What can you expect to see at the Community Observatory this weekend?

The forecast is for clear skies with good seeing. The 33 to 44% moon will not be too bright and will not interfere significantly with our seeing. On top of that, it may not even be very cold or windy. Why don’t you consider joining us this weekend?

We are in the transition between the Spring “Galaxy Season” and the Summer “Milky Way Season.”  There are still some great galaxies to view from our inside scopes. Vega and Antares, two of the bright Summer stars will be peeking over the Eastern Horizon by the end of our viewing session.

Our excitement last weekend was seeing a new supernova in the distant galaxy NGC 5907. That is an edge-on galaxy that is also known as the “Knife’s Edge” or the “Splinter Galaxy.” It lies about 46.5 million light years away. The supernova was discovered on April 22nd by the  ATLAS automated telescope. ATLAS stands for the “Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System.” It is a system that continuously scans the sky looking for potential threats to Earth for asteroids. Coincidentally, it also discovers things that have changed. In this case, a new “star” became visible in that galaxy.  

To oversimplify, there are two types of Supernovae. Type I supernovae occur then a white dwarf star circling a red giant star steals enough material from its host to go critical. As the material accumulates on the surface of the white dwarf, it gets hotter and moves faster. When the atoms reach the speed of light, a fusion explosion occurs. Type II supernovae occur when a giant or supergiant star runs out of usable fusible material. Stars are stable when the outward force of fusion and the inward pull of gravity are in balance. When fusion stops, the star collapses and an explosion occurs as the star implodes. Type II supernovae can leave behind a neutron star or a black hole. This supernova is a Type II. The two images today show the galaxy with the supernova. They were taken by Max with our 180 mm refractor in our imaging observatory.

Did you know that our imaging observatory is in regular use? We usually have a live feed from it during our public sessions. You will get to see an image of the scope and a live feed from the camera as it acquires its images.

Venus, the Moon, and Jupiter are all putting on a show in the west. Venus goes through phases just like the moon does. It is gibbous right now and it is the brightest thing in the evening after the Moon. Jupiter is the third brightest thing in the sky and it won’t be around for long as it will be too low to see by Independence Day.

Join us this weekend for a chance to see the supernova and for your last chance to see Jupiter until this winter. This summer, like the last few summers, will be pretty much without the spectacular planets. Saturn and Mars will be visible this Fall. As always, get used to checking communityobservatory.com after 3 PM on the day you plan to visit. If we are going to have a weather cancellation, we will announce it by then.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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