The California Conservation Corps spent the weekend camping at Sedgwick doing a number of projects around the reserve, including trail maintenance on the path up the hill to BOS. As a thank you to the group for working on that path, we offered them a star party which was enthusiastically accepted.
The star party was held on March 30th for the group of around 75 volunteers from the CCC. Melissa Graham, Jessica Barton, Stuart Lowe, and Rachel Ross showed off the night sky to the group with BOS, a 178mm AP refractor, and an 11 inch Celestron reflector as well as with binoculars. The night began with a quick tour of the night sky and then objects such as Jupiter, Venus, the 1st quarter Moon, Mars, the Pleiades, and M81. Unfortunately the humidly was already high when the Sun set so BOS closed up about an hour after sunset. The other two telescopes and binoculars kept going a little while longer until the sky was almost completely fogged over.
Even though it was a short evening, the group was very enthusiastic and excited to be out there, asking lots of questions and enjoying learning about the different objects that were observed. Thank you to the CCC again for redoing the path up to the observatory as well as all your other projects!
