Friday night I took 2 'scopes and a pair of 15x70 binos to a local OAP home so that some of the more able bodied residents could have a look through them.

Took just over an hour to set up - luckily I had arrived in plenty of time to get set up before dark.

We started off with the moon through the SLT102 refractor with a 10mm eyepiece. They were surprised by the details in the shadow along the terminator. Unfortunately the moon soon dropped too low for the height of the tripod on the SLT (large conifers surrounding the site) so we moved to the bino's on a camera tripod - they were equally impressed.

Next came Saturn in the N150 reflector and that really impressed them. Surprisingly, nobody commented on how small it was in the eyepiece, but all said it was a sight they would not forget.

We then tried mars but conditions were not favourable - could only make out a small bright disc.

Then moved on to Messier objects through the SLT with a 21mm eyepiece. We saw M13, M92 (a new one to cross off of my list), M81 & M82. All were visible but not too good due to poor seeing.

All in all, everybody enjoyed themselves and it was well worth the set up / take down time. Shame the seeing wasn't a bit better, but you can't have everything!