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M81 Bode's Galaxy ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY OF CANADA - VICTORIA CENTRE SKYNEWS Photo by David Lee IN THIS ISSUE NEXT MEETING Presidents Report Next Monthly Meeting Stellar Distance Atlas Wednesday December 12th In the Arms of the Milky Way M81 Bode’s Galaxy 7:30 PM in Room 116 Nudge Nudge: Give Lists a Try by Dan Posey Engineering and Computer In Memorium Science Building Upcoming Speakers www.victoria.rasc.ca SKYNEWS NOVEMBER 2018 ISSUE #402 PAGE 1! President’s • Centre member Chris Gainor was elected National President at the 2018 General Assembly. Report • Centre members David Lee, John by Chris Purse McDonald, and Jim Hesser assisted with a second concert of the music of William Herschel. The event As my term as in November 2018 was supported by a grant from centre president the RASC special projects fund. draws to a close, I • David Lee and Dan Posey offered a thought I would look workshop on PixInsight to a group of back at some of the astrophotography enthusiasts. noteworthy events • Astro Café continues to be well attended and from the past 2 our monitor is well used. years. • Centre members continue to volunteer • Centre countless hours for the schools program, Vancouver member Brenda Island Regional Science Fair, and other outreach Stuart provided the events. illustrations for the I have enjoyed my term as president. It has been my new edition of the honour to serve the centre and I thank all our RASC publication members for their contributions. It has been a great Explore the experience to work with such an enthusiastic group Universe Guide. of people and I look forward to my next role as past • We had longer seasons of the Summer Star president. Parties at the DAO in both 2017 and 2018. These A reminder that this month’s meeting is our Annual started with Astronomy Day at the Royal BC General Meeting that will take place on Saturday, Museum. The stat parties continued to be well November 17 at the Cedar Hill Golf Club with doors attended. opening at 6 p.m. The evening starts with a dinner so • Centre member Terry Ryals volunteered his if you have not booked a seat please do so by carpentry skills to build a security cabinet so we Sunday, November 11. The meal costs $40 and is a could install our new monitor in the portable where buffet with a pre-selected entrée. The entrée choices we hold Astro Café. are chicken, salmon, steak, or vegetarian ravioli. If • Victoria High School proposed and launched you wish to attend, send me your entrée selection at an Astronomy 11 course. [email protected]. Please see the website • In partnership with Parks Canada, observing for more information. If you cannot attend the dinner, evenings were held at Fort Rodd Hill and Gulf the speaker and meeting portion are open to Islands National Park. everyone at no charge. • Members who had remained in Victoria Due to exams at the University, our monthly meeting hosted public eclipse viewing for the solar eclipse on on Wednesday, December 12 will be held in the August 21, 2017. Many members travelled to the US Engineering and Computer Science building to see the total eclipse. room 116. This is near the room where the June 2018 meeting was held. • The centre purchased a new telescope for the VCO and sold the surplus equipment. • In 2018, RASC celebrated its A final note and a concern. Our centre is not alone sesquicentennial with a number of special events, a in having issues finding members willing to put their commemorative Royal Canadian Mint coin, and a names forward for the leadership positions. We rely pair of commemorative stamps issued by Canada on a group of members to coordinate activities, make Post. decisions, and keep the centre running in • Centre members Lauri Roche and Jim accordance with the relevant regulations. Despite a Hesser organized and coordinated a national contest membership over 270, nominations have not been in honour of the sesquicentennial called Imagining forthcoming for the incoming centre executive and the Skies. this is a major problem. The centre cannot run without the council members. If we do not have • The centenary of the Plaskett Telescope was leaders the centre is not viable and we really must celebrated on May 3, 2018 with the National Historic question if we can continue to exist. That would be a Site plaque unveiled. sad occurrence after a history of 104 years. So, this • RASC members were invited to attend is a final appeal before the AGM. We do need some sessions at the Canadian Astronomical Society more nominees for people to lead the centre. annual meeting held in Victoria during May 2018. SKYNEWS NOVEMBER 2018 ISSUE #402 PAGE !2 AGM Meeting Presentation: Formation of Our weekly Astronomy Cafe is an excellent, informal, way to meet us. Planets around Stars: What We Know New comers are especially and What We Still Need to Learn encouraged. Click the link for by Dr. Doug Johnstone location:. http://victoria.rasc.ca/events/ astro-cafe/ Saturday November 17th, 2018 ~ 7:30 PM Fairfield Community Centre - 1330 After AGM Banquet at Cedar Hill Golf Fairfield Rd. Victoria. Course, 1400 Derby Road Every Monday at 7:30pm. Over the last few decades we have uncovered a Contact Reg for further details: great deal about the formation of stars. We have [email protected] also undertaken an extensive census of planets and planetary systems around other stars. We are Email Lists confident that the typical young star begins life surrounded by a gaseous yet dusty orbiting disk of Observer / CU Volunteers / material and that this circumstellar disk is the birth Members site of planetary systems. Nevertheless, it is still Contact Chris Purse to subscribe almost impossible to witness the formation of planets and instead we must settle for indirect circumstantial [email protected] evidence of the planet formation process when comparing observations against theoretical ideals New Observers Group and numerical simulations. For this reason, Hosted by Sid Sidhu - 1642 Davies astronomers have been developing ever more Road, Highlands. Call 250.391-0540 powerful telescopes and instruments to peer deeply for information and directions. into the cloudy environs of star formation and uncover planets in formation. I will discuss some recent observations that suggest planets may form Cattle Point observing in Victoria’s during the earliest stages of star formation. I will also own Urban Dark Sky Park. describe planned and anticipated (space) telescopes Click the link for the date and time of that will provide new ways of searching for planets in the next scheduled session formation. http://victoria.rasc.ca/events/rascals- cattle-point/ Dr. Doug Johnstone is an astronomer at the National Research Council’s Herzberg Astronomy and Astrophysics Research Centre in Victoria, BC. From 2012-2014 Doug was the Associate Director of Victoria Centre Observatory: the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope, a 15-m Saturday Evenings telescope on Mauna Kea devoted to observations of Open to those on the Active the sky at sub-millimeter wavelengths. Doug's main Observers list only research interests follow the formation of stars and Weather permitting. planetary systems. He began his professional life as a theorist at the University of California, Berkeley, working on the evolution of circumstellar disks around young stars, back before extra-solar planet UVic 32 Inch Telescope detections were common. He has spent time at the RASC Victoria Centre Sessions Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics, the will resume in November. University of Toronto, and the National Research Council of Canada. Today, Dr. Johnstone’s research focuses on the formation and evolution of structure in molecular clouds, attempting to disentangle the Membership Report October 2018 physical processes Total membership is currently 274. There are 17 members through which a molecular cloud in the grace period which means their membership has sheds into individual expired in the past 2 months. Please contact Chris Purse stars and planetary ([email protected]) if you would like to check systems. the status of your membership. SKYNEWS NOVEMBER 2018 ISSUE #402 PAGE 3! " A Stellar January Distance Atlas 78 By Reg Dunkley 81 150 25 You could argue 130 that constellations 120 served as the 434 original Netflix. They have conditioned 447 1500 generations to 2600 clump stars together into dramatic roles. 230 When one 34 52 considers the 42 590 93 distance to the stars 670 97 however, different 130 options for grouping 11 444 our stellar 65 neighbours emerge. 640 Rather than thinking 240 of the night sky as a 2000 celestial sphere it 720 860 may be more 8.6 appropriate to imagine it as a celestial onion. 690 25 83 There are a April 590 number of 154 wonderful 3D 447 diagrams that display the nearest 42 stars. The trouble 75 100 with these 65 360 120 depictions however 78 is that familiar bright stars are lost 75 52 in a crowd of much 34 fainter objects. 640 There is a simpler 37 but more effective 130 36 way to visualize 11 our neighbours. On 77 a typical night sky map I labelled 180 prominent stars 260 8.6 with their distance in light years. One Distance In Light Years SKYNEWS NOVEMBER 2018 ISSUE #402 PAGE 4! 230 July of the nicest and cleanest star charts 97 447 can be obtained from skymaps.com. 690 My natural bias assumes the 196 78 brightest stars are 2600 closer. Inspection of the maps, however 154 reveals surprises. 36 For instance Vega in 670 434 Lyra, at 25 light 75 37 110 years, is ten times 75 closer than Spica in 17 Virgo and one 48 hundred times closer than Deneb in Cygnus! Meanwhile 260 Sirius, the brightest night time star is 100 times closer than Rigel in Orion.
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