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Auburn Astronomical Society E-Newsletter December, 2006 In this Issue
This month’s meeting will be on Friday, December 1, at 8:00PM in room 215 of the Aerospace Engineering Building. Riders from the Montgomery area are welcome to meet at the home of Russell Whigham, 518 Seminole Dr., and carpool over to Auburn. Plan to be ready to leave for Auburn at 7:00PM. Our dark-sky star party this month will be on Saturday, December 16, at Cliff Hill’s farm, clouds permitting of course. December 1, December meeting
Scott Thompson hurried home from work and barely caught the event as the Sun slid into the trees. Here is Scott's image of the transit of Mercury.  Robert Rock called to explain why he has missed attending recent AAS meetings. Robert is engaged to be married and has been distracted lately. Congratulations, Robert! For Sale: Celestron C-8. Robert Rock Free to a good home: 10 years worth of Astronomy magazines. Scott Thompson Meade Sale on some new telescopes: Syd Spain I found us a new
dark sky site. It will be a long drive but imagine the views.
Shane Bledsoe
Let Loaner Scope steward, Rhon Jenkins, know if you (members only) would like to have your name added to the list to borrow either of the loaner telescopes. Q. Can someone explain why a long exposure photograph will show more detail than when looking through a scope? A. The scope's diameter is much larger than your eye's pupil diameter. In the ratio of (200 mm/6 mm)^2 = 1,100. That's a lot more light. That's 7.6 magnitudes gain due to aperture. This is called optical gain. Your eye takes "pictures " with an equivalent exposure time of 1/15 second. An imager typically exposes for one hour. The gain in signal is thus (3600/1/15) = 54,000. That's 11.8 magnitudes fainter than you can see with your eye through the eyepiece. Dennis Persyk
Hoping to see everyone at the meeting and the star party, Russell
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