Skyscrapers visit to the Jesse M. Smith Memorial Library in Harrisville
by Bob Forgiel
This was our first visit to the Jesse M. Smith Memorial Library in Harrisville. Sunset that night was at 8:21 so the event didn't start until just after 9:00PM. We setup 5 scopes and the binocular table along the river just behind the library. The temperature held steady at around 68 degrees but the night did produce some intermittent high thin clouds along with some hungry mosquitoes. Even though we setup fairly close to the library, Mars and Saturn were still visible. We had one member discover that they didn’t pack their optic tube but we did have an extra scope with us so everything worked out. The majority of the people attending were adults but there were also a number of kids and library staff. An estimated guess would put the crowd at around 85+ people. The event started off just after 9:00PM with the planets Mars and Saturn. As the sky darkened we moved to some fainter objects as well as setting up a SBIG CCD to pickup M51 the Whirlpool Galaxy. The event ran for around 1.5 hours before the crowd thinned out.
