Founded in 1955, Houston Astronomical Society is an active community of enthusiastic amateur and professional astronomers with over 60 years of history in the Houston area. Through education and outreach, our programs promote science literacy and astronomy awareness. We meet via Zoom the first Friday of each month for the General Membership Meeting and the first Thursday of the month for the Novice Meeting. Membership has a variety of benefits, including access to a secure dark site west of Houston, a telescope loaner program, and much more. Joining is simple; you can sign up online, by mail or in person at a monthly meeting.
Join us for our Holiday Potluck
Trini Mendenhall Community Center
1414 Wirt Rd, Houston, TX 77055
Sign Up to RSVP and to Volunteer to Share your Holiday Faves!
https://www.signupgenius.com/go/60B0444ADAF2DA2FD0-2021
Speakers:
Steve and Amelia’s Awesome Stellafane Adventure!
Dr. Stella Kafka– AAVSO Exec Director – The Betelgeuse Story
Astro-Trivia * Astro- Bingo * Door Prizes
by Don Selle
Auto-Guiding Part 1
To Autoguide or not to Autoguide – it’s all About Noise
One of the questions that beginning astrophotographers ask these days is whether they need to acquire the equipment and learn the skills associated with autoguiding. With current technology, this is a valid question. This article will help you answer it. A little background info should help start us out.
Astrophotography, unlike most other types of photography, is all about capturing very dim objects many of which include elements that are barely brighter than the sky around them. Because of this, astrophotographers post process their images to increase the contrast between the object and the background sky thus creating images that look attractive to other people.
This article is 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!
The James Webb Space Telescope: Ready for Launch!
David Prosper
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is ready for lift-off! As of this writing (November 15), the much-anticipated next-generation space telescope is being carefully prepared for launch on December 18, 2021, and will begin its mission to investigate some of the deepest mysteries of our universe.
by Jim King
December’s column will finish up the Messier fall/early winter group. This is a case of last, but not least. All of Messier’s objects are worth the effort to locate and spend some time wallowing in their beauty.
by Steve Goldberg
Asterism: a grouping of stars that form a recognizable pattern.
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This month’s asterism is NGC 1662 which can also be looked at as a “Klingon Battlecruiser” from the Star Trek series. It is located near the bow that Orion is holding, aimed at Taurus the Bull. |
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In this picture, the inner circle is the NGC object, the outer circle is a 13mm eyepiece in 14.5” telescope. So it will take some power to see this one. Now, imagine the 4 bright stars in the middle as the main section of the battlecruiser with the close pair on the right as one wing tip, and the wide pair on the left as the other wing tip. |
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Russell Sipe (Sky&Telescope, February 2005) was first to spot that the stars fitted the running lights of the battlecruiser (D7 Class). |
Reprinted with permission of Bill Pellerin, GuideStar editor
Object: Caph-Beta Cas
Class: Delta Scuti variable star
Magnitude: 2.25
R.A.: 00 h, 9 m, 11 s
Dec: 59 degrees, 08 minutes, 59 seconds
Distance: 55 ly
Constellation: Cassopeia
Spectral: F2
Optics needed: Unaided Eye
Why this object is interesting:
Beta Cas is an old star and like many old stars it is starting to show its age by becoming variable. In the categories of variable stars this one is called a Delta Scuti variable star and it has some common characteristics with Cepheid variable stars. Cepheids are famous because their intrinsic luminosity (power output) is related to their period of variability. Thus, they and the Delta Scuti variable stars allow astronomers to measure the distance to stars and star systems.
If you know the intrinsic brightness of a star it’s easy to determine the distance using the inverse square law. That is, the brightness we see is inversely proportional to the square of the distance.
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1:16 PM 11/15/2021 admin
Send questions to President Joe Khalaf: [email protected]
Change is coming to the website and we are excited about what this new platform will do for our club and how it can scale and adapt as we continue to grow and transform as an organization.
What are we migrating? All of our website content and our membership database. This includes articles, dark site and observatory log reports, user photos in the photo gallery, and more.
When are we starting the migration? Migration should begin Monday, November 15, and should be completed by the beginning of the year. We’re hoping it’s done much sooner, but have built in time for contingency planning.
So what does that mean to you? The migration to our new platform will take a few weeks to complete and should appear transparent to our members. All of these are related to CREATING and MODIFYING content on our website, not READING or CONSUMING it. Here’s how you can help:
For full details, refer back to the email Joe Khalaf sent to all members on November 15, 2021.
