February Star Party

By Bob Leavitt

We had a good turnout for last night's star party, with 15 people and 10 scopes on hand. The evening was clear, temperature was mild, and there was very little wind until about 9:00 pm. Then a stiff breeze came up out of the north and soon people began shutting down for the evening. Most people were able to get in an hour or two of observing, with good seeing conditions. Saturn was one of the featured objects of the night - very nice in Dave Churilla's 10" and in several other scopes.

I started with the Orion Nebula in my 8" SCT. At 57x it showed good contrast and lots of detail. On Saturn I used Dave's Powermate with a 35mm Ultrascopic eyepiece. This significantly improved the view - thanks Dave! On my scope the view of Saturn was good up to about 170x. After the wind came up I was able to continue observing for awhile (SCT's do have some advantages) and I took in some of the winter Messiers. Dave and Joey Churilla worked with their new equatorial mount and went searching for the Horsehead Nebula (Don't know if they found it for sure).

Jim Kvasnicka's family farm once again proved to be a good dark location for our star party, and I think everyone had a really good time. My thanks to everyone who attended this month's star party. Looking forward to next month!