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Longmont Astronomical Society Newsletter LAS Meeting May 17 - SkySafari - Past, Present and Future by Bill Tschumy SkySafari is the most popular mobile astronomy app among amateur astronomers. Hear one of the creators, Bill Tschumy, tell you about the app’s history, current status and where it is headed in the future. Bio: Bill has been an avid amateur astronomer for the past 45 years and a software engineer for 37. Eight years ago he was fortunate to be able to combine his programming skills and love of astronomy to help create astronomy software for iOS, Android and Mac. Bill co-wrote the award winning SkySafari, StarSeek, Stella Access, Pluto Safari, Eclipse Safari, and Satellite Safari. He has also co-written SkyWeek, Jupiter's Moons and Saturn's Moon which are currently marketed by Sky & Telescope. The meeting will be at the IHOP Restaurant, 2040 Ken Pratt Boulevard, Longmont, Please join us for for coffee, dinner or just desert around 6 pm; The general meeting and presentation will begin at 7 pm. May Solar System Highlights Moon Last quarter: May 7th 8:10 pm New moon: May 15th 5:49 am First quarter: May 21st 9:50 am Full moon: May 29th 8:21 am Mercury Mercury is not visible this month. Venus Venus is visible in the evening sky in constellation Taurus. It moves to constellation Gemini on the 19th. It is magnitude -4 and its disk is 13 arc sec across. Copyright © May 2018. All Rights Reserved. Longmont Astronomical Society Page 2 Mars Mars is visible in the morning sky in constellation Sagittarius; it moves to Capricornus on the 15th. It increases in brightness from magnitude -0.4 to -1.4. The disk increases in size from 11 to 17 arc sec across. Best time to view now (Mar 1) is around 4 am. Mars will be at opposition with Earth on July 27th. Jupiter Best time to view Jupiter is Date Time Alt Date Time Alt around midnight in the May 2 3:08 am 31° May 17 9:51 pm 26° constellation Libra. It is about magnitude -2.5 magnitude in May 3 12:30 am 34° May 19 11:29 pm 35° brightness. The disc is 45 arc sec across May 5 2:08 am 34° May 22 1:07 am 34° The table at the left shows May 5 9:50 pm 20° May 22 8:58 pm 22° Great Red Spot Mid Transits May 7 3:46 am 24° May 24 2:45 am 23° this month based on longitude of 290° (See May 7 11:37 pm 32° May 24 10:36 pm 34° http://jupos.privat.t- online.de/rGrs.htm ). May 9 1:15 am 35° May 26 12:15 am 35° Jupiter is at opposition on May May 12 2:53 am 28° May 29 1:53 am 27° th 8 . May 12 10:44 pm 29° May 29 9:44 pm 31° Saturn May 14 12:22 am 36° May 31 11:22 pm 36° Saturn is visible in the morning May 17 2:00 am 31° June 2 1:00 am 30° sky in the constellation Sagittarius; it increases in brightness from magnitude 0.4 to 0.1. Its disk is 18 arc sec across. Uranus Uranus becomes visible in the morning sky in constellation Aries after the 7th. It magnitude 5.9 in brightness and its disk is 3.4 arc sec across. Neptune Neptune is very low in the morning sky in constellation Aquarius; it is magnitude 7.9 and brightness and its disk is 2.2 arc seconds across. Copyright © May 2018. All Rights Reserved. Longmont Astronomical Society Page 3 Comets Comet C/2016 M1 PANSTARRS is currently magnitude 10.4 in constellation Aquila; it moves into Sagittarius on the 7th. It increases to magnitude 9.4 brightness by the end of the month but gets much lower in the sky. Copyright © May 2018. All Rights Reserved. Longmont Astronomical Society Page 4 Comet C/2016 R2 (PANSTARRS) is in constellation Perseus early this month. It moves to constellation Auriga on April 16. It is about magnitude 11.6 in apparent brightness as the month begins and dims to 11.8 by months end. The coma is about 2.6 arc min across. Copyright © May 2018. All Rights Reserved. Longmont Astronomical Society Page 5 Thursday, April 19th Meeting Minutes by Joe Hudson, LAS Secretary 1900 hours MDT 2040 Ken Pratt Boulevard Longmont, Colorado Vern Raben, President, opens and moderates: Introductions Officers Vern Raben - President Gary Garzone - Vice President Treasurer and AL Coordinator - Marty Butley Joe Hudson - Secretary Jim Elkins – Board of Directors Tally O’Donnell – Board of Directors Brian Kimball – Board of Directors Announcements: Lyons Elementary 4th and 5th grade star party (cancelled VR) April 21st Astronomy Day at Sommers-Bausch Observatory with Boulder Astronomy Club Perseids trip to Ft Robinson weekend of Aug 11-12; maybe do a star party for them? Presentation “Meet the Herschels an Evening with William and Lena” by Vern Raben It was in the 22nd year of her life that Caroline Hershel truly began to live... even if 'living' started with being quite literally dumped onto the shore of her new homeland. In abject discomfort, bone cold and seeming privation, she embarked upon a life's journey that would bring her recognition and praise from the halls of science as never before granted a woman of the Western world. Caroline Herschel was born on March 16, 1750, in what is today Hanover, Germany. She was one of 6 surviving children of Isaac Hershel, an oboeist and trained military musician, and Ann Ilse Hershel. Caroline was about 12 years younger than her brother William, famed astronomer and father of the eminent British scientist and naturalist, Sir John Herschel. Caroline's father pressed general education, and especially musicianship, knowing this could provide his children (especially his sons) with a commoner's trade gentler than most, and as importantly, musicians of day had access to people of means and position far above their own status. Copyright © May 2018. All Rights Reserved. Longmont Astronomical Society Page 6 Caroline's mother held no such view of her daughter... having been stricken with typhus at age 10, Caroline was only 4 ft 3, she had lost some vision in her left eye, and also carried facial scars from smallpox. Never expecting such a figure to marry, Caroline's mother used her as a household servant... up to the point of preventing Caroline from learning any skill that could have provided her with paid employment outside the home. Evidence of her father's foresight, all four of Caroline's brothers had spent time in England, with William and Alexander living near Bath enjoying relative prosperity as paid musicians to the English upper class. Knowing of Caroline's misery, and knowing their mother, William determined to rescue her under pretense of needing her voice in England to 'join the band'... an argument they only won by agreeing to fund a servant who would replace Caroline and her labors. As she followed William to Bath, she also followed him into his musical career... he addressed her musical and general education beginning immediately, all the while he was performing in churches and in other paid engagements. Indeed, Caroline sang first vocalist of Handel's Messiah in April of 1778 but as William's interests in astronomy grew, his interests in music waned, as did his time for rehearsals with Caroline... refusing to sing for anyone but William, her musical career declined only as it was just beginning... and their collective shift to Astronomy in the late 1770s / early 1780s was made only because that is where William's interests lay - Caroline was grudgingly forced into astronomy work that made her famous. She assisted her brother in almost every facet of his foray into astronomy... from mirror polishing to observational recording and position calculation, catalog updates, and then to her own independent observations over periods of many, many years. In 1786 Caroline discovered her first comet but this was a comet of omen - her beloved William married at the age of 50... Caroline had been working for him for almost 20 years and was very upset by the physical (Caroline moved to a different house) and emotional separation William's marriage caused. Caroline stopped writing, or destroyed, her memoirs from 1788 to 1798, but her astronomical observations and catalog work continued unabated. Caroline's brother William died in 1822 and grief stricken, Caroline returned to Hanover, Germany where she lived out her days continuing catalog work and assisting her nephew John, passing peacefully on 9 January 1848. She is buried in Hanover, next to her parents and with a lock of William's hair. Caroline Herschel was: first woman to receive a salary for her scientific work (at a time when few male scientists were paid) First woman awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society (1828) Copyright © May 2018. All Rights Reserved. Longmont Astronomical Society Page 7 Named an Honorary Member of the Royal Astronomical Society 1835 (with Mary Somerville) named an Honorary member of the Royal Irish Academy (1838) received the Gold Medal for Science from the King of Prussia on the occasion of her 96th birthday (1846) an easily be considered the author of the New General Catalog (NGC) still in use today. At first blush, it is seems Caroline had left family servitude for other forms of it - first to a foreign land, to her brother's musical career, and then his singular interest in astronomy... Caroline followed William but at the same time found herself, and in her eventual love of Astronomy, her own life's true calling.
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