Carina Nebula - Taken by Charlie Marzolla using a ZWO1600 on a Skywatcher EQ6R – 3 hours data in light polluted skies.

Hi everyone,

Welcome to the NSAS Update for August 2024. These last two months have given us several breaks in the weather which have enabled a few members to get out there and really get some great photos.

We also saw the recent Total Solar Eclipse in Mexico and one of our members, Julian Segal, took the opportunity to go there and recorded some stunning images and made a video, complete with an audio backing track. I have watched it several times and love the way Julian has timed the crescendo’s with the imagery. Sit back, and turn the sound on! Well done Julian!

This is posted on our FaceBook page - cut and paste this link into your browser. https://fb.watch/u0ZZnqrIFO/ 

Another stunning image was from David Elford in the last few months - well done David

Lagoon Nebula - Taken by David Elford with ~10 hours of data on a ZWO2600MC

What’s On

It has really been amazing how the club has developed and come along and the capability of our membership. This doesn’t happen by accident and takes a lot of people working together with the same goals and mindset to create an environment where the community of members can learn and grow.

With the upcoming Annual General Meeting in October we will be looking to everyone to help set the direction and support for the club for the next few years and encourage people to put their hand up to help. I have been involved for 7 years now and it has been an incredibly rewarding and personally satisfying experience to be involved with NSAS and I can highly recommend it. It is important for any club to grow and continue to offer new experiences for our membership so that new people get involved and bring those ideas and enthusiasm with them. As such, the role of President and all committee positions will be vacated and are available for people to come together and take the society forward. I will not be standing for President this year and particularly welcome talking to anyone thinking about this role. It is a privilege to have the opportunity to serve an organisation such as NSAS.

All organisations, and NSAS is no exception, will continue to thrive whilst people step forward, even if only for a year or two, and bring new thoughts and enthusiasm, so I encourage each of you to consider it. Reach out to anyone on the committee if you are interested. I have linked some documents which also provide some insight into the ~20 roles that operate behind the scenes to make NSAS work for you. 

             NSAS Official Roles

             Management Committee

             NSAS Additional roles

Hunter Valley Star Party

26-29 September will once again see us in the boutique Grapevines Estate in the Hunter Valley for our partner-friendly star party. This event always proves to be a popular weekend away for couples and families and friends. We are now taking registrations now, so feel free to register for yourself and guests. Simply add the number of guests that will be joining you on the registration form as we need to plan accordingly. As per our other events, Star Parties are free for NSAS members and their partners.

This year we will be running from 26^th September to 29^th September, which is a month later than last year and hence, M31 will get to about 17 degrees if you want to have a go at this challenging target. The Veil Nebula will be 28 degrees above the horizon.

A timetable of events will be made available in the next few weeks.

Astronomy Night at Macquarie University – 21^st September

If you are planning on going to the Astronomy Night at Macquarie University, I would get in quickly and get your tickets as they are selling fast and can only be purchased ahead of the event. There is more information and ticket purchase at Astronomy Open Night 2024 (mq.edu.au).

What’s New !!!

There have been some very interesting articles in the Sky and Telescope magazine, including the detection of a hypervelocity star doing 1 million mph through the Milky Way. Interestingly, this was detected by a citizen science project and has been designated CWISE J124909.08+362116.0 in case you wish to google it and find out some more, as there are several interesting articles on the web about it.

The S&T also has an 8-page article on the aftermath of the DART mission which saw NASA smash an impactor, DART, into a small (160m) asteroid, Dimorphos, which was orbiting around a larger companion, Didymos (780m). The intention was to understand if the orbit would be affected, and by how much, to work out if this is a viable method of planetary defence against an asteroid impact. Amazingly, this happened at 6km/s and hence precision and timing was incredibly important to achieve the goal. The mission was successful in that the orbit was affected and was able to be measured by follow-up observations. An excellent article and one I would recommend the read.

What’s Old !!!

A quiz for you – How old is the Voyager 1 mission ?

Well, amazingly enough, Yoyager 1 is still operational after 46 years and continues to send back data. In November 2023, Voyager 1 got confused and stopped sending us intelligible data and there was a period when we were not sure if it could be recovered. Amazingly though, the engineers managed to work through the problem and now all four of the spacecraft's instruments are again sending data. It does sound though that there will come a time when this might cease as the problem appears to have been related to a component of a chip which malfunctioned. Not surprising though given the age of the spacecraft. Refer to this www.space.com page - Voyager 1 is back online! NASA's most distant spacecraft returns data from all 4 instruments | Space.

JWST Images

View the latest James Webb Images here: Webb Images/Science 2024 | Flickr

WHAT’S ON?

Astro Particle Physics

For anyone interested in research, there is a seminar on this Tuesday by Dr. Ciaran O'Hare, from the University of Sydney, who will talk about fundamental physics and fundamental particles, with a particular focus on dark matter. This sounds incredibly interesting as he discusses how the biggest objects in the Universe are influenced by its tiniest constituents.

It may seem counterintuitive that astronomy, the study of incomprehensibly big things, could be in any way connected to particle physics—the study of the incomprehensibly small. However, the field of astroparticle physics is a rich and fascinating discipline that reveals there are many deep connections between these two realms. In fact, many astronomical objects cannot be understood without knowledge of the processes governing the behaviour of fundamental particles. And on the flip side, studying the behaviours of things like stars and galaxies can give us unique insights into fundamental physics that we would never be able to gain access to in mundane human-scale laboratory experiments. Astroparticle physics therefore deals with some of the largest outstanding questions that we still have about the universe, such as the nature of the elusive dark matter, amongst other mysteries.

NSAS Events

The following 10 NSAS events are on in the next 6 weeks so make sure you put aside the time if you wish to attend. As members, you have free access to these, so make sure you take advantage of them!

ATTN Beginners – It is highly recommended you attend the Welcome Night, the BOQ and a BNF!

Welcome to New Members or people interested in joining (zoom)            19-Aug-2024 7:30 pm

NSAS Seminar Series - Astro Particle Physics         20-Aug-2024 7:30 pm          

Beginners Open Question Night (BOQ)         28-Aug-2024 7:30 pm

Beginners Night in the Field (BNF)    31-Aug-2024 5:00 pm

Observing night - Visitors Welcome   31-Aug-2024 5:00 pm

Observing Night - Members Onlyvpn_lock    07-Sep-2024 5:00 pm

Outreach: Normanhurst Cub Scouts  09-Sep-2024 7:00 pm

Outreach: Help at the Blue Mountains Botanic Gardens       13-Sep-2024 5:00 pm 

General Meeting: Speaker: September          17-Sep-2024 7:30 pm            

Macquarie University Astronomy Open Night 2024   21-Sep-2024 5:00 pm          

Hunter Valley Star Party 26-Sep-2024

To access these – go to Events (nsas.org.au)

WHAT’S UP?

This months objects are;

I trust you are all keeping well and look forward to seeing you on Tuesday for what sounds like a fascinating topic. 

Clear Skies

David Stevenson

President