Milwaukee Astronomical Society

Enjoy these wonderful clear nights tonight and tomorrow night, and try a new observing challenge like this. MAS members, note there is a members star party Sunday Night at White Mound County Park, check your members Google Group for details.

ASTRONOMICAL LEAGUE Double Star Activity

How to find Eta Cassiopeiae on a September evening

High in the northeast are the five moderately bright stars forming the "W" of Cassiopeia. The second star moving east along the W is Alpha Cassiopeiae. Eta is the dimmer star immediately to Alpha's northeast.

How to tell the difference between meteor and satellite streaks in photos

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/how-to-tell-the-difference-between-meteor-and-satellite-streaks-in-photos/ar-AA1owpxU?ocid=msedgntp&pc=DCTE&cvid=bce55298ed4d48b98844ec3e6c56e587&ei=29

A satellite (left) and the International Space Station (right) leave large streaks in the night sky. The smaller streak in the center was created by a meteor. (Image credit: Ivan Boryshchak/Getty Images)

https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/aurora-alert-possible-geomagnetic-storm-could-see-northern-lights-alongside-perseid-meteor-shower-this-weekend/ar-AA1otpG7?ocid=msedgntp&pc=DCTE&cvid=9c119a3faa9e4c1bb4612c5eea5dcf36&ei=18&fbclid=IwY2xjawEiL8lleHRuA2FlbQIxMAABHYXO95Qj8lr19G54uTiosiu7ANpWih1uxYeLCLam0jWMi4oT59RnpPQ5oQ_aem_dDDxzwt1Z6MXsKFYeTDWHg

Aurora alert: Possible geomagnetic storm could see northern lights alongside Perseid meteor shower this weekend Northern lights could be visible over some northern and upper Midwest states on Aug. 9 and Aug. 10. A geomagnetic storm watch has been issued by NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center.

Heads Up! Northern Lights Could Be Strongest Since May.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/topstories/northern-lights-could-be-strongest-since-may-where-to-see-aurora-borealis/ar-BB1qPwTn?ocid=BingNewsSerp

https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/aurora-viewline-tonight-and-tomorrow-night-experimental

Milwaukee Astronomical Society members enjoy using two smart telescopes to regularly contribute science data and take images of deep sky objects. Perhaps you've enjoyed some of our images from our twin Unistellar eVscopes, at an open house or online. Sky and Telescope chatted with us briefly, as columnist Bob King explored the new frontier of smart telescopes and all of the benefits they are offering. Have a read, it's now not uncommon to see the eVscopes out with many other smart scopes around them on our pads on any Saturday members night. Shown here, MAS member and volunteer, Jericho, sets up for an open house at the MAS. Photo by MAS member Glenn Sarlitto.

Visual Observing vs. Smart Telescopes — Finding Harmony The latest smartscope astrophotography craze opens the door to some incredible opportunities for both beginners and seasoned observers.

What a great Thursday night to take the MAS 12.5in Mag1 Instruments Portaball telescope back out to the Yerkes Observatory once again to share the view, along with two member eVscopes and a home built reflector telescope for a clear night, star party and open house! We hope you enjoyed the views. Seeing m92 overhead in the Portaball was a favorite of ours! Good to meet other clubs there too from Lake County Astronomical Society Racine Astronomical Society and Madison Astronomical Society. Lots of options for astronomy out there! Stop by our MAS open house this Saturday at 1pm for solar observing, or the open house tonight at Racine, they'll have clear skies.

Mercury in the evening twilight

The little planet can be tough to spot in the bright twilight.
Use the thin crescent moon as your guide.

Have you ever spotted Mercury? Many stargazers have not. The early evenings in the first half of July present a good opportunity to catch the elusive little planet. Look low into the western twilight forty minutes after sunset.

• Using binoculars, look on July 7 for the crescent Moon floating above Mercury. Can you see Earthshine on the Moon's dark side?
• On the next evening, Mercury is in the same place, but the moon has moved to the upper left much closer to the brightest star in Leo, Regulus.

The moon Illusion will be noticeable on the Summer Solstice, while the sun is at the highest position, the moon is at its lowest position opposite to the sun. The full moon's low position in the sky, combined with thick air near the horizon, can also make it look dimmer and appear yellow or orange while it seems to look larger for longer than usual in the sky.

The Big Moon Illusion

a naked eye and camera activity

Casual skywatchers since the time of the ancient Greeks have seen the just risen moon as appearing much larger than after it has climbed higher in the sky.

A common explanation of the “Big Moon Illusion” is that when the moon’s apparent size is compared to familiar landscape objects, such as distant houses and trees, our minds interpret the moon as being quite large. Then, when it moves higher in the sky, there are no nearby comparison objects. The moon’s apparent size then appears to shrink, making it seem to lie much farther away. While sounding plausible, this reasoning does not explain why the same effect occurs at the beach when the moon is seen hovering just above a flat, featureless ocean horizon, or in the desert when the moon is cast against sweeping sand formations. Studies have sought a deeper psychological explanation.

See the big moon illusion for yourself on the evening of June 20, 21, or 22. From a location that has a low horizon line, look to the east at sunset for the rising moon, or, on the following morning, to the west before sunrise.

1. Isolate the moon by viewing it through a narrow tube, such as a drinking straw. Note its size compared to the tube’s field of view. Wait two hours or more and repeat the observation. (If it is a morning observation, first look a couple of hours before sunrise.)

2. Use a digital camera at full optical zoom and take an image of the rising moon. Be sure the camera is properly focused and that the image is not overexposed. Again, wait a couple of hours, then take another image. Download both images on a computer and view them at the same image scale.

Are the moon sizes the same?

We're open this Saturday from 1-4pm to the public for our free public open house and solar observing event at our New Berlin observatory grounds. Please see our Facebook event for details or go to www.milwaukeeastro.org/openhouse for directions. Our Observatory Director, Lee Keith, took this photo just yesterday of the sun with our solar observatory, which will be open for viewing today, so come learn how we do it, and what we can observe during the daytime! That's quite the interesting solar prominence in the closeup - so come learn what that means. We'll have a variety of scopes filtered for solar observing and some activities to trace sunspots, and tour the facilities / ask questions about membership.

Here's a look at the sun from this last weekend from our solar observatory, with a picture taken by Matthew Ryno. Remember, this Saturday at 1 to 4pm stop by our open house at our New Berlin observatory for solar observing, a tour of the grounds in daylight, a talk about the sun an some activities. Meet members in the daytime and talk astronomy.

Congrats to NASA and Boeing for a successful Starliner 1st - ever Manned Flight Lift Off this morning 6/5/2025

Boeing Starliner First-Ever Manned Flight Lifts Off Boeing's Starliner first-ever manned test flight lifts off from Cape Canaveral in Florida.

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope temporarily pauses observations after malfunction.

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope temporarily pauses observations after malfunction CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — The Hubble Space Telescope has temporarily stopped observing the cosmos. NASA said the telescope slipped into a hibernating state more than a week ago when one of its three remaining gyroscopes — part of the pointing system — malfunctioned. The same device has been ...

Daytime meteor showers? You bet. The Arietids are here.

Daytime meteor shower to peak this week, here’s your chance to catch a glimpse Stargazers have the chance to see a somewhat unusual celestial event this week, as the elusive Daytime Arietids meteor shower peaks.

It's never a bad experience to look at planets in the night sky, but the "parade of planets" is not as exotic as it sounds like. Enjoy your sleep and take care of yourself too! If you're up early anyway, our recommendation is to focus on Mars next to the crescent moon in the morning twilight toward the Eastern horizon as it's one of two planets in the "parade" you'll realistically see.

You may have heard some talk about a "parade of planets" on the morning of June 3. There will be several planets in the sky that morning, but be aware that some of them are only visible with a telescope, or will be mostly lost in the glare of the rising Sun.

But look for reddish Mars between Saturn and the slim crescent Moon, and find more tips about upcoming sky events at https://science.nasa.gov/skywatching/

Thanks to everyone who attended our first open house of the season! We filled the meeting hall for David Eicher's talk on galaxies from Astronomy Magazine, and visitors enjoyed learning about our observatory. We even snagged a few images of star clusters and galaxies before the clouds engulfed us, for those patiently waiting for darkness by 9pm. We hope to see some of you as members every Saturday night. Our next free open house is for solar observing, on Saturday, June 15th from 1 to 4pm.

We're looking forward to a talk this Friday at the MAS by Astronomy Magazine editor, David Eicher at our 7pm Open House in New Berlin, rain or shine. It's a great opportunity to tour our grounds and get to know the member volunteers of the Milwaukee Astronomical Society, so we hope to see you there. Visit www.milwaukeeastro.org/openhouse for more information on all of our open houses this year, and more info is on our event page as well: https://www.facebook.com/events/997104628788641/

The moon will not be distracting tonight and it should hopefully be clear, so two MAS officers will be enjoying observing tonight at 9pm at Ottawa Lake State Recreation Area near the boat launch. If you're interested in joining us, or getting a sky tour, stop on out for a preview of what it's like to be a member out at a mini dark sky party. Please be aware of telescopes set up, drive slow and keep lights limited. A State Park sticker is required. We will wrap up no later than 12pm, please dress appropriately. Our members enjoy observing at this site, one of three sites we go to regularly together for observing in groups. For directions, see Ottawa Lake on our list of dark sky sites:

Dark Observing Sites Obviously near is a relative term which is why it's in quotes. The three locations we present here are a minimum of a 40 minute drive from downtown Milwaukee. The furthest is 2 hours. It shouldn't surprise you that the farthest one is also the darkest. Why these 3? It's simply because these are the....

Congratulations to Dhruva Kalyani, MAS Board Member and New Berlin Eisenhower Senior, for winning the national Astronomical League's 2024 Horkheimer/D'Auria Youth Service Award, and third place honors for Astrophotography with this image of the Wizard Nebula taken at the Milwaukee Astronomical Society. Dhruva's service to the community and the MAS has been exceptional, and we wish him luck on his journey to UW Madison next year - the future is bright!

The June star maps from the Astronomical League are out, enjoy, and see if you can find the Omega Scorpii double if you have a southern view!

Maybe you want to see another Aurora shot from one of our MAS members? Here's one from astrophotographer Chad Andrist, from over a farm field in West Bend. He says no matter where he looked or pointed the camera, there was something wonderous happening, in every color you could imagine! This was truly a once in a lifetime experience. Visit his Astrobin page to see more: https://astrob.in/j63zze/0

Amidst all of the Aurora shots, we couldn't keep up! So we'll try to share more of our member photos that we all are enjoying in our MAS Google Group threads. Here's one from Glenn Sarlitto, who travelled about 165 miles driving around in Washington and Dodge Counties, WI on April 10/11th to get the very best Aurora photo during that record KP9 storm we got. The Aurora is shown here with Holy Hill in the foreground and a well placed ray nearby giving us an interesting view.

It's Galaxy Season, which for veteran astrophotographers like Girish Muralidharan, means travel to dark sites like Harrington Beach State Park when new moon arrives, to work on tough luminance data of Messier Objects M81 and M82 and then spend a lot of time on processing 24 hours of data. Our imagers sure are lucky to be able to ask other MAS members like him for advice. View more on Astrobin for a full resolution image: https://astrob.in/ac41lq/0/

A Hearty Congrats to Matt Ryno for receiving this year's Region Award from the North Central Region of the Astronomical League (NCRAL) this weekend during the annual conference held in De Pere, WI, representing the Milwaukee Astronomical Society during their meeting.

The Milwaukee Astronomical Society now has three Region Award recipients:
1989: Frank Roldan
1992: Dan Koehler
2024: Matthew Ryno

Matt didn't stop there. He also received a third place award for widefield imaging of the Milky Way.

Congratulations to our Region Award winner of the 6 state North Central Region of the Astronomical League - NCRAL, Matthew Ryno. This is a deserved top honor for our Secretary and Board of Directors, who also handles a number of other roles for our group. The Milwaukee Astronomical Society has won this award three times since 1989, and we enjoyed getting to know other regional associations this weekend in De Pere, WI.

NCRAL 2024 hosted by Neville Public Museum Astronomical Society was an interesting and informative conference held May 17-18 in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

We would like to acknowledge our Region Award winner, Matthew Ryno, of the Milwaukee Astronomical Society. His outstanding contributions to his club and amateur astronomy were highlighted at the banquet on May 18. The entire region sends our congratulations to this very deserving winner of this prestigious award!

(Matthew Ryno left and NCRAL Chair Alan Sheidler right)

Thanks to the Neville Public Museum Astronomical Society for hosting the annual North Central Region of the Astronomical League meeting in Wisconsin this year. We're pleased to attend and have so far enjoyed the Paramentier Observatory tour, using a 30in cassegrain under clear skies Friday. See you in De Pere Saturday for ! Learn more here: https://www.npmas.org/index.php/members/articles-from-members/193-ncral-2024