Update From SUGLand

The Sidewalk Universe Guy is busy; helping Tom with his garage sale dob ( which is coming along nicely and should be making a debut at this coming Sunday's 1/30 Meetup ) and me getting prepared and overseeing the Meetup group itself. This new outreach adventure is a bit of work on my end but the early results are very encouraging in spite of our cloudy skies for the first two events. Hey these guys want to learn! I still have other people joining Suburban Sky Explorers too, yes more too infect!

This Sunday we were clouded out but everyone showed and followed the lesson plan which included mimicking seeing the sky and orientation with the star wheels. This group really put their hearts into it and it will pay off later on when things clear!

Here's our group all bundled and warm! I had several call in sick so we were shy 3. To my left is Chris a new member as of the day before who acquired a Celestron C5 Sct NextStar Scope recently and is now seeing the need to learn the sky and put this scope to good use! We spent a half hour at the end with his scope talking eyepieces and needed items to get him ready to enjoy it. Michelle with the white hat and scarf invited the SUG to do a astro night for her ladies Meetup Group! So we will be planning this with the help of another new SSE Sarah who joined us last week but was sick for tonight's event. I hope there's some fun food at this astro Meetup with a ladies bent!


Fred and John were very much into the program and it is now starting to make sense this sky navigation. Fred and Sidewalk were very geeky with our headlamps!








Here is Chris using the power of imagination learning the sky. Once we are oriented the rest is easy!

Hoping for clear sky this Sunday!



I also did a trial run with the new solar wedge - this is one beefy item! It is built like Fort Knox and has some weight to it though CR150 was not taxed at all with this addition on his tail end. I love the built in solar finder - see the left side of the wedge that white dot is the Sun!

The image quality is excellent and the wedge eliminates all the false color and ghosting associated with achromatic refractors using lens cell mounted filters. There was no problem seeing solar granulation, solar curvature, and the two small sunspot groups just jumped out at you. The biggest thing for me will be the ease that inexperienced observers will have looking through this as it is a picture window experience with the 2" format! Next up Tom is going to help me fashion a scope mounted sun shade so my visitors will not have to squint at the eyepiece.

SUG Solar is coming to a walkway soon!