Here Comes the Sun, Doot in Doo doo... On Earthday @ Beaver Meadow Nature Preserve April 18, 2009

It was a great day at the preserve in North Java today. The BAA Solar Crew assisting were- Scott Smith, Pat Lannon, and Jim Lehman. The weather was quite nice for April 18th- About high 60 degrees but a bit breezy. Some of the exhibitors had to take hold of their tents at times.
Of course again we were shut out of sunspots in white light again but fortunately there were a few nice prominences to show in H-Alpha. Its still nice to show the sun in white light to demonstrate the difference in filters and be able to discuss the filters and what they allows us to see on the sun.

Many of the visitors were wowed by the solar prominences and surprised as to there actual size. We did our our chromosphere vs the photosphere routine throughout the day and handed out a lot of NASA/SOHO material. Over 200 people attended the Earth Day festivities. We shined a little extra (Sun)light on the day.

Following the daytime observing we continued with Public Night Observing however atmosheric conditions were not very cooperative for us to take advantage of the dark sky location and moonless night. We did have about 20 visitors though in spite of the poor forecast. In between the clouds we were able to showcase Saturn and its moons, Binary's- Algieba-gamma leonis, Iota Cancri, Mizar/Alcor, Polaris, M35/36/37/38, M41, M44- "the Beehive", Asterisms- Napolean's Hat in Arcturus and the Stargate asterism. Pat Lannon, Scott Smith, Steve Smith, Dan Marcus, Derek Bill, and Joe Orzechowski, and I hosted the nights presentation of celestial wonders.

After the folks left we did some extra observing with Steve Smiths 12" Dob - Leo Triplet, M51, M104 Sombrero, and a last look at Saturn. Left happy at 11PM. An early one and the wife was surprised!