29° 39'N, 82° 21'W

FirstLight Newsletter of the

Alachua Astronomy Club

December 1995

Chiefland Star Party Bruno Pancorbo The Annual Chiefland Star Party was held in mid-October. AAC was represented by Dale Niederitter, Joe Larkin, and

Bruno Pancorbo

The wait was definitely worth it. After two months of rainy and cloudy days, we

finally got a break from the weather. The weekend of the Chiefland Star Party was a success, even though the first two nights were not perfect. We began Thursday night observing Comet Schwassmann-Wachmann. This is not a well known comet; I saw no mention of this comet in either Sky and Telescope or Astronomy. It was the best comet I have ever seen through a telescope. It actually looked like a comet, it had a long tail that extended at least 30' towards M62, which was in the same field of view. I also saw this comet Saturday night with Dale's 11x80 binoculars and it looked very nice too. After the clouds came back that night I asked Joe to wake me up if the sky cleared up. I covered my telescope and went to sleep.

Around 2:30 A.M. Joe woke me up. He said they were looking at the Horschead nebula through a 15 inch telescope. I got up, still half sleep, looking at the clear skies overhead. When I looked in the eyepiece I was as impressed as a person looking at the Moon for the first time. I could actually see it, not just spot it Dave Orccey, the owner of the telescope, told me he was using a Hb filter to improve the contrast Joe was so excited that

he wanted to use the filter in his 10 inch Dobsonian. When he finally looked through the eyepiece, he said he could see it. I then looked through the eyepiece and saw it too. Then Joe tried his UHC filter and found that it was still there. So he tried to see it without any filter. He said he could almost see it. Then I looked and told him that I could see it too. We were all very exited because we saw the Horsehead nebula in a 10 inch telescope without any fitters. After that we looked at the California nebula, which is big but very faint. We continued observing until it got a little cloudy again, so we decided to quit for the night around 4:30 A. M. When I got to my tent, my girlfriend, Paula, was awake. She works for the post office, so she wakes up very early. She was ready to see the stars so we went outside and saw the Orion nebula and took some pictures of the moon and Orion. I finally went to sleep at 5:45 A. M.

The next day was bad. I came back to Gainesville in the morning, and I am glad I took my telescope with me because Joe told me later that it rained really bad in Chiefland. That Friday the skies were cloudy most of the day. Although it cleared up later that afternoon, it didnt last long. That night we just talked about astronomy. I heard about this

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guy in the Winter Star Party who cleaned his mirror with SOS! I heard many stories about telescopes in flames too. I went to sleep, but then I had to get up again when it started to rain to cover my telescope and camera.

When I got up Saturday, it was clear and cold. Most of the people in the star party came that day. I spent most of the day collimating my telescope, in fact, one of the authors of the collimation booklet that comes with the Tectron collimation tools, Vic Menard, was there. He helped Joe and me collimate our telescopes and answered some of our questions. When the night came, we were all ready for a long and cold night. I had planned to look at the Palomar globular clusters. There are 15 clusters and range in magnitude from 9.2 to 14.7, making them hard to find. Remember these are extended objects (1.8' to 7.21). I started with Pal 13 in Peg. I saw something in the position where the cluster was supposed to be, but I am not sure that I saw the cluster. After that I gave up searching because in order to find those clusters 1 needed a better sky chart. With crystal clear skies and no plans, I looked at my old favorites: Veil nebula (which Paula said look like Star Trek), Dumbbell nebula, Ring nebula, Andromeda, and Pinwheel galaxy. After a couple of hours of uninterrupted observing, I stopped to check out some of the

other telescopes, especially a 20 inch Dob. This was my first time looking through a 20 inch, so I was very impressed with the views of galaxies and nebulas. I was especially impressed with the Orion nebula. To me, It looked like a 3D image with an incredible amount of detail on the edges of the nebula. Another nice object was the Whistle nebula (NGC 2359) in Canis Major. It did look like a whistle, and with my scope and a O-DI filter, it was almost as good as the 20 inch scope.

It was around 4:30 A. M. and the cold was finally getting inside my four layers of clothing. We continued observing for one more hour, as the meteors from the Orionid shower increased in number. Somebody counted about 25 per hour and I saw at least 3 bright meteors in one minute. Finally, about 5:30 A. M. another member came to tell us that he had Comet deVico in his telescope, but we were so tired that we declined the offer. Just before we quit for the night, Joe showed me the Zodiacal Lights that extended from the Eastern horizon to the constellation of Leo, about 40 degrees above the horizon. With that we finished a long night of observing that was long overdue!

Upcoming Club Meetings and Events December Club Meeting No regular December meeting. The club will hold a casual pot-luck dinner and star party at Bob Jacobs' house Saturday, at S p.ra, on December 16. We passed around a minimum at 10:30 P. M. sign-up sheet at the November meeting, but if

you missed it, please call Bob and let him know if you are coming and what you are bringing. Special Note: Algol will be at

January Club Meeting Date Tuesday, January 9

Time 7:30 p.m.

Place Auditorium, Doyle Conner

Building, 1911 S.W. 34th St.

Speaker Mark Cowan, Vice-President.

Title: Messier objects and three asteroids.

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Synopsis: A look at the simple deep sky objects on hand at mid-month, a few slides of objects visible in larger telescopes, and a discussion of how to find the three asteroids

Star Parties

Dec. 16 Pot Luck Party (Sat. Night). Sunset 5:32 p.m.; Sunrise 7:18 a.m. EST. Waning Crescent, only one day past Last Quarter, rises 1:21 a.m EST.

Minutes: November Meeting (Attendance: 20 members and guests.)

We met at the Doyle Conner Building. Several reports were given of a successful evening of star and moon watching at Kanapaha Botanical Gardens. Our telescopes were a favorite feature of the night. Dale Niederriter will look into a membership in Friends of Kanapaha to state our ideas for a dark night walk.

Bruno Pancorbo spoke about the upcoming occultation. A shortwave radio (10MHz/30m) is required to receive WWV time signal from Ft. Collins, Colorado.

Three classes at Glenn Springs Elementary will host speakers from AAC this week.

Nominations were reviewed, closed, and our new officers were elected by acclamation.

The officers for 1996 are:

• President: John Brandorff

• Vice President: Howard Cohen

• Treasurer: Ryan Loftus

visible this month.

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• No December rain date.

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— Mark Cowan

• Secretary: Mark Cowan

Committee Chairs were appointed:

• Newsletter Editor: Pam Mydock

• Newsletter Publisher: Chuck Broward

• Star Party Coordinator: B. Pancorbo

An amendment to the by-laws was moved, seconded, and approved by a 2/3 majority. The paragraph "Dues" is amended to read:

Dues shall be established by vote of the general membership at the discretion of the president, in consultation with the treasurer, and become effective January 1, following. New members' dues shall be pro-rated according to the number of months left in the calendar year.

A motion was made to raise dues to $21.00 per year, seconded, and approved.

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Star parties begin at sunset and meet at Bob Jacobs' unless otherwise stated. Address 9617 N.W. 143St. (HWY 241)— 1.7mi. North of Millhopper Rd. (HWY232). Lookfor Hurricane Harbor sign just past brick mailbox on right side of road. Go a few hundred feet up paved driveway to Bob's house. (Do not continue up onto dirt road)

FirstLight is published monthly. Contact Pamela Mydock, editor, at email: pam@stars.health.ufl.edu for more info.

December Astro Calendar (Times EST)

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14

15 16 18 20 21 22

23

24 27 28

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00:31 12 17 08 17:22 03:17

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04 05 10 14:06

153 Hilda Occultation of SAO 96355 (Max. duration 13 sec, Am • 4.9 mag, time of event approx., see finding chart in November issue of FirstLight) Full Moon Geminld Meteor Shower (1/4 peak duration = 3 days, ZHR = 95) Last Quarter Moon Venus 2° S of Neptune Jupiter in Conjunction with Sun Venus 1.3° S of Uranus New Moon Solstice (Winter begins in N. Hemisphere) Ursid Meteor Shower (1/4 peak duration=0.8 days, ZHR=20) Mercury 1.1° S of Mars Venus 7* S of Moon Saturn 5° S of Moon First Quarter Moon

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