AEA Astronomy Club
Newsletter
May 2023
Contents
AEA Astronomy Club News & Calendar p.1
Video(s) & Picture(s) of the Month p. 2
Astronomy News p. 10
General Calendar p. 13
Colloquia, lectures, mtgs. p. 13
Observing p. 15
Useful
Links p. 16
About the Club p.
17
Club News &
Calendar.
Club Calendar
Club Meeting Schedule:
--
4 May AEA Astronomy Club Meeting TBD – Great Courses video Teams
1 June AEA Astronomy Club Meeting TBD – Great Courses video Teams
AEA
Astronomy Club meetings are now on 1st Thursdays at 11:30 am. Virtual meetings on Teams until further
notice. When live meetings resume, our
preferred room has been A1/1735, when we can reserve it.
Club
News:
The club’s Meade LX-200 10”
telescope & accessories need a new home – contact Alex Ellis.
Nominations for club V.P. are being taken.
2023 AEA Astronomy
Club Dues
• The new Treasurer, Eric Belle,
will be sending out a request for 2023 Dues, it is recognized that this request
is being sent out 3 months late
• We will attempt to set up an
electronic method of dues payment; once the proposed method has been approved
by the officers, an email will be sent out to the membership along with a
request to pay 2023 Dues.
2024
Eclipse -- An update from the
2024 solar eclipse committee (Mark Clayson, Marilee Wheaton, Judy Kerner,Mai
Lee, Melissa Jolliff, Nahum Melamed):
We were blindsided a few weeks
ago when the hotel we had a contract with said they could no longer honor it
due to “unforeseen renovations” during those dates. So much for a “binding contract.” We, as they, apologize for those who made
reservations through them.
We have found better lodging
slightly farther from centerline (still within an hour drive of Kerrville and
Fredericksburg), in North San Antonio. 50
rooms of various varieties (kings, double queens, studio & 2-bedroom suites,
with sofabeds). Rates are a bit
higher. We are finalizing the contract,
but you should be able to make individual reservations shortly.
If you would like more
information about the hotel & available rooms, the link and phone to reserve
a room as well as preliminary travel & car rental research and observing
plans, contact Marilee Wheaton at Marilee.wheaton@aero.org , 310-874-5480.
It is expected that all
people making reservations be members of the club in 2024. And, as with Mt. Wilson observing trips, we ask
that all family members/friends accompanying them also join the club for 2024,
as they will also be receiving benefits of the club (arrangements, equipment, photos,
expertise, and possibly eclipse glasses and T-shirt). Violations are subject to cancellation of
room reservations, if membership is not finalized by Dec. 31, 2023.
Also, please let Marilee
know of your anticipated travel plan – driving or flying. We need to know who’s driving and may be able
to take some of our club equipment for observing and photographing the
eclipse.
Contact Jason Fields if interested in joining him for an observing
night with his 20” Dobs – per recent emails.
We need volunteers to help with:
·
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, Sam has a fair chunk of the equipment)
Astronomy Video(s)
& Picture(s) of the Month
(generally from
Astronomy Picture of the Day, APOD: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/archivepix.html)
Saturn's Moon Helene in Color
Image Credit: NASA, JPL-Caltech, SSI;
Processing: Daniel Macháček
Explanation: Although its colors may be subtle, Saturn's moon Helene is
an enigma in any light. The moon was imaged in unprecedented
detail in 2012 as the robotic
Cassini spacecraft orbiting
Saturn swooped to within a single Earth diameter of the diminutive
moon. Although conventional craters
and hills appear, the above image also shows terrain that appears unusually smooth and streaked. Planetary
astronomers are inspecting
these detailed images of Helene to glean
clues about the origin and
evolution of the 30-km across floating iceberg. Helene is also unusual because it circles Saturn just ahead
of the large moon Dione, making it one of only four known Saturnian
moons to occupy a
gravitational dimple known as a stable Lagrange point.
Solar Eclipse from a Ship
Image Credit: Fred Espenak
Explanation: Along
a narrow path that mostly
avoided landfall, the shadow of the New Moon raced across planet Earth's southern hemisphere on April 20
to create a rare annular-total or hybrid solar eclipse. From the Indian Ocean off the coast of western Australia,
ship-borne eclipse chasers were able to witness 62 seconds of totality though
while anchored near the centerline of the total eclipse track. This ship-borne
image of the eclipse captures the active Sun's magnificent outer atmosphere
or solar
corona streaming into space. A
composite of 11 exposures ranging from 1/2000 to 1/2 second, it records an
extended range of brightness to follow details of the corona not quite visible
to the eye during the total eclipse phase. Of course eclipses tend to come in pairs. On May 5, the next Full Moon will just miss the dark inner part of Earth's shadow
in a penumbral lunar eclipse.
Auroral Storm over Lapland
Image Credit & Copyright: Juan Carlos Casado (Starry Earth, TWAN)
Explanation: On some nights the sky is the best show in town. On this
night, auroras
ruled the sky, and the geomagnetic
storm that created this colorful sky show originated from an increasingly
active Sun. Surprisingly, since the approaching solar CME the day before had missed the Earth, it was not
expected that this storm would create auroras. In the foreground, two happily
surprised aurora hunters contemplate the amazing and rapidly changing sky.
Regardless of forecasts, though, auroras were reported in the night skies of Earth not only in
the far north, but as far south as New Mexico, USA. As captured in a wide-angle image above Saariselkä in
northern Finnish Lapland, a bright aurora was visible with an unusually high degree
of detail, range of colors, and breadth across the sky. The vivid yellow,
green, red and purple auroral
colors are caused by oxygen and nitrogen atoms high in Earth's
atmosphere reacting to
incoming electrons.
ELVES Lightning over Italy
Image Credit & Copyright: Valter Binotto
Explanation: What's that red ring in the sky? Lightning. The most
commonly seen type of lightning involves flashes of bright white light between clouds. Over the past 50 years, though,
other types
of upper-atmospheric lightning have
been confirmed, including red sprites and blue jets. Less well known and harder to photograph is a different
type of upper
atmospheric lightning known as
ELVES. ELVES are thought to be created when an electromagnetic
pulse shoots upward from
charged clouds and impacts the ionosphere, causing nitrogen molecules to glow. The red
ELVES ring pictured had a radius of about 350 km and was captured in late
March about 100 kilometers above Ancona, Italy. Years of experience and ultra-fast photography were used
to capture this ELVES -- which lasted only about 0.001 second.
NGC 2419: Intergalactic Wanderer
Image Credit: ESA/Hubble, NASA, S.
Larsen et al.
Explanation: Stars of the globular cluster NGC 2419 are packed into
this Hubble
Space Telescope field of view toward the mostly stealthy constellation Lynx. The two brighter spiky stars near the edge of the frame
are within our own galaxy. NGC 2419 itself is remote though, some 300,000 light-years
away. In comparison, the Milky Way's satellite galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud, is only about 160,000 light-years distant. Roughly
similar to other large globular star clusters like Omega Centauri, NGC 2419 is intrinsically bright, but appears faint
because it is so far away. Its extreme distance makes it difficult to study and compare its properties with other globular
clusters that roam the halo of our Milky Way galaxy. Sometimes called "the
Intergalactic Wanderer", NGC 2419 really does seem to have come from beyond the Milky
Way. Measurements of the cluster's motion through space suggest it once
belonged to the Sagittarius
dwarf spheroidal galaxy, another
small satellite galaxy being disrupted by repeated encounters with the much
larger Milky Way.
Terran 1 Burns Methalox
Image Credit: Relativity / John Kraus
Explanation: Relativity's Terran 1 Rocket is mostly 3D-printed. It burns a cryogenic rocket
fuel composed of liquid methane and liquid oxygen (methalox). In this close-up
of a Terran 1 launch on the night of March 22 from Cape Canaveral, icy
chunks fall through the stunning frame as intense blue exhaust streams from its
nine Aeon 1 engines. In a largely successful flight the
inovative rocket achieved main
engine cutoff and stage separation but fell short of orbit after an anomaly at
the beginning of its second stage flight. Of course this Terran 1 rocket was
never intended to travel to Mars. Still, the methane and liquid oxygen components of
its methalox
fuel can be made solely from
materials found on the Red Planet. Methalox manufactured
on Mars could be used as fuel for rockets returning to planet Earth.
Rubin's Galaxy
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, B. Holwerda (University of Louisville)
Explanation: In this
Hubble Space Telescope image the
bright, spiky stars lie in the foreground toward the heroic northern
constellation Perseus and well within our own Milky Way galaxy. In sharp focus
beyond is UGC 2885, a giant spiral galaxy about 232 million light-years
distant. Some 800,000 light-years across compared to the Milky Way's diameter
of 100,000 light-years or so, it has around 1 trillion stars. That's about 10
times as many stars as the Milky Way. Part of
an investigation to understand
how galaxies can grow to such enormous sizes, UGC 2885 was also part of An
Interesting Voyage and
astronomer Vera Rubin's pioneering study of the rotation of spiral galaxies.
Her work was the first to convincingly demonstrate the dominating presence
of dark matter in our universe.
Olympus Mons: Largest Volcano in the Solar System
Image Credit: ESA, DLR, FU Berlin, Mars
Express; Processing & CC BY 2.0 License: Andrea Luck
Explanation: The largest volcano in our Solar System is on Mars.
Although three times higher than Earth's Mount Everest, Olympus Mons will not be difficult for humans to climb because of the volcano's shallow slopes and Mars' low
gravity. Covering an area greater than the entire Hawaiian volcano chain, the slopes of Olympus Mons typically rise only a few degrees at a time. Olympus Mons is an immense shield volcano, built long ago by fluid lava. A relatively
static surface crust allowed
it to build up over time. Its last eruption is thought to have been about 25 million years ago.
The featured
image was taken by the
European Space Agency's robotic Mars Express spacecraft currently orbiting the Red
Planet.
The Galactic Center Radio Arc
Image Credit: Ian Heywood (Oxford U.), SARAO;
Explanation: What causes this unusual curving structure near the center
of our Galaxy? The long parallel rays slanting across the top of the featured
radio image are known
collectively as the Galactic
Center Radio Arc and point out
from the Galactic plane. The Radio
Arc is connected to the Galactic Center by strange curving filaments known as the Arches. The bright radio structure at the bottom right surrounds
a black hole at the Galactic Center and is known as Sagittarius A*. One origin
hypothesis holds that the
Radio Arc and the Arches have their geometry because they contain hot plasma flowing along lines of a constant magnetic field. Images from NASA's Chandra X-ray
Observatory appear to show
this plasma
colliding with a nearby cloud
of cold gas.
Astronomy
News:
(from ScienceNews.org)
The James Webb telescope revealed surprise
asteroids in the
Fomalhaut star system
The
star hosts a dynamic, crowded and rapidly evolving planetary system
A closer look at the nearby star Fomalhaut
seems to confirm that its planet Dagon is probably just dust, but the solar
system sports a previously unseen asteroid belt and possibly a new dust cloud.
ADAM BLOCK
The
star Fomalhaut is ready for its close-up.
Rings of dust encircle the young star in stunning new images from the James Webb Space Telescope. The photos offer a clearer view of the star system — already famous for previous images of a purported, now widely disputed, planet. Features in the system include an oddly cockeyed asteroid belt, an expanding cloud of debris from a possible planet collision, and other unidentified bits that hint at a dynamic and crowded environment, researchers report May 8 in Nature Astronomy.
“It’s
the first time we’re actually looking at the inner system, and it looks really
different than I think anybody expected it to,” says astrophysicist Meredith
MacGregor of the University of Colorado Boulder, who was not involved in the
study. “The expectation was that there would be something like our solar
system,” a place that is relatively mature and stable. “It really starts
changing how we think about the dynamics of the [Fomalhaut] system.”
Fomalhaut,
a scant 25 light-years away, is a young star at the center of a rapidly
evolving planetary system. It was once thought to host one of the first planets
to be photographed outside of our solar system (SN: 11/13/08). However, the
existence of the planet — dubbed Dagon — has long been in question (SN: 1/26/12).
The
new JWST images add to the growing evidence that Dagon is actually a cloud of
dust. A collision among planets probably explains the dusty feature, says
András Gáspár, an astronomer at the University of Arizona in Tucson. “It is
fading, and it is expanding in size,” he says, as it follows a trajectory
consistent with dust blowing in the stellar wind from Fomalhaut. Those are all
characteristics more indicative of dust clouds than planets.
But
just because Dagon hasn’t seemed to have panned out, that doesn’t mean there
aren’t other planets lurking around Fomalhaut.
Indirect
evidence for other worlds comes from an unexpected asteroid belt, seen for the
first time in the new images. The belt is tilted at a jaunty 23 degrees from
everything else seen in orbit around the star.
“This
is a truly unique aspect of the system,” Gáspár says. The tilted belt, he says,
could be the result of as-yet-undiscovered planets stirring up the debris
around Fomalhaut.
MacGregor
agrees. “If you see a disk that’s like this, that has an [elongated] outer ring
and a bunch of dust that’s getting dragged in, there are probably planets
there,” she says. “I think the easiest explanation [for the tilted belt] is
there’s a planet in there, and the planet is on an orbit that is not aligned
with the disk.” The misaligned planet, in turn, is dragging the asteroid belt
off-kilter with respect to the plane of the solar system, she says.
The JWST images also turned up a newly
identified feature in the outer belt around the star. It’s a blob that
Gáspár and his colleagues call the Great Dust Cloud. It’s not yet clear whether
it’s a real feature, or just some bright object shining through from beyond the
Fomalhaut system.
“It
could easily be a background galaxy,” Gáspár says, “which would be a really
cruel trick by nature.” Follow-up observations with JWST will help them decide,
he says. If the object stays put while the Fomalhaut system keeps spinning,
then it’s a cosmic photobomber, lurking in the background.
The
latest images answer some questions about Fomalhaut while raising a host of new
ones, Gáspár says. “This single observation of Fomalhaut revealed way too many
aspects of the system that we need to understand and unpack,” he says. “We set
out to spatially resolve the asteroid belt component but ended up opening a
much greater box of surprises.”
CITATIONS
A.
Gáspár et al. Spatially resolved imaging of the inner Fomalhaut disk
using JWST/MIRI. Nature Astronomy.
Published online May 8, 2023. doi: 10.1038/s41550-023-01962-6.
About James R. Riordon
·
E-mail
James
Riordon is a freelance science writer and coauthor of the book Ghost Particle – In Search of the Elusive and
Mysterious Neutrino.
General Calendar:
Colloquia,
Lectures, Seminars, Meetings, Open Houses & Tours:
Colloquia: Carnegie (Tues.
11am), UCLA, Caltech (Wed. 4pm), IPAC (Wed. 12:15pm) & other Pasadena
(daily
12-4pm):
https://obs.carnegiescience.edu/observatories-events (in-person, online & hybrid events
typically Tuesdays & Fridays)
Carnegie Zoom Digital Series
Zoom Webinar Platform
Night Sky Network Clubs
& Events
https://nightsky.jpl.nasa.gov/clubs-and-events.cfm
4 May AEA Astronomy Club Meeting TBD – Great Courses video Teams
5 May Friday Night 7:30 PM SBAS Monthly General
Meeting Topic: “Join the Search for Life in the Universe with UCLA SETI”
Dr. Jean-Luc Margot, UCLA, in
the Planetarium at El Camino College (16007 Crenshaw Bl. In Torrance)
8 May LAAS General Mtg. 8:00pm Griffith Observatory (private)
The von Kármán Lecture
Series:
May 18, 2023 - InSight
End of Mission: Our Time on Mars
This selfie of NASA’s InSight
lander is a mosaic made up of 14 images taken on March 15 and April 11 – the
106th and 133rd Martian days, or sols, of the mission – by the spacecraft
Instrument Deployment Camera located on its robotic arm.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
May
18
Time: 7 p.m. PDT (10 p.m. EDT; 0300 UTC)
The
InSight Mission to Mars began its journey to the red planet in May 2018.
Upon its arrival in November of that year, InSight began an ambitious mission
to reveal the internal structure of Mars. The lander detected over 1000
Mars seismic events, studied the Martian weather, and even found magnetic
“ghosts” from an old electrical field. The mission ended 4 years after it
began, when the solar panels finally succumbed to the dust deposition that
prevented them from generating power.
Speaker(s):
Dr. Mark Panning, Project Scientist, InSight, NASA/JPL
Dr. Ingrid Daubar, InSight Participating Scientist, NASA/JPL
Host:
Marc Razze, Office of Communications and Education, NASA/JPL
Co-host:
Sarah Marcotte, Mars Public Engagement, NASA/JPL
Webcast:
Click here to watch the event live on YouTube
MAY UCLA Meteorite Gallery Lectures
No event currently scheduled.
1 June AEA Astronomy Club Meeting TBD – Great Courses video Teams
Observing:
The
following data are from the 2023 Observer’s Handbook, and Sky & Telescope’s
2023 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 May:
Moon May 5
Full, May 12 last quarter, May 19
new, May 27 1st quarter
Planets:
Venus
is visible at dusk all month. Mars is high in the west
at dusk and sets in the predawn. Jupiter
emerges at dawn starting on the 6th. Saturn is visible at dawn all month. Mercury
is invisible all month.
Other
Events:
LAAS Event Calendar (incl.
various other virtual events):
https://www.laas.org/laas-bulletin/#calendar
5 May Eta Aquarid
Meteor Shower Created by debris from Halley’s Comet, the Eta Aquarids are
seen low in the sky in the Northern Hemisphere. This year’s shower will be
upstaged by the full Moon making meteors harder to spot.
|
May 3,10,17,24,31 |
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. Time: 7:30
PM - 10:00 PM Location: Garvey
Ranch Obs. , 781 Orange Ave., Monterey Park, CA 91755 |
|
13 May |
SBAS In-town
observing session –at Christmas Tree Cove Located at the west end
of Palos Verdes Peninsula at the intersection of Via Neve and Paseo Del Mar.
Reached from PV West, turn on Via Anacapa then turn left on Via Sola and left
again on Via Neve., Weather Permitting. http://www.sbastro.net/. |
15 May Neptune 2deg N of Moon
17 May Jupiter 0.8deg
S of Moon, occultation
|
20 May |
SBAS
out-of-town Dark Sky observing – contact Ken Munson to coordinate a location.
http://www.sbastro.net/. |
23 May Venus 2deg S of Moon
|
? |
LAAS Private dark
sky Star Party |
|
27 May |
LAAS Public
Star Party: Griffith Observatory Grounds 2-10pm See http://www.griffithobservatory.org/programs/publictelescopes.html#starparties for more information. |
29 May Mercury at
Greatest Western Elongation (25 deg)
Internet
Links:
Telescope, Binocular & Accessory Buying
Guides
Sky & Telescope Magazine -- Choosing Your Equipment
Orion Telescopes & Binoculars -- Buying
Guides
Telescopes.com -- Telescopes 101
General
Getting Started in Astronomy & Observing
e! Science News Astronomy & Space
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)
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)
The Local Group Astronomy Club
(Santa Clarita)
Ventura County Astronomical
Society
The
Astronomical Society of Greenbelt
Northern
Virginia Astronomy Club
Colorado
Springs Astronomical Society
About the
Club
Club
Websites:
Internal (Aerospace): https://aerosource2.aero.org/confluence/display/AstroClub/AEA+Astronomy+Club+Home 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 Kaly Rengarajan, 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: Jason Fields, President & Program Committee Chairman, Sam
Andrews, VP, Kelly Gov club Secretary (& librarian), or Eric Belle,
(Treasurer).
Mark Clayson,
AEA Astronomy Club Newsletter Editor
