by Jamie Dillon
It was last Saturday, the 27th, when Mercury was best seen right over our back fence, and the four planets were arching like a cat stretching its back. We just hung out in the yard and oohed and aahed.
The Tuesday before, the night of the Fine Conjunction, we rolled the 11" Dobs into the middle of the backyard to play. When Venus and Jupiter sure enough were in the same eyepiece view, Jupiter with 5-6 bands and 3 Galileans, I ran to get the new neighbors (nice kids in their 20's, sharp folks), as this was too good not to share.
The point of this post is the cool outreach story, in that Ben and Felina had neither of them looked thru a telescope before. Jo said at one point, when Ben saw Saturn's rings for the first time, he was literally jumping up and down (he's a cop but by no means plain vanilla). Felina's finest moment was when looking at the Moon at 70x, she saw the terminator moving and realized right away she was observing the Moon's rotation. I told you she was sharp. Neither of them could quite believe Jupiter's moons.
Also, it was another test of our new scope. Out in the the middle of our yard, you have the privilege of two streetlights on opposite streets. Just outside of the backdoor is the place for a darker view. The night had a high haze, and the Moon as you know was blazing. In spite of all this, M42 showed off all kinds of detail for the neighbors. We didn't however go hunting for the Eskimo Nebula.
Some day again we'll have a dark and clear night. Right?