Harry Treece

Public Viewing Friday January 26, 5:30pm

Come to the Giant City State Park Visitor center parking lot for a public viewing. If it is a good night we should be able to view the Orion Nebula, Andromeda Galaxy, the Double Cluster in Perseus and of course the Moon. The current weather forecast is for clouds and rain Friday night so keep your fingers crossed that they are wrong! Check back Friday for updates and also check our Facebook page http://facebook.com/astroaasi

January 8th 2018 Monthly Meeting

I hope everyone can join us for our monthly meeting. We will be making models of asteroids and learning where most of them come from and why.

Geminid Meteor Shower 2017

Articles I have read the last few days indicate this years Geminid shower should be a good one. Expect around 120 meteors an hour. The shower should peak around 2:00 am on the 14th. The Geminid’s are the result of the Earth passing through the debris left behind by a comet/asteroid hybrid named 3200 Phaethon which orbits the Sun about every 550 days. On December 16 it will be passing near Earth about 32 times farther from us than the Moon. While this should not effect this years shower, it may make next years shower even more spectacular.

Activities Include

Club Observations
A time for members to work on their own projects, from lunar observing and asteroid occultations to the Messier Catalogue and Hickson galaxy groups.

Public Observations
A chance to do outreach and spread the word about astronomy, while showing the public the planets, the Moon, the Sun, double stars, galaxies, clusters, and nebulae.

Monthly meetings
Held at Pagliai’s Pizza in Carbondale, IL on the second Monday of each month, meetings are informal, informational, and inspiring. Members and guests present a variety of topics from the practical (cleaning a mirror) to the technical (quantum mechanics); from the historical to the folklore.