Contents
AEA Astronomy Club News & Calendar p.1
Video(s) & Picture(s) of the Month p. 2
Astronomy News p. 4
General Calendar p. 5
Colloquia, lectures, mtgs. p. 5
Observing p. 7
Useful Links p. 7
About the Club p. 8
Club News & Calendar.
News:
Welcome to our 2 new officers for 2012 – Paul Rousseau Vice President (& Programs Committee Chairman), and Jim Edwards Treasurer (& Resource Committee Chairman). And thanks again to our outgoing officers for their service – Vic Christensen as Treasurer, and Michelle Darrah as Vice President. And to David Wright (Secretary & Activities Committee Chairman) for his continuing service.
We’ve received the ATIK monochrome CCD imager as depicted on the club website. Jim Edwards will be trying it out shortly, and will report. We’re also researching an eyepiece video camera for group or remote viewing. Other items within our budget under consideration include various filters, an autoguider and field de-rotator (or equatorial wedge) for longer exposures. And we may have a bit left over for a small portable telescope and/or giant binoculars.
Calendar
19 Jan 2012 Monthly Meeting NOTE CHANGE! A club pizza lunch (free for members only -- $5 for others, must RSVP by Jan. 16 w. preferences – see menu below), new officers inauguration, town hall on ideas for 2012 acquisitions, activities & programs, followed by a tutorial on use of the club’s Meade LX-200 telescope (David Wright, Aerospace).
16 Feb 2012 Monthly Meeting "Doing Real Astronomical Imaging Science Using Modest Equipment (e.g., our new ATIK imager & LX-200 telescope),” Jim Edwards, Aerospace
Menu options for Jan. 19 lunch (give 1st & 2nd choices when you RSVP by Jan. 16 – we’ll have to share pizzas & pitchers of drink so you may not get your first choice – hopefully at least your 2nd):
Pizzas:
Three Cheese Pizza
Aloha Pizza
Pepperoni Pizza
Pizza Deluxe
Fresh Tomato and Pesto Pizza
Barbecued Chicken Pizza
Margherita Pizza with Fresh Basil, Tomato and Mozzarella
Sausage and Onion Pizza
Drinks:
Lemonade
Sparkling Punch
Tazo Iced Tea
AEA Astronomy Club meetings are on 3rd Thursdays at 11:45am in A1/1026 (but will likely change rooms beginning Feb. – stay tuned).
Astronomy Video(s) & Picture(s) of the Month
(from Astronomy Picture of the Day, APOD: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/archivepix.html)
Video(s)
A movie generated by simulating galaxy formation using a cosmological model with cold dark matter for the halos of merging galaxies here on Vimeo http://vimeo.com/32176781, and here in other formats http://www.virgo.dur.ac.uk/shell-galaxies/.
Jupiter rotation video from Pic du Midi http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap111206.html
Picture(s)
Look familiar? It should. On 10 December, we had a lunar eclipse that occurred near sunrise. It provided a very nice photographic opportunity down at the Manhattan Beach pier. This was taken by our very own astro-terrestrial photographer and new club officer (VP), Paul Rousseau. It was taken with a little Canon S90 (ISO 100, f/4.5, 2 sec). You may also recall an earlier photo of his in Fall of 2010 combining the Griffith Observatory, moon & our new Dobsonian telescope. He & David Wright have been our defacto club photographers.
2011 December 26
A Raging Storm System on Saturn
Image Credit: Cassini Imaging Team, SSI, JPL, ESA, NASA
Explanation: It is one of the largest and longest lived storms ever recorded in our Solar System. First seen late last year, the above cloud formation in the northern hemisphere of Saturn started larger than the Earth and soon spread completely around the planet. The storm has been tracked not only from Earth but from up close by the robotic Cassini spacecraft currently orbiting Saturn. Pictured above in false colored infrared in February, orange colors indicate clouds deep in the atmosphere, while light colors highlight clouds higher up. The rings of Saturn are seen nearly edge-on as the thin blue horizontal line. The warped dark bands are the shadows of the rings cast onto the cloud tops by the Sun to the upper left. A source of radio noise from lightning, the intense storm may relate to seasonal changes as spring slowly emerges in the north of Saturn.
2011 December 23
Shell Galaxy NGC 7600
Image Credit & Copyright: Ken Crawford (Rancho Del Sol Observatory)
Collaboration: Andrew Cooper (MPA), Carlos Frenk, John Helly, Shaun Cole (Institute for Computational Cosmology),
David Martinez-Delgado (MPIA), Star Stream Pilot Survey Group
Explanation: Similar in size to the Milky Way, elliptical galaxy NGC 7600 is about 160 million light-years distant. In this deep image, spanning about 1/2 degree on the sky toward the constellation Aquarius, NGC 7600 sports a remarkable outer halo of nested shells and broad circumgalactic structures. The tantalizing features can be explained by the accretion of dark matter and stars on a cosmic timescale. In fact, a movie generated by simulating galaxy formation using a cosmological model with cold dark matter for the halos of merging galaxies reproduces the appearance of NGC 7600 in amazing detail. The remarkable simulation movie is available here on Vimeo http://vimeo.com/32176781, and here in other formats http://www.virgo.dur.ac.uk/shell-galaxies/.
. It presents compelling evidence that detailed features of galaxy mergers observed with small, wide field telescopes on planet Earth, are natural consequences of galaxy formation and fundamental properties of dark matter.
Astronomy News:
In the wake of our last club presentation on exoplanetary research at Caltech:
Citizen-scientists find 2 exoplanets in Kepler data. “The Kepler exoplanet-search team rolled out Planet Hunters, a project asking people to examine noisy light curves of stars and spot any slight dips in brightness that may have slipped past the statistical prowess of computer analysis”....it’s “one of the Zooniverse projects (zooniverse.org).” In a matter of days, volunteers had examined 5 million light curves...and “in October...[they] may have found two transiting planets that computer analyses had indeed overlooked.” Both are in Cygnus, and one about 2 ½ times Earth’s diameter, the other Saturn-sized.
Planet in the Making. “There’s plenty of evidence for young planets circling young stars, but now two astronomers have recorded one actually assembling itself....Located about 450 light-years away in the dusty Taurus-Auriga star-forming region, LkCa 15 was already known to be encircled by a massive dust disk with a big empty gap.”
“Kraus and Ireland used Keck II’s adaptive-optics system and an interferometric trick to obtain the sharpest possible infrared images of LkCa 15’s dusty disk as close to the star as possible. What they found was a changing blob of glow – a planet drawing streams of material from its surroundings – orbiting within the disk’s clearing. ‘LkCa 15b is the youngest planet ever found, about five times younger than the previous record holder,’ says Kraus.”
“The discovery turned up in a survey that is examining 150 young dusty stars with Keck’s powerful optics.”
[These news bites are from the Jan. 2012 issue of Sky & Telescope Magazine.]
General Calendar:
Colloquia, Lectures, Seminars, Meetings, Open Houses & Tours:
Note: The South Bay Astronomical Society website (www.sbastro.org.) is temporarily not functional (due to recent death of the webmaster). Nor have I received the usual hardcopy mailing recently. So I have no dates for their Sept. events.
Colloquia: Carnegie (Tues. 4pm), UCLA, Caltech (Wed. 4pm), IPAC (Wed. 12:15pm) & other Pasadena (daily 12-4pm): http://obs.carnegiescience.edu/seminars/
Carnegie astronomy lectures – only 4 per year in the Spring www.obs.carnegiescience.edu. Visit www.huntington.org for directions. March 12, March 26, April 16, and April 30, 2012
Friend's Hall, Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens
All lectures are free and open to the public, but seating is limited. Please arrive early. Lectures start at 7:30pm, with light refreshments in advance.
6 Jan SBAS Monthly General Meeting at El Camino College planetarium. 7:30 PM
Topic: TBD
Guest Speaker:. www.sbastro.org.
19 Jan AEA Astronomy Club Mtg. NOTE CHANGE! A tutorial for use of the club’s Meade LX-200 telescope, David Wright, Aerospace.
Jan. 19 & 20 The von Kármán Lecture Series: 2012 -- The Art of Image Processing
Looking up at the sky on a dark night, we are seeing only the faintest hint of the wonders the universe has to share. Telescopes are our cybernetic eyes, extending our vision far beyond the narrow slice of visible light accessible to our biological eyes. So what are we really seeing when we look at astronomical imagery? How do we perceive color from the visible spectrum, and how can we use that to imagine other colors spanning the ultraviolet and infrared? Starting with datasets from JPL missions including the Spitzer Space Telescope, the Wide Field Survey Explorer (WISE), and the Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX), follow the process that helps us witness a side to the universe that, until recently, was hidden from our sight.
Speaker: Dr. Robert Hurt
Visualization Scientist
Caltech/Spitzer Science Center
Locations: Thursday, Jan. 19, 2012, 7pm
The von Kármán Auditorium at JPL
4800 Oak Grove Drive
Pasadena, CA
› Directions
Friday, Jan. 20, 2012, 7pm
The Vosloh Forum at Pasadena City College
1570 East Colorado Blvd.
Pasadena, CA
› Directions
Webcast: For the webcast on Thursday at 7 p.m. PST, click here
If you don't have RealPlayer, you can download the free RealPlayer 8 Basic.
? (29 Jan annual banquet) LAAS LAAS General Mtg..
Griffith Observatory
Event Horizon Theater
8:00 PM to 10:00 PM
Note: As of Feb. 28, 2011, the Mt. Wilson Observatory Assn. (MWOA) no longer exists. All public outreach activities of Mt. Wilson will be through the Mt. Wilson Institute (www.mtwilson.edu/ -- links for virtual tour & Quick Time video) No lectures noted yet to replace the previous MWOA 4th Saturday lecture series. The Angeles Crest Highway has recently reopened, and the Observatory is open for public visits daily 10-4 from April thru Nov.
Observing:
The following data are from the 2011 Observer’s Handbook, and Sky & Telescope’s 2011 Skygazer’s Almanac & monthly Sky at a Glance.
Sun, Moon & Planets for June:
Planets: Jupiter transits between 5 & 7pm. Mars rises between 8 & 10pm. Saturn rises between 11:30pm & 1:30am. Mercury rises between 1 ½ hrs before sunrise and at sunrise. Venus sets 3 hrs after sunset. Uranus sets 9:30-11:30pm.
Other Events:
4 Jan – Double satellite shadow transit on Jupiter 10:27pm to 11:57pm PST (double satellite transits on Jan. 11, 18 & 25). Also Quadrantid meteor shower between moonset & dawn. Also, Earth is at perihelion.
21 Jan? LAAS Dark Sky Night: Lockwood Valley (Steve Kufeld Astronomical Site; LAAS members and their guests only)
? SBAS Star Party (weather permitting): RPV at Ridgecrest Middle School 28915 North Bay Rd.
28 Jan LAAS Public Star Party: Griffith Observatory Grounds 2-10pm
? SBAS out-of-town observing – contact Greg Benecke www.sbastro.org.
Internet Links:
Link(s) of the Month
General
e! Science News Astronomy & Space
NASA Gallery
Astronomical Society of the Pacific (educational, amateur & professional)
Amateur Online Tools, Journals, Vendors, Societies, Databases
The Astronomy White Pages (U.S. & International Amateur Clubs & Societies)
American Astronomical Society (professional)
More...
Regional (esp. Southern California)
Western Amateur Astronomers (consortium of various regional societies)
Mt. Wilson Institute (www.mtwilson.edu/), including status for visits & roads
Los Angeles Astronomical Society (LAAS)
South Bay Astronomical Society (SBAS)
Orange County Astronomers
The Local Group Astronomy Club (Santa Clarita)
Ventura County Astronomical Society About the Club
Club Websites: Internal (Aerospace): https://aeropedia.aero.org/aeropedia/index.php/Astronomy_Club It is updated to reflect this newsletter, in addition to a listing of past club mtg. presentations, astronomy news, photos & events from prior newsletters, club equipment, membership & constitution. We expect to link some presentation materials from past mtgs. Our club newsletters are also being posted to an external blog, “An Astronomical View” http://astronomicalview.blogspot.com/.
Membership. For information, current dues & application, contact Jim Edwards (x66545, M1-167), or see the club website where a form is also available. Benefits will include use of club telescope(s) & library/software, discounts on Sky & Telescope magazine and Observer’s Handbook, field trips, great programs, having a say in club activities, acquisitions & elections, etc.
Committee Suggestions & Volunteers. Feel free to contact: Paul Rousseau, Program Committee Chairman (& club VP), David Wright, Activities Committee Chairman (& club Secretary), or Jim Edwards, Resource Committee Chairman (over equipment & library, and club Treasurer).
Mark Clayson,
AEA Astronomy Club President
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