After months of deprivation, the skies cleared just in time for the April public star parties. Several SAS members went out to show the star-starved public the sights. Paul Ham tells us about Greenlake and Judy Schroeder shares her experience at Paramount Park.

Greenlake Star Party
After almost seven months of overcast skies, we finally got the break in the weather we were waiting for. On Saturday April 24, the sky cleared off for the first SAS Greenlake Star Party of the year. I was the first one to arrive at 7:15 p.m. so I could show the people Venus in the daylight. At 84x magnificartion, Venus clearly exhibited its gibbous phase against a blue sky. I immediately began to draw quite a line of folks wanting to see when other members with their telescopes began to arrive.

Ultimately, about 17 SAS members with their telescopes showed-up. Some members came without any optical equipment and helped-out the rest of us by answering questions from the public. This was much appreciated, since most of the telescopes were drawing long lines.

By dark, Venus was going down behind the treeline, so we turned our telescopes to the Moon. The Moon was two days past first quarter, which afforded superb views of the crater Copernicus and the Apennine Mountains. Later, Mars was gaining elevation much to our anticipation because the 24 was the date of opposition for the Red Planet. Unfortunately, we couldn't discern any surface details due to the bad seeing.

Later, as the crowd began to thin, I actually got the chance to walk around and look through other telescopes. I was especially impressed with a view of globular cluster M92 through John Estill's 11-inch Celestron Schmidt-Cassegrain. M57, The Ring Nebula, was equally impressive. By midnight, the only ones left were John, Mary Anderson, and myself. After all those months of observational deprivation, we were determined to make the best of a good thing, so we stayed until 1:30 a.m. when the whole sky abruptly clouded-over. The advancing low-pressure front, however, did stabilize the seeing in the minutes preceding the cloud cover which finally gave us a detailed view of Mars, complete with a desert marking and a polar ice cap.

Paramount Park
The months of cloudy weather this winter stoked a lot of pent up demand for stars in local folks. Both viewers and telescope owners turnedout in force for the April 24 astronomy demo at Paramount Park in Shoreline.

Sky conditions were only fair, between the moon glow and the high hazy clouds that moved through during the evening. Karl and Judy Schroeder, Peter Hirtle, and Mary Ingersoll turned out with their scopes, along with other SAS members and community members with scopes. There were several 6-inch, 8-inch, and 10-inch Dobsonians, a 4-inch refractor, a 5-inchCelestron, a tri-schiffspiegler (guess who brought that!), and more for a total of 10 on the field.

Viewers saw the Moon, Mars, and Venus; the Beehive cluster, the double star in the handle of the Big Dipper, and the sun shining through a notch on the edge of a moon crater right on the terminator. Although we didn't spot any meteors, two bright satellites went across the night sky. Many viewers promised to be back on May 22 for the next astronomy night. Bring your scope out to either Greenlake or Paramount Park that night and join in the fun. You need not be a total expert on the universe. If you can locate two or three objects in the night sky, you are way ahead of most of the folks who turn out at star parties.

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