FREE Family Fun. Join Tucson Amateur Astronomy Association for our annual Tucson Astronomy Festival at Brandi Fenton Memorial Park in Tucson, AZ. We will have safe solar observing of the Sun in the afternoon along with family fun astronomy activities for the kids and the entire family. During the evening, we will have nighttime telescopes to observe the wonderful universe we live in. There will be a raffle around 6:30 pm of lots of fun astronomy items with the grand prize being a telescope (must be present to win). If you have your own telescope and want some help to learn how to use it, bring it in the afternoon during daylight and we will have volunteers available to help you learn how to use it. Hang around in the evening and get in some practice.
Brandi Fenton Memorial Park
3482 E River Rd Tucson,
Arizona
85718United States
Venus is at greatest Elongation from the Sun. Thus, its disk is 50 percent illuminated in a telescope. Venus is still relatively high by the end of astronomical twilight. It gets to maximum magnitude at the end of the month.
Saturn gets passed by Venus on the 17/18th at 2 degrees distance. After that it will be below Venus. Its narrow rings are closing even more from 4 to 3 degrees.
Jupiter transits at 10 pm at 80 degrees altitude. It is high up most of the night. It is further closing to Aldebaran, although its retrograde motion slows.
Mars is at opposition on the 15th, with a magnitude of -1.5, as bright as Sirius, and a diameter of 14 arc-seconds. It is moving at relatively high speed retrograde, where it comes into line with Pollux and Castor on the 17th and forms a right triangle with them on the 31st. By that time, it transits at 11 pm at an extraordinary 84 degrees altitude.
Uranus and Neptune are evening objects between Jupiter and Saturn. Uranus is near the Pleiades.
Mercury is visible well around 6:30 am in the southeast. It is a little brighter than magnitude zero and thus outshines Antares easily which is further to the right.
The moon occults Mars on the 13th from 6:48 to 7:47 pm. Although Mars is at its brightest, the moon, only a few hours past Full Moon, is blinding so much that binoculars or a telescope are needed to make out Mars next to the lunar disk. It takes the moon about 15 seconds to completely cover and uncover the orange disk of Mars. The moon makes another close pass to Venus on February 1st.
Join us at Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument for an evening of stargazing under extremely dark skies at a historic location. Few locations in the U.S. have skies this dark!
TAAA will have volunteer astronomers with Telescopes setup and viewing Planets, Nebulas, Galaxies, Star Clusters and more, under the dark skies of Southern Arizona!
Star Party is free but national park admission fees apply.
Information: Great dark skies just north of Tucson at Oracle State Park. 3820 E Wildlife Dr., Oracle, AZ 85623 Star Party open to the Public. Admission fees for entrance into Oracle State Park apply.
Tucson Amateur Astronomy Association will have several telescopes for astronomical viewing. We will be observing the Moon + Planets, Nebulae, Galaxies, and Star Clusters. Great opportunity to look through a wide variety of telescopes. Weather dependent.
For real-time updates, follow this event on the Tucson Amateur Astronomy Association Facebook event page: TAAA Facebook Events page
Join us at the Tubac Presidio State Historical Park in Tubac AZ for an evening of stargazing under truly dark skies at a historic location.
TAAA will have volunteer astronomers with Telescopes setup and viewing Planets, Nebulas, Galaxies, Star Clusters and more, under the dark skies of Southern Arizona!
Truely dark skies at a scenic location – Picacho Peak State Park Star Party is open to the Public. Event is free but park admission fees apply.
The Tucson Amateur Astronomy Association will have several telescopes for astronomical viewing.
We will observe Planets, Nebulae, Galaxies, Star Clusters and lots more. Great opportunity to look through a variety of telescopes at a really dark location.
This talk’s title may seem an odd juxtaposition of words, until Father Christopher Corbally runs through the 440-year history of the Vatican Observatory. Learn about the Papacy’s long-standing interest and support for astronomical research, including Pope Leo XIII ‘s 1891 formal refounding of an earlier papal observatory into The Vatican Observatory in Vatican City. In 1935, with urban growth brightening Rome’s sky too much, the Observatory was officially moved to the Papal Summer Residence at Castel Gandolfo, southeast of Rome. But Rome’s population kept growing, making the skies above the Observatory still too bright. In 1981, the Observatory founded the Vatican Observatory Research Group (VORG) in Tucson. Father Corbally will discuss how VORG has grown, including its construction in collaboration with Steward Observatory of the Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope (VATT) on Mt. Graham, AZ. The VATT, now 31 years old, recently became robotic. Father Corbally will explore the new era of observations this update can bring.
Bio: Father Christopher Corbally is a Jesuit priest and research astronomer. Born near London, England, he entered the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) in 1963, and holds degrees in philosophy (Licentiate 1968, Heythrop College, a Pontifical Academy in England), physics (B.Sc. 1971, U of Bristol, England), astronomy (M.Sc. 1972, U of Sussex), and theology (B.A. 1976, Heythrop College, London Univ., with a Pastoral Diploma in 1977). In 1983, he obtained a PhD in astronomy at the University of Toronto (Canada). Since then, Father Corbally has been based at the Vatican Observatory Research Group, UA, where he was its Vice Director until 2012. His primary interest is probing the personalities of stars via their spectra, and with an anthropologist-biologist colleague, investigating the challenges to humans of traveling and living in space.
Caption: Father Corbally at Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope (VATT) Credit: Vatican Observatory
Mae Smith, TAAA President
Brandi Fenton Memorial Park
3482 E River Rd Tucson,
Arizona
85718United States
