Star Gazer News Astronomy News for Bluewater Stargazers Vol 15 No.1 Jan/Feb 2021 Jan/Feb 2021 SGN Contents Not the “Eye of Sauron”, but the highest resolution image yet p 1: BAS will have exec positions available in 2021 of a sunspot taken (Jan 28, 2020) by the new 4-m aperture p 2: Two former club members remembered Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope, located on the summit of p 3: Earth is 2000 LY closer to MW centre than thought Haleakala, Maui, in Hawai‘i. The sunspot measures 16000 km p 4: SOFIA finds more water on the Moon across (25% bigger than Earth) and the image shows features p 5: Does water occur on ALL rocky planets? 2.5 times better than previously, -structures about 20 km p 6: Stingray Nebula dims; Recap of Great J/S Conjunction across -at a distance of 150 million km! The new image p 7: Japan’s Hayabusa returns samples from Ryugu reveals incredible details of the sunspot’s structure as seen at p 7&8: Arecibo radio receiver collapses -dish is write off the Sun’s surface, and looks like either a portal to hell or a p 9: Apophis orbit being affected by light pressure slightly misshapen Eye of Sauron from “Lord of the Rings.” p 10&11: Quetican FoV: Beauty and Wonder in Nature Sunspots are carved and shaped by the Sun’s intense p 12&13: Top 5 Celestial Events of 2021 magnetic fields and hot gas boiling up from below. The p 14: Book Review: The Contact Paradox: Keith Cooper telescope is a main part of the US National Science p 15: Constellation: Draco the Dragon Foundation’s National Solar Observatory. p 16: Indigenous Constellation: The Bear and the Hunters Credit: NSO/AURA/NSF p 17: Sky Sights Listing January and February p 18: Notable Jan/Feb Sky Events More here: https://www.universetoday.com/144808/this-is-the- p 19: Images of the Month: Rowan Vanderwoude (age 10) highest-resolution-image-ever-taken-of-the-surface-of-the-sun/ p 20: Miscellaneous Page: Stuff for Sale BAS needs YOU to consider an exec position Next year, 2021 is an election year for BAS exec positions. Please consider helping out your club by making yourself Any BAS member can nominate themselves for one of the available for executive duties. Once we start back up again four elected positions: president, vice-president, secretary after the Covid-19 issue is behind us, perhaps by summer and treasurer. Positions like public outreach, membership or fall of 2021, having additional expertise on exec would chair, Member-at-Large, etc., are appointments made by the take some of the stress off the long-serving members who current exec as need arises and given willing volunteers. have given their time and experience to this organization The duties associated with all BAS positions are outlined in thus far. our By-Laws available on our website. Note that, as in many other organizations like ours, duties are shared among the So kindly give it some thought. New executive members are group on a co-operative basis, which has worked well for us always appreciated by those who will continue to serve, and in the past. Details of how to go about putting your name in are a welcome source of new ideas, approaches and will be made available by regular email early in February. expertise as BAS continues into the post-Covid-19 era. Disclaimer: SGN reports on the activities of the Bluewater BAS Executive 2020-2021 Astronomical Society (formerly Bruce County Astronomical President (interim): vacant Society) but any opinions presented herein are not necessarily V-President (interim): vacant endorsed by BAS. For up-to-date details relating to BAS Secretary: Lorraine Rodgers [email protected] Treasurer: Cheryl Dawson [email protected] events see the BAS website at www.bluewaterastronomy.com. Member-at-Large: Zoë Kessler [email protected] SGN is produced and edited by John Hlynialuk and I am solely Membership: Marian Ratcliffe [email protected] responsible for its content. I maintain a web presence at www.johns- Public Outreach: John Hlynialuk [email protected] astronomy.com. Your original articles, images, opinions, comments, observing Past Pres: John Hlynialuk [email protected] reports, etc., are welcome at SGN. I reserve the right to edit for brevity or clarity. Errors or omissions are entirely mine. I will not publish your emails or other materials without your specific permission. No part of this publication shall be reproduced in any form whatsoever without the editor’s consent. However, the Sky Events and Constellation pages are free to copy for non-commercial use. Feel free to forward this issue in its entirety to friends. You are welcome to email comments and/or submissions to [email protected] S G N Two club members remembered Jan/Feb 2021 pg 2 Robert Williamson was a member of BAS starting around 2008 Sheila Szabototh (nee Clothier) was an active and lasting until he moved to a retirement home nearer to family in member of BCAS (the predecessor of BAS) and Peterborough, ON. Robert was an avid tinkerer and after served both as secretary for several terms as well acquiring a 12-inch Meade Lightbridge telescope he proceeded to as web-mistress of the BCAS website which she make interesting adjustments to it, creating camera holders, created. Both she and her husband Charlie served balancing systems, a customized light shroud and several other as presidents as well at different times. Sheila and items to make it more useable. After he left the area, he donated Charlie were keen observers, travelling to many the telescope to BAS and we dubbed it “Inspector Gadget”. The locations to view transits, solar eclipses and other telescope is still used at the Fox on observing nights and is one of astronomical phenomena as well as storm-chasing! the telescopes available for student use. I recall Sheila as an enthusiastic, capable and out- The two images here show Robert at the 2012 Transit of Venus going person who contributed much to the club. I that was celebrated at the Fox Observatory about 8 months after it recently came across her art website where her officially opened (Sep 2011). Look closely at the top image (a own words describe her passion for life: composite) and you can just see Robert’s eye reflected below the telescope silhouette. To me, he appears to have a big smile his “I am a world traveller, a tornado chaser, a solar face. He will be missed by family and friends. eclipse chaser, a hiker, an amateur astronomer, a musician, a singer, and a photographer. My inspiration comes from sunlight and shadows, dark layered storm clouds, prominences exploding from the sun, shapes of trees, rapidly flowing waters, and architecture of different cultures. My eyes see the universe full of artistic patterns and forms begging me to create the experience I live, at that moment. ” She will be sadly missed by family and all whose lives she enriched. Robert Williamson at Transit of Venus June 5, 2012 “Kai - Hawaiian Sea” - oil by Sheila Szabototh S G N New Data Puts Earth Closer to MW Core Jan/Feb 2021 pg 3 Earth Faster, Closer to Black Hole in New Map of Galaxy November 26, 2020 | Science Earth just got 7 km/s faster and about 2000 light-years closer to the supermassive black hole in the center of the Milky Way Galaxy. But don’t worry, this doesn’t mean that our planet is plunging towards the black hole. Instead the changes are results of a better model of the Milky Way Galaxy based on new observation data, including a c a t a l o g o f o b j e c t s observed over the course of more than 15 years by t h e J a p a n e s e r a d i o astronomy project VERA. VERA (VLBI Exploration of Radio Astrometry, by the way “VLBI” stands for Very L o n g B a s e l i n e I n t e r- ferometry) started in 2000 to map three-dimensional v e l o c i t y a n d s p a t i a l structures in the Milky Way. (Story continues below caption) Position and velocity map of the Milky Way Galaxy. Arrows show position and velocity data for the 224 objects used to model the Milky Way Galaxy. The solid black lines show the positions of the Galaxy’s spiral arms. The colours indicate groups of objects belonging the same arm. The background is a simulation image. (Credit: NAOJ) VERA uses a technique known as interferometry to combine around. The map suggests that the center of the Galaxy, and data from radio telescopes scattered across the Japanese the supermassive black hole which resides there, is located archipelago in order to achieve the same resolution as a 2300 25800 light-years from Earth. This is closer than the official km diameter telescope would have. Measurement accuracy value of 27700 light-years adopted by the International achieved with this resolution, 10 micro-arcseconds, is sharp Astronomical Union in 1985. The velocity component of the enough in theory to resolve a United States penny placed on map indicates that Earth is travelling at 227 km/s as it orbits the surface of the Moon. around the Galactic Center. This is faster than the official value of 220 km/s. Because Earth is located inside the Milky Way Galaxy, we can’t step back and see what the Galaxy looks like from the Now VERA hopes to observe more objects, particularly ones outside.