Whitby & District Astronomical Society

As we all should know -weather forecasts quite often indicate one thing, whilst yours eyes tell you a different story (normally a grim one). It wasn't looking particularly encouraging therefore for the eve of June 19th - cloud and/or rain. Because of this, and the event being a lunar party; the moon at a favourable quarter phase, meant no advertising placards had been placed out. The evening arrived, the cloud mostly didn't and the rain was nonexistent; one scope (the 8" dobsonian) and three members (John L, Keith and Mark) to man it.

As it was a tad chilly, members of the public were thin on the ground, but undeterred we set up and looked for the Qtr Moon; tick. Then we went on a planet hunt, the one in question being Venus. Keith saw it first, higher, but not as bright as expected. The image through the eyepiece was rather "jellyobbly", but just about good enough to spot the qtr phase Venus exhibited. Tick. Having had great views of the moon, average ones of Venus, what about a star or two?  Well, being not far away from the summer solstice, not surprisingly the evening was very light. So it wasn't until we were on the verge of packing up, we finally glimpsed a star, one of our favourites; yep you’ve guessed it, lovely Vega, high to east. Tick. So was it successful? Well, moon, planet, bright star. I guess so, for us to see anything else midnight would have beckoned, as well cloud. It may have been a low key affair, but at least we wetted our appetite again. 

The next star party is scheduled for Saturday - July 17th: 21:15hrs from West Cliff -Cpt Cook statue headland. All being well another will be held on Friday 23rd - same location and time. The next two will be on Aug 7th from 21:00hrs and the 14th (same time) Again from the usual location on the West Cliff - Cook Headland. 

Regatta, and further dates will be detailed in August's notes.