#88 - October 2019 Part 1

The Discussion: A look back at our 50th anniversary of the moon
landings-themed dark sky star party, AstroCamp, and some
wonderful suggestions as an alternative name for a ‘pair
instability supernova’.


The News: Rounding up the astronomy news this month we have:


Discovery of an exoplanet stripped of its atmosphere

Understanding more about the features you can observe in
Jupiter’s storms

Gaia tells us more about the evolution of open clusters

Chandra probes black hole clusters

Planet 9 (groan…) could be a tiny black hole (it couldn’t)

Amateur astronomer discovery of an interstellar comet

Understanding the evolution of globular clusters

NASA’s Insight lander suggests weird magnetic chirping at
midnight on Mars



The main news story discussion: Water vapour in the atmosphere of
an exoplanet in its habitable zone - leading to discussions on
the importance of science journalism and the search for Earth 2.0


The Sky Guide: Covering the solar system and deep sky objects on
offer to amateur astronomers in October:


Paul: A round up of the planets available to northern hemisphere
observers in October and a tour of the comets currently in our
skies. In the deep sky, we recommend a look at globular cluster
Messier 2 and the NGC7009 planetary nebula in Aquarius.


Ralph: 3 lunar/planetary conjunctions and a glut of meteor
showers. Then further afield, the Andromeda and Triangulum
galaxies.


Main Object: Messier 44, The Beehive Cluster


Q&A: Advice on upgrading telescopes for our good friend
Jeremy Hanson in Wisconsin, USA.


Also this month, a close friend of Jen’s, Chris Duffield, got ill
and died in China aged 27. The foreign office have told his
family that the ballpark figure for getting him home will be
between £15,000-£20,000. If you’d like to help repatriate
the friend’s body, please do consider giving a donation to the
gofundme account at tiny.cc/lpvgdz. Thank you.