September 2021
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The Newsletter-Journal of Westchester Amateur Astronomers September 2021 Necessity is the Mother of Invention In June, Alex Mold found the full Moon too bright to view directly in his telescope. Lacking a dense enough filter, he projected the image onto the shiny top of an eyepiece dust cap and captured it with a cell phone. SERVING THE ASTRONOMY COMMUNITY SINCE 1986 1 Westchester Amateur Astronomers SkyWAAtch September 2021 WAA September Meeting WAA October Meeting Friday, September 10 at 7:30 pm Friday, October 8 at 7:30 pm On-line via Zoom On-line via Zoom Members’ Night New Horizons and the Solar System's 3rd Zone WAA members will present brief talks on topics of interest. Trips, observations, imaging, new equip- Will Grundy, PhD ment, or anything else of interest to fellow WAA’ers. Planetary Scientist, Lowell Observatory It’s one of our most popular events. Co-Investigator, New Horizons mission Members interested in making a presentation should Live meetings may resume in January 2022, depend- contact Pat Mahon at ing on whether pandemic-related restrictions are still [email protected]. in effect at Pace University. Pre-lecture socializing with fellow WAA members and guests begins at 7:15 pm! Starway to Heaven Star Party The Zoom link will be emailed to members and is on the WAA website. Ward Pound Ridge Reservation, Cross River, NY WAA Members: Contribute to the Newsletter! September 4 (Rain/cloud date September 11) Send articles, photos, or observations to [email protected] Free & open to the public. Bring your own telescope or view through members’ instruments. Pandemic SkyWAAtch © Westchester Amateur Astronomers, precautions will still be in effect. Vaccinate and mask! Inc. Naut Twi Astron Moon Moon Editor: Larry Faltz Date Sunset ends Twi ends Rises Sets Assistant Editor: Scott Levine 9/4/21 19:21 20:26 21:01 04:30 N/A Almanac Editor: Bob Kelly 9/11/21 19:10 20:14 20:48 N/A 21:55 Editor Emeritus: Tom Boustead Call the WAA Hotline 1-877-456-5778 (toll free) for New Members announcements, weather cancellations, or questions. Watch your email Inbox, Facebook or Twitter for real Paolo Georgeo Yonkers time updates. Also, don’t forget to visit the WAA Chetan Karande Briarcliff Manor website. Mickey Mayo Long Island City Renewing Members Also in this Issue Keith Fliszary Bronxville 3 Almanac (Bob Kelly) Joe Geller Hartsdale 5 Member Profile: Charlie Wiecha Kim Hord Dobbs Ferry 6 Another Movie Telescope Joan Indusi Ossining 7 DSO of the Month: Messier 110 Penny Kelly Wappingers Falls 8 Measuring Starlight (Larry Faltz) Mark Korsten Hastings on Hudson 14 Images by WAA Members Gene Lewis Katonah 23 Research Finding of the Month Christopher Plourde New Rochelle 24 Equipment Classifieds Alan Struth Irvington 24 A Mars image in 3D (Use anaglyph glasses) Ihor Szkolar White Plains Roger Woolcott Brewster SERVING THE ASTRONOMY COMMUNITY SINCE 1986 2 Westchester Amateur Astronomers SkyWAAtch September 2021 ALMANAC For [month] Bob Kelly, WAA VP for Field Events New 1Q Full 3Q 9/6 9/13 9/20 9/28 Venus Crouches Low in the West 22nd. Use a telescope to watch Mercury’s waning phase from three-quarters full to one-quarter during Venus ushers Spica out of the evening sky, passing 1½ the month. degrees north of the star in Virgo on the 5th. It’s sep- arated from the Sun by 41 degrees but still low in the Mars is Missing west because the ecliptic is at such an oblique angle Mars finally gets too deep into the solar glare to be at this time of year. Get a better view of Spica with easily seen. Conjunction with the Sun in October binoculars. makes communication with our Martian probes more difficult. Aphelion was in July, so at least Mars is mov- ing a bit closer toward the Sun in its orbit, helping probes that rely on solar panels for energy. The com- bination of aphelion and being on the other side of the Sun from us makes Mars look very small, only 3.5 arc-seconds wide, actually slightly smaller than Ura- nus. Prime Time for Large Planets Jupiter and Saturn become conveniently placed even- ing objects. They are a bit low in the southeastern sky after sunset for those of us with trees filling our southern exposure. Now a month after closest ap- proach, they are easily viewable even with a small telescope. Spend some time observing the Great Red Venus and the crescent Moon make a nice pair on the Spot and Jupiter’s four dancing moons. Saturn’s satel- 9th and 10th. lite Titan dances back and forth every 8 days. It isn’t as bright as Jupiter’s big four, but it’s notable in most Venus’ setting time actually moves half-an-hour ear- telescopes. Iapetus brightens up, although not as lier in September, even though it moves farther east much as Titan’s magnitude +9.4, as it moves well out of the Sun in our sky. Venus doesn’t get enough dis- to the west of Saturn, farther out than Titan, getting tance to exceed the rapidly changing time of sunset, to its farthest and brightest point at magnitude +10.5 since we are at the Equinox. Venus heading toward around the 18th. its aphelion in early October doesn’t help either. Venus brightens to magnitude -4.1 and appears larger in a telescope, but its phase decreases to half-lit. The best time to see the planet’s phase is as soon as you can find Venus in twilight. Mercury Plays Limbo Mercury’s greatest elongation is 27 degrees following the Sun on the 14th, before it heads back toward in- ferior conjunction in early October. Not a very easy- time to-view Mercury—compare it to Venus’ larger elongation—but it’s also very low in the sky. If you can catch Mercury, check three degrees to the upper right for slightly fainter Spica around the 21st and SERVING THE ASTRONOMY COMMUNITY SINCE 1986 3 Westchester Amateur Astronomers SkyWAAtch September 2021 Comet Tale ing at you. Vega and Sirius are almost directly oppo- site each other in our sky. I’m still working out when An old friend of mine, Comet 6P/d’Arrest, makes its they would next be our pole stars. When Vega will be perihelion in September, as it does every 6½ years the pole star for the northern sky 11,000 years from nowadays. I remember picking out this fuzzball with now, Sirius should simultaneously be the southern binoculars during several close approaches back in pole star, right? What a pair that would be! But the the latter part of the last century. Its diffuse glow and alignment is not exact, so sources don’t list Sirius as low altitude at sunset will make it very tough viewing the southern pole star until the year 60,000- this time, even at a maximum brightness, perhaps something. You can view Vega and Sirius in opposi- magnitude +10, later in the year. tion in January during the 6 p.m. local-time hour. Outer Planets Parade They will be across from each other, Vega low in the Neptune is at opposition to the Sun on the 14th, at northeast and Sirius low in the southwest, but not mag +7.8. It’s well up in Aquarius, with a disc 2.5” in exactly opposite. diameter. Minor planet Pallas is nearby, about ten Sighting Earth’s Extraterrestrials degrees over in Pisces at magnitude +8.4. The International Space Station is visible in the pre- Uranus rises two hours later in the evening at magni- dawn sky through the 14th, then in the post-dusk sky tude +5.7 in Aries. Its disc is 3.6” in diameter. Both for the rest of the month. Vanguard 1 was the second Uranus and Neptune are a pleasing aqua blue in a American and fourth worldwide satellite to be good telescope. launched into orbit. It’s the oldest satellite still orbit- iPhone/Android Trick ing the Earth. It’s only a half-foot wide, so it’s not very visible, ranging from magnitude +10 to +14. If you have one of those apps that show you a live map of the stars look for Vega when it first appears Lunar, Solar and Terrestrial Line-Ups after sunset. It’s now almost exactly overhead. Then, The equinox is at 3:21 p.m. on September 22nd. flip the phone (or tablet) so points in the opposite Lunar perigee and apogee are two days before first direction, i.e. toward the ground directly below you. quarter and last quarter Moon phases, respectively. Get under the phone and you should see Sirius wink- Your Editor needed to fill some white space, so why not this elegant image of a crater in Meridiani Planum on Mars. It was acquired by the Mars HiRISE camera aboard the Mars Reconaissance Orbiter. The HiRISE camera is operated by the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory of the University of Arizona. An enormous number of images, including 3D ana- glyphs and stereo pairs, are on the HiRISE web site, https://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/. See page 24 for an anaglyph image. SERVING THE ASTRONOMY COMMUNITY SINCE 1986 4 Westchester Amateur Astronomers SkyWAAtch September 2021 Member Profile: Charlie Wiecha Home town: Hastings on Hudson, NY Do you recall the first time you looked through a telescope? What did you see? As above, the idea Family: Carol Ehler (Spouse), Matt Wiecha (son, living that (1) a planet could be seen by naked eye from the in Brooklyn) Earth was astounding, and then (2) details like the How did you get interested in astronomy? I received rings of Saturn could be so clearly seen was just un- a Tasco 50-mm tabletop telescope as Christmas gift believable.