THE OBSERVER OF THE TWIN CITY AMATEUR ASTRONOMERS Volume 44, Number 5 May 2019 INSIDE THIS ISSUE: 1«Editor’s Choice: Image of the Month – Leo Triplet 2«President’s Note 3«Calendar of Celestial Events – May 2019 3«New & Renewing Members/Dues Blues/E-Mail List 4«This Month’s Phases of the Moon 4«This Month’s Solar Phenomena 4«AstroBits – News from Around the TCAA 5«E/PO for April 2019 5«TCAA Image Gallery 9«WentZel and Wenning at NEAF 11«May 2019 with Jeffrey L. Hunt 12«Throwback Thursday 16«Public Viewing Sessions Schedule for 2019 17«TCAA Calendar of Events for 2019 18«TCAA Treasurer’s Report as of April 29, 2019 19«Renewing Your TCAA Membership 19«TCAA Active on Facebook IMAGE OF THE MONTH: EDITOR’S CHOICE – LEO TRIPLET This month’s image was produced by Tim Stone. Tim writes: This famous triplet of galaxies is known as ‘The Leo Trio,’ a catchy name for a wildly unlikely group of three large galaxies: M65, M66, and NGC 3628. All three are interacting with each other, and are quite close to each other, at least as far as large galaxies go. M65 and 66 are about 160,000 light years apart, about the same as the distance between us and the Magellanic Clouds. Imagine the view of each other these two galaxies enjoy! NGC 3628 is a bit farther from the two, about 300,000 years. If we think our view of M31 is unbelievable, suitably positioned astronomers in these galaxies enjoy a vastly superior view of their neighbors! M66 has been deeply disrupted by the interactions with its two neighbors. It has huge HII regions, glowing red with excitation from The TCAA is an affiliate of the Astronomical League. For what are undoubtedly huge clusters of bright blue giant stars being more information about the TCAA, be certain to visit the formed there. M66 is less disturbed, but still sports bright knots of TCAA website. Visit Astroleague.org for additional stars and a vaguely barred-spiral appearance. information about the League and its membership (continued next page) benefits. Copyright © 2019 TCAA 1 All rights reserved. Vol. 44, No. 5 The OBSERVER of the Twin City Amateur Astronomers May 2019 NGC 3628 is seen edge-on, with a crazily distorted dust lane splitting the galaxy The OBSERVER in two. This dust lane gives the galaxy its colloquial name, “The Hamburger Galaxy.” It is by far the largest of the three and has clearly been impacted by the three-way is the monthly electronic newsletter of Twin City Amateur Astronomers, Inc., a dance in which it participates. There is a faint tidal tail extending upward and to the registered 501(c)(3) non-profit educational right in this image, though it’s probably not visible in this rendition. organiZation of amateur astronomers inter- This is the result of two nights of imaging, for a total of eight hours, in early ested in studying astronomy and sharing April. That’s about the extent of the imaging nights we’ve had for the last two their hobby with the public. months. If we get clear skies before these galaxies slip into the western twilight, I’ll try to get a few more hours on this lovely trio. TCAA OFFICERS & CHAIRPERSONS President, Director, & Property Manager PRESIDENT’S NOTE Tim Stone 309-531-2401 [email protected] As many of you know, we have Vice President & Director/Membership Coord. been watching the proceedings of the Tom Willmitch 309-846-2423 DeWitt County government [email protected] pertaining to the development of a Treasurer & Director/Registered Agent wind farm in the northwest corner of Dave Osenga 309-287-0789 the county. Tradewind Energy’s [email protected] project would have installed towers Secretary & Director/Historian/Editor that could have potentially interfered Carl J. Wenning 309-830-4085 with operations at the Waynesville [email protected] Observatory. 5th Director/Assistant Property Manager We worked with our partners on Scott Wade 309-310-2464 the Board of the Village of [email protected] Waynesville to ensure our voice was Astronomical League Correspondent heard as we opposed the placement TCAA President Tim Stone Robert Finnigan 309-846-9533 of wind generators near our property. The village rejected the placement of any [email protected] towers within a mile and a half of their village boundary, which alleviated a good Technology Coordinator deal of our concern. Even so, towers would have been visible from our property, Justin Meyer 630-649-0611 [email protected] and this continued to concern us. We voiced our concerns on multiple occasions to Waynesville, who continued to work with the County Board on multiple issues. Webmaster We were delighted with both the Regional Planning Commission and the Lee Green 309-454-7349 [email protected] Zoning Board of Appeals forwarded the application for a special use permit by Tradewind to the County Board with a negative recommendation. We are now Lighting Educ. & AL Observing Club Coordinator Lisa WentZel unlisted number happy to report that the County Board has also rejected the application, putting at [email protected] least a temporary end to a process that could have degraded our site permanently, and would have certainly degraded its skies during the construction phase of the The OBSERVER project. Carl J. Wenning, Editor in Chief It is possible that Tradewind will reassess, modify its application, and reapply. We hope that the message given by the County Board and the citiZens of DeWitt Submission deadline two days before County is strong and clear enough that Tradewind will abandon their plans and look the end of each month. elsewhere for their project. We will continue to monitor this project, and should it MEMBERSHIP DUES re-emerge, we will work with the Village of Waynesville to ensure as best we can the usefulness of our observatory site for the foreseeable future. Individual Adult/Family $40 Full-time Student/Senior $25 I want to personally thank our Waynesville partners for their efforts on our (Senior status equals ages 60+) behalf. They have kept us informed all along the way and have actively sought out our opinion on various issues related to the wind farm. We couldn’t be happier to To join, send your name, contact info and be considered part of the Waynesville family! dues payment to Dave Osenga, TCAA Treasurer, 1109 N. Linden St., Normal, IL Tim Stone 61761-1471. TCAA President Copyright © 2019 TCAA 2 All rights reserved. Vol. 44, No. 5 The OBSERVER of the Twin City Amateur Astronomers May 2019 CALENDAR OF CELESTIAL EVENTS – MAY 2019 NEW & RENEWING MEMBERS MORNING PLANETS (5/15): Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, The following individuals have paid dues for new or Uranus, and Neptune renewed memberships as of April 29, 2019. (Others who paid after that date will appear in the June 2019 issue of EVENING PLANETS (5/15): Mars The OBSERVER.) The following table gives the date and time (24-hour clock) of important astronomical events for this month. All events are given in Central Daylight Time. Kristy Curry, Scott and Emily Wade, Troy Berg, Sunil Chebolu, and Lloyd Mason Day Time Event 02 06:39 Venus 3.6°N of Moon DUES BLUES 03 01:26 Mercury 2.9°N of Moon If you have received a “your dues are due” 04 17:45 NEW MOON statement along with the email that brought you this issue of The OBSERVER, please remit your dues to Mr. 05 08 Eta-Aquarid Meteor Shower Dave Osenga, TCAA Treasurer, 1109 N. Linden St., 06 16:52 Aldebaran 2.3°S of Moon Normal, IL 61761-1471. Dues are currently $25 for seniors (60 years of age and over) and $40 regular. 07 18:36 Mars 3.2°N of Moon 09 13:50 Moon at Ascending Node SUBSCRIBING TO THE TCAA EMAIL LIST 09 22:30 Pollux 6.3°N of Moon By subscribing to a group’s mailing list, you will 10 20:35 Beehive 0.0°S of Moon receive email messages from the group though you 11 20:12 FIRST QUARTER MOON won’t have access to the group’s web features (like photos, files, links, polls, calendar, etc.) unless members 12 09:19 Regulus 3.0°S of Moon activate it later. The club has an open email listserv. It is 13 16:53 Moon at Perigee: 369017 km known as the TCAA YahooGroups listserv. It will be used 18 16:11 FULL MOON to share announcements and reminders about astronomical and club events. To join this main listserv, 20 11:54 Jupiter 1.7°S of Moon you must do the following: 21 08 Mercury at Superior Conjunction 1. To subscribe: Send a blank email to TCAA- 22 14:12 Moon at Descending Node [email protected] Note: You’ll be sent a 22 17:25 Saturn 0.5°N of Moon: Occn. confirmation email from the group. Reply to the 24 02 Mercury at Perihelion confirmation email to activate your subscription. 2. To post a message: [email protected] 26 08:27 Moon at Apogee: 404134 km 3. To unsubscribe: [email protected] 26 11:33 LAST QUARTER MOON http://www.astropixels.com/ephemeris/astrocal/astrocal2019cst.html EVENING SKY MAP Click on the icon found here to access a current evening sky map along with a more detailed celestial events calendar. Copyright © 2019 TCAA 3 All rights reserved. Vol. 44, No. 5 The OBSERVER of the Twin City Amateur Astronomers May 2019 THIS MONTH’S PHASES OF THE MOON New Moon First Quarter Full Moon Last Quarter Saturday, May 4 Saturday, May 11 Saturday, May 18 Sunday, May 26 All moon phase dates are Central Time.