OVHA Chat

One other suggestion if you haven't done this; Glendale fish and wildlife has Dogwood lake, manmade flooded deal. When I was a kid, it had standing timber. Now over the years the tops have broke off so it's kind of creepy to canoe around with massive trees up to just below the surface but it's a fun lake with 10 hp limit so it's canoe/kayak friendly. They also have a decent campsite and no one has ever messed with my camp while I was off fishing. No reservations, just pull up, sign up and enjoy the weekend. I've always had a great time there. Pan fishing is great, largemouth fishing is what I mostly do. Mostly plastic worm due to all the structure complications but there are places where you can do a bit more casting and obviously topwater is a no brainer in the mornings and evenings.

Anyway, I was hoping to do this one soon too for a fishing day or 2.

Another thing I like to do is Astronomy. I've got a 20" dob and mostly take it to Dolan's Lake over in Illinois. Much darker skies there. We could do a joint adventure sometime if anyone else has a scope or you'd be welcome to join me sometime. If you haven't experienced a big dob, it's a lot of fun. Mostly deep sky objects like galaxies, globular clusters and nebulas.

I forgot all about that lake. I remember camping up there when I was a kid I believe. Looks like a great kayaking spot.

+1 on the astronomy. I don't have a scope but I've used an 8" and a 10" Schmidt–Cassegrain while in a college observational astronomy class. Full manual! Well, they did have equatorial mounts and motors.

Sweet!
Let me know if you ever want to check it out but it's a LOOOOONG night, depending on how long you stay out on a given night. It's like fishing, sometimes the seeing is too good to leave, other times the summer sky can look like potato soup. Oh and I do all manual as well. I like maps, nerdy I know but computers just don't make sense to me with this hobby. The people I observe with out there use them and are brilliant about the subject and locations. I guess it's just a gps vs old map thing. I like gps in the car but I like studying what I'm going to look at. Just makes it worth more to me.

I'm really hoping weekend after next I might make it up to Dogwood for a day fish.

I heard on the news tonight that the space station will be bright in the sky tonight. Along with Jupiter near the moon.

I ran out to Bluegrass to watch it, I've never seen it as bright or last as long. The timing was perfect as there were no clouds, and it was just light enough that there were no stars. It started at 90 degrees and went almost to the horizon before it faded. Spectacular!

Well carp! I should pay more attention and I wouldn't miss these things....

http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/realdata/tr ... index.html

useful tool for another day.

And http://spaceweather.com/ will send you emails for cosmic events.

Took the scope out this weekend to Dolan's Lake in Illinois. Unbelieveably clear dark skies this weekend. Covered quite a few Messier objects but it was mostly a nebula night with a few globular clusters and galaxies thrown in. When the popo man showed up trying to understand him, we showed him Jupiter and Andromeda and we were all happy again.

Still no beer on tap.
The aging continues.