BennyD

Thanks! We got some conflicting reports about the parade of planets. Our local news organisations were talking it, but NASA said it wasn't going to be as spectacular as advertised because by the time all the planets got above the horizon, the sun would be out and obstruct the views. NASA said the best time to view the parade of planets would be on June 29th. We've had mostly storms and lots of cloud covers this month, so that's probably a good thing.

Definitely have plenty of warm nights! Wouldn’t be so bad if the humidity wasn’t so thick. We finally got a look at the Northern lights last month which is the first time in my lifetime that they’ve ever come down this far. We were also in the path of totality for the eclipse, so that was absolutely amazing. Maybe. The most surreal thing I’ve ever seen. All of these things converge in such close proximity, and it’s like a sign…start looking up!

Hello, everyone. My name is Ben, and I'm a middle school principal from Arkansas. My mom got me a telescope for my birthday. It's a beginner's telescope- 90mm aperture and 800mm focal length. I had my first viewing experience with it two nights ago. Right now, there are no planets or the moon available in our night sky, so I was a little worried about being able to find targets in the scope. Fortunately, I did a good enough job dialing in the finder scope that I was able to locate targets much, much easier than I anticipated. I used a combination of the naked eye, Stellarium and SkyView to locate and determine what stars to target. I found and watched each of the following stars for about 20 minutes move across the night sky: Regulus of Leo, Spica of Virgo, Menkent of Centauri, and Denebola of Leo. My favorite by far was Menkent. It was lower on the horizon than the other stars. It's an orange giant, and it twinkles orange in the sky to the naked eye and also in the binoculars. But, when I put the scope on it, it was a brilliant, bright yellow. It was unlike any of the other stars, and I was really fascinated by it. We have a fair bit of light pollution, I'm currently using the driveway, complete with streetlights and porch lights up and down the street. That said, I was very encouraged by what I was about to locate and view for my first day. I look forward to learning through experience and using the expertise on these forums to find all sorts of great and interesting things in the cosmos.