Keep Looking Up!

 

“View the Great Nebula in Orion This Weekend!”

 

All are invited to Northeast Nebraska Astronomy Club (NENAC) this Friday, January 31 at 7pm at the Lyons Library and Saturday, February 1 at 7pm at the Decatur Sears Center.  Friday, after meeting at 7pm, we will go to the Hedges/Lyons Theater for our presentation. 

 

This weekend Bill Hedges will lead a discussion on the spectacular Orion Nebula.  First observed as an extended cloud of gas and dust in 1610, only a year after Galileo’s first use of the telescope on the planets Jupiter and Venus, the Orion Nebula is a star forming region.  Young by astronomical standards, about 30,000 years old, the Orion Nebula forms stars from dense, contracting clumps of gas.  We will view and discuss a short movie about the Hubble Space Telescope and it’s views of the Orion Nebula.  In the movie computer generated views will take you inside the nebula!

 

Then, weather permitting, Friday at the Hedges Observatory in Lyons, and Saturday at the Fugman Observatory in Decatur, you will see the Orion Nebula in all it’s glory close up and for real!  Other wonderful winter deep sky objects will also be observed through astronomical telescopes.  You are invited to bring your telescope or binoculars.  Please dress warmly as temperatures drop quickly after sunset.

 

For more information on this and future NENAC presentations, google “nenacstars” or call Pastor Gary Fugman at 349-1953, and Keep Looking Up!

 

Go outside tonight and look south at the night sky.  Identify the bright “H shaped” constellation Orion.  Three belt stars support Orion’s sword.  What difference do you see among the sword stars?  Which one of the sword stars hosts the Orion Nebula?  (Hint: If you need help, use your binoculars!)