Log, Feb 13, 2009
31 people. Just when we were all but sure that the fates had decided they had it "in" for Frosty Drew Observatory, guess what happened? A wonderful night! The Moon came up late (just before closing) meaning we had dark skies. The day and night temperature differences were moderate meaning that we had stable skies. The air was crystal clear without so much as a clouds and the telescope ran with nary a hitch! As Francine is wont to say "Life is good!"We had a fairly large gathering of folks for a winter's night including a group of Webelos Scouts (boys transitioning between Cub and Boy Scouts). We saw lots of interesting things in the sky starting with a crescent Venus, Saturn [edge on!] M31 [Andromeda Galaxy], M33 [Pinwheel Galaxy], M42/43 [Great Orion Nebula], M46 [a glorious open cluster with an embedded Planetary Nebula], several smaller open clusters, M79 [a globular cluster], Rigel [which was almost ridiculously easy to split last night] a couple of other double stars and Sirius which was as stable an image as I have ever seen of it.We did lots of inside viewing and outside star hopping. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves a great deal.-Les Coleman
