The Observer of the Twin City Amateur Astronomers
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THE OBSERVER OF THE TWIN CITY AMATEUR ASTRONOMERS Volume 40, Number 12 December 2015 INSIDE THIS ISSUE: Editor’s Choice: Image of the Month……..……………….1 A Note from President Weiland..…………………..……….2 Calendar of Celestial Events – December 2015..…....3 New & Renewing Members/Dues Blues…………..…….3 Subscribing to Our E-Mail Lists………………………….……3 This Month’s Phases of the Moon……..……………...…..4 President’s Message (continued)……………………..…….4 Holiday Gathering at Wenning Residence………….…..4 Minutes of November 24th BoD Meeting………………..5 Minutes of 11/24 NCRAL 2016 Planning Meeting……5 E/PO for November 2015…………………………………….…6 Public Observing Sessions for 2016……………….……….6 AstroBits…………………………………………………………..……7 Observations of Moon, Venus, Mars, & Jupiter………9 NCRAL 2016 Coming April 29/30………………………….…9 The Milky Way Riches of Deneb and Sadr…………….10 TCAA on Facebook and Twitter…………………………….11 Cartoon of the Month…………………………………….…...12 Becoming an Amateur Astronomer………………………12 Universe Sampler II Telescope Course Coming……..14 HowTimeFlies……………………………………………………….15 TCAA History Board Retrieved…………………………..….15 Board Seeks Award Nominations………………………….16 EDITOR’S CHOICE: IMAGE OF THE MONTH – IC 1318 TCAA Treasurer’s Report: November 2015………..….16 Editor’s note: Tim Stone produced the above Image of the Month for December. It shows the Sadr region of Cygnus known to astronomers as IC 1318, The Butterfly Nebula. It is the diffuse nebular region surrounding Sadr or Gamma Cygni. Sadr lies in the center of the Cygnus cross. IC 1318 is the first image successfully taken with the new 16” telescope in PSO. Tim writes, “On November 8, 2015, at Prairie Sky Observatory, Bob Finnigan and I acquired the “first light” image with the new 16” Harmer Wynne telescope from AG Optical Systems, IC 1318 in Cygnus. At f/3.9, this very fast large aperture system produced this result in a single night, with 7 Hα, 4 OIII, and 4 SII exposures, all 900 seconds in length. The optical system is designed to provide a sharp, flat field for the 36.8x36.8mm Kodak KAF16803 CCD 16Mp sensor. The camera on the 16” is the SBIG STX-16803 camera, which incorporates this CCD. It is The TCAA is an affiliate of the Astronomical League. paired with an SBIG FW7-STX filter wheel with Astrodon 50mm E-Series For more information about the TCAA, be certain to LRGB, and 3nm Hα, OIII, and SII filters. visit our club website. 1 Vol. 40, No. 12 The OBSERVER December 2015 The OBSERVER is the monthly These filters are designed to accommodate the electronic newsletter of the Twin KAF16803 sensor’s large size and are formulated to City Amateur Astronomers, Inc., a provide excellent bandpass consistency across the registered 501(c)(3) not-for-profit entire filter in fast systems where the light cone angle educational organization of amateur can be several degrees. Focus is controlled with a astronomers interested in studying Finger Lakes Instrumentation Atlas focuser. astronomy and sharing their hobby Altogether, the HW16, STX16803 camera, FW7- with the public. STX filter wheel, Astrodon filters, and FLI focuser are TCAA OFFICERS an integrated system designed specifically for fast, large field imaging, giving a field of view of 1° 21' 31" President square at 1.19” per pixel. In test images, stars of at Tom Weiland 309-830-0167 least 18th magnitude were recorded in 900-second [email protected] exposures. Vice-President This new system is driven by a Paramount ME Dave Osenga 309-287-0789 robotic German Equatorial Mount, and controlled [email protected] with TheSkyX Professional, both from Software Secretary/Webmaster Bisque. We are still zeroing in the polar alignment, Lee Green 309-454-7349 with current error of less than 1 minute in azimuth, and about 6 minutes in altitude. [email protected] The HW16 joins two other astrograph systems in the Prairie Sky Observatory: the Treasurer/ALCor/Registered Agent 10” Takahashi Corrected Cassegrain Astrograph CCA250, and the 20” PlaneWave Duane Yockey 309-452-3936 Corrected Dall Kirkham. All of these systems have cameras with the KAF16803 sensor, [email protected] with the 10” system giving about twice the image scale of the 16”, and the 20” giving about half. This makes combining data from multiple systems relatively simple, each 3rd Director/Property Manager system complimenting the others in terms of resolution or field of view. Tim Stone 309-531-2401 Initial tests, including this image of IC 1318, indicate that this platform is capable of [email protected] producing spectacular results. While we have more wrinkles to iron out of the newest th 4 Director/Historian/Editor member of the Prairie Sky Observatory complement, we hope to have it fully Carl J. Wenning 309-830-4085 operational by early next year. [email protected] th 5 Director A NOTE FROM PRESIDENT WEILAND Robert Finnigan 309-846-9533 [email protected] There are three items I would like to draw your Lighting Education Coordinator attention to in this month’s message. The first is the call Lisa Wentzel unlisted number for nominations that you will find elsewhere in this edition [email protected] of The OBSERVER. Any TCAA member in good standing is eligible to run for the TCAA Board of Directors. Board The OBSERVER meetings are held at 6:30 on a Tuesday evening every Carl J. Wenning, Editor other month (January, March, May, July, September, and Paul Pouliot, Assistant Editor November). The date of these meetings is determined by Submission deadline is normally one members’ schedules, with some consideration for the day before the end of each month. occurrence of the full moon. These meetings are usually held at the office of member Duane Yockey in downtown MEMBERSHIP DUES Bloomington. If you are interested in working with other members to help formulate the direction of TCAA for the Individual Adult/Family $40 coming year, I encourage you to forward your name to me Full-time Student/Senior $25 for consideration by our membership at the upcoming (Senior status equals ages 60+) annual meeting. There are five Director positions. A president and vice president are To join, send your name, contact elected from among the Directors at the March Board meeting. Other TCAA positions info and dues payment to Duane are appointed, or reappointed, by the Board at this meeting as well. The election for Yockey, TCAA Treasurer, 508 Normal the five Director positions, as previously mentioned, is held at our annual meeting, Avenue, Normal, IL 61761. which brings me to the second item I would like to remind you about. (continued on page 4) 2 Vol. 40, No. 12 The OBSERVER December 2015 CALENDAR OF CELESTIAL EVENTS – DECEMBER 2015 NEW & RENEWING MEMBERS MORNING STARS (12/15): Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn The following individuals have paid dues for new EVENING STARS (12/15): Mercury, Uranus, and Neptune or renewed memberships as of November 30th, 2015. (Others who paid after that date will appear in the 3 Third Quarter Moon – Rises at midnight and sets at midday. January 2016 issue of The OBSERVER.) 7 Conjunction of the Moon and Venus – A conjunction of the New: None Moon and Venus will take place this morning. The crescent Renewing: None moon will come with 2 degrees of bright planet Venus in the early morning sky. Look to the east just before sunrise. DUES BLUES 11 New Moon – Sets at sunset and rises at sunrise. If you have received a “your dues are due” statement along with the email that brought you this 13/14 Geminid Meteor Shower – Perhaps the best shower of issue of The OBSERVER, please remit your dues to Mr. the year, the Geminids runs annually from December 7-17 but Duane Yockey, TCAA Treasurer, 508 Normal Avenue, peaks on the night of the 13th and morning of the 14th. The Normal, IL 61761. Current dues are currently $25 for crescent moon will set early in the evening leaving dark skies senior (60 years of age and over) and $40 regular. for what should be an excellent show. Best viewing will be from a dark location after midnight. Meteors will radiate from the SUBSCRIBING TO OUR E-MAIL LISTS constellation Gemini, but can appear anywhere in the sky. By subscribing to a group’s mailing list you will 18 First Quarter Moon – Rises at midday and sets at midnight. receive email messages from the group so you won’t have access to the group’s web features (like photos, 22 December Solstice – The December solstice occurs at files, links, polls, calendar, etc.) unless members 04:48 UTC. The South Pole of the earth will be tilted toward the activate it later. The club now has two email listservs. Sun, which will have reached its southernmost position in the The main email listserv is known as the TCAA listserv. sky and will be directly over the Tropic of Capricorn at 23.44 It will be used to share announcements and reminders degrees south latitude. This is the first day of winter (winter about astronomical and club events. To join this main solstice) in the northern hemisphere and the first day of listserv you must do the following: summer (summer solstice) in the southern hemisphere. 1. Subscribe: Send a blank email to TCAA- 25 Full Moon – Early Native American tribes knew this full [email protected] Note: You’ll be sent a moon as the Full Cold Moon because this is the time of year confirmation email from the group. Reply to the when the cold winter air settles in and the nights become long confirmation email to activate your subscription. and dark. This moon has also been known as the Full Long 2. Unsubscribe: [email protected] Nights Moon. 3.