What can you expect to see this weekend at the Community Observatory?

The thin crescent moon doesn’t rise until early morning, the weather is great with 0% clouds, and the humidity is low. It should be a good weekend to visit the Community Observatory.

The Sun is setting around 8:30 PM so it is dark enough by our 9 PM opening to start seeing things with our telescopes. The highlight of the early glomming is a very impressive conjunction of Jupiter and Venus. Those two objects are the brightest objects behind the Moon in the night sky. A conjunctions means that they appear to be quite close to each other. They aren’t actually close but they appear to be since they appear along the same line of site from our point-of-view. The closet approach was on Tuesday of this week when they were only 1.5° apart.

Another treat for those of you arriving around 9 PM I that you can see Mercury. Very few people have seen Mercury. It is elusive because its close orbit around the Sun means that it always rises or sets close to the sunrise or sunset. That means that it is always low in the West at sundown or in the East before sunrise. The sky in those directions is always glowing as the Sun is just below the horizon at those times making spotting it difficult. BUT, we know where it will be and how to spot it. Join us before 9:30 and we will help you spot it,

Summer is right around the corner. The Summer Triangle is visible in the East as we open and is working its way West throughout the night. This asterism (recognizable pattern) consists of three bright stars: Vega, Deneb, and Altair. They will be directly overhead in July and August. They also mark the path of the bright Milky Way. The Earth’s orbit is positioning us so we will be looking towards the core of our galaxy for the next few months.

Even though it actually happened 53 million years ago, we are still able to see the supernova SN2026kid. Light from this ancient event has been traveling that many light years and it just reached Earth on April 22nd of this year. It is in the “Splinter Galaxy” also known as NGC5907. There is a bright spot on this edge-on galaxy that wasn’t visible to us until that date. That spot is from a supernova on a large star that will eventually become either a black hole or a neutron star.

Our El Dorado County fair begins next week. You may want to visit the Photography Exhibit where astrophotography from some of our docents will be on display.

Our observatory doesn’t receive any public funds. We are supported by donations and fund-raising events. We will be sponsoring revenue sharing events with restaurants each third Tuesday of the month this summer. Our first one is on Tuesday, June 16th with Panda Express. We will receive 28% of the proceeds from sales on that date if you enter the code 9015719 in the Fundraiser Code box during online checkout at www.pandaexpress.com or via the App. Note, you must order online but you can stay and eat there, take it home, or have it delivered. Here is a link with all of the details.

It is probably still a good idea to bring a sweater or coat; it could still be cold. The Sun is setting at around 8:30 and we can start viewing objects when we open around 9 PM. Be sure to check our website (communityobservatory.com) after 3 PM on the day you plan to visit. If we are going to have a weather or smoke closure we will announce it by then. Expect to pay the college $2 to park.

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