March Skies

A good month coming up!

First off, 1200mm has a public Google calendar now, for events (like the hike on 24 March) and general stargazing goodness (Mars in opposition tonight!).

so, March So far:

4 March: Mars in opposition.
8 March: Moon close to Mars, Full Moon
11 March: Moon close to Saturn
14 March: Jupiter and Venus close together
15 March: Last Quarter Moon
20 March: Autumn Equinox, day and night are equal length
23 March: New Moon
24 March: 1200mm Hike to the Stars - if you;d like to come to this, please contact us.
26 March: Crescent Moon close to Jupiter and Venus.

Skies in March from the Royal Astronomical Society of NZ

For us Rodney/Snells Types, lots of LMC and SMC this month, as well as the usual cuplrits of Orion, Crux et Al.

Looking forward to some good moon and mars viewing!

As promised

One more photo, from out at Scandretts, or at least as far out at Scandretts as we could get :)

It's of Bill plying the craft.  Totally accidental shot here, we only had the one tripod between us, so wee took it in turns to shoot, as Sesame St and our mothers had taught us about sharing, and this was from me putting the camera on the ground and just firing off a bunch of shots, much like the stack there.

Bill at Work

Am looking for new things to do with the photos nowadays, have some ideas, but all feedback/suggestions would be appreciated.  Stand by for Bills pics when he's finished post-producing them.

Party Party Party

Had a small star party happen last night.  In attendance were The Flat and significant friends, Bill, Pip and Rusty. Despite the wonders of a beautiful clear night, a lot of people were more interested in the laser of Martins than the stars themselves.  But there was fire, friends and stellar fusion, so that was all good.

We started with Jupiter before he went down - there he is in the pic, just above the streetlamp. Then M42, which is always a fave.  In fact I think I am addicted to M42, it's beautiful!

Then while waiting for Mars, we went sky hunting - mainly looking for the Horsehead (IC434) and even with running inside and checking Stellarium, we couldn't see it - we found the right spot in the sky, but we thought it was too dim maybe? The plan next time is to go somewhere really dark and try.

Also, there was a good number of both satellites and meteorites visible last night - the best of which left some lovely glowing trails across the sky.  I should have time-lapsed it, but was ouit of battery :(  Perhaps tonight.

Then we went on looking at things ... we found something that was christened "Bill's Blob" just off the SMC, which it turns out is NGC104, Mag 4 ... all that could be said was "My God, it's full of stars!"  And some of the detail within the Milky Way was awe-inspiring - reminded me why I love doing all this.

Once Mars came up, we all had a look at the bright orange blobby disk, was close to horizon and very wobbly,  and then it was all wrapped up really.

So that was an awesome time, and my thanks to Bill and Pip et al for sharing the wonders of the universe with me, and to everyone else who liked the frikken laser!