Ok, so there seems to be very little acitivity in the club or on the blog right now (frankly, I’m tired of checking in and seeing my old blog posting from 2 weeks ago!), so I am going to provide some interesting trivia (well, some trivia; you may find it interesting or you may find it annoying, or, worst of all, just plain dull). You can discuss this in the comments section, and when finished I will provide a new piece of trivia for your perusal. I’ll keep this up until somebody goes out and observes something and posts it on the blog. So please people, spare the club from my ramblings and go out and oberve!

Today’s trivia; The Galaxy and Your Brain.

There are about 100 billion (that’s 100,000,000,000!) neurons in your brain and about 100 billion stars in our Galaxy, the Milky Way. That sounds like a big number, but just how big is it? Well, when we look up at night we see only about 3000 of those stars (from a really dark site, so, not my back yard). How does that translate into neurons in your brain? You lose about that many neurons every few hours of your life, without ever noticing (the author may be losing more).

So that means that if we can lose as many neurons as there are stars in the sky, then those stars must really be a negligable amount compared to the whole galaxy. 100 billion stars is a really big number. Amazing!

Use your brain next time you observe, and think about what you’re seeing.

Saturday night (June 6th) the Moon will occult the bright star Antares.

Antares is a first magnitude star and the brightest in the constellation Scorpius. As the moon travels in its orbit, it will first cover the star and then a short time later it will uncover it. Although the event will take place low in the south-southeast (15 degrees above the horizon at the start of the occultation) it will be visible to all.

The moon will be full, and easy to find. Antares is occulted at about 10:40pm, so a little before that look for a bright star to the upper left of the moon. Binoculars or a telescope will certainly enhance the view. When the occultation occurs, Antares will instantly disappear behind the limb of the moon. At approximately 11:18pm it will reappear to the upper right of the moon. Again, it will be a sudden event.

Occultations can be lots of fun and very exciting. The times given here are approximate (since times are location dependant), so be sure to keep a close eye on Antares as the moon approaches. You can time the occultation accurately for your location if you have a shortwave radio capable of picking up CHU time signals ( http://inms-ienm.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/time_services/shortwave_broadcasts_e.html ). Keep an ear on the radio while you keep an eye on the star. A telescope will give you the best view, but binoculars will provide a very aesthetically pleasing view. Antares is bright enough that you should even be able to see it with the unaided eye.

Have fun, and feel free to share your observing experiences here on the blog, or by contacting observing@amateurastronomy.org.

The occulation will take place low in the southern sky.

Antares will disappear behind the upper left limb of the full moon.

This is from Mike Jefferson.

As part of the Origins Institute’s Public Lecture Series, Dr. Brian P. Schmidt of The Australian National University is going to be the speaker at The Origins Institute at McMaster University this Thursday, June 4, 2009 at 8:00pm. The talk will take place at the Michael DeGroote Building, right behind the McMaster Medical Centre. You can park on King Street for free.

Room 1305/1307

Click here for more details and information.

Tonight I took my little Orion short tube 80 out on to the deck (this is not my ED80, of which I have so many good things to say) and set it up on a camera tripod. I had a look at Saturn and then the moon. Noteworthy was the excellent view of the eastern limb of the moon, provided by a very favourable libration.

Libration is a word that comes from the word “libra” which, as you know (being astronomers), means ‘balance’. In this case it refers to the balance of the moon on its axis. Since the moon’s rotational axis is tilted compared to its orbital plane and since its orbit is eccentric (hey, I can relate!) it means that sometimes we see the moon from one angle and sometimes from another. Overall, from Earth we can see about 59% of the moon’s surface.

Tonight the moon is tilted so that we can see the eastern edge favourably. Normally at first quarter we would notice Mare Crisium, the very round mare near the eastern (right-hand) edge of the moon. With this favourable libration we can see beyond Mare Crisium, to Mare Marginis (labeled ‘b’), Mare Smythii (labelled ‘c’) and Mare Humboldtianum (labelled ‘a’). Mare Smythii and Mare Humboldtianum are the only two maria named after people (an astronomer and an explorer). Mare Marginis means ‘The Marginal Sea’ or, more colloquially, ‘The Sea on the Edge’. Guessing from how much surface beyond these maria shows up in the picture, I figure we must be able to see at least 95 degrees east longitude. That’s 5 degrees into the far side of the moon! This isn’t a really rare thing to observe, but it sure is fun.

If it’s clear over the next couple of days, go out and try to see these maria for yourself. You just might see the far side of the moon!

a – Mare Humboldtianum b – Mare Marginis c – Mare Smythii

(photograph taken afocally through a very cheap 80mm f/5 achromat. The giant letters labelling the maria were not really hanging there in space, so when you get to the eyepiece you’re just going to have to figure out which is which for yourself.)

The HAA turned out in force for Binbrook’s Great Outdoor Community Festival. There were at least seven telescopes and an equal number of binoculars set up to view the sun, birds and various sights in the park. The weather co-operated for the most part and we had terrific views of solar prominences, white light views of the spotless sun, purple martins building nests, and even a canoe-eating swan!

We were fortunate to be near the children’s craft area and were visited by many families.

It was a long but enjoyable day. Special thanks to everyone who helped or lent moral support: Steve, Don, Jim, Brenda, Joe, Heather, Moe, Ann, Alexandra, Andrew, Kerry, Bill & Skye, and Tim Philp.

Cheers,

Ann Tekatch

P.S. Steve set the tone for the afternoon. Remember, though, that black ties are optional for evening observing…LOL

“Germann. Steve Germann.”

Neptune, normally difficult to find, will be in the same low power field of view as Jupiter
this week, and well worth a peek in the morning sky.

Neptune, served up fresh and blue.

(Steve reporting on his 4 night astro-camp-out at Cherry Springs.)

I arrived one day late, as events in town delayed my departure until it was impractical on Wednesday night. That was my first mistake, as by all accounts Wednesday was every bit as good as Thursday.

I arrived on Thursday in time to see the sunset, and get all set up and collimated.

By then, the internet was working. Gone are the days of the $15 phone call to let folks at home know I made it safely. Hooray.

With Wifi, it truly is the ‘Ideal Astro Park’. There’s nothing like it within a thousand miles…

Star hopping at CS is, as Ann says, a cinch because there are so many stars visible, even without a finderscope.

By some stroke of bad luck, the CSC got reprogrammed to try for June 24 instead of May 24. We looked up a nearby clock for some consolation.

I made several excellent improvements to the GWS while there. I repositioned the finderscope onto the main barrel, so that the scope now does not need a counterweight, and it sits, without applying the brake, at any orientation, and does not even swing when tilted by the equatorial platform.

Josh has a LB 16 too, but he has worked wonders on it. Starting with new coatings for the mirrors, and continuing with special covers to protect it from dust, and finally, all of the metal has been powder-coated black or sparkle-red. It’s a beauty.

I had only one step up on him, the EQP, which allowed me to hold a magnified view without adjusting the scope.

Josh also lent me his laser collimator, and it showed that my laser is off kilter, explaining some issues focusing. Fortunately, I was able, after collimating with Josh’s, to get my laser to point in the right direction. Now I just have to keep it together.

Finally, he suspected correctly that some of the screws on the GWS have worked loose. He was right! Some were barely finger tight, causing the scope to shift when tilted to the zenith.

It was worth the drive just as a telescope clinic. Thank-you Josh!

I plotted the position of Pluto, and star hopped to it. Pluto was not found. (That was before re-alignment mentioned above)

It’s at 14th Magnitude, but the stars on the chart are only 12th Magnitude… I found 6 stars not on the chart, but none were pluto (this time).

I was hopeful to see all 9 planets in one night. Maybe next time. (For me, Pluto will always be a planet. I remember the mean distance from the sun, which I memorized when I was 7 years old… 3670000000 miles.)

The eastern horizon as viewed from CSSP has a lot of trees… I walked to the end of the airfield to see if the view opens up at all. Not much, really.

I continued my sequential Messier Marathon, picking up M69, M70, M71, M72, and M73.

I then tried the reverse SMM, starting with M109 and working backwards, to M101.
I developed effective geometric star-hops for them. (I have seen M110 dozens of times, so
i called the latest of those the de-facto first step in a reverse Sequential Messier Marathon)

M100 was a problem… there’s very little in terms of stars in the field near it, that are bright enough to be on star maps. Here’s where the Deep Sky Image Catalog comes in handy, showing the star fields and shapes of the Messier Objects and many others.
Subsequent nights were too soupy for easy galaxy-hopping.

Several people wondered how I fit the scope into the VW. A few were there to see the final result when I packed it back up again.

Sunday evening started out very hazy, and it was difficult for me to make out
more than 2 stars in Lyra. Eventually it cleared… in the meantime I tried out the newly-aligned optics on some favourites, including M13. It turned out the soupy skies made appreciation problematic.

We had some visitors who were camping across the road… university students who are studying ‘Observational Astronomy’. They learned some from us.

As the skies cleared the transparency remained bad, but improved.
I also tried going up again, from M3 onwards (M1 and M2 are too close to the sun these days). I got up to M20 in rapid succession. Nothing like the first time I tried them.
I have to admit I have learned a lot about star hopping in the meantime.
Later clouds started going by, and eventually the dawn caught up with me.

In the morning, everyone was packing up, and the CSC for a nearby community showed
wall to wall clouds expected on Monday night. I should have just put my feet up and waited for the computation due at noon, but decided to pack up and head for home.

Next time, the plan is, go 2 days sooner (ie, Tuesday night) and stay regardless of the CSC. Also, bring something to do if it rains, such as, some astrophotos to edit, or perhaps a guitar.

I imaged this on April 17th in Binbrook Conservation Area. I met up with the gang there for some casual observing. We all had a nice time and there was a pretty good turn out. FOr this image I was really hoping for still waters so that I could get a reflection of the stars but the wind started to pick up as the night wore on. Anyway, this comprises of two 20 second frames taken with the Canon 40D and Sigma 17-70mm lens (17mm@f2.8) on a tripod. The two frames were only used to give more vertical depth to the scene.

Larger version: http://www.weatherandsky.com/main.php?g2_view=core.ShowItem&g2_itemId=5146&g2_imageViewsIndex=2

I?m just back from Cherry Springs State Park in Pennsylvania and I can?t say enough about the fabulous dark skies there!! I?ll blog my experiences and hope that others add to this post.

Jim, Jackie and I arrived on Wednesday under a clear, blue sky. Jim?s scope was acting up on him and he didn?t get to use it that night, so he made good use of his binocular mount. I had my homemade 8? dob and had no trouble at all star-hopping because there were so many stars visible. At midnight, I checked the SQM reading and it was 21.93!

The Milky Way swung overhead in the early morning hours and it drew us away from our telescopes. The dark lanes and star clouds were amazing. We spent a fair bit of time just sitting in our lawn chairs to soak in the view!

Steve arrived on Thursday evening ? another fabulous night (SQM at midnight: 21.84 – with the Milky Way overhead later on, the SQM dropped to 21.74) ? and he treated us to fantastic views through the GWS.
Jim found the problem with his scope (faulty batteries, I believe) and spent the night touring the sky. I tracked down Markarian?s Chain ? a line of galaxies in Virgo/Coma as well as the Bug Nebula, the Antennae galaxies and many other deep sky objects that just aren?t visible in an 8? scope here in the southern Ontario light pollution dome.

Thursday afternoon, the park finished up installing WIFI and we were able to access email and the internet from Jim?s laptop. With the installation of WIFI, I would have to say that Cherry Springs is now the perfect astronomy field!

We did some sightseeing on Friday morning. While Jim was navigating a narrow, winding road through the beautiful Pennsylvania forest, Jackie spotted a black bear and hollered for Jim to stop the van. It soon became apparent that it wasn?t a bear, just a big, black dog. As Jim said: Ursa Major turned into Canis Minor!

Jim, Jackie and I ended up leaving on Friday afternoon ? earlier than planned. Sunstroke, black flies and sleep deprivation had me fantasizing for home and a weather report of less than perfect skies for Friday night was all it took to set me packing. Jim agreed and he and Jackie decided to leave as well. Our fearless leader, Steve, had planned on a week?s stay and he remained along with Jackie?s campstove, whatever supplies we could offer and our promise to take the clouds back home with us!

Next month, there is a star party at Cherry Springs State Park. The Cherry Springs Star Party runs from June 18 ?21 and I hope you can join us there! Here is a link to their website: http://www.astrohbg.org/CSSP/Information.html

Ann T.

P.S. An extra big THANK YOU to Jim’s mom for supplying tons of yummy food for all of us to enjoy. Her butter tart squares gave us the energy to observe all night!