by Jane Houston Jones
Mojo and I opted for a two nighter at Fremont Peak this weekend, after three fantastic nights at Lake Sonoma last week, attendance at the Space Shuttle IMAX an astro lecture by Chandra guy Dr. Harvey Tannenbaum at the Morrison Planetarium.
We helped out at an 8th grade observing night last night. When we arrived at 7:00 p.m. it was blowing a gale, was 41 degrees, and the fog obscured the observing area and environs. We shrugged it off, since we brought movies to play on our laptops back at the San Juan Inn, in just such a case.
But as sometimes happens on Freaky Peak, by the time we finished the classroom slide show at 8:30 p.m., and peeked outside, the fog had settled even with the valley below the observatory. The planets shone brightly. We quickly rolled the roof and set up the Challenger, and soon the long line of 8th graders were observing the planets, ans Mojo and Pat and I pointed green lasers at the naked eye constellations outside the observatory. Several students tested their astrolabes.
The fog lowered and then lifted. The temperature was 35 degrees, but the wind stopped. We never set up our own telescopes (17.5 inch reflector and 7 inch refractor) but hope to do so tonight. We left at