Observing Report

Location: Prince of Wales, NB

Date/Time: April 15, 2011 2225hrs-0155hrs

Weather: 1 degree Celsius, low haze, no clouds, very light wind.

Attendance: Mike, Peter, Chris, Dave, Unknown, Carla, Myself.

Equipment: Mike-Refractor with go to mount
Peter-Dobsonian
Chris-CPC with goto mount
Dave-Reflector with goto mount
Unknown-?
Myself-20x80 Binos and mounted DSLR camera

Report: The Moon was 94% full and very bright. Bright enough to put solid shadows on the ground after midnight and this greatly affected all the images taken.

Celestial objects observed:
Through Binos: Saturn, its rings and one moon (Titan). The Moon was almost too bright to look at. Manny craters and features resolved very nicely, especially near the terminator and Tyco. Other, fainter objects were extremely hard to find with the Moon being so bright.
Through Chris’s' CPC: Saturn, its rings clearly resolved and 5 moons(most I’ve seen through a telescope), M57 (The Ring Nebula) could be seen with averted vision(looked like a fuzzy donut hanging in space-amazing to see!)
Through Mikes' Refractor: M13 AKA The Great Cluster In Hercules looked like a faint, very small shotgun birdshot blast in space. Open cluster M67 which looked like a loose collection of close stars. M44 Beehive Cluster which is a much heavier collection of stars that appeared faint on this night due to the brightness of the Moon.