I can attest to the quality of the mirrors and scopes being produced in John & Lisa's class. Bob Taylor had his new 16" f/4.43 (correct me if I'm wrong Bob) up at Wolf Creek this Saturday night. A first class instrument both optically and in performance. We had to pear through gaps in the clouds but we had a good time as well. Iota Cas at about 90 power was very sharp and split cleanly (2.7" for the ac pair.) 7331 showed several satellite galaxies and Stephan's nearby was quite nice...you could see that the foreground galaxy in the cluster was more distinct than the others. NGC 246 in Cetus was very nice & mottled. NGC 7332/39 in Pegasus displayed themselves well...two edge-ons in a tight dance. Congrats Bob (John & Lisa too) on such a great scope! Dave B. On Monday, September 13, 2004, at 09:31 AM, David Trevino wrote:

I was fun indeed.

I don't know if someone else will write a report on it, but let me give a quick review.

For many of us in John and Lisa's class, it was First Light Night for our scopes. I am terrible remembering names, but there several scopes out there ranging from 10" to 16".

We all had a blast taking looks at great targets, like Andromeda (M31) The Hercules cluster (M13) and the Ring Nebula (M57). Later on the night we enjoyed views of the Veil Nebula and the North America Nebula.

Other highlights were that there was plenty of food and great company by all.

--- Don and Kathryn Mechling <dkmechling@herbsfirst.com> wrote:

Thank you for the compliments Dave. A lot of work went into this class, and as you saw at the star party, the students did a good job. I was very impressed with many of the scopes, although I spent most of my time going around to each scope teaching each student how to collimate their scope. The down side, I missed all of those great objects you mentioned below. By around 1am, I got to set up my own scope, and we had some great views of the Veil, North American, and the Ring Nebula with fleeting glimpses of the central star. But soon, I had to retire to get some sleep. One highlight of the evening occurred around 1:30 am. We saw what looked like the ISS passing overhead. However the object exploded in an orange blue fireball which streaked bright blue across the sky until it nearly disappeared below the horizon casting moving shadows across the observing field as it passed overhead. What was odd was that this object traveled from North towards the South East while all of the other meteors traveled from the South West towards the North. John Zeigler www.johnstelescopes.com www.mirrorkits.com -----Original Message----- From: David L Bennett [mailto:dlbennett@mac.com] Sent: Monday, September 13, 2004 10:26 AM To: Utah Valley Astronomy Association; utah-astronomy@mailman.xmission.com Subject: Re: [UVAA] Star party weekend - First Light I can attest to the quality of the mirrors and scopes being produced in John & Lisa's class. Bob Taylor had his new 16" f/4.43 (correct me if I'm wrong Bob) up at Wolf Creek this Saturday night. A first class instrument both optically and in performance. We had to pear through gaps in the clouds but we had a good time as well. Iota Cas at about 90 power was very sharp and split cleanly (2.7" for the ac pair.) 7331 showed several satellite galaxies and Stephan's nearby was quite nice...you could see that the foreground galaxy in the cluster was more distinct than the others. NGC 246 in Cetus was very nice & mottled. NGC 7332/39 in Pegasus displayed themselves well...two edge-ons in a tight dance. Congrats Bob (John & Lisa too) on such a great scope! Dave B.