Category Archives: "Events"

As the Sun rises on Veteran’s Day the planet Mercury will be making it’s way directly between our star and ourselves. The result is that the itsy bitsy silhouette of the fastest planet will be visible on the disc of the Sun. As always with any astronomical event that involves looking directly at the Sun, you need to have a proper filter to block the intense light if you wanna see this for yourself. Also, Mercury is so teeny tiny that you’re going to need a telescope that can be covered with that proper filter in order to check this one out.   Good thing our sister club the Popular Astronomy Club has you covered. They will be hosting a Mercury Transit Viewing from their regular site in the parking lot of Niabi Zoo starting at sunrise (6:45am) until the end of the transit at 12:35pm. These folks will have scopes set up properly for safe view of this rare event. Be sure to join them on the 11th this year otherwise you’ll be waiting until November 13th of 2032 for your next chance!   About the image: The featured image for this post is of the last transit of […]

Another great night out at the Menke. This time, of course it was an open house so we probably had a dozen to two dozen guests come through. We saw a lot of great objects, the normal ones of course, but everybody got to see the moon, some planets, some galaxies, some star clusters, some nebulas and double stars.  Guests started showing up about 7:30 pm, and the last one left about 11 pm. We, of course had to sit around and chat for a while afterward, which is always a lot of fun and a very important part of this hobby! Again, all in all a great time! A special thank you to Rolando and Sam for helping Dr. Mitchell and I with the event! Clear Skies! Jeff

For me EAA is the way to go.  Simple plug and play design of the R2 system takes video astronomy to a whole new level of fun.  The detail may not resemble time exposure astrophotography but far exceeds the detail of the naked eye.  Got to give credit to the individual who had the brilliant idea to create an all inclusive imaging system known as the Revolution Imager.  It has made the hobby more enjoyable than ever before and I can not imagine astronomy with out it!  The galaxy hop time window was very narrow due to work schedule but we did manage to get a look at three decent galaxies with the imager.  The viewing conditions were not ideal with a slight haze and thin clouds.  We made the best of the conditions and put M-51 in the camera.  It was an amazing sight even with the atmospheric haze.  Very distinct spiral structure and fairly bright.  Next we put the R2 on M-104 the Sombrero galaxy.  Very nice detail revealing the galaxies structure including the dark edge on line giving it the distinction of its name.  Last was M-64 the Black Eye galaxy.  A little on the rough side […]