Jupiter’s opposition occurs every 13 months, making the planet appear larger and brighter than any other time of the year. But that’s not all. Jupiter will also make its closest approach to Earth in the last 70 years! This happens because Earth and Jupiter do not orbit the Sun in perfect circles – meaning the planets will pass each other at different distances throughout the year. Jupiter’s closest approach to Earth rarely coincides with opposition, which means this year’s views will be extraordinary. At its closest approach, Jupiter will be approximately 365 million miles in distance from Earth. The massive planet is approximately 600 million miles away from Earth at its farthest point.

/https://blogs.nasa.gov/Watch_the_Skies/2022/09/16/jupiter-to-reach-opposition-closet-approach-to-earth-in-70-years/

Our RMA speaker from last month is featured in several articles about the confirmation of the largest known comet. Last month David Jewitt discussed with the club details of comet discovery, and this month he is one of the team that used the Hubble telescope to confirm the size of the largest know comet to date. Check out the article on NASA's website

We have some exciting news to share! The Roper Mountain Astronomers club now has its own email hosting! What this means is that we now can use official club email addresses with our RMAstro.com domain. Most communications from the website will now come from "admin@rmastro.com" instead of RMAstronomers@gmail.com, so please watch for the change in your inbox and update your Junk filter if necessary.  Among the official addresses, we also have Webmaster@rmastro.com for website questions, Events@rmastro.com, Outreach@rmastro.com, Spectrum@rmastro.com, etc. Don't worry, we will still have our RMAstronomers@gmail.com address. Look for more information in the future, during our club meetings or Spectrum editions. 

Thanks to everyone for joining us at our Dark Sky site for our January Star party (even if it was a week late). It was beautiful for viewing the night sky and some of the club members spent time imaging various targets, while others looked through the club's telescope in the observatory, or discovered new targets through the telescopes they brought with them.

If you have never joined us for a star party, please consider coming out to spend time with other club members. Each of us learn something new when we get together to view the stars in a clear, dark location!

At the end of the year I had the privilege to spend the afternoon with elementary students at one of our local schools in the upstate. The time I spent with them was awesome, and each of the students impressed me with their knowledge of the universe. I brought along my telescope for them to see as well as some images I have taken of galaxies and nebulae over the past year.  A student explained to me that an exploding star was a supernova, and wanted to know if that was happening to Betelgeuse. Incredible!

One of the goals of the Roper Mountain Astronomers is to engage and help to educate our community. I can think of no better way to achieve this than through teaching kids about astronomy.

The club regularly gets requests from the community about demonstrations and star gazing events. If you are a member of the club and are willing to help with these events, or if you are great at organization and planning and would like to help coordinate events, please reach out to me or one of the board members to express your willingness to volunteer!

Clear Skies!

David

Now that Christmas has passed, it's a perfect time to check out our member classifieds in the Forums section. There are a few items there already. If you have anything that you'd like to list for sale, you can log into the website and create a new post, which will be seen by all website visitors. As a reminder, please update the post once the item has sold. 

There is now a set of sample astrophotography data available for RMA members to practice with. After logging into our website, navigate to Resources > Tutorials where you will find a link to an RMA Google drive folder. Here, you'll find DSO, Lunar, and Planetary samples that you can download and practice your processing skills with. If you have questions about the data or techniques, please visit our Discord server, where our experienced members will be happy to lend a hand. 

Comet Lenard (c/2021) was discovered only in January of this year.  It is visible in binoculars or small telescopes in the early morning hours around 4-5am.  It is currently visible between Arcturus and the handle of the Big Dipper.  It is moving rapidly through the sky so watch the YouTube link to see how it will move from day to day.

https://youtu.be/rMiLUB-skEg

Set your alarm clock for 4:00am EST and run outside to see the 99.1% lunar eclipse. Stargazers across the United States will be able to watch the peak of this brilliant Beaver full moon, which will be the longest partial lunar eclipse in over 500 years! Reflecting back on the fall colors we just experienced, the moon will have a red-brownish tint due to the light scattering across the earth's atmosphere. 

https://www.npr.org/2021/11/17/1056205732/lunar-eclipse-moon-friday-morning-how-to-see

Last night we held our make up date Star Party at our Dark Sky Location, the Furman observatory. The night was clear and cool, and although we had a very bright moon high in the sky we had a great time observing and imaging a wide range of targets. 

The long list included: The Moon, Jupiter, Saturn, Venus, Neptune, Uranus, The Orion Nebula, The Ring Nebula, The Heart Nebula, M35, M37, and a wide range of double stars that had varying colors.

New members were there, and we enjoyed lots of teaching and being taught. If you have never joined us for an in person Star Party, please do so soon! The next party is scheduled for December the 4th, assuming good weather.

Clear Skies, Look Up!