Fall Messier Marathon planned for November. See Page 9 for details! Got an idea for a new club logo? Send a sketch to Harry Bearman FWAS August Meeting is Beautiful at Botanic Center Welcome New Our first meeting at the Fort Worth Botanic Garden Center was a great success! A Members! large turnout of 60 members was there to see Celebrity Astronomer Death Match-- Star Hoppers vs GoTo's. We met in the "Redbud" room, which has a nice window, kitchen Raude Woods with counter, white board/screen, and room enough for meeting essentials. Don Welch We were treated to a number of reports on Perseid observations, sunspot tracking, and Andy & Diane Lovejoy asteroid watching. Preston Starr had been able to video asteroid 2002NY40, and the Eric & Sandra Milfeld video was broadcast on CNN! Steve Richer also brought a set of NASA mission pins from the Mercury and Gemini missions. Inside this issue: The remainder of the meeting was a rousing match between Becky Nordeen (representing the star hopper crowd) and Doug Christianson (representing the (Continued on page 2) Observing Reports Between 930pm CDT and 1000pm the asteroid was passing thru Lyra almost straight overhead. Dobs and alt az mounted SCT's are very difficult to aim straight Saturday was a partial victory up, but since I was polar aligned it was a much easier for the GOTO guy and a task. minor concession to the starhoppers. Using the sky and telescope chart (see At the FWAS site, Harry, our SkyandTelescope.com/observing/objects/asteroids/) I exalted leader, on the big Dob began tracking the mag 6 star shown between the Los and me on the polar aligned Angeles and Boston tracks at the position where the Meade LX200 8" SCT. (Continued on page 2) Observing Reports (continued) FWAS August (continued) (Continued from page 1) (Continued from page 1) asteroid was scheduled for 10pm. I had a FOV of goto guys). The audience really got into the discussion, slightly over 1 degree so I could easily cover both tracks running the meeting into overtime. Noted FWAS on the S&T chart. In the concession to star hopping I philosopher and sage Bob Newman summed it up with a used my goto function to get to M57 then did a few hops metaphor: "It's like taking a vacation to Seattle--some people south and west to find the 1000pm target star. I could drive to see the country along the way, and others fly to get not automatically find and track the asteroid using my there and spend more time in the city." scope computer alone. Right on time the asteroid appeared and we tracked it westward thru Lyra and into Hercules for about 20 minutes. It was dimmer than any of the stars on the S&T mag 9 chart but substantially brighter that the limiting magnitude of my 8" on the bright gibbous moon night. Harry and I called it a magnitude 10. The asteroid was moving against the background at 8 arc minutes per minute so I would have to make tracking adjustments at least that often to keep it in view. Doug Christianson Little League Star Party.. Doug Christianson Five members of FWAS turned out on Saturday evening at the Optimist Club ball fields north of Fort Worth under that able leadership of Becky Nordeen . Bob Newman with Harry's green laser pointer, Barry Lieb with his gorgeous tripod and binocular mount for his 11x70's, Danny Arthur with his dob hunting down Uranus, Sandra Milfeld with her new dob, and Doug Christianson with his goto SCT. Several hundred young ballplayers attended a kickoff event at the ball fields and our star party was squeezed in after the hot dogs and the big screen movie and before bed check for all the campers. Probably a hundred kids and parents came to look through our scopes at Uranus, M13, Albierio, the Moon, and various other relatively bright objects prior to the clouds coming in and bed check. The star hoppers not only outnumbered the goto'ers Saturday, but proved one of their points as well. My Meade LX200 really objected to the lack of power from a 12v battery instead of its 18v power supply. I managed to complete a polar alignment before it quit, but after that I couldn't goto anything. I was almost in the dob mode, except that I was still tracking. So wouldn't you know, Becky's big dob advantage is true, any scope (hers was borrowed), anyplace (the optimist ballpark), and anytime (between the movie and lights out) actually rings true. However, there will be another day and a longer extension cord and the mighty goto will win at the star parties. BTW, if you haven't seen Sandra's new 10 inch DOB, you haven't seen anything. She said it was her "art piece" and that it had to be pretty enough to be stored in her living room. In the true sense of the sidewalk astronomers, her scope uses almost nothing from the store except the mirrors. So until she succumbs to the fever and adds a regulation focuser, Sandra won't be borrowing any eyepieces or filter cause they don't fit. Sandra reports that her scope has so many coats of special paint that she changed the balance several times in the process. The Planets: Mercury: Visible low in the western sky until mid-September, look for Mercury during the first half hour after sunset. Venus: September opens with Venus in the dusky southwestern sky only 1 degree from the bright star, Spica (in the constellation Virgo)! You can watch this planet brighten all month! Viewing time, however, narrows from almost two hours at the first of the month to an hour by month's end. Mars: Mars is spinning its way to aphelion, the farthest point in its orbit from us. The light from Mars is very dim this month, making it difficult to locate during the first two weeks of September. It rises a mere 30 minutes before the Sun in the eastern sky. This interval grows to 90 minutes by the end of September. Saturn: Rising in the east after 1 AM, Saturn remains visible for the remainder of the night. Technically, Saturn resides at the very edge of the constellation Orion, right above the tip of his club. Early risers will get a spectacular view of this planet high in the southern sky. Jupiter: The view provided by this giant planet is another good reason to get up in the predawn hours. Rising in the eastern sky, about 3 hours after Saturn, Jupiter passes within 1 degree of the Beehive Cluster for the first 10 days of the month. That distance stretches to 5 degrees by month's end. The Beehive Cluster (in Cancer the Crab) is an open cluster of stars 500 light years from Earth. The light from this cluster took 500 years just to get to your eyes! Use your binoculars to view this area of the sky to see why they call it a "beehive"! AUTUMN IS HERE! "Equinox" means equal hours of daylight and darkness. Because of the tilt of the earth in its orbit around the Sun, the Sun will cross the celestial equator on the evening of September 23rd at 11:55 PM CDT, as it heads south for the remainder of this year. This event is called the "autumnal equinox". Constellations: Aquila, Capricornus, Cygnus, Delphinus, Equuleus, Indus, Microscopium, Pavo, Sagitta, Vulpecula Looking for a Little More? If this Skyline whets your appetite, try this website: skymaps.com/downloads.html . It offers a two page pdf brochure that you can print out for free. It has a basic skymap and short lists of visual, binocular, and small telescope objects. It is really good--check it out! REMEMBER that the Sidewalk Astronomers will hold FREE public telescope viewing (weather permitting) on the north lawn of the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History on Saturday September 14 beginning at dusk. Come join in the fun and bring the family! For more information about the night sky, contact the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History's Noble Planetarium at (817) 255-9300 or E-mail at [email protected] . Compiled by FWAS members Don Garland and Linda Krouse of the Noble Planetarium, with selected editor's additions. Larry Smith's Palo Duro Canyon Astronomy Summer Larry Smith had the opportunity of spreading the good word about the Fort Worth Astronomy Society to visitors at Palo Duro State Park and The Badlands National Park this summer. Approximately 250 adults and children attended "Star Talks" at Palo Duro State Park in June. On one occasion Dr. Fred Koch brought several telescopes from Quanah, TX, to the park so that everyone could enjoy the stars. Along with Fred's visit came a FLASH FLOOD that marooned many visitors in their campgrounds until the highway department could clear out the low water crossings. Fred and Larry had to spend the night in the Assistant Park Superintendent's motor home! After spending a month at Palo Duro State Park, Larry had the opportunity to work as an Interpreter at The Badlands National Park in South Dakota. During July and early August he gave daily "Fossil Talks", "Geology Walks" and evening "Ranger Talks." The evening programs centered on constellations and other current topics of the day. The park has a natural amphitheater where slideshows were presented along with naked - eye star hopping for the hundreds of park visitors. Larry said: "You haven't seen dark skies until you visit Southwestern South Dakota! I could read by the illumination of the Milky Way!" Gene Dawson's New Scope! Last weekend I drove to Arcadia, Kansas to pick up my new Starmaster 14.5 inch telescope.