longmont astronomical society · a broad spectrum of topics are covered at the meetings and include...

June 2020Longmont Astronomical Society

Volume 34, No 6, June 2020ISSN 2641-8886 (web)

ISSN 2641-8908 (print)

M13 by Tally O’Donnell

Copyright (c) Longmont Astronomical Society, June 2020. Website: www.longmontastro.org

The LAS meeting this month will be a virtual one beginning at our usual time of 7 pm on Thursday, June 18th.

You may join the meeting at 6:30 pm so you can check your connection and socialize prior to the main presentation.

You will be sent an email with instructions and a link to join the video conference. If you do not have a video camera or don’t wish to be seen you may just watch or attend with audio only. You may also join by telephone.

We will be using Zoom video conferencing software which supports most devices. The software maybe downloaded and installed on your computer or cellphone from links at URL https://zoom.us/download

“Street Scene in Boston” by Winslow Homer, 1857.

• All LAS public events this month have been canceled due to the Covid-19 flu pandemic.

Events in June

LAS Officers and Board Members in 2020

• Bill Tschumy, President• Stephen Garretson, Vice President• Michelle Blom, Secretary• Bruce Lamoreaux, Treasurer

Board Members:Mike Hotka, Gary Garzone, Brian Kimball, Vern Raben

LAS Virtual Meeting June 18 from 7 to 9 pm

So what is a comet anyway? Are there different types of objects? Do they all orbit in the same direction as the plan-ets? Is there any way to predict if they will survive the close pass by the Sun? After a lively discussion that revealed there is much we don’t know it was decided to have our resident expert, Paul Robinson, get us up to speed on these amazing objects.

“Comet Primer” by Paul Robinson

https://zoom.us/download


About LAS

Front Cover “M13” by Tally O’Donnell2 LAS Virtual Meeting June 18 from 7 to 9 pm - “Comet Primer” by Paul Robinson3 Contents3 About LAS4 Solar System Highlights for June by Vern Raben5 “Navigating the June Night Sky” by John Goss

6 “If You Could Observe Only One Object this Month - Two Largest Planets Pair Up” by John Gossand “From Our Newsletter Archives”

7-8 Comets in June 9 Summary of May 21 Meeting by Vern Raben

10 - 26 LAS Member Images in May 202010 “Sun in Calcium-K on May 11, 2020” by Brian Kimball11 “Large Prominence in H-Alpha on May 25” and “Prominence on May 26” by Brian Kimball12 “NGC 7000” and “M101” by David Elmore13 “M57” and “M92” by Eddie Hunnell14 “M61” by Eddie Hunnell and “Comet C/2017 T2 PANSTARRS” by Gary Garzone 15 “M57 Ring Nebula” and “Comet C/2020 F8 SWAN” by Gary Garzone16 “M97 in HOO” and “Veil Nebula” by Jim Pollock17 “M8 and M20” by Jim Pollock18 “Andromeda” by Marty Butley19 “Sharpless 290 in HOO” and “M51” by M. J. Post20 “M64” by M. J. Post and “Comet C/2020 F8 on May 17” by Paul Robinson21 “M33” and “M106” by Rolando Garcia22 “NGC 4565” by Rolando Garcia and “Cygnus in HOO” by Stephen Garretson23 “LDN 1158 Area L” and “SAO 38926 Area” by Stephen Garretson24 “M13” by Tally O’Donnell25 “NGC 6888” by Tally O’Donnell26 “Sharpless 2-101” by Tally O’Donnell27 “M101” by Tally O’Donnell

Back Cover “M13” by Jim Pollock

The Longmont Astronomial Society Newsletter ISSN 2641-8886 (web) and ISSN 2641-8908 (print) is published monthly by the Longmont Astronomical Society, P. O. Box 806, Longmont, Colorado. Newsletter Editor is Vern Raben. Our website URL is https://www.longmontastro.org The Longmont Astronomical Society is a 501 c(3), non-profit corporation which was estab-lished in 1987. Our main goal is to promote local amateur astronomy. This is accomplished through regular monthly meetings, star parties and public observing sessions. Regular meetings are held every month (except December) on the third Thursday.

The Longmont Astronomical Society is affiliated with the Astronomical League (https://www.astroleague.org). The Astronomical League is an umbrella organization of amateur astronomy societies in the United States.

Contents

A broad spectrum of topics are covered at the meetings and include such things as deep sky observing, planetary imaging, narrow band imaging, equipment discussions and demonstrations just to name a few. These subjects are presented by both club members as well as special guests who are professional astronomers or experts in a particular field.

https://www.longmontastro.org

https://www.astroleague.org


Uranus is visible low in the morning sky in constellation Aries. It is magnitude +5.9 in brightness and its disk is 3.4 arc sec across.

Neptune is visible low in the morning sky in constellation Aquarius. It is magnitude 7.9 in brightness and the disk is 2.2 arc sec across.

Uranus

Neptune

Solar System Highlights for June 2020

Venus is not visible this month.

Mercury

Venus

Jupiter

Mars

Full Moon: June 5 at 1:13 pm

Third Quarter: June 13 at 12:25 am

New Moon: June 21 at 12:42 am

Mercury is not visible this month.

Jupiter is visible in the morning sky in constellation Sag-ittarius. It is magnitude -2.6 to -2.7 in brightness and its disk increases from 45 to 47 arc sec across this month.

Saturn is visible in the morning sky in constellation Aquarius. On the 1st it is magnitude +0.0 in brightness and the disk is 9.3 arc sec across. On June 30 it is magni-tude -0.5 in brightness and 11 arc sec across.

First Quarter: June 28 at 2:17 am ?

The Great Red Spot mid transit times this month are:

June 3 at 2:49 am altitude 28°June 5 at 4:27 am altitude 30°June 8 at 1:56 am altitude 25°June 10 at 3:34 am altitude 30°June 12 at 5:12 am altitude 26°June 13 at 1:03 am altitude 22°June 15 at 2:42 am altitude 30°June 17 at 4:20 am altitude 28°June 20 at 1:49 am altitude 28°June 21 at 3:27 am altitude 29°June 24 at 5:05 am altitude 21°June 25 at 12:56 am altitude 26°June 27 at 2:34 am altitude 30°June 29 at 4:12 am altitude 24°June 30 at 12:03 am altitude 23°

(Assuming a GRS longitude of 331°)

Saturn is visible in the morning sky in constellation Cap-ricornus. It is magnitude +0.4 in brightness and its disk is 18 arc sec across on June 1st. By the 30th it is magnitude +0.2 in brightness and its disk is still 18 arc sec across.

Saturn

Saturn on June 4, 2020 by Vern Raben


The June 17, 2010 meet-ing will be at the IHop Restaurant. The speak-er at the meeting will

be Dr. Suzanne Traub-Metlay who will give a presentation about Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO).

Newsletter Archives

10 Years Ago - June 2010 20 Years Ago - June 2000 30 Years Ago - June 1990

The 1990 July 14 family picnic will be at Beech open space north of Boulder. The picnic will be in place of regular July meeting. The FRASC star

party is June 22 to 24 at “Badger Flats”. Next month the Cheyenne and Denver clubs are sponsoring a “MARS” star party at Fox Park, WY from the 17th to 19th.

The June 15, 2000 general meeting will be at the Lit-tle Thompson Observatory in Berthoud.

Our secretary/treasurer, Mike Hotka, announced that club’s 501 (c)(3) non-profit status has been finalized and is effect.


Comets in June

Comet C/2017 T2 (PANSTARRS)

Date Optimal time RA Dec Brightness Size (arc min) Constellation

June 1 9:28 pm 10h58m43.4s +64°14’42” 8.6 4.3 Ursa Major

June 8 10:17 pm 11h32m22.0s +58°22’25” 8.7 4.3 Ursa MajorJune 15 9:38 pm 11h55m26.2s +52°54’19” 8.8 4.2 Ursa MajorJune 22 9:41 pm 12h14m35.8s +47°18’34” 8.9 4.1 Canes Venatici

June 30 9:43 pm 12h33m15.3s +40°56’40” 9.1 4.0 Canes Venatici

Comet C/2017 T2 (PANSTARRS) is currently moving through constellation Ursa Major. It is magnitude 8.6 in brightness. It was discovered by the two 1.8 meter PANSTARRS telescopes are located at the Haleakaia Observatory in Hawaii.


Comet C/2019 Y1 (ATLAS( is now about magnitude +8.2. It is currently moving through constellation Camelpar-dalis. It was discovered by the University of Hawaii’s Asteroid Terrestrial Impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) on Dec. 19th, 2019. The two telescopes used by the ATLAS system were built by DFM Engineering in Longmont.

Comet C/2019 Y1 (ATLAS)

Created with SkyTools 4

Date Optimal time RA Dec Brightness Size (arc min) Constellation

June 1 9:09 pm 05h53m45.7s +82°42’28” 8.2 3.7 Camelopardalis

June 8 09h41m00.6s +76°51’52” 8.5 3.7 DracoJune 15 10h45m18.2s +67°20’20” 8.9 3.5 Ursa MajorJune 22 11h12m36.4s +57°57’45” 9.3 3.3 Ursa Major

June 30 1 11h28m53.7s +49°27’34” 9.8 3.1 Ursa Major

“Comet” by Brianna Raben


Summary of May 21 Meeting by Vern RabenThe May 21 meeting was held using the Zoom video conferencing system. Bill Tschumy, LAS President, opened the meeting at 7 pm with 24 people attending. Bill welcomed new member Jessica to the club. All events for May and June have been canceled. Rocky Mountain National Park will not have any night sky events this year. We do not yet know whether Boulder Coun-ty Parks and Open Space will resume public star parties at Rabbit Mountain this year. The speaker for the meeting was Dr. John Keller who is director of the Fiske Planetarium at the University of Col-orado in Boulder. Dr. Keller received his PhD in Planetary Science from the University of Arizona and was an As-sociate Professor at Cal-Poly San Luis Obispo. He began work at CU 3 years ago to focus on astronomy education research as a faculty member in Astro-physical and Planetary Sciences .

He has been working for the past 7 years with Dr. Marc Buie, Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, on the RECON project (Research and Education Collaborative Occultation Network). The RECON project is funded by the National Science Foun-dation (NSF). The goal of the RE-CON project is to measure the size and shape of Kuiper Belt Objects (KBO) to help us understand their formation and composition. The first KBO discov-ered was Pluto in the 1930s.

About 4000 KBOS are known currently. Several techniques may be used to determine the size and shape of such objects. It may be observed directly; recent example is imaging of Pluto by the New Horizons space-craft. It may be observed indirectly by measuring albedo or by studying it with spectroscopy. Another technique is to precisely measure the occulta-tion at different locations. To occult means to hide something. Light from a star may be obstructed by an object and the shadow will be cast upon the earth. A network of telescopes may be near the path of the shadow cast by the object. By precisely measuring times of the occultation the size and shape of the object may be deter-mined.

Predictions of the location of the KBO’s shadow is dependent on how accurately the position of the star, position of the object, and distance to the object are known. We usually

No new or old business.

Business Meeting

Treasurer Report by Bruce Lamoreaux

Not much activity. Total assets are over $16K; there are 78 full time members; 3 memberships are past due.

cannot predict location of the KBOs shadow path much better than 500 to 1000 km (1 sigma uncertainty). The NSF RECON grant funded an 11 inch Celestron telescope, cameras and computers and training for participat-ing colleges and university commu-nities. Network includes 7 more in British Columbia which are funded by Canadian CAMCON.

The Fiske Planetarium is currently closed due to the pandemic. Date when it will re-open is not known. They are currently providing virtual classes for schools in the area.


Sun in Calcium-K on May 17, 2020 by Brian Kimball

LAS Member Images in May 2020


Large prominence in H-Alpha on May 25, 2020 by Brian Kimball

Large prominence in H-Alpha on May 26, 2020 by Brian Kimball


NGC 7000 by David Elmore

M101 by David Elmore


M57 by Eddie Hunnell

M92 by Eddie Hunnell


“M61 Super Nova” by Eddie Hunnell

“Comet C/2017 T2 PANSTARRS” by Gary Garzone


“M57 Ring Nebula” by Gary Garzone

“Comet C/2020 F8 SWAN” by Gary Garzone


“M97 in HOO” by Jim Pollock

“Veil Nebula” by Jim Pollock


“M8 and M20” by Jim Pollock


“Andromeda Galaxy” by Martin Butley


“Sharpless 290 in HOO” by M. J. Post

“M51” by M. J. Post


“M64” by M. J. Post


“M33” by Rolando Garcia

“M106” by Rolando Garcia


“NGC 4565” by Rolando Garcia

“Cygnus in HOO” by Stephen Garretson


“LDN 1158 Area L in RGB” by Stephen Garretson

“SAO 38926 Area in H-Alpha” by Stephen Garretson


“M13” by Tally O’Donnell


“NGC 6888 in HOO” by Tally O’Donnell


“Sharpless 2-101 in H-Alpha” by Tally O’Donnell


“M101” by Tally O’Donnell

“M13” by Jim Pollock

Longmont Astronomical Society PO Box 806, Longmont, CO

https://www.longmontastro.org

longmont astronomical society · a broad spectrum of topics are covered at the meetings and include...

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