Astronomy Day 2008

For the first time in years I did not tend a club table at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History; nobody asked and I came to believe there would be no outside group presence there at all. I learned, too late, that clubs would be there. We've rarely had many visitors to our tables there but I did enjoy hobnobbing with members of other clubs. The evening and night, however, were spent at Stephens Memorial Observatory on an open house that ran straight into observing. Temperature was bout 60 degrees with very light breezes. The skies were poor to fair --high thin clouds diffused views of the Moon which were pleasant but "foggy." Surprisingly, after dark, Saturn was observable at fairly high power and the views were quite exciting. We had good views at about 100X, better views at 133X, and excellent viewing (at times) at 266X. The air seemed quite smooth if one could get past the hazy clouds! There were hints of color in the planetary body along with occasional glimpses of banding and the ring shadow was visible upon the face of Saturn. Even more interesting was seeing a bit of a break in the ring system caused by the shadow of the planet falling across the rings as they passed behind. I don't believe I've ever seen that before! I pointed it out to our guests who readily observed the same. I may have caught a glimpse of the Cassini Division but it was so fleeting I could not be certain. The skies remained otherwise murky for the balance of the evening with clearing trends at about closing time... still not good enough to visually locate much of anything so we closed, on schedule, at 11:00. In all we hosted 23 happy visitors from about six years of age to about 60.