Friday, April 4, 2014

Lake Erie Metropark observing - Beginner's night Saturday night

Our club president in the Ford Amateur Astronomy Club sent out this information about
the first beginners night which will be held this year at Lake Erie Metro Park.

The weather may be very cold tomorrow night so dress up really warm if you  plan on being
there.   We usually have beginners nights to show people how to operate their telescopes
that they may bring out.   I don't know if I'll be doing anything tomorrow at HJRO, I'm
kind of doubting that, but if I do something I'll try to put a post out.  I have a friend who
wanted me to see a movie sometime tomorrow and that may eat up most of my free time
and I may not even make it out to the beginner's night.

You'll need to arrive before 10PM to get into the beginners night.  If you have a telescope
and have questions about it, you're better off arriving early to meet club members so
they can answer questions about the telescope and suggested operation ideas when it's still
light outside.

Beginner's nights are not necessarily huge public outreaches, with much smaller crowds
arriving so there may be more club telescopes and more time to look through club telescopes
than a person would have in a much larger crowd, like Astronomy At the Beach.

---- Here's part of the FAAC club message regarding tomorrow night.

Greetings everyone!

This Saturday, April 5, is the first "Beginner's Night" of the 2014 observing season and will take place at Lake Erie Metro Park.  (To avoid confusion... most beginner's nights are at Island Lake State Park -- this event is NOT at Island Lake... it's at Lake Erie.  Don't drive to the wrong place ... that would be bad.)

At the meeting, I mentioned this would be at the Marshlands Museum (the nature center)... THAT HAS CHANGED.  We are meeting at the south end of the park in the area they refer to as the "Cove Point Picnic Area".  You can find it on this map:  http://www.metroparks.com/Multimedia/www.metroparks.com/Files/Maps/Lake-Erie_park.pdf    When you enter the main park entrance, you'll keep to the right and just keep on going.  The logic behind this change is that there would be no restrooms available to us if we used the museum parking lot (it will be locked) but Cove Point has local restrooms (not heated) ... and just around the corner are the marina restrooms (which are heated -- and I'm told these are open 24 hours all year long). 

I tend to arrive about an hour before sunset.  Sunset is at 8:02pm tomorrow.  I may not be there right at 7pm but will certainly arrive before 7:30pm.  

You MUST ENTER THE PARK BY 10pm!  

The park has a one-way entrance drive and one-way exit drive.  The gate for the exit driveway never closes.  The gate for the entrance drive DOES CLOSE.  Tomorrow night it will close at 10pm (it would normally close at 8pm during this part of the year, but special arrangements have been made to keep it open until 10pm for us.)  If you plan to arrive late, you'll need to be in the park before they close the front entrance gate.

The weather forecast looks fantastic.   The clouds we have today are expected to break up tomorrow morning and be gone by 9am.

Here's the chart: http://cleardarksky.com/c/LkErMtPkMIkey.html?1

Greg - blog writer continues with comment on latest chart.
The chart looks pretty good, but seeing may be a little less that perfect and there may be
a little bit of cloud cover or haze from time to time.  Keep in mind a wind out of the west
means it may be picking up humidity off the lake and that will likely be cold and moist.
Moisture can cause humidity to be worse in the air and that can affect seeing, but light blue
is a pretty good prediction in the clear sky chart. . . read the chart and it's labels for more
details.  The things we look for is transparency, dark blue is better, seeing dark blue is better
and cloud cover, dark blue is better.  If you see a lot of dark blue on the chart, it's a prediction
of a really good night.  Light Blue is pretty decent.

Those arriving early may get some nice views of Jupiter as the sun sets. . . I'm not sure and
kind of doubt I'll be able to make it, but there is a slim chance I can make it.  I'm fairly sure
that I won't be able to open up HJRO.  This because of other things I'll need to do and I have
to be around the house sometime to get some quality family time in.

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