Sunday night and Monday were not good for observing

I met Dr. Timothy Dey for some observing Sunday night. This with some doubt as to how nice and clear it would be out. Soon clouds appeared and there were only a few openings from time to time to get a view of the moon or Jupiter. Jupiter seemed to be playing hide and seek for an hour or so. We sat and chatted, I cleared out some floor space, taking one support leg off the stand and removing a 10 inch newtonian reflector I had left inside from an earlier night of observing.

Tim also updated some of the software on the computer and loaded some antivirus software on the machine.

We had a good time anyway. Viewed the moon a bit and Jupiter a bit.

Monday night I received a text message from Sean, one of our newer members. He wanted to know what I was doing? Just seeing that text made me go out and take a look at the sky. It looked pretty good. I didn't check the clear sky chart, wanting to head out to grab a bite to eat anyway.

I texted back that I'd be out there. I put a late night message on a FAAC message system that I'd be out there likely until 12pm. It looked mostly clear with some threatening clouds on the horizon. By the time I actually loaded up my car stopped at a drive through and drove over, it became clear that clouds were moving in and covering most of the sky. There was a slim sliver of open sky near the west. Sean and his girlfriend arrived. She hadn't seen the inside of the observatory, so we gave her a quick tour of the observatory. No observing tonight.

With some of the hit and miss partly cloudy nights I've not even bothered to get the hopes up of those of you who might read this blog. If it's kind of marginal I may stop by to do some kind of maintenance, but I may not announce I'm there. I've tried announcing last minute to FAAC members using a different internet method we use, but often won't tell the public if I'm out there last minute. This is more to keep from wasting the time of others who would like to come out when there is good viewing. Sometimes I'm caught off guard with some late night clearing.

The other week (did I cover that in another post?) I woke up early in the morning and the sky was clear, so I headed out to view from the school grounds next to the observatory. I didn't even open up the observatory to use the telescope inside but instead focused on viewing with my binocular telescope. A visitor approached and started to chat. He never saw the inside of the observatory, so I opened up to give him a quick tour and we looked at four objects in the sky. Sometimes these things happen unannounced.

I'm hoping to get out near the end of the week. There may be more members of the club out Friday and Saturday if the skies are nice.

That's it for now. I took some shots of the observatory with the poor cloud conditions the past few nights and may post some of them later.



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