The Spectrum The News Letter of the Buffalo Astronomical Association VVoolluummee 1x2x Issue 1x JanMuoanryth//FMebornutahryYe2a0r10 Presidents Corner Happy Happy… I hope the holidays were peaceful and joy filled and your stockings filled with all sorts of cool astronomy stuff to play with in the new year. I’m writing this in the closing days of the International Year of Astronomy, reflecting back on a very busy year of programs. I missed In this Issue... Mike’s year in review summary at this year’s Holiday Party… I In this Issue... hope he’ll find time to make it for a future meeting. One day I Page 1: Presidents Corner am going to sit down and watch the hour long video my Page 2: brother­in­law captured of Cliff Stoll bounding up and down NASA News Hamlin Hall at our dinner banquet… will be sure to take some Page 4: soothing medication first. New Book Ken Kimble Up and coming… Page 5: BAA Dinner Our January meeting (January 8th) will follow recent tradition Page 6: as we gather at Williamsville North Planetarium. BAA member SIGs and Planetarium Director Mark Percy will present two new Page 7: programs for the us: Bad Astronomy will debunk common January Meeting misconceptions about the Universe and help make "good" Holiday Nebula Filter astronomers of us all. IBEX: Search for the Edge of the Solar Demo System details the IBEX spacecraft's mission to explore the Page 8: outer realm of the solar system using energetic neutral atom What's up (ENA) imaging to create the first global mapping of the region Page 11: where solar wind ends and interstellar space begins. Arrive at BAA Annals 7:00pm for hot cider and a good seat – the shows begin Page 12: promptly at 7:30. Universal Thanks Evening Star On February 12th we return to our new meeting room at Buffalo State (Classroom building C122). Our speaker will be Peggy Slonicki rare book librarian at the Buffalo and Erie County Public Library who will present Milestones of Astronomy, a talk Continued on page 3 NASA News clouds and the time of day. A nightime Bob Hughes launch can probably be seen longer than a daytime launch. I was able to observe the I have accepted the invitation made by nightime launch of STS­126 into clear skies our Spectrum editor Mike Benz at the for almost 7 minutes from a vantage point November BAA meeting to write an in Titusville which is 12 miles west of pad article about space exploration. I hope 39A. I saw the shuttle light up nightime sky to make this a regular series of articles like a rapid sunrise. about manned and unmanned space missions with an emphasis on After 1 minute I could hear the loud rumble astronomical space missions. of the shuttle rocket engines. The solid rocket booster separation could easily be The year 2010 will mark the end of the observed at the 2 minute mark after which space shuttle era with a series of 5 shuttle the shuttle, like a moving Venus, moving launches to the International Space Station Northward and upward for the next 5 (ISS). The 2010 NASA launch schedule, minutes till it finally disappeared out of which can be accessed at sight. http://www.nasa.gov/missions/highlights/sc hedule.html, lists the 5 Space shuttle After the STS­126 launch there were heavy launches, STS­130, STS­131, STS­132, traffic jams in the Titusville area especially STS­134 and the final Space Shuttle on the routes back to Orlando so be mission STS­133. prepared for this. Be aware all remaining shuttle launches are missions to the The best areas see a shuttle launch from International Space Station (ISS). For each the ground, up into space are along the Shuttle ISS rendezvous mission there is Indian River at Titusville or the Route only a 10 minute launch "window" with the 508/A1A Causeway to Port Canaveral south exact time of the shuttle launch at the of the Kennedy Space Center (KSC). Please midpoint of that window on the scheduled note that tickets to view the shuttle launch day. launches from the NASA Visitors Complex or from the NASA Causeway are currently not If there is technical problem or a bad available. weather at the time of the window the launch will be scrubbed till the next To determine if the Shuttle launchpad available launch window which usually (Complex 39A) can be seen from your occurs 24 hours plus 20 minutes later the vantage point look for the Vehicle Assembly next day. There is no point waiting around if Building (VAB). If you can see this large the scheduled launch time has passed. white cube looking building you should be able to see the shuttle Complex 39A which I highly recommend you bring along a is 2 miles North of the VAB. A shuttle launch police scanner and program the frequency unfolds very quickly like a total solar 146.94 mhz which can be heard in the Cape eclipse. You will only be able to see the Canaveral/ Titusville area. Shuttle to shuttle for only a couple of minutes. Capcom communications and NASA public announcements on the shuttle launch The amount of time the shuttle is visible status can be heard on this frequency so depends on whether there are intervening Continued on page 3 Page 2 Prez Corner continued... Nasa continued... you can be informed if the shuttle launch is centered on the incredible collection of rare scrubbed. There is a lot more I could talk books and historic writing that can be found about in relation to the space shuttle in the collection of our own downtown launches but I would like to move on to library. Starting with a work by Aristarchus write about 2 upcoming astronomical space of Samos republished in 1572, the missions which will be put into orbit soon. presentation will touch on major discoveries in astronomy through the 19th and early The first of these missions is the Wide­field 20th century as described in first edition Infrared Survey Explorer(WISE) mission publications by Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, which should already be launched 12/14/09 William Herschel and LaPlace. by the time you read this article. The WISE And while your 2010 calendar is out, be mission will have a sensitive infrared sure to reserve Saturday evening, March telescope cooled to 30 degrees Kelvin 13th for our annual dinner banquet. WIVB which will launched into a polar orbit. This weatherman Don Paul will be our special telescope will be 500,000 times more guest speaker… the details on reservations sensitive than the Cosmic Background will follow soon. Explorer (COBE) and 1000 time more sensitive than IRAS. What’s New… This mission will last 7 months and will generate 1.5 million infrared images over Why… members and more members! Thirty­ that time period. The other astronomical five have joined the BAA during the mission I will discuss is The Solar Dynamics International Year of Astronomy and though Observatory (SDO). This mission is a high I’ve welcomed a few in an earlier column, I resolution solar observing satellite that is am way remiss for many others… hence, scheduled to be launched 2/3/2010 from apologies and a hearty ahoy to: Cape Canaveral into a geosynchronous orbit. It will relay what is being described Matt & Phyllis Andrews, Dave & Melissa as an avalanche of data to an antenna Bogert, Randy Boswell, Carl Byers, located in Los Crucis New Mexico. This Stephanie Carmichael, Robert Cox, Bryan satellite has state of the art Czerwinski, Katherine Daly, Ron & Delphine instrumentation and computer power and Dekanski, Kevin Duggan, Jack Ewing, will be able to study new found solar Steven Hapeman, Patricia Harris, Luai & phenomenon like subsurface solar jet Daser Ibrahim, Brendan Kilcoyne, Jonathan streams. Kranock, Darand Land, John Marino I covered a lot of space in this article so I (welcome back, John), Jerad Marx, James will wrap it up. In upcoming articles I will Minter, Malcolm & Renee Oubre, Zachery discuss the improvements to the Hubble Pace, Paul Robinson, Douglas Rollain, Space Telescope (HST) and other space Christopher Smith, Hugo Tavarez, Robert missions such as the Spirit and Opportunity Wengewicz, James Wilson and Irene Mars Rovers. Ziarnowski… we are happy you are here. See you in the To all my BAA friends, good health, clear next Spectrum. skies and very best wishes! Alan Page 3 New Book Publication By BAA impacts a main sequence star its kinetic Member energy is transferred to the star, because a low pressure wake is formed on the Hubble Space Telescope Identifies downstream side of the star. Dark Energy Using Hubble, and other observatory Cenkner, August A. Jr., B.A., B.S., M.S., images, it is shown that the three Ph.D., dimensional pushing behavior of this ISBN: 978­1­4490­1134­5 (sc) spherical shock wave results in the LOC Control Number: 2009907731 acceleration of galaxies (i.e. dark energy) B&W and much more – for example the eventual 90 pgs evolution of: revolving astronomical bodies, 8.5x11 galaxies, Galaxy Streams, Voids, Walls, 8/3/2009 Clusters, colliding galaxies, and galaxies www.authorhouse.com with relative motions away from and $10.70 toward earth. INTRODUCTION Ken Kimble Rowland A. Rupp Astronomical data that was obtained by the Former BAA member Ken Kimble was very Hubble space telescope, and other active in club affairs in the late 1970s observatories, were reviewed for any though the 1980s. He served as Secretary information that would shed light on the from 1980 to 1986, was elected to the identification of dark energy – the BAA's college of Fellows in 1985, wrote the mysterious repulsive force that accelerated BAA Annals in the early 1980s and at the far away galaxies.