April 23, 2010: Houge Park

Rob Jaworski

We had a moderate turnout last night at Houge Park in San Jose, for the SJAA public night. I arrived around 7:30, early enough to catch Kevin Roberts helping someone with their loaner scope make sure the collimation was set properly. In fact, that was the reason I showed up early, I knew that Kevin was going to do this procedure with several folks, and I wanted to be one of them. We found that in my XT8i, the secondary was ok, but the primary needed a bit of tweaking.

Nagesh showed up, as expected, with his new-to-him 8" Newtonian on an eq. mount. We got him collimated up nice and right. Soon thereafter, as dusk was beginning to fall, Roland pulled up and extracted his new-to-him XT8i. Then Kevin went through the process yet again. It's really great that he likes doing that, showing people how it's done, being patient with the questions.

And as dusk was settling on us, a glance over to the hills toward Los Gatos showed a growing haziness... would the fog come in and cloud us out? It was such a nice day all day, and even into the evening! Why, Venus was already shining like an oncoming train, the moon appeared as crisp as a freshly unwrapped Twix bar. There is no *way* anything would *dare* interfere!

It got darker, Rich remembered to turn off the parking lot lights, and more folks showed up with scopes and members of the public started arriving too. With the moon casting shadows, it was a favorite with kids and adults alike. A couple of folks were overheard getting Saturn mixed up with Spica, getting mixed up with Mars, getting mixed up with Betelgeuse. The thin line through the sixth planet, can't really call it a ring nowadays, cleared up some of that confusion.

As Venus yawned and was ready to dip into the trees, a look straight up showed that clouds had indeed started to form overhead. Minutes ticked by, more and more of the sky became obfuscated with moisture. It was quickly becoming apparent that we were getting snuffed. But most folks didn't pack up right away. Spectators continued to show up, a couple of people or a family at a time. And now we had this great moon filter in place.

After a while, some folks did begin packing up, though there was some great conversation still going on in some huddles. Public stopped showing up, nearly all the sky was covered, so it was time to pack it up. Hit the road at around 10:30PM.

The next Houge public night is in two weeks, on 7 May, which will also include a beginner astronomy class.

Good weekend, all!
Rob Jaworski