Post-Mother’s Day at the Mira Vista RESORT

The resort had a goodly number of people during the SunTree visit in May, but it was not a really crowded weekend. That was great for the SunTree gang, but probably not a welcome sight for the owners of the resort interested in income.

I suspect that many of Mira Vista RESORT’s members had held off with plans to join the Memorial Day Weekend crowd.

It was a fun weekend which started off with a Friday evening Barbeque Rib dinner complements of the Carrolls. There was nice weather to enjoy this meal at a picnic table in a shady area under the trees. As is traditional with SunTree meals, this one had a conspicuous glut of wonderful food.

The Saturday evening disc-jockey dance was lightly attended, but that was also a pleasant change from what we have been used to in the past.

The whole weekend was a very pleasant stay for the SunTree group.

We have an early July event, so no event was schedule for June, so on to:

Independence Day in La Luz
Persons planning to attend the club event on the Fourth of July need to contact the club as soon as possible. The hosts have the full month of June tied up with obligations, so all of their planning for the July event will have to be completed prior to 9 June. In order to do that they will need to know how many participants to expect.

This will be a potluck event, so if you have not made up your mind yet on what you plan to bring, at least let us know what sort of thing you are considering (entrée, side dish, snack, desert etc.)

If you wish to celebrate the holiday that weekend, please make your plans with no fireworks involved. In spite of the recent unusual rains, there is and will be a severe fire danger in the canyon. Interpretive dancers might want to consider flags or pom-poms in lieu of sparklers.

Another Planetary Parade This Month in the Morning Sky

Morning: Venus appears 46 degrees to the right of the rising Sun in the predawn sky on 5 June. The planet loses nearly half its brilliance this month, fading from -4.7 to a "merely spectacular" magnitude -4.2. The cause for that is that as the month proceeds, Venus will be moving closer to the rising Sun. That means that not only will the sky background get brighter, less and less of the face of Venus facing the Earth will be illuminated

Venus sidles close to Mars as the two spend the month together in the east an hour before dawn. On 15 June, Mars will be at magnitude 1.1, so it will get help from Venus to help you locate him.

On 19 June, the pair, Earth's two closest neighbors, hover beneath the crescent Moon.

I have save the best for the end of the Morning section. Jupiter will be in that same morning sky this month beaming at a magnitude -2.6. That is not as bright as Venus’s searchlight, but it is not too bad. Jupiter will be rising about midnight, so it is almost directly overhead when the dawn twilight starts to brighten up the eastern sky. Between Jupiter high overhead and brilliant Venus toward the east, there is a nice show to watch (not to mention Mars putting in his two cents worth as well).

Saturn remains nicely up until midnight. If you have a telescope, you might take a peek at Saturn several times during the month as the view of the rings will slowly close up as the month progresses.

Since you have gotten out your telescope to look at Saturn, you may as well look about 8 degrees to the north of that ringed planet on 19 June. There is a third magnitude star (Theta Leonis) in that area. That may not seem very exciting, but if you look closely that night, you might see another spot of light right next to Theta Leonis. That spot would be Ceres, a dim (magnitude 8.6) asteroid. The asteroid will be just to the northeast of Theta Leonis.

Evening: On 23 June, Pluto reaches opposition. That means that it is probably the brightest that it will get as observed from Earth. Unfortunately, that is not good enough unless you have some sort of astronomical optical enhancement available.

Summer begins with the solstice on 20 June at 11:46 P.M. Of course, that solstice will not happen on the east coast until 21 June at 1:46 AM, so your calendar might be in error for Mountain Daylight Time.