Memorial Day

We spent the holiday weekend with some friends who also live here in Bella Vista. They are staying at a lake front home on Windsor and invited us over for BBQ and beverages! Even though the weather was unpredictable, we still managed to get some swimming and tubing in.

Mothers Day

After a rather chilly morning here in the Ozarks, we got busy with our annual flower bed makeover and BBQ extravaganza.

Lake Ann

We decided to jump in the "Toon" Sunday.

Coleman Observatory

My family and I visited a local astronomy club observatory located near Van Buren, Ar. Holy cow what telescope! They have this mammoth pier mounted 14" Go-To SCT and the views were nothing like I've seen before. While we were there we looked at some planets, Mercury to start then Saturn and 5 of it's moons. Once it was dark enough, we pointed the scope to a couple of globular clusters and what I was looking forward to the most...galaxies! The kids were getting tired by now so I didn't get to see but three of these star cities and WOW!!! The first galaxy we targeted was M104 (The Sombrero) then NGC 4565 another edge on galaxy and finaly M51 (The Whirlpool) OMG! I have viewed this galaxy for the first time a couple of months ago through my 5" Mak and I was pretty happy to see the two faint fuzzy cores. This monster light bucket is a photon collecting beast! I guess the combination of dark skies and 14" of aperture allowed me to see structure, I'm talking obvious spirals and the bridge to the companion galaxy structure! Man, I could have stayed all night...