Cub Scout Camping, ISS Flyovers, and a new OTA
This past weekend my son had a cub scout camping trip at Chippokes state park. I took my AT66 and my small equatorial mount along with us. We were able to watch the ISS flyover on Friday and Saturday night. Friday night was pretty neat since the fly over was at just after 8:00 AM, well before dark, and we were still able to see the bright reflection of the station as it crossed almost directly overhead.
The boys were able to view Saturn and Mars on Friday night. After a long day of camping stuff I did not set the scope up on Saturday night – we were all worn out and in the tents sleeping by just after 9. I’ll post some pictures from the camp out on my Facebook page later this week.
One thing I learned was that I rely to much on the GOTO scope, I need some more practice star hopping to locate objects. Planets are pretty easy, but it was taking me too long to locate any other objects (clusters and such) that the boys lost interest. I am going to need a bit of practice locating objects without the GOTO.
The mail man left me a present on Saturday. My C6 SCT OTA that I had bought from a member of Astromart Classifieds.
I’ll have some pictures of my set up with C6 and the AT66 in a few days.
