CTAS Public Star Parties in November

November 3, 2012

6:00pm to 9:00pm

The Central Texas Astronomical Society (CTAS) will host public star parties on Saturday, November 3^rd,from 6:00pm to 9:00pm. These free events will be held at Overlook Park outside Belton, the Waco Wetlands outside Waco, and at the Hubbard City Lakes Park in Hubbard. CTAS members will provide telescopes for public viewing. Guests are also welcome to bring their own telescopes.

The Scorpion Cluster (M52) is an open cluster of just under 200 stars located between the constellations Cassiopeia (the Queen) and Cepheus (the King).  Cassiopeia is easy to locate, being made up of bright stars and resembling the letter W.  Cepheus is larger and looks like a tall house, but its stars are not as bright.  M103 is an open cluster in Cassiopeia and is 8000 light years distant.   Herschels Garnet Star, aka Erakis, is a distinctly reddish star located in southern Cepheus.

The planets Uranus and Neptune are viewable all night.  Mars appears low in the west at Sunset.  Our evening of stargazing will finish up with views of colorful Jupiter and its four bright moons, which rise around 7:30pm.

We will look at these and many other celestial objects this month.  Please check our web site,http://www.centexastronomy.org, for directions to the site close to you and for more information. If this event is cancelled due to weather, a cancellation notice will be posted by 5:00PM on the CTAS website. You may register online for this event and receive monthly notices of our future events.

Participants may want to bring a small flashlight to get from the parking lot to the viewing area nearby and a lawn chair to make viewing more comfortable.