January 2020 OBSERVER
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THE OBSERVER OF THE TWIN CITY AMATEUR ASTRONOMERS Volume 45, Number 1 January 2020 INSIDE THIS ISSUE: 1«Editor’s Choice: Image of the Month – Messier 1 2«President’s Note 3«Calendar of Celestial Events – January 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 4«Member Education During January 2020 5«AstroBits – News from Around the TCAA 6«Make Plans Now to Attend TCAA Annual Meeting 7«January 2020 with Jeffrey Hunt 13«Renewing Your TCAA Membership 13«Did You Know? 13«Public Viewing Sessions for 2020 18«TCAA Treasurer’s Report The TCAA is an affiliate of the Astronomical League as well as its North Central Region. For more information about the TCAA, be certain to visit the TCAA website at tcaa.us/ Visit Astroleague.org for additional information about the League and its IMAGE OF THE MONTH: EDITOR’S CHOICE – M1 numerous membership benefits, including observing programs. This month’s image choice shows Messier 1, the Crab Nebula. It was imaged on December 22nd by Scott Wade and Bob Finnigan at Prairie Sky Observatory using the 14” PlaneWave telescope. The Also, visit the NCRAL website at image consists of nine 1,200-second subs taken with the QHY 367 ncral.wordpress.com for information C color camera. about our North Central Region. Find The Crab Nebula is a supernova remnant in the constellation out about our next Regional of Taurus. The name is due to William Parsons, 3rd Earl of Rosse, convention during May 2020. who observed the object in 1840 and produced a drawing that looked somewhat like a crab. The object is about 6,300 light-years distant with a mean radius of 5 light-years. Currently, at magnitude 8.4, it exploded and was visible in the daytime sky of July 1054 A.D. Copyright © 2020 TCAA 1 All rights reserved. Vol. 45, No. 1 The OBSERVER of the Twin City Amateur Astronomers January 2020 PRESIDENT’S NOTE The OBSERVER By the time you read this note, the second decade of is the monthly electronic newsletter of Twin the 2000s will have expired. It seems like just yesterday City Amateur Astronomers, Inc., a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit educational that everyone was abuzz about "Y2K." Now twenty years organization of amateur astronomers inter- later, it seems nothing is impossible with technology. ested in studying astronomy and sharing Astronomy technology is no exception. The completely their hobby with the public. computerized telescopes we have today, the images we can take, the increasing involvement of amateur TCAA OFFICERS & CHAIRPERSONS astronomers with keeping and maintaining databases for President Tim Stone President, Director, & Property Manager use by professionals, and even more frequent pro/am collaborations, would have Tim Stone 309-531-2401 blown our mind 20 years ago. Getting into astronomy has never been simpler or [email protected] more rewarding. Vice President & Director/Membership Coord. It’s impossible for me to imagine what our hobby will be like ten years from Tom Willmitch 309-846-2423 now. I hope I can continue my active participation for these coming years, and I [email protected] certainly believe TCAA will be alive and well at the close of the next decade. It is my Treasurer & Director/Registered Agent fervent hope that everyone reading this will resolve anew to actively engage in Dave Osenga 309-287-0789 astronomy as these years come and go. The opportunity is clear and amazingly [email protected] present. Secretary & Director/Historian/Editor Thanks to the public relations functions of major scientific organizations such Carl J. Wenning 309-830-4085 as NASA, ESO, The Carnegie Observatories, to mention a few, have so many of the [email protected] public been aware of astronomical happenings. Yet they rarely have anyone who 5th Director/Assistant Property Manager can really explain what it all means to them. We can be that voice. Scott Wade 309-310-2464 Here’s an example of what I’m talking about. Everyone seems to be talking [email protected] about Betelgeuse’s current brightness minimum. The media is discussing the Astronomical League Correspondent possibility that Betelgeuse may supernova soon. Yet, if you asked most people to Robert Finnigan 309-846-9533 point out Betelgeuse, they couldn’t possibly do that. We can! We can point our [email protected] telescopes at that star, discuss its variability with them, discuss its color and age Technology Coordinator with them. We know Betelgeuse personally, and there are plenty of people who Justin Meyer 630-649-0611 [email protected] would like to meet it. This is what I’m talking about when I say, “Let’s be the voice of astronomy in Webmaster our community.” Read up on current astronomy events. Read this newsletter. Read Lee Green 309-454-7349 [email protected] the NCRAL newsletter. Study online resources. And when people ask you about what they heard on the radio or saw on Facebook, you can talk to them, and stoke Lighting Educ. & AL Observing Club Coordinator Lisa Wentzel unlisted number their interest in astronomy and maybe even our club! [email protected] Speaking of our club, our TCAA Holiday Party was quite a success again this year. We had approximately twenty of our members in our home, and we all had a The OBSERVER great time. We talked about astronomy, and about other things. We got to know Carl J. Wenning, Editor better some people we didn’t know so well before. But more than that, we all became a little more personable with each other. Sometimes it’s hard to remember Submission deadline two days before that we’re all human beings, working to keep our lives in order and moving in the the end of each month. direction we want them to go. When we get MEMBERSHIP DUES together, shake each other's hands, smile and sit down to eat together, it brings us closer to what we Individual Adult/Family $40 Full-time Student/Senior $25 all have in common – being people who are (Senior status equals ages 60+) interested in some of the same things. If you couldn’t come this year, I do hope you’ll To join, send your name, contact info, and mark your calendar for next year. Barring dues payment to Dave Osenga, TCAA unforeseen circumstances, we do plan to host the Treasurer, 1109 N. Linden St., Normal, IL party again in December 2020. 61761-1471. Tim Stone, President Copyright © 2020 TCAA 2 All rights reserved. Vol. 45, No. 1 The OBSERVER of the Twin City Amateur Astronomers January 2020 CALENDAR OF CELESTIAL EVENTS – JANUARY 2020 NEW & RENEWING MEMBERS MORNING PLANETS (1/15): Mars (♂), Jupiter (♃), & Saturn (♄) The following individuals have paid dues for new or EVENING PLANETS (1/15): Mercury (☿), Venus (♀), Uranus (⛢), renewed memberships as of December 27, 2019. (Others who paid after that date will appear in the February 2020 & Neptune (♆) 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 Daylight Time. New: none Renewing: Jamie Jenkins Day Time Event Welcome! Welcome! Welcome! Welcome! Welcome! 01 19:30 Moon at Apogee: 404580 km 02 22:45 FIRST QUARTER MOON DUES BLUES 04 03 Quadrantid Meteor Shower If you have received a “your dues are due” 05 02 Earth at Perihelion: 0.98324 AU statement along with the email that brought you this 07 15:09 Aldebaran 3.0°S of Moon issue of The OBSERVER, please remit your dues to Mr. Dave Osenga, TCAA Treasurer, 1109 N. Linden St., 09 17:29 Moon at Ascending Node Normal, IL 61761-1471. Dues are currently $25 for 10 09 Mercury at Superior Conjunction seniors (60 years of age and over) and $40 regular. 10 13:10 Pen. Lunar Eclipse; mag=0.896 10 13:21 FULL MOON SUBSCRIBING TO THE NEW TCAA EMAIL LIST 10 20:26 Pollux 5.3°N of Moon Welcome to the [email protected] group at Groups.io. 11 17:54 Beehive 1.0°S of Moon This is a free, easy-to-use group email service set up for 13 05:37 Regulus 3.8°S of Moon the TCAA’s communication purposes. You can subscribe, 13 08 Saturn in Conjunction with Sun visit your group, start reading and posting messages here: https://groups.io/g/tcaa 13 14:20 Moon at Perigee: 365964 km The email address for this group is [email protected]. 17 06:58 LAST QUARTER MOON After you successfully subscribe, please add this email 17 17:03 Mars 4.7°N of Antares address to your safe sender list in your email client's 20 13:13 Mars 2.3°S of Moon contacts, so emails from this list do not end up getting classified as junk mail. 22 14:31 Moon at Descending Node Once subscribed, you can set your subscription 22 20:42 Jupiter 0.4°N of Moon: Occn. settings here: https://groups.io/g/tcaa/editsub. You can 24 15:42 NEW MOON opt to receive all messages in individual emails, 28 01:29 Venus 4.1°N of Moon collections of messages in a digest, a daily summary, or only special notices. If you do not wish to belong to this 29 15:28 Moon at Apogee: 405390 km group, you may unsubscribe by sending an email to [email protected] http://www.astropixels.com/ephemeris/astrocal/astrocal2020cst.html If you have general questions about the group, check email [email protected].