Orange County Astronomers

First Quarter Moon
2022-09-03, 2022-10-02, 2022-10-31, 2022-11-30
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Online General Meeting – September 2022
2022-09-09 19:30 - 21:30 (America/Los_Angeles) | Online
This is a free and open to the public online event.
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Cosmic rays, antimatter, dark matter:

connecting the dots

In August 1912, Austrian physicist Victor Hess made a discovery that opened a new window to the most energetic phenomena happening in the universe: he had discovered cosmic rays. Cosmic rays are high-energy charged particles coming from space and striking the Earth from all directions. After a century of transformative discoveries and advancements, cosmic-ray physics is a lively and interdisciplinary field of research. In recent years, space-born experiments have delivered many new measurements of cosmic-ray protons, nuclei, electrons, and their antiparticles which generate renewed interest and prompted new open questions. This colloquium will address the main open questions in cosmic rays concerning their nature, their origin, and their connection with the dark matter puzzle. Emphasis will be given to the rare antimatter component, which is a promising discovery tool for new fundamental physics or exotic astrophysical phenomena.

Nicola Tomassetti is an astroparticle physicist and space scientist. He is an associate professor at the Department of Physics and Geology at the University of Perugia, Italy. His research interests include cosmic rays, dark matter, antimatter, heliospheric, and space physics phenomena. He is part of the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer collaboration for the search for dark matter and antimatter in space. He teaches introductory physics, space physics, cosmology & astroparticles for undergraduate, master’s degree, and PhD students.
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Full Moon
2022-09-10, 2022-10-09, 2022-11-08

Open Spiral Bar
2022-09-10 22:00 - 23:30, 2022-11-12 22:00 - 23:30 | Online
This is a free and open to the public online event.
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Come and socialize with your fellow astronomy enthusiasts face-to-face virtually!
Bring your latest astrophotography, mini-presentation, questions or none and your own refreshments.

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OCA Board Meeting
2022-09-11 10:30 - 13:30 | Online
The OCA Board meeting will happen on September 11, at 10:30am via Zoom. All current members are welcome to attend the meeting, please contact Alan Smallbone so that the meeting information can be sent to you.
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Astrophysics Special Interest Group
2022-09-16 19:30 - 22:00, 2022-10-21 19:30 - 22:00, 2022-11-18 19:30 - 22:00 | Heritage Museum of OC, 3101 W Harvard St, Santa Ana, CA, 92704, United States
The monthly meeting of the Astrophysics Special Interest Group at 7:30 at the Heritage Museum. Please contact the SIG chair for details and requirements. See the Contacts section of the website for details on contacting the group.
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Third Quarter Moon
2022-09-17, 2022-10-17, 2022-11-16

NEW MOON
2022-09-25, 2022-10-25, 2022-11-23

Draconids Meteor Shower
2022-10-07
This is the one meteor shower of the year that is best viewed in the early evening hours. A minor meteor shower that runs Oct. 6-10, it produces about 10 shooting stars an hour. The first-quarter moon will blot out all but the brightest meteors from this shower, created by comet 21P Giacobini-Zinner.
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Online Beginner's Class
2022-10-07 19:30 - 21:30 | Online
This is a free and open to the public online event, to attend please register with zoom by clicking here.
The 2nd session of the Beginners Astronomy Class covers the different types of equipment used to observe the night sky, including telescopes, mounts, eyepieces, filters, and advantages and disadvantages of different options.
This session is a must if thinking about buying a telescope.
For details, please visit here and download the sample information PDF package.
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Online General Meeting – October 2022
2022-10-14 19:30 - 21:30 | Online
This is a free and open to the public online event.
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The Dynamic Sky:

How We Find Discover and Understand

Stellar Explosions in the 21st Century

Humans have recorded the appearance of “new stars” since prehistory, but only in the last century have astronomers begun to understand their nature as stellar explosions. These “supernovae” provide clues about the lives and deaths of stars, the formation and evolution of galaxies, the production and distribution of chemical elements (including those required for life on Earth), and even the accelerating expansion of the Universe.

In the last two decades, the discovery rate of supernovae has ballooned from hundreds per year to tens of thousands per year, and in the coming decade, it will reach into the millions. This explosion can be traced back to the same technological advances behind the Internet age: high-speed telecommunications, digital imaging, increased computer processing power, and machine learning. This presentation will explore the history and future of supernova observations, with a focus on the technology behind them and the science they enable.

Dr. Griffin Hosseinzadeh is a postdoctoral researcher at Steward Observatory at the University of Arizona, where he studies various types of stellar explosions. He was previously a postdoctoral researcher at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian. He received his bachelor’s in physics from UC Berkeley in 2012 and his Ph.D. in astrophysics from UC Santa Barbara in 2018.

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Orionids Meteor Shower
2022-10-21 - 2022-10-22
Comet Haley is the parent of this meteor shower, which produces about 20 shooting stars an hour at its peak. The shower runs from Oct. 2-Nov. 7. The thin, crescent moon will leave mostly dark skies during the peak.
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Taurids Meteor Shower
2022-11-04 - 2022-11-05
What makes this long-running meteor shower unique is that it consists of two separate streams — the first created by grain dust left behind by Asteroid 2004/TG10, and the second by dust grains left behind by Comet 2P/Encke. It runs Sept. 7-Dec. 10. A nearly full moon at the peak will make viewing difficult.
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Online Beginner's Class
2022-11-04 19:30 - 21:30 | Online
This is a free and open to the public online event, to attend please register with zoom by clicking here.
The 3rd session of the Beginners Astronomy Class covers different methods of finding objects in the night sky. Special topic is learning the constellations.
For details, please visit here and download the sample information PDF package.
Views: 3

TOTAL LUNAR ECLIPSE
2022-11-08 00:00 - 05:50

Online General Meeting – November 2022
2022-11-11 19:30 - 21:30 | Online
This is a free and open to the public online event.
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X-raying the Winds of Giant Stars

We are made of stardust—or, at least in significant parts, of material produced in giant stars. These giant stars have strong winds that strip away the outer layers of stellar material. To understand giant stars, astronomers thus need to understand their winds. In this talk, Dr. Grinberg will explain why astrophysicists use space-based X-ray telescopes such as ESA’s XMM-Newton to study such winds and show how they are using black holes and neutron stars as backlights to make such stellar winds visible.

Photo:Friedhelm Albrecht/Universität Tübingen

Dr. Victoria Grinberg is an astrophysicist working in the Netherlands for the European Space Agency (ESA) where she helps ESA communicate with the scientific community. After her PhD in Germany, her research has taken her around the world – USA, the Netherlands and again Germany – before accepting her current position. Using space-based telescopes, Dr. Grinberg is studying the most extreme environments in our Universe: black holes, neutron stars, and the winds of the most massive giant stars. She also publishes on sustainability and climate crisis from an astrophysics perspective. In her free time, Dr. Grinberg creates cartoons about science and academia.
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OCA Board Meeting at 10:30 am
2022-11-13 10:30 - 13:30 | Online
The OCA Board meeting will happen on November 13, at 10:30am via Zoom. All current members are welcome to attend the meeting, please contact Alan Smallbone so that the meeting information can be sent to you.
Views: 3

Leonids Meteor Shower
2022-11-17 - 2022-11-18
The Leonids meteor shower runs Nov. 6-30 and puts on an average show of about 15 meteors an hour — except during cyclonic peaks that occur about every 33 years, when hundreds of meteors an hour can be seen. It happened last in 2001, putting us years away from a similar show from this shower created by dust grains left behind by comet 55P/Tempel-Tuttle, discovered in 1865
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