December General Meeting

The SAS presents Author Paul Bogard, The End of Night A starry night is one of nature's most magical wonders. Yet in our artificially lit world, most of us no longer experience true darkness. In this talk based on his book THE END OF NIGHT, Paul Bogard seeks to restore our awareness of the spectacularly primal, wildly dark night sky and how it has influenced the human experience across everything from science to art. Using a blend of personal narrative, natural history, ... more

SAS Show and Tell Do you have an astronomy related project that you'd like to share with your fellow SAS members? Talk about telescope making, astrophotography, outreach activities, or an interesting topic in astronomy. Talk for 5-10 minutes, slides suggested but not required. Contact activies@seattleastro.org with your ideas.

SAS member John McLaren will introduce us to some early human interactions with the Sun and their unexpected impacts on our growing technology. He'll discuss how we learned about the Sun before the space age, what we've since discovered from space-based observing, and what the future holds for solar observations from space.

On Independence Day, 2016, Juno will become the second spacecraft to go into orbit around Jupiter. Over the ensuing year and a half, Juno will peer through the Jovian cloud tops and will provide a deeper understanding of the composition and structure of the Solar System’s largest planet. JPL Solar System Ambassador Ron Hobbs will tell us what exciting science to expect from NASA's latest outer planet mission.

Are we alone? This is one of the most monumental and consequential questions humanity has asked itself. In the coming decades, we may finally know whether simple life is common or exceedingly rare in our cosmic neighborhood. The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), set for launch in 2018, is our first chance to characterize 1-3 habitable planets around nearby stars with transmission spectroscopy UW astronomy graduate student Edward Schwieterman will review plans to identify and ... more

If you subscribe to the Through the Clouds mailing list, you've certainly seen some of local astrophotographer Mark de Regt's spectacular images of Southern Hemisphere deep sky sights. At this general meeting, Mark will share how he moved from viewing from his yard to remote imaging with equipment in the South Australia desert.

Astronomy PhD student Phoebe Upton Sanderbeck will present about how measuring the temperature of the universe can help us understand its development. The intergalactic medium (IGM) is the network of gas between galaxies that contains most of the matter in the universe. It is difficult to directly observe, but we can learn about the IGM through indirect detections and theoretical predictions. From indirect detections of the IGM through quasar spectra, we are able to determine the ... more

Have you ever looked at the spectacular images from Hubble and other observatories and wondered if they were 'real'? Two coauthors of the new book "Coloring the Universe" will talk about the process of converting raw data into astronomical images that amaze the public and inform scientists.

Former SAS President Denis Janky is a long-time visual observer who has been dabbling with astrophotography since early 2014. He uses a Mallincam Universe color CCD camera with an Obsession dobsonian telescope. The Obsession has a tracking system, but is designed for visual observing. The Mallincam has capability for real-time observation on a computer screen and is also a full-fledged color CCD camera. Denis plans to discuss his setup and show how he acquires images. He will also ... more

What do you think should be NASA's next destination for exploration of the Solar System: Venus, a metallic asteroid, or a tour of the Trojan asteroids? On September 30th, NASA announced the five finalists for the next Discovery class mission. Van Kane will talk about the missions and what they could tell us about our Solar System.