2015 August

AEA Astronomy Club Newsletter August  2015

Contents
AEA Astronomy Club News & Calendar p.1
Video(s) & Picture(s) of the Month p. 2
Astronomy News p. 8
General Calendar p.114
    Colloquia, lectures, mtgs. p. 14
    Observing p. 16
Useful Links p. 17
About the Club p. 18

Club News & Calendar.

Club Calendar

Club Meeting Schedule:

6 August

AEA Astronomy Club Meeting

A DVD from our Library.   In June we learned why the night sky is dark (not trivial)

A1/1026

AEA Astronomy Club meetings are now on 1^st  Thursdays at 11:45am.  For all of (except Aug. 6) 2015, the meeting room is A1/1735. 

Club News:  

Sept. 18 – 18 club members will have a half night of observing on the historic Mt. Wilson 100-inch telescope.  They also will tour the new Aerospace facilities on Mt. Wilson before the guided Mt. Wilson tour

From Kristine P. Maine:

To all: Many of you attended my talk on the Star Trails workshop that I attended last year.  Paul’s Photo is sponsoring another one Dec. 10 out in Death Valley.  It cost around $280.00.  If you are interested, visit the web page below.  There is a pre- and post-event workshop locally.

http://creativephotoacademy.com/cpa/event-category/workshop-galleries/

Kristine P. Maine

From Jim Edwards:

“Last night's observing session was among my best and most successful ever... the skies were beautiful and calm, all of the complex equipment played nicely together, and I collected a lot of good submittable (ie, "publishable") data against several asteroids and double stars.

Plus I was able to record some excellent (for me, at this location) long exposures of M27, the Dumbbell Nebula.  I combined and processed the best six of these these, each 5 minutes long (with the aid for some very cool auto-guiding h/w & s/w) to get a "pretty picture" equivalent to a 30 minute exposure... nebula are not bright!

Of course there are countless amateurs who can (and regularly do!) generate much, much better images than that which I attached herein but I'm satisfied this as a first long exposure success for me.  Are there problems with the pic?  You bet'cha.  But not too bad, just the same.     :-).”

Astronomy Video(s) & Picture(s) of the Month

(from Astronomy Picture of the Day, APOD: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/archivepix.html)

VIDEO:  Fly Over Pluto  https://youtu.be/ydU-YrG_INk
Video Credit: NASA, Johns Hopkins Univ./APL, Southwest Research Inst.

Explanation: It took 9.5 years to get this close, but you can now take a virtual flight over Pluto in this animation of image data from the New Horizons spacecraft. The Plutonian terrain unfolding 48,000 miles (77,000 kilometers) below is identified as Norgay Montes, followed by Sputnik Planum. The icy mountains, informally named for one of the first two Mount Everest climbers Tenzing Norgay, reach up to 11,000 feet (3,500 meters) above the surface. The frozen, young, craterless plains are informally named for the Earth's first artificial satellite. Sputnik Planum is north of Norgay Montes, within Pluto's expansive, bright, heart-shaped feature provisionally known as Tombaugh Regio for Clyde Tombaugh, who discovered Pluto in 1930.

Gamma-ray Rain from 3C 279  https://youtu.be/9Rl4l6tuHGg
Video Credit: NASA, DOE, International Fermi LAT Collaboration

Explanation: If gamma-rays were raindrops a flare from a supermassive black hole might look like this. Not so gently falling on the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope from June 14 to June 16 the gamma-ray photons, with energies up to 50 billion electron volts, originated in active galaxy 3C 279 some 5 billion light-years away. Each gamma-ray "drop" is an expanding circle in the timelapse visualization, the color and maximum size determined by the gamma-ray's measured energy. Starting with a background drizzle, the sudden downpour that then trails off is the intense, high energy flare. The creative and calming presentation of the historically bright flare covers a 5 degree wide region of the gamma-ray sky centered on 3C 279.

Colorful Clouds Near Rho Ophiuchi 
Image Credit & Copyright: Markus Noller (Deep-Sky-Images)

Explanation: Why is the sky near Antares and Rho Ophiuchi so colorful? The colors result from a mixture of objects and processes. Fine dust illuminated from the front by starlight produces blue reflection nebulae. Gaseous clouds whose atoms are excited by ultraviolet starlight produce reddish emission nebulae. Backlit dust clouds block starlight and so appear dark. Antares, a red supergiant and one of the brighter stars in the night sky, lights up the yellow-red clouds on the lower center of the featured image. Rho Ophiuchi lies at the center of the blue nebula on the left. The distant globular cluster M4 is visible to the upper right of center. These star clouds are even more colorful than humans can see, emitting light across the electromagnetic spectrum.

Messier 43 
Image Credit & Copyright: Yuri Beletsky (Carnegie Las Campanas Obs.), Igor Chilingarian (Harvard-Smithsonian CfA)

Explanation: Often imaged but rarely mentioned, Messier 43 is a large star forming region in its own right. It's just part of the star forming complex of gas and dust that includes the larger, more famous neighboring Messier 42, the Great Orion Nebula. In fact, the Great Orion Nebula itself lies off the lower edge of this scene. The close-up of Messier 43 was made while testing the capabilities of a near-infrared instrument with one of the twin 6.5 meter Magellantelescopes at Las Campanas Observatory in the Chilean Andes. The composite image shifts the otherwise invisible infrared wavelengths to blue, green, and red colors. Peering into caverns of interstellar dust hidden from visible light, the near-infrared view can also be used to study cool, brown dwarf stars in the complex region. Along with its celebrity neighbor, Messier 43 lies about 1,500 light-years away, at the edge of Orion's giant molecular cloud. At that distance, this field of view spans about 5 light-years.

Pluto Resolved 
Image Credit & Copyright: NASA, Johns Hopkins Univ./APL, Southwest Research Inst.

Explanation: New Horizons has survived its close encounter with Pluto and has resumed sending back images and data. The robotic spacecraft reported back on time, with all systems working, and with the expected volume of datastored. Featured here is the highest resolution image of Pluto taken before closest approach, an image that really brings Pluto into a satisfying focus. At first glance, Pluto is reddish and has several craters. Toward the image bottom is a surprisingly featureless light-covered region that resembles an iconic heart, and mountainous terrain appears on the lower right. This image, however, is only the beginning. As more images and data pour in today, during the coming week, and over the next year, humanity's understanding of Pluto and its moons will likely become revolutionized.

Comet PanSTARRS and a Crescent Moon 
Image Credit & Copyright: Yuri Beletsky (Las Campanas Observatory, Carnegie Institution)

Explanation: A comet has brightened quickly and unexpectedly. Discovered last year, Comet C/2014 Q1 (PanSTARRS) is expected to be visible now for a few days to the unaided eye, just after sunset, from some locations. The comet rounded the Sun on July 6 and apparently has shed quite a bit of gas and dust. Today it is now as close as it will ever get to the Earth, which is another factor in its recent great apparent brightness and the large angular extent of its tails. In the featured image taken two days ago, Comet PanSTARRS is seen sporting a short white dust tail fading to the right, and a long blue ion tail pointing away from the recently set Sun. A crescent moon dominates the image center. Tomorrow, Comet PannSTARRS will pass only 7 degrees away from a bright Jupiter, with even brighter Venus nearby. Due to its proximity to the Sun, the comet and its tails may best be seen in the sunset din with binoculars or cameras using long-duration exposures.

Ultraviolet Rings of M31 
Image Credit: GALEX, JPL-Caltech, NASA

Explanation: A mere 2.5 million light-years away the Andromeda Galaxy, also known as M31, really is just next door as large galaxies go. So close and spanning some 260,000 light-years, it took 11 different image fields from theGalaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX) satellite's telescope to produce this gorgeous portrait of the spiral galaxy in ultraviolet light. While its spiral arms stand out in visible light images of Andromeda, the arms look more like rings inthe GALEX ultraviolet view, a view dominated by the energetic light from hot, young, massive stars. As sites of intense star formation, the rings have been interpreted as evidence Andromeda collided with its smaller neighboring elliptical galaxy M32 more than 200 million years ago. The large Andromeda galaxy and our own Milky Way are the most massive members of the local galaxy group.

Rainbows and Rays over Bryce Canyon 
Image Credit & Copyright: John Rummel

Explanation: What's happening over Bryce Canyon? Two different optical effects that were captured in one image taken earlier this month. Both effects needed to have the Sun situated directly behind the photographer. The nearest apparition was the common rainbow, created by sunlight streaming from the setting sun over the head of the photographer, and scattering from raindrops in front of the canyon. If you look closely, even a second rainbow appears above the first. More rare, and perhaps more striking, are the rays of light that emanate out from the horizon above the canyon. These are known as anticrepuscular rays and result from sunlight streaming though breaks in the clouds, around the sky, and converging at the point 180 degrees around from the Sun. Geometrically, this antisolar point must coincide with the exact center of the rainbows. Located in Utah, USA, Bryce Canyon itself contains a picturesque array of ancient sedimentary rock spires known as hoodoos.

Astronomy News:

(from http://esciencenews.com/topics/astronomy.space)

 

LATEST NEWS

NASA/JHU APL/SWRI

Mountains of water ice rise up from the surface of Pluto, in images released today by NASA's New Horizons mission.

Pluto is alive—but where is the heat coming from?

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By 

Eric Hand 

15 July 2015 7:00 pm

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Towering mountains of water ice rise up to 3500 meters tall on Pluto, above smooth plains covered in veneers of nitrogen and methane ice, NASA’s New Horizons team announced today. The discovery, along with the finding that parts of the dwarf planet’s surface are crater-free and therefore relatively young, points to a place that has been geologically reworked in the recent past. “It could even be active today,” said John Spencer, a New Horizons team member at Southwest Research Institute (SWRI) in Boulder, Colorado, at a press conference today at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland.

The team also showed off new images of unexpectedly smooth surfaces on Pluto’s moon Charon—which, without an atmosphere, was expected to have an even more battered surface than Pluto. Radioactive elements in both bodies’ interiors could provide some of the heat needed for geological mountain building or ice flows that repave the surface. But Pluto, and especially Charon, are far too small for this heat to persist. The giant impact thought to have formed the two worlds could also provide a source of energy, but that probably happened billions of years ago.

“It’s going to send a lot of scientists back to the drawing boards,” said Alan Stern, the mission’s principal investigator at SWRI, at the press conference. Scientists outside the team suggest that the puzzlingly youthful surfaces could be explained if the dwarf planet and its moon were formed in a far more recent impact event, or if their reservoirs of water ice were mixed with other compounds that can melt and flow and lower temperatures.

Although the number of TV crews parked outside APL has diminished considerably since the historic flyby on 14 July, the power of Pluto to dazzle continues to grow. The New Horizons team still has not retrieved data from the moment of close approach, which came on Tuesday as the probe swooped within 12,500 kilometers of the surface, 33 times closer than the moon is to Earth. Those images will come much later, over the course of 16 months, after the spacecraft completes its observations and can devote itself to beaming back data. At distances of about 4.7 billion kilometers, it takes 4.5 hours for New Horizons to communicate with Earth, and the data returns in trickles of a few kilobits per seconds.

But the early images are still providing scientists with plenty to chew on. One surprise was the discovery of the rugged water ice mountains in a dark, equatorial region next to a bright, heart-shaped region. (The team said it would informally name the “heart” Tombaugh Regio, after Pluto’s discoverer.) The frigid temperatures on Pluto mean that water ice is hard and doesn’t move or melt easily: It is Pluto’s bedrock. Seeing it protrude in mountains at the surface suggests that layers of other, more volatile ices—methane, nitrogen, and carbon monoxide—might only be a thin veneer of materials. Yet if these layers are too thin, they would be lost completely relatively quickly as they sublimate into the atmosphere and erode into space, Stern says. That means that there must be a way of replenishing these more volatile ices from within Pluto’s interior—perhaps through volcanoes of ice, called cryovolcanoes. “We haven’t found geysers and we haven’t found cryovolcanoes, but this is very strong evidence that will send us looking,” he says.

NASA-JHUAPL-SwRI

Smooth surfaces on Pluto's moon Charon imply geological reworking in the recent past.

Geoffrey Collins, a planetary scientist at Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts, unaffiliated with the team, is amazed by the images. “Clearly we’re seeing internal activity on the surface of Pluto and Charon,” he says. “Something is pulling apart their ice crusts.” Collins is excited because there is no way to explain the activity with conventional models of heat loss. “If the Charon-Pluto impact happened more recently, all the problems would be solved,” he says.

Jonathan Lunine, a planetary scientist at Cornell University who is not affiliated with the mission, agrees that the most curious discovery is the youthful surfaces of both bodies. “How do you keep these things warm for so long?” he asks. But he would rather find a mechanism besides a more recent impact event, which he calls “special pleading.” A giant impact is more likely to have occurred near the start of the solar system 4.5 billion years ago, when the Kuiper belt—the distant shell of icy bodies in which Pluto resides—harbored more potential impactors than it does today. But Lunine says it could be that the dynamics of the Kuiper belt are different from those in the rest of the solar system. Another mechanism to get water ice to move and flow more readily, he suggests, is to mix it with other compounds, such as ammonia. Ammonia-water mixes have been proposed for other icy bodies in the outer solar system, but they have never been identified directly, he says. “Maybe that’s happening here.”

Nancy Chabot, another planetary scientist at APL who is not affiliated with the mission, says the most important discovery today will end up being the ice mountains. “It’s going to be something people talk about for a while,” she says. The mountains—and their implication of mountain-building activity—runs counter to the expectation that Kuiper belt objects are cold, pristine relics. “We talk about these things as time capsules from the early solar system,” she says. That notion must evolve, she says. “Even though they are primitive bodies, they are also active bodies.”

NASA is planning to reveal more images at press conferences on Friday, 17 July, and a week later, on 24 July. After that, downloads of image data from the spacecraft will pause until September, while the mission concentrates on retrieving near real-time data from particle and plasma measuring instruments. Even once the full dataset is retrieved, sometime toward the end by 2016, the mission will not be over. In August, the team will choose between two small Kuiper belt objects for an extended mission. If granted funding, New Horizons will steer toward an encounter with one of those small bodies in 2019.

With additional reporting by Richard Kerr

*See Science’s full coverage of Pluto, including regular updates on the New Horizons flyby.

Posted in Space Pluto

LATEST NEWS

NASA/JHUAPL/SWRI

Smooth plains of ice form polygons some 30 kilometers across in Sputnik Planum, the latest region revealed in close-up images by New Horizons. In the lower right, pits dot the landscape and dark hills protrude above the plains.

Potential geysers spotted on Pluto

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By 

Eric Hand 

17 July 2015 5:00 pm

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Today, NASA’s New Horizons team unveiled the latest trove of geological goodies in close-up pictures of the surface of Pluto: hummocky hills that rise up above smooth plains of ice, patches of ice pocked by eroded pits, and troughs that form the boundaries of mysterious polygonal structures. Most tantalizing of all, the team has spotted streaks of material that may have blown downwind from dark spots. Although the team is not yet ready to declare that these spots are geysers shooting plumes above Pluto, scientists say the spots and streaks resemble actively spewing geysers on Neptune’s moon Triton that were discovered in 1989.

The evidence is accumulating that Pluto is an active world, and not only as a place shaped by top-down atmospheric processes of frost and wind and sublimating ice. There also appear to be processes working from the bottom up: forces that lift up water ice mountains the size of the Rocky Mountains and allow them to sit next to smooth plains of ice that, the team suspects, have been resurfaced as recently as within the past 100 million years—or even last week.

“Have a look at the icy frozen plains of Pluto,” said Alan Stern, the mission’s principal investigator at Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) in Boulder, Colorado, as he revealed a glimpse of a region named Sputnik Planum in a press conference today at NASA headquarters. “Who would have expected this kind of complexity?”

The team released the first results from measurements made as the spacecraft passed behind Pluto into its shadow. By measuring the way sunlight was eclipsed around the rim of Pluto, the team was able to analyze its atmosphere—and rule out models showing a turbulent atmosphere in favor of one that is more sluggish. Even with a more stagnant atmosphere, the part of it closest to the surface could still harbor winds blowing at a meter per second or two—enough to move tiny particles of ice around, says Randy Gladstone, a mission co-investigator at SwRI in San Antonio, Texas.

But the pictures, as usual, stole the show. Sputnik Planum is a region along the southern fringe of the left ventricle of the “heart,” now informally called Tombaugh Regio after Pluto’s discoverer. “I’m still having to remind myself to take deep breaths,” says Jeff Moore, a mission co-investigator at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California. “The landscape is just astoundingly amazing.” To underscore the point, scientists used New Horizons’ terrain measurements to simulate a dramatic flyover video of the area and a nearby ice mountain range called Norgay Montes (see below).

Moore says that one of the few terrains that invites a confident diagnosis are the pitted regions, which form as ice sublimates into the atmosphere. He cannot say whether the hills are features that were pushed up above the surrounding plains, or whether they are composed of tougher materials that resisted erosion as the rest of the region wore down. “They can either be popping up or emerging from an erosion-lowering process,” he says. The polygonal troughs are also mysterious, he says. He doesn’t know whether they result from convection in the interior—the large-scale patterns of heat upwelling in Pluto’s mantle—or from contracting ice, analogously to the way mud cracks form on Earth.

Flyover video:  https://youtu.be/ydU-YrG_INk

Moore says it’s likely that the Sputnik Planum terrain—which also contains the geyserlike spots—extends all the way up into the left ventricle of the heart. Stern presented chemical evidence that this entire region is enriched in carbon monoxide ice. It could be either a pool of very thick layers of ice that welled up from below, or just a centimeter-thick veneer of carbon monoxide snow from above. Moore says the jury is still out on whether Tombaugh Regio was emplaced from below or shaped from above. Quite possibly, he says, both processes are in play: The terrain may have been deposited in a bout of activity a long time ago, and since been eroded. “It could be there’s a source region there,” Stern says. “It’s a very special place on the planet.”

New Horizons, a spacecraft the size of a baby grand piano, on Tuesday made its closest approach past Pluto, flying within 12,500 kilometers of its surface and making a first-ever reconnaissance of an object in the Kuiper belt, the region of icy worlds beyond Neptune. But images from Pluto are being returned to Earth in a trickle over the course of 16 months, because of the vast distances and the modest power of New Horizon’s radio antenna. NASA Planetary Science Division Director Jim Green says the spacecraft has returned only 1% to 2% of the data so far.

In pictures NASA released on Wednesday, the big surprise was mountains of water ice rising 3500 meters up from strikingly smooth, crater-free surfaces. The lack of craters—also seen on Charon, Pluto’s largest moon—is evidence for youthfulness, and geological activity that could pave over the surfaces in fresh icy materials. This was unexpected, because many thought that the internal heat sources within Pluto and Charon, leftover from their formation in a giant impact billions of years ago, would have dissipated long ago.

Larry Soderblom, a retired scientist from the U.S. Geological Survey in Flagstaff, Arizona, who helped explore Neptune’s moon Triton on NASA’s Voyager mission, is impressed by both the similarities and differences between that world and Pluto. Pluto is the largest Kuiper belt object; Triton is thought to be a captured one. Both harbor smooth surfaces that suggest repaving driven by internal heating. But where that activity on Triton can be driven by the tidal pull of Neptune, scientists are scratching their heads over what could be driving it on Pluto. There are other differences between the worlds, Soderblom says: Triton lacks Pluto’s tall mountains and its rugged, ropy pits. “Everywhere we go, we’re surprised,” he says. “We should know better by now.”

NASA is planning its next press conference on 24 July. After that, image retrievals from New Horizons’ cameras will pause for nearly 2 months while the team focuses on gathering data from its particle and plasma instruments. In August, the team plans to choose between two candidate Kuiper belt objects—far smaller than Pluto—and then steer the spacecraft to an encounter with it in 2019. The $720 million mission is being operated by Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland.

With additional reporting by Richard Kerr.

*See Science’s full coverage of Pluto, including regular updates on the New Horizons flyby.

(Video credit: NASA/JHUAPL/SWRI)

Posted in Space Pluto

General Calendar:

Colloquia, Lectures, Seminars, Meetings, Open Houses & Tours:

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.  For more information about the Carnegie Observatories or this lecture series, please contact Reed Haynie.  This year's Astronomy Lecture Series will take place at A Noise Within on March 30, April 13, April 27, and May 11. Click here for more information.

6 August

AEA Astronomy Club Meeting

A DVD from our Library.   In June we learned why the night sky is dark (not trivial)

A1/1026

7 Aug

Friday Night 7:30PM SBAS  Monthly General Meeting in the Planetarium at El Camino College (16007 Crenshaw Bl. In Torrance) Friday Night 7:30PM Monthly General Meeting Topic:   “The Google Lunar X Prize” Speaker: Nathan Wong

10 Aug

LAAS LAAS General Meeting.

Griffith Observatory Event Horizon Theater 8:00 PM to 10:00 PM

August 13 & 14 The von Kármán Lecture Series: 2015

Drought: Are We In or Out?

California's history is written in great droughts. With California now in its fourth year of below-normal rainfall and snowpack, the state faces its most severe drought emergency in decades. Governor Jerry Brown has called for Californians to voluntarily reduce water, and mandatory rationing could be ordered soon so that homes, businesses and farms don't run dry. And, of course, the wildfire danger is also unusually high. How did we get into this drought? In part, blame it on the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, or "PDO," a slowly oscillating pattern of sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean. At the moment, the PDO might being 'flipping' out of its dry phase--a condition historically linked to extreme high-pressure ridges that block West Coast storms and give the Midwest and East Coast punishing winters. Will a much advertised El Nino give us drought relief? How does drought impact the Southern California coastal marine environment? To find out how this story may develop this winter, the current prognosis for continued drought and how we deal with future droughts, attend this talk!

Speaker:
Dr. William Patzert, Climatologist, JPL

Webcast:
Standard Podcast: Play video (with captions)

Locations:	Thursday, Aug. 13, 2015, 7pm The von Kármán Auditorium at JPL 4800 Oak Grove Drive Pasadena, CA › Directions Friday, Aug 14, 2015, 7pm The Vosloh Forum at Pasadena City College 1570 East Colorado Blvd. Pasadena, CA › Directions
Webcast:	We offer two options to view the live streaming of our webcast on Thursday: › 1) Ustream with real-time web chat to take public questions. › 2) Flash Player with open captioning If you don't have Flash Player, you can download for free here.

Observing:

The following data are from the 2015 Observer’s Handbook, and Sky & Telescope’s 2015 Skygazer’s Almanac & monthly Sky at a Glance.

Current sun & moon rise/set/phase data for L.A.:  http://www.timeanddate.com/astronomy/usa/los-angeles

Sun, Moon & Planets for August:

Moon: Aug 7 last quarter, Aug 14 new, Aug 22 1^st quarter, Aug 29 full                 

Planets: Jupiter sets in the W an hour after sunset.  Saturn is in the S & SW until just before midnight.  Venus & Mars rise and are visible in the East briefly before sunrise.  Mercury is hidden in the Sun’s glare all month.

Other Events:

1 August Alpha Capricornids Meteor Shower Peak The duration of this shower extends from July 15 to September 11. Maximum seems to occur during August 1. The maximum ZHR ranges from 6-14, while the meteors are generally described as slow. The shower has the reputation of producing some of the brightest meteors of the major 6

6 August Southern Iota Aquarids Meteor Shower Peak The August 6 maximum produces an hourly rate of 7-8. 7 August Friday Night 7:30PM Monthly General Meeting Topic: The Google Lunar X Prize Speaker: Nathan Wong 7 August Mercury Passes 0.6 Degrees from Jupiter

8 Aug

SBAS Saturday Night In Town Dark Sky Observing Session at Ridgecrest Middle School– 28915 North Bay Rd. RPV, Weather Permitting: Please contact Greg Benecke to confirm that the gate will be opened! http://www.sbastro.net/

12 August Perseids Meteor Shower Peak The maximum hourly rate for this major meteor shower is usually 50 or more per hour.

13/14 August Northern Delta Aquarids Meteor Shower Peak The maximum hourly rate typically reaches 10.

15 Aug	SBAS out-of-town Dark Sky observing – contact Greg Benecke to coordinate a location. http://www.sbastro.net/.
5,12,19,26 Aug	LAAS The Garvey Ranch Observatory is open to the public every Wednesday evening from 7:30 PM to 10 PM. Go into the dome to use the 8 Inch Refractor or observe through one of our telescopes on the lawn. Visit our workshop to learn how you can build your own telescope, grind your own mirror,  or sign up for our free seasonal astronomy classes. Call 213-673-7355 for further information. Time: 7:30 PM - 10:00 PM Location: Garvey Ranch Obs. , 781 Orange Ave., Monterey Park, CA 91755
18 July	LAAS private dark sky night

22 Aug

LAAS Public  Star Party: Griffith Observatory Grounds 2-10pm

25 August Northern Iota Aquarids Meteor Shower Peak The maximum hourly rate typically reaches 5 – 10.

Internet Links:

Telescope, Binocular & Accessory Buying Guides

Sky & Telescope Magazine -- Choosing Your Equipment

Orion Telescopes & Binoculars -- Buying Guides

Telescopes.com -- Telescopes 101

General

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More...

Regional (Southern California, Washington, D.C. & Colorado)

Southern California & Beyond Amateur Astronomy Organizations, Observatories & Planetaria

Mt. Wilson Observatory description, history, visiting

Los Angeles Astronomical Society (LAAS)

South Bay Astronomical Society (SBAS)

Orange County Astronomers

The Local Group Astronomy Club (Santa Clarita)

Ventura County Astronomical Society

The Astronomical Society of Greenbelt

National Capital Astronomers

Northern Virginia Astronomy Club

Colorado Springs Astronomical Society

Denver 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 have linked 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 Alan Olson, or see the club website (or Aerolink folder) where a form is also available (go to the membership link/folder & look at the bottom).  Benefits will include use of club telescope(s) & library/software, membership in The Astronomical League, 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:  Mark Clayson, President & Program Committee Chairman (& acting club VP), TBD Activities Committee Chairman (& club Secretary), or Alan Olson, Resource Committee Chairman (over equipment & library, and club Treasurer).

Mark Clayson,
AEA Astronomy Club President