Who Are We?
We are an amateur astronomy club serving the communities of the Verde Valley, Arizona. To learn more about us, click
here.
If you are as interested in Astronomy as we are, we hope you will join us at one of
our star parties, meetings or guest lectures.
If you would like to become a member of AVV please use the
contact information below. We will be happy to assist you.
Astronomers
of Verde Valley
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New Internet Resource:
David Darling's
Encyclopedia of
Astrobiology,
Astronomy,
and Spaceflight
An Alphabetical Guide
to the Living Universe
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The Shaffer
Museum
Rick Shaffer steps up with a
collection of photographs of unusual sky phenomena - which also
happen to be beautiful images. View the collection at
The Shaffer Museum. |
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The Herman Collection
Steve Herman, our venturesome
CCD artist, fooling around with a
with an ST 7E on a 78mm Takahashi
F8.1, produced one image of
M33 from a
combination of 21 5-minute images combined after being
dark-subtracted. In the
Herman Collection, that same image is presented as a
collection, progressively enhanced by HEASARC's FV software to
reveal additional details. |
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The
Ostroski Gallery
D.
G. displays the results of twenty years of astrophotography
Check
out the section titled
The Ostroski Gallery
under
Astrophotography. Former AVV President and space artist Doug
Ostroski has dug up a collection of prints that are
displayed in digital form.
Most
Recently Added (8/10/03): sketches and paintings on space themes from our intrepid space
artist. To directly to the Space Art page, click here.
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JD's Obsession
Iridium flare and Andromeda
Iridium 40 is the bright
streak intersecting this shot. The Andromeda Galaxy, M31, is a
faint disk to the right of the satellite. The photograph was
captured on November 30, 2004, from Clarkdale, Arizona, by our
very own JD Maddy and published on Astronomy Magazine's online
edition.
Equipment used: Pentax IST digital camera, 35-70mm lens at f/4.5
for a 30-second exposure
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Message in a
Bottle
A
message broadcast from Earth to the globular cluster M13
during the dedication of the Arecibo Observatory in 1974.
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Massive Stars in
Open Cluster
Pismis 24
December 19, 2006
Illustration Credit & Copyright:
NASA,
ESA and J. M. Apellániz (IAA,
Spain).
Explanation: How massive can
a normal star be? Estimates made from distance, brightness and standard
solar models had given one star in the
open
cluster Pismis 24 over 200 times the mass of our Sun, making it a
record holder. This star is the brightest object located just above the
gas front in the
above
image. Close inspection of images taken recently with the
Hubble Space
Telescope, however, have shown that Pismis 24-1 derives its
brilliant luminosity
not
from a single star but from
three at least. Component stars would still remain near 100 solar
masses, making them among the more
massive stars currently on record. Toward the bottom of the image,
stars are still forming in the associated
emission nebula
NGC 6357,
including several that appear to be breaking out and illuminating a
spectacular
cocoon.
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You can learn more at APOD, NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day:
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/archivepix.html
***
Elsewhere on Our Website:
Observing
Tools - Star Charts, Clear Sky
Clocks and Topographic maps.
Astronomy
Newsfeeds - From NASA, Astrowire,
Space.com
Articles - by our very own members. Astrophotography
- see the Ostroski Gallery. Focus
Sections on Observing Mars,
Saturn,
Asteroids, Comets and Satellites
December 28, 2006
Illustration Credit & Copyright:
Adam Block
and Tim Puckett
Explanation: The Great
Spiral Galaxy
in Andromeda (aka M31), a mere 2.5 million light-years
distant, is the
closest large spiral to our own Milky Way. Andromeda is visible to the
unaided eye as a small, faint, fuzzy patch, but because its surface
brightness is so low, casual
skygazers
can't appreciate the galaxy's impressive extent in planet Earth's sky.
This entertaining composite image compares the
angular size
of the nearby galaxy to a brighter, more familiar celestial sight. In
it, a
deep exposure of Andromeda, tracing beautiful blue star clusters in
spiral arms far beyond the bright yellow core, is combined with a
typical view of a nearly full Moon. Shown at the same angular scale, the
Moon covers about 1/2 degree on the sky, while
the galaxy is
clearly several times that size. The deep Andromeda exposure also
includes two bright satellite galaxies,
M32 and
M110
(bottom).
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