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Unless the weather turns really ugly, Julie :-* & I will be going to Eagle Bluff. Julie is itching to learn more about how to use her Christmas present (Orion SkyView Pro 150 — without GoTo 🙁 ) from some of the other club experts.
I'll try to keep from playing with the Green Laser Pointer too much.
I'll be hosting the Oronoco Star Party Saturday night so I wont be going to Eagle Bluff. I have decided to find Pluto… and I think I've done it. I've only looked for two nights at the asterism where I think it's located, but I've already found movement on the object I thought it should be. I've sketched the surrounding stars and what appears to be it's path. I thought it was now or never. I'll keep you posted. It is quite small, but viewable.
Happy Trails
Rick
O.K. astronomy fans, let's try Eagle Bluff on Friday night! The weather is supposed to be good.
Note to Rick: If you can confirm your observations of Pluto, that would be fantastic! That is one heck of a feat of observational astronomy. Keep tracking, I would love to see your records and see it for myself.
Randy has done it, but I have never tried it with my 8" G8 Celestron SCT. I have never seen Pluto. That would be quite a thrill.
Stay dialed in for a GO or NOGO for tomorrow night. My guess is that it will be a glorious night for astronomy!
I just got off the phone to Eagle Bluff. They don't have anything going on, they know we're coming and will have the lights off for us.
I hope to be there by sunset. CSC looks good.
See you there!
Awesome. It sounds like we'll have a good group there. I'm home eating supper now. I'll probably get there about 7:30-8:00.
See you then!
The RAC had a great group at Eagle Bluff last night. We had:
Me with my Celestron G8 and 15X70 binoculars
Jeff and Gerrada Newland with their 8" Dobsonian
Jerome and Jillissa Taubel with their 11" Celestron SCT
Luka Bajzer with his 8" Dobsonian and 22X85 binoculars
Nathan Wentland with is 6" Celestron SCT GOTO
John Preston with his Meade 10" LX200 imaging setup
Brandon Wyman with his 10X50 Bushnell binoculars and
Chris and Julie G. with their 150mm Maksutov CassegrainThe sky conditions were pretty good. Completely clear overhead and very good seeing. The drawback was the humidity and the dew, but most stayed observing until midnight to 1 a.m. Jerome didn't completely give up until 3 a.m.
We had a fabulous time. Lots of objects to look at and there was a quilting or sewing group down at the Eagle Bluff building and at least 12 of those ladies came up to look through our scopes. Jeff and Gerrarda did a great job of entertaining them and pointing objects out in the sky. We had at least four laser pointers going and even saw the ISS make a pass at 9:12 p.m. Some of the older ladies had trouble looking thru my scope, so I just brought them over to John Preston's setup and they watched him pull images of objects up on his computer. He is very good at imaging even though he hasn't done it very long.
We had several sporadic meteors come through, and after the dew became a problem, several of us stayed up until 3 a.m. watching these. Jillissa Tauble came up with a game called "Stump the Astronomers" where she would use the 11" scopes GOTO and we would have to guess what the object was. That was fun!
Nathan Wentland has one of those nifty little orange Celestron GOTO scopes that you currently see advertised in Astronomy and Sky&Telescope magazines and I'll have to say that I was very impressed. Razor sharp optics. This was the first time I had met Nathan and John and I hope we get to see a lot more of them.
Brandon keeps plugging away on his Binocular Messier and Deep Sky lists and Luka completed his Messier telescopic list last night. Congratulations Luka!
We had a blast. It was a Glorious Night For Astronomy!
Wow was observing last night great, at least until after 2:30. The humidity really started to pile in then. (This year's Christmas Wish list: dew zapper, GoTo upgrade and polar allignment scope. Or maybe a 12-16in Dob. . . . .
I didn't realize how much I like to search for twin stars. First finding them with the binocs (good 8×42) then locate them on the scope. I'm also adding to my list of things to bring to the next Star Party. Hot Choco anyone?
I can't wait until the next star party. Anyone up for a trip to KELLER tonight?
Thanks Dean, Luka & Jerome for pointing out so many features. I'm looking forward to seeing all of my new friends again — please excuse me if I don't recognize you in the day.
Thank for a great time!
Chris G. . .Chris, you can head out to Orinoco and help out at the neighborhood outreach tonight you want. You can probably do some more observing after the neighborhood people go home. 🙂
Jeff
Attending my very first star party I only wished I was able to arrive earlier as it was already dark once I arrived but to no avail I was able to get setup and got things going in quick order. What was humorous at first was that i had a hard time finding Polaris as there was too many stars! I'm so use to minimum viewing conditions around my house here in Rochester that the whole sky became this flurry of points of light but once I got my head into the game things progressed quickly.
As Dean mentioned the temp and humidity was not good for imaging after midnight but it did allow many people to see some of the items in the sky without hesitation such as the Ring Nebula, Dumbbell Nebula and many of the star clusters like M13-15 & for me the first time seeing M02. Of all the images I was able to take the only one I could get a few good frames in black & white was a shot of part of M31 and Caldwell 14. But with very few frames and not a lot of definition and very short exposures before the humidity zapped the night.
It was a great time meeting everyone in attendance and hope to get to the next one before it gets dark so I can see everyone before spending the night starring at a computer image screen and losing what night vision I have.
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