[AZ-Observing] Flatiron was breezy but some fun was had

Howdy all;
Marshall (Our Secretary) was already at the site when I arrived and as I set up 
a few more folks trickled into the Flatiron site.  By twilight, there were 
eight folks who decided to brave the nasty looking afternoon clouds and make 
their way out to Flatiron in the hopes that some observing might get done.  By 
the time it got dark the clouds were all but gone and they did not return.  
However, the wind would howl every once in a while and the seeing was abysmal.  
I had my first night with the little RFT refractor at low powers so I was not 
effected as much, but anyone trying use powers above 150X or so was just asking 
for trouble.

With that in mind, we still had a fun time.  I had some problems with my mount 
and I need to set up a few times to get all the bugs worked out.  It is 
possible that I am the problem, it is possible that there are some software 
errors that Meade needs to correct and I need to download an update.  

However, the views in the Orion 4 inch f/6 refractor are excellent.  Using a 
22mm Panoptic and 14mm Ultrawide eyepieces I viewed some bright open clusters.  
The Double cluster is excellent, the orange stars still stand out even when it 
is this low to the horizon and there are two obvious centers to the star 
clusters.  M 35 in Gemini is a real treat....lots of stars in curved chains and 
the faint NGC cluster nearby is pretty easy with the 14mm eyepiece.  M 44, the 
Beehive cluster is absolutely made for this telescope...it fits in the central 
60% of the field of view of the 22mm panoptic eyepiece and there are two 
obvious triple stars involved even at this low power (30X).  

I definitely look forward to more viewing with this fun telescope.  So, we sat 
around and discussed everything from:  places to travel for observing, to this 
crazy weather, to politics, to music, to big star parties and then went back to 
observing.  I enjoyed both activities.

My lesson for the night was....you don't have to have a big telescope to create 
a fun night observing the sky.....it helps, but you don't HAVE to have a big 
scope.

Clear Skies to us all;
Steve Coe

Author "Deep Sky Observing--The Astronomical Tourist"
Saguaro Astronomy Club website
www.saguaroastro.org
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