Planets and Moons in Wicklow Mountains National Park

Fantastic response, estimate 160 - 200 people in - 4 conditions
All happy, frozen scopes, great kids, more tomorrow.

Deirdre Kelleghan
Happy astronomer

160-200 peeps showed up? WOW that is fantastic.

How were conditions?

This was a fabulously successful night. I can't remember ever having so many people queuing at every scope, and the response from the public was fantastic - really inspiring. I was so busy with the public I never got a chance to take a single photo at the event. We had about 8 or 9 scopes of all types, SCTs, Refractors, Reflectors, Dobs, Equatorial and Alt-Azs, with queues all night 'till we got kicked out by by the park service. The Parks people were very happy to have such a turn out also. This will definitely turn into an annual event methinks.

Thanks again to all who attended and brought scopes - I hope you got as much out of it as I did. Dee will be posting some photos and the details on all the scopers who made this possible. High Five

The only down side was the -4 or -5 temperature and ice/frost on the equipment. To be honest though it didn't feel that cold until I was packing up and had to carry my counterweights back to the car - I nearly dropped them they were so cold.

I so wanted to be there tonight but with my niece staying.............i had to do the whole uncle thing.

Sounds like a great time was had by all.

Those damn counter weights get pretty damn COLD.

Yep, Twas a great night alright. I thoroughly enjoyed it myself and I think the public did too. I didn't arrive till about 8:30. I think I was the last to arrive and all the other scopers already had about 15-20 people lined up each. I couldn't believe it. As fabulous a location as Glendalough is, it is a bit out of the way and ain't the Pheonix Park on the doorstep of Dublin. Its great to see that there is the interest out there with the public to make the effort to drive down to Glendalough on a night like tonight.

I think I had some performance anxiety It took me ages to align my secondary. I must have felt under pressure because as soon as I wheeled my scope into the observing area there were loads of people wanting a look. Once I had everything aligned and collimated I had a family waiting while I tweaked the last few things. Got Saturn in the eyepiece (Baader Hyperion 5mm @ 300x) and invited the family to begin observing. Was chatting for ages with them and then turned and realised that now I ! had about 15 people in a queue behind my scope. I had to start making headway with my queue

Although it was sub zero temps (car said -4.5 when I got to the carpark) I didn't feel it till the end and even then only in my feet. It was quite misty with only the planets, the moon and the main constellations visible (Orion, The plough etc). Not that that mattered though because the Moon, Mars and Saturn were the primary targets for the night anyway. Chances are with mist or fog is that the associated seeing will actually be quite good and this was proved correct with my views of Saturn at 300x with my 5mm. I'd say the views where quite sharp in my scope for about 75% of the time with nicely resolved rings, shadow of rings, and a single cloud band. Titan, Rhea, Tethys, and Enceladus were readily visible. It was only in the last half hour when Saturn had risen higher ironically enough that the views for me at any rate deteriorated with seeing reducing sharpness ie. a reversal of the earlier statistics where noy Saturn was only sharp 25% of the time instead of 75%.

I ended up staying on Saturn for the entire duration of the event. Got to whip out the green laser pointer hehe when a few people asked, what we were looking at. Que, 'ohhs and ahhs' from adults and kids alike. Lots of kids appearing out of nowhere, " Whoaaahhh!! " and then coming back later again and again, "hey mister, do the laser thingie again!"

Bit of a cliche I know, but its great to see all the kids smiling happy faces and excitement. "I wish my mammy and daddy had brought me to an event like this when I was a kid". Somehow I don't think multi thousand euro telescopes were top of the priority list back in the eighties though so I doubt there were many events like this back then.

Its true what they say though...

Happyness is increased by giving some of it away"

What I mean is that even though the only viewing I did myself was re-aligning the scope when Saturn left the FOV, I think that I actually enjoyed tonights 'Viewing Session' more than any session in my back garden with the scope all to myself. It was just great to see how thrilled everyone else was to see Saturn.

I just hope that by the time of the next event, that I will have my equatorial platform for tracking by then. It'll mean that everyone can just soak up the views without me having to intervene every 30 seconds or so to re-align. Though in saying that a few people thought that Saturn Moving in the eyepiece was a bonus. (most of the other scopes were on Motorised Equatorial tripod mounts) "Whoaa, you can even see the planet moving in that scope!!" Don't worry I did explain it was actually the earths rotation

So all in, a great night and I can't wait for the next public event! Thanks everyone for organising this and giving me an opportunity to take part. Special thanks to Deirdre of course!

Good God Keith..........................sounds like you guys were snowed under.