Post by jeremy on Oct 24, 2011 14:46:49 GMT -6
I have surfaced again! After weeks of travel! Last weekend I finally got to bring out my scope to some dark skies and do some gazing. My wife's friends do this annual camping trip out in the Morgan-Monroe State Forest Park near Bloomington, IN, so we met everyone out there for the weekend and did some gazing each night.
First let me state it is great getting to dark skies where you can see just about everything. Seeing M31 with naked eye, no problem. Second since I just got my telescope this summer, many things are still new to me! Now that Orion is coming up so much earlier, I am seeing more of the Winter sky now that I haven't viewed yet.
The first night we were out (Friday night), the group was actually hoping to see the Orionids meteor shower. We all stayed up until about 2am to go see. The group knew I had a telescope, but really didn't know what to expect. After some hunting we found a clearing that gave us some great views of the sky. While everyone was watching for shooting stars, I setup my scope and started to find objects for all to view.
This was neat because everyone there (with exception of my wife) had never looked through a telescope. Naturally I first went to Jupiter, which was a big hit. Then I went to M42, another big hit. Onto M31, of course another big hit. Unfortunately shortly after we got through the above, the fog rolled in and we had to pack it up.
The next night we decided to go out sooner, which would allow us to see things like M57. We also looked at several open and globular clusters (they look like diamonds in the sky on dark sky nights with the scope). I was hoping to see Geradd, but it had already set. By the second night of course a slightly larger group had come out as people were talking about what we saw the night before and more people were interested in seeing.
Unfortunately the selfish side of me was hoping to get a few hours of just me and the scope to hunt out new things, however this was more a social camping trip so I ran with it and did the group showings and stayed with the classics which is fun too. I don't think I really get tired of watching people see these amazing things for the first time, then the questions they ask around it. It was all a lot of fun, and am glad to be done with travel for a bit where I can enjoy the skies again!
I hope to see some of you all in the near future with some clear skies! BTW, you know you are an astronomy enthusiast and you travel a lot when you start to book your airplane seats to ensure you will have a North facing window on the night flights with the hopes of seeing some Northern Lights
First let me state it is great getting to dark skies where you can see just about everything. Seeing M31 with naked eye, no problem. Second since I just got my telescope this summer, many things are still new to me! Now that Orion is coming up so much earlier, I am seeing more of the Winter sky now that I haven't viewed yet.
The first night we were out (Friday night), the group was actually hoping to see the Orionids meteor shower. We all stayed up until about 2am to go see. The group knew I had a telescope, but really didn't know what to expect. After some hunting we found a clearing that gave us some great views of the sky. While everyone was watching for shooting stars, I setup my scope and started to find objects for all to view.
This was neat because everyone there (with exception of my wife) had never looked through a telescope. Naturally I first went to Jupiter, which was a big hit. Then I went to M42, another big hit. Onto M31, of course another big hit. Unfortunately shortly after we got through the above, the fog rolled in and we had to pack it up.
The next night we decided to go out sooner, which would allow us to see things like M57. We also looked at several open and globular clusters (they look like diamonds in the sky on dark sky nights with the scope). I was hoping to see Geradd, but it had already set. By the second night of course a slightly larger group had come out as people were talking about what we saw the night before and more people were interested in seeing.
Unfortunately the selfish side of me was hoping to get a few hours of just me and the scope to hunt out new things, however this was more a social camping trip so I ran with it and did the group showings and stayed with the classics which is fun too. I don't think I really get tired of watching people see these amazing things for the first time, then the questions they ask around it. It was all a lot of fun, and am glad to be done with travel for a bit where I can enjoy the skies again!
I hope to see some of you all in the near future with some clear skies! BTW, you know you are an astronomy enthusiast and you travel a lot when you start to book your airplane seats to ensure you will have a North facing window on the night flights with the hopes of seeing some Northern Lights
