my report last night

[red dwalf]

i had my 9 year old daughter and my niece who`s 10 with me last night and getting a bit bored around 9.30 pm, my daughter came in and said the skies are clear shall we get the scope out, up i jumped to cart the gear outside and set up,

polar aligned the mount and then i did something i`ve never done before, a 3 star alignment, i`m terriable with names and will take me for ever to learn most of the stars so stellarium helped me here.

girls did there best to ask lots of question i couldn`t answer apart from show them where the north star was and how to find it, also the w, cassiopia as i told the girls it was called.

once set up i but on my 20mm hyperion eyepiece and slewed to Jupiter, by this time it was 10pm, just in the field of view, first my niece, wow was the comment, i can see a orange band and 4 moons, then my daughter, same comments again, the slewed to the Moon, alittle bright but good detail and lots of uh ar`s,

then we slewed to M31, some time since i last looked at this alittle dissapointed only a faint smudge, i`ve had a better view of it in the past, but the girls seemed interested when i told them what it was, then we had lots of comments about aliens and so on.

started to get alittle colder by now and the girls went to bed why i had another 30 minutes imaging Jupiter which turned out rubbish,

just when i thought i was getting the hang of it.

cheers

Rob

[mdstuart]

Great report. So nice when the kids capture some understanding of what they are looking at..

Mark

[Doc]

What a great night Rob, I'm glad the girls enjoyed it. I should have made the effort but couldn't be bothered.

[Talitha]

Wonderful report Rob, and it's great that your daughter was the one who suggested setting the scope up... good girl!