For months I've been trying to work a time with our friends to give them and their kids a tour of the night sky. This has been difficult in mid-summer, mostly because true-dark does not hit until 10:30pm or later. This is hard in the winter due to having to endure the elements. Then when factoring the weather in it almost makes it impossible to plan this out.
This friday, everything finally came together for a great night. Our friends met me at Terry Peak and it may have been some of the best viewing conditions of the year! I wanted to give them a small taste of every type of object, the target list was:
I was nervous that everyone would find these targets underwhelming, especially when so many astro-photography images showcase these targets with far more clarity than you can typically observe through the eyepiece. But I was glad to see that visual observation still brings a sense of awe and wonder with it; proven by the repeated exclamations of "whoa" and "oh wow" from those behind the eyepeice.
The consensus of most popular targets of the night were probably Saturn, β Cygni, and M 6. These seemed to provoke more excitement than the others. This was the first time that many of them were able to see the strip of the Milky Way too, which also produced repeated excitement throughout the night.
I was reminded tonight of the other kind of joy which comes from stargazing. The joy of sharing the experience with others and seeing their expressions.