Observation Session – 16 April 2016

Location: Plateau de Valensole, France

Session duration: 2 nights

Sky conditions: Moderate turbulence, seeing ~6/10

Instruments:

  • 80mm refractor
  • 250mm Dobsonian telescope
  • 200mm Newtonian reflector

Targets:

  • Saturn
  • Double Cluster (NGC 869/884)
  • Albireo
  • The Moon

Observation notes:

The observation session felt unusually focused, with repeated returns to the same fields and repeated instrument checks despite stable conditions.

Several members remarked that familiar regions of the sky appeared difficult to describe in ordinary observational terms.

Lucille remarked that familiar stars seemed to possess abnormal depth, as if the field opened behind them rather than beyond them.

Members present: Lucille Godefert, Ayoub Berrabeh, Adama Traoré, Maxime Dallois, Marc Lefèvre, Nicolas Artaud