With the weather we've been having in April, I have not been able to do a virtual star party for a while. This weekend's weather looks iffy, so I will be doing a live Meteorite Show instead: https://youtu.be/BQVYkgkrjg0)

Several years ago, I had an opportunity to buy a meteorite. It was really cool, and something I could use for our club's star parties in the Before Times. Then, I had an opportunity to buy a few more... and then more... and then a big collection of small samples. I got hooked, and built a nice collection that I would take with me to star parties, to museums, and schools to show people what real meteorites look and feel like. I even let kids hold one of my moon rocks! NASA doesn't even let you do that!

Since we haven't been able to do any in-person events for the past year (and more), I will do a show this Saturday night instead. This will be a talk about asteroids, meteors, and meteorites, what they are, why they are important, how to find them, and what they look like. We'll be going through some of the ones in my collection, looking at them through a microscope to see some of the finer details. I will have meteorites from the moon, from known asteroids, and from Mars, found all over the world.

Bring any questions you might have, and if you PM any of the meteorites (or suspected meteorites) you have, we can show them and talk about them as well. I have several "meteor-wrongs" in my collection as well - tools to show people how we differentiate real meteorites from fake or just misidentified ones.