Probably a lot of you are city dwellers, and therefore the night sky is largely hidden to many of you. However, if you look to the East around 21:00 or so, Jupiter has started rising again for us here in North America. Danielle and I recently purchased 16x80 binoculars and can see the Galilean satellites of Jupiter. If you haven't seen them, it is definitely a must. Nothing makes you really understand the power and vastness of the universe until you witness it first hand (opinion). Saturn is still up early, but that was much less awesome as the rings were barely visible, although we did see Titan.

It is really dark out here. If you are interested we live about three miles West of Parnell; virtually zero light pollution. When we were looking at places to live back in October of last year, we pulled off the road and got out, just to see what we could see. We looked up and it was amazing. You can see the cosmic dust of the Milky Way very clearly on a humidity free fall day (not to mention all winter if you are willing to endure the blasting wind/cold).

If there is interest, we would be willing to host a meetup out here in the boonies and do some star gazing. Jupiter will begin rising earlier and earlier as time progresses. It is kind of a haul from CR/IC, which is largely why we haven't met you guys. However, we have a really large house for 2 people, and 9 acres of beautiful pasture/garden/orchard ground. Lots of room for a lot of people to stay if they are inclined (certainly welcome, a futon, pull out couch, queen bed, a couple of regular couches and a lot of floorspace). We are homebrewers too so we have two beers on tap always, and about to have a third.

Anyway, regardless, a small investment in some high powered light bucket binoculars can show you some crazy things you only dreamed of seeing first hand.

by the way: if you have never looked at celestial objects before, it gives you an impression of how unbelievably fast we are moving. I left to post this for about 10 minutes and Jupiter has already moved out of the field of view. I should also mention that Jupiter itself is really cool to look at in and of itself, you can't quite make the banding out, but you can see that it is clearly not a star. I'd like to wake up at 04:00 and take a look at Venus, but I have a rule about waking up that early and how long it will be before a fishing pole is in my hand, if you get my drift.

That sounds fantastic! Since I happen to love driving, I'll volunteer to help shuttle people out there -- my trusty Lesbaru can accomodate up to four passengers. And the homebrew would just be icing on the cake... what styles do you generally do?

This sounds really cool. We would be interested in attending. Let us know when and how to get there. Our August calendar is full so hopefully it would be later.

Sounds awesome, Stephen. I live in Williamsburg so it's not far for me .

I'll figure something out. Probably second half of September (it would be better then anyway).

Scott, yes that would be a short drive. I didn't know any of the A team lived this far out.

Stephen, this sounds AMAZING!!! And, no, I have never looked at celestial objects firsthand before. As long as you have a 1st floor bathroom with a door width of at least 2', I'm good! And I can shuttle 2 or 3 people. What a super-cool and generous idea for the group. Thank you!

You can get official feedback from the group about a meetup idea by going to the Calender section, "Ideas for Meetups" tab.

... It is really dark out here ... If there is interest, we would be willing to host a meetup out here in the boonies and do some star gazing.

I am very interested, and could even bring a telescope or two. Just name the date!

In fact if you're willing, there's a good chance that Dan Bastemeyer, IC's astronomy club president, would love to come as well -- he's a humble encyclopedia of astronomical facts, loves star parties and sharing his scope, and is fascinating to listen to.

... We are homebrewers too so we have two beers on tap always, and about to have a third.

You'll throw a star party, your house location was partially chosen because of how dark it is there, *and* you've got homebrew? There is a god!

Wow, glad to see there is good interest in this.

Joy, no problem, we can certainly accomodate.

Ken, holy crap! that sounds amazing. I would love to see through a real telescope. Totally willing for astronomy club people too. We have been looking at them recently. We bought the binocs (Vixen 16x80) as a intro to see if we really were interested in this, and now I'm scheming to figure out how to pay for a really big scope (really big).

There may be god............ but the way I look at life is you might as well see a bunch of really cool things while you are alive, and meanwhile drink some really good booze!

I am most definitely interested. I have a handheld 16x telescope that works really well for looking at the moon.