Friday, April 18, 2014

Will be open tonight at 9pm

The observatory will be open tonight at 9pm.

Objects of interest include Jupiter and Mars. The moon will rise around 12:15pm and that will decrease the visibility of faint objects in the sky as it's almost full and fairly bright.

Anyone can visit the observatory when it's open. Children under 18 need to bring a parent or guardian when we don't have teachers present.

Tim Campbell and Dr. Timothy Dey should be at the observatory much of the time. I may be out there for an hour or so. The observatory will likely be open until about midnight. Hours are often dependent on astronomy club members desires to stay out and observe so sometimes we stay open much later than advertised and enjoy observing.

Some teachers were notified about our being open so some student and their parents may arrive. Depending on those who show up the program or what's available can change. Sometimes if nobody shows up the few astronomers present end up imaging. We often do more visual observing when many new guests arrive.

Below is a partial image of the sun that I took through our solar telescope at HJRO last week when nobody could show up to observe.

I took this image using a digital camcorder through an eyepiece. To get a decent image the camcorder had to zoom in a bit and we are only seeing part of the sun. We use safe solar telescopes when observing the sun. Please don't observe the sun unless you are using a safe solar telescope, often sold by astronomy stores found on the internet.



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