[Chaos-l] Anybody going out tonight (Fri Oct 29)?

[Jon Stewart-Taylor]

Hi all.  Yesterday i wrote:

> [...] Duke Teaching Observatory off Cornwallis Road is having an  
> open house tonight.

I went, and it was nice, although a bit underpopulated.  When i  
arrived around 7:30,  Dr. Plesser had out a pair of 10" SCTs, and we  
used them to look at some of the tourist traps (i didn't bring the  
10", figuring i'd sponge off Duke's equipment.  I did bring a pair of  
10x50s, though).  About 8:00 a CHAOS member and his 5th-grade  
offspring showed up (Tony, was that you?). As with any site that  
close, it wasn't terribly dark, but the Milky Way was present from  
Sagittarius all the way around to Perseus. We looked at more tourist  
traps, and Jupiter of course.  All four moons were nicely arranged  
almost equally spaced, all on the same side of the planet.  After the  
kid turned into a pumpkin and they left, we found M17, but it was Very  
Dim.  Switching to a brighter object, it was Still Very Dim.

Dr. Plesser diagnosed dew on the collector plate, and declared the  
telescopes useless for the night. A brief discussion about home-brew  
dew preventers followed.  Dr. Plesser was very excited about this  
idea.  Apparently, Physics Departments have tons of resistors and such  
just laying around waiting to be assembled into Projects by  
Downtrodden Undergrads at the direction of Sadistic Professors.  At  
the next open house on November 11th, dew may not be an issue.

About 10 minutes after the dew diagnosis, another couple of people  
showed up.  The scopes were still dewed over, but we were able to do  
the green laser pointer tour of the summer constellations, the Perseus/ 
Andromeda group, and the available Zoodiac constellations.  Using the  
laser pointer in combination with the binoculars, we showed them the  
Pleiades and M31.

Dr.  Plesser was also pleased to hear that we had restored and were  
getting service from the 8" Criterions we got from Duke.  Jamie, think  
we could drop by one of the Open House sessions in November or  
December and let him see how they turned out?

J.
-- 
Jon Stewart-Taylor:  joncst at earthlink.net
Chapel Hill Astronomy: http://www.rtpnet.org/chaos