[Friends_of_SSASTROS] Beer at outreach changes EVERYTHING!

[Mike McCabe]

Greetings Members and Friends of the SSAStros,
If you were at the Wednesday meeting two days ago then you got to see Steve L's completely revamped "Universe from the Backyard" presentation. He also mentioned that he'd be doing this same presentation on Thursday evening at a brewery in Middleboro for the staff and patrons of the pub. I was on the docket for lending telescopic support for the event. Admittedly the forecast was decidedly unfavorable for that particular element of it, but as we eventually learn in this hobby, weather forecasts and fortune telling are on about the same level of absoluteness when it comes to what they say and what really happens. You just never know.


Two things we did know about this event - that Steve's presentation would go forward regardless of the weather, and that there would be beer drinking patrons present. As for my end, well, if nothing else at least I could take part in the beer drinking.
When I got there just after 6:30pm the place was PACKED, so we decided that I'd set up on the sidewalk, and with no nearby parking available, I parked on it too. Everybody seemed cool with it. The cloud cover was fairly heavy at first, with the Moon just barely peeking through now and again. Then the previously unthinkable happened - a HUGE hole opened up in the sky and we enjoyed a good two hours of mostly clear conditions where any patron or staff that wanted to got the chance to see both the Moon and Jupiter in the eyepiece. In the above photo you can see Steve's presentation on the screen inside the brewhouse (that's the Crab Nebula I believe) and the telescope pointed at the Moon.


Basically we just be-bopped the scope back and forth across the sky as clouds passed by and blocked one target or the other. In the above image a young family is enjoying a look at Jupiter in between the clouds. Even at just a couple of minutes past sunset we were easily able to show them Jove's equatorial cloud bands, and just a short while later another enthusiastic patron exclaimed that she was seeing "three dots." Of course with beer involved there were the usual "you're seeing things" jokes...until I looked in the eyepiece and there was Io, Europa, and Ganymede in tight formation just to the west of the planet. How cool!
At the end of the night as I was just sitting in my truck and ready to go, but doing the usual text and email check-in first, I noticed that it was just past 9:30pm. "Aha", I said, "it's time for a nightcap on this event and the conditions just happen to be ripe for one!" Now I know what you're all thinking - a drunken astronomer behind the wheel is no way to fly - but that's not the nightcap I had in mind. I got out of the truck, sidled up to the bar, and asked the crew if they'd like to see the ISS fly over? Their reply was unanimous; "are you kidding me?...YES!" 


The sky was starting to haze up by the time the ISS rose out of the southwest, but at a super-bright magnitude of -3.9 at its peak, we easily watched it traverse right between the Moon and Leo, past Arcturus, and fade off into the northeast. It was the perfect ending to a spectacular evening at the brewery. By the time I pulled back into my driveway at just past 10pm, the sky was completely clouded over. Now that's what I call an evening of serendipitous happenstance!
Respectfully Submitted,
Mike M.
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