RTMC

by William Blakeslee

Memorial Day weekend was a BLAST at RTMC Astronomy Expo. Although Friday night had me wondering about whether the clouds would prevail for the weekend, Saturday night was one of the best observing nights I have ever had in almost 20 years of going to the event. Seeing was 8 out of 10 after a poor start in the evening, and became rock solid after about 10PM. It was not the darkest of nights, but clarity and steadiness were Awesome! That combined with the fact that one of my old friends joined me for the duration, made it special.

The 6” f/8 Binoscope was just the ticket to some really amazing stereo views of many Messier objects, including the beauties in the summer Milky Way.

I had good luck with a few purchases, including a magnificent pair of 20X80 binoculars from Oberwerk. A perfect match for my home built parallelogram mount.

There were dozens of ‘scopes in the giant class, and more than you could count of all types and sizes of telescopes. Activities were plenty and varied for any taste, including canoeing, hiking and swimming for the other than astronomy enthusiast, or those who just wanted something different.

I hope all had a great weekend wherever you were.