Star Party: Pack 1 Manville from Lincoln, RI
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On a chilly Friday, March 25, Skyscrapers hosted a scouts group at Seagrave Observatory. The guests arrived earlier than expected, shortly after 18:00, when the sky was still mostly cloudy. The temperature was in the low 30s, falling into the 20's with an occasionaly easterly breeze setting up wind chills in the 20's and into the teens later in the evening.
Jim Brenek, Bob Forgiel, and Jim Hendrickson attended. Tom Thibault stopped by for a few moments but had other committments.
Jim Brenek pointed out squirrel damage on the north side and northwest corner of the meeting hall.
Jim Brenek had the 12-inch Meade pointed at the Orion Nebula and I had the contrasting star cluster pair M46 and M47.
Bob Forgiel and I stayed a bit later to do a test run of his new SBIG 8300C camera using my 80mm refractor, since his scope is still at Meade for repair. After obtaining adequate focus on Castor we moved the scope to M35 and took a series of exposures ranging from 15 to 40 seconds.
After Bob left I remained for about an hour to observe some bright double stars (Castor, Algieba, Mizar, Cor Caroli, and Izar) , a few galaxies (M81 & M82, M51, & M104), and Saturn again using the 3.7mm Ethos SX eyepiece. The seeing and transparency
