August 2009 Volume 16 Number 2 Page 1

Star Gazer News

Newsletter of the Delmarva Stargazers www.delmarvastargazers.org

Upcoming Events: No Meeting This Month !

Observing ! Aug 21st Dusk Ballfield

From the Prez… Summer 2009… a warm up for Fall 2009 and an opportunity to explore Scorpius, Sagittarius, Scutum, Aquila, Cygnus, and the smaller constellations “in the neighborhood” during warm weather. July and August provide some nice views of our summer Milky Way which contains a wealth of globular and open clusters, nebulae, and more stars than one can imagine. Find a clear night with no moon, a lounge chair, and a good bino…the heavens have some very nice views for the star hungry bino observer. Or you can put a low power eyepiece in your scope and take a manual drive through the Scutum Star Cloud, the Sag and Cygnus arms of the Milky Way, or the Steam coming from the Teapot Spout. Go ahead, put down the controller, the star charts, the goto…get lost in the Summer Milky Way…you will be wow’d. We also have the Perseid Meteor shower that peaks August 12-13; unfortunately, the last quarter moon rises around midnight and will brighten the skies substantially. However, a good night under the stars should never be dis-counted and mid August should be an opportune time for some good viewing – temperature and moisture wise. A good cigar, the right company, a fine drink, and an occasional meteor is all that is needed for satisfaction. Summer 2009…contrasted with the absolutely exciting special Summer of 1969. Were you around in 1969? I was. Graduation from college came in June, the moon landing in July, and Woodstock in August. I bought my first new car, a yellow ’69 Ford Galaxy ragtop, in August. And I became 1-A with a draft number of 67 for Selective Service. There were discussions on settling the Vietnam War, with honor, followed by discussions of the shape of the negotiating table in Paris, while my generation was being sacrificed by their leaders. “Never trust anyone over thirty”…dude, we had good reason for that rule. Fast money, fast cars (429 & 440 cubic inches), good music (real music…Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendricks, Santana, Marvin Gaye), good smoke and drink…have fun today, don’t worry ‘bout tomorrow. Uncle Sam has a plan for you…8 weeks of basic training, 2 weeks of specialist training, a week at home, and 13 months in Nam. Thankfully, the ‘60’s ended about the time they should have. I don’t believe we could have endured another “Summer of Love”, more riots (race and anti-war), protests against the establishment. I guess we grew up. So, what’s in store for Delmarva Star Gazers in the Fall of 2009? Our first meeting is Tuesday, Sept 1, at Mal-lard Lodge. We will have an almost full moon situation so there will be an opportunity to do some “moon gazing” after the meeting. For info, the moon will rise over the Delaware River (looking toward Jersey). For you photographers this is an opportunity to capture “moon rise over water”. Stay tuned for more info on the “special” events of the meeting.

Please plan to attend and bring a friend or go green and share a ride to the meeting. Our No Frills Star Party is Sept 17-20 at the Tuckahoe Equestrian Center. Although this one is no frills there will be plenty of good people, good food, good skies, and good times for all. Please plan to attend and bring a friend. Enjoy the remainder of your summer, always have a good time, and think “stars”. Don…

Moments Remembered Tom Koonce Antelope Valley Astronomy Club Lancaster, California June 20, 1994: My Uncle generously decided to pass along his 8 inch Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope to me and make the switch to binoculars that better fit his astronomical observing habits. That gift was what launched me into “serious” amateur astronomy…but that’s not why I remember the date so well. Saturday night, March 23, 1996: My wife and I drove 25 miles north on I-35 out of Fort Worth to a dark, quiet country lane with open fields on either side of us. Surprisingly there were at least a hundred other cars already parked along the sides of the road with people getting ready to do exactly what we were going to do J …but that’s not why I re-member the date so well. “Rocks and Ice in the Solar System” have made an indelible mark on mankind and probably on each of you too. Our recorded history is full of dramatic references to cometary visitors and falling stars. Many of history’s events have

(See Moments on page 2)

August 2009 Volume 16 Number 2 Page 2

been influenced by the superstitious belief that comets were harbingers of great success or of doom. Many of us have read of Augustus Caesar ascending to Emperor of Rome as a comet hung in the sky. It was common for royal births and deaths that occurred during comet apparitions to be recorded as being related directly with the comet. As William Shakespeare said, “When beggars die there are no comets seen; the heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes.” If you’ve seen a comet and its tail, even if faintly through a telescope, you know how dramatic they appear. The brightest, most easily visible comets are called “Great Comets.” These can be seen by the naked eye by multitudes of people across the Earth while the wisps of their icy tails are blown back by the solar wind. As they stretch across the sky, they are so extraordinary that they are easily remembered for the rest of a person’s life. It seems natural that they have figured so prominently throughout history; indeed it would seem more remarkable if they had not! The Saturday night of March 23, 1996, is fixed firmly in my memory as the night we spent watching Comet Hyukutake stretching gracefully across the northern sky. It was awe inspiring. Even though there were several hundred people on that dark road that night, only hushed voices were heard. We were casually sitting on the hoods of our cars and in lawn chairs, but everyone knew that we were witness to a very special celestial event, and there was a certain reverence to

(Moments from page 1)

(Mo Moments on page 3)

How to Join the Delmarva Stargazers: Anyone with an interest in any aspect of astronomy is welcome NAME________________________________________________________________________________________ ADDRESS_____________________________________________________________________________________ CITY, STATE & ZIP______________________________________________________________________________ E-MAIL ADDRESS (If any)_________________________________________________________________________ Do you need the newsletter snail mailed to you (Y/N)?___________________________________________________ Please attach a check for $15 made payable to Delmarva Stargazers and mail to Kathy Sheldon, 20985 Fleatown Rd, Lincoln, DE 19960. Call club President Tim Milligan at 410-841-9853 for more information.

Directions Pj Riley A lot of members and friends have been missing from Recent StarGazer Events. I realize that there are possible commitments that prevent members from showing up at meetings, pic-nics, etc. But, for some, I think y’all just need better di-rections. On the right, I’ve placed a map, with an over-lay. I hope it helps you to find your way.

The Milky Way

An

Extragalactic View

August 2009 Volume 16 Number 2 Page 3

the moment. Later, a police car came around a bend of the road and his headlights shone upon all of the cars and the people looking up at the sky. He came to a sud-den stop and the officer just sat in his car for a few minutes looking at us. He must have been quite startled by the scene. I’ll never forget what happened next. He got out of his car, looked around slowly at us, started to say something, but stopped… and then he looked up. He just stood there looking for a minute then walked back to his car, turned off the headlights and shut off the car. He came back over without saying a word and watched The Great Comet of 1996 with us for a half hour or so. As I said, there was a certain reverence to the moment. Our solar system has countless asteroids, and distant rocky Kuiper Belt Ob-jects. Our Earth is struck many times each minute by particles of rice grain-sized

rock. 40,000 kg of material falls daily on Earth, most of it in the form of micrometeorites that hit the upper atmosphere, and then fall to Earth. We know that these rocks from space come in many different sizes and some are even left over debris from cometary tails. I have seen great displays of meteoritic activity. Several years ago (November, 2002) a fel-low amateur astronomer and I witnessed a stunning (but sadly, too short) five minute burst of Leonid meteors with an equivalent rate of over 700 per hour from a dark sky site. I’m sure we will always remember that portion of the evening and that we were the only two observers left when the meteor shower peak finally came. Occasionally the Earth gets hit by rocks and ice that are truly impressive. The Tunguska Event in 1909 was very likely caused by a collision of rock or ice with the Earth. Several mass extinc-tions of life on the planet have been attributed to collisions at a much larger scale; for instance the de-mise of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago may have been from an asteroid approximately 4 to 9 miles across. But these events seem to lack the real-world immediacy which resulted from a chain of events that started at Mount Palomar on the night of March 24, 1993. That night, a photograph taken by

Carolyn and Eugene Shoemaker and David Levy revealed a comet which now bears their names. It was soon determined that their comet was headed towards Jupiter on a collision course and it was breaking up into a “string of pearls”; a long line of cometary fragments that would hit Jupiter like slow-motion bombardment. If we fast forward fifteen months - I received the C-8 from my Uncle on June 20, and was learning how to use it efficiently. Exactly a month later, on July 20, 1994, I vividly remember looking through the telescope with several other amateurs as we watched the face of Jupiter turn slowly towards us to reveal the scars of massive cometary collisions the size of the entire Earth. There were a few brief cries of astonishment that the impact was so visible followed by stunned silence as we contemplated the energies involved in collisions that could have wiped the Earth clean of life. There was a certain reverence to the moment. Astronomy offers unforgettable moments like those to us. We do not remember days; we re-

member moments. ~Cesare Pavese

(Mo Moments from page 2)

Your 2009-2010 Officers Office Officer Phone email President Don Surles 302-653-9445 President-elect Jerry Truitt 410-885-3327 Secretary Michael Lecuyer 302-284-3734 Treasurer Kathy Sheldon 302-422-4695 Past President Tim Milligan 410-841-9853

Comet Hyukatake (Credit: Amador Astronomical Society)

Lewis Swift , Co-founder of Comet Swift-Tuttle (Source of the Perseid Meteor Shower)

Don Surles Lewis Swift was born Feb 29, 1820 in Monroe Country, New York, on the family farm. His father, also Lewis Swift, was a general in the Revolutionary War. General Swift set up a large workshop on the farm to “get the family through the long New York winters”. It was here that the younger Lewis Swift sharpened his mechanical skills. Swift’s first encounter with astronomy probably occurred in 1833, the year of the great Leonid Meteor Storm. Swift also suffered a fractured hip in 1833 which left him unable to walk without crutches for several years. He used

(See Swift on page 4)

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The Sky in August from Half-Hours with the Stars RICHARD A. PROCTOR, F.R.A.S. (Published 1911)

The Great Bear (Ursa Major) is low down, between northwest and north, the Pointers (α and ß) directed slantingly upward toward the Pole. A line from the Pole Star (α of the Little Bear, Ursa Minor) to the Guardians of the Pole (ß and γ), is in the position of the minute hand of a clock 12 minutes before an hour. Between the Great Bear and the Little Bear run the stars of the Dragon (Draco), round the Little Bear toward the north, thence toward the northwest, where we see the head of the Dragon high up, its two bright eyes, ß and γ , directed toward Hercules, which occupies the western mid-heaven. Above Hercules is Lyra, the Lyre, with the bright steel-blue star Vega high up toward the point overhead. Right overhead is the Swan (Cygnus).

Low down in the northwest we see in the chart one star of the Hunting Dogs (Canes Venatici). Nearer the west stands the Herdsman, rather slanting forward, however, with the Crown (Corona Borealis) on his left, almost due west. The long winding Serpent (Serpens) runs from near the Crown (where we see its head due west) to farther south than southwest, high up on the western side of the Serpent Holder (Serpentarius or Ophiuchus), now standing upright in the southwest. Low down creeps the Scorpion (Scorpio), its heart Antares, rival of Mars, in the southwest, the end of its tail between south and southwest. Above and south of the Scorpion's tail we see the Archer (Sagittarius).

Due south, and high up, is the Eagle (Aquila), its tail atζ and ε, its head at θ, the bright steel-blue Altair marking its body. On the left, or east, of the Eagle lies the neat little Dolphin (Delphinus). Midway between the Dolphin and the hori-zon is the tip of the tail of the Sea Goat (Capricornus), whose head lies nearly due south.

On the southern horizon is the head of the Indian (Indus); on its left a part of the Crane (Grus), and low down in the southeast lies Fomalhaut, the chief brilliant of the Southern Fish (Piscis Australis). Above lies the Water Bearer (Aquarius), in the southwestern mid-heaven.

Due east, fairly high, is "the Square of Pegasus," the head of the Winged Horse, Pegasus lying close by the Water Pitcher of Aquarius (marked by the stars ζ, γ , and α).

The Fishes (Pisces) are low down in the east. A few stars of the Whale (Cetus) are seen on their right, very low down. On the left of Pisces we see the Ram (Aries), low down; above it the Triangle; and above that the Chained Lady (Andromeda).

Low down in the northeast is the Rescuing Knight (Perseus); above whom is Cassiopeia, and on her left, higher up, the inconspicuous constellation Cepheus.

Lastly, immediately below Cepheus, we find the Camelopard, below which, very low down, between north and northeast, is the Charioteer (Auriga), the brilliant Capella being just above the horizon.

this “down time” to further his studies and in 1835 he enrolled in the Clarkson Academy in western New York. He trav-eled the four mile round trip to the Academy on crutches. In 1835 he saw Halley’s Comet return. After graduation from Clarkson he traveled throughout the Midwest USA and Canada giving lectures and demonstrations on electricity, mag-netism and the telegraph. It was during this time that Swift observed the Great March Comet of 1843. The comet was a sungrazer and attained a magnitude of –7; it could be seen during broad daylight even though it was only 1 degree from the sun’s limb. The tail stretched across 40 degrees of the sky (that’s from horizon to almost overhead!). Swift married Lucretia Hunt in 1850 and set up a hardware store in Hunt’s Corners, New York (Lucretia’s home-town). He invented a microscope that would project views of slide-mounted specimens onto a screen. Lecture tours and a couple of books on astronomy led to the purchase of a 3 inch Spencer lens from which he constructed a telescope and began a systematic survey of the heavens. After attending a series of lectures given by Ormsby Mitchel of the Cincinnati Observatory and breaking the 3 inch scope in 1858, Swift upgraded to a “fast” 4.5” Fitz F-10 “comet seeker”. He built an observatory to house his new scope and very shortly observed what he thought was a new discovery…Donati’s Comet…only to find several other astronomers had already spotted the object. In 1862, Swift’s wife Lucretia, died. He and his children moved to Marathon, New York, where he continued to run the hardware store. The property was surrounded by trees…so he cut a hole in the gable end of his barn and built a platform from which to observe. This was the first of many rooftop observatories. Swift’s greatest discovery, the Comet 1862III was actually by accident. He had read about a comet “northeast of the north star moving fast” in the July 15 edition of the New York Times. He decided to try to find the comet and in five minutes had located a comet northeast of the north star. The next night he decided to find it again…pointing the scope where it was the night before showed that it was not there…but in just a moment he found a comet very nearby the same location. Remember the comet reported in the July 15 NY Time was “moving fast”. Unknowingly, he had seen a new comet; later he was credited with co-discovering the comet along with Harvard’s Horace Tuttle, ie, Comet Swift-Tuttle. Comet Swift-Tuttle was seen by our soldiers on the battlefields of the Civil War…it’s orbit was calculated to be 100 years in duration. However, the return of Swift-Tuttle actually was in 1992…thus the orbit is 130 years. The comet is the origin of the annual Perseid Meteor Shower which peaks in early August each year. For more of the Story of Lewis Swift see http://adsabs.harvard.edu//full/seri/QJRAS/0037//0000683.000.html

(Swift from page 3)

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The BIG Eclipse of 22 July 2009 Pj Riley We just experienced the longest eclipse for this century. At it’s peak, it was over 6 minutes of totality. Cool, huh? People in our area did not see this since it was over Asia and the Pacific Ocean. Some thrill seekers from around here have traveled to Asia to see this event. We’ll have to get some reports when they return. Now the networks all covered the event, telling us how long it was, how different cultures reacted to the event. The coverage I saw was shorter than most commercials. The main reason I’m bringing up this eclipse is this: What does it look like from Space, the final frontier ! We all seen charts showing a curved line across the earth that is the path of the eclipse. Most of us have seen eclipses from the earth, looking at remnants of the Sun shining around the dark moon. This pair of images from the Japanese geostationary satellite MTSAT show the view of Earth at 8:30 a.m. local time in Taiwan (left) and an hour later (right). Notice also that the terminator is still visible in the left picture, and almost outta sight an hour later.

Images provided by WebGMS–MTSAT/GMS (HIMAWARI) Website, Institute of Industrial Science & Earth-quake Research Institute, University of Tokyo, Japan.

Our 2009 Picnic Jerry Truitt We had another great picnic at Tuckahoe State Park on Saturday July 11. I got the grill started and started cook-ing but it wasn’t long before Dave Wells came over and insisted on doing the honors. We had hamburgers, hot dogs and polish sausage for the meats. Our members and wives brought a ton of salads, covered dishes and desserts so we had plenty to eat. Of course the best thing about the picnic is seeing people, many haven’t seen each other since our last meeting and some not since our Star Gaze Star Party so we all spent a lot of time catching up with each other. We all took a turn congratulating the new grandparents Don and Karen Surles. The best part of any picnic is Kathy Sheldon’s games which are designed to humble, humiliate and embarrass us by making us well educated, sophisticated, scientific savvy, technical oriented geeks look and feel stupid. She only allows the men to play as the women are apparently way to mature to participate. The guys go right back to being eight years old and have a blast with the games. Lyle “The Worm” Jones lead his team “The Wigglers” consisting of Joe Morris, Tim Milligan, Doug Norton and Keith Love while Don “The Snake” Surles commanded “The Cheaters” team of Mike Lecuyer, Jerry Truitt, Dick Gardner and Tom Pomponio. The only event the Wigglers won was Orange eating; yeah pass the orange and whichever team peels and eats

August 2009 Volume 16 Number 2 Page 6

it first wins. Next was pass the sand, just like it sounds we had a box of sand which we had to pass to each other and put on a plate, whom ever had the most sand when done won. The Cheaters’ Mike Lecuyer assured the win by stealing some sand from the sleeping Wigglers. Pass the water was clearly won by the Cheaters team as their finished bottle over flowed; no one even wants to know how they ended up with too much water at the end. Who can hold the most linguini in their head of hair was clearly won by the Surles’ Cheater team. Lyle Jones’ hair style could not stand up to Mike Lecuyer’s wire like forelock. The last contest was a real test of skill and team work, catch the M&M. Your partner threw M&Ms with a spoon at you from about 5 feet away and you had to catch them in your mouth. A real winner could not be declared as all the evidence had been eaten. Yes it was great seeing everyone and we certainly had a lot of fun and ate a lot of good food. The games are always a riot and enjoyed by all. Thanks to everyone who came, brought food and pitched in helping. And special thanks to Kathy Sheldon for the games again this year.

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August 2009 Volume 16 Number 2 Page 8

Moondark: Roadtrip to the Edge of the Solar System Doug Miller The 40th anniversary of the first lunar landing has come and gone at a time when NASA is once again struggling to determine where manned spaceflight is headed, how much it will cost, and when worthwhile goals can be accomplished. But it’s not fair to say that space exploration has only been spinning its wheels in Earth orbit for the last 30 years. Far from it: many countries have become space-faring nations, and we are seeing develop-ment of space for both commercial enterprise and consumers. Beyond Earth orbit, space science highlights include multiple visits to all the inner planets, asteroid and comet rendezvous, solar monitoring, and return missions to the big-gest gas giants, Jupiter and Saturn and their many moons. A very significant milestone in space exploration was reached 20 years ago this August when Voyager 2 flew past the outermost planet, Neptune and its moon Triton (imaged at right, taken 3 days later). Launched on August 20th, 1977, Voyager 2 took advantage of the once every two-centuries planetary alignment allowing such a grand tour of the solar system. Departing Earth before Voyager 1, it flew by Jupiter and Saturn several months after Voyager 1 in 1979 and 1981, respectively. Voyager 2 kept going on an extended mission, encountering Uranus in 1986. Then on August 25th 1989, Voyager swooped over Neptune’s north pole and flew by Triton five hours later. This was the last planetary encounter for any of the four Pioneers and Voyagers. Of course you can learn much more of its discoveries – multiple rings confirmed, 6 new moons, Triton’s “cantaloupe” terrain – at official JPL or Wikipedia web sites, but I’ve found a much better way to relive the Neptune flyby. The Voyager Neptune Travel Guide was published as a bound book but is available online as a pdf file. Its 308 pages have been scanned, and the whole document has that fax-machine, high contrast appearance with assorted handwritten notations and rubber stamps. For all its retro look and feel, it’s a great read. Written before the Neptune encounter, the Travel Guide recounts the mission up to that point, and describes the planned Neptune-Triton campaign. You’ll read about con-structing and launching such a huge, complex spacecraft and sending it far beyond any previous missions and everything about slingshot transfer orbits. And, of course, there’s much on the Golden Record as well. Despite its technical detail, the Travel Guide reads very much as a human story. Rocket scientists’ brainpower had to figure out how to shoe-horn code into precious memory, ensure communications with the Deep Space Network, troubleshoot a glitchy camera platform and overcome antenna bandwidth limits using revo-lutionary image compression. While web sites have beautiful images and slick animations, I’ve seen nothing to compare with the flipbook included in the Travel Guide. In the bottom left corner of most even numbered pages, simple diagrams show the full Neptune and Triton flyby from Voy-ager’s point of view. Thumbing through the pages animates the full flyby, and that effect can be simulated with the downloadable pdf file by setting your viewer to zoom and single-page view settings. Enjoy this cropped version (14 MB pdf) I made: download it, set your view options and use the page up/down or arrow keys. My recollection is that the Neptune flyby occurred in the middle of the night, but I set the alarm anyway for “live” radio coverage (images would only come down later), inter-spersed with commentator’s reminders that it had all happened four hours before. While the solar system seemed awfully big at that moment, Voyager 2 had brought its far reaches just a little bit closer on that day. At present, twenty years later, Voyager 2 is nearly 90 AU from Earth in the south-ern sky constellation of Telescopium and has completed well over 11,000 days of opera-tion. Its new mission is interstellar science, and even with limited power, it continues to function and return useful results. Voyager data recently determined that the solar system is squashed! I’m an unabashed fan of robotic exploration, but humans are integral to the mission even when they never leave the surface. Engineering and science are social, human endeavors. With engineering insight and constant tender loving care from inhabitants of Earth, the Pioneers and Voyagers have been for more than thirty years now on quite a trip through, and now beyond, the solar system. So, what did you do on your summer vacation? Moondark is written by Douglas C. Miller, published at the Moondark web site, and printed in the Delmarva Star Gazers' Star Gazer News. This document was last revised on 26 July 2009. Text on this web page are free for non-commercial use with attribution under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-commercial 3.0 License. Ask Doug about other uses.