Rosamond Report

A Day to forget

First real hot day out in the High Desert.
Day didn't start off good at all, first
thing to happen was to have the car's
alernater go out while I was on a run to
the market, junkyard was closed, so I ended
up paying for a tow home and buying one
from a guy near by, car now has a Japanese
truck one in it, but that put a drain on
the bank account.

Then at 4:10pm I fired up the Nitro Express
and left for Star Corner. With stops along
the way for water ( near 100F ) I got up
there by 6:30pm, already feeling wore out.

It was slow, no one stopping until 7:55, that's
when a man, wife, girl came over, they got
to see the moon and Jupiter.

Nothing much after that until 9:00, that's
when a Man, wife, and boy WITH Telescope
showed up and wanted me to show them how to
use it.
The telescope was a plastic job from the
Discovery store, it kind of looks like a copy
of the celetron nextstar in shape, it comes
on a tripod who's head lights up! It comes
with a 25mm EP. I first found the finder was
not alined with the main scope, so I told them
how to do that in the daytime so it would be
useable and also told them about the red dot
finders on the market.
We found Jupiter and I dug out my EP box and
I tried my 12mm ortho and even my 10mm in his
scope,( I think it was a 90mm short tube scope )
and the worst was the 10mm, I could get a bigger
jupiter but not it's bands at all. I then showed
them the very same view with Babylon 8 and the
same ep's. In his scope with it's 25mm EP,
jupiter was just a bit bigger dot and it's moons
where just on the edge of seeing.
I gave them my FAQ card and told them to get the
Astronomy magazine at the store to lean the
sky and to see what the sky had to offer. It would
not surprise me to see a small dob with them later
on. The only image that was it's best was the
moon and still about 1/2 the size of it in my scope
with my 25mm EP. They spent about 45 mins talking
and touring the sky, from the moon all the way to
Saturn.

Just as they left two familys showed up at once and
old B8 did it's sky dance for the 6 people there.

Just before 10pm a man/wife came over and got the
tour of the sky too.

I loaded B8 onto the express and at 10:10 headed home,
getting back at 1:30am as I had to stop and rest more
offen.



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The Lone Sidewalk Astronomer of Rosamond
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