It all came together Saturday night

[saberonyx]

Yep it all came together last Saturday night when I hosted my 3rd annual Fantasy Baseball(Yahoo) BBQ Bash on my deck in the backyard.It's been two months since I got my AD12 from Opticsmart and of course I was praying for clear skies.Well it all came together like a perfect storm!!. The grill got going with hot dogs and hamburgers, guys started arriving at 4pm and the beers were flowing.All the time we were talking baseball I kept an eye on the few small clouds going by overhead hoping they weren't going to grow into thunder heads.

Well 9pm came around and the sky was getting dark so it was time to release the hounds.I started with a few double stars like Alberio,Epsilon Lyra and the Mizar–Alcor thing- a- ma- jig. Now it was time to pull out all the stops and I went right to m57(ring nebula). First with the 2", Superview 30mm, 68 degree FOV which got everybody going " wow". Then I put in the 1.25", Super-Plossl 9mm, 52 degree FOV which got a bigger "wow". While I had everyone's attention I went right to m13(Hercules Globular Cluster). Well needless to say they were all quite impressed(and all quite drunk).

We ended the evening by playing a few rounds of Texas hold 'em and everyone went home to their wives and girlfriends very content.

For me it's time to start thinking about getting some more eyepieces and a barlow lens.

[Lenny147]

Sounds like a top night

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Combining BBQ and stargazing is great. Two of my favourite pastimes rolled into one.

[saberonyx]

Last saturday was my 4 th annual fantasy baseball bbq hosted by yours truly.The usual suspects gathered for a afternoon/evening of eating,bullshitting and of coarse stargazing.Now last year I just purchased my apertura ad 12 from opticsmarts so I was still getting my act together about showing the heavens to the guys.But this year I was more versed in teaching/preaching.

First the moon was not in a good spot for us and the sky was a little overcast.But we started with a good pass overhead of the ISS. Calsky program had us looking up around 9;04 pm and we all saw it go overhead.At this point the sky was really pretty poor so no one was more disappointed than me but it was just then when my son yelled out "dad quick before Saturn goes down".I said we have to get a good angle over the top of our house,so we rolled it down the driveway across the street and up a neighbors driveway.It worked,we all got a good look at the rings with my 10 mm Delos.Saturn sank out of view pretty fast so we rolled the Dob back to my driveway and went for some real easy overhead stuff.We spent most of our time arguing over the colors of the double Albireo.It worked out good that my scope was not confined to just the backyard like last year because over the winter I built a ramp up and down in the garage so I could roll it from front to back.We all had a great time and look forward to next year!

[AlexB67]

Combining BBQ and stargazing is great. Two of my favourite pastimes rolled into one.

Exactly that, I had quite a few of those during August. I must have contributed somewhat to the demise in chicken supplies that month :0).