Past Meetings - 2022

SLAS Regular Meeting
7:30pm Friday, December 16, 2022

Getting into Astrophotography by Alan Dyer, Author, lecturer, editor

Shooting the night sky has become hugely popular, not only among amateur astronomers, but also among daytime photographers wanting to extend their craft to night-time scenes. But it is all too easy to be overwhelmed by the choices of equipment and techniques. Alan will review the steps he thinks are best for getting great results simply and with a minimum of expense to begin with. He’ll advise on the mistakes not to make when venturing into astrophotography, and on the best gear to buy when it comes time to upgrade equipment.

Alan Dyer is co-author, with Terence Dickinson, of the popular guidebook The Backyard Astronomer’s Guide, now in its hugely updated fourth edition. Alan is a contributing editor to Sky & Telescope. His images have appeared in many books and calendars, on websites such as SpaceWeather.com, Astronomy Picture of the Day, and in publications such as National Geographic magazine. He is a member of The World At Night group of astrophotographers (See TWANight.org). Asteroid #78434 is named for him. His website is www.amazingsky.com. Also see his blog at www.amazingsky.net and his video channel at https://vimeo.com/channels/amazingsky.

SLAS Regular Meeting
7:30pm Friday, November 18, 2022

The PAH Revolution: Cold, Dark Carbon at the Earliest Stages of Star Formation
by Dr. Brett McGuire, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) have been implicated as a large reservoir of reactive carbon in the interstellar medium since the 1980s.  PAHs have been widely attributed as the carriers of the unidentified infrared bands where their aggregate vibrational emission spectra are extremely well matched to the observed line signals.  Only in the last year have individual PAHs been detected in the ISM for the first time, however, allowing us to begin to investigate the detailed chemical pathways for the formation and destruction of these molecules.  In this talk, Dr. McGuire will discuss our detections of PAH molecules via their rotational transitions using Green Bank Telescope observations of TMC-1 from the GOTHAM collaboration.  Dr. McGuire will discuss the efforts to model the chemistry of these PAHs, the necessity of complementary laboratory kinetics work, our application of novel machine learning approaches to exploring the chemical inventory in TMC-1, and finally the benefits of unbiased reaction screening studies in the laboratory with Microwave Spectral Taxonomy.

Dr. Brett McGuire received his B.S. in Chemistry from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2009 and his Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from the California Institute of Technology in 2014.  He was a National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) Jansky Fellow and then a NASA Hubble Fellow from 2014-2020 at the NRAO and the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian.  In 2020, he started a faculty position at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he is now the Class of 1943 Career Development Assistant Professor of Chemistry.  Research in the McGuire Group uses the tools of physical chemistry, molecular spectroscopy, and observational astrophysics to understand how the chemical ingredients for life evolve with and help shape the formation of stars and planets.

SLAS Regular Meeting

Friday, October 21, 2022

Unveiling the Universe with the Webb Space Telescope by Dr. Nathalie Nguyen-Quoc Ouellette, Institute for Research on Exoplanets (iREx) and the Mont-Mégantic Observatory at the University of Montréal

 The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is the successor to the still-active Hubble Space Telescope. JWST is the largest telescope ever sent to space. It “sees” the infra-red Universe, which is invisible to us, but which we can sense as heat. This view gives it the capacity to see farther into our Universe, peer through the cosmic dust sprinkled throughout galaxies, and probe new alien worlds. JWST is an international collaboration among NASA, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency. The first images released offer a preview of some of its future discoveries.
   Nathalie Ouellette is an astrophysicist and science communicator. She obtained her Ph.D. in Physics & Astronomy at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario in 2016. Her research focuses on galaxy formation and evolution, particularly of galaxies found in clusters. Dr. Ouellette is currently the Deputy Director of the Institute for Research on Exoplanets (iREx) and the Mont-Mégantic Observatory at the University of Montréal. She is also the Outreach Scientist for JWST in Canada, in collaboration with the Canadian Space Agency. She participates in science outreach events, from local to international scales, to encourage interest in space science and to increase scientific literacy in Canada.

SLAS Regular Meeting
Friday, September 16, 2022
Tracking Exoplanets From Home by Laurie and Kimberly Sibbald, Calgary, Alberta

Laurie and Kimberly Sibbald, astrophotographers, will be featured at the September meeting of the Saint Louis Astronomical Society. The meeting will be held in person at McDonnell Hall AND via Zoom. The speakers will only be on Zoom from Canada!  The meeting and lecture will begin at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, September 16. Zoom access information is below.
   Exoplanets are planets that orbit other stars. They are difficult to detect, both because they only reflect light and because they lie within the glare of the stars they orbit. One detection technique involves measuring the dip in starlight during an exoplanet transit. The transit occurs when the planet’s orbit carries it between our line of sight and its star. The amount of starlight blocked can indicate the exoplanet’s size and sometimes other characteristics. Telescopes and special cameras and instruments are now available to amateur astronomers that can allow them to detect exoplanets using their own equipment. Laurie Sibbald will explain how he has already measured a number of exoplanet transits. One of the most important new technology advances is the development of cooled CMOS imaging cameras that allow even modest aperture telescopes to produce data for faint stars.
   Mr. Sibbald explains, “… we can measure transits not only of well established ‘confirmed’ planets around distant stars but also new candidate planets. Examples will be shown of a few of these including exoplanet candidates newly identified by NASA’s TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite).”
   Kimberly Sibbald is an experienced landscape photographer. She also does nightscapes, including wide-field Milky Way scenes. She is now extending her work to include photography of stars, nebulae, and galaxies. Laurie Sibbald is an astrophotographer with expertise in digital image processing

Watch the meeting here: Aug 2022 - Panel Discussion - Webb’s First Look at the Universe

SLAS Regular Meeting

Friday, August 19, 2022

McDonnell Planetarium in Forest Park

Webb’s First Look at the Universe

A Panel Discussion

A panel discussion about the recently released images from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) program will be featured at the August meeting of the Saint Louis Astronomical Society. Doors will open at 7 pm and the meeting will begin at 7:30 PM Friday, August 19 under the 80-foot dome of the St. Louis Science Center’s McDonnell Planetarium in Forest Park. The McDonnell Planetarium address is 5100 Clayton Avenue in Forest Park. Free parking is available in the Planetarium parking lot. The event can also be viewed via Zoom online conference. To request Zoom access please send email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. The event, cosponsored by NASA's Missouri Space Grant Consortium, is open to the public free of charge.

In the pre-dawn hours of Saturday, December 25, 2021, a rocket carrying the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) was launched. By the end of January 2022, the JWST had traveled more than 1.4 million kilometers (930,000 miles) to its final orbit. Telescope alignment and instrument calibration was completed in late-April.  On July 11^th and 12^th, the first JWST images were released to the public. The first objects studied by JWST were exo-planets, dying stars and stellar birth places inside our Milky Way galaxy, and colliding galaxies and infant galaxies seen when the universe was 13 billion years younger than it is today. What do those images mean? What questions will JWST answer during its lifespan? A panel of local space enthusiasts will present their initial thoughts on the amazing images from James Webb Space Telescope office.

SLAS Regular Meeting

Friday, July 15, 2022

Producing Tours of the Night Sky  by Bill Breeden and Chris Hanson, SLAS

Bill Breeden and Chris Hanson of the Saint Louis Astronomical Society will be featured at the July meeting of the Saint Louis Astronomical Society. The meeting will begin at 7:30 PM Friday, July 15 in McDonnell Hall, Room 162, on the Washington University campus, Saint Louis, MO 63105. McDonnell Hall is accessible from Forsyth Boulevard via Tolman Way.  Free yellow zone and garage parking spaces are available. The event will also be available via Zoom online conference. Zoom access information is posted on the Society’s website, www.slasonline.org  . The event, cosponsored by NASA's Missouri Space Grant Consortium, is open to the public free of charge.

Astronomy software is a very useful tool for exploring the night sky, for both novice and advanced amateur astronomers, as well as for the general public. For the past two years, Mr. Breeden has produced a YouTube tour each month of one of the eighty-eight constellations that cover the entire night sky. He traces out the brighter stars and shows viewers how to locate the constellation. He also indicates some of the interesting astronomical objects – double stars, star clusters interstellar nebulae, and galaxies – that lie within the constellation’s boundary.  He will review his production process and a few basics of the Stellarium software. He will also talk about recording videos and creating a YouTube channel. Stellarium is a free open source planetarium program for computers, tablets, and smart phones. It shows a realistic sky in 3D, just like what can be seen with the naked eye, binoculars or a telescope. More information on Stellarium can be at http://stellarium.org  .
Mr. Hanson will provide an explanation about how to modify Stellarium to add personalized landscapes and custom Oculars Add-in tabs.

Bill Breeden YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/williambreeden4

SLAS Regular Meeting
Friday, June 17, 2022 7:30pm

 Cahokia in Chesterfield The Sun, Moon & Milky Way by Mark Leach 

Nearly 1,000 years ago, a vibrant Cahokian community filled the entire Chesterfield Valley. Like Cahokia, this civic, ceremonial, and market center was precisely planned and constructed to reflect important celestial alignments of the sun, moon, and Milky Way. Though only a small portion of the community has been professionally studied, over 100,0000 artifacts have been discovered, including exotic materials from the Great Lakes and the Gulf of Mexico. A massive Calendar of the Sun, involving three temples and two earthen pyramids stretched 3.56 miles across the valley. Cahokia in Chesterfield has been the focus of professional archaeological research for over 70 years. Research is ongoing, and most excitingly, the very heart of the ancient city lies well preserved under six feet of flood deposited soil.

   Mark Leach is a local author and Native American burial mound preservationist. He serves as the Restoration & Research Coordinator of the Blake Mound & Cave Site and as a long-standing trustee of the Missouri Archaeological Society.  He promotes and coordinates archaeological research throughout the region and hopes this presentation will inspire SLAS members to begin looking for possible celestial alignments in the greater Chesterfield Valley, as well as the lost Cahokian centers at St. Louis and East St. Louis.

SLAS Regular Meeting
Friday, May 20, 2022 7:30pm

Multi-Messenger Astronomy For the Amateur by George Silvis, American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO)  

    George Silvis of the American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO) will be featured at the May meeting of the Saint Louis Astronomical Society. The meeting will be held via Zoom online conference only. The meeting and lecture will begin at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, May 20. Zoom access information is posted below. The event, cosponsored by NASA's Missouri Space Grant Consortium, is open to the public free of charge.

    Some stars vary noticeably in brightness. There are several causes for the brightening and dimming cycle, which can last for days, months, or years, depending upon the star. One of the most dramatic changes in brightness occurs when a giant star explodes, flaring up to outshine the entire galaxy in which it resides for several days. Astronomers are particularly interested in these supernova explosions. For examples, certain types of supernovae can be used to determine the distances of very remote galaxies, and help to measure the expansion rate of the universe. Also, analysis of the light from the explosion can indicate what heavy elements are blasted outwards into the giant clouds of dust and gas from which new stars and planets form. Mr. Silvis will discuss ways in which amateur astronomers can contribute to the study of supernova explosions. He will also talk about how amateurs can connect to other professional efforts, with a list of resources and organizations to investigate.
  George Silvis is a member of AAVSO and a participant in the Super Nova Early Warning System (SNEWS).
 

SLAS Regular Meeting
Friday, April 15, 2022 7:30pm

 Do Main-Belt Asteroids Change Colors? By Tyler Linder, Astronomical Research Institute

   Tyler Linder of the Astronomical Research Institute  will be featured at the April meeting of the Saint Louis Astronomical Society. The meeting will be held via Zoom online conference only. The meeting and lecture will begin at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, April 15. Zoom access information is posted on the Society’s website, www.slasonline.org  . The event, cosponsored by NASA's Missouri Space Grant Consortium, is open to the public free of charge.
    Asteroids are chunks of metal, rock, or metal/rock mixtures that orbit the Sun. Most orbit in the “Main Belt” between Mars and Jupiter, but a few have elongated paths that cross Earth’s orbit. Most are less than a few miles across. They are typically shades of gray, but instruments attached to large telescopes reveal slight coloring. The large, 98 inches across, telescope used for the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) recorded changes in color for some asteroids. Mr. Linder has been studying the SDSS color variability for over five years as part of his Ph.D thesis research. He will present the current understanding of this problem and the planned observing method to be able to answer the question, “Do main-belt asteroids change color?”
    Tyler Linder Tyler is a Ph.D candidate at the University of North Dakota. For the past decade he has managed the Astronomical Research Institute’s southern hemisphere facet of their Near-Earth Asteroid observations program at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO) in Chile.

 SLAS Regular Meeting
Friday, March 18, 2022 7:30pm

 The Steps of Making a Mirror or Why I Do It the Way I Do It,  by Michael E. Lockwood, Lockwood Custom Optics

Michael E. Lockwood of Lockwood Custom Optics  will be featured at the March meeting of the Saint Louis Astronomical Society. The meeting will be held via Zoom online conference only. The meeting and lecture will begin at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, March 18. Zoom access information is posted on the Society’s website, www.slasonline.org. The event, cosponsored by NASA's Missouri Space Grant Consortium, is open to the public free of charge.
     Mirror making of the 21st Century has advanced to the point that mirrors are larger but more compact than ever before. To accomplish this, modern professional mirror makers are using state-of-the-art techniques and equipment to shape the concave surface of the mirrors. They achieve accuracies not possible for amateur or commercial telescope makers. Michael Lockwood, will discuss some of the equipment and techniques he uses to make some of the best telescope mirrors ever produced for the amateur and professional astronomer.
   Michael Lockwood worked as a research engineer at the Beckman Institute of the University of Illinois from 2000 until 2009. He founded Lockwood Custom Optics in 2006, specializing in making custom telescope mirrors.  In 2009, he left his engineering position to become a full-time professional optician. Mike has been involved with building tens of telescopes, up to 50" in aperture.  He has taught telescope making and mirror making classes and written articles for Sky & Telescope and Amateur Astronomy Magazine.
    

SLAS Regular Meeting
Friday, February 18, 2022 7:30pm

 First Images of a Supermassive Black Hole by Kazu Akiyama, MIT Haystack Radio Observatory

Dr. Kazu Akiyama of MIT’s Haystack Radio Observatory at Westford, Massachusetts will be featured at the February meeting of the Saint Louis Astronomical Society. The meeting will be held via Zoom online conference only. The meeting and lecture will begin at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, February 18. Zoom access information is below.  .
    In April 2019 the first images of a black hole were released by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) global consortium. The first image showed a bright ring of energy enclosing the shadow of the supermassive black hole Messier 87* (M87*). The black hole is lurking at the center of M87, a huge galaxy located 53 million light years away. New images from the EHT map polarized radio waves that trace out the structure of the black hole’s very strong magnetic field. The EHT is a global network of large radio telescopes. Its “images” are produced by combining the radio wave observations of the individual telescopes. EHT can see a level of detail equivalent to a single telescope as wide as the Earth. Dr. Akiyama will present an overview of the EHT. He will talk about major breakthroughs that made these images possible and what these images have revealed about the nature of supermassive black holes.
   Dr. Kazu Akiyama is a research scientist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Haystack Observatory in Massachusetts. His primary research interest involves the extreme environment in the vicinity of black holes. He uses radio telescope observations that employ the technique of very long baseline interferometry.  He joined the team of the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) in 2010, and has led the Imaging Working Group of the EHT Collaboration since its establishment in 2017.

 SLAS Regular Meeting
Friday, January 21, 2022 7:30pm

 Preserving the Night Sky by Stephen Hummel, Explore Scientific

Stephen Hummel will be featured at the January meeting of the Saint Louis Astronomical Society. The meeting will be held via Zoom online conference only. The meeting and lecture will begin at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, December 17. Zoom access information is posted below.

McDonald Observatory and many partners are working to establish the Greater Big Bend International Dark Sky Reserve (DSR) in the Big Bend region of Far West Texas and Northern Mexico. Once completed and certified by the International Dark Sky Association (IDA), the reserve will encompass over 15,000 square miles of land and be among the largest reserves of its kind in the world, and help to preserve the night sky for decades to come. We'll discuss the many lessons learned during this project and tips on how to mitigate light pollution in your own neighborhood.

Stephen Hummel works at the University of Texas at Austin's McDonald Observatory near Fort Davis, TX on issues related to light pollution and community outreach. Stephen is an astrophotographer in his spare time. Prior to moving to West Texas in 2018, Stephen lived in St. Louis and was active in the Astronomical Society of Eastern Missouri.