RAS News

Newsletter of RAS (Richmond Astronomical Society)
May, 2002

Visit our web site at www.richastro.org

Next meeting--Monday, May 13

Visit to Green Bank

John Goss, of the Roanoke club, put together a trip to Green Bank WV, to see the large radio telescope there. Cindy Bowers, Terry Barker (and wife Kayela), and Eric Shelton, met about 25 Roanoke club members there this last Saturday. One Norfolk club member, Glen Howell, and a couple of students from Va. Tech rounded out the group. We got an overview of the complex, a tour of the control room, and then a tour of the grounds. There are actually eight radio telescopes, not all in use, but even the smaller ones are quite a site--they're huge! Anyway, the big one dwarfs all the rest, and it is quite a sight. It's the largest moveable radio telescope in the world, and the dish takes up two acres. It's not quite ready for prime time, but most of the testing has been successfully completed, and it should be ready soon. Here's a photo taken from the ground, and just outside the fenced perimeter.

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Last meeting
by Cindy Bowers

Share Table – Brochure from the Richmond Metro Science Fair. Jim Blowers announced the name of the winner of the T. Wilbur Stone award, Austin Keller, Math & Science High School at Clover Hill, for his project, titled The Effect of Gravity on Model Meteors.

• Someone brought in a nice observing log

• Ken Wilson brought in star maps, info on ISS and iridium flares, and S&T Bulletin

• Jim Petty read excerpts from the letter from Stephen Coleman thanking the club for the $100 gift certificate to Willman-Bell.

Jim Blowers asked club members to volunteer to give a short talk at the RAS meetings.

Observing – Skywatch – about 150 people showed up on a very cold night. Gary Cowardin reported seeing an iridium flare towards the north during the skywatch.

• Malvern Hill – Friday night was skywatch, and Saturday night it was cloudy.

• Powhatan – Eric Shelton reported that he and another person went out last Saturday night, The skies were great. Saw the Comet Ikeya-Zhang which was very bright, low on the horizon at twilight. Jim Blowers reported that the discoverer, Daqing Ikeya, discovered another comet back in 1965.

• Sayler’s Creek – 40 to 50 people showed up. Some brought their own telescopes. A local radio station is giving free publicity for the event. Several school groups from Amelia showed up.

• George Hastings announced on WLEE 990 AM radio station that he would be setting up his telescope at the parking lot at Regency Square last Thursday, April 4, for anyone listening to come and view the gathering of the planets. About 15 people showed up.

Astronomy Day will be April 20 at the Science Museum from 1pm to 4 pm with a skywatch at night.

Boy Scouts at Chickahominy – The club had about 10 telescopes present at the event. RAS had to compete against a rock band playing at the same time, so out of about 700 scouts, only 50 to 60 kids came by to observe. The ones who did show up were very interested in astronomy and were enthusiastic about viewing through the club’s telescopes. Thanks to the following for bringing their scopes: Jim Petty, John Barnett, Grace Suttle, Don McAfee, George Hastings, Gary Cowardin, Joe Hetmanski, John Raymond, Gene Dick, Keith Johnson, and Kim Kenny.

Last Saturday, Joe Hetmanski had a CCD camera workshop at the Observatory. The camera is being kept in the cabinet at the Observatory. They set it up using an ETX60 scope. Gary Cowardin tried to image Jupiter, but they got clouded out before they could take any pictures. They will have a 3^rd camera workshop using the main telescope next Monday, April 15.

Observatory: John Raymond reported that they had a clean up session on 3/3/02 at the Observatory. John Barnett cut down some more trees. The next training session will be held on Sunday, April 14, at 6:30 pm.

John Raymond went to Bracketts Farm to pick up the telescope. He brought the mirror to the meeting to show members. It needs to be realuminized.

Education – Chesterfield County next month. The observing session held in Ashland was well attended. Good skies, but it was very cold.

All RAS meetings will be held in the Planetarium until the museum schedules another show on Monday nights.

No report on the library. John Raymond donated a book to the club, Starware.

Keith Johnson gave a short talk on eyepieces. He discussed the advantages and disadvantages of using the following types of eyepieces: Kellner, orthoscopic, Plossl, Erfle, ultrawide types, and zoom eyepieces. Very informative talk.

Jim Blowers gave the main presentation, on Asteroids Large and Small. He began with the discovery of the planets, and since the planets revolve around the sun, the discovery of asteroids was inevitable. William Hershel named them asteroids. There are 14 types.

There has now actually been a landing on an asteroid--the NEAR probe landed on EROS in 2001. Since there are so many asteroids, and some are relatively near, there is somewhat of a threat to earth by a collision with an asteroid, but that is predicted to be many years in the future. There are two asteroid belts, one near Mars, and the Kuiper Belt, beyond Pluto, which contains over 100,000 bodies.

Is Pluto a planet or a large asteroid? By all definitions, it is an asteroid, but since it's already been designated a planet, and has been so for many years, it will likely retain that status.

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One small step...
by Ken Wilson

Well, I did my good deed for Virginia dark skies yesterday. A woman in a meeting I was attending mentioned that she, her husband, and some friends had just bought 600 acres of land between the two West Point exits of I-64 with the intention of building a motor sports park. I asked her if they were planning to use full horizontal cut-off lighting and she gave me a surprise response that indicated that they hadn't even thought about the lighting impact. So I quickly ran to my office and grabbed copies of the IDA flyer, "What is Light Pollution" and a copy of the Sky & Tel "Good Neighbor Lighting" flyer and gave them to her with a recommendation that they visit the IDA website. She seemed very open, willing, and interested in doing the lighting right, but very uninformed about the issue.

...Yet another example that our battle is with ignorance as much (or more so) than with 'evil light polluters'.

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Star Light Star Bright
by David M. Born, Chief Ranger Sailor’s Creek Battlefield State Park

On Friday, May 10th, Sailor’s Creek Battlefield State Park will offer Star Light Star Bright, a gathering of the Sailor’s Creek Sky Watch featuring local amateur astronomers Kim and Margaret Kenny of Crewe, and Keith Johnson of the Richmond Astronomical Society. Kim and Keith will provide tips on getting started, give some history of astronomy and of course give opportunities to view stars, star clusters and nebulae. Margaret will have a special area set up for young astronomers in training, geared toward introducing the up and coming generation to the use of telescopes and just what is up there, and how to find it. The evening events will begin at 8:30 pm near the Hillsman House site. Please come prepared for cold weather. For further information, contact Chief Ranger David M. Born at Twin Lakes State Park (434) 392-3435. In the event of cloudy weather, the program will be moved into the Hillsman House.

Sailor’s Creek Battlefield State Park is located 5 miles east of Farmville on route 617.

From Richmond Take US 360 west to route 307. Turn right onto route 617 and proceed north to the Hillsman House.

From Farmville Take US 460 east to route 307. Turn left off 307 onto route 617 and proceed north to the Hillsman House.

From Powhatan Take Route 609 south to route 616. Take a right onto route 616 and travel approximately 7 miles to route 617. Proceed south to the Hillsman House.

Astronomy Day, 2002
by Terry Barker

We had a great turnout of RAS volunteers this year--as usual! The skies didn't cooperate fully, but we did have two telescopes set up of solar observing. Jim Blowers and Gene Dick played hide and seek with the clouds, but did get to show the sun to many of the public that walked by. Inside, we had a front table set up in the rotunda, with John Raymond's 7 inch SCT nearby to catch visitor's eyes, and a club display, with information on club activities. Further down the hall, Joe Hetmanski had a mirror grinding exhibit set up. Gary Cowardin manned a table of photos taken by club members, including some excellent shots of the fantastic aurora display last March, taken by  David Thomas. Norm Guenther was showing how to make a sundial, Ken Alan was showing off an exciting software program (Deep Space Explorer), and Frank Carney was minding a meteorite display table. The meteorite was graciously loaned to us by Phil Roberts. Keith Johnson brought in his ETX60 for display. We also had Robert Hicks as a living history Renaissance navigator; a display on light pollution by UVA, scales showing you weight on the moon and Jupiter; and a table of free astronomy information.

Powhatan report
by John Raymond

I went out to Powhatan Sunday night (4/7). The sky was mostly clear except for
thin clouds along the western and northern horizon. The air was dry and and
the seeing was pretty good. No one else was there.

I started with looking for the comet. I couldn't find it Saturday night in
Charles City, due the trees. It's very low in the north-west between Andromeda
and Casseiopeia. I didn't have my binoculars but finally saw it in the
finder scope. It doesn't look like a comet anymore, it looks more like a fried
egg. The twilight was still too bright to see the tail, and some of the low
clouds were interfering. By the time the night deepened enough to make the
comet a naked eye object, it was almost gone. I'm also pretty sure I wasn't
looking at M31 by mistake. (I know you were thinking that)

Orion was in the southwest, a strange place for it I thought, until I
realized that it's April already. The strange stick-figure twins of Gemini
danced above Orions upraised club, with the bright Jupiter at their feet. In
the east orange Arcturus blazed above the tree line, waiting for Capella to
fall, that he might ascend into the latter's place.  On these familiar stars
I will not dwell, for I was seeking the dim reaches of Cancer and Hydra.

Cancer is an odd sort of constellation. The brightest part of it is not a
star, but the famous cluster of stars at its center, the Beehive , or M44.
The stars that outline the crab are invisible from the city, but the Beehive
is visible even when a full moon is out. South of the Beehive, near alpha
Cancri, or Acubens, lies the bright open cluster M67. Were it not for the
more famous and brighter cluster above, M67 would be the showpiece of
Cancer. M67 is easily visible in the finder scope, and therefore binoculars,
and definitely worth a look.

Just a couple of degrees the the northwest the sky atlas plots a small
ellipse with 2648 next to it. Small dim galaxies are not my cup of tea, so
to speak, I don't have the aperture or dark skies to see them. But sometimes
looking at an unknown object can yield surprising results. According to the
atlas NGC 2648 lies near the middle of a bent chain of 8th magnitude stars.
After star hopping to the location, I first saw nothing. After careful
examination and averted vision , I saw "something." Almost imagined I saw
it, its so faint. Definitely not a star.

My real quarry was Epsilon Hydrae, the A-C components of this multiple
system. They are listed  in the Edmund Mag 6 Star Atlas as magnitudes 3.8
and 7.8, with a separation of 3.1 arc-seconds. Piece of cake? Maybe if the
components were equal magnitudes. This double is neither too easy or too
difficult, just challenging enough to make a fun target for the scope.

About 10 degrees to the south at about the declination of Alphard, are 15
and 17 Hydrae. Edmunds only lists 17 as a double, but Tirion indicates 15 is
a double also. I was unable to resolve 15, but did split 17. Looking at
Burnham's reveals why: 15 is an unequal double, mags 6 and 9, with only 0.9"
separation. The seeing was starting to deteriorate now, maybe a better night
will reveal the duplicity of the inscrutable 15 Hydrae.

Soon after thin clouds began to move in so I went home.

Coming public skywatches
by Terry Barker

1. Fri. May 3 or 4 (depending on the weather), Camp Hanover (Mechanicsville), Girl Scouts. Jim Petty is heading this up. If you're interested in helping, call Jim at 379-9831.

2. Mon. May 6, Brandermill Church, Boy Scouts. Jim and Terry Barker are handling this one, and shouldn't need more than their two scopes.

3. Thu. May 16, Dutch Gap, Chesterfield Co. program. This is part of Chesterfield County's Summer Parks program. Jim and Terry may need some help, but we don't have a count on the number of participants yet. We'll appeal for help as we get closer to the date.

4. Fri., May 17, SMV skywatch.

16" Meade for sale
by Roger Poe

I have a 16" Meade dob for sale ( bought in '96), 2" METAL focuser, telrad, 25 mm meade eyepiece, & velcro counter wts......this scope simply needs a more permanent home & the images are indeed awesome, I simply can no longer handle it 4 times whenever I want to observe.......I'm asking $900.00 for it (got over 18 in it).....perhaps someone out your way might be interested?...I would be willing to meet em halfway w/ the scope....I live in SW Va., 'bout an hour SW of Roanoke....Thanks!

Roger Poe, Hillsville, 276-728-3745

East Coast Star Party
by Kent Blackwell

DATE: MAY 10, 11 (NO RAIN DATE)
ORGANIZER: KENT BLACKWELL, WEB SITE: http://groups.hamptonroads.com/nas
LOCATION: HAMPTON LODGE CAMPGROUND - COINJOCK, NC (252-453-2732)
Approximately 45 miles south of Norfolk/Virginia Beach, VA area

DIRECTIONS 

From Tidewater:

• Head south on Route 168 (Battlefield Blvd.) to North Carolina, then onto US 158 East heading towards Nags Head.

• Cross the Joseph Palmer Knapp Bridge at Coinjock.

• Turn left at foot of bridge. County Road 1142. Waterlilly exit.

• Follow signs.

OBSERVING SITE: THE CEDAR TREES @100' TO THE LEFT AFTER CAMPGROUND ENTRANCE GATE. JUST FOLLOW THE SIGNS.

PLEASE OBEY CAMPGROUND 10 MPH SPEED LIMIT.

ADMISSION:

$10, includes one or both nights

• Registration applicable to all participants and includes one or two nights camping if you wish to do so

• You may camp near your telescope.

• The campground gate will remain open all night for those wishing to leave early

Make check payable to Kent Blackwell

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