We’ll hold this month’s meeting on Friday, April 3, at 7:45PM in room 215 of Davis Hall, the Aerospace Engineering Building.  The doors to the building automatically lock at 8:00PM, so if you’re running late, rap on the door nearest our meeting room and we’ll let you in. 

Our new moon star party this month will be on Saturday, April 25 at Cliff Hill’s farm, clouds permitting of course. 

Alternatively, is anyone planning to attend the Georgia Sky View '09, April 23rd – 26th ?   Is there any interest in a trip down to Conecuh National Forest on Saturday April 25?

April 3, AAS monthly meeting
April 23rd – 26th  Georgia Sky View '09
April 25, Dark-sky star party at Cliff Hill’s farm /Conecuh National Forest
May 2, Astronomy Day at the W. A. Gayle Planetarium

The Auburn Astronomical Society in partnership with the  W. A. Gayle Planetarium, will celebrate National Astronomy Day, at the planetarium in Oak Park in Montgomery,  on Saturday, May 2.  In recognition of the International Year of Astronomy, we’ll have an expanded role in astronomy education at this year’s event. 

This has traditionally been our best attended event of the year.  We extend a special invitation to those of you who live too far away to attend most of our events, to come and spend the afternoon and evening with us.  If you plan to attend, please let me know.  If you’re bringing telescopes, let us know what type(s) and size(s).  Planetarium director, Rick Evans, needs a list of names for the name tags and a head count for refreshments.

We've heard from the following volunteers to help with Astronomy Day this year.  If I've mis-remembered that you volunteered (or didn't), let me know.

• Ray Kunert , Meade LXD55 Refractor & Takahashi Sky90 
• Mike Holley,  Celestron CPC11, SCT; EXT-70
• Gail Smitherman, 127mm Maksutov 
• Eddie Kirkland, 16-inch Dob

Here is this year’s tentative agenda:

 2:00-3:00PM:  AAS members and friends begin setting up telescopes in time to have them ready by the time the visitors begin arriving.  If you can't be there that early, just come when you can.  We'll try to set up around the entrance to the planetarium first, and save the area to the east of the sidewalk for those who arrive later.

3:00PM: Early visitors will be able to view the eight-day-old Moon, and the Sun in the light of hydrogen-alpha with the AAS PST solar scope, and members’ scopes filtered white-light images.

5:00PM: Telescope Clinic will be open for guests to bring their sick, disassembled, or otherwise malfunctioning telescopes for repair.  This year, we will expand the telescope clinic to include a walking tour of our telescopes, stopping at each for the owner to describe his/her telescope, why they selected the one they did, and its assets and liabilities.  If it turns out that there are six SCT's, some owners could use their time to explain: 

• Why they have a box full of eyepieces and filters 
• How we use sky charts to find invisible things 
• Why there are batteries and wires
• Why we use dew shields and light shrouds 
• The convenience of "Go-To" scopes 
• Image orientation differences
• Focal length, aperture, f/ ratios, fields of view

6:00 PM: TBA guest speaker’s presentation in the auditorium and door-prize drawings.

7:00 PM: Rick will present  a "Tour of the Night Sky" in the planetarium, giving an overview of what the guests will see when they see when they step outside. 

07:27PM:  Sunset

8:00 PM:  The guests come out to view Saturn, its rings and retinue of moons; the mountains and craters of the eight-day-old Moon.   The Moon will be one day past first quarter, making the “Straight Wall” and lunar highlands an impressive view.

For those who have never attended one of our Astronomy Day events, you can get a feel for what goes on, by going to the “Field Trips” link from the AAS menu, then to “W.A. Gayle Planetarium Events”. 

Here are a few reminders to help make the most of your Astronomy Day experience:

• Remember to wear your AAS Shirt if you have one. 

• If you are considering the purchase of a telescope, this is a good place to look and ask questions.

• If you have a telescope or accessories for sale, this will be the best place in town for your yard sale.

• If you have some old telescope catalogs, the visitors are happy to have them.

• If you need AC power, Rick has a heavy duty extension cord feed, but you should bring your own cords to plug into that. It’s a good idea to have a tarp to put over the extension cords to prevent visitors from tripping in the dark.

• You'll probably want to bring a lawn chair and sunscreen lotion. 

• Don't forget your green laser -- always a hit with the guests.

• Be sure to bring a step stool or ladder if you anticipate the little ones having trouble getting to your eyepiece.

• It's OK to ease your vehicle up the sidewalk to unload your gear.  It would be nice to then move your vehicle out on the park road until the event is over.

• Many visitors will ask "What power is your telescope?".  If you can't do it in your head, it's a good idea to print out a list of your eyepieces and their magnifications.

• As I've stressed before, most of the visitors to Astronomy Day, while impressed with the larger telescopes, are mainly interested in the more modest, entry-level models, that they would be considering.  So, if you haven't volunteered because you thought your telescope was "too small", we really need your help.  Remember that most of the visitors will be starting out with telescopes just like yours.  Who else better to offer helpful suggestions to beginning astronomers? 

• The other most frequently asked questions are:  "How far can you see with that thing?"  If you don't know, "42 million light-years" has a nice ring to it. 

• And finally,  you’ll no doubt be asked, "How much did that thing cost?"  In most cases, “It’s cheaper than a bass boat” will suffice.  ;-)

MOTDF Stargaze
We’ll reschedule our Mary Olive Thomas Demonstration Forest event.  Possible dates will be discussed at the April meeting.

CPODD Stargaze at Children’s Harbor
Hello Ms. Dowdy,
At 09:21 PM 3/21/2009, you wrote:

I am the coordinator for at Center at UAB that cares for kids diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis (MS). The Center is called "CPODD" - Center for Pediatric Onset Demyelinating Disease. We are funded by the National MS Society. We provide comprehensive care to kids at Children's Hospital in Birmingham. MS is very rare in kids and often these families have never met another going through the same thing. MS is a chronic often disabling illness and there is no cure. 

We have begun holding a Family Retreat in June for our kids and their families. They come from all over the Southeast. This year's Retreat is at Children's Harbor in Alexander City. Our theme is "Reaching for the Stars Together". We aim for Retreat to be a time of encouragement, fun and learning for everyone there. 

Would your organization consider bringing some scopes to our Retreat to let the kids and parents star-gaze and learn from you? We think this would be a relaxing and novel activity.... especially since it's hard for a lot of folks to get away from city lights. Or do you know who else I might ask about this? 

Retreat is June 18-21st (Thursday - Sunday). We could possible offer an honorarium or reimburse travel expenses for anyone that would be willing to come out. 

Please let me know your thoughts and thank you for your time,

Sarah M Dowdy, MPH
Program Manager
Center for Pediatric Onset Demyelinating Diseases
University of Alabama at Birmingham
205-996-7633
www.uab.cpodd/edu

Thank you for seeking out the Auburn Astronomical Society.  How thoughtful of you to plan this for your young folks.  I apologize for the tardy reply, but I've been out of town for the past week and did not have access to my calendar.  I hope we can help the kids "Reach for the Stars".

The Moon will not be visible for viewing on the dates you mention, but I think the skies at Children's Harbor are sufficiently dark to view Saturn and more subtle celestial objects such as star clusters, nebulae, galaxies, binary stars. 

Most of our members are free to volunteer their time only on weekends and that Sunday is Father's Day, but  I think we can have enough telescopes for the stargaze.  Do you have some idea of the number of people who will be attending the retreat?  The reason I ask is that the weather in mid-June us quite unpredictable.  If we had a forecast of clouds for Saturday, perhaps a few of us could come up Thursday or Friday if the weather was better.  We like to have one telescope for every 5 or 10 guests to keep the queues reasonably short.

Because summer solstice, the day of most daylight, will fall on Sunday June 21, sunset on Saturday will be at 7:55 PM, and the sky will not be dark enough for telescopic viewing until about 45 minutes later.  Will this be too late?

Will access to the eyepiece present a problem?  Depending on where in the sky we're looking, the eyepiece height can vary from about three feet from the ground to a couple of steps up a ladder.  We have some latitude in our choice of objects to view and can probably minimize any extremes, but I wanted to make you aware of this issue.

Another concern is that we'll need a large open area to have full access to the entire night sky.  I just checked the Google Earth image of Children's Harbor, and see only one possible location near the lighthouse and chapel with somewhat limited horizons.  There is one other open location near the highway, but the lights from passing traffic would spoil the experience.  Are you familiar with the surroundings there?  If the lighthouse and chapel area is not an option, do you think a five minute drive to the Russell Amphitheater might be an option?

Thanks again for writing.  I'm looking forward to resolving any issues that may arise.

Russell

Then, 

From: "Sarah M. Dowdy" <smdowdy@peds.uab.edu>
30 Mar 2009 21:44:46.0452 (UTC) 

Russell,

Thank you for your reply! I’m so glad to hear that we might be able to make this work. I will try to answer your questions. 

We hope to have 20 families participate in the Retreat, but I’m not sure that we will have that many. So maybe about 80 people? Have ya’ll every tried to manage that many? I don’t think 9:00pm is too late to star-gaze and perhaps we could do a couple of shifts, so that we would send a couple of groups out there at a time. What is the typical group size that you do this with? 

I understand about the weather and I’m not sure which night would be best. Friday or Saturday would be better nights. Friday we have a campfire on the schedule at 9pm and that might be a good way to break-up the group. Some can be roasting s’mores at the fire while others go to the edge of the lake. And on Saturday we are having a dance party. And we could do sort of the same thing, where we send people in groups out to the lake. 

I don’t think the height of the telescope would be a problem. Most of our kids are ambulatory – in fact, most just look like normal kids. And when I saw ‘kid’, really most of our patients are teenagers, but of course, a lot will bring younger siblings. 

I think that area by the chapel and lighthouse if the most open. I’m not sure that there is much traffic on that road. I’m not sure if there are street lights out there either. Where is the Russell Amphitheater? I am not familiar with it. 

Again, thank you so much for your willingness to participate in our Retreat. I think this will be fun and new experience for a lot of our families. 
 
Sarah Middleton Dowdy, MPH
Program Manager, CPODD
Center for Pediatric Onset Demyelinating Disease
University of Alabama at Birmingham

Hello again,
At 04:43 PM 3/30/2009, you wrote:

Thank you for your reply! I’m so glad to hear that we might be able to make this work. I will try to answer your questions. 

We hope to have 20 families participate in the Retreat, but I’m not sure that we will have that many. So maybe about 80 people? Have y’all every tried to manage that many? I don’t think 9:00pm is too late to star-gaze and perhaps we could do a couple of shifts, so that we would send a couple of groups out there at a time. What is the typical group size that you do this with? 

 I don’t think the height of the telescope would be a problem. Most of our kids are ambulatory in fact, most just look like normal kids. And when I saw kid, really most of our patients are teenagers, but of course, a lot will bring younger siblings. 

 I think that area by the chapel and lighthouse if the most open. I’m not sure that there is much traffic on that road. I’m not sure if there are street lights out there either. Where is the Russell Amphitheater? I am not familiar with it. 

 Again, thank you so much for your willingness to participate in our Retreat. I think this will be fun and new experience for a lot of our families. 
 
Sarah Middleton Dowdy, MPH

You're welcome.  Thanks for asking,

Russell

Jim McLaughlin attended the launch of STS-119Space Shuttle Discovery on March 12.  We look forward to having a report from Jim.

Apr. 15 - NASA’s Ares 1-X test flight (4 segment solid rocket plus 1 dummy segment)
Apr. 28 - GOES weather satellite launch
Apr. 29 - ESA’s Herchel infrared space telescope & 
Apr. 29 - Planck cosmic background radiation satellite launch
May 6 - Checkout of Kepler satellite should be complete (2 months after Mar. 6 launch)
May 7 - Russian Progress 33P cargo ship to I.S.S.
May 12 - Space Shuttle Atlantis launch to Hubble Space Telescope 12:11 p.m. CDT
May 21  - NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter launch 4:32 - 5:32 p.m. CDT
May 27 - Soyuz TMA spacecraft with Expedition 20 crew to I.S.S.

Kalmbach Publishing is offering all issues of magazines Deep Sky and Telescope Making as PDF files for the very reasonable price of 3.95 an issue.  http://kalmbachcatalog.stores.yahoo.net/astronomy-deep-sky-articles-for-sale.html
 
 

Hoping to see everyone again soon,

Russell