space mission | RASC Victoria

Astronomy Cafe – Nov 21, 2022

Posted November 21, 2022 by Webmaster as Astro Cafe

Video transcript of meeting

Lunar background information – Jeff Pivnick
- NASA Science web – source of presentation
- Lunar origin – giant impact is most-favoured hypothesis
- Lunar orbit is locked to the Earth
- Composition of the surface & core
  - 2 kinds of rock – black magma, white Vesicular basalt
  - Regolith makes up the surface dust
- Exploration
  - Apollo 11 through 17
  - Artemis
Artemis I Lunar Mission – Chris Gainor
- Artemis I is an un-crewed mission to test the Orion spacecraft and launch vehicle rocket systems
- Dec 11th – scheduled splashdown
- 10 tiny satellites part of the mission
- In-flight photos
- Cabin takes 4 people on future missions
- Photos of the Moon and setting Earth (behind the Moon)
- As close as 81 miles to the Moon’s surface
- Human Space Programs
  - Apollo (1968-1972), space shuttle (1981-2011, ISS (1998-present)
  - Human missions are very expensive
  - Constellation Program – 2004-2010 – parts of this program are in Artemis
  - Exploration test flights in 2009, 2014
  - Space Launch System – SLS variants of launch rockets
  - Orion Exploration Vehicle
    - Crew of 4
    - Crew Module (NASA contractors)
    - Service Module (ESA)
- Cost of Artemis I mission is $4 billion
- Phase 1 – get back to the Moon
- Phase 2 – go on to Mars ~20 years
- Artemis II
  - 4 astronauts on board
  - Loop around the Moon and return
  - No lunar orbit or landing
  - 1 of 4 Canadian astronauts will go on the mission
  - May 2024 probable launch
- Artemis III
  - Landing on the Moon
  - As early as 2025
  - SpaceX Starship will be used as a lunar lander
  - SpaceX Starship may fly to the Moon earlier and independent from Artemis!
- Lunar Gateway – Canadarm in lunar orbit
- Space Shuttle engines are being reused for the Artemis missions
Minor details about Artemis I – Randy Enkin
- Photo of the mission launch showing Moon, rocket, meteorite for Enkin’s Daily Moon on Facebook
- Trajectories
  - Distant Retrograde Orbit through La Grange points
  - Slingshot around the Moon to return to Earth
- Cubesats
  - Space on Artemis for 16 cubesats
  - 10 cubesats on this Artemis I mission
  - The Cubesats all have different purposes and missions
- Passengers – all mannequins
- Photo of mission launch for Enkin’s Daily Moon on Facebook
Lunar Sketches – Randy Enkin
- Waning phase – favourable libration – on two days
- Photos of same area sketched – by Mike Nash (Victoria) and Steven Arthur Sweet (Toronto)
Apollo, Artemis and Orion – a backgrounder on the Greek gods by Jeff Pivnick
Concert at UVic on Dec 3rd – Dave Robinson
Astrophotography SIG – this Wednesday – Dave Payne
Road construction has closed Observatory Hill to the public until Dec 22nd
- Victoria Centre Observatory closed – Reg Dunkley
- Centre of the Universe – virtual events only – Lauri Roche
- Serious access problems for everyone
SIGs – David Lee
- Makers SIG this Thursday
- Citizen Science SIG – interested? contact David
  - Meteor counts
  - Occultations
  - Light Pollution monitoring such as Victoria Centre’s recent project
  - Galaxy Zoo
  - Wikipedia & Science Focus
Bollide Meteor over Southern Ontario – Peter Jedicke
- 3:26AM EST on Saturday morning
- Asteroid orbital predictions are now a reality
- Predicted hit between London to Brantford, Ontario
- Dave Clark, RASC member observed it
- Photo taken by Rob Weryk from London, based on a tip from Hawai’i astronomy staff
- Earlier photo from Lowell Observatory used to refine calculation of orbit
- Peter didn’t spot the meteorite
- Western News

Astronomy Cafe – Nov 14, 2022

Posted November 15, 2022 by Webmaster as Astro Cafe

Video transcript of the meeting

Island Star Party – Dave Payne
- RASC Victoria will be hosting ISP in 2023, not Cowichan Valley Starfinders
- Debriefing from CVSF will happen soon
- Bright Angel Park will need to be reserved soon with CVRD
- Volunteers from Victoria Centre will be needed – contact Dave Payne dapayne@shaw.ca
  - Insurance
  - Speakers
  - Advertising
  - Setup on Friday – tents, parking, observing field
  - Cleanup and teardown on Sunday
- Council approved our participation a year ago
- Date for 2023 star party needs to be decided upon
  - Nearest New Moon in August is the 16th
  - Good dates for star party is probably Aug 11-13
  - Mt. Kobau Star Party – Aug 12-20
  - Perseid meteor shower peaks on Aug 13
- Previous star parties attracted a wide selection of amateur astronomers
- At least 50 attended each night at this year’s star party
- Discussion
- Photos from 2016
Space Mission Reports – Chris Gainor
- Artemis I Mission – 10PM launch tomorrow evening if all goes well
- James Webb Space Telescope – malfunctioning IR instrument is now fully functional again
Observing Mars near Opposition – Bill Weir
- Weather is clear and stable this week
Ken McGill’s observing van conversion
RASC National website – problems for members – Bill Weir
- When renewing membership, subscribing to the email lists can happen involuntarily – Dave Payne
- Centre affiliation choices are not working properly – Chris Purse
- Large order for calendars from Victoria Centre placed 3 weeks ago has not arrived – Lauri Roche
- Brendon Roy from National gave an update on shipping publication orders
RASC Victoria Centre Council Meeting tomorrow night – Jill Sinkwich
- Contact Jill if any member wishes to participate
Malcolm from Toronto introduced himself as a new Victoria Centre member
Website tour – Special Interest Groups & email lists – Joe Carr
- SIGs – click on the name beside the one that interests you to sign up
- Email lists – descriptions on the Members Only area of the website
  - Members Only area is behind a shared password – contact Joe Carr, Webmaster
  - HillObs – special requirements for signup for members who are Active Observers to observe and acquire astrophotos from the Victoria Centre Observatory
Public Observing at Observatory Hill – Lauri Roche
- Public restricted to 150 on Saturday nights – sign ups go quickly when the event is posted
- Currently scheduled monthly
  - Nov 26 – next star party
  - Dec 17 – Nathan will be presenting
- Friends of the DAO membership is $25
- Hosting groups of students and teachers at the Centre of the Universe during the day
- How school programs work – new team needed from RASC – contact Lauri for info
- Road construction on Observatory Hill is still underway – be cautious, especially at night
UVic Astronomy Open House – Bob Wright Building observatory every Wednesday evening
Astrophotography – Dave Payne
- IC410 Tadpoles Nebula – Hubble palette vs more natural palette
- Imaging a star cluster – live from Dave’s yard
Gonzales Observatory – query from Larry Manuel
- Originally a solar transit observatory for time keeping and the historic Noon Gun – Joe Carr
- Environment Canada weather station
- Gonzales Hill Regional Park

Astronomy Cafe – Oct 24, 2022

Posted October 24, 2022 by Webmaster as Astro Cafe

Video transcript of meeting

The Moon over Paris – Randy Enkin
- A photo tour of Paris featuring the Moon
Sky Brightness Survey 2022 – David Lee
- Preliminary results
- Data cleaning using R programming language
- Next steps
- Spectral response of LEDs and SQM readings
- Discussion
Seeing Beyond video – Nathan Hellner-Mestelman
- Manifesto of what will happen once Artemis 1 is launched
- Colonizing the solar system will change mindsets of the population at large
- Seeing Beyond – better quality video and audio on Nerd Anomaly channel
- Seeing Beyond soundtrack
- Discussion
Gamma Ray Burst – Randy Enkin
- Gamma Ray Burst 221009A – event just happened on Oct 9th
- Initial detection and follow-up observations continuing
- Discussion
Announcements
- Astronomy Cafe next week is Halloween, so no in-person event – Zoom virtual meeting will be hosted by
- Lunar Eclipse on Nov 7/8
- 2023 RASC Calendars – email Lauri Roche to reserve a copy. Explore the Universe and Explore the Moon workbooks are also available.
- Skynews editor has retired and new editor is hired, so combined with printing problems, there will be delayed delivery of the next issue.
- Various reports from Bill Weir

Astronomy Cafe – Oct 17, 2022

Posted October 17, 2022 by Webmaster as Astro Cafe

Video transcript of meeting

Finding Asteroids Before They Find Us – Kelly Fast, NASA/Planetary Defence Coordination Office

Finding the asteroid (bigger than 1m in size)
Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) that are hazardous to Earth (140m in size or larger)
NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission to hazardous asteroid Bennu
Search, Detect & Track hazardous asteroids
International Asteroid Warning Network – worldwide effort
Searching for NEOs
- Catalina Sky Survey – Arizona
- Pan-STARRS – Maui, Hawaii
- ATLAS – Hawaii, South Africa, Chile
- LINEAR/SST – Australia
- NEOWISE – JPL infrared space telescope
- Follow-up telescopes also used
IAU Minor Planet Center – observations
JPL Center for Near Earth Object Studies – high precision NEO orbits, impact predictions
ESA Space Missions Planning Advisory Group – potential NEO deflection mission plans
Impact of small asteroid 2022 EB5 – March 11, 2022
U.S. Interagency Tabletop Exercise – 6 month warning time
30,000 NEAs found so far
NEO Surveyor – new infrared space telescope being developed by NASA
Characterizing asteroids using infrared and radar
Asteroid Deflection
- Gravity tractor
- Nuclear explosion
- Kinetic Impact – DART mission tested technique on Didymous/Dimorphos system
  - Change the orbital period
  - Autonomous navigation needed
  - Many ground-based observatories observed impact and resultant changes to Dimorphos
  - LICIACube satellite imaged the whole mission
Questions and discussion

2023 RASC Calendars – email Lauri Roche to reserve a copy

Astronomy Cafe – Oct 3, 2022

Posted October 3, 2022 by Webmaster as Astro Cafe

Video transcript of the meeting

DART spacecraft impact – Kelly Fast, presenter for Oct 17th Astro Cafe- Jeff Pivnick
- Last 2.5 minutes of mission
Astrophotos from the VCO – Reg Dunkley
- Didymous – looks like Albert Einstein
- Had an MIC training session with poor attendance. We need a couple more sessions scheduled longer in advance.
  - Operating the telescopes and the observatory
  - All the equipment is working very well
  - Can also bring along a dSLR
- David’s planetary imager was used to image the Io transit of Jupiter over the Great Red Spot – LRGB channels – 40,000 frames
- Couldn’t get Registax to work, so used AstroSurface software
- We are now allowed to have up to 15 members, 3 in VCO wearing a mask with new protocols in place
Astrophotos – Brock Johnston
- Io transit of Jupiter over the Great Red Spot
- 4700mm of focal length
- Saturn – Sep 25th
- Jupiter – GRS on the edge
- Using AstroSurface – uses R-L deconvolution and wavelets
- Links to weather conditions and forecasts – Jetstream & ClearDarkSky for Victoria & Upper Winds
Imaging using the Plaskett – Dan Posey
- Just past imaging session happened on Sep 30th
- gPrime & rPrime – good for imaging emission nebulae
- Next Plaskett sessions: Oct 29, Dec 22
- Can have up to two people with Dan in the control room
- No updates on the new camera, which will be about 20′ wide and more square FOV. Jim Hesser expects the camera replacement will take months, but it is progressing.
- Imaging done: Cocoon, Stephan’s Quintet, North America and Dumbbell nebula
- Cruise tour of 30 crashed into the dome – thanks to Dan for interrupting the imaging – Lauri
SIGs – David Lee
- Beginner’s SIG this Tuesday
- Electronically-assisted Astronomy this Thursday
Sky Brightness Survey – David Lee
- Consolidation and cleanup of the data is progressing
- Project meetings on Tuesday 7:00-7:30PM and Wednesday 7:00-8:00PM evenings with the team
- David will show some graphics depicting the data and problems
- Need some people who are colour blind to participate
- Does Jupiter skew the dark sky readings? Bill Weir
- About half the volunteers were new to SQM measurements, the others had done
- How about taking more readings during New Moon in October? – maybe
2023 RASC Calendars – Lauri Roche
- Place an order – email Lauri
- No up-front payment required
- See the RASC website for information about the 2023 calendar. We anticipate the cost will be similar to last year which was $15 each; this is a considerable savings over ordering directly from the RASC eStore
Future of Hubble – Chris Gainor
- 13 years since last servicing mission
- 535 kms above Earth, so good until 2036-37
- NASA and SpaceX may use a Dragon spacecraft to boost Hubble into a higher orbit – 6 month technical study
- Polaris flights being privately funded for next year to high orbit – a second flight might be used to boost Hubble
- Chris’ Space Review article – NASA-SpaceX study opens final chapter for Hubble Space Telescope
Bill Weir
- Vixen 114mm Newtonian telescope donation
  - Parabolic mirror, good quality optics
  - Two school programs might want to use this telescope – Lauri
- Sidewalk astronomy at Metchosin Market
Next Astro Cafe is in 2 weeks on Oct 17th

Astronomy Cafe – Sep 26, 2022

Posted September 26, 2022 by Webmaster as Astro Cafe

Transcript video of the meeting

Sky Brightness Survey – David Lee
- Most data sheets have been received from the volunteers
- Readings taken in the region last Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday
- Marjie & Susan – a great experience
- Possibly another round of data collection will be needed next month to catch missing readings
- Lauri & Brenda – very interesting to measure the areas, app delivered higher (better) readings than the SQM, Island View Beach is very dark but some urban glow
- John McDonald – different smart phones would probably deliver different readings from the app due to different camera configurations
- Dave Payne – Possibly calibrate the app to the SQMs
- Les Welch – the nature of the lighting determines the light pollution level
- Bill Weir – SQM at Mt. Kobau was 21.8, yet it was very poor seeing due to smoke and other sky obscuration
Astrophotos – Brock Johnson
- Elephant Trunk Nebula – mid-August, Celestron 925, dual-band filter
- Dumbell Nebula – fainter details visible, dual-band filter
- Dark Shark Nebula – dark nebula, dust lanes in Cepheus, some stars reflecting off the dust
- Deer Lick Group of galaxies and Stephan’s Quintet in one widefield frame
- Andromeda Galaxy, M31, M32, M110 – other tiny galaxy PGC2314
- Jupiter & Saturn – taken using a OSC planetary camera
Visual Observing – Bill Weir
- Jupiter & Saturn – great detail visible last night just before midnight
Astrophotography SIG – Dave Payne
- Meeting this Wednesday
- SIG members will be showing their work regularly at Astronomy Cafe
Samantha Jewett, Education and Outreach Coordinator, RASC National
- Planning stage for 2022-23 in-reach and outreach
- In-reach
  - Visits to Centres by Samantha and Phil
  - Attend major star parties
  - Robotic Telescope Project
    - 2022 data release on Oct 1st
    - New projects and volunteers
    - Citizen science research group
- Outreach
  - Tour the Night Sky – Zoom nights for members
  - NOVA – material to centres by end of October – David Lee & Lauri Roche are already hosts
  - High school groups
    - robotic telescope operating and data available
    - astrophotography as well as data acquisition
  - Insider’s Guide to the Galaxy hosted by Chris Vaughan
    - Zoom & Youtube
  - Creating Resources
    - Beginners
    - Short-form on social media
    - Families & under 12 activities
    - Shared with centres
  - Public Events
    - Solar sidewalk outside National office
    - Trade shows
    - Star parties
    - Solar Eclipses in 2023 and 2024
      - Eclipse glasses
      - Education materials for centres
  - Education & Public Outreach
  - World Asterisms Project by Charles Ennis
  - Astronomy software training by Blake Nancarrow
  - GA 2023
    - Early May online
    - Separate from the AGM
- 2023 RASC Calendars available for order on Oct 1st – contact Lauri
- Send local event information to national to publicize
- Observers Handbook
  - Coming directly from publisher this year
  - Members should review your address – go to rasc.ca and click on “Log in”
Young astronomers – Lauri Roche
- School Astronomy Clubs at Oak Bay (forming), Mt. Doug (forming), Vic High (in place
NASA’s DART small spacecraft crashed into small asteroid Dimorphos today – Bill Weir
- Planetary defence test
- Cubesat imaged the event – available in a couple of weeks
- Mission information from NASA
- Official NASA Broadcast
Fall Fairfield Fair – Reg Dunkley
- 400 people came by our table
- Observing the Sun through the Solar scope was popular
- Thanks to the volunteers
Donating telescopes – Bill Weir & Samantha Jewett
- Pearson College is receiving a vintage Questar telescope donation from an estate
- Telescopes can also be donated to National’s Dorner Telescope Museum
Nanaimo’s Day of Reconciliation – Janeane
- Nanaimo Astronomy will be there this Friday

President’s Message – July 2022

Posted July 31, 2022 by Webmaster as President's Message

Randy Enkin - Luna Cognita — Randy Enkin – Luna Cognita

The first science images from the James Webb Space Telescope were released to huge fanfare last week. I’m not surprised that my social media was filled with the news, commentary, analysis, and silly memes. My favourite is the melding of Van Gogh’s Starry Night into the SMACS 0723 galaxy cluster. What surprised me was how much the images caught on with the general public. The images are indeed beautiful, and the public relations teams know how to get the message right. But there is a clearly a desire, a fascination to follow the story of this telescope and its potential.

I used to be “the general public”. When they went to the moon during the Apollo missions, I realized I had to learn all I could about astronomy. Most importantly, I decided to become a scientist. And through good fortune and a fair amount of work, I got to make a career as a research scientist – in geology rather than in astronomy, but my fascination with astronomy never left.

Is astronomy important? I really don’t know. But science and science literacy certainly is, and quite possibly the James Webb Space Telescope will attract the general public to find out more. People will look at the beautiful images and ask what is going on. They will learn about how 30 years of science and engineering went into producing the images. They will find out about the scientific edifice which has built up over millennia to place the new research in context.

The first batch of images masterfully span the range of subjects that the space telescope will research: the birth of stars, the death of stars, the structure of galaxies, and the early universe. The fifth image, or actually spectrum, reveals an application that could only have been dreamed of when the
instrument was designed – composition of an exoplanet spectrum.

They weren’t even sure that exoplanets could be located when the space telescope was first designed.
We amateur astronomers get to play an important role as more space telescope data get released. Let’s keep up with the research and help our wider community understand what it means. Let’s help with outreach events whenever possible. Let’s do astronomy.

On that note, the Victoria Centre Astro Café went virtual for two years. It was a tonic to our isolated lives during the worst of the covid-19 pandemic. Many thanks to Chris Purse and Joe Carr for their devoted work to keep Astro Café up and running so well! In May, we ran our first attempts at hybrid meetings, in person at the Fairfield Community Centre and online over Zoom. The response has been very positive, and we will continue the hybrid Astro Café format every Monday evening (except statutory holidays) at 19:30 starting September 12. WE NEED VOLUNTEERS. The roles are not onerous, but they are essential. Each evening we will need a host and a tech. Please be brave. Please be generous.

Look Up,
Randy Enkin, President@Victoria.RASC.ca

President’s Message – June 2022

Posted June 30, 2022 by Randy Enkin as President's Message

This week, the citizens of the Earth were given a wonderful present. The Gaia Data Release 3 was publicized at 9 UT, June 13. And yes I was awake at 2 in the morning to watch the event. The Gaia satellite has been mapping 2 billion (!!!) points of lights in the sky – stars, galaxies, quasars, and solar system objects. They are measuring positions, distances, motions, colours, and spectra. For an Astro Café talk I prepared about the Gaia Data Release 2, I displayed a plot of the number and angular precision of catalogued stars. From the Hipparchus’ catalog of 1000 stars in 150 BCE to the best Earth-based collections from last century, there was a continuous but slow improvement. But with space-based measurements over the last 20 years, the catalogs have improved by orders of magnitude! And Gaia should continue collecting data through to 2025 to continue this trend.

Gaia Data Release 3 - group photo — Gaia Data Release 3 – group photo

The branch of amateur astronomy pejoratively labeled “armchair astronomy” sounds very passive, but we delight in the personal journey to discovery, which the professional astronomers afford us by collecting and analysing these extreme data sets. One of my passions is following the trajectory of knowledge from the early astronomical observations to the present. For example, I love to learn how the first stellar spectra measured in the 19th century led to Annie Jump Cannon’s stellar classifications (Only Bad Astronomers Forget Generally Known Mnemonics), leading to the Hertzsprung-Russell colour-magnitude diagram, and further leading to amazing insights such as the age of stars. And now such analyses can be extended to hundreds of millions of stars with the public release of the Gaia data.

The Gaia mission is akin to a gothic cathedral. It is a huge edifice, erected with major societal investment that was accomplished by many, many ordinary people who each do their small part. This edifice is a public good which inspires, and makes us bigger and better human beings.

Look Up,
Randy Enkin, President (email)

Astronomy Cafe – May 9, 2022

Posted May 10, 2022 by Webmaster as Astro Cafe

Meeting video transcript

Astronomy Day thank you’s to volunteers – Lauri Roche & David Lee
- The in-person interaction was an engaging experience
- The younger volunteers were a real delight
- Sidewalk astronomy from the museum plaza, with very good weather
- History of Astronomy Day at the Royal BC Museum – Sid Sidhu
- UVic, Camosun, Victoria High School, Shawnigan Lake School was a good collaboration
- Galileo Moments
  - Daytime at the RBCM: more than 800 – 231 outside, 654 inside
  - Evening on Observatory Hill: 29 volunteers and more than 100 members of the public
- A lessons learned meeting with leads – David Lee
- Publicity worked pretty well – Chris Gainor
- Hubble history book will be available at Astronomy Cafe next week – Chris Gainor
- Public lectures – about 40 attendees for each of 4 presentations – Randy Enkin
- Video recording for lunar observing national feed – David Lee recorded Randy Enkin and Bill Weir
- Attendance compared with previous Astronomy Days?
  - Despite a shorter day at RBCM, attendance was very good
  - Previous attendance was between 1,700-2,000 at our bigger events
- A high quality experience for attendees and children’s activities front-and-centre was a good idea – Jim Hesser
- Met some interesting people who were very interested in astronomy – Dave Payne
- Offered to help people to make use of their telescopes – Dave Robinson
- Astronomy Day – event info and photo gallery
M33 Triangulum Galaxy image – Randy Enkin & John McDonald
- HII star formation region
  - ionized hydrogen: protons
  - GMC – Giant Molecular Cloud
- Compared with Barnard’s Loop shock wave (10º)
- Bubble is the form the shock wave takes caused by multiple stars
- M33 is a floculant galaxy – clumping of hydrogen material
- What is a “typical” galaxy? – Dorothy Paul
- April 2017 Skynews article (PDF) – Orion’s Aura – Orion Eridanis Super Bubble – Reg Dunkley
James Webb Space Telescope progress report – Chris Gainor’
- Image sharpness check completed for all instruments
- Instrument Modes Check Off – happening next
- Images will likely start in June or July
- Diffraction spikes in the images – causes?
- Difference fields of view for each camera/sensor
Special General Meeting at May 16th Astronomy Cafe – Randy Enkin
- Need a quorum of 25 Victoria Centre members in attendance
- Changes to ensure our bylaws consistent with the national bylaws
- Our Secretary Jill Sinkwich is finding several parts of Victoria Centre bylaws that will need to be changed
- Proposed changes are already sent out to members
Need volunteers for Astronomy Cafe – Randy Enkin
- Zoom host – recording and posting the video transcripts online
- Meeting host – tracks and runs the meetings
Star parties at Observatory Hill – Lauri Roche
- May 21, Jun 4, 18
- Every Saturday night after the July 1st break for the summer
- Volunteers needed: telescopes in the parking lot, RASC welcome table, Plaskett dome tour hosts, 16″ telescope operators, other roles
- Electronically-Assisted Astronomy – start planning to use at the Star Parties in future – contact Dave Lee
National General Assembly – June 24-27 (online) – Lauri Roche
- Speakers, co-current sessions, virtual field trips
- AGM
- Seeking submissions from members to give half hour talks about their passion – submit form by May 15th – contact Lauri

Astronomy Cafe – May 2, 2022

Posted May 2, 2022 by Webmaster as Astro Cafe

Video transcript of meeting

Intro – Randy Enkin
Astronomy Day – David Lee
- Final check-in this Wednesday evening for leads before Saturday events
- International Astronomy Day – May 7, 2022
Vancouver Island Science Fair intro to awardees – Randy Enkin
VI Science Fair: Light At Night – Beata Ariana-Minniti (Cedar Hill Middle School student)
- Creating a bus stop light using natural resources
- Parts: Thermoelectric generator, voltage regulator, LED light
- Heat storage: sand in an insulated box
Canada-wide Science Fair: Lower CubeSat orbit could Protect Space Infrastructure – Nathan Hellner-Mestelman
- CubeSats collide, creating dangerous space debris that orbits the Earth – Kessler Syndrome
- Quantifying the collisions
- Lowering the hazard: choosing best orbits, adding micro-thrusters to CubeSats to change orbit or de-orbit
Astrophotos from southern Arizona – John McDonald & Garry Sedun
- Caldwell 30 galaxy
- M33 Triangulum Galaxy
- NGC 2903 barred spiral galaxy
- IC 433 Jellyfish Nebula
Eclipse Crater Timing – Randy Enkin
- Upcoming Lunar eclipse on Sunday, May 15, 2022
- Lunar eclipse crater timings usually done visually
- Earth’s Umbra seems to be 2% larger than expected from the geometry
James Webb Space Telescope Update – Chris Gainor
- All onboard instruments are now in focus
- Commissioning of instruments next, then science projects begin