What to show the scouts?

Hey all

On Friday evening I have to drop my son down to the scout camp in Lough Dan, there's a good chance the skies will be clear, or partially clear, so I've decided to pack along my 5" refractor and CG-5 mount and show the scouts some sights in the night sky. I already have the usual suspects, M57, M27, M31, Albireo, the Double Cluster, etc., can anyone else give me some ideas?

Thanks for the input.

The club here has made several school trips over the past year and have found that a wide field view of the pleiades is always a crowd pleaser.
We had over 100+ people at these and all went away happy, showing them a tiny planet is never stunning, unless maybe saturn is in the sky.

I would agree with dave, keep it simple, point out a few easy to find constellations, eg cygnus the swan because it looks like a swan,
the summer triangle, and the plough are other easy targets

I would stick with the double cluster, the et cluster (ngc 457 i think) in cass. Get a pair of binoculars and show the coathanger cluster and maybe M13 through the scope.

a laser pointer will make life much easier.

a laser pointer will make life much easier.

We got nearly as many "wows" at the laser pointer compared to anything else. They all wanted one :lol:

M35 & surrounds in Gemini.

Dark skies & low power needed for knockout views.

Peter.

lunartic,
all great choices you've picked so far. One asterism hard to see with the naked eye but which fits an eyepiece FOV perfectly is The Coathanger at the neck of Cygnus. A general sweep of the Rift into Aquila will also yield many clusters - sure to be a WOW! factor for them if the seeing conditions are close to perfect.

Seanie.