The weather cleared up and stayed clear! Well, it was clear when I went to bed at 2am, and still was at 7.30, so I presume it was the whole time...
First time at the ASV's dark site, and I was impressed with the organisation and the facilities in general. I set up my solar scope (well away from the bigger one that would have shamed my little PST!!), and had a good look at the sun for the first time in ages - awesome clump of sunspots happening - and got to show it off to a few other people.
It was great fun hanging around on the observation field with everyone else, waiting for dark... I wandered down to the photography field, where there were heaps of brothers to my Tak! I was surprised by the number of people who were clearly not members of the ASV, many of whom had never looked through a telescope; I don't know where the ASV advertised, but they did a very good job of evangelising the uninitiated. I heard a few kids very excited at the prospect of getting to borrow one of the society's loaner telescopes!
I didn't have a plan for the night - except look at a few Messiers - so I ended up showing a lot of people Saturn through the Tak 128; it was a bit mush until it got a long way above the trees, but for people who didn't realise you could see it naked eye, any view of the rings is a good one, I think! I also got awesome views of M42, AND!! I finally got to see the Horsehead and Flame Nebulae, through jamespierce's 16" Dob. Brilliant.
Full report over
here.