The weather finally broke

After two very cloudy and stormy nights, we finally had some nice weather for our workshop participants last night. Above is a picture of Saturn I took with my point-and-click camera at the start of the night.

I felt bad that we closed down a little early. It looked like some thunderstorms were coming in, and with 20 people standing outside on top of a mountain, I just didn't feel comfortable. But the storms skirted us, and the sky became crystal clear again. But by that time, our teachers had left.

Still, they got three hours of observing, and the weather is looking promising (though still quite iffy) for tonight.

The Age of the Milky Way Teacher Workshop

Yesterday I survived my 8-hour drive from Austin to McDonald Observatory for the 2008 version of our teacher continuing education workshop. It was a gorgeous drive, with thunderstorms building in the distance, lots of sunshine, and very empty roads.

Today our teachers arrived, 14 high school science teachers who braved $4/gallon gas to drive and learn a little astronomy. We got them into hard-core research right away; the picture above shows one group working on cutting and pasting. (We made sure to give them safety scissors for cutting.)

We're hoping for clear weather tonight, but the weather forecast is not very favorable.