Cherry Grove Nov 9 2018

[StefanPW]

Anyone else planning on coming to the last CG star party of the year?
The current forecast has the skies clearing up at around 7 or 8 PM, will the snow on the grounds pose a problem?

(This would be my first star party with MAS, and since I don't have access or training yet I wanted to make sure I wouldn't be alone if I went)

[SEmert]

I just checked in with Vic (the CG site manager) and he isn't planning to go down. I was a bit wishy-washy about it because of the cold and wind, and decided to wimp out as well. Accuweather does show clearing skies beginning at 7:00 pm. However, temperatures start out at 18 degrees at 7:00 dropping to 14 degrees by 11:00 PM. That wouldn't be too bad, but the temps are accompanied by winds ranging from 16 to 12 MPH, providing a wind chill around 0 to minus 1 degrees.

I think we may have had a couple inches of snow down there (I shoveled an inch off my driveway on the north side of town this morning), which shouldn't really pose a problem to driving onto the parking area and walking around, but would be a bit uncomfortable.

The breezes are just enough that the tarps used for local light mitigation would be flapping pretty badly and would not be very effective.

Overall, I would say that tonight, if going down to CGO, it would be best to only utilize the 16" Meade SCT in the observatory rather than trying to use a Dob or other scope outside. The breezes would make it uncomfortable, and would blow Dobs around and would probably cause long settle times for other scopes.

Hmm... Can you see that it appears I want to wimp out and am working up all the excuses I can come up with to justify my wimping out? I guess that is sort of the case. Sorry about that.

If any other CGO keyholders are planning to go down tonight, please post your intent on this forum thread in case you don't mind helping out with Stefan on his first MAS star party experience.