OKC Astronomy Club to celebrate 60 years
The Oklahoma City Astronomy Club will celebrate its 60th anniversary on Saturday with a public star party that will coincide with the closest approach of the planet Mars to Earth since 2003.
Club members will bring telescopes to Windsurfers Point on the northeast corner of Lake Hefner beginning at 8 p.m. for the Welcome Back Mars party. In addition to rare views of Mars at opposition, guests will be able to see a near-full moon and a lineup of planets, all in the evening sky. A planet is said to be at opposition when it is directly in line with the Sun and Earth. The Mars opposition will bring the Red Planet within 36 million miles at the end of July, its closest approach in 15 years and the best opposition until 2035.
The event also will afford views of all but two planets. On July 28, Venus and Mercury will be visible in the west at sunset, Jupiter will be high in the south, Saturn will be in the southeast and Mars and the Moon will be rising at dark. All can be easily viewed through telescopes of even moderate aperture. Only the outer planets Uranus and Neptune will be below the horizon until near or after midnight.
On clear nights around opposition, viewers will be able to see Jupiter’s cloud bands and four large moons, Saturn’s rings and four or five moons, the polar ice caps and some surface features on Mars and craters and ridges on the Moon down to a kilometer or less in width.
The Oklahoma City Astronomy Club, founded in 1958, meets at 7 p.m. on the second Friday of each month at Science Museum Oklahoma. The club also owns and operates Cheddar Ranch Observatory in Blaine County, where it recently dedicated a 30-inch telescope that is the largest in the state. The annual fall Okie-Tex star party in the Panhandle has been a club project for 35 years and has grown to be one of the ten largest and best in America.
For information, go to OKCAstroClub.com. To reach Windsurfers Point, take Olde Lakeshore Drive south from Hefner Road just west of the Hefner Bypass.