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We had a very pleasant time tonight. A couple of our friends that had not looked through a telescope came out and we showed them Saturn, "Cool!", Mars, Polaris A&B, and the Moon.
They loved it. They soon got bored and left because Steve and I were limited by the moonlight. After they left, I nabbed Alpha Casseopia as a binocular double star and I told Steve, "there are 3 big craters by Mare Crisium that you can get tonight." He correctly found Cleomedes, Langrenus and Petavius.
Hooray for the Moon!
It was a very nice night for astronomy.
Fall is in the air!
Calsky.com give me email alerts for that, as well as ISS and other things that you can choose from a list. And yes, there is an aurora alert.
The link I use is the one NASA has and you need only sigh up for alerts. Take a look.
http://www.spaceweather.com/Rick
Thanks to Rick and Luka (and Starbie via email) for the info.
What a fabulous night last night! Steve and I went to the Flatin Farm and he nabbed 7 Messiers, mostly in Sagittarius, and I got M107, M10 and M12 in Ophiuchus for my globular list and Alpha Ursa Majoris and 56 Andromeda for the Binocular Double Star list.
I also grabbed another solar observation yesterday. There is a real cool sunspot group middle bottom of the Sun. It has one big spot and about a dozen or more tiny little spots that are very spread out to the right of it. It is different than any group that I've seen in the past month.
Steve is really getting into this. He reminds me of a guy I knew about 10 years ago that got a Celestron G8.
Ok, I'm going to head to Keller. Got my scope out cooling off, I'll be heading over there tonight. See you all there! 🙂
Jeff
It is very windy down here in good ol' SG. (Winds 15-25) I also have the Mabel-Hesper Steam Engine Days parade tomorrow and have to organize the formation and call cadence.
Tomorrow night the winds are suppose to drop to 5 to 10. I will check on Eagle Bluff before heading to Mabel. If EB is busy, the LCAAS is having a star party like the Star BQ. (Good for them!) That might be an option.
More tomorrow.
We're heading out to Keller in a few minutes. We'll find out how windy it is. 🙂
Moon rises around 11:14PM tonight. We'll probably be heading home by then.
Jeff
I checked with Eagle Bluff. All I got was the answering machine. I don't think there is anything going on there tonight. The big question is, "Can we get the parking lot lights off?"
I'll email Jeff Boland and try the office again after I get back from the parade.
It was nice out there last night. Wind wasn't too bad, died down, picked up a bit and died down again. A might cool. 🙂
We were able to get Saturn and Mars right at the top of the trees to the SW in the beginning and then saw Jupiter right next to the moon on the way. I was wondering what that bright star could be next the moon and then figured out it had to be Jupiter, nothing else like that over there.
Objects were really popping out last night. I was able to see things quite easily in the finder scope and binoculars. Since they stood out in the finder, they were easy to find and take a look at. It was so nice, we stayed until right before midnight, longer than I originally planned. Kirk also showed up a little late and he was still there when we left, I think taking another crack at M33.
I started off with some globs, M13, M3, M4, M5, M22 to get things going. I've never taken the time in the past to figure out the Messiers in Sagittarius, but did last night. Wandered over look at M31, Andromeda Galaxy, later and all three Ms stood out just like that with no effort. Brought the scope over to M31 and M32 and M110 showed up clearly at the edge of the field, nice.
Besides, Messiers, took a look at the Double Cluster and Albireo.
Messiers… M3, M4, M5, M8, M10, M12, M13, M15, M16, M17, M18, M20, M21, M22, M23, M24, M25, M26, M27, M28, M31, M32, M33, M45, M51, M56, M57, M71, M92, M103, M110.
A grand and glorious night, AGNFA!Good for you, Jeff. You must be very close to finishing out your Messier list.
No word from Jeff Boland or Eagle Bluff. Steve Remick and I are heading for the Flatin Farm tonight.
Good luck to all if you're heading out stargazing tonight and see you Tuesday night!
Well, it was windy tonight, but we hunkered down on the south side of the Flatin Farm corn strip and tucked in right up close to it. That took care of the telescope shaking too much. I knocked of 3 globular clusters in Ophiuchus and M72 in Aquarius, then recorded Zeta Piscium, and Beta and Delta Lyra for the binocular double star list.
Steve got a bunch of Messier's in Sagittarius and found M33 in Triangulum all by his lonesome. Then I showed him how a filter (my Ultrablock) can make an object like the Helix Nebula really stand out, plus we also looked at part of the Veil Nebula in Cygnus.
Binocular wise, M81 and M82 really stood out even though Ursa Major was at its lowest northern declination, and after we started getting tired, we sat back and counted how many stars we could see in the great square of Pegasus.
All through the night, the Eta Perseid meteor shower treated us to lots of quick streaks of light, we saw quite a few. Tomorrow is the peak night, I hope you can get out there to enjoy them. I have to work at the Legion. Go Vikings!
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