Reports - 2015

Astronomy Benalla  Viewing Report - Saturday 18th April 2015 Winton Wetlands Dark Sky Viewing Night    -     Rupe Cheetham It pays to check the weather forecast !! As we had nearly 50 mm of rain in the morning with more to come; checking the Benalla weather forecast indicated more cloud - but the Skippy Sky* 11:00am map showed there was a large gap moving across the state and due to arrive about 6:00pm. On arriving out at the Winton Wetlands astronomy platform, Rupe set up his scope with about 25 % of the sky opening up, and Venus and Jupiter being visible intermittently. Bev then arrived 20 minutes later and, by using various filters, the planets finer details could be easily picked out. Bev had brought good luck and the stars began popping out right across the high sky enabling the Orion Nebula M42 to be easily seen. A young visiting family of six then arrived and they were able to view a range of double stars, globular clusters, nebula and Jupiter’s four moons, and finally our ringed planet Saturn low in the east. However owning to the high humidity and dropping temperature the scope started to fog up at 9:00pm, so we had to call viewing to an end. President Jeff arrived just as we were packing up but Bev who had attended the BRCC tourist promotion meeting that morning, which also covered Winton Wetland, was able to discuss the latest News that would include Astronomy Benalla in the future developments. The opportunity was also taken to measure the growth of the near-by young saplings that are beginning to obscure the sky. *www.skippysky.com.au

Pictures from the Hubble Site