Hello,

I am a gentleman in my 50's who loves astronomy. I have done stargazing with a 6" Newtonian reflector Celestron over the past 10 years. Recently my dear wife bought me a wonderful Christmas present, a 12" Dobsonian Meade Lightbridge Telescope. I also just joined the RASC, Edmonton Centre. I have set myself a goal of viewing all the Messier objects that can be seen from the Edmonton, Alberta region.

I have 2 questions:

Has anyone else been viewing or photographing Eros during its current close approach? I found it in Leo the other night using 7x50 binoculars in less-than-perfect skies. Over three hours, I could definitely detect motion against the stars. I could see mag 4.5 stars unaided and mag 9 stars in the binos, so the mag 8.5 asteroid was just visible.

Note to software users: make sure you update the orbital elements if making your own finder charts!

Submitted by nikki72

Anyone who’s met me knows this to be true: I don’t shut up. I’ve seen or heard the words “too chatty,” “talks too much” and “chatterbox” more times than I can count. Worst still is when friends or family ask me about the universe. But observing? That has always been a lone activity for me.

For the second year in a row, I visited two provincial parks on consecutive days. On June 29, I drove from my home in Melville, Saskatchewan, the 3.5 hours to Greenwater Lake Provincial Park, where I met with one of the park interpreters. She and I set up my telescopes on the lawn in front of the concession -- always a good place, since it's on the direct line from the beach to the ice cream! I estimate that 150 people viewed our Sun that day through both H-alpha and white light filters.

Submitted by BWeir

Ever since I was young and got my first telescope I’ve always wanted to see the sun. Of course you can’t actually look at the sun, at least not directly. My first telescope was something that might have been featured on the “Cheap Astronomy” podcast—a three inch Newtonian but it came with a projection screen eyepiece attachment. I tried in vain to see sunspots and I guess, since then, that’s been my obsession. I’ve wanted to see the sun and learn as much as I can about it.