From: mkennedy@shentel.net (Marilyn Kennedy)
Subject: re: eclipse and star count
Date: Fri, 27 Sep 1996 10:01:29 -0400
Thursday morning we keep checking the weather satellite and watched the cloud cover move in. My students faces were getting sadder with each down load of the weather map of our area.. But we decided to still have our star party and see what we could see. And lo and behold though we had to play peek-a-boo with the clouds we were able to see all the various stages as the moon drifted in and out of the clouds. When the clouds opened the moon was as clear and as beautiful as you could possibly hope for. And to hear their oohs and ahs as the round shadow of the Earth passed over the moon...comments like "the earth really is round" amused me in a wonderful way. Just after the total eclipse, enough of the sky was clear to reveal a reddish moon. It was really awesome! And right below this was Saturn! My students were so excited you would have thought they were the first men landing on the moon. And the oddest thing about our star party last night...the rest of the Valley was pretty well socked in with cloudy overcast..the only breaks seemed to come over our school parking lot. This morning the local news reports were of an eclipse unseen! We were indeed the lucky ones. Someone sure was taking care of us. We did our first before the eclipse star count on Wednesday night....... our average was 403 stars More on our star count Thursday Marilyn Wall