The star gaze in support of the Destin library’s “A Universe of Stories” summer reading program was a success. We had plenty of support from the club and the library estimated an attendance of 80+ patrons. The following club members all brought scopes to the Dalton Threadgill Little League Park:
- Dean Covey
- Dave Halupowski & Kennedy Odom
- Tom Haugh
- Dennis and Marietta Hausch
- Scott Morgan
The site is city property and has a larger view of the sky than Clement Taylor park where we held the library’s Moon gaze. It has fairly dark skies with only one partially obscured street light to interfere with the view. The view for this gaze was dominated by Jupiter and Saturn.
 Dave and Kennedy wait for sunset. |
 Before sunset Dennis’ Maksutov already has a line. |
Dennis was the first to spot the solar system’s largest planet well before sunset. The Galilean moons came into view as the skies darkened and it was not too long afterwards that Saturn rose above the eastern treeline.
 While waiting for sunset, Scott discusses his telescope with library patrons. |
 Dean shows a future astronomer the planet Jupiter. |
Twilight ended at 9:15 PM which was shortly before the scheduled end time for the star gaze. That left little time to find and observe any deep sky objects. It was dark enough however, that a couple of meteors were seen. They may have been a couple of early Perseids. But by 9:15 most of the guest observers had left anyway so, along with the library staff, we packed up and headed home.
We would like to thank the Destin library staff for the invitation to share our passion for Astronomy with their patrons and we need to thank, once again, Marietta Hausch for her star gaze photography.