Contact information: Inside this issue: Info Officer (General Info) – [email protected] Website Administrator – [email protected] Page April Club Calendar 3 Postal Address: Fort Worth Astronomical Society Young Astronomer News 4 c/o Matt McCullar Tandy Hills Star Party Info 4 5801 Trail Lake Drive Fort Worth, TX 76133 Celestial Events 5 Web Site: http://www.fortworthastro.org (or .com) Interesting Objects 6 Facebook: http://tinyurl.com/3eutb22 Twitter: http://twitter.com/ftwastro Abbreviations/Classifications 6 Yahoo! eGroup (members only): http://tinyurl.com/7qu5vkn Cloudy Night Library 7 Officers (2015-2016): Constellation of the Month 9 President – Si Simonson, [email protected] 10 Vice President – Tom Roth, [email protected] Monthly AL Observing Club Sec/Tres – Michelle Theisen, [email protected] ISS Visible Passes for DFW 11 Board Members: Monthly Planet Visibility 12 2016-2018 Monthly Sky Chart 12 Bill Nichols Fed Klich Moon Phase Calendar 13 2015-2017 1st/Last Crescent/Ephem 14 Matt Reed Phil Stage Conjunctions:Lunar/Planet 15 Mercury/Venus Data 16 Cover Photo: M82 - Cigar Galaxy, RCOS September Meeting Minutes 17 14.5” , QSI 683 Fundraising/Donation Info 18-19 20 That’s A Fact Photo by Miles Zhou Full Moon Name 21 Observing Site Reminders: FWAS Fotos 21 Be careful with fire, mind all local burn bans! Dark Site Usage Requirements (ALL MEMBERS): Maintain Dark-Sky Etiquette (http://tinyurl.com/75hjajy) Turn out your headlights at the gate! E d i t o r : Sign the logbook (in camo-painted storage shed. Inside the door on the left- hand side) George C. Lutch Log club equipment problems (please contact a FWAS board member to inform them of any problems) Issue Contributors: Put equipment back neatly when finished Matt McCullar Last person out: Chris Mlodnicki Check all doors – secured, but NOT locked Make sure nothing is left out Russell Boatright M i l e s Z h o u The Fort Worth Astronomical Society (FWAS) was founded in 1949 and is a non-profit 501(c)3 scientific educational organization, and incorporated in the state of Texas. This publication may P a m K l i ch be copied and distributed for free only. This publication cannot be uploaded or distributed into any media unless it is in its original, full, unaltered, published form. All rights reserved by FWAS. PAGE 2 FORT WORTH ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY May 2017 M a y 2 0 1 7 Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat 1 2 3 4 5 6 FWAS Monthly APSIG Meeting Starts @ 7pm FQ Scott Carpenter Sigmund Freud Birthday (1925) Birthday (1856) 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 FQ FM Moon Apogee Tandy Hills Prairie Sky Richard Feynman Star Party Birthday (1918) 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 FWAS Monthly Meeting Starts @ 7pm George Lucas LQ Young Astronomers Birthday (1944) Meeting Starts @ 7pm-9pm Gabriel D. Fahrenheit Pierre Curie Edward Jenner Francis Scobee Birthday (1686) Birthday (1859) Birthday (1749) Birthday (1939) 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 Texas Star Party Texas Star Party Texas Star Party Texas Star Party Texas Star Party Texas Star Party Texas Star Party NM Moon Perigee Andrei Sakharov Igor Sikorsky Sally Ride Birthday (1921) Birthday (1889) Birthday (1951) 28 29 30 31 Texas Star Party See our full FWAS Event Calendar at: http://www.fortworthastro.com/meetings.html for the latest updates on what our club has scheduled Click calendar icons above to see details of bright ISS passes this month. May 2017 FORT WORTH ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY PAGE 3 Young Astronomers Messier 13 (M13), also designated NGC 6205 and some- times called the Great Globular Cluster in Hercules or the Her- cules Globular Cluster, is a globular cluster of about 300,000 stars in the constella- tion of Hercules. (Wikipedia) e Check out the Young Astronomers Web Page at: http:// www.fortworthastro.com/young_astronomers.html Tandy Hills Prairie Sky/Star Party: Astronomy—Community Engagement After many years at the Fort Worth Museum of Science & History, the well-attended, monthly public star parties presented by the Fort Worth Astronomical Society (FWAS) have moved to Tandy Hills Natural Area. Established in 1949, FWAS is one of the first adult amateur astronomy clubs formed in the country and one of the largest with more than 200 active mem- bers. Members will have several telescopes set up at Tandy Hills for viewing the night sky. Free & open to the public. All ages wel- come. Family/kid-friendly - No dogs - Cool- ers welcome - Steel City Pops will be on hand More details at the NASA website: https:// nightsky.jpl.nasa.gov/event-view.cfm? Event_ID=76024 Star party Etiquette: h t t p : / / www.fortworthastro.com/etiquette.html WHEN: Second Saturday of every month http://www.tandyhills.org/events/prairie- sky-star-party PAGE 4 FORT WORTH ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY May 2017 CELESTIAL EVENTS THIS MONTH M a y 01 Mo Venus: 39.9° W M a y 02 Tu 1 3 :2 3 Moon- Beehive: 3.7° N M a y 02 Tu 2 1 :4 7 First Quarter M a y 04 Th 0 4 :4 9 Moon- Regulus: 0.6° N M a y 04 Th 0 5 :4 2 Moon Ascending Node M a y 04 Th 1 9 :5 4 Eta Aquarid Shower: ZHR = 6 0 M a y 05 Fr 0 8 :5 1 M a r s - Aldebaran: 6.2° N M a y 07 Su 1 6 :2 4 Moon- Jupiter: 2.3° S M a y 10 We 1 6 :4 3 F ull M o o n M a y 12 Fr 1 4 :5 1 Moon Apogee: 406200 km M a y 13 Sa 1 8 :0 7 Moon- Saturn: 3.4° S M a y 14 Su 1 5 :2 9 Moon South Dec.: 19.3° S M a y 17 We 1 7 :5 9 Mercury Elongation: 25.8° W M a y 18 Th 1 9 :3 3 Last Quarter M a y 18 Th 2 0 :3 0 Moon Descending Node M a y 22 Mo 0 7 :3 2 Moon- Venus: 2.4° N M a y 23 Tu 2 0 :2 0 Moon- Mercury: 1.6° N M a y 25 Th 1 4 :4 4 N e w M o o n M a y 25 Th 2 0 :2 3 Moon Perigee: 357200 km M a y 27 Sa 1 8 :3 6 Moon North Dec.: 19.4° N M a y 29 Mo 2 0 :5 0 Moon- Beehive: 3.4° N M a y 31 We 0 6 :5 6 Moon Ascending Node M a y 31 We 1 1 :0 8 Moon- Regulus: 0.3° N Data Source: NASA SKYCAL - SKY EVENTS CALENDAR (* Times are Local) May 2017 FORT WORTH ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY PAGE 5 INTERESTING OBJECTS Fracastorius Deep Sky* - (NGC 6207) Galaxy –GLX, (NGC 6255) Galaxy - GLX, (M81) Galaxy—GLX, (M101) Galaxy-GLX, (M104) M104-GLX, Double/Multiple Stars** - STF 1192, STF 1193, STF 1258, TAU UMA, BU 408, IOTA UMA, SAO 27215, UPSILON UMA, DUBHE ALPHA UMA Constellations* - Virgo, Leo, Ursa Major Asterisms*** - STAR 19, Ferrero 6, Gas Pump Handle, The Spade, STAR 1, STAR 22, The Shark Lunar Features**** - Mare Serenitatis Dark Edges(58), Aristarchus Plateau (18), Pico (11) PAGE 6 FORT WORTH ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY May 2017 Media Reviews I felt like I was out of my league the day I showed Media reviews by Matt J. McCullar, FWAS up.” But he persevered, especially when he talked to veteran astronauts: “I realized that they were Spaceman once the same guy I was: a young person with an impossible dream.” Massimino studied robotics, by Mike Massimino which gave him an advantage later when he ap- plied to NASA. “The thing about becoming an as- tronaut is that no one can tell you how to become The next time you go out to a dark site for some an astronaut. Even the people at NASA can't tell star gazing, try the following: unload your vehicle, you how to do it, because the chances of actually assemble your scope, do a polar alignment, insert becoming an astronaut are so small.” He supplied the eyepiece, hook up a laptop computer, calibrate ideas and tools to the space program that actually the CCD camera, tighten all the flew aboard the space shuttle, which screws, etc. Now imagine all that got him noticed. equipment trying to float away, and having to do all this while wearing oven mitts. This is essentially what Much of the book reveals Mas- astronauts faced while repairing the simino's self-doubt and difficulties Hubble Space Telescope in Earth or- with reaching his goals. “I can hon- bit. estly say that I've never achieved any- thing on my own. I owe everything I've ever accomplished to the people NASA astronaut Mike Massimino flew around me – people who pushed me into space twice, repairing the Hub- to be the best version of myself.” ble Space Telescope on both mis- This extended into his astronaut sions: STS-109 Columbia (March training, and even into actual mis- 2002) and STS-125 Atlantis (May sions. There is a tremendous amount 2009), the last HST servicing mission. “A lot of of competition among astronauts for certain mis- people, when they meet me, can't believe I've sions, and getting to repair the Hubble was seen as been to space,” he says. “They say I look like a guy the ultimate prize. who'd be working at a deli in Published by Crown Archetype – 2016 Brooklyn, handing out cold Hardcover ISBN 978-1-101-90354-4 cuts.” He wanted to be an Ebook ISBN 978-1-101-90355-1 I particularly liked reading astronaut since he was a about what all the astronauts child.