sky tour (Blue Mountains)

I really wanted to give our guests, Tom, his wife, and the girls, a good tour of the sky, partly because of being clouded out the night before. At 10:05, we aimed to Jupiter with the C14. Hey, wait a minute. There were 5 moons around Jupiter... But that can't be! I checked Stellarium and it showed 45 Capricorni to be perfectly in line with Jovian moons. At mag 5.95, it was trying to blend in... Very cool. I did not know that was going to happen but we were in the right place at the right time.

We looked at a bunch of other objects. I responded to their requests. I discussed some bright stars and the Summer Triangle. M57, the Ring Nebula was very spectacular, a great subject while overhead. And, of course, I showed them lots of double stars, including Mizar A and B and Cor Caroli and the Double Double. I showed them Izar, as our challenge double star.

Some of us saw a brief bright satellite in the north. I suggested that it might be an Iridium flare. We discussed how to identify a satellite, the best times to view them, etc.

They chose some targets from the copy of August The Evening Sky Map I had printed earlier and tacked up in the observatory. Huh. We should continue this.

As usual, they were most impressed with the green laser pointer! Always the green laser...

At one point, I had brought the netbook out. It was helpful for immediately identifying objects, showing what things looked like up close. Handy. Along the way we talked about a lot of constellations. Stellarium was useful for showing the artwork.

We had a lot of fun. But they were tired and underdressed so, at midnight, they headed back inside.