7/2 Star Party

Held a small public star party that only 2 friends showed up for. One of those rare summer nights in Maine with decent weather conditions. Minimal wind. Warm in the mid 60F. Only some passing clouds occasionally towards the north. Seeing was excellent; very little twinkle of the stars. I had my 10″ dob out on my driveway with some lawn chairs setup. A couple of my friends came over with some binoculars. We checked out M57 which looked good. Moved over to M81 and M82 with a 9mm 100deg Explorer Scientific eyepiece. That was great. Saw a lot of structure in M82 Cigar Galaxy. Dark spots. M81 didn’t have noticeable features to me. Then moved over to M13. That was really great to look at with the 100deg eyepiece.

Later on we checked out Saturn which was amazing. Some of the best views that I’ve ever had. Used my Morpheus 12.5mm with a 2x Barlow. Could see the shadow of the rings on Saturn and vice versa. Polar cloud bands were also very noticeable, occasionally popping when atmosphere was really still. After that, we checked out Jupiter but it was still low in the sky and in the atmosphere soup. I believe I found Comet PANSTARRS c/2017 K2. It was dim fuzzy, with coma. Neat object to find. Star hopped to find it in Ophiuchus.

I did take some Moon photos with my Canon M50 as well as some wide field shots. Using a new-to-me Manfrotto tripod. I was hoping that PANSTARRS would show up in the photos but I guess it was too dim without a tracking mount.

Anyway, it was good to be outside looking up at the stars even if it was only with 2 friends. Maybe next star party will have more people show up.