Log, Jan 21, 2005
14 people. Yep, we had 14 people at temperatures that went from a balmy [barmy?] 13 degrees down to -1 by the time we called it a night. The wind was stiff and we spent most of the night limited to parts of the sky that would not allow the wind to sweep in through the dome, was not pointed at the nearly full Moon, and still offered things to see. Can you say south and southeast, boys and girls?Actually it was quite an exciting night equipment-wise. At 4 PM, the Frosty Drew Board of Directors met to discuss revision in the by-laws. By 4:45 PM we noticed it was getting chilly in the Nature Center. Attempts to jack up the furnace revealed that we had run out of heating oil. Can you say frozen pipes, boys and girls?The fuel truck was called, and because Joe Hartley and I would be around, it was not great problem. In time it came, refueled the Nature Center and between Joe and the driver, the furnace was rebooted (primed? whatever!). Heat began to pour back into the building. Yet our problems were not over. Joe discovered that the Uninterruptible Power Supply [UPS] had it batteries frozen solid. So we dragged it over to the Nature Center and placed it in front of a warm air register. Slowly it unfroze but we didn't use it for the rest of the night. We didn't dare fire up the computer for fear that we might have a hard disk crash. Even the laser pointer was useless until it had warmed up in my pocket.Still and all I enjoyed the evening. We saw a number of old friends, M42, Saturn, the Eskimo (all too appropriate I fear), a nice cluster NGC2360. We split Castor but once again Sirius would not split cleanly. We plan to collimate the optics and try again on a slightly milder evening.-Les Coleman
