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THE OBSERVER OF THE TWIN CITY AMATEUR ASTRONOMERS Volume 45, Number 5 May 2020 INSIDE THIS ISSUE: 1«Editor’s Choice: Image of the Month – Venus & M45 2«President’s Note 2«Note from the NCRAL Regional Chair 3«Calendar of Celestial Events – May 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«Newsflash! TCAA Receives Two NCRAL Awards 4«TCAA Calendar of Events for 2020 5«All TCAA Public Viewing Sessions for 2020 Cancelled 5«AstroBits – News from Around the TCAA 7«Venus-Pleiades Conjunctions 8«May 2020 with Jeffrey L. Hunt 17«Renewing Your TCAA Membership 18«TCAA Image Gallery 19«Full Visual Solar Spectrum 20«Newsletter Editor/Historian Needed Starting 2021 22«Lunar Delights! 25«Online Public Talk Topics for 2020 26«TCAA Treasurer’s Report as of April 27, 2020 EDITOR’S CHOICE: IMAGE OF THE MONTH – VENUS & M45 May’s image of the month was taken by Marc Tiritilli on the The TCAA is an affiliate of the evening of April 4th, one day after the closest approach of Venus to Astronomical League as well as its M45 – the Pleiades star cluster. While Venus-Pleiades conjunctions North Central Region. For more occur in the evening sky every eight years (see the associated story information about the TCAA, be on page 7), they are pretty sights and so draw lots of attention. certain to visit the TCAA website at A follower of the TCAA’s Facebook page, Marc took the tcaa.us/ opportunity of a clear sky the day after the closest approach of this duo to capture the image shown here. He used a tripod-mounted Visit Astroleague.org for additional Nikon D80 camera with a 70-300mm zoom lens set at 300mm, information about the League and its f/5.6, to take this 2-second shot at ISO 1000. There was no post- numerous membership benefits, processing other than cropping. including observing programs. Because the apparent angular diameter of Venus (about 0.5 arc minutes) was very tiny in relation to the apparent angular size of the Pleiades (about 1.6° or 96 arc minutes), Venus appears as a Also, visit the NCRAL website at featureless point of light on this image scale. During the evening of ncral.wordpress.com for information the photograph, Venus was a waning crescent 45% illuminated. about our North Central Region. Find The spikes on Venus are an artifact of the lens used. out about our next Regional This is Marc’s first image of the month. We look forward to convention during May 2020. more contributions from Marc in the not-too-distant future. Copyright © 2020 TCAA 1 All rights reserved. Vol. 45, No. 5 The OBSERVER of the Twin City Amateur Astronomers May 2020 PRESIDENT’S NOTE The OBSERVER It seems almost cliché to say, “We live in is the monthly electronic newsletter of Twin unprecedented times.” The nation and the City Amateur Astronomers, Inc., a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit educational world have been under siege from the organization of amateur astronomers inter- coronavirus for over a month now, with no ested in studying astronomy and sharing real end in sight. In these weeks I’ve taken their hobby with the public. considerable comfort in my passion for astronomy. TCAA OFFICERS & CHAIRPERSONS Though clear nights have been few, there President, Director, & Property Manager have been a couple spectroscopy quality Tim Stone 309-531-2401 nights where I’ve taken the opportunity to [email protected] work on improving my acquisition techniques. Vice President & Director/Membership Coord. I acquired an excellent solar spectrum, and I President Tim Stone Tom Willmitch 309-846-2423 have finally had the time to create software [email protected] for processing spectrum data that I’ve always thought, “Gee, wouldn’t it be great if Treasurer & Director/Registered Agent I had software that could do this mind-numbingly tedious processing for me?” Dave Osenga 309-287-0789 Sheltering in place definitely has its detractions. For me at least, the sheltering isn’t [email protected] so bad when the place is The Universe. 4th Director/Assistant Property Manager We were saddened to have to come to the decision to cancel our Public Scott Wade 309-310-2464 Viewing Sessions for the year. We have opted to produce them as videos and share [email protected] them on our Facebook page, in the hopes of achieving our public outreach goals in 5th Director that way. We have nearly a thousand followers of our page, so we’ll gauge the Sunil Chebolu 678-896-5967 response and see if this is something we’d like to continue. We do hope we can [email protected] reinstate some of the sessions if things loosen up enough by summer’s end. If we Secretary/Historian/Editor do, we’ll communicate that to the club through our groups.io email list, in The Carl J. Wenning 309-830-4085 OBSERVER, and on our Facebook page. [email protected] To date, I’ve not heard of any of our members contracting COVID-19. I’m very Astronomical League Correspondent grateful for this, and it doesn’t surprise me. Astronomers have always been social Robert Finnigan 309-846-9533 [email protected] distancing champions! Let’s continue our champion ways, stay safe and well, and share your observations with us! Technology Coordinator Still yearning for clear skies, Justin Meyer 630-649-0611 [email protected] Tim Stone, President Webmaster Lee Green 309-454-7349 OTE ROM THE EGIONAL HAIR [email protected] N F NCRAL R C Lighting Educ. & AL Observing Club Coordinator The Twin City Amateur Astronomers have been honored again this year by Lisa Wentzel unlisted number NCRAL, but this time in two different ways. You can read about two 2020 NCRAL [email protected] awards announcements on page 4 of this newsletter. The TCAA has been a good The OBSERVER supporter of NCRAL. Carl J. Wenning, Editor Several TCAA members have attended Regional conventions in the past, and the club has hosted Regional conventions in 2010 and 2016. The Region’s affiliates Submission deadline two days before are looking forward to the convention you will host in 2023. the end of each month. Several TCAA members have also recently become involved in the Region’s MEMBERSHIP DUES Messier Mini Marathons whereas only one other club (PAC) and one member-at- large have done so. The TCAA has made available your TCAA Guides to the NCRAL Individual Adult/Family $40 Full-time Student/Senior $25 membership and have given a wonderful example of how to implement a Regional (Senior status equals ages 60+) Membership Recruitment & Retention Mini Grant. The TCAA has, by in large, also produced the Region’s newsletter, Northern Lights. To join, send your name, contact info, and The TCAA is a shining example of all that is good in NCRAL. dues payment to Dave Osenga, TCAA Treasurer, 1109 N. Linden St., Normal, IL Carl J. Wenning 61761-1471. NCRAL Chair (2017-2021) Copyright © 2020 TCAA 2 All rights reserved. Vol. 45, No. 5 The OBSERVER of the Twin City Amateur Astronomers May 2020 CALENDAR OF CELESTIAL EVENTS – MAY 2020 NEW & RENEWING MEMBERS MORNING PLANETS (5/15): Mars (♂), Jupiter (♃), Saturn (♄), The following individuals have paid dues for new or renewed memberships as of April 27, 2020. (Others who Uranus (⛢) and Neptune (♆) paid after that date will appear in the June 2020 issue of EVENING PLANETS (5/15): Mercury (☿) and Venus (♀) 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 Standard Time. New: None Renewing: Scott Wade, Sandullah Epsicokhan Day Time Event Welcome! Welcome! Welcome! Welcome! Welcome! 01 20:49 Regulus 4.2°S of Moon DUES BLUES 04 13 Eta-Aquarid Meteor Shower 04 15 Mercury at Superior Conjunction If you have received a “your dues are due” 05 21:03 Moon at Perigee: 359656 km statement along with the email that brought you this issue of The OBSERVER, please remit your dues to Mr. 07 04:45 FULL MOON Dave Osenga, TCAA Treasurer, 1109 N. Linden St., 08 15:40 Antares 6.5°S of Moon Normal, IL 61761-1471. Dues are currently $25 for 09 22 Mercury at Perihelion seniors (60 years of age and over) and $40 regular. 10 03:01 Moon at Descending Node SUBSCRIBING TO THE TCAA EMAIL LIST 12 03:40 Jupiter 2.3°N of Moon 12 12:18 Saturn 2.7°N of Moon Welcome to the [email protected] group at Groups.io. This is a free, easy-to-use group email service set up for 14 08:03 LAST QUARTER MOON the TCAA’s communication purposes. You can subscribe, 14 20:00 Mars 2.8°N of Moon visit your group, start reading and posting messages 18 01:45 Moon at Apogee: 405584 km here: https://groups.io/g/tcaa 22 04 Mercury 0.9°S of Venus The email address for this group is [email protected]. After you successfully subscribe, please add this email 22 11:39 NEW MOON address to your safe sender list in your email client's 23 20:40 Venus 3.7°N of Moon contacts, so emails from this list do not end up getting 24 04:53 Mercury 2.8°N of Moon classified as junk mail. Once subscribed, you can set your subscription 24 15:34 Moon at Ascending Node settings here: https://groups.io/g/tcaa/editsub.
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  • Planet Searching from Ground and Space

    Planet Searching from Ground and Space

    Planet Searching from Ground and Space Olivier Guyon Japanese Astrobiology Center, National Institutes for Natural Sciences (NINS) Subaru Telescope, National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NINS) University of Arizona Breakthrough Watch committee chair June 8, 2017 Perspectives on O/IR Astronomy in the Mid-2020s Outline 1. Current status of exoplanet research 2. Finding the nearest habitable planets 3. Characterizing exoplanets 4. Breakthrough Watch and Starshot initiatives 5. Subaru Telescope instrumentation, Japan/US collaboration toward TMT 6. Recommendations 1. Current Status of Exoplanet Research 1. Current Status of Exoplanet Research 3,500 confirmed planets (as of June 2017) Most identified by Jupiter two techniques: Radial Velocity with Earth ground-based telescopes Transit (most with NASA Kepler mission) Strong observational bias towards short period and high mass (lower right corner) 1. Current Status of Exoplanet Research Key statistical findings Hot Jupiters, P < 10 day, M > 0.1 Jupiter Planetary systems are common occurrence rate ~1% 23 systems with > 5 planets Most frequent around F, G stars (no analog in our solar system) credits: NASA/CXC/M. Weiss 7-planet Trappist-1 system, credit: NASA-JPL Earth-size rocky planets are ~10% of Sun-like stars and ~50% abundant of M-type stars have potentially habitable planets credits: NASA Ames/SETI Institute/JPL-Caltech Dressing & Charbonneau 2013 1. Current Status of Exoplanet Research Spectacular discoveries around M stars Trappist-1 system 7 planets ~3 in hab zone likely rocky 40 ly away Proxima Cen b planet Possibly habitable Closest star to our solar system Faint red M-type star 1. Current Status of Exoplanet Research Spectroscopic characterization limited to Giant young planets or close-in planets For most planets, only Mass, radius and orbit are constrained HR 8799 d planet (direct imaging) Currie, Burrows et al.