Sat, Nov 5 2011 - Hiking, Astronomy & Skygazing with Telescopes at Charlie Elliott Wildlife Center (View Original Event Details) Trip Leader(s): Charlie Cottingham Participants: Charlie Cottingham, Sourav, bob massa, Karel V, Howard, Kim B, Victor, Yana, Barbara F, Tom Collins

Write Up:
We ten AOCers had a fine time together with perfect fall weather. It was nice having stargazing enthusiasts Howard and Kim join us for their very first event as new AOC members. As planned we began the afternoon with a 4-mile peak fall foliage hike on the Wildlife Center's beautiful "red, yellow and blue" trails.

At 4:00 we joined our friendly Atlanta Astronomy Club hosts for an fascinating presentation on Saturn and its many mysteries at the Charlie Elliott Visitor Center. We then took a short ride together to nearby Mansfield, GA for a delicious BBQ dinner at a great little restaurant, "Where There is Smoke."

We rounded out the evening with some amazing observing with our AAC friends.  About a dozen telescopes of all shapes and sizes were set up in the dark-sky observing field and everyone was treated to many amazing views. We witnessed a complete transit across Jupiter of its nearest Galilean moon Io - also had a variety of nice views of the 2-million-light-years distant Andromeda Galaxy, the Ring Nebula, the Pleiades, the "double cluster" in Perseus, and dozens of lunar craters in sharp detail. Naked-eye and binocular viewing were also very nice and several of us saw bright meteors streaking across the sky.

We hope to do this same trip again on March 24th with our wonderful astronomy club friends.

-Trip Leader Charlie Cottingham 

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