longmont astronomical society · monthly by the longmont astronomical society, p. o. box 806,...

Vol. 33 No. 8 - ISSN 2641-8886 (web) - ISSN 2641-8908 (print) - August 2019

Longmont Astronomical SocietyAugust 2019

“Total Solar Eclipse in Argentina” by Tally O’Donnell

Copyright (c) Longmont Astronomical Society, August 2019. Website: www.longmontastro.org

The front cover this month is Tally O’Donnell’s image of the July 2nd total solar eclipse in Argentina. Tally took a single exposure with a Sigma 150 - 600 mm DG OS HSM telephoto lens on his Canon 6D. Exposure

was 1/500 second at ISO 200 just at the end of totality.

The back cover is Stephen Gar-retson’s image of NGC 7635 in H-Alpha on July 15. Stephen used his dual scopes which are William Optics FLT 132 APO with the WO 68II flattener. Cameras were the ZWO ASI183MM on a Para-mount MX+ mount. Total integration time was 2 hours.

Next LAS Meeting - “Optical Coatings” by Randy Cunningham“Optical coatings are used to enhance the transmission, reflection, or polarization properties of an optical component. For example, about 4% of incident light will be reflected at each surface of an uncoated glass component. An anti-reflection coating could be applied to reduce the reflection at each surface to less than 0.1% and a highly reflective dielectric coating could also be applied to increase reflectivity to more than 99.99%. An optical coating is composed of a combination of thin layers of materials such as oxides, metals, or rare earth materials. The performance of an optical coating is dependent on the number of layers, their thickness, and the refractive index difference between them.” [From An Introduction to Optical Coating on the Edmund Optics website.]

Our telescopes all have multiple surfaces through which light from the cosmos passes. Whether on lenses or mirrors or both, optical coatings greatly enhance the performance of our instruments; but how do they work? To provide us with some background and answers to that question we are pleased to welcome Randy Cunningham, whose company, AstroSystems, builds telescopes and offers a range of associated parts and devices. Thursday, August 15, 7:00 PM at the First Evangelical Lutheran Church, 3rd and Terry, Longmont.


About LAS

Front Cover “Total Lunar Eclipse in Chile” by Tally O’Donnell2 Next LAS Meeting - Aug 15 “Optical Coatings” by Randy Cunningham3 Contents3 About LAS

4 - 5 LAS Meeting Minutes for July 18, 2019 by Joe Hudson5 Solar System Highlights

6 - 7 Comets8 - 9 Lunar Highlights10 Navigating the August Night Sky

11 If you could Observe only one Object this Month11 From Our Newsletter Archives

12-25 Member Images26-27 Astronomy Headlines - Artemis Lander

Back Cover “NGC 7635 in H-Alpha” by Stephen Garretson

Contents

The Longmont Astronomial Society Newsletter ISSN 2641-8886 (web) - 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 established in 1987. Our main goal is to promote local amateur astronomy. This is accomplished through regular monthly meet-ings, star parties and public observing sessions.

Regular meetings are held every month (except December) on the third Thursday. The current location is at the First Evangelical Lutheran Church, 3rd Avenue and Terry Street, Longmont, CO. Meetings are open to the public and begin at 7:00 PM.

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 astrono-mers or experts in a particular field.

The Longmont Astronomical Society is affiliated with the AstronomicalLeague (https://www.astroleague.org). The Astronomical League is an umbrellaorganization of amateur astronomy soci-eties in the United States.


Meeting MinutesThursday, July 19, 2019 1900 hours MDTLocation: First Lutheran Church, 3rd and Terry Street Longmont, Colorado.

Bill Tschumy , President, opens and moderates:

Introductions of Officers President: Bill Tschumy Vice President: Stephen GarretsonTreasurer: Marty ButleySecretary: Joe Hudson

Board members: Vern Raben David Elmore Tally O’DonnelBrian Kimball Gary Garzone

Announcements

• LAS Star Party at Rabbit Mtn on August 10 from 8 to 10:30 p.m.

• LAS August meeting on the 15th,

Presentation on Seeing, Transparency, and Light in the Night Sky by Steve Albers

Steve opened with discussion of turbulence in the atmosphere - how large air masses move and the impacts of terrain and temperature. This led to discussion of ‘seeing’ which Steve defined as how light from a point source is spread out (as it traverses the atmosphere) into a seeing ‘disk’.

Steve shared that turbulence anywhere along the light path can impart significant distortion to the wavefront - and there are many causes including mirror tube and dome currents, boundary layer currents, the jet stream, and on up through the troposphere. Of those, wind shear and speed differentials inside air masses are primary cause of turbulence and resulting ‘seeing’ issues. As an aside, Steve men-tioned that wave front errors from the atmosphere are very similar to those exhibited by mirror and lens analysis. Steve had a couple slides showing the impact of poor ‘see-ing’ on an Airy disk, and also shorts of turbulence as it would appear to the eye.

Steve then closed with the two curses to Front Range observing - the layers of laminar airflow down the front range and out onto the plains,

and the washing out of our skies by human generated lighting that reflected up into in the atmosphere (ala the light domes up and down the front range of Colorado). The ‘transparency’ of this air is mea-sured as the amount of incoming target light that is absorbed by the atmosphere, specially water vapor, ozone absorption, and minute

aerosols. In fact, observing in the western United States is specifically impacted by wildfire smoke on an almost annual basis (if interested,

we’re joined by Randy Cunningham, of Astro-systems in LaSalle, will speak on optical coatings.

• Marty Butley can update member personal information on the web-site.

LAS Meeting Minutes by Joe Hudson

• Intro and reference to past events

• Rocky Mountain National Park ‘Astronomy in the Park’• Friday, July 26 at 8:15 PM• Friday, August 2 at 8:00 PM• Friday, August 23 at 7:45 PM

Meet at the Upper Beaver Meadows trailhead (volunteer opportunities are available) https://www.nps.gov/romo/planyourvisit/astronomy_pro-grams.htm


https://www.ospo.noaa.gov/Prod-ucts/land/hms.html ) In summary, we have had a mono-lithic, dry air mass, and one having been swept clean of particulates by some front range rainy and cool weather recently. Perhaps only a few days a year bring such great conditions. Now, armed with this information, you’re much better prepared to sift the good nights from the ‘maybes’, and with much less mystery.

Elements of Steve’s presentation were of a technical depth that these minutes (your humble author) could not capture - if you were following along but one or more of Steve’s formulae were a lit-tle puzzling, bring your HP-35 and grab him at the next meeting.

LAS Meeting Minutes by Joe Hudson

Business MeetingFinance Report by Marty ButleyMarty reviewed club financials and membership.

New Business

Old Business • August meeting will be at the Li-

brary (unless otherwise notified) (Note this has since been changed to the Evangelical Lu-theran Church - VR)

• Permanent meeting location still being worked via off-line discus-sions

• Some general discussion about requests from schools and librar-ies

• Marty shared photos of the new Lyons library as a possible star party location

None - No motions or votes.

Saturn by Gary Garzone

Image credit: Brian Kimball

First quarter: August 7 at 11:32 am

Full moon: August 15 at 6:30 am

Third quarter: Aug 23 at5 8:57 am

New moon: Aug 30 at 4:38 am

Moon

Mercury Saturn

Uranus

Neptune

Venus

Mars

Jupiter

Meteor Showers

Date Time AltitudeAug 1 10:27 pm 27°

Aug 6 9:36 pm 29°

Aug 8 11:14 pm 20°

Aug 11 8:45 pm 29°

Aug 13 10:23 pm 23°

Aug 18 9:32 pm 26°

Aug 23 8:41 pm 28°

Aug 25 11:51 pm 19°

Aug 28 7:50 pm 29°

Aug 30 9:29 pm 22°

Venus is not visible

Mars is not visible

Jupiter is visible in the south-ern evening sky in constellation Ophiuchus. On the Aug. 1st it is magnitude -2.5 in brightness and the disk is 43 arc sec across. At the end of the month it decreases to magnitude -2.3 and the disk is 39 arc sec across.

Saturn is in the constellation Sagittarius. Disk is 18 arc sec across and it is +0.2 magnitude in brightness.

Uranus is in constellation Aries. It is magnitude +5.8 in brightness and the disk is 3.5 arc sec across

Neptune is in the constellation Aquarius. It is magnitude +7.8 in brightness and its disk is 2.3 arc sec across.

The annual Perseids meteor shower peaks the evening of Aug 12 -13 but unfortunately the moon is nearly full so only the brightest will be visible.

Solar System Highlights

Mercury is not visible

Jupiter’s GRS Transit Times


Comet C/2017 T2 (PANSTARRS) is in the constellation Taurus. It begins the month at magnitude 8.6 with 7.1 arc min coma. It is expected to brighten to magnitude 7.9 with a 8.7 arc min coma by the 31st.

Comets

Comet C/2018 W2 (Africano) begins the month in constellation Camelpardas at magnitude 11.5 with a 2 arc min wide coma. It brightens to magnitude 10 by Aug 30 when crosses into constellation Perseus with a 3.7 arc min wide coma.

Created with SkyTools 3



Comet C/2018 N2 (ASASSN) in constellation Aries all month. On the 1st it is magnitude 11.9 in brightness. It brightens to magnitude 11.3 by the end of this month. Coma is just over 1 arc min across.

Comet 260P McNaught is in constellation Pisces on August 1st and is 11.6 magnitude in brightness; coma is 1.4 arc min across. It moves into Aries on the 14th. By the 31st it is predicted to brighten to magnitude 10.8 and the coma should be 1.8 arc min across.




Cassini

Alpine ValleyPlato

Crater Copernicus is about 58 miles across and 12,500 feet deep. It is just after sunrise there this evening and the floor of the crater is still in darkness. Note the multiple terraces visible on its western side (left).

Lunar Highlights - August 10 at 9 pm Crater Plato is a 56 mile wide impact crater. Look for shadows cast by peaks along it western wall this evening.

Crater Cassini is an example of crater flooded by lava most likely from the Mare Imbrium impact.

Crater Clavius is 140 miles across and is third largest visible from Earth. If you have good eyesight you may even be able to see it with your naked eye. This evening is a great time to follow an arc of craters beginning at Rutherford on its southeast-ern rim (lower right). Each of six craters along this arc sequentially diminishes in size. If seeing is good look for several ridges extending northward from Rutherford.

Alpine Valley is a 6 mile wide graben that crosses the lunar Montes Alps. If seeing is great you might spot a rille running almost its entire length.


August 10th at 9:00 pm (9 days and 0 hours after new)

Mare Nectaris

Mare Crisium

Mare Tranquilitatis

MareFecunditatis

Mare Imbrium

Mare Seranitatis

Mare Nubium

Mare Vaporium

NASA Scientific Visualization Studio


From Our Newsletter Archives

The August 2009 meeting at the Front Range Com-munity College was canceled as FRCC was between summer and fall

semesters and would be closed. Also that week was the open-ing day of the annual Wyoming Weekend Under the Stars (WUTS). An alternative meeting was scheduled to be in the northeast field at Fox Park on Friday (but everyone forgot as I recall - VR!).

There are no notes available for the August meeting. It was announced that Carolyn Shoe-maker was to be

one of the speakers at the Wyo-ming Star Summit on September 9-12 , 1999 at Fox Park, WY.

August 1989August 2009 August 1999President Jim Get-son announced the astrophys-ics news for the month and mentioned that

Mike’s Camera in Boulder would be selling Celestron telescopes. Kevin Brose talked about building his home observatory. Plans were discussed about the upcoming total lunar eclipse on August 16.


Title Author Date Scope Camera NotesNGC 281 Stephan Garretson July 4, 2019 William Optics FLT 132 ZWO ASI 173MM Pro Ha 3.5 nm 12@300 sec

RGB 18@300sec ea


Title Author Date Scope Camera NotesCave Nebula Eddie Hunnell July 4, 2019 Celestron C11 RASA ZWO ASA 128MC Pro


Title Author Date Scope Camera NotesSaturn Gary Garzone July 11, 2019 Celestron C14

Title Author Date Scope CameraJupiter Gary Garzone July 24, 2019 Celestron C14 Celestron. Neximage 5, one shot color web camera

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

Title Author Date Scope Camera NotesM31 Eddie Hunnell July 9, 2019 Celestron C11 RASA ZWO ASA 128MC Pro ZWO ASA 128MC Pro


Title Author Date Camera NotesTotal Solar EclipseCoquimbo, Chile

Chris Elkins July 2, 2019 iPhone 6s (back camera) 1/100 sec, f2.2, ISO 800


Title Author Date Camera NotesTotal Solar EclipseCoquimbo, Chile

Chris Elkins July 2, 2019 iPhone 6s (back camera) 1/720 sec, f2.2, ISO 100


Title Author Date Scope Camera NotesWithin the Lagoon Marty Butley July 21, 2019 Tak FSQ130 Narrow band


Title Author Date Scope Camera Notes

Pelican Section Stephen Garretson July 27, 2019 William Optics FLT 132 ZWO ASI 173MM Pro SHO filters


Title Author Date Scope Camera NotesM57 M. J. Post July 8, 2019 Celestron 11 in RASA F2.2 QHY 183 C 50 min total exposure


Title Author Date Scope Camera NotesM27 M. J. Post July 29, 2019 Celestron 11 in RASA f2.2 QHY 183 C OPT’s Triad Quad , 50 min integration time


Title Author Date Scope Camera NotesSH 2-86 M. J. Post July 15,

2019Celestron 11 in RASA f2.2 QHY 183M H-Alpha filter


Title Author Date Scope Camera Notes“Top of the Soul” Stephan Garretson July 24, 2019 Dual WO 132 ZWO 183 MM Pro 3.5 nm and 7 nm H-alpha

34 300 sec exposures ea.


Astronomy Headlines - Artemis Lander

NASA is seeking com-ments on its draft propos-al to return astronauts to the moon by 2024. The current concept is a :• Transfer element for the

journey from the lunar Gateway orbital plat-form to low-lunar orbit

• Descent element to carry the crew to the surface

• Ascent element to return them to the Gateway orbital platform

• Orion spacecraft will then return astronauts to Earth from the orbital platform

Comments are to be re-turned by August 2. There may be an additional draft proposal.

Credit: NASAArtist’s rendering of an ascent vehicle separating from a descent vehicle and departing the lunar surface.


Astronomy Headlines - Artemis Lander

Artist’s rendering of an ascent vehicle separating from a descent vehicle and departing the lunar surface.

“NGC 7635 in H-”Alpha by Stephen Garretson

Longmont Astronomical SocietyPO Box 806

Longmont, CO 80506www.longmontastro.org

longmont astronomical society · monthly by the longmont astronomical society, p. o. box 806,...

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