Welcome to Houston Astronomical Society

What members are saying....

11/11/2024

• Don Selle - I was at Guadalupe Mountains NP 2 weekends ago and wanted to get some nightscaping in. Due to the azimuth of the comet (and MW center) i had to go abt 55 miles south on TX 54 10 miles north of Van Horn to find some good scenery in the right direction. 4 panel mosaic capture with a modified Canon 6D, Sigma Art 24mm f/1.4 lens (@ f/2) ISO 3200. 7 x 15 sec frames per panel. All processing including stacking and calibration done in Photoshop.
• 

11/13/2027

• Andrew Burwell - The Double Cluster in Dust. A recent image I took of a very common target. About 28 hours from a Bortle 1.
• 

11/13/2025

• Heather Charron - Here’s the month of October on photosensitive paper inside a pinhole camera (SolarCan). 1st one has my lake reflected and is a little softer because of moisture that got into the can. 2nd was placed at a different angle and didn’t catch reflection but had sharper lines. Definitely setting up again at a better angle and for a few months instead of one. To get the final image, you scan the photosensitive paper, invert the image, adjust balance and curves, then crop. Fun little project and the SolarCans are only about $10.
•   
• 

11/15/2027

• Matt Boerlage - The Tadpole Nebula IC410 in  Auriga with 200mm f/4 Newt, ASI533MM.
• 

11/16/2024

• Matt Boerlage -Horsehead time! ASI533MM, Newtonian 200mm f/4. I was only able to capture the Halpha and S2 before the clouds rolled in last night - luckily exactly the emissions that matter with this target. So this is a HSS pallet.
• 

11/17/2024

• John Benner - APSIG target of the month. M45 the Pleiades. Very tough target from the back yard in Manvel, Tx. Almost a full moon and in Bortle 7-8 skies. This target would be better suited for the dark site. Also Looks like I need collimation on my Hyperstar. I have blue cones coming off one side of my haloed stars and the other side has a brownish color. Imaged cropped for tighter view.
• 

11/17/2024

• John Benner - While waiting for M45 to clear my neighbor’s house I took a quick video of the moon and processed it. The large crater is Copernicus.
• 

All the fall objects are looking pretty good this month. Especially at the picnic & star party. Find details about both the visual and the astrophotography HAS Texas 45 observing programs under the Programs menu. Or here: https://www.astronomyhouston.org/programs. 

The Birth of Stars: Unraveling a Cosmic Conundrum

By: Peggy Mueller

It is now well accepted that stars form from clouds of gas and dust that collapse under their own gravity. However, if the angular momentum of the collapsing cloud was not removed during its formation, the young star would spin up so much that it would ultimately tear itself apart. Nevertheless, there are young stars rotating at a fraction of their break-up speed. How can we explain this conundrum? After an overview of the early stages of stellar evolution, this talk will focus on how we tested one of the explanations for this puzzling observation and what we learned.

Speaker Bio: Peggie Mueller has been a member of the Houston Astronomical Society since 2021. Her interest in astronomy deepened in 2016 after taking Modern Astronomy as part of the Master of Liberal Arts program at Rice University. Under the mentorship of Prof. Chris Johns-Krull, Peggie developed her capstone project which led to a published paper, Tests of Disk-Locking in T Tauri Stars of the ONC, in the March 2024 Astrophysical Journal. Tonight’s talk draws from their research, offering insights from her project and ongoing engagement in astronomy.

To see the video, click The Birth of Stars: Unraveling a Cosmic Conundrum.

“Open Clusters and Asterisms”

By:  Larry Mitchell

Visually stellar open clusters and asterisms are unique as no two clusters are alike, and often stunning detail can be seen.  This differs from observing many deep-sky objects which due to distances and physical parameters often present similar apparent views.  We will explore how star clusters form, where and what they are, and how they evolved to their present state.  Unpublished data will be presented which displays a level of accuracy previously un-imagined. Stellar clusters are particularly valuable for stellar evolution analysis, and this also applies for objects in other galaxies, which are visible in amateur instruments, and we will explore some of these. It is always great to visually observe this wonderful universe through any telescope, but it is much – much better if one knows something about the object being seen. We will analyze and view some of the finest stellar clusters in the current fall and winter sky

Our Speaker: Larry Mitchell has had a lifelong interest in astronomy, He began observing at age 10 with a 3-inch telescope and in 1985 became a serious visual astronomer – Still Serious 40 years later! Larry owns too many telescopes including a  36-inch f/5 which he recently sold, a 30-inch f/3.3, a 20-inch f/5, an 18-inch f/4 as well as several others.

• Discovered supernova SN1994S, a type 1a supernova.
• Discovered and cataloged 117,300 galaxies and the author of “Mitchell’s Anonymous Catalog”, the “MAC” - Found in MegaStar
• Observed and cataloged all 2500+ of Wiliam Herschel’s nebulae and star cluster discoveries.
• He has a book currently being published by the American Astronomical Society (AAS) on visual observing describing technical info and how to find obscure objects, which may be viewed in medium sized aperture telescopes - Without Using a Computer.
• Larry has written several visual astronomy articles in various magazines
• Is the recipient of the Texas Star Party “Lone Stargazers” award and the “Omega Centauri” award and has an asteroid named after him - Asteroid – “126183 Larrymitchell”
• Since 2000, Larry has been the chairman of the Texas Star Party “Advanced Observing Program” and has been Co-Chairman of the Stellafane Observing Olympics for the past 8-years.
• Larry loves traveling the world giving lectures and observing the night sky, and is always ready to view this magnificent universe and share the adventure with his many astronomy friends ___________________________________________________________________________________

To see the video, click Open Clusters and Asterisms.

“My Astronomy Journey”