ALCON, the annual conference of the Astronomical League, will be from July 28 to 30 at Albuquerque, New Mexico. As its website says, “You can meet and listen to Apollo 17 Astronaut Harrison Schmitt, enjoy the dark skies that New Mexico provides, and visit the famous Karl Jansky Very Large Array.”
Here is the evening sky to greet you at Albuquerque on July 28.
See the end note about enlarging illustrations.
Saturn; the rich sights of the central Milky Way; and some early Delta Aquarid meteors. (See more about them on page 130 of Astronomical Calendar 2022.)
__________
ILLUSTRATIONS in these posts are made with precision but have to be inserted in another format. You may be able to enlarge them on your monitor. One way: right-click, and choose “View image” or “Open image in new tab”, then enlarge. Or choose “Copy image”, then put it on your desktop, then open it. On an iPad or phone, use the finger gesture that enlarges (spreading with two fingers, or tapping and dragging with three fingers). Other methods have been suggested, such as dragging the image to the desktop and opening it in other ways.
This weblog maintains its right to be about astronomy or anything under the sun.
But New Mexico is having heavy monsoon rains, so maybe not so good for skywatching. Rain is less of a problem for radio astronomy.
I just checked airnow.gov for Albuquerque. The air quality is current “moderate” because of ozone pollution. PM 2.5 and PM 10 are currently “good”, so Alcon attendees should be able to see the stars. Last month there were severe wildfires in Arizona and New Mexico, not good for skywatchers or other living beings.
Senator Schmitt is a great guy. First met him shortly after his Apollo flight. Probably still had moon dust in his hair. My best friend and I skipped school and took a city bus downtown for a press conference with the entire crew.(I don’t recommend skipping school, but this was a matter of meeting history head on.) The fickle press filed in. About 100 chairs set up for them, maybe 10% filled, so pathetic the uncurious press of the early 1970s (much like today in fact). After a ftojen few questions the press flew the coop, leaving the 2 of us with the 3 of them. What followed was a 20 minute private conference and a dream come true for two public schoolers. I never met CMP Cpt. Evans again, but did bump into moonwalkers CDR Cpt. Cernan and LMP Sen. Schmitt several more times in the following decades.
That’s a great story, Clint.