Inside Meetings. Outside OBSERVING EVENINGS

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1 NEXT MEETING THURSDAY, 15 th November 2018 THE ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY OF HARINGEY VOLUME 47 : ISSUE 01 : November

2 0B SOCIETY : MEETING VENUES and CALENDAR Inside Meetings 3BMusic and Drama Block, Ashmole Academy, Cecil Road, Southgate, London N14 5RJ. The day for meetings is usually the third Thursday of each month. The exceptions are August, when we do not hold a meeting, and this now currently applies to the July and December meetings, though that may alter in the future. However, in case of changes it is always advisable to double-check the dates below. Doors open pm : Main speaker pm : Finish pm sharp! For more on this, and general meeting information, also check the website page: Last minute changes will be on the Facebook page : Outside OBSERVING EVENINGS Old Elizabethans Memorial Playing Fields, Gypsy Corner, Mays Lane, Barnet EN5 2AG (Barnet Gate Lane end) Regarding any changes to Observing Evening meetings, this is a continuing message to let Observing Officers : Jim Webb, Alister Innes or Kyri Voskou know your mobile phone number. Last minute changes can then be notified via text messaging. The Facebook page will also be used, but we realise not all have (or want!) Facebook access, so it will be secondary to texting. And if you do not have a computer or cell phone, you can be phoned on your landline. More maps and details on the website November 15 th : Jerry Stone : The Build-Up to the Apollo 50 th - and the AGM December : no meeting this month 2019 January 17 th : Bob Marriott : The Silver-on-Glass Revolution February 21 st : Kyri Voskou : The Changing View of the Solar System March 21 st : George Emsden : Project Echo TBC COVER Earthrise - the classic shot of the Earth rising over the limb of the Moon, photographed by the Apollo 8 crew in December An appropriate image to introduce our November talk by Jerry Stone. Photo : NASA taken by Bill Anders 2

3 SOCIETY NEWS For up-to-date information, we are using that necessary evil - Facebook. Go to : However although originally you could view Public Facebook pages (which ASHastro is), and read posts, without being a member, it now seems you have to be a member of FB to even read them. So, sorry, you ll have to join - BUT this does not mean you need to give away information you don t want to give. Although Facebook doesn t go out of its way to tell you, any individual s home page can be blank (as your Editor s is) it does not have to have any information. Even your birth date need not be correct. However, once a member, if you want to interact - ie post messages on the ASH Group you will need to ask to join, and you will get signed up by your Chairman or Editor. The more the merrier! MEETING ROOM For indoor meetings, we currently meet at Ashmole Academy, Cecil Road, Southgate N14 5RJ, on the first floor of the Music and Drama Block. This is the two-storey building, (lower left) with the entrance marked with the red arrow. We hope the first floor will be suitable for all, as there isn t a lift. If anyone feels they will have difficulty, please let the Chairman know. Contact details on the back page. NOTE the Academy has installed new fences and gates between the car park and buildings. The route marked in red is now via a fenced off path. Alternatively there is a gate from the car park, at approximately the centre of the image. [ MEETING PREVIEW 15 th November : Jerry Stone : The Build-Up to the Apollo 50 th December 1968 saw the first ever flight of a manned spacecraft to fly out of the Earth s direct environs and to the Moon. This was Apollo 8. It was not the first manned Apollo flight, that was Apollo 7 of two months earlier, but that was on the smaller two-stage Saturn IB. Apollo 8 was first manned flight of the giant Apollo V launcher, carrying Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and Bill Anders. The rocket type would then, six months later, launch Apollo 11 for the first Lunar landing will of course be the 50 th anniversary of that momentous event, and so we welcome regular speaker Jerry Stone to take us through the build-up to the event next July. This meeting will start with the AGM, but we trust that will only take about 10 minutes. If anyone wants to stand for a post on the back page please let the Chairman or Secretary know, or this can take place before the meeting starts. MEETING REVIEW 19 th October : Alister Innes : Observing Evening Viewing was not great, due to a bright gibbous Moon and high wispy cloud, but we managed to get a binocular view of Jupiter, though very low down with no moons visible. Obviously a good sight of the Moon and a reasonable view of Mars through the telescope. New attendees Gervasio D'Agostino and son Augusto were pleased to see these with the kit we had and will hopefully attend further meetings. Alister Innes 3

4 SPACE NEWS - compiled by Kyri Voskou EARTH S OLDEST FOSSILS ARE ACTUALLY JUST ROCKS It s possible that fossils recently considered to be the oldest ever found might not be fossils at all. Further analysis has suggested that the finds made in Greenland two years ago may actually be nothing more than rocks. Australian scientist Allen Nutman claimed that he d discovered stromatolites (fossilised microbes) 3.7 billion years old 0.2 billion years older than anything discovered previously. NASA scientist Abigail Allwood followed up the claim with studies of her own and concluded that the Australian study had got it wrong. Not only did her analysis find that the necessary chemical signature was missing, it also suggested that the interior structure of the remains wasn t what it should be either. Nutman rejects the new findings claiming that the newer study did not take samples from the same part of his study site and did not examine the original specimens either. Although the issue remains ongoing most parties are backing the NASA conclusion. The wavy lines (stromatolites) are caused by microbes embedded in sediment ANOTHER EURO-JAPANESE SPACE MISSION TAKES OFF Further to the recent mission in which Japanese probe Hayabusa 2 dropped a European probe onto the asteroid Ryugu, Japanese and European cooperation is continuing with the 1.3 billion project to send a spacecraft to Mercury. The BepiColombo spacecraft, (launched 20 th October), will undertake a seven year journey to its destination including a fly-past of Earth, two of Venus and six of Mercury itself. It carries instruments from many European countries and Japan, but the main build was in the UK, in Stevenage. Two probes will then be released in orbit. Designed to cope with temperatures ranging from over 400 c down to -180 c the probes will study the planet s magnetic field and surface features. This will be the third mission to Mercury and follows Mariner 10 s three fly-bys in 1974 and 1975, and the more recent Messenger mission. Scientists are hoping to learn more about the origins of the Solar System as well as gaining an insight into Mercury s massive iron core. 4

5 MAKE YOUR OWN SOLAR SYSTEM JUST LIKE MACIE It s great when youngsters get involved in science and there have been a lot of recent events to excite them. Tim Peake s visit to the International Space Station proved a hit in schools and thanks to the national curriculum every child is taught about the Solar System (aided of course by the Society many of you will remember that the latest educational video shown in schools was filmed at one of our very own viewing nights not that long ago). One young astronomer pulled out all the stops when making a model Solar System for her school, Catherine s Primary School in Harlow. Five year old Macie produced a model so good that we had to share it with you! She started off with a piece of insulation polystyrene sheet, PVA glue, acrylic paints, wooden kebab skewers and polystyrene balls. After sealing the balls with PVA glue she painted them to look like planets. Macie then used the polystyrene insulation as a base and painted it black so it looked like space. After sticking the planets onto the skewers Macie mounted them onto the black base and labelled each planet. I m sure you ll all agree when we say that Macie did a fabulous job and is welcome to make models for our Society any time she wants to! Kyri 5

6 QUESTION TIME OR What fascinating facts these are. or are they? Check out the statements below and see if you can tell fact from fiction! 1. The Asteroid Belt is dangerous 2. Neanderthals were less evolved than Homo Sapiens 3. Eating chocolate gives you acne 4. You could fit Saturn and its rings between the Earth and the Moon 5. Armadillo shells are bullet-proof 6. Mount Everest is the tallest mountain on Earth 7. Some fungi use mind control 8. Birds die from eating uncooked rice ANSWERS NEXT MONTH and LAST MONTH S ANSWERS BELOW 1 The Sun is yellow FALSE Our atmosphere makes the Sun look yellow, but it is actually white. 2 Humans only use 10 percent of their brains FALSE. It s true that just ten percent of our brain is used for thinking but the rest has other purposes. Every part of the brain studied has been shown to be active. 3 In the Middle Ages people knew the Earth was a sphere TRUE The Greeks first suggested the Earth was a sphere over 2,500 years ago. By the Middle Ages this fact was commonly accepted. 4 It s safe to eat food within 3 seconds of dropping it on the floor FALSE Food can be contaminated instantly if the surface it lands on isn t clean. 5 Antibiotics kill viruses. FALSE Antibiotics kill bacteria, but have no affect whatsoever on viruses. 6 Turkeys can blush TRUE. When a turkey gets scared or excited their head and neck blush red, white or blue. 7 Glass is a high viscosity liquid FALSE When craftsmen made windows that weren t perfectly flat they used to lay the thicker end towards the bottom. This resulted in the belief that the glass had sagged over time, but that was never the case. 8 Chicago s nickname The Windy City has nothing to do with the weather TRUE. Journalists in the 19 th century came up with the term because the residents (especially the politicians), were Windbags and Full of hot air. 6

7 CHAIRMAN S QUARTERS We were chatting about arithmetic the other day, and the origin of numbers came up in the conversation. So where did they come from? It appears that the origin of the modern numbering system is a history of borrowing, stealing, adapting - and a fair bit of misinformation! Even though archaeological evidence has uncovered the use of marks as possible counting as far back as 150,000BC, the Indians appear to have used numbering systems from 7,000BC. The Assyrians borrowed some Indian methods and around 4,000BC began to use systematic cuneiform marks to represent numbers on clay. This, of course, only told what was already counted. They later adopted the use of tokens so that quantities could be added and subtracted to. This arose from the need to account for ownership, debts and taxes and is currently the basis of the standard belief that in this way these numbers became the world s first writings and thus accounting was born. The Egyptians borrowed the Assyrian method of representation and formulated characters to represent numbers in multiples of 10 (1, 10, 100, etc.). Cumbersome as it was, it still allowed them to build pyramids with extraordinary precision. By contrast, the Babylonians used a base 60 system of counting and were responsible for the 60 minutes, seconds and 360 degree systems that we have today. Numeric representation became more refined (but still cumbersome) with the Hebrew system of using letters to represent numbers (Aleph =1, Bet =2 Tet =9, Yod =10, Kap =20 Tzadi =90, Quof =100 Tav =400.) Similarly, the Greeks borrowed these characters and, again, letters represented numbers (Α =1, Β =2 Θ =9, Ι =10, Κ =20 Π =80, Ϟ (koppa) =90, Ρ =100, Σ =200 Ω =800, Ϡ (sampi) =900). Arithmetic was difficult with this system of representation, for example ΚΒ + Θ = ΛΑ. Also the number 0 did not exist or at least the concept of zero was there but no-one could accept the fact that nothing had any real value. The Greeks used the term ψῆφος (psifos) for a small stone which was a means of counting votes during elections citizens would cast stones to be counted on either side of the floor to make decisions. When the Romans came along, they adopted a numeral system based on slash marks made for counting merchandise, hence the I V X L C D M notation (C and D were rounded forms of slash marks!). Roman arithmetic was very cumbersome but its purpose was to count conquests and dead bodies rather than computational. No Roman mathematicians are remembered but, as the Greeks studied the more abstract use of numbers, their mathematicians have a place in history. The use of true decimal numbers or digits (Latin for fingers) is attributed to the Arabs around the 9 th century AD. However Indian texts dating to the 5 th century AD indicate clear usage of decimal numbers. What is even more interesting is that the Indian numerals did not relate to fingers, pebbles, sticks or other physical objects. Furthermore, the numbers represented specifically the numerical values only, had significance on the positional placement of the digits and included the usage of 0 as an actual value. This indicates that Indian priest-scientists thought of numbers as an intellectual concept, something abstract rather than concrete. This was a prerequisite for progress in mathematics and science in general as the link between numbers and physical objects is removed. By the 9 th century AD, Indians were using 0 for full blown calculations thus completing the progression to modern mathematics. See you in November. Jim 7

8 THE NIGHT SKY : THE PLANETS November December 2018 MERCURY : Reappeared in the evening skies in November, but was not easy to spot. Will be at inferior conjunction (between us and the Sun) on the 27th of the month and then moves back into the morning skies in December, reasonably close to Venus. At greatest elongation west on 15 th December. Moon close 4 th 6 th December VENUS : Having spent so long as an evening star, Venus, reached conjunction and in November, reappeared in the morning skies. Rises around two hours before the Sun. Oddly it is moving away from the Earth, so its apparent diameter has decreased but the lit potion of the disc has increased (from 1% to 25%), which has meant its brightness has risen from magnitude -4.6, to about the brightest it ever gets from Earth - magnitude 4.9! Moon close 4 th 6 th December MARS : Has faded from it s brilliance during October, to around -0.6, but still currently the brightest planet in the night sky. In Capricornus setting around 00.30hrs. Moon close on the night of the November meeting 15 th. JUPITER : will be at superior conjunction (on the far side of the Sun) on November 26th and will not be visible this month or next. SATURN : Lies in Sagittarius, setting around 21.20hrs. The brightness reduces from +0.5 to +0.6 magnitudes as the month progresses. The rings are still, at 26 degrees to the line of sight, well open and spanning 2.5 times the size of Saturn's globe. Was visible in the southwest at an elevation of around 11 degrees after Sunset at the beginning of November, but will disappear into the Sun's glare by the end of the month. Saturn is moving slowly westwards over the 'teapot' of Sagittarius to the left of M8, the Lagoon Nebula. Moon was close on 11 th November and 8 th 9 th December URANUS : Rising late evening in the border between Aries and Pisces, magnitude fractionally brighter at +5.7, so still just on the theoretical edge of naked-eye visibility. Was at opposition on 24 th October. Moon close on 20 th November NEPTUNE : Magnitude is +7.8 so with a disk just 3.7 arc seconds across, could be easy to spot with low magnification. It is in the constellation Aquarius, It rises to an elevation of around 27 degrees when due south. Pointers will be the Moon close, 17 th November and Mars, close 7 th December COMETS and METEORS Comet Wirtanen appears during November. A short period comet (it orbits in 4½ years) it appears in the south in Cetus, (probably not naked-eye visible at this time), but brightens as it rises in the sky to magnitude +4.8 by the end of November. Northern Taurid Meteors 12 th November Leonid Meteors 17 th November. Remnants of the Comet Temple-Tuttle Geminids 13 th 14 th December Ursids Meteor Shower. 21 st 22 nd December produced from dust grains from Comet Tuttle. THE MOON New 7 th November First 15 th Full 23 rd Last 30 th New 7 th December New 7 th First 15 h Full 22 nd Last 29 th New 5 th January

9 THE NIGHT SKY : MAP For 1 st December hrs GMT/UTC KEY MERCURY VENUS MARS JUPITER SATURN URANUS NEPTUNE PLUTO 9

10 Patron: Sir Arthur C. Clarke, C.B.E., B.Sc., F.R.A.S., F.B.I.S. President : Frederick W. Clarke, F.Ph.S.(Eng), F.B.I.S. Vice President : Walter T. Baker ASH COMMITTEE MEMBERS : CHAIRMAN : Jim Webb : chairman@ashastro.co.uk [ SECRETARY and MEMBERSHIP SECRETARY: Alister Innes : : secretary@ashastro.co.uk or memsec@ashastro.co.uk TREASURER : Kyriakos Voskou : treasurer@ashastro.co.uk EDITOR, P.R.O. VICE-CHAIRMAN and WEBMASTER : Mat Irvine : editor@ashastro.co.uk [ GENERAL MEMBERS : Mitchell Sandler : Wayne Johnson : Dale Baker GENERAL MEMBER AT LARGE : Gary Marriott GENERAL INFORMATION : info@ashastro.co.uk OBSERVING INFORMATION : observing@ashastro.co.uk 10