March 2016

Financials:

Beginning balance Feb. 1 $1929.34

Add $80 in membership renewals and 1 new member

Ending balance Feb. 29 $2009.34

Vicki has also started the process of paying charitable organization dues to Oklahoma but that has not yet been debited.

29 people attended, including some visitors

Events next year:

Gary Spears of Spears Travel is organizing a tour to Chile in Feb. 2017 to see a total solar eclipse and do other observations in the Andes. Contact Gary if interested.

Solar eclipse in the U.S. closer to home August 21, 2017: Missouri

Abby’s Astronomy News report:

Largest fireball meteor to hit Earth since Chelyabinsk a couple years ago. Hit in the Atlantic 30 miles from Brazil.

Russia wants to test improved ballistic missiles on asteroids

U.S. astronaut Edgar Mitchell died Feb. 4. He flew on Apollo 14 to the Fra Mauro Highlands on the Moon.

There are about 880 hidden galaxies behind the Milky Way

The Milky Way has a central molecular zone not centered on black holes

An elliptical galaxy has a super massive black hole. Diameter 800 million miles.

Feb. 11—gravitational waves were detected that support Einstein’s theory of general relativity. This was done by collaborative work between two L shaped observatories. They detected relative signal delays and tracked the discrepancies. They were accurate to within the diameter of a proton.

A proto planet has been discovered that has two masters.

Recent Hubble studies reveal a distant hot Super Earth

NASA’s Cassini spacecraft took pretty pictures of the always-photogenic rings of Saturn

Some lakes on Mars—possibly habitable in ancient times?

Charon, Pluto’s largest moon, may once have had an ocean

NASA’s Maven observes Mars’ moon Phobos

A new web telescope being developed will have “eyes” wider than the Hubble

China wants to send people to the Moon to mine nuclear power and by doing so become the Earth’s energy giant

U.S. astronaut Scott Kelly is coming home soon after one year on the space station. Scott has a twin here on Earth.

Email address for news: youthastro@gmail.com

Monthly breakfast at Eggberts?

Steve reminded us all that we have to be OUT of the library before 9 pm on our meeting nights. To help out with us always wanted to talk after meetings, he is proposing that we have breakfast on the nth Saturday of the month at 9 am at Eggberts. He is looking into reserving a large room Eggberts has on their west side for us to gather once a month for breakfast. Each person would pay for their own breakfast.

Daryl’s astronomy report:

Daryl uses www.telescope.com

Jupiter news:

In opposition March 8

4 Galilean moons, 3 time in March, will cast shadows on Jupiter. Telescope event!

All time are Pacific Daylight Time—add two hours for Central Daylight Time

When—March 14 7:22 pm-9:34 pm

March 21 9:23 pm-11:31 pm

March 29 12 am-1:25 am

Other good viewing right now:

Pleiades

Beehive cluster

Double cluster in Perseus

Daryl’s presentation on Stellarium:

Stellarium is a planetarium program actually used by many planetariums to run their projectors!

Download from stellarium.org. Latest version is 14.2

There are several versions out there to accommodate different computer platforms.

You can hook up a computer (with Stellarium on it) to a go-to telescope mount.

There are a number of controls at the bottom of the screen that you can use to select what you would like to view, such as constellation names, connecting lines, or fleshed-out characters.

You can change the field of view.

You can highlight an object and this will bring up a pop-up with all kinds of information on that object.

You can display parallax for an object.

You can select ocular view at top right and then edit the parameters to match your telescope or binoculars.

There are keyboard letter shortcuts you can use with Stellarium. For example, the letter L will increase speed.

If you click Jupiter, then O, you will get the orbital path of Jupiter.

The + key goes forward a day and – goes back a day.

Use Ctrl-up arrow to expand

You can see constellations as viewed and named by other cultures. (What we are familiar with would be “western” mode.)

You can simulate a lot of motions and conditions. You can use it to plan an observation session or go back in history to see what the stars looked like on a given night.

To print, use Print Screen

You can display the equatorial system of mapping celestial objects. Declination = latitude; Right angle = longitude.

You can save your settings on the main menu.