The UNM Campus Observatory is open to the public for viewing on Friday evenings and TAAS (The Albuquerque Astronomical Society) helps out by bringing some additional telescopes and setting them up for additional viewing options. I am the Coordinator for TAAS with UNM so I am usually there on Fridays with other TAAS members and we always make new Friends.

Shane is seen here with Sonya showing me were Jupiter is in the sky (or maybe it was just a star) but Sonya seen with her mom were visiting us from Oklahoma City, they were passing through on their way home from the Grand Canyon and we are glad to be able to call them friends now. We meet lots of new people at UNM on Friday nights and every now and then we meet some new friends and we are hoping to hear from Sonya and her family again soon.

Moonless Jupiter, but not earth!

Dancing Moon and Jupiter, trying to take pictures of the Moon and Jupiter in the night sky without a tripod is very difficult to do, this is the result of that effort.

Another post of the Moon taken using my Star Blaster Telescope 4.5" with the camera hand held up to the eyepiece. Both of these were taken on Wednesday evening when Jupiter lost its moons for a few hours (they were either in front of or behind the planet so you could not see them) it was a very impressive site and will not happen again for like 10 years or something, I had used the Moon as a finder when looking for Jupiter in my telescope. I did not take the time to attach the finder scope so I used the Bright Moon as a starting point to try and find Jupiter and it worked but I was a little distracted with how beautiful the moon was so I spent about 5 or 10 minutes looking at Jupiter and then spent the next 30 or 40 minutes looking at the Moon.

I really enjoy looking at the moon, and will start to learn some of the features of the moon by name.