The Western Kentucky Astronomers Association (the local amateur astronomy group) had their monthly meeting last Saturday at Golden Pond Observatory, in Land Between the Lakes National Recreation Area, Kentucky.
Here's the Clear Sky Chart for this location.
On Saturday, the conditions were excellent. This is a pretty dark area for the east, with no major cities within an hour's drive. There is a noticeable light dome to the south and west, but the Milky Way is very obvious, even in winter.
There's also a planetarium that has both "real" astronomy shows and laser shows during various times of the year.
In addition to a small bit of outreach with Friends of Land Between the Lakes, we had plenty of time for our own observing. A club member gave me an easy tip for finding the Helix Nebula, and I was happy to discover how easy it was to find.
The Helix is a large, low-surface brightness object. It's roughly 1/2 degree in diameter. Without any filtration, you need to know it's there, or you'd easily scan right past it. With an O-III filter, it's huge, but somewhat hard to view because nearly all of the stars are also filtered out. With an UHC filter, the view was more pleasing.
Although I'm a short-timer here in western Kentucky, I joined the local astronomy group because I like their observing location and I find the members very friendly. I just wanted to do my part to help support them financially.
The next Western Kentucky Astronomers meeting is scheduled for Saturday, November 19. That meeting will probably be early, because many club members are going to be helping with a Nature Station educational event for cub scouts. Check the WKAA website for updates. Their website is www.wkaa.net.
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