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Fish Lake Experience
April 13-15, 2007

This winter term trip looked like it was going to be cloudy given that weather of late was cold, snowy, and dreary. We would arrive on Friday the 13th as well, hmmm. One large weather system had just cleared the region when another threatened to ruin the weekend. As it turned out that system became a menacing "noreaster" that inundated New England with rain and snow. We were lucky enough to time a clear, albeit less transparent than ideal, Friday night with clear skies through sunrise, clouds all day Saturday from the menance passing to our south, then clearing once again very nicely Saturday night around midnight (in keeping with Fish Lake lore, it was perfectly clear all Sunday night!!). The dozen or so Dobs and Schmidt-Cassegrains we had set up treated the gang to many fine views of galaxy after galaxy, globulars, open clusters, and more. The Whirlpool Galaxy, M51, was a swirl directly overhead and M13 in Hercules drew "aah's" with its many stars. The peculiar "Siamese Twin" galaxies in Virgo, an interacting pair, were interesting in the EMU Celestron 14.

Saturn stole the planetary show overhead in Leo while gibbous Venus glared near the Pleaides in the NNW and Jupiter made a late offering low in the south during the wee hours near Antares. Kevin Dehne, Pat Ray, and the Delta College crew brought the Saginaw Sunset Club's "Dobzilla", a 25-inch maw, once again to satisfy observing logs. The EMU armada was topped with the school's C14 and our usual fleet of various SCT's. Jason Gibson manned both his Orion 8" Newt for astrophotos (note the splendid Leo galaxy shots below taken thru the 8", autoguided, stacked, and processed on site!) and his 12" Meade Dob. Jay Sinclair debuted his 10" Meade SCT sporting a new computer-aided guide set up. He was much pleased with the ease of finding so many things from the comfort of an observing stool. Jack Underwood also shared many fine views with his computer-controlled C11, including views of the "Summer Triangle" stars and Venus during the bright morning hours after our breakfast on Sunday. He left the scope running through the night to keep sync on the sky and was able to slew to bright stars so students could see them during the day! :) Curious to see Vega so easily set against a jet blue background. Earlier in the night, George Brown, Norbert, and Jack went on an observing feast sighting scores of galaxies of every size, magnitude, type, and orientation in Draco and Hercules. Ah, such fun! The sun was very quite for daytime views each day. Nary a spot to be seen for many days, nor much in the promenence department, oh well.

Our rocket launches were quick and simple: a C-engine, a D-engine, a clustered C, and, oh yes, an I 69. Jason's big rocket was heavy enough to keep altitude in check and thrilled the folks with its unexpected late parachute deployment. The audio tracker failed on recovery but turned out to be unnecessary with the rocket caught in a high tree near the lake. Only the C cluster was recovered, in less than ideal shape- but it will fly again! Sam and Jake's Tools was paid a visit once again as was the cider mill, Past Tense. Then there's Dairy Queen. Food, food, and more food; three squares and then some, aah...

Pictures were contributed by Norbert Vance, Jay Sinclair, Jason Gibson, and Mowzer Goralski.... thanks!