A fun night but I felt like I was in a fight and lost

The mosquitos rose out of the grass and surrounding area like a huge swarm of, well Mosquitos. I was surprised and the ferocity of the insects at Lake Erie. I wondered if it could be the fact that we set up near the grass and some visitors and astronomers were in the grass behind the scopes set near the edge of the sidewalk. Someone pointed out we were near a swamp that was likely full of them and they would likely be attacking us as if a dinner bell went off.

I had some off and perhaps it helped some but I had the feeling at times it just tasted like barbecue sauce to our flying friends who seemed to continue to chow down.

The sky cleared up of most of the clouds and there was still some haze. Conditions would not be good for astrophotography, but they were okay for some viewing, not really great but most visitors seemed to be having a good time, while they were not fighting off attacks from the vampire like mosquitos.

One visitor said they were bitten twice on the eyelashes after having put "off" on.

A variety of objects were looked at, the sun, Venus, Saturn, the moon, the double double near Vega, and Venus and the beehive in the same field of view in my little f4 4.25 Bushnell telescope. Most of the objects and more were found and displayed in the other scopes, not my little telescopes which focused mostly on the moon and Venus and the beehive.

By 11 o'clock we had had enough of the flying pests and there we're other insects as well but of course they didn't bite. Millions of fish flies were flying and the swarm was so great near the swamp you could walk closer and hear their buzzing.

As the night ended of course it was getting darker. I took a shot of the stars and some of the telescopes. In this case I didn't announce I'd take this shot and try to have someone stay still to get a good exposure of astronomers or guests. It would be difficult to stop and poise for a photo with all the insects looking to land and chow down.

I can really appreciate the observatory and the sidewalk around it. If people stay on the sidewalk and mostly inside the dome and spray a little bit of bug repellent on them , away from the equipment, then you would avoid the massive mosquito fest that awaits you at a darker sky metro park.

(below a trail of red lights is seen as Gordon Hanson heads toward the nature center building with his red flashlight on.)
this is a 10 second exposure at 1600 iso, from the canon t1i.



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