April Meeting
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: Fort Worth Astronomical Society (Est. 1949) March / April 2011 Astronomical League Member April Meeting: Barry Allen Serpents in the Texas Countryside & Sky In the normal location Club Calendars – 2 Skyportunities – 4 Time to Go – 6 Club Reports – 7 What’s Up with the Moon? – 8 The Pluto Files – 10 Cancer, the Crab – 11 Stargazers’ Diary – 12 (Back to top) 1 NGC 891 by Steve Tuttle March 2011 Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday 1 2 3 4 5 Algol @ Minima Algol @ Minima New Moon 7:55 pm NW sky 11:06 pm NW low 3:46 pm Lunation 1091 New Moon Weekend Take advantage of better DSO viewing Venera 3 at our Dark Sky Site impacts Venus 45 years ago 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Moon at Apogee Werner X First Qtr Moon 3 am Barely visible to us 6:45 pm Top ten deep-sky objects for March: this month. (Peaks (252,639 miles) M44, M48, M67, M81, M82, NGC 2654, NGC 2683, @ 11:24 pm – shortly Museum before Moonset) Star Party NGC 2835, NGC 2841, NGC 2903 Top ten binocular deep-sky objects for March: Victor Savinykh M44, M48, M67, M81, M82, NGC 2571, th becomes 100 NGC 2683, NGC 2841, NGC 2903, NGC 2976 person to arrive in (Some objects require dark skies to be seen.) space 30 years Urbain Le Verner ago. Soyuz T-4 b. 100 years ago mission 13 14 15 Ides of March 16 17 18 19 Full Moon William Herschel Mercury : Jupiter O discovers Uranus 2 of separation 1:10 pm 230 years ago “largest” of 2011 because FWAS Meeting Moon at Perigee 3 pm The Inner Planets (221,565 miles) With Bruce Campbell Daylight Savings Normal Room 2:00:00 > 3:00:01 am St. Patrick’s Day 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 Algol @ Minima Last Qtr Moon 9:40 pm NW 7:07 am Moonset: 12:49pm Novice Night & Globe @ Night Thomsen Equinox Mir reenters Foundation 6:21 pm James Tiberius Kirk atmosphere Sunset: 7:45 pm born in just 222 years 10 years ago √ e-group 27 28 29 30 31 Messier Marathon at CSAC March 31 - April 2 The Messier Marathon will be held at Comanche Springs Astronomy Campus March 31-April 2. Spend three Challenge deep-sky object for March: Abell 30 (Cancer) incredible nights on the 3RF campus! Enjoy perfect skies, Challenge binary star for March: Struve 1216 (Hydra) 110 Messier objects and great company! For more information and registration see the links in 3RF’s blue box Notable carbon star for March: T Cancri (Cancer) on page 4. 2 (Back to top) April 2011 Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday 1 2 Prime Focus Moon at Apogee offices moving 3 am (252,684 miles) New Moon Weekend Take advantage of better DSO viewing at our Dark Sky Site 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 New Moon Algol @ Minima Museum 9:32 am 8:20 pm NW zenith Star Party Lunation 1092 Compton Gamma 3RF Lunar Party Ray Observatory Saturn @ Opposition deployed Fort Worth: Jupiter in 20 years ago 6 pm Sunset : 7:56 pm 72 light minutes from Conjunction with Earth. N side of ring Sun 10 am. Moonrise11.04 am O Mars Odyssey plane tilted 8.9 towards STS-37 Atlantis Reappears in Orbiter Moonset 1:40 am Earth & spans 44” (Saturday) Luna 10 first launched 20 years dawn twilight mid- Launched spacecraft to orbit ago month 10 years ago Illumination: 34.2% Moon 45 years ago 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 Algol @ Minima First Qtr Moon Yuri’s Night Moon at Perigee 11:32 pm NW sky st 11:59:59 pm 7:05 am Yuri Gagarin 1 Top ten deep-sky objects for April: (222,507 miles) human in space Werner X not visible M65, M66, M95, M96, M97, M105, 50 years ago to us this month. M108, NGC 3115, NGC 3242, NGC 3628 (Peaks @ 1:19 pm) Top ten binocular deep-sky objects for < Moon low in east > April: M65, M66, M95, M96, M97, M105, STS-1 Columbia M108, M109, NGC 3115, NGC 3242 launched (Some objects require dark skies to be seen.) 30 years ago 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 Full Moon Mercury : Mars During last 10 Venus : Uranus O 9:44 pm conjunction 0.8O days of month, conjunction 0.8 . check dawn (at noon, so look in twilight for Jupiter the morning) – Mars – Mercury – Venus all lined up within 20O FWAS Meeting Lyrid Serpents in the Meteors Country & Sky peak With (minor) Barry Allen 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 Last Qtr Moon Bart Bok Moon at Apogee 9:47 pm b. 105 years ago Noon (252,301 miles) STS-39 Discovery launched 20 years ago Challenge deep-sky object for April: Leo I (Leo) Challenge binary star for April: Gamma Sextantis 1st space tourist Notable carbon star for April: V Hydrae (Hydra) launched 10 years ago Easter (Back to top) 3 Observing and Outreach Opportunities Weather permitting (FWAS contacts in parentheses) Over the past several months, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department has been in the process of changing their website host, as well as revamping their site and when it is up it is currently in a very Spartan beta format. Every month, the Department’s web functionality is less than the month before. From the outside looking in, it appears they have created their own server farm by bridging three Commodore 64 units and linking them to the web via a single-line 28.8 phone modem. (Perpetual 503 error messages are returned when trying to access their calendar of events). TPWD listings will reappear in this space when their website again goes live. FWAS & Noble Planetarium Star Party. This year’s first star party at the museum almost fizzled out. First the parking guard was there, poor guy. I hope we did not get him in trouble as Bruce and I keep star party participants out of the lot until he left. Then we waved everyone in quickly. Later we noticed later that a new attendant was present. He gave me a glare when I drove off later. At the best the sky was overcast, but we had about 150 people come out to look through your telescopes. Lots of people turned out to see the moon and Saturn even put in a fuzzy appearance before the evening was over. Thanks to everyone who came out. Michele NOTE: We may either be set up in the lot South of the Museum that we used all of 2009, or in the front of the Museum at 1600 Gendy where you can back up your vehicles up to the curb around the circle the front of the Museum of Science and History and the Cowgirl Museums. From there you can unload and set up on the sidewalk area. You may leave your cars and trucks at the curb, that way you will not have to pay the parking fee. This change is due to the fact that the Parking Lots are now fee based. (Be sure to check the e-group in the days leading up to the star party). Brownie Bribes are often provided! (Linda Krouse and Michele Martinez) th th OUR NEXT STAR PARTIES: April 9 , and then May 7 weather permitting. March 31 to April 2 – Messier Marathon at CSAC - A Messier Marathon will be held at Three Rivers Foundation’s Comanche Springs Astronomy Campus March 31-April 2. Spend three incredible nights on the 3RF campus! Enjoy perfect skies, 110 Messier objects and great company! The Event: 3RF_Flyer The Observing Contest: 3RFMessierObservingContest The Imaging Marathon: 3RFMessierImagingMarathon2011 Registration Form: MarathonRegistration April 9 — 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) 3RF will have two public events next month in May: May 7th for Deep Sky Observation and May 14th for Lunar. Tom Koonce writes: I hope winter is over soon. Read my "timely" article (on page 6) regarding early 1600's portable timepieces that astronomically-minded scholars would have carried with them. I came across a nice display of these unique sundials in the Finland National Museum in Helsinki during a recent trip, I also got to see the Aurora Borealis for hours on my last night there when the snow ceased for the first time in a week. Here's a helpful amateur astronomy travel tip - don't visit Finland in January unless you have to! It's a beautiful place, but WOW it is cold. Really, really cold. And dark. 4 (Back to top) The April Sky – Thomsen Foundation -- 9 pm local time, April 9th – 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 Meet your fellow club members: Watch short clips on YouTube (you must be reading on-line to link) Click here for the APOD video of the Saturn Flyby (Back to top) 5 Time to Go By Tom Koonce Lancaster, California Photos by Author, taken at Finnish National Museum The history of astronomy has always been tied closely to the accurate measurement of time.