I had a good time last night! I didn't observe much, mainly just visited with Chuck Larson, Jon Stone, Dale Hall, Rick Hill, and Ron Medley. We all set up our scopes in the yard here at the observatory and enjoyed some fairly steady views of Jupiter's cloud belts, and good seeing in general.

Many folks don't realize that when you see a night scheduled in our Events Calendar on the right-side of this page, it means that ANYONE can come up to Coleman Observatory and enjoy the evening with us. We actually go a lot farther than that....ANYONE, member or not, can use the yard here to set up your telescopes and observe whether you want to visit with other amateurs or not. The poll question shows that there are some folks who'd rather practice astronomy in a more private manner, and we encourage anyone with the desire to come up and use the property as a SAFE dark-sky site whether you would like company or not. I may come outside and introduce myself, but that's primarily just to say welcome, and enjoy yourself.

All of us last night were doing our own thing to a large degree. We just visited and talked "shop" a while, and sometimes observed through each other's telescopes a little bit, but mainly we were all somewhat impressed by the slightly above-average seeing we had. Clarity was good and there was little twinkling of stars and as I mentioned above, VERY good detail in the lateral belts of Jupiters north and south equatorial zones. Personally, I used my digital camera to take about 15-16 images of Jupiter hoping for one good one out of all that effort, but alas, there were NO images worth keeping. I even took a few images of all of us to put on the site, but none of those really turned out either, Oh, well....not the first time for that.

I hope Rick, Ron, Dale, Jon and Chuck will leave their impressions of our time together last night as they log on in the next few days. I believe Rick Hill may have obtained an image or two of Jupiter with his Celestron NexImager. Please visit the Photo Gallery and see more of his work....he's getting several really good images in there. Wish I could say the same.

Bob

It indeed was a great night. Viewings where good, I saw more detail in M51 then I have in the past, and Jupiter was great. I want to convince myself that was the NA Nebula I saw, it was all by itself off of Denab, it had to be it. Do you have to view with your telescope to log it? HA

Not to mention, we fould that tiny emission nebula, did you find out what it was?

I had a good time saturday nite,it was indeed a good night for viewing,learned a little more about the sky,seen some nebulaes that I had never seen before,I did get some pretty good images of jupiter,I'll post them as soon as I get them processed,Jon & I had a little side trip on the way home,made a left turn coming out of the observatory instead of a right & did some night time sight seeing,I think we seen the cemetary you were talking about Bob,kinda creepy back off in there.Overall,a very enjoyable night.

It certainly was a great night for viewing. I even got to put my scope on one of piers that Bob had drilled to hold my scope wedge. Really makes a difference when you can have a steady scope that is aligned more accurately. Details of Jupiter were
much better than I have seen in quite some time. Also got to catch a quick peek at
Mars before it dropped behind the trees. Got some good looks at M13, M80, and
Albireo, before I called it a night because of the dew beginning to set in.
It was a good chance to view through other scopes also. Great fellowship and an evening that was well worth the time.
Chuck L.

I enjoyed my first visit to the club's observatory Saturday night. I rarely go out observing in the summer months due to my lack of knowledge of the stars in the sky this time of the year. But Bob remedied that with a quick tutorial and his super laser pointer! Bob also showed us several nebulas that I had never seen before. It's nice to meet with others who can expand your knowledge and ability in this neat hobby. It was a good night for viewing.

Ron Medley

As you mentioned, Ron, meeting and observing with others who share your desires to become more familiar with the sky is a BIG help to everyone involved. Those who come and learn something new benefit from that new experience, while those like myself enjoy helping others reach ever higher in their level of expertise in amateur astronomy.

Not to say that I consider myself an expert in ANY sense of the word. I believe the one thing we all realize after just a few visits to these star parties is that no one, none of us, can ever possibly become a true expert at this hobby. All we can do is keep plugging away at our own personal goals, and share the comradery that we find between us when we get to observe together.

I sincerely hope that everyone who reads this particular post will understand that to coming to Coleman Observatory and joining us in a star party does NOT require them to be members of AOAS. Certainly, we'd like to increase our numbers at every opportunity, but we enjoy sharing this hobby too much to worry about whether someone outside in the observing field is a card-carrying member or not. We wish to share this pursuit with anyone who might be interested and anyone, member or not, has the ability to come to our observing field, set up their telescope(s), and enjoy this moderately dark location free from worry about offending anyone with their presence, or of having to join the club.

In fact I encourage everyone who wishes they could find a safe and dark site for viewing will do exactly that, come to Coleman Observatory and use what we have as if it were your own. The sky is free to everyone, and we welcome ALL visitors.

Bob