This time we had a clear evening at BSC after darkness closed in and Venus was glowing brightly while Mercury was just barely visible above the hills. Saturn was a nice object to view all night long and a big hit with a young 2nd grade guest and her parents. Triton was easily viewed along with two other moons in my 5″ scope.

I am not sure if anyone actually found Asteroid 4 Vesta but I did hear people talking about it being a naked eye object. We did get to see the HST (Hubble Space Telescope) fly over at 9 pm. Late in the evening Jupiter came into view and moon Europa was in transit so only 3 moons were visible at first. I was not able to find any of the Virgo Cluster galaxies in my small scope but they were visible in Vital’s Dob.

The evening started off at 62 F and I was fine in a t-shirt for a few hours. It was only 47 F at 12:30 when I locked the gate. We had 19 cars out when I took count and maybe a few more showed up later…so was a good turn-out. Special thanks to Hassi, Val and Don who always suggest interesting objects to view and Mike for bringing his big 14″ scope, and his friend with the big 17″ DOBs. Kyle even stopped by to help us out and Travis brought his young son Brandon out again.

Steve