San Jose Astronomical Association

REMINDER: Our next public talk is this weekend. Come join us! #BayArea 🔭🧪

Join the #ASP on Mon, June 30 at 5:30pm PT for a #FREE online screening of #SALLY — the story of astronaut Sally Ride and the love she kept hidden. Her partner, Tam O’Shaughnessy, shares their 27-year journey in this moving #NatGeo #doc. 🏳️‍🌈🔭🧪 #LoveIsLove
🎥 @sundance.org #filmfest
🔗 buff.ly/ctsFmYN

A nova or ‘new star’ in Lupus: Photos from our community

• Given the current brightness, binoculars can easily view the nova.

For more information, including photos and finder charts, check out this article from EarthSky: earthsky.org/todays-image...

• By June 18, it had brightened to magnitude 5.7, becoming visible to the naked eye. The star has continued brightening with a reported magnitude of 5.6 on June 21.

• Typically, novae can remain bright for a few weeks or months before the star returns to its previous brightness.

• The main goal of the project is to look for bright supernovae.

• The ASAS-SN telescope network can survey the entire sky approximately once every day.

• At its discovery, the white dwarf had already brightened to an apparent visual magnitude of 8.7, and it was classified as a nova on June 14.

• The nova was discovered 10 days ago (June 12) by the All Sky Automated Survey for Supernovae (ASAS-SN). This is a collection of 20 robotic telescopes in both the northern and southern hemispheres coordinated by astronomers from Ohio State University.

• The brightening was caused by a thermonuclear explosion, called a nova, on the surface of a white dwarf star in a binary star system. In this case, the white dwarf has been syphoning gas from a nearby red giant star.

Starry sky with a brighter star in the center labeled as V462 Nova Lupi.

Nova announcement!

A star in the constellation Lupus, the Wolf, typically shines at a faint magnitude 22 but has brightened to naked-eye visibility.

Look at this image captured by Joe Fragola during the Starry Nights star party at Rancho Canada del Oro Open Space Preserve. 🔭🧪

Text: Public Talk. The Talk: New Technology for Exploring Other Worlds with Phil Hinze. July 12, 2025, 7:30 pm, Houge Park, San Jose, CA. SJAA anniversary logo. Inset pictures: Phil Hinz, an adaptive secondary mirror from the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility, and the twin domes of Keck Observatory in Hawai'i.

PUBLIC TALK: July 12, 2025, 7:30 pm

Phil Hinz will discuss the technology development being carried out at the UC Observatories to integrate adaptive optics (AO) and the development of large segmented mirror telescopes (LSMT).

Sign up: www.meetup.com/sj-astronomy...

#astronomy 🔭🧪

Top: Astrophoto of a star cluster. Bottom: Fuschia banner. Text: by SJ Astronomy, Starry Nights Star Party, Saturday, June 21, 2025, 9:30 pm, RSVP on Meetup.

SJAA offers free monthly star parties. Weather permitting, members set up telescopes to share views with the public. Our "In Town Star Party" events are held on the Friday night closest to the 3rd Quarter Moon in the parking lot outside our headquarters at Houge Park in San Jose. 🔭

SJ Astronomy | Meetup Welcome to SJ Astronomy Meetup. We are an active group with a lot of events organized by the San Jose Astronomical Association. All events posted to this Meetup are open to the public but please note ...

"Starry Nights" is the other monthly star party, held at Rancho Canada del Oro Open Space Preserve in Morgan Hill on the Saturday night closest to the 3rd Quarter Moon.

Free registration for these star parties is via the SJ Astronomy Group on Meetup: www.meetup.com/sj-astronomy/

Top: Astrophoto of a star cluster. Bottom: Fuschia banner. Text: by SJ Astronomy, Starry Nights Star Party, Saturday, June 21, 2025, 9:30 pm, RSVP on Meetup.

SJAA offers free monthly star parties. Weather permitting, members set up telescopes to share views with the public. Our "In Town Star Party" events are held on the Friday night closest to the 3rd Quarter Moon in the parking lot outside our headquarters at Houge Park in San Jose. 🔭

This is a photograph of M104, the Sombrero Galaxy, seen edge-on from Earth. With its thick bulge and resemblance to a hat, it resembles a hat. Numerous stars of various colors and brightness litter the scene.

A new week! Member Brad Haakenson took this picture of Messier 104, the Sombrero Galaxy, during the recent new moon using fifty minutes of data from his Vaonis Stellina telescope. Seen edge-on, astronomers are unsure if M104 is a spiral or an elliptical galaxy. #astrophotography 🔭

Cropped image of M101, the Pinwheel Galaxy, with the object filling nearly all of the photo. The galaxy is a spiral with a counterclockwise rotation and is seen face-on.

Member Richard Seely processed 18 minutes of data captured from his new William Optics Pleiades 181 telescope (congrats on first light!) of M101, the Pinwheel Galaxy, while at Rancho Cañada del Oro Open Space Preserve last month. 🔭

A star-filled view of a portion of the night sky featuring a red-pink nebula shaped like a gull with its wings almost spread.

Happy Friday! Member Kal Krishnan took this image of the Seagull Nebula (IC 2177) in March at Rancho Cañada del Oro Open Space Preserve. Because it is such a large object, he only used his 200mm Canon Prime lens (no scope) and processed it recently. #Astrophotography 🔭🧪

Unable to attend? We have the video!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQgS...

𝗛𝗼𝘄 𝗱𝗼 𝗮𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗼𝗻𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝘂𝘀𝗲 𝗰𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗿 𝘁𝗼 𝗱𝗲𝗰𝗼𝗱𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘂𝗻𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗲?

Join our free, hands-on online workshop to explore filters, light, and representational color using just your phone & paper. 🔭🧪

Wed, May 21 @ 6p ET
Register: bit.ly/ASPcolorwork...
#astronomy #STEMed

Visible planets and night sky guide for May

Tonight is a great night for some lunar photography! The moment of last quarter moon will fall at 4:59 AM PDT. It’ll rise after midnight and set around noon. Look for it high in the sky before dawn. 🔭

earthsky.org/astronomy-es...

Don't forget to join us tomorrow! 🔭 #BayArea

YouTube video by SJ-Astronomy Fast Radio Bursts with Dr. Bryan Gaensler

Unable to attend our May talk? We have a video! Our guest speaker, Dr. Bryan Gaensler, takes us on a journey through the discovery and rediscovery of Fast Radio Bursts, and the state of the art in detecting and analyzing them. 🧪🔭

www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QFA...

All-About-Telescopes Workshop, Sun, May 18, 2025, 1:30 PM | Meetup Getting into telescopes can be a bewildering experience, yet to buy such equipment, you'll want to spend your money wisely. (Definitely stay away from department store tele

This weekend, we are holding our semiannual "All-About-Telescopes Workshop!" This event is open to all members and the public and starts at 1:30 p.m. on Sunday, May 18th. 🔭 #BayArea

Details: www.meetup.com/sj-astronomy...

Visible planets and night sky guide for May

TONIGHT

h/t @earthskyscience.bsky.social

This month’s full moon is called the Flower Moon. All full moons have unique characteristics, and this one is particularly interesting … What is special about this full moon? It’s a micromoon, or very distant full moon. 🧪🔭

earthsky.org/astronomy-es...

Tomorrow night at Houge Park in San Jose, Professor Bryan Gaensler will give a talk on fast radio bursts. Come join us!

Photograph of two fuzzy galaxies. The one near the middle left resembles a hockey stick, and the one in the upper right resembles a stretched-out whale. The background is full of numerous stars and distant galaxies.

Detailed view of the Whale Galaxy (NGC 4631) showing dust lanes, an orange center, bright blue stars, and reddish clusters. Just above the galaxy is the fuzzy shape of an elliptical galaxy. Foreground stars and background galaxies fill the image.

During the last week of April, member Francesco Meschia collected a grand total of 24 hours of light (10 hours in L, 10 hours in RGB, and 4 hours in H-alpha) from the pair of peculiar galaxies NGC 4631 and NGC 4656, known as the Whale and the Hockey Stick galaxies. 🔭

REMINDER: This talk is this Saturday, so please come join us! 🔭🧪 #BayArea

Visible planets and night sky guide for April and May

Visible planets and night sky guide for April and May

Tonight, see Jupiter near the Moon. Then, the Eta Aquariids shower peaks May 5-6. May's full moon is the Full Flower Moon on May 12-13.

Plus so much more!

earthsky.org/astronomy-es...

h/t @earthskyscience.bsky.social 🔭🧪

SJAA logo. Public talk. The Talk: Fast Radio Bursts: An Enduring Cosmic Mystery with Professor Bryan Gaensler, May 10, 2025, 7:30 pm, Houge Park, San Jose, CA. Collage of the CHIME radio telescope, an artist's impression of a fast radio burst, and professpr Bryan Gaensler.

PUBLIC TALK: May 10, 2025, 7:30 pm

Professor Bryan Gaensler will explain how fast radio bursts were discovered, why they’re so enigmatic, and how they could be key to understanding some of the fundamental properties of the Universe. 🔭🧪

Sign up: www.meetup.com/sj-astronomy...

A new comet appeared in the sky, then it likely disintegrated. But it can still be seen | CNN A newly discovered comet, called C/2025 F2 (SWAN), may have disintegrated. But the remnants are still visible.

Welp. #CometF2SWAN may be disintegrating. You can still catch it in the morning sky, though! 🔭

www.cnn.com/2025/04/18/s...

Constellation Scorpius with the shape of a letter "J". A red dot for the star Antares and 2 moons for April 16 and 17 are at the top of the constellation.

Tomorrow morning, the waning gibbous #moon will hang near #Scorpius the Scorpion and its bright red star #Antares. They’ll rise after midnight and be visible through dawn. For more sky events, visit EarthSky’s night sky guide:
buff.ly/EGTWIM4

📸 EarthSky.org.

Portrait astrophoto of a faint, blue comet, nearly hidden amongst the night sky stars.

Our first club member picture of #CometF2SWAN comes from Nicola Nikolov and was taken with a Seestar S50 over two minutes. More photos to come! #astrophotography 🔭🧪