Lots of new members joined our first stargazing activity of the year and experiencing the 18 inch Dobsonian telescope for the first time. The moon put on a great show with some of the most famous landmarks, including the Appenines mountain range. We then turned our attention to Jupiter. Despite the absence of the Great Red Spot, we still enjoyed the fantastic cloud bands and the four bright Galilean satellites. We also used a pair of binoculars to observe, and some of us were surprised to see that the Galilean satellites were so obvious at a magnification of merely 15x. We ended the activity with a quick look at the rising M42, The Great Nebula of Orion.