Michael Burns presented his Cool Cosmology News to the members. The Fall Equinox occurs on September 22.
Here is a summary of the important points that Michael made:
Discover the exciting launch of the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, a milestone that showcases our collective interest in space exploration and should inspire pride in our community.
NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope launched on August 30, heading for the L2 Lagrange point roughly 1.5 million km from Earth. Its Wide Field Instrument is a 300-megapixel camera with a field of view 100 times larger than Hubble’s, capable of measuring light from a billion galaxies. A Coronagraph Instrument will block starlight to image faint exoplanets directly. Roman’s science goals include probing dark energy and dark matter and completing a statistical census of planetary systems in our galaxy.
The Webb’s clearest-ever image of the Lion Nebula offers a breathtaking glimpse into the universe’s beauty, encouraging awe and curiosity among members.
The James Webb Space Telescope has produced its sharpest view yet of the Lion Nebula (NGC 2392), about 6,500 light-years away in Gemini. Unlike massive stars that end their lives in supernovae, lower-mass stars like this one’s progenitor exhaust their hydrogen and helium, pulsate, and shed their outer layers — leaving behind a white dwarf surrounded by a shell of gas and dust (a major source of the universe’s observable dust). The nebula spans roughly 250–260 light-years across.
“Black Hole Star” — A New Type of Astrophysical Object
MIT-led astronomers using JWST have spotted an extremely bright red object in the early universe, appearing just a few hundred million years after the Big Bang. Roughly the size of our solar system, it puts out 100 billion times more energy than any known star could produce — output closer to what a black hole generates. In a paper published in Nature, the team concludes it’s likely a dense gas cloud powered by a central black hole rather than nuclear fusion, an entirely new class of object they’re calling a “black hole star.”
Latest Amateur Equipment News
Here are two YouTube videos you might consider if you’re interested in buying a smart telescope soon.
This one compares the S30 Pro to the S50 Pro.
This one compares the S50 Pro to the Dwarf Draco.
Seestar S50 Pro — $1,300–$1,400, available now
ZWO’s new smart telescope features an 8.3 MP telephoto/wide-angle dual camera, 50 mm aperture with a 260 mm focal length, a 4-element apochromatic lens, Milky Way and star-trail imaging support, a 10,000 mAh battery (9-hour runtime), and 128 GB of onboard storage.
Dwarf Draco — $2,000–$2,300, available November
Dwarflab’s upcoming smart scope comes in OSC and SHO versions, with a larger 90 mm aperture and 340 mm focal length (f/3.8). It adds active sensor cooling, a built-in guide scope with real-time guiding corrections, and a rotating CMOS for field-rotation compensation — notable upgrades over the Seestar S50 Pro’s fixed sensor and standard tracking.
Click here to view the full Cool Cosmology News, Sept 2026, which includes the Moon phases for each night and What’s Up in the night sky.
The links in each day of the June calendar are active. They will take you to more information about the event.
— Michael Burns.
News – Tom Kimber