The Meteor Journal of the Escambia Amateur Astronomers Association

Transcription

1 The Meteor Journal of the Escambia Amateur Astronomers Association VOLUME XXXIV Number 6 June 2009 ********************************************************************************************* President Rick Hogue (850) V-P Dewey Barker (850) Secretary Sharon Bogart (850) Treasurer Jim Larduskey (850) Observing - Warren Jarvis (850) Librarian: Jacque Falzone (850) Observatory Chair - Paul Moffat (251) NWFAA Contact: Dennis Hausch (850) Editor and ALCOR: Dr. J. Wayne Wooten, Physical Sciences, Room 9704, Pensacola Junior College, Pensacola FL Phone (850) (voic ) ( ) pjc.edu Please mail all dues to EAAA Treasurer, 4660 Shannon Circle, Pensacola, FL Texas Star Party Report It was a bit of a drive approx miles from Pensacola with the 6x12 cargo trailor and 4 cylinder Tacoma?? loaded to the hilt with the 28" F3.7 and the new 16.5" F3.6 FX Starmasters plus the Orion Atlas go-to mount refractors, cameras, Mallincam etc. I was able to arrive Saturday the day before the Sunday noontime opening and met Rick at his campsite in the Ft. Davis mountains State Park, (which was really cool on its own). We dropped off my truck and trailer that Saturday evening to be first in line (imagine that?) at the Prude Ranch, to get in. I really needed to have the trailor near the scopes etc, which turned out to be no problem at all. All went well getting in and setting up all this stuff. Rick brought the brand new of the newest Super FX series the 22" F3.3 which looked as much like a huge short cannon as my 28" did. Sunday night turned out to be awesome indeed, perfectly clear but a bit cold and after getting all the scopes setup it was nice to get back reaquainted with the night sky again, only dark. I was on a roll with imaging with one scope, observing with the other and testing and observing things in Rick's 22". A brief list of observing and imaging objects for monday included M51, (in the 28, just like a picture only black and white and live), M101, Omega Centauri, Centarus A, The atlas mount with wide field of Cygnus and Saggitarius area's. On a visual note I was able to see for the first time with out a doubt the "double lensed Quasar in Ursa Major, approx 17.5 mag) it was steady for awhile then in and out with the seeing conditions. The Virgo cluster had so many galaxies that I haven't seen before I almost didn't recognize the one's I did know?? On the testing side we did some compairing with eyepieces with the various Nagler's and the new Etho's eyepieces, man they are the way to go for sure, and they worked perfectly in all three scopes, so F3.3 and higher spectacular. Another note, there was a question regarding "binoviewers" observations, I have the "Denkmeier bino's", with all the bells and whistles as well as the 3 power slide bars to give 3 different magnification level with the same eyepieces. Rick has trouble viewing with them and I have used mine many times on the 28" and were unreal, however I haven't tried them in my 16.5" as of yet, answer they work absolutely fine, and when we tried them in the 22" F3.3, the same was observed. The correction with the OCS was virtually perfect edge to edge even though a parracor wasn't used. I also was able to see the quasar in the bino's as well in the 28". I didn't do anything with the Mallincam on the first night because the upper field was really full and wanted to see how the light situation was going to be in such dark skies and how many folks really did stay up all night, a lot did. Not a bad first night of observing and photographing, shut down at about 5:30 am with the moon coming up.

2 THE METEOR VOLUME XXXIV Number 6 June 2009 Page 2 Monday night was another very good night with much more of the same going on with added objects etc, M3, M81, M82, the Dumbell and the Lagoon in both scopes. Did a bunch of imaging with both scopes this night. It was starting to get late, and I really wanted to give the MallinCam a tryout, so I set it up on the 16.5" since its so easy to work with. I was imaging the Dumbell Nebula and observing it with the small Marshall monitor that I can attach right to the scope next to the focuser. The Dumbell was wonderful and completely full of imbedded stars in the colorfull nebula. I was shooting it in the 6 and 12 second mode with different "gain" settings etc, just getting going with it. At about this same time an "observer" dropped by and it was "Alvan Huey" which if you don't recognize the name is also the author of several of the best deep (deep) sky observing books/manuals that I have ever seen. (I did purchase his whole set, get back with me for more details if your interested as well), a very accomplished observer to say the least!!.. Anyway we were chatting a bit and I had mentioned to him earlier that I was going to give the Mallincam a go tonight and he asked if we could image "Shakhbazian 19" I have no idea if I spelled that right?? I asked him "what is that? He and a handful of major observers were looking at it through a friends 30" scope. Anyway its a very dim,small,remote, speck in the sky?? It turns out that it is a small chain of galaxies that form an arc similar to a lensed quasar only supposedly they can be split in to their components, (2 are at 18 mag and the other 2 are at 20th magnitude!!) Well, I said what the heck lets try it. I added the rough coordinates into the sky commander and hit the go to and it wasn't in there. Alvin looked visually and found the background stars to get to the proper location and then I put the MallinCam in, turned it to 12 seconds and upped the gain,,,,, there it was 4 galaxies down the 20th mag in the 16.5" scope live!! He said a couple of nice words and said hold on and brougt the whole observing bunch back, including Barbara Wilson and sorry can't remember all the other names,,, all extremely accompliched observers and they all stared at that little monitor back and forth for along time. I did mention that I could put the image on a larger monitor but it would kill their night vision, they were astonded at what they saw, as well as I,, this is some dim stuff here and only in 12 seconds of live integration. The 16.5 can easily image at 30 seconds with no trailing at all, so I can't wait to see what a MallinCam can do with 30 seconds of integration time!! Stay tuned. I stayed up till about 6:30 am this night, moon again. Tuesday was also a good day/night, observed and photographed till about midnight and I was done. On Wednesday the clouds started coming in and we made the trip to El Paso to deliver a new Starmaster scope, basically chilled out on Wed night and was planning a different day on Thursday. There were cloudy nights predicted later in the week so Rick and I had made an observing trip during the daytime to the "Top of the Hill" at the Ft. Davis state park and at the top is a large parking lot with an awesome view from the top of the mountain (at 5530 elevation according to my GPS) So I thought I would try doing some major southern sky imaging from there with the Atlas Mount and also the 16.5" Starmaster. I set up just before sunset and there were some storms and lightning in the way south and east? Just where I wanted to observe, so it fought me a little early on but settled down nicely later. Some of the objects imaged included, lightning, M51, M101, more lightning, Omega Centauri, M82, M3, alot of M8 and long exposure wide fields of Sagittarius/ Scorpius. The transparancy was good, but the seeing was real bad, McDonald observatory rated the night at approx. 3 arc minutes!! (not seconds?) I did shoot over 500 exposures from sunset to sunrise. Rick came up after 11pm and observed until after 2 am with me, we had a great time "On top of the hill". The weather went bad basically the rest of the time with the exception of a few hours hear and there. We had plans of doing some more work with the MallinCam on some of the very obscure and difficult objects but the clouds wouldn't break long enough for us. All in all it was an awesome starparty. The 3 Starmaster's performed flawlessly, and we had a large amount of observers come by to look and all were happy with what they saw. I was able to get in 3 full sunset to sunrise nights in and almost wore my camera and myself out, and that was the plan!! Stay tuned for some hopefully real good images as soon as I can get them processed in the near future. --John VeDepo

3 THE METEOR VOLUME XXXIV Number 6 June 2009 Page 3 Thank you for the wonderful report. John, I got to go to the Texas Star Party around 20 years ago. Still one of my favorite memories. I flew in alone then rented a car for the last several hours to the Prude, didn t take a scope but never regretted that because of all the generous folks there. The year I went was a special one for me as Clyde Tombaugh was the guest speaker. I ll never forget the first night when I thought the clouds were rolling in and was told, No that s just the Milky Way. I think my favorite viewing experience was getting to see Coma Berenices naked eye and absolutely stunning.diamonds in the sky. Unfortunately, these last 17 years have been hopeless as far as the stars go because of the city lights now that I m in Nashville. Thanks again for the happy thoughts, so glad you got to go. --Bonnie B. Keough French Camp Report The current economic times have made things a bit tough for a lot of people, as was apparent at the Mid-South Star Gaze this year. Attendance did not reach much above 90, but those of us that did go; we were on the receiving end of a spectacularly clear and unprecedentedly dry event. The days typically began mostly cloudy with a fairly strong breeze, but once the sun set the clouds appeared to evaporate and the wind died down to just strong enough to help keep the dew off the optics and equipment. Ella and I arrived in French Camp around 4:00 PM on Sunday the 19th. We checked in with Jim Hill and went to unload our bags and foodstuff in our room at the Memphis Guest which is located on the school grounds. The rooms are fairly nice and can sleep a group of 3 or 4 if someone doesn t mind sharing the small queen-sized bed. They also provide indoor plumbing for those people that take exception to making any trips to the bathroom in the night which would involve the use of shoes and a flashlight.(;-d!!! The event is slated to run Wednesday to Saturday, but I often heard on earlier trips that the views were better on Mondays and Tuesdays, so I started going earlier to see if this was true and to give Jim some help in getting things set up and assist with registrations. The EAAA was represented by me, and Joe Robinson who had arrived on Saturday, then Dave Halupowski arrived on Monday and Thor Garber arrived on Wednesday. Joe had his 8 Meade LX200 to use and I set up my new 12 Meade Lightbridge and my Orion 100 mm refractor. Dave made use of the observatory s 6 Astro-Physics Refractor, a Meade 12 SCT and a 10 or 12 f/15 Schmidt telescope during his stay. The Rainwater Observatory has had a reputation for living up to its name and these gazes have always had 1 or 2 days of rain. This was the first year that I can remember that we had clear nights all week long and I was on the field every night of the week and I stayed up later and later as the week progressed. My observing sessions culminated as I watched Jupiter, Venus and Mars fade away as the Sun rose on Friday morning. It was a lot of fun putting the new dob to work and seeing objects a little more clearly than with my SCT or my refractor, but I was quite surprised with the detail I was able to pull out of M81 and M82 with my 100mm refractor Wednesday night. I spent the week viewing many Messier objects and wandering around looking through the various scopes and watching the displays on the monitors set up for the event. We had some good guest speakers, and even Dave was one, that provided some interesting and informative information. I especially enjoyed Dr Donna Pierce s presentation on comets and the Star Dust return mission. As the event drew to a close on Saturday night, it started out fairly cloudy and hazy, but things cleared up after 9:00 PM. I stayed on the hill unwilling to surrender my time at the telescope, but I knew that I had a long drive the next day so I wrapped my gear up around 2:00 AM and headed for bed. Ella and I got up late in the morning and proceeded to get the van packed for our trip back home, we said our good-byes to Jim and the few people still on the hill and finally departed French Camp around noon. This is definitely one of the best gazes we have ever had and it s placed the expectation bar quite high, hopefully next years will be as good. --Dewey J. Barker, EAAA Vice-President

4 THE METEOR VOLUME XXXIV Number 6 June 2009 Page 4 Family Fun Day at Hurlburt Field Saturday, April 11 was Family Fun Day at Hurlburt Field in Fort Walton Beach. I arrived about 8:30, located our booth and started to set up the C-8. Dennis Hausch arrived about 9:30 and brought his 8" home-made Dob. This year, we got to share a canopy with the Armed Forces Insurance rep. It was nice to be able to get out of the Sun for a break. I put the Baader filter on the C-8 and showed the kids the sun while Dennis focused on far-away objects so that everyone could see how a telescope brings distant objects close-up. I don't know the exact count, but would estimate that we had over 700 children get their cards stamped at our booth. The children enjoyed our show as usual, and we tore down about 2pm. --Jim Larduskey Lyrid Meteor Shower Observations Wednesday morning April 22, Rick Little and I decided to go out to the 3 rd parking lot past Portofiino on the beach to check out the Lyrid meteor shower. We set up about 2 am and were rewarded with some of the best skies we have seen at the beach for quite a while. Alas, it was too windy for telescopes, but the naked eye view of the Milky Way more than made up for it. We saw about 25 meteors in the next 3 hours, a couple of which were quite spectacular, leaving bright trails behind. Once the meteor shower died out, we stayed to watch the conjunction between the Moon and Venus. When they rose, Venus was several moon diameters away, but as time progressed, it got closer and closer, passing just below the bottom horn of the Moon's Crescent about 7:40. It was interesting to see through the binoculars that the crescents of both the Moon and Venus were identical. Mars made an appearance in the beginning, but disappeared as the Sun rose. By the time conjunction approached we had to use binoculars to follow the two due to the sun being well up by that time. We packed it in about 8 am just as Venus was passing directly under the moon about one Venus diameter away. Due to being too far east, we got conjunction rather that occultation. I got a few pictures at the beginning, but my camera battery ran out with about 2 hours to go. --Jim Larduskey Gazing at the Rave This past weekend marked the opening of the new Star Trek movie. Jay Gallops and Sharon Bogart, both members of the local Star Trek Continuum, had sent a request to the EAAA to set up telescopes outside the Rave Theater on Bayou Blvd during the evening shows. The Continuum had several members on hand from Thursday through Sunday in full costume. Most members seemed to favor the uniforms worn by the cast of the Next Generation, except for three, two members wore costumes from the original series and one was dressed up as a Klingon. They had an interesting display set up in the lobby with their club banner mounted on some PVC framework that was standing behind a couple tables that contained various props and handouts. They also had a video display running an hour long DVD slide show of clips taken from the various TV shows and movies. The highlight of their display consisted of a replica of the Captain s Chair used in the original series and was surprisingly comfortable. The chair garnered a lot of attention and was used as a means to grab some of the movie goers, as they stopped to look and to stage photos with the dressed up Continuum club members in the background. The chair will make a great recruiting tool for future Continuum club members. I scoped out the front of the theater (pun intended) for a place to set up my Orion 100 mm refractor for views of the Moon and Saturn after I arrived around 8:00 PM on both Friday and Saturday nights. With all the light pollution from the parking lot lights, I knew that these would be my only targets for either evening. I set up a table for displaying the Pavilion Gaze flyers, some Orion catalogs, club applications and a handout for pointers on selecting a first telescope. The weather was a bit dodgy on Friday; views of the Moon and Saturn became a game of hide and seek among the sucker holes in the clouds while they sped through the sky. The building was not constructed with a favorable angle for viewing celestial objects along the ecliptic. I had to move the scope around a bit in order to catch either target during the course of the evening which negated the use of the right ascension drive.

5 THE METEOR VOLUME XXXIV Number 6 June 2009 Page 5 I decided to focus primarily on Saturn on Saturday evening, 1) to use the RA drive and 2) to keep me in better view of the main theater entrance and exit. I handed out around 200 Pavilion flyers, 15 club applications, a dozen catalogs and a few of the pointer hand outs and I could have easily used another 100 Pavilion flyers. Everyone was quite impressed with the views of Saturn and they were quite surprised that they could see it once I showed them where it was with my green laser. Many people asked if this location provided a favorable view or if there was something special about the evening. I said that since they were getting the Hollywood version of space I wanted to let them see it for real, a bit of science fact to offset the science fiction they just saw. A few people thought I was joking about viewing Saturn and tentatively approached as a line formed behind the scope. Some people mentioned that I should have had a small replica of the Enterprise hanging in front of the scope to make it look like it was orbiting the planet. When I was asked several times how much? I usually responded just a smile with an occasional Oh Wow! would be just fine. I stuck it out until 1:30 AM or so both nights. I wanted to catch the people as they were leaving the last show and to get the ones that were running late that couldn't take the time to stop for a quick view. I received a lot of positive feedback for both my efforts and the Continuum s efforts to make this weekend more enjoyable to local movie patrons, hopefully both clubs will reap the benefits of acquiring new members. --Dewey J. Barker, EAAA V-P First Pavilion Gazes of Summer great successes Friday, May 29 th was a pretty an evening on the beach as you could imagine, and the turnout was great, with over 200 folks watching the ISS pass into our shadow just west of Spica at 9:15PM. Many thanks to Mike Davey and Warren Jarvis for bringing the twin C-6 and 100mm refractor set for use with our Color PlanetCam lots of great photos of lunar craters, Saturn with edge on rings taken by public. Wayne Travis computerized 8 Celestron was a hit on Saturn, the Moon, and great resolution on Omega Centauri at the end of the evening. Dewey Barker brought his 4 refractor, and I had the 72mm Eon, both of which did surprisingly well on Omega as well. Several prospective members brought their own scopes for assistance in using them. Also from the club were Vicki and Rafael Barazza, Jackie Falzone, John VeDepo, Roland McDavid and his big binocs, and five night AST students. Wayne Wooten Saturday's Sidewalk Astronomy Night at Pensacola Beach was a huge success. As usual we had hundreds of folks stop by to look through our scopes and ask many varied questions, including the inevitable "flag on the Moon" and the upcoming bi-annual August Mars hoax. The oohs, ahhs, wows and cools were numberous all night long with many young people expressing real excitement at actually seeing the rings and lunar craters for the first time, some were REALLY excited. I truly believe we "made some people's night". The "star" of the show was of course Saturn followed closely by the Moon at 200X. Some brighter DSO's were also observed such as M-4, M-57 and M-104. Other members may have observed other objects, I never got a chance to mingle as we were slammed for several hours. The ISS was spotted twice, several other satellites pointed out and constellations were described. We handed out star charts, our schedule for the next gaze and some telescope information catalogs provided by Orion Telescopes. We had a great representation of scope styles available for guest to look through. Members that set up scopes, and I may miss some, were Gary Wiseman 12" LX200, Manny Galindo LXD75 10" Schmitt- Newtonian (very sharp optics, impressive), Jim Lardusky C-8, Rick Little 8" Dob, Carol and Rich Sigler Binos, Dave Halupowski 10" LX200, Dennis Haush 8" Dob, Harold Breyde 8" Dob, Roland McDavid binos and my Meade 178 refractor. Other members that stopped by were Jacque Falzone, Ella and Dewey Barker and Mark Branch. Once again our Sidewalk Astronomy Night introduced the night sky to hundreds of people that had never even given it a second thought. With big cuts proposed for NASA and the end of US manned space flight looming in the near future I feel we are doing our part with these public gazes to sway public interest back toward humankind's inevitable destiny to explore space and eventually expand into the cosmos. Whomever thought of these pavilion gazes sure had a great idea, ;-) --Rick Hogue,EAAA Prez

6 THE METEOR VOLUME XXXIV Number 6 June 2009 Page 6 Bellview MS gaze on May 26 th Wayne Travis and I set up on the track at Bellview Middle School around 7:00 PM on May 26th. The cloudy day must have put quite a damper on the expectations for the evenings event. The clear sky clock had showed clear skies after 6:00 PM, but that never happened. It was a bit of a disappointment, but considering the weather I was surprised anyone bothered to show up. We had six students and three adults come by to see what was going on during the time we were set up. Wayne and I stuck it out until 8:30-9:00 PM mostly chatting with the two teachers and the few students that hung around. --Dewey J. Barker, EAAA V-P Minutes of the EAAA Meeting for May 1, 2009 EAAA President, Rick Hogue, opened the meeting at 7:09 p.m. at PJC. There were approximately 25 members present with one guest. Mike Davey has the educational book for Level I that can be purchased for $7.00. The test is online and can be downloaded. It is a 100 question, open book test that is given to Dr. Wooten once it is completed. He will grade it and present you with an award at the next meeting. There are 5 levels in the education program and it is available to all members. Awards and certificates are given for each level completed. Treasurer, Jim Larduskey presented his report for May.. The club has $2, in checking, $1, in savings, $ in cash, for a total balance of $4, Expenditures for this month include $ to Draco for the website, $63.00 for Florida Business Registration and the yearly trailer license fee or $ Star Shooting CD s are still available at $10.00 each or trade one in. Nothing to report for the International Dark Sky report. Sharon Bogart mentioned the new Star Trek movie premiering May 7 th. The local Star Trek Sci-fi club will be at the Rave Theatre on Bayou Blvd to help promote the movie and the Continuum club. They will be there May 7 th May 10 th in full costume along with a replica of the original Captain s chair. The EAAA has been invited to set up scopes outside the theatre. OLD BUSINESS: See Dave Halupowski for EAAA t-shirts and hats. Dark Sky Report: Nothing to report at this time. Observatory Report: As you all know, the PJC Planetarium is out of business for now due to equipment problems. The Digistar is unrepairable because we cannot get the parts at this time. It will probably be a year or two before the planetarium can get the money to switch over and it may take over $100,000. It may take a grant or some kind of governmental assistance for what we need to get it up and running. A lot of people have asked and are continuing to ask about the planetarium and the programs. Stargaze Reports: Hurlburt Family Fun Day: Dennis Hausch reported that 100 s showed up with over 2,000 children showing up for the festival itself. The EAAA probably had about 700 people show up with children getting their card stamped. Dennis brought his blue Dob and Jim Larduskey his C8. There was no activity on the Sun, but despite this the kids and parents were amazed to be able to see the Sun through a telescope. Mid South Star Gaze: Dewey Barker reported six consecutive days of clear sky. He was there every single night that he could be there. (see report submitted) One of the best speakers was Dr. Donna Pierce who talked about the Stardust missions. Attendance was down this year with about 90 people showing up.

7 THE METEOR VOLUME XXXIV Number 6 June 2009 Page 7 Opal Beach Gaze: Jim Larduskey reported that he and Rick Little got there about 2 a.m. and was the best night he had seen in about 8 years out on the beach. It was too windy to take scopes, so they just brought binoculars. The Milk Way was just spectacular. As far as the Meteor Shower they only saw between 25 and 30 meteors with a couple that were spectacular with really nice trails.. Then they hung around for the conjunction between Venus and the Moon in the morning. Dixon Middle School: Dewey Barker reported he and Wayne Travis were there and that it was fairly crowded compared to the one that he attended at McArthur School. Bob Gaskin was there as well. There were about 1,000 1,500 people on hand for the event. The event ended at 7:00, but a lot of people hung around until about 7:30. All were young elementary age school kids. As it was twilight, there wasn t a whole lot to see. Stargaze at Jacque Falzone s Property: Rick Hogue reported that it was a beautiful place. The sky was a little bit hazy, but was able to see quite a few things. Left about 11:30 p.m. and just as they were leaving it cleared up with a beautiful sky. Another one is being planned for the 16 th of May, which is a Saturday evening. NEW BUSINESS: Future Programs: 1) June Digital Astro Photography Dr. Wooten 2) Kepler TBA 3) Atlas of the Universe TBA 4) SLOOH TBA Upcoming Stargazes: May 7 th Eglin AFB May th - Pensacola Beach Pavilion June 19 th Ft. Pickens May 26 th Bellview Middle School WSRE-TV has all the volunteers they need right now for their campaign. EAAA Annual Picnic is scheduled for August 14 th Pickens. More information to be supplied at a later date. (Friday) 6 or 6:30 p.m. at Fort Hubble Telescope was observed by all after the meeting at approximately 8:03 with a bright flaring pass. Meeting was adjourned at 7:50 p.m. PROGRAM TONIGHT: Gary Wiseman showed us pictures taken at the Hurlburt Field gaze of Venus and Saturn with its rings. Nice photos Gary! Dave Halupowski gave a power point presentation of his visit to French Camp. Included were pictures of the observatories, classrooms, domes, control room, planetarium, various telescopes, and buildings with roll-off roofs scattered throughout the camp. Dave talked about the sketching program that was presented, which is basically drawing or sketching the Moon, stars, comets, planets, galaxies, etc. from visual observation. This can be done from a photo, looking through a telescope or observing the night objects with the naked eye. The next Mid-South Star Gaze is April 14-17, Sharon Bogart, Secretary

8 THE METEOR VOLUME XXXIV Number 6 June 2009 Page 6 Calendar of Events June 5 EAAA Meets at 7 PM, room 1775, Wayne Wooten shows astrophotos with small digital cameras Venus at GWE, 46 degrees west of Sun, and half lit in morning sky now June 7 Full Moon, the Rose Moon June 13 Waning gibbous moon passes 3 degrees north of Jupiter in morning sky June 15 Last Quarter Moon June 19 Ft. Pickens Sky Interpretation, first at Battery Worth since Ivan! Set up about 7:30 PM Waning crescent moon passes 8 degrees north of Venus in morning sky June 21 Summer Solstice at 12:45 AM CDT this year Venus passes two degrees south of Mars in morning sky June 22 New Moon; next one produces the long totality in China June 23 Pluto at opposition, but hard to find in rich Milky Way of Ophiuchus June 26 Gulfside Pavilion gaze starts at sunset, waxing crescent moon passes 3 degrees S of Regulus June 27 Waxing crescent moon passes six degrees south of Saturn June 29 First quarter moon July 3 Earth at aphelion, farthest from the Sun July 7 Full Moon, the Hay or Thunder Moon July 10 EAAA meets at 7 PM, moon passes 3 degrees north of Jupiter, both rising about 9 PM July 15 Moon at Last Quarter July 17 Sky Interpretation at Ft. Pickens Battery Worth, sunset until 11 PM July 19 Waning crescent moon passes six degrees north of Venus July 22 New moon, total solar eclipse for India and China July 25 Waxing crescent moon passes six degrees south of Saturn in SW evening sky The Gulfside Pavilion Sidewalk gazes: May 29/30, June 26/27, July 24/25, Aug. 28/29, and Sept. 25/26. Ft. Pickens Sky interpretations are June 19, July 17, Aug. 14, Sept. 18, and Oct. 6. Please remember to pay your annual dues. Mail check or pay at the meetings to Jim Larduskey, 4660 Shannon Circle, Pensacola, FL Regular - $24, Student and Senior - $12, Meteor - $10

9 Scoring More Energy from Less Sunlight For spacecraft, power is everything. Without electrical power, satellites and robotic probes might as well be chunks of cold rock tumbling through space. Hundreds to millions of miles from the nearest power outlet, these spacecraft must somehow eke enough power from ambient sunlight to stay alive. That s no problem for large satellites that can carry immense solar panels and heavy batteries. But in recent years, NASA has been developing technologies for much smaller microsatellites, which are lighter and far less expensive to launch. Often less than 10 feet across, these small spacecraft have little room to spare for solar panels or batteries, yet must still somehow power their onboard computers, scientific instruments, and navigation and communication systems. Space Technology 5 was a mission that proved, among other technologies, new concepts of power generation and storage for spacecraft. We tested high efficiency solar cells on ST-5 that produce almost 60 percent more power than typical solar cells. We also tested batteries that hold three times the energy of standard spacecraft batteries of the same size, says Christopher Stevens, manager of NASA s New Millennium Program. This program flight tests cutting-edge spacecraft technologies so that they can be used safely on mission-critical satellites and probes. This more efficient power supply allows you to build a science-grade spacecraft on a miniature scale, Stevens says. Solar cells typically used on satellites can convert only about 18 percent of the available energy in sunlight into electrical current. ST-5 tested experimental cells that capture up to 29 percent of this solar energy. These new solar cells, developed in collaboration with the Air Force Research Laboratory in Ohio, performed flawlessly on ST-5, and they ve already been swooped up and used on NASA s svelte MESSENGER probe, which will make a flyby of Mercury later this year. Like modern laptop batteries, the high-capacity batteries on ST-5 use lithium-ion technology. As a string of exploding laptop batteries in recent years shows, fire safety can be an issue with this battery type. The challenge was to take these batteries and put in a power management circuit that protects against internal overcharge, Stevens explains. So NASA contracted with ABSL Power Solutions to develop spacecraft batteries with design control circuits to prevent power spikes that can lead to fires. It worked like a charm. Now that ST-5 has demonstrated the safety of this battery design, it is flying on NASA s THEMIS mission (for Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms) and is slated to fly aboard the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter and the Solar Dynamics Observatory, both of which are scheduled to launch later this year. Thanks to ST-5, a little sunlight can go a really long way. Find out about other advanced technologies validated in space and now being used on new missions of exploration at nmp.nasa.gov/technology/scorecard. Kids can calculate out how old they would be before having to replace lithium-ion batteries in a handheld game at spaceplace.nasa.gov/en/kids/st5_bats.shtml. This article was provided by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

10 Caption: Helen Johnson, a spacecraft technician at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, works on one of the three tiny Space Technology 5 spacecraft in preparation for its technology validation mission. Note to editors: This image may be downloaded from

11 June 2009 Gallery Messier 53 is one of the more distant globular star clusters, being about 60,000 light years away from the Galactic center, and almost the same distance (about 58,000 light years) from Earth. M53 has a bright compact central nucleus, but the stars are not at all concentrated toward the center when compared to other globulars such as M3. Its discoverer Johann Elert Bode, who found it on February 3, 1775, described it as a "rather vivid and round" nebula. Charles Messier, who independently rediscovered and cataloged it two years later, on February 26, 1777, found it "round and conspicuous" and that it resembles M79. Neither one of these early astronomers realized that they were looking at gigantic balls of hundreds of thousands of stars. In small telescopes M53 appears as a slightly oval and very small wispy object with fairly even surface brightness. In larger telescopes, M53 s outer fringes appear resolved into stars, while the central part is still unresolved and grainy, with one star standing out. Bob Gaskin