I am sitting here on a new moon weekend listening to the thunderstorms roll by. We are in a gap between the pleasant spring viewing and the pleasant fall viewing. Summer here is not good for astronomy. When it is not storming it is oppressive with humidity that you can physically see in the daytime and can’t see through at night. We can look forward to fall and winter when the air can be clear and crisp. Keep an eye on the weather report and there might be an occasional small break, but I will guarantee it won’t be on a weekend.

Last week I was at Mickey with a bunch of other nomads, selfishly trucking through a rather boring batch of  NGC open clusters on the deep sky binocular list. There were some less experienced nomads nearby that had discovered Sagittarius. Alan Figgatt went over and gave them a hand in identifying what they were seeing for the first time. There were oohs and aahs as each new treasure was discovered. The excitement was contagious and I left the list to join them on their voyage of discovery through the teapot. If you want to relive the joy of discovery, join up with less experienced observers and give them a hand. If we need some more experience observers in the club, this is how we can get them. Experienced observers aren’t born that way it is only through time at the eyepiece that experience is gained.