Thursday, March 6, 2014

Thursday, March 6, 2014 - Brief Notes

  When one observes outside with a telescope that runs off AC power from an outlet on the side of the house, and the patio has been covered with piles of snow for most of the last three months, one ends up doing very little observing! If you measure the winter season as December 1 - February 28, Indianapolis just ended its record snowiest winter in history. It's been more than 30 years since a season this bad; not just with the snowfall, but also the number of nights with below zero (°F) temperatures.

  The good news is that March is here. It started off with a snow and ice event on Sunday the 2nd and a couple of much colder than normal days following it. But as we reach the end of this first full week of March, temperatures are starting to moderate, a lot of the snow is gone, and the urge to get out and do some meaningful amateur astronomy is growing!

  I'm currently researching neglected Eclipsing Binary stars and good spring and summer YSO targets to start regularly observing. I'm also planning to do more meteor shower work and hopefully lunar observing. After a long dormant period, I hope to start getting out under the night sky soon and posting my observations here again.

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