The Hubble Ultra Deep Field Image (see description on the right, below)

The Hubble Ultra Deep Field Image
(10,000 galaxies in an area 1% of the apparent size of the moon -- see description on the right, below)

Saturday, March 14, 2020

2020 March



AEA Astronomy Club Newsletter March 2020

Contents

AEA Astronomy Club News & Calendar p.1
Video(s) & Picture(s) of the Month p. 1
Astronomy News p. 6
General Calendar p. 11
    Colloquia, lectures, mtgs. p. 11
    Observing p. 17
Useful Links p. 18
About the Club p. 19

Club News & Calendar.

Club Calendar

Club Meeting Schedule: --


5 March
AEA Astronomy Club Meeting
 TBD -- Great Courses video?
(A1/1026)
2 April
AEA Astronomy Club Meeting
 TBD -- Great Courses video?
(A1/1026)


AEA Astronomy Club meetings are now on 1st  Thursdays at 11:45 am.  For 2020:  March 5 & April 2 in A1/2906 and for the rest of 2020 (Jan., Feb., May-Dec), the meeting room is A1/1735. 

Club News:  

 This year’s annual night at Mt. Wilson Sept. 12, on the 100-inch telescope, has a full roster, and a few on the waiting list. But we sometimes have several drop out as the time approaches, so we can still add you to the waiting list. Next year will be the 60-inch telescope – we alternate between the 2 telescopes. The evening often includes a tour of the Aerospace MAFIOT facility, and a Mt. Wilson docent tour.

We need volunteers to help with: 

·         Assembling our new 16-inch Hubble Optics Dobs
·         Installing our new software on our tablet & laptop
·         Populating our club Sharepoint site with material & links to the club’s Aerowiki & Aerolink materials – Kaly Rangarajan has volunteered to help with this
·         Arranging future club programs
·         Managing club equipment & library (Kelly Gov volunteered to help with the library)

Astronomy Video(s) & Picture(s) of the Month
(generally from Astronomy Picture of the Day, APOD: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/archivepix.html)
VIDEO:  Illustris Simulation of the Universe  https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap200223.html
Video Credit: Illustris Collaboration, NASA, PRACE, XSEDE, MIT, Harvard CfA;
Music: The Poisoned Princess (Media Right Productions)
Explanation: How did we get here? Click play, sit back, and watch. A computer simulation of the evolution of the universe provides insight into how galaxies formed and perspectives into humanity's place in the universe. The Illustris project exhausted 20 million CPU hours in 2014 following 12 billion resolution elements spanning a cube 35 million light years on a side as it evolved over 13 billion years. The simulation tracks matter into the formation of a wide variety of galaxy types. As the virtual universe evolves, some of the matter expanding with the universe soon gravitationally condenses to form filaments, galaxies, and clusters of galaxies. The featured video takes the perspective of a virtual camera circling part of this changing universe, first showing the evolution of dark matter, then hydrogen gas coded by temperature (0:45), then heavy elements such as helium and carbon (1:30), and then back to dark matter (2:07). On the lower left the time since the Big Bang is listed, while on the lower right the type of matter being shown is listed. Explosions (0:50) depict galaxy-center supermassive black holes expelling bubbles of hot gas. Interesting discrepancies between Illustris and the real universe have been studied, including why the simulation produced an overabundance of old stars.
VIDEO:  Jupiter's Magnetic Field from Juno https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap200225.html
Video Credit: NASA, JPL-Caltech, Harvard U., K. Moore et al.
Explanation: How similar is Jupiter's magnetic field to Earth's? NASA's robotic Juno spacecraft has found that Jupiter's magnetic field is surprisingly complex, so that the Jovian world does not have single magnetic poles like our Earth. A snapshot of Jupiter's magnetic field at one moment in time, as animated from Juno data, appears in the featured video. Red and blue colors depict cloud-top regions of strong positive (south) and negative (north) magnetic fields, respectively. Surrounding the planet are imagined magnetic field lines. The first sequence of the animated video starts off by showing what appears to be a relatively normal dipole field, but soon a magnetic region now known as the Great Blue Spot rotates into view, which is not directly aligned with Jupiter's rotation poles. Further, in the second sequence, the illustrative animation takes us over one of Jupiter's spin poles where red magnetic hotspots are revealed to be extended and sometimes even annular. A better understanding of Jupiter's magnetic field may give clues toward a better understanding of Earth's enigmatic planetary magnetism.
VIDEO:  Solar Granules at Record High Resolution https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap200203.html
Image Credit: NSO, NSF, AURA, Inouye Solar Telescope
Explanation: Why does the Sun's surface keep changing? The help find out, the US National Science Foundation (NSF) has built the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope in Hawaii, USA. The Inouye telescope has a larger mirror that enables the capturing of images of higher resolution, at a faster rate, and in more colors than ever before. Featured are recently-released first-light images taken over 10 minutes and combined into a 5-second time-lapse video. The video captures an area on the Sun roughly the size of our Earth, features granules roughly the size of a country, and resolves features as small as 30-kilometers across. Granule centers are bright due to the upwelling hot solar plasma, while granule edges are dim due to the cooled plasma falling back. Some regions between granules edges are very bright as they are curious magnetic windows into a deep and hotter solar interior. How the Sun's magnetic field keeps changing, channeling energy, and affecting the distant Earth, among many other topics, will be studied for years to come using data from the new Inouye telescope.



Julius Caesar and Leap Days
Image Credit & License: Classical Numismatic Group, Inc., Wikimedia
Explanation: In 46 BC Julius Caesar reformed the calendar system. Based on advice by astronomer Sosigenes of Alexandria, the Julian calendar included one leap day every four years to account for the fact that an Earth year is slightly more than 365 days long. In modern terms, the time it takes for the planet to orbit the Sun once is 365.24219 mean solar days. So if calendar years contained exactly 365 days they would drift from the Earth's year by about 1 day every 4 years and eventually July (named for Julius Caesar himself) would occur during the northern hemisphere winter. By adopting a leap year with an extra day every four years, the Julian calendar year would drift much less. In 1582 Pope Gregory XIII provided the further fine-tuning that leap days should not occur in years ending in 00, unless divisible by 400. This Gregorian Calendar system is the one in wide use today. Of course, tidal friction in the Earth-Moon system slows Earth's rotation and gradually lengthens the day by about 1.4 milliseconds per century. That means that leap days like today will not be necessary ... about 4 million years from now.

South Celestial Rocket Launch
Image Credit & Copyright: Brendan Gully
Explanation: At sunset on December 6 a Rocket Lab Electron rocket was launched from a rotating planet. With multiple small satellites on board it departed on a mission to low Earth orbit dubbed Running Out of Fingers from Mahia Peninsula on New Zealand's north island. The fiery trace of the Electron's graceful launch arc is toward the south in this southern sea and skyscape. Drifting vapor trails and rocket exhaust plumes catch the sunlight even as the sky grows dark though, the setting Sun still shinning at altitude along the rocket's trajectory. Fixed to a tripod, the camera's perspective nearly aligns the peak of the rocket arc with the South Celestial Pole, but no bright star marks that location in the southern hemisphere's evening sky. Still, it's easy to find at the center of the star trail arcs in the timelapse composite.


UGC 12591: The Fastest Rotating Galaxy Known
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, Hubble; Processing & Copyright: Leo Shatz
Explanation: Why does this galaxy spin so fast? To start, even identifying which type of galaxy UGC 12591 is difficult -- featured on the lower left, it has dark dust lanes like a spiral galaxy but a large diffuse bulge of stars like a lenticular. Surprisingly observations show that UGC 12591 spins at about 480 km/sec, almost twice as fast as our Milky Way, and the fastest rotation rate yet measured. The mass needed to hold together a galaxy spinning this fast is several times the mass of our Milky Way Galaxy. Progenitor scenarios for UGC 12591 include slow growth by accreting ambient matter, or rapid growth through a recent galaxy collision or collisions -- future observations may tell. The light we see today from UGC 12591 left about 400 million years ago, when trees were first developing on Earth.


The Changing Surface of Fading Betelgeuse
Image Credit: ESO, M. Montargès et al.
Explanation: Besides fading, is Betelgeuse changing its appearance? Yes. The famous red supergiant star in the familiar constellation of Orion is so large that telescopes on Earth can actually resolve its surface -- although just barely. The two featured images taken with the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope show how the star's surface appeared during the beginning and end of last year. The earlier image shows Betelgeuse having a much more uniform brightness than the later one, while the lower half of Betelgeuse became significantly dimmer than the top. Now during the first five months of 2019 amateur observations show Betelgeuse actually got slightly brighter, while in the last five months the star dimmed dramatically. Such variability is likely just normal behavior for this famously variable supergiant, but the recent dimming has rekindled discussion on how long it may be before Betelgeuse does go supernova. Since Betelgeuse is about 700 light years away, its eventual supernova -- probably thousands of years in the future -- will likely be an amazing night-sky spectacle, but will not endanger life on Earth.


Astronomy News:

Earth formed much faster than previously thought, new study shows
Date:
February 20, 2020
Source:
University of Copenhagen
Summary:
By measuring iron isotopes, researchers have shown that our planet originally formed much faster than previously thought. This finding provides new insights on both planetary formation and the likelihood of water and life elsewhere in the universe.
Share:
    
FULL STORY


 Illustration of protoplanetary disk (stock image).
Credit: © Peter Jurik / Adobe Stock
The precursor of our planet, the proto-Earth, formed within a time span of approximately five million years, shows a new study from the Centre for Star and Planet Formation (StarPlan) at the Globe Institute at the University of Copenhagen.
On an astronomical scale, this is extremely fast, the researchers explain.
If you compare the solar system's estimated 4.6 billion years of existence with a 24-hour period, the new results indicate that the proto-Earth formed in what corresponds to about a minute and a half.
Thus, the results from StarPlan break with the traditional theory that the proto-Earth formed by random collisions between larger and larger planetary bodies throughout several tens of millions of years -- equivalent to about 5-15 minutes out of the above-mentioned fictional 24 hours of formation.
Instead, the new results support a more recent, alternative theory about the formation of planets through the accretion of cosmic dust. The study's lead author, Associate Professor Martin Schiller, explains it as follows:
"The other idea is that we start from dust, essentially. Millimetre-sized objects, all coming together, raining down on the growing body and making the planet in one go," he says, adding:
"Not only is this implication of the rapid formation of the Earth interesting for our solar system. It is also interesting to assess how likely it is for planets to form somewhere else in the galaxy."
The bulk composition of the solar system
The key to the new finding came in the form of the most precise measurements of iron isotopes that have so far been published scientifically.
By studying the isotopic mixture of the metallic element in different meteorites, the researchers found only one type of meteoritic material with a composition similar to Earth: The so-called CI chondrites.
The researchers behind the study describe the dust in this fragile type of meteorite as our best equivalent to the bulk composition of the solar system itself. It was dust like this combined with gas that was funnelled via a circumstellar accretion disk onto the growing Sun.
This process lasted about five million years and our planets were made from material in this disk. Now, the researchers estimate that the proto-Earth's ferrous core also formed already during this period, removing early accreted iron from the mantle.
Two different iron compositions
Other meteorites, for example from Mars, tell us that at the beginning the iron isotopic composition of material contributing to the growing Earth was different. Most likely due to thermal processing of dust close to the young sun, the researchers from StarPlan explain.
After our solar system's first few hundred thousands of years it became cold enough for unprocessed CI dust from further out in the system to enter the accretion region of the proto-Earth.
"This added CI dust overprinted the iron composition in the Earth's mantle, which is only possible if most of the previous iron was already removed into the core. That is why the core formation must have happened early," Martin Schiller explains.
"If the Earth's formation was a random process where you just smashed bodies together, you would never be able to compare the iron composition of the Earth to only one type of meteorite. You would get a mixture of everything," he adds.
More planets, more water, perhaps more life
Based on the evidence for the theory that planets form through the accretion of cosmic dust, the researchers believe that the same process may occur elsewhere in the universe.
This means that also other planets may likely form much faster than if they grow solely from random collisions between objects in space.
This assumption is corroborated by the thousands of exoplanets -- planets in other solar systems -- that astronomers have discovered since the mid-nineties, explains Centre Leader and co-author of the study, Professor Martin Bizzarro:
"Now we know that planet formation happens everywhere. That we have generic mechanisms that work and make planetary systems. When we understand these mechanisms in our own solar system, we might make similar inferences about other planetary systems in the galaxy. Including at which point and how often water is accreted," he says, adding:
"If the theory of early planetary accretion really is correct, water is likely just a by-product of the formation of a planet like the Earth -- making the ingredients of life, as we know it, more likely to be found elsewhere in the universe."

Story Source:
Materials provided by University of Copenhagen. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Journal Reference:
1.       Martin Schiller, Martin Bizzarro, Julien Siebert. Iron isotope evidence for very rapid accretion and differentiation of the proto-Earth. Science Advances, 2020; 6 (7): eaay7604 DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aay7604

 

Astronomers detect biggest explosion in the history of the Universe

Date:
February 27, 2020
Source:
International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research
Summary:
Scientists studying a distant galaxy cluster have discovered the biggest explosion seen in the Universe since the Big Bang. The blast came from a supermassive black hole at the centre of a galaxy hundreds of millions of light-years away. It released five times more energy than the previous record holder.
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FULL STORY

This extremely powerful eruption occurred in the Ophiuchus galaxy cluster, which is located about 390 million light-years from Earth. Galaxy clusters are the largest structures in the Universe held together by gravity, containing thousands of individual galaxies, dark matter, and hot gas.

 Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/Naval Research Lab/Giacintucci, S.; XMM:ESA/XMM; Radio: NCRA/TIFR/GMRTN; Infrared: 2MASS/UMass/IPAC-Caltech/NASA/NSF
Scientists studying a distant galaxy cluster have discovered the biggest explosion seen in the Universe since the Big Bang.
The blast came from a supermassive black hole at the centre of a galaxy hundreds of millions of light-years away.
It released five times more energy than the previous record holder.
Professor Melanie Johnston-Hollitt, from the Curtin University node of the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research, said the event was extraordinarily energetic.
"We've seen outbursts in the centres of galaxies before but this one is really, really massive," she said.
"And we don't know why it's so big.
"But it happened very slowly -- like an explosion in slow motion that took place over hundreds of millions of years."
The explosion occurred in the Ophiuchus galaxy cluster, about 390 million light-years from Earth.
It was so powerful it punched a cavity in the cluster plasma -- the super-hot gas surrounding the black hole.
Lead author of the study Dr Simona Giacintucci, from the Naval Research Laboratory in the United States, said the blast was similar to the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens, which ripped the top off the mountain.
"The difference is that you could fit 15 Milky Way galaxies in a row into the crater this eruption punched into the cluster's hot gas," she said.
Professor Johnston-Hollitt said the cavity in the cluster plasma had been seen previously with X-ray telescopes.
But scientists initially dismissed the idea that it could have been caused by an energetic outburst, because it would have been too big.
"People were sceptical because the size of outburst," she said. "But it really is that. The Universe is a weird place."
The researchers only realised what they had discovered when they looked at the Ophiuchus galaxy cluster with radio telescopes.
"The radio data fit inside the X-rays like a hand in a glove," said co-author Dr Maxim Markevitch, from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center.
"This is the clincher that tells us an eruption of unprecedented size occurred here."
The discovery was made using four telescopes; NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, ESA's XMM-Newton, the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) in Western Australia and the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT) in India.
Professor Johnston-Hollitt, who is the director of the MWA and an expert in galaxy clusters, likened the finding to discovering the first dinosaur bones.
"It's a bit like archaeology," she said.
"We've been given the tools to dig deeper with low frequency radio telescopes so we should be able to find more outbursts like this now."
The finding underscores the importance of studying the Universe at different wavelengths, Professor Johnston-Hollitt said.
"Going back and doing a multi-wavelength study has really made the difference here," she said.
Professor Johnston-Hollitt said the finding is likely to be the first of many.
"We made this discovery with Phase 1 of the MWA, when the telescope had 2048 antennas pointed towards the sky," she said.
"We're soon going to be gathering observations with 4096 antennas, which should be ten times more sensitive."
"I think that's pretty exciting."

Story Source:
Materials provided by International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Related Multimedia:

Journal Reference:
1.       S. Giacintucci, M. Markevitch, M. Johnston-Hollitt, D. R. Wik, Q. H. S. Wang, T. E. Clarke. Discovery of a giant radio fossil in the Ophiuchus galaxy cluster. The Astrophysical Journal, 2020 [link]


 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 2020 Astronomy Lecture Series Season

Monday evenings:   March 23, April 13 and May 18.

AT THE HUNTINGTON LIBRARY, ART COLLECTIONS, AND BOTANICAL GARDENS
1151 Oxford Road, San Marino
2020 Season


All Lectures are in Rothenberg Auditorium. The simulcast room adjacent to the Auditorium will also accommodate overflow attendance. Directions can be found here.
The lectures are free. Because seating is limited, however, reservations are required for each lecture through Eventbrite (links below). Additionally, the lectures will be streamed live through Livestream and simultaneously on our Facebook CarnegieAstro page. For information, please call 626-304-0250.
Doors open at 6:45 p.m. Each Lecture will be preceded by a brief musical performance by students from The Colburn School starting at 7:00 p.m. Lectures start at 7:30 p.m. Light refreshments will be  available.


Monday, March 23, 2020
Sky Full of Fireflies: Time-Domain Astronomy in the 2020s
Dr. K. Decker French
Hubble Fellow, Carnegie Observatories
The sky is full of cosmic explosions and stars torn apart by black holes, which are only the faintest flashes of starlight by the time they reach the Earth. Astronomy in the 2020s will be revolutionized by new sensitive surveys to map these exciting transient and time-varying phenomenon. Dr. French will lead us through the new astrophysics that can be uncovered with time-sensitive observations in the next decade.
Tickets will be available starting February 25th at Eventbrite.
Can't make it to the event? Watch it live online.



Monday, April 13, 2020
Building Astronomical Instrumentation for the Next Generation
Dr. Solange V. Ramirez
Carnegie Astronomer and SDSS-V Project Manager
For the past 20 years, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey — a collaboration among astronomers worldwide — has been working to gather spectral and photometric data covering one third of the sky and analyzing millions of individual objects. The making of every telescope and its instrumentation requires extraordinary creativity, innovation, and expertise, and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey has pioneered the development of novel equipment designed to address many crucial astronomical questions; the resulting information is providing a rich legacy for future research. In this lecture, Dr. Ramirez will describe how SDSS-V, the latest phase of this massive project, is designing and building the instrumentation that will reveal information about the universe in unprecedented detail.
Tickets will be available starting March 24th at Eventbrite.
Can't make it to the event? Watch it live online.


Monday, May 18, 2020
Hubble's Troublesome Constant
Dr. Chris Burns
Research Associate, Carnegie Observatories
Nearly 100 years ago, Carnegie astronomer Edwin Hubble made two truly revolutionary discoveries. First, that our Milky Way was only one of many galaxies in a vast universe; and second, that the farther these galaxies were from us, the faster they appeared to be moving away. The ratio between these speeds and distances, which we now call the Hubble Constant, is a fundamental quantity that sets the scale for the size and age of the entire cosmos. For decades, its precise value has been a source of contention among astronomers. Even today, with the most powerful telescopes at our disposal, tension between different groups remains. Dr. Burns will cover the history of Hubble’s troublesome Constant and how we are trying to pin it down.
Tickets will be available starting April 14th at Eventbrite.
Can't make it to the event? Watch it live online.
5 March
AEA
TBD
(A1/1735)
AEA Astronomy Club Meeting
TBD -- Great Courses video
A1/1026








6 March

Friday Night 7:30PM SBAS  Monthly General Meeting
in the Planetarium at El Camino College (16007 Crenshaw Bl. In Torrance)
Topic: “Cosmos: The Art and Science of the Universe” Dr. Steven Morris


CalTech Astro: Astronomy on Tap Series

For directions, weather updates, and more information, please visit: http://outreach.astro.caltech.edu



March 5 & 6 The von Kármán Lecture Series: 2020


The Search for Life: Exploring Ocean Worlds


The search for life is "civilization level science." What happens if or when we find it? Using the upcoming block of "Ocean Access" missions, Dr. Morgan Cable shows us why ocean worlds are important and what the discovery of life could mean to us as a civilization.
Host:
Brian White
Speaker(s):
Dr. Morgan Cable, Astrobiology and Ocean Worlds, JPL

Location(s):
Friday, March 6, 2020, 7pm
Caltech’s Beckman Auditorium
1200 E California Blvd.
Pasadena, CA
› Directions

› Click here to watch the event live on Ustream
* Only the Thursday lectures are streamed live.


  9 March
LAAS General Mtg. 7:30pm Griffith Observatory (private)


April 12

UCLA Meteorite Gallery

DR. FRANK KYTE

SPHERULES IN SEDIMENT DEPOSITS FROM ASTEROID IMPACT EJECTA

Location: Geology 3656
Time: 2:30PM
This talk will discuss formation of impact spherules and their occurrence in impact deposits ranging in age from 0.8 Ma (million years before present) to 3400 Ma. When asteroids impact the Earth with cosmic velocities (about 20 km/sec) they release enormous amounts of kinetic energy. A large portion of this energy is transferred to the Earth’s surface that results in seismic waves and excavation of a crater many times the asteroid’s volume. Materials ejected from this crater are deposited mostly near the crater, but in large impacts the ejecta with the highest velocity can travel above the atmosphere and return as a global deposit. The famous dinosaur-killing impact at the K/Pg (a.k.a. KT) boundary produced a global deposit that was probably only a few mm thick. It is well known that this K/Pg layer has lots of iridium from the asteroid but its most distinctive characteristic on a macro level is that it is composed mainly of small spherical particles known as impact spherules. Impact spherules are a common feature of distal impact deposits (those deposited far from the impact site). Large impacts can melt significant amounts of crustal rocks in the impact crater, producing spherules around the crater. The highest velocity ejecta likely comes from a supercritical* “ejecta plume” composed of a mixture of crustal and asteroidal materials. As this ejecta plume expands, melt droplets will form, some condensing from a vapor, and these will solidify to form the silicate spherules common in impact deposits.
2 April
AEA
TBD
(A1/1735)
AEA Astronomy Club Meeting
 TBD -- Great Courses video?
A1/1026
Observing:

The following data are from the 2020 Observer’s Handbook, and Sky & Telescope’s 2020 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 March:

   

Moon: March 2 1st quarter, March 9 Full, March 16 last quarter, March 24 new                  
Planets: Venus high at dusk, sets  in late evening.  Mars,Saturn & Jupiter reasonably high by dawn, close to each other in early March, very close by month’s end.  Mercury very low at dawn from the 13th through the 25th.  .
Other Events:

4,11,18,25 March
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

14 March -- Pi Day


14 March
SBAS In-town observing session – contact Greg Benecke to coordinate a location. http://www.sbastro.net/.  

18 March Mars 0.7 deg N of Moon, Jupiter 1.5 deg N of Moon

19 March Saturn 2 deg N of Moon

20 March Equinox, Mars 0.7 deg S of Jupiter

21 March
LAAS Private dark sky  Star Party


21 March
SBAS out-of-town Dark Sky observing – contact Greg Benecke to coordinate a location. http://www.sbastro.net/.  

24 March Mercury at Greatest Western Elongation

24 March Venus at Greatest Eastern Elongation

28 March
LAAS Public  Star Party: Griffith Observatory Grounds 2-10pm See http://www.griffithobservatory.org/programs/publictelescopes.html#starparties  for more information.

31 March Mars 0.9 deg S of Saturn

Internet Links:

Telescope, Binocular & Accessory Buying Guides


General


Regional (Southern California, Washington, D.C. & Colorado)
Southern California & Beyond Amateur Astronomy Organizations, Observatories & Planetaria
Mt. Wilson Observatory description, history, visiting


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, Walt Sturrock, VP, Kelly Gov club Secretary (& librarian), or Alan Olson, Resource Committee Chairman (over equipment, and club Treasurer).

Mark Clayson,
AEA Astronomy Club President



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