April 2015 - OTEvents - Old Town Sidewalk Astronomers

Sidewalk Astronomy cancelled tonight
by Jane Houston Jones 25 Apr '15

25 Apr '15

Sorry, but with the heavy clouds, significant "chance" of rain, cool temperatures and wind we're reluctantly cancelling sidewalk Astronomy tonight! We had to cancel a school star party last night, and had significant clouds at our Tuesday school star party too. It has actually just started to rain here in Monrovia at 3 p.m. Our next Sidewalk Astronomy is May 23, and don't forget June 13, our next Dark Sky Star Party/campout/potluck at Mojave National Preserve's Black Canyon Group Campground (near the Hole in the Wall visitor center. It's also raining at Griffith Observatory, but there are a lot of free inside events today and tomorrow celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Hubble Telescope launch - check them out here http://www.griffithobs.org/. It's also clouded out up on Mt. Wilson right now! Instead, you might enjoy some of the Hubble Telescope 25th anniversary images including this gorgeous just-released image commemorating the anniversary. http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2015/12/image/a/ Or some JPL Videos: https://www.youtube.com/user/JPLnews/videos I wish if the rain was going to make us cancel astronomy events, it would at least be a real downpour! -- Jane Houston Jones @jhjones @CassiniSaturn @NASAInsight What's Up? April 4th lunar eclipse https://youtu.be/WaTqzp43UI4

1 0

Lunar eclipse in the morning
by Jane Houston Jones 04 Apr '15

04 Apr '15

Like John Dobson always said when you need to wake up early in the morning: drink a glass of lemonade before you go to bed -- you need to wake up to rotate your telescope mirror pitch lap or take it off the mirror while making a telescope mirror. The same goes for waking up for a predawn lunar eclipse! Set your alarms (weather permitting for before 5 a.m. Saturday morning! Our west coast gets a total lunar eclipse in the morning before dawn! My video chart shows a 12 minute totality (via USNO & S&T) but depending where you measure the deepest shadow (the umbra) some websites and most of the media are saying less than 5 minutes (THE SHORTEST ECLIPSE OF THE CENTURY). (caps on purpose) So I summed up the different calculation methods here. http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/news/whatsup-view.cfm?WUID=2026 <http://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fsolarsystem.nasa.gov%2Fnews%2Fwh…> Regardless, get your butt out of bed before 5am PT if you can. Totality is a few minutes before 5 am until a few minutes after 5 am. Pacific. Training for August 2017! Video of the eclipse and Whats Up for April: lots! https://youtu.be/WaTqzp43UI4 Hope we see it! -- Jane Houston Jones @jhjones @CassiniSaturn @NASAInsight What's Up? April 4th lunar eclipse https://youtu.be/WaTqzp43UI4

1 0

Fwd: SpotTheStation
by Jane Houston Jones 04 Apr '15

04 Apr '15

8:20 pm tonight! Sorry for late alert! -------- Original Message -------- From: HQ-spotthestation(a)mail.nasa.gov Sent: April 3, 2015 8:58:11 AM PDT To: United-States-California-Monrovia-PM(a)lists.hq.nasa.gov Subject: SpotTheStation Time: Fri Apr 03 8:20 PM, Visible: 5 min, Max Height: 79 degrees, Appears: SW, Disappears: NE -- Jane Houston Jones (Mobile)

1 0