Houge, clear, cloudy, clear

by Rich Neuschaefer


The SJAA Friday night in town star party at Houge Park started with clear skies. We had nice views of Jupiter. I also had an "nice" view of Mercury. It look like a little half moon with a rainbow of color because of atmospheric refraction.

After about 2 hours low clouds formed overhead. Most of us put away our scopes but stayed to chat. By 10:30 pm we had mostly clear skies.

We saw the comet with binoculars. Kevin told us where he had seen it the night before and there it was. Even with the bright northern sky it was easy to see in my 8x42 binocular.

There were a number of telescopes and a 25x150 Fujinon binocular. We had several students making drawings at the eyepiece. Too bad we had the 2 hours of clouds right when the party was rolling.