This month's meeting will be on Friday, October 1, at 8:00 PM, in room 215 of the Aerospace Engineering building, on the campus of Auburn University. Montgomery area car-poolers are welcome to meet at my house to group up and travel over to "The Loveliest Village", but I'll be out of town for my son's wedding, therefore, unable to attend this month. Departure time should be 7:00 PM.

Several of us will be in Mississippi for the Deep South Regional Star Gaze, on the night of October 9, the star party Saturday. For those keeping closer to home, you can decide at the meeting this Friday if you want to go to Hart's Field, or the Snipes' farm or perhaps one of our suggested "new" locations. See below… 
 

On Friday, September 17, under the light of a first quarter Moon, Jack McDaniel, Robert Rock and your editor, took our telescopes to the Emerald Mountain Christian School, located between Wetumpka and Montgomery. Teresa Johnson, who teaches science to the middle grades there, called to say they were studying astronomy and asked if we could bring our telescopes to the school and give the students some hands-on astronomy. Following a picnic supper of hotdogs and fixin's, we each described our telescopes -- explaining the advantages and disadvantages of each as we waited for dark. After comparing views of the Moon through each of the telescopes, separate lines formed behind each of the telescopes as we showed them Ares (Mars) and Antares, the rival of Mars, which were ideally placed for comparison; the vivid contrasting colors of the double star, Alberieo; the open cluster M-11; the classic globular, M-13; and as many other telescopic highlights as the Moon would permit. Jack showed the kids how to find the Dippers and North Star, and a few constellations. We were fortunate to have a couple of bright satellites pass overhead, and explained to tell the difference between airplanes and satellites. As usual Moms and Dads enjoyed the show at least as much as the kids. We received a nice thank you note from Teresa. She also offered the school's property as a possible dark sky site for our club.

Tom McGowan and I went to Holley's field on Sunday night following the September meeting and stayed all night with no problems. When we first got there, it was cloudy, but after about 30-45 minutes it cleared off, but the transparency totally sucked. We tried to view a few of our favorite galaxies, but couldn't see them very well, so we concentrated on planetary nebulae instead. Tom had a list of challenging objects to find, so we started off on the quest.

First up was PK 80-6.1 in Cygnus, also called the "Egg Nebula". it’s like a mag 12 or 12.5 and really small. The northern component showed to be larger, rounder and stood out more clearly as the southern component appeared more of a smeared streak not unlike a comet tail. It is small at only a few arc-seconds across. Best detail at 448x.. Tom found it in his 20" and then we found it in my 10". We had to really pump up the magnification in order to tell it from the stars. 

At this point I had had enough of looking for obscure stuff that takes forever to find and I started to go back to my list, but since it was mostly galaxies, I finished it really quick (I didn’t attempt to find any.) Next we viewed Humason 1-2, also known as PK 86-8.1, located in Cygnus. Hu 1-2 is virtually stellar until I bumped the power to 224x.At 448x it started to show itself somewhat like M-76 but much, much smaller.  It is a mere 8.3 arcseconds across.  I attempted Merrill 2-2 (PK 100-8.1) in Lacerta but my efforts were in vain. Eyestrain stopped my efforts, not to mention it’s size of less than 5-arcseconds. He started to look for another, I don’t remember the name, but when he saw that it was only 5" in size he said screw this and decided to look at easy stuff. After Tom had had enough and lay down to take a nap in his car, I decided to look at Jupiter. To my surprise, Europa’s shadow was nearly 1/3 of the way across the disc and the moon itself was only about 30-45 minutes away from beginning to pass in front of the planet. As an added bonus, the GRS was also beginning to transit. I watched this spectacle at magnifications varying from 150x to over 500x. My best view was with Tom’s 9mm Nagler and Big Barlow in my 10" at 316x, the seeing was about a 9/10, very steady. I could see all kinds of detail in the bands, many festoons around the GRS. I watched as Europa passed in front of the disc and I could still see it against the background of Jupiter! I occasionally switched over to Saturn and was treated to very nice views. The Cassini division was so big you could drive a truck through it and I managed to briefly catch a glimpse of the Encke division, it appeared as a very thin black line right near the outer edge of the "A" ring. The Crepe ring was very easy, it appeared as a grayish brown color on the very inside of the ring system. The shadow of the planet on the rings created the 3D affect we love so much. As Saturn approaches Opposition, this will get smaller and disappear, then reappear after opposition on the other side. Viewing these two gas giants is going to be very nice this fall. I can't begin to describe the difference in planetary detail visible in the 10" dob vs. the 8" SCT.

Phillip

Phillip Hosey has his terrific CCD images at his new Web page address: http://www.mindspring.com/~jphosey/index.html . We've also been "Mooned" by Jim Chesnutt http://www.chesnutt.net/moon/moon.htm with his afocal digital images of Luna through his C-8.

Please join me in welcoming Dawn L. Gordon, gordond@dot.state.al.usand John E. Peters jepeters@mindspring.com both of Montgomery to the mailing list. We look forward to seeing both of them at or meetings and star parties. As usual, thanks to Rick Evans and the staff at the W. A. Gayle Planetarium for the referrals.
 
 

Scientists are beginning to understand a November meteor shower called the Leonids.

You might recall them as last fall’s much-anticipated meteor storm. Early in 1998, the shower’s parent comet, Temple-Tuttle, swept through Earth’s neighborhood with a fresh batch of dust, as it does every 33 years.

Shortly after the comet’s previous visit, in 1966, western North Americans were treated to a 20-minute storm of 144,000 meteors per hour. Memories of the downpour sent satellite operators running for cover (Hubble even closed its telescope door) and sky enthusiasts dashing for clear skies.

As it turned out, the ‘98 Leonids didn’t storm. Not only that, meteor activity peaked 16 hours before predictions, yielding a paltry 260 meteors per hour for observers in Europe.

So why the fizzle? David Asher of Ireland’s Armagh Observatory and Rob McNaught of the Australian National Observatory have an answer. They say Earth plowed through cometary dust twisted into a braid by gravitational effects within our solar system. Their modeling accounts for gravity’s wildcard and predicts not only what this year’s Leonids will do, but also when they will do it . . . to within five minutes.

The forecast? McNaught and Asher say 1999 and 2000 will produce exceptional showers, in the range of 1,200 meteors an hour.

This year’s peak will be on November 17 at 9:08 p.m. EST, which will favor early-morning viewers in Europe and the Middle East. Morning is the best time to see meteors because it is Earth’s morning hemisphere that dives headlong into dust along our planet’s orbital path around the Sun.

North American meteor-watchers can expect 20 meteors an hour on the mornings of November 17 and 18.

The 2000 Leonids will sport a similar climb and falloff, with observers in Asia having front row seats. But storm warnings could be posted for 2001 and 2002, when rates could climb to 35,000 and 25,000 meteors an hour, respectively. Watchers in the Eastern Hemisphere are favored for those potentially spectacular views as well.

My fiancée Lucille Petruny has recently moved to Auburn to take a position as an Instructor at AU. She has studied Astronomy for some time at Connecticut universities and is a very knowledgeable amateur astronomer. In the moving process, all of her telescopes (built with John Dobson) were damaged in various ways. In particular, a 10 inch Dobsonian has been damaged by being mishandled such that its mirror has dropped off the mounting inside the tube. She needs to get this scope functioning again shortly as she is going to use it to give a telescope lesson and viewing session to school children at Camp ASCCA on October 11-12. Is someone in the AAS knowledgeable enough and willing to render assistance in repairing and calibrating this scope for her? If so, please call her at 334 821-8960. Any assistance or suggestions you have would be appreciated. You can reply this e-mail address for the time being, as her computer is not hooked up yet. THANKS!

David T. King, Jr., Professor, Dept. of Geology 
Auburn University, Auburn, AL 36849-5305 
USA VOICE 334 844-4882, -4282 FAX 334 844-4486
 
 

Kentucky amateur Ollie Jacobs has revealed a hitherto untold story from the 1999 Peach State Star Party.  It seems that, after enjoying a full rack of BBQ ribs on Saturday afternoon, Ollie retired to his tent to write a review on the 151 White Lightning bourbon he had purchased in the hills of Tennessee from an undisclosed still. Ollie is patron of the Glasgow Bourbon Appreciation Club and had been sent by its members for this worthy task. He clearly recalls having consumed a " half-a-jug " and stepping out of his tent into the night to answer the call of nature. And then nothing until he opened his eyes, and saw, by dim flickering light, a metallic shell above him. Dark, curiously out of focus figures moved about him, some inspecting him by ruby red light. He must have been held by some powerful force field, as, unable to move, he could make no resistance.

Becoming unconscious again, he awoke after dawn with a bruise to the back of his head, and his brain feeling like it had been probed by alien devices. Ollie, who is currently writing his autobiography, suspects he may have been taken through time and space to another dimension, to which the "gate" is still open:"...  Each time I have me a nice long taste of me bourbon, the "gate" opens again for me...", he states.

Carefully cutting out a section of rock containing spar/conichalcite of little color or commercial value, Harry cut a 20-in disc, and making his own version of a hindle machine, started grinding with six grades of finely sieved desert sand, aided by an early edition of Texerou. He built his own Foucault tester, searched a car wrecking yard at Orrillo until he found a wing mirror from a 1961 Vanguard Utility which was almost an optical flat, and after several months of hard work, finishing with star testing, had a fully functional set of optics for a 20-in f/6. Polishing was done using tar laps on those winter nights when the temperature was just right to get the correct hardness, the polishing agent being finely ground bull-dust from beside the local movie theater. In this pre-Dobson era, Harry opted for a mount using a mirror cell welded out of light rail track ( from abandoned mines ) and set in a surplus council concrete mixer from which Harry had carefully chipped the hardened concrete. The skeleton tube was finely crafted out of California redwood, and an elaborate gear train, which included two Limited Slip Differentials, seven gearboxes, and various pieces of three mountain bikes completed the drive mechanism.  Mr. Janos silvered the optics himself using silver nitrate. The dry, non-polluted desert air is so clean that thirty years later, the surface remains untarnished.  His eyepieces and finder came from three pairs of binoculars in various states of disrepair.

Since its inauguration, Harry had used the scope every clear night.  He observed all the Messier objects and all the NGC objects visible from his latitude.  Harry had discovered 9 comets, but unfortunately the mail is so slow from Why that the credit has gone to others with quicker means of communication.  He was fond of planetary nebulae, and was of the opinion that his scope showed many more than appeared in the catalogues.  Harry was last working through the extended catalog of lesser Murrell objects, and had hoped to see one some night.

Harry, may the stars fill your heaven.

Until we meet again, Clear Skies,

Russell