UPDATE!! We are going to have to move the March meeting to Wednesday MARCH 8. The Planetarium will be closed on MARCH 1, and we will not be able to meet that night.
Clouds, clouds and more clouds!! We did not have many clear nights this winter, and we missed a few celestial events, but we did have a some very well attended Public Telescope nights out at Fox Park Observatory during the few rare clear weekends. A few weeks ago it cleared up and we were able to get some views and images of Comet ZTF. I think all the hype in the news and on TV really brought out the crowds to brave the cold weather. Jupiter has been moving farther and farther into the western sky each night but still is a treat through the telescope. We had kids and adults giving the gas giant big thumbs up, especially through the 16 in scope. Ryan brought his Meade telescope up from Jackson and pulled out some impressive eyepieces for the public night,- Thanks Ryan!!
If you have not been out to a public night, hopefully this spring we can get you to come out for our March Messier Marathon, or Astronomy Day on April 29.
Our Next Public Observing will be March 10 and 11, 2023- hope to see you there.
MARCH MEETING INFO:
For our March 8, 2023 meeting we will be watching The NASA night Sky Network a new Exoplanet webinar:
Exoplanet Watch: Inviting Citizen Scientists to Observe Transiting Exoplanets
This webinar will discuss NASA's newest citizen science project studying exoplanets.
Exoplanet Watch is NASA's newest citizen science project, announced on January 10, 2023. Exoplanet Watch studies exoplanets, or planets that orbit stars beyond our solar system. The project is growing daily - and we are recruiting astronomers like you!
We're encouraging astronomers who have telescopes with a tracking mount and a camera to participate in the project by making your own observations of exoplanet transits. We'll show you how, when, and
where to look! We'll also show you how to use our free EXOTIC (Exoplanet Timing Interpretation Code) software to make your own light curves. If you have more data than time to process it, you can contribute your own observations of transiting exoplanets so that other citizen scientists can make their own light curves.
Exoplanet Watch participants have studied 275 different exoplanets so far, and created more than 1,500 light curves. With your help, we can expand the reach of the project. We have participants in 24 time zones already, but the more participants we have, the better. Your work will help make the timing for upcoming James Webb Space Telescope exoplanet observations more precise, freeing up valuable space telescope time for other scientists. If your observations or your light curves are used in a scientific paper, you will get credit as a co-author on the paper. When you sign up, we'll walk you through our website and how to participate in the project.
Exoplanet Watch
This sounds like it could be a great project the club can work on out at Fox Park using one of the available telescopes, and we will be able to contribute results back to NASA to help with the Exoplanet search.
Here are some recent shots from the Observatory:
Horsehead Nebula
Comet ZTF
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