December 2021

Global Astronomy Magazine Volume IV - Published December 2021 Saving the night Check your sky’s quality with Orion Efforts to counter light pollution earn IDA recognition for Bisei — Page 27 — Page 26 Understanding stars that blink — Page 16

Volume IV - Published December 2021 Published by the Explore Alliance Chief Editorial Staff: Marcelo de Oliveira Souza David H. Levy © Explore Alliance Duplication of contents in full or part is prohibited unless prior authorization by Explore Alliance has been obtained. Unless an advertisement in the publication contains a specific endorsement by the Explore Alliance, it has not been tested by, approved by or endorsed by the Explore Alliance. Explore Alliance 1010 S. 48th Street Springdale, AR 72762 Phone: 949-637-9075 o o o Sky’s Up digital magazine is made possible through a generous contribution from Explore Scientific. 2 contents The Québec Model Collaborative Effort Controlling light pollution with the BNQ 4930-100 standard — Page 20 Moroccan observatory brings together professional, amateur astronomers — Page 12 Saving the night Efforts to counter light pollution earn IDA recognition for Bisei — Page 24 on the cover A Guide to the Sky............Pg. 6 Wonderful Universe .........Pg. 8 Upcoming events ..........Pg. 15 Astropoetry..................... Pg. 44 The Art of Astronomy... Pg. 52 Seasonal Calendars....... Pg. 62 Global Astronomy Magazine Astrophotographer Adrian Bradley captured this stunning image of Orion and the Winter Milky Way under the vast dark skies above Camp Billy Jo at the Okie Tex Star Party. ISSN 2768-2285 (Digital) • ISSN 2768-2285 (Print)

3 from the editor “I leave the house at night and light the sky with a pocket torch. Send thousands of white photons into space. What will become of them?” — Hubert Reeves T he excitement is always present when our team gathers to conduct sky observations. Each day we must look for places farther away from the cities to be able to locate faint stars in the firmament. It is the effect of increasing light pollution in cities. Increasingly brighter, the background of the sky limits the possible observations to the brightest stars. In large cities it is no longer possible to admire the Milky Way. Excessive and misdirected external light, which causes the glare that is seen in the sky above the cities, is responsible for this fact. Poorly designed luminaires cast a large amount of light upwards. In addition to the waste, this light illuminates the atmosphere, making it impossible to see the sky well. The reflection of this light on water vapor, suspended particles, and other elements that we are currently forced to breathe is the reason for this global glow in the sky of cities. Unlike other polluting sources, in this case there are simple and efficient solutions to minimize the effects of light pollution. As a good start to mitigate the effects of light pollution that care should be taken to use, on public roads, luminaires that only cast light to the ground, at most up to the base of the next pole. Placing a cover on the lamps to direct the light towards the ground is a low-cost solution. It is also important that the lights are not more intense than necessary, that they are used to illuminate what really needs lighting and that there is an effort to reduce the emission of blue lights. In this way, energy savings are achieved with better visibility and with a smaller contribution to environmental pollution. There are unpolluted cities in the world. Tucson, a city by Marcelo de Oliveira Souza The future of sky watching n n n Marcelo de Oliveira Souza is a physicist with a Master of Science in Physics (General Relativity) at the Universidade Federal Fluminense and a Doctor of Science in Physics (Cosmology) at Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro. Since 2004, he has been a professor at the Universidade Estadual do Norte Fluminense and since 2006 he has been the Louis Cruls Astronomy Club General Coordinator. In Brazil, he is the Astronomers Without Borders National Coordinator, the UNAWE program national Coordinator and the Mission X - Lead. He is the author of “Um Passeio pelo Céu,” and, from 2005 until 2013, he presented and wrote the script of the weekly TV program “Um Passeio pelo Céu” about astronomy and astronautics. in the United States with a population of approximately 550,000 people, is a good example. Due to a planned lighting program, Tucson has the darkest night skies of any city its size in the country. In Brazil we have two sensational examples of mitigation of the effects of light pollution. One is the Desengano’s State Park, located in the State of Rio de Janeiro and the other is the change in the lighting system on the shore of Grussaí beach, located in the city of São João da Barra, also located in the State of Rio de Janeiro. Desengano’s State Park is committed to preserving the sky for future generations. The shore of Grussaí beach had its lighting modified to preserve the sea turtles and their hatchlings from the influence of artificial light that made them head towards the road instead of towards the ocean. As Doug Pitcairn, an astronomy writer from Nova Scotia, Canada, put it: “It amazes me how someone who wouldn’t even think of leaving a plastic bottle on the floor of a picnic spot, pay extra money each month to light up half of the room. neighborhood with unnecessary and disturbing light”. The International Dark Sky Association (IDA) does a fantastic work. IDA is the recognized authority on light pollution and is the leading organization combating light pollution worldwide. IDA found in 2001 the International Dark Sky Places Program. It is a conservation program to encourage communities, parks, and protected areas around the world to preserve and protect dark sites through responsible lighting policies and public education. As a result of this program there are over 180 certified International Dark Sky Places in the world!!! The preservation of the environment, for the new generations, is our duty. We cannot deprive children of the right to be able to marvel at the beauties of our heavens. I this edition of Sky’s Up we have wonderful articles. I invite you to take, while reading the magazine, a pleasant journey through the wonders of our Universe and to know the efforts of several people around the world to preserve the sky for future generations. Clear skies for everyone.

4 One clear evening during the summer of 2019, I was using Pegasus, one of my childhood friend Carl’s telescopes, at our annual Adirondack Astronomy Retreat. When my cellphone began to ring, I picked it up with some surprise. At the other end of the line was Carolyn Shoemaker. I was thrilled to hear from her, as it had been some time since our last contact. Carolyn was doing well, except for a mild loss of hearing. She had called to say that since her daughter and son-in-law had moved to New Mexico, she would be living at the Peaks, a comfortable assisted living facility in Flagstaff. My colleague Brent Archinal gave me her cell phone number. I was able to speak with her again a few months later. I wanted to find a way to increase the frequency of our conversations. “You speak with your brother Richard every Monday,” Wendee commented, and suggested, “Why not call Carolyn every Monday as well? For the next 18 months that’s what I did. Carolyn would pick up the phone and announce, “It is David. It must be Monday!” Wendee would often join the discussion as well. But when I called on Monday, August 9, no one answered. After repeated tries, her daughter Linda called to say that Carolyn had had a minor fall and was in the hospital. On Thursday evening, August 12, she went into respiratory arrest. Carolyn died the next morning at 10:40 A.M. Arizona time. With her husband Gene and the five-year comet and asteroid program we shared, Carolyn was responsible for a very rich period in my life. In fact, virtually every article one reads about the Shoemakers will agree that the discovery and impacts of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 were the most significant part of our professional lives. Carolyn began her observing project a few years after her husband Gene was disqualified as a potential astronaut because of Addison’s disease. He decided to go at the problem of impacts, not from studying craters as he walked about on the Moon, but from the opposite direction of the comets and asteroids that collide with the Moon, and with the Earth. Carolyn quickly learned to become proficient at using the stereomicroscope. She would place two films into the microscope; they were identical except that the second plate would be about 45 minutes later than the first. The films were almost always identical, except that when an asteroid was moving slowly, it would appear to float above the starry background. Carolyn discovered 377 asteroids this way, each one charted until its orbit round the Sun could be determined accurately. When one included the asteroids for which orbits have not yet been determined, that number rose significantly, according to Carolyn, to about 800. In 1983 Carolyn discovered the first of her 32 comets. When their colleague Henry Holt joined the following year, the number of new comets rose rapidly. It was only a year or two after that when she surpassed the number of comets another famous astronomer, by David Levy Skyward Fond memories COURTESY OF David Levy Carolyn Shoemaker, right, with David and Wendee Levy

5 editorial board members • Scott Roberts - Founder and President of Explore Scientific - USA • David Levy - Worldwide famous astronomer, science writer and discoverer of comets and minor planets - USA • Marcelo de Oliveira Souza - DSc. in Physics (Cosmology). University Professor, Educator and Science Communicator. • Hassane Darhmaoui -PhD in Physics from the University of Alberta, in Canada. Associate Professor at the School of Science and Engineering of the Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane (AUI) and Coordinator of the AUI Center for Learning Technologies, founding member and general Secretary of the Arab Astronomical Society (ArAS), founder and national representative of the Universe Awareness (UNAWE) chapter in Morocco, founder and current supervisor and co-director of Al Akhawayn Observatory. Morocco • Andrea Sanchez Saldias - Astronomer, Master in Physics and PhD in Biology (Astrobiology), all degrees obtained at the Universidad de la República. Conducts research in Exobiology and Paleoclimatology on Earth and Mars, Uruguay • Suresh Bhattarai - Science educator, astronomy communicator and researcher in Nepal. National Outreach Coordinator (NOC) for Nepal for 2018-2021 and chairperson at the Nepal Astronomical Society (NASO) • Valentin Grigore - Leading amateur astronomer, specialist in meteor astronomy, astrophotographer, astro-poet, astrojournalist, author, trainer, lighting specialist, dark-sky and ecologist militant, youth worker specialist President of the Romanian Society for Meteors and Astronomy (SARM), National Coordinator for Romania of Astronomers Without Borders (AWB) and producer of the tv show ”Us and the Sky” at Columna TV • Olaynka Fagbemiro - Assistant Chief Scientific Officer with the National Space Research and Development Agency (NASRDA), Founder/National Coordinator of Astronomers Without Borders (AWB) Nigeria, IAU’s National Education Contact (NAEC) for Nigeria and the Public Relations and Education Officer for the African Astronomical Society (AfAS). • Cláudio Moisés Paulo - Prof. Assistant in Astrophysics at Eduardo Mondlane University. Doctor of Astrophysics (University of Witwatersrand, South Africa), Master of Astrophysics (University of the western Cape, South Africa), Honours in Astrophysics and Space Sciences (University of Cape Town, South Africa), and Honours in Physics & Meteorology (Eduardo Mondlane University, Mozambique). • Manoj Pai - One of the most active amateur astronomers in India. Astronomy Club, Ahmedabad, India n n n David H Levy is arguably one of the most enthusiastic and famous amateur astronomers of our time. Although he has never taken a class in astronomy, he has written over three dozen books, has written for three astronomy magazines and has appeared on television programs featured on the Discovery and the Science Channels. Among David’s accomplishments are 23 comet discoveries, the most famous being Shoemaker-Levy 9 that collided with Jupiter in 1994, a few hundred shared asteroid discoveries, an Emmy for the documentary Three Minutes to Impact, five honorary doctorates in Science and a PhD which combines astronomy and English Literature. Currently, he is the editor of the web magazine Sky’s Up!, has a monthly column, Skyward, in our local Vail Voice paper. David continues to hunt for comets and asteroids, and lectures worldwide. Caroline Herschel, discovered, and Sky & Telescope published a news note about “Carolyn passing Caroline.” I joined the team in 1989. In a sense, passing Herschel’s record might have been Carolyn’s golden moment, but it wasn’t. That came later on a cloudy and dull day on March 25, 1993. Two nights earlier I had taken two exposures that she was scanning. Suddenly looking up, she announced “I don’t know what I have, but it looks like a squashed comet.” That was the discovery moment of Comet ShoemakerLevy 9. Sixteen months later, when the 21 pieces of this fragmented collided with Jupiter, we got to meet President Clinton and chat amiably with Vice President Gore and share the world’s excitement over the first collision of a comet and a planet ever witnessed by humans. It was a satisfying peak to all our careers. After Gene died in a car accident in Australia, Carolyn continued observing with Wendee and me for several years. One evening she confided that sometimes she wished she had died with Gene. But she did not and the world was able to enjoy her company for more than 24 more years. The weekly telephone calls began much later. I shall miss the deep friendship I enjoyed with Carolyn Shoemaker, the woman whose energy, intelligence, and terrific sense of humor brightened our lives and made the night sky a happier place.

6 By MARCELO DE OLIVEIRA SOUZA Sky’s Up Editor “When, at night, the Infinite rises The moonlight, along the fallen paths My tactile intensity is so much That I feel the soul of Cosmos in my fingers!...”* — Augusto dos Anjos (Brazilian poet) *Free translation to English of the original poetry in Portuguese A starry night is a magnificent time for wonder and reflection. Stars are bright spots that sensitize our retina. The history of the Universe is present in the images formed in the mind and soul. In brief daydreams and dream trips to distant worlds. Poets, lovers, and dreamers, at that moment of contemplative observation, cannot imagine that they are peering into relics of the Universe. For a long time, humanity considered the propagation of light to be instantaneous. In the past there are some records of different opinions. Aristotle, despite considering the instantaneous propagation, in “De Sensu”, reports that Empedocles (492 BC – 432 BC) said that sunlight should take a finite time to reach Earth. Galileo Galilei (1564 – 1642) in his book “Discorsi e dimonstrazioni matematiche intorno a due nuove scienze” presents a brief discussion of the propagation of light. One of the characters in the book, Simplicio, who defends Aristotle’s ideas, states that “experiences in our daily life show that the propagation of light is instantaneous”. As an example, he cites that if we are very far away, the light emitted by a shot reaches our eyes before the noise of the shot. Another character shows that from this fact it is not possible to state that the propagation of light is instantaneous. One can only deduce that light travels faster than sound. Galileo performed an experiment to determine the speed of propagation of light. Two people with covered lamps stand in positions far apart. One of them discovers the lamp. When the other person perceives the light coming from that lamp, they immediately discover yours. In the experiment carried out by Galileo, it was not possible to notice, with the instruments available at the time, any delay. In 1676 the Danish astronomer Ole Römer estimated for the first time the propagation speed of light. It was based on observation of the movement of Io (one of its 63 known moons) around the planet Jupiter. It obtained a value much lower than that considered nowadays. The French physicist Armand Fizeau in 1849 determined this value with good precision, from an experiment carried out in the laboratory and based on Galileo’s proposal. Nowadays we consider the value of approximately 300,000km/s. In a second the light travels 300.000km!!! The average distance between the Earth and the Moon is approximately 384,000km. So whenever we see her a guide to the sky Visions of the past COURTESY Above, in his book “Discorsi e dimonstrazioni matematiche intorno a due nuove scienze”, Galileo Galilei presented a brief discussion of the propagation of light. Below, illustration from 1676 article by Danish astronomer Ole Römer on the measurement of the speed of light.

7 + Precision Optics + Bulit to Explore + Created by Astronomers to Learn the Night Sky FIRSTLIGHT TELESCOPES EXPLORE ALLIANCE EXPLORE Questions/Comments? 866.252.3811 ©2020 Explore Scientific, LLC. All rights reserved. Learn more at explorescientific.com 8x42 10x42 NON-ABBE PRISM TETON ABBE PRISM Simulated Images WATCH EXPLORE ALLIANCE LIVE Learn from the Explore Alliance Community and Special Guests. explorescientific.com/live LIVE daily at a guide to the sky glowing in the sky, we’re seeing what she looked like a little over a second ago. Sunlight takes an average of approximately 8 minutes to reach Earth. The closest star to the solar system is Proxima Centauri whose light takes 4.22 years to reach Earth. We say it is 4.22 light years from Earth. The light year unit refers to the distance light travels in one year and is equivalent to approximately 9.46 trillion kilometers. The Andromeda Galaxy, for example, is located approximately 2.9 million light years away! We now look at what it was like 2.9 million years ago! There are stars located billions of light years away from us. When we look at the starry sky, we are taking a journey into the past. The Universe we see is a movie screen covered with old images. How to imagine your setup today? Which of these stars still exist?

8 wonderful universe — Compiled by MARCELO DE OLIVEIRA SOUZA — In 2021, as has happened in recent years, we had access to wonderful images of the Universe obtained by the modern and fantastic astronomical observation instruments developed by humanity in these few millennia of civilization. Here, we present a brief chronology with a special selection of the most amazing images released until the month of November 2021. Looking back at the year in pictures This ancient stellar jewelry box, a globular cluster called NGC 6397, glitters with the light from hundreds of thousands of stars. Astronomers used the Hubble Space Telescope to gauge the cluster’s distance at 7,800 light-years away. NGC 6397 is one of the closest globular clusters to Earth. The cluster’s blue stars are near the end of their lives. These stars have used up their hydrogen fuel that makes them shine. Now they are converting helium to energy in their cores, which fuses at a higher temperature resulting in a blue color. The reddish glow is from red giant stars that have consumed their hydrogen fuel and have expanded in size. The myriad small white objects include stars like our Sun. This image is composed of a series of observations taken from July 2004 to June 2005 with Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys. Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 was used to measure the distance to the cluster. Hubble uncovers concentration of small black holes IMAGE CREDIT: NASA, ESA, Tom M. Brown (STScI), Stefano Casertano (STScI), Jay Anderson (STScI) • SCIENCE CONTENT: NASA, ESA, Eduardo Vitral (IAP), Gary A. Mamon (IAP) SOURCE: hubblesite.org/contents/news-releases/2021/news-2021-008 February 11, 2021:

9 wonderful universe March 24, 2021: The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) collaboration, who produced the first ever image of a black hole released in 2019, has today a new view of the massive object at the center of the Messier 87 (M87) galaxy: how it looks in polarized light. This is the firsttime astronomers have been able to measure polarization, a signature of magnetic fields, this close to the edge of a black hole. This image shows the polarized view of the black hole in M87. The lines mark the orientation of polarization, which is related to the magnetic field around the shadow of the black hole. Astronomers image magnetic fields at edge of M87’s black hole SOURCE: eso.org/public/news/eso2105/ IMAGE CREDIT: ESO and EHT Collaboration JULY 16, 2021: New ESO images reveal stunning features of nearby galaxies This image combines observations of the nearby galaxies NGC 1300, NGC 1087, NGC 3627 (top, from left to right), NGC 4254 and NGC 4303 (bottom, from left to right) taken with the Multi-Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) on ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT). Each individual image is a combination of observations conducted at different wavelengths of light to map stellar populations and warm gas. The golden glows mainly correspond to clouds of ionised hydrogen, oxygen and sulphur gas, marking the presence of newly born stars, while the bluish regions in the background reveal the distribution of slightly older stars. The images were taken as part of the Physics at High Angular resolution in Nearby GalaxieS (PHANGS) project, which is making highresolution observations of nearby galaxies with telescopes operating across the electromagnetic spectrum. SOURCE: eso.org/public/news/eso2110/ • IMAGE CREDIT: ESO/PHANGS

10 wonderful universe This image of the Jovian moon Ganymede was obtained by the JunoCam imager aboard NASA’s Juno spacecraft during its June 7, 2021, flyby of the icy moon. At the time of closest approach, Juno was within 645 miles (1,038 kilometers) of its surface – closer to Jupiter’s largest moon than any other spacecraft has come in more than two decades. This image is a preliminary product – Ganymede as seen through JunoCam’s green filter. Juno is a spin-stabilized spacecraft (with a rotation rate of 2 rpm), and the JunoCam imager has a fixed field of view. To obtain Ganymede images as Juno rotated, the camera acquired a strip at a time as the target passed through its field of view. These image strips were captured separately through the red, green, and blue filters. To generate the final image product, the strips must be stitched together, and colors aligned. At the time this preliminary image was generated, the “spice kernels” (navigation and other ancillary information providing precision observation geometry) necessary to properly map-project the imagery were not available. The red, and blue filtered image strips were also not available. When the final spice kernel data and images from the two filters are incorporated, the images seams (most prevalent on lower right of sphere) will disappear, and a complete color image will be generated. This image, taken with the Atacama Large Millimeter/ submillimeter Array (ALMA), in which ESO is a partner, shows the PDS 70 system, located nearly 400 light-years away and still in the process of being formed. The system features a star at its center and at least two planets orbiting it, PDS 70b (not visible in the image) and PDS 70c, surrounded by a circumplanetary disc (the dot to the right of the star). The planets have carved a cavity in the circumstellar disc (the ring-like structure that dominates the image) as they gobbled up material from the disc itself, growing in size. It was during this process that PDS 70c acquired its own circumplanetary disc, which contributes to the growth of the planet and where moons can form. The PDS 70 system as seen through the eyes of ALMA July 22, 2021 Juno nabs a close-up of Jovian moon Ganymede June 8, 2021 SOURCE: eso.org/public/news/eso2111/ • IMAGE CREDIT: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)/Benisty et al. SOURCE: nasa.gov/image-feature/jpl/juno-s-ganymede-close-up • IMAGE CREDIT: NASA

11 wonderful universe Hello Mercury! June 8, 2021 The joint European-Japanese BepiColombo mission captured this view of Mercury on 1 October 2021 as the spacecraft flew past the planet for a gravity assist maneuver. The image was taken at 23:44:12 UTC by the Mercury Transfer Module’s Monitoring Camera 2, when the spacecraft was about 2418 km from Mercury. Closest approach of about 199 km took place shortly before, at 23:34 UTC. In this view, north is towards the lower left. The cameras provide blackand-white snapshots in 1024 x 1024 pixel resolution. The region shown is part of Mercury’s northern hemisphere including Sihtu Planitia that has been flooded by lavas. A round area smoother and brighter than its surroundings characterizes the plains around the Calvino crater, which are called the Rudaki Plains.The 166 km-wide Lermontov crater is also seen, which looks bright because it contains features unique to Mercury called ‘hollows’ where volatile elements are escaping to space. It also contains a vent where volcanic explosions have occurred. BepiColombo will study these types of features once in orbit around the planet. Capturing a doomed star’s destruction October 21, 2021 Astronomers recently witnessed supernova SN 2020fqv explode inside the interacting Butterfly galaxies, located about 60 million light-years away in the constellation Virgo. Researchers quickly trained NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope on the aftermath. Along with other space- and ground-based telescopes, Hubble delivered a ringside seat to the first moments of the illfated star’s demise, giving a comprehensive view of a supernova in the very earliest stage of exploding. Hubble probed the material very close to the supernova that was ejected by the star in the last year of its life. These observations allowed researchers to understand what was happening to the star just before it died, and may provide astronomers with an early warning system for other stars on the brink of death. SOURCE: esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2021/10/Hello_Mercury • IMAGE CREDIT: ESA/BepiColombo/MTM SOURCE: hubblesite.org/contents/news-releases/2021/news-2021-007 AUTHOR CREDIT: NASA, ESA, Ryan Foley (UC Santa Cruz) IMAGE PROCESSING CREDIT: Joseph DePasquale (STScI)

12 By HASSANE DARHMAOUI Guest contributor In May 2021, amateur astronomers, collaborating under the Moroccan Association of Astrophotography (MAA), constructed a new robotic observatory inside the premises of the professional Oukaïmeden observatory. The observatory is located 80 km south of Marrakech in the high Atlas Mountains at an altitude of 2,750 meters. The objective is to benefit from the excellent seeing of the site for developing astrophotography, but more importantly is to engage amateur astronomers in cuttingedge science with the support of professional astronomers affiliated to the nearby Cadi-Ayyad University in Marrakech. This is the first pro-am collaboration of its kind in Morocco. The new roll-off roof MAA observatory, called High Atlas Observatory (HAO), currently holds five telescopes, with room for one more eventually. Users of the observatory can access the COURTESY OF Astronomer Amateur Aziz Kaeouach Domes in the Oukaïmeden Observatory as seen from the newly established Amateur Observatory HAO. Oukaïmeden Observatory is located 80 km south of Marrakech in the High Atlas Mountains at an altitude of 2,750 meters above sea level. Its coordinates are 7o 52’ 52’’ West and 31o 12’ 32’’ North. Oukaïmeden has a median seeing of about 0.9 arcsec with frequent periods of 0.5–0.6 arcsec. It has very good climate statistics, especially in terms of the number of photometric nights per year which ranges between 260 and 300. The Oukaïmeden Observatory was established in 1986 and it developed to rank among the most important astrophysics research infrastructures in Africa. Several telescopes and scientific instruments are installed there to carry various research related to the following fields: ● Planetology and small bodies of the solar system: MOSS, TRAPPIST-Nord and OWL telescopes (Optical Wide-field patroL- Network) in addition to meteorite detection cameras. ● Exoplanets: Meade-16, TRAPPIST-Nord and OWL (Optical Wide-field patroLNetwork) telescopes ● Variable stars: Herschel spectrograph on Meade-16 Telescope ● Space meteorology: RENOIR experiment (solar activity on the planetary environment) and GPS station ● Space Science: Branch of the SWORM project. Moroccan observatory brings together amateur, professional astronomers COURTESY OF Aziz Kaeouach This photo of ARP 273 was taken by astrophotographer Aziz Kaeouach at the High Atlas Observatory in Morocco. ARP 273 is a pair of interacting galaxies located in the Andromeda constellation. See page 16 for more astrophotography taken by Aziz Kaeouach. Collaborative effort:

13 n n n Hassane Darhmaoui holds a PhD in Physics from the University of Alberta, in Canada. He joined Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane (AUI) right after his graduation in 1997. He is currently a full Professor at the School of Science and Engineering and Coordinator of the AUI Center for Learning Technologies. Darhmaoui has been a member of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) since 2009. He is a founding member and general secretary of the Arab Astronomical Society (ArAS) (since 2016). Back in 2011, Darhmaoui founded the first roll-off roof robotics amateur observatory in Morocco, the Al Akhawayn Astronomical Observatory (AAO). AAO serves as a national platform for amateur astrophotographers and astronomy outreach programs in Morocco. Darhmaoui actively participates in a number of local and nationwide astronomy related activities. He is the director of the yearly astronomy festival of Ifrane. He was the Vice-President of the Spacebus Association. The Spacebus toured Morocco for about a month in 2016, it brought astronomy closer to disadvantaged rural populations. Darhmaoui is currently a member of the IAU National Outreach Committee. He is the national representative of the Galileo Teacher Training Program (GTTP) and Universe Awareness (UNAWE) program in Morocco. Darhmaoui actively participated in the organization of many astronomy events in Morocco: astrophysics schools, astronomy festivals, astro-caravans, astrobus, conferences, workshops, etc. telescopes remotely from anywhere in the world through a web interface. Operating on most clear nights, HAO greatly increases the amount of data that can be collected which will support professional research into exoplanets, asteroids, and variable stars. Recently, the International Astronomical Union Minor Planet Center has assigned a new code to this observatory (Z02), following astrometric readings submitted by MAA member Aziz Kaeouach. The submission report included analysis of the detections of 6 main-belt asteroids (Gaspra 951 of magnitude 14.7, Piazzia 1000 of magnitude 17, Wood 1660 of magnitude 16.2, Giclas 1741 of magnitude 15.3, Tristan 1966 of magnitude 17.3, and Uenoiwakura 14981 of magnitude 17) and one NEO near-Earth object (2011 YQ10 of magnitude 15.2). MAA operates two other observatories, the Moroccan Astrophotographers Observatory (MAO) in the small city Benslimane near the capital Rabat, which hosts three telescopes, and the joint-venture Al Akhawayn Astronomical Observatory (AAO) in the Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane which holds one telescope. MAA members promote astronomy in Morocco through making astrophotography accessible to all, they engage in many astronomy outreach activities throughout the country. Thanks to the pro-am collaboration, they are now touching ground with a more ambitious science project for the detection of new asteroids and exoplanets. COURTESY OF Aziz Kaeouach Above and below, amateur astronomers in Morocco recently collaborated with professional astronomers to construct a roll-off roof observatory on the premises of the Oukaïmeden Observatory. The High Atlas Observatory is currently hosting five telescopes.

14 more views from Moroccan skies Right, this image by astrophotographer Aziz Kaeouach captures the Eagle Nebula (IC 4703) where the famous Pillars of Creation are located about 5500 light-years away. At the center of the nebula is the open cluster M16 responsible for the ionization of the surrounding molecular clouds. Technical data: APO Astrophysic 130mm; Astrophysic Mach 1 mount; Asi 1600 pro mc cooled; 7x36mm filter wheel; Ha 84x300s : 7 h; O3 64x300s : 5 h 20 min; RGB 30x3x30s : 1 h 30 min; Full integration : 13 h 50 min; Acquisition: sharpcap and Nina; Treatment: pixinsight; Location: AAO; Date: June 2021. Above left, NGC 2244 is a young open star cluster with an age of about 8 million years. These young stars produce ultraviolet radiations that ionizes nearby gases including hydrogen, oxygen and sulphur. The resulting spectacle is a complex gas cloud about 120 light-years in size called the Rosette Nebula catalogued Caldwell 49. Technical details: Apo askar Fra 400 to F/5.6; iOptron cem60 ec mount; Zwo asi 1600 mm cooled pro; 133x300s HA : 11h05min; 115x300s O3 : 9h35min; 30x3x60s RGB or 1h30min; Total integration: 22h10min; DOF: 27/101/27; Acquisition date: February 2021; Location: Ben Slimane MAO Observatory, Morocco. Above right, Located about 10,000 light years from home towards the Cassiopeia constellation, these are the filamentary remnants of a supernova that have a shell shape, part of which is doubly ionized oxygen (in blue) while the rest (in red) is essentially ionized hydrogen. Technical details: Apo Takahashi FSQ 85 at F/D 5.3; iOptron 60 cem ec mount; Asi 2600 mm pro; 6nm astronomik filters; Acquisition sampling: 1.7 arcsec; 92 x 600s HA i.e. 15 h 20 min; 181 x 600s O3 i.e. 30 h 10 min; 3 x 30 x 60s RGB i.e. 1 h 30 min; Total integration: 47 h; DOF: 31/149/25; Date: August 2021; Location: HAO4 observatory of Oukaimeden, Morocco. Although Moroccan astrophotographer Aziz Kaeouach has been an astronomy amateur since he was 12, he only began practicinge planetary astrophotography in 2016 and deep sky astrophotography in 2017. His first detection of an asteroid (NOGUSHI) was in 2018. Many of his astrophotographs have been selected as APODs (Astro Photo Of the Day) or AAPODs (Amateur Astronomy Picture of the Day). He won the ZWO contest of 2020 (ASIWEEK#06) and recently won the Photon d’Or contest of October 2021. Aziz is co-founder of the international group of collaborative astrophotographers NHO (Northern Hemisphere Observatory). He is also co-founder of the first robotic Moroccan Astrophotographers Observatory (MAO) in Benslimane and co-director of the robotic Al Akhawayn Astronomical Observatory (AAO) in Ifrane and most recently founded the amateur HAO observatory in Oukaimeden, Marrakech (Z02). Kaeouach holds a diploma of higher studies (DES, Diplôme des Etudes Supérieures) from the Royal Institute of Territorial Administration (IRAT), Morocco (2005). His bachelor degree is in private Law (2002). IMAGES COURTESY OF Aziz Kaeouach

15 (All times in Universal Time – UT) December 2021 21 — December Solstice at 3:50h p.m. 21-22 — Peak of the Ursids Meteor Shower 27 — Moon Last Quarter at 2:24h a.m. January 2022 1 — Moon at Perigee. Distance from Earth: 358037 km 2 — New Moon at 6:35h p.m. 3-4 — Peak of the Quadrantids Meteor Shower 4 — Earth at Perihelion. Distance from Sun: 0.98333 AU 7 — Mercury at Greatest Elongation, 19.2°E 8 — Venus at Inferior Conjunction 9 — Moon First Quarter at 6:13h p.m. 14 — Moon at Apogee. Distance from Earth: 405806 km 17 — Full Moon at 11:51h p.m 23 — Mercury at Inferior Conjunction 25 — Moon Last Quarter at 1:42h p.m. 30 — Moon at Perigee. Distance from Earth: 362250 km February 2022 1 — New Moon at 5:48h a.m. 4 — Saturn at solar conjunction, apparent separation of 0°51’ from the Sun 3-4 — Peak of the Quadrantids Meteor Shower 8 — Moon First Quarter at 1:50h p.m. 9 — Venus, as a morning star, in its greatest brightness in 2022 10 — Moon at Apogee. Distance from Earth: 404,000 km 16 — Full Moon at 4:59h p.m 16 — Mercury at Greatest Elongation West 23 — Moon Last Quarter at 10:33h p.m. 26 — Moon at Perigee. Distance from Earth: 367,000 km upcoming astronomical events:

16 By GABRIEL CRISTIAN NEAGU Guest Contributor In the 16th century a lot of discoveries and new theories were arising on Earth, though one thing was known for sure: the stars are fixed. The sun was moving, the planets, the moon. During the winter of 1572 that myth was shattered by Tycho Brahe who observed a dazzling star, brighter than Venus where nothing was observable before, in Cassiopeia. This started a revolution in cosmology still ongoing. When the Chandra space telescope observed the coordinates of the object it saw the fascinating turbulent debris of the supernova observed by Tycho in 1572. A lot of other similar objects were discovered in the past. Those are called cataclysmic variable stars. Those are stars in which brightness increases by a large factor irregularly by a large factor and then drops back to quiescent state. The first ones discovered were called “novae” meaning “new” in Latin because we observed them as new stars on the sky. Cataclysmic variables are binary systems that consist of a white dwarf primary and a mass transferring secondary (most times a red giant). Because of gravity, the matter from the companion creates an accreting disk around the primary and drops on it. When density and temperature on the white dwarf rise enough to start runaway hydrogen fusion reactions, which convert the hydrogen layer into helium in a very fast way, the system transforms into a nova. If the process continues long enough so the dwarf reaches the Chandrasekhar limit, runaway carbon fusion starts and we see a type Ia supernova that completely destroys the white dwarf. If you think this is all, there is always something new in the world of variable stars. There are four more types: eclipsing variables, rotating variables, pulsating variables and eruptive variables. The eclipsing variable stars eclipse each other from the Earth’s vantage point creating a dip in brightness with the period equal to the period of the stars rotating around each other. This is the case of Algol, also known as the “Demon star”, one of the first variable stars discovered that are not novae or supernovae. Algol’s magnitude is constant at 2.1 but periodically drops to 3.4 every 2.86 days. The oldest documentation of this star comes from an Ancient Egyptian “Calendar of Lucky and Unlucky Days” composed about 3200 years ago. Figure I on the following page is a “phase plot”. This means on the y axis the brightness is presented, and on the x axis we see the phase of the variability. Rotating variable stars are binary stars that do not eclipse each other but their brightness still changes because of changes in the amount of light emitting area visible to us. Those fluctuation do not exceed 0.1 magnitudes so we can’t observe them with the naked eye, needing special equipment for this: CCD/ CMOS cameras mounted on a telescope. My favorite type of variable stars are the pulsating ones. Those stars swell and shrink in a periodic manner. Understanding stars that blink COURTESY OF NASA/CXC/SAO A Chandra view of the Tycho’s Nova remnant “Maybe that’s what life is… a wink of the eye and winking stars.” – Jack Kerouac

17 The pulsations can be radial, when the entire star shrinks and swells or non-radial, when one part shrinks and the other one swells. One such star is “beta Cephei”. This blue star located at about 690 light-years away from us changes it’s brightness of 0.11 magnitudes with a period of 4 hours and 34 minutes. Beta Cephei is the prototype of Cepheid variable stars. Polaris is another example of Cepheid with the period around 4 days. It’s variability range is 1.99 – 1.97 as seen in the Hipparcos space telescope’s data. Some stars have a lot of matter around them. They show irregular or semi-regular variations caused by material being lost from the star or falling on it. This is the case of eruptive variable stars. Protostars show this kind of behavior, being very young objects that have not yet completed the process of contraction from a nebula to a star. Proxima Centauri is a nearby red dwarf star whose brightness changes irregularly because of flares on its surface. Some other red dwarfs can have eruptions so big that the brightness increases with up to two magnitudes for just a few seconds and fall back in minutes. All variable stars are interesting. Depending on what seems more interesting to you, it’s possible to start data mining in various survey data. In the last two years I discovered more than 100 variable stars using this method. The surveys I used for these discoveries are Zwicky Transient Facility, TESS, Pan-STARRS, ASAS-SN and others. To choose the variable star candidates it’s best to use the Gaia EDR3 archive because you can filter stars by the magnitude measurement error, color and proper motion. The data is available for free. Depending on what stars are you focusing your research the surveys used vary. For bright stars it’s good to use TESS and Hipparcos data, but for dim ones (18-20 mag) it’s best to use ZTF or Pan-STARRS. Almost every survey telescope uses standard astronomical filters. ZTF uses g and r sloan, Pan-STARRS uses g, r, I, z and y. Some of them use filters built especially for their mission. The TESS space telescope uses a filter that allows a lot of infrared light inside, so it’s very good to use it with red stars. NGCA-V84 is one of my discoveries made during data mining. The discovery was made with the German amateur astronomer Melina Thevenot in ASAS-SN data. The object has an ambiguous nature. The variability is non-periodic. Before 2015, the star’s magnitude was below 21, but then, a rise in magnitude to about 15.2 started. This object is so bright in infrared that it overexposed the sensors from WISE at the time of the outburst. For unknown reasons, a nebula appeared around the star. COURTESY OF AAVSO/VSX/Sebastian Otero Figure I: this graph shows how Algol changes it’s brightness. It is made using Hipparcos and AAVSO data. COURTESY OF AAVSO/VSX/Sebastian Otero FIGURE II: This graph presents the magnitude variation of Polaris using Hipparcos data.

The theories about the nature of this object range from it being a very young star to the death of an old one. It could even be a luminous red nova. At this time, more photometric and spectroscopic data is being analyzed, very big telescopes being used for the data acquisition: Gemini, Keck, NOT. Another interesting star is NGCA-V98 or zet Vir. This is a star with the average magnitude of 3.37 with 0.009 mag amplitude observed by TESS. It was discovered by datamining the TESS database with my mentor from the Galati Astronomical Observatory. It is a DSCT-type star, pulsating with the period of just 2.3 hours. These stars are examples of how important your contribution can be if you search long enough! 18 n n n Gabriel Cristian Neagu is an 18 years old amateur astronomer from Romania. He started his hobby four years ago at the Galati Astronomical Observatory - Romania, where, he says he learned almost everything he knows from recognizing the constellations to analyzing photometric data. Gabriel is also an ambassador for the American Association of Variable Star Observers, and his main missions are research and education. AAVSO provides a mentorship program available for members for free. If you need assistance, you can contact me at [email protected] or the AAVSO at aavso@ aavso.org. The American Association of Variable Star Observers consists of professional and amateur astronomers sharing the love for variable stars. It has a lot of resources helping everyone learn, and Gabriel encourages everyone to give it a look. He also advises everyone to keep looking at the sky because maybe you will be the first to notice a modern nova or supernova with your own eyes. COURTESY OF AAVSO/VSX/Sebastian Otero The graph shows the variability of zet Vir plotted with the main period. Right, this image shows the nebula’s aspect at the time of the outburst. In the middle there’s an apple core like model. COURTESY OF DECaPS

19

20 By MIHAI R. PECINGINA, ing. (DND Consultants) & President of IDA Quebec Guest Contributor September 21, 2007, is a very important date for the Québec dark-sky movement. It marks the creation of the International Dark-Sky Reserve of Mont-Mégantic, the first of its kind in the world! After several years of work, 2002 marks the beginning of lighting conversion aimed at achieving the criteria for obtaining this classification. An area of 5,300 km², lodging 225,000 citizens in 34 towns and villages, has been recognized by the International Dark-Sky Association and by the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada for the quality of its dark sky. The Québec Window on the Universe Opened Wide Light pollution has long affected astronomical observing activities (scientific and popular). By the late 1990s, it had become clear that, without drastic measures, the MontMégantic site would have been doomed to closure. Despite saving over 1,700,000 kWh per year of energy (or approximately CAN$200,000) in the entire region by virtue of the conversion process, the arrival of LEDs—with the promise of even greater reduction of electricity bills—has started to spoil the work of a whole decade. The Reserve continued their outreach work admirably, but it was clear that, without collective action, progress would have been very slow. The Québec section of the International Dark-Sky Association, IDA Québec, has always been close to the Reserve and supported it in its actions. It was now its time to start a major project: the creation of a provincial standard to reduce light pollution. This is how, after several years of work in the standardization committee, the BNQ 4930‑100 standard was published by the Bureau de Normalisation du Québec. A Vision The intention of this approach has been to give a tool to all those called upon to work in the field (“to designers The Québec Model: COURTESY OF Philippe Moussette (www.philippemoussette.com) Mont-Mégantic sky and the principal observatory captured with a fisheye lens. Controlling light pollution with the BNQ 4930-100 standard

21 as well as to owners and managers of lighting systems, in particular public bodies such as municipalities and ministries and private organizations and individuals”—extract from the standard) in order to “limit the harmful or inconvenient effects on safety, humans, flora and fauna, as well as the quality of the starry sky.” It was an ambitious goal, that many had been trying to achieve since the start of the movement for the protection of the dark sky. The participants in the standardization committee did not limit themselves (of course!) to their own ideas, and they consulted a good number of the previous initiatives which have borne fruit, or which have allowed advancements in the work to reduce light pollution. First of these were the ordinances adopted in and around Mont-Mégantic (allowing it to achieve the Dark-Sky Reserve status), the “Model Lighting Ordinance” (translated into French by IDA Québec), European documents, as well as lighting standards (to see where the interventions will act more effectively). Equally important was the ease of application. Large cities (or entities having to apply the standard) normally have the resources (human and financial) to require a professional intervention. Smaller ones are always on the lookout for resources, and the people who carry out these measures usually excel in areas other than lighting. Identify the Problem and Propose Solutions The BNQ 4930‑100 standard puts a name on the nuisances identified above—this, of course, is light pollution: The harmful or inconvenient effects for humans and ecosystems, and on the quality of the dark sky produced by light radiation emitted at night, whether directly outdoors or from the inside out, due to its orientation, intensity, duration, or spectral composition. This definition already gives rules to follow for the reduction or elimination of light pollution. Those are: the control of the intensity, direction, and spectral composition of the emitted artificial light as well as its duration. It was necessary to find a simple way to manage these factors, and so it was necessary to find the definition of a “big” city versus a smaller one. Generalization efforts (for an application wider than the limits of Québec) resulted in very complex solutions. The decision was simple: limit ourselves to Québec. It became obvious that the population should be the factor of rupture: only 10 Québec cities have more than 100,000 inhabitants, and this number coincided with the municipalities which have more resources than those considered “small.” The standardization committee has therefore defined four Night Lighting Zones (abbreviated “ZEN” from the French “Zones d’Éclairage Nocturne”). ZEN‑0 to ZEN‑2 apply in municipalities and neighbourhoods with fewer inhabitants, while ZEN‑3 is reserved only for cities with more than 100,000 inhabitants. In principle, ZEN‑0 applies to zones of conservation and protection of the dark sky and the environment (wildlife reserves, dark sky, zones around astronomical observatories, etc.); ZEN‑1 to residential, rural, and industrial zones; and ZEN‑2 to mixed zones (residential and commercial or institutional). If ZEN‑3 was treated uniformly, a large part of the population and the environment (flora, fauna, dark skies) could not benefit from the same advantages that night brought in other zones. It was decided to introduce protection groups: A) increased-protection group (riverbanks or lake shores, large parks, astronomical observatories, etc.); B) residential-type protection group; C) mixed-type protection group (residential and commercial, offices and small industry, etc.); and D) commercial-type protection group (commercial, downtown areas, large transport companies, public infrastructure, etc.). What and Why to Protect Night is an important part of life. During the night, diurnal beings rest and recover from the energy expenditure of the day. Nocturnal beings have special systems for performing activities in the absence of light. In both cases, the presence of artificial light disrupts normal processes which can result in dysfunction, diseases, or death. The starry sky is an integral part of the night, our heritage. Since the beginning of time, the stars have fascinated and inspired human beings. Its contemplation has been an essential component of the evolution of all civilizations, in addition to being at the origin of our current understanding of the Universe. The observation of the stars has greatly contributed to the advancement of science and technology, while being an inexhaustible source of inspiration for poets, painters, philosophers, and many other thinkers and artists. Astronomy, mother of all sciences because it is the oldest, has allowed us to locate ourselves in space (exploration, hunting, navigation) and in time (calendars, seasons, agriculture). How to Manage Artificial Lighting Using the BNQ 4930‑100 Standard For each ZEN, the standard recommends limits to be imposed. The approach to control the duration of the use of lighting systems is common with other similar documents, i.e., specifying times of the day (“curfew hours”) when lights should be dimmed or turned off. For controlling the direction of light (the orientation of fixtures), limits refer to the amount of light emitted above 90° and/or between 80° and 90°. An original approach has been chosen for the regulation of the quantity of light: Apart from limiting the average level of illumination on the surface to be illuminated, the introduction of the limitation in the points of maximum intensity (the “hotpoints”). The large differences of opinion between users and

22 manufacturers have determined the emergence of two sets of values for the control of the colour (spectral distribution) of the light: MP: Best practices (from the French “meilleures pratiques”)—values showing the way forward for practices to improve CET: Economic or technical compromise (from the French “compromise économique ou technique)—compromise values considering the constraints in terms of availability of light fixtures on the market, inventory management, and energy performance at the time of publication of the standard. The limit values are expressed both in Kelvin (colour temperature) and as a percentage of maximum blue contained in the light emitted. All these values for quantity, direction, colour, and duration have been centralized for 17 applications (considered the most-often encountered) in two tables, one for zones ZEN‑0 to ZEN‑2, and a second for zone ZEN‑3 with its protection groups. Other Applications The BNQ 4930‑100 standard does not stop here. It includes separate recommendations (for the four criteria: quantity, direction, colour, and duration) for illuminated or backlit signs, recommendations on architectural lighting, and on interior lighting radiating outward. An Example Take the case of a gas station that submits to several of the applications managed by the standard: • Pumps area (canopy of the pumping areas); • Commercial parking; and • Illuminated/backlit signs. The quantity of light is managed both in the concept phase (by an initial maximum value of luminous flux emitted by all the luminaires installed, expressed in lumens per square meter [lm/m²]) and in the verification phase (after project— initial maximum values of the measured illuminance, expressed in lux). In zones ZEN‑0 and ZEN‑3a, the values for the concept phase are 14 lm/m², and they rise to 25 or 36, respectively, in other zones for the parking lots and the fuel pumps zone, while the verification values are 43 lux (it should not be forgotten that the standard indicates the maximum values, the “hotspots”) and can go up to 108 lux. For illuminated signs, the quantitative recommendations are given in candela per square meter (cd/m²), which are more common units of measurement for the application. It is important to remember that in zones ZEN‑0 and ZEN‑3a, backlit signs (electronic billboards included) are not allowed. For light direction, for the commercial parking and the pumps area, a maximum of 20 lm can be emitted above the horizontal. The standard also requires that overflows (below the property limits) are limited. For signs, an inclination of 10% is requested downwards in ZENs where they are allowed to be installed. For colour control, best practices in parking areas aim at 1,800 K, while the technical/economic compromise is limited to 2,200 or 3,000 K. Lighting below canopies and lighting for illuminated signs are recommended at 2,700 K (MP), 3000 K, or 4,000 K (CET), respectively. For illuminated signs (except for ZENs where they are not permitted), white background is prohibited; the background must be darker than the text and symbols. From the point of view of the period of operation of the exterior lighting systems, the changes are not great in between ZENs: 30 minutes after the closing time, the exterior lighting must be turned off or, in the case of nonstop stations, a reduction of at least 75% is requested after 10 p.m. in more protected areas, or 11 p.m. or even midnight for other areas. In cases where signs are permitted, they must respect the same rules. The differences between the parameters to be observed are not huge, but the effects on the night environment will be significant. In Conclusion The BNQ 4930‑100 standard provides a powerful tool for all those concerned by the loss of the night. IDA Québec is preparing a training session (in French) on the use of the standard. Soon, live evening events will be organized to answer questions and to clarify points raised by those who will be taking the course on the use of the standard. • • • Acknowledgments: Substantial information was taken from the site of the International Dark-Sky Reserve of Mont-Mégantic (https://www.cieletoilemontmegantic.org/) and, of course, from the BNQ 4930‑100 standard (https://www.bnq.qc.ca/en/ standardization/environment/control-of-light-pollution.html). Discover how optics work & explore the night sky with the iconic Galileoscope build-your-own refractor kit! Now available at explorescientificusa.com

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24 By KAZUYA AIANI Guest Contributor November 1, 2021, was a memorable day for Bisei, where I work, because on that day Bisei was certified as the first Dark Sky Community in Asia by the International Dark-Sky Association. Okayama Prefecture in western Japan is known as one of the best places for astronomical observation in Japan because of its relatively high clear sky rate, stable air currents, and distance from major cities. In Okayama Prefecture, Bisei is located on a plateau far from densely populated areas. It was the place where the observation facility of Japan Coast Guard for compiling the nautical calendar was relocated to avoid light pollution, and where the astronomical clubs set up their observation bases around 1986, when Halley’s Comet returned for the first time in 76 years. Bisei Town was one of the local governments in Okayama Prefecture. But it was merged into Ibara City in 2005 and Bisei is a part of Ibara City now. In August 1988, a star-themed event, “Starry Night ‘88,” was held in Bisei. Seven local astronomy clubs (some of which had their own observatories in Bisei) gathered with their telescopes. But unfortunately, the star party was rained out, and that night, the astronomy clubs, and the officials of Bisei Town had a social gathering. At the meeting, members of clubs asked the officials if Bisei Town could have an ordinance to prevent light pollution like the one in Tucson, Arizona, USA. The officials of Bisei Town seriously considered the request and enacted the ordinance in 1989. It was the first ordinance in Japan to prevent light pollution. It was a time when glamorous light-up displays were actively carried out in many places. Although there was an objection to the content of the ordinance, which seemed to be the antithesis of this, saying that the dark image reminiscent of the blackout during the war, the town chose to protect the starry sky with the support of an overwhelming majority of the town council. Even before the enactment of Bisei’s light pollution COURTESY A view of the night sky from Bisei Astronomical Observatory Bisei takes on light pollution

25 prevention ordinance, astronomy fans had been conducting light pollution prevention activities in many places. The Environment Agency began to work on light pollution prevention and formulated guidelines for light pollution prevention in 1998. Ordinances aimed at light pollution prevention were also enacted one after another across the country. Local governments in Japan are divided into municipalities under 47 prefectures. Okayama Prefecture, where Bisei Town was located, incorporated light pollution prevention into its Ordinance on Securing a Comfortable Environment (2001), making it the first prefecture to take steps to prevent light pollution. As a result, rotating searchlights disappeared from Okayama Prefecture. When Bisei became part of Ibara City in 2005, the light pollution prevention ordinance was taken over by Ibara City as its ordinance. The brightness of the night sky in Bisei was maintained at one of the darkest levels in Japan, but on the other hand, measures against security lights remained inadequate, and there were lights with non-zero upward flux. Furthermore, in the past few years, white LED security lights have spread rapidly, and the previous fluorescent security lights were replaced by white LED security lights. They were dazzling to the eyes. The International Dark-Sky Association has been promoting the protection of the starry sky by establishing a system for certifying International Dark Sky Places since 2001. There are currently five categories of International Dark Sky Places, including International Dark Sky Parks. In 2018, the Iriomote Ishigaki National Park was awarded as Japan’s first International Dark Sky Place, and in 2020, Kozu-shima in Tokyo was awarded as Japan’s second one. Both are categorized as International Dark Sky Parks. In Ibara City’s Bisei area, which has Japan’s first ordinance for the prevention of light pollution, the Bisei Tourism Association has started a movement to be certified as an International Dark Sky Place. First, it was necessary to replace the white LED security lights with those certified by the International Dark Sky Association. Such security lights must have zero upward luminous flux and a light source color temperature of 3,000K or lower. At that time, no domestic manufacturers were producing such security lights. Therefore, the Bisei Tourism Association requested Panasonic, one of the largest lighting equipment manufacturers in Japan, to develop such lights, and the light developed by Panasonic became the first Japanese city lights to obtain IDA certification in 2020. Hundreds of white LED security lights COURTESY An example of a location in Bisei where white LED security lights were replaced to IDA approved LED security lights. The image above shows the area before the replacement, while the image below shows thea area after the replacement.

26 needed to be replaced, and when they tried to raise funds through crowdfunding in 2020, they attracted the sympathy of many people and gathered three times the initial target amount. They proceeded to replace about 400 security lights and the lights in public facilities in Bisei area. With the advice of the IDA Tokyo, Ibara City applied for certification as Japan’s third International Dark Sky Places in 2021, with Bisei as the target area. IDA approved the application, and Bisei is now the third International Dark Sky Places and the first International Dark Sky Community in Asia. Looking at replaced security lights with eyes accustomed to white LED security lights, it is noticeable that the illumination level has decreased. However, the purpose of the light pollution prevention ordinance was to harmonize the lives of the residents with the starry sky through appropriate lighting. I hope that the culture of harmonizing the starry sky with people’s lives will spread far and wide, with the town of Bisei as a base of communication. The fact that astro-tourism has recently begun to attract attention is also expected to be a tailwind for the protection of the starry sky. This October, a large deck was completed at Bisei Observatory, allowing visitors to safely view the vast starry sky. In many parts of Japan, autumn is the best time to enjoy the Milky Way as the air becomes clearer. In winter, many first-magnitude stars add glamour to the night sky. I hope that by experiencing a sense of unity with the starry sky under the sky of Bisei, which protects the starry sky, many people will be reminded that we are members of the great nature of the universe which has taken 13.8 billion years to create human beings. COURTESY A large deck at the Bisei Observatory allows visitors to get stunning views of the vast night sky. The deck has a 20-cm telescope and a 15-cm binocular. COURTESY The Milky Way stretches above the dome at the Bisei Astronomical Observatory.

27 By DAVID PROSPER NASA Night Sky Network Have you ever wondered how many stars you can see at night? From a perfect dark sky location, free from any light pollution, a person with excellent vision may observe a few thousand stars in the sky at one time! Sadly, most people don’t enjoy pristine dark skies – and knowing your sky’s brightness will help you navigate the night sky. The brightness of planets and stars is measured in terms of apparent magnitude, or how bright they appear from Earth. Most visible stars range in brightness from 1st to 6th magnitude, with the lower number being brighter. A star at magnitude 1 appears 100 times brighter than a star at magnitude 6. A few stars and planets shine even brighter than first magnitude, like brilliant Sirius at -1.46 magnitude, or Venus, which can shine brighter than -4 magnitude! Very bright planets and stars can still be seen from bright cities with lots of light pollution. Given perfect skies, an observer may be able to see stars as dim as 6.5 magnitude, but such fantastic conditions are very rare; in much of the world, human-made light pollution drastically limits what people can see at night. Your sky’s limiting magnitude is, simply enough, the measure of the dimmest stars you can see when looking straight up. So, if the dimmest star you can see from your backyard is magnitude 5, then your limiting magnitude is 5. Easy, right? But why would you want to know your limiting magnitude? It can help you plan your observing! For example, if you have a bright sky and your limiting magnitude is at 3, watching a meteor shower or looking for dimmer stars and objects may be a wasted effort. But if your sky is dark and the limit is 5, you should be able to see meteors and the Milky Way. Knowing this figure can help you measure light pollution in your area and determine if it’s getting better or worse over time. And regardless of location, be it backyard, balcony, or dark sky park, light pollution is a concern to all stargazers! How do you figure out the limiting magnitude in your area? While you can use smartphone apps or dedicated devices like a Sky Quality Meter, you can also use your own eyes and charts of bright constellations! The Night Sky Network offers a free printable Dark Sky Wheel, featuring the stars of Orion on one side and Scorpius on the other, here: bit.ly/ darkskywheel. Each wheel contains six “wedges” showing the stars of the constellation, limited from 1-6 magnitude. Find the wedge containing the faintest stars you can see from your area; you now know your limiting magnitude! For maximum accuracy, use the wheel when the constellation is high in the sky well after sunset. Compare the difference when the Moon is at full phase, versus new. Before you start, let your eyes adjust for twenty minutes to ensure your night vision is at its best. A red light can help preserve your night vision while comparing stars in the printout. Did you have fun? Contribute to science with monthly observing programs from Globe at Night’s website (globeatnight.org), and check out the latest NASA’s science on the stars you can - and can’t - see, at nasa.gov. This article is distributed by the NASA Night Sky Network program, which supports astronomy clubs across the USA dedicated to astronomy outreach. Visit nightsky.jpl.nasa.gov to find local clubs, events, and more! Check your sky’s quality with Orion COURTESY OF NASA Night Sky Network The Dark Sky Wheel, showing the constellation Orion at six different limiting magnitudes (right), and a photo of Orion (left). What is the limiting magnitude of the photo? For most observing locations, the Orion side works best on evenings from January-March, and the Scorpius side from June-August.

28 All about planetary orbits By Pierre Paquette, Royal Astronomical Society of Canada

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42 n n n Pierre Paquette has been an amateur astronomer for more than 35 years. He has been secretary (1990–1992) and president (1993–1994) of the Centre francophone de Montréal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, board member of the Fédération des astronomes amateurs du Québec (1993–1994, then 2010–2014), and vicepresident of the Club des astronomes amateurs de Laval (2014). From 2012 to 2016, he was the editor and publisher of Astronomie-Québec, a freely available PDF magazine, and he still sometimes publishes on its website and Facebook page. He was main presenter at National Geographic Night-Sky Odyssey, the first-even open-air planetarium with augmented reality, in Sutton, Québec, from 2018 to 2021. He has been an Ambassador of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada since 2013. In 2016, he received the Fred Clarke Award of the Montréal RASC for his lifetime achievements. He has given talks and workshops in Montréal, Québec City, Toronto, Whitehorse (Yukon, where he is Subject Matter Expert for the Aurora | 360 Experience), and Brazil.

43 Global view of Pluto created from images taken by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft during its July 2015 flyby. Courtesy NASA / JHUAPL / SwRI AAS membership benefits include: • Discounted registration rates for our winter and summer meetings — the largest astronomy conferences in the U.S. • Opportunities to present your work at AAS meetings and network with other astronomers • Discounted subscriptions to Sky & Telescope magazine • Access to the AAS Membership Directory • Biweekly AAS News Digest delivered to your email inbox And much more! Join Us! Questions? [email protected] Join now: aas.org/join Since you read Sky’s Up, you’re obviously interested in astronomy. And if you’re interested in astronomy, you should belong to the American Astronomical Society! The AAS community includes nearly 7,000 professional researchers, amateur astronomers, science educators, and students, and we have a variety of membership types to suit all these categories.

44 astropoetry Tipuritura-strigatura is a shorter Romanian poetic form “invented” in the Maramures-Oase zone. The astro-photo-haikus and astro-tipuri-strigatura related to the Sun and the Moon over the next few pages are creations of astrophotographer Valentin Grigore (President of the Romanian Society for Meteors and Astronomy – SARM) and astropoet Andrei Dorian Gheorghe (director of SARM’s Cosmopoetry Festival). These creations were inspired by the solar and lunar eclipses that occurred in June 2020. The Sun & Moon astro-photo-haiku and astro-tipuri-strigatura Above, solar eclipse of the summer solstice 2020. On June 21, 2020 it was an annular solar eclipse. From Targoviste, Romania, it was seen as a partial solar eclipse with the magnitude of 0,10%.

45 Above, the maximum of the partial solar eclipse, June 21, 2020. Targoviste. Left, the sun through the eclipse glasses with 23 minutes before the end of the partial solar eclipse, June 21, 2020. Targoviste. astropoetry

46 astropoetry Above, sunset during Perseids summer school. Runcu Stone. Right, a 22° solar halo. Targoviste. Far right, a 22° solar halo. Targoviste.

47 astropoetry Above, a 22° solar halo. Targoviste. Left, part of a 22° solar halo. Targoviste.

48 astropoetry Above, penumbral lunar eclipse near the maximum magnitude of 0.56, June 5, 2020. Targoviste. Right, moon rise of the penumbral eclipse. Targoviste.

49 astropoetry Above, moonrise of the penumbral eclipse. Targoviste. Left, moon with a corona during the penumbral eclipse. Targoviste.

50 astropoetry Right, full Moon. Targoviste. Below, full Moon and Jupiter rising over a sunflower field. Targoviste.