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!

Member Ed Overstreet was recently featured in a segment on WSPA, speaking with Meteorologist Christy Henderson about astronomy. The club also received a special on-air mention for viewers who are interested in learning more about astronomy and telescopes. You can watch the story here:

https://www.wspa.com/news/top-stories/fall-weather-week-the-best-stargazing/

Christy has also joined the club as an Honorary Member and we are looking forward to meeting her at an upcoming star party. Welcome, Christy!

Thank you for the opportunity to serve as the club president for the last two years. It has certainly been a crazy two years to say the least.  The club has made some significant strides forward in many regards, despite the pandemic.  Our web page is phenomenal to say the least.  A very special thanks to Josh Palmer for championing that effort and making it happen.  Additionally, the depth and breadth of our monthly presentations has reached a new level.  The club’s ability to use Zoom and have speakers from Austria, United Kingdom, Colorado, and New Mexico, to name a few locations, has been outstanding.   Our star parties have expanded to other locations as well, which is also been new and exciting.  I want to thank the previous Board Members for making all this happen.  A special thanks goes to Dennis Wilde, our Spectrum editor.  Dennis is stepping down from this roll after doing it for at least the last 5 years.  Thank you Dennis for producing such an awesome publication, and doing it for so long! I want to also thank the new Board Members for stepping up and serving.  Many of them have been routinely participating in our monthly Board meetings already.  I feel confident this transition will be seamless.  Thank you again and see you soon!

ex-president

Bill Michaud

Congratulations Cathy Z on winning our club raffle. We hope you enjoy your SkySync GPS and we will be in touch with you to deliver your prize!

The weather cooperated and we were able to hold our July Star Party at the Observatory site as planned.  We experienced clouds and some rain in the area until 9:30pm when it started clearing.  By 11:00pm the western and northern skies were very clear and the east/south skies had patchy clouds.

We had an unusually large turnout this month.  A lot of first time visits from members that have joined since we had to quit using the dark site last year.  It felt very good to be back in our "home" star party site.  The security of the site and the comfort of the training room has been missed!  Before darkness, we were able to meet and greet each other.  We also shared a lot of snacks and camaraderie during the evening.

The younger visitors really enjoyed themselves with nature and other activities along with the exposure to astronomy. It was great to see the kids enjoying the beauty of the darkness and night sky with no game machines or phones glued to their faces!

Everyone appreciated the opportunity to be surrounded by our fellow club members and to be able to enjoy the skills of our talented members.  Many members enjoyed casual observing with binoculars and telescopes. We were also treated to see Josh Palmer's obtain real time video of transiting satellites and David Quattlebaum's capture of nebula and galaxies!

Thanks to David Moffett, Kepler Tumler, and David Quattlebaum, we were also able to remove the Meade 14" SCT from the Observatory and store it safely in the training room.  There will be a lot of maintenance activity in the Observatory this summer and we wanted the telescope to be safely stored. 

We will post some photos in the members Photo Gallery area so you can be treated to some extremely nice smiles and happy faces.