Sidewalk astronomy tonight!

We'll be out sharing views of the moon and Venus tonight at Myrtle and Lime Streets in Monrovia tonight. We'll be there by 6:30 for sure, now that it gets dark earlier! Read (and listen) to my info about the MAVEN Launch to Mars a week from Monday, and an comet ISON update. I'll be attending the launch, bringing agood luck banner to the MAVEN team signed by the InSight Mission team (I am the outreach person for Insight, launching to Mars in 2016) And don't forget our rescheduled Mojave National Preserve star Party November 30. We'll have a gorgeous sky filled with the remnants of summer constellations and the Milky Way, which make way for the constellations of fall. Then in the hour before morning twilight, we'll (hopefully) be up to look at a few comets. It's unlikely Comet ISON will be visible (it passes nearest the sun on November 28th, and that means even if it survives, it will be very near the sun, too close for safe viewing. If there is a comet tail to be seen on the horizon, we'll let everyone know before they go to bed saturday night. Being November, It will be cold probably, but as John Dobson says "Many are cold, but few are frozen" I'll end with Mojo's three lovely comet images from our trip to Amboy Crater last weekend. All three were imaged (and seen visually through my telescope too) between 3:00am and 4:00am Sunday morning) Comet R1 Lovejoyhttp://whiteoaks.com/astrophotos/2013-11-02/C2013-R1-Lovejoy-2013-11… Comet S1 ISONhttp://whiteoaks.com/astrophotos/2013-11-02/C2012-S1-ISON-2013-11-02.jpg Comet 2P (a periodic comet returning every 3 years) 2P Encke http://whiteoaks.com/astrophotos/2013-11-02/2P-encke-2013-11-02-5min.jpg -- Jane Houston Jones Monrovia, CA Jane Houston Jones @jhjones @CassiniSaturn @NASAInsight What's Up For Nov? Maven Launch Nov 18, Comet ISON races towards the sun http://youtu.be/MwP1UVCH6ck My 2013 - Year At A Glance Astro Blog http://jane.whiteoaks.com/2013/01/07/whats-up-in-2013-at-a-glance/