Cooking school
Jason's astrophotos
M101 M104 Saturn
Photos contributed by Norbert Vance, Jason Gibson, and Jay Sinclair
Fish Lake Winter Term Trip
March 31 - April 2, 2006
This trip started as many another with forecasts that were foreboding at best. Only the "Clear Sky Clock" predicted some chance of clearing by late Saturday night. As it would turn out we did get short clear patches on Friday night, enough to whet our appetites. A lovely moon could be seen nearing the Pleiades in the west and Orion and the other winter constellations teased us. Saturn awed the first timers. Then the clouds rolled in and hung around through much of Saturday. Traditional events such as Kevin's march to the woodchip pile and our trek to Sam & Jake's and the country store were conducted. And our rockets would be launched under grey skies, with Norbert's yellow PT rocket punching right through the cloud deck and beyond.... Large rockets flown by Kevin, Jason, and Jeff would also thrill the group- flame on! Dinner was the customary turkey special but dessert would be different... very different. After a kind presentation from Pat Ray and Kevin Dehne from the Sunset Astronomical Society presented Norb Vance a plaque/photo commemorating 20+ years of Fish Lake trips, Delta student/instructor/master chef, Andy Bacigalupo, brought his (literally) flare for panash to Fish Lake and treated everyone to a lesson in flambe', hats and all. Such fun! Bananas, cream, and flame were flying as the night deepened. Then as if on cue, the skies opened up around 10pm right through to dawn and beyond... a beautiful star filled night was ours. Sunset Astro Society's 25-inch "Dobzilla" and a host of SCT's were scooping up galaxies, clusters, planets, and a couple of interesting comets- Pojmanski and especially P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3. It was wonderful. Jason would capture several images with his setup, and the Delta students satisfy required observing check list views. The Milky Way stretched across the eastern sky before dawn broke, and even the sun was observed in our Hydrogen-alpha telescopes before departure on Sunday. Another successful tale for Fish Lake lore....
Cooking school
Jason's astrophotos
M101 M104 Saturn
Photos contributed by Norbert Vance, Jason Gibson, and Jay Sinclair