Hi All;
Saturday 09/15 was the Autumn Starwatch at Novins Planetarium. There was a good showing of ASTRA members. The Equipment on hand was, a homemade 13" Dob, A 12" LX200, A 10" LX200, an 8" Dob, 2 ETX125s, an 80MM short tube refractor, a 70MM refractor and 1 pair of binoculars on a mount. The weather was bad all day and looked iffy as the ASTRA members started to gather. It turned out to be a decent night. There were not as many guests as we would have liked, maybe 20 or 30, but I think the weather was a factor there. The 1/4 Moon was a good target in the smaller scopes. It was hidden behind the Planetarium from the vantage point of the larger scopes. Popular targets were M13 and M92 Globular clustersin Hercules, M27 the Dumbbell nebula and M57 the Ring nebula. The Double star Alberio is always a crowd pleasure as well as Epsilon Lyre the double double. Neptune And Uranus were a suprise to most people. Small blue/green disks, unexpected targets in the absence of Jupiter and Saturn. Not as spectacular, but pleasing none the less. Open cluster M102, M52 and NGC457 the Dragonfly in Cass and NGC7160 the Gator in Ceph got many Oo's and Ah's from the small crowd. Although small it was an inquisitive bunch. Many questions about Stars, Planetary nebulas and Galaxies were asked instead of the usual what power and can you see the flag on the moon type stuff. Real good conversation. The scopes started to fog up around 10:00 so we broke up kind of early. The guests were all gone. It was a good, if short, star party. Had a real nice time and believe me, I needed to get out and have some fun as did all of us.
That's it;
BOB SAL
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