MnAstro Forums

Will be opening the Onan observatory for the Camelopardalids Meteor Shower:

Eagle Lake Observatory
Baylor Regional Park
Saturday morning, 5/24
12 AM to 3 AM
Everyone welcome!

I'm going to attempt to get my wife out there! It is looking like it is going to be a great night to be out!

Some of us are headed down to CGO. It will be interesting to see who lucks out with the best skies.

... and some are heading to Crex Meadows in Wisconsin.

I'm still a bit undecided.

I trying to finish up staining my deck, then off to CGO. Doubt I will make to early morning.

Well, at least there weren't any bugs or dew.....OR METEORS.

It was a gorgeous night at ELO, but if anything, there were fewer meteors than on a night when you aren't expecting any. I saw zero. I heard other people saw about two. It was hazy but mostly clear until around 2:30 when it clouded up pretty solid. Still, the best night so far this year (on a weekend) for astronomy. I'm glad I brought a scope. I got to look at Mars, Saturn, and a few other favorites.

We had a fair number of visitors - the vehicle traffic was running at the rate of one every few minutes for a while. There were people set up with scopes all around the plaza, and there were lines to look through the Onan scopes. Too bad Merle wasn't there to estimate the crowds :) Thanks to Ron for instigating and hosting.

We had very similar experiences at Cherry Grove that Deane had at ELO. We had a nice crowd, probably 20 in all. Kirby R showed us the Panstar comet which was fun. As far as the meteors where concerned, not much. I'm waiting to hear from the group that was in Wis.

Similar results at LLCC.

I forgot to mention that channel 11 news sent their weather guy out to ELO last night, and they interviewed Ron. The video is available on the KARE-11 app, and I presume on their web site. I hope Ron doesn't mind me mentioning this, since the actual shower was a dud.

Crex Meadows: Six MAS members with scopes plus family members (Cute puppy, Dick!). We had skies that looked clear but this was deceptive as the contrast was not very good and I had little luck hunting galaxies with my 10" dob. I think there was more high haze than we gave it credit for, and the haze and low clouds magnified the local light domes from Grantsburg and ?Hinckley - straight up was the only place I could find anything faint. We watched a shadow transit on Jupiter early on, and had good crisp views of Saturn and Mars as well. The usual sky candy for the season - M13, M57, M101, Albireo etc. Meteors - we as a group saw two fireballs and about a dozen ordinary meteors. Some of us didn't see either of the two fireballs, but fortunately for me I saw the first one. The radiant was pretty much as predicted - the meteors I saw, all but one were on vectors from the right spot. But clearly not a dazzling performance by the meteors......Clouds around the edges to the west and south, and later it clouded up. We heard loons as well as many other birds and frogs and such. No dew - the viewing area is a dirt parking lot on a local high spot. We packed up and left between 2:30 and 3:00.