Henry Coe, 08/15/2009

As on Friday @ Hogue Park our new friend, Daniel, told us there would be a few people at Henry Coe on Saturday, my husband and I drove down there. We arrived quite early, so that we can find a spot that nobody claims as 'reserved'. :) There were already about two cars there and just as we came back from the ranger's station where we paid our use-fee, two other SUVs have arrived and later on several more cars pulled into the parking lot.

We set up our scope next to Daniel and a friend of his with a whole bunch of scopes. As we looked around we realized, there's room for improvement in our star-gazing gear: table, chairs, stools just to mention a few. :)

As we (especially I) are beginners, we do not have much comparison as to transparency etc. We enjoyed the darkness of the sky as it was. We managed to see several M objects like M8 Lagoon, Andromeda Galaxies, Triangulum Galaxy quite well with our Celestron scope. We checked Jupiter again, of course, and could see more details on it then on Friday.

I managed to find the “ET cluster” own my own, which seemed to be quite a challenge at first. My husband, who is more into challenges, hunted/asked for new targets – with success. We also learned how to look at some objects with averted vision to see them in more detail. That's how my husband managed to see the arms of the Triangulum Galaxy on a big Dob next to us.

We of course happily checked out other people's scopes and whatever they were viewing as well, so we had really nice views of several other clusters, nebulae and galaxies. In return, we offered the cinnamon cake with cherry filling I've baked, but not too many were interested. Maybe next time I'll manage to meet other TACos' tastes or just accept that they're not there for the food. :)

We stayed until about 3am, by that time I had a big headache, was cold, hungry and morose. Otherwise, I really enjoyed the night and the company and looking forward the next Star Party. When we left most of the people were packing as well as the Moon was coming up.