Sunday, Labor Day weekend 2008, the last day of August. A late summer cold front blew through and left us with perfect skies... dark, transparent, and steady! A group of at least 10 folks and 5 telescopes where on Arunah Hill to enjoy the conditions. Not only were the skies great, but it was just sweatshirt cool and not a bug was flying! Even the earth shadow was a terrific sight.
The Jup razer sharp in the Gaertner in the late twilight, especially considered the eyepiece was that cheap "dust cap" Kellner we plug it with. Just a bit later the Milky Way emerged from the twilight. We were soon picking off M objects in Sag in my ancient and battered 13" Coulter.
After a while we took a break at the top of the hill and were treated to some music from the beautiful soprano voice of Jenny Markens. Not only can Jenny sing, she can pick out some terrific country blues. When I told her the only song I knew was "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" she even improvised that tune. No Ben, the words don't say "root, root, root,
for the Yankees"!
John from Rhode Island then treated us to some "Goto" astronomy in his wonderful mostly home built 8" reflector. The Wild Duck and the Swan and the Dumbbell delighted some first time astronomers.
By then Andromeda had cleared the trees, and was quite a site naked eye or in any of the glass. My favorite was in the Fuginon 7x50 binoculars.
Too soon it was approaching midnight, time to get home for some sleep, with dreams of these kind of skies of Arunah Hill Days...
PS... Joe had the tractor out doing it's thing, the hill is now mostly mowed and ready for AH Days!. Thanks to ALL who helped mow ... John, Barry, Steve, Dan C, and many I've missed.
-Ed
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment