showing some friends and relatives the sky

[Ags]

Just spent the evening showing some friends and relations the night sky.

Albireo does not seem to impress casual observers! nor does the Double Double - they thought it was quite pretty (more so than Albireo) but could only see two stars.

M13 was washed out with the moon so it got a ho-hum response too. Not surprisingly M57 failed to impress too. That's a dead star you're looking at! That is what the sun will turn into!

Desperation now - M31 comes into view as a hazy blob. I explain it has more stars than the milky Way, but we have more dark matter.

We can't find the Iris nebula.

I can't find Almaak either. Yes I know it is bright but which Cassiopeia star is it? I tell the goto to find M52 which should be near. Finally something that impresses my audience. They like star clusters! A quick hop over to the Double Cluster finally get some "Wow" responses. I haven't seen it through the telescope before either so we look at it for a while.

Jupiter is peeping through the trees so that's the next stop. We try a range of mags and settle on viewing it at 150x. One band is clearly visible, but no spot. Sometimes there are hints of other bands. Jupiter is the favorite object so far.

We go back to the Double cluster for another look (the first time it was only a Single Cluster because my roof was in the way). Even louder Wows, now that both halves of the cluster can be seen.

Everyone's drifted away except for one enthusiast. We have a look at Mizar and have a go at Polaris. Polaris is unsplittable as it is over my house - it looks like scrambled eggs.

Great evening.

[Space Oddity6]

I just did the same, showed some friends who are scopeless but have an interest in space some sights. It seems I had a lot less time than you though, only managing to get in the Moon and Jupiter.

For about 2 horrible minutes I was unable to actually find the moon and floundered about until I got it. Looked at that through a few EPs, concentrating on the terminator and that drew a pretty awed response.

Swung right to Jupiter (funnily enough I seemed to find that straight away) and had a gander at that for a bit, they seemed to be most impressed with its moons.

That was all we had time for though but they seemed pretty chuffed with what they'd seen. I think it helps if they have a general interest in it anyway, I've shown star clusters and galaxies to my sister who has been pretty unimpressed by them, but you've got to think about and understand what you're seeing to really appreciate it.

[Carbon Brush]

A popular evening for showing astro sights. I took my son to show him M31. We started with 7x50 bins and I gave hime a chair and pointer. Given a couple of minutes the saw the 'blurry blob' and correctly described the other stars in the fov. Then gave him the 20x80 bins to get a bigger image. He was impressed when I told him just how big M31 is when there is a proper dark sky, and that 99/100 people in this country have probably never seen it. We then moved on to Mizar, Jupiter & moons. On his way home at almost 1am Pleiades was on show - time for slightly averted vision viewing hint as only the mk1 eyeball was available. Great when others show interest.

[rowan46]

my partner a jewel amongst women took me out to some relatively dark sky tonight I got my first look at some nebula's my partner put her book down to come and see jupiter a very good night for me 3 messiers the double cluster and a few double stars and of course the pleiades what a lovely night

[Ags]

I also managed to get a look at M27 - that was for me, as I knew my audience wern't going to be too impressed by the sight.

I was using the NexStar goto to find most of the sights. The difference tonight was that I was using a power supply, which makes the goto far more accurate - instead of getting within 1 - 2 degrees of the target, it was getting the objects in view every time (0.5 degrees pointing accuracy).

My eastern horizon is bad, so we never got to see the Moon unfortunately.

[Ags]

I'm glad the goto was working well with the new power supply - I felt under pressure to serve up new astronomical delights at McDonalds speeds. I didn't want to spend 30 minutes tracking about looking for things. With accurate goto at least I had the confidence that if something was not visible in my wide-field EP, it wasn't visible in my scope under those conditions. Much less wasted time.

[Tutankhpip]

I just showed two friends my scope for the first time and never again I swear. We were out in my back garden nice and quiet and dark and they wouldnt stop yapping and checking their phones every ten seconds. The only thing I managed to show them was M13 and they were far from impressed. There's just no pleasing some people

[klytus]

Just spent the evening with my wife waiting for the Moon to rise, used the time waiting viewing Jupiter and its moons,managed to see what appeared to be satellites fly past my vision and watched ISS pass over.

When the Moon did appear i asked Gillian to view it using the 10x50's, then couple of minutes later look through the telescope,she burst out crying saying it was so beautiful and spectacular to see it so closeup with the craters and ridges so clear (must admit i was shaken myself)

A fine nights viewing but i STILL have'nt seen M31 Grr!

[Beulah]

When the Moon did appear i asked Gillian to view it using the 10x50's, then couple of minutes later look through the telescope,she burst out crying saying it was so beautiful and spectacular to see it so closeup with the craters and ridges so clear (must admit i was shaken myself)

That's awesome! It's wonderful that you can share this hobby and the awe of the night sky together.