We had another successful public stargazing night, this time at T.B. McQuesten Park on the Hamilton mountain Sat 23 May 2015. We had some thin cirrus clouds to start the night off, but they didn’t impair viewing of the Moon, Venus and Jupiter – all well positioned in the western sky after sunset. Eventually they dissipated and we had pretty good seeing.

HAA at McQuesten Park looking at the Moon and other evening treats.

More than a dozen HAA members came out with various types of telescopes from small refractors to large DOB’s and SCT’s. It gave the public a great opportunity to see the sky in different instruments and ask questions about each type. An excellent chance to learn more about astronomy. Jim and Bernie had cameras attached to their scopes to provide live-views to monitors to facilitate viewing by multiple people at the same time.

New HAA member Bruce and his wife Janet with his new 10″ DOB

Bernie getting set up and explaining his gear to visitors.

After a long day with earlier non-astronomy related activities, I left a bit early, but I estimate that we had a little over 100 visitors who were curious park users, or those who came specifically to share the night sky with us.

Matthew chatting with some passing-by dog walkers while Janice and comfortably settled in. Eric has his DOB on an equatorial platform to aid his tracking.

Some of the scopes and visitors waiting for the skies to get darker.

Thanks to all of the Hamilton Amateur Astronomers members who came out to help make this another fun night for all – and thank you to the public who joined us to make it all worthwhile.