Stay tuned for Mars 2018...
Here and gone. Updates soon(?)
In the meantime, if you live within about a 100 miles of St Louis Missouri and you're thinking of taking on the Astronomical League's Mars Observing Program, then here's a link to a nice ephemeris for Mars supporting that program and a link to a document on how to read it.
By the way: At the end of May a dust storm developed. We haven't seen Mars this good since it started:
What it looks like today, June 18 (at least from my 8 inch SCT here in Missouri):
I will say it appears more than a magnitude brighter than predicted.
As of July 7 it appears to be magnitude -3 at least. If this keeps up, it should be mag -5 by opposition on July 28th.
Keep you're eye on this guy, it just keeps getting larger and brighter smaller and dimmer with each passing day (we passed opposition a nd closest approach on 1 August 2018. In smaller telescopes like the 8" SCT, the dust storm still looks like the image above :(
Defeating dew one blanket at a time!
A judiciously commented photo album.
Or how to keep your batteries and controllers functional when it's almost sub-zero outside.
LTDSE
(Click on the image below to see the animation)
of the weather predictions along the 2017 total eclipse line.Locations West to East: Casper Wyoming is on the centerline Laing Park is near Alliance Nebraska (west) and is on the centerline Grand Island Nebraska (East) is on the centerline Missouri State University is St. Joseph Missouri and is on the centerline Columbia Missouri is on the Center line Danville Missouri Broemmelsiek Park Missouri St. Clair Missouri is on the Center line Carbondale Illinois is on the centerline Shepard' Valley Observatory is just north of the Centerline and is East of Nashville Tennessee
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Phases of the MoonPhases of the Moon
Animated Moon test (Trust me, it's a GIF - click on it...I dare ya ;)
(Click on image for full webpage)
This project was the stimulus for a spotlight article in the ShowMeSolar newsletter:
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