Skywatches and other events:

John Bartlett gave our main presentation entitled "The Stockmar Chronicles." John has gone through the club archives (55 years worth!), and has produced an extraordinary compilation of its history. For instance, we now have a spreadsheet summary of all our rosters, including information on who was a member at any given time.

We had a great time at the picnic last week. We had perfect weather, a great site (thanks to Roger Rigby), an awesome collection of food, and... almost clear skies. The moon played hide and seek , but we did get some good viewing in, and a lot of the neighbors showed up for the viewing. I counted about 25 RAS members, and about 15-20 kids and parents from Walton Lake.

Charlottesville was the city chosen for this year's conference of VAAS, an acronym for the Virginian Association of Astronomical Societies. Situated in central Virginia, Charlottesville is rich in history and home to the University Of Virginia. Thomas Jefferson founded the university in 1825 and during the first year of operation invited students to dine with him at Monticello. Among those students was Edgar Allan Poe.

I arrived in Charlottesville on a Friday, one day before the convention. The Leander McCormack Observatory was open to the public that evening, so I attended. The observatory houses a 26-1/4 inch Alvin Clark refractor telescope. Construction began on the telescope in 1883 and was completed in 1885. The instrument has a 32.5 foot focal length, equating to nearly 10,000 mm. The crown glass lens weighs 70 lbs. and the flint weighs in at over 110 lbs. If you haven't seen the telescope by all means plan a trip to Charlottesville. The McCormack is open to the public two Friday evenings each month.

M 15 was the object majestically centered in the 35mm Panoptic eyepiece, an ocular yielding 300x in this mighty refractor. Though seeing was rough, the image was nevertheless impressive. As the public vacated I was afforded an opportunity to speak with telescope operator, Dr. Ed Murphy. Ed said he knew I was an amateur astronomer as soon as he saw my red light enter the building. The Leander McCormack Observatory has been renovated in the past few years and now includes a wonderfully small, but informative museum.

The VAAS convention commenced on time Saturday morning at the lovely campus of Saint Anne's School. Dr. Steven J. Dick was the first lecturer, offering his insight on astrobiology and the biological Universe. Just before lunch astronaut Dr. Kathryn C. Thornton spoke to us about several of her space flights. For her work on the Hubble Space Telescope Dr. Thornton was awarded NASA's Distinguished Service Metal.

Many participants ate box lunches provided but I couldn't resist a trip to the Bellair Market, one of the nicest secrets in Charlottesville. This little eatery is located in, of all places, an Exxon gas station. Their sandwiches are quite renowned and the place was filled to capacity, but within minutes I was enjoying one of their famous Montpellier sandwiches.

Back at the conference members of the Charlottesville Astronomical Society set up a telescope to view the sun but were hampered by thick clouds. I did, however, catch one quick glimpse of a few beautiful prominences through a H-Alpha Coronado telescope.

The second half of the conference included a very interesting lecture by Zolt Levay discussing possessing digital images from the Hubble Space Telescope. Later in the day Dr. Ed Murphy informed us of the wonderful history at both the McCormack Observatory and Fan Mountain Observatory. The meeting concluded with a light-pollution round table discussion followed by the most anticipated raffling of door prizes.

Well folks, it's that time of the year again - time for the annual Jansky Lecture from NRAO up in Charlottesville.

Traditionally many RAS make the pilgrimage for these usually excellent talks.

This year the speaker will be Ronald D. Ekers, Federation Fellow at the Australian Telescope National Facility and President of the International Astronomical Union. His talk will be on "Paths to Discovery".

The talk will be at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, November 17, in Gilmer Hall Auditorium on McCormick Rd on the campus of the University of Virginia.

Your 2005 dues can be paid to our treasurer, Cindy Bowers, at any of the meetings, or by mail. Please use the form enclosed in this newsletter.

The 2005 officer nomination committee has come up with the following slate. Note that there are 12 contenders and we have 12 positions. What a coincidence! We still have to formally elect the board, so we still want you to turn in a ballot, so please mark your votes and turn this form in at the meeting. For those of you who cannot make the meeting (members only, please), mail your ballots to:

Terry Barker, 11536 Smoketree Dr

Richmond, VA 23236

Since Oct 8 I have spent most of my days at star parties: either at the East Coast or Mid Atlantic. I was able to do a lot of observing, met and spoke to dozens, gave a presentation at MASP, and got little sleep. I have to represent that RAS does more than make rules and watch videos.

The highlight of the trip were the clear skies of Friday - Sat - Sun. These two nights I was up until just before dawn. I was able to observe many clusters in Cepheus and Cassiopeia, several very red carbon stars, the intricacies of the Scutum star cloud and the adjacent dust lane of the Milky way, and many other really great wonders. The North American Nebula and the Veil were quite lovely with a borrowed OIII filter. In larger scopes I saw several Abell planetaries, Stephans Quintet, the Perseus Galaxy cluster, and the Horsehead Nebula.

The limiting naked-eye magnitude was at least 6.3, but water vapor in the sky kept background bright.

What really bothers me is that I don't have enough time to see it all. Never will.

I had many visitors interested in the workings of a Discovery- brand telescope.

One of the best speakers was Prof. John Mannone home.earthlink.net/~jcmannone

I arrived on-site at around 2015 EDT. Conditions were generally good. The transparency was about as good as it gets there with 6th magnitude stars visible in the Little Dipper. However, seeing was poor and there was an unrelenting dew. I ran into problems setting up my 13" scope and had to do some repairs by red flashlight. One other astronomer arrived after I had finished setting up.

After getting my scope operational and into acceptable collimation, I picked up the galaxy NGC 7678 in Pegasus. This 12th magnitude galaxy is near the center of the Great Square, and is almost perfectly at the center of an isosceles triangle of faint stars.

I took a look at Comet NEAT (C/2001 Q4) which is near the bowl of the Little Dipper. My computer rated it at 10th magnitude but it was a barely discernable glow at 150x in my telescope.

By this time, both finders on my telescope had dewed over. The rest of the evening was spent looking at old favorites like M31, M32, M27, M57, M33, and M110.

At 2330 I packed up and headed home.