April 2020 OBSERVER
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THE OBSERVER OF THE TWIN CITY AMATEUR ASTRONOMERS Volume 45, Number 4 April 2020 INSIDE THIS ISSUE: 1«Editor’s Choice: Image of the Month – NGC 1893 2«President’s Note 2«Who Wants to Get Together on ZOOM? 3«Calendar of Celestial Events – April 2020 3«New & Renewing Members/Dues Blues/E-Mail List 4«This Month’s Phases of the Moon 4«This Month’s Solar Phenomena 4«TCAA Calendar of Events for 2020 5«Minutes of the March 10, 2020 BoD Meeting 6«Updated TCAA 5-Year Plan (2020-2024) 7«AstroBits – News from Around the TCAA 8«April 2020 with Jeffrey L. Hunt 15«TCAA Image Gallery 15«Renewing Your TCAA Membership 15«Crater Wargentin and Mira 17«Public Viewing Sessions for 2020 17«Did You Know? 18«TCAA Treasurer’s Report as of March 29, 2020 18«TCAA Active on Facebook The TCAA is an affiliate of the Astronomical League as well as its North Central Region. For more information about the TCAA, be EDITOR’S CHOICE: IMAGE OF THE MONTH – NGC 1893 certain to visit the TCAA website at tcaa.us/ This image of NGC 1893 was taken by Scott Wade using the new filter wheel and filters on the QHY 600 camera mounted the Visit Astroleague.org for additional 17” PlaneWave at PSO. The image consists of four 600-second information about the League and its subs in three spectral regions: Hα, OIII, and SII. The images were numerous membership benefits, taken on the evening of March 24th. As flats have no yet been including observing programs. prepared, the illumination across the field is somewhat irregular. NGC 1893 is an open cluster of about 4,600 stars in the constellation Auriga. It is about 12,400 light years away. The star Also, visit the NCRAL website at cluster is embedded in the HII region IC 410. ncral.wordpress.com for information Paraphrased from Wikipedia, the cloud of glowing hydrogen about our North Central Region. Find gas is over 100 light-years across, sculpted by stellar winds and out about our next Regional radiation from the embedded star cluster. The interstellar convention during May 2020. cloud was formed a mere 4 million years ago. Notable near the 11 o'clock position in this wide, detailed view are two relatively dense streamers – potentially sites of ongoing star formation. These so- called cosmic tadpole shapes are about 10 light-years long. Copyright © 2020 TCAA 1 All rights reserved. Vol. 45, No. 4 The OBSERVER of the Twin City Amateur Astronomers April 2020 PRESIDENT’S NOTE The OBSERVER Our dreary skies have continued is the monthly electronic newsletter of Twin through the equinox and on into the City Amateur Astronomers, Inc., a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit educational spring season. It’s all made drearier by organization of amateur astronomers inter- the current Shelter-in-Place situation. ested in studying astronomy and sharing However, astronomers have a leg up in their hobby with the public. this “lockdown” climate. We have equipment to maintain, observing logs TCAA OFFICERS & CHAIRPERSONS to straighten up, planning to do for a President, Director, & Property Manager future cloud-free evening, and reading Tim Stone 309-531-2401 to catch up on the latest astronomical [email protected] news. I, for one, have been working Vice President & Director/Membership Coord. with my solar spectrum data, and have Tom Willmitch 309-846-2423 even had time to write an article for President Tim Stone [email protected] The OBSERVER. Treasurer & Director/Registered Agent You might not consider yourself to be much of a writer, but I assure you, you Dave Osenga 309-287-0789 can write an email and send it to Carl Wenning, our newsletter editor. Tell us about [email protected] your observing goals for 2020, a memorable observation you’ve made, or anything 4th Director/Assistant Property Manager like that. We’d love to hear from our members in this slow time, and now you don’t Scott Wade 309-310-2464 have “I don’t have time” as an excuse! Come on! [email protected] Like the rest of the world, the club’s activities have been impacted by the 5th Director current pandemic. We have already cancelled our Public Viewing Session for April, Sunil Chebolu 678-896-5967 and we will evaluate when we should resume as things progress. If you haven’t [email protected] subscribed to our new email list, you should do so to receive the latest club Secretary/Historian/Editor information. Subscription is simple. Visit https://groups.io/g/tcaa to do so. Carl J. Wenning 309-830-4085 In closing, let me just say please, stay safe and well. This virus is serious, and [email protected] nothing to be trifled with. We will get through this and, when we do, the stars will Astronomical League Correspondent still be there. We want you to be there, too. Robert Finnigan 309-846-9533 [email protected] Still yearning for clear skies, Technology Coordinator Tim Stone, President Justin Meyer 630-649-0611 [email protected] Webmaster Lee Green 309-454-7349 WHO WANTS TO GET TOGETHER ON ZOOM? [email protected] Teachers of online courses regularly make use of a free application called Lighting Educ. & AL Observing Club Coordinator Lisa Wentzel unlisted number ZOOM to converse “face-to-face” as it were with their students using computers, [email protected] tablets, and smartphones. You can download a free copy of ZOOM (https://zoom.us/download) and join a TCAA conversation. The OBSERVER Following a notification on Groups.Io (see next page to Carl J. Wenning, Editor learn how to subscribe), the first such online meeting was Submission deadline two days before held on the evening of March 28th. Participating in the event the end of each month. were Dave Osenga, Sunil Chebolu, Deva Chatrathi, and Carl Wenning. In an hour-long meeting, they discussed a variety MEMBERSHIP DUES of things as diverse as astronomy, photography of birds, Individual Adult/Family $40 and mathematics. Full-time Student/Senior $25 Using ZOOM is as easy as clicking on a hyperlink, so watch for these notices. (Senior status equals ages 60+) Additional online events using ZOOM will be schedule from time to time. To receive To join, send your name, contact info, and your notifications, be certain you are a registered with Groups.Io. dues payment to Dave Osenga, TCAA Treasurer, 1109 N. Linden St., Normal, IL 61761-1471. Copyright © 2020 TCAA 2 All rights reserved. Vol. 45, No. 4 The OBSERVER of the Twin City Amateur Astronomers April 2020 CALENDAR OF CELESTIAL EVENTS – APRIL 2020 NEW & RENEWING MEMBERS MORNING PLANETS (4/15): Mercury (☿), Mars (♂), Jupiter (♃), The following individuals have paid dues for new or Saturn (♄), and Neptune (♆) renewed memberships as of March 29, 2020. (Others who paid after that date will appear in the April 2020 EVENING PLANETS (4/15): Venus (♀) and Uranus (⛢) issue of The OBSERVER.) The following table gives the date and time (24-hour clock) of Welcome! Welcome! Welcome! Welcome! Welcome! important astronomical events for this month. All events are given in Central Standard Time. New: None Renewing: Roy Lawry Day Time Event Welcome! Welcome! Welcome! Welcome! Welcome! 01 04:21 FIRST QUARTER MOON DUES BLUES 02 01:59 Pollux 4.9°N of Moon 03 00:25 Beehive 1.3°S of Moon If you have received a “your dues are due” statement along with the email that brought you this 03 08:36 Venus 0.3°S of Pleiades issue of The OBSERVER, please remit your dues to Mr. 04 12:45 Regulus 3.9°S of Moon Dave Osenga, TCAA Treasurer, 1109 N. Linden St., 07 12:08 Moon at Perigee: 356909 km Normal, IL 61761-1471. Dues are currently $25 for seniors (60 years of age and over) and $40 regular. 07 20:35 FULL MOON 12 20:58 Moon at Descending Node SUBSCRIBING TO THE TCAA EMAIL LIST 14 16:56 LAST QUARTER MOON Welcome to the [email protected] group at Groups.io. 14 17:04 Jupiter 2.0°N of Moon This is a free, easy-to-use group email service set up for 15 03:26 Saturn 2.5°N of Moon the TCAA’s communication purposes. You can subscribe, visit your group, start reading and posting messages 15 22:33 Mars 2.0°N of Moon here: https://groups.io/g/tcaa 20 13:01 Moon at Apogee: 406463 km The email address for this group is [email protected]. After you successfully subscribe, please add this email 22 00 Lyrid Meteor Shower address to your safe sender list in your email client's 22 20:26 NEW MOON contacts, so emails from this list do not end up getting 25 21:34 Aldebaran 3.8°S of Moon classified as junk mail. Once subscribed, you can set your subscription 26 04 Uranus in Conjunction with Sun settings here: https://groups.io/g/tcaa/editsub. You can 27 11:54 Moon at Ascending Node opt to receive all messages in individual emails, collections of messages in a digest, a daily summary, or 29 08:19 Pollux 4.7°N of Moon only special notices. If you do not wish to belong to this 30 07:18 Beehive 1.6°S of Moon group, you may unsubscribe by sending an email to [email protected] 30 14:38 FIRST QUARTER MOON If you have general questions about the group, check email [email protected]. For questions not answered http://www.astropixels.com/ephemeris/astrocal/astrocal2020cst.html there, contact the moderators of this group (Deva C., Tim EVENING SKY MAP S., and Carl W.) by emailing [email protected].