by Jane Houston Jones
With the expected poor conditions predicted for tonight, we got our observing done last night and this morning. Kenwood School in Kenwood, Sonoma County was the location for the monthly SCAS Young Astronomers club meeting and star party last night. . It was as good as it ever gets in a rural town setting, awesome, in fact! Crystal clear, dark and bejewelled skies greeted us.
I spoke of Leonids for the indoor meeting program part of the night (the sight of kids representing the constellation Leo, holding crepe paper streamers to demonstrate the radiant, and then waving them to make persistent trains...well I guess you had to be there to appreciate it.
:-) And then we took telescopes out onto the school yard, where all outdoor lights were extinguished. It was dark dark. It was a great night of observing and being with cool young astronomers and their families.
Then when we got home from that at about midnight, the sky here in San Rafael was flawless! The Clear Sky Clock always works for us perfectly and did not let us down this time. So we took out Rod, the f./9 AP180EDT, set it up, watched a movie (The Business of Strangers) and then set the alarm for two hors later...4:00 a.m. Saturn and Jupiter were awesome at 300x through the binoviewer + Zeiss Abbe 16mm Orthos.
Then the 27/28 day old moon rose, and we switched to the 26mm ZAOs for some incredible moon views. I am still consulting Rulk, Alter, Cook, Apollo views from orbit, Hatfield Atlas, and a couple moon maps to figure out what I sketched at dawn this morning. Who looks at the moon at dawn? It is a great time to do it!
At 6:30 a.m. a political streetwalker walked by, handing out leaflets for some election candidate. He asked what the heck I was doing, and I replied "looking at the moon, want a look?" He did, gasped, said he'd mention me in his will, and continued on with his leaflets. And he didn't even try to push his candidate on me!