April/avril 2013

Volume/volume 107

Number/numéro 2 [759]

Inside this issue:

Lemaître’s Limit

Space Race

Moon Loops and Dumbbells

Historic Telescopic Observation

227-Year-Old Error

Meteoritical Society

The Journal of The Royal Astronomical Society of Canada

Le Journal de la Société royale d’astronomie du Canada

P R O M O T I N G A S T R O N O M Y I N C A N A D A

The King’s Crown and the Crown Jewels

53 April / avril 2013 JRASC | Promoting Astronomy in Canada

April/avril 2013 | Vol. 107, No. 2 | Whole Number 759

contents / table des matières

Feature Articles / Articles de fond

57 Lemaître’s Limit by Ian Steer

63 Two Astronomers and the Space Race by Chris Gainor

65 Moon Loops and Dumbbells—The Most Curious Moon of All

by Richard J. Legault

70 A Chance to Recreate a Historic Telescopic Observation

by Clark Muir

72 Rectifying a 227-Year-Old Error: Stellar-remnant Nebulae

by Michael Harwood

76 Peter Millman and the Revitalization of the Meteoritical Society

by Howard Plotkin

Columns / Rubriques

82 Second Light: A New Way to Measure Black-hole Masses

by Leslie J. Sage

83 Cosmic Contemplations: The Untold Secrets of Making Your Own Monochrome DSLR

by Jim Chung

87 Through My Eyepiece: Music of the Spheres by Geoff Gaherty

89 Rising Stars: Nutwood Observatory: Where the Elk, Wild Birds, and Astronomers Roam

by John Crossen

90 Astronomical Art and Artifact: The Prehistory of the Society’s Seal

by R.A. Rosenfeld

Departments / Départements

54 News Notes/En manchettes compiled by Andrew Oakes

– Radio telescope to rise in British Columbia – Increasing number of planetary candidates discovered – Comets had no role in wipeout of prehistoric humans – Scientific cross-field collaborations show results and point

to more questions – Top-ten science highlights from Cassini for 2012 – Astronomers discover large asteroid belt around Vega

69 Great Images: Lunar Crater Janssen by Mike Wirths

74 Pen & Pixel

M94 / NGC 891 / Jupiter and Ganymede / Helix Nebula by Kerry-Ann Lecky Hepburn / Andre Paquette / David Jenkins / Dalton Wilson

95 The 2013 General Assembly of the RASC

96 Astrocryptic Answers by Curt Nason

96 Society News by James Edgar

96 It’s Not All Sirius—Cartoon by Ted Dunphy

Front cover — Seven nights of imaging gave Howard Trottier this beautiful image of the reflection nebula NGC 7129 and the open cluster

NGC 7142. Howard describes the pair, respectively, as the “King’s Crown” and the “Crown Jewels.” Exposure, in LRGB, totalled 12½ hours

using a PlaneWave CDK17 telescope and an Apogee U16M camera.