Carolina Skies Astronomy Club

03/16/2022

Small adjustments, major progress!

After completing two more mirror alignment steps, we've confirmed the James Webb Space Telescope’s optical performance will be able to meet or exceed the science goals the observatory was built to achieve! Read more: https://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-s-webb-reaches-alignment-milestone-optics-working-successfully/

While the purpose of Webb’s latest image was to focus on a bright star and evaluate the alignment progress, Webb’s optics are so sensitive that galaxies and other stars can be seen in the background. We started our alignment process with 18 scattered dots — 18 reflections of the same star, one from each of Webb’s primary mirror segments. These dots were then re-arranged, stacked, and fine-tuned by making small movements on the motors in the back of each mirror segment. This process continues to set the stage for our first science images this summer.

Red is the new black (& white)! The red color palette of Webb’s image was chosen to optimize visual contrast in the image, but did you know that Hubble and Webb actually record light in black and white? They use filters that allow only a specific color of light through, then the filtered images are individually colored by scientists and image processors, and combined into a full image. Colors in space telescope imagery sometimes recreate the way our eyes see; other times they’re selected to highlight interesting features of an object, such as different elements in a nebula. (Learn more: https://hubblesite.org/contents/articles/the-meaning-of-light-and-color)

Image Credit: NASA/STScI

03/12/2022

The exoplanet, WASP-121 b, belongs to a class of planets known as hot Jupiters. These gas giants circle their stars with much tighter orbits than our own Jupiter orbits the Sun. Where Jupiter takes 12 Earth years to complete one trip around the Sun, WASP-121 b’s year takes just 30 hours.

Though water clouds can never form on WASP-121 b, the planet is not devoid of rain. But it's not the same type of rain we are familiar with on Earth. Instead, clouds of iron, magnesium, chromium, and vanadium fill the night sky — where temperatures are cold enough for metals to condense into clouds.

For the first time, astronomers have observed the complete water cycle of an exoplanet.

03/08/2022

As Orion leaves the Northern skies on its Summer holidays we wave goodbye to the amazing sight that is M42 and Barnard 33 until next season!

Image: 4 panel mosaic from CSAC Member Cameron.

02/26/2022

Due to a forecast of total cloud cover CSAC will cancel tonight's event. We have rescheduled our observing event to our "rain date", Saturday 5 March 2022. The start time remains 5:30PM for telescope setup and just after 6:30 for observing.

02/24/2022

Hello CSAC Members and Friends,

Having survived the worst of Winter and the latest variant of Covid, we are ready to resume astronomy activities. Carolina Skies Astronomy Club plans to have an “outdoor only” observing event this Saturday (26 Feb) at NCMNS Contentnea Creek. This event is for members and those who are interested in becoming members.

Set up time is between 5:30 and 6:15PM. Those who are coming without telescopes, should try to arrive not later than 6:30PM. That way you will still have some twilight to find your parking space.

We only have a few weeks left this year to observe the great Winter constellations. If it becomes too cloudy this Saturday, we will use the following Saturday, March 5th as our “rain date”. If the need to cancel due to weather is necessary, we will post the cancellation notice on our web page and page.

02/23/2022

Known as Arp 282 and located some 300 million light-years away, the galactic duo pictured below captured by Hubble, reveals the galaxy NGC 169 (bottom) visibly interacting with the galaxy IC 1559 (top). In the shot, you can see wisps of gas and dust delicately linking the two galaxies, a result of the immense tidal forces involved when two gravitational goliaths stray too close.

Although galaxies may often appear isolated, with no nearby neighbors in sight, that doesn’t mean they always will be. And partly thanks to Hubble images like this, astronomers now know that glancing interactions and head-on collisions between galaxies are quite common (even if such collisions rarely result in individual smash-ups between stars). In fact, close encounters like this play a fundamental role in how galaxies evolve in size, shape, and structure over billions of years. Furthermore, when two galaxies interact, it can even stir up the gas and dust within them, kick-starting fresh bursts of star formation.

https://astronomy.com/news/2022/02/snapshot-hubble-captures-elegant-pair-of-interacting-galaxies

02/22/2022

Whether it's due to science fiction or the fact that you can see it with your own eyes from Earth, Mars has captured the imagination of people for centuries. It's one of the closest planets to us and has been studied with all manner of scientific instruments aboard the various unmanned space probes that have explored it and continue to do so. Yet, despite this, there are some big unanswered questions about Mars -- the answers to which could even shed light on our own distant past and future, given that Earth, Mars and all our neighboring planets were born of the same cosmic stuff.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2022/02/220208105305.htm

02/20/2022

The Orion Nebula is a diffuse nebula situated in the Milky Way, being south of Orion's Belt in the constellation of Orion. It is one of the brightest nebulae and is visible to the naked eye in the night sky. It is 1,344 light-years away and is the closest region of massive star formation to Earth. Near the center of this cosmic portrait, at the heart of the Orion Nebula, are four hot, massive stars known as the Trapezium. Gathered within a region about 1.5 light-years in radius, they dominate the core of the dense Orion Nebula Star Cluster. Ultraviolet ionizing radiation from the Trapezium stars, mostly from the brightest star Theta-1 Orionis C powers the complex star forming region's entire visible glow.
A recent dynamical study indicates that runaway stellar collisions at an earlier age may have formed a black hole with more than 100 times the mass of the Sun. The presence of a black hole within the cluster could explain the observed high velocities of the Trapezium stars.

- Image from one of our members at our Bortle 4 location in Grifton, NC

02/16/2022

For the very first time astronomers have detected a planetary body in the habitable zone of a white dwarf.

White dwarfs are the remnant cores of once-luminous stars like our Sun, but they’ve left their lives of fusion behind and no longer generate heat. The star’s name is WD1054–226. The researchers behind this work observed WD1054-226 for 18 nights with the ESO’s New Technology Telescope (NTT) at their La Silla Observatory, observing dips in starlight as something passed between us and the star.

Most stars will end their lives as white dwarfs. White dwarfs are the remnant cores of once-luminous stars like our Sun, but they’ve left their lives of fusion behind and no longer generate heat. They’re destined to glow with only their residual energy for billions of years before they eventuall...