Mother Nature was the first to play an April Fool's joke; conditions were rather dicey as the afternoon wore long. Lots of high clouds, and a fair amount of wind, did not promise good viewing. But for those who were patient, things did get better later. Many must have been discouraged, because when I got there, I was the only one around except for the burbling creek, the hawk wheeling lazily overhead, and the convention of wildflowers busily nodding in the breeze.
As sunset approached, I was still the only scope, although a couple of other people showed up. One was another astronomer who pulled an April Fool's Joke on himself. He brought his 6" dob OTA, but (in a rush due to lateness) forgot the base... Just to keep things well stirred up, the Fickle Finger of Fate then played yet another 1st of April trick, and several carloads of eager teenagers (a high school astronomy club, plus associated teachers and parents) arrived. Eeek! Hordes of observers, and exactly *one* scope.
Sunset was alive with delicate streamers of red and gold brushed across the heavens. Having brightened everyone's soul with the display, the clouds then proceeded to discreetly evaporate and leave us a clearing (though never really very transparent) sky. The Little Dipper showed about 4.0-4.5 limiting magnitude early in the evening, and perhaps 4.5-5.0 later on.
The sunset reverie didn't last long. The Mob was interested in everything going on and I had quite an audience observing every move made in setting up the C14. After that, Sirius popped into view, and I put on the diffraction grating. Seeing was not good, but even so the H-beta line could be seen readily enough. A long line immediately formed and everyone dutifully observed the brilliant (Sirius is generous with photons) stellar rainbow. The kids got a little lecture (from the teacher) on why the absorbtion line was there.
Next up were Jupiter and Saturn. But they were low, it wasn't long after sunset, and the air was so unstable that you could barely see one major band on Jupiter. Fortunately, the 4 Galilean satellites were all nicely visible and spaced out, and this alone drew more than a small number of "cool" comments. Saturn had no detail and was bouncing all over the place, but the rings were also a well-received sight by the assembled multitude.
Next the class "took" the Mizar-Alcor visual acuity "test", after which we all looked at them in the scope, discovering that Mizar is itself a double. This led to a little talk on how Mizar is actually 4 stars, with each half of the visible double being a spectroscopic double, and what that term meant.
Next up was the Orion nebula. The sky was rather bright over to the west, but a fair amount of the upper 'wings' of nebulosity could be seen. Compared to the view of it in January (completely filling the 40mm eyepiece FOV with wisps) it was rather washed out. But, even so, it managed to cast its spell over all those who looked, especially the first timer viewers amongst the high schoolers.
M65 and M66 followed. If the youngsters were impressed at all, it was more of an intellectual ("Each of those little grey puffs is 100 billion stars") than an emotional experience.
By now some help had arrived, and the mob broke up into the more usual small knots of folks at each scope. The automatic features of an ETX got a lot of techo-whiz-bang interest. A C8 and a small refractor also arrived. Binoculars appeared and were used on some of the better wide-field objects like Pleiades. As the crowd at the C14 thinned, the dobless dob-man asked to see the field for M81 and M82. He's pretty new to the hobby, and had been having some trouble finding them. Turns out that a C14 can't quite get them both into one FOV, but he got a good look at the star fields around the two of them. M82 turned out to be something of a minor hit with those newbies looking at it; I suppose that's because it has higher surface brightness; at any rate, it got some "cools". M81, however, was received rather like M65 and M66: polite interest but not much enthusiam.
Cookies, doughnuts, and soft drinks appeared in abundance. The astronomy club came equipped to feed the astronomers! And this fuel was just in time, as the night had grown cooler. The air was also steadier, stars actually being seen as points rather than fuzzy spots.
I got talked into putting the Orion nebula up again, as many of the kids wanted another look before they had to leave (parents had been promised that they'd be home by a certain time). Somehow that drained the energy right out of the event, and most of the astronomers left at just about the same time or a little later. By 9:30 PM, only 2 or 3 of us were left.
Spent the rest of the evening looking up several old favorites. M3 was a fine view; I must have looked at it for a good 15 minutes. M13 followed M3, and was an even better view. Took a little time away from the scope, and just lay down in the fresh spring meadow and watched the sky wheel overhead. After that, I fiddled around the area of the bowl of the dipper, looking at M97, M108, M109, and M106. I tried for some of the smaller, fainter galaxies (NGC's 4220, 4248, 4217, and 4346) very near to M106. But I was skunked on all 4; the sky just wasn't up to it. After that, eyestrain started to set in, and I packed it in about midnight.
Great night, especially after over 2 months of no photons!
Oh yes....it was April Fool's. Somewhere in this 1 April observing note, I'm pulling an April Fool's trick on all of you. Can you find it?