Today, August 25th, marks the 20th anniversary of the arrival of Voyager 2 at Neptune. In 1989 this automated probe completed a 12 year voyage to our solar system’s most distant planet, after visiting Jupiter, Saturn and Uranus. It passed less than 5,000 km above Neptune’s north pole, and a few hours later passed the large moon Triton. The images that were returned gave us our first detailed look at this giant planet and its satellite system.

Today, Voyager 2 and its companion Voyager 1 are both still operating well and are 13 and 16 billion km away, respectively. They are in communication with Earth on a weekly basis, with radio signals taking over a day to travel the great distance. In the twenty years that have passed since Voyager’s visit to Neptune, no other probe has been to the planet. Voyager 2 remains our sole emissary to Neptune.

Image of Neptune, taken 20 years ago today.

Meanwhile……… a small contingent of HAA members made the trek to Cherry Springs for their Second Annual Astronomy Festival. Like at ?Twisterfest? the inclement weather played its part at Cherry Springs as well.
Although attendance was not as anticipated the weather didn’t dampen the spirits or the comradery of the astronomers who attended.
It was great to meet and spend time with Dave and Guy, members from the Aurora Astronomical Society based in Ohio. Dave had his new handmade 13 inch Dob at the ready. Dave said it was a labour of love that took him all last winter. Its a beautifully crafted scope and gave some really nice views. Guy set up his two Dobs and kept everyone laughing with all his adventures.
By late Saturday afternoon the public starting arriving for some planned activites at the pavillion. The most popular by far was the bottle rocket launch. The shrieks and laughter could be heard throughout the park. Onlookers gathered to cheer them on.
As darkness fell the clouds started to roll in, but there was still plenty of opportunity for a sky tour through the sucker holes.
Optimism had led to setting up the scopes. Although sporadic, several opportunities presented itself to view the outstanding night skies Cherry Springs is known to provide. At the close of the park activites passerbyes stopped for a Galileo Moment or two.
Bino observing of the Milky Way gave stellar views.
It was great to see Maxine Harrison as she made the rounds as usual, to say hello, have a visit and give us an update on park news.
As all things must come to an end, Sunday afternoon arrived. With that, a reluctant departure, knowing in our hearts the absolute best clear sky of the weekend would be…….Sunday night………why is that?

I have to admit that it was the most exciting Starfest we’ve ever attended! Thursday afternoon the field was rocked by a frightening storm that shredded trailer awnings, blasted shelters to pieces, snapped tent poles and destroyed at least one tent. In spite of all the damage, we were lucky. In nearby Durham, an F2 tornado killed a child and mangled many buildings. Even through the driving rains, we could see the black clouds passing north of us that apparently spawned that deadly twister. We had almost 2 inches of rain in less than 45 minutes. Thank goodness there is sand and gravel beneath River Place campground – the water drained quickly after the storm, leaving just a few puddles here and there.

There have been some significant changes to the campground this year. The “hill” that many of our members have camped on is gone. It has been bulldozed flat and a new road runs from the main road along behind where the hill used to be. Some new trailer sites have been added along this road, next to the tree line. Some of these trailer sites are ridiculously sloped and all but useless to anyone except perhaps a family of mountain goats. (Stay away from trailer sites #458, 459 and 460!!! ) The camp has a new, heated swimming pool which seems slightly larger than the old one. (Or maybe it just seemed larger because there were very few people in it.)

Thursday and Friday nights brought breathtaking views of the Milky Way that lasted for maybe an hour or two and then reappeared unexpectedly later in the night. This was a pleasant surprise especially considering the weather forecast! (Which essentially promised: rain, thunderstorms, drizzle and Armaggedon.)

The door prizes were spectacular – everything from cash to a new Celestron 8″SE telescope ! Steve Germann won a small telescope that will make an adorable companion to his huge 16″ Lightbridge. Skye Hepburn won a Williams Optics star diagonal and stole our hearts as she gleefully accepted her prize. (What a cutie!!!!) Everyone will be relieved to know that
neither we or Bruce & Margaret won anything this year. It seems our lucky streak has ended.

We met up with old friends and made some new ones. We bought some new astro-toys. The talks were entertaining and interesting. All in all, another successful Starfest.

Cheers,

Ann Tekatch

Well, I admit that I have no idea if it was an exciting night on Jupiter. It might have been, but if it was, nobody invited me to that party. Ah, the life of an amateur astronomer.

I can tell you that I had a pretty exciting night out at the alternate site looking at Jupiter. Along with a couple of other fine HAA members we waited for Jupiter to clear the trees so we could start observing the planet right away. There were two satellite transits in progress, as Ganymede and Europa passed in front of the giant planet. Accompanying them were their shadows, and it made a lovely sight. Ganymede’s shadow was significantly larger than Europa’s, which came in and out of view as Jupiter struggled through the low atmosphere. As Jupiter climbed higher, Ganymede emerged from the limb, showing a clear disk, at one point half on and half off of Jupiter’s disk. The view through Jim’s 8″ SCT was very colourful and clear. Within an hour Europa emerged as well and shortly after that Io appeared from behind Jupiter. As the evening started Jupiter showed only one moon, Callisto, and within a couple of hours all four Galilean Satelites were visible. The fine view of the surface detail on Jupiter was also excellent, but with the activity around it, with two shadows, two transit egresses and a shadow egress, it was all we could hope for in one night. We were all just thrilled with the evening’s observations.

Speaking of Galileo, Jim gave three women who emerged out of the park a ‘Galileo moment’ as they all enjoyed their first view through a telescope and were delighted to see Jupiter and its moons and shadows. After an evening of fishing and, uh…other acitivites best enjoyed in the wilderness, they were excitied enough with the view of Jupiter that their comments were of a nature that can’t be repeated here.

Jupiter is near oposition right now and as such is visible all night. I used ‘Starry Night’ software to predict the satellite events and it got the timings exactly right. Other similar software or the RASC Observer’s Handbook will do the same for you, so you too can enjoy this wonderful Jupiter season. I’d love to read about your Jupiter observations here on the blog, or send them to your friendly local observing director ( observing@amateurastronomy.org ) and I will be happy include them in a report.

Many of the HAA members are going to be observing out of town this weekend. For those so inclined, you might want to consider joining them at either of these 2 locations.

This weekend is Starfest (Aug 19-23) at River Place Park, just north of Mount Forest (off Hwy 6). This is an annual right-of-passage for many amateur astronomers.

With skies that are darker than Binbrook, far from any major city, it boasts a very large open camping field with lots of room to observe the night sky. And since it’s a star party, there are 3 days of speakers, presentations and demonstrations for the beginner and more experienced astronomer. Many astronomy dealers will also be there with bargains to help you fill any gaps in your gear. This is about a 2 hour drive from the Hamilton/Burlington area. Go for the day or camp overnight.

Information, fees and directions to Starfest can be found here:
Starfest Info

River Place Park

Alternatively, some other HAA members are heading down to Cherry Springs, PA, USA for a long weekend of observing in even darker skies.

This is the home to the Cherry Springs star party in June, and the Black Forest star party in Sept. Beautiful country and very dark skies, with a very well set-up astronomy field for observing and camping. Camping is $10US a night (very reasonable). It’s about a 5 hour drive (including border crossing, etc). With many Canadian and American astronomers heading up to Starfest, this field should be quiet, but with great observing.

Information about Cherry Springs can be found at:
http://www.dcnr.state.pa.us/stateparks/parks/cherrysprings.aspx

And Google directions:
Cherry Springs State Park

New member Vince Chaisson is looking for people to go observing with him tonight over at the Tyneside location. If you are interested in joining him please leave a comment so he knows he won’t be alone.

Map to Tyneside location:
http://www.amateurastronomy.org/sites/binbrookCA/BinbrookTyneside1.jpg

Except for a risk of fog, the conditions are looking pretty good for tonight.

Early this morning the last quarter moon slid in front of the Pleiades, rewarding any early risers with a beautiful sight. I will give a brief description of my experience here, but I hope to see other reports from around the club posted as well. It will be fun to read everyone’s different experiences.

I rose around 4 and popped outside for a quick binocular view (to check the sky condition and be sure that the celestial clockwork really had brought the moon and Pleaides together. Hey, it was 4am and I was a little sleepy!). I then set up my small but mighty Orion ED80 refractor, and was immediately rewarded with a wide field view showing a bright moon and many of the brighter Pleiades. A few experimental photos (very hard to get the bright moon and faint stars in the same picture. Ok, more than hard for someone like me – impossible! Maybe someone else has better results) and a few shots of the moon itself, which provided a wealth of detail. I could count 5 terraces on the inner wall of the crater Copernicus. I was slow getting my scope up due to a set-up error on my part (remember, sleepy) so I missed the disapperance of Electra at 4:30, but I watched as others disappered behind the bright limb of the moon. I also saw Celeano just as it reappeared from behind the dark limb (just lucky, as I didn’t know when it would reappear). Overall, a very worthwhile event.

I rounded out the morning, as the sky was now brightening, with some views of Venus and Mars. Although the disk of Venus looked large when compared to Mars, it was tiny Mars that showed detail on its surface. As daylight overtook the sky I returned to the moon for a last look at Copernicus. What a fun session. I look forward to hearing about your observations.

The moon is overexposed in this 10 second exposure, although the dark side shows well. The original shows more of the fainter stars.

Thanks to a heads up from our EH editor, Tim Philp, the moon will be occulting the Pleiades star cluster early on the morning of Fri August 14, 2009.

Starting around 4am local time, the moon will slowly glide in front of various stars in the Pleiades cluster, causing the stars to wink out and back again. I haven’t checked if there will be any “grazers” from our latitude, but it will be a nice show, easy to spot with the clear forecast predicted for the early morning. (The only weather risk appears to be some fog.) At that time, the moon will be high in the sky, almost due South.

Each star occulted by the moon will blank out for about an hour (the time it takes the moon to travel it’s own width across the sky). Since it’s passing through the heart of the cluster, it will take several hours and may continue past sunrise. (This will be “potentially” an interesting opportunity to see stars with a scope during early daylight since the moon will be easier to spot, and therefore know where to find some brighter stars.)

This will be visible from anywhere, even from within the city, and you won’t need a scope. But binos or a scope, as well as a darker location, will allow you to see more stars being covered, and generally make the show even more impressive.

So if you are an early morning person, or are willing to make the effort, you should be well rewarded. This will also be a great photo-op. You might even catch a few straggling Perseids.

Three years ago during the Perseid meteor watch, observers were able to catch the long period variable star Chi Cygni overhead, shining at magnitude 3.5 – the brightest it had been in decades. This year, alas, Chi will be at minimum during the Perseid shower but observers can scan the western sky for R CrB, a variable star in the constellation of Corona Borealis, the Northern Crown.

R CrB fades and brightens suddenly! Most of the time it is between magnitude 5 amd 6, a naked eye object if you know where to look. It has been beyond the reach of 12″ telescopes for the last two years, but you never know when it may pop back into view!

The following is taken from the SpaceWeather web site. There will be a bright moon, but this meteor shower is always worth watching. You could see early Perseids already! Stay tuned for information on club observing activities on Perseid night.

“POSSIBLE PERSEID OUTBURST: This year’s Perseid meteor shower could be even better than usual. “A filament of comet dust has drifted across Earth’s path and when Earth passes through it, sometime between 0800 and 0900 UT (1 – 2 am PDT) [4-5am August 12, local time in Hamilton – John] on August 12th, the Perseid meteor rate could surge to twice its normal value,” says Bill Cooke of NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office. The following profile is based on the debris stream models of veteran forecasters Jeremie Vaubaillon and Mikhail Maslov:

The filament was shed by Perseid parent comet Swift-Tuttle in the year 1610, and this is one of Earth’s first encounters with it. “In addition,” notes Cooke, “the main Perseid debris stream, which we run into every year, may be denser than normal due to a gravitational enhancement by Saturn. The total combination of these effects could result in as many as 200 meteors per hour (ZHR).”