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I too have been very busy. My son Matthew graduated from high school. He's going to St. Mary's University in Winona this fall! Wow. I am very proud of him, but had no idea of what it means to prepare for having a child graduate. Between that and traveling deep into Iowa and back nearly every day, I haven't had much time for stargazing either.
However, I have been out on my deck tonight observing the Moon and the Saturn/Gamma Virginis conjuntion. KTTC mentioned that there may be Northern Lights tonight. Have you astronomy fans seen anything?
I was out last night aurora hunting from 1-3am, but I didn't see anything. Very cool orange moonset – even though it's from the AZ wildfires. I took the opportunity to try star trails for the first time with my new camera! I'm going to try to make it down to the BBQ this year with all my camping & camera gear. Here are two of my attempts, what do you think?
F5.6, ISO 800, 512 s exposure at 18mm
Pointed at the Big Dipper
F5.6, ISO 800, 240 s exposure at 18mm
Pointed at ScorpiusMy fancy sunglasses (polarized?) saw yet another ring around the sun today around 14:10. This one was not as cool as the earlier one I saw this year. However, the glare from all the clouds made it impossible to see without sunglasses. Interesting…
Very nice pictures of the star trails and the supernova in M51. Loved the circumpolar trails. I hope to get out there for an extended session tomorrow night. Lunar II still needs about the last third to be completed.
See you Tuesday! I bet Randy and you other imaging buffs have some really cool pictures to share!
I realize that it's a little far out yet (how much do you trust the weather predictions past 3 days), but is anyone planning to go to Eagle Bluff this weekend (June 24th/25th). The newsletter mentions there is a group a students coming the 25th.
Watch the thread under "RAC events" > "Star Parties" > "Eagle Bluff June 24/25" for this weekend's activities/star gazing.
Randy
Because of the weather, I did not have to travel to Iowa today.
Is there any chance of it clearing off for the Gamehaven event tonight?
Tomorrow night at Eagle Bluff looks fairly promising.
Hello astronomy fans! We had a great night at Eagle Bluff last night, but dew and high thin clouds were an issue off and on.
It was Jerome, Kirk, me and a young lady named Barb that is the librarian for the Preston Public library. I had never met her before, but she has been following the forum, and showed up to observe. She is a very sharp visual observer and owns an 8" dobsonian.
There were 10 Boy Scouts and about 40 music students and counselors there last night. Jerome did a great job of teaching observational astronomy while I was setting up. When they were all there at once it reminded me a little of the Chinese Communist hordes pouring over the hills of North Korea. But it went off pretty good. One of the Boy Scouts named Issac, spotted the 10:54 pass of the ISS. (Thnak you Jeff!) That really wowed 'em.
Saturn of course blew them away. "Is that real? Do you have a picture taped to your telescope?" But we got LOTS of Thank You's from the crowd.
After After the Chinese Communist hordes called it a night, we had a wonderful time together. Kirk spotted a fine pair of double stars just east of the Lyra rectangle that I had never seen before. Barb plotted their position in her star atals in seconds. Very impressive on both their parts. We finished the night with the waning cresent Moon. It was A Glorious Night For Astronomy!
I am the Barb of whom he speaks! Despite the clouds/fog it was a nice night to do some observing, and great to meet some awesome astronomy folks! I hope next time I can get my scope out there too, looking forward to it.
Sounds like you had a great time at Eagle Bluff. I needed a Jerome at Gamehaven. Didn't get much of a chance of talking any astronomy. People started showing up around 9:30, talking a little bit and then Dean's hordes hit. We were able to see Arcturus soon after that, they wanted to see it, so put that in the scope and started to run people through. Then, someone saw another star, jackpot, Saturn! Moved over to Saturn, been too long, took awhile to get it in the scope. It was like a never ending line. Definitely there were some seconds and probably some thirds. Same as Eagle Bluff, is that real? Has to be a picture in there. Many thank yous. I don't know, seems like must have been close to 40 people all together. Everyone had to hit the sack and gone a little after 10:00, no late nights there. Kirk showed up right after all the kids had left.
Turned out to be a lucky night. Saturn was in one of the few holes in the clouds, so we were able to get a good look at it. Great night, but don't think I'd do that again by myself. ;D Needed another person at least and another scope or two. At least next, I won't be alone, I'll have my wife along. She was busy Friday night and couldn't come along. 🙂Jeff
Yes, trying to cover two outreach events was too much of a stretch with the limited number of scopes we had available. Who's interested in this coming Friday at EB? I posted a new thread in the Star Parties forum.
Friday night should work for me. I was out on my driveway last night. I don't ever recall such a dry, clear night; so stable. I was able to track on the EVO at ~1000x with pinpoint stars. The skies were so good! Stayed at the ring nebula for about an hour. Could see the center star with direct vision and the fainter accompanying star with averted vision. Wish it was the weekend. It gets dark too late now.
I know that we're planning on the trip down to Lanesboro. Hope to see others there. Weather looks good.
BTW: For those who missed the posts in the RAC Main Forum > RAC Events > Start Parties about meeting at Eagle Cliff on July 1/2.
The Forum Admins closed posting to those threads. I think that is a much better place to post — it's time specific about what's happening rather than continuing this (really) long thread. But alas, they are in control.
I plan on being at Eagle Bluff Friday night. (Sunday will work too!) It is too hot to go to the woods because of the heat exhaustion/heat stroke threat, so I will be well rested. Last Friday night was pretty darn good.
I will call Eagle Bluff tomorrow to see what's going on, but I don't think that anything is happening.
Looking forward to seeing you there!
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