Astronomy Class - PM

The students from the three-week intensive astronomy course returned to the Observatory last night. Their instructor and I worried over the skies in the afternoon wondering if we should postpone or cancel due to big patches of cirrus clouds. We decided Wednesday night might be the last possibility of getting the class together for a little nighttime astronomy. As it turned out, the sky only offered fair seeing but better than it would have been tonight (Thursday). They got decent views of Saturn --its ring plane nearly edge-on, moons in a nice line-- along with very good viewing of the Moon through both our 10-inch Dobsonian reflector and the big nine-inch refractor. We saw brilliant Vega through the telescope as well as a beautiful (unknown) red star. I fished through the glowing murk of the northeastern sky for any sign of M57 (the Ring Nebula) but to no avail. We had a decent session, conditions considered, but it was a little disappointing knowing what was "out there" last night, obscured by glowing clouds. Shutting down the place for the night took longer than normal -- the lawn had been mowed and, carried by dew-damp shoes, clumps of dry grass covered the floors and had to be swept up. Session lasted from 9:30 to about 11:00 with approximately 10 students in attendance.