Greetings all,
Unfortunately, the Syracuse skies are being particularly disagreeable today, with the current cloud cover only expected to get worse as the evening progresses. We are therefore canceling our event at the Onondaga Lake Parkway this afternoon, instead directing interested observers to the Slooh Community Observatory for less direct but more predictable views.
Additional events to be posted (hopefully attended) in the near future. Thanks for keeping track of site updates!
Greetings fellow astrophiles,
The skies are currently 20% clear over downtown Syracuse with predictions of worsening cloud cover as the day progresses. Accordingly, we’ll be waiting until 4:30 p.m. to make the final call on the Onondaga Lake Parkway session (for more details, including the location, see the previous link HERE).
In the meantime, there are routes to seeing the eclipse (and, very likely, the massive sunspot currently pointed near our way) in real time from the comfort of your own internet connection. The good amateur astronomers at the Slooh Community Observatory will be live streaming the event starting at 5:00 p.m. Eastern.
That said, we await the afternoon skies to see if our session will happen. Stay Tuned!
Greetings fellow astrophiles,
The forecast for Thursday (Oct. 23rd) presently isn’t all that pleasant for observing the upcoming partial solar eclipse, but 3 days is a long time for CNY forecasting. We will keep track of the weather over the next few days and will announce on this site and our Facebook Page accordingly.
The current location for the session will be the very southern end of the Onondaga Lake Parkway, just below the baseball diamond shown in the google map below.
For those willing to brave that left-hand turn at the main entrance, you need only loop left on the Parkway to get to the large parking lot at the southern end. For those NOT interested in fighting any rush hour traffic, we advise making a driving map that has you going past Heid’s, turning left onto 1st Street, making the left onto Lake Drive, then meander your way along to Onondaga Lake Parkway to get to the south end.
All of the data I’ve found so far for New York indicates the eclipse will start at 5:43 p.m. And go well past sunset (at which point it does’t matter to us anyway). The CNYO board will have several solar scopes and solar glasses there, so all you need do is show up! If you’ve solar equipment you want to bring, by all means do so.
Attendees may even be in for a special treat, as there’s currently a MASSIVE sunspot gracing the Sun’s surface. Seriously, look at the size of that thing in the image from NASA SOHO below:
As always, keep track of this website for weather updates, with the final call being made on Thursday afternoon. We hope you can join us!
Greetings Fellow astrophiles!
Several upcoming events of note – three of which depend on the weather, one of which is a go either way.
NOTE: Please contact us at info@cnyo.org, on our Contact Page, or on the Facebook Page about the event. This is event is weather-permitting and is a one-time event (no rescheduling)! Keep track of this website for updates on the 19th.
Comet C/2013 A1 Siding Spring is going to side-swipe Mars at 2:27 p.m. Eastern time at a distance 1/3 that of the Earth-Moon distance. That’s an astronomical close-call by all metrics! That’s close enough that NASA has reportedly taken steps to protect its robot fleet in Mars’ orbit.
Now, this is a rare and special event, but we’re going to miss the closest-approach by several hours (waiting for sunset at 6:15 p.m., that is, then the additional wait for the sky to get darker). The view of Mars and Siding Spring through a single eyepiece should be great, but it’s going to require a dark, dark location to see them both well. To accommodate this, Ryan Goodson will be leading a session at Happy Valley outside of Parish, NY.
Odd history aside, this is a dark sky location if ever there was one in CNY. If you’ve interest in attending, we ask that you contact us via the methods listed above for directions and so we can get a head count. Mars will set around 9:00 p.m., so this session with the drive North should still get you home by 10 p.m. (Unless you decide to stick around for some additional observing).
The constellation Orion is appearing earlier every evening, marking the beginning of the winter observing session (and return of some of the best objects the Night Sky has to offer the well-insulated amateur astronomer). Those staying up late (or waking up extra-early) will be treated to the first spectacle Orion has to offer in the form of the Orionids, which peak early Tuesday morning. This shower isn’t known for quantity (10 to 25/hour) but has been known for some particularly brilliant shooters. This is also a chance for those who’ve never seen Halley’s Comet to say they’ve at least seen a teeny, tiny piece of it, as this comet’s debris field is the feeder for this late-fall shower.
As with all meteor showers, dark skies = better skies. As for observing the shower itself, your best bet is to lie down with your feet pointed at Orion, then wait (patiently) as the shooters shoot over your feet and towards your head.
NOTE: This event is weather-permitting and can’t be rescheduled! Keep track of this website for updates on the 23rd.
We had a limited glimpse of the recent total lunar eclipse just a few weeks ago, now have a chance to see the tables turned in the form of a partial solar eclipse. This will be a small clipping of the Sun by the New Moon and will happen VERY close to sunset – close enough that we’ll miss most of the eclipse when the Sun sets below the Western horizon. Because of that, we’re still looking for an observing location that’s up high and with a low horizon. Our plan right now is to meet at the parking lot next to the Onondaga Lake Inner Harbor Amphitheater (where we ran our first-ever CNYO session) but we’re also considering the southern end of the Onondaga Lake Parkway. We will make final decision in the next few days.
We’ll have about 25 minutes (5:44 to 6:09) of partial solar eclipse if the skies hold and the horizon’s low. More details (like location) to follow as we finalize event details.
Our friends (and, for some of us, fellow members) of the Kopernik Astronomical Society are getting ready to host their annual AstroFest, always one of the very best events of its kind in New York. Having already posted the official announcement on cnyo.org, I’ll leave you to the Kopernik AstroFest website to learn more about the Friday/Saturday festivities. Several of us are still planning on attending both days of the event and are willing to carpool down. Please drop a line to info@cnyo.org or our Facebook Page for arrangements.
