The Red* Planet visits Houge Park

by Christopher Hendrie

*I refer of course to Jupiter, as filtered through a fine selection of carbon particles and other organics. "You don't have a filter on there, right?" "Well, you know how they say the TeleVue glass has a warm tint to it...".

Despite the poor views I had a lot of fun: one of my co-workers came out and brought his 12-year-old son, along with a friend and the friend's daughter. So I had lively company for most of the evening, and the kids had a blast sweeping my telescope around the sky looking for cool star patterns. They had no trouble zipping around and finding things once I explained the red dot finder, and it was a hoot to see and hear their enthusiasm.

M13 was more interesting to find than to look at, ditto the Wild Duck cluster; even Hercules itself was tough to pin down without binoculars . Double stars were the best targets: the double double looked nice in somebody's 8" newt.

Tune in next week for... maybe some slightly more serious observations? I've been reading Burnham's and browsing the Millennium Star Atlas and I have a reasonable backlog of targets now. All I need now is atmospheric cooperation. And maybe some sleep.

Regards,
Christopher p.s. Right next to us was a tabletop Orion StarBlast: that is one cute little telescope!