Friday at Jackson School - Awesome!

by Jim Van Nuland


Marek Cichanski wrote:
The Friday marathon at Coe was an incredible success. Conditions were awesome.

About 10 miles west and 2500 feet lower, in Morgan Hill, is Jackson Elementary, where we conducted a star party for students of that school and also for the science club of Machado school.

Conditions were awesome.

Seeing was superb; Saturn was gorgeous at 305x on my 8 inch. Many deep-sky objects well seen by a few hundred people. Jackson gave us a wonderful dark sky, not the grey background we see in San Jose.

It began with the twilight view of the 4% new moon with Mercury to the lower right, and just got better.

By about 9:30 the students were gone, and the remaining astronomers were comparing views. We noticed considerable low-lying haze, and concomitant dewing on the vehicles and telescopes. We eventually packed up and lock the gate on our way out.


Posted on sf-bay-tac Mar 12, 2005 14:14:57 PT
Converted by report.pm 1.2 Mar 13, 2005 13:30:40 PT