Hodgson Observatory

Observing efforts were hindered by continued adverse weather, including snowstorms, extensive cloud and high winds. The New Moon Saturday gathering, like those of the previous three months, was not held in March.

 Solar disc observations made with the 203mm (8-inch) reflector on March 12 and 13 showed no sunspots visible. There were a few other sunny days in March, but they were days when it was either too windy to observe or had priority items scheduled.

There was only one extended nitht-time observing session in March. That was on the evening of March 10 (CDT date). At low power conditions were good, but mediocre  at high power that night. John Johnson (“JJ”) used his 120mm Newtonian with GoTo at ~50x to observe Saturn and 27 Messier objects and a few NGC objects. Dick Hodgson used his 635mm Obsession in the Main Observatory at both 84.6x and 201x to view Mars and its Syrtis Major, followed by Saturn. Its classic satellites from Mimas out through Titan were all identified. A few Messier objects were also examined with the big scope.