I am the 2020 outreach officer for the Warren Astronomical Society – this is a position I’ve held several times before; I receive requests from individuals and groups that would like to use our observatory, or have a member come to their location and set up telescopes and/or give presentations about astronomy and space science. I’ve got a great outreach team – several of our members are volunteer NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassadors; we frequently get excellent feedback from the public for our events!
One of the things I want to do this year is resurrect a popular Messier observing program that late member Larry Kalinowski ran years before I joined. I’m going to base it off of the Astronomical League’s Messier observing program, and I want to create some “standard” easy-to-use forms for recording and submitting observing logs.
Mars appears above the star Antares in the southeastern horizon before dawn this week
Mars above the star Antares in the southeastern horizon before dawn this week. Credit: Stellarium / Bob TrembleyThe Moon appears near the star Aldebaran on Jan 7th and 8th in the southwestern sky at midnight.
On Jan. 13th, the Moon appears very near the star Regulus in the southwestern sky at midnight.
The Moon appears near the star Regulus high in the southeastern sky at midnight on Jan. 13th. Credit: Stellarium / Bob Trembley.
M39
Messier 39 or M39, also known as NGC 7092, is an open cluster of stars in the constellation of Cygnus, positioned two degrees to the south of the star Pi Cygni and around 9° east-northeast of Deneb. The cluster was discovered by Guillaume Le Gentil in 1749, then Charles Messier added it to his catalogue in 1764. When observed in a small telescope at low power the cluster shows around two dozen members, but it is best observed with binoculars. It has a total integrated magnitude (brightness) of 5.5 and spans an angular diameter of 29 arcminutet the size of the full Moon. M39 is at a distance of about 1,010 light-years (311 parsecs) from the Sun.
This cluster has an estimated mass of 232 M☉ and a linear tidal radius of 8.6±1.8 pc. Of the 15 brightest components, six form binary star systems with one more suspected. HD 205117 is a probable eclipsing binary system with a period of 113.2 days that varies by 0.051 in visual magnitude. Both members appear to be subgiant stars. There are at least five chemically peculiar stars in the cluster and ten suspected short-period variable stars.- Wikipedia
M39. Credit: Christian van Endern
The Moon is a waxing gibbous, visible to the southeast in early evening, and up for most of the night.
The full Moon occurs on Jan 11th, rising at sunset, visible high in the sky around midnight, and visible all night long.
After Jan 11th, the Moon will be a waning gibbous, rising after sunset, visible high in the sky after midnight, and visible to the southwest after sunrise.
The Moon from 2020-01-07 – 2020-01-13. Visualizations by Ernie Wright / NASA’s Scientific Visualization Studio.Moon News
We have another spot! It’s small, and practically invisible in the image below:
Colored HMI Intensitygram from 2020-01-07. Credit: NASA/SDO and the AIA, EVE, and HMI science teams.However, the location of the active region’s coronal loops are easily visible south of the equator when seen in UV in the two videos below.
The coronal hole at the Sun’s north pole has shrunk some more, while the southern hole seems to continue to grow; a couple small connected coronal holes appear in the southern hemisphere.
The Sun seen in 193 angstroms (extreme ultraviolet) Jan. 6, 2020:
Light prominence activity over the last couple days!
The Sun seen in 304 angstroms (extreme ultraviolet) Jan. 6, 2020:
You can view the Sun in near real-time, in multiple frequencies here: SDO-The Sun Now.
You can create your own time-lapse movies of the Sun here: AIA/HMI Browse Data.
You can browse all the SDO images of the Sun from 2010 to the present here: Browse SDO archive.
Facebook: SolarActivity
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10218733147073546&set=gm.2899121836765808&type=3&theater&ifg=1
Solar Corona
Solar wind speed is 428.1 km/sec (↑), with a density of 4.1 protons/cm3 (↑) at 1610 UT.
Near real-time animation of the corona and solar wind from the Solar & Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO):
Animated LASCO C2 Coronograph showing the solar corona above the Sun’s limb (the white circle). Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech-SOHOSun News
The following topic was covered during last night’s meeting of the Warren Astronomical Society:
Potentially hazardous asteroids: 2018 (last updated Oct. 1, 2019)
Total Minor Planets discovered: 921,902 (+20,013!!!)
Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters:
| Asteroid |
Date(UT)
|
Miss Distance
|
Velocity (km/s)
|
Diameter (m)
|
| 2019 YT3 |
2020-Jan-07
|
13.2 LD
|
7.4
|
26
|
| 2020 AV1 |
2020-Jan-07
|
7.3 LD
|
12.1
|
22
|
| 2020 AJ1 |
2020-Jan-07
|
13.5 LD
|
22.1
|
78
|
| 2020 AR1 |
2020-Jan-08
|
6.9 LD
|
9.6
|
13
|
| 2020 AT1 |
2020-Jan-09
|
2.5 LD
|
6.2
|
11
|
| 2019 YV |
2020-Jan-10
|
17.3 LD
|
4.5
|
69
|
| 2019 YF4 |
2020-Jan-10
|
3.7 LD
|
2.9
|
15
|
| 2019 UO |
2020-Jan-10
|
11.8 LD
|
9.4
|
331
|
| 2019 WC5 |
2020-Jan-11
|
6.4 LD
|
13
|
109
|
| 2019 YV5 |
2020-Jan-11
|
16.8 LD
|
13.9
|
48
|
| 2020 AO1 |
2020-Jan-12
|
8.6 LD
|
17.7
|
66
|
| 2020 AB2 |
2020-Jan-12
|
3.8 LD
|
7.9
|
15
|
| 2020 AE |
2020-Jan-13
|
11.7 LD
|
6.8
|
25
|
| 2020 AS1 |
2020-Jan-13
|
15.8 LD
|
5.7
|
17
|
| 2020 AE1 |
2020-Jan-13
|
6.6 LD
|
4.2
|
12
|
| 2020 AO |
2020-Jan-14
|
9.4 LD
|
19.5
|
50
|
| 2011 EP51 |
2020-Jan-15
|
19.6 LD
|
7.1
|
32
|
| 2017 RZ15 |
2020-Jan-15
|
12.1 LD
|
7.4
|
14
|
| 2020 AZ1 |
2020-Jan-16
|
8.3 LD
|
4
|
17
|
| 2019 YD3 |
2020-Jan-16
|
6.9 LD
|
4.8
|
22
|
| 2010 AE30 |
2020-Jan-17
|
11.9 LD
|
12.3
|
68
|
| 2019 YG1 |
2020-Jan-17
|
17.5 LD
|
4.5
|
32
|
| 2019 YQ3 |
2020-Jan-17
|
18.2 LD
|
3.1
|
18
|
| 2020 AD1 |
2020-Jan-17
|
9.1 LD
|
4.5
|
19
|
| 2020 AH1 |
2020-Jan-18
|
15.9 LD
|
8
|
45
|
| 2009 BH2 |
2020-Jan-18
|
14.6 LD
|
17.9
|
118
|
| 2019 YA5 |
2020-Jan-19
|
11.7 LD
|
5.2
|
22
|
| 2020 AQ1 |
2020-Jan-20
|
10.3 LD
|
27.4
|
138
|
| 2013 DU |
2020-Jan-20
|
14.9 LD
|
6.4
|
59
|
| 2019 TF2 |
2020-Jan-23
|
16.2 LD
|
1.6
|
18
|
| 2018 BM5 |
2020-Jan-23
|
13.1 LD
|
8.6
|
12
|
| 2018 AL12 |
2020-Jan-30
|
18.2 LD
|
17.7
|
39
|
| 2017 AE5 |
2020-Feb-01
|
13.6 LD
|
9
|
135
|
| 2018 BU1 |
2020-Feb-02
|
19.4 LD
|
10
|
41
|
| 163373 |
2020-Feb-15
|
15.1 LD
|
15.2
|
589
|
| 2018 CW2 |
2020-Feb-17
|
6 LD
|
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