Beasts in the Sky Jim Blowers Last meeting by Terry Barker

Share table and member observing

Ruth Petrov, RAS Historian, brought in some pictures of recent events, and asked people to write in their name in the margins. She will create an album of past events, and will bring it in to meetings. Ken Wilson brought in star maps and satellite timings. He will be giving a class, Star Gazing 101, in May. He will also be holding a telescope class on June 11. There was a news article on the table about a Salt Lake City club building a 32 inch telescope. Gary Cowardin was showing off a parabolic ear that he bought recently at Wal-Mart, for $4.00. He also had a 3 inch ball base reflecting telescope, that he bought for $28, also at Wal-Mart. John Raymond had pictures of the East Coast Start Party, held recently in Coinjock, NC. John also saw Mercury at our Powhatan site last Sunday. He also displayed a 2 inch Williams diagonal. It had the interesting feature of allowing a filter to be attached there, instead of to your eyepiece. This allows you to change eyepieces without having to move the filter each time. Jerry Vaughn tried to get a picture of Mercury alongside the moon, but clouds prevented the effort. Ken Wilson had a signup sheet for Astronomy Day. He also had a few very nice color posters he had printed up for the event. We can reproduce them from a PDF file. Keith Mottas is handling PR for the event. Keith also held a neighborhood skywatch for his neighbors recently, and has been told there will be an article written about it in the Brandermill News. Norm Guenther is heading up the bottle rocket event for Astronomy Day. John Raymond greeted our visitors, Craig Jones, and Tom Conley. Welcome! Susan Brubaker brought in a few library books for checkout. She reminded us that the library is open 15 minutes before the monthly meeting starts. Terry Barker met with Gary Cowardin, John Raymond, and Richard Bagwell at Pizza Hut earlier this evening. This is an informal meeting that we've started holding, around 6:00 pm the nights of our club meeting. Tonight, Gary brought in a $28 reflecting telescope that he bought at WalMart. While the rest of us were eating, he took it outside, and took a picture of the moon through it with his digital camera. It turned out great! Don Rosenfield gave a short talk on the Key-Rosenfield Visual Acuity Enhancement Technique. He has had good success in teaching a technique that he developed, to allow people to see information that is not immediately obvious. This comes in especially handy for astronomy, as observing is all about detecting subtle features of objects through our eyepieces. Ted Bethune gave another short feature, showing slides of Russian and US lunar landings from the 60's and 70's, and the rockets that made it happen.

Observatory

Gary Cowardin reported that there about 75 people at the last SMV skywatch. Gary told us the observatory is in good shape. No training sessions are currently scheduled.

Skywatches and other events:

Apr. 8, Skywatch, Clover Hill, Chesterfield County, 8:00 pm Apr. 9, Indian Princess, Pocahontas Park Apr. 11, pre-meeting dinner, Pizza Hut (across from the SMV), 6:00 pm Apr. 14, Skywatch, Moore Middle School, Prince George County, 8:00 pm Apr. 15, SMV Skywatch Apr. 16, Astronomy Day Apr. 16-17, NEAF Solar Star Party, Suffern, NY Apr. 21, Skywatch, Chalkley Elementary

John Barnett gave the main presentation, A Day on the Moon. Here is an excerpt from his notes: I hope to encourage lunar viewing by all, especially newer astronomers with smaller telescopes and binoculars. Also this is directed to those astronomers, like myself, that live in light-polluted metropolitan areas. Even dark-sky enthusiasts can enjoy the Moon when moonlight washes away the sought after galaxies, comets, and other "dim fuzzies"!

Appreciation and enjoyment of Lunar viewing is however, as close as your backyard or patio, not 40 miles away in a muddy field. The excitement and anticipation of lunar exploration we enjoyed in '60's and '70's will probably return in a decade or so. Let's be ahead of the learning curve when astronauts land again and learn the landscape. Easy? Yes, you can find it without expensive "goto" telescopes or huge dobsonian light buckets. A small 60 mm refractor or even common 7X 50 binoculars can find hundreds of features.But there is plenty of challenge to know what a lunar feature looks like and when it is ideally situated for viewing. One should study some lunar charts and books (John had a separate handout).

East Coast Star Party by Kent Blackwell

I want to thank everyone who attended the March 2005 East Coast Star Party. I thoroughly enjoyed organizing the event for so many appreciative people. Despite the awful weather predictions the only rain we saw was on Saturday during the day. It was clear Friday night prior to 11:00 pm and clear Saturday night after 11:00 pm. It just proves what I've always said, don't cancel attending a star party because of weather predictions, and apparently most of you agree because over 50 people registered, and the observing area was packed on Friday night with observers and guests.

Mars lecture last week by Jim Blowers

I attended this tonight. I saw a former minister of my church and his wife, and I saw Ken and Betty Wilson. The lecture by Ms. Lockwood was about Mars probes and landers and how they are launched and what they told us. The emphasis was on how to build them and get them on the planet, rather on what they found. I asked her afterwards how much energy this all took, say for the probe that launched Opportunity. She said it was on the order of a 60-watt light bulb. You can't waste energy in space. Couldn't we all be like this here on Earth? Remember that our planet is in space, too.

Astronomy Day coming up Apr. 16 by Terry Barker

You may have noticed that we've had a signup sheet for Astronomy Day at the last few meetings. This is a great opportunity to interact with the public on behalf of our hobby! It's a national day of celebration of astronomy, and astronomy clubs all over the world will be participating. RAS does this every year in partnership with the SMV, and this year we're doing it on the designated day of Apr. 16.

Think seriously about helping us out--we normally have exhibits on CCD photography, amateur telescope making, astronomical software, meteorites, and last year we initiated a great kids acitivity--water bottle rockets. We need lots of volunteers, so look for that signup sheet at the next meeting!

Science Fair by Terry Barker

We had two nice projects at the Metro Richmond Science Fair--Jim Petty and I were the RAS judging committee, and we awarded $100 to Mary Dickinson, for The Effect of Light Pollution on the Night Sky, and $50 to Daniel Crouch for Finding the Mass of a Milky Way.

Mary (Bill Dickinson's daughter), took multiple digital camera shots of the night sky at our observing site in Powhatan, and showed the effects of Richmond's lights on the sky there. Daniel built a radio telescope from a discarded microwave dish. He never got it to completely work, but he showed some good knowledge of astronomy in what he was trying to do.

I made the presentation at the awards assembly, The science fair staff made us a couple of nice certificates to present, and I made a couple of additional awards, that I called the Milky Way Awards. I took a couple of candy bars of the same name with me, and I awarded them to anyone in the audience who could answer a couple of questions--what astronomy event is occurring tomorrow (Vernal Equinox), and what moon of Saturn did we launch a probe to in January of this year (Titan). Unfortunately, two adults answered the questions first! Of course, the intent was to get the kids thinking about astronomy, and judging from the enthusiasm in the audience, I think I achieved that, but I can't believe the two adults didn't "catch on" to what I was trying to do.

Dues are due by Jim Blowers

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