On the web at http://www.nhastro.com/

Observer StaffEditor & Publisher:Paul Winalski

Newsletter of the New Hampshire Astronomical Society

Vol. 2008 No. 4 “All the news that fits in print” April 2008

Pleiades OccultationPPPrrreeesssiiidddeeennnttt'''sss MMMeeessssssaaagggeee

Once again Mother Nature put anend to NHAS’s chances of holdingthe regularly scheduled MessierMarathon with rain on the 4th andclouds and haze on the 5th. Despitethe clouds the Lopez residence wasbuzzing with good food, coffee andof course a yard full of great scopesbrought by members hoping forclear skies. We are looking toschedule a Marathon in the fall at anew location; stay tuned for moreon this event. There was a verysuccessful practice session held atYFOS the week before whereseveral members enduredtemperatures in the low teens butspent the entire night anywayenjoying what seems like rare clearskies this spring.

The spring school sky watch seasonis well underway, fortunately thenights have been clear for theseevents that have been well attendedby NHAS volunteers.

Also coming up is our AstronomyDay event held with CMP duringtheir Spacetacular Saturday on May3rd. Please contact the AstronomyDay coordinator (me) if you plan toattend and have not alreadycontacted me.

We are going to try to keep betterattendance figures at the public skywatches so if you attend please lookfor a sign-up sheet with an officer orpublic observing committeechairperson. And thank you forsupporting this major function inNHAS’s mission.

� Gardner Gerry

NHAS President 2008

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As Gardner said, bad weatherruined our final attempts to hold theannual Messier Marathon, soinstead a party was held.

The weather was kinder to ourpublic sky watch calendar, andscheduled sky watches inMerrimack, Nashua, and Hampsteadtook place as scheduled under clearskies.

An occultation of the Pleiades by awaxing crescent Moon was visibleon the night of 8 April. Some of usstayed late after the New SearlesSchool sky watch in Nashua toobserve it.

12 April was International SidewalkAstronomy Night. Ted Blank givesa report of one of his “random actsof observing.”

� Paul Winalski

NHAS Secretary 2008

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The weather gods have been unkindto Membership Education thismonth. We had our rescheduledStellar Evolution: Astro 201postponed due to our lastsnowstorm. We had our Astro 101:Deep Sky Observing, Starspostponed due to freezing rain andice, and we had our Astro 101:Collimation postponed due toclouds and the disappearance ofthose bright point sources of lightused to collimate telescopes.

On the bright side we have severalnew members this month.

Alfonso Navarro, Manchester, NHNorman Williams, Bow, NH

Charles Vaillancourt, Goffstown,NHTom Charest, Nashua, NHKatharine Gilbert, Hancock, NH

Several have already attendedbusiness meetings and participatedin sky watches.

On Friday May 2nd, during ournormal CMP Sky Watch, NHASand CMP are encouraging thepublic to bring their mothballedtelescopes to this sky watch so wecan help them work through theissues that prevent them from usingtheir telescope.

I will give a 20 minute presentationin the Planetarium prior tomigrating to the field in an attemptto work around the reasons thatthese scopes were mothballed in thefirst place. Assistance from anyNHAS members in the field, notoverseeing their own telescope,would be most appreciated.

Volunteers are also appreciated. Themore the merrier as we will onlyhave 30 minutes or so, of field time,until CMP closes. I am not sure howmany orphaned telescopes willshow up with their owners. If wecan just save one.....

� Alan Shirey

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There have been no meetingsrecently of the AstrophotographyCommittee, but as always memberscontinue to post amazing images inthe “Pictures!” section of theMembers’ Forums section of theNHAS website. Be sure to checkthem out. And to post any imagesof your own.

� Gardner Gerry

2 The NHAS Observer April 2008

MMMeeessssssiiieeerrr MMMaaarrraaattthhhooonnn

We scheduled four official days forMessier Marathons and all had verypoor weather. The April 5, 2008attempt was no exception.

It was, however very special.

It was the defined day for the “Wecan't have a Messier Marathon sowe are going to have a Party”.

Curiously absolutely everyonebrought optics. I was reallyexpecting no one to bringtelescopes. Well almost everyone.An awful large amount of observingwas attempted for relatively littleresult. Curiously it didn’t rain orsnow.

Attendees, as near as I canremember: Gardner Gerry, RichDeMidio, Rags (aka DavidGilmore), Steve Forbes, HerbBubert, Ken Charles, Ed Ting, EdLos, Marion Hochuli, Bill Steel,Mike Townsend, Paul Cezanne,John Rose, David S. Weaver.

I was very tempted to put next toeach name what they broughtinstead of a MM count. We ate wellfor the whole week !!!

We had some very good practicesessions at YFOS.

� Larry Lopez

Objective: NHAS MessierMarathon

Equipment used: Orion XT10i,Starhunter 32mm Plössl eyepiece,and Garret Signature Series 10x50binos.

Location: Broken Tooth RockObservatory, 10° C Arrival 17:30EST, 4° C Departure 00:12 EST.Wispy clouds from NNW startingbefore 18:00 and then small clearsky opportunity open dear dusk at19:40.

The chili labeled HOT–HOT–HOTwas re-labeled to Hot–Hot–DamnHot–Hot–Hot. As the night gotlonger the chili got hotter, yahoo!

The site has a large panoramic viewto the east and south with thewestern view limited by the crest ofthe hill, the north limited by the tallmaple tree and residence. My firstattempt to skirt the tree on the SSEcorner was a failure because of the

steep footing. I then moved to thelevel ground in the center of thecircle of observers.

Still need more collimation skillpractice time.

Just before 20:00 first star seen inthe very thick haze was Sirius,followed by Procyon, Regulus, andSaturn were next. The view onSaturn using the XT10i was hazy.

MM List:

1. M42 naked eye 20:052. M35 XT10i 20:103. M37 XT10i 20:154. M45 naked eye 20:175. M36 XT10i 20:206. M38 XT10i 20:207. M43 Binos 20:228. M1 XT10i 20:309. M34 XT10i 21:00

No contrast for M81, M82, M108,M97. At 21:50 transparency wasvery poor, at 23:15 forecastdiscussed with other observers andactual conditions I called it the endof my first MM. Thank you, Larryand Linda for hosting the event andfor the wonderful hospitality. Thankyou NHAS members for thecoaching on M34, M81, M82, andM108 and the great food.

� Bill Steele

Images by Gardner Gerry (GG)and Dave Weaver (DW). More inthe “Pictures” section of the NHASForums athttp://nhastro.com/member/forum/viewtopic.php?t=769 .

Rich turns over the official MMdried beef to Larry in an elaborateceremony lasting long enough forthe photographer to press the shutterbutton. The beef was excellent, ofcourse. (GG)

Why is this man happy? Because heis surrounded by refractors of allsizes and apertures, that's why.Mike’s knowledge of double starskept us looking through the scopes

when the faint fuzzies refused to beseen. (GG)

Ken sets up Soulshine on the lefthalf of the observing field. (DW)

Larry and John on the right half ofthe observing field, checking out theAP 130. (DW)

Larry Lopez (host), Ed Ting (MMexpert), and Linda Lopez (hostess)(GG)

Herb was giving everyone the"Name that Messier Object" quiz.Nice pics Herb! (DW)

� Gardner Gerry

� Dave Weaver

April 2008 The NHAS Observer 3

MMMMMM PPPrrraaaccctttiiiccceee SSSeeessssssiiiooonnn

I arrived at the “practice MM” onSaturday 29 March at YFOS at10:15pm. Though there were fourcars, no one was outside when Ipulled in. I started to set up aftershoveling out an area adjacent to theother setups. About 15 minuteslater, Linda Lopez came out andproceeded to continue on herMarathon Quest. A few minutesfollowed with Herb Bubert, NilsWygant, Rich DeMidio, GardnerGerry, and Larry Lopez returningto the “race”. Well, maybe Larrydidn’t really enter the race as he wasinto finding just a few with hisBinos and then studying his “cool”AstroCard viewer he got onAstromart.

Over the next 7 hours we all workeddown our lists of objects. I started inat the 24th or 25th object, afteraligning Soulshine. Since a goodnumber of the earlier objects wereones I’ve been looking at formonths from my back deck (I facewest and can’t get anything east ofzenith from my house), I didn’tmind passing on them. I must saythat a “goto” that works great, agood eyepiece (Nagler T-4, 22mm,127x), dark skies and goodtransparency make it toooo easyworking down the MM list. Some ofthe Ursa Major objects were achallenge for me just because theywere already at zenith, and I had toget low to look in the eyepiece. Myknees are no longer agreeable topositioning themselves in thatmanner. Once I finished ComaBerenices M85 (object 52 on thelist, but #28 on my shortened list), Itook a break. At this point most ofthe others had finished Virgo, but Iwas making progress (with a gotothat was dead on each object).

Now the fun part of the MM cameto light. The chance to talk to othermembers during their breaks makesfor a very enjoyable night. Asalways, Larry was very entertainingbut kept having a problem with hisAstroCards getting lost outside.THINK: White index cards and lotsof white snow at night and noMoon. Nils and I spent 10 to 15minutes brainstorming with Larry

on ways he could fix the loose cardproblem. Herb only came in forshort breaks as he was bouncingbetween 2 scopes (and later movingone around or setting it up onsomething higher to get a bettersight line on some of the lastobjects). In my opinion, Lindaseemed the most dedicated as sherarely took breaks from hersearching and observing. Nils,Gardner, Rich and Herb werehaving a great time and seemed tobe very happy with the conditions(in the sky, not the temperature,which was down to 11.2 degrees by2:00 am). I must say that Ed Ting’scomments last meeting on Nilscalling out as he tore through the listwas NOT witnessed by me, in fact, Ithought Nils was very quiet as hewas burning through the list.

I swept through Virgo in 25minutes. Could have been a lotquicker (5 minutes), but some of theobjects were first views for me so Itook my time to make sure Iidentified the multiple objects in afew views correctly and spent somereal time observing a few of thenicer looking ones. As I left Virgomore of the objects became globularclusters, my personal favorites.After being without them most ofthe winter, it was nice to observethem again. Having spent a lot oftime with the club’s 16” and aTelrad last summer, I started to usejust the motor on Soulshine, theTelerad and the finder scope. I wentthrough the next 20 or so objectswithout the goto until it looked likethe Moon was going to interfere.Back to the goto for Sagittarius, andit was a good thing that I did. We allstarted having problems with the“Moon over Sagittarius” but withthe goto I was able to keep trackingdown most of the final objects, untila nearby star brought a final end tothe night. Damn the Sun, this wasfun!

We all packed up and left tired,worn out and cold. My trip homewas a happy one, however sinceSoulshine hit the objects all nightand the views were pretty goodconsidering the lousy seeingconditions. I will say that my bed

felt really, really good when I fellinto it just over an hour later.

� Ken Charles

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WWWaaatttccchhh

The 2 May sky watch at Thornton’sFerry Elementary School inMerrimack was a combined eventfor grades 3 and 4 at the Thornton’sFerry and Mastricola ElementarySchools. This is more or less thesuccessor of the Reed’s Ferry skywatch held over the past severalyears. This was a big event, withover 100 students and parents fromThornton’s Ferry and over 50 morefrom Mastricola. Sky conditionswere very good.

Paul Winalski gave the indoorpresentations—two of them, an hourapart, due to the large crowd.

Left side of the Thornton’s Ferry

sky watch field, as Mike

Townsend searches for Sirius in

the Twilight (Gardner Gerry

photo)

Right side of the field, with Al

Navarro in the foreground

(Gardner Gerry photo)

4 The NHAS Observer April 2008

Despite the large crowd, lines werenot too long as about twelve NHASmembers were there with theirscopes. The club members who Iremember seeing there were MattAmar, John Bishop, Herb Bubert,Ken Charles, Rich DeMidio,Gardner Gerry, David Gilmore,Andy Jaffe, Al Navarro, JohnRose, Mike Townsend, and PaulWinalski. My apologies if I leftanyone out.

In addition to the usual Springevening sky and the planets Saturnand Mars, our guests were treated toan exceptionally bright (-8 mag!)Iridium flare.

� Paul Winalski

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The public sky watch at NewSearles School in Nashua, NH on 8April took place under clear skies,but with much moonlit backgroundhaze. About fifty members of thepublic showed up. At least tenNHAS members were there: JohnBishop, Ken Charles, RichDeMidio, Gardner Gerry, Ed Los,Al Navarro, John Rose, MikeTownsend, Paul Winalski, andNils Wygant.

During twilight there were goodviews of the Moon and Saturn(several moons visible), always bigcrowd favorites. There was also avery fine pass of the InternationalSpace Station, and a mag –2 Iridiumflare.

� Paul Winalski

PPPllleeeiiiaaadddeeesss OOOccccccuuullltttaaatttiiiooonnn

The occultation (hiding) of a brightstar by the Moon is a dramaticevent. Every 18.5 years, the relativepositions of the Earh and Moon intheir respective orbits is such thatthe Moon’s apparent path takes itthrough the Pleiades star cluster inTaurus, and observers are thentreated to many bright staroccultations, one after the other.The Pleiades cluster is about twicethe width of the Moon, so theoccultations occur in “seasons”,with the Moon’s apparent pathcrossing in front of the cluster timeafter time. We are currently in the

midst of such a season, whichstarted in 2005 (there were 13Pleiades occultations in 2006) andruns through 2010.

On the night of 8 May, a slimcrescent Moon occulted thePleiades. From our perspective inNew England, the Moon cut acrossthe northwest part of the cluster,about 30 degrees above the westernhorizon, starting at about 9:30 PM.This was a very favorableoccultation since the Moon enteredthe cluster dark limb first, whichpermitted the observer to see manydimmer Pleiads suddenly wink outbehind a lunar disk dimly lit byearthshine. When the bright edge ofthe Moon leads, the dimmer Pleiadsare lost in the glare.

The Moon about to occult one of

the Pleiades. (Tom Cocchiaro

image)

Four of the New Searles sky watchparticipants stayed afterwards toobserver the occultation: KenCharles, Gardner Gerry, PaulWinalski, and Nils Wygant. Anoccultation is not usually an eventthat one can share at the telescope—there will be only one eye at theeyepiece at the moment when thestar disappears. But with a clusteroccultation, there are several eventsand so one can share. For me oneof the most fascinating things ishow one can see the motion of theMoon across the sky moment bymoment as it slowly lumberstowards a star like a supertankerabout to run over a lit buoy.

We also will get to see Pleaidesoccultations in June and Septemberthis year, so if you missed this one,you will have two more chances thisyear.

� Paul Winalski

I just finished up my viewing of theMoon occulting the Pleiades.

I had planned to stay in Cambridge,working late, and then cross theriver at sunset and observe fromBoston's Esplanade. But, around6pm clouds rolled and I wasn’tgoing to stay late for nothing, so Icame back to my crash pad in theSavin Hill area of Dorchester for anight without star viewing. You see,we’re on the north east side of thehill, the west is obscured by housesabove us!

I was quite pleased to see, from awest facing window, that I could seethe Moon! I quickly grabbed thebinoculars. It was still twilight andat 7:38pm I could make out 3 of the7 sisters. The moon was in the fieldof view of them.

I checked again at 8:01pm and Icould make out 6 stars now, but theMoon was getting perilously closeto a neighbor’s house, and worse,the heat plume from his chimney!

By 8:07 I still could only see 6.

At 8:23 the moon was behind thehouse and I figured, what can theneighbors do? Call the cops? I’llshow them the moon! So I wentoutside and was pleased to see thatthrough a large gap in the trees Icould see the show and, moreimportantly, not be seen as lookinginto someone house!

I only counted 13 stars in thePleiades. This is pathetic. I hadthought that Manchester was brightbut Boston is really, really bad.Auriga had only 4 stars to the nakedeye. Gemini had only 3, plus Mars.I tried to find M36, the easiest ofthree clusters in Auriga, I found allmy pointers but the cluster was notto be seen.

Maybe I’ll take back what I saidabout city observing being fun. Iguess I should say that small cityobserving is fun. Boston viewing inpathetic.

� Paul Cezanne

HHHaaammmppptttooonnn PPPuuubbbllliiiccc LLLiiibbbrrraaarrryyy

SSSkkkyyy WWWaaatttccchhh

On 16 April we presented a skywatch for the Hampton, NH PublicLibrary. Paul Winalski gave theindoor talk to about 50 adults andchildren. At least nine NHAS

April 2008 The NHAS Observer 5

members were there to help out atthe scopes: John Bishop, HerbBubert, Joe Derek, GardnerGerry, Al Navarro, John Rose,Bill Steele, Mike Townsend, PaulWinalski. The skies were clear, butthe site (parking lot in front of thelibrary) suffered from terrible lightpollution from floodlights inneighboring parking lots. Next timewe will have to see about finding adarker spot to observe from.

It was a night for observing theplanet Saturn, and for double stars.We also had a very fine mag –5Iridium flare high in the sky underthe Big Dipper’s handle.

� Paul Winalski

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Since I was planning to bring ascope up to North Conway for thepublic session all three times it gotclouded out, I figured I owedsomebody a look through mytelescope. Last Tuesday (March 18)it was clear so I drove up toPortsmouth and set up the XT8i infront of Barnes & Noble at theNewington Mall. I will admit thatwith the gibbous Moon knew Iwasn’t going to get any deep skyobserving done at home, but for thepublic the Moon and Saturn areobvious treats and both were visibleand near each other in spite of theparking lot lights.

Within 10 minutes I had lines ofpeople, adults and children, havingthe usual reaction to a first view ofSaturn. One lady said, “This wasthe best 5 minutes of my entire day”which is a comment I'm sure manymembers have heard.

After about an hour, Mall Securitygave me some grief, since outsidethe doors of the store the propertybelongs to the mall. So I packed upand then went inside to meet themanager and “apologize” but shesaid nobody ever talked to her andshe would have been happy to letme stay there all night. In fact,during the recent lunar eclipse shelet all the employees go outside allevening to see how it wasprogressing.

Next day she gave my card to theB&N customer relations manager,

who called me yesterday. Shewants me to present an introductoryastronomy class to their monthlyhome-schooler program whichmeets at the store, and bring ascope. Even better, she has nowgotten permission from the mallowners to follow it up with anobserving session for the kids afterthe class out in front of the store.So all in all, a spur of the momentthing has led to a nice relationshipand hopefully will spark somechild's interest in astronomy.

� Ted Blank

Ted’s “guerrilla astronomy” effortsgot a nice write-up in the 10 Apriledition of the Portsmouth Herald.You can read a copy of the articleonline at:http://www.seacoastonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080411/LIFE/804110377/-1/LIFE .

� Paul Winalski

NNNHHHAAASSS MMMaaarrrccchhh 222000000888

BBBuuusssiiinnneeessssss MMMeeeeeetttiiinnnggg

My thanks to Matt Amar for takingminutes, as I was late to the meetingand didn’t arrive until after thebreak.

ATM

No news.

YFOS

The observing field is mostly clear.The lock on the observatory stillfreezes.

Astrophotography

Hasn’t met recently.

Radio Astronomy

No report.

Public Observing

There are several sky watchesscheduled for April.

Webmaster

Larry Lopez mentioned the digestfor the email discussion groups, andsaid that the multiple deliveryproblem is the fault of the ISP.

Other Business

Gardner will be organizing ourAstronomy Day event this year,which will take place on Saturday 3May as part of CMP’s Spacetacular

Saturday. Sign up ahead of timewith Gardner if you plan to takepart.

Alan Shirey reminded membersthat he will be presenting a scopeclinic for frustrated users on thenight of 2 May. This originally hadbeen planned for December orJanuary but got pushed back.

Chase McNiss pointed out that2009 is Astronomy Year so weshould make a real push onAstronomy Day that year.

Book of the Month

Ken Charles brought in TheUniverse, a book many membersare familiar with. He donated it tothe club.

Scope of the Month

Larry Lopez brought an “antique”:Astro-Physics 400 on an offset alt-az mount.

Evening Program

Ed Ting gave his talk on tips andtechniques for running a MessierMarathon. Included was anexcellent strategy for navigating theVirgo Galaxy Cluster.

� Paul Winalski

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Starting Balance: $5739.29

Deposits/Credits: 00.00(Membership)Accounts/Paid: 445.64(LAB, Peerless)

Net Account Balance: $5293.65

Petty cash drawer: $100.00

Cash Balance: $5393.65

2008 Membership: 127

New members:Alfonso Navarro, Manchester NHDonald Moyer, Hill NH

� Chase McNiss

DEADLINE May 2008 Issue: 5 PM May 13E-mail articles to the Editor.CHANGE OF ADDRESS – Notify the Treasurer of changes to postal or e-mail address.

How to Join N.H.A.S.Write to us: Send E-mail to:NHAS info@nhastro.comP.O. Box 5823Manchester, NH 03108-5823 Use our web site:Attn: Treasurer http://www.nhastro.com/

This month's contributors:Gardner Gerry, Alan Shirey, Larry Lopez, Bill Steele, Dave Weaver, Ken Charles, Tom Cocchiaro, Paul Cezanne, Ted Blank, Matt Amar,Chase McNiss

New Hampshire Astronomical SocietyP.O. Box 5823Manchester, NH 03108-5823

Event Date Time Location

NHAS Business Meeting Apr 18 7:30 PM Christa McAuliffe Planetarium

NortEast Astro-Image Conference Apr 24-25 Suffern, N Y

NorthEast Astronomy Forum (NEAF) Apr 26-27 Suffern, NY

CMP Public Sky Watch May 2 7:00 PM Christa McAuliffe Planetarium

Astro 101: How To Use Your NewTelescope

May 2 8:00 PM Christa McAuliffe Planetarium

Astronomy Day May 3 12:00 PM Christa McAuliffe Planetarium

Coffee House Night May 9 5:00 PM YFOS

Astro 101: Stars May 9 7:00 PM YFOS

NHAS Business Meeting May 16 7:30 PM St. Anselm

Astro 201: Measurement ofAstronomical Distances

May 16 8:30 PM St. Anselm

NHAS Upcoming Events

2008 OfficersPresident: Gardner Gerry

VicePresident: Mike TownsendTreasurer: Chase McNiss

Secretary: Paul Winalski