Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Sunday 17th January 2010 Pedros Castle

This was the first general meeting of the year open to the General Public.
We have had two members only evenings since our last public meeting - these were held in an alternative dark site further North. On both occasions good dark skies were seen though the second included cloud cover!

On Sunday however we had a typical tropical clear but hazy sky. Jupiter was seen just before Europa disappeared behind the planet iteslf at around 07:15 PM An Iridum Flare satllite was also seen just after (Mag-1) .

The Orion Nebula was particulary fine tonight allowing high magnification.

As the evening progressed a high amount of dew became more apparent on the view finders as well as a fair bit of "tent" dodging due to the the new Governers visit there the previuos Friday The Andromeda nebula and M41 were not "bagged" though we did manage to see the "Salt and Pepper " nebula in Auriga.

At around 8:30 PM Mars was spotted in the East - some surface features were observed but no sign of any of the polar caps.


Much talk is of the new Meade SX 200 telescope just been donated to the Society , We need somewhere to put it!