Pegasus
Volume 33 Issue 4
Autumn
2007
In this issue:
Pegasus is a bimonthly
publication of the Berks County Amateur Astronomical Society
Editor/Desktop publisher: Melody Gardner
E-Mail submissions may be made to:
dblhlx@earthlink.net
2007 Slate of Officers
Prez -
Dave Brown
Veep -
Bret Cadmus
Trea$urer -
Linda $en$enig
Secretary/Night Sky Network
-
Barb Geigle
Webmaster -
Mike Bashore
Hotline - Paul Becker
PR -
Barry Shupp
Pegasus Editor, Etc. -
Melody Gardner
President’s Message
Fall is here, but it still feels like summer. If you haven't
already done so, get out and enjoy the Milky Way sights that are directly
overhead right now. From Sagittarius in the south to Cygnus high above,
there are many clusters and nebulas to see with any optical aid, bino's and
telescopes.
If you would like more than just observing, maybe an
organized event would be what you want. Nearby, in Bucks County, is the
Stella-Della Valley star watch, held Sept 30—Oct 2.
Or, you also have the chance to hear and meet a famous
astronomer, David Levy, who will be at the Lehigh Valley Amateur
Astronomical Society’s 50th anniversary banquet on October 13th. LVAAS has a
rich and storied history that you would learn about, and it would be
exciting meet Mr. Levy.
(Editor’s
Note—Contact Melody at 610-844-6931 for details or tickets.)
Finally, come out to the new Planetarium shows here at the
Museum. The upgrades made recently gives planetarium shows a whole new
meaning. You might even see a BCAAS member running the show, as 5 of us are
"in training" to present shows when regular staff members can't.
Be sure to say hello, and don't forget to ask us some tough
questions after the show! Have a great Summer and I’ll see
you soon!
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Why would the center pole of
WoodHenge be displaced? Find out in this article!
|
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WoodHenge Submitted by
Gary Shugar
Woodhenge, Cahokia, Another
Ancient Observatory: What makes them think that?
In
the Native American mound city of Cahokia, in current Illinois near St.
Louis, there is a 410 foot diameter circle of 48 post holes. Two of the
posts are on a north-south line and two on an east-west line. This
obviously was a circle of posts used for ceremonial purposes. It has
also been claimed that this was a solar observatory. What would make
scientists think that?
A 49th
post was located 5 feet to the east of the center. Why is the post off
center? It turns out that, as a result of this displacement, if one
stands by the displaced pole the sun rises immediately behind the 4th
pole to the right of the east pole on the winter solstice. The sun rises
behind the 4th pole to the left of the east pole on the summer solstice.
By my calculations, the
angle of these poles is off by only 0.09 degrees. Of course the east
pole would mark the equinoxes. It is hard to believe that this offset
could have any other purpose, so here we have another ancient American
astronomical observatory.
Quality Time
Submitted by Dave Brown
As your
grow older and your children grow to adulthood, life's busy schedules
makes it harder to spend time with them. Special events do come along
though, and one such was a Total Eclipse of the Moon in the early
morning hours of August 28, 2007.
My son
Dan and I went to the flying field that morning, arriving there at 4:45
am. With camera and binoculars, we watched the shadow slowly envelope
the Moon in the west, and saw the Orion nebula through the bino's in the
east. Dan attempted a series of eclipse photos, capturing the sequence
from bright Moon to the ruddy red totality. Some of these photos will
hopefully make our website.
Having
observed from the flying field many times in the evening, this morning
experience was unique. First, there were NO fireworks! Seems every time
I'm up there, someone is shooting them off. Instead, by 5:15, we had a
chorus of what we called "dueling chickens". From at least 3 different
directions, roosters were proclaiming dawn, although dawn was still an
hour away.
The Moon
from our vantage point was just over the roof of the "Barnstormers"
pavilion, and by the time totality came at 5:52 am, the glow of the
rising sun quickly made it vanish from view, leaving a beautiful valley
spread before us, with fog covered ridges and trees. Dan photographed a
panorama of the valley, preserving a lasting image of that morning for
us to remember.
Minus the chickens.
HTML Version of Pegasus is under
construction!!!!!!
Berks Mineralogical
Society Announcement Submitted by Bret Cadmus
On Tuesday November 13, the Berks
Mineralogical Society and the Mengel Natural History Society will be
sponsoring a joint meeting to be held in the museum's auditorium (7:30
PM). The speaker will be Dr. Stan Mertzman from F&M College. The topic
is somewhat familiar to those of us in astronomy, but the other clubs
don't have BCAAS' knowledge of Mars. Below is a write-up of his talk.
From: Stan Mertzman
Re: Details for talk November 13, 2007
Over the past decade much new information
concerning the surface features and topography of Mars has become
available from very successful missions that inserted orbiting
satellites around the "red planet". Tantalizingly, a wealth of
circumstantial evidence was found amongst the surficial features on Mars
that supported the presence of a n aqueous fluid phase on the Martian
surface at some time in the past. What could compositional and
mineralogical data concerning the rocks on the surface of Mars tell us
about the origin of Mars?
Mars exploration rovers Spirit and
Opportunity successfully landed on opposite sides of Mars relatively
near the equatorial plane during January 2004. Each had on board an
alpha particle x-ray spectrometer (APXS), a Mössbauer spectrometer, and
an infrared spectrometer, the former instrument to measure the
abundances of chemical elements and the latter two instruments to
identify the mineral constituents of Martian rocks and soils. Unaltered
igneous rocks investigated on Mars, mainly by the rover Spirit, are
dominated by the silicate minerals pyroxene, plagioclase feldspar, and
olivine, quite similar to the mineralogy of the most common rock found
on Earth: basalt. However, Opportunity at Meridiani Planum encountered
layered sedimentary rock sequences at Eagle and Endurance craters that
consist of two dominant fractions, one derived from a basaltic parent
material and a second from in situ precipitation of briny fluid.
Minerals crystallizing from this solution include jarosite, an Fe-rich
hydrated sulfate mineral that has an alkali metal cation site occupied
by K and Na, one or more magnesium sulfate minerals, which may or may
not be hydrated, and hematite (Fe2O3). The implication is the liquid
water must have been abundant at this Meridiani Planum site at some
point in time in the history of Mars. The presence of jarosite is also
very important from a chronological point of view as well. Since
jarosite contains some amount of potassium, the stage is set for the
determination of a 40K > 40Ar age date that ought to confirm the time of
fo rmation of jarosite near the Martian surface. This age date will make
firm the time in Martian history when water was at the very least
locally abundant. Presently evidence suggests this wet period was
several billions of years ago.
“...liquid water must have been
abundant...in the history of Mars.”
Black Forest Star Party Report
Submitted
by Dave Brown
The
Black Forest star party, held each September at Pennsylvania's
official Dark Sky park , Cherry Springs in Potter County, has become
one of the premier events that an amateur astronomer can attend.
Nearly 500 people attend, mostly to experience what is arguably the
darkest skies on the East coast.
My
trip up there this year included my son Dan, who had not yet visited
Cherry Springs. He is no stranger to pristine skies, having been to
Vermont and West Virginia on occasion, so he knows what to look for.
I was just glad we both could spend the weekend together, and was
hopeful that the weather would be good.
My
fears were unfounded, as Thursday night was perfect. Mild
temperatures, transparent seeing, and no dew on grass or
instruments! Dan and I stood together and soaked up that beautiful
Milky Way for a long time before we even looked through the scopes.
Globular clusters are one of
my favorite objects, and I bagged over a dozen I hadn't seen before, in
addition to the usual favorites. Dan was busy snapping away pics with
his new digital Rebel camera mounted to our old 6 inch Celestron, and
stealing views from all the other BCAAS and LVAAS members camped around
us.
Friday night brought HEAVY
rain, but by Saturday afternoon, clear skies were coming.
Clouds early broke by 9 pm in time for new targets to capture. Around 11
pm, a fellow
30 feet down from us called out, "I have the Pleadies coming through the
trees in my
scope, come take a look". I had just came down from the ladder looking
at M72, so I
walked over to see a fluorite refractor pointed at the tree tops.
Peering into it, I saw just
part of the cluster above the trees, with the rest poking through them.
"Well, that is more than just stars, that's ART", I exclaimed.
"Exactly!" he said, " observing
is seeing the art work of nature". It was only then did I realize that I
was looking
through the telescope of Al Nagler, master optician from Tele Vue, which
produces legendary
eyepieces bearing his name.
Out of courtesy, I asked him if he would like to see M72 in my Dob,
which he cheerfully
accepted. After seeing that globular in my scope, he said, "This
deserves an Ethos!"
He hurried off to his eyepiece case, and returned with his latest 13mm
lens that offers a
stunning 100 degree field of view! Inserting in into the focuser, he was
pleased with the results.
"The telescope just falls away, not interfering at all with you enjoying
the view". After
seeing it myself, I couldn't agree more. It was more like looking out a
window on the Shuttle
than looking in a telescope!
Then I was asked by him who made the optics in my Dob. Replying that
they were
Galaxy optics, he made a surprising statement. " You have a fine
telescope here, excellent
view." Coming from someone like Mr. Nagler, that is quite a compliment.
Each time I travel up there, I come away with another memorable
experience like
that. Dan now wants to take his fiancé there , so I know that he enjoyed
it as much as I
did. You owe it to yourself to go there at least once to see the sky as
it should be seen.
Make it a point to go, you won't be sorry!
Night Sky Network Update
Submitted by Barb Geigle
The newest Night Sky Network
Toolkit, “Exploring the Solar System” has arrived!
Introduction: Exploring
the Solar System
Amateur astronomers often provide a child with his or her first look
through a telescope. Some of our favorite telescope targets to share
with the public are the planets of our Solar System. The view of Saturn
through the eyepiece can be a life altering experience. This Toolkit is
designed to provide tools to show the structure of our Solar System,
including models for sizes and distances, to connect what is seen in the
sky with where the planets are in relation to Earth. The many NASA
missions that explore our Solar System serve as an inspiration to
children and adults. This Toolkit provides an introduction to the many
ways we can explore, learn, and discover: fly-bys, orbiters, landers,
probes, sample returns.
Summary of activities and
resources:
1. Exploring Strange New Worlds: A team exercise that provides
insight into how NASA scientists explore our Solar System. Your visitors
become teams of scientists living on a planet orbiting a distant star.
They are on the threshold of exploring their own planetary system for
the first time. Your club members get to create the planets!
2. Solar System Models:
Sizes and Distances
a) “Pocket Solar System”: a simple activity to give you an easy way to
demonstrate an overview of the approximate distances between the orbits
of the planets, the Asteroid Belt, and the Kuiper Belt.
b) “Worlds of the Solar
System”: Scale models of the planets, the asteroid Ceres, the Kuiper
Belt object Pluto, and Earth’s Moon. Scaled to a one-meter diameter Sun.
3. Exploring Our Solar
System: A banner of our Solar System with accurately scaled orbits
of the naked-eye planets helps dispel the common perceptions that the
planets are all in a line, that they all move together, and that it is
easy to quickly communicate with spacecraft exploring other planets.
Includes handouts and star maps to connect the location of the planets
with what we see in the sky.
4. PowerPoint: Explorers’
Guide to the Solar System: A non-technical introduction to exploring
the Solar System - Why we explore, how we explore, and how scientists
piece together clues to better understand the worlds of our Solar
System.
There are activities in this
Toolkit appropriate for ages 7 to adult.
Please contact me if you are
interested in learning more, or want a copy of the manual (in PDF form)
or training DVD.
Schedule of Upcoming Events
Thursday September 20 - 7:30pm,
Monthly Club meeting at the Reading Museum auditorium. Tonight's talk will
be presented by Dr. David S. Graff. Dr. Graff studied Astrophysics and
Cosmology at the University of Michigan, and then worked as an
Astrophysicist in Paris, Ohio State University, and the American Museum of
Natural History. He will speak to us about the nebular theory of the
formation of the Solar System. This theory was independently discovered by
Laplace and by Immanuel Kant, who correctly applied the same theory to infer
that the Milky Way is a disk, and is still today the leading theory of star
formation. It was the first cosmological theory which invoked the past
history of the universe to explain its present condition. The impact of this
discovery had profound and different implications on its two discoverers,
and hence on the intellectual development of Western thought.
Thursday October 11 - 7:30pm, Monthly
Club meeting at the Reading Museum auditorium. Tonight's program will be
presented by Dr. Ruth Daly Professor of Physics at Penn State University,
Berks Campus.
Thursday November 8 - 7:30pm, Monthly
Club meeting at the Reading Museum auditorium. Tonight's program will be
announced. Nominations for new Board members is open for discussion.
Thursday, December 13 - 7:30pm, Club
Holiday Party at the Reading Museum. Elections for new board members and a
short business meeting will be held, followed by food and drink that
everyone has brought to share! Help to kick the holiday season off right and
come to the BCAAS Holiday Party!
“There is no adequate defense, except stupidity, against
the impact of a new idea.” Percy Williams Bridgman (1882-1961) U. S.
physicist, Nobel Prize, 1946.
Contact the Pegasus editor for comments,
questions, or submissions at dblhlx@earthlink.net!
Call our hotline at 610-921-0173 for the
latest club events and meeting details!