8/23/2008 Star Party Report

A wonderful time at AR tonight.  The observing field was full of telescopes and the weather was very pleasant. 
As promised, a full troop of girl scouts and many of their parents joined us and enjoyed talking about astronomy,
seeing the telescopes, and had magnificent views of Jupiter through the telescopes.  Unfortunately, we had quite a
bit of clouds at sundown and were not able to see the close alignment of Venus and Mercury as they set in the West. 
But the clouds did clear off long enough to enjoy those Jupiter views, and then a bit later, it cleared out almost
completely and we enjoyed views of some of the open star clusters that Chris Todd had highlighted at Thursday's
meeting.  Eventually the clouds rolled back in again and promised to stay, so we called it a wrap and will hope for
clear skies at the next HAL Starparty - which is this Saturday, 8/30. 

Photos compliments of Ed Crawford