The weather forecast is looking rather marginal, but there may be a chance to view this rare occultation event.

Starting just after 9am on the morning of Wed 22 Apr, the thin crescent Moon will pass in front of (occult) Venus. Even though it is daytime, both objects are bright enough they should be visible. If you can take some time off from work or school, you might want to try this. You won’t need any special equipment, your eyes are all you need. But if you have binoculars or a small telescope, they will make the sight more impressive. They will also allow you to see Venus as a crescent instead of just bright dot.

Caution: Since the sun will be up, please be very careful not to point your binoculars or your scope at the sun as this may cause permanent eye damage.

Ideally you might like to set up before sunrise so that you can more easily locate the Moon and Venus. But the forecast is indicating rain and clouds even at 5am. However there may be a break just around 9am which may allow us to see this event. Unfortunately I can’t tell at this time if during the breaks, we’ll have lots of high cirrus clouds which will block or obscure the view.

I’ve included a map below which shows the area which will experience the occultation. We are smack dab in the middle of the green lines. This means that we will see some of Venus covered by the Moon (Grazing Occultation). The light of Venus should brighten and dim as it passes behind the mountains and valleys on the Moon. If you are NW of the Green/Black line combination, then the entire surface of Venus will be covered (standard occultation). If you are SE of the single Green line, then you will see the Moon pass over top of Venus without being covered (conjunction).

Venus Moon Occultation Path

Here’s a link to the page with the interactive Google map. This will allow you to zoom in or out as much as you want to find the best area.
Interactive Map

The Moon will approach Venus starting at about 9am. First contact should occur at about 9:10am. And the entire event will take about 10-15 minutes.

Sky and Telescope also has some info about this event.

To view this, it is best to find a open area with a good view to the East and South. Possibly a large park or shopping mall lot. If the conditions look promising, I’m going to try and set up at Lakeland Community Centre at 180 Van Wagners Beach Rd in Hamilton (east of the GoKarts).

Try to locate the crescent Moon first – it will be about 33degrees to the upper right of the Sun. Then look a little to the lower left of the moon and you should be able to spot the bright light from Venus.

Meteor Shower:
And also remember, if you get up early enough and the sky does open up for you, be on the look out for members of the Lyrid meteor shower which are peaking in the early morning as well. Unfortunately you are not likely to see these once the sun rises.

Good luck and good hunting.

As mentioned earlier by Chair Steve, on Saturday, April 25, in Winona, from 10am to 4pm, there’s the annual RaptorFest festival. Some members of the HAA will be there with a daytime astronomy display. (Solar observing, and telescope and binocular demonstrations).

The binocular demonstration will be of special interest to bird watchers in that binoculars allow good views of distant nests to be shared.

Since it is also the dark of the moon, there may be an evening observing session at a location to be determined.

Here’s a link to the Raptorfestival web site:

http://www.raptorfestival.com

Directions can be found here:

http://www.raptorfestival.com/Html%20Pages/Directions.html

For members who wish to set up equipment, the gate should be open by 9am. We’ll be on the back (south facing) side of the building under the overhang.

Hope to see you there.

I posted three of my images on my HAA Gallery from my trip up north last week (April 2009). Links are below.

M81 and M82, by Bob Christmas

Galaxies M81, M82, NGC 2976 and NGC 3077 (excerpt shown above),

M101 (The Pinwheel Galaxy),

and Open clusters M46 and M47.

More images are coming soon to my own web site. Stay tuned.

Bob Christmas

11 people showed up last night for observing at the main site. We set up at the boat launch with 3 scopes on the dock and 2 in the parking area. The early arrivals where treated to a view of Mercury before it set. This, for me, was the last planet of the system to view through my scope.The rest of the night was spent helping knock the bugs out of a temperamental goto scope for one of our newer members, and sharing views of the night sky with the enthusiastic gathering. It was a fun time with several of us reconvening at Tim H. for coffee and conversation.

I arrived at Spectacle Lake Lodge on Tuesday, April 14, and I have had 3 clear nights under a dark sky. I have taken lots of images of several deep sky objects, including the open clusters M35, M36, M37, M38, M46 and M47, as well as galaxies M81, M82, M98, M99, M100, M108, NGC 2403, NGC 4214, NGC 4244 and NGC 4565. I will be posting some images soon.

One interesting thing happened when I imaged M38 in Auriga on Tuesday night (the 14th; see image below). I noticed a faint green fuzzy right beside M38, just to the left of the cluster (see image). It turns out, this was Comet Cardinal!

I knew this comet was in the general area, but I didn’t know beforehand that it was right beside M38. Talk about a stroke of luck! Comet Cardinal is very faint however, about 11th magnitude. By the way, if you have a BIG scope, or if you take a long image exposure, you might be able to catch it tonight (Friday April 17) when it’s right beside M36, another open cluster in Auriga.

If you check the main page of our website and look at the Clear Sky Charts for Hamilton and Binbrook, you will notice that we have very good observing conditions for tonight.

While nothing is being formally organized, we encourage any member to use the Alternate observing location on Tyneside Rd. There is a good parking area and park land available for setting up scopes and binoculars. There is pretty good visibility in most directions.

Here’s a map to the location: Tyneside

There are usually several observers at this location on any night that conditions are good, so you are likely to run into members or other astronomers that aren’t members.

One note of caution for personal safety though. This is an area open to the public. We have never heard of any problems from observers in this area, and many have used this alone or in small numbers, but bring along a cell phone in case of emergency. And it’s a good idea to go with another observer. You might consider holding off setting up equipment until another arrives – which is almost certain to happen. It’s great opportunity to get to know some other astronomers in our area.

Please feel free to take advantage of what is bound to be great seeing conditions tonight. And if you do go out, please post a note about your observing on the blog or email our observing director. observing@amateurastronomy.org

Over the weekend while you were all enjoying a lovely Easter dinner (I hope), I was enjoying a lovely night sky, and had some good observing. The Clear Sky Clock looks good for tonight, so I am hoping for more galaxies and double stars!

Jackie, Jim and I will be at the Alternate Site tonight for some warm spring sky observing. Join us and others there if you can, and remember, the alternate site is accessible to all members so show up whenever you like and we’ll see you there!

As always, email me if you have any questions, reports, observations or photos. observing@amateurastronomy.org

Is anyone going to Binbrook tonight (Saturday night)?

Tim

Topic: DSLR astrophotgraphy

Speaker: Kerry

It’s tonight, April 7, at the Burlington Arts Center, hosted by the Latow Photographers Guild,
at 7:30 PM. Join Steve G and others who will see the great range of possibilities for telescope-free
astrophotography, benefitting from the excellent optics and sensitivity of modern DSLR cameras.

Those of you who have heard her speak on this topic know this is not to be missed.

Static Home Page

While most of the HAA crew were out at Grimsby, a few of us were many miles away bringing a little sidewalk astronomy to the other end of the Hamilton region.

Two telescopes and three HAA members attracted about 40 people outside of a Tim Horton’s in Dundas. Jim single handedly managed a group of about 20 at once! Visitors were treated to views of the moon, Saturn, the Orion Nebula, the Pleiades and Castor, as well as whatever star the younger visitors wanted (“I want to see that star!”, was heard a couple of times from a youngster pointing at the sky). We were fortunate to have clear skies and a nearby supply of hot coffee and cider. One little fellow even claimed to have seen aliens through my telescope (green ones with three eyes). Although he encouraged me to look and see for myself, the aliens had unfortunately left by the time I got to the eyepiece. Maybe next time!

It was a fun and educational night for all!

A future astronomer gets his first look at Saturn.