@okcastroclub
The Oklahoma City Astronomy Club was founded in 1958, so we've been around a while. The Oklahoma City Astronomy Club is a scientific and educational organization under IRS regulations 501(c)(3). https://www.okcastroclub.com
🚀 Register now for #ASP2025 #Virtual #Symposium — Eyes on the Cosmos: Embracing the Future (Aug 21)!
Save with early bird registration by July 31.
Explore 4 themes: Questioning, Investigating, Adapting & Connecting.
Explore discoveries, strategies & shared sky stories. 🔭🧪
🔗 bit.ly/ASP2025Sympo...
arXiv preprint GW231123: a Binary Black Hole Merger with Total Mass 190-265 M⊙ On 2023 November 23 the two LIGO observatories both detected GW231123, a gravitational-wave signal consistent with the merger of two black holes with masses 137+22−17M⊙ and 103+20−52M⊙ (90\% credible intervals), at luminosity distance 0.7-4.1 Gpc and redshift of 0.39+0.27−0.24, and a network signal-to-noise ratio of ∼22.5. Both black holes exhibit high spins, 0.9+0.10−0.19 and 0.80+0.20−0.51 respectively. A massive black hole remnant is supported by an independent ringdown analysis. Some properties of GW231123 are subject to large systematic uncertainties, as indicated by differences in inferred parameters between signal models. The primary black hole lies within or above the theorized mass gap where black holes between 60-130 M⊙ should be rare due to pair instability mechanisms, while the secondary spans the gap. The observation of GW231123 therefore suggests the formation of black holes from channels beyond standard stellar collapse, and that intermediate-mass black holes of mass ∼200 M⊙ form through gravitational-wave driven mergers.
Figure 7 of the paper showing the inferred masses. The masses are measured to be high, but the exact values depend significantly depending on the waveform model used. These are the most significant systematic uncertainties we have seen so far. New detections are pushing the boundaries of our calculations.
Figure 8 of the paper showing the inferred spins. Results again vary between waveform models, but they consistently show high spin magnitudes with some support for misalignment relative to the orbit of the binaries.
Screenshot of from the Gravitational Wave Open Science Center showing spectrograms of the signal (which is short) as well as links to download the raw data.
The LIGO Virgo KAGRA study of #GW231123 was posted to the arXiv today, and is free to read
arxiv.org/abs/2507.08219
Data are available from the GW Open Science Center
gwosc.org/eventapi/htm...
#OpenScience #OpenData ☄️
Have questions about the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope? You can ask our speakers Dr. Kristen McQuinn (Space Telescope Science Institute) and Robyn Sanderson (University of Pennsylvania) in advance!
Leave your questions in the chat area of the YouTube event: www.youtube.com/live/2NpN8ae... 🔭 🧪
"Ripples in space-time from collision recorded by gravitational wave detector forces a rethink of how the objects form"
www.theguardian.com/science/2025... by @iansample.bsky.social reports on our discovery of #GW231123
☄️🧪🔭⚛️
Welcome to Bluesky, @sciam.bsky.social! 🦋
More of this, please . . .
Here’s Why Human Sex Is Not Binary: Ova Don’t Make a Woman, and Sperm Don’t Make a Man, @anthrofuentes.bsky.social, May 1, 2023.
www.scientificamerican.com/article/here... #lgbtq #queer #science #QueerInSTEM #pride 🌈🔬🏳️⚧️🧪
I think the only thing more breathtaking than Rubin’s first images was hearing their lengthy backstory from Tony Tyson. If you’re interested in how it took 30 years to create these snapshots, my story below:
Oklahoma City Astronomy Club Meeting
Friday, July 11, 2025
Free to the public and all are welcome to attend.
Our July program will be a conversation over Zoom with author, historian, and biographer Dava Sobel.
nightsky.jpl.nasa.gov/events/36842/
Thought for the day:
Focus energy (preferably positive) into your day and life, not stress.
Stress kills.
A star map featuring black stars (some with names) on a white background, constellation lines and names, and the location of planets. A hazy blue band marks the location of the Milky Way.
The February 2025 edition of The Evening Sky Map is ready for download at skymaps.com/tesm/. It includes a sky calendar and user-friendly star maps for the northern and southern hemispheres, as well as equatorial regions. Feel free to share and enjoy exploring the Universe! 🔭 🧪
#astronomy
Just getting all setup and started!
Hello world!
Blue skies are great, clear skies are better. Dark skies are best, preferably with light wind, low humidity, and moderate temperatures! 😉