Date: Sun Apr 17 2005 - 18:17:05 MST
I had a good time as well Rich,
People showed up from as far away as Modesto and Stockton and Japan! I also got a photo of what's left of Bruce Jensen. Picture a shrunken Peter Natscher. LOL
Tobor the Great, my 8" SCT was the scope of choice for this event. GOTO and tracking combined with the Denk Binoviewer and a pair of TV 8-24mm click stop zoom EP's makes for an excellent Lunar star party scope.
I showed off the gas giants the Alps Valley area, Arzachel, Ptolemaeus and Alphonsus on the Moon and a few bright galaxies. The seeing was very good at times, making for exceptional views all along the terminator. The wind was a slight annoyance at times and the transparency could have been better, but all in all a good night.
Rashad
----- Original Message -----
From: rnapo<mailto:rnapo@No-Spam>
To: The Astronomy Connection<mailto:sf-bay-tac@No-Spam>
Sent: Sunday, April 17, 2005 3:37 PM
Subject: Re: [TAC] Pacheco
It was a nice evening out under the stars. There were quite a few observers
from Monterey area.
Rich
> The Saturday Pacheco event seemed to be a success. The word got out and
> we had quite a few spectators. Sufficient scopes showed up also. I
> counted 12 and realized I missed one or two so the number was somewhere
> between 12 and 15.
>
> Pretty nice night. No dew heaters required. Slight breeze that made my
> unstable LX200 vibrate a bit but all in all, a nice evening. There were
> high clouds and scud early on and in the north (San Jose looked covered)
> but it seemed to clear some and the bright objects were subject to oohs
> and aahs for the entire night.
>
> The observers hailed from all over (the guy next to me was from Carmel)
> but I didnt meet everyone.
>
> The sky was pretty steady so details on Sat and Jup were pretty nice.
> Transparency could have been better but there was a 50% moon out anyway.
> Eliminated the need for flashlights.
>
> 2/3s of Bruce Jensen showed up (how many pounds did you lose??). I didnt
> recognize him until he spoke.
>
> The entire area was green. Really nice time of year. We were set up on
> grass and that was very pleasant (at least it was much easier on my
> flat feet than the concrete at Houge the night before). There were also
> some very tame Cottontails around.
>
> ---------
> Phil Chambers [ptchamb@No-Spam] (S.F. Bay Area - Calif. USA)
>
>
