Return to work has but a brake on astro activities the last couple of weeks but got a chance at the last moment to finally attend a Club meet last Saturday.The meet was the monthly Lunar get together and is held at a large nature reserve/park on the outskirts of the city in a semi-rural area . Not pristine darkness but least its better then home , unfortunately there was a concert happening further in the park and the nearby service road had a steady stream of traffic flowing until mid evening . Some passerbys stopped out of curiosity to check out what was going on including a carload of cowardly Neanderthals who kindly tagged us "nerds"
{I found this hilarious considering they where heading towards a family bush dance concert headlined by the "Mucky Duck band" on a Saturday night
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Glad I got there early to set up because a member had a Coronado PST solar scope unpacked and I had the privilege to look through one for the first time. Fantastic experience and a great thrill , quite a few decent sized prominences could be seen along with one sunspot and surface filaments . As the evening went on more members/visitors turned up with a nice selection of scopes on display including a number of SCTs which included i think a 14" on a Celestron CGE mount, a 17"dob and a wicked looking 110mm WO Apo refractor . Seeing it was a lunar night most scopes pointed in that direction first up with the Theophillus/Cryllius/Catherina crater group highlighting the five day old moon.Had my scope lined up first on these with the LPI providing coverage on the laptop for anyone interested . Seeing wasn't to good through most of the evening with mediocre imaging results on the moon and Saturn . Unfortunately by the time things improved most people had packed up and called it quits , but it was a nice night held in balmy conditions followed by a welcomed round of coffee shared with 3 follow diehards who carried the flag past midnight
