SDAS meeting tomorrow night

With regard to the constellations, we are kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place as the saying goes. From our city or suburban locations we might not be able to see all the stars that make up the shapes of the constellations and from a dark sky location there are too many stars to see the shape of the constellations! :laugh: It also doesn't help that different magazines or books or even computer planetarium programmes have different shaped stick figures from each other. I start to get confused. This being my first year in Astronomy I am only really learning them as the seasons progress. I only know the bright big ones, don't know the little ones in between, don't really know half of the Zodiac constellations. Pisces, wheres that!:laugh: Aquarius and Capricornus. Know roughly where they are in relation to constellations I do know, but couldn't tell you what they looked like! :blush: Lots of constellations I only know parts of. ie PLough/Big Dipper part of ursa major. M31 area of Andromeda etc

At least they all come around again next year and I can learn the ones I missed this year.

Maybe you could make some dew shields for your binoculars Pablo. I found this article about making dew shields out of plastic pipe. www.iceinspace.com.au/index.php?id=63,321,0,0,1,0

I didn't realise this was Rafael's first time to look through a scope! As amazing as it was to think that the tiny disc we saw of Uranus was 3 billion km away! it has to be said its not really that impressive to look at in a scope. Had I known Rafael had never looked through a scope I would have loved to show him Jupiter. Its huge by comparison and last week even though it was so low in the sky I could see the discs of the 4 gallilean moons and 2 equatorial cloudbands. I'm sure he would have been impressed even though this year is the worst year to look at Jupiter from Ireland. Can't wait for 2011-> when Jupiter will be starting to ride high again and on some cold crisp night with good seeing circa 2012 I'll be able to use my 3.5mm at 415x on it and see 8 or 9 cloudbands with swirls in them and the GRS. :laugh:

We saw the Donkeys when Paul shined his torch at them. Didn't see them on the road when I was leaving though.

As for the lights. You might have to figure out which fuse is for the interior lights and pull it after you arrive. Didn't bother us by the way but if its something you want to to for your own night vision...... As for the reversing light, I wouldn't worry about it. We just turned away when you were reversing. I don't think you need to disable it. Same thing with your headlights. We can just turn away from the lights. I couldn't believe how far you drove down the track last week when you were leaving before you turned on your lights!!! :ohmy: :laugh: Put them on when you start the van but know that when we all turn our backs on you its not because we are being rude

As for making an observing list. Thats something I have to start doing too. I am so dis-organised, I arrive up there with no plan and end up randomly picking targets on the computer or from a book and going backwards and forwards across the sky all night. Planning in advance what I am going to view will mean that in advance I can also learn a bit about each object before I view it. A grey smudge in the eyepiece is just like any other grey smudge unless you know something about it. Like maybe this Galaxy is 50,000 light years across and is 30 million lightyears away and collided with that Galaxy over there 60 million years ago when dinosaurs roamed the earth etc etc. That grey smudge now seems a lot more impressive!

Fingers and toes crossed that we get more clear nights alright! I couldn't believe it. No clear SDAS observing session since Jan/Feb '08 and then 2 Saturdays in a row!!. I hope we don't have to wait till next Jan/Feb for the next sessions! :laugh: