Month: August 2011

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Minutes from the Aug 2011 Meeting

by Bill Engberg

 

Meteo-rites of Passage


The first right of passage was the “physical challenge” by making it through the telephone pole chicanes of Hwy 300. Done!

 

Then was the “intro challenge” with 5 new members here for the first time last night .and since most of them were college students, Dean Wormer made them pledge ΔTX  “Erik Stratton, Rush Chairman.darn glad to meet you.”   Done!

 

We even had macho door prizes. The full color illustrated astro-photo book “Astronomy” by Chaisson & McMillan was donated by Larry Sessions and was won by a first time guest, new member.Thank you Larry, that book is excellent!

 

A great evening across the board and 21 people were able to enjoy it. If you weren’t there, you are square. Sublime presentation on meteorites by Bill Sanders and Rocky Togni, even had a lot of actual big iron.humongulous samples for people to see. Shooting stars …you could hold in your hand!  We watched a great presentation covering the history of ancient sightings and interpretations; also how to do data collection, and cool science related to big impactors, some very close to Arkansas. The one impact at Meteor Crater Park in Arizona is 4000 feet across and 40 stories deep.   .and it just missed a house and highway leading to it   😉

Thank you for presenting~!

 

After the presentation we all headed out to see the sky through everything from binoculars to telescopes. It was a clear and perfectly cloudless night and there were FIVE (!)  1st time guests and new members. You don’t need a scope to enjoy CAAS. There are always a dozen people happy to show the universe to you through their excellent equipment. A great way to learn about all the various types of telescopes and how to get started…without spending a penny!

 

Thanks to everyone who helped me roll out Ardent (the 24″ Dobsonian) and set up. John Reed is a super hero for helping me put the right settings into my Argo Navis computer, so it became fully functional again.

I was about to rename it HAL:

Me:  “Take me to Messier 57, the Ring Nebula.”

HAL: “I’m sorry Dave, I can’t allow you to do that.”

Me:  “My name’s not Dave, and you’re not supposed to be able to talk..help!“

 

Some of us stayed until sunrise because the skies were so clear! Things we saw:

  • The ISS flyby happened at the same time as an Iridium Flare!! Double Flare action.whooo hooo!
  • THE MOON   (all CAPS because I’M YELLING) we still have that image seared into our retinas. Anyone who stepped away from Ardent (even with the 13% Filter) went night blind in one eye for a ½ hour. I just ordered a polarizing filter that is variable down to 1%. My new seeing eye dog is typing this letter. Woof.
  • Dumbbell nebula
  • Little Dumbbell nebula
  • M57 the Ring nebula
  • Saturn nebula
  • Stephan’s Quintet (could only see 1)
  • Wild Duck Globular Cluster
  • M31 Andromeda galaxy
  • The Blinking Planetary nebula (the core star was so bright, John Reed said he’s never seen it like that before. Agreed.eye candy.Awesome!)
  • Blue planetary nebula
  • Blue Snowball
  • Cat’s Eye nebula
  • Neptune
  • Uranus
  • Mira, a variable Red super giant star.
  • M42 the Orion nebula.eye candy
  • Alberio (fantastic gold and blue double star)
  • Multiple bright and long tailed Perseid Meteors after midnight.
  • Perseus Double Cluster / NGC 869.eye candy
  • Alcyone the triple star / Pleiades
  • Mars
  • The sun.as it rose.

 

-Who else was at the Meeting?

Jim and Kathy Fisher
Pat and Sandy Morris
John Reed
Ray Jeter

Britt Jeter  (1st time guest / New Member – He studies black holes and other compact objects at the University.  Too cool!)

Carl Freyaldenhoven

William and Scott Bryden (New Member + 1st time guest!)
Roger Gudith
Allen Lee

Josh Thornburgh (New Member/1st time guest!)

Landon Sanders (New Member1st time guest!)
Don and Carolaina Ferren

Wade Van Arsdale

Rocky and Carol Togni

Bill Sanders

Bill Engberg .your humble club scribe.

 

 -Upcoming Programs and Events  (as always, see CAASASTRO.org for updates)

Aug 20th – Public Star Party – Pinnacle Mountain State Park

Aug 21st – Star Gazing Cruise – Pinnacle Mountain State Park

Sept 10th    12-5pm (time TBD ?)   Grounds/building clean-up day and “Star” B- Que

  • 7pm Regular CAAS Monthly Meeting / Program: Mayan Calendar (explaining the 2012 event…very cool!)

Sept 17th – Public Star Party – Pinnacle Mountain State Park

Oct 1st – Public Star Party – Pinnacle Mountain State Park

Oct 8th – Regular CAAS Monthly Meeting/International Observe the Moon Night

  • 6pm Board Meeting

Oct 29th – Public Star Party – Woolly Hollow State Park

Nov 12th – Regular CAAS Monthly Meeting

     Dec?? – Annual meeting, time, location TBD
Blue Skies 
Bill
Club Scribe, Galactic Concierge, Bard of the Bolides

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Solar System Size Surprise

by Dr. Tony Phillips

News flash: You may be closer to interstellar space than you previously thought.

A team of researchers led by Tom Krimigis of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory announced the finding in the June 2011 issue of Nature.  The complicated title of their article, “Zero outward flow velocity for plasma in a heliosheath transition layer,” belies a simple conclusion: The solar system appears to be a billion or more kilometers smaller than earlier estimates.

The recalculation is prompted by data from NASA’s Voyager 1 probe, now 18 billion kilometers from Earth. Voyagers 1 and 2 were designed and built and are managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Aging but active, the spacecraft have been traveling toward the stars since 1977 on a heroic mission to leave the solar system and find out what lies beyond.

To accomplish their task, the Voyagers must penetrate the outer walls of the heliosphere, a great bubble of plasma and magnetism blown in space by the solar wind. The heliosphere is so big, it contains all the planets, comets, and asteroids that orbit the sun. Indeed many astronomers hold that the heliosphere defines the boundaries of the solar system.  Inside it is “home.”  Outside lies the Milky Way.  For 30+ years, the spacecraft have been hurtling toward the transition zone. Voyager 1 is closing in.

Much of Voyager 1’s long journey has been uneventful.  Last year, however, things began to change. In June 2010, Voyager 1 beamed back a startling number: zero. That’s the outward velocity of the solar wind where the probe is now.

“This is the first sign that the frontier is upon us,” says Krimigis.

Previously, researchers thought the crossing was still years and billions of kilometers away, but a new analysis gave them second thoughts.  Krimigis and colleagues combined Voyager data with previously unpublished measurements from the Cassini spacecraft. Cassini, on a mission to study Saturn, is nowhere near the edge of the solar system, but one of its instruments can detect atoms streaming into our solar system from the outside. Comparing data from the two locations, the team concluded that the edge of the heliosphere lies somewhere between16 to 23 billion kilometers from the sun, with a best estimate of approximately 18 billion kilometers.

Because Voyager 1 is already nearly 18 billion kilometers out, it could cross into interstellar space at any time—maybe even as you are reading this article.

“How close are we?” wonders Ed Stone, Caltech professor and principal investigator of the Voyager project since the beginning.  “We don’t know, but Voyager 1 speeds outward a billion miles every three years, so we may not have long to wait.”

Stay tuned for the crossing.

For more about the missions of Voyager 1 and 2, see http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/. Another Voyager project scientist, Merav Opher, is the guest on the newest Space Place Live cartoon interview show for kids at http://spaceplace.nasa.gov/space-place-live.

Caption:

This artist’s concept shows NASA’s two Voyager spacecraft exploring a turbulent region of space known as the heliosheath, the outer shell of the bubble of charged particles around our sun. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech.

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“OBSERVING METEORS” AT THE AUGUST 13TH CAAS MEETING

Please join CAAS at its August 2011 meeting on August 13th at 7 p.m. in the classroom on the grounds of the River Ridge Observatory. Please email info@caasastro.org, if you need the link and password to the directions. After a short business meeting, Rocky Togni and Bill Sanders will make a presentation on “Observing Meteors.”

Rocky and Bill will discuss how to observe meteors including when and techniques to see the most, how to record your observations so that they are technically valuable, and where to submit them. They will also present a short history of meteor observing, how to draw meteor trails, and earning the Astronomical League Meteor Award.

Rocky also recently visited the Meteor Crater in Arizona and will give a report on his visit.

Clouds permitting we will adjourn to the observing field for fun and fellowship under the Full Moon and possibly a Perseid meteor or two
! We hope to see you there!