Bucks-Mont Astronomical Association

Be sure to "Look to the Western skies" in the next hour or so to catch the closest approach between Venus (brighter and slightly higher) and the descending Jupiter. Pretty sight.

The Jupiter / Venus Dance in the western sky this weekend. Like ships passing in the night, Venus and Jupiter will approach and pass each other just after sunset the next few days. Venus will be the brighter of the pair, as she climbs past a descending Jupiter. If you have binoculars or a small telescope, you might be able to see Jupiter's four largest moons, Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto. However, on the night of the closest approach June 8th, "Io" will be in front of the disk of Jupiter, so you might only see three of the Moons easily. The moons of Jupiter were first revealed to human eyes by none other than the great Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei in 1610.
An 8" or larger telescope will often show the prominent cloud bands on Jupiter. These are rising and falling gasses of Ammonia. The rising gasses appear whitish, while the sinking layers of ammonia will look reddish brown.
Finally, if any of our followers were born under the zodiac sign of Gemini, the heads of the twins Pollux and Castor are the two bright stars just to above and to the right of Venus and Jupiter. Usually around the first day of Summer, the Gemini twins look like they are standing on the horizon just after sunset.
Image credit: Stellarium

Monthly Club Meeting this Wednesday June 3rd at 7:30 PM
FREE and open to the public.
In addition to our regular agenda items:
NASA What's Up for June
Bob's Observing Challenging
Club Updates

We will have a special presentation from club member and Co-VP John Urbanchuk:

This presentation will cover the basics of using a star tracker with a DSLR or small telescope. Star trackers are relatively simple devices that allow the astrophotographer to take images that avoid star trails. They are best suited for DSLRs and wide angle or telescopic lenses. I will describe what a star tracker is, what is best at doing, what to look for when buying one, how to estimate exposure time before stars begin to track, and polar alignment, I also will discuss several popular star trackers and their prices, including the new smart telescopes, and show some examples of the images I have taken with my trackers.

Location
Monthly club meetings are IN PERSON and also ONLINE via ZOOM. In Person meetings are held at Upper Dublin Lutheran Church 411 Susquehanna Road in Ambler, PA. (Just minutes from the Rt 309 Expressway)
Zoom Link available here on our website: https://bma2.org/our-events/

Saturday May 30th 8:30 Pm - 10:30 PM Full Moon Hike and Lunar Observing with telescopes and binoculars at the Fishing Pier in Nockamixon State Park!
Enjoy an interesting walk in the park after sunset on a guided trail hike with the Environmental Educational Specialist. At the conclusion of your walk, we'll have some telescopes and binoculars available for you to get some up close views of this unique "Blue Micro Moon" (which is neither blue, and only about 6-7% smaller than a regular full Moon).
You need to pre-register for this FREE event at https://events.dcnr.pa.gov/event/full-moon-walk-blue-moon

Such a pretty sight tonight in the NW sky. A Crescent Moon and Venus are paired up just a few degrees apart. They'll be sinking down to the horizon in the next hour. So go outside and catch them. The bright object about a hand's width up and to the left is Jupiter following right behind.
Also, check out the nice "Earthshine" on the part of the Moon not being directly lit up by the Sun. This is light that is bouncing off Earth's oceans, back up into space and being picked up by the Moon. This was first explained and sketched by Leonardo da Vinci in 1510!

A "Tip-O-The-Hat" to our faithful followers that came out to Nockamixon State Park last night for a warm, but cloudy evening. Even though we couldn't see the many exciting things as this lucky Victorian astronomer, we still had an enjoyable time chatting with you, sharing the telescopes on the field and letting you try your hand at binocular observations. Hopefully, the next star watch on June 13th will clear and wonderfully bright with stars!
(AI Firefly generated image)

Sorry for the late notice.
Tonight's May club meeting begins either in-person or online via Zoom at 7:30 PM. Our meetings are held at Upper Dublin Lutheran Church 411 Susquehanna Road in Ambler, PA. A Zoom link for the meeting may be obtained at this page on our website - https://bma2.org/our-events/
Our main topic will be a continuation of the Deep Sky imaging presentation. Tonight James Cahill and Ron Brooks will be focusing on using the popular imaging app "PixInsight" for post processing of astronomical images. Although the spectacular images our astrophotographers produce may seem like magic, it is really the skills and knowledge of the user to make the magic happen.
Gemini AI generated image

Announcement: The 2026 Earth Day event at Nockamixon State Park is being moved to Saturday May 2nd, due to rainy weather expected this weekend. See you on the 2nd at the Marina.

Unfortunately this beautiful Saturday weather looks like it is going to be going downhill this evening. All of our weather models are showing cloudy conditions starting at 8 PM and continuing through the night and into Sunday. So we have to cancel tonight's Star Watch at Nockamixon State Park and try again on Saturday May 16th.😞

March 4th 2026 Monthly Club Meeting – “Origins of Cosmology from Ancient Greece to Galileo” – with Bill duBell & Jim Cook.
In-person and via Zoom beginning at 7:30 PM.
In-person at Upper Dublin Luther Church
411 Susquehanna Road in Ambler, PA.
Zoom link: https://bma2.org/our-events/
Free and open to the general public!