Astronomy Club of Tulsa

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About Our Club Events

Each month we try to schedule observing opportunities at our dark sky site SW of Tulsa. We schedule a Guest and Members Night the weekend near the 3rd quarter moon. Our Members Only Night occurs on the weekend nearest the New Moon, allowing our members to have time to work on observing projects and exchange ideas with each other. Scroll down to see the schedule of coming events posted below.

During the school term we also have monthly In Person club meetings at the Jenks High School planetarium.

Information on "Green Comet"

You likely have heard some news hype about a "Green Comet" Comet C/ 2022 E3 ZTF will be making its closest approach to Earth on Thursday Feb 2 at a distance of 23.5 million miles. This half-mile wide icy visitor from the outer solar system now has a huge cloud of evaporated Ices ( its Coma ) surrounding it as it heats up near the Sun. Ultraviolet radiation from the Sun is ionizing the gases causing them to glow. The green comes from ionized Carbon atoms in the coma.

You won't see any colors when looking in binoculars or a telescope since our eyes are not sensitive to color at low light levels. The images you may have seen are the result of time exposures through telescopes with sensitive cameras. To our eyes it appears as a small fuzzy "cotton ball" disk of light. Comets don't streak through the sky like meteors. Their tail is the result of the solar wind pushing back gases and dust behind them. They are visible for a few weeks but change position from night to night. It is now moving into the northern sky passing by the stars of the Little Dipper from Jan 26 to 31 You will have more success finding it from 9 PM to 3:00 AM when it will be higher in the sky. You may find more success in locations with darker northern sky. Our club is not planning any public viewing sessions at this time.

See more details at Sky and Telescope Comet Finder Chart