Public Star Party at DRA 1/21/2023

I attended the Central Maine Astronomical Society Star Party at Damariscotta River Association, now called Great Salt Bay Farm from around 7:15 until 9:30pm. A particularly cold night, though I had 3 layers of clothing on, I did not feel too cold. Conditions weren’t the best, a lot of moisture in the sky. Seeing was average as was transparency. I brought my 10″ dob and cleared a small area of snow that previous storm had laid down. About a dozen hearty souls made it out to DRA. I setup my scope to look at Jupiter and three Jovian moons, Saturn (it was very low on the horizon and in the murk, but you could see the general shape of the planet and rings), Venus, M42 Orion Nebula (the star of the night, the Trapezium looked very sharp), and M31 Andromeda Galaxy.

Later in the night, a few club members and I went searching for Comet ZTF (C/2022 E3). After checking an astronomy app on my phone I was able to eventually find it in the north near Draco with my binoculars. I put my scope on it, but since the Comet was low in the sky, it was buried in murk. Looked best through binoculars, though not much more developed than a faint elongated smudge. I tried to help another club member point his 80MM Takahashi refractor at the Comet, but he ran into technical difficulties with his tracking mount.

Eventually clouds started to roll in from the east and we all called it a night. In all, I was happy to find the comet and few other objects in the sky.