06/04/2021 – Ephemeris – Zoom astronomy meeting and possible star party tonight

This is Ephemeris for Friday, June 4th. Today the Sun will be up for 15 hours and 25 minutes, setting at 9:23, and it will rise tomorrow at 5:58. The Moon, 2 days past last quarter, will rise at 3:49 tomorrow morning.

The Grand Traverse Astronomical Society hold a virtual meeting and program at 8 pm tonight via Zoom. For the program Jerry Dobek, professor of astronomy at Northwestern Michigan College will present an illustrated talk on astroimaging. The pandemic has inspired Dr. Dobek to find a solution. It turned out to be a relatively inexpensive imager for the telescope. The virtual star party will start around 9 pm, hosted by Dobek, with his imager, but only if it’s clear in Traverse City. It will feature a look at Venus to start, possibly before sunset. There will be other objects visible in the twilight such as binary stars and a pair with differing colors. Instructions to join the meeting and a link can be found on the society’s website, www.gtastro.org.

The astronomical event times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.

Addendum

Here are some images that Professor Dobek has produced during the GTAS virtual Zoom star parties that I screen captured and minimally enhanced:

The planetary nebula that is probably within star cluster M 46 in the constellation Puppis. Created from a screen grab from an image by Jerry Dobek January 8, 2021 during the GTAS virtual star party. The image was enhanced to reduce the background and increase contrast by Bob Moler

Globular star cluster M 3. Image captured by Jerry Dobek. Enhanced using GIMP (Gnu Image Manipulation Program) by Bob Moler.

Irregular galaxy M 82 is very strange. Image created by Jerry Dobek and enhanced using GIMP.