Comet Temple 1 Impact in 2005

[Bruce M]

I know this is more than a few years behind but, I called a star party to view the Tempel 1 comet impact. I knew it was a long shot but with 3 scopes, 4 pair of Binos, and a load of food and drink, I invited my boss, office manager, wives and dogs and horses to my friend Nalani's horse ranch on the North shore of Oahu on the 9th to await 7:52pm local time in Hawaii.

Impact time arrived to cloudy skies a bit of drizzle, and dashed hopes of seeing anything that night, then as we were contemplating our Kirin Ichiban's the sky cleared up and a darker clearer sky I have not witnessed in all of my observing years. You could barely make out the constellations for the myriad of stars, clusters seen with the naked eye, saggitarius star cloud with naked eye, M-13, the Scorpious clusters with the naked eye. Once we put the scopes to work, we stayed out there until almost 3am observing, I was the only one that knew a fraction of what we were viewing, but the last time I saw the great rift of the milky way with nothing but my two eyes I was around 8 years old. What a magical night. I plan to make this my new darkspot.

[admin]

Awesome!!!

Its amazing what a good dark spot can do for the views. A night that starts off with rain, then clears off is often exceptional, because the rain cleans up the air.