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The Desert Sky Observer
Desert Sky Observer Volume 32 Antelope Valley Astronomy Club Newsletter February 2012 Up-Coming Events February 10: Club Meeting* February 11: Moon Walk @ Prime Desert Woodlands February 13: Executive Board Meeting @ Don’s house February 18: Telescope Night and Star Party @ Devil's Punchbowl * Monthly meetings are held at the S.A.G.E. Planetarium on the Cactus School campus in Palmdale, the second Friday of each month. The meeting location is at the northeast corner of Avenue R and 20th Street East. Meetings start at 7 p.m. and are open to the public. Please note that food and drink are not allowed in the planetarium President Don Bryden Well I gave a star party and no one showed up! Not that I can blame them – it was raining and windy and cold – it even hailed! Still I dragged out the scope and got it ready to go. Briefly, between the clouds I looked at Jupiter and it was quite a treat. The Galilean moons were all tight to the planet either coming from just in front or behind. It gave a bejeweled look like a large ruby surrounded by four small diamonds. Even with the winds and clouds the sky was surprisingly steady and I went as high as 260x with ease, exposing the shadow of Europa transiting the planet. But soon more clouds came and inside we had a nice fire so I put the Artist's rendering DVD “400 Years of the Telescope” on and settled in for the night. My daughter had a few friends over after a skating party that afternoon and later when I went out for one more look they came out to see what was up. -
Planetary Nebulae
Planetary Nebulae A planetary nebula is a kind of emission nebula consisting of an expanding, glowing shell of ionized gas ejected from old red giant stars late in their lives. The term "planetary nebula" is a misnomer that originated in the 1780s with astronomer William Herschel because when viewed through his telescope, these objects appeared to him to resemble the rounded shapes of planets. Herschel's name for these objects was popularly adopted and has not been changed. They are a relatively short-lived phenomenon, lasting a few tens of thousands of years, compared to a typical stellar lifetime of several billion years. The mechanism for formation of most planetary nebulae is thought to be the following: at the end of the star's life, during the red giant phase, the outer layers of the star are expelled by strong stellar winds. Eventually, after most of the red giant's atmosphere is dissipated, the exposed hot, luminous core emits ultraviolet radiation to ionize the ejected outer layers of the star. Absorbed ultraviolet light energizes the shell of nebulous gas around the central star, appearing as a bright colored planetary nebula at several discrete visible wavelengths. Planetary nebulae may play a crucial role in the chemical evolution of the Milky Way, returning material to the interstellar medium from stars where elements, the products of nucleosynthesis (such as carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and neon), have been created. Planetary nebulae are also observed in more distant galaxies, yielding useful information about their chemical abundances. In recent years, Hubble Space Telescope images have revealed many planetary nebulae to have extremely complex and varied morphologies. -
Ghost Hunt Challenge 2020
Virtual Ghost Hunt Challenge 10/21 /2020 (Sorry we can meet in person this year or give out awards but try doing this challenge on your own.) Participant’s Name _________________________ Categories for the competition: Manual Telescope Electronically Aided Telescope Binocular Astrophotography (best photo) (if you expect to compete in more than one category please fill-out a sheet for each) ** There are four objects on this list that may be beyond the reach of beginning astronomers or basic telescopes. Therefore, we have marked these objects with an * and provided alternate replacements for you just below the designated entry. We will use the primary objects to break a tie if that’s needed. Page 1 TAS Ghost Hunt Challenge - Page 2 Time # Designation Type Con. RA Dec. Mag. Size Common Name Observed Facing West – 7:30 8:30 p.m. 1 M17 EN Sgr 18h21’ -16˚11’ 6.0 40’x30’ Omega Nebula 2 M16 EN Ser 18h19’ -13˚47 6.0 17’ by 14’ Ghost Puppet Nebula 3 M10 GC Oph 16h58’ -04˚08’ 6.6 20’ 4 M12 GC Oph 16h48’ -01˚59’ 6.7 16’ 5 M51 Gal CVn 13h30’ 47h05’’ 8.0 13.8’x11.8’ Whirlpool Facing West - 8:30 – 9:00 p.m. 6 M101 GAL UMa 14h03’ 54˚15’ 7.9 24x22.9’ 7 NGC 6572 PN Oph 18h12’ 06˚51’ 7.3 16”x13” Emerald Eye 8 NGC 6426 GC Oph 17h46’ 03˚10’ 11.0 4.2’ 9 NGC 6633 OC Oph 18h28’ 06˚31’ 4.6 20’ Tweedledum 10 IC 4756 OC Ser 18h40’ 05˚28” 4.6 39’ Tweedledee 11 M26 OC Sct 18h46’ -09˚22’ 8.0 7.0’ 12 NGC 6712 GC Sct 18h54’ -08˚41’ 8.1 9.8’ 13 M13 GC Her 16h42’ 36˚25’ 5.8 20’ Great Hercules Cluster 14 NGC 6709 OC Aql 18h52’ 10˚21’ 6.7 14’ Flying Unicorn 15 M71 GC Sge 19h55’ 18˚50’ 8.2 7’ 16 M27 PN Vul 20h00’ 22˚43’ 7.3 8’x6’ Dumbbell Nebula 17 M56 GC Lyr 19h17’ 30˚13 8.3 9’ 18 M57 PN Lyr 18h54’ 33˚03’ 8.8 1.4’x1.1’ Ring Nebula 19 M92 GC Her 17h18’ 43˚07’ 6.44 14’ 20 M72 GC Aqr 20h54’ -12˚32’ 9.2 6’ Facing West - 9 – 10 p.m. -
The MUSE View of the Planetary Nebula NGC 3132? Ana Monreal-Ibero1,2 and Jeremy R
A&A 634, A47 (2020) Astronomy https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/201936845 & © ESO 2020 Astrophysics The MUSE view of the planetary nebula NGC 3132? Ana Monreal-Ibero1,2 and Jeremy R. Walsh3,?? 1 Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), 38205 La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain e-mail: [email protected] 2 Universidad de La Laguna, Dpto. Astrofísica, 38206 La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain 3 European Southern Observatory, Karl-Schwarzschild Strasse 2, 85748 Garching, Germany Received 4 October 2019 / Accepted 6 December 2019 ABSTRACT Aims. Two-dimensional spectroscopic data for the whole extent of the NGC 3132 planetary nebula have been obtained. We deliver a reduced data-cube and high-quality maps on a spaxel-by-spaxel basis for the many emission lines falling within the Multi-Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) spectral coverage over a range in surface brightness >1000. Physical diagnostics derived from the emission line images, opening up a variety of scientific applications, are discussed. Methods. Data were obtained during MUSE commissioning on the European Southern Observatory (ESO) Very Large Telescope and reduced with the standard ESO pipeline. Emission lines were fitted by Gaussian profiles. The dust extinction, electron densities, and temperatures of the ionised gas and abundances were determined using Python and PyNeb routines. 2 Results. The delivered datacube has a spatial size of 6300 12300, corresponding to 0:26 0:51 pc for the adopted distance, and ∼ × ∼ 1 × a contiguous wavelength coverage of 4750–9300 Å at a spectral sampling of 1.25 Å pix− . The nebula presents a complex reddening structure with high values (c(Hβ) 0:4) at the rim. -
February 14, 2015 7:00Pm at the Herrett Center for Arts & Science Colleagues, College of Southern Idaho
Snake River Skies The Newsletter of the Magic Valley Astronomical Society www.mvastro.org Membership Meeting President’s Message Saturday, February 14, 2015 7:00pm at the Herrett Center for Arts & Science Colleagues, College of Southern Idaho. Public Star Party Follows at the It’s that time of year when obstacles appear in the sky. In particular, this year is Centennial Obs. loaded with fog. It got in the way of letting us see the dance of the Jovian moons late last month, and it’s hindered our views of other unique shows. Still, members Club Officers reported finding enough of a clear sky to let us see Comet Lovejoy, and some great photos by members are popping up on the Facebook page. Robert Mayer, President This month, however, is a great opportunity to see the benefit of something [email protected] getting in the way. Our own Chris Anderson of the Herrett Center has been using 208-312-1203 the Centennial Observatory’s scope to do work on occultation’s, particularly with asteroids. This month’s MVAS meeting on Feb. 14th will give him the stage to Terry Wofford, Vice President show us just how this all works. [email protected] The following weekend may also be the time the weather allows us to resume 208-308-1821 MVAS-only star parties. Feb. 21 is a great window for a possible star party; we’ll announce the location if the weather permits. However, if we don’t get that Gary Leavitt, Secretary window, we’ll fall back on what has become a MVAS tradition: Planetarium night [email protected] at the Herrett Center. -
Abstracts Connecting to the Boston University Network
20th Cambridge Workshop: Cool Stars, Stellar Systems, and the Sun July 29 - Aug 3, 2018 Boston / Cambridge, USA Abstracts Connecting to the Boston University Network 1. Select network ”BU Guest (unencrypted)” 2. Once connected, open a web browser and try to navigate to a website. You should be redirected to https://safeconnect.bu.edu:9443 for registration. If the page does not automatically redirect, go to bu.edu to be brought to the login page. 3. Enter the login information: Guest Username: CoolStars20 Password: CoolStars20 Click to accept the conditions then log in. ii Foreword Our story starts on January 31, 1980 when a small group of about 50 astronomers came to- gether, organized by Andrea Dupree, to discuss the results from the new high-energy satel- lites IUE and Einstein. Called “Cool Stars, Stellar Systems, and the Sun,” the meeting empha- sized the solar stellar connection and focused discussion on “several topics … in which the similarity is manifest: the structures of chromospheres and coronae, stellar activity, and the phenomena of mass loss,” according to the preface of the resulting, “Special Report of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory.” We could easily have chosen the same topics for this meeting. Over the summer of 1980, the group met again in Bonas, France and then back in Cambridge in 1981. Nearly 40 years on, I am comfortable saying these workshops have evolved to be the premier conference series for cool star research. Cool Stars has been held largely biennially, alternating between North America and Europe. Over that time, the field of stellar astro- physics has been upended several times, first by results from Hubble, then ROSAT, then Keck and other large aperture ground-based adaptive optics telescopes. -
A Basic Requirement for Studying the Heavens Is Determining Where In
Abasic requirement for studying the heavens is determining where in the sky things are. To specify sky positions, astronomers have developed several coordinate systems. Each uses a coordinate grid projected on to the celestial sphere, in analogy to the geographic coordinate system used on the surface of the Earth. The coordinate systems differ only in their choice of the fundamental plane, which divides the sky into two equal hemispheres along a great circle (the fundamental plane of the geographic system is the Earth's equator) . Each coordinate system is named for its choice of fundamental plane. The equatorial coordinate system is probably the most widely used celestial coordinate system. It is also the one most closely related to the geographic coordinate system, because they use the same fun damental plane and the same poles. The projection of the Earth's equator onto the celestial sphere is called the celestial equator. Similarly, projecting the geographic poles on to the celest ial sphere defines the north and south celestial poles. However, there is an important difference between the equatorial and geographic coordinate systems: the geographic system is fixed to the Earth; it rotates as the Earth does . The equatorial system is fixed to the stars, so it appears to rotate across the sky with the stars, but of course it's really the Earth rotating under the fixed sky. The latitudinal (latitude-like) angle of the equatorial system is called declination (Dec for short) . It measures the angle of an object above or below the celestial equator. The longitud inal angle is called the right ascension (RA for short). -
Observing List Evening of 2011 Dec 25 at Boyden Observatory
Southern Skies Binocular list Observing List Evening of 2011 Dec 25 at Boyden Observatory Sunset 19:20, Twilight ends 20:49, Twilight begins 03:40, Sunrise 05:09, Moon rise 06:47, Moon set 20:00 Completely dark from 20:49 to 03:40. New Moon. All times local (GMT+2). Listing All Classes visible above 2 air mass and in complete darkness after 20:49 and before 03:40. Cls Primary ID Alternate ID Con Mag Size Distance RA 2000 Dec 2000 Begin Optimum End S.A. Ur. 2 PSA Difficulty Optimum EP Open Collinder 227 Melotte 101 Car 8.4 15.0' 6500 ly 10h42m12.0s -65°06'00" 01:32 03:31 03:54 25 210 40 challenging Glob NGC 2808 Car 6.2 14.0' 26000 ly 09h12m03.0s -64°51'48" 21:57 03:08 04:05 25 210 40 detectable Open IC 2602 Collinder 229 Car 1.6 100.0' 520 ly 10h42m58.0s -64°24'00" 23:20 03:31 04:07 25 210 40 obvious Open Collinder 246 Melotte 105 Car 9.4 5.0' 7200 ly 11h19m42.0s -63°29'00" 01:44 03:33 03:57 25 209 40 challenging Open IC 2714 Collinder 245 Car 8.2 14.0' 4000 ly 11h17m27.0s -62°44'00" 01:32 03:33 03:57 25 209 40 challenging Open NGC 2516 Collinder 172 Car 3.3 30.0' 1300 ly 07h58m04.0s -60°45'12" 20:38 01:56 04:10 24 200 30 obvious Open NGC 3114 Collinder 215 Car 4.5 35.0' 3000 ly 10h02m36.0s -60°07'12" 22:43 03:27 04:07 25 199 40 easy Neb NGC 3372 Eta Carinae Nebula Car 3.0 120.0' 10h45m06.0s -59°52'00" 23:26 03:32 04:07 25 199 38 easy Open NGC 3532 Collinder 238 Car 3.4 50.0' 1600 ly 11h05m39.0s -58°45'12" 23:47 03:33 04:08 25 198 38 easy Open NGC 3293 Collinder 224 Car 6.2 6.0' 7600 ly 10h35m51.0s -58°13'48" 23:18 03:32 04:08 25 199 -
The List of Possible Double and Multiple Open Clusters Between Galactic Longitudes 240O and 270O
The list of possible double and multiple open clusters between galactic longitudes 240o and 270o Juan Casado Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona, 08193, Bellaterra, Catalonia, Spain Email: [email protected] Abstract This work studies the candidate double and multiple open clusters (OCs) in the galactic sector from l = 240o to l = 270o, which contains the Vela-Puppis star formation region. To do that, we have searched the most recent and complete catalogues of OCs by hand to get an extensive list of 22 groups of OCs involving 80 candidate members. Gaia EDR3 has been used to review some of the candidate OCs and look for new OCs near the candidate groups. Gaia data also permitted filtering out most of the field sources that are not member stars of the OCs. The plotting of combined colour-magnitude diagrams of candidate pairs has allowed, in several cases, endorsing or discarding their link. The most likely systems are formed by OCs less than 0.1 Gyr old, with only one eccentric OC in this respect. No probable system of older OCs has been found. Preliminary estimations of the fraction of known OCs that form part of groups (9.4 to 15%) support the hypothesis that the Galaxy and the Large Magellanic Cloud are similar in this respect. The results indicate that OCs are born in groups like stars are born in OCs. Keywords Binary open clusters; Open cluster groups; Open cluster formation; Gaia; Manual search; Large Magellanic Cloud. 1. Introduction Open clusters are formed in giant molecular clouds and there is observational evidence suggesting that they can form in groups (Camargo et al. -
197 6Apjs. . .30. .451H the Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series, 30:451-490, 1976 April © 1976. the American Astronomical S
.451H The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series, 30:451-490, 1976 April .30. © 1976. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved. Printed in U.S.A. 6ApJS. 197 EVOLVED STARS IN OPEN CLUSTERS Gretchen L. H. Harris* David Dunlap Observatory, Richmond Hill, Ontario Received 1974 September 16; revised 1975 June 18 ABSTRACT Radial-velocity observations and MK classifications have been used to study evolved stars in 25 open clusters. Published data on stars in 72 additional clusters are rediscussed and com- bined with the observations friade in this investigation to yield positions in the Hertzsprung- Russell diagram for 559 evolved stars in 97 clusters. Ages for the parent clusters were estimated from the main-sequence turnoff points, earliest spectral types, and bluest stars in the clusters themselves. The evolved stars were sorted into six age groups ranging from 4 x 106 yr to 4 x 108 yr, and the composite H-R diagram for each age group was then used to study the evolutionary tracks for stars of various masses. The observational results were found to be in reasonably good agreement with recent theoretical computations. The composite color-magnitude diagrams were found to be strikingly different from those of the rich open clusters in the Magellanic Clouds. At a given age the red giants in the Small Magellanic Cloud and the Large Magellanic Cloud clusters are brighter and bluer than their galactic counterparts. It is suggested that these effects may be accounted for by differences in metal abundance. Subject headings: clusters: open — galaxies: Magellanic Clouds — radial velocities — stars : evolution — stars : late-type — stars : spectral classification 1. -
Observing List to Confirm Visibility
ASSA Deepsky 100 Observing List Evening of 2014 Jun 27 at VS Star Party - Gansvlei Sunset 17:33, Twilight ends 18:51, Twilight begins 05:43, Sunrise 07:01, Moon rise 07:32, Moon set 17:55 Completely dark from 18:51 to 05:43. New Moon. All times local (GMT+2). Listing All Deep Sky Objects visible above the perfect horizon and in complete darkness after 18:51 and before 05:43. Cls Primary ID Alternate ID Con Mag Size RA 2000 Dec 2000 Distance Begin Optimum End S.A. Ur. 2 PSA Difficulty Open NGC 2287 M 41 CMa 5.0 39.0' 06h46m01.0s -20°45'24" 2300 ly 18:34 18:42 18:53 19 154 27 detectable Open NGC 2362 Collinder 136 CMa 3.8 5.0' 07h18m41.0s -24°57'18" 4500 ly 18:24 18:48 19:34 19 154 27 obvious Open NGC 2437 M 46 Pup 6.6 20.0' 07h41m46.0s -14°48'36" 4500 ly 18:37 18:49 19:10 12 135 26 detectable Open NGC 2422 M 47 Pup 4.3 25.0' 07h36m35.0s -14°29'00" 1600 ly 18:33 18:49 19:16 12 135 26 easy Open NGC 2447 M 93 Pup 6.5 10.0' 07h44m30.0s -23°51'24" 3400 ly 18:34 18:50 19:32 19 153 26 easy Open NGC 2548 M 48 Hya 5.5 30.0' 08h13m43.0s -05°45'00" 2500 ly 18:37 18:51 19:19 12 134 26 detectable Open NGC 2477 Collinder 165 Pup 5.7 15.0' 07h52m10.0s -38°31'48" 4000 ly 18:33 18:52 20:01 19 171 28 easy Open NGC 2451 Collinder 161 Pup 3.7 45.0' 07h45m23.0s -37°57'21" 720 ly 18:34 18:52 19:55 19 171 28 easy Open NGC 2547 Collinder 177 Vel 5.0 25.0' 08h10m09.0s -49°12'54" 1500 ly 18:35 18:54 19:08 20 187 28 easy Open NGC 2516 Collinder 172 Car 3.3 30.0' 07h58m04.0s -60°45'12" 1300 ly 18:32 18:56 19:08 24 200 30 obvious Open IC 2391 Collinder 191 Vel 2.6 -
The SAI Catalog of Supernovae and Radial Distributions of Supernovae
Astronomy Letters, Vol. 30, No. 11, 2004, pp. 729–736. Translated from Pis’ma v Astronomicheski˘ı Zhurnal, Vol. 30, No. 11, 2004, pp. 803–811. Original Russian Text Copyright c 2004 by Tsvetkov, Pavlyuk, Bartunov. TheSAICatalogofSupernovaeandRadialDistributions of Supernovae of Various Types in Galaxies D. Yu. Tsvetkov*, N.N.Pavlyuk**,andO.S.Bartunov*** Sternberg Astronomical Institute, Universitetski ˘ı pr. 13, Moscow, 119992 Russia Received May 18, 2004 Abstract—We describe the Sternberg Astronomical Institute (SAI)catalog of supernovae. We show that the radial distributions of type-Ia, type-Ibc, and type-II supernovae differ in the central parts of spiral galaxies and are similar in their outer regions, while the radial distribution of type-Ia supernovae in elliptical galaxies differs from that in spiral and lenticular galaxies. We give a list of the supernovae that are farthest from the galactic centers, estimate their relative explosion rate, and discuss their possible origins. c 2004MAIK “Nauka/Interperiodica”. Key words: astronomical catalogs, supernovae, observations, radial distributions of supernovae. INTRODUCTION be found on the Internet. The most complete data are contained in the list of SNe maintained by the Cen- In recent years, interest in studying supernovae (SNe)has increased signi ficantly. Among other rea- tral Bureau of Astronomical Telegrams (http://cfa- sons, this is because SNe Ia are used as “standard www.harvard.edu/cfa/ps/lists/Supernovae.html)and candles” for constructing distance scales and for cos- the electronic version of the Asiago catalog mological studies, and because SNe Ibc may be re- (http://web.pd.astro.it/supern). lated to gamma ray bursts.