Club Diary September 2009

By Dave Stratton

Wednesday 2nd September 2009

Social Evening

At last we are back where we belong. Very good turn out including a few new people who will be joining us. We enjoyed a great chat.

Wednesday 9th September 2009

Beginners' Evening

Andrew got us going with a reminder that the Patrick Moore visit will shortly be upon us, this is set for 26th. Should be a great day. Those of us not taking part eagerly await the feedback as another is promised.

He also said there was an ISS pass during the evening. (Sadly we were undone by cloud).

Ted advised that he had bumped into a church official who advised that plans are now well in hand for the building replacement. This will be a Scandinavian structure. Timing is in the order of three years. They also said that we will be accommodated during the upheaval. Plus donations would be welcomed.

Was The Moon Trip A Hoax? - Updated

Andrew gave an update on his excellent talk at the tail end of our last session.

There is now a satellite in orbit only 30 miles above the lunar surface, the LRO Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. It is not yet in a stable orbit - it is at present an ellipse but getting nearer to a circle. It is able to resolve down to 1 metre. It also has a wide angle camera that will resolve to 100 metres.

We were shown the most amazing images of Apollos 11, 15, 16, 17 and 14. The actual base that the craft left behind and most impressive of all the very sharp shadow. With 14 we could even see the tracks left by the astronauts as they moved to scientific apparatus about 120 metres away from the base.

We look forward to even better pics soon.

Andy Turner had a good read during the summer and gave a review of an excellent book by Brian Cox and Jeff Forshaw entitled 'Why does E=mc2 and Why should we care?'

Apparently the book resulted from a casual comment by Brian's wife and as he pondered his response the book was born. Andy gave us a good dose of his endless enthusiasm and regards the book as well worth a read and the math's is not too difficult.

CPAC News

Mike showed us some amazing images from a mine that had become flooded and subsequently pumped out and when it was explored the most incredible crystals of gypsum were found. These words cannot do justice - it looked like a set from a Bond movie. They were 3 - 4 metres long and probably weighed 50 tons and they were piled on top of one another. Because the mine is next to volcano and humidity is high it is a very hostile environment. Even with protective clothing the max. time there is only minutes long.

We were then shown an image of M31 Mike advised that it is in the process of expanding by incorporating nearby smaller galaxies.

Mike then spoke of Wasp 19 which is an exoplanet going around a star. What is strange is that it is going around in the opposite direction from the star's rotation. This was discovered by the red shift phenomena.

Mike then discussed the summer triangle. These are Altair, Vega and Deneb which are the first stars we tend to see as the sky darkens.

Vega is 25 ly away and rotates in 12.5 hours. Deneb is 1400 ly away and is so big the Sun is a dot in comparison. Altair is 16.77 ly away and rotates in 8.9 hours. Altair is therefore rather oval in shape as is Vega. The strange thing about Altair is we view it from the pole and this strangely makes it appear brighter than it should - rapidly spinning oval stars like this tend to be darker that the equator so we are seeing it from its brightest direction!

Wednesday 16th September 2009

Summer Picture Roundup

Mike got us going with news that we had an ISS pass at 20.16 with a Japanese delivery rocket about 7 minutes later. (Splendid it was too - some felt that there was structure visible with naked eye on both sides. They vanished into the Earth's shadow at about 30o above the horizon).

We also got reminded about the Patrick Moore visit this weekend and the next Open Night on 24th October.

Bruce announced that he had a couple of memory chips free to a good home.

Mike started the picture show with some shots from the recent group visit to Sion Park. He told us the very first sketch of the moon was done from a house at Syon Park 400 years ago by Thomas Harriot, and not Galileo Gallilei as is generally thought. Sadly the house that he probably observed from is no longer there.

Bruce had several moon shots, he was particularly looking at how the colouring changed.

George had some more moon images. He said these were done without the benefit of a scope. In one the Straight Wall (this is where the floor of a crater has collapsed leaving this feature) can be made out. Amazing.

Alan had a picture of Andrew at the recent fete working with his home-made radio scope to get the Sun. He also had some interesting shots of noctiluscent cloud taken from his back garden.

Annette (not to be outdone) had her own excellent images of the fascinating noctilucent clouds. These are very high ice clouds at up to 80 miles (meteorite high) that stay illuminated by the sun light long after sunset.

Dave (me) had some pictures if Jodrell Bank radio telescope taken when he was there during the summer. The machine was being worked-on on the day and we were treated to seeing it turn right around during the visit.

Mike got out Starry Night and in his usual way stunned us with his ability to make it turn somersaults. He showed us that there was a rare event when Jupiter showed none of its moons due to them being either behind or in the shadow of the planet.

We saw that Venus will be very close to a tiny thin crescent moon in the morning.

He spent some time discussing the various objects that will be allocated for the Open Night. More later on this.

Wednesday 23rd September 2009

Beginners' Evening

Andrew reminded us that the Patrick Moore visit was this Saturday and that the Open Night was on 24th October 18.30 to 20.00 but we should be there rather earlier.

Mike introduced us (fortunately briefly) to a hefty book entitled The Road to Reality by Roger Penrose for those that really wanted a challenge. It is we were advised a complete guide to the laws of the universe. So be warned./

Galaxies

Mike gave a talk on the history of observing galaxies. He got us started with a splendid image of the Milky Way courtesy of Dave Smith. It was Sir Christopher Wren who in 1657 came up with the idea that the faint nebulae in the night sky may be clouds of stars.

Thomas Wright said we were in a plate of stars - he was of the view that we were just a tiny part of a huge whole universe, or possibly several universes. Immanuel Kant also supported the idea that we were in a galaxy.

William Herschel estimated the shape of the galaxy by counting the stars in a small area of sky in lots of places and produced a drawing with what we now know to be a dark lane, but historically was thought to be an area devoid of stars.

Lord Rosse - of the Leviathan of Parsonstown sketched M51 showing spiral arms. In 1899 M31 was photographed.

William Shapley observed globular clusters and in 1918 he charted the positions of lots and being of the view that they were orbiting the centre of the galaxy that we were not in the middle. The Great Debate occurred in 1920 between Shapley and Heber Curtis. Shapley thought our galaxy was the whole of the Universe whilst Curtis thought there were lots of other galaxies.

Henrietta Leavitt was a computer (early type PPP - just a person pencil & paper). A computer just did the math's. She realized that the rate of variation of variable stars was a clue to their distance from us.

By 1923 it was accepted that there were indeed other galaxies.

It was also realized that the most galaxies were red shifted. Red shift is like a Doppler effect. If the body is moving away then it is red shifted and the faster it is going the more red shifted. Edwin Hubble began to classify galaxies into types by their shapes.

We were treated here to a wonderful series of galaxy images. Including our Milky Way showing the dark gas lanes, and shown where examples can be easily found by the amateur astronomer.

M31 is our closest neighbour (this one is moving towards us and is therefore blue shifted). It is 2.5m ly away, meaning that the light we see from it left before we evolved. (Think about that).

Mike explained how to find M31 and the Pinwheel galaxy. Also M81 and M82 which are two galaxies in the same field of view that are related. M51 which is two galaxies that are seriously reacting. Mike included a couple of finder chart handouts.

Mike finished with the news that M31 will reach us in maybe 2.5b years, although there is some uncertainty. The slightly comforting thought is that when galaxies merge actual star collisions are unlikely!

Excellent evening much appreciated by several new people along.

Wednesday 30th October 2009

Annual General Meeting

Ted gave the Treasurer's report - He said the finances wwer in order. We currently have 53 memberships.

Andrew gave the Secretary's report - He said last year we had more paid speakers than normal which affected our funds. We had lots of club outings and three Open Nights attracting 1000 people in all. A good year.

Mike gave the Chairman's report - He said we had a really good year and specifically thanked Ted and Andrew for doing a difficult task. He believed we were on course for another good year.

There were no offers of new folk on the committee so the old one agreed to stand again.

Mike said the current co-opters to the team should consider themselves still part of the team.

Any Other Business

A question from the floor asked if we carried public liability insurance, which we do courtesy of the FAS.

Mike closed the AGM with the promise that the committee would be looking seriously at the members to support the club by giving talks.

Kelling Heath Picture Roundup

Members gave their memories and images of, and from, this years Autumn Starcamp at Kelling Heath.

Clare got us started with several interesting shots of the site.

Tim showed a pic of the local steam train which he had transformed so it looked like an old photo. Also one of Dave Smiths tent which was wrapping itself around a car due to the wind whilst he was trying to put it up!

Plus a couple of excellent Milky Way images and the Horsehead nebula, M31, M51 and the North American nebula.

Bruce showed us several train pics a super shot of a dragonfly that his camera had focused on - amazing.

Matt had a wonderful image of M31 which showed off the dust lane plus a good one of M51.

Mike showed us a bunch of general shots so we could get a feel for the event; it included one extraordinary one of Matt cutting the end of his scope tube with a hacksaw. Something to do with improving his ability to focus!!

There were pics of various big Dobs. Including Jim's and since Jim is showing signs of aperture fever, Mike also showed a giant 42inch specimen. It wasn't at Kelling but what a monster - it needed a 15 ft stepladder.

Ed gave us drawings of M13, NGC 6207 and Jupiter with impact crater.

Pete showed a good image of the Veil Nebula then a better one that could stand zooming-in. Then a view of IC1396 a wonderful pic of an object that is three moons across - as big as the Veil.

He then had us captivated with a wonderful sequence of stunning images set to the wonderful music. They swirled and rotated and zoomed with on screen notes. Extremely professional.

Ron had a super shot showing a sundog plus some candid pics of Andy and Robin.

Andrew showed us more people pics plus a couple of a passing spitfire.

Kate had some shots of pigeons, rabbits and a red squirrel gathered during her early morning walks.

Dave had some prominences on the Sun and detailed pics of the Moon. He also showed a very interesting star trail image where the trails were curving in both directions because it included above and below the equator.

There were several more sun images showing filaments and sun spots. He finished with a superb mosaic of the Moon.

What more do you want?