December Observing Session

December’s observing session officially started at 7:00PM but the gate was opened before that time.  A few RAC members were already there (Jim DellaPenna had opened the gate) along with some visitors. The night was quite pleasant and the temperature was in the Low to Mid 50’s.  There was a ~5mph breeze coming off of Lake Jordan that made it a little chilly but over all it was still comfortable.

The sky was in decent shape and the Clear Sky Clock was accurate with respect to the night’s forecast: Cloud Cover: Clear, Transparency: Average, Seeing: Poor. However, that did not prevent the group from getting in some decent observing.  Some of the Deep sky favorites of the evening were: The Orion Nebula and Andromeda galaxy.  Jupiter was also a favorite as there were some new storms in Jupiter’s lower cloud bands.  These new storms manifested themselves as black spots in the upper cloud bands below Jupiter’s equator. Of special note, Stephen Lee and Rosemary O’day, observed the Christmas Tree Cluster (NGC 2264), Greg Bradburn observed Messier Objects, Jim DellaPenna observed Double Stars, as well as, Jupiter and the Orion Nebula, while Brian Reasor worked on The Herschel I’s. The Evening came to an abrupt end as a band of clouds over-washed our observing area around 10:22PM.  The lights were switched, we packed up our equipment, and combed the observing field to make sure nothing was left behind. Doug Lively was the last person to leave and the gate was locked behind him.

9 people were present at the 23-Dec-2011 observing session and were as follows:
RAC Members: Greg Bradburn, Jim DellaPenna, Stephen Lee, Doug Lively, Rosemary O’day, Brian Reasor
Visitors: Bob Merrill, Heather Merrill, Justin Smith