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
|
New Internet Resource:
David Darling's
Encyclopedia of
Astrobiology,
Astronomy,
and Spaceflight
An Alphabetical Guide
to the Living Universe
|
|
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. |
|
The Digital Collection
A new wave in astro photography is in process with
the Astronomers of Verde Valley. Several of the members have
acquired digital photographic equipment and are now busy taking and
processing images. In
the Digital Collection,
more and more pictures will be updated on the site as time goes by.
Check out Jerry Madero's recent astro
photos here. Jerry's
Pics |
|
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.
|
JD's Obsession
Iridium flare and
Comet Holmes
Iridium 52 is the bright
streak intersecting this shot. Comet Holmes 7P is above the satellite
at the top of the page. The photograph was
captured on December 12th, 2007, from Clarkdale, Arizona, by our
very own JD Maddy and published in the UK's Sky at Night
Magazine.
Iridium Gallery click here:
Iridium
Flares
Equipment used: Pentax IST digital camera, 50mm lens at f/2.0
for a 30-second exposure
---
Message in a
Bottle
A
message broadcast from Earth to the globular cluster M13
during the dedication of the Arecibo Observatory in 1974.
Check out our Members Telescopes here:
Club Member
Telescopes
For those who are somewhat nostalgic, check out
our past star party page.
Past Star Parties
|
Dust and the Helix Nebula
NASA,
JPL-Caltech, Kate Su (Steward
Obs, U. Arizona) et
al.
Explanation:
Dust makes this cosmic eye look red. The eerie
Spitzer Space Telescope image shows
infrared radiation
from the well-studied
Helix Nebula
(NGC 7293) a mere 700 light-years away in the constellation
Aquarius.
The two light-year diameter shroud of dust and gas around a central
white dwarf has long been considered an excellent example of a
planetary nebula,
representing the final stages in the evolution of a sun-like star. But
the Spitzer data show the nebula's central star itself is immersed in a
surprisingly bright infrared glow.
Models suggest the
glow is produced by a dust
debris disk.
Even though the nebular material was ejected from the star many
thousands of years ago, the close-in dust could be generated by
collisions in a reservoir of objects analogous to our own solar system's
Kuiper
Belt or cometary
Oort cloud. Formed in the distant planetary system, the comet-like
bodies would have otherwise survived even the dramatic late stages of
the star's
evolution.
***
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 Astrophoto Galleries. Focus
Sections on Observing Mars,
Saturn,
Asteroids, Comets and Satellites
Illustration Credit & Copyright:
J D Maddy
and Gerald Madero.
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, 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). This composite image is made from a stack of M31 images taken
with a Celestron GPS11, Hyperstar 3 with a Canon 450D (XSI) and a single
image of the Moon taken with the same setup.
Up coming events
02/13/2010: Two Trees Observing night
02/20/2010: Purbach Cross visible at
night
02/27/2010: Monthly meeting at the
VVMC
03/04/2010: Sedona Rec Center Star
Party @ Posse Grounds Park (6:30PM)
03/12-13/2010: Messier Marathon at Two
Trees
03/27/2010: Monthly Meeting at the
VVMC
04/10/2010: Two Trees Observing Night
04/17/2010: Two Trees Observing Night
See the
Club Calendar for complete
2010 schedule |
