February SMAS meeting – 2/23

Join us on Friday February 23rd starting at 7:00 p.m. in the Bridger Library at Bozeman High School.  We are asking everyone to bring some of their favorite tools that they like to use during night time observing.  Maps, books, apps, filters, red lights, etc.  We have several new members and it we were thinking it would be great to share some of this with them.

We’ll have a talk about classification Catalogs.  Over 300 years ago Charles Messier, in his quest to find comets, found 110 objects in the night sky – many astronomers now use those objects when we are out viewing the dark sky and to share during public events. There are many other Catalogs (NGC, Caldwell, etc.), we’ll discuss those, look at some of the cross over and more.

Mauna Loa Volcano – erupting and shooting spatter

Followed by a talk about Spatter – What we’ve learned from Craters Of the Moon National Park and how it translates to other volcanic activity in the solar system.