[fbk (Fraser)]

I've got my family interested in coming with me one night in the next week or so to look through my telescopes (5", 12") from a fairly dark site, they include elderly parents and a young child. As a novice myself I don't even pretend to have seen a fraction of what's out there, but many of you do outreach sessions and have many more years at the eyepiece than I do.

I only recently got the 12" dob and the very first thing I looked at with it was 47 Tuc.. it blew me away even though I'd seen it before, or maybe because I already knew what it looked like. It still does and I stare at it in awe every time.

I still remember the first time I ever got to look through a telescope even though it was 30+ years ago, Saturn and Jupiter were stunning at the time as was M42, Pleiades, Jewel Box... and for me it planted the seed for an ongoing interest.

Those planets aren't around currently (well Jupiter is but not at a reasonable hour) and this will probably be a sunset to mid evening thing. There will be a young crescent moon right near Venus to look at early on while I set things up... but I'm curious as to what is on your "must see" lists right now for a group who mostly have never looked through a telescope before and whose attention span is probably an hour or two tops given the drive home and all.

What would your list include? What do you find people are most impressed by? They know not to expect full colour Hubble images :p