KAC Observing session Report

Hi All

Observing Session Report
Tuesday 22nd November 8pm Banna Beach outside Tralee

Once again we had quite a successful observing session on Tuesday 22nd November. Somewhere between 25 and 30 members braved the cold through the course of the evening and were rewarded with stunning views of our universe. On hand were 10” and 8” dobs, a meade etx70 a vast range of binoculars in all apertures from 40mm up to 80mm. The evening kicked off with some constellation learning. First up was the great square of Pegasus followed by Paddy giving us a guided tour of the night sky with a laser pointer, The fainter constellations of the Zodiac, such as Aries, Pisces and Aquarius were next on the list. The Summer triangle and the great and little bear were also pointed out. As the night wore on, the winter favourites rose higher in the sky and I think most people that turned up will have learnt a number of new constellations. Throughout the night the scopes and binoculars were turned on the reliables, such as the Great Orion Nebula, (the maternity ward) the Pleiades, The Hyades, The gaggle of Messier clusters in Auriga, M35 in Gemini, and the Double Cluster. A deal of time was also spent explaining the geography of our Galaxy and why we can see the Milky Way. To contrast with the Open Clusters, we also took in a number of Globular Clusters such as M13 early in the evening followed by M2 and M15. As if that was not enough, Galaxies were next in the eyepiece, M31 and 32 followed by M81 and M82. These were well received and were greeted with a number of “OOO's” and “AAAHS”.
Mars was briefly observed but with the moon out of the way, the majority of the evening was spent on the deep sky targets. During the evening we were also lucky to catch a number of bright shooting stars with visible trails. As the night wore on we were treated to a spectacular orange rising moon, which seemed to appear as if by magic on the NE horizon. The night was wrapped up with some views of a shimmery moon and a fuzzy Saturn as, fog, dew and the atmosphere began to get the upper hand. All in all an excellent evening and a great start to the winters observing. Lets hope for more of the same.

Sounds great Trevor..wish i was clear here.

great report

Great report! Sounds like unes guys had a great night. You had a great turnout of people, the recent club i have been to there wasnt that many people that even went to view the transit of Venus!

thanks lads