York County Astronomical Society (YCAS)

APOD: The Small Cloud of Magellan (2021 Jan 05) Image Credit & Copyright: José Mtanous https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap210105.html Explanation: What is the Small ...Magellanic Cloud? It has turned out to be a galaxy. People who have wondered about this little fuzzy patch in the southern sky included Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan and his crew, who had plenty of time to study the unfamiliar night sky of the south during the first circumnavigation of planet Earth in the early 1500s. As a result, two celestial wonders easily visible for southern hemisphere skygazers are now known in Western culture as the Clouds of Magellan. Within the past 100 years, research has shown that these cosmic clouds are dwarf irregular galaxies, satellites of our larger spiral Milky Way Galaxy. The Small Magellanic Cloud actually spans 15,000 light-years or so and contains several hundred million stars. About 210,000 light-years away in the constellation of the Tucan (Tucana), it is more distant than other known Milky Way satellite galaxies, including the Sagittarius Dwarf galaxy and the Large Magellanic Cloud. This sharp image also includes the foreground globular star cluster 47 Tucanae on the right. https://mtanous.wordpress.com/about/ Starship Asterisk* APOD Discussion Page http://asterisk.apod.com/discuss_apod.php?date=210105 #APOD

Here are some award winning Aurora images. Enjoy. https://www.theguardian.com//northern-lights-photographer-

Scientists tapped into the worldwide network of 150,000 volunteers using the Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 project to find new examples of brown dwarfs. The citizen... scientists helped create a 3D map of our cosmic neighborhood in an impressively short timeframe. The ongoing project is open to volunteers worldwide who want to join the quest to find more mysterious objects in spacecraft data: go.nasa.gov/3if6jxl #AAS237

A new comet is approaching the Sun and could be visible by binoculars in December 2021.

The chance of seeing aurora from York county this week is small. The website www.spaceweather.com has the best information available. A little down the page, there is a graphic on the left side provided by NOAA that indicates how intense the aurora activity is currently. Right now, it shows a light green area (pictured below). The last time I saw aurora from York County, our entire state was covered in orange and red in the graphic. The Sun is becoming more active now after several years of being quiet, so there are chances in the next seven years of seeing aurora as the Sun goes through its sunspot cycle.

Want to do astrophotography with your smartphone? A Guide to Smartphone Astrophotography has now gone through NASA Product Review and has been recommended for wide distribution. This lavishly-illustrated book features detailed instructions for how to use your smartphone to take photographs of the night sky and numerous astronomical objects including. Previously, expensive cameras were required, but the advent of smartphones brings this exciting hobby into the hands of students and life-long learners for exciting journeys of exploration. This step-by-step guide written by a professional astronomer will show you how to do it! (189 pages, 185 illustrations, PDF). The link to download the PDF is on the lower right side of the page http://spacemath.gsfc.nasa.gov

APOD: The Great Turkey Nebula (2020 Nov 26) Imagination Credit & Copyright: Eric Coles https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap201126.html Explanation: Surprisingly remin...iscent of The Great Nebula in Orion, The Great Turkey Nebula spans this creative field of view. Of course if it were the Orion Nebula it would be our closest large stellar nursery, found at the edge of a large molecular cloud a mere 1,500 light-years away. Also known as M42, the Orion Nebula is visible to the eye as the middle "star" in the sword of Orion the Hunter, a constellation now rising in planet Earth's evening skies. Stellar winds from clusters of newborn stars scattered throughout the Orion Nebula sculpt its ridges and cavities seen in familiar in telescopic images. Similar in size to the Orion Nebula, this Great Turkey Nebula was imagined to be about 13 light-years across. Stay safe and well. https://apod.nasa.gov/lib/about_apod.html#srapply http://www.astrobin.com/users/coles44/ Starship Asterisk* APOD Discussion Page http://asterisk.apod.com/discuss_apod.php?date=201126 #APOD