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San Diego Astronomy Association Celebrating 40 Years of Astronomical Outreach

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San Diego Astronomy Association Celebrating 40 Years of Astronomical Outreach San Diego Astronomy Association Celebrating 40 Years of Astronomical Outreach Office (619) 645-8940 Observatory (619) 766-9118 The Scales http://www.sdaa.org by Scott Baker A Non-Profit Educational Association P.O. Box 23215, San Diego, CA 92193-3215 This month’s constellation is Libra “The Scales”. In ancient times, the great civilizations of the time had different ideas about SDAA Business Meeting Libra. The Greeks, didn’t see scales they considered this portion Will be held at: of the sky part of Scorpius. As a matter of fact, the two bright- SKF Condition Monitoring est stars in the constellation, Alpha and Beta Librae, have names 5271 Viewridge Court San Diego, CA 92123 that refer back to the constellation of Scorpius. They are known May 11th at 7:00pm as Zubenelgenubi and Zubeneschamalia, which are derivations of older Arabic names that translate into “Southern Claw” (i.e. of Program Meeting the Scorpion) for Alpha Librae and “The Northern Claw” for Beta June 16th at 7:00PM Librae. Showing of the film The Romans however, saw a scale or balance in the constella- “Universe: tion, and so named it Libra. They felt the constellation was impor- The Cosmology Quest” tant enough to give a place in the twelve Zodiacal Constellations, and is the only constellation of the Zodiac that represents and Mission Trails Regional Park Visitor & Interpretive Center inanimate object. Why so important you ask? 4000 years ago, 1 Father Junipero Serra Trail the sun, when entering Libra, marked the beginning of autumn, San Diego, CA 92119 Snacks ∗ Prizes ∗ Info ∗ Fun Doors open at 6:30PM See page 6 for details CONTENTS June 2004 Vol. XL Issue 6 Published Monthly by the San Diego Astronomy Association 75¢/$8.00 year Incorporated in California in 1963 Astronomy 101 . 1 Mobile Sky Chart . 3 Skywatch . 4 For Sale . 5 Program Meetings . 6 Board Meeting Minutes . 6 Treasurer’s Report . 6 Message from the Editor . 7 Contact Information . 8 Electronic Memberships . 8 Events Calendar . 9 San Diego Astronomy Association the autumnal equinox, when the length of day and night were equal, i.e. balanced. The Romans also considered the scales to be held by Astraeia, the goddess of Justice. Later, the scales became associated with the constellation Virgo, no longer representing a scale, but the golden chariot of Hades, drawn by the six black horses that carried Persephone to the underworld (read last month’s article on Virgo). For the amateur astronomer, the con- stellation has sev- eral objects of interest, including some nice double stars and an unusual variable. For Double star observers, Alpha Librae, Zubenelgenubi, is a wide double with a nice color contrast alpha1 being yellow, and alpha2 being pale blue. There separation is 231”, easy even with binoculars. Iota Librae is a trinary system with one com- panion star having a fast 22-year orbit, and the other companion fixed in position. A little closer pair is found in Struve 1962, two closely matched stars with a separation of only 11.9”, still easy in the smallest scope. Not a binary star, Beta Librae, Zubeneschamali, is worth a look. What color do you see? Many say Beta Librae is green in color. Green stars do occur, but usually as a dwarf companion to a red or orange colored giant star. Beta Librae doesn’t meet these criteria, but many say it has a greenish cast. For the variable star fans, Delta Librae is an Algol-type variable: 4.9-5.9 with a period of 2.3 days. With such a short period, it’s possible to see the brightness change in only two successive nights of observing. For the deep sky observer, well, Libra is a desert with only one globular cluster, NGC5897, worth a look. This loose globular, at approximately 50,000 light-years distance, has an apparent size of 7 arc minutes; can be classed as one of the fairly large globular clusters. Unfortunately it’s consider- ably dimmed; due to it’s distance and has no Messier’s number. Compact scopes can easily resolve central member stars, but you will be fascinated with the view through larger telescopes, with eight inches of aperture or more. The cluster is found two degrees southeast of iota Librae. PAGE 2 SAN DIEGO ASTRONOMY ASSOCIATION NEWS AND NOTES, JUNE 2004 San Diego Astronomy Association Mobile Sky Chart eight directions using the number keys 1,2,3,4,6,7,8,9 or with the directional switch that many phones now have. 5 by Michelle Thompson zooms in and 0 zooms out. There are five degrees of zoom. If you have or are considering the purchase of an LG Pressing the “select” key of your particular type of mobile VX4400, LG VX4400B, LG VX4500, LG VX6000, Motorola phone (usually the center key of the directional switch) T720, Motorola T730 or the Samsung SCH-a610 mobile allows you to quickly access the Chart Options menu. This phone and have Verizon, ALLTEL, U.S. Cellular, or Western menu has the afore-mentioned time and date settings as Wireless service, then there is an interesting application well as settings for whether the planet labels, constellation that just might make your mobile phone even more useful labels, constellation lines, and star names are on or off. The than it was before user guide is also available under this menu. Besides ordering pizza, calling friends to see what For most of us, this application will not replace a “real” they’re looking at, using it as a safety light, and checking star chart. However, it does offer a fun, quick, and easy way messages that piled up while you were collimating your of checking how the sky scope all afternoon, a small but growing selection of BREW- will generally look, what planets are going to be up, and enabled color handsets can display a sky chart! where the moon will be for pretty much any location and BREW, developed by San Diego-based Qualcomm time in the United States. It provides a really good “show Incorporated, is an end-to-end system that delivers data and tell” visual aid for showing off astronomy to kids of all applications to mobile phones via wireless downloading. ages. Because the calculation of star locations depends on This system allows many different types of applications to U.S. zip code, it won’t work for locations that don’t have a be easily selected and then downloaded to a mobile phone. zip code. In other words, if your observing session tonight The customer can choose between games, so-called pro- is in Thunder Bay, Ontario, then you will have to settle ductivity tools, chat clients, and applications such as Sky & for using perhaps the northern-most zip code in Maine or Telescope’s Mobile Sky Chart. maybe Michigan. This sky chart calculates and displays in color the posi- A seemingly obvious improvement to this application tions of around 900 stars, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, would be the option to use GPS information to calculate the Saturn, the constellations, and the Moon based on your zip Mobile Sky Chart instead of zip code. code and time of day. The default time is 9:00pm. Time and In 2001, Phase II of Enhanced 911 required that each date can be changed in Settings/Chart Options. The zip mobile phone company doing business in the United States code is changed in Settings/Zip Code. must offer either handset- or network-based location detec- Downloading the Mobile Sky Chart on an LG VX6000 tion. This capability allows the caller’s geographic location took just over one minute. to be determined within 50-to-100 meter accuracy. The FCC refers to this as Automatic Location Identification, and all Pricing on Verizon’s “Get it now” service was $6.95 for phones are supposed to be in compliance by the end of an unlimited use purchase or $3.99 for a monthly subscrip- 2005. tion. Different service providers have different menus and different ways of grouping and pricing applications, but on Since position location information is part of the Verizon, the application was located under the Education enhanced 911 system that the FCC has mandated for section of their “Get it Now” service. According to Marcy mobile phones, it would seem to make sense to start using Dill at Sky & Telescope, the Verizon subscription option has positional data for not only emergencies, but also for other been slightly more successful than the unlimited use pur- applications that depend on accurate locations for good chase. There are plans in the works to change the pricing results. However, the mobile phone carriers do not allow so that you can buy a 3-month subscription for $6.25 and a this information to be used by consumers. It is reserved for monthly subscription for $3.99. emergency use only and is not something that applications can currently access. There are two types of sky charts, a horizon view and an all-sky map. Both of these sky charts can be panned in continued on page 7 PAGE 3 SAN DIEGO ASTRONOMY ASSOCIATION NEWS AND NOTES, JUNE 2004 San Diego Astronomy Association SkyWatch for June, 2004 by John Mood [Times PDT] [* = 1 star = Easy] [** = 2 stars = Moderate] [*** = 3 stars = Difficult] Sat., 29 May PUBLIC STAR PARTY @ Tierra del Sol. Wed., 2 June FULL MOON, 9:20 p.m. Wed., 8 June VENUS TRANSITS THE SUN [see below]. Sat., 12 June PUBLIC STAR PARTY @ Tierra del Sol. Thurs., 17 June NEW MOON, 1:27 p.m. Sun., 20 June SUMMER SOLSTICE, 5:57 p.m.
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