April B-SIG: Saturday April 20th - 1-3pm - Southdale Library

[Sureshks]

Hello everyone,

It's April and (supposedly) Spring has sprung. To celebrate, we will be hosting two B-SIG events on Saturday April 20th.

First, I will be presenting "All About Telescopes" at the Helen Young Room at Southdale Public Library, starting at 1:00pm.

It's time to pull those telescopes out of the basement!! If you've got questions on how to set up or use your telescope, you can bring it to this meeting and we can try to help you. Due to the configuration of Southdale Library, it may be best to do this after the presentation ends, in the main parking lot. Please let me know in advance if you plan on bringing a telescope to be looked at so we can assign people to help.

Southdale Public Library: 7001 York Ave S, Edina, MN 55435

Then, weather permitting, we will host our first B-SIG observing session of 2019 at Eagle Lake Observatory (ELO), starting at 7:00pm.

So bring your dusty telescope and your star maps, and let's view the Spring galaxies, star clusters and constellations!!

April is a great time to look for Messier objects, or to get started on a new personal list that you've been thinking about. We can help!!

If you don't have a telescope, we will have plenty for you to look thru.

Please note that though MAS does not charge for observing at ELO, the park charges $5 to enter.

I will make the weather call on Friday afternoon 4/19. Check back here for confirmation.

We hope that you can join us!!

Suresh

[farnhamtodd]

I've got work during the presentation but I'm going to try to make the observing session. Will there be people at the observing session that will be able to help too? I just got my first telescope from a friend selling his rig but I haven't been able to practice polar and star alignments with it yet.

[Sureshks]

Hi Todd,

Yes, there will be people present to help out on Saturday night.

What kind of telescope and mount do you have?

Suresh

[Sureshks]

Hi all,

As Saturday evening looks clear, we still need some help at ELO for our first B-SIG observing session of 2019.

Please respond if you're able to bring a scope and help us out... the event is scheduled to begin at 7:00pm that night.

Thanks in advance!

Suresh

[farnhamtodd]

I have the Explore Scientific ED102 carbon fiber model, the Skywatcher AZ-EQ5 Goto mount, and the corresponding polar scope for it. No guide scope or camera though.

[Sureshks]

Hello,

Did you mean to post this under the Marketplace Forum?

Or are you volunteering to bring this to Saturday's BSIG?

Thanks!

Suresh

[SEmert]

Can I come to help out? I figured I'll bring my C8 on AVX mount.

Edit/addition: And will have collimation tools for Newtonians and other tools with me to help with other types of scopes if needed.

[littlesammy]

I'll be at the meeting, would there be someone that could give me some pointers on a c8 with a wedge pod?

[farnhamtodd]

Sorry, I maybe should have quoted your question to me Suresh, you asked me what telescope I had that I was asking for help with, I wasn't meaning to post it under marketplace, no. I'll have it with me for Saturday.

[Sureshks]

Hi everybody,

Based on the good weather predictions for Saturday night the first B-SIG observing session at Eagle Lake Observatory is a GO!!!

Let's plan on meeting at ELO around 7pm, which will give everyone enough daylight to set up before sunset at 8:03pm.

And, don't forget about the presentation "All About Telescopes" at 1pm in the Helen Young room at Southdale Library too!!

We've got a busy B-SIG day tomorrow!! We hope to see you!!

Suresh

[Sureshks]

Sorry guys, looks like I'm behind on BSIG questions:

- Steve, absolutely... we'll love to have you at ELO on Saturday night!

- Ron -- yes, let's take a look at your C8 after the meeting. If you can bring it up to the room that'd be great (there's an elevator). Otherwise, the parking lot will be fine.

- Todd -- sure thing, bring your scope to ELO and we can help you with polar/star aligning with your EQ5 mount.

Suresh

[farnhamtodd]

Thanks for setting up the events Suresh.

It was a pleasure to meet everyone last night at the observation session and I appreciate all the help I got with my new refractor scope and GEM.

Todd

[Sureshks]

Hey Todd,

It was great meeting you. I'm glad we were able to get your mount figured out. Next weekend the Moon doesn't rise till after 2:30am. If it's clear I want to head down to CGO to do some darker sky imaging. I'm already packed.

I hope you can join us!

Suresh

[farnhamtodd]

Hey Todd,

It was great meeting you. I'm glad we were able to get your mount figured out. Next weekend the Moon doesn't rise till after 2:30am. If it's clear I want to head down to CGO to do some darker sky imaging. I'm already packed.

I hope you can join us!

Suresh

Which day are you going down? It looks like both Friday and Saturday are on the schedule so I'm just curious. I'll have to pull together some info and programs for my laptop, haha.

Which software are you using out of curiosity? Stellarium/Cartes du Ciel and SGP, APT, or Backyard Nikon/Canon?

[Sureshks]

Hi Todd,

It's largely dependent on the weather next weekend, but I could go down there either night. I use BackyardNikon to control my camera and StellariumScope to control my mount.

Suresh