June 2020 The Monthly Newsletter of the Bays Mountain Astronomy Club

More on Edited by Adam Thanz this image. See FN1 Chapter 1 Cosmic Reflections

William Troxel - BMAC Chair

More on this image. See FN2 William Troxel

More on Cosmic Reflections this image. See FN3

Greetings fellow BMACers! I want to encourage you to get your show 'n tell items ready because we have another show 'n tell segment for the June First I want to thank Tom Rutherford and his students for sharing meeting. their projects with us last meeting. I also want to thank Adam for suggesting the use of Zoom to have our meeting. I thank Robin Let's talk about some of the business items that we will be for letting us use her account to have the first meeting. And a big covering at this meeting. June is the for election for thank you to everyone for attending the meeting. June’s meeting Chairman of the club for the next . I will be placing my name will be using Zoom again. I will be sending out the meeting for your consideration to serve as your club chairman again. If invitation to BMACers the of the 5th of June. you are interested in placing your name in for consideration, I encourage you to contact Adam as soon as possible. Jonathan Peters will be the primary speaker for the meeting. He will be showing us an update of his personal home observatory. I am working on an idea for the July meeting, normally the annual He has in the past shown us some tantalizing pictures of the picnic, which is usually a really fun time. This year, of course, we preparation and the construction phases of his project. Now he can not meet. More details will be forth coming…. wants to give us a live tour! He will be focusing on how he plans I want to continue to encourage you to get out with your to use the observatory in his observational astronomy interests. I equipment and enjoy the sky. Try your hand at taking want to thank him for his willingness to share his project with the pictures with your smart phones or DSLRs and get the shot of club. I want to encourage you to share your projects with the the through the eyepiece. Another option could be club, too. Just let me know and I will put you on the schedule for attaching your smart phone or camera to binoculars, I know one our meetings. I hope you will be able to attend online. Look some of you enjoy that as your primary way to look at the night for the invitation e-mail, it will be coming from me. sky. I would also encourage you to mix up the picture a little and

Bays Mountain Astronomy Club Newsletter June 2020 3 add different filters to your eyepiece, see what differences beyond color change, if any, you see.

I reminded everyone in attendance at the May meeting about using this time to get caught up on your reading, repairs and just practice with the equipment you have. These are very unusual times. No one knows when we will be able to be at the Park doing what we enjoy of sharing this hobby with the public and amongst ourselves. Until next time, please stay safe! We are in this together and we are going to get through this!

Clear Skies….

4 Bays Mountain Astronomy Club Newsletter June 2020 Chapter 2 BMAC Notes

More on this image. See FN4 More on BMAC News this image. See FN3

BMACers Take First Step into Virtual World BMAC Members enjoyed their first online meeting on May 8, 2020. Not to let a pandemic hold them back, they attended the meeting through Zoom, a computer interface that allowed them a way to share their video and audio feeds with each other. As William describes in his article, we included all the normal parts of our meeting. We had a key speaker(s), club business, and show and tell! Here are a few pictures from that meeting.

Bays Mountain Astronomy Club Newsletter June 2020 6 Just a sampling of BMACers who attended the first online BMAC meeting.

7 Bays Mountain Astronomy Club Newsletter June 2020 One student’s project where she made a robotic arm.

8 Bays Mountain Astronomy Club Newsletter June 2020 We learned about what happens to fruit flies when launched into high orbit.

9 Bays Mountain Astronomy Club Newsletter June 2020 Some images from the balloon launch.

10 Bays Mountain Astronomy Club Newsletter June 2020 Some students couldn’t present in person, so lead educator Tom Rutherford presented for them.

11 Bays Mountain Astronomy Club Newsletter June 2020 Astronomical League Observing Programs • Download a listing of the requirements for each The following information is from the AL website in order to help program in a grid format (pdf). you understand some of the benefits you, as a current BMAC • Listing of programs showing observer level (beginner, member, enjoy. The AL dues are paid by the Park Association. intermediate, advanced). Adam Thanz is the ALCOR (Astronomical League Coordinator) for the club and is the person that accepts observing logs. He is • Listing of programs showing equipment needed required to grade certain observing programs and passes on the (naked-eye, binocular, telescope). pass/fail onto the AL. Any certificates/pins will come from the AL. Observing Programs offer a certificate based upon achieving He will pass on the more advanced programs to the correct certain observing goals and completion is recognized with a person for evaluation of completion. beautiful pin. You are required to observe a specific number of The AL also has a host of other benefits and services for objects from a list or of a specific type (meteors, comets, members. Please visit https://www.astroleague.org for all etc.) with a specific type of instrument (eyes, binoculars, information. telescope). Some Observing Programs have multiple levels of accomplishment within, and some permit observations of Introduction different types (manual vs. go-to, visual vs. imaging) and note this The Astronomical League provides many different Observing on your certificate. There is no time limit for completing the Programs. These Observing Programs are designed to provide a required observing (except for the Planetary Transit Special direction for your observations and to provide a goal. The Awards and the NASA Observing Challenges), but good record Observing Programs have certificates and pins to recognize the keeping is required. observers’ accomplishments and for demonstrating their observing skills with a variety of instruments and objects. The Observing Programs are designed to be individual effort. Each observer must perform all the requirements of each As a quick reference, you can compare the programs in these Observing Program themselves and not rely on other people to lists: locate the objects. This is called "piggy-backing" and is not • Observing Programs (listed alphabetically). acceptable for logging objects for any of the Observing Programs. You are allowed to look through another observer’s

12 Bays Mountain Astronomy Club Newsletter June 2020 telescope to see what the object looks like, but you still need to certificates for partial levels, completion of the Observing locate and observe the object on your own. Program will have a certificate and a pin.

When you reach the requisite number of objects, your observing 2 Observing Awards: These usually have a certificate logs are examined by an appropriate authority and you will and a pin upon completion, but usually do not count towards the receive a certificate and pin to proclaim to all that you have Master Observer Award. reached your goal. Many local astronomical societies even post 3 Special Observing Awards: These usually have a lists of those who have obtained their certificates as does the certificate and a pin upon completion, but do not count towards Astronomical League. the Master Observer Progression. They are for very specific one- When you complete an Observing Program by yourself, you time events, and usually require significant effort by the observer. should feel a sense of pride and great accomplishment for what 4 Observing Certificates: These are certificates only and you have just completed. Each Observing Program is designed are given to those who complete the requirements. An example not only to show you a variety of objects in the sky and to learn would be the NASA Observing Challenges. These do not count some science related to those objects, but to also familiarize you towards the Master Observer Progression. with your telescope and how to use it, night-sky navigation (the ability to find the objects in the vastness of space) and to learn 5 Self-Service Certificates: These are certificates only some observing techniques that will enhance your viewing of the and are available on the website for download. An example objects in the programs. would be a Messier Marathon certificate.

Types of Certifications Terms of Common Usage in Astronomical League The Astronomical League offers different types of certifications to Observing Programs recognize different levels of accomplishment. There are some terms that will be used throughout Astronomical League Observing Programs. To avoid any confusion due to 1 Observing Programs: These usually require about 100 different definitions, these terms are defined here. observations, may take a year to complete, and often focus on specific objects or techniques. Although there may be Seeing and Transparency

13 Bays Mountain Astronomy Club Newsletter June 2020 Many of the Astronomical League's Observing Programs require lets you set your observing Latitude and Longitude as well as the the inclusion of information on Seeing and Transparency. The Universal Time of your observation session and it will tell you Observing Programs will accept a number of different scales and information on which objects for all of the AL Observing Programs techniques. For details on a easy to use technique that is are visible. It lists the object from highest altitude to lowest. It accepted by all of the Observing Programs, click here. has information on over 4500 objects and all of the AL Observing Programs. It is called "What's Up Tonight, Doc?". To get copies Observing Log Descriptions of the monthly list, please go to the What's Up Doc? website. Many of the Astronomical League's Observing Programs require the inclusion of a Description. Although there is a lot of freedom in including what is most significant in the individual objects, there is an expectation that they will be substantive. For details Do You Like Optics? on what makes a good description, click here. If you like to mess around with optics or would like to understand how optics work in a practical manner, then you’ll like this Use of Vision Enhancing Devices website. It is a free, online application that runs through your The use of Vision Enhancing Devices (Night Vision Tools) is not browser. You can place lenses, mirrors, light sources, etc. onto a allowed in the Astronomical League's Observing Programs. virtual optics table and move them about and change parameters. Those programs that are based on visual observing often require Want to learn how a telescope works? You can place the mirrors details in a description or as a sketch (star color, etc.) that would and lenses in the right place and you’ll see how they affect the not be possible with these tools. light rays.

Observing Program Planning Tools https://ricktu288.github.io/ray-optics/simulator/ Aaron Clevenson, one of the AL National Observing Program Coordinators, has created two tools designed to help Astronomical League members manage their progress with the AL Observing Programs. One is a monthly publication (in Microsoft Word) that highlights objects by observing club that are visible in the evening sky that month. It is called "What's Up Doc?". The other is a large spreadsheet (in Microsoft Excel) that

14 Bays Mountain Astronomy Club Newsletter June 2020 Ray Optics Simulation https://ricktu288.github.io/ray-optics/simulator/

File: Undo Redo Reset Save Open

Tools: Ray Beam Point source Mirrors Glasses Blocker Ruler Protractor Move view

View: Rays Extended rays All Images Seen by Observer

Settings: Ray Density : -2.3025850929940455 Grid Snap to Grid Lock Objects Zoom : 60.78832729528464 Help

15 Bays Mountain Astronomy Club Newsletter June 2020

Developed by ricktu288, j3soon | Home | Source

1 of 1 5/28/20, 4:37 PM Chapter 3 Celestial Happenings

Jason Dorfman

More on this image. See FN5 Jason Dorfman

More on Celestial Happenings this image. See FN3

With the world on lockdown due to the COVID-19 virus, I thought an hour after sunset to find faint about 8° high amongst I’d return to a look at what’s up in the sky for the month of June. the fading twilight. At magnitude +0.1, it shouldn’t be too difficult Perhaps you’ve been taking advantage of the rare clear to find, as long as you have an unobstructed view towards the over the last couple of to go out and gaze upon the horizon. Telescopes will reveal the disk of Mercury about 40% starry sky. One of the beneficial side-effects of everyone staying illuminated and spanning about 8”. The reaches its home has been a noticeable reduction in the amount of air greatest eastern elongation on the 3rd. As the second week of pollution, which has the potential to also help provide us with June progresses, the opportunity to view our closest planet to some clearer night skies. However, as summer approaches, we the becomes more challenging. After the 11th, Mercury know that our region is prone to hazy skies during this time of begins a swift dive into the twilight glow of the setting Sun, year. Nevertheless, we must hope for the best and take what we becoming unobservable for the second half of June. On the 13th, can get. Mercury’s magnitude will have lessened to +1.4, still observable but, at just 5° above the horizon an hour after sundown, a bit of a With June, we are seeing the days reach the longest and nights challenge with the hilly terrain of our region. If you're able to the shortest. The Sun sets around 8:45-8:50 p.m. and rises obtain a view through a scope, you’ll find a slightly larger and around 6:14 a.m. This means that we won’t get really dark skies more looking planet as it now appears about 10” in size until after 10 p.m. But, if you’re willing to stay up late and with just 19% lit. observe with the warming night weather, you’ll catch some good views of most of the , as well as, the Moon. Once you’ve caught that rare view of the smallest planet in our , take a break from the planets for a bit, as our next Planets planetary targets won’t be up for a few hours. There are plenty of As June begins, we find the swift-moving Mercury reaching its wonderful deep-sky objects to observe this time of year. Start farthest swing away from the Sun. On the 1st, look to the WNW

Bays Mountain Astronomy Club Newsletter June 2020 17 with the Moon (not a deep-sky object, I know…) for the first week of is its amazing ring system which extends to roughly of June as it will be passing through its full phase at that time. 42”. While you’re enjoying the satisfying views of Jupiter and Then, in the second week, look for those fainter celestial Saturn, don’t forget to look for the larger of these two wonders. The Beehive Cluster in Cancer will be about 20° high in worlds. The number of satellites orbiting these worlds is quite a the west an hour and a half after sunset. Seek out some of the lot and keeps growing as we continue our discovery. Saturn now many galaxies in Leo and Virgo as you make your way eastward. dominates with 82 moons and Jupiter is close behind with 79. Of Hercules and the bright globular cluster M13 are high in the east course, most of these are not able to be seen with our amateur and the heart of the Milky Way with its plethora of clusters is just scopes. There are 4 large moons around Jupiter : Io, Europa, beginning to rise in the southeast. Ganymede and Callisto. Saturn has 5 observable moons: Enceladus, Tethys, Dione, Rhea and Titan. Smaller Enceladus Next up on the planetary roster are the giants, Jupiter and Saturn, can be more challenging to identify due to the proximity of which will rise within 20 minutes of each other in the ESE around Saturn’s bright rings. midnight on the 1st and two hours earlier by the 30th. Jupiter is first with Saturn about 5° to the East. Both are currently moving in Shortly after 2 a.m. on the 1st, the Red Planet, will be rising just retrograde and heading towards opposition next month. They south of east. will rise an hour earlier by the end of the straddle the border between Sagittarius and Capricornus. The month. As dawn approaches around 5 a.m., look for it about 30° best views of these two gas giants will come later as dawn high above the SE horizon. Mars is currently moving eastward approaches. Just before 5 a.m. they will be at their highest through Aquarius and will cross into Pisces on the 24th. Over the altitude of almost 35°due south. month of June, you can observe some slight changes with this heavily explored world. Its magnitude will brighten slightly from Over the month, Jupiter’s magnitude will increase slightly from 0.0 to -0.5. The disk of Mars spans about 9” as the month begins -2.6 to -2.7. Fainter Saturn will do the same, going from +0.4 to and will reach 11” as the month ends. +0.2. Of course, the true wonders of these worlds are revealed with a telescope. The disk of Jupiter with its distinct and colorful During June, Mars will pass near another planet also found in the bands spans a large 45” and will grow slightly larger to 46.6” by constellation of Aquarius, the distant world Neptune. On the month’s end. Though not as colorful, the disk of Saturn is still 12th, Mars will be 1.8° south of Neptune. Unfortunately, a nearly impressive at around 18” this month. But the real viewing delight

18 Bays Mountain Astronomy Club Newsletter June 2020 3rd quarter Moon will be just 7° to the SW, making it more difficult to observe the fainter, magnitude +7.9 Neptune.

As we get into the second half of June, for those early morning observers, another planet will become observable in the hour before sunrise, ’s sister planet - . As June begins, Venus is moving quickly from the eastern side to the western side of the Sun with its inferior occurring on the 3rd. By the 18th, it will be visible a half hour before sunup about 8° high in the ENE. A very thin, waning crescent will be about 10° to the west of magnitude -4.3 Venus on this day. The Moon will occult Venus on the following night, though the Moon and Venus will rise AFTER this has Venus has reemerged for our region. By the 30th, Venus, sitting just above the face of Taurus, will reach roughly 14° high 45 minutes before sunrise.

Luna A night of observing would not be complete without a view of the Moon… when it is visible, of course. You’ll find a waxing gibbous Moon in the of Virgo at the start of the month. The Moon will reach as it moves into southern Ophiuchus on the 5th. Over the 8th and 9th, a waning gibbous Moon will pass by the planets Jupiter and Saturn and a third quarter Moon will be about 4° from Mars.

That’s all for this month. I hope you’re all well and staying safe. Have fun observing!

19 Bays Mountain Astronomy Club Newsletter June 2020 Chapter 4 The Queen Speaks Robin Byrne Robin Byrne

More on Happy Birthday this image. See FN3

This month we honor the life of a man who made several When Pete was only 15 old, he got a job at the Paoli contributions to the space program - all with a wicked sense of Airfield, asking to be paid not with cash, but with time in their humor. Charles Peter “Pete” Conrad, Jr. was born June 2, 1930 airplanes and flight lessons. He started doing odd jobs around in , Pennsylvania. His family was well-off, but had a the airfield, but soon was working on the planes, doing basic reversal of fortune due to the Great Depression. They lost their maintenance work. When he was 16, one of the flight instructors house, and moved into a small cottage, paid for by his mother’s had to make an emergency landing 100 miles away. Pete drove brother. Pete’s father was so devastated by his failure, he left his out to him and was able to repair the plane. From that point on, family. the flight instructor gave Pete the flight lessons needed to earn his pilot’s license. As a schoolboy, Pete was considered to be smart, but he always struggled in his classes. It turns out that he suffered from While in college, majoring in Aeronautical Engineering, Conrad dyslexia, a condition barely understood at the time. Pete continued to fly. It was while at Princeton that Conrad met and attended a private school, which several generations of his family began dating Jane DuBose, who was attending nearby Bryn had attended. After his family lost their money, his uncle Mawr. It was Jane’s father who dubbed him “Pete” (his family continued to pay for his tuition. Sadly, because of his struggles had always called him Peter). In 1953, Conrad graduated with a with dyslexia, Pete failed his Junior year of High School and was B.S. degree and was immediately commissioned as an Ensign in expelled. Pete’s mother believed in him and found a school that the Navy. Also in that year, Pete and Jane got married. They was able to teach Pete techniques to cope with his disability. would have four sons over the next seven years. Armed with his new coping skills, Pete finished school with Conrad’s first stop in the Navy was Pensacola, for flight honors, and was awarded a full Navy ROTC scholarship to training. By 1954, Conrad was a Naval Aviator and became a attend . fighter pilot. He served in many capacities, including as a flight

Bays Mountain Astronomy Club Newsletter June 2020 21 - (September 15, 1966) - Charles Conrad Jr. (right) and Richard F. Gordon, Jr. pose in front of the recovery helicopter which brought them to the U.S.S. Guam.

22 Bays Mountain Astronomy Club Newsletter June 2020 Pete Conrad, Dick Gordon, and Al Bean pose with the 12 in the background on the pad at the Cape on 29 October 1969.

23 Bays Mountain Astronomy Club Newsletter June 2020 Pete Conrad’s reflection in ’s visor.

24 Bays Mountain Astronomy Club Newsletter June 2020 (4 ) --- The three prime crew members of the first manned mission () are photographed at Launch Complex 39, Kennedy Space Center, during preflight activity. They are, left to right, Paul J. Weitz, pilot; astronaut Charles Conrad Jr., commander; and scientist-astronaut Joseph P. Kerwin, science pilot. In the background is the Skylab 1/Saturn V space vehicle with its Skylab payload on Pad A.

25 Bays Mountain Astronomy Club Newsletter June 2020 instructor. Then Conrad was accepted to the Naval the end of the decade, was about to begin. That School in Maryland. Among his classmates were two other future meant needing a new batch of astronauts. Conrad’s friend Al astronauts: and . In 1958, Conrad Shepard, America’s first man in space, suggested Conrad should graduated and was named as a Project Test Pilot. Over the apply again. The tests they were put through this time were much course of his career, Conrad logged over 6,500 hours of flight more reasonable, so Conrad was more cooperative. On time, with over 5,000 hours in jets. September 17, 1962, Pete Conrad became a member of the “New Nine” astronauts. Among the training the new astronauts Conrad was almost one of the original Mercury astronauts. In endured were: jungle survival, geology lessons, water egress from 1958, he was asked to participate in the selection process. Many the spacecraft, physicals, and endless hours in flight simulators. of the tests the original astronauts had to endure were fairly outrageous, and Conrad’s rebellious sense of humor took over. Conrad was considered one of the best pilots in his group, so it Part of the screening included looking at ink blots and describing wasn’t surprising that he would be given one of the first Gemini what they saw. For one of the ink blots, Conrad described in great flights. His first mission was in 1965 aboard as the Pilot, detail a lurid sex scene that he “saw.” In another test, he was with one of the original Mercury astronauts, , as given a blank white sheet and asked to describe what image was the Commander. During their flight, they set an endurance record on it. He turned it over and said, “It’s upside down.” To deliver a of eight days, which beat the Russian record at the time of five requested stool sample, Conrad put it in a box tied up with a days. Eight days was considered the minimum amount of time for ribbon. When he had reached his limit with the tests, Conrad a mission to the Moon, so they proved a Moon mission was made his statement in no unconditional terms - he dropped a full possible, at least in terms of the health of the astronauts. This enema bag on the commanding officer’s desk and then walked flight was the first to use fuel cells as the power source. They also out. Not too surprisingly, Conrad’s application was denied. tested the radar guidance system, as well as taking photographs Included with the rejection was a note saying “not suitable for of the Earth. All in all, the mission was a complete success. long duration flight.” That would ultimately be proven to be very Conrad’s next mission, in 1966, would be as the Commander of wrong. Gemini 11, with Dick Gordon as the Pilot. During the mission, Four years later, after the success of the Mercury Program, and in they successfully docked with an Aegena Target Vehicle. Docking response to Kennedy’s goal of landing a man on the Moon before in space was a key milestone needed to be met before we could

26 Bays Mountain Astronomy Club Newsletter June 2020 send people to the Moon. After the docking, they used the landing was one of the most precise performed, landing only 600 Aegena rocket to boost their orbit to a higher altitude from Earth. feet from the -3 spacecraft they were targeting. As This mission still holds the record of being the highest of any Conrad, the third man to walk on the Moon, jumped down from orbital mission, at an apogee (farthest point from Earth) of 851 the ladder to the surface, he said, “Whoopee! Man, that may have miles. While docked, Gordon performed two spacewalks, been a small one for Neil, but that's a long one for me.” Conrad including connecting the Gemini spacecraft to the rocket with a later confessed that he said that to win a $500 bet with an Italian tether. After returning to the capsule, the spacecraft undocked, journalist who was convinced that NASA scripted what the but remained tethered. They then used thrusters to set the astronauts said. Sadly, the journalist never paid up. Once on the system into a slow rotation to be the first mission to generate Moon, Conrad and Bean collected rock samples, set up a radio artificial gravity in space. antenna, a solar wind experiment, and placed an American flag near the landing site. They also set up equipment for measuring After the successful conclusion of the Gemini Program, it was moon quakes, solar radiation, and detecting dust and gasses. time for Apollo. Despite the devastating setbacks of the Apollo 1 Additionally, they collected some pieces from the Surveyor-3 fire, the program ultimately progressed forward. The success of spacecraft to bring back to Earth for study. At one point during meant it was up to the remaining crews to prove their 31 hours 31 minutes on the Moon, Conrad became the first landing on the Moon could be repeated, and that more could be person, but not the last, to fall on the Moon. One of the pictures accomplished. On November 14, 1969, Pete Conrad flew as the Conrad took during the mission was of his own reflection in Alan Commander of , with Dick Gordon as his Command Bean’s visor. That image has been immortalized in Popular Module Pilot and Alan Bean as his Lunar Module Pilot. Their Science’s list of best astronaut selfies. launch took place during a rain storm. The rocket flying through the clouds created enough static electricity to cause the In 1973, Conrad’s last mission for NASA was as the Commander spacecraft to be hit by lightning more than once. That resulted in of Skylab 2, which was the first manned crew to inhabit America’s the power and guidance systems being knocked out in the first space station. His crew mates would be Joseph Kerwin and capsule. Fortunately, someone on the ground quickly knew how Paul Weitz. They almost couldn’t complete their mission. After six to fix the problem. After arriving at the Moon, Conrad and Bean unsuccessful attempts to dock with the space station, the crew separated from their command module, the Yankee Clipper, and put on their EVA suits and opened up the airlock to the docking flew the lunar module, Intrepid, to the surface of the Moon. Their mechanism. After opening it up, they saw the culprit, a loose

27 Bays Mountain Astronomy Club Newsletter June 2020 screw, fly off into space. After that obstacle was removed, they diagnosed with a malignant lymphoma, and died one year later. were able to dock. The station had been launched unmanned 11 That same year, Pete met Nancy Crane, and later married her. days earlier, and experienced some damage during its In 1996, at the age of 66, Conrad was part of the crew for a jet deployment. The shield had been torn away, flight that went around the world in 49 hours 26 minutes. They set which pulled away one of the solar panels and jammed the other. a world record, and the Learjet that was flown is on permanent So, the first job of the crew was to repair the damage. During the display at the International Airport. course of two spacewalks, Conrad used brute force to pull the stuck solar panel free. They also created a solar shield to replace In June of 1999, Pete Conrad was interviewed on the ABC series the micrometeoroid shield, which helped shade the station, after Nightline. When asked about whether the Shuttle program was becoming unbearably hot. During their 28 day stay on the station, worth the cost, Conrad replied, "I think the is worth the crew performed experiments related to medicine and one billion dollars a launch. I think that it is worth two billion telescopic studies of the Sun and Earth. When they returned to dollars for what it does. I think the Shuttle is worth it for the work Earth, the crew of Skylab 2 had set the record for the longest it does.” Conrad was also interviewed around the same time for successful crewed mission in space. So much for someone once the PBS series Nova. Upon discussing the future of space deemed “not suitable for long duration flight.” exploration, Conrad was in support of missions to Mars or an asteroid, but thought that going back to the Moon was "a waste Pete Conrad retired from NASA in 1973, going to work in the of taxpayer money.” private sector. He worked for a variety of companies, including: American Television and Communication Company (a company in On July 8, 1999, Pete, his wife, and a group of friends were riding the “new” field of cable television), McDonnell Douglas their motorcycles from Huntington Beach to Monterey, California. Company, and as a consultant for Delta Clipper, which was an While going around a turn, Pete’s motorcycle crashed. Despite experimental launch vehicle. wearing a helmet and going the speed limit, Pete Conrad died later that day from internal injuries. He was buried with honors at The demanding schedule of life as an astronaut took its toll on Arlington National Cemetery. At the in many marriages, and Pete’s was no exception. In 1988, Pete and , they have the tradition of planting trees in honor of Jane divorced. Sadly, the following year, one of Pete’s sons was astronauts who have died. At the planting ceremony, Pete’s Apollo 12 crew mate Alan Bean, was one of the speakers. In a

28 Bays Mountain Astronomy Club Newsletter June 2020 humorous tribute, Bean pretended to be channeling Conrad’s https://www.space.com/20519-pete-conrad-astronaut- wishes. He said that, instead of the usual white lights NASA used biography.html to decorate the trees every Christmas, Conrad wanted colored lights, because they were more in keeping with his motto, "when you can't be good, be colorful.” To this day, all the trees have white lights, except for Conrad’s, which has red lights.

From overcoming dyslexia to being a pilot to becoming an astronaut, Pete Conrad was a man who accomplished so much. He flew in space four times, spending 32 hours on the Moon, and a total of 1,200 hours in space. He was outrageously funny and irreverent, but always got the job done. Michael Collins, Command Module Pilot on the Apollo 11 mission probably said it best: "Funny, noisy, colorful, cool, competent; snazzy dresser, race-car driver. One of the few who lives up to the image. Should play Pete Conrad in a Pete Conrad movie.” Happy Birthday, Pete!

References: Pete Conrad - Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Conrad

Conrad, Jr. Charles “Pete” - The National Aviation Hall of Fame https://www.nationalaviation.org/our-enshrinees/conrad-jr- charles/

Pete Conrad: Apollo 12 Commander - space.Com by Elizabeth Howell

29 Bays Mountain Astronomy Club Newsletter June 2020 Chapter 5 Space Place

More on this image. See FN6 David Prosper and Vivian White

Summer Triangle Corner: Vega More on this image. See FN3

If you live in the Northern Hemisphere and look up during June for many different reasons. Dust, smaller stars, or even planets evenings, you’ll see the brilliant star Vega shining overhead. Did may block the light we see from the star. Or the star itself might you know that Vega is one of the most studied stars in our skies? be unstable with active sunspots, expansions, or eruptions As one of the brightest summer stars, Vega has fascinated changing its brightness. Most stars are so far away that we only astronomers for thousands of years. record the change in light, and can’t see their surface.

Vega is the brightest star in the small Greek constellation of Lyra, NASA’s TESS satellite has ultra-sensitive light sensors primed to the harp. It’s also one of the three points of the large “Summer look for the tiny dimming of caused by transits of Triangle” asterism, making Vega one of the easiest stars to find extrasolar planets.Their sensitivity also allowed TESS to observe for novice stargazers. Ancient humans from 14,000 years ago much smaller pulsations in a certain type of variable star’s light likely knew Vega for another reason: it was the Earth’s northern than previously observed. These observations of Delta Scuti pole star! Compare Vega’s current position with that of the variable stars will help astronomers model their complex interiors current north star, Polaris, and you can see how much the Earth’s and make sense of their distinct, seemingly chaotic, pulsations. tilt changes over thousands of years. This slow movement is This is a major contribution towards the field of astroseismology: called , and in 12,000 years Vega will return to the the study of stellar interiors via observations of how sound northern pole star position. waves “sing” as they travel through stars. The findings may help settle the debate over what kind of variable star Vega is. Find Bright Vega has been observed closely since the beginning of more details on this research, including a sonification demo that modern astronomy and even helped to set the standard for the lets you “hear” the heartbeat of one of these stars, at: https:// current magnitude scale used to categorize the brightness of bit.ly/DeltaScutiTESS stars. Polaris and Vega have something else in common, besides being once and future pole stars: their brightness varies over Interested in learning more about variable stars? Want to time, making them variable stars. Variable stars’ light can change observe their changing brightness? Check out the website for

Bays Mountain Astronomy Club Newsletter June 2020 31 More on this image. See FN8

32 Bays Mountain Astronomy Club Newsletter June 2020 More on this image. See FN9

33 Bays Mountain Astronomy Club Newsletter June 2020 the American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO) at https://www.aavso.org. You can also find the latest news about Vega and other fascinating stars at https://www.nasa.gov.

This article is distributed by the NASA Night Sky Network. The Night Sky Network program supports astronomy clubs across the USA dedicated to astronomy outreach. Visit https:// nightsky.jpl.nasa.gov to find local clubs, events, and more!

34 Bays Mountain Astronomy Club Newsletter June 2020 Chapter 6 BMAC Calendar and more

More on this image. See FN7 More on BMAC Calendar and more this image. See FN3

Date Time Location Notes

BMAC Meetings

Program: BMACer Jonathan Peters will give us a tour of his home-made observatory via Zoom; Free. This is a Friday, June 5, 2020 7 p Via Zoom BMAC-only event. Members will receive the meeting link directly.

Friday, August 7, 2020 ? ? Program TBA.

Friday, September 4, 2020 ? ? Program TBA.

SunWatch

Every Saturday & Sunday Cancelled until further notice. View the Sun safely with a white-light view if clear.; Free. March - October

StarWatch

October 3, 10, 2020 7:30 p Cancelled until further notice. View the night sky with large telescopes. If poor weather, an alternate live tour October 17, 24, 31, 2020 7 p of the night sky will be held in the planetarium theater.; Free. If you are a club member and have completed the Park volunteer program, you are welcome to help out with this public program. Please show up at least 30 minutes prior to the official start time. November 7, 14, 21, 28, 2020 6 p

Bays Mountain Astronomy Club Newsletter June 2020 36 Bays Mountain Astronomy Club Regular Contributors:

853 Bays Mountain Park Road William Troxel

Kingsport, TN 37650 William is the current chair of the club. He enjoys everything to do with astronomy, (423) 229-9447 including sharing this exciting and interesting hobby with anyone that will www.BaysMountain.com listen! He has been a member since 2010. [email protected] Robin Byrne

Robin has been writing the science history column since 1992 and was chair in 1997. She is an Associate Professor of Annual Dues: Astronomy & Physics at Northeast State Community College (NSCC). Dues are supplemented by the Bays Mountain Park Association and volunteerism by the club. As such, our dues can be kept at a very low cost. Jason Dorfman $16 /person/year Jason works as a planetarium creative and $6 /additional family member technical genius at Bays Mountain Park. He has been a member since 2006. Note: if you are a Park Association member (which incurs an additional fee), then a 50% reduction in BMAC dues are applied. Adam Thanz

The club’s website can be found here: Adam has been the Editor for all but a number of months since 1992. He is the https://www.baysmountain.com/astronomy/astronomy- Planetarium Director at Bays Mountain club/#newsletters Park as well as an astronomy adjunct for NSCC.

Bays Mountain Astronomy Club Newsletter June 2020 37 More on Footnotes this image. See FN3

miles across) orbits outside the rings on the right of the image. The small moon Atlas (30 Footnotes: kilometers, 19 miles across) orbits inside the thin F ring on the right of the image. The brightnesses of all the moons, relative to the planet, have been enhanced between 30 and 60 1. The Rite of Spring times to make them more easily visible. Other bright specks are background stars. Spokes -- ghostly radial markings on the B ring -- are visible on the right of the image. Of the countless Saturn has seen since the birth of the solar system, this one, captured here in a mosaic of light and dark, is the first witnessed up close by an emissary from This view looks toward the northern side of the rings from about 20 degrees above the ring plane. Earth … none other than our faithful robotic explorer, Cassini. The images were taken on Aug. 12, 2009, beginning about 1.25 days after exact , using Seen from our planet, the view of Saturn’s rings during equinox is extremely foreshortened and the red, green and blue spectral filters of the wide angle camera and were combined to create this limited. But in orbit around Saturn, Cassini had no such problems. From 20 degrees above the natural color view. The images were obtained at a distance of approximately 847,000 kilometers ring plane, Cassini’s wide angle camera shot 75 exposures in succession for this mosaic showing (526,000 miles) from Saturn and at a Sun-Saturn-spacecraft, or phase, angle of 74 degrees. Saturn, its rings, and a few of its moons a day and a half after exact Saturn equinox, when the Image scale is 50 kilometers (31 miles) per pixel. sun’s disk was exactly overhead at the planet’s equator. The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the and The novel illumination geometry that accompanies equinox lowers the sun’s angle to the ring the Italian Space Agency. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of plane, significantly darkens the rings, and causes out-of-plane structures to look anomalously Technology in Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, bright and to cast shadows across the rings. These scenes are possible only during the few Washington, D.C. The Cassini orbiter and its two onboard cameras were designed, developed months before and after Saturn’s equinox which occurs only once in about 15 Earth years. Before and assembled at JPL. The imaging operations center is based at the Space Science Institute in and after equinox, Cassini’s cameras have spotted not only the predictable shadows of some of Boulder, Colo. Saturn’s moons (see PIA11657), but also the shadows of newly revealed vertical structures in the For more information about the Cassini-Huygens mission visit http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/. The rings themselves (see PIA11665). Cassini imaging team homepage is at http://ciclops.org. Also at equinox, the shadows of the planet’s expansive rings are compressed into a single, Image Credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute narrow band cast onto the planet as seen in this mosaic. (For an earlier view of the rings’ wide shadows draped high on the northern hemisphere, see PIA09793.) 2. Leo Rising The images comprising the mosaic, taken over about eight hours, were extensively processed before being joined together. First, each was re-projected into the same viewing geometry and A sky filled with stars and a thin veil of clouds. then digitally processed to make the image “joints” seamless and to remove lens flares, radially Image by Adam Thanz extended bright artifacts resulting from light being scattered within the camera optics. At this time so close to equinox, illumination of the rings by reflected off the planet vastly 3. The Cat's Eye Nebula, one of the first planetary nebulae discovered, also has one of the most dominates any meager sunlight falling on the rings. Hence, the half of the rings on the left complex forms known to this kind of nebula. Eleven rings, or shells, of gas make up the Cat's illuminated by is, before processing, much brighter than the half of the rings on the Eye. right. On the right, it is only the vertically extended parts of the rings that catch any substantial sunlight. Credit: NASA, ESA, HEIC, and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA) With no enhancement, the rings would be essentially invisible in this mosaic. To improve their Acknowledgment: R. Corradi (Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes, Spain) and Z. Tsvetanov visibility, the dark (right) half of the rings has been brightened relative to the brighter (left) half by a (NASA) factor of three, and then the whole ring system has been brightened by a factor of 20 relative to the planet. So the dark half of the rings is 60 times brighter, and the bright half 20 times brighter, 4. Jupiter & Ganymede than they would have appeared if the entire system, planet included, could have been captured in a single image. NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has caught Jupiter's moon Ganymede playing a game of "peek- a-boo." In this crisp Hubble image, Ganymede is shown just before it ducks behind the giant The moon Janus (179 kilometers, 111 miles across) is on the lower left of this image. Epimetheus planet. (113 kilometers, 70 miles across) appears near the middle bottom. (81 kilometers, 50

Bays Mountain Astronomy Club Newsletter June 2020 38 Ganymede completes an orbit around Jupiter every seven days. Because Ganymede's orbit is Hubble couldn't directly view the planets, but instead employed a powerful search technique tilted nearly edge-on to Earth, it routinely can be seen passing in front of and disappearing behind where the telescope measures the slight dimming of a star due to the passage of a planet in front its giant host, only to reemerge later. of it, an event called a transit. The planet would have to be a bit larger than Jupiter to block Composed of rock and ice, Ganymede is the largest moon in our solar system. It is even larger enough light — about one percent — to be measurable by Hubble; Earth-like planets are too small. than the planet Mercury. But Ganymede looks like a dirty snowball next to Jupiter, the largest However, an outside observer would have to watch our Sun for as long as 12 years before ever planet in our solar system. Jupiter is so big that only part of its Southern Hemisphere can be seen having a chance of seeing Jupiter briefly transit the Sun's face. The Hubble observation was in this image. capable of only catching those planetary transits that happen every few days. This would happen if Hubble's view is so sharp that astronomers can see features on Ganymede's surface, most the planet were in an orbit less than 1/20 Earth's distance from the Sun, placing it even closer to notably the white impact crater, Tros, and its system of rays, bright streaks of material blasted from the star than the scorched planet Mercury — hence the name "hot Jupiter." the crater. Tros and its are roughly the width of Arizona. Why expect to find such a weird planet in the first place? The image also shows Jupiter's Great Red Spot, the large eye-shaped feature at upper left. A Based on radial-velocity surveys from ground-based telescopes, which measure the slight wobble storm the size of two , the Great Red Spot has been raging for more than 300 years. in a star due to the small tug of an unseen companion, astronomers have found nine hot Jupiters Hubble's sharp view of the gas giant planet also reveals the texture of the clouds in the Jovian in our local stellar neighborhood. Statistically this means one percent of all stars should have such atmosphere as well as various other storms and vortices. planets. It's estimated that the orbits of 10 percent of these planets are tilted edge-on to Earth and Astronomers use these images to study Jupiter's upper atmosphere. As Ganymede passes behind so transit the face of their star. the giant planet, it reflects sunlight, which then passes through Jupiter's atmosphere. Imprinted on In 1999, the first observation of a transiting planet was made by ground-based telescopes. The that light is information about the gas giant's atmosphere, which yields clues about the properties planet, with a 3.5-day period, had previously been detected by radial-velocity surveys, but this was of Jupiter's high-altitude haze above the cloud tops. a unique, independent confirmation. In a separate program to study a planet in these revealing This color image was made from three images taken on April 9, 2007, with the Wide Field Planetary circumstances, Ron Gilliland (STScI) and lead investigator Tim Brown (National Center for Camera 2 in red, green, and blue filters. The image shows Jupiter and Ganymede in close to Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO) demonstrated Hubble's exquisite ability to do precise natural colors. photometry — the measurement of brightness and brightness changes in a star's light — by also looking at the planet. The Hubble data were so good they could look for evidence of rings or Earth- Credit: NASA, ESA, and E. Karkoschka (University of Arizona) sized moons, if they existed. But to discover new planets by transits, Gilliland had to crowd a lot of stars into Hubble's narrow 5. 47 Tucanae field of view. The ideal target was the magnificent southern globular star cluster 47 Tucanae, one of In the first attempt to systematically search for "extrasolar" planets far beyond our local stellar the closest clusters to Earth. Within a single Hubble picture Gilliland could observe 35,000 stars at neighborhood, astronomers probed the heart of a distant globular star cluster and were surprised once. Like making a time-lapse movie, he had to take sequential snapshots of the cluster, looking to come up with a score of "zero". for a telltale dimming of a star and recording any light curve that would be the true signature of a planet. To the fascination and puzzlement of planet-searching astronomers, the results offer a sobering counterpoint to the flurry of planet discoveries announced over the previous months. Based on statistics from a sampling of planets in our local stellar neighborhood, Gilliland and his co-investigators reasoned that 1 out of 1,000 stars in the globular cluster should have planets that "This could be the first tantalizing evidence that conditions for planet formation and evolution June transit once every few days. They predicted that Hubble should discover 17 hot Jupiter-class be fundamentally different elsewhere in the galaxy," says Mario Livio of the Space Telescope planets. Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, MD. To catch a planet in a several-day orbit, Gilliland had Hubble's "eagle eye" trained on the cluster The bold and innovative observation pushed NASA Hubble Space Telescope's capabilities to its for eight consecutive days. The result was the most data-intensive observation ever done by limits, simultaneously scanning for small changes in the light from 35,000 stars in the globular star Hubble. STScI archived over 1,300 exposures during the observation. Gilliland and Brown sifted cluster 47 Tucanae, located 15,000 light-years (4 kiloparsecs) away in the southern constellation through the results and came up with 100 variable stars, some of them eclipsing binaries where the Tucana. companion is a star and not a planet. But none of them had the characteristic light curve that Hubble researchers caution that the finding must be tempered by the fact that some astronomers would be the signature of an extrasolar planet. always considered the ancient globular cluster an unlikely abode for planets for a variety of There are a variety of reasons the globular cluster environment June inhibit planet formation. 47 reasons. Specifically, the cluster has a deficiency of heavier elements that June be needed for Tucanae is old and so is deficient in the heavier elements, which were formed later in the universe building planets. If this is the case, then planets June have formed later in the universe's evolution, through the nucleosynthesis of heavier elements in the cores of first-generation stars. Planet when stars were richer in heavier elements. Correspondingly, life as we know it June have surveys show that within 100 light-years of the Sun, heavy-element-rich stars are far more likely to appeared later rather than sooner in the universe. harbor a hot Jupiter than heavy-element-poor stars. However, this is a chicken and egg puzzle Another caveat is that Hubble searched for a specific type of planet called a "hot Jupiter," which is because some theoreticians say that the heavy-element composition of a star June be enhanced considered an oddball among some planet experts. The results do not rule out the possibility that after if it makes Jupiter-like planets and then swallows them as the planet orbit spirals into the star. 47 Tucanae could contain normal solar systems like ours, which Hubble could not have detected. The stars are so tightly compacted in the core of the cluster – being separated by 1/100th the But even if that's the case, the "null" result implies there is still something fundamentally different distance between our Sun and the next nearest star — that gravitational tidal effects June strip between the way planets are made in our own neighborhood and how they are made in the cluster. nascent planets from their parent stars. Also, the high stellar density could disturb the subsequent migration of the planet inward, which parks the hot Jupiters close to the star. 39 Bays Mountain Astronomy Club Newsletter June 2020 Another possibility is that a torrent of ultraviolet light from the earliest and biggest stars, which formed in the cluster billions of years ago June have boiled away fragile embryonic dust disks out of which planets would have formed. These results will be published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters in December. Follow-up observations are needed to determine whether it is the initial conditions associated with planet birth or subsequent influences on evolution in this heavy-element-poor, crowded environment that led to an absence of planets. Credits for Hubble image: NASA and Ron Gilliland (Space Telescope Science Institute)

6. Space Place is a fantastic source of scientific educational materials for children of all ages. Visit them at: http://spaceplace.nasa.gov

7. NGC 3982 Though the universe is chock full of spiral-shaped galaxies, no two look exactly the same. This face-on spiral galaxy, called NGC 3982, is striking for its rich tapestry of star birth, along with its winding arms. The arms are lined with pink star-forming regions of glowing hydrogen, newborn blue star clusters, and obscuring dust lanes that provide the raw material for future generations of stars. The bright nucleus is home to an older population of stars, which grow ever more densely packed toward the center. NGC 3982 is located about 68 million light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major. The galaxy spans about 30,000 light-years, one-third of the size of our Milky Way galaxy. This color image is composed of exposures taken by the Hubble Space Telescope's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 (WFPC2), the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS), and the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3). The observations were taken between March 2000 and April 2009. The rich color range comes from the fact that the galaxy was photographed invisible and near-infrared light. Also used was a filter that isolates hydrogen emission that emanates from bright star-forming regions dotting the spiral arms. Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA) Acknowledgment: A. Riess (STScI)

8. Vega possesses two debris fields, similar to our own Solar System’s asteroid and Kuiper belts. Astronomers continue to hunt for planets orbiting Vega, but as of May 2020 none have been confirmed. More info: https://bit.ly/VegaSystem. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

9. Can you spot Vega? You may need to look straight up to find it, especially if observing after midnight.

40 Bays Mountain Astronomy Club Newsletter June 2020