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January 2011 Editorial Events List Happy New Year to Everyone, and 2011 Seems to Have Got Off to a Flying Start

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January 2011 Editorial Events List Happy New Year to Everyone, and 2011 Seems to Have Got Off to a Flying Start January 2011 Editorial Events list Happy New Year to everyone, and 2011 seems to have got off to a flying start. Despite the cloud for the partial eclipse on Sun 16 Jan: Speaker – Dr Paul Lewis : the fourth of January, the Society had some “Measuring the Crab Nebula” great television coverage of the event. Two Wed 19 Jan: Full Moon of the clips can be seen on our website’s news pages. Thurs 03 Feb: New Moon Tue 08 Feb: Herrington Cubs visit Cygnus Obs, 6:30pm start. Helpers requested Sat 12 Feb: Winlaton Mill observing event, 6:30pm start Fri 18 Feb: Full Moon Sun 20 Feb: Speaker – BBC weatherman Paul Mooney “Clear skies predicted” Sat 26 Feb: Kielder Nightwatch, 5:30pm start 02 – 06 March: Kielder Star Camp All Society events are free, are held in the Washington WWT facilities, and evening meetings start at 7:00pm unless Above: TV stars: Paul Meade and otherwise noted. Please bring a torch and warm clothing to any BBC’s Hannah Bayman night-time observing sessions. All observing sessions are The Society’s website has had a major dependent upon favourable weather and may be subject to overhaul, so please take a look if you haven’t cancellation. visited it for a while, and please check regularly for any updates. December and January have seen some Editorial address: Dave Newton, New Hartley Astrophysical very clear nights for anyone who has been Facility, 13 Alston Road, New Hartley, Whitley Bay, NE25 0ST brave enough to venture out into the snow Tel: 0191 237 0355 and ice (not me, I’m slightly ashamed to admit!) Jupiter is still very bright in the evening sky and the morning sky is now In this issue: graced with Venus and, much lower and • closer to the Sun, Mercury. Good hunting to The Darke Side anyone trying to track down the more elusive • NASA’s SpacePlace planets like Mercury and Uranus, when the winter sky is blessed with so many other • Secretary’s report distractions like Orion and Taurus, Perseus • News: The Solar Corona and Cepheus to name a few. mystery – solved? Plus On a personal level, I send my gratitude to Tom Crann who stepped into the Editor’s High energy particles shoes last month and did such a great job from The Crab Nebula with the December issue. Thanks, Tom. - Ed www.sunderlandastro.com Registered Charity #1071527 Graham Darke (Chairman) 0191 416 2625 [email protected] Lynn Henderson (Secretary) 0191 426 1708 [email protected] Dave Newton (Publications) 0191 237 0355 [email protected] There’s more to astronomy1 than sea front eclipses THE DARKE SIDE public had gone and with conditions seemingly Society Update with Chairman worsening, members also packed away and Graham Darke headed off. Frustratingly, not long after this, there was a prolonged spell of clear weather lasting a Happy New Year to all! I hope that 2011 will few hours. I would like to thank all of our members be bring peace, happiness, health and of who came along to these events, especially to course clear skies. We have a busy few Hamsterley where the roads were particularly tricky with ice. months coming up as I’ll expand upon below. Stargazing Live does seem to have generated a lot of renewed interest in the night sky among the December Lecture Meeting public. The TV programmes themselves received a The sudden snow on the afternoon of the mixed press. From my perspective, I would have meeting didn’t prevent our speaker, Gary Fildes liked to have seen more of the amateur organised from making it along. Special thanks must go to events featured in the programmes and particularly him for making the effort. Numbers were low but more plugging of the events. This aside, the those who were there enjoyed Gary’s talk entitled thought of 3 hours of astronomy programming in “The Big Universe” which explored the prime time slots during a single week has to be a development of the human race’s understanding great way to start off 2011. of the universe around us. We met some famous and interesting characters along the way and also some of the unsung heroes of astronomy. Winlaton Mill Public Event – Saturday 12 th There were plenty of questions at the end which February at 6.30pm highlighted both how far we’ve come as a race and how much more there is still to learn. We are going to hold another observing event January sees Paul Lewis talking to us about at Winlaton Mill on the above date. We are measuring the Crab Nebula and in February we suggesting that members of the public meet at have BBC Weather Presenter Paul Mooney the car park at 6.30pm for a start to observing coming along to give us a talk entitled “ Clear at close to 7.00pm. We are going to set up the Skies Predicted ”. telescopes closer to the main car park this time so it is not as far for the public to walk BBC Stargazing LIVE and, once again, the local scouts are going to rd th th Over the nights of 3 , 4 and 5 January 2011, set up a marquee for us. Anyone who can help BBC 2 showed 3 live evenings of astronomy out by bringing a telescope along would be hosed by Professor Brian Cox and comedian more than welcome. We should aim to be Dara O’Briain. Astronomical societies and groups there for about 6.00pm. around the UK were asked to put on public events to coincide with the shows and SAS held two events during the week of the programmes. Observatory Visitors Firstly, we attempted to observe the partially We have Herrington Cubs visiting the eclipsed Sun as it rose on the morning of Cygnus Observatory at 6.30pm on Tuesday Tuesday 4 th January. We met up at cliff park, 8th February . If anyone can help out, it would Seaburn and BBC weather presenter Hannah be appreciated. I’ll be at the WWT just before Bayman came along and did a live broadcast to 6.00pm to set up. the BBC Breakfast show and the BBC News Channel. Our members gave a fine account of Kielder Night Watch - themselves and the Society. Shame about the Saturday 26 th February weather conditions that morning but it was good exposure for the club. Video footage can be seen The night watch event at Kielder Castle which on the SAS website. was scheduled to take place in December but Secondly, we took telescopes to Hamsterley which was cancelled due to the snow has Forest in County Durham on the evening of been rearranged to take place on Saturday Saturday 8 th January. This event was run in 26 th February starting at 5.30pm. This is the conjunction with the Forestry Commission. The weekend before the Spring Star Camp. Again Stargazing Live programmes seem to have done the call is going out to all members who are the trick with the event being completely sold out. able to assist to come along. The weather was great leading up to the start of the event but around 30 minutes in the sleet started which had members reaching for their scope covers! Clear spells only lasted a few minutes for the next hour or so and most of the public decided to leave. After the last of the 2 constellation of Ara, he noticed several clear peaks he had not seen before in the spectra of Astronomer stumble onto other planetary nebulae. “When he came to me,” huge space molecules recounted Cami, an astrophysicist who specializes By Trudy E. Bell and Tony Phillips in molecular chemistry, “I Deep in interstellar space, in a the swirling gaseous envelope of a immediately and intuitively planetary nebula, hosts of carbon atoms have joined together to knew it I was looking at form large three-dimensional molecules of a special type previously buckyballs in space. I've never seen only on Earth. Astronomers discovered them almost been that excited!” The authors accidentally using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. confirmed his hunch by “They are the largest molecules known in space,” declared Jan carefully comparing the Tc 1 Cami of the University of Western Ontario, lead author of a paper spectrum to laboratory Science with three colleagues published in online on July 22, 2010, experiments described in the and in print on September 3. literature. Not only are the molecules big: they are of a special class of “This discovery shows that it is carbon molecules known as “fullerenes” because their structure possible—even easy—for resembles the geodesic domes popularized by architect complex carbonaceous Buckminster Fuller. Spitzer found evidence of two types of molecules to form fullerenes. The smaller type, nicknamed the “buckyball,” is chemical spontaneously in space,” Cami formula C 60 , made of 60 carbon atoms joined in a series of said. “Now that we know hexagons and pentagons to form a spherical closed cage exactly fullerenes are out there, we like a black-and-white soccer ball. Spitzer also found a larger can figure out their roles in the fullerene, chemical formula C 70 , consisting of 70 carbon atoms in an physics and chemistry of deep elongated closed cage more resembling an oval rugby ball. space. Who knows what other Neither type of fullerene is rigid; instead, their carbon atoms complex chemical compounds vibrate in and out, rather like the surface of a large soap bubble exist—maybe even some changes shape as it floats through the air.
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