Friday, March 19, 2010

18 March Pedros 2010

The last meeting on the 16th Feb was cancelled due to bad weather.

However this meeting proved much more successfull though not in large numbers . An additional crowd was supplie dby the Fine Arts Society who were also using Pedros - though our meeting had much less wine!

So as the evening grew dark we initally saw Venus and the Moon. Visiblity was clear though slightly hazy . As the evening progressed some cloud started to come in but otherwsise viewing was acceptable.

Apart from out old Friend the Orion Nebula (M41) we also saw a number of Globular and Open Star Clusters : M42 near Sirius , the fairly large open cluster M35 as discussed in the newsletter in Gemini and my current favorite the Salt and Pepper Cluster in Auriga M37

We also saw two satellites but in particular a nice pass of Lacrosse 5 at Mag 2.8 (predicted)

For a double star we chose Castor which is a tight double of only 4 arc seconds- it was nicely resolved in the 10 inch Dob though

We then spent some time trying to identify the constellations to the south of Canopus - in particular groupings in Carina and Vela which misled some members in thinking we had the False Cross.


After most memebers had made their excuses and drifted away we then saw Saturn, which was the highlight of the evening. Thats the way it goes folks!

1 comment:

Cayman Islands Astronomical Society said...

I stand corrected. Personally I love being able to peer so far in to the southern constellations - It was indeed the False Cross we saw. Its fun that we always know the real one though!!