WESTCHESTER AMATEUR ASTRONOMERS November 2016 Celebrating Halloween In This Issue . Courtesy of Scott Nammacher is this ghostly image of IC63 in pg. 2 Events for November Cassiopeia. IC63 is an emission/reflection nebula associated with nd pg. 3 Almanac the 2 magnitude star Gamma Cassiopeia. The nebula lies at a pg. 4 In Memoriam: Mario Palmieri distance of about 600 light years. pg. 5 WAA Goes to Astronomy Camp Scott took this image with his 12.5" Planewave scope and a SBIG pg. 12 Is Proxima Centauri's 'Earth-like' 10XME camera—160 min (10 minute subs) in each of Ha and Planet Actually like Earth at All? OIII. He used MaximDL for capture and stacking and Photoshop pg. 13 The Belt of Venus to combine and finish. Scott did a 4-color version using Ha and pg. 14 Active Regions 2599 and 2598 OIII, but elected to convert the finished work to B&W for effect. SERVING THE ASTRONOMY COMMUNITY SINCE 1986 1 WESTCHESTER AMATEUR ASTRONOMERS November 2016 Events for November Emmanouil Makrakis - Scarsdale Claudia & Kevin Parrington Family - Harrison WAA November Lecture Elaine Miller - Pound Ridge “Astrophotography Image Processing Hans Minnich - Bronx with PixInsight.” Bob Kelly - Ardsley Friday November 4th, 7:30pm Kevin Mathisson - Millwood Leinhard Lecture Hall, Pace University, Pleasantville, NY Astrophotographer and WAA-member, Olivier Pra- che, will briefly introduce the image processing soft- ware, PixInsight, and its purpose. He will go through a digital color image development process using Pix- Insight to highlight how the tools function and how to use them. Olivier has been watching the sky since the mid- 1970’s and started imaging around 2003. In 2007 he built a roll-off roof observatory in his backyard mostly as a shield against car lights and to provide greater stability to the imaging train. He has been imaging out of that location since then and moved from a 4” apo refractor to his current 12.5” Hyperion astrograph. Above is the output from John Paladini’s homemade Directions and Map magnetometer. It records a coronal mass ejection on Sep- tember 28-29th. Upcoming Lectures Pace University, Pleasantville, NY On December 2nd, our speaker will be Professor Wanted Assistant Editor Reshmi Mukherjee of Barnard College and Nevis La- The WAA newsletter (the SkyWaatch) is seeking an boratories. Professor Mukherjee is a high-energy as- Assistant Editor. If you can help, please let us know. trophysicist. Your participation in editing, compositing and proofreading tasks or submitting articles or images, Starway to Heaven th will be much appreciated. Email Tom at waa- Saturday November 19 , Dusk. [email protected] Ward Pound Ridge Reservation, Cross River, NY This is our scheduled Starway to Heaven observing date for October, weather permitting. Free and open to WAA Apparel the public. The rain/cloud date is November 26th. Im- Charlie Gibson will be bringing WAA apparel for portant Note: By attending our star parties you are sale to WAA meetings. Items include: subject to our rules and expectations as described Hat ($15) here. Directions and Map. Polos ($15) Tee shirts ($12) New Members. Karen Killeen - Sleepy Hollow Harrison Hurwitz - Scarsdale Call: 1-877-456-5778 (toll free) for announce- Renewing Members. ments, weather cancellations, or questions. Also, Michael Lomsky - Wilton don’t forget to visit the WAA website. Edgar S Edelmann - Tarrytown Mauri Rosenthal - Scarsdale Olivier Prache - Pleasantville Kristina Newland - White Plains SERVING THE ASTRONOMY COMMUNITY SINCE 1986 2 WESTCHESTER AMATEUR ASTRONOMERS November 2016 ALMANAC For November 2016 by Bob Kelly Nov 7 Nov 14 Nov 21 Nov 29 The most super of Full Moons for 2016 (and beyond) Mercury slips out of the SOHO C3’s solar corona arrives on the 14th, when the Full Moon is only three viewer early in November on its way to an evening hours from Luna’s closest approach for November. Be appearance, brightest about mid-month, dimming as alert for higher than normal tides for the 14th and a the month goes on before leveling out at magnitude few days afterward. Unless you enjoy watching minus 0.5 for the last week of November. Mercury’s beaches erode, hope against nor’easters or late season greatest distance out from the Sun is December 11th, hurricanes (or hybrids) during that time. Enjoy this so we have a while to look for it. Altitude is the prob- large Moon since, in 2017, the closest a Full Moon lem since by the end of the month, Mercury is as far gets to a lunar perigee is 42 hours from perigee on south as it gets. To dig it out of twilight, look just as November 5th, 2017. the sky starts to get dark, less than a fist high and to the left of where the sunset happened. You can fight Venus and Mars are silver and rose highlights in the the low altitude with a persistent attitude, particularly southwestern sky after sunset. Mars continues to keep on the 30th, when the very thin Moon will keep com- separation from the advancing Sun (as good wide re- pany with Mercury low in the southwest. ceivers do in American football) and will do so for the rest of the football season. The time of Mars-set will Saturn is low in the southwestern evening sky on its stay the same through the rest of the year, but Mars way to conjunction with the Sun in December. By the will settle lower in the sky as seen from our latitude. time Mercury passes Saturn on the 23rd, much dimmer Venus will blow people minds if they notice it blaz- Saturn will be overwhelmed in bright twilight. In- ing, low in the southwest. The always cloudy and stead, try to catch Saturn making the scene with Ve- highly reflective planet is brightening a touch to mag- nus and the Moon on the evening of the 2nd. After that, nitude minus 4.1, the brightest since January 2016, on fans can track it with binoculars as it fades into the its way to an incredible minus 4.8 in February 2017. solar glare. Venus follows Mars’ path through Sagittarius, topping Uranus and Neptune are well up in the evening sky. the teapot on the 16th. Watch for Venus’ disk to be- Look up their locations, get your telescope and look at come noticeably less full-phased in November. It be- these distant ice giants. What color are they? Try to comes easier to detect the difference in a telescope as approach this with no preconceived notions as they Venus grows more than 15 arc seconds wide. Venus’ are faint and their colors are subtle. shape is best seen in bright twilight; or in daylight as it follows the Sun. The once-in-a-while mighty Leonid meteor shower peaks on the 18th. A mostly full Moon in the morning Really dark skies come earlier this month. The Seven sky washes out all but the brightest of the few flakes Sisters and the horns of Taurus the Bull are well up in of comet Tempel-Tuttle expected this year. the east by 7pm, followed by Orion by 9pm; earlier as the month goes on. The Milky Way stretches from On the morning of the 21st, the +4.4 magnitude star 31 northeast to west-southwest after dusk. The summer Leo ducks behind the last quarter moon around triangle and its many sights linger into late autumn in 6:01:42 EST, reappearing soon after at 6:10:25. The the west. The Great Square of Pegasus stands high edge of the occultation’s visibility crosses northern and drags the Andromeda Galaxy to overhead by late New Jersey. There, a grazing occultation occurs, and evening. if you travel to the right spot along a thin line, you may be able to see the star disappearing and reappear- The Moon occults Neptune and Aldebaran on the oth- ing behind lunar mountains. This will be an event for er side of the world this month. Wait until December 6 viewers with telescopes, better if it occurs on the dark and 13, respectively, for a chance to view the Moon part of the lunar limb. Technical details are at overtaking these objects from our side of the planet. http://iota.jhuapl.edu/rasc16gz.txt . Jupiter is visible again, surprising early-morning of- The population of the International Space Station var- fice workers with an east to southeast horizon as it ies; with the base crew of three, recently augmented to rises well before sunrise this month. SERVING THE ASTRONOMY COMMUNITY SINCE 1986 3 WESTCHESTER AMATEUR ASTRONOMERS November 2016 six. But three will depart by the time November Two taikonauts are on a 30-day stay on China’s new comes. It’s visible pre-dawn until the 22nd, and after Tiangong 2. (Is there such a thing as ‘new space sta- evening twilight starting the 28th. You may be able to tion smell?’) It’s visible here in the evening sky until see the much fainter cargo ships and crew crafts in the 16th, looking like a +1 magnitude star moving orbits close to the ISS as they depart the station for re- across the sky on passes higher in our sky. entry into the atmosphere. Daylight time ends early Sunday November 6th; clocks If you are up for the ISS in the early morning, the U.S. fall back making it brighter in the morning for a while. Air Force’s space plane, designated OTV-4 is up most mornings, but fainter at magnitude +1 to 2. In Memoriam: Mario Palmieri [Editor’s Note: Following is an excerpt of an email Martin Hoffman, John Radzilowicz, and Jon Elvert— from WAA past-President, Charlie Gibson, on the that I initially met Mario.