Neat Sky Show This Week

Working as a Meteorologist in TV has it's rewards but it can be a bit lonely. The 3 of us in the weather office have to cover the entire day..all year. So we actually do not see much of each other!

When there is something neat going on..there are usually no other Meteorolgists to talk too about it! Sometimes I will open the chat client we have with the NWS and talk to some of Mets. over there or call a friend in another part of the country.

One interesting thing though is breaking news..I usually know the big story before you do! (But not for long if the news folks are on top of their game and they usually are.)
Today they came back and ask if I could use the high resolution mapping in ARMOR to look at the intersection in Meridianville where a shooting occured. I quickly zoomed in on the intersection but had no idea which building was the pawn shop they were looking for.

Here is where having a guy who has been covering news here for 30 years is a big plus. I grabbed our assignments manager Keith Lowhorne..he started with the station in the early 70's. He looked at the screen for a second and then pointed at the building. I put some text by it to identify and called the graphics department so they could grab the image for a breaking news graphic.

Great sky show this week as Jupiter passes very close to the moon Wednesday-Friday. With clouds on Thursday and Friday, it may be best to look Wednesday. High in the SSE sky about 9-11pm you should see an almost full moon and a very bright Jupiter close together. If the sky is fair on Thursday they will be even closer.

Jupiter is very close to earth right now. Around 400+ million miles. (well close in an astronomical sense.) It will be quite bright and should look interesting in high powered binoculars.
A great web site for keeping track of what to see in the sky is here:
www.skyandtelescope.com

Later!
Dan