In honor of one of my favorite telescope targets, the glorious ringed planetSaturn, here’s Skepchick‘s (AKA Amy Roth) interview with Cassini tour designer John Smith.
Last night was only the second time I’ve seen Mercury and the first time I’ve ever seen four planets (Mercury, Venus, Mars and Saturn) in one night at one time.
The sign of a perfect star party – the company, the equipment, the quality of the sky and the number of targets you can check off from your list. Last night had a bit of everything.
The Westchester Amateur Astronomers gather monthly at Ward Pound Ridge in Cross River to enjoy the dark skies. Last night we started with a 20 hour old Moon and quickly moved on to Mercury, the Orion Nebula, the Beehive and (my own personal long-time, never realized White Whale) the Leo Triplet (which I might add I managed to find manually).
And all night long we enjoyed great views of Saturn from the variety of telescopes assembled.
The clear skies are expected to continue at least for tonite, so I’ll be out late again.