Starting in 2018, each year Phil has created a Stellafane Binocular Observing Olympics (BOO) list, along with descriptions of each object.įind 15 objects out of the 20 on the list and you will be given a commemorative pin for your achievement.Īwards: You can hand in your checked off observing lists at the Observing Olympics table set up in the field below the McGregor Observatory. It will be a look at the rise of amateur telescope making and how it dramatically changed theĬommercial telescope marketplace forever. Phil will be presenting a talk on Friday at 4:00 PM in the Pavilion. He has spent countless hours observing objects in the sky using telescopes and binoculars, and frequently writes reviews about the astronomical equipment he used. The 2022 BinocularĪnyone who successfully finds 15 or more of the objects during Convention is eligible to receive a pin commemorating their accomplishment.īased on the popularity of the program at Stellafane since its start in 2016, we predict that these Stellafane Observing Olympics pins will be much in demand!īinocular Observing at Stellafane: Phil Harrington is a familiar writer to most amateur astronomers for his books and articles on astronomy. This year Larry will tell us about the objects on the 2022 Stellafane Telescope Observing Olympics list. For the sixth year Larry has put together a wonderful observing Or thought they could not see, and to successfully make their observations with modest-sized telescopes. Its goal is to encourage people to visually observe objects they may have never heard of, Larry is also the Chairman of the Texas Star Party Advanced Observing Program. Larry has authored several articles for Sky & Telescope and Astronomy Magazine. He is the discoverer of Supernova 1994S, a Type 1a supernova in NGC 4495, a galaxy in the constellation Coma Berenice. He has observed all of William Herschel's discoveries, and he is the author of the "Mitchell Anonymous Catalog"įound in the MegaStar planetarium software database. The largest being a 36-inch reflector and a 7-inch refractor. He is the owner of "too many telescopes," Telescopic Observing at Stellafane: Larry Mitchell is an avid, experienced visual observer. However, it is still only a fudge factor, and such things are inherently uncertain.The Hidden Gems of Stellafane Includes both Telescope & Binocular Observing Lists The 2022 Stellafane Observing Olympics Telescope Pin I think he did a perfectly reasonable job in deriving the best-guess fudge factor for this. "He basically takes an observed luminosity-based, and thus already soft, mass estimate of 130 solar masses for a single star, and then applies some fudge factor to get 150 solar masses. "My concern is the firmness which Figer attaches to his 150-solar-mass upper limit," says University of Florida astronomer Steve Eikenberry. "The existence of a sharp cutoff has not been demonstrated observationally with such significance before." "The 100- to 150-solar-mass range has indeed been talked about as a limit for a long time, but theory does not derive it with any precision," says University of California, Santa Cruz astrophysicist Stan Woosley. His result is consistent with studies of nine other young star clusters by a group led by Sally Oey (University of Michigan). Adopting a conservative approach, Figer concludes that this 2-million-year-old cluster produced no stars greater than 150 solar masses. The cluster, known as the Arches Cluster, resides near the galactic center and contains thousands of stars, some of which shine with millions of times the intensity of the Sun. The most luminous (and hence most massive) stars in the cluster show a sharp cutoff in initial mass at about 130 solar masses. Figer (Space Telescope Science Institute) presents Hubble Space Telescope observations of the richest young star cluster in the Milky Way Galaxy. In a paper published this week in the British journal Nature, Donald F. Now, astronomers have observational evidence that this thinking is largely correct. Stars above this mass limit should generate so much light that the sheer pressure of their own radiation blows off enormous amounts of mass, quickly whittling them down to 100 to 150 solar masses. In recent decades, many astronomers believed that limit was somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 to 150 solar masses for stars forming in the modern-day universe. Advertising Information Sky & Telescope MagazineĪstronomers have long wondered what is the upper mass limit for stars.
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