FirstLight Newsletter of the Alachua Astronomy Club 29° 39'N, 82° 21'W March 1996 Upcoming Club Meetings and Events March Club Meeting Date Tuesday, March 12 topic is titled: "One Dwarf, Two Dwarf, Red Time 7:30 p.m. Dwarf, White Dwarf" He will present Place Auditorium, Doyle Conner observation data and computer modeling Building, 1911 SW 34th St ideas about the bright emissive region on a red Speaker Mr. T. J. Vaccaro, Department of dward star as a result of flourescence f r o m a Astronomy, University of of Florida, will companion white dwarf star. present a talk about the star V471 Tauri. His 0 April Club Meeting Date Tuesday, April 9th Speaker Dr. Howard L. Cohen , Associate Time 7:30 p.m. Professor,UF Astronomy, and VP of AAC. Place Auditorium, Doyle Conner His topic is "Should the Lord Architect Have Building, 1911 SW 34th St. Left That Space Empty." 0 Upcoming Star Parties Star parties begin at sunset and meet at Bob Jacobs' unless otherwise stated. Address 9617 NW 143 St. (HWY. 241) —1.7 mi. North of Millhopper Rd. (HWY. 232). Look for Hurricane Harbor sign just past brick mailbox on right side of road. Go a few hundred feet up paved driveway to Bob's house. (Do not continue up onto dirt road) arriving before the sun goes down as a • Mar. 16 (Sat. Night); rain date Mar. 23. courtesy to the other astronomers. Maps will be available at the March 12 AAC meeting. Also on March 16, some AAC members are planning on a camping trip to the Chiefland No date set for April yet, on Thursday, Apr. 4 site; everyone is welcome, but please plan on there is a partial lunar eclipse. it FirstLight: Newsletter of the Alachua Astronomy Club Page 2 March Executive Council — Pamela Mydock (Tuesday, 6 P.M., March 5, at Shoney's Rest* nt on NW 13th Street) President John Brandorff conducted a Howard has passed an invitation for AAC club leisurely meeting, over dinner with eight club members to volunteer our time when UF members attending. classes are in session, on Friday evenings from 8:30 to 10, when it is clear. You don't Spring Events: First on the list was a have to bring a scope, just yourself. Come on discussion about Spring Arts Festival, down and greet the public and help out where Astronomy Day at the Oaks Mall on April 20, you can. 10 to 4, and the next Moonlight Walk at Kanapaha Botanical Gardens. It was decided ft that due to the lack of sunspot activity this year, the club would decline the invitation to participate in Spring Arts. Everyone feels that we need to concentrate our efforts at the Oaks and Kanapaha this year. More about this at the club meeting, but we will need volunteers to man the table at the Oaks in two shifts, from 10 to 1 and 1 to 4. This is a chance for us to FirstLight is the official, monthly publi- talk to the public about our hobby and show cation of the Alachua Astronomy Club our equipment. There will be no observing in (AAC), Gainesville, Florida. © 1996. All the parking lot. rights reserved. Send all written corres- pondence to: Astronomy for Money: The most important P.O. Box 13744 new development was a star party request by Gainesville, FL 32604-1744 USA 150 middle school children camping at Camp Send all E-mail messages to Kulaqua. They have offered to make a [email protected]. Send address donation to the club in thanks for our changes to AAC P.6; Box given above. For participation. We decided to use that money membership information^ contact Ryan for the monogram set-up fee, so we can order Loftus, AAC Treasurer, at 3 52^162-1227: AAC shirts. The date is Wednesday, March 20. Come out and help us look for Comet FirstLight Deadline: Submit articles for Hyakutake; the skies are very dark outside of the club newsletter by the third Tuesday High Springs. of each month. Send all material to Pamela Mydock, FirstLight Editor, P. O. Box 42, Brochures and Posters: Howard Cohen will Lochloosa, Florida 32662. (Send all other have the new brochures ready for us to hand correspondence to club's P.O. Box address out at the spring events. He also has a new above.) Submit articles printed in dark type; use a simple font (at least 14 pt. if possible). poster for club members to distribute at Double space between new paragraphs (do schools, libraries, etc. not indent). Better, E-mail articles in plain Public Nights at UF Campus Observatory: ASCII text to [email protected]. FirstLight: Newsletter of the Alachua Astronomy Club Page 3 Minutes: February Meeting — Pamela Mydock (Tuesday, 7:30 PM, February 13 at Doyle Conner Building, Gainesville) Treasurer's Report by Ryan Loftus: $355 application to the Oaks Mall for the club for dollars with fourteen members paid for 1996. Astronomy Day, April 20. Howard and John will design some posters. Star Party Report by Bruno Pancorbo: There was no report at the meeting because Misc: Hunter's Crossing McDonalds wants a Bruno was at the Winter Star Party. See his star party. The AAC resource directory needs written report elsewhere in this issue. to be updated. Brasington's has planospheres for $9. Rollo told a UFO story. Bob Jacobs Shirt Samples by John Brandorff: There is plans to attend the NEAR launch at the Cape a one time set up fee converting our logo into (see his written report elsewhere in this a monogram; John brought some samples of newsletter). the quality available locally. No minimum is required. Speaker: Howard Cohen introduced the guest speaker, Dr. Francisco Reyes. <Jt Spring Events: Don Loftus will submit an North Central Florida's Amateur Astronomy Club AAC meets every second Tuesday of e a c h month, at 7:30 p.m., in the Doyle Conner Building, 1911 S.W. 34th Street (at S.W. 20th Avenue), Gainesville, Alachua County, Florida, USA. General public and beginning stargazers are invited to all meetings, star parties and club events. No equipment needed. Call an officer (area code 352) for more info or e-mail [email protected]. President John Brandorff Star Parties Bruno Pancorbo Gainesville (375-1043) Gainesville (373-0279) Vice-President Howard L. Cohen FirstLight Gainesville (376-5833) Editor Pamela Mydock Lochloosa (481-5238) Treasurer Ryan Loftus Alachua (462-1227) Publisher Chuck Broward Secretary Mark Cowan Melrose (475-1014) Gainesville (375-2564) World Wide Web Home Page at URL http://wyw.asrro.uiLedu/-<ohen/aac FirstLight: Newsletter of the Alachua Astronomy Club Page 4 Project NEAR Satellite Launch — Robert Jacob The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory launched the first Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) mission from the Cape. As the first spacecraft to orbit an asteroid, the goal is to answer fundamental questions about the nature and origin of asteriods and comets in the vincinity of our planet iursday, February 15,1996, prior to and gave the Planetary Society members Tthe launch of the Project NEAR a detailed account of the planned launch sattelite from the Kennedy Space Center, using a Delta rocket. scheduled for Saturday, the 17th, a Cheng described the "slingshot" method Planetary Society preview meeting was of getting the payload sattelite to the held at the NASA Visitor Center at the region of the Asteroid Belt, by way of Cape. The program entitled "A New Era near-Earth proximity on its second Earth of Discovery is NEAR," featured orbit intersection. The sattelite will reach speakers from N A S A and Johns Hopkins Eros, the target asteroid, at a distance of University. 1.78 A.U. in January of 1999. It will then For NASA, Wesley T. Huntress, go into a differential orbit around Eros for Associate Administrator, Office of Space one year. During that time it will test, Science, gave the attendees background measure, and otherwise probe the surface on the Discovery series of planned and composition of the asteroid with the launches to explore planetary objects. devices on board. This first launch will test out the philosophy of "faster, better, cheaper" in Cheng also commented briefly on the designing future missions on relatively Mars Global Surveyor project with the modest budgets. introduction of a video, showing the design phases of the Mars Lander and Following Mr. Huntress to the podium Rover vehicle. was Dr. Andrew Cheng, NEAR project scientist for the Applied Physics For those interested in accessing updates Laboraroty and featured speaker. The on Project NEAR, the web address is introduction of Dr. Cheng indicated he http://www.jhuapl.edu. The Planetary attended Columbia University before Society web home page address is attaining a doctorate, from Princeton http://planetary.org. University. His talk was well illustrated FirstLight: Newsletter of the Alachua Astronomy Club Page 5 "Orange Blossom Special" Star Party — John Brandorff On Saturday, February 17, John Brandorff and Dale Neideritter attended the St. Petersburg Astronomy Club (SPAC) star party at Hickory Hill in Brooksville ecause the night temperature was inside by 10 or 11 PM. Wimps! We had Bexpected to get below freezing, plenty of warm gear on, so we stuck it out Dale and I didn't expect much of a until about 3 AM, when the clouds crowd. So we were pleasantly surprised started to roll in. We spent most of our to see about 20-25 'scopes when we time looking through my C-14, and of a arrived. The site, called Hickory Hill, nearly 18" Dobsonian.