Meet Mike Lynch! Community Education Class: Starwatch Party
Mike Lynch is a native Minnesotan who grew up in Richfied, Minnesota. He attended St. Peter’s Grade school and Holy Angels High School. After two years at the University of Minnesota in the Twin Cities he transferred to the University of Wisconsin in Madison and earned his B.S. degree in Meteorology in 1979. Shortly after he hired as a broadcast meteorologist at WCCO Radio in Minneapolis and been there ever since. Mike has covered all kinds of weather from deadly tornados to record cold snaps. In fact on February 2, 1996, he broadcasted from Tower, Minnesota when the temperature dropped down to 60 below zero, an all time record low for the state of Minnesota.
Mike’s other passion since he was a teenager has been astronomy. He built his first telescope when he was 15 years and has build three scopes since then. For 40 years Mike has been teaching classes and putting on star parties through community education, nature centers, and other entities throughout Minnesota and Western Wisconsin. His goal is to help people make the stars their old friends. He’s also become an avid astrophotographer.
Mike has written Astronomy/Stargazing books through Voyageur Press for Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, the Dakotas, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New England, New Jersey, The Carolinas, Florida, Georgia, Texas, Wyoming, Washington, Oregon, California, New Mexico, Arizona, Montana, and Southern Canada. Mike also wrote WCCO Minnesota Weather Watch in 2007 and was a finalist in the recent Minnesota Book Awards.
Mike also writes a weekly Starwatch column for the St. Paul Pioneer Press and more than two dozen other newspapers across the United States.
Mike and his wife Kathy live in Eagan, Minnesota and have two grown children, Angie and Shaun.
Mike Lynch’s Astrophotography Shots
www.lynchandthestars.com
Leo Triplet Galaxies – All About 35 Million Light Years Away
Jellyfish Nebula
M51 – Whirlpool Galaxy Swallowing a Smaller Galaxy over 30 Million Light Years Away
- M8 – The Lagoon Nebula in the Constellation Sagittarius – About 5000 Light Years Away