Outdoor Adventure USA

Off roading and back country camping affords us the opportunity to experience some of the clearest and least light polluted skies in the country. This net will explore the many ways to enjoy the pristine night sky. The discussion will include naked eye astronomy, binocular astronomy, telescopes types and mounts, computer driven mounts and software, and of course plenty of time for questions and answers.

I'll be posting some related links in the next couple of days.

Here is an example of some of the celestial objects to view. This is a montage of the 110 Messier objects -



Here are some useful web sites -

General astronomy information
http://www.skyandtelescope.com/
http://spaceweather.com/

Naked Eye Astronomy
http://www.jackstargazer.com

Stories of the constellations
http://www.ianridpath.com/startales/contents.htm

Satellite Observing
http://www.satobs.org/
http://www.heavens-above.com/
http://www.hobbyspace.com/SatWatching/

Telescope reviews
http://www.scopereviews.com/

Dark Skies
http://www.darkskiesawareness.org/
http://www.nps.gov/nabr/parknews/news040507.htm
http://www.darksky.org/

Solar Observing
http://astronomyonline.org/SolarSystem/SolarSafety.asp

Southern California Astronomy Events
PATS - Pacific Astronomy and Telescope Show
http://www.rtmcastronomyexpo.org/PATS.htm
RTMC Astronomy Expo
http://www.rtmcastronomyexpo.org
Nightfall
http://www.rtmcastronomyexpo.org/nightfall.htm

This should prove to be a fascinating net!

Sounds like a great net. Unfortunately BorregoFest will be a week later than the new moon. Still should be plenty to see out there.

gon2srf wrote:Unfortunately BorregoFest will be a week later than the new moon. Still should be plenty to see out there.

It will be just before the quarter moon, which means the moon will set about 11:20pm, just need to stay up a little later.

NotAMog wrote:Off roading and back country camping affords us the opportunity to experience some of the clearest and least light polluted skies in the country. This net will explore the many ways to enjoy the pristine night sky. The discussion will include naked eye astronomy, binocular astronomy, telescopes types and mounts, computer driven mounts and software, and of course plenty of time for questions and answers.

Great. We have a good telescope and we don't use it as much as we should.

socal_rubi wrote:

gon2srf wrote:Unfortunately BorregoFest will be a week later than the new moon. Still should be plenty to see out there.

It will be just before the quarter moon, which means the moon will set about 11:20pm, just need to stay up a little later.

We'll probably be getting back from our night run between 11:20 and 12:00.

gon2srf wrote:Sounds like a great net. Unfortunately BorregoFest will be a week later than the new moon. Still should be plenty to see out there.

After last BorregFests' potluck libations, I seem to recall a lot of "full moons" around the campfire - no telescope required...

cruiserlarry wrote:

gon2srf wrote:Sounds like a great net. Unfortunately BorregoFest will be a week later than the new moon. Still should be plenty to see out there.

After last BorregFests' potluck libations, I seem to recall a lot of "full moons" around the campfire - no telescope required...

Hence this link posted above...

Naked Eye Astronomy
http://www.jackstargazer.com

The audio of this net is available here.