Live and via Zoom (see Home page for link)

Urban Astrophotography Update

Mauri Rosenthal
Westchester Amateur Astronomers and Amateur Astronomy Association (NYC)

Mauri will talk about a range of topics relating to imaging:

• Living with Light Pollution: Perspectives from several years of doing and teaching urban astrophotography
• Catalogue of targets accessible from the NY metropolitan area without traveling to darker skies
• Updates regarding gear that makes this easier than ever
• Solar imaging update – also easier than ever and the sun is going nuts
  • Bonus — Good times for aurora chasers (albeit not in the metro area!)
• Everyday AI – ways in which cheap and readily available Artificial Intelligence are benefitting backyard imagers

Mauri Rosenthal combined longstanding hobbies of backyard astronomy and photography to begin astrophotography in earnest 8 years ago. Surprised by the image quality achievable with small telescopes from his yard in Westchester County, Mauri has been developing deep expertise in Ultraportable Urban Astrophotography and is on a mission to use new technology to extend the access of city-dwellers to the wonders of the night sky. Mauri has played a central role in developing and teaching New York City’s Amateur Astronomers Association courses in Astrophotography which have helped dozens of city dwellers to get started in imaging since 2019.  Follow Mauri’s imaging on Instagram and Flickr.

In person at Willcox Hall, Pace University, Pleasantville, AND on-line via Zoom

The Night of the Shooting Stars

Joe Rao
Associate and Guest Lecturer at the Hayden Planetarium, Contributing Editor for Sky & Telescope

In 1995 Comet 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 broke apart in dramatic fashion. Now a number of meteor dynamicists have confirmed what Joe Rao predicted last year: a stream of particles ejected during the comet’s disruption may yield a dramatic meteor outburst at the end of May 2022. The predictions are uncertain because no one knows for sure how fast the concentrated dust swarm left 73P’s disintegrating nucleus. But there is a chance that we could see meteors briefly fall at rates numbering in the scores or maybe even in the hundreds per hour! In this presentation, Joe will explain the reasons why late on the night of May 30th, you may see more shooting stars than you’ve seen in your entire life!

For 21 years, Joe Rao was the Chief Meteorologist and Science Editor at News 12 Westchester. He was nominated for 8 Emmy Awards and in 2015 was voted first among weathercasters in New York State by the Associated Press. Since 1986 he has served as an associate and guest lecturer at the Hayden . He is a contributing editor for Sky & and writes a syndicated weekly column for the online news service space.com. He also pens a monthly astronomy column for Natural History magazine and provides annual astronomical data for The Farmers’ Almanac. Joe is a long-time friend of WAA.

David Pecker Conference Room, Willcox Hall, Pace University, Pleasantville,
or on-line via Zoom
(see home page for link and instructions for live attendance)

The Amazing Variability of T Tauri Stars
FRED WALTer
Department of Astronomy, SUNY Stony Brook

The T Tauri stars are young pre-main sequence stars of about Solar mass, with ages of a few million years. They are protostars – still collapsing from their natal dust clouds and not yet stably fusing Hydrogen in their cores. As indicated by the namesake of the class, these are variable stars. But all stars, including the Sun, are variable. What is so special about the T Tauri stars?

The talk will summarize some recent observations of pre-main sequence stars, motivated in large part by the high cadence, long term monitoring afforded by TESS, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite. Although designed to find exoplanet transits, TESS watches about 8% of the sky at any one time continuously for about 27 days, so it sees everything.

From above the atmosphere there are no day/night cycles, no weather to interrupt observations, and no twinkling except what the stars do on their own. TESS observations of stellar variability, coupled with ground-based spectroscopy, have given us fantastic new insights into the environments of these protostars.

Professor Walter has a PhD is in Astronomy from the University of California at Berkeley, has been teaching astronomy at Stony Brook University since 1989. He studies the birth and death of stars and stellar magnetic activity (stellar weather) using telescopes in Arizona, Chile, Hawaii, and in Earth orbit.

On-line via Zoom

Comets, Asteroids and Near-Earth Objects
Steve Bellavia
Brookhaven National Labs & Suffolk Community College

Steve will discuss comets, asteroids and Near Earth Objects that have been discovered in the last several years, including visitors from other star systems as well as close neighbors that pose potential hazards, crossing Earth’s orbit every several years.

Steven Bellavia is an amateur astronomer and telescope maker.  He is an aerospace engineer who worked for Grumman Aerospace with the Group of the Space Division. He performed the analysis, design and fabrication of the micro-gravity liquid droplet radiator that flew on Space Shuttle mission STS-029. Steve has been at Brookhaven National Laboratory since 1992 and was the principal mechanical engineer for the camera on the Vera Rubin (formerly called the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, LSST).

Steve is an assistant adjunct professor of astronomy and physics at Suffolk County Community College and the Astronomy Education and Outreach Coordinator at the Custer Institute and Observatory in Southold, New York.

VIA ZOOM

Massimo Capasso, Ph.D.
Columbia University & VERITAS Array at Fred Whipple Observatory, Arizona

Single-photon technologies for ground-based gamma-ray astronomy

 Gamma rays from space can reach energies up to several trillion times those of visible light, in dramatically explosive phenomena that shape the Universe as we know it. At these energies, the observable fluxes so low that very large collection areas or long observing times are needed to reach a significant detection. For both these reasons, space-born instruments are not suited for the detection of Very-High-Energy (VHE) gamma rays; instead, ground-based observatories can exploit the atmosphere as a huge detector to observe VHE gamma rays indirectly. The light that is emitted as a by-product of the interaction of gamma rays and the atmosphere is very faint and very fast (on the scale of billionths of seconds). Therefore, extremely sensitive detectors coupled with fast electronics are the enabling technology for ground-based gamma-ray astronomy.

In this talk, Dr. Capasso will present an overview of the physics that produces VHE gamma rays in space, of how to detect them on the ground and of the latest single-photon solid-state technology that enables such technique: Silicon photomultipliers (SiPMs).

New Horizons and the Solar System’s 3rd Zone

Will Grundy, PhD

Planetary Scientist, Lowell Observatory
Co-Investigator, New Horizons mission

Dr. Grundy does spectroscopic, thermal, and imaging observations of outer Solar System bodies using numerous large ground- and space-based telescopes including Hubble, Keck, Gemini, DCT, IRTF, and MMT. He headed the surface composition science theme team on New Horizons. Dr. Grundy will discuss the astonishing scientific results from this mission, and how our view of the solar system has changed as a result.

Friday, September 10th
Venue TBD: Either via Zoom or live at Pace University

One of the most popular meetings of the year is our annual “Member’s Night.” Club members present talks on a vast range of subjects of astronomical interest, including their astronomy trips, observations, new equipment, imaging techniques, and other topics.

Members interested in presenting should email WAA’s Vice President for  Programs, Pat Mahon, at waa-programs@westchesterastronomers.org.

Roman Tytla at WAA Members’ Night