Log, Dec 3, 1999
42 people. Joe arrived early, anxious to get a view of the NOVA in Aquila that was spotted this Tuesday. Estimates predicted the magnitude would approach the 3rd magnitude by tonight. However, I and Joe feel the estimate was too large by around a full magnitude by comparing its brightness to Mu and Delta Aql. You can locate it by forming a quadrilateral from Altair {Alpha Aql}, Delta and Gamma Aql with the NOVA.We were visited by two troops of Girl Scouts. We were very touched to find a thank you note tucked in with a donation in our collection box. To our Girl Scout friends, many thanks.The clouds formed and dissipated rapidly as rising air currents cooled. For periods as long as a hour, things remained clear and stable only to have periods when moisture condensed into a foggy barrier.Saturn and Jupiter were major targets. We looked at the Pleides through a small wide angle telescope. It was fun for the scouts to compare the tiny images of the planets in the wide angle scope versus generously sized images in the LX200. We also looked at extended objects in both telescopes. M42 (The Great Orion Nebula) showed the whole "sword" in the wide angle while the LX200 concentrated on the Trapezium.-Les Coleman
