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VOLUME XXVI Number 5-6 May-June 2001

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VOLUME XXVI Number 5-6 May-June 2001 The Meteor Journal of the Escambia Amateur Astronomers Association VOLUME XXXIX Numbers 5-8 May-August 2014 ********************************************************************************************* President – Jon Ellard (251) 228-6042 Vice President -- Ed Magowan – (850) 458-0577 Secretary – Richard Walker (850) 477-7136 Treasurer Jim Larduskey (850) 434-3638 Librarian: Jacque Falzone (850) 261-9745 Education Chair – Dewey Barker (850) 458-1591 NWFAA Contact: Dennis Hausch (850)428-9467 Deep Sky Committee: Dave Haluposki (850) 678-4052 PSC Student Chapter officers for 2014: Dave Cochran—President 850-293-2021, Sara Ingersoll-Sec.-Treas. Editor and ALCOR: Dr. J. Wayne Wooten, Physical Sciences, Room 1751, Pensacola State College, Pensacola FL 32504-8998 Phone (850) 484-1152 (voicemail) (E-mail) wwooten @ pensacolastate.edu Please mail all dues to EAAA Treasurer, 4660 Shannon Circle, Pensacola, FL 32504 Annual Conference of the Society of Amateur Radio Astronomers (SARA) I joined SARA a few years ago after I found out that Karl Jansky discovered a strong radio emissions coming from the center of our Galaxy, the Milky Way. This discovery was by accident when he was working for Bell Lab in 1932. Later on in 1937 Grote Reber learned of Jansky’s discovery and built a 10 m radio telescope (see Figure 1) in his backyard and produced the first radio emission map of the Milky Way. These two individual brought the dawn of radio astronomy to us as a science. I finally made up my mind to travel to the SARA Annual Conference at Green Bank WV the past spring. This conference was held the 29th of Jun to 3rd of Jul. Green Bank is best known for the huge 300 ft radio telescope at its facility (see Figure 2) The Annual Conference consisted of the SARA Conference and the Radio JOVE Conference. The SARA Conference was over all amateur related radio astronomy while the Radio JOVE Conference was dedicated to the Jupiter-Io magnetic storms and radio emissions. After I arrived in Green Bank on the 29th , a group of us attended a presentation on the operation of the 40-ft radio telescope. This telescope can be used by anyone with the proper training. Next we went down to the telescope and pointed it to a section of the Milky Way in which we would find neutral hydrogen and try to measure the rest frequency of 1420.41 MHz. We did not observe this particular frequency, but a lower frequency. We calculated that this hydrogen was moving away from us at 160 km/sec or 576,000 km/hr, giving all respect to the Doppler Effect. Later on that evening a group of us saw a flux density increase showing that we were looking at a known Quasar. This experience was very interesting. The next two days were filled with elementary radio astronomy to software and hardware design for the amateur. Yes, there were a presentation on SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) and what several members of SARA are trying to introduce in creating and uploading a message on the New Horizon spacecraft. Finally I do not want to forget that we had two Nobel Prize Laureates that spoke to the group, John Mather and Joe Taylor. John Mather spoke to us on the James Webb Space Telescope, an infrared telescope, which will be launched into space in the next several years. Joe Taylor spoke to us on his discovery of binary pulsars system in which he won the Noble Prize in 1993. This discovery was made on Arecibo Radio Telescope in Puerto Rico. The following two days were dedicated to the Radio JOVE program which focused on the Jupiter-Io radio noise storms that amateur like you and I can detect at a frequency of ~20 MHz. These two days were also filled with elementary Jupiter-Io education as well as software and hardware design. In the evenings several attendees setup their personal amateur radio astronomy equipment for everybody to see. -- Dean Covey, KV4RL The Meteor Volume XXXIX Numbers 5-8 May-August 2014 Page 2 Figure 1: Grote Reber’s historic first radio telescope Figure 2. Byrd 300’ radio scope is largest fully steerable disk in world. The Meteor Volume XXXIX Numbers 5-8 May-August 2014 Page 3 Virginia College Gaze on June 9th The downtown gaze at Virginia College on Monday night (June 9) turned out great in spite of light pollution and intermittent clouds. This event was for the students and also for the surrounding community. We had many come as they left work in the banks and other offices. The school had free food for all and also had a number of prizes for the students. The top prize was an Orion equatorial reflector, and it was won by a Pharmacy Tech student who said she had always wanted a good telescope. Thanks to Dewey Barker and Harold Breyde who arrived early and set up scopes. Dewey had his 4 inch F/6 Astroview refractor and Harold had his 8 inch dob. He also had 20x80 binoculars on his awesome parallelogram mount. Dewey had the club PST which was a hit since we had folks coming by at 5:30 while the sun was still up. I brought my Celestron 4 inch f/10 refractor. Lots of flyers and skymaps were given out since Dewey set up the table with handouts. Linda Hoover, a new EAAA member who teaches at VC, helped answer questions which were many. Everyone wanted to see the moon, and we all complied. Even with a fairly bright sky, folks were able to see some of the detail. Later, as the sky darkened, there were oohs and ahhs as folks got great views of lunar detail. We were able to view Jupiter, Saturn, and Mars although it was through a patchy sky with openings here and there. We had lots of little kids who really enjoyed the views. A number of folks were able to get cell phone photos through scopes. Our campus president, Dr. Kim Coolidge, enjoys astronomy and made a moon photo with Dewey's help. She was responsible for the prizes and encouraging the students to take part. By 9:00 folks were still milling around. I had to leave, but Dewey and Harold stayed a while longer. Looks like a downtown gaze can be done even with awful light pollution. Everyone at school has been talking about their experiences, and they definitely want to do it again. --Ray Hayes Fort Pickens Gaze and Camelopardalid Meteor Reports on May 23rd A lot of EAAA folks turned out to Battery Worth on Friday evening, May 23, 2014 for a great Sky Interpretation sessions with Ranger Becky Mims-Breeding. We had about 200+ students, campers, and public join us for observing four planets, several nice satellites, many deep sky objects, but NO Camelopardalid meteors, alas. Representing the club were Rick Hogue, Andy Walker, Clay Mostad, Tom Reiderer, Malone Calvert, Adam Licko, Ron Fairbanks, Lyen McAbee, Harold Breyde, Dewey Barker, Jon Ellard, Don Meyer, David Cochran, Rich and Carol Sigler, and Wayne Wooten. Rick Hogue did reports spotting an early Camelopardalid at 1:30 AM Friday, which made us hope Saturday morning would indeed give us a fine shower. We caught Jupiter shortly after sunset, but never did spot Sirius in the SW, so I guess Dog Days are here now. Mercury was glimpsed through the low clouds in west, but Mars and Saturn were well placed for viewing all evening. We saw a transit of Europa across Jupiter start about 9 PM, with the black shadow notable. Omega Centauri was above the tree line by 9 PM and well resolved in our bigger scopes. I had work on Saturday, and left early with my car pool buddies Clay and Andy. Thanks to them for making the outing possible for me. After I left, others stayed out to all hours, hoping for the meteor storm that did not come. I personally was up from 1-1:30 and had broken clouds in my yard, but it was by then obvious that the peak was at most a few per hour, as was confirmed by all later reports. Adam Licko reported, “So we were skunked last night for our meteor "storm". Dewey and I stayed out till 2 and the only meteors I saw were coming from the opposite direction.!” Manny Galindo reported, “ I was almost skunked. Got to see one bright meteor all night. At about 2:30, it was slightly cloudy and could just make out Vega through the haze. A small spec of light started showing through the clouds going N to S overhead and got very bright just W of Vega then winked out. So, I am guessing that was it for Linear? For 3hrs of watching, got only one! Maybe next time? (Editor: Does sound like this was indeed a Camelopardilid, Manny). Martin Fanning reported only one sporadic, no Camelopardalids in clouds over Daphne. Ed Magowan observed from first Portofino, seeing one bright meteor, but then drove back to Beulah, but saw no more. The Meteor Volume XXXIX Numbers 5-8 May-August 2014 Page 4 Tommy Van Pelt went to much darker Munson, and did report seeing about a dozen. The consensus was that most of the debris was smaller than expected, and there were many faint meteors, according to Spaceweather.com, which is why most of us did not do as well. Pensacola State student Alexander Gallup reported observing perhaps the best one of the new shower meteors. He was observing facing north atop dunes at the National Seashore Park east of Gulf Breeze.
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