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RAS News |
Newsletter of RAS (Richmond Astronomical Society)
November, 2001
Visit our web site at www.richastro.org
| Speaker: | Sam Bruce |
| Topic: | Unknown, as of press time |
Share table...Norm Gunther talked about the Reflector and the Messier club and its requirements...
Len Cobb showed his new GPS instrument and that it would locate you to within 10 feet...indicated that this would help in doing an occullation more accurately...Sam, Gary, and Jim B. joined in the dicussion of GPS systems....Sam commented that future telescopes could come with GPS systems...
Norm Gunther was in Maine recently and saw a great meteor and wondered if it was a piece of skyjunk..he thinks it was junk..
Sam made a pitch for the VAAS meeting in Roanoke.......
Phil Roberts gave details of the Jansky meeting Oct.24 at 7:30 PM ..Gilmer Hall , UVA..."Astronomical Arrays for the future Astronomy,SETI, and more."
Cindy gave her pitch on calendars.....
Sky Watch....Science Museum--Joe reported about 50 people showed..partly cloudy. Malvern Hill, 2 telescopes..no light at "the house" ...partly cloudy.....Powhatan...Roger Rigby, good viewing ..no moon...Keith announced a sky watch at Sayler's Creek for Oct. 19
Observatory..no report.....Education..Jim Petty reported on the skywatches as shown in the Oct. calendar and asked for help.
John Raymond read the names of the 2002 board members....Three visitors--Jerry Wyatt, Mark Licata, and Bill Dickinson......
Gene Dick reported on skywatch at Wyndham....5 telescopes ...over 100 people..good viewing...dark sky...no moon..Mars was good...M13..M57...double double in Lyra.
Short talk...Gene Dick showed a video, "Star Gaze"
David Thomas was sick but sent his video "Cosmic Clips". It was very informative in that it gave information in an animated form which was easy to understand...it took complicated subjects and simplified them...
I hope everyone has been having excellent observing weather. In Amelia and Crewe we have been having excellent weather. Recently, on Oct. 21st I was invited to observe with a friend at his home which provides us with a truly dark sky site in Crewe.
We were testing his recently purchased Orion short tube 90 mm refractor which retails for around $270.00. The unit has a focal length of 500 mm and calculates to f/5.6. It comes with a 90 degree star diagonal and accepts 1.25 eyepieces which Orion also provides in the form of a 26 mm Plossl (Sirius) which does exceedingly well with this wide field refractor. We mounted it in on a professional tripod since the unit comes with a 1/4-20 standard tripod socket. This provided us with a stable platform and the unit is only 18 inches long with makes it easy to set uup and maneuver.
Little did I know how capable this little refractor is. We started with the Double Cluster near Casseopeia and moved to Vega. Both images were excellent and the refractor's wide field optics really delivered on the Double Cluster. All the stars were sharp and the view was fantastic. We were so impressed that we easily found M71; however M56 proved to be a little tricky and we moved up to a zoom eyepiece of mine (22 to 7.4) that Apogee sells for around $50.00. As we zoomed in we found M56 at around 12 power. This was not the shocking moment of the evening as we began to discuss the possibility of seeing M57 with this small refractor.
At first glance through the wide field of this instrument we had difficulty discerning M57 from other stars but we began to zoom in at higher power and soon focused on three stars resembling a triangular appearance. Slowly and methodically the image of M57 evolved into a blurry but faint doughnut shaped object. We both were quite amazed by this and the quality of the optics in such an affordable little telescope. The zoom eyepiece really proved invaluable with such a small wide field instrument. A few binary stars around Casseopeia were excellent with this telescope.
Saturn was acceptable; however, Orion recommends higher higher focal length models for planetary viewing and we agree. If you choose to do planetary viewing a barlow lens is highly recommended. This is the smallest refractor (90 mm) I have been successful in hunting M57 with. My ETX 90 did an excellent job on Saturn and a few of its larger moons. All in all we were very pleased with the Orion and felt it was an excellent value for the money. Some say you can see M57 with 60 mm refractors but I fee that to see any detail in this elusive object that a 90 mm is pushing the boundaries. This instrument certainly can perform and makes an excellent travel scope for viewing and star parties. Until next time, keep watching the skies...
Ballot for Election
Use the following form to cast your vote for the 2000 board. We will be voting (by ballot) at the Nov. meeting, so please fill yours out and bring it with you. Vote for 12 people (yes, there are only 12 on the ballot, but we have to go by the rules!).
| r Terry Barker | r Jim Blowers |
| r Cindy Bowers | r Gary Cowardin |
| r Gene Dick | r Joe Hetmanski |
| r Jim Petty | r John Raymond |
| r Grace Suttle | r David Thomas |
| r Keith Johnson | r Charlotte Talley |
The Science Museum of Virginia invites you to
participate in a focus group
preview of a new giant screen film SolarMax
in the Ethyl
IMAX®DOME & Planetarium Wednesday,
November 14, 2001
6:45 p.m.
Experience
the sun's power and beauty like never before.
Take an incredible voyage from prehistory to the leading edge of solar
science.
6:45 p.m.
Introduction to SolarMax
7-7:45 p.m.
Screening of SolarMax
7:45-8:15
p.m. Discussion of SolarMax
Science
Museum of Virginia
2500 West
Broad Street
Richmond, VA 23220
To RSVP call (804) 864-1400 or 800-659-1727.
We held two skywatches recently--at Beaverdam Elementary on Oct. 29, and at Liberty Middle School on Nov. 1. Mark Likata, Gene Dick, and Jim Petty brought their telescopes to Beaverdam, and we had a great turnout, with about 60-70 students and parents. An almost full moon washed out much of the sky, but we showed Albireo, the Andromeda Galaxy, Mizar and Alcor, and the Ring Nebula. We had a much smaller turnout for Liberty (10-12), as the sky was almost completely cloud covered. We did locate Albireo and Epsilon Lyra, along with the full moon, but that was about it. The few who did show up were pretty impressed though, and I'm sure we'll reschedule with hopes of a clearer night.
It was another excellent night for astronomy at
Powhatan last
night. Limiting magnitude was around 6.0 and there was just some very
minor dewing which started turning to frost later. Seeing was poor, as
usual, resulting in bloated star images at high powers. I arrived on-site
at about 2045. I was one of two astronomers. I brought my 13"
Dobsonian
while the other telescope was an 8" Schmidt-Cassegrain.
I started the evening by looking at two planetary nebulae in Sagitta, NGC
6879 and 6886. Both of these nebulae are relatively bright at about 12th
and 11th magnitude respectively. However, they are small being less than
5" in diameter. I was not able to see a disk on either of them
even at
250x. I found both of them by "blinking" them with a Lumicon UHC
filter. The UHC filter makes the nebulae appear to jump in brightness when
passed in front of the eyepiece.
In the way of obscure small objects, I was able to see the G1 globular
cluster in Andromeda. This cluster is similar in nature to M13, but it is
not in our galaxy but in M31. This object was mentioned in an article in
the October 2001 issue of Sky and Telescope on Page 115. It was
surprisingly easy to pick out. The article gave its magnitude as 13.7 and
its size as 3" in diameter. This makes it smaller and fainter than
the
Sagitta planetary nebulae, but I had no trouble resolving a disk,
especially at 250x.
I also picked up a quartet of galaxies in Piscis Austrinus. These
galaxies, NGC 7172, 7173, 7174, and 7176, are mentioned in Walter Scott
Houston's book _Deep-Sky Wonders_. They are all around 12th magnitude and
are in the same eyepiece field at 150x. They are very well placed for star
hopping. At -30 degrees of declination, they are low in the sky but not
especially difficult. The hardest part is separating NGC 7174 and 7176
which are practically on top of each other. It took 250x to with my
telescope to separate them.
Among old favorites, both dust lanes of M31 were visible last night. NGC
604, which is the Orion Nebula of the M33 galaxy, was easily visible. I
also took a look at NGC 7129 in Cepheus. This is a bright reflection
nebula over a formation of 5 stars. Being a reflection nebula, nebula
filters are of no help.
At about 2345 we packed up and headed home.
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A skywatch has been set for Sayler's Creek Park Friday night, Nov. 16. This is a very good dark site, just south of Amelia. Go past Amelia on 360 about 8 miles, then take 703 (right turn) for 6 miles. Look for the entrance to Sayler's Creek on the right. The site is about 2 miles in, on the right. It's not marked, except for a sign on the right, and a little turnout. No starting time has been set, but 6:00 is probably about right.
Editor's note--this year's Leonids are predicted to be stupendous, and there will be NO moon. It's Sat. night, the 17th, into Sun. morning, the 18th. You will not want to miss this, as big showers come only every few decades and you won't see another one for at least 30 years. Since it's Sat. night, you have no excuses! Several clubs have even set up a chain so if it's cloudy at any one location in Virginia, we'll have alternate ones set up for people to drive to. The optimum time is 3 am to 6 am Sun. morning, but no one knows when the actual maximum will come. If I were you I'd start looking at midnight.
This annual shower has the potential of being the "Mother of all meteor showers". Marie and I saw the Leonid Storm of 1966 from 4am to dawn, and it was truly impressive, actually frightening. The nominal rate is about 50 meteors per hour, but we saw way over 1000 per hour (my guess was 2 or 3 every second). Often there were easily a dozen trails in view at the same time. Many were smoking fireballs that gave a whistling ("phffft") sound! Also distant, rumbling noises were heard, probably from some dropping below the sound barrier or exploding. We had some concern that we could be skewered by fiery cinders and molten, metallic slag. Learned later that there was little danger except to spacecraft. We could still hear them whistling faintly in broad daylight at dawn. That experience was probably the strongest motivation I had to become an amateur astronomer - I really needed to know about the stuff going on in the sky after that!
The best optical equipment is dark adapted eyes - no fancy scopes needed. If the weather is good, I will go to Powhatan that Saturday night with a lawnchair and a camera with fast film. This website will give some prognostications and general skinny about the Leonids-- http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/astronomy/leonids_2001.html
I recently attended Kent Blackwell's 2001 East Coast Star Party on
October 19 & 20 near Coinjock, NC. Upon arriving late Friday
afternoon I found about 20 scopes already setup in the small field
circled by Cedar trees. Scopes ranged in size from a department
store 60mm refractor to Ken's 25" f5 Dobsonian. There were also three
20" Dobs, two 18" Dobs and many other scopes of the 3" to
16"
verities. Wow, so many scopes – so little time!
As you might have guessed most of the 50 or so observers that
attended that weekend were from the Tidewater area many representing
the Norfolk Astronomical Society, Back Bay Astronomical Society, and
a few Tidewater Telescope Makers. There were also numerous folks from
outside of the area including several from Maryland. Ray Moody and I
were the only folks from Richmond (that I know of).
As the skies darkened each night, patchy fair weather clouds quickly
gave way to beautifully clear dark skies. Much observing ensued with
many of the big show objects on display, M13, M27 the Dumbbell, M76
the Little Dumbbell, M31, and M15 to mention just a few. Among the
other more esoteric objects visited were; NGC 7009 the Saturn Nebula,
NGC891 (edge on galaxy in Andromeda), Crescent Nebula (NGC688), the
Blue Snowball (NGC7662). I think at the top of all the unforgettable
sights seen that weekend were those of the Veil Nebula. NGC6960 the
portion of the Veil nearest 52 Cygnus aka the Witch's Broom and the
Claw (NGC 6992) were all seen with an unbelievable filament like
structure in Kent's 25". A wonderful 2 deg. wide-field view of the
Veil was also seen in my 8" f4.5 w/ a 27mm Panoptic and OIII filter.
The clear dark skies combined with great seeing allowed me my first
ever sighting of the Ring Nebula's (M57) elusive 15 mag central star!
This star which seems to be very blue, could only be seen with the
larger scopes under very high power, 400 – 500X.
The seeing on Friday was good and even better on Saturday (8 on a 0-
10 scale). Beautiful views were enjoyed of both Jupiter and Saturn
with even the large Dobs. In particular were some grand views of
Saturn afforded by Kent's 25" revealing a "record groove"
appearance
to the ring along with some very delicate shading on the planet's
surface. A great view of Jupiter numerous belts and detailed markings
were easily visible thru Charles Allewelt's (one of the astronomers from the
Tidewater area) 10" baffled tube f7 Newtonian.
Sunday morning came too soon. I should have been total exhausted
staying up until 3:00am and getting only 4 hours of sleep in my
vehicle each night but instead I was wide awake. I slowly packed up,
wishing I could stay one more night under the stars with my friends
and fellow astronomers.
I went to the UVA Fan Mountain public night last night.
Conditions there
were less than ideal with the sky being partly cloudy. However, when clear
spots rolled in the sky was very clear. At times the limiting magnitude
was 6.0. Other times it was barely 3.0. It was not all that cold up
there. It was quite a bit warmer than Powhatan was the previous night.
I set up my telescope among a group from the Charlottesville astronomy
club. Besides my 13" scope there was an 11" Schmidt-Cassegrain,
a 12.5"
Dobsonian, a 4" refractor, and a 25" Dobsonian. The 11"
scope was the most
technologically advanced with all sorts of computer control and digital
imaging features. The 25" telescope, which I had seen on a previous
Fan
Mountain trip, approaches UVA's smaller Fan Mountain telescope in aperture.
I arrived on-site at about 1900 and set up just as it was getting
dark. After about an hour or so the crowds started rolling in. I had
to
hop from object to object as the clouds moved in and out. I had people at
my telescope for most of the evening. I had my telescope on M13, M27, M57,
M11, M38, M31, M32, M110, the Pleiades, and Saturn. At times I had to show
the double star Albireo since it was the only thing which would show
through the clouds. The crowd seemed most impressed by M13 and
Saturn. From what I could tell there were 14 groups of visitors so there
was quite a good turnout last night.
I did manage to get away towards the end of the program to see M57 and
Saturn in the 30" telescope. M57 looked good although it was somewhat
cloud-impaired when my turn at the scope came. Saturn was much better with
much detail visible in the rings.
For those considering careers in astronomy, I asked one of the UVA graduate
students what the job picture looked like for newly-minted Phd's in
astronomy. He said that about 120 graduates will compete for about 75
positions.
At about midnight the program was over and I packed up and headed home.
The 2001 VAAS convention was held at Virginia Western Community College's Whitman Auditorium in Roanoke, VA on Saturday, October 13. Each year a different Virginia astronomical club sponsors the event, and this year the Roanoke Valley Astronomical Society took on that responsibility. We thank those in the club who made it all possible, in particular, John Goss, the VAAS coordinator this year.
Six lecturers rounded out a very informative and productive day. First up was Dr. Brett Taylor talking about wormholes and time travel. Next, Eric Douglas discussed impact structures on the moon and other worlds. Mike Good talked about discovering extra-solar planets. After lunch I spoke about observing October deep-sky objects, which hopefully would be a precursor to an observing session planned that evening on the Blue Ridge Parkway. I had high hopes to be able to view some of the objects about which I spoke, especially since Kelly Proffitt, an amateur near the Tidewater, VA area had brought his brand new Obsession 20" f/5 Dobsonian. Later Dr. Roger Chevalier gave a concise discussion about exploding stars, followed by a discussion of good and bad lighting by Ted Ake.
The day was rounded off by one a favorite activity of these conventions, the drawing of door prizes. This year's prizes included donations from the Lumicon, Ted Ake, the Planetary Society, Kalmbach Publishing, Roanoke Valley Astronomical Society, Software Bisque, Orion, TeleVue, and included a grand prize of a 8.8mm Meade Ultra-Wide eyepiece from Meade Instruments. Congratulations to the winners, and special thanks to Greg Dillion. Greg won The Sky computer program from Software Bisque. When the grand prize was drawn he once again had the winning ticket, but suggested another raffle ticket be drawn in fairness to others.
Plans for an evening observing session were thwarted by clouds, which seemed to increase more and more as the day went on. By the end of the convention the sky remained mostly cloudy. Attendees were given the option of driving to the observing location in case the skies cleared. While waiting for the sky to get dark I went to dinner with Bob Hitt, Ray Moody, Glen Howell and a friend whom I hadn't seen in 20 years, Bill Dickinson. After dinner the sky looked worse so most of us decided to head for home. I spend the night near Roanoke, hoping it might clear but it never did. Nevertheless, the VAAS Convention was still fun.
It's always nice to get together with other amateurs, if not under the starry sky at least at such conventions. As we parted several said they would see me again the following weekend at the private The East Coast Star Party in Coinjock, NC.
Thanks again to the Roanoke Valley Astronomical Society and to Virginia Western Community College for allowing us to hold the convention in their beautiful Whitman Auditorium.
It was one of those great nights. I arrived during
twilight and was
able to set up and collimate my 18" before dark. A 25" was set
up
next to me, and we had a great time observing.
There was a bit of a moon early on, so I spent the time looking at
the bright,easy stuff. We got a good shot at the Veil using an OIII
filter, along with M13, M27, etc.
After it got dark, I pursued my usual dim galaxies. I was able to
barely bag the Cartwheel galaxy in Scultor, low on the horizon, after
about 45 minutes of studying the field with a Megastar chart. Pure
retinal torture. Taking a break I wandered into the dome of the 30",
thinking perhaps they had some showpiece object to relieve my tired
eyes, only to find the scope aimed at Einstein's Cross! More pure
retinal torture. The seeing wasn't good enough to confirm the
quasar, the four images of which vary from about magnitude 17.5 to
18.5, but the lensing galaxy was easy in direct vision.
Later I had fun hopping from galaxy to galaxy in the Fornax I
cluster, which didn't transit until about 2:30. Other targets for
the evening included the "blue snowball", NGC 7023, the "pac
man"
(see the photo in the new S&T), and the Eskimo.
As usual, I missed the bolide everybody ooooo'ed and ahhhh'ed over.
About 30-40 folks made it up the hairpin turns to the observatory by 6:00 pm. Deer were shambling all about the summit, and a lovely sunset was in progress. Randy Tatum and I opened the dome of the 30" cassegrain just after sunset to cool things down. Took us awhile, with some help from a former UVA astronomy grad named Mike ( I think ),to get the sidereal drive cranking. Never could get the "goto" mechanism to operate, and there were no setting circles on the scope, so it was all done with old fashioned "star-hopping" through the narrow dome slit above the scope. Randy had the skill and the patience to locate about two dozen prize objects, including Stefan's Quintet, the "Blue Snowball" nebula, "Saturn" nebula, the "Einstein Cross" ( a quasar image in a gravitational lens!), finishing with a finale in and around the classic Orion nebula. It was so great to observe "small, dim fuzzies" appear as "bright, big fuzzies" for a change! The planetary image of Saturn was not steady, and the seeing was maybe 6/10, but it's crepe ring was very obvious. The night was reasonably clear, about 5+ transparency - a wee bit of haze, but the milky way was well defined and several Orionid meteors were seen. One spectacular fireball was seen by everybody outside the dome ( Randy and I heard all the screaming outside but missed it of course!) 3 or 4 big dobs were set up on the lawn, and probably a dozen smaller catadioptrics - some of the "goto" variety. A number of the crowd stayed to sleep until dawn - the drive down then would be easier I expect.We left about 3:30 am. Much thanks to the kind lady (from Charlottesville, I think) that brought us pepsi and ham biscuits around midnight. Thanks also to "Mike". Hope everybody enjoyed it as much as we did, and got home OK.
I had the pleasure of attending the Mid Atlantic Star Party in North Carolina last week . This is the one in central North Carolina, not to be confused with the East Coast Star Party in Coinjock, which unfortunately was on the same weekend as Masp. There were a lot of people there, about 300 i guess. I was from thursday afternoon to saturday evening. The sky was very dark and the Milky Way very bright. But the real fun was meeting other people and exchanging ideas and information, and swapping eyepieces. The vendors included Gary Hand, Camera Corner of New York, Blaho Binocular Mounts, a meteorite dealer, and Jeff Pettit, who is the Florida version of Randy Tatum.
There were telescopes of all kinds, many homemade. There were about 50 large dobsonians, from the homemade plywood to the upscale Obsession, Starsplitter, and Starmasters. I counted about 25 Meade SCT's, 15 Orion Skyquest Dobs, 10 Celestron SCT's, 30 various refractors, and several other scopes and binocular setups. I had my 6" Skyquest dob, the guy camping on my left had a 8", and the one on the right had the 10" version.
I saw the Veil Nebula in an 8" Celestron with a filter. I didnt win any door prizes. I had a good time and will go back next year, for the whole week.
Calendar created by ImpactSoft
Your RAS 2002 membership subscription is now due, if you haven't paid yours.
Please furnish the following information to the treasurer:
Cindy Bowers
9415 Laurel Grove Rd
Mechanicsville, VA 23116
Name: ________________________________________________
Address: ______________________________________________
________________________________________________
Phone: _______________ (h) _________________ (w)
Email: _____________________________________________
Amount:
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Regular membership |
($30.00) |
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Observatory membership |
($10.00) |
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Astronomy renewal |
($29.00) |
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Sky & Tel renewal |
($29.95) |
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All meetings are the second Monday of the month, at the Science Museum of Virginia, 2500 W. Broad St. For more information, contact Terry Barker, 379-8175, or tbarker@i2020.net.
The months that have been assigned for presentations by the board for 2001 are:
|
January |
Cindy |
May |
Gary |
September |
Tim |
|
February |
Dale |
June |
Joe |
October |
David |
|
March |
Jim B. |
July |
Terry |
November |
Sam |
|
April |
Jim P. |
August |
Grace |
December |
Frank |