Highlights of the September Sky. . .

- - - 5thth → 6h - - - DUSK: Low in the west- southwest, look less than Prime Focus 2º below Venus for much fainter Spica. A Publication of the Kalamazoo Astronomical Society

- - - 5th - - - September 2013 New Moon 7:36 am EDT

- - - 8thth → 9thth - - - AM: Mars passes through M44, the Beehive Cluster ThisThis MonthsMonths KAS EventsEvents in Cancer.

- - - 8thth - - - DUSK: Venus is very close General Meeting: Friday, September 13 @ 7:00 pm to a thin crescent Moon, Kalamazoo Area Math & Science Center - See Page 8 for Details with Spica nearby and Saturn to their upper left.

th Observing Session: Saturday, September 14 @ 8:00 pm - - - 9th - - - DUSK: Saturn is to the The Moon, Uranus & Neptune - Kalamazoo Nature Center right of the Moon, with Venus to their lower left. Board Meeting: Sunday, September 15 @ 5:00 pm - - - 12thth - - - First Quarter Moon Sunnyside Church - 2800 Gull Road - All Members Welcome 1:08 pm EDT Observing Session: Saturday, September 28 @ 8:00 pm - - - 16thth → 19thth - - - DUSK: Saturn is less than Overwhelming Open Clusters - Kalamazoo Nature Center 4º from Venus.

- - - 19th - - - Full Moon 7:13 am EDT InsideInside thethe Newsletter.Newsletter. .. .. - - - 22nd - - - Equinox: Autumn begins in the Northern Hemisphere Perseid Potluck Picnic Report...... p. 2 at 4:44 pm. Observations...... p. 2 - - - 24thth - - - DUSK: Binoculars and Stargazing at the Kiwanis Area...... p. 3 telescopes should show Spica just ¾º below Bruce C. Murray...... p. 4 brighter Mercury very low in WSW 15 - 30 minutes NASA Space Place...... p. 5 after sunset. September Night Sky...... p. 6 - - - 26th - - - Last Quarter Moon KAS Board & Announcements...... p. 7 11:55 pm EDT General Meeting Preview...... p. 8 - - - 28th - - - DAWN: Jupiter is upper left of Waning Crescent Moon. www.kasonline.org

Perseid Potluck Picnic ObservationsObservations by Richard S. Bell

The nineteenth annual Perseid Potluck Picnic was again held If you pay close attention to the KAS website then you may at the Kalamazoo Nature Center on Saturday, August 10th have noticed we changed the date of the September General with a start time of 6:00 pm. Attendance was very similar to Meeting. It will now be held on Friday, September 13th last year’s picnic with an estimated 50 members and guests instead of September 6th. There are a couple of reasons for present. this. Some of us (including the KAMSC key holder, Mike Sinclair) will be adjusting to the start of a new school year, One thing not similar to last year’s picnic was the weather. so it’ll be an exhausting week for teachers and students. Skies were too cloudy for solar observing last year, but Secondly, several key members (including that perfectly clear this year. Both Richard Bell and Roger aforementioned Sinclair fellow) will be attending the 11th Williams brought their solar telescopes to share. Several annual Great Lakes Star Gaze near Gladwin, Michigan. prominences protruded along the solar limb and one of the longest filaments in year’s snaked across its surface. Here’s This year’s Star Gaze is being held from September 5th - 8th an image of Bob Havira checking out the Sun in Richard’s at the River Valley RV Park. A few of us (including yours Lunt 60mm telescope: truly) attended in 2008 (read my report) and KAS Member- At-Large Scott Macfarlane has attended several times. A larger contingent of KAS members is attending this year (five for sure so far). If you’re interested in joining then let me know and I’ll pass along your name to those that are a planning to go for sure. I’m not sure I’ll attend myself. It really depends on how good the weather will be. Remember though, the more the merrier (or misery loves company if it’s cloudy).

If you don’t attend the Star Gaze then be sure to attend the general meeting on September 13th. We’ll be back at the Kalamazoo Area Math & Science Center (KAMSC) and we’ve got an excellent guest speaker lined up. Dr. Stephen Bougher, a Collegiate Research Professor in the Atmospheric, Oceanic, and Space Sciences Department at the University of Michigan, will discuss the status and Dinner was served shortly before 7:00 pm. Special thanks science preparations of the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile again goes to Don Stilwell for bringing his grill and doing all Evolution Mission (MAVEN) spacecraft. [Seriously. What is the cooking for the fourth year-in-a-row. The hamburgers it with NASA and their obsession with anagrams?] We are were juicy and the hot dogs were pleasantly plump, so kudos very fortunate that Dr. Bougher agreed to speak to the KAS to the chef! As usual, thanks to all the members that brought since MAVEN will begin its 10-month journey to the Red the fantastic side dishes and deserts. Planet on November 18, 2013 (weather permitting, of course). A Public Observing Session immediately followed the picnic. Many members and even more guests came (or There is also a volunteer opportunity during the month of stayed) for the near-peak of the Perseid Meteor Shower. The September. The Portage District Library will celebrate their area around the observatory was packed with reclining chairs 50th anniversary on Saturday, September 28th from 10am - and blankets. A star party feeling was in there air. The 6pm and they’ve asked us to participate. The Board hasn’t evening star, Venus, was in prime viewing position and yet approved our participation, but that’s just a formality. Saturn also looked good. The Moon was also a popular The Portage District Library has been very good to us. target early on. The International Space Station was also We’ve had the most successful installment of the seen in the northern sky. However, skies grew cloudier the Introduction to Amateur Astronomy lecture series there and darker it got and eventually became completely overcast. the Library Telescope Program has seen its greatest success Everyone was patient since they meteor shower wouldn’t be there. They’ve offered to provide us a table, so we can pass in full stride until after midnight. One by one though people out KAS literature, but we could also setup some telescopes became to loose hope and head home. The last of the for solar observing if conditions are favorable. Drop me a members left at ~1:00 am. A disappointing end to an line and let me know if you can help out. If not, then at least otherwise great day! stop by and see us!

Prime Focus Page 2 September 2013 StargStargaazinzingg fromfrom tthehe KiwaKiwaniniss AArearea by Don Stilwell

Kiwanians Sean, Amy, Connor, Alainey, Dan and I had fun able to view the D-shaped partially lit disc of Venus. Due to at the Kiwanis Youth Conservation Area on Saturday, its inferior orbit (orbit closer to the Sun than Earth), Venus August 24, 2013. The weather could not have been better; reflects the Sun’s light in a phases similar to the Moon. After warm and sunny. Beginning about 3:30 pm, with the loan of scanning the sky with our eyeballs and binoculars, we finally Dick Gillespie’s Lunt Hydrogen Alpha solar telescope, we found the unmistakable steady shine of Saturn. Its position were able to safely view the surface of the Sun in stunning along the ecliptic in Virgo was fortunately about 10 degrees red detail. We saw the apparently small flames around the above the trees. This gave us about 35 good minutes of edge or limb of the Sun and realized the little flames were Saturn admiration. larger than Earth and can rise up or go down in a matter of minutes. At various times in my eyepiece, both a 13mm (115×) and 9mm (167×), you could get an image of Saturn’s disc with at We were also able to study the Sun’s “bubble, bubble, toil times planetary banding and could easily see the ring but and trouble” with granules and filaments snaking across its without the Cassini division. Titan and one other moon surface. The intense pressure and heat at the Sun’s core inside Titan’s orbit were visible. For being so low on the creates helium from hydrogen by nuclear fusion. The fact horizon, we had a good view. that the resulting plasma released at the Sun’s core can take up to 100,000 years to migrate to the surface to create this At a couple of minutes before 9 pm the International Space turmoil boggles the mind. When you watch this all unfold in Station (ISS) appeared below the handle of the Big Dipper in real time before your very eyes it is awesome. the northwest and silently zoomed across the sky toward the southeast to set in Capricorn. The easily visible ISS traverse Also in the course of the day, we toured the trails. Along the across the sky took about 3 minutes and reached a magnitude way, we removed fallen tree parts and spotted some wildlife of about -0.67 or brighter than Vega. This was not our last including a tree frog which Conner caught. In particular, satellite display, as we saw a half dozen or so dimmer while Sean’s kids searched for snakes near the dam, Sean traverses. Our satellite spotting culminated in a short lived, and I spotted a Kingfisher in flight. Then later, near supper just a few seconds, but brilliant Iridium flare about time we all spotted a Great Blue Herron standing with his magnitude -2 or -3 near the sky’s crest. head pointed straight up and wings spread out to the side, Anhinga style, as if drying his wings. This view was from After the ISS, but before the Iridium flare, Richard gave us a about a 1,000 yards through Sam Conklin’s Celestron top of the line constellation tour including the Summer 100mm ED glass spotting scope, quite a treat. Later, this Triangle, the major stars of the constellations, and a short same scope proved to be a good star gazer as well. history of the origin of the constellation names. A little mythology and imagination about frozen treats make a sky In the meantime, we played a little catch with a football and tour memorable. played a Frisbee game while waiting for it to get dark enough to see the stars. After supper, KAS lifetime member, By 9:40 pm the was quite visible including two Bill Nigg arrived with his alt-az wide view scope. I took this parallel bands of stars on either side of the distinct dark cue to put away the solar scope and set up my Deep Space lane. Some left after the sky tour and some stayed but all Hunter 12 inch Dobsonian. I like its quick set up, simple agreed it was a well spent day. manual operation and low potential for malfunctioning parts. Meanwhile, the insomniacs stayed around to pick out some As it got dark, those already set up in the field searched for double stars and jewels of the southern Milky Way from Venus and Saturn. These planets, although low in the west Ptolemy’s Cluster (M7) in Scorpius at the bottom to the Wild as darkness approaches this time of year, are bright enough Duck Cluster (M11) in Scutum at the top. We brought our to view with your telescope before sunset, which today was scope to bear on other deep sky objects of interest like the about 8:30 pm. Sam and Becky Conklin along with the Andromeda (M31), the (M13), and spotting scope joined the planet search. Before sunset and the Ring Nebula (M57) in Lyra. Then the Moon rose at before we spotted our planets, more KAS members arrived about 10:30 pm and light washed out the deep sky after diligent road map study. KAS President Richard Bell, objects. At this point, we viewed a few craters along the Jean DeMott, Dave Woolf, Scott Macfarlane and a Battle limb of the waning moon and noticed that clouds and dew Creek KAS member who I met when he drove up arrived on were setting in. site and our viewing group was set. As we packed up about 11 pm, all marveled at the clear While these arrivals scurried to place their instruments for Moon projection in Richard’s plastic diagonal cap of his viewing. We spotted Venus just above the western Celestron 9.25” EdgeHD SCT. Maybe he’s got a new thing- treetops. Bill, Sam and I got our scopes pointed and all were a-ma-jig for Gadget Night!

Prime Focus Page 3 September 2013 BruceBruce C.C. MurrayMurray Nov. 30, 1931 - Aug. 29, 2013

Former Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) Director Bruce C. current JPL Director Charles Elachi. "Long after returning to Murray died on August 29th at the age of 81 after a long Caltech as a professor he continued to be an important voice illness. in expressing the importance of space exploration."

Murray was at the helm of JPL from 1976 to 1982, during a During Murray's leadership, JPL launched Seasat, one of the very busy time for planetary exploration - when the Viking earliest Earth-observing satellites; the Solar Mesosphere spacecraft landed on Mars, and Voyager 1 and 2 were Explorer, an Earth-orbiting spacecraft that investigated the launched and flew by Jupiter and Saturn. ozone in Earth's upper atmosphere; and Shuttle Imaging Radar-A, which flew aboard After leaving JPL, Murray was a professor of planetary Space Shuttle Columbia as the science and geology at the California Institute of Technology first instrument to image Earth in Pasadena, which manages JPL for NASA. using radar pulses, rather than optical light, as illumination. He As JPL director, Murray faced a rapidly shrinking budget, gained a substantial expansion of along with the rest of NASA. JPL's civil affairs program with a large solar energy research project Murray salvaged for JPL the Galileo mission to Jupiter, funded by the Department of brought the American portion of the joint Netherlands/ Energy. United Kingdom/U.S. Infrared Astronomy Satellite to JPL, and Caltech gained the project's science data center. In 1979, Murray joined with the late astronomer Carl Sagan and "He worked tirelessly to save our nation's planetary engineer Louis Friedman to found the Planetary Society, a exploration capability at a tumultuous time when there was membership-based nonprofit organization dedicated to serious consideration for curtailing future missions," said exploring the solar system and expanding public advocacy for space exploration.

Even before becoming JPL director, Murray's association with JPL and Caltech was longstanding and deep-seated. He was a Caltech geologist and a key member of the Mariner 4 imaging team that captured the first close-up image of Mars in 1964. It was the first of four planetary missions in which he played a vital role as a scientist.

Murray earned a Ph.D. in geology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge. In 1955, Murray worked as a geologist for Standard Oil until 1958, then served two years in the U.S. Air Force. He came to Caltech in 1960, initially working in planetary astronomy, and soon became part of the imaging science team for JPL's first two missions to Mars, Mariners 3 and 4. He served a similar role on Mariners 6, 7 and 9, using their imagery to begin constructing a geologic history for Mars.

Murray published more than 130 scientific papers and authored or co-authored seven books. After he retired as director in late 1982, Murray returned to Caltech's Geological and Planetary Sciences Division, and was later named an emeritus professor at the campus.

Flags at JPL were lowered to half staff in honor of Murray.

He is survived by his wife, Suzanne Moss, five children and grandchildren.

Prime Focus Page 4 September 2013 Size Does Matter, But So Does Dark Energy by Dr. Ethan Siegel

Here in our own galactic backyard, the Milky Way contains some 200 - 400 billion stars, and that's not even the biggest galaxy in our own local group. Andromeda (M31) is even bigger and more massive than we are, made up of around a trillion stars! When you throw in the Triangulum Galaxy (M33), the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, and the dozens of dwarf and hundreds of globular clusters gravitationally bound to us and our nearest neighbors, our local group sure does seem impressive.

Yet that's just chicken feed compared to the largest structures in the universe. Giant clusters and of galaxies, containing thousands of times the mass of our entire local group, can be found omnidirectionally with telescope surveys. Perhaps the two most famous examples are the nearby Virgo Cluster and the somewhat more distant Coma , the latter containing more than 3,000 galaxies. There are millions of giant clusters like this in our , and the gravitational forces at play are absolutely tremendous: there are literally quadrillions of times the mass of our Sun in these systems. the Huge-LQG (Large Quasar Group) are the largest known The largest superclusters line up along filaments, forming a ones, with the Huge-LQG -- a group of at least 73 quasars – great cosmic web of structure with huge intergalactic voids apparently stretching nearly 4 billion light years in its longest in between the galaxy-rich regions. These galaxy filaments direction: more than 5% of the observable universe! With span anywhere from hundreds of millions of light-years all more mass than a million Milky Way galaxies in there, this the way up to more than a billion light-years in length. The structure is a puzzle for cosmology. CfA2 Great Wall, the , and most recently, You see, with the normal matter, , and dark energy in our universe, there's an upper limit to the size of gravitationally bound filaments that should form. The Huge- LQG, if real, is more than double the size of that largest predicted structure, and this could cast doubts on the core principle of cosmology: that on the largest scales, the universe is roughly uniform everywhere. But this might not pose a problem at all, thanks to an unlikely culprit: dark energy. Just as the local group is part of the Virgo Supercluster but recedes from it, and the -- a large member of the Coma Supercluster -- is accelerating away from Coma, it's conceivable that the Huge-LQG isn't a single, bound structure at all, but will eventually be driven apart by dark energy. Either way, we're just a tiny drop in the vast cosmic ocean, on the outskirts of its rich, yet barely fathomable depths.

Learn about the many ways in which NASA strives to uncover the mysteries of the universe:

http://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics/. Digital mosaic of infrared light (courtesy of Spitzer) and visible light (SDSS) of the Coma Cluster, the largest Kids can make their own clusters of galaxies by checking out member of the Coma Supercluster. Image credit: NASA / The Space Place’s fun galactic mobile activity: JPL-Caltech / Goddard Space Flight Center / Sloan Digital Sky Survey. http://spaceplace.nasa.gov/galactic-mobile/

Prime Focus Page 5 September 2013 SeptemberSeptember NightNight Sky...... Sky......

This star map is property of the This map represents the sky at the Kalamazoo Astronomical Society. NORTH following local standard times: However you may make as many  Late August 10 pm copies as you wish free-of-charge, so long as it is for non-profit  Early September 9 pm educational purposes and full  Late September Dusk credit is given to the KAS.

www.kasonline.org EAST WEST

SOUTH

ars buzzes through the famous Venus will be within 1.5º of a Waxing The autumnal equinox occurs at 4:44 pm MM Beehive Cluster (M44) in Cancer Crescent Moon on the evening of EDT on September 22nd. Day and night during the morning hours of September September 8th. The two will make a will be nearly equal. 8th and 9th. Mars will be about 20º above spectacular site in binoculars and wide- the eastern horizon at the start of dawn. field telescopes. Binoculars and telescopes will show Mars is about 100 times brighter than the Spica just ¾º below brighter Mercury Beehive’s stars, so it’ll be easy to spot in Saturn will be less than 4º from Venus on very low in the WSW 15 - 30 minutes binoculars or a telescope. the evenings of September 16th - 19th. after sunset on September 24th. KAS BOARD September 2013 Page 7 PRESIDENT

Richard S. Bell 373-8942

VICE PRESIDENT

Jack Price 343-3193 Albion College is celebrating the 130th anniversary of their historic 8.25” Alvan Clark telescope with a special lecture TREASURER entitled Telescope Making in America from Rich Mather Philadelphia to Albion. It is being presented by Bart 629-5312 Fried, founder and current President of the Antique

SECRETARY/ALCOR Telescope Society. More information can be found on the

Roger Williams college’s events page. 375-4867 Thursday, September 12th @ 4:00 pm MEMBERS-AT-LARGE

Joe Borrello Albion College • Tennant Hall 321-0410

Mike Cook 762-2241

Scott Macfarlane 679-2865 In My Backyard Don Stilwell Weekdays @ 11am; Sat. @ 1pm; Sun. @ 2pm 963-5856 Treasures of the Great Lakes E-MAIL a BOARD MEMBER Tues. & Thurs. @ 3pm; Sat. @ 2pm

Black Holes: The Other Side of Infinity Sun., Mon., Wed., Fri. & Sat. @ 3pm

Planetarium admission is $3.00 per person. The Kalamazoo Valley Museum is located at 230 North Rose Street in downtown Kalamazoo. For more information please call (269) 373-7990 or visit us on the web at www.kalamazoomuseum.org PublicPublic ObservingObserving SessionsSessions

Saturday, September 14th Feature: The Moon, Uranus & Neptune

Saturday, September 28th Feature: Overwhelming Open Clusters

Gates Open: 8:00pm  Observing Begins: 8:30 pm

Kalamazoo Nature Center ◆ 7000 N. Westnedge Ave. General Meeting Preview MAVENMAVEN Status & Science Preparations

presented by Dr. Stephen Bougher

The next U.S. spacecraft mission to Mars, MAVEN, is slated to launch with a window opening on November 18, 2013. After a 10 -month cruise, the spacecraft will arrive at the planet around September 16, 2014. MAVEN will determine the role that loss of volatiles to space has played through time, providing answers to the following key questions about Mars climate history: (a) What is the current state of the upper atmosphere and what processes control it? (b) What is the escape rate at the present epoch and how does it relate to the controlling processes? (c) What has the total loss to space been through time?

Friday, September 13 @ 7:00 pm

Kalamazoo Area Math & Science Center 600 West Vine, Suite 400 • Use Dutton St. Entrance - Dutton Entrance Locked by 7:10 pm -

Kalamazoo Astronomical Society c/o KAMSC STAMP 600 West Vine, Suite 400 Kalamazoo, MI 49008

© September 2013, Stargazer Productions