May Skies - Almost the Dry Season!

To the great surprise of those present, after a day of morning rain & cloudy skies, the clouds parted and the stars came out for our public viewing night last Saturday.
The 18" scope again proved it's worth with stunning tack sharp views of the beautiful open & globular clusters of the Crux / Carina region of the sky. There are many to choose from, including the Jewel box, Southern Pleaides & the hundreds of visible stars that make up what we can see of the million star rich globular, Omega Centuri.
After a faltering start with a power lead problem, the LX-90 8" was soon up & running with a dash to town for some back up batteries. The LX-90 does a mighty job of tracking the planets & bright deep sky objects. This was made plain to those 35 to 40 people who attended, for whom the big hit was the mighty Saturn with its rings & attendant moons.
The big event for this year will be the "Arnhemland Astronomy & Science Fair" a full day fair at the Town Hall on Sat the 25th Aug, the culmination of a week of activities for National Science Week.
Be sure to mark it in your Dairy's, we will have a Mobile Planetarium, food, drinks, music by Gove FM, displays, lectures, science demonstrations & lots more.
The Links below are for the Mobile Planetarium from Stardreaming & our keynote speaker from the CSIRO, Prof. Ray Norris.
http://www.stardreaming.com.au/
http://www.atnf.csiro.au/people/rnorris/outreach/index.htm