hosted the North Simcoe club

Guests started arriving around 6:45 PM or so. Man, why so early? (Gotta find a way to tell people to not arrive early.) I had to wolf down dinner and tidy up quickly. I greeted our first batch of people, about a half-dozen, outside. Dietmar was keeping them busy in the GBO.

Oberwerk binoculars on tripod;
Celestron 14-inch SCT and Tele Vue 101 refractor
on Paramount ME by Go To

The rest of the North Simcoe Sirius Stargazers arrived in dribs and drabs. I thought Peter told me they were going to car-pool! We ended up with five or six cars, some with single drivers. Odd. As a cluster of people arrived, I gave quick tours of the grounds, including a peek inside the THO.

Scattered cloud as darkness fell.

When we had about a dozen people, I herded them into the house for cookies and coffee. Pointed out the washroom locations first! The club members spent some time catching up with each other. At about 7:15 PM, I started a tour of the house, ending up downstairs, and finally the Great Room. I started my presentation.

I think they enjoyed learning about the Carr Astronomical Observatory, how we came by it, its history, what we've done to it, and our future plans. It made them realise that a benefactor really made this space possible. Some successful Trillium Foundation grants helped significantly. And that we've put in a lot of sweat labour.

As I was wrapping up, Millie scouted the skies. We were very happy to hear that stars were visible. And Jupiter was rising. So we traipsed outside and made our way to the Geoff Brown Observatory.

Initially, the skies were hazy. There must have been some lingering high cloud and it affected the transparency. Still, as Dietmar flew the Paramount and I managed the floor, we slewed to M13 and took it in, with both the Celestron 14" SCT and the Tele Vue 101 refractor. The views were a bit soft. We discussed going to the comet but Dietmar thought it would be lacklustre.

We took in the Ring Nebula. It was nice in the C14, quite good actually. It was very tiny in the TV 101, easily missed, in fact.

We tried for M101 but it was invisible. I could barely see a peppering of faint stars...

We viewed the Andromeda galaxy in the telescopes. I prepared the C14 and TV101 with eyepieces to show high and low power. Later exchanged the eyepieces. The views we good. But frankly, I thought it looked better in the big battleship (Oberwerk) binoculars. Later, we turned the big binoculars to the Pleiades. They were lovely!

There was some education going on, discussion of objects, how they formed, pointing out constellation and stars by hand and green laser. Millie and Dietmar were very helpful.

The "star" of the show though was Jupiter. It was very good, even early on. I noticed right away that the seeing was very good. It took 145x power nicely. Later, as it rose higher in the sky, I could see white ovals in north belt, two large dark barges in south belt. I noticed the 2:1 ratio in the size of the belts. It was very colourful, the view, with subtle belts and shades in the north and south poles. The Jovian moons were rather interesting too. Initially, two moons in a north-south orientation; later forming a neat little triangle. That created quite a discussion point. Some said they had never seen that. Some thought it could never happen.

Slowly, as the night wore on, and the temperature dropped, the North Simcoe people filtered out. Everyone was very positive and thankful. It seemed a successful event at the CAO.

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The Paramount control laptop died on Dietmar at one point. He called me for help. Immediately, I wondered if it had gone into Sleep mode. Some of the other supervisors have reported that issue. But as I walked into the Warm Room, another thought occurred. I asked if he had checked for power. He said everything was plugged in. Yes. True. Above the desk. I found the power bar was unplugged. Oops! Told him that I've done that too...

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Something is up with the big binos. The altitude lock works; but the azimuth lock does not seem to be functional. A slight bump sent the binoculars turning easily and we'd lose the view. I'll have to inspect them in the daylight...

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I wanted to look at Uranus and try for moons. But that I canned the idea. Not a good target for a star party...