Activity

Does anyone have plans for this weekend.  Both nights are expected to be clear, just hot and humid.  I plan on setting up out here in Oronoco but would consider Eagle Bluff or Root River if others are going out.

Last evening (5/28 about 9:25 pm) a close conjunction of Venus and Mercury was visible in the NW.  A nice image was obtained using the Starblast 4.5 in. telescope with the Orion 6.3 mpixel camera.  I added the Telrad inner circle (diameter 0.5 degree) for a reference.

Two bright open star clusters in Taurus (Hyades lower circle and Pleiades upper) now appear in the latest SOHO C3 image. The bright star (black arrow) is Aldebaran which is not a member of the Hyades cluster, but is much closer to us and along the line of sight to the cluster. (also see the ongoing C3 video above)

The Pleiades (circled in red) have now entered the SOHO C3 field of view.

Mercury prominent now just to the right of the crescent moon!

Lake Louise should have dark skies but there are lots of mature trees. The closest area (swimming beach) to the parking lot looks out over the small lake and western-southwestern skies seem to be non-obstructed by trees. Areas along the Lake view trail have no trees to block the sky (see map of the park here…[Read more]

Whitewater is good for camping, but the campground is in a valley, so only good for observing if you want to see things over 45° up. The new campground(across street from visitor center) has small trees, so might be better than the older one. The skies are dark, and lights weren’t a problem when I was there, but it’s been a few years.

Lake…[Read more]

C2 SOHO video of the same comet here: https://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/LATEST/current_c2.gif

Note the small Kreutz comet moving to the sun on May 9 and 10 in the above SOHO C3 video. It did not survive! See also today’s
SpaceWeather page https://spaceweather.com/.

It was so nice to get out with folks again on the 7th, as promised here’s the photo I was working on. I think my camera has some hot pixels I need to work out when processing. But, here’s the Iris Nebula, NGC 7023!

Todays spaceweather has an interesting picture and description of Mercury’s sodium tail. https://spaceweather.com/

I plan to be there tonight, as does Dean and a new astronomy friend of his.

Eagle Bluff is available for our use.

Hi, we are trying to contact Eagle Bluff to confirm for lights off and bathroom code.  Friday night (May 7) is looking good albeit chilly.  Hopefully they’ll respond quickly tomorrow.

Eagle Bluff would be perfect. Fingers crossed the weather holds up. If we don’t hear anything about EB, we can always do Root River.

Hello all,  Is it going to be clear Friday or Saturday night?  Is Eagle Bluff available?

Jeff