Thanks Dave and MPAS. So that's what a viewing night is?
It was nice meeting people in the flesh that I'm only familiar by login ID. Yes, there was a lot of, oh you're Mill (love your engineering work
). Steve, I could have probably picked. I would never have picked Geoff in a line-up with the promise of a million dollars for the correct guess
Nice night and I actually learnt something while standing next to Geoff's dob and saying, show me something interesting Geoff. After doing something with his ArgoNavis, he put two galaxies into the the eyepiece. Not bad I say, got anything better and he shows me Eta Carinae. Which at first didn't impress me because I've seen it a number of times before but he pointed out Eta Carinae, the star. I never noticed the gas that is being ejected from it. (Yes, I know you know but us newbs don't
)
Also the 18" was amazing! Thanks to Helmut (I think? Sorry if I got your name wrong) for giving people a tour with that impressive scope!
The moral to the story is, astronomy is fun but it's far more interesting when there are people there to explain what it is you're looking at