6 ASTRONOMY • FEBRUARY 2022
ASTRO LETTERS
Flashes of red
I just read Stephen James O’Meara’s
article on red meteors in the September
2021 issue. I saw one myself back
in March 2018. I am an avid visual
observer from Pennsylvania and was
taking a break from my scope to enjoy
the clear skies above. By chance, I was tracing out Lynx
when a meteor appeared. It was about as bright as Mars
at opposition but with a much deeper red tone. It trav-
eled from Lynx through Leo Minor and Leo. What
struck me as much as the color was the velocity. It was
the slowest meteor I can ever recall seeing. I also do a
fair amount of meteor observing, so anytime I see one
I always make a mental note of its path. When I fin-
ished packing everything up for the evening, I did some
research and discovered that I had seen a March Lyncid.
— Mike Rothgeb, Salix , PAHere’s to amateur astronomers
I really enjoyed the September 2021 article “Celebrating
a century of variable star astronomy.” Variable stars
are such an important way for amateur astronomers tocontribute to the science of astron-
omy. To that point, I’d like to men-
tion someone who Harlow Shapley,
the former director of the Harvard
College Observatory, described as
“world’s greatest non-professional
astronomer”: Leslie Peltier. From
the age of 18 until his death in 1980, Peltier never
missed sending in a monthly report to the American
Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO). Over
his lifetime, he contributed more than 132,000 observa-
tions to the AAVSO. — Kelly Havey, Redding, CACorrections
The “Cataloging our stellar neighbors” illustration on
page 63 of the August issue erroneously listed the dis-
tance to Procyon A and B as 1.4 light-years. The correct
distance to the Procyon system is 11.4 light-years.Our readers pointed out an error in “Explore the
wonders of Jupiter,” from our August issue. Jupiter
isn’t 373,000 miles away, as we printed, but is instead
379 million miles away.RS Puppis, a Cepheid variable, is one
example of a variable star. NASA, ESA, AND
THE HUBBLE HERITAGE TEAM (STSCI/AURA)-HUBBLE/EUROPE
COLLABORATION. ACKNOWLEDGMENT: H. BOND (STSCI AND
PENN STATE UNIVERSITY)We welcome
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