An Impromptu Skywatch at the Scout Camp

Tim Streagle very kindly offered an open invitation to the RAS membership to attend a skywatch at the Heart of Virginia Scout Reservation Saturday night. Tim was hosting a number of scout groups and astronomy was on the agenda of many of them.

We set up on the observing field around dark and a large group of scouts and parents and leaders made their way up the hill to have a look through their telescopes. We had a combination of my Newt, some Dobs and a Schmidt-Cassegrain open for viewing. I also had a short slide show of astrophotos running as a continuous loop on a digital picture frame to entertain folks while they were waiting.

I’m not sure what everyone else was looking at while the scouts were at our scopes, but I focused on Saturn, which was nicely placed in the sky for moderately high magnification viewing and the atmosphere was steady enough to see some detail. As often happens, many of the kids had a “wow” moment when they saw Saturn for the first time. We had lots of interested people and lots of good questions.

The astronomers stayed late to do some observing after the scouts left and we were treated to an extremely pleasant evening. There was a warm breeze which kept the bugs and the dew at bay. Some early clouds dissipated as the night passed. We saw several objects we had not seen before and I was able to take a couple of images, although the wind limited the steadiness of my scope mount. The hold-outs ran out of steam after about 4:00 AM as the Milky Way and Scorpius were moving to high spots in the sky.

Thanks again to Tim for the invitation. It was a great night at the Scout Camp.

Regards,
Jim Browder
Richmond Astronomical Society