Astronomy at Mountain Lake

I had the pleasure of teaching some astronomy at Mountain Lake last night. When I arrived at the hotel, the skies were mostly cloudy. I set up a couple of telescopes, snapped a few pictures, and then headed in to the hotel to talk with the participants in the astronomy program. The attendees came out a bit later to observe the night sky. The clouds had dispersed, and the sky was clear. However, seeing was less than normal, and the objects did not hold their clarity as they would on a more still evening. We observed Jupiter and it's moons with a 6 inch ARO custom Maksutov Cassegrain telescope on a Mountain Instruments MI-250 mount. We took in the Ring Nebula (M57) in the constellation Lyra, The Andromeda Galaxy (M31), and the Double Cluster open cluster in Perseus in a StarGazer Scopes 15 inch truss dobsonian reflector. In the 8 inch Celestron Schmidt Cassegrain telescope on a Celestron CGE mount, we observed the Hercules globular cluster (M13) in the constellation Hercules, and the beautiful double star, Albireo, in the constellation Cygnus.

This was a great group of people, and I really had a good time showing them around the night sky. If you have a group that would like an astronomy talk, please let me know.

Here is the Astronomy Mobile Outreach Vehicle (AMOV) near the area where we set up the scopes. We set up near the hotel to minimize the distance to walk, given the cold temperatures that evening.

Another shot, this time showing the nearly dry Mountain Lake bed, as well as some beautiful fall foliage. That is one dry lake. Hopefully, it will fill up again soon.

Here is the Astronomy Mobile Outreach Vehicle (AMOV) with the Mountain Lake Hotel in the background. Clearly visible in this photo is the Audiotronics logo on the side of the vehicle. Audiotronics has been a big help in supporting our effort to take science and astronomy to the youth and general public. I highly recommend their business.