"Love is in the Stars" - MC article on about our observatory

Montgomery College just put out a nice article about our observatory nights. You can find it here.

"Love is in the Stars"

Observing log for 30 June 2017

The towering cumulus clouds stayed southwest of Rockville and the sky cleared! Seeing wasn't great, but we did manage to observe the following objects:

• A first quarter Moon
• The planet Jupiter
• The planet Saturn
• The globular cluster M13, (the Hercules cluster)
• The planetary nebula M57 (the Ring Nebula) located in the constellation Lyra
• Another planetary nebula, NGC 6826 (the "blinking planetary") located in the constellation Cygnus
• The double star Albireo, also located in Cygnus

Overall, not a bad night. Thank you everyone for your patience with the weather and the fantastic questions. It's an honor to get to share the observatory and night sky with you.

June / July Starmap

The starmap for June and July is here: MCAO June / July Starmap.

I create these maps using the wonderful http://www.heavens-above.com/ website and Stellarium software. (Stellarium is a free planetarium software program. If you'd like to know what's up in the sky, I highly recommend it!)