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Group eMail Etiquette
I would like to make sure you are all aware of two particularly useful links at the bottom of our group eMails. One is Reply To Sender, which is useful for private conversations that should not be sent to the entire group. Conversations not meant for the entire club should be done with private emails. We don't want to cause members to unsubscribe from our group due to a flood of emails they don't need to see. The other is Mute This Topic, which is useful if you don't want to continue to receive eMails in a particular conversation. Glenn D. Faini Chemical and Environmental Engineer, Retired President, Rappahannock Astronomy Club www.raclub.org View my photos here, on Flickr www.flickr.com/photos/163018675@N05/albums
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Handling a bouncing RAC eMail account
You should be receiving RAC emails nearly every day. If you ever stop getting them, this might help you resolve the problem. Handling a bouncing account When you are receiving group messages by email but group messages cannot be delivered to you for some reason, the nondelivery events are called bounces. Such events put your 开云体育 account into a bouncing state that affects all the groups you belong to with that account’s email address. 开云体育 tries to notify a bouncing member by sending an email message that has the subject line “Your 开云体育 Account is Bouncing.” Also, when a bouncing member logs in to the 开云体育 website, a red banner at the top of the page informs them that their account is bouncing. Note: Even if your 开云体育 account is bouncing, you can still log in to group websites and read and post messages there. Bouncing affects only email delivery; it does not affect your ability to use group websites. If you have not received an email notification that your account is bouncing but you realize that you have not received any group email messages for a while, you can check your account to see whether group messages are bouncing. For instructions, go to Setting account preferences and viewing account information and scroll down to Checking recent email bounces. When your 开云体育 account is bouncing, you can try to “unbounce” your account using either of these methods: If you received a “Your 开云体育 Account is Bouncing” email notification, click the link in the email to unbounce your account. Go to the 开云体育 website (and log in if necessary). In the red banner at the top of the page, click the link to unbounce your account. ! Important: Group owners and moderators cannot do anything to unbounce accounts of their group members. When your account is bouncing, you must address the underlying problem yourself, which might involve contacting your email service provider for assistance or investigation. Glenn D. Faini GDF Photography Private and UAS Pilot Chemical and Environmental Engineer, Retired View my photos here, on Flickr www.flickr.com/photos/163018675@N05/albums
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NOTICE: Are You Getting Duplicate Copies of Your Own Posts?
If you are receiving duplicate messages for your own posts, do the following: Log into your account. Then look for the drop down in the top right corner of the page, which will be either your name or email address. Click that and then click Account. From your Account page, click the Preferences sidebar tab. Look for the "I always want copies of my own messages" check box and Uncheck it. Then click the Update Preferences button.
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Fw: Citizen Science! RAS Meeting Tuesday Night!
The monthly meeting of the Richmond Astronomical Society is Tuesday night. Our presentation is about citizen science. Please join us - everyone is welcome! Zoom information is below. Citizen Science! RAS Meeting Tuesday Night! The Next Meeting of Richmond Astronomical Society is Tuesday, April 8, 7:30 PM at the Science Museum of Virginia (2500 West Broad St.) and online at this link To view this e-mail in your browser - click here. RAS board member Betty Wilson will be presenting on how amateur astronomers can contribute to real science. The title of her presentation is, 'Science Wants You — Be a Citizen Scientist.' April is Citizen Science Month, making this presentation particularly timely. Betty will discuss the many ways citizen scientists can contribute. Please join us for her presentation! A number of us will be also gathering for dinner before the meeting at the Chicken Fiesta restaurant across the street from the museum about 6:00 PM. Please join us for the meeting in person or online and for dinner, if you can. Everyone is welcome. Zoom link to Tuesday's meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88012257115?pwd=WnRYYTlTZVhKZE1kOGhETks1c0hUQT09 Dial in (if needed): (301) 715-8592 Meeting ID: 880 1225 7115 Passcode: 464955 Images by Colin Grace! RAS member Colin Grace is studying astronomy at the University of Virginia. As a side benefit of being an astronomy student, Colin has access to some of the large telescopes at the university's Fan Mountain observatory. He has been using the opportunity to hone his imaging and image processing skills by capturing images of a number of interesting deep sky objects. In the animation below and to the left are some samples of Colin's recent work. Thanks to Colin for sharing your work with us and congratulations in advance on your upcoming graduation. Nice work Colin! We look forward to hearing more updates from you. Spacewoman! RAS members and friends may recall that we have enjoyed presentations by Jonathan Ward, who has authored several books about space travel. Jonathan is also an avid astronomer and astroimager, so he fits in great with our crowd. He recently served as co-author and creative consultant on a new film, "Spacewoman." The movie is based on his book, "Through the Glass Ceiling to the Stars," which is about and co-authored by former astronaut and Air Force pilot, Colonel Eileen Collins. Col. Collins was the first woman to pilot a Space Shuttle and the first to serve as commander of a Space Shuttle mission. Her story is told in the movie and in the book by Jonathan and Col. Collins. You can learn more about the film at this link: https://spacewoman.film/; More about Jonathan here: https://www.jonathanhward.com/bio/; And you can purchase the book here: https://goodreads.com/book/show/56897951-through-the-glass-ceiling-to-the-stars The next Saturday Under the Stars at Powhatan State Park will be Saturday, April 19, 8:00 PM: If you want to catch some beautiful views of the night sky or you have a telescope you would like assistance with, please join us at Powhatan - everyone is welcome. This is an RAS supported event and volunteer astronomers are needed and welcome. These events have been well-attended and we need plenty of astronomers. Observing will be at the Trailhead / Equestrian parking area. Volunteer astronomers are also welcome to continue to observe through the night after the public hours. Note that the $5 parking fee applies at all times but parking fees are waived on the day of the event for volunteer astronomers who share views through their telescopes/binoculars or share their expertise. Additional dates are May 31, July 19, September 13, and October 11. Please send a message to president@... if you can help. A map to the viewing location is at this link. Milky Way image by David Amos Celestron 8-inch Schmidt Cassegrain telescope for sale: Rick Connors is selling a Celestron 8" Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope locally. The telescope was purchased around 10-15 years ago, has been very lightly used, and is in excellent condition. If you are interested in possibly pu
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Good Morning- My 23- year old daughter Autumn is on the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz which is currently on a long underway in the Pacific Ocean. She works on the flight deck and recently during a lull in aircraft launches she captured some beautiful star portraits. I wanted to share these as I was interested in how many constellations I could identify not knowing the ships position and at least if I could estimate its latitude. I came up with an answer that turned out to be pretty close. She works 10pm - 6am ship time so she gets to see some spectacular dark skies. If anyone would like to try estimating the latitude the Nimitz was at when these were taken - just reply to this thread. Otherwise I thought it would be cool just to share her pictures. The stars are short trails due to the motion of the ship. Myron
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Dear RAC< Here is the last test image from my session on Wednesday night using the future RAC/ MSRO Station 3 telescope. Its a highly cropped portion of a full frame image of the nebula IC 443/444 in Gemini (Jellyfish Nebula). Stack of 12 5-minute guided subs (1 hour exposure time). Thank you to Corey D for pointing out this cool supernova remnant one night when we were using his night vision PV-14 on his 16" reflector. We still need to install spacers to increase the back focus distance to 55mm. Once this is done the star images should be points across the entire full frame. Myron
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Heres M37 and the small satellite cluster NGC 1907. Again this is full frame so you will need to zoom in to see detail. I wanted to show what the FOV for this telescope is. Myron
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Enclosed is a full frame image of NGC 2903 and a cropped vesion. This image like the others I sent out (except M37) are about 2 hours of integration (24 5-minute auoguided subs) Myron
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Dear RAC, I have been working with Pete Laky to bring another remote telescope online as a combined RAC/MSRO station. This will use a Stellarvue SVX102T-R (Raptor) which has a hand-figured triplet APO lens and a fiels flattner and focal reducer o bring the telescope to f/5. The camera we are using is a 36 MGb QHY 367 Pro C (full sized DSLR chip).It is mounted on an EQ-6 Pro mount. Riding onboard the OTA is the mini-computer (1 Tb Beelink 18v) and a Pegasus Powerbox. Last night was our first night under the stars with this rig. It was a shakedown session with lots of unknowns. really I just wanted to see what kind of field of view we can get and how the autoguiding would work. I only roughly polar aligned and relied on autoguiding to do the rest. Im happy to report 5 minute guided subs were obtained with perfectly round stars! The camera also performed well. It is very sensitive! However, the chip is so large that there is a fair amount of vignetting and fiels curvature. This is what causes the oval stars at the edges of the images. However, once the correct spacing is obtained the images should have pinpoint stars to the edge! I am enclosing two of the test images here. Both have been greatly cropped from the original size. Ill include a full frame of NGC 2903 in my next email that will show the immense field of view-yet still if one zooms in- nearly seeing limited detail is captured! Pete has generously placed the StellarVue "Raptor", QHY 367 Pro, EQ-6 Pro Mount, and telecompressor/field flattener on long term loan to MSRO. This station will be available for RAC members to use just as is the currently operational 10" RC in Station 2. The images were obtained by stacking 24 5-minute guided subs with the camera running at full resolution (binned 1x1). Zooming in will reveal more detail! Ill send other images out soon. Remember-these are only test images and have imperfections. But I thought they were still interesting enough to send out. Pete and I would both like to see more club members delve into remote imaging. Myron
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-------- Original Message -------- Subject: FW: April sky materials from the Astronomical League Date: 2025-03-24 11:45 From: <dknabb01@...> To: "Don 01 account" <dknabb01@...> Greetings MERAL Presidents, ALCors, editors, officers, and others, Here are the sky maps for April, courtesy of John Goss, former president of the League and current Media Officer. Please share these with your club members, use them in your newsletters, websites, and social media accounts. Clear skies, Don Knabb MERAL Chair From: John Goss <goss.john@...> Sent: Saturday, March 15, 2025 11:09 AM To: John Goss <goss.john@...> Subject: April sky materials from the Astronomical League Here are the April sky materials from the Astronomical League. Clear skies, John Goss
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Dear RAC, On Saturday night I was able to get almost 3 hours of exposure on the spiral galaxy M 100 in Virgo. I used the 10" RC for this pseudo RGB image. Note all the faint background galaxies. Theres even one within the spiral arms of the galaxy itself! Myron
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? Dear RAC, Here’s the solution Pete and I came up with to move the big 14” Celestron/ASKO in and out of the garage for star testing. A pallet jack from Northern Tools! Works great. I’m hoping to get some testing in soon but my immediate project is to get the new MSRO Station 3 online. I’m including a picture of the scope on the test dolly. It’s a Stellarvue SVX102T-R ( hand figured triplet apo optics!)with a QHY 367 M Pro one shot color cmos camera. It’s got a DSLR sized sensor. With the field flattener we should get sharp stars to the edge! Thanks Pete for the generous support on making MSRO/RAC Station 3 a possibility!
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Dear RAC, At last nights meeting during the MSRO report I discussed progress on our new Station 3 astrophotography setup. It uses a Stellarvue 102mm f/7 ( will be soon f5) SVX102T- Raptor and ASI 2600 MC duo OSC. Here’s a quick picture of the setup in its enclosure. This image was taken before the camera and electronic focuser were added. Pete and I just wanted to make sure it would fit in the enclosure. Hopefully this station will be online soon for members to use. Myron
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Link to March 2025 RAC Meeting Recording
Dear RAC< Enclosed is the zoom meeting link for our March 2025 meeting and program held last night. We discussed activities at MSRO, and members shared their lunar eclipse stories. Finally, I gave a presentation and presented B band light curves of the recurrent nova T Corona Borealis (T CrB). Myron https://us02web.zoom.us/rec/share/qNaROFiFOhmQTAn_XuPmCksjyJ_wx7-muMDHY0RwSUgeYhMc3Cx1C-fDACL9X5m8.Ef9z-p84-evW5zJv Passcode: SV^a3kz^
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Hi Everyone! MSRO 2 is performing super well right now - the go-to is spot-on and the improved polar alignment allows for much better long-duration collection. Attached is M101 that I imaged last night. Follow-on work would be to gather additional IR frames and use them as a luminance channel. Pete
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Hello Everyone! Myron nicely touched up the polar alignment on MSRO 2 which has made it possible to do longer stretches of unadjusted imaging so last night I took a crack at NGC 2903 early in the night. In the attached image you'll see a fuzzball off to the side of the barred spiral galaxy NGC 2903...that's dwarf galaxy KKH 51. Thanks! Pete Laky
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March 2025 Meeting and Program
Dear RAC, Enclosed is a zoom invite for our March RAC meeting. Business meeting will start at 7:30 and go until approximately 8-8:15. Following that will be open discussion by members about the recent lunar eclipse. Please join in and share your photos, observations and thoughts on the recent total lunar eclipse. Myron RAC President (Myron Wasiuta) is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting. Topic: RAC March 2025 Meeting and Program Time: Mar 19, 2025 07:30 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada) Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84934708780?pwd=v2jmLmIm1W66vid8nKx3mrrHYyFFuE.1 Meeting ID: 849 3470 8780 Passcode: 395668 --- One tap mobile +13092053325,,84934708780#,,,,*395668# US +13126266799,,84934708780#,,,,*395668# US (Chicago) --- Dial by your location ? +1 309 205 3325 US ? +1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago) ? +1 646 558 8656 US (New York) ? +1 646 931 3860 US ? +1 301 715 8592 US (Washington DC) ? +1 305 224 1968 US ? +1 346 248 7799 US (Houston) ? +1 360 209 5623 US ? +1 386 347 5053 US ? +1 507 473 4847 US ? +1 564 217 2000 US ? +1 669 444 9171 US ? +1 669 900 9128 US (San Jose) ? +1 689 278 1000 US ? +1 719 359 4580 US ? +1 253 205 0468 US ? +1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma) Meeting ID: 849 3470 8780 Passcode: 395668 Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kdKTbChf6
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Good Morning, Here are a few pictures of this morning's lunar eclipse. I was lucky that I got to see it until clouds came in just before the end of the total phase. I used a Canon Rebel T3 at prime focus of a 94mm f/7 Brandon semi-apo refractor. Due to it being about 2:45 AM in the morning and me being a knucklehead-I forgot to tighten the lock screw on the focuser clamp. As a result the weight of the camera slowly pulled the focuser away from the best focus position during my imaging. Consequently most of my images were out of focus. At least I got to see it visually through this nice telescope. The view was amazing! Myron
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Sent from my iPhone I got a few pictures from start until clouds set in. I used an old celestron gt 90 refractor and cannon m50 camera.
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Hi everyone, I have been observing the recurrent nova T CrB over the past few weeks in a more controlled way-capturing hundreds of 40 second exposures using a remotely accessed 10" RC and QHY 294M Pro camera and filter wheel (MSRO Station 2 telescope). Specifically, i have been concentrating on collect B band data as this is more sensitive to activity on and around the white dwarf as it accretes matter from the red giant. This star is about magnitude 10.1 in visual, but about 11.3 in the B (blue) band. When it goes nova it should briefly shine as bright as perhaps some of the stars in the Big Dipper! This was expected to have happened already, but we are still waiting. it may go at any time, or it may be another year. no one knows for sure. I have been performing this high cadence photometry in hopes of recording behavioral changes in the star that might signal an impending eruption. While nothing definite yet has occurred, I have noticed something interesting. The star has been varying between blue magnitudes 11.3 and 11.0 during my observations. The amount of flickering seen in the light curves seems more prominent when the star is brighter (near magnitude 11.1) than when at its fainter levels (mag 11.3). To help illustrate this, my friend Boris Starosta made an animated gif showing my light curves on 11 mornings from February 14 to March 10 2025 aligned so that changes from one observation to the next are easier to appreciate. This gif represents about 32 hours of continuous observing time on this star on 11 mornings. Most observing sessions were between 3-5 hours long. The graphs each have three horizontal light curves-two red and one black. the black curve is that of T CrB. The upper red line is a reference star at B magnitude 10.98. This line remains unchanged as it is a reference magnitude from which the Y-axis (magnitude) is calibrated. The bottom red light can be seen to vary in brightness slightly due to variations in seeing and instrumental effects. It can be thought of as a check against any changes seen in the target stars light curve. If changes in sky conditions cause changes in the stars brightness, these will show up as fluctuations in both the check star at the bottom as well as in the target star (black curve). However, if the bottom red line is relatively flat, but the target stars curve is varying considerably more than those changes in the curve at the bottom-it can be safely assumed the effect is real changes in brightness of the target star ( T CrB) Careful inspection shows the target star undergoes rapid changes in brightness on the order of 0.1 magnitude or greater in a matter of minutes. This is called "flicker" and is most likely due to fluctuations in brightness of the accretion disk or near-surface effects on the white dwarf itself. Flicker is seen in many stars of the dwarf-nova categories as well (SS Cyg is a good example). On this animation, note how the amount of flicker seems to be greater when the star is brighter (closer to the top red line). On some mornings when the star was closer to B magnitude 11.3-the curve was smoother with less variability. I don't know if this is a real effect, and if it is what exactly it means. But it was convincing enough for the most part for me to notice and I just wanted to put out my observations to others who may be interested in this star. Sooner or later its going to go nova, and when it does I hope to be able to look back over my light curves for clues that might be able to predict when the next nova eruption occurs in about 2105. Thanks again to Boris for putting this animation together, and I hope everyone enjoys it!
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