Fort Worth Astronomical Society (Est. 1949) February 2010 Astronomical League Member :
Club Calendar – 2 Opportunities & The Sky this Month – 3
How to Make $1000 with your Telescope! – 4
Astronaut Sally Ride to speak at UTA – 4 Aurgia the Charioteer – 5 Stargazers’ Diary – 6 Bode’s Galaxy by Steve Tuttle 1
February 2010
Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday
1 2 3 4 5 6 Algol at Minima Last Qtr Moon
Æ 5:48 am
11:07 pm
Top ten binocular deep-sky objects for February: M35, M41, M46, M47, M50, M93, NGC 2244, NGC 2264, NGC 2301, NGC 2360 Top ten deep-sky objects for February: M35, M41, M46, M47, M50, M93, NGC 2261, NGC 2362, NGC 2392, NGC 2403
7 8 9 10 11 12 13
Algol at Minima Morning sports a Moon at Apogee New Moon
Æ super thin crescent (252,612 miles) 8:51 am
7:56 pm Moon 8:00 pm
3RF Star Party
Make use of the New
Moon Weekend for
better viewing at the .
Dark Sky Site
See Notes
Below New Moon New Moon Weekend Weekend
14 15 16 17 18 19 20
Presidents Day 3RF Star Party
Valentine’s Day
FWAS
Traveler’s Guide Meeting to the Planets UTA’s Maverick Clyde Tombaugh Ranger 8 returns Normal Room premiers on Speakers Series discovered Pluto photographs and NatGeo 7pm Sally Ride “Fat Tuesday” Ash Wednesday 80 years ago. impacts Moon.
21 22 23 24 25 26 27
Algol at Minima First Qtr Moon Moon at Perigee
Å (222,345 miles) 6:42 pm
12:52 am 4 pm {Low in the NW)
Algol at Minima Æ 9:43 pm Challenge binary star for month: 15 Lyncis (Lynx) Challenge deep-sky object for month: IC 443 (Gemini)
Notable carbon star for month: BL Orionis (Orion)
28 Notes: Full Moon Look for a very thin waning crescent moon perched just above and slightly right of tiny Mercury on the morning of 10:38 pm Feb. 11; the previous morning will have the moon more illuminated and higher from the eastern horizon; those with very low eastern outlooks can perhaps spot the near-record thin crescent moon about 30 minutes before dawn on Feb. 12.
On the evening of our meeting night on Feb. 16, you might want to try to find some high vantage point with a western unobstructed horizon to view the Jupiter-Venus conjunction. When you see this remarkable sight, watch for STS-38 Atlantis the crescent moon much higher in the sky directly above this pair. launched 20 years http://www.astronomyblogs.com/member/saberscorpx/?xjMsgID=50821 for tips on spotting extreme crescent ago Moons.
2 The Sky This Month – Thomsen Foundation -- 9 pm local time, January 15 (from Heavens-Above.com)
Star Charts: Sky & Telescope Sky Maps http://tinyrul.com/5np8n http://www.skymaps.com Heavens Above International Space Station Transits http://www.heavens-above.com http://tinyrul.com/y8zk5c
Observing and Outreach Opportunities Weather permitting (FWAS contacts in parentheses)
February 13 (DSO) & 20 (Lunar) - Three Rivers Foundation (3RF) Star Party - 3RF invites you out to Comanche Springs near Crowell, Texas for a night under the stars. The dark skies of Big Ranch Country provide a spectacular view of the universe. The party starts with solar observing followed by a break. Evening activities begin with a short educational introduction to astronomy. The observatories and Star Field are then opened to the public to enjoy the use of many different kinds of astronomy instruments. For more information the day of a scheduled star party, please call 940-655-3384. (Russ Boatright and Doug Brown) (Panhandle Plains, where Oklahoma tucks into the Texas Panhandle) February 20 - Goose Island State Park — Goose Island Under the Stars — Join us in the evening when volunteers from the Corpus Christi Astronomical Society will lead a tour of the night skies. Learn about the constellations and see the moon, planets, stars and galaxies through the telescope. Bring your lawn chairs and your binoculars and meets us at the Recreation Hall for an informative and fun night. Accessible for the mobility impaired. 7-8 PM (361) 729-2858. [ February 27 - Purtis Creek State Park - Stargazing - Take a walk through the solar system and view the night sky through a telescope. Then make your own star wheel and learn how to use it. Weather permitting, meet at the overflow camping parking lot. Accessible for the mobility impaired. 7:30 p.m. (903) 425-2332. 3
How to Make $$$111000000000 with Your Telescope!
Tom Koonce Antelope Valley Astronomy Club, Inc. Lancaster, California
So…You’ve observed the Moon and the planets in detail. eyepiece, but instead by getting a charge out of someone’s You’ve awed your family with close-up views of craters, rings, first spectacular view through your telescope! and subtle hues of color. You’ve used your observational successes to justify “investment” in the purchase of a bigger, How can you make $1000 from your telescope? If you want better telescope and sharper eyepieces with wider fields of fast cash, I suggest that you start out with a telescope worth view so that you can observe deep-sky objects like remote $2500 and offer it for sale on AstroMart.com. But by offering galaxies and faint nebulae. You know what a SCT is and views of the night sky to people who have never had the know and understand cool down times, stellar magnitude, opportunity, you’ll easily get $1000 of value for every adult seeing, and why every serious amateur needs a Telrad. who gasps in astonishment when seeing the Ring Nebula or a Perhaps you invested in imaging equipment and are starting distant galaxy, comprehending their physical significance. to produce night sky pictures like those in the magazines. You’ll get a million dollars of satisfaction each child that sees Does this fit you? the craters on the Moon and the rings of Saturn for the first time and cries out with joy. Now you’re asking yourself, “How can I make some money with my telescope to recoup my investment? …How can I How can you make money in amateur astronomy? The truth make $1000 with my telescope?” is, if you’re involved in this hobby to make cash, you can either sell your amazing astrophotos, meteorites that you The weather will be warming up soon, and the opportunity to found, or maybe invent the next Telrad. But if you want the feel that sense of sustained excitement you always get as you real payoff, then share your love of astronomy with others as head back out under the stars. More importantly, you’ll soon the weather turns warmer. You will provide them inspiration have opportunities to interact with others who don’t have your and enrichment worth $1000 and more. knowledge of astronomy, and certainly don’t have the kind of telescope equipment you’ve put together! Sharing nighttime views with others is the key to getting a big payoff from your telescope. No, not by charging people to view through your
Outreach Resources:
For individuals: http://www.noao.edu/education/ http://astronomywebguide.com/links_amateurastronomers.html
For Clubs: http://www.astrosociety.org/education/resources/AAISASurveyResults.pdf http://kepler.nasa.gov/education/amateurAstronomersResourceKits/
Maverick Speaker Series: Sally Ride
Sally Ride speaks at UT Arlington February 15 at 8:00 pm in Texas Hall on the UTA campus. One of America's most-famous and most-beloved astronauts, Ride became the first American woman in space when she joined the STS-7 crew on June 18, 1983. At the time, she was also the youngest American (32)—male or female—ever to enter space. Ride flew two Shuttle missions, totaling more than two weeks in space. In the wake of the 1986 Challenger disaster, Ride was named to the Presidential Commission investigating the accident and authored NASA's first strategic plan. She also served on the Space Shuttle Columbia Accident Investigation Board in 2003.
Ride is now a professor of physics at the University of California at San Diego and is president and CEO of Sally Ride Science, which focuses on getting children, especially girls, interested in science. Click to get FREE tickets today!
4 Auriga, the Charioteer Auriga, the celestial charioteer, has neither chariot nor horse. Instead, he's drawn as a man holding the reins in his right hand, with a goat on his left shoulder — the star Capella — and two baby goats in his left arm. Look for him cruising high across the southern sky in January and February.
Map above from Wiki Commons Depiction at left from http://hsci.cas.ou.edu/
The constellation has an uncertain origin. It might represent Neptune rising from the sea in a chariot. Or it might honor a legendary king of Athens; according to this tale, he invented a chariot that was drawn by four horses. Capella is one of the few bright stars that is yellow, like our Sun. Both Capella and the Sun are yellow because they have roughly the same surface temperature. But the light from Capella actually comes from two separate stars. Both are yellow, and both lie about 43 light-years from Earth. Each star emits dozens of times more light than the Sun. In fact, any residents of the Capella system probably would take little notice of our Sun, which at Capella's distance would barely be visible to human eyes. The constellation of Auriga the Charioteer lies atop the Milky Way on cold winter nights. Auriga is easy to find due to its one very bright star, Capella, and its proximity to the easily recognizable constellations Orion and Taurus. Locating Auriga the Charioteer Auriga is easily found on winter evenings above the head of It is further easy to spot due to its bright star Capella. Capella Orion the Hunter and the horns of Taurus the Bull. In fact, the is the sixth brightest star in the night sky, but during this time second brightest star in Taurus, El Nath, lies on the border of the year, winter's only brighter star in the Northern with Auriga. Auriga can also be described as being off the left Hemisphere is Sirius, which is low to the horizon compared to hand of the stick figures Castor and Pollux in Gemini. Capella. The Stars of Auriga Capella, the brightest star in Auriga and the sixth brightest in away. The last two stars are very close in brightness, with the night sky, is magnitude 0.08 and lies just 42 light-years Theta Aurigae at magnitude 2.65 and 173 light-years away, away. The other three stars that make up the arrowhead and Iota Aurigae at the tip of the arrowhead shining at shape of Auriga are also rather bright. Menkalinan, magnitude magnitude 2.69 but much more distant at 512 light-years. 1.9, is the closest to Capella, lying seven and a half degrees
Star Clusters in the Charioteer Auriga's placement on the Milky Way gives it a thicker small telescopes. Does it seem to make the shape of the background of stars and three Messier objects. The clusters Greek letter Pi to you? are in a slightly curving line with the first one appearing right M36 is next in line just over two degrees from M38. At between the stars Theta and Iota Aurigae, and the trail magnitude 6, M36 is the smallest of the three clusters. Not leading toward Gemini. quite four degrees farther away is M37, at magnitude 5.6. In M38 is the star cluster found between Theta and Iota. The this small space a dense blob of more than 150 stars can be magnitude 6.4 grouping can be spotted through binoculars or counted with magnitudes of over 12. 5 At the January meeting, club member Bruce Campbell gave a very entertaining and informative account of his adventure in Huntsville, Alabama where he toured the NASA site and was able to actually get into a remaining Apollo Command Module. Bruce told of the history of how the Saturn V multiple- stage rocket came to be; complete with the technological challenges that the engineering team addressed. The challenges went far beyond the rocketry of the day. A ballistic missile launch is one thing, shooting men to the Moon is a different collection of skill sets entirely; notwithstanding the life duration needed for the hardware components.
Stargazers’ Diary – Russ Boatright and Doug Brown
Comanche Springs Astronomy Campus - January 16, 2010 - good skies We ventured out into the cold once again in search of astronomy thrills at the Three Rivers Foundation campus near Crowell, Texas, and we were not disappointed. When we're within sight of that big 30" telescope and the sky looks clear, we begin to salivate like that Russian guy's dogs, although we've never seen a dog interested in a telescope before. But the anticipation is often as thrilling as the viewing, except for the drooling. The day time was spent in cleaning mirrors and optics and general equipment maintenance, which is a great chance to marvel at all of the neat astronomy gear 3RF has to offer. There's something here for every interest, and it’s interesting to see volunteers gravitate towards their favorite toys. The imagers talk in camera and mount shorthand lingo, and we visual guys feign interest while our eyes glaze over. Visual astronomers tend to split into various tribes; there's the big dob DSO hunters, of which we're proud to be a part, along with the refractor geeks and the big binocular nerds. If we have a complaint, it would be that we never seem to find enough time in the dark to visit our brethren to see what they're exploring. Once darkness falls and the public is on the grounds, we usually have our hands full in our own sector. This isn't unique to CSAC, but seems true of most star parties in general. While the night was clear, the high humidity meant that it wasn't going to be a great galaxy night. The faint fuzzies seemed to all be swimming. But they were all big and bright enough. And to folks seeing them for the first time, they were impressive. Its hard to keep telling them that they can look better. It's reminiscent of that famous Hubble object photo before and after the 'eyeglasses'. Had one never been aware of the focused shot, then the fuzzy one would seem just fine. Only NGC 891, the edge on Outer Limits Galaxy in Andromeda viewed near zenith clearly showed its dust lane and appeared as it should. But when transparency suffers, seeing often excels, and Mars showed much detail. It was impressive through the 30" Night Queen, but we were later told that the crew up on the star field, about 100 yards from the roll off observatory, did an extensive study of the red planet, using various color filters and enjoyed outstanding success. Visual nebulae didn't seem to suffer much, either. M42, the great Orion Nebula seemed exceptional, which is almost expected of this terrific object. But our new winter favorite, NGC 2359, Thor's Helmet in Canis Major, continued to reveal new visual dimensions. Last year, we thought we had found the definitive view of it through the Night Queen, by using a narrowband filter and a 31mm Nagler eyepiece. But one of our buddies produced one of those new 100 degree AFOV 20mm EPs from Explore Scientific, and asked us to give it a try. We popped it in with an OIII filter and gave it a go. The results defy description. The Wolf-Rayet bubble was even more close and personal. It's important to always continue to visit old friends in different ways, because they often reveal new surprises. Tom Monahan had been manning the 18" Obsession located on one of the pads outside the roll off. Its always nice to have an ancillary telescope available to catch targets too low for the 30" to locate because of the observatory walls. Plus 3RF enjoys an embarrassment of riches when it comes to telescopes, so we employ all that we can. He had been observing in and around the Fornax Cluster, when he noticed Leo rising in the east, so he wheeled the scope around for a quick lesson in light pollution with the Leo Triplets. We gathered around the scope for a look, and all three fit nicely into one FOV with a 27mm Panoptic EP. The largest galaxy, NGC 3628, the edge on Hamburger Galaxy dominated the view. Perhaps its surface brightness is a tad dimmer than its Messier cousins, but not enough to easily notice. Someone noted that the Hamburger is often invisible under brighter skies, and it just seemed inconceivable that this could ever be so. It was a sobering reminder that even equipped with world class optics, the degree of darkness at the observing site remains the most crucial factor for a successful viewing session.
The Fine Print
FWAS Contact information for various observing certificates and you get their quarterly http://www.fortworthastro.com magazine, Reflector. League Observing clubs: http://tinyurl.com/3vjh4fl (Tres Ross) Officers: Steve Tuttle – President Fort Worth Museum of Science & History See the Museum’s Lee Vinson – Vice President website for schedules: http://tinyurl.com/3jkn5j (Linda Krouse) Floyd May – Secretary - Treasurer Meetings – FWAS meets at 7:00 PM on the third Tuesday of the month at the UNT Health Science Center – Research & Education Building, Room 100; 3500 Camp Bowie Blvd; Ft. Worth. Guests and visitors are always welcome. (Steve Tuttle) Web Site – http://www.fortworthastro.com E-Group (members only) – You may post messages to the group by sending e-mail to [email protected]. Any message sent to [email protected] will be automatically sent to all members on the list. To subscribe, send a blank e-mail to [email protected] Include your real name. Outreach – items concerning FWAS Outreach activities should be addressed to [email protected] (John Dowell) Prime Focus – The FWAS newsletter is published monthly. Letters to the editor, articles for publication, photos, or just about anything Observing Site Reminders you would like to have included in the newsletter should be sent Be careful with fire, ban in effect to: [email protected]. Mable Sterns Award Finalist, Steve Gray (2002) & Dean Crabtree (2008, 2009) Batting .273 All members … FWAS Annual Dues - $40 for adults / families, $20.00 for students Email John Dowell that you are going. (half-price Jan 1 thru June 30); checks payable to the Fort Worth Sign the logbook in the clubhouse Astronomical Society; payments can be mailed to 6045 Worrell Put equipment back neatly when finished Dr. Fort Worth, TX 76133, or in-person at the next indoor Leave a log note if there is a club equipment problem; also, meeting. Membership runs July 1 through June 30. (Floyd May) please contact a FWAS Trustee to let them know Discount Subscriptions Available – Sky & Telescope ($32.95), and Maintain Dark-Sky etiquette Astronomy (1 year for $34.00; 2 years for $60.00). A Sky & Turn out your headlights at the gate! Telescope subscription through FWAS entitles you to 10% off Last person out, please … purchases at Sky and Telescope’s on-line store. (Floyd May) Make sure nothing is left out Astronomical League Membership – Your FWAS membership also Lock the gate. enrolls you in the Astronomical League. This makes you eligible
Credits Cover Image: Bode’s Galaxy Steve Tuttle Observing Data RCAS 2009 Observers’ Handbook Sky Chart www.heavens-above.com Top 10 and Challenge Targets Dave Mitsky Auriga http://www.arksky.org and other sources. Thomsen Foundation Matt Reed
All cats are gray in the dark.
English Proverb
Navigate the Newsletter When reading the electronic newsletter while on-line, if your cursor “changes” as you roll over an image or blue text, you can click on that web link to be taken to further information of the subject at hand.
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