The Melton Memorial Observatory is located on the corners of Greene St. and Bull St. on the campus of the University of South Carolina. Join us on clear Monday nights from 8:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. for Public Night. Anyone is welcome to come by and observe the Moon, planets, stars, star clusters, and more through our telescopes (depending on availability and the seeing conditions).
Sky Alerts!!!
Mars Makes a Close Approach... The red planet will be at opposition on January 29th. During opposition, Mars will be closest to Earth in its orbit and the Earth will lie directly between the Sun and Mars (i.e. opposite the Sun). Mars reaches opposition once about every 2.1 years.
Larger than Usual... This months full Moon, which will occur tomorrow night, will appear bigger and brighter than most other full Moons. This is because the Moon does not orbit in a circle around the Earth. Instead, like most orbiting bodies, the Moon orbits in an ellipse around the Earth with one side of the orbital path closer to the Earth than the other. The point in which the Moon is closest to Earth is called its perigee, and the farthest orbital point is the apogee. This full Moon is commonly called a "Perigee Moon."
The International Space Station orbits the Earth once every 90 minutes or so and flys over Columbia on a regular basis. The space station can be seen in the twilight sky shortly before sunrise or just after sunset. The ISS appears as bright as Venus and moves faster than an airplane across the sky! Click here for flyby times in your area.
Click here for seeing conditions over Columbia, SC tonight.
Check out the Sky Info section for more on what's in the night sky.
Observatory News
01.28.10... After being out of service for nearly two years, we are pleased to announce that our main telescope inside the dome is now up and running and is available for public viewing! There is still a little more work to be done before the scope is operating at 100%, and we expect that work to be completed over the next couple of weeks. We would like to thank Frank Barnes of Rock Hill and Steve Bisque, owner of Software Bisque (the company that designed our new drive system and TheSky6 sky/telescope control software), for all of their help. We really appreciate all of your knowledge and expertise. Stay tuned for more updates!
10.22.09... On November 1st, the time will change back one hour. Because of this, beginning on November 2nd, the observatory's Public Night hours will change to 8:30pm to 10:30pm.
07.27.09... Dr. Dan Overcash was recently interviewed by local news stations for the 40th anniversary of the Apollo Moon landings. Here is some footage from that interview.
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