From the Director

Posted on June 4, 2026 by ST Editors

by Rex Parker, PhD director@princetonastronomy.org


Next Meeting at NJ State Planetarium – Bring Friends & Family. We want to see you in person at the season finale monthly meeting on Tuesday June 9 (7:30pm) at the NJ State Museum Planetarium in Trenton https://www.nj.gov/state/museum/explore-planetarium.shtml. There is convenient parking at the lower entrance level next to the planetarium (205 West State St). This will be the last meeting until Sept, and will be held in-person-only (no Zoom). The Planetarium is a great space-theme environment for kids and adults, so bring family and friends. With its 52- foot dome and state-of-the-art 8K ultra-high resolution projection system it provides, the Planetarium is more capable now than ever before. AAAP has a long history with the Planetarium and our mutual contributions to astronomy outreach. For more info on the presentation by planetarium leader Dr. Jacob Hamer, please see Victor’s article below.

Why a New Telescope for the Observatory? At the last meeting the membership discussed and voted on the Board’s proposition to fund acquisition of a new telescope and imaging device for the club’s Washington Crossing Observatory. The results of the vote are posted in the Secretary’s report in this issue. Here I offer further rationale for this proposal.

In order to offer the best hands-on astronomy experiences to members and the public, AAAP continually seeks to improve the capabilities of our Observatory. First built by club members in the late 1970’s on about 1 acre of park land leased by the state, the Observatory recently underwent significant capital improvements to rebuild the columns and rewire the electricity. Now we want to stay near the cutting edge with technologic advances in astro-imaging while still offering direct visual observing through telescopes. Most importantly, newer technologies can better break through the barrier of light pollution plaguing central New Jersey.

At the Observatory on a very capable Equatorial mount (known as a Paramount ME) sits a 20- year old Celestron 14” Schmidt Cassegrain telescope (SCT). The SCT was a great breakthrough in optical design in its day but shows severe limitations when coupled with modern astro cameras. This is because it was designed as a visual instrument way before CMOS imaging sensors changed astronomy. Image sensors require a larger evenly illuminated area at the focal plane than eyepieces do. While we get good on-axis imaging performance with the C-14 using the ZWO ASI-294 camera (a micro 4/3 sensor), the off-axis performance is far from optimal with pronounced vignetting. Larger sensor formats which could theoretically increase the field of view (APS-C and full frame) are a no-go on the SCT.

In order to overcome these problems in the age of imaging, Celestron conducted substantial R&D, resulting in the production of an advanced optical SCT design called the Edge series. The Edge is an advanced, flat-field, aplanatic series of telescopes. It is designed for both visual observation and imaging with astronomical CMOS astro cameras including full-frame sensors. It is this design which we now propose to acquire for the AAAP Observatory, a Celestron Edge-14 HD. A picture is worth a thousand words – see the Figures below showing the optical design differences of the Edge series. I also urge you to check out Celestron’s white paper describing the technical advances in the new design: https://s3.amazonaws.com/celestron-site-support-files/support_files/edgehd_whitepaper_final.pdf

Figures below: Images provided by Celestron. The Edge SCT design improves upon the optical design of the original and makes it a superb imaging telescope while keeping direct visual capabilities.

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From The Program Chair

Posted on June 4, 2026 by ST Editors

by Victor Davis, Program Chair

June Meeting at NJ State Museum Planetarium
The June, 2026 monthly meeting of the Amateur Astronomers Association of Princeton will take place at the planetarium of the NJ State Museum in Trenton. The museum is located at 205 West State Street. There’s plenty of parking behind the museum next to the planetarium. The club’s meetings always take place the second Tuesday of each month September through June. The June meeting is traditionally held at the planetarium at the customary time: 7:30 pm. The meeting date is Tuesday, June 9, 2026, and marks the end of the academic year before our usual hiatus during July and August.  As usual, the meeting is open to AAAP members and the public. The evening’s guest speaker will be Dr. Jacob Hamer, Assistant Curator of Planetarium Education at the NJ State Museum. Dr. Hamer will start the evening with the planetarium’s latest sky show, then present a live lecture entitled “An Astronomer’s View of Climate: Milankovitch Cycles.”

Please note that due to technical constraints and copyright issues, this meeting will not be livestreamed or recorded for future perusal. You must participate in-person at the planetarium.

No “Meet the Speaker” Dinner

Since the meeting will take place at the planetarium and not on the Princeton University campus, there will be no “meet the speaker” dinner this month.

Here’s the anticipated agenda for June 9th 2026’s monthly meeting of the AAAP:

(Times are approximate)

Featured Speaker:
Jacob Hamer
Assistant Curator, Planetarium Education

Jacob.Hamer@sos.nj.gov

An Astronomer’s View of Climate:
Milankovitch Cycles

An Astronomer’s View of Climate: Milankovitch Cycles
Over the last 800,000 years glacial ice caps miles deep advanced and retreated across North America at least eight times. These cyclic changes in Earth climate are connected to small cyclic variations in Earth’s orbit called Milankovitch cycles. Join us in the planetarium to hear about how astronomy and climate science are intimately connected, and how New Jersey rocks have something to say about these cycles!

Jacob Hamer, PhD
Dr. Hamer is Assistant Curator of Planetarium Education at the NJ State Museum. He received his BA in Physics and Mathematics from CUNY Macaulay Honors College at Hunter College. During his undergraduate studies he conducted research on galaxies at the American Museum of Natural History. He received his PhD in Astronomy and Astrophysics at Johns Hopkins University, where he carried out research on the interactions between close-in exoplanets and their host stars.

AAAP Video Library
AAAP’s library of monthly meetings is available on the club’s YouTube channel. Stay tuned for updates on when the edited version of May’s meeting featuring science journalist John Horgan will be publicly available.

And now, something completely different:
On May 18th, Venus and the crescent Moon made a striking pair in the WNW sky. Here’s the apparition with a possibly recognizable architectural object in the foreground.

Manhattanhenge 2026
Manhattanhenge is back!  During this biannual event, the rectangular grid of Manhattan’s streets aligns precisely with the setting sun. Crowds of people all over Manhattan block traffic and aggressively elbow pedestrians to witness the sublime sight of the sun illuminating the canyons of buildings along Manhattan’s streets. In 1811, New York’s linear-minded city planners laid out Manhattan’s midtown streets in a rectangular grid aligned 29 degrees east from geographic north. Had they laid out the streets due east-west, Manhattanhenge would occur twice a year on the equinoxes. However, a trip from the Bronx to Battery Park would probably splash you into the East River. In any case, this 29 degree rotation moves the alignment dates elsewhere into the calendar. Astro-popularizer Neil DeGrasse Tyson coined the term Manhattanhenge to make the connection between urban life and the pre-historic circles of stones used to signal the change of seasons.

If you missed the alignment on May 28 and May 29, you won’t have long to wait for the next one. It occurs on Saturday, July 11 at 8:20 pm EDT (full sun visible) and Sunday, July 12 at 8:21 pm EDT (half sun visible). The best spots from which to watch are locations as far east as possible that have unimpeded views across the Hudson River to New Jersey. Examples are 14th Street, 23rd Street, 34th Street, 42nd Street and 57th Street. The snapshot below is cheating a bit; it was photographed on July 11, 2022 at 72nd Street.

A look ahead at future guest speakers:

Date Featured SpeakerTopic
Sep. 8, 2026Michael DiMario
Chair of AAAP’s Astro-imaging SIG
K2mjd@outlook.com
Dr. DiMario will present a primer on astro-imaging.
Oct. 13, 2026Becka Phillipson
Assistant Professor in Physics
Villanova University		Prof. Phillipson, originally scheduled to be October 2025’s guest speaker, is an unconfirmed prospect to try again in 2026.

As always, members’ comments and suggestions are gratefully accepted and much appreciated. Thanks to Ira Polans and Dave Skitt for setting up the online links and connecting the meeting to the world outside Peyton Hall.

victor.davis@verizon.net
program@princetonastronomers.org
(908) 581-1780 cell

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AAAP Meeting Minutes for May 12, 2026

Posted on June 4, 2026 by ST Editors

By Gene Allen, Secretary

Director Rex Parker opened the meeting in the Sherrerd Hall lecture room 101 at 1940 with44 of the 48 seats occupied. He showed numerous images of the many galaxies visible in the spring sky. He then introduced our speaker for tonight, John Horgan, author and Director of the Center for Science Writing at Stevens Institute of Technology. His talk was an update of his best-selling book and was entitled Was The End of Science Too Optimistic? Questions ended at 2100.

Technical issues delayed the business meeting until 2115, at which time 41 remained in the room, only 3 of them non-members.

Election of the slate of officers was the first item. Nominations Chair Michael Mitrano had reported in the April meeting that no one had even asked a question when the membership was polled by email for nominations, which were then closed. The vote was 38 unanimous in favor, more than the 31 needed for a legal quorum. There were more yes votes among those online and several also held proxies. Elected were:

Director: Rex Parker
Assistant Director: Bob Vanderbie
Treasurer: Ira Polans
Secretary: Gene Allen
Program Chair: Victor Davis
Observatory Co-chairs: Dave & Jennifer Skitt
Outreach Chair: Bill Murray

A discussion ensued about the proposal approved by the Board to replace the large, donated, semi-vintage C14 scope in the observatory with a new Edge HD model. We would need additional hardware to support the new scope, so the total cost is likely to reach $12,000. The current balance in the treasury was reported to be roughly $27K, but this large an expenditure requires membership approval of a 30% quorum, currently 61 votes. The approval motion and second was contingent upon securing a renewal or extension of the AAAP lease for the observatory property in Washington Crossing State Park from the NJ EPA. The only dissenting opinion was from Merchandise Lead Facilitator Rich Sherman
who proposed that an 11 inch scope would enable investment in making the observatory remotely accessible. It was pointed out that the observatory is currently capable of remote operation except for the roll-off roof which will not likely be automated anytime soon. The vote in favor counted 30 still in attendance and another 8 online. In addition, the membership was polled by email and as of the date of this submission, online voting recorded another 32 yes votes for a total of 70, exceeding the 61 required by the bylaws. Not one vote against the proposal was recorded.

Outreach Chair Bill Murray reported on three upcoming outreach events:
May 15– a caravan from the Planetarium will add to the attendance at the observatory.
May 16 – stargazing at the Mercer Meadows Pole Farm. We have 3 volunteers but need 3 more.
June 6 – stargazing at Rosedale Park

The meeting was adjourned at 2205.

As of May 11, we have 205 active members. So far in CY2026, renewals number 43 and expirations number 22, giving us a 66% retention rate. We have added 19 new members, but only 46% of first year members are renewing.

Submitted by Secretary Gene Allen, May 22, 2026

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Book Reviews

Posted on June 4, 2026 by ST Editors

Book Review  by Michael DiMario
Take Me To Your Leader, Perspectives On Your First Alien Encounter by Neil DeGrasse Tyson
Publisher: Simon Six – Simon & Schuster
Publication Date: 2026
Total Pages: 240
$18.18, Hardcover on Amazon

Take Me to Your Leader by Neil DeGrasse Tyson, director of the Hayden Planetarium, is a fun and easy read on human kind’s Alien expectations of first, second, and third encounter. Tyson explains and throttles our expectations based on the laws of physics to describe what Aliens might look like, act, how they would travel through the vastness of space, and what their expectations of us may be.

What I enjoyed most in the book is a discussion of human hubris setting our expectations. Historical facts and human origins are discussed as well as fun facts such as humans and bananas share 25% of exact DNA sequence (usually 60% is quoted, but this is DNA functionality vs actual sequence) revealing all life on Earth has a common ancestor and that the great banana split occurred about 1.5 billion years ago. This leads to what possibly could an Alien be like?

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Snippets

Posted on June 4, 2026 by ST Editors

compiled by Arlene & David Kaplan

-Ko Arimatsu

Astronomers find atmosphere around a solar system object that shouldn’t have one 
Astronomers have detected a thin atmosphere around a tiny celestial body in the outer solar system for the first time — an object previously thought to be too small to support the presence of an atmosphere…more

-Shingo Iwashita
-space.com

‘It was quite a light show!’ NASA astronaut spies dramatic fireball from the International Space Station “I think it must have been some piece of orbital debris or a satellite breaking up as it entered the atmosphere.” On the International Space Station, you look down to see shooting stars. NASA astronaut Chris Williams just reminded us of that mind-bending fact, sharing footage of a spectacular fireball he saw from the orbiting lab….more

-NYT

U.S.-China Rivalry Reaches South American Skies In the foothills of the Argentine Andes, the enormous Chinese radio telescope sits in one of the world’s premier stargazing locations, surrounded by vast, undulating mountain ranges and beneath skies untouched by light pollution. It is also on the opposite side of the planet from Beijing, offering China a window on the half of the heavens it would not otherwise see…more

-NYT

A Physicist Who Thinks in Poetry From the Cosmic Edge Much of the praise for Chanda Prescod-Weinstein’s debut book in 2021, “The Disordered Cosmos: A Journey Into Dark Matter, Spacetime, and Dreams Deferred,” lauded the way she used personal experiences in physics to discuss the social and political inequities that exist alongside scientific breakthroughs…more

-NYT

Railway, Meet Milky Way: 5 Great Stargazing Trains On nighttime excursions in dark-sky hot spots like Norway, New Zealand and Nevada, all you have to do is relax and look up. The stars will do the rest…more

-NASA

NASA Missions Track Record-Breaking Radio Burst from Sun
When NASA scientists first observed a particular radio burst from the Sun in August 2025, there was nothing unusual about it. But then the radio burst kept going…more

-NASA

NASA’s Planet-Hunting TESS Reveals Dazzling Night Sky NASA’s TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) has released its most complete view of the starry sky to date, filling in gaps from previous observations. Nearly 6,000 colored dots scattered across the image show the locations of either confirmed or candidate exoplanets — worlds beyond our solar system…more

-Space Daily

In 1982 the Soviet Union landed a probe on the surface of Venus that survived 127 minutes in heat that melts lead and pressure dense enough to crush a submarine — long enough to scan back two panoramas of flat basaltic rock under an orange-tinted sky before the heat finally ended the mission In March 1982, a Soviet lander survived nearly four times its design life on the surface of Venus, returning panoramic imagery from a place that should have destroyed it within half an hour…more

-Space Daily

The Cassini spacecraft was deliberately flown into Saturn in 2017 because its fuel was running low and engineers refused to risk it drifting into Enceladus, a moon with a subsurface ocean, and the final 22 orbits were designed to thread a 1,500-mile gap between Saturn and its innermost ring that no spacecraft had ever attempted. On September 15, 2017, a spacecraft burned up in the cloud tops of Saturn, ending a 20-year mission with a controlled suicide that engineers had planned years in advance…more

-NASA

NASA’s Psyche Mission Aces Mars Flyby, Targets Metal-Rich Asteroid NASA’s Psyche spacecraft completed its close approach of Mars on May 15, coming within 2,864 miles (4,609 kilometers) of the planet’s surface. This flyby used a gravity assist from Mars to provide a critical boost in speed and to adjust the spacecraft’s orbital plane without using any onboard propellant, sending it on…more

-space.com

Did You Know a Total Solar Eclipse Is Coming? Here’s How to See It. On Aug. 12, parts of Greenland, Iceland, Spain and Portugal will experience the thrill of daytime darkness. Here’s where you can witness the cosmic spectacle…more

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From the Director

Posted on May 3, 2026 by ST Editors

by Rex Parker, PhD  director@princetonastronomy.org

May 12 Meeting on Campus at Sherrerd Hall.  This meeting is an important event for members to attend in person if possible, and by Zoom if you cannot be there on campus.  Here I will describe why I say this meeting is imperative, that the club needs your participation.  Firstly, we have invited highly acclaimed science journalist John Horgan of the Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken NJ as guest speaker May 12.  The highest priority of AAAP is hosting dynamic presenters at our monthly meetings — this can be sustained only if members come to the meetings. 

As a long-time contributing writer for Scientific American, dozens of John Horgan’s articles have circulated through the decades. The number of prominent scientists he has interviewed in this role is astounding, including Stephen Hawking, Edward Witten, Nobel laureates Steven Weinberg, Murray Gell-Mann, and Hans Bethe, and also Freeman Dyson, Roger Penrose, Douglas Hofstadter, and John Wheeler.  His interviews weren’t restricted to physicists and included famed biologists Richard Dawkins, Stephen Jay Gould, Lynn Margulis, E.O. Wilson, and Francis Crick, and philosophers Karl Popper and Thomas Kuhn.  Mr Horgan’s current on-line blog thoughtfully takes on modern science controversies, and I urge you to check it out at https://johnhorgan.org/  His recent book (published on-line at no cost on his website) is My Quantum Experiment, explaining with wit and candor how he undertook learning quantum mechanics as an older person without an advanced degree in physics or math.   

For our May 12 meeting John Horgan will talk about his most renowned and controversial book, The End of Science, written back in 1995 but perhaps more relevant now than ever and steadily selling today.  While he is viewed by some as a provocative science critic, my own take is that his ideas are refreshingly honest and clear-minded, and his work triggers meaningful debate within the science community for very good reasons. You are welcome to bring a copy of the book for signing at the meeting.  It’s available from many vendors including Labyrinth Books in Princeton as well as Amazon as both paper and Kindle versions.

The May 12 meeting will be held in Sherrerd Hall (first floor auditorium) on the Princeton campus.  Thanks go to Asst. Director Bob Vanderbei for setting up this venue.  This became necessary because we were bumped by exams in Peyton Hall in May, and construction work is planned this summer through the end of the year.  Automobile parking for Sherrerd Hall is close by and it is an easy walk (see Map below).  Campus Lot 10 or Lot 13 (the Princeton University Press parking lot) are both easily accessed from Willams Street (turn from Washington Rd).  Visitors are permitted to park free after 4pm at these lots. If those lots don’t have space, there is street parking on Williams and nearby streets.  Paid parking ($1/hour) on the street ends at 8pm, then it is free (to pay, merely enter license plate number and use credit card). Sherrard Hall is a newer glassy building located along Shapiro Walk a short way from those parking lots.     

The second big reason we need your attendance May 12 is the election of officers.  As specified in the by-laws, the vote is held at the May meeting and a quorum is required.  The candidates standing for election are the current officers, listed below;  each has agreed to serve another year.

Candidates for the Board May 2026
Director, Rex Parker PhD
Assistant Director, Bob Vanderbei PhD
Secretary, Gene Allen
Treasurer, Ira Polans
Observatory Chair, Dave Skitt
Program Chair, Victor Davis
Outreach Chair, Bill Murray

The third main reason to attend is the expenditure proposal for a new telescope for the observatory.  The following serves notice, as required in the by-laws, of the recommendation by the Board to upgrade the observatory’s main instrument, the Celestron-14 Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope. We propose purchasing a new Celestron-14 Edge HD optical tube assembly, focal reducer, and related accessories at cost up to $12,000.  The proposed expenditure must be approved by a majority of the votes cast and not less than 30% of the paid membership. Members not attending the meeting can vote by e-mailed ballot sent to the Secretary within 40 days of the meeting (by June 22). Before the vote we will discuss the rational for the proposal and confirm that the treasury balance supports the expenditure. The acquisition will be contingent on renewal of our lease agreement with the state for the Washington Crossing observatory site (current lease expires Feb 2027).

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