I just got back from Houge Park. I had such a great time and saw some great stuff!

Mark Wagner was kind enough to lend me his 8" reflector for the night. Thanks Mark! I am trying to decide what type of scope would be best for me to buy.

I started out looking at the moon - with my right eye (my left eye is the good one). I tried to draw a little, but my moon was too small, or I was drawing the craters too big. I sketched a little and moved on.

Now my plan is to learn to star hop. I started acclimating myself to the scope by finding something easy - M31, the Andromeda galaxy. Many of the public found this interesting because they had heard that the Andromeda galaxy and Milky Way would collide in five billion years - mark your calendars!

M57 - the ring nebula in Lyra, was easy too. I found that I can point the scope at stuff I know without any problem. Now I wanted to really star hop. I picked NGC 1023 in Perseus. I thought for sure I had all the right stars in the finder, but when I look in the scope - nothing! I tried sweeping the area - still nothing! I spent a long time working on it. Then I tried M76 - the Little Dumbbell in Perseus. Same thing - nothing! Yet I still felt that I was making great progress. What I saw in the finder and what I saw on my beloved star atlas really did match!

When ever a group of public came by, I quickly zipped back to M31. Just then (about 8:53 p.m.) I heard big exclamations from the other end of the row. They were yelling, "Look up! Directly overhead! It's a comet!" Everyone from my end of the row of course looked up and I heard, "Oh that is M31." Not. I could barely see M31 with averted vision. This was big and bright. Plus it was in the wrong spot. It looked to be about 8 degrees above M31 (away from Andromeda). My first thought was that it was bright lights of a plane behind the clouds. But there were no clouds, so another theory trashed. James, a nice public guy who seemed very interested in astronomy, quickly pointed the scope. WoW!! At first I thought it WAS a comet! Then I could see it. A satellite (or something) had a small fan shaped tail coming from it that did look very much like a comet. But something had happened. A separation? Behind the satellite and tail was another fan shaped tail. But it was much larger! It more than filled the view in the scope at 70x. The larger tail did not appear to move while the satellite and smaller tail moved away from it. At the head of the larger tail were two other tails that extended out to the sides. The small tail at the satellite eventually faded and the satellite continued to move on.

In case you have EXCEL you could look at the picture I tried to draw. Sorry! I could barely control that little electronic pencil!

WoW!! Craig, why didn't you tell us? Or did you, and I forgot?

Well, back to my star hopping. I asked for a good suggestion and started working on M36, M37 and M38 in Auriga. I wasn't having a lot of luck. Jack, from SJAA wandered by and I asked for help. Part of my problem was that I didn't know what to expect. I definitely found M36 and M38 in the binocs. I drew them so I know I'll be able to find them again. Jack found them in the scope for me. I was able to move from cluster to cluster and drew some pictures. They aren't "mine" yet. But I know I will be able to find them with a little work next time. I had to stop because suddenly it was 11 p.m. and my (for the night) scope wanted to go home!

Now I am very tired, but I just had to tell about my exciting night of star hopping and flares before another minute went by!