This past Saturday night we held a star gaze for the Girl Scouts at Camp Kolomoki near Defuniak Springs, FL. The camp is one of the better dark sky sites in the panhandle and although Mother’s Day kept the turn-out low we had a very good star gaze. We started off, before dark, with a view of the sun; a small group of sunspots was visible. The crescent moon was high overhead and we looked at it before the sun set.
The evening viewing started off with an excellent pass by the International Space Station. It was quite bright and very high in the sky. The pass took on a little more importance when the young ladies were reminded that one of the six crew members currently on orbit was U.S. astronaut Catherine Coleman. In addition to the ISS, several satellites were seen as well as a couple of sporadic meteors.
We had six scopes setup across the dam and kept the girls busy going from one scope to the next. We took in most of the easily visible targets including M44, Saturn, Sirius, the still visible crescent moon, etc. Also, Professor Russo gave a talk on identifying some of the northern constellations. As usual, the Moms present had just as good a time as the scouts.