Highlights of the February Sky. - - - 3rd - - - PM: Saturn 0.5º right of Beehive star cluster (M44) PrimePrime FocusFocus - - - 5th - - - A Publication of the Kalamazoo Astronomical Society First Quarter Moon PM: Mars below Moon. Pleiades upper left of February 2006 Moon - - - 9th - - - PM: Pollux left, Castor upper left of Moon. ThisThis MonthsMonths KAS EventsEvents - - - 10th - - - PM: Saturn below, Pollux General Meeting: Friday, February 3 @ 7:00 pm above Moon. Kalamazoo Area Math & Science Center - - - 11th - - - PM: Saturn upper right of Board Meeting: Sunday, February 12 @ 5:00 pm Moon. Sunnyside Church - 2800 Gull Road - All Members Welcome - - - 12th - - - Full Moon Young Astronomers: Tuesday, February 21 @ 6:30 pm PM: Regulus below Moon. Trinity Reformed Church - See Page 11 for Details - - - 13th - - - PM: Regulus upper right Observing Session: Saturday, February 25 @ 7:00 pm of Moon. February Freeze Out - Kalamazoo Nature Center - - - 14th - - - PM: Mars passes 2º left of Pleiades next 5 evenings. - - - 17th - - - InsideInside thethe Newsletter.Newsletter. .. .. PM: Venus at greatest brilliance. Spica beside Moon. January Meeting Minutes....................... p. 2 Board Meeting Minutes......................... p. 2 - - - 20th - - - AM: Jupiter above Moon. Observations........................................... p. 3 - - - 21st- - - Young Astronomer Minutes................ p. 3 AM: Antares left of Moon. Starbooks................................................. p. 4 Last Quarter Moon Rise and Fall of Lunar Observing........ p. 5 - - - 24th - - - Dusk: Mercury at greatest NASA Space Place.................................. p. 7 elongation, visible low in Hubble Reveals the Orion Nebula..... p. 8 west. Star Parties in 2006................................ p. 9 - - - 27th - - - New Moon February Night Sky................................ p. 10 - - - 28th - - - KAS Officers & Announcements........ p. 11 Dusk: Mercury upper right of crescent Moon. www.kasonline.org February 2006 Page 2 January Meeting Minutes Board Meeting Minutes The general meeting of the Kalamazoo Astronomical Soci- The KAS Board met at 5:00 p.m. on January 15, 2006 at ety was brought to order by President Richard Bell on Fri- Sunnyside Church. Present were Board Members Dave An- day, January 6, 2006 at 7:10 pm EST. Approximately 35 drews, Beverly Byle, Richard Bell, Rich Mather, Jack Price, members and guests were in attendance at the Kalamazoo Frank Severance, Dave Woolf, and Roger Williams. KAS Area Math & Science Center (KAMSC). Before introducing members Jean DeMott and Andy Robins were also present. the feature presentation, Richard announced that this meet- ing officially begins the 70th anniversary of the KAS. Rich Mather distributed the treasurer’s report, showing a current balance of $6,461.42. Cash inflow during December The feature speaker of the evening was KAS member and was mostly from dues ($705, with approximately $400 yet to WMU Associate Professor of Chemistry Dr. John Miller. be deposited), while expenses were from meeting costs His presentation was called Manzanita: The World’s Larg- (including the December party) and supplies. est Amateur Telescope?. John briefly discussed his attempt to measure the speed of light from distant objects (preferably The program calendar for 2006 is primarily covered. July quasars) with the 12" SCT in Owl Observatory, but realized and November remain open, but Richard reported that he has he needed a “bigger light bucket”. guest speakers in mind. New business began with a consid- eration of a time and place for the February Freeze Out. The After turning to Google, he discovered the 48", f/12.5 date was set for February 25th, either at the Nature Center or Ritchey-Chrétien telescope housed in a large roll-off roof a park on 32nd Street in Richland. The latter was also sug- observatory 100 miles east of San Diego on the edge of the gested as a site for the Messier Marathon. Rich Mather will Manzanita Reservation. The telescope and observatory is check on the availability of the park for our use. owned and operated by the Tierra Astronomical Institute, which is a private non-profit consortium. The group was Richard suggested that the position of Newsletter Editor be actually initiated as part of a tax-reduction strategy. The removed as a board position. After some discussion, there mirror for the telescope was obtained for free from the back was agreement that this might make sense. Dave Andrews of a truck and only had a minor defect on the edge. moved to poll the membership to make the required change in the Bylaws, and the motion was passed. Richard will John mentioned some of the neighbors. One was the Campo check the Bylaws to determine what process to follow. Reservation, which operates the Golden Acorn Casino. For- tunately, they installed Dark Sky compliant lighting. A wind We then discussed the current situation with a telescope farm is also located just a couple dozen yards to the south of workshop at the Air Zoo on January 20th, for which the KAS the observatory and is only a minor obstruction. A bit fur- is listed as co-sponsor. Neither Richard nor the Board had ther down the road is Tierra del Sol, a massive observing been consulted about this event, and all were agreed that the complex owned by the San Diego Astronomical Association. KAS name should not be attached to any activity without some approval process. No further action was taken at this John then went into detail about the research project he and time, but the suggestion was made that we should develop a his brother (Thomas) began several years go. Their goal is written policy for KAS endorsement of events. to test the De Sitter cosmological model. Their method is to measure the speed-of-light from highly redshifted objects Open House Day at the Nature Center is scheduled for April such as quasars. The general hypothesis is that the speed-of- 22nd, which is also Earth Day. This seems a good date for light is different for very distant objects. To do this, they Astronomy Day, and the Board voted to plan for this date. filter light from the object through a very thin fiber optic cable into their apparatus. A heavy wind spoiled their first In the Member Comments portion of the agenda, Andy Rob- attempt and they plan to return to Manzanita in the spring. ins gave a brief summary of possible activities for those in- terested in radio astronomy. Andy agreed to work with Richard then gave his President’s Report after the snack Frank and Jack in preparing a proposal for how the KAS break. He introduced the 2006 Board and outlined his goals could initiate some activity in this area. Jean DeMott re- for the new year. Bill Nigg reported the discovery of a new ported that her plant sales generated $873 last year, well comet and that it may reach 6th magnitude by March. Carol above expectations. She plans to continue with this very Van Dien mentioned that the Stardust spacecraft is about to successful fundraiser for the KAS during the next year. return samples from Comet Wild 2. Upcoming events were discussed and Richard gave a tour of our web site, KAS The next meeting was set for February 12th, 5:00 pm, at Sun- Online. The meeting concluded at 9:31 pm. nyside Church. The meeting was adjourned at 6:50 pm. February 2006 Page 3 ObservationsObservations YYoungoung AstronomeAstronomerr By Richard S. Bell Meeting Minutes Well, I’d say 2006 is off to an excellent start. Everyone A holiday-break overnighter for the Young Astronomers seemed to enjoy John Miller’s presentation at the January was held on December 27th. Four Young Astronomers and General Meeting. Let’s hope he keeps us up-to-date on his two Boy Scout friends attended this planning meeting with attempts to measure the speed-of-light from quasars. If I a great presentation on model and real rocket engines by could, I’d bet money it’ll turn out to be 299,792.458 (currently former) KAS member Matt Borton. The youth km/sec, but who knows - stranger things have happened! then watched movies (and played Game Boys) all night! After some disappointing turn-outs the past couple of at- The Young Astronomers met again on Tuesday, January tempts, I was delighted to see such a good size crowd at 17th at Trinity Reformed Church. A few regular members Full Moon Theater on January 14th. Jack Price counted 23 of the audience were missing due to school finals, but a folks in all. We even picked up two new members! total of five attendees were present, two of which are KAS (Welcome Thomas Tyler and welcome BACK Jack Roach members. Young Astronomer Coordinator Carol Van Dien - who was originally a member in the late 1970’s.) The presented a neat movie from the Discover Channel, If We program we watched that night, A Sidewalk Astronomer, Had No Moon. will be available in the KAS Library beginning with the February General Meeting. It’s a nice documentary. The movie showed a simulation of the latest theory of how the Earth got our moon; a rogue planet named Orpheus We have some pretty good activities lined up for February crashed into the young Earth, melding its core with ours. as well. The Air Zoo’s Stewart Bailey will give the feature Resulting debris eventually formed our moon. The movie presentation at the general meeting on February 3rd. He’ll showed what the Earth would be like if this wouldn’t have discuss and show slides of his 1997 behind-the-scenes tour happened; it would be a very different place that would be of the Russian Space Program. difficult for life to thrive on. We also scheduled another February Freeze Out for the With no Moon, there could be blizzards over the Sahara 25th at the Nature Center.