Community Observatory

  What can you expect to see at the Community Observatory this weekend?   Happy Halloween! We will be hosting a spooky sky night on Friday with costumes and candy for the kids. We will have a special slide show featuring some spooky deep sky objects. Costumes are optional. The image today is the “Ghost Nebula.”   We are expecting a gibbous waxing moon this weekend.   The full Harvest Moon falls next Wednesday so the moon for both this and next weekend will be quite bright. Nevertheless, clear, cold skies are expected. We should still see some excellent objects. Bring your jacket and a knit cap.   Our big tarmac scopes will give some excellent high-power views of the gibbous moon. The craters and mountains on the moon will be sharply defined. Saturn is also magnificent in our scopes. Expect to see its edge-on rings. It looks like a line through the center of the planet rather than a ring. This is a phenomenon that occurs every 15 years as the rings al...

What can you expect to see at the Community Observatory this weekend?   The excitement for the next month is all about COMETS. With a 6:23 PM sunset and an 18% Moon that does not rise until after 2:00 AM we should have dark enough skies to start seeing them by our 7:30 PM opening. Expect it to be clear and cold with nighttime temperatures in the 50’s.   We currently have two relatively bright comets that will likely be visible soon after we open. Both will be near the horizon so you need to come early if you expect to see them. Neither will be naked-eye visible but they should be visible in binoculars and in our telescopes. Comet C/2025 R2 (SWAN) is below the bright star Arcturus and it will set around 10:30 but will likely be too low to see from the observatory well before that. Comet C/2025 A6 (Lemmon) will be below the tail of the Big Dipper and will set around 9 PM, Both comets are getting higher in the sky each night and prime viewing will be later next week.  We...

  What can you expect to see at the Community Observatory this weekend?  October 10-11, 2025   Grab your jackets! Fall is here and the weather is variable. It looks like both Friday and Saturday should have clear enough skies for us to open. DO get in the habit of checking communityobservatory.com or our Face Book page after 3 PM on the day you plan to visit. If we are going to close, we will announce it by then. The full moon was Monday and the waning gibbous moon won’t rise until close to 9 PM on Friday and later on Saturday. With the Sun setting around 6:30, we should have some nice dark skies as we open at 7:30 and throughout the evening.   The Earth’s evening skies are facing an interesting part of the sky. The Big Dipper is receding into the northwest and the “W” shaped asterism of Cassiopea has moved overhead. The Great Square of Pegasus is below Cassiopea and, with a bit of imagination can be seen as a flying horse. The Pegasus Globular Cluster is one of ...

  What can you expect to see at the Community Observatory this weekend?   Welcome to Fall. This weather has us watching the forecast to see if we are likely to be able to have a clear sky on Friday and Saturday. Friday is looking possible and Saturday is likely. We will also have an almost full Moon with the full “Harvest Moon” falling on Sunday. We will have also switched to our winter schedule of 7:30-9:30 PM this weekend. Be SURE to check our calendar on communityobservatory.com after 3 PM on the day you want to attend to make sure we will be open.   We have solar viewing during the Sherwood Demonstration Garden’s “Fall into Gardening” event on Saturday Morning. The weather is looking good for that. Expect the Sun to be impressive in our dedicated solar scopes that can show both a white-light view that shows the surface details like sunspots and our “hydrogen-alpha” scopes that show flares and prominences. Our dedicated crew will be there to describe what you a...