I opened the gate about 6:15 pm and we already had a small line of cars waiting to go in as the evening sky was clear. Before the Sun went down, we could just make out bright Venus above the hills.

Then we got to see the Iridium Flare at 7:15 pm but I missed the 8:42 pm Nano-Sail pass. The Moon looked spectacular and was nice to view while waiting for darkness. Then we did get to view Uranus and Neptune while waiting for Jupiter to rise. Hassi noted that moon Io was passing behind Jupiter but did appear later in the evening.

We located asteroids Vesta and Ceres and then viewed M29, M39 & M52. M13 in Hercules was bright but the M31 Andromeda Galaxy was dim due to the Moon. Rob had his 5″ refractor out with some 2″ eyepieces that were giving great views of the planets and the Double Cluster. Tina’s big scope had some nice views of Messier objects.

Greg & Katie had their 8″ scope set up and Jonathan Kellog & wife had their new Celestron 8″ scope busy. Vittal had his 10″ DOBS out and Hassi had a busy scope showing objects to a number of his astronomy class students. I am not sure which scope Val had with him across the way but he was also over visiting people on the picnic table side. We even had Steve Barnes and girlfriend drop by for awhile.

We had 27 cars come out and everyone seemed to have a good time. The last person left just after midnight and I locked the gate at 12:15 and the temperature was only about 62 F.