Our excellent telescope viewing night
It was a balmy evening on Monday 1 May and thirty-one attendees, including nineteen members of our astronomy group, had a very successful night of telescope viewing at Sydney Observatory. Many Sydney City Skywatcher members brought their own telescopes or astronomy set-ups, but we all assisted in setting up, had many opportunities to view through different types of telescopes and binoculars, and there was much discussion about what we were viewing and the equipment.
Robert (pictured above) demonstrated his new and highly portable celestron. Adriano demonstrated his large Skywatcher motorised Dobsonian and several attendees took smart-phone photographs through the eyepiece. You can see Vlad's image of Jupiter surrounded by moons Europa, Io and Ganymede below in this post.
Ross and Trish had a computer imaging system set-up and Jorge, Leslie and Monty shared their telescopes and Sydney Observatory provided binoculars. Our club telescope was assembled by Alessandro, Jessica and team, and while there were a few clouds in the sky we successfully viewed Jupiter and its moons, the waxing Moon and a setting Orion. Elizabeth prepared an information sheet on Jupiter and we all had a go at drawing our observations of its moons on an activity sheet. By 9pm we had packed up and the cloud had covered the sky. We are very thankful to Sydney Observatory for providing the venue and setting up the tent for projections and our supper which was, as usual, deliciously appreciated. You can see more photographs of the evening by Ann below.