The last public sky view at Topsail Hill was coincidentally the 2015 International Observe the Moon night as well the 2015 fall National Astronomy Day. Tom Haugh arrived early to setup his H-alpha telescope and provide early guest observers with a safe view of the Sun. There was a small prominence and a small filament visible on the otherwise quiet surface.
Chuck Lynch arrived with his tripod mounted binoculars and his Dobsonian mounted telescope. One of the guests took pictures of Chuck’s mount as he was contemplating resurrecting a long neglected hand ground mirror. Since this was Observe the Moon Night Chuck’s first target of the evening was the Moon.
As the sky darkened, Tom dismounted the solar scope and mounted his 8″ SCT. His first object of interest was Saturn. Low on the southwestern horizon, the planet provided the highlight of the evening. Over the next two hours M 13, M 6 and 7 were viewed as well as binocular views of the Andromeda galaxy. Ultimately, Lyra moved off the zenith and M 57 and the double double were also viewed.
By 8:30 PM all the guest observers had left, making it an early night. Overall there were about 25 guest observers making this one of our better attended Topsail Hill sky views.