Mingo Creek Star Party, Aug 22

What a great night, even if the sky didn't always cooperate! My friend Michelle and her husband Glenn came down to the park with their telescope, and the three of us did our best to see some of the sights through the mostly hazy sky. They were relative newcomers to the hobby, and I sure hope I didn't scare them off with my constant babbling about the sky :)

I didn't use my 6" SCT at all, other than to take a peek at Jupiter. I spent the night using my new Canon XT and driving the 24" RC telescope in the observatory. Since the sky was so iffy, I took requests for a while :)

We looked at the Ring Nebula, Albireo, Gamma Delphini, M13, M22 and the Wild Duck Cluster. All were only so-so views (except Albireo, which was very nice), but I was happy to show them to the small yet eager crowd. Had the skies been better, we would have had many more guests, I'm sure.

After my friends and the public left, I tried my hand at some tripod shots with the XT. Since I don't have a driven mount, I stayed with 15 second exposures at 1600 ISO, ranging from 55mm at f4 to 250mm at f5.6. I got a couple of sunset shots using the default camera settings for landscapes.

Of course, since the public was gone, the skies got better :) We ended the night on the 24", testing out a new 13mm Ethos eyepiece. Though I'll likely never spend the cash on one of these, the view was simply mind-blowing. A 100 degree field of view is like nothing I've ever experienced - I felt like I was suspended over M13!

Pictures below - overall a very fun night.