Comet Thatcher

"Every year in late April Earth passes through the dusty tail of Comet Thatcher (C/1861 G1), and the encounter causes a meteor shower--the Lyrids. This year the shower peaks on Saturday night, April 21st. Forecasters expect 10 to 20 meteors per hour, although outbursts as high as 100 meteors per hour are possible." This is from the site spaceweather.com!

Jupiter low, and GP

I wasn't feeling great last night. So, I didn't go out. I did notice that Jupiter was beginning to get lower in the sky almost down below the horizon line. That means I won't see Jupiter till next winter. I think it comes up in the winter if memory serves. I'll look that up later to find out then write a post about it. 

The first part of my GP is sleeping right now. I convinced her to nap in my orange chair. She generally loves my bed and being with me. But I have a cluttered bed. Later when my SD card arrives I am going to post pictures of her sleeping in it. Just sweet. I love that cat, hence the name, oh, - it stands for Graph Paper.

disaster...

There's a reason why I am not currently pursuing a degree in astronomy. It's cause while I may know my constellations in the northern hemisphere and when certain meteor showers occur , I often confuse terms. I thought conjuction meant  something like transit which I thought it was doing. Old data, time for a renew. Sadly, I would of never seen the transit anyway (which I thought it was) cause clouds came. That is often in the spring months.

Pleiades conjunction with Venus

Sorry, to those I bugged about the Pleiades. Hopefully you all went outside! It was so pretty here, but there was a storm rolling in. I saw lightning in the southern sky. Really cool there. But I ended up going in due to clouds in the way. That's the hurtful atmospheric conditions to astronomers. Earth's weather is always in the way of something. Well, sometimes, the sky is clear.

Pleiads and Venus

A storm of some kind is rolling in. Kirk, Einstein,and Scout spent another beautiful night indoors. I got to 'plan' some kind of routine which not really plan, but at least set up to go out even when I don't feel like it. These past two days I have not done my deck routine with my music. I should of at least gone out with my scopes and really put them to work. I should make them clock in. Just kidding. Pay for the space they're taking up in the house. Ah! No, but I really need to start bringing at least Kirk out every night. Tomorrow, or sometime this week I will post pictures of them all. They are all worth it scopes.Kirk never wants to do what I want him to do. Pretty much why I named him Kirk in the first place. He seems to not want to run his GOTO control. Which is sad. I'll program it properly I hope soon. I just have to do some reading on it.

Oh, yeah, the reason I went on to post is that I was outside cause  I had to see the conjunction of Venus and the Pleiads (M35 I believe, may wish to check that out later). I once read a Sky&Telescope article which said that astronomers don't like using their names they prefer to use their designations. If I remember correctly they compared it to diners who have code words for when people order their food. Which means I'll also be focusing on learning their M names. I'll post that for later especially if I can find it. Not sure that I can so NO promises!

This is the kind of stuff you get on Spaceweather.com Go Outside Tonight!!!

CATCH THE CONJUNCTION! When the sun sets tonight, go outside and look west. The planet Venus is in conjunction with the Pleiades star cluster. This only happened once every eight years, so don't miss it!--spaceweather.com

As I said,-thunderstorms today.

"This Afternoon: Scattered showers and thunderstorms. Partly sunny, with a high near 81. Southwest wind around 5 mph. Chance of precipitation is 40%."
NOAA Weather

I actually visit this site a lot for Earth's weather.

Rachael (SD4312)

 

Here I am. I took the picture so it's a little cut off.

SpaceWeather

http://spaceweather.com/

Spaceweather.com brings you photos, data, and highlights. It also watches sunspots and auroa activity and more! This is a frequently visited website. And one that is well loved.

This is my iOptron planetarium.The picture up top was taken with the flash on. The one on the right, of course, no flash. The one on the bottom is paused.

I've tried several planetariums over the years, and this is by far the best one. I think I bought it for 79.95, or so. Whenever I don't feel like going outside I turn this on. You can set it to your location too. Though I have not yet done this. Keep your remote close.

Taken from and Ipod Touch (March 26:evening) Moon, Venus and Jupiter

Not sure why I can't right it.

Welcome to my Observatory!

Welcome to my first professional blog. While I am not an astronomer (by way of a degree) I am an somewhat of a beginner. Though I've loved astronomy since I was about 8 yrs old.

I love it! GPN Observatories is located in TN. We are currently without a home. Just three small introduction telescopes named: Kirk, Einstein, and Scout. They will be bringing you hopefully some interesting first time photos first ones will be facing South due to our current location (on our deck).