After last weekend, i was mildly surprised to see HAA members back under cloudy skies, for our annual Public Observing Night in Burlington.

It was actually raining at 7:29 PM when i arrived, but presently the rain abated, and Brenda, Don and I proceeded to set up our stuff. The sky was cloudy but there was the odd dark spot implying that clearing was possible.

Ann came and in 2 seconds had her 6 inch Dob set up, and i decided to set up the GWS, with a tarp at the ready, should the rain return temporarily.
Don managed to get some photos of us admiring Ann’s scope, as night fell.

I was happy to see a few people who had been at Binbrook last week back for an actual look through telescopes.
They brought family members, and had a good hour of the Moon and Jupiter.

As the night got darker we started reaching for Messiers, and found M57, M15 and M31. In some cases, we had to wait a few minutes for clouds to pass, but it was not too bad.

I had a nice chat about astrophotography equipment, and telescope buying considerations with some of the visitors. As usual, the best answer is binoculars and sharing, until you know exactly what you want.

The street lights at that location are a bit annoying, but by casting a shadow in the right direction, it was possible to view the sky through the scope without too much glare.

The last of us packed up at about 11 PM. We had about 25 visitors, which is not bad for a night people would have thought was cloudy.