amateur astronomy news and views the very best part of vaas · once each year the virginia...

Volume 27 – Number 11 November 2010

Roanoke ValleyAstronomical

SocietyAmateur Astronomy News and Views

in Southwestern Virginia

RVAS NL – November 2010 – Pg. 1 of 11

The Very Best Part of VAASBy John Goss, 2010 VAAS Chair

When Genevieve asked me what my favorite part of the VAAS conference was, my reply came as a surprise. She had expected me to say that it was either a particular talk or certain door prize presentation. While they were certainly enjoyable, it was neither.

I replied that my favorite part was the ninety minutes before the first talk began, and the sixty minutes during lunch. In that time, I saw:

• Carol Mesimer putting up VAAS signs;

• Rick Rader bringing in his “Are you smarter than an 8th grad-er” poster and his VAAS Virginia map;

• Matt Flee-nor tuning the audio-vi-sual system;

• Dave Thom-as assembling

the Radio Jove equipment and readying its dis-play table;

• Mark Hodges setting up the hydrogen-alpha solar scope;

• Rick Rader, Michael Good, and Dave Thomas documenting the action with their cameras;

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The Roanoke Valley Astronomical Society is a membership organization of amateur astronomers dedicated to the pursuit of astronomical observational and photographic activities. Meetings are held at 7:30 p.m. on the third Monday of each month, at the Center in the Square in downtown Roanoke, Virginia. Meetings are open to the public. Observing sessions are held one or two weekends a month at a dark-sky site. Yearly individual dues are $20.00. Family dues are $25.00. Student dues are $10.00. Articles, quotes, etc. published in the newsletter do not necessarily reflect the views of the RVAS or its editor.

RVAS web page: http://rvasclub.orgOfficers/Executive Committee/Editor

Paul Caffrey, President ([email protected])Michael Good, Vice President ([email protected])

Mark Poore, Secretary ([email protected])Jeff Suhr, Treasurer ([email protected])

Randy Sowden, Immediate Past President ([email protected])Mark Hodges, Past President ([email protected])

Carol Mesimer, Member at Large ([email protected])Clark M. Thomas, RVAS Newsletter Editor ([email protected])

• Paul Caffrey and Mark Hodges setting up the white light solar scopes;

• Jeff Suhr and Carol Mesimer preparing and staffing the all-important registration desk;

• Mark, Luke, and Seth Poore managing the door prize room;

• Clark Thomas assisting with solar observing;

• Dave Godman demonstrating the principals of his rectified Earth visual aid;

• Randy Sowden assembling the Orion “Aristo-crat” telescope;

• Michael Good carting in his Celestron 14 along with a collection of great astro-photographs for display;

• Paul Caffrey welcoming the attendees, the

speakers, and Roanoke College president, Mi-chael Maxey.

I saw RVAS members all doing their best to make sure that VAAS was successful while at the same time enjoying themselves. I saw everyone welcoming the attendees. I saw RVAS hospitality shining brightly!

In other words, I saw club members coming together to put on a first-rate event. I saw the club acting like a REAL club, one which was fun and rewarding. That was my very favorite part of VAAS 2010!

If I neglected to mention anyone, please forgive me. My eyes were spinning from all the activity!

I also want to thank the people at Roanoke Col-lege for all their contributions. It was a perfect partnership.


More VAAS 2010 PhotosBy Rick Rader, photographer


VAAS From a Radio Jove PerspectiveBy Dave Thomas

Once each year the Virginia Association of Astronomical Societies (VAAS) holds its annual conference hosted by a member club. The 2010 conference was held on the campus of Roanoke College in Salem, Virginia, on October 9th. The gathering was sponsored by the Roanoke Valley Astronomical Society (RVAS), and the Roanoke College physics department.

The main program commenced at 9:30 a.m. with a presentation on the NASA educational outreach program, Radio Jove.

Dr. Jim Thieman (bottom right photo) from the Goddard Spaceflight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland was the speaker. His presentation was well put together, and was well received by the audience of over 60 amateur astronomy enthu-siasts from around the state.

A working Radio Jove station was set up (top right photo) to demonstrate the simplicity and portability of the system. The antenna was a single dipole modeled after the RJ1 antenna, and mounted using 10-foot PVC supports fas-tened to the railing on a balcony on the rear of the building.

Unfortunately, but not totally unexpected, there was very strong RFI in the vicinity which precluded making any useful observations, but it did suffice as a demonstration of the system.

I believe this was one of the first VAAS conferences where amateur radio astronomy was a major part of the program. There were several individuals who expressed interest in Radio Jove.

Hopefully this presentation planted a seed that will result in the further growth of the Radio Jove program, and of amateur radio as-tronomy in general.


North American NebulaBy Clem Elechi

Photographing the North American and Pelican nebulae has been my first try at autoguiding, and I was not sure anything would come of it. I had had my trial by ordeal with the various components: telescope control using Cartes du Ciel, the excellent planetarium program; Celestron’s NexRemote, a computerized replacement for my extremely flaky unreliable hand control; and I had familiarized myself, sort of, with the interface of PHD guiding.

With so many different things coming together for the first time, I was quite sure that I would spend the whole evening troubleshooting. Clouds were forecast for August 29th, so it was going to be a short evening, anyway.

I set up at my favorite “observatory,” my front walkway, six steps from my front door. I set the netbook on one of my little boy’s chairs.

Setup and calibration and polar alignment went smoothly. Celestron has a feature called “All Star” polar alignment. Any star can be used for polar alignment. In this case I used Altair; it just happened to be the second calibration star that I had used.

Off went the RDF and on went the Kwik guider, a light-weight modified finderscope/

guidescope onto the telescope. There was an absoulte mess of cables. I have to figure out a way to deal with this. Cables were getting entangle with one another. Cables were almost tripping me.

PHD is really an acronym for Push Here Dummy. It actually could not be simpler. As ad-vertised, the process was quite straight-forward and, after a few minutes, the magic word “Guiding” appeared in the box in the toolbar.

Test shots showed that 3 min-ute exposures were possible. The clouds were boiling up in the west and I knew

that I was almost done, but decided to get a real target. Right-click on the little image in Cartes and slew to corresponding spot in the sky. 15 minutes later, the clouds covered every-thing.

I have a friend who writes poetry and nov-els. Once he told me that he keeps everything that he writes, because it might come in useful at some point. I will follow his advice and keep everything that I process. It’s not a perfect image; my processing skills are just one step above non-existent. One look in the corners, and my next investment becomes clear: a field-flattener.

Anyway, enjoy. Comments welcome.

Frank Baratta’s Astro-QuizOne hundred fifty years before their discovery, a famous book by a famous author accurately described the two Martian moons, Phobos and Deimos, and their apparent orbital periods. Name the book and the author.

Answer to Last Month’s Astro-Quiz: Last month we asked which constellation shares its border with fewer constellations than any other. Since Hydra, the largest constellation, shares its borders with the most, if you thought that Crux, the smallest constellation, might share its borders with the fewest, you’d be correct. However, it’s more a quirk of how the constellation boundaries have been drawn than size. Crux’s borders form a rectangle, surrounded on three sides by Centaurus, with its fourth side shared with Musca. Crux is the only constellation that shares its borders with just two other constellations.


“The Open Cluster”Widgets are small windows into the great world around us. Apple has them for all the desktops of Macs, and I suspect there are many similar widgets available for the PC world.

Here is where you need to go to find a variety of cool scientific and astronomical widgets to populate your Mac desktop, at your command: http://www.apple.com/downloads/dashboard/

Let’s look at a few of these free widgets:

Asteroid Watch

This is a paranoid’s dream come true. NASA tracks all the known NEAs, and this widget even shows their size relative to things such as houses and large airplanes. Almost every day there’s something looming nearby in the sky, sometimes closer than the Moon. Every para-noid knows there are many NEAs not yet in this database. Hurry and get your Asteroid Watch widget before the Earth explodes!

ClearSkyClock

Have seeing opportunities at your favorite viewing location pop up on your desktop.

Solar Viewer

Awesome images of the Sun from multiple bandwidths. See what’s on display each day.

SWAN - Space Weather Awareness at NASA

Complements the Solar Viewer with multiple graphic perspectives on space weather.

Starry Night

A great tease for the large program. Set it up for Roanoke, or wherever.

The Periodic Table

All about what early supernovae produced. Includes links to Wikipedia articles.


A traditional Native American Indian legend . . .

The Bear HuntBy Jack Gross

In most of our outreach programs we inevitably point out the Big and Little Dippers and then relate the classic Greco-Ro-man legend of how Callisto and Arcas were transformed into bears. In fact, all of my constel-lation stories are based upon Greek star knowledge which incorporates even older Sume-rian, Babylonian and Egyptian astronomy. How humdrum!

On a recent trip to Bryce Canyon National Park, I attended an astronomy program under the clear dark skies in the Four Corners region of the great Southwest. I am deeply indebted to the ranger who gave a talk on North Ameri-can Indian Astronomy. He covered much of the sophisticated relationship between the stars, moon and sun and the daily lives of the First Nation’s people and also many of the traditional constellation stories handed down through oral tradition for many generations.

A much different take on the dipper stars, and a few others nearby, involves a never-end-ing cycle of the bear hunt. The Micmac Indians of Nova Scotia were one of many ancient peo-ples around the world who saw a bear in this part of the sky. Their story includes the aster-

ism of the Big Dipper, the curve of stars in Corona Borealis, and four stars from Boötis found along “the arc to Arcturus.”

The bear is formed from only the four stars in the cup of the Big Dipper. The curve of Corona Bo-realis reminded them of a bear’s den, and the seven stars fol-lowing the bear were seven hunters. The first three braves are the handle of the

dipper and are named Robin (Alioth), Chickadee (Mizar), Moosebird (a Canadian gray jay with a black cap - Alkaid). The others were, named Pigeon (Saginus), Owl (Arcturus), Blue Jay (Mufrid), and finally little Saw-Whet Owl (Zêta Boötis.)

Pointing out the bear, its den, and these seven hunters with a green laser will enhance the ancient tribal story that the Micmacs tell about these stars. Nova Scotia’s northern lati-tude, and our light-polluted skies may make it difficult to see the dimmer Zêta Boötis – so perhaps this hunter has already “lost the trail.”

Every spring, when the Sun awakens the

sleeping Earth, Bear emerges from its den. Chickadee sees Bear and the annual circumpo-lar chase is on. Robin leads, Chickadee follows carrying the cooking pot (Alcor), and the rest

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follow: Pigeon, Blue Jay, Owl and Saw-Whet Owl. So off the seven hunters go, pursuing Bear all spring and all summer. At the beginning of fall, the hunters in the rear start losing the trail (as Boötis sinks low toward the horizon.) First, Saw-Whet, who is too small to keep up, looses the trail, and then Owl who is too heavy, looses the trail. Then Blue Jay and Pigeon become tired and give up the hunt. Moose-bird almost gives up the chase in mid-autumn just as bear stands up on two legs.

With Bear’s chest exposed, Robin draws his bow and the ar-row flies true. Bear now falls over on its back, dead. Here the story becomes a bit gruesome, for Robin is so hungry after the long hunt that he can’t wait to cook the bear meat in Chickadee’s pot. So he tears into Bear’s body, and eats until his hunger is finally satisfied. Looking down on himself, he finds that he is covered with blood and decides to shake it off. Standing near a maple tree, he shakes and shakes. Bear’s blood spatters all over the maple tree and that is why its leaves are tinged red each autumn.

Robin shakes off all the blood except for the blood on his chest. When Chickadee ar-rives with the cooking pot, he scolds Robin for his greediness, and tells him that he must wear that blood on his breast to remind everyone to share. This is how the robin came to have a red breast.

Now it’s time to cut up what is left of the bear meat, make the fire, and cook it; but Moosebird and the others are not to be found anywhere. So Robin and Chickadee start doing all the work themselves.

Meanwhile, Moosebird has found the trail again, and he starts thinking, “If I hurry, I might be in time for the kill.” Then Moosebird thinks some more. “Or, if I take my time, I’ll get there just in time for the meal. I think I’ll do that.” And that’s what he did. In fact, Moosebird has never again hunted for himself. He al-ways arrives after all of the work is done. To this day the Canadian Gray

Jay is called “The Camp Robber.”

But this is not the end of Bear’s story. All winter, it lies on its back, however its spirit enterers another bear which is invisible to us. It lies upon its back in the Corona Borealis den, sleeping the winter sleep. When the spring comes around again, a bear will leave the den and will be chased by the seven warriors and then killed. Its spirit will enter the next bear sleeping in the den and the cycle repeats each year.

All ancient people knew the sky very well and used it to explain the natural environ-ment around them, and also to teach the moral values of their clans. Today we can still look to the ancient stories in the sky to help guide us in our own journey through life.


Jupiter on 10/10/10By Michael Good

Two images of Jupi-ter, taken Friday night to Saturday (Oct 9-10), at 1230 a.m., and 1:30 a.m.

This is after I had lugged my C14 to the Roanoke College Eliza-beth campus for out-reach after VAAS, then lugged it all back home and got it set up on its pier.

I used the one-shot color LPI (Lunar Planetary Imager) USB camera, taking short 0.080 second expo-sures. I used RegiStax for alignment, optimiza-tion, stacking, and wavelets. I imported into Photoshop CS4 for final control of levels, contrast, and more Unsharp Masking to highlight even more details.

The image at the right represents the best “single” composite image I have ever made of Jupi-ter, but of course still far short of the capabili-ties of other amateurs using a C14.

Note - if you open this with Windows Photo Gallery viewer, it has a messed up palette. Use Paint or a similar viewer (image should appear smooth!).

The second image at left shows my mother (right), her sister from Germany (middle), and me at the Roanoke College observing location, with the C14 set up as “portable” (my aching back).


When is a Wobble Not a Wobble?By Dave Thomas

Does the Moon wobble? Yes and No. There is an apparent observed wobble, or libration, that is a matter of perspective. There is also an ap-parent and physical wobbling, or rocking, of the lunar poles.

The orbit of the Moon around the Earth is not a perfect circle, but an ellipse. The plane of the orbit is not around the Earth’s equator, but inclined by 6.5 degrees. This orbital tilt allows observers to glimpse slightly more of the polar regions of the Moon. This would not be possible if the Moon’s orbit was in the Earth’s equatorial plane. The actual physical rocking of the poles is about 1.5 degrees.

Since the Moon’s orbit around the Earth is

an ellipse, it speeds up when close to the Earth,

and slows down when moving outward in its orbit. This speeding up and slowing down allows the earthbound observer to see a little more of the Moon’s surface over time than if the lunar orbit were circular.

The rotation of the Earth and its width al-lows, over time, an observer on Earth to view the lunar surface from a different perspective, and to see slightly more of that surface than would be possible otherwise. Over a month’s time it is possible to view about 59% of the lunar surface from the Earth.

(The illustrations below show the face of the Moon as it would have looked on four different days during April 2007, if the Moon’s face were fully illuminated.)

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http://www.rvasclub.org/rvas-news/pdf/moon_lib_web1.htm


Calendar of Eventsby Frank Baratta

MONTHLY MEETING: Monday, November 15th, 7:30 p.m., Center in the Square, Roanoke. The featured program for this evening will be several presentations devoted to outreach.

RVAS WEEKEND OBSERVING SESSIONS: Unless otherwise indicated, observing sessions are held at Cahas Mountain Overlook, milepost 139 on the Blue Ridge Pky.

◆ Friday and Saturday, 5th and 6th. Sunset is at 6:18 p.m. As-tronomical twilight ends at 7:47 p.m. The Moon sets at 5:41 and 6:26 p.m., respectively.

◆ Friday and Saturday, 26th and 27th. Sunset is at 5:04 p.m. As-tronomical twilight ends at 6:36 p.m. The Moon sets at 7:10 and 7:51 p.m., respectively.

◆ December Sessions: 3rd and 4th. (The Christmas and New Year’s weekends are also good for observing.)

ROANOKE CITY PARKS and RECREATION PUBLIC STARGAZE: Saturday, Novem-ber 6th, 7:00 p.m., Green Hill Park, Salem, Va. Nonmembers must register with Parks & Rec. at 540-853-2236. Members can call 540-774-5651 for information. (Next session: December 4th, 5:45 p.m., Cahas Overlook.)

FRANKLIN COUNTY PARKS DEPT. PUBLIC STARGAZE: No sessions scheduled until 2011.

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