6:30 pm – Main Presentation

TITLE:  Fun Observing Projects with Zero Equipment

PRESENTATION:  According to author and educator, Bob King, you don’t need a telescope to explore the underpinnings of the universe. A pair of eyes will do. In this month’s presentation, Bob will share three visual observing projects — exploring Earth’s shadow; observing and measuring naked-eye sunspots and getting a sense of the Milky Way Galaxy’s three-dimensional structure. As he explains, “Through close examination of the natural world, we open ourselves to the possibility of discovery, whether that means gaining a new perspective or noticing new details in familiar phenomena.”

BIO:  Bob King fell in love with the night sky and astronomy when he was a kid and loves to share his passion with people of all ages through teaching and public observing. A graduate of the University of Illinois (Champaign-Urbana), he’s a long-time member of the American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO), a community educator, writes the monthly Celestial Calendar for Sky & Telescope magazine as well as the Explore the Night blog for their website. Bob also pens the long-time blog called Astro Bob, which he started in 2008. He comes to us tonight via zoom from Duluth, Minnesota, on the north shore of Lake Superior.

6:30 pm – Main Presentation

TITLE:  The Sky at Night – Easy enjoyment from your backyard

PRESENTATION:  Avid stargazer and amateur astronomer, Tim Hunter, will talk about his recently published book, The Sky At Night (University of Arizona Press); how it came about from 750 Sky Spy astronomy columns—15 years worth—in Thursday’s Caliente, the Arizona Daily Star’s  weekly entertainment section. Learn about his adventures, both the joys and aggravations, of being an astronomy columnist, including some of his most memorable mistakes and foibles.  Tim will also discuss what it takes to write and get a book into print; the pros and cons of different paths to publishing. He will donate several copies of The Sky At Night to TAAA.

BIO:  Tim Hunter has been an amateur astronomer since 1950, and is the owner of two observatories, the 3towers Observatory and the Grasslands Observatory (http://www.3towers.com). In his own words, he is also “a prime example of someone whose hobby has run amok, spending more time and money on it than common sense would dictate.” Tim has been the President of the Tucson Amateur Astronomy Association, Inc. (TAAA) and a member of the TAAA since 1975. He is also the immediate past Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Planetary Science Institute (PSI). Since 1986, Tim Hunter has been interested in the growing problem of light pollution. In 1987, he and Dr. David Crawford founded the International Dark-Sky Association, Inc. (IDA). IDA is a nonprofit corporation devoted to promoting quality outdoor lighting and combatting the effects of light pollution. And since 2007, Tim has written the weekly “Sky Spy” column for the Caliente Section of the Arizona Daily Star for 16 years. Asteroid 6398 is named Timhunter.

6:30 pm – Main Presentation

TITLE:  Comets; History, Science, and Magic—A Personal Journey

PRESENTATION:  David Levy, one of the most enthusiastic and famous amateur astronomers of our time, will talk about some of the great comets in Earth’s history. These frozen leftovers from the formation of the solar system, composed of dust, rock, and ice, hold rich scientific information, making each encounter a much-studied event. Share an expert comet-hunter’s knowledge in this presentation featuring such comets as Halley, those of 1811, 1965, 1970, 1976, and the most famous of David’s many comet discoveries, the Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet that collided with Jupiter in 1994.

BIO:  David Levy is world-renowned for his comet-hunting expertise. A past president of TAAA, he’s authored over three dozen books, written for three astronomy magazines, and appeared on television programs featured on the Discovery and the Science Channels. Among his accomplishments are 23 comet discoveries, a few hundred shared asteroid discoveries, an Emmy for the documentary Three Minutes to Impact, five honorary doctorates in Science and a PhD which combines astronomy and English Literature. Currently, he has a monthly column, Skyward, jointly published in the Vail Voice community newspaper and the TAAA Desert Skies Bulletin. David continues to lecture worldwide, and hunt for comets and asteroids.

6:30 pm – Main Presentation

TITLE:  HelioSwarm: A Future NASA Mission to Better Understand Space Plasmas

PRESENTATION:  The vacuum of space is not empty, but is filled with a gas hot enough to rip electrons away from atoms, producing a plasma; a material with charged particles consistently creating and responding to electromagnetic fields driven by collective particle motion. Such plasmas constitute more than 99% of the matter in the visible universe. Understanding how energy is injected into, transported through, and removed from these turbulent plasma systems represents one of the open questions in astrophysics and space science.
HelioSwarm, a mission recently selected by NASA to launch at the end of this decade, will employ a swarm of nine spacecraft, to gather multi-scale measurements and learn more about the dynamics of these systems. In this talk, Prof. Kristopher Klein will discuss what is known and unknown about plasma turbulence and how the HelioSwarm mission will address its unknowns. These forthcoming measurements of near-Earth plasmas, both inside and outside of Earth’s protective magnetic bubble, will finally reveal the physics controlling plasma turbulence both within our solar system and throughout the universe.

BIO:  Prof. Kristopher Klein studies fundamental processes that govern the dynamics of ionized gases in our solar system as well as more distant astrophysical bodies. He has particular interest in how these systems become hot, specifically how energy is transported in chaotic, turbulent flows, attempting to answer these questions with a combination of numerical simulations and spacecraft measurements of the Sun’s extended atmosphere as it collides with the Earth’s magnetic field. He earned his PhD from the University of Iowa in 2013, followed by postdoctoral positions at the University of New Hampshire and the University of Michigan before joining the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory as an Assistant Professor in 2018.

7:30 pm – Second Presentation

TITLE:  Dr. Mary Turners Seasonal Night Sky Presentation