Hello members & friends: This is my first SW Astronomers SW Astronomers observing event for 2010, F. Burton Smith Park is a Regional Park, I am working towards getting my 50 hour SW observing Pin . Total number of hours observed 4. I have filled out the Sidewalk observing Event Report form, and below is my report, and pictures of the event. Hope you guys like them.
Even though the weather looked mighty bleak, semi cloudy to cloudy, we always had some part of the Sky to observe . I got to F. Burton Smith Park at 6:35 pm EDT on May 14th 2010 . Rory's black Refractor telescope was already set up, and another Newtonian Galileo type of telescope was set-up, I told that person to bring the telescope and we would try to help her set it up. A gentleman visiting from Liverpool, UK ... Dan, brought a 50 mm spotting scope, he set up, and was looking at Venus. Rick from Palm Bay, Fl. had written an email wanting help to collimate his 8" dob telescope, Rick and his wife showed up, after I had put the camera away, I helped him do the collimation on the scope, and was enjoying observing the rest of the night. Dave had his nice 10" Meade Telescope set up. I finished setting up my 14" Truss dob telescope , collimated it and was ready to observe at 7:pm, The Children, used my 3 step ladder to get to the eyepiece, and when seeing Saturn, for the first time All you could hear them say was Wow!! It is nice, and I can See It, I can See It!. The adults that observed Saturn were impressed as to how clear it looked in the eyepiece despite the clouds. The Moon Titan was very visible as well as 2 other moons. You could also clearly see the black shadow line from the rings on the surface of Saturn. Two adults wanted to know if Saturn was a fake. I said, That is the real Deal! Some wanted to know how the telescope worked... others were just happy to have seen something that night because of the weather.. Items we observed that night Saturn, Venus, Double Star in the Big Dipper, Arcturus, The Beehive Cluster, The Leo Trio, M81 & M82, a couple of satellites, We were also listening to some awesome observing Music by Isaotomita We used our green laser pointers to point out constellations. We ended up with about 50 persons. I want to thank Rory, Rick, Dan, David who stopped by to say hey, Bill and Wendy, and the lady that had the Galileo telescope . I packed up my telescope an left around 11:15 pm EDT Thank-you all for helping out and your interest in Astronomy!. Until we meet again! Clear Skies Oscar STAR HUNTER STAR HUNTER Sifuentes
Some young Folks enjoying scanning the service of the Moon! Some of the people were premitted to use the directional buttons on the Hand controller to scan different areas of the Moon! They really liked that!
Florida Sun Set, The Moon, Venus, and some stars were already Visible, Like the brightest Star in the night sky Sirius with a mag. of -1.47 and only 8.58 light years away.