Friday July 25 was the club’s monthly observing session (RACOBS). Clouds dominated the skies most of the day on Friday but skies cleared just after sunset and stayed clear until well after 2:30 AM when the last of the observers packed up for the night. We had approximately 12 to 15 members in attendance and 20 or so guests including cub scouts from several different local packs. It was great to see kids get excited about astronomy.
The evening started off pretty muggy and dew began to form very quickly on the equipment. However by 10:00 PM our dew problems seemed to get much better and in general the conditions felt more comfortable.
We had a good mix of visual observers and imagers out in in attendance. A very popular target early into the session was Saturn; it’s moons Titan, Tethys, Rhea, Enceladus and Dione were also visible. Other popular targets were:
- The Ring Nebula (M57)
- The Hercules Globular Cluster (M13)
- The Dumbbell Nebula (M27)
- The Trifid Nebula (M20)
- The Swan Nebula (M17)
- The Wild Duck Cluster (M11)
- The Whirlpool Galaxy
- The Andromeda Galaxy (M31)
- The Coat Hanger / Brocchi’s Cluster (Collinder 399)
- any many more….
Thank you to all the members and guests that joined us for the evening.
