An excellent night

[simon955]

On friday (4th) I received a call from my friend who lives out in the wilderness of west wight where it is very dark. She said 'ooh its nice and clear out here and the girls are asking me questions about the sky' to which I replied shall I come over and bring a telescope. 10 minutes later I was dashing around the house grabbing equipment and loaded my car with my 12" dob, some eyepieces, red flashlight and some binocs. When I was finished I could of done with a lie down, but no I was on a mission, 13miles of country roads in the dark were driven down with some haste. When I arrived the skies were excellent no light pollution at all. Other then being greeted by good dark skies there were also 7 excited souls waiting for me. 5 of them girls aged 9-13, thier mother and a friend of hers. I wasnt expecting this many.

So on to the actual observing part of my night.

A 2 minute drive out of the village ontop of a hill was my site, when I hauled out the 12" dobsonian from the car there were gasps and wows (guess they were expecting a small refractor) I chose the dob to avoid the chore of alignment and inputting the data which I didnt have accurately anyway. First target was the orion nebula, the first young lady looked in and cries of 'oh my god, you have to see this' lead to a scrum for the next to get into a queue. The adults were relegated to having a look last. Fine structual detail was observed. After I let them have some time with m42 it was time to show them a different type of wonder, the double cluster in perseus. Having very dark skies and a decent apeture provided my audience with a very high star-count. Those who were at the back of the queue were treated to M45 with my binocs. The next target was saturn, still low in the skies but gave a decent image. This was a big hit, everyone had 2 or 3 turns looking at it. The last on our tour of the sky was in leo, m65 and 66. This was a first for me too, my home sight is just a little too light to see the two galaxies. My viewing time was cut rather short by being almost pulled off of the eyepiece.

It was now time to pack up, it was gone 10.30. Everyone had a great time, I was very pleased with myself for giving up an evening and spending it in the dark.

[m_j_lyons]

That's great! Sow the seed of interest early and often. What did they think of the galaxies? Last time I had a group out I tried to set the expectation on what the 'fuzzies' would look like and to not expect magazine quality views. Great grouping of objects to see also - nearly mirrored my last group viewing with the exception that I used M31 vs M65/66.

Cheers.

[Talitha]

Well done!! Very generous of you to offer the scope, did they have any idea what to expect? Maybe the crowd will be a bit larger next time... word of mouth, and all.

[simon955]

It was the first time looking through a telescoe for most of them, certainly the girls hadn't used one at night before. No idea what thier initial expectations were, I only observed thier responses. The girls' mother informs me today what they want for christmas/birthdays.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

It's great to gets kids enthusiastic about astronomy. M65/M66 is a really nice pairing.