The Santa Fe Stargazers convened via Zoom for their regular monthly meeting at 7 PM MDT on 17 November, 2021.
Jim Eagle presented the Monthly Sky Report. Jim provided an overview of November constellations, and then focused on a few upcoming events, including the Nov 19 partial lunar eclipse, Algol (Beta-Perseus) the eclipsing binary star system, and comet 67P, which is currently at about the 9th magnitude and in the constellation Cancer.
- View Jim’s Monthly Sky Report here
Tony Bonnano gave a presentation that highlighted his Electronically Assisted Astronomy setup. This included a ZWO ASI sensor mounted on an equatorial mount. The sensor is connected to a Raspberry Pi-like controller that connects via WIFI to a computer interface. Even on a full-moon night, Tony was able to pull up real-time details in M33 (Whirlpool Galaxy), M31 (Andromeda Galaxy) and M52 open cluster with the nearby Bubble Nebula using about 2 minutes of total exposure for each image.
- View Tony’s Zoom presentation in two parts:
The business meeting was short, and it was agreed that the January 2022 meeting featured presentation will be by Greg Marshall, who will regale us with his astrophotography exploits.
Robert discussed the Santa Fe Stargazer’s calendar idea (which would cover regional night-sky events), and gave an overview of what will be involved with maintaining the calendar. There was general support for developing the calendar. Robert will put together a prototype over the holidays.
Albert Shultz gave a short update on the Santa Fe LED street lighting project.
Our next meeting is Jan 19. Wishing everyone all the best for Thanksgiving, the Holiday Season, and the New Year.