox. Tonight I finally decided to give the ETX and new 497 a whirl outside and spent about an hour and a half getting familiar with the sky again. I got the scope pointed at Polaris and leveled but when I tried an easy align it seemed to slew about twice as far in AZ as it needed to! I tried a one star align on Sirius and same thing, too far. I finally just gave up and manually pointed it at Sirius using my laser pointer as a finder. I was able to see an 8th mag star in the vicinity of Sirius and even picked up 4 or 5 of the brighter stars in M41against a dim glow of the other stars making up this open cluster. Next I slewed over to Jupiter which was rising in the east. It was high enough that I was able to get a good view and even got to try out my 'new' 4mm EP. It's almost parfocal with the 25mm and I was able to bring it into focus with a minimum of hassle. My 'fix' for the ETX's focuser seems to be holding and is a vast improvement over the previous state. Finally I ended up with M42 in Orion. The sky was pretty clear tonight and even with the light pollution I was able to pick up the familiar shape of the hunter. The scope was really getting kind of flakey by now and I was loosing my patience. I need to either lower the tripod or get a higher stool as I had to stand and bend over most of the time. Not the best for my back.
All in all, I'd call it a success. I need to find out the cause of the alignment problem and get that fixed and see if I can get the Autostar to cooperate a little better. It always wants to act like is in the initial state and presents me with the sun warning every time it's turned on.  Not good. I was happy with the performance of the 4mm EP though and satisfied with the limiting magnitude of 8 for this site. Not bad at all.

Vesta Revisited

I thought it had been a long time since my last post but it has only been since August - not that bad. My ETX handboxes still don't work and I still don't have a new scope and it is still way too light to do much around the house. That said, it's a new year, we have a new president as of noon today (ugh), and I read that my old friend Vesta is in the sky again. I haven't seen it in awhile. It was still low in Gemini at 8:00 pm when I first went out so I waited until 10:00 when it was a bit higher. Unfortunately I think the seeing got worse but it was still clear and I could make out Castor and Pollux unaided. Using my trusty 10x50s I was able to pick out stars down to about mag 6. I used Pollux and Phi Geminorum (mag 5) as pointers to hop over to Omega 1 and 2 in Cancer, a mag 6.3 wide double.  From there I looked about a third of the binoc field to the south and there it was, glowing dimly - Vesta! I could even occasionally make out the little string of three mag 7 stars just east of Vesta.It looks like I first saw this little planetoid back in 2008, a bit over 8 years ago, near the beginning of the Obama administration. I hope my observing is as good during the coming administration as it has been during the last two, but I'm not holding my breath.

Planet Crash!

It's been almost a year since my last post here.  Too long. Last year was not a good year for observing. My ETX has all but died as the handbox keys just don't want to work. Furthermore my neighbors are getting more and more paranoid every year and I'm now surrounded by motion detector lights: one to the N and one to the S in back, one to the S in front, and a light that seems to be a car headlight mounted on the neighbor's porch across the street and pointed at my house! If the light pollution wasn't bad enough, the end of January through me into the hospital for a few days with a subdural hematoma. That pretty much laid me low for 4-6 weeks. After that we got a call from a neighbor who wanted to buy our property in MO so we ended up selling out and moving to TX full time. We now own a lovely house in a neighborhood where the streets are named after objects de astro. Our street is named Aquarius so I guess that makes this the dawning of the age of Aquarius where Jupiter aligns with Mars etc etc (a good show!). Except this week Jupiter is definitely NOT aligning with Mars, it's Saturn! Jupiter is aligning with Venus and boy are they putting on a show. Venus is fairly racing through the sky and tonight shot right past Jupiter slowly slogging along. Clouds in the west threatened to ruin the show last night and tonight both but they pretty much dissipated and both planet pairs were gorgeous. I wasn't able to make out Mercury yet, it's just too low in the haze from my place.
I also decided to participate in Loss of Night's latest citizen science project and did a couple of 8 star observations with their app. At 9:15 or so the limiting magnitude reported by the app was about 2.5. Not bad for a place that is in perpetual twilight. I whined and fretted enough that the neighbors all turned off their outside lights on my side of their house so it's not too bad. I took all of mine down and actually got a thank you from two of the neighbors! Now if I could just turn off a few street lights. Maybe those second amendment folks can help out??
I had to use binocs since my ETX's new 497 handbox also bit the dust. This time the display is bad. One with bad keys, the other with a bad display. I think it's time to get a new scope.
We also found time to run over to Harlingen today and picked up a couple of mystery caches for the latest geocache mission project. We found 8nut's square root day cache and the Heritage Museum's cache. That one was fun as we got to take a quick look at their cigar box banjo exhibit and the  historical buildings on site.   Definitely worth a return trip.

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.

A Night to Remember

Actually all of yesterday was a Day to Remember: a perfectly beautiful early spring day in Missouri. We went back to Bray Conservation Area outside Rolla and hiked the Full Moon trail, about 2 miles I think. Of course we were geocaching and we found Rick and Joy's Golden Ammo Can at about the half way mark near the sinkhole feature. Yesterday evening I took advantage of the crystal clear moonless skies to observe Venus next to the Pleiades. I've been observing several Venus conjunctions this year as part of my BRGVSP outreach sessions but this one was different, and very pretty in binoculars. Leo looks like it is trying to catch Jupiter now and Jupiter makes a nice pairing with the Beehive cluster nearby. Early this morning I got up at 5:00 am to see if Nova Sagittarii 2015 No 2 was still visible.  It is and is still about magnitude 6 by my estimate. S&T claims it varies in brightness between 4.5 and 6 so I'll need to try again if we get any more clear mornings.  It's overcast again today (haze was coming in at 5:00) so one never knows.  This IS Missouri after all!

Nova Sagittarii 2015 No. 2

Nova Sagittarii 2015 No. 2

Nova Sagittarii 2015 No. 2

Nova Sagittarii 2015 No. 2

Nova Sagittarii 2015 No. 2

A Nova in Sagitarius

I've been trying to remember to get up early on a clear morning to see if I could see the new nova in the south. Today was the day.  Judy couldn't sleep so she went outside, noticed it was clear, and woke me up about 6:30. I grabbed my 10x50s and headed south to the fence where I just might get some relief from the depressingly large number of streetlights in our neighborhood, not to mention the added bonus of a yardlight every couple of yards, LED accent lights, rope lights, and every other form of light polution known to mankind! I was able to see Scorpius high in the south, much higher than it is up north at this time, and I knew that Sagitarius was following along close behind.  I couldn't see much unaided though so I pulled out my trusty 10x50s.  There it was, a pattern that was familiar: the teapot.  I looked for the lid and THERE IT WAS! There was a new fourth 'star' where there has always been only three before. I wasn't able to do a very good comparison but there was definitely a bright star not shown on my star chart. When I got home I estimated that it was about the same brightness as HD166023 a bit further west and out of my field of view. That would put the nova at about magnitude 5 or 6. If it is still clear in the morning, and if I'm able to get up again, I'll try a bit earlier from a darker location and see if I can't get a better estimate of brightness, but for now this will have to do.  I believe this is my first viewing of a nova! The image is a screen shot of the field around the nova as seen through my 10x50s assuming a seven degree FOV. The white arrow points to the location of the nova which I penciled in on the screenshot.

Venus and the Moon (and Mars, and the Sun finally)

Moon/Venus Conjunction

As bad as the seeing was last night (non-existent) it was superb tonight.  The sun finally broke through the cloud bank about noon and it got steadily better the rest of the day. Tonight was perfect except for a horde of pesky mosquitoes that have been taking advantage of all the rain and warm weather we've had lately. I missed the Mars/Moon conjunction last night because of the clouds but the Moon/Venus duet really put on a show tonight. I was able to capture a nice image of the pair framed by the neighbor's palm tree across the street. Mars was also in view, barely. I was able to make it out in my 10x50s after it got a bit darker.  I also used my new Nexus 7 tablet and Google Sky Map to help find Mars.  I've come to really like the new tool.  I've not use the 'point and shoot' feature of Sky Safari Pro, preferring to use manual mode instead, but I've been using Sky Map auto mode quite a bit ever since discovering that the compass and magnets don't go well together! I discovered that while geocaching a few days ago with it. The compass feature of c:geo was leading me all over the place until I realized that the cover had a magnet to turn the Nexus on and off by opening the cover. After removing the case, all was well, and the operation of Sky Map also improved! I also noticed that Jupiter is now high overhead, leading Leo to the west. I had originally intended setting up the scope for an evening of viewing but decided against it after providing dinner to some hungry mosquitoes.

March's Star Party - in the rain!

Who would be silly enough to show up for a star party in the pouring rain?  Those thoughts went through my head today as a fairly steady rain poured down all day long. A small clearing in the clouds appeared late this afternoon but quickly closed up toward sundown. The answer to my question came in the form of Judy and me and about ten others! I anticipated a stellar no-show and added about twice as much material including slides on the signs of the zodiac and why the sun's not in Leo in August anymore, Dawn at Ceres, CME's on the sun, and finding your way around in the sky. A crash of OpenOffice that occured before the show even started resulted in several slides 'disappearing' but otherwise it all went without a hitch, except no stars. There were several good questions and everyone seemed to enjoy going outside to see if we could catch at least a glimpse of something. There were no 9 year olds at this event so I basically skipped 'birthday stars' but will include them later. It was a kind of blah way to end the season's star parties as we will be heading back north soon, to darker skies hopefully, but it was fun anyway.

February's Star Party in the Park

The weatherman could not have cooperated better tonight unless it was a bit less windy but the wind at least kept the mosquitoes at bay.  The temperature was a balmy short-sleeve shirt 70° and the sky was clear as a bell.  I talked to about 30 people of all ages, both local and winter texans, from about 6:00 to 7:00 and we then moved out to the patio where we had three telescopes set up.  While the group admired the Mars/Venus conjunction and Jupiter's moons, I got the scopes aligned on the conjunction and Jupiter. I then pointed out several features in Orion, the Pleiades, Taurus, Canis Major and identified Canopus low in the south. I found comet Lovejoy and several were able to find it with binoculars. A satellite passing overhead thrilled the young cub scouts that were present.
I did a three star alignment of the Celestron goto which was successful but when I set Jupiter as the target it slewed in the opposite direction.  Not sure what was going on there. I next did a solar system alignment on Jupiter which was a quick way to keep Jupiter in the FOV. Many in the group were at least somewhat familiar with the sky so everyone seemed to keep each other entertained and a good time was had by all. We shut down and were home by about 8:00.
I arrived about 4:00 to get set up. The finders were all finicky as usual.  I replaced all three batteries in the three scopes we used and had to put a penny under one battery to make a decent connection. Once I got them all aligned and tightened up they all performed pretty well.  Roy mentioned that the park has a modest budget for a new goto scope for next year.  Today was Melissa's last day. She is moving to Mother Neff state park near Waco TX.

Venus, Moon, and Mars Conjunction

It was clear tonight again and the big conjunction was high and bright at sundown. I could barely make out Mars in the glare of Venus so I grabbed my 10x50s and got all three in the FOV.  It was a gorgeous preview for tomorrow's Star Party in the Park at Bentsen RGV State Park.

Comet Lovejoy again

I've been watching Venus and Mercury the past few days.  Of course the skies have been pretty clear since Saturday night! Tonight was spectacular: clear, dry, cool but not too cold so I decided to set up the ETX.  After fumbling with the alignment a few times I was finally able to center on M45 and star hop to Lovejoy. It was  just ok and a bit disappointing.  I think the view might even be better in my 10x50s. The problem is the nearby street light and security light across the street combination. Between the two there is enough stray light to choke a horse. An improvised light shade made a noticeable difference.  A bit higher magnification would have helped too.  Other than that, the view was steady so at least Judy was able to get a peek at this fairly rare event. I finished off by reporting my sighting of Orion on Globeatnight.org.  My limiting magnitude of 4 was actually pretty good compared to all the 1s, 2s, and 3s I saw from around the world.  There was one 7 reported from a remote site in Japan.

Special Event at the Park

Tonight I gave a presentation on Astro101 at Bentsen Rio Grande Valley State Park to about 27 visitors. I spoke for about a half hour on the basics of optical aids, star charts, and citizen science then we moved to the patio outside where we were able to see Venus and Mercury.  Most had not seen Mercury before. Unfortunately it was quite cloudy and we weren't able to see much more.  A little bit of Orion was visible occasionally. The talk was well received but the highlight for me was spotting a large brown tarantula on the way in on the driveway about 5:00. Judy had fun talking to a four year old boy who had 'seen an alien'. We finished up about 8:00pm. This was not advertised and the park staff were pleased with the turnout. We plan to repeat in Feb and March.

Comet Lovejoy

Finally a clear night.  It has been cold and cloudy, even rainy, pretty much all year so far in 2015.  Today about noon it cleared off and we had a beautiful day.  Judy and I did a bit of geocaching about 4:30 and picked up several along Military Highway just south of us, including a 'thorn in my side' that has bugged me for awhile, and a D4 that was just put out recently. The D4 was laying on the ground! It had fallen from it's perch so I signed the log, took the D4, and slid it back into its hidey hole. After that we grabbed a bite to eat at Las Comales, practiced our Spanish a bit, and zipped back down to the park to see if Venus and Mercury were going to be visible during the 'event' tomorrow. They were and will be.  Beautiful in the west at 6:30 pm. They have pulled apart a bit since I last saw them a couple of weeks ago but still pretty close, less than 6 degrees. Tonight I pulled out the lounge and went looking for Comet Lovejoy.  I used M41 as a pointer and my trusty 10x50s.  Follow the line of Eta Tau and 23 Tau about 12 degrees NW to find a large-ish fuzzball.  I did not see a tail but the comet itself is fairly bright.  I admired it until clouds moved in about 10:00.  This should be quite a treat tomorrow night if the weather cooperates.

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?