September's program was a film on the sun, with its huge eruptive prominences, such as the one shown here. Ten Earths could easily fit in the "claw" of this seemingly solar monster. This large prominence, though, is significant not only for its size, but its shape. The twisted figure eight shape indicates that a complex magnetic field threads through the emerging solar particles. Recent evidence of differential rotation inside the Sun might help account for the surface explosion. The sequence was taken early this year by the Sun-orbiting SOHO satellite. Although large prominences and energetic Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) are relatively rare, they are occurring more frequently now that we are near the Solar Maximum, a time of peak sunspot and solar activity in the eleven-year solar cycle.

October's program will be on CCD photography, with short talks by several of our FWAS CCD gurus. Come on out and see how this works! 

Try this link to whet your apetite:

http://members.tripod.com/~ghonis/c2020zdeep.htm

Observing Reports

Gene Dawson - Last night (9/1) I took my new Starmaster 14.5 out to the Fort Worth Astronomical Society's observation site. Stayed up basically all night and had a really good time. This telescope is a fabulous instrument. Viewed many deep space objects, including globular clusters, galaxies, and nebulas. This was my first time to see the Veil Nebula and it was really neat.

Took a nap from about 3:00 AM to 4:30 AM. Then got up to look at Saturn, the Moon, and Jupiter. Saturn was nothing less than stunning. Photo taken with Olympus 2040Z at F1.8 and hand held for 1/10 second (lousy conditions). The view in the eyepiece was MUCH better. The Moon was also amazing, with much more detail than I had ever seen before. Jupiter was OK, but too low for really good images. All the planetary viewing was at 300 magnification.

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