After a two-year absence, the Sunshine Coast astronomy club is bringing the popular Astronomy in the Park program back to Porpoise Bay Provincial Park in Sechelt on Sat. Aug. 11, 1-11:30pm. There will be club telescopes and displays. Weather permitting. The first “star” of the day will be the sun and, with the club’s safe ... Read More »
By April 1, Venus will be an “evening star”, setting nearly two hours after the Sun. Mercury will be about 4° above Venus in the dusk. On April 2 Mars will pass 1 1/4° below Saturn just above the constellation Sagittarius. On April 7 the waning moon will hang 1° above Saturn in the morning ... Read More »
Venus is slowly climbing in the evening sky through March and by the end of the month will be setting nearly two hours after the sun. At dusk between March 2 – 5 Venus and Mercury will be passing close to one another, and on March 3 will be only 1° apart low in the ... Read More »
2018 marks the 150th Anniversary of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada (RASC), the 10th anniversary of our Sunshine Coast Centre, and the 30th anniversary of our Sunshine Coast Astronomy Club. Neil Sandy and Merle Gerbrandt put out a newspaper notice in September 1988, and 28 people showed up at a local hall and soon ... Read More »
Starting Feb. 2, zodiacal light, sunlight scattered or reflected by interplanetary dust, will be visible in western evening sky for the next two weeks. On Feb. 7 the last-quarter moon with be 6° northwest of Jupiter at dawn. On Feb. 9 the waning crescent moon will be 4° northeast of Mars, and Mars will be ... Read More »
The New Year begins with a Supermoon on Jan. 1 as the full moon reachs its closest approach to earth (perigee) in 2018 (356,565 km) at 6:24pm. The Quadrantid meteor shower, which radiates out of the constellation Boötes (close to the Big Dipper) will peak at 1pm on Jan. 3 but unfortunately this is only ... Read More »
The Winter Solstice occurs on Dec. 21. The largest full moon of the year, the Great Moon, will be Dec. 3. Mercury will be visible in the morning sky early in December, and in the evening sky at the end of the month. Venus will be visible in the bright morning twilight early in the ... Read More »
Mercury will be will be well placed in the evening sky in November, achieving greatest elongation on the 24th and making a wide pair with the Moon on the 19th and 20th. Mercury will be 3° south of Saturn on the 28th. Venus is still prominent in the morning and will be 4° south of ... Read More »
In October Saturn will be very low in the southwestern sky at sunset and will set early in the evening. In the evening of October 3, the Moon will come within 0.7° of Neptune. Neptune and Uranus will be visible for most of the night. On the 5th Venus and Mars will be only 0.2° ... Read More »
The Sunshine Coast Astronomy Club Centre welcomes Christa Van Laerhoven, whose topic will be “Major Migrations: Rearranging the Solar System”, Sept. 8 at 7:30pm at the Arts Centre in Sechelt. Van Laerhoven is a postdoctoral fellow at UBC. She gained her PhD from the Department of Planetary Sciences at the University of Arizona in May ... Read More »
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