Astral Projections Online December 2023
Check our Website for updated content at www.astra-nj.com
Club Presentations Wanted:
Does anyone have any astronomy items of interest to share with the membership?
Please let us know at Club Contacts.
Club dues and membership. If you renew after March 31 you will be renewed as a new member.
ASTRAL PROJECTIONS ONLINE (APO for short) is an email-linked publication for members only. If you exit APO to the club website or other resources you will need to use the emailed link again to get back to it. If you wish to retain a copy please bookmark or refer back to the email. We will make all efforts to post by the first week of the month.
Submissions Welcome: Members are invited to submit articles, photos, news, or stories for inclusion with Astral Projections Online. Please contact the ASTRA Webmaster.
Event Calendar
EVENT Cancellations: Members will receive email notifications of an event cancellation.
Upcoming December ASTRA Meeting
ASTRA's next meeting will be Friday, December 8, 2023, at 7 PM EST. This will be an in-person meeting at Novins Planetarium - Building 13.
December will be a member show and tell night. Everyone is welcome to share something of interest.
Upcoming Star Parties
Being planned now for 2024
Jakes Branch - March 16 - 6 PM to 8 PM
Jakes Branch - April 13 - 8 PM to 10 PM
Upcoming County & State Park Presentations 2024
Public Outreach Presentations, if any member wishes to support ASTRA outreach efforts with the public, please let Vinny, Ro, or Jim know of any interest.
County and State Park presentations require a registration fee, call the hosting park to reserve.
Cloverdale - February 3 - 1 PM - Beginner Astronomy: What to See in the Night Sky
Jakes Branch - March 16 - 6 PM - Beginner Astronomy: Your First Telescope, followed by Star Party
Jakes Branch - April 13 - 7 PM - Saving Dark Skies, followed by Star Party
Cattus Island Nature Festival - April 27 - All-day event, volunteers needed.
Ocean County Library - March 12 - 6 PM - Beginner Astronomy: Solar Astronomy
Stafford Library - April 29 - Pending
Website Updates …
Please visit our club website. We continue to have additional updates, if there is some content that would be useful to members please let us know.
Wishing all ASTRA Members, your families, and everyone that has supported us this year, a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.
“By looking far out into space we are also looking far back into time, back toward the horizon of the universe, back toward the epoch of the Big Bang.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos
Membership renewal time and Elections
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Membership renewal time and Elections 〰️
December is the time to start renewing your ASTRA membership for 2024.
Forms can be found on the website or here.
ASTRA Elections
It’s that time of year to start thinking about the ASTRA Board elections. If there is anyone interested in running for any of the three spots, president, vice-president, or treasurer, please let the current board members know. Elections are at the December meeting, unless there are no takers, then the current board will remain in place.
President - Jim Webster
Vice-President - Vinny Illuzzi
Treasurer - Rosemarie Spedaliere
Event Reports
November 18
Jake Branch Star Party - No images from this event. Observing report from Rosemarie Spedaliere …
I'd like to thank all of the members who came out to help at Jake's Branch last night we had quite a crowd I bet it was close to 100 people. It was nice to see so many families come out. Of course, the usual highlights of the night were Saturn Jupiter, and the Moon.
We had an extra appearance by a Star Link train and the International Space Station. Right before we packed it in I had the coordinates for Comet pons Brook . Bob got it in his 12-in LX 200 and it looked great! Later on John had it in his 12-inch LX 200 to show those who didn't see it. There's another visible comet Comet lemon but it was too close to the moon and was washed out by the moon's brightness will have to watch that one as the moon moves away. It wasn't too cold out the skies were crystal clear and the wind was hardly there at all. Overall one of the best nights we've had in a while.
November ASTRA Meeting Summary
For November we had Vic Paliemi provide his presentation on Apollo Coda and current multi-engine rockets. Below are some highlights and images from this event.
County Park Presentations and Save Barnegat Bay Halloween Event
November 16 Cattus Island - Beginner Astronomy: What to see in the Night Sky. This presentation's first public review was a 2-hour event. We were successful with plenty of questions from the audience.
Image prior to event start.
Our Nearest Neighbor
Let’s explore some interesting features, facts, or myths about our nearest neighbor, the Moon. Without it, life on Earth would be totally different, if not at all.
Craters, Who’s Counting
Just how many craters are on the moon? The International Astronomical Union recognizes 9,137 craters, 1,675 of which have been chronodated. The vast majority of the craters are small and medium-sized. These craters are still quite big; their diameters range from 0.6 miles to 60 miles.
When crater size decreases, the quantity of craters on the moon’s surface rises dramatically. For instance, it’s possible that there are 500,000,000 craters larger than 30 miles across on the incredibly huge lunar surface.
NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) began circling the moon in 2009. A laser-ranging instrument aboard the spacecraft mapped the moon’s topography in high definition, revealing the location of more than 5,000 craters over 12 miles in diameter, and countless others smaller in size. Researchers found the distribution of large and small craters varies, with more big craters covering the moon’s bright highlands, and more small craters dotting the dark lowlands. The results suggest two distinct populations of impactors pummeled the moon over the past 4.5 billion years. Watch the video to see a color-coded map of lunar craters created from LRO data.
A census of the moon’s craters is helping scientists decipher its history.
Before the launch of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), it was thought that the Moon’s surface did not change much on a human timescale, and that erosional processes took hundreds of thousands or even hundreds of millions of years to significantly alter the surface. Now, the LROC Narrow Angle Camera (NAC) meter-scale images are revealing small surface changes that are transforming the surface much faster than previously thought!
With NAC, over 200 impact craters that formed during the LRO mission were identified. These new craters range from several meters up to 43 meters in diameter. By analyzing the number of new craters and their size, and the time between each temporal pair, we estimated the contemporary cratering rate on the Moon. Knowing the number of craters that form each year is important when estimating the absolute ages of the youngest regions.
Animation of NAC temporal pair of the new 12 m impact crater (Before NAC image: M1105837846R, After NAC image: M1121160416R) [NASA/GSFC/Arizona State University].
Analysis of lunar laser data shows that the Moon has a fluid core. This was a surprise when discovered two decades ago because many scientists thought that the core would be cool and solid. The fluid core affects the directions in space of the Moon's north and south poles, which the lunar laser detected.
For more on this topic: A-Z Animals, LROC, NASA Scientific Visualzation Studio.
Outreach material below is distributed free for public outreach.
Around The Web
A Cosmos Carol
An interesting Astronomy find for this time of year. An article by Paul Trittenbach was found on the Tuscon Amateur Astronomy Association website.
This time of year always seems to carry with it a certain atmosphere. The holidays bring a dramatic change in people — both good and bad — along with the change in the weather. As a child, I remember this time of the year for all the holiday festivities and the specials that ran on television. One of my first experiences with a holiday story was the black and white movie version of Charles Dickens’, A Christmas Carol, starring Alastair Sim. …
To see more go to TAAA.
NORAD Tracking Santa
Every day of the year, the North American Aerospace Defense Command defends North America using an all-domain and globally integrated approach to track everything that flies in and around Canada and the United States. On Dec. 24 each year, NORAD adds a special mission: tracking Santa.
On the lighter side of astronomy …
Members Submitted Articles & Items
Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
Nothing for December
What’s Up:
Sky Watching Tips from NASA
Provided by NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Is usually updated anywhere from the first day of the month to the fifth day of the month. Check back to this linked image if it hasn’t been updated yet.
For more go to NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory webpage: What’s Up: Skywatching Tips From NASA
This article and images are distributed by NASA Night Sky Network
The Night Sky Network program supports astronomy clubs across the USA dedicated to astronomy outreach.
Visit nightsky.jpl.nasa.gov to find local clubs, events, and more!
A Flame in the Sky – the Orion Nebula
By Kat Troche
It’s that time of year again: winter! Here in the Northern Hemisphere, the cold, crisp sky offers spectacular views of various objects, the most famous of all being Orion the Hunter.
Credit: Stellarium Web
As we’ve previously mentioned, Orion is a great way to test your sky darkness. With your naked eye, you can easily spot this hourglass-shaped constellation. Known as an epic hunter in Greco-Roman, Orion, and all its parts have had many names and meanings across many cultures. In Egyptian mythology, this constellation represented the god Sah. The Babylonians referred to it as The Heavenly Shepard. In most cultures, it is Orion’s Belt that has many stories: Shen in Chinese folklore, or Tayamnicankhu in Lakota storytelling. But the Maya of Mesoamerica believed that part of Orion contained The Cosmic Hearth – the fire of creation.
1,500 light years away from Earth sits the star-forming region and the crown jewel of Orion – Messier 42 (M42), the Orion Nebula. Part of the “sword” of Orion, this cloud of dust and gas sits below the first star in Orion’s Belt, Alnitak, and can easily be spotted with the naked eye under moderate dark skies. You may also use binoculars or a telescope to resolve even more details, like the Trapezium: four stars in the shape of a baseball diamond. These young stars make up the core of this magnificent object.
Of course, it’s not just for looking at! M42 is easily one of the most photographed nebulae around, by astrophotographers here on the ground, large ground-based observatories, and space telescopes alike. It has long been a place of interest for the Hubble, Spitzer, and Chandra X-ray Space Telescopes, with the James Webb Space Telescope joining the list in February 2023. Earlier this year, NASA and the European Space Agency released a new photo of the Orion Nebula taken from JWST’s NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera), allowing scientists to image this early star-forming region in both short and long wavelengths.
ESA/Webb, NASA, CSA, M. Zamani (ESA/Webb), PDRs4ALL ERS Team
But stars aren’t the only items photographed here. In June 2023, JWST’s NIRCam and MIRI (mid-infrared instrument) imaged a developing star system with a planetary disk forming around it. That’s right – a solar system happening in real-time – located within the edges of a section called the Orion Bar. Scientists have named this planet-forming disk d203-506, and you can learn more about the chemistry found here. By capturing these objects in multiple wavelengths of light, we now have even greater insight into what other objects may be hiding within these hazy hydrogen regions of our night sky.
In addition to our Dark Sky Wheel, a fun presentation you can share with your astronomy club would be our Universe Discovery Guide: Orion Nebula, Nursery of Newborn Stars activity. This will allow you to explain to audiences how infrared astronomy, like JWST, helps to reveal the secrets of nebulae. Or, you can use public projects like the NASA-funded MicroObservatory to capture M42 and other objects.
Learn more about what to spy in the winter sky with our upcoming mid-month article on the Night Sky Network page through NASA's website!
Let’s Explore Space - What’s in the Sky December 2023.
More on the Orion Constellation
astronomytrek.com - Image Credit & Copyright: Rogelio Bernal Andreo
Moving into December at this time of year we can observe the Constellation Orion on Dec 1 at 8: 30 PM EST. It will continue to move higher up in the night sky each night and offers a lot of deep sky objects to observe and image for astrophotographers.
One of the most recognizable constellations in the night sky can be seen from around the world. The easiest way to find Orion is to go outside on a clear night and look for three bright stars close together in an almost straight line. These three stars represent Orion's belt.
Image: Freecharts.com
Orion can by used much like the Big Dipper as pointer stars in finding other constellations in the night sky. The easiest of these would be the constellation Taurus.
For more visit: Constellation-guide.com, astronomytrek.com, NASA Science Universe Exploration
Tonight’s Sky: December
Step outside on a cold December night when the stars shine bright to find the Big Dipper, Cassiopeia, and Cepheus. They will help you locate a binary star system, a fan-shaped open star cluster, and a variable star. Stay tuned for space-based views of a ragged spiral galaxy, an open star cluster, and an edge-on galaxy.
Visit the STScI which produces Hubblesite.org video overviews for Tonight’s Sky.
They can be found both on Facebook and stsci.edu.
Submissions Welcome
Members are invited to submit articles, photos, news, or stories for inclusion with Astral Projections Online. Please contact the ASTRA Webmaster.