H A M I L T O N A M A T E U R A S T R O N O M E R S Volume 3 Issue 4 February 1996 enthusiastic radio interview on McMaster Editorial University's CFMU January 23rd. Ralph Pudritz and Rob Dick were featured on a hanks to Denise Kaisler we CHML talk show that explored the have a visual quiz in this possibility of extra -terrestrial life. Both month’s issue. On most pages Ralph and Rob are to be congratulated you will find a picture of a for their reserve and patience! The only famous astronomer with a clue to his Chair’s Report caller who wasn't relating a UFO sighting identity. See how many you can guess was John Gauvreau. He did manage, correctly. You will have to wait until however, to plug both the HAA and the hanks to your suggestions, next month to find out how good you are. Hamilton Centre of the RASC. Way to we'll be presenting special talks go, John! Lastly (but never leastly), our aimed at newcomers to On page 5 is the latest wonderful webpage has been honoured astronomy at each of our information on Comet C/1996 B2 by CBC Radio's Quirks & Quarks general meetings fro m now on. Some of (Hyakutaki). I case you haven’t heard, programme with a link from their the suggested topics include eyepieces, this comet has the potential of putting on webpage. Maris Software (makers of the telescope types and mounts. If you have a spectacular show. It may reach programme, "RedShift") have also set up any ideas or subjects you'd like to learn magnitude 0.1 by the end of April. As if a link to our webpage from their page. more about, please let me or anyone else that wasn’t enough, it will be 1/10th the Congratulations (again) to our webmaster on council know. The entire club will Earth-Sun distance away from us at extraordinaire!! benefit from your input! closest approach and will be moving at over one degree an hour. This movement Whew. As we say: "Resistance is Last month, Stewart mentioned Rob will be obvious even with the naked eye. futile......"! Roy's recent contribution to Sky and Let’s hope that it will live up to the Telescope. Well, it seems that the HAA predictions. Before I close, please note that our and its members continue to bask in March meeting will NOT be on the usual media spotlights. Doug Welch has had Stewart Attlesey 2nd Friday of the month. Because of a an article published in the winter issue of [email protected] scheduling conflict with the Spectator, CCD Magazine. (Book Villa on King we will be meeting on MARCH 15 at the Street East in Hamilton carries CCD Spectator building at the usual time of Magazine for those who don't subscribe.) 7:30 p.m. Mark the new date on your Patti Baetsen did us proud with her calendar so you won't miss it! Our Inside This Issue q EDITORIAL q UNDER COVER q CHAIR’S REPORT q BRIGHT COMET q HAJA q MEETING DATE CHANGES q NEW PLANETS q ROMAN AROUND q THE GOLDEN SUN q THANK YOU HAA q OFFTHE BEATEN PATH q WHAT’S YOUR I.O. 1) “A nosey q MORE MACHOS q CALENDAR Page 2 Event Horizon featured speaker Paul Turcotte will be "The Sun: Our Nearest Star." Please wobble, owing to a phenomenon called doing an astrophotography workshop. make a note that the meeting date for the Doppler shift. With the iodine lines March will not be the usual third present, it is easier to detect minute shifts Wishing you all clear and steady skies, Tuesday of the month. It will be on and discover a planet. March 12, the second Tuesday of March Ann Tekatch and we will talk about "Time, Seasons The planets are the first fruits of Chair and the Zodiac." I hope you can make it! a project begun by SF State and UC 575-5433 Berkeley in 1987 which watches stars Raechel Carson between 10 and 100 light years away for 308- 8041 these tiny wobbles. As far as the planets themselves are concerned, not much is known about them at present. The planet near 70 Vir is 9 times as massive as Jupiter (that's 2862 Earth masses) and has an eccentric orbit that is only 116 days in duration. The planet circling 47 UMa is less massive ("only" 3 Jupiter masses), More New but takes over 3 years to complete an orbit. Planets While Bellerophon, whose discovery was also confirmed by Marcy Discovered and Butler, is heated to an astounding 1000 degrees C, the newer planets are far enough from their host stars for liquid hope everyone enjoyed the ollowing close on the heels water to exist in their atmospheres. logo entries displayed in the of the discovery of While this might mean an ocean on a January Event Horizon. Bellerophon, the planet small, rocky planet like the Earth, it's not Thank you to Stewart for the orbiting 51 Pegasi, comes certain what it would mean for a gas lovely display and to the children for word of 2 new planets orbiting stars giant several times the mass of Jupiter. designing them. other than the Sun! This adds new evidence to the theory that planets are Denise Kaisler The meeting last month was not a rarity in our corner of the Galaxy. great fun for the children and the adults alike. We talked about comets and Geoffrey Marcy, professor of sublimation. To help the children physics and astronomy at San Francisco understand sublimation we brought in a State University and visiting scholar at large sample of dry ice. The kids were the University of California at Berkeley, fascinated by the stuff; we explored the together with Paul Butler, a postdoctoral process of sublimation and other neat researcher with a double appointment to properties of the solid carbon dioxide. UC Berkeley and SF State summarized their discovery at the 187th meeting of Initially, Nina was worried that the American Astronomical Society in the children would try to touch the dry San Antonio, Texas. One of our ice, which is a chilly -78 degrees members, Pat Durrell, was at this Celsius. We soon discovered that we meeting, but he didn't get a chance to had nothing to worry about where the talk to Marcy or Butler. Apparently, children were concerned. The adults silly things like trying to get a job took were a different story, especially Bob precedence. Botts. He played with the ice for about 20 minutes while the children enjoyed a The stars in question are 70 planetarium show. I would like to Virginis and and 47 Ursae Majoris, both mention that the dry ice was generously of which are visible to the naked eye. donated to us by a local business, Of course, the presence of the planets is Garden City Oxygen Limited. We have not as easily ascertained. Detection them to thank for the success of the required a novel setup that included a demonstration. chamber of iodine gas in front of the 2) “Heresy by thought, This month, the meeting will telescope. The presence of large planets heresy by word, heresy by be on February 20 and the topic will be causes the spectrum of a distant star to deed... Page 3 Event Horizon blue and gold double star right in the Off the Beaten center. It is definitely a cluster to put on your list. Path Lepus NGC 1904 (M 79): Pretty bright, pretty his month brings lots of new large, round, very bright in the middle at and interesting objects to 135X. Well resolved, with a compressed observe in the winter sky. central section against a very grainy One of the richest regions of backround. Easily seen in the finder. It the sky is where the milky way flows over is the only bright globular visible until Mononceros and Canis Major. Here is a spring. brief list of sites to seek in this area. Cancer The Golden Canis Major NGC 2672 Fairly bright, pretty large, NGC 2204 Bright, pretty large, elongated and much brighter in the compressed, rich with several nice chains middle at higher power. There is a Sun of stars superimposed with a backround of companion galaxy (NGC 2673) fainter members. superimposed on its east side and it is har's gold in that thar sun! pretty faint, small and round. NGC 2345 Pretty bright, somewhat Most of the 92 naturally compressed, arrowhead shape points to NGC 2682 Bright, very large, occurring elements have been starless region. Star at tip of arrowhead extremely rich and somewhat detected in the solar spectrum, albeit is double. compressed with stars from 10th to 14th many are present in only trace amounts. magnitude. Using a wide field eyepiece Because of the large mass of the Sun, NGC 2360 Bright, large, compressed, (like a Naglar) makes this excellent these traces translate into vast quantities rich and round. Easy to see in an average cluster fill the field of view with by earth standards. An interesting case in finder. This is a winter favorite. beautiful chains of stars and several dark point is the amount of gold in the Sun. lanes that meander through the cluster Monoceros like dusky rivers. Analysis of the solar spectrum NGC 2237 is a part of the Rosette yields a figure of about 9 gold atoms for Nebula. It is large enough that it got IC 2392 Faint, pretty small, round and every trillion (10^12) hydrogen atoms.