- OTEvents - Old Town Sidewalk Astronomers

Oops, and sidewalk astronomy
by Morris Jones 24 Feb '12

24 Feb '12

I made a mistake regarding Friday night astronomy in Old Town Pasadena. The moon is going to set much too early for it to be a real sidewalk astronomy night. So instead we'll do Pasadena on Saturday night, March 3. Monrovia should be good on Saturday evening with a slim crescent moon and Venus and Jupiter putting on a show. Watch those two along with the moon for the next few evenings as they put on a great sky show. Later in the evening (about 8:30) you can "connect the dots" to the opposite side of the sky and see very bright pumpkin-colored Mars rising in the east. Best regards, Mojo -- Morris Jones Monrovia, CA http://whiteoaks.com

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Re: 2012 - April Skies over Mojave National Preserve?
by Jane Houston Jones 02 Feb '12

02 Feb '12

Team OtAstro - what do you think of May 19 (an awesome new moon weekend) for a Mojave getaway?? or The group site is available on April 13, 14 (a nice third quarter moon) , and 27 (that date is out because its out sidewalk astro weekend). If any of you belong to the Mojave National Preserve Conservancy, David included us in the annual roundup letter to members. We were mentioned in the first paragraph! It was very nice. I have the letter someplace..... PS David we are the "Old Town Sidewalk Astronomers" from the San Gabriel Mountain Foothills ;-) Or On 2/1/2012 11:39 AM, David Lamfrom wrote: > How about may 19 or around there. Sierra club is meeting there, and we > would have a built in audience. -- Jane Houston Jones Monrovia, CA What's Up Podcast-January 2012: A pretty parade of planets On Youtube: http://is.gd/kPUtSx Twitter: http://twitter.com/jhjones /CassiniSaturn /otastro My Blog: http://jane.whiteoaks.com/

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Sidewalk astronomy tonight in Monrovia
by Morris Jones 28 Jan '12

28 Jan '12

Last night we were spooked by the wind forecast, and opted not to set up in Pasadena. We're probably still a little touchy from the November wind storm! But the wind is forecast to die down this afternoon, and we're planning to set up in Monrovia at Myrtle & Lime from 6:00 to 9:00. If you've looked to the west after sunset the past few days, you've seen the great sky show of Venus, moon, and Jupiter, tracing the ecliptic across the sky. We'll get some up-close looks at the three of those tonight. Come early to see Venus; it will set first. Venus is not very interesting in a telescope until it begins to reach a crescent phase. It's not quite there yet, but will be approaching that over the next couple of months. Otherwise it's mostly a featureless white ball that shows a little bit of phase like the moon. When Venus is a crescent, people are always surprised that they aren't looking at the moon -- just as Galileo was when he first observed Venus in a telescope and began charting its phases. Jupiter remains high and bright this month and next. Best regards, Mojo -- Morris Jones, Monrovia, CA http://whiteoaks.com

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Sidewalk Astronomy, Monrovia tonight
by Morris Jones 31 Dec '11

31 Dec '11

It may be New Year's Eve, but it's also a great night for sidewalk astronomy. We will be set up in Monrovia's Library park tonight, at the corner of Myrtle & Lime, from about 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. Here's the thing though: the city of Monrovia is closing off a block of Myrtle, between Lemon and Colorado, to hold a New Year's Eve block party. The street will be closed this afternoon, and the block party starts at 7:00 p.m. But if you have a chance to start your evening in downtown Monrovia tonight, we'll be giving out great views of the moon and Jupiter with its four big Galilean moons. Don't miss Jane's "What's Up" for NASA for January, here on YouTube: http://youtu.be/udTu2K15Boo And she has a great blog post today on the subject of black-eyed peas for New Year's Eve: http://jane.whiteoaks.com/2011/12/30/black-eyed-peas-a-new-years-traditiona… Best regards and Happy New Year, Mojo -- Morris Jones, Monrovia, CA http://whiteoaks.com

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No sidewelk astronomy this weekend
by Jane Houston Jones 03 Dec '11

03 Dec '11

If you step outside tonight you'll see a pretty first quarter moon. We'd love to be out with telescopes, but with all the wind damage in both Pasadena and Monrovia, we're cancelling both events this weekend. Our corner in Monrovia - the corner of Myrtle and Lime Streets - is strewn with the wreckage of huge fallen trees and is cordoned off with yellow tape. The big Deodar known as the "Christmas" Tree in Library Park was also a victim of the Santa Annas, uprooted, it's lying in a big mess of branches, lights, and the big star on top is bear the fountain. A huge tree gone. Now back to the moon. Take a look at the distance between the moon and Jupiter tonight. Look again tomorrow night. And look again on Sunday night. YOu'll see the moon appears closer to Jupiter every night! On December 5th and 6th the moon will be very near Jupiter. I wrote a little feature about it with some nice links. http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/news/whatsup-view.cfm?WUID=1004 Have a good and safe weekend. Jane -- Jane Houston Jones Monrovia, CA What's Up Podcast-November 2011 Mars launch, Planetary magnetospheres NASA podcast: http://is.gd/bSXeAl Youtube site: http://is.gd/kPUtSx Twitter: http://twitter.com/jhjones /CassiniSaturn /otastro My Blog: http://jane.whiteoaks.com/

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No sidewalk astronomy
by Morris Jones 06 Nov '11

06 Nov '11

The cool wet weather and approching storm are going to keep the telescopes inside and dry tonight. We'll try again next month! Cheers, Mojo

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Weather to cancel sidewalk astronomy this weekend
by Jane Houston Jones 04 Nov '11

04 Nov '11

Today's rain doesn't appear to be letting up tonight for our monthly sidewalk astronomy in Old town Pasadena, and the forecast for Saturday night has worsened. We'll make that call tomorrow, but I wouldn't plan an excursion for cloudy night moon and planet viewing. We'll post an announcement if we're going our tomorrow night. Leaning towards weathered out conditins/cancellation. So it's a weekend for armchair astronomy! Mojo and I have made weekend treks to two dark sky locations on the two past weekends. Mojo brings our Astro-Physics Traveler - a spectacular small telescope well suited to astrophotography out to the desert when we can get away, and are not doing National Park public viewing (which is most of the time). Read his last two weekend stories, and gaze at his pretty images here: http://mojo.whiteoaks.com/ I picked a few interesting visual targets to write about, and I hauled my huge 17.5 inch reflector out to the desert the last two weekends. I selected a few targets that NASA telescopes or astronomers have also studied to look at. http://jane.whiteoaks.com/ My monthly What's Up video is all about the upcoming Nov 25 launch of the Mars Science Laboratory, also known as the Curiosity rover, plus something about planetary magnetospheres. Here's the JPL Youtube link http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=JPLnews#grid/uploads There's also a good short video about the science planned for Tuesday's close flyby of Asteroid YU55 on that Youtube page, right above my video. Nasa will use Earth as a spacecraft to image this asteroid as it whizzes by, and will use the huge radio antennae out in the Mojave Desert at Goldstone to measure this thing. Usually we have to fly "to" the object to study it. This time the object comes "to" us - close enough to Earth to use our ground based telescopes, but far enough away not to worry about it any danger. Amateur astronomers wonder if YU55 can be seen in backyard telescopes. If your backyard is really dark, and you know exactly where to look, and you have charts to show where it will be, you might see it, and those lucky observers will see it move in the eyepiece view. This writer/amateur astronomer from Duluth MN has some excellent charts and a good explanation. http://astrobob.areavoices.com/2011/11/02/users-guide-to-monday-nights-aste… Jane (and the Old Town Sidewalk Astronomers) -- Jane Houston Jones Monrovia, CA What's Up Podcast-November 2011 Mars launch, Planetary magnetospheres NASA podcast: http://is.gd/bSXeAl Youtube site: http://is.gd/kPUtSx Twitter: http://twitter.com/jhjones /CassiniSaturn /otastro My Blog: http://jane.whiteoaks.com/

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Int'l Observe the Moon Night -- pictures
by Morris Jones 09 Oct '11

09 Oct '11

Stephen Coleman was at our InOMN event last night with a camera and tripod. He took some great natural-light shots of the astronomers, telescopes, and accidental astronomers getting looks at the moon. http://photo.whiteoaks.com/2011-10-08-sidewalk-inomn/ We had about 150 visitors last night in old town Monrovia. Stephen, thanks so much for the great shots! Best regards, Mojo -- Morris Jones, Monrovia, CA http://whiteoaks.com

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Int'l Observe the Moon Night
by Morris Jones 08 Oct '11

08 Oct '11

Hi all, tonight is "International Observe the Moon Night" http://observethemoonnight.org/ The moon will be our only bright target this evening, but it should be a beautiful night for it. We plan to set up in Old Town Monrovia tonight at about sunset 6:30, and show the moon 'til 8:30 or 9 or so. We'll be at our usual spot at Myrtle & Lime in Library Park. Jupiter is nearing opposition, but doesn't reach opposition until October 29. It should be a great target for next month's sidewalk weekend. Best regards, Mojo -- Morris Jones, Monrovia, CA http://whiteoaks.com

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Fwd: Thank you
by Jane Houston Jones 26 Sep '11

26 Sep '11

One of the three civilian groups from our email list to show up at the Mojave event. :-) -------- Original Message -------- Subject: Thank you Date: Mon, 26 Sep 2011 13:04:15 -0700 (PDT) From: Zeynep Yeldan <zeynep_yeldan(a)yahoo.com> Reply-To: Zeynep Yeldan <zeynep_yeldan(a)yahoo.com> To: jane(a)whiteoaks.com <jane(a)whiteoaks.com> Hi Jane, We had a great weekend owing to all of you. Thank you so much. Hopefully we'll be able to make it to the next stargazing event too. There's too much I wouldn't want to miss again. Best, Z.

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