Vol. 33 No. 9 ISSN 2641-8886 (web) ISSN 2641-8908 (print) September 2019

Longmont Astronomical Society September 2019

“Mellotte 15” by Stephen Garretson Next Meeting September 19 at 7 pm “NASA’s Juno Mission to Jupiter: Update after 22 orbits” by Dr. Fran Bagenal, LASP Our speaker for September is Dr. Fran Bagenal. Dr. Bagenal, a great friend of LAS, is part of the University of Colora- do’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP).

Juno has been orbiting Jupiter since July 2016, passing close over the cloud tops every 53 days. This talk will summarize the mission and discuss the science results obtained to date - including puzzling deep interior structure of the gas giant planet, dazzling auroral emissions, as well as the amazing cloud structures revealed by JunoCam in collaboration with a vast citizen science community.

The meeting will be in class room 2 at the First Evangelical Lutheran Church located on the south side of Third Ave between Terry and Pratt. Lower level entry door is in the underground lot; park there if space, or in the adjacent lot. Fran Bagenal studies the magnetic fields of planets, the interactions of plasmas with atmospheres, and magnetospheric processes. She has worked with plasma data from a variety of space missions, starting with the Voyager mission to Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune. She was on the science teams of the Galileo mission to Jupiter and the Deep Space 1 mission to Comet Borrelly. She edited Jupiter: Planet, Satellites and Magnetosphere (Cambridge University Press, 2004). She leads the plasma teams on the first two New Frontiers missions: New Horizons mission to Pluto (launched January 2006, flew past Pluto in July 2015) and Juno, a Jupiter polar orbiter (launched 2011, arrived at Jupiter in “Artist concept of Juno” by NASA/JPL-Caltech 2016). The front cover image this month is The center fold image is IC 1396 On the back cover is M. J. Post image of Mellotte 15 region in the Heart Elephant’s Trunk by M. J. of M27 in Vulpecula. Nebula which is Post taken with his 11 inch Celestron MJ used a Ce- in constellation RASA telescope and QHY 183C lestron 11 inch Cassiopeia. Ste- camera. He took 1 hr exposure in RASA scope. phen used his H-Alpha and 1hr with OPT triad He combined dual set up of quad filter. H-alpha with a William Optics Baader H-alpha 132s and Zwo to recover some ASI183MMs. of the red lost Stephen took with OPT’s triad [42] 300s Ha quad filter. 3.5nm; [42] 300s Ha 7nm; [82] 300s OIII 8.5nm; and[82] 300s SII 8nm guided subs. Page 2 Copyright (c) Longmont Astronomical Society, September 2019. Website: www.longmontastro.org Contents Front Cover “Mellotte 15” by Stephen Garretson 2 Next LAS Meeting - Sept 19 “NASA’s Juno Mission to Jupiter: Update after 22 orbits” by Dr. Fran Bagenal, LASP 3 Contents 3 About LAS 4 - 5 LAS Meeting Minutes for Aug15, 2019 by Vern Raben 5 Solar System Highlights 6 - 9 Comets 10-11 Lunar Highlights 12 Navigating the mid September Night Sky 13 If you could Observe only One Celestial Sight this Month 13 From Our Newsletter Archives 14-15 IC 1396 by M. J. Post 16 and Veil Nebula by Chris Fauble 17 Bubble Lanes and Dark Shark Region by David Elmore 18-19 Two Suns (H-alpha and Calcium K) by Brian Kimball 20 M33 by Eddie Hunnell 21 M101 by Eddie Hunnell 22 Rocky Mountain National Park and M27 by Gary Garzone 23 M20 by Gary Garzone; M20 by Glenn Frank 24 NGC 7822 by Stephen Garretson 25 M17 by Marty Butley 26-27 Astronomy Highlights - JunoCam View of Jupiter’s South Equatorial Belt Back Cover M27 by M. J. Post

About LAS

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 established in 1987. Our main goal is to promote local amateur astronomy. This is accomplished through regular monthly meetings, parties and public observing ses- sions. Regular meetings are held every month (except December) on the third Thursday. The current location is at the First Evan- gelical 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 astronomers or experts in a particular field.

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.

Copyright (c) Longmont Astronomical Society, September 2019. Website: www.longmontastro.org Page 3 LAS Meeting Minutes by Vern Raben The August 18th LAS meeting was which were discovered recently. bine them as HDR and bring details held in classrom 2 at the First Evan- • Anyone who has a 2015 to 2017 but he hasn’t yet been able to do so gelical Lutheran Church in Long- MacBook pro should replace the successfully; he is looking for sugges- mont. Bill Tschumy began the meet- battery. They have been recalled and tions. ing promptly at 7 pm. are banned from airlines. • Vern noted that the paper edition of Announcements the newsletter won’t arrive until to- morrow. Anyone who wants a copy should send him a note. • Bill thanked the LAS imagers for their great images in the slideshow played before the meeting. Thanks especially to Stephen Garretson for putting together the slideshow each month and arranging for the speak- ers. After the eclipse they went to San Martin which is becoming an astron- • The Rabbit Mountain star party last Bill played the video podcast “What’s omy tourism center. There are 11 week (Aug 10) looked to be cloudy Up” which is sponsored by the NASA businesses there catering to people but later cleared. Fifteen of the 30 Jet Propulson Laboratory. interested in viewing the wonderfully folks who registered came. There Eclipse Trip to Argentina and dark night skies. San Martino was were four LAS volunteers with Astro-tourism by Tally O’Don- about 4500 ft in elevation and near scopes. nell Atacama. The facility cost about $100 • Rocky Mountain National Park Tally went on a trip to Argentina to an hour for 6 people. It had a nice star party next Friday Aug 23; you view the total roll-off observatory with 4 scopes are supposed to check in with park solar eclipse including a 16 inch Meade. If you are ranger (Cynthia) first. Plan on last July 2. a serious observer Tally recommends getting there before 7 or you’ll have He had never Saturn by Gary Garzone taking a trip such as he did. to carry your scope a ways. Usually experienced there are about 15 volunteers with any long delays Polarized Eclipse Photography scopes and about 150-200 members while traveling by David Elmore of the public. until this trip. It was only about an David took one of the 68 Continen- • Next Boulder County/LAS star hour before totality when they finally tal-America Telescope Eclipse (KATE) party is Sept 7 at Rabbit Mountain. landed and headed for centerline. It experiment telescopes to photograph • Speaker at our next meeting on Sept was getting very dark so they stopped the solar eclipse last July equipped 18 is Dr. Fran Bagenal. along the road to view it and snap a with a polarization sensitive camera. • Opportunity School in Longmont few pictures. has requested a star party which will be sometime in October. • Bill announced he is retiring from Software Curriculum and will no longer be involved with devel- opment or support of Sky Safari (which many of us use). His polarization image of the eclipse • David Elmore cautioned that any- is stack of about a hundred HSV (hue, one who has Windows 7, 8, or 10 saturation, value) images with hue should update immediately due to encoding the direction of linearly po- some extremely severe security holes larize light, saturation indicating how Tally took multiple exposures to com- Page 4 Copyright (c) Longmont Astronomical Society, September 2019. Website: www.longmontastro.org LAS Meeting Minutes by Vern Raben Solar System Highlights

much the light is polarized, and V the Moon overall image values. It shows us the corona of the sun is polarized parallel First quarter: Sept. 5 at 9:10 pm to the limb all the way around at all angles. We see that close to the limb Full moon: Sept. 13 at 10:33 pm the light is less polarized but is further out. We can also see various structures Third quarter: Sept. 21 at5 8:41 pm in the corona. New moon: Sept. 28 at 12:26 pm Dual Scope Setup by Stephen Garretson Since narrow band wide field images Image credit: Brian Kimball take a long time to acquire Stephen was inspired to set up two sets of iden- Mercury Saturn tical telescopes, filters, and cameras on Mercury is not visible Saturn is in the constellation Sagittar- a single mount. Stephen noted that ius. Its disk is 17 arc sec across and it this took lots of time to figure out. It Venus is +0.3 magnitude in brightness. Best was certainly worth the effort judging Venus is not visible time to view is in early evening after by the excellent images Stephen has sunset. produced this summer. Mars Mars is not visible General Considerations when Choosing Visual Eyepiece by Bill Tschumy Jupiter Bill discussed the many things to con- sider when choosing a visual eyepiece. His talk was based on a paper by Al Nagler of Televue. See http://televue. com/Pdf/Eyepiece_AASNY_2014_ Saturn by Gary Garzone May_June_ChoosingEPs.pdf for Jupiter by Gary Garzone Uranus more info. Uranus is in constellation Aries. It is Jupiter is visible in the southwestern magnitude +5.7 in brightness and the Business Meeting - Finance Re- evening sky in constellation Ophi- port by Marty Butley disk is 3.6 arc sec across. uchus. On September 1st it will be Marty reported that our biggest magnitude -2.3 in brightness and the expense is the annual dues for our disk will be 39 arc sec across. At the Neptune parent organization, the Astronomical end of the month it decreases to mag- Neptune is in the constellation League. Only immediate upcoming nitude -2.1 in brightness and the disk Aquarius. It is magnitude +7.8 in expense he is aware of is the post office decreases to 36 arc sec across. brightness and its disk is 2.3 arc sec box dues next month. He reported across. Best time to view is between that the Oklahoma State legislature Jupiter’s GRS Transit Times 1:40 am on the first and about a has named the Rossette Nebula the Date Time Altitude half hour later each week to around state astronomical object. 11:30 pm on the 30th. Sept. 4 3:38 pm 25° Old Business Sept. 9 7:48 pm 27° The exec board has decided to have Meteor Showers meetings at the Evangelical Lutheran Sept. 16 8:36 pm 21° None of that are significant until Church the rest of the year. Bill is still Sept. 21 7:46 pm 24° interested in FRCC; costs are similar. October. Copyright (c) Longmont Astronomical Society, September 2019. Website: www.longmontastro.org Page 5 Comets

Created with SkyTools 3 Comet C/2017 (PANSTARRS) in September Date Optimal time RA Dec Brightness Size (arc min) Constellation Sept 1 04:59am 05h22m01.5s +22°54’32” +7.9 8.6 Taurus Sept 6 05:04am 05h25m31.4s +23°36’10” +7.7 9.0 Taurus Sept 12 05:06am 05h29m24.1s +24°29’21” +7.5 9.4 Taurus Sept 18 05:18am 05h32m52.8s +25°26’47” +7.4 9.8 Taurus Sept 24 05:19am 05h35m52.4s +26°29’06” +7.2 10.3 Taurus Sept 30 05:23am 05h38m17.6s +27°37’11” +7.0 10.9 Taurus Comet C/2017 T2 (PANSTARRS) is in constellation Taurus. On September 1st it is predicted to be magnitude +7.9 in brightness and is coma to be 8.6 arc min across. On September 30th it is expected to be magnitude +7 in brightness with a diameter of 10.9 arc min. It was discovered on May 17, 2017.

Hubble Space Telescope June 2017 Page 6 Copyright (c) Longmont Astronomical Society, September 2019. Website: www.longmontastro.org Comets

Created with SkyTools 3 Comet C/2018 W2 (Africano) in September Date Optimal time RA Dec Brightness Size (arc min) Constellation Sept 1 04:48am 03h10m12.0s +54°40’43” 9.9 3.8 Perseus Sept 6 04:32am 02h40m42.0s +52°06’19” 9.6 4.4 Perseus Sept 12 03:02am 01h56m51.8s +46°37’23” 9.2 5.3 Andromeda Sept 18 02:19am 01h05m43.9s +36°40’04” 8.8 6.3 Andromeda Sept 24 12:58am 00h14m02.6s +21°08’27” 8.6 7.1 Pegasus Sept 30 11:50pm 23h28m17.2s +02°46’35” 8.7 7.0 Pisces Copyright (c) Longmont Astronomical Society, September 2019. Website: www.longmontastro.org Page 7 Comets

Created with SkyTools 3

Comet 260P (McNaught)

Date Optimal time RA Dec Brightness Size (arc min) Constellation Sept 1 04:35am 02h21m54.4s +22°06’08” 10.8 1.8 Aries Sept 6 04:25am 02h29m18.0s +25°13’47” 10.7 1.8 Aries Sept 12 03:45am 02h37m07.2s +28°57’03” 10.6 1.9 Aries Sept 18 04:00am 02h43m39.0s +32°36’37” 10.6 1.9 Triangulum Sept 24 03:35am 02h48m34.1s +36°05’36” 10.6 2.0 Perseus Sept 30 03:13am 02h51m40.7s +39°20’10” 10.6 2.0 Perseus Page 8 Copyright (c) Longmont Astronomical Society, September 2019. Website: www.longmontastro.org Comets

Created with SkyTools 3

Comet C/2018 N2 (ASASSN)

Date Optimal time RA Dec Brightness Size (arc min) Constellation Sept 1 04:42am 02h33m51.1s +24∞00’03” 11.3 1.5 Aries Sept 6 04:25am 02h29m21.8s +25∞27’30” 11.3 1.6 Aries Sept 12 03:37am 02h22m44.8s +27∞13’21” 11.2 1.6 Aries Sept 18 03:31am 02h14m39.3 +28∞59’40” 11.1 1.7 Triangulum Sept 24 02:41am 02h05m08.2s +30∞43’22” 11.0 1.7 Triangulum Sept 30 02:15am 01h54m09.3s +32∞22’47” 11.0 1.8 Triangulum Copyright (c) Longmont Astronomical Society, September 2019. Website: www.longmontastro.org Page 9 Lunar Highlights - September 7 at 8 pm Crater Cassini - This evening is a great time to viewe this remarkable ring plain. It is approximately 36 miles across (57 km). Its walls are narrow and intact despite its being flooded by Cassini lava probably at the same time as the surrounding mare. It has experienced numerous impacts. The most prom- inent is 9 miles wide (15 km) Cassi- ni-A crater in the northeast (upper right). In the lower left of Cassini is 6 mile wide (5 km) Cassini-B . Crater Archimedes is the 51 miles (81 km) accross. It is also flood filled with relatively smooth floor.

Crater Erastothenes is 11,811 ft (3.6 km) deep 3.6 and 37 miles (59 km) across. Its circular exterior wall is sharp and well defined indicating a relatively recent impact (3.2 billion years). Crater Stadius is an example of a “ghost” crater. Its exterior walls have been nearly submerged by basaltic lava flows. Only its northwestern rim remains. There is ridge running north from there toward Eratosthenes.

Be sure to view the “straight wall” aka “Rupes Recta”. The sun’s low angle this evening causes this escarpment to Rupes Recta stand out as straight sword complete with curved handle in the south. This fault is 68 miles (110 km) long 1 or 2 miles wide and almost 1000 feet (300 km) high.

Page 10 Copyright (c) Longmont Astronomical Society, September 2019. Website: www.longmontastro.org 8 days and 15 hours after New Moon

Mare Imbrium

Mare Seranitatis

Mare Mare Vaporium Crisium

Mare Tranquilitatis

Mare Fecunditatis

Mare Mare Nubium Nectaris

NASA Scientific Visualization Studio

Copyright (c) Longmont Astronomical Society, September 2019. Website: www.longmontastro.org Page 11 Page 12 Copyright (c) Longmont Astronomical Society, September 2019. Website: www.longmontastro.org From Our Newsletter Archives September 2009 September 1999 September 1989 The speaker at The Galileo space- Jim Getson gave a the Sept 17, 2009 craft has successfully really great presen- meeting at Front zipped past Jupiter’s tation of his efforts Range Community moon Io, the most in astrophotography. College will be Bryan volcanic body in our Steve Albers topped White. He will give solar system. Instru- the evening with his a presentation about ments on board the presentation of in- his stereo pictures spacecraft peered down at Io from an credible aurora and solar eclipse slides. of aurora and other altitude of only 811 km (380 miles). Bob Spohn talked about a Labor Day celestial objects. He will bring copies This was the closest look at Io by any star party at Pawnee Grassland; seeing of his new beautiful Aurora book if spacecraft. If all goes as planned the was great plus they saw an Aurora. you have some spare change. Everyone data will transmitted to Earth of the Brian Simpson talked about his new is invited to a star party at Camp Jack next several weeks. New pictures will telescope and time lapse pictures of hosted by the Cheyenne Astronomy then be released at a press briefing ten- a lunar eclipse which is on the front club on Oct 18-19. Vern will be giving tatively scheduled next month. cover. Jim talked about the star party a talk about video astrophotography at Gold Hill which windy but 7 folks at the Cheyenne Botanic Gardens on attended. We welcomed a new guest, Oct 18. Andrew Planck. Copyright (c) Longmont Astronomical Society, September 2019. Website: www.longmontastro.org Page 13 Title Author Date Telescope Camera Filter and Exposure IC 1396 Elephants Trunk M. J. Post Aug 6, 2019 Celestron RASA QHY 183C OPT’s Triad Quad filter (H-alpha, H-beta, Nebula in O-III, for RGB; 1 hrH-alpha 1 hour for L Page 14 Copyright (c) Longmont Astronomical Society, September 2019. Website: www.longmontastro.org Copyright (c) Longmont Astronomical Society, September 2019. Website: www.longmontastro.org Page 15 Title Author Date Telescope Camera Filter Heart Nebula Chris Fauble Aug 8, 2019 CelestronCPC800 ZWO ASI1600MM-Cool HSO 15 x 5 min subs per channel

Title Author Date Telescope Camera Filter Veil Nebula Chris Fauble Aug 8, 2019 CelestronCPC800 ZWO ASI1600MM-Cool HOO 12x 5 min subs per channel

Page 16 Copyright (c) Longmont Astronomical Society, September 2019. Website: www.longmontastro.org Title Author Date Telescope Camera Exposures Bubble Lanes David Elmore Aug 28, 2019 Borg 55FL Canon 6D modified RGB: 106 four-minute astro-graph exposures at ISO 2500

Title Author Date Telescope Camera Filter and Exposure Dark Shark Regioin David Elmore Aug 25, 2019 Celestron- ZWO ASI1600MM- HOO 12x 5 min subs CPC800 Cool per channel Copyright (c) Longmont Astronomical Society, September 2019. Website: www.longmontastro.org Page 17 Title Author Date Telescope Camera Filter Two Suns Brian Kimball Aug 25, 2019 Lunt LS100 Imaging Source B3400 blocking filter H-alpha scope DMK41 Page 18 Copyright (c) Longmont Astronomical Society, September 2019. Website: www.longmontastro.org Title Author Date Telescope Camera Filter Two Suns Brian Kimball Aug 25, 2019 Lunt LS100 Imaging Source Lunt B1800 calcium H-alpha scope DMK41 K module Copyright (c) Longmont Astronomical Society, September 2019. Website: www.longmontastro.org Page 19 Title Author Date Telescope Camera Filter M33 Eddie Hunnell Aug 25, 2019 Celestron RASA 11” f2.2 ZWO ASI128MC Pro RGB LPS Page 20 Copyright (c) Longmont Astronomical Society, September 2019. Website: www.longmontastro.org Title Author Date Telescope Camera Filter M101 Eddie Hunnell Aug 25, 2019 Celestron RASA 11” f2.2 ZWO ASI128MC Pro RGB LPS

Copyright (c) Longmont Astronomical Society, September 2019. Website: www.longmontastro.org Page 21 Rocky Mountain National Park Star Party by Gary Garzone

Title Author Date Telescope Camera Filter M27 Dumbell Nebula Gary Garzone Aug 25, 2019 Celestron 14” CPC SBIG STL 11000 OSC No ne Page 22 Copyright (c) Longmont Astronomical Society, September 2019. Website: www.longmontastro.org Title Author Date Telescope Camera Filter M20 Gary Garzone Aug 25, 2019 Celestron 14” CPC SBIG STL 11000 OSC None

Title Author Date Telescope Camera Filter and Exposure M20 Trifid Nebula Glenn Frank Aug 4, 2019 Celestron 9.25 Zwo ASI 1600-MC Pro 24 min H-alpha; 60 min RGB

Copyright (c) Longmont Astronomical Society, September 2019. Website: www.longmontastro.org Page 23 Title Author Date Telescope Camera Filter and Exposure NGC 7822 in Stephen Aug 28, 2019 Dual William Zwo 87 3.5 nm H-alpha 300 sec Cepheus Garretson Optics 132 183MM 87 7.0 nm H-alpha 300 sec

Page 24 Copyright (c) Longmont Astronomical Society, September 2019. Website: www.longmontastro.org Title Author Date Telescope Camera Filter and Exposure M17 Omega Nebula in Marty Butley Aug 30, 2019 Takahashi 130FSQ FLI 2 hours each of Ha, OIII, SII Sagittarius 16200M Copyright (c) Longmont Astronomical Society, September 2019. Website: www.longmontastro.org Page 25 Astronomy Highlights - JunoCam View of Jupiter’s South Equatorial Belt

Image data: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS Image processing by Kevin M. Gill, licensed under CC by 3.0

The Juno spacecraft captured data for the image above from the JunoCam imager on July 20 at 10:37 pm MDT. This wonderful vista illustrates the contrast between Jupiter’s very colorful South Equatorial Belt and the mostly white Southern Topic Zone. On the right is the Great Red Spot which has persisted for the past 150 years and maybe longer. The spacecraft was at 46 degrees south latitude at an altitude of 26,6978 miles (42,965 kilometers) above the clouds when the data was taken. The image was created by Kevin M. McGill using the JunoCam raw data.

Page 26 Copyright (c) Longmont Astronomical Society, September 2019. Website: www.longmontastro.org View of Jupiter’s South Equatorial Belt

The raw JunoCam images are available at URLhttps://www.missionjuno.swri.edu/junocam/processing . More infor- mation about Juno is available at https://www.nasa.gov/juno and https://missionjuno.swri.edu.

Copyright (c) Longmont Astronomical Society, September 2019. Website: www.longmontastro.org Page 27 Longmont Astronomical Society PO Box 806 Longmont, CO www.longmontastro.org

M27 by M. J. Post