The Sun and Moon go through near-perfect alignments. We'll have a partial solar eclipse* on Oct 23. Try to spot Mercury naked eye at the end of October. Uranus and Neptune show off different shades of blue and tiny moons. Comets abound.
For a few minutes around 8pm on September 12, Lynn Hillborn was able to image this aurora from Grafton, Ontario.
For September, and a little bit of October, we'll enjoy some planetary conjunctions and a total lunar eclipse. You can do some citizen science by participating in the September campaign of the Globe at Night.
Comet Jacques with M52, the Bubble nebula and the Cave nebula. Click on the image to enlarge.
Taken by Lynn Hilborn, Whistlestop Observatory, Grafton Ontario, August 27, 2014
Chris Vaughan delivered the following The Sky This Month presentation at the 6 August 2014 Recreational Astronomy Night Meeting at the Ontario Science Centre. The notes have been reproduced here.
A 10-week course for space exploration fans who want to learn maker skills and technologies. No experience required – get up to speed with maker tech with this fun and exciting theme!
Risa Horowitz captured this image Friday July 25 at the Carr Astronomical Observatory. From the observing pad facing south Ian Wheelband's dobsonian telescope was in fine form. Risa and Ian were joined by Blake Nancarrow.
Thank you Doug Isherwood for sharing this image of the happy members who spent the day at the Carr Astronomical Observatory on Saturday after a very successful Star-B-Q. Stay tuned for the full report coming to our SCOPE newsletter soon.
Ever seen Pluto?
Here's an animation of Pluto taken in July by Paul Mortfield, from Sierra Remote Observatories, CA, USA. Click on the image to see this dwarf planet move.
The North star, Polaris, shines brightly in the left frame of this image, swimming in a murky pool of dust. In the right side of the frame is globular cluster NGC 188. Click on the image and enlarge.
An elephant, a bat and a squid walked into a bar... Here we have the newly discovered ( by an amateur astronomer) "squid", now known as OU4, a fragile blue OIII image enbedded in the red "bat" (Sh2-129) at the lower right.
A number of planets are visible this month including Mercury and Venus in the morning and Saturn after sunset. Asteroids Ceres and Vesta are moving apart but still fit in a binocular field.
On Saturday, July 5th Manuel Guerrero took this image of the Moon near Mars. Click on the image and enlarge.
On Monday, July 7th, the Moon visited Saturn, as seen in this image by Bill Longo. Click on the image and enlarge to see more detail.
The annual CAO spring work party held on the weekend of the 23rd-25th of May 2014 was an amazing success.