Some pictures from St. Mark's

Got a thank you card and some pictures from my contact at St. Mark's. Thought I'd post a few pictures.

Since I didn't get the Coronado until after the specifics of the star party had been announced, solar viewing was not officially part of the show. However, early arrivers got to view the sun through my 60mm Coronado, and to compare those hydrogen alpha filtered views with a "white light" view through my 100ED.

My personal observation is that sunspots show more clearly (with better contrast) in white light. Still, the H-alpha view is cool. The sun was very active on April 27 (the day of our star party), and prominences were, well, prominent. There was one particularly spectacular prominence more or less due south. At least, it was to the south if I got my mirror-reversing and inverted telescopic view thing all figured out. It might have been due west!

After sunset, I took down the two solar telescopes and mounted my big C11. However, high clouds meant we were pretty limited on any deep sky possibilities. So it was the moon at sunset, Venus shortly thereafter, then Mars.

Other telescopes gave great views of Saturn. I stayed with Mars partially because I was able to give it some pretty substantial magnification. It's pretty far and pretty small, still, but larger in my C11 then either the smaller driven scopes or the many non-driven scopes could have practically provided.

The next really big outreach activity should be at the Huntington Library, on Saturday, May 26. Still waiting on details, though. I don't know if they still need me, or if they've lined up another group of amateurs.