SOUTHEASTERN IOWA ASTRONOMY CLUB THE SIDEREAL TIMES
JANUARY 2013
A M EMBER SOCIETY OF THE ASTRONOMICAL LEAGUE
CLUB OFFICERS : IMPORTANT INFORMATION Here's a link to a short summary Executive Committee ~ IMPORTANT CHANGE: We President Libby Snipes WILL be holding a club meeting of the Lightscape Project: http:// Vice President Judy Hilkin JANUARY 17, 7:00 PM, at the www.growburlington.com/ Treasurer David Philabaum downtown_dev_lightscape.cfm Secretary Vicki Philabaum BURLINGTON PUBLIC LI- Chief Observer Dave Philabaum BRARY, Room B. Though we Members-at-Large Jim Hilkin Here's a link to their informative had originally planned to skip the Terry Durbin brochure =( : http:// Katie Powers meeting in January, we really www.growburlington.com/ Board of Directors should meet to finalize a letter to downloads/Steeple% Chair Claus Benninghoven the Burlington Downtown Part- 20Brochure.pdf Vice Chair Duane Gerling ners representing our club's posi- Secretary Ray Reineke Members-at-Large Terry Durbin tion on their proposed Lightscape Here's a link to a Dark Skies As- Jim Hilkin Project. Other items on the agen- sociation webpage with some Katie Powers da include an update of spending AWESOME pamphlets with Witte Foundation Funds and an great information to use and/or Audit Committee Ray Reineke (2009) overview of club activities in print and share: http:// www.darksky.org/resources/99- Karen Johnson (2011) 2012. Snacks will be provided :-) Dean Moberg (2012) quick-reference-materials
(continued on page 3) INSIDE THIS ISSUE :
Space Place 2, 4
UPCOMING DATES Minutes (cont.) 3
~ The January meeting is ~ February’s meeting Looking Back 3 Thursday, January 17, will be at the Burlington Treasurer’s Report 4 2013 at the Burlington Library on Tuesday, Feb- Public Library, Room B, ruary 12. Observer’s Report 5 at 7:00 pm ~ The March meeting Calendar 6 ~ Deadline for the Feb- time and place will be ruary newsletter is determined at a later Sky Maps 7-8 Wednesday, February 6, date. 2013 PAGE 2 THE SIDEREAL TIMES
THE ART OF SPACE IMAGERY BY DIANE K. F ISHER
When you see spectacular space imag- nebulae. es taken in infrared light by the Spitzer Space Telescope and other non-visible Spitzer’s Infrared Array Camera -light telescopes, you may wonder (IRAC), for example, is a four-channel where those beautiful colors came camera, meaning that it has four dif- from? After all, if the telescopes were ferent detector arrays, each measuring recording infrared or ultraviolet light, light at one particular wavelength. we wouldn’t see anything at all. So are Each image from each detector array the images “colorized” or “false col- resembles a grayscale image, because ored”? the entire detector array is responding to only one wavelength of light. How- No, not really. The colors are translat- ever, the relative brightness will vary ed. Just as a foreign language can be across the array. translated into our native language, an image made with light that falls out- So, starting with one detector array, “...an image side the range of our seeing can be the first step is to determine what is made with light “translated” into colors we can see. the brightest thing and the darkest that falls Scientists process these images so they thing in the image. Software is used to outside the can not only see them, but they can pick out this dynamic range and to re- range of our also tease out all sorts of information compute the value of each pixel. This seeing can be the light can reveal. For example, process produces a grey-scale image. wisely done color translation can re- At the end of this process, for Spitzer, “translated” veal relative temperatures of stars, we will have four grayscale images, into colors we dust, and gas in the images, and show one for each for the four IRAC detec- can see.” fine structural details of galaxies and tors. (continued on page 4)
This image of M101 combines images from four different telescopes, each de- tecting a different part of the spectrum. Red indicates infrared information from Spitzer’s 24-micron detector, and shows the cool dust in the galaxy. Yellow shows the visible starlight from the Hubble tele- scope. Cyan is ultraviolet light from the Galaxy Evolution Explorer space tele- scope, which shows the hottest and youngest stars. And magenta is X-ray en- ergy detected by the Chandra X-ray Ob- servatory, indicating incredibly hot activ- ity, like accretion around black holes. JANUARY 2013 PAGE 3
Looking Back in the Sidereal Times
25 Years Ago - January, 1988 Quality viewing has certainly been scarce in the last few weeks. The overabundance of cloudy skies seems to have driven some starga ers over the edge. A few war ed individuals were seen a ending the hristmas ve tar earch even though the clouds were so thick nothing could shine through. ut the snacks and the conversa on were good and hel ed to take our minds off of the cold and the disa ointment. The first clear evening came on ew Year s ve. ven though the moon was so bright that viewing was di cult at best, it s ll didn t kee some eo le away. ( The 12 day old moon was in Taurus ) Dave and Marion achtell have contacted the Peoria Astronomical ociety and they have arranged for our club night to be s ent with the Peoria club to see their 24 inch telesco e. The lan is to meet at the auditorium and leave from there. ( Trip reports indicate that M42, M81,M82, M51 along with the Horsehead Nebula were some of the objects viewed before clouds ended the viewing at 10:30 )
10 Years Ago - January, 2003 The dome is on ( Stone-Kelly ). The door is also on so the building is secure. orkers are currently wai ng for the electrical anel and outlets. aturn asses in front of the rab ebula on the night of January 4-5, an event visible from orth America. A 9 th magnitude comet was discovered by Tetuo Kudo on December 14 th . It has been named Kudo-Fujikawa. Ac- cording to . . Marsden, this object will be at erihelion some me in late January. ( The comet was also inde- pendently discovered by Shigehisa Fujikawa and reached magnitude 5.6 in late December ) According to the latest informa on Ju iter now has a grand total of 40 satellites. ( NASA currently lists 50 named satellites and another 16 provisional ones with a numeric designa on ).
INFORMATION (CONT . FROM PAGE 1) I hope to see you at the library Thursday, January doors and hardware for the roll-off, protective cov- 17 @ 7 PM. er for the Ealing telescope, a cabinet to store eye- -Libby Snipes- pieces, and advertising expenses. Club members are currently checking on prices for these items. ~ There are no minutes for December. The De- A thank you note has been sent to the John H. Wit- cember meeting was cancelled due to the weather. te Jr. Foundation for the grant money. -Judy Hilkin- ~ The Southeastern Iowa Astronomy Club re- ceived the $1.900.00 requested grant from the John H. Witte Jr. Foundation this month. The proceeds from the money will go to the following: new tracking motor for the Fecker telescope, eye- pieces for the telescope in the roll-off, covers for the Fecker and Brandon telescopes, two steel PAGE 4 THE SIDEREAL TIMES
THE ART OF SPACE IMAGERY (CONT . FROM PAGE 2)
Matter of different temperatures emit different Download a new Spitzer poster of the center of the wavelengths of light. A cool object emits longer Milky Way. On the back is a more complete and wavelengths (lower energies) of light than a colorfully-illustrated explanation of the “art of warmer object. So, for each scene, we will see space imagery.” Go to spaceplace.nasa.gov/ four grayscale images, each of them different. posters/#milky-way.
Normally, the three primary colors are assigned to This article was provided by the Jet Propulsion these gray-scale images based on the order they Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, appear in the spectrum, with blue assigned to the under a contract with the National Aeronautics shortest wavelength, and red to the longest. In the and Space Administration . case of Spitzer, with four wavelengths to repre- sent, a secondary color is chosen, such as yellow. So images that combine all four of the IRAC’s infrared detectors are remapped into red, yellow, green, and blue wavelengths in the visible part of the spectrum.
TREASURER ’S REPORT
12/1/2012 Beginning Balance $2,294.16
Deposits
12/4/2012 Memberships, donations, Ast. Cal. $170.00 12/31/2012 Witte Grant #2 $1,900.00 Total Deposits $2,070.00
Expenses
Check Payee 12/4/2012 410 MTC, Nov. phone $29.29 12/24/2012 411 MTC, Dec. phone $29.76 Total Expenses $59.05
12/31/2012 Ending Balance $4,305.11
General Fund $1,742.40 Witte Grant #1 Balance $662.71 Witte Grant #2 Balance $1,900.00 Total in Checking Account $4,305.11 JANUARY 2013 PAGE 5
OBSERVER ’S REPORT FOR JANUARY /F EBRUARY BY DAVE PHILABAUM
Mars remains where it has been since late summer, transit Also at this me Callisto will be passing ust low in the southwestern sky but things begin to change north of the planet Saturn, in Libra, rises about 0 :30 in anuary ars sets about hours a er the un in C T in the middle of anuary and by the middle of Feb- the middle of anuary but by the middle of February it ruary rises at 23:30 C T aturn reaches western quad- sets a half hour earlier and begins to get lost in the rature on anuary 30 th making this a good me to look glow of twilight During the first part of February it has for the shadow of the rings on the disk of the planet encounters with two other planets Neptune is about Unlike upiter, aturn never gets very high in the sky 2° above ars in the middle of anuary but is moving On the first of February aturn's height above the hori- out of the evening ge ng lower each day Mercury is on at transit is about half that of upiter's Venus rises at superior con unc on with the un on anuary th an hour before the un in the middle of anuary but it and begins its climb to the best evening appari on of is lost in the glare of the un soon a er February be- the year in February During the first part of February gins Pluto is about 3 ° above Venus in the middle of they pass by ars On February anuary and is not visible in the 4th Neptune and ars are less morning twilight The 26 day old than 0 ° apart On February 6th waning crescent moon is ust over Neptune, ars and ercury all fit one degree to the le of Pluto on in a 6° circle February th er- the morning of February th The cury and ars are less than one Moon is full on anuary 26 th , 3 rd third of a degree apart Binoculars quarter on February 3 rd and new may be needed to see ars On moon is on February 0 th The February 0th a very slim crescent oon passes 0 ° south of upiter moon is ° to the lower right of on anuary 2 st and occults upiter ercury Use binoculars The next for observers in much of outh night a slightly fa er crescent America When the moon rises a moon is ° to the upper right of li le before midnight on February ercury ercury reaches greatest elonga on east of st it will be about 2° below pica An occulta on of the un on February th Uranus is in Pisces and sets pica occurs earlier and is visible from central and about 22:30 C T in the middle of anuary and sets al- southern Africa and adagascar About 02:30 C T Feb- most two hours earlier by the middle of February Jupi- ruary 3rd the moon passes less than 3° southwest of ter is in Taurus between the Pleiades and Aldebaran the aturn On February th asteroid 2012 DA 14 will Although its apparent si e is shrinking, this is s ll a pass within ,000 miles of the surface of the Earth At good me to observe upiter because it is unusually its closest it will reach th magnitude but that will occur high above the hori on transi ng almost 0° above the around 3:2 C T, day me for us By the me it is dark hori on around 9:30 C T the first of February On an- here it will be between th and 2 th magnitude near uary 9th the Great Red pot is on the central meridian the Li le Dipper and be 0,000 - 90,000 miles away at 9: 0 C T Two nights later the GR is on the meridi- Ground Hog day also known as Candlemas is February an again at 20:4 C T and about 30 minutes later Eu- 2nd It is a cross quarter day, halfway between the De- ropa's shadow begins to transit across upiter On anu- cember sols ce and the arch equinox And finally ary 24th at : C T the GR will be in the middle of guys don't forget Valen ne's Day February 4 th or you upiter's disk with the shadow of Io ust beginning to may be seeing stars of a different kind PAGE 6 THE SIDEREAL TIMES
January ~ February 2013
Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday
13 14 15 16 17 18 19
Mars 6˚ south of Neptune 6˚ south SIAC Meeting at First Quarter Moon of Moon Burlington Public Moon Library at 7 pm Mercury in supe- Uranus 5˚ south rior conjunction of Moon
20 21 22 23 24 25 26
Martin Luther Moon at apogee Full Moon King, Jr. Day
Jupiter 0.5˚ north of Moon
27 28 29 30 31 1 (February) 2
Jupiter appears Groundhog Day stationary Halfway through winter!
3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Last Quarter Articles for the Moon at perigee Mercury 0.3 Moon newsletter are north of Mars due today Saturn 3˚ north of Moon
10 11 12 13 14 15 16
New Moon Mercury 5˚ south SIAC meeting at Uranus 4˚ south Valentine’s Day Mercury at of Moon Burlington Library of Moon greatest elonga- tion
17 18 19 20 21 22 23
First Quarter Moon at apogee Neptune in con- Mercury appears Moon junction with Sun stationary Saturn appears stationary Jupiter 0.9˚ north of Moon 2 h h E 4 c lip tic
C e le s t Crab Nebula (M1) ia l M e r Mirach id ia n Alpheratz
Algol Hassaleh ε Elnath Almach M34 Per
Perseus
M32 AndromedaAndromeda Galaxy (M31) M110
Azimuth: 277° 8.964' M36 Altitude: 59° 19.949' M38 RA (JNow): 0h 11.004m δ Per Dec (JNow): 37° 36.421' Hoedus II M37 Mirfak 3 0 Almaaz ° Little Dumbbell Nebula (M76)
γ Per θ Aur Capella
Perseus Double Cluster (NGC 884) Perseus Double Cluster (NGC 869) Blue Snowball (NGC 7662) Auriga
Owl Cluster (NGC 457) Menkalinan Schedar Ruchbah M103
γ Cas NGC 7789 Cassiopeia Caph
Lacerta
The Scorpion (M52)
2 2h
Camelopardalis
M39 Er Rai
Cepheus NGC 2403 Lynx NGC 7027 Alderamin North American Nebula (NGC 7000)
Polaris North Celestial Pole Deneb Cygnus NGC 6946
Talitha
Cigar Galaxy (M82) Bode's Galaxy (M81)
Altais θ UMa
h 20 Blinking Planetary (NGC 6826)
δ Cyg
Ursa MinorKochab Dubhe Draco Pherkad
Nodus I MerakUrsa Major
M108 Tania Australis Owl Nebula (M97)
Aldhibain Eltanin Winnecke 4 (M40) Phecda M109 ψ UMa Vega Rastaban
Alioth
Mizar Spindle Galaxy (M102) Pinwheel Galaxy (M101) M106
NE
M92
Alkaid
h 18 Whirlpool Galaxy (M51)
N π Her Cat's Eye Galaxy (M94)
Sunflower Galaxy (M63) Canes Venatici
Cor Caroli
Hercules Cluster (M13) Hercules IC 4182
Seginus ζ Her
Sarin
Viewing from Burlington, United States Long: -91° 08' 07" Lat: 40° 48' 52" 2013/1/18 7:00:00 PM (Local) Looking: north (40° above horizon) FOV: 100° Limiting Magnitude: 7.1 Auriga 2 C Almaaz h
h e h 4 l 6 e
s t i a
l
M
e Perseus r i Hoedus II d M110 i a Andromeda Galaxy (M31) n M34 Andromeda Almach M32 θ Aur
Algol ε Per
M38
M36
M37 Mirach
Hassaleh β Tri
30° Atik Triangulum δ And Elnath Triangulum Galaxy, Pinwheel Galaxy (M33) Alpheratz
Pleiades, Seven Sisters (M45) Crab Nebula (M1) Alcyone ζ Tau Hamal
Jupiter Aries Sheratan
Aldebaran Taurus
The Phantom (M74) Algenib 15°
The Moon Pisces
π3 Ori Bellatrix
Menkar Orion
Cetus A (M77) Uranus
M78 Mintaka
Alnilam C elestial Equator Alnitak Orion B (NGC 2024) E clip tic NGC 1977 Cursa de Mairan’s Nebula (M43) Orion Nebula (M42) Nair al Saif
Rigel Cetus
Saiph NGC 1535 Zaurak Eridanus
µ Lep
Deneb Kaitos NGC 1232 - Arneb 15°
Lepus Nihal ε Lep
Sculptor Galaxy (NGC 253) M79
Fornax
Sculptor NGC 1365 Fornax A (NGC 1316)
-3 Phaet 0° Caelum Acamar NGC 300 NGC 1291 ColumbaWazn
NGC 1851 NGC 55
Ankaa
β Phe
Phoenix Horologium S
ν Pup
α Dor
- Pictor Achernar 45 ° β Gru
Canopus τ Reticulum Pup α Hyi
-6 0° Viewing from Burlington, United States Long: -91° 08' 07" Lat: 40° 48' 52" 2013/1/18 7:00:00 PM (Local) Looking: south (40° above horizon) FOV: 100° Limiting Magnitude: 7.1 A Brief History The idea for the observatory was conceived by the members of the Southeastern Iowa Astronomy Club. Through a cooperative agreement between the Des Moines County Conservation Board, The Burlington Community School System, and the Southeastern Iowa Astronomy Club, the idea became a reality. A substantial grant SOUTHEASTERN IOWA from the John H. Witte, Jr. Foundation provided the funding for materials, with ASTRONOMY CLUB nearly all the construction being done by members of the club. Work began in the P.O. Box 14 spring of 1985 and the observatory was dedicated in May 1987. In the years since West Burlington, IA 52655 the dedication, thousands of people have climbed the ladder to peer through the eyepiece of the beautiful 1937 Alvan-Clark brass refractor.
In 1996 a second observatory, the Prugh-Carver Observatory, was added through a grant from the Carver Foundation. Dedicated to Burton Prugh, a Burlington busi- nessman, it stands as a reminder of his devotion and support to the Southeastern W E’ RE ON T HE WEB Iowa Astronomy Club. It houses Mr. Witte’s personal telescope—an 8” Fecker refractor, as well as several smaller scopes. http://www.dmcconservation.com/ index.php/en/cons-recreation-areas/cons- Dedicated on September 17, 2004, the new Stone-Kelly Observatory houses the bh/cons-ra-bighollow-witteobs 16” Cassegrain that was formerly on Burlington High School off Roosevelt Avenue. Volunteer club members, after passing a training and apprenticeship program, oper- ate the observatory for public and private groups.
DUES The observatory complex is open to the public on the first and third Fridays of every $20 INDIVIDUAL month, weather permitting. $30 F AMILY
ABOUT SOUTHEASTERN IOWA ASTRONOMY CLUB The Southeastern Iowa Astrono- Additional benefits to members my Club meets on the third include our monthly newsletter, Friday of each month at the The Sidereal Times, voting Witte Observatory at 7 pm. rights for club activities, and membership in the national The purpose of the club is to Astronomical League. The provide astronomy opportuni- Astronomical League member- ties to the local area, mainly ship provides a quarterly news- through the use of the facilities letter, discounts on certain at the John H. Witte, Jr. Ob- astronomy-related products, servatory. During monthly special training/skill building meetings, information is provid- programs, and other great bene- ed about upcoming events and fits. items of interest locally, nation- ally, and worldwide. The meetings allow members to share their experiences and expertise with each other, as well as providing a forum for Travel directions to the Witte Observatory Complex. questions. The public is wel- come to share in the meetings, The observatory complex is located at 18832 152nd Avenue, Sperry, and they are followed by a pub- Iowa in Big Hollow Creek Recreation Area approximately 12 miles lic viewing session (weather north of Burlington, Iowa. permitting).