Upcoming Events. A look inside this issue

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1 President Treasurer Newsletter Editors Matthew McCue Ro Spedaliere Anthony Vicidomini Megan Vicidomini Vice President-Secretary Webmaster Sarah Waters Donald Durett A look inside this issue Upcoming Events Upcoming Events Page 1 Recap Page Calendar Page 2 NASA s Space Place Page 3 NASA Highlight Page 4 Celestial Events Page 5 ASTRA Wear Page 5 Club Telescopes Page 5 ASTRA Library Page 5 Monthly Meeting on Friday, October 9th The next meeting will be held at the Robert J. Novins Planetarium located on the Ocean County College campus (Bldg. 13 next to parking lot 2) from 7pm to 10pm. Planetarium Show Star Party on Saturday, October 17th Join us as we set up our telescopes and observe the universe from 6:30pm to 8:30pm at Jakes Branch County Park, 1054 Sunset Road, Beachwood NJ Moonlight Hike on Friday, October 23rd There is a moonlight Hike from 6pm 9pm at the Island Beach State Park. (Please see page 4 for more information) A.S.T.R.A. Robert J. Novins Planetarium Ocean County College P.O. Box 2001 Toms River NJ EVENT CANCELLATIONS Two hours before the event start time please check out the ASTRA Message Board at or call the ASTRA Hotline: P a g e

2 Recap Following the September business meeting Sam Micovic gave a presentation on human space flight. Photo courtesy of ASTRA s Facebook Page President Matthew McCue sharing sun spots with Patrolman Warren Black of the Berkeley Township Police Department. Photo by Ro Spedaliere via ASTRA s Facebook Page 2015 CALENDAR Oct 09 Oct 17 Planetarium Show Nov 20 Nov 20 Moonlight Hikes (5pm-8pm) Island Beach State Park Cloverdale Farms Star Party (6:30pm) Cloverdale Farms County Park at Ocean Acres Oct 23 Nov 13 Nov 14 Moonlight Hike (6pm-9pm) Island Beach State Park Following the business meeting there will be a presentation by Phil Zollner titled Earth and Sky Photography Dec 11 Dec 12 Dec 19 Awards, Election Following the business meeting there will be a presentation by Vic Palmieri titled How to Collimate a Newtonian Winter Star Party (7pm to 10pm) Public Star Party at OCC Planetarium 2 P a g e

3 Measure the moon's size and distance during the next lunar eclipse By Ethan Siegel The moon represents perhaps the first great paradox of the night sky in all of human history. While its angular size is easy to measure with the unaided eye from any location on Earth, ranging from arc-minutes ( ) to arc-minutes ( ) as it orbits our world in an ellipse, that doesn't tell us its physical size. From its angular size alone, the moon could just as easily be close and small as it could be distant and enormous. But we know a few other things, even relying only on naked-eye observations. We know its phases are caused by its geometric configuration with the sun and Earth. We know that the sun must be farther away (and hence, larger) than the moon from the phenomenon of solar eclipses, where the moon passes in front of the sun, blocking its disk as seen from Earth. And we know it undergoes lunar eclipses, where the sun's light is blocked from the moon by Earth. Lunar eclipses provided the first evidence that Earth was round; the shape of the portion of the shadow that falls on the moon during its partial phase is an arc of a circle. In fact, once we measured the radius of Earth (first accomplished in the 3rd century B.C.E.), now known to be 6,371 km, all it takes is one assumption that the physical size of Earth's shadow as it falls on the moon is approximately the physical size of Earth and we can use lunar eclipses to measure both the size of and the distance to the moon! Simply by knowing Earth's physical size and measuring the ratios of the angular size of its shadow and the angular size of the moon, we can determine the moon's physical size relative to Earth. During a lunar eclipse, Earth's shadow is about 3.5 times larger than the moon, with some slight variations dependent on the moon's point in its orbit. Simply divide Earth's radius by your measurement to figure out the moon's radius! Even with this primitive method, it's straightforward to get a measurement for the moon's radius that's accurate to within 15% of the actual value: 1,738 km. Now that you've determined its physical size and its angular size, geometry alone enables you to determine how far away it is from Earth. A lunar eclipse is coming up on September 28th, and this supermoon eclipse will last for hours. Use the partial phases to measure the size of and distance to the moon, and see how close you can get! Image credit: Daniel Munizaga (NOAO South/CTIO EPO), using the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, of an eightimage sequence of the partial phase of a total lunar eclipse. 3 P a g e

4 NASA Highlight Information from Perplexing Pluto: New Snakeskin Image from New Horizons The newest high-resolution images of Pluto from NASA s New Horizons are both dazzling and mystifying, revealing a multitude of previously unseen topographic and compositional details. Credits: NASA/JHUAPL/SWRI ISLAND BEACH STATE PARK MOONLIGHT HIKES STAR PARTIES! Here are the dates of the upcoming IBSP Moonlight Hikes. Friday, October 23-6:00pm Friday, November 20-5:00pm ASTRA members, let us know if you would like to participate and what dates you would be available. ASTRA members who volunteer to setup telescopes will meet at the main gate 1/2 hour before and head in together to the setup location. Please contact Richard Huber at: RAFlash99@aol.com or cell phone: (516) If you re not an ASTRA volunteer and you want to attend these programs please contact the IBSP Nature Center. (from the IBSP website) or please call the Nature Center: P a g e

5 CELESTIAL EVENTS Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) October 1 October 8, 9 October 11 - October 16 October 13 Comet C/2013 US10 Catalina. Draconids Meteor Shower. Uranus at Opposition. Mercury at Greatest Western Elongation New Moon. This phase occurs at 00:06 UTC.. October 21, 22 Orionids Meteor Shower. ASTRONOMICAL LEAGUE MEMBER SOCIETY Astronomical League National Headquarters, 9201 Ward Parkway; Suite 100, Kansas City, MO or The REFLECTOR is published in March, June, September and December. If you do not receive your copy of the REFLECTOR magazine, contact Astronomical League Coordinator (Alcor) Ro Spedaliere Treasurer@astra-nj.org ASTRA-WEAR Embroidered and / or Printed items with the ASTRA Logo October 26 October 27 October 28 Conjunction of Venus and Jupiter. Full Moon.. This phase occurs at 12:05 UTC. (SUPERMOON) Conjunction of Venus, Mars, and Jupiter. You can see some samples at ASTRA meetings. To order by mail: Shelter Cove Embroidery Co Bay Ave Toms River, NJ call or astrawear@estitches.com. Order form is on the ASTRA website. Source: Readers can Google Sea and Sky if they want to get to this site. NOVEMBER NEWSLETTER DEADLINE: OCTOBER 23, 2015 ASTRA LIBRARY OF BOOKS AND DVDS: Many books and DVDs are available for loan from the ASTRA Library for a one month period. A list of these items is available on the ASTRA website. Request for these items must be made prior to our regular meeting and returned by the following meeting. Please your request for these items to our Librarian John Endreson at Library-Loan@astra-nj.org or call him at CLUB TELESCOPES After suitable training, club members may borrow these instruments for a month at a time. Please contact John Endreson to make arrangements. Telescope-Loan@astra-nj.org. Available Equipment Dobsonian 8 inch, f/4 telescope with a 1.25 Helical Focuser Celestron SP-C80 Japanese-made 80mm, f/11 achromatic refractor Orion 'AstroView' 120mm, f/8.3 refractor telescope Celestron 8-inch Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope with Nexstar Lunt 35mm Hydrogen Alpha Solar Scope Celestron SkyMaster 15x70 binocular 5 P a g e