Black Star Canyon Star Party Recap – Saturday March 29th, 2014

This past Saturday the sky was cloudy throughout Orange County when we arrived at the gate about 6:15 pm. I pondered whether we should even open the gate but one member, Sam was parked at the gate and had some of his students coming. We opened the gate and had a few people drive down and park.

Those that came had fun as the clouds cleared enough for us to see a number of objects, including Jupiter and Mars and objects around Orion. Bonnie spotted the Iridium Flare that brightened the sky near Polaris just after 8:30 pm.

Rob Mackenzie set up his big 11″ Celestron 2800 focal length scope giving a great view of Mars & Jupiter. It was nice to see his wife Cathy come out with Rob and enjoy the star party. But even with that big scope, we could not see the white polar ice cap on Mars. Hopefully next month when Mars gets closer than 60 million miles away.

Sam set up his Vixon scope and entertained his two guests, Leah & Booker Gamboa showing them Jupiter and other objects. Others attending the star party were Tycho Hayashibara, Deependra Chaudhry, Al & Tisha Kulkarni and Jim Smith.

We ended up having 8 cars come out and we counted 12 people. The gate was closed around 11:45pm and the temperature was a mild 50 F.

Steve