UPDATE: Canceled for April 18th (80%+ cloud cover). Getting astronomy withdrawal from extended cloud cover? Check out “Introduction to Astronomy: Crash Course Astronomy #1” for the start of a new Astronomy series.
We’ll be trying for a telescope viewing on Saturday April 18th, 8:30-10:30pm. Jupiter will be our main target for the evening.
UPDATE: No viewing evening of Saturday April 11th (too cloudy)
The Cleardarksky predictions for Charlottetown the evening of Saturday April 11th are pretty bad, so we are cancelling the viewing for tonight. I’m contacting volunteers to try and reschedule for next Thursday or Saturday evening and the TBA in title above will be updated once confirmed. The later part of the next week currently has “mainly sunny” as the forecast for Wednesday to Saturday.
Canada’s “Space”, the science fiction television station, has a nice collection of information on star watching, including videos that give tips and information on stars and our solar system’s planets, telescope tips and some nice photos. .
So what will the weather be this upcoming Saturday evening, March 21st?
As of Mar 19 — evening not defined yet. Prediction for Saturday is for “a few flurries” with 1cm of snow and 5-10mm of rain.
As of late on Mar 20th — evening with “mixed precipitation” and the Clear Sky Clock has it too cloudy to forecast. Will check in the morning, but not looking good for tomorrow evening.
As of 1pm Mar 21st — best we can expect is 70% cloud covered to completely overcast. Evening viewing cancelled.
I’m sorry to say that this website has been found by the spam-bots. You really don’t want to know about the kinds of emails that have been filling my inbox lately. I’ve been blocking them, but I also have to check and delete them manually. For at least the short term, I’m going to have to turn off comments.
Jupiter and Venus continue to be great solar objects to check out for March. The Harvard-Smithsonian has a nice little synopsis of the night skies here. If you want more detailed information, there’s a lot of other sites out there. The site freestarcharts.com has a lot of information and a PDF chart for how to find Jupiter in the sky.
The Harvard-Smithsonian also has some nice graphics to let you know why you HAVEN’T been hearing about a lunar eclipse (where the moon blocks out the sun during the day) on March 20th — that’s because we won’t see it in most of Canada. Newfoundland and other areas on the most eastern edges will see a bit of coverage.
A storm is set to arrive in PEI on Sunday March 15th and the clouds are not looking good for a viewing this Saturday evening so we won’t be having a viewing on Saturday Mar 14th. Next possible viewing scheduled for Saturday Mar 21st, 8-10pm.
Picture below taken from the Clear Sky Clock Charlottetown site with details showing for 8pm (clouds moving in). When checked after 4pm on Friday, situation has worsened.
