An evening at the Observatory

[Roger Hill]

With the Sun setting later we'll try for a Friday evening again, so people can stay longer if they wish. 

I'll open the gates between 7:30pm and 8pm and we can convene shortly afterwards and I'll have hand-outs for the evenings viewing.

This night has a 4 day old Moon in the sky, with Orion essentially gone.  Venus will be visible early on and Jupiter rising later in the evening.  Galaxies will be the main order for the Messier folks, although there's a couple of nice globular clusters that will be visible.The ETU folks can look for three of the 12 constellations they need: Ursa Major, Leo and Bootes, for instance.

The Leo Trio should be good, as well as M51 - the Whirlpool in Canes Venatici.  Some of the deep sky objects in Ursa Major, like the Owl Nebula could be visible, although the Moon should not interfere quite as much as last month!.

As always, everyone is welcome.  If you bring your own telescope, park on the north side of the parking lot (to your left as you drive in).Dress warmly, bring a clipboard, a couple of pencils, and one of those Canadian Tire headlamp flashlights that has a red LED setting.


Directions to the observatory can be found on the Hamilton Centre website at http://www.hamiltonrasc.ca/club-observatory/See you in the dark!

[Eric.Golding]

Hi Roger.  Thanks for the email notice but the text from the forum is unreadably microscopic on my monitor.  We had that problem once before, I seem to recall.  Eric

[Roger Hill]

We did, Eric.


It seems to occur when I copy and paste an old announcement and then modify the text.


I'll be there tonight, cloudy or clear.


The Clear Sky Chart shows a cloudy evening is in store after about 9pm, but that may be delayed for a couple of hours.  Regardless, the Moon should still be visible.


If not, we can talk about some basic optics and telescope set up: types of telescopes, focal length (and how to determine it), field of view, eyepieces, polar alignment, etc.