Sorry, but with the heavy clouds, significant "chance" of rain, cool
temperatures and wind we're reluctantly cancelling sidewalk Astronomy
tonight! We had to cancel a school star party last night, and had
significant clouds at our Tuesday school star party too.
It has actually just started to rain here in Monrovia at 3 p.m. Our next
Sidewalk Astronomy is May 23, and don't forget June 13, our next Dark
Sky Star Party/campout/potluck at Mojave National Preserve's Black
Canyon Group Campground (near the Hole in the Wall visitor center.
It's also raining at Griffith Observatory, but there are a lot of free
inside events today and tomorrow celebrating the 25th anniversary of the
Hubble Telescope launch - check them out here
http://www.griffithobs.org/. It's also clouded out up on Mt. Wilson
right now!
Instead, you might enjoy some of the Hubble Telescope 25th anniversary
images including this gorgeous just-released image commemorating the
anniversary.
http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2015/12/image/a/
Or some JPL Videos: https://www.youtube.com/user/JPLnews/videos
I wish if the rain was going to make us cancel astronomy events, it
would at least be a real downpour!
--
Jane Houston Jones
@jhjones @CassiniSaturn @NASAInsight
What's Up? April 4th lunar eclipse
https://youtu.be/WaTqzp43UI4
Like John Dobson always said when you need to wake up early in the
morning: drink a glass of lemonade before you go to bed -- you need to
wake up to rotate your telescope mirror pitch lap or take it off the
mirror while making a telescope mirror. The same goes for waking up for
a predawn lunar eclipse!
Set your alarms (weather permitting for before 5 a.m. Saturday morning!
Our west coast gets a total lunar eclipse in the morning before dawn! My
video chart shows a 12 minute totality (via USNO & S&T) but depending
where you measure the deepest shadow (the umbra) some websites and most
of the media are saying less than 5 minutes (THE SHORTEST ECLIPSE OF THE
CENTURY). (caps on purpose) So I summed up the different calculation
methods here.
http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/news/whatsup-view.cfm?WUID=2026
<http://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fsolarsystem.nasa.gov%2Fnews%2Fwh…>
Regardless, get your butt out of bed before 5am PT if you can. Totality
is a few minutes before 5 am until a few minutes after 5 am. Pacific.
Training for August 2017!
Video of the eclipse and Whats Up for April: lots!
https://youtu.be/WaTqzp43UI4
Hope we see it!
--
Jane Houston Jones
@jhjones @CassiniSaturn @NASAInsight
What's Up? April 4th lunar eclipse
https://youtu.be/WaTqzp43UI4
8:20 pm tonight! Sorry for late alert!
-------- Original Message --------
From: HQ-spotthestation(a)mail.nasa.gov
Sent: April 3, 2015 8:58:11 AM PDT
To: United-States-California-Monrovia-PM(a)lists.hq.nasa.gov
Subject: SpotTheStation
Time: Fri Apr 03 8:20 PM, Visible: 5 min, Max Height: 79 degrees, Appears: SW, Disappears: NE
--
Jane Houston Jones
(Mobile)
