Due to weather reports of clouds and rain for Saturday and Sunday Apr. 12-13, we'll likely have to schedule our celebration of ISAN for the following weekend. If the weather clears early and Sunday evening looks possible, I'll put a post up here with that information.
Last night I set up the XT8i for a couple of hours in our new Sidewalk Astronomy site in downtown Portsmouth, just outside the Parking Garage on Hanover St. It's got the usual light problems of any downtown location, but there were lots of people walking by and over fifty people got a chance to see Saturn and the Moon in spite of a few high clouds early on. This area is very convenient to pedestrian traffic but is off the sidewalk so there is no impact on passersby. Hats off to the City Manager's office for approving this site. Many of the folks who stopped by were on their way back to their cars after their visit to downtown, so they left with some extra happiness. Several saw either one or two of Saturn's moons in addition to the rings.
On a technical note, the moon's image was very low contrast, consistent with a lot of stray light entering the tube from all directions. (The sky behind Saturn seemed brighter than usual as well.) It's time to add black flocking to the inside of the tube, along with a light shield on the front to eliminate stray light from making it to the eyepiece. This is a project I've wanted to do for some time, so now there's a good reason, since there are bright streetlights all around that area.
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