All Good Things...

...Happen at the Soccer Field!

Our last viewing of the semester happened on a beautiful evening on April 9th as we made our way to the soccer field for the 2nd time in the semester. It started off with a blazing view of the International Space Station flying over our heads, and ended with a viewing of a brilliant waxing gibbous Moon.

10 second exposures of the ISS with Arcturus near the center right.

We also had the opportunity to look at Mars through the 6" telescope. While we don't see as pretty an image as we do Jupiter, we were still able to make out variations in the surface color, including the brighter (almost white looking) polar ice caps, and of course the prominent red color that is Mars. (Too bad I didn't take a picture >.< )

Waxing Gibbous taken with Nexus 5 phone camera through 6" telescope.

Waxing Gibbous Moon taken with Nikkon D5100 through 6" telescope.

The sky has changed a lot since we first saw it back in January. Orion, Taurus and the Pleiades are now setting in the western sky, and new constellations like Leo and Boötes are rising in the East. We already missed a lunar eclipse due to cloudy weather, but a lot more astronomical events are right around the corner this summer. We have one more week before sky journals are due, make sure you're looking up and making entries every time you can! 

- Clear Skies!! 
SHH 

April Skies

Spring is finally here, the weather is warming up and the snow on the soccer field has melted. I thought I'd post what to look for in April skies. The main event this month is the Total Lunar Eclipse on April 15th. It will occur on the night of Monday-Tuesday (technically a Tuesday). The eclipse will start at 1:58 a.m. EDT and the totality will begin at 3:06 am. The greatest part of the eclipse will occur at 3:46 a.m., and the whole thing will end at 5:33 a.m. It'll be a long night, but if you've never seen the full Moon go from that bright shade of white to that orangish/red hue, then it's totally worth it!

Some other things to look for this month:

- Venus in the morning sky before sunrise
- Crescent Moon one hour after sunset on April 1st
- Mars in the night sky (rises ~ 2 hours after sunset)
- Saturn and Scorpius one hour before sunrise
- Jupiter in Gemini still


Keep looking up, and do those sky journals!

Clear Skies!