April Monthly Meeting: LAS Member Open Forum

Location: Zoom + In-Person at First Evangelical Lutheran Church (803 3rd Ave, Longmont, CO 80501)

Summary

Calling all LAS members, come share your spring projects, eclipse chasing stories and photos, and astronomical events for the year!

Public star party near Lyons.

Talk by Boulder County Open Space ranger

Join us afterward for stargazing with telescopes provided by the Longmont Astronomical Society.

See the sun like you’ve never seen it before! The Longmont Astronomical Society will set up special telescopes made for solar viewing outside the Library. Drop by anytime between 10am and noon for a chance to get up close and personal with our nearest star.

Special Presentation: The Life Cycle of Stars: Star birth, life cycle, stellar nucleus synthesis, star death

Summary

Hunter Morrison will be giving a short presentation followed by a star party. Registration is limited to 25 attendees.

To attend the presentation you must register through City of Longmont recreation: https://rec.ci.longmont.co.us/wbwsc/webtrac.wsc/search.html?module=AR&keyword=SSRVLC&_ga=2.209239258.917812428.1679708845-318984405.1679708845. Event is free.

Please view the Event Details to register as a telescope volunteer if interested.

March Monthly Meeting: “Cepheids”

Location: Zoom + In-Person at First Evangelical Lutheran Church (803 3rd Ave, Longmont, CO 80501)

Summary

In his play Julius Caesar, Shakespeare had Caesar utter the line “I am as constant as the Northern Star.” While poetic, this line isn’t remotely accurate by astronomy standards. Not only does the star that happens to be the “North Star” change over time, the star that is currently the North Star, Polaris, is a Cepheid variable star, a class of variable star that changes in brightness due to the star physically pulsating. Since their discovery in 1784, Cepheids have become one of the most important tools of astronomers, allowing Edwin Hubble to discover that the Universe is expanding, providing important clues about the internal structure of stars, and allowing a way to study the evolution of stars over short time periods. In this talk we will look at what causes Cepheids to pulsate and talk about their important role in modern astronomy.

Bio

Dr. Charles Kuehn is an Associate Professor of Astronomy at the University of Northern Colorado. He earned his B.S. in Astronomy from The Ohio State University and his PhD in Astronomy and Astrophysics from Michigan State University before completing a postdoc at the University of Sydney in Australia. His research focus on the study of variable stars in an effort to understand stellar evolution, the formation of the Milky Way, and to determine the physical properties of stars that host exoplanets. He also engages in astronomy education research aimed to increase the accessibility of astronomy labs at the university level. He is passionate about outreach and runs a quarterly series of physics and astronomy talks at Loveland Aleworks.

Public star party near Lyons.

Let’s talk about our moon! We’ll discuss its craters and mountains, human interactions and its interactions with the sun and earth creating solar and lunar eclipses. Join volunteer naturalists to hike about one mile round-trip on an easy trail. Together we will discover the amazing mysteries of our night sky. Bring water, close-toed hiking shoes, and a flashlight. Space is limited.

Join us afterward for stargazing with telescopes provided by the Longmont Astronomical Society.

February Monthly Meeting: “All Good Things Must Come to an END (Eccentric Nuclear Disk)”

Location: Zoom + In-Person at First Evangelical Lutheran Church (803 3rd Ave, Longmont, CO 80501)

Summary

From humans to supermassive black holes, many objects in the universe get a boost or a “kick” from certain phenomena. In the case of humans like me, the boost usually comes from caffeine or the pressure of a deadline. Supermassive black holes, on the other hand, can get a kick by emitting gravitational waves anisotropically - which means not the same way in every direction - during the merger of two black holes. Supermassive black holes lurk at the center of most galaxies and are usually surrounded by a dense region of stars called a nuclear stellar cluster. When these black holes receive a kick, the surrounding star cluster rearranges itself into a lopsided, eccentric disk. These eccentric disks are fairly abundant in the universe: our neighboring galaxy, Andromeda, hosts an eccentric disk in its nucleus for instance. In this talk, Tatsuya Akiba will present results from a series of N-body simulations which show the formation and evolution of eccentric disks after a kick gets imparted on the central supermassive black hole. Akiba will show that eccentric disks are able to produce tidal disruption events - which are when stars get ripped apart due to the supermassive black hole’s tidal gravity - with extreme efficiency. These tidal disruption events (and more!) can be used as observational signatures to follow-up future gravitational wave events and to look for these kicked supermassive black holes!

Bio

Tatsuya Akiba is an astrophysics Ph.D. candidate at the University of Colorado Boulder (expected to graduate in May, 2025). He currently works with Professor Ann-Marie Madigan on gravitational dynamics of various scales: from planetary systems around white dwarfs to star clusters around supermassive black holes. He graduated from Truman State University with B.S. degrees in physics and mathematics before joining CU Boulder. Since then, he has won several research awards/fellowships including the Raynor L. Duncombe Student Research Prize (from the Division on Dynamical Astronomy) and the Dissertation Completion Fellowship (from the CU Boulder graduate school). He is also passionate about teaching and public outreach: He has served as a Lead Graduate Student Fellow for the Center for Teaching and Learning in the past and he is currently the instructor for an introductory Python course in the CU Boulder astrophysics department.

January Monthly Meeting: “The Hunt for the Pale Blue Dot: Science, Technology, and People for NASA’s Search for Habitable Planets”

Location: Zoom + In-Person at First Evangelical Lutheran Church (803 3rd Ave, Longmont, CO 80501)

Summary

In the past three decades, astronomers have discovered more than 5,000 extrasolar planets, changing our understanding of Earth’s place in the Universe. We are now poised to begin the search for Earth-like planets orbiting Sun-like stars, our first true attempt to find “Earth 2.0” and to conduct a census of nearby stars to understand how common life is beyond the solar system. In this talk, Dr. France will discuss work ongoing at NASA and at the University of Colorado’s Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics to advance this search. Dr. France will talk about NASA’s upcoming “life finder” mission, the Habitable Worlds Observatory, and talk about the projects CU is undertaking today to enable this mission. As examples, he will focus on the CUTE small satellite that is studying evaporating planets around nearby stars, how CU rocket missions are advancing instrument technology, and how we incorporate students into these activities to train and mentor the scientists and engineers that will lead NASA’s search for habitable planets over the next two decades.

Bio

Kevin France is a professor at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics and in the Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences at CU Boulder. He is an expert on space instruments for astrophysics and the study of extrasolar planets. He had led approximately 10 NASA rocket and small satellite missions at LASP, works extensively with the Hubble Space Telescope, and is engaged with the development of NASA’s future observatories to find habitable planets beyond the solar system.

Star Party at Erie Elementary School

November Monthly Meeting: “The Clouds Out Here Have Dark Bases”

Location: Zoom + In-Person at First Evangelical Lutheran Church (803 3rd Ave, Longmont, CO 80501)

Summary

A Short History of Dark Sky Activities around San Miguel County. By Dr. Bob Grossman, President Western Slope Dark Sky Coalition

Bio

Bob Grossman (BSEE Duke, MS and PhD Atmospheric Science, Colorado State Univ.) has had a fruitful and adventurous career as a field scientist participating in many atmospheric and oceanic expeditions, often taking long adventurous vacations afterwards. He was a USAF Weather Officer assigned to a forward Strategic Air Command base in England, participating in the Cuban Missile Crisis. After receiving his PhD from CSU in 1973, he was an Advanced Study Program Post-Doc at NCAR and afterwards a Staff Scientist. While at NCAR he was seconded to the United Nations World Meteorological Organization to become a consultant to the Government of India managing and directing an international expedition to study the monsoon of 1979 as part of WMO’s Global Atmospheric Research Program, spending almost four years at that task. Upon return he became a Visiting Fellow at the Univ. Colorado Cooperative Institute for Research in the Environment (CIRES) and was a research associate for a few years when he was invited to join a group of atmospheric scientists working in the Astrogeophysics Department. That group became the founding members of CU’s Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, the only department in the State granting B.A. through Ph.D degrees.

After 20+ years with CU he retired to a home he had built on Deer Mesa north of Norwood Colorado. Part-time on Wright’s Mesa since 2004, he moved from Boulder to Norwood in 2018. As will be described in the talk, serendipity introduced him to the Dark Sky movement and he led the effort that made Norwood the second Dark Sky Community in the State and first on the Western Slope. After creating the Western Slope Dark Sky Coalition, he is now leading the effort to make all of San Miguel County a Dark Sky Reserve, something never before attempted. If successful, the Reserve will become the 22nd in the world, 3rd in USA, and 1st in Colorado.

Public star party near Lyons.

There are so many amazing objects in the night sky from Venus to meteors. Learn more about some of the amazing lights we can see in our night sky.

Join us afterward for stargazing with telescopes provided by the Longmont Astronomical Society.

October Monthly Meeting: Astro-photography, some Astro-physics, Astro-art, and Accidental Discoveries

Location: Zoom + In-Person at First Evangelical Lutheran Church (803 3rd Ave, Longmont, CO 80501)

Summary

David Elmore is an Astronomer Emeritus for the National Solar Observatory. His professional career centered around conceptualization, design, and construction of solar research instruments attached to solar telescopes. His particular expertise is in measurement of magnetic fields on the sun utilizing the polarization properties of light. His instruments have been deployed at observatories around the world, the stratosphere, and on spacecraft. After decades at the High Altitude Observatory of the National Center for Atmosphere, Mr. Elmore served as Instrumentation Scientist for the newly completed and world’s largest solar telescope, the National Science Foundation Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope.

Astrophotography has been a hobby for David from film to digital. Currently he remotely operates wide-field telescopes located in a rented observatory at a dark site in southern New Mexico. This talk features images from that observatory tracing the cycle of life in the Milky Way from clouds of galactic cirrus to new stars to planetary nebulae and super novae back to clouds in the in the galaxy. As a sidelight David will describe the accidental discovery of three never before identified planetary nebulae.

Come check out the Annular Solar Eclipse! We’ll have fun activities, a variety of ways you can safely view this celestial event including solar telescopes and eclipse glasses, and information about how you can help your community see the stars year round using dark sky lighting. The eclipse begins at 9:14am, and reaches its peak at 10:36am.

This event is hosted by the Louisville Public Library, Louisville Parks and Open Space, and the Planning Division, in conjunction with the Longmont Astronomical Society.Solar Eclipse Watch Party at Community Park

See the sun like you’ve never seen it before! The Longmont Astronomical Society will set up special telescopes made for solar viewing outside the Library. Drop by anytime between 10am and noon for a chance to get up close and personal with our nearest star.

Talk and public star party at Sandstone Ranch.

There will be an astronomy talk by Hunter Morrison at 6:30, followed by a public star party in the upper parking lot at 7:30 PM.

September Monthly Meeting: Europa Clipper: Voyage to an Ocean Moon

Location: Zoom + In-Person at First Evangelical Lutheran Church (803 3rd Ave, Longmont, CO 80501)

Summary

John Spencer is an Institute Scientist at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, where he has worked since 2004. He is deputy principal investigator for Europa Clipper’s temperature mapping instrument, and a science team member on its ultraviolet spectrometer. He specializes in observations of the outer solar system, and Jupiter’s moons in particular, with telescopes on the Earth’s surface, the Hubble Space Telescope, and interplanetary spacecraft.

Public star party near Lyons.

The largest planets in our solar system are gas giants and have many interesting moons. BCPOS rangers will talk about these interesting plants.

Join us afterward for stargazing with telescopes provided by the Longmont Astronomical Society.

Explore more about the many faces of the brightest item in our night sky, the moon. Learn why there are phases of the moon, what a Blue Moon is, and more! Join us afterward for stargazing with telescopes provided by the Longmont Astronomical Society.

August Monthly Meeting: Gravitational Waves - Observing the Dark and the Bright

Location: Zoom + In-Person at First Evangelical Lutheran Church (803 3rd Ave, Longmont, CO 80501)

Summary

For the last few years we have been able to observe gravitational waves, ripples in space-time itself, originating from the most extreme astronomical objects and processes in the Universe. In this talk, Dr. Carl Haster will both introduce the concepts of gravitational waves, and describe what our current set of observations can tell us about the nature of Black Holes, stellar evolution ultra-dense nuclear matter and even Gravitation itself.

About the Speaker

Carl Haster is an Assistant Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Learn more at https://cjhaster.com/

The Open Space Ranger for the town of Superior is asking to telescope volunteers to help with his Lyrid Meteor Shower star party at Coalton Trailhead.

LAS Members: If interested in being a telescope volunteer for this event, please register using the form on the event details page.

What is the difference between a planet and a dwarf planet or an asteroid and a comet? Join us to learn more about the objects in our own solar system. Followed by stargazing with telescopes provided by the Longmont Astronomical Society. All ages are welcomed.

Registration provided on the event details page.

July Monthly Meeting: Topic TBD

Location: Zoom + In-Person at First Evangelical Lutheran Church (803 3rd Ave, Longmont, CO 80501)

Summary

TBD

Summer has just begun! How does the position of the sun and earth affect our seasons here in Colorado, and why does the weather not match up with the calendar seasons? Join us to learn more about our seasons and the stars in the night sky, followed by stargazing with telescopes provided by the Longmont Astronomical Society. All ages are welcomed.

General public registration: https://bouldercounty.gov/events/astronomy-turning-seasons/

Telescope volunteers: please register in the event detail page

June Monthly Meeting: Life and climate on Mars:  Past, present, and future

Location

Zoom + In-Person at First Evangelical Lutheran Church (803 3rd Ave, Longmont, CO 80501)

Summary

Mars is the closest planet to us that holds the potential to have had life in the past, to have it at the present, or possibly to have it in the future.  Bruce Jakosky will discuss the history of the climate and habitability of Mars, the current exploration program that has as a major goal searching for evidence of life, and the potential for a future climate to be able to support life. 

Bio

Bruce Jakosky has been a Mars researcher since being an undergraduate working on the Viking spacecraft mission in the 1970s.  He has been at the University of Colorado for more than 40 years, as a researcher and as a professor.  He has written more than 300 papers for the scientific literature, and is author or co-author of three books on life in the universe.  He led the MAVEN spacecraft mission to explore Mars’ upper atmosphere and climate evolution from its inception in 2003 through seven years of operation in orbit at Mars, and is now heavily involved in planning future Mars exploration.

May Star Party with Boulder County Open Space. The Milky Way Galaxy is our home galaxy but some of the stars we see are actually an entire galaxy themselves. We will discuss our galaxy along with learning about other galaxies and galaxy clusters, followed by sky gazing with telescopes

Please see event details page for telescope volunteer registration.

May Monthly Meeting: Living In the Golden Age of Solar Physics by Maria D. Kazachenko

Location: Zoom + In-Person at First Evangelical Lutheran Church (803 3rd Ave, Longmont, CO 80501)

Summary

Space weather is largely caused by the activity of our Sun. Invisible yet powerful magnetic fields, created within the Sun, determine when and where the next solar eruption will happen. Large solar storms can put our technological society at risk. In this talk, CU Boulder and National Solar Observatory professor, Maria Kazachenko will discuss how advances in solar telescopes allow scientists to understand the Sun in a lot more detail than ever before. 

About the Speaker

Maria Kazachenko is an assistant professor at Astrophysical & Planetary Science Department (APS) Department at University of Colorado, Boulder and the National Solar Observatory (NSO). Before that, she spent seven years at Space Sciences Lab (SSL) at UC Berkeley, first as a postdoctoral fellow and then as a research scientist. Since 2011, she has been part of the Coronal Global Evolutionary Model Team, a collaboration between scientists at UC Berkeley, Stanford, Lockheed Martin etc.

The Open Space Ranger for the town of Superior is asking to telescope volunteers to help with his Lyrid Meteor Shower star party at Coalton Trailhead.

LAS Members: If interested in being a telescope volunteer for this event, please register using the form on the event details page.

The “falling stars” we see are meteors entering the earth’s atmosphere. Join us for a program about meteors, meteor showers and where they come from, followed by sky gazing with telescopes provided by the Longmont Astronomical Society. All ages.

Near Lyons. Location provided when registering.

Registration required for non-LAS members. Please also view the Event Details and register if you are interested in being a telescope volunteer.

April Monthly Meeting: Our Universe

by Jeremy Darling

Location: Zoom + In-Person at First Evangelical Lutheran Church (803 3rd Ave, Longmont, CO 80501)

Summary

What is the Universe? What does it contain? What is its history? Its future? This talk will explore the scale, age, and fate of the Universe. We will learn how we observe the Universe, how we know what we know, and what is still not known. We will also explore alternate Universes as a device for understanding our own.

About the Speaker

Jeremy Darling is a Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Colorado, Boulder. He studies black holes, galaxy evolution, and cosmology. Mostly using telescopes, but sometimes just by thinking.

Special Presentation: The Life Cycle of Stars: Star birth, life cycle, stellar nucleus synthesis, star death

Summary

Hunter Morrison will be giving a short presentation followed by a star party. Registration is limited to 25 attendees.

To attend the presentation you must register through City of Longmont recreation: https://rec.ci.longmont.co.us/wbwsc/webtrac.wsc/search.html?module=AR&keyword=SSRVLC&_ga=2.209239258.917812428.1679708845-318984405.1679708845. Event is free.

Please view the Event Details to register as a telescope volunteer if interested.