SOCIETY NEWS OBSERVING EVENINGS

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1 NEXT MEETING THURSDAY, 6 th October 2016 REMEMBER THIS IS EARLIER THAN USUAL THE ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY OF HARINGEY VOLUME 44 : ISSUE 12 : October

2 0B SOCIETY NEWS 2BMEETING VENUE 3BMusic Block, Ashmole School, 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 OBSERVING EVENINGS 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. And, if not already on the list, your address - ed to observing@ashastro.co.uk - reaches all three. The Facebook page will also be used October 6 th : NOTE CHANGE OF DATE to coincide with SPACE WEEK : Michael Franks: Asteroid Mining : Gold Rush or Going Bust? : this meeting will start with the AGM November 7 th : Jerry Stone : Nell, Esther and Aunt Effie - the explanation as to the title nearer the time!! (Moved from September) December : no meeting this month MESSAGE FROM THE TREASURER Dear members, please check, if you haven t renewed your subscription, this will be the last 2002 you will receive Many thanks, Kyri Voskou Treasurer ASH COVER The 2016 Harvest Moon, September 16th. This was shot from central Texas and the Moon was rising though a band of cloud. 2

3 SOCIETY NEWS For up-to-date information, we are using that necessary evil - Facebook. Note as this is an Open Group you do not have to be a member of Facebook to read posts and messages, you just need some form of Internet access. Go to : However if you want to interact (ie post messages), you have firstly to join Facebook, then, on the ASH Facebook page, ask to join our Group, and you will get signed up. The more the merrier! MEETING ROOM We currently meet on the first floor of the Main Music Block at the School. This is the two-storey building, (left) with the entrance marked with the arrow. We hope the first floor will be suitable for all, as there isn t a convenient lift. If anyone feels they will have difficulty, please let the Chairman know. Contact details on the back page. For historical reference the X in the photo on left was our original meeting room, the original Music Studio. This is now demolished, and the site has been redeveloped with a new structure. MEETING PREVIEW 6 th October 2016 : Michael Franks : Gold Rush Or Going Bust? The idea of mining asteroids is not a new one plans go back quite a few decades, but like most things it has recently had a revival of interest. Michael s talk will consider the technical problems of mining these small members of the Solar System and examine the profits that could be made. Two companies have announced plans to carry out asteroid mining and there is a new legal regime being introduced by the Government of Luxembourg to deal with this activity. Michael intends to look at the economics of such extraterrestrial mining and whether it really is a new gold rush or whether it is a quest for fool's gold? 3

4 AGM The October meeting will begin with the AGM which, as usual, we intend will be kept as short as possible! All Committee posts are available for any full (paid-up) member of the Society to apply for. All you need it is to be nominated and seconded (which can be done by any other full member) and voted in. All the current Committee is willing to stand again, with the exception of Nicholas Lucas, who is a General Member. We do not have to have a set number of General Members, but Wayne Johnson would like to stand for this position. Thanks to Nicholas for his long-time support for the Society. The list of Committee posts can be seen on the back page. STATEMENT OF ACCOUNTS 2016 (As at 5th Sep 2016) INCOME Subscriptions TOTAL INCOME EXPENDITURE Fees for lecturers Magazine distribution Children s gifts (filming) Website Registration Viewing site keys TOTAL EXPENDITURE BALANCE ACCOUNTS Bank account 2, , Cash/cheques in hand Cash Cash Sub totals 2, , Revised 2, , YEAR ON YEAR CHANGE

5 th 15 MEETING REVIEW September 2016 : Jim Webb and Alister Innes : Observing Evening In typical British style, the weather was excellent for a few days before the meeting but rained on the day. That did not deter our stalwart observers. Five of us turned up because cracks did start appearing in the clouds. The (almost full) Moon did appear out of the clouds but we had no chance of seeing Neptune despite large binoculars and a telescope being present. Neptune was eclipsed by the Moon just after 8pm and re-appeared just before 9pm but the general murkiness of the sky and the Moon s Taken with a mobile telephone brightness precluded us from seeing through a 4 Bresser refractor. the planet. That said, we did get a good look at the Moon plus its craters and mountains at the dark edge of the almost full Moon. By about 9:30 the sky had clouded over completely so we retired to the backup venue The Queen s Arms in Barnet - for a quick drink and general discussion about space, science fiction and other fun things. Jim Webb 5

6 October 'Question Time'... 6 If you correctly insert answers to these questions in the spaces below, the boxes reading downwards will reveal an astronomical feature that lies at the heart of our Galaxy. 1. Aurora s northern version of Australis 2. Edmond, who gave his name to our most famous comet 3. Minor Planet 4. Closest planet to the Sun 5. The Sky at Night presenter for over half a century 6. The Big Eye telescope at Palomar Observatory 7. Mars largest moon 8. Earth s radiation belts 9. The Castor and Pollux constellation 1. _ 2. _ 3. _ 4. _ _ 5. _ 6. _ 7. _ 8. _ 9. _ Answers to September 'Question Time' 1. University of Manchester TV astronomer : BRIAN COX 2. Second man to walk on the Moon : EDWIN ALDRIN 3. Chinese lunar rover : JADE RABBIT 4. Ex-planet beyond Neptune : PLUTO 5. Constellation containing X-1 : CYGNUS m tall space launch rocket : SATURN V 7. Builder of Jodrell Bank : BERNARD LOVELL 8. Colour of the hottest stars : BLUE 9. Closest star to the north celestial pole : POLARIS 10. Saturn s largest moon : TITAN

7 SPACE NEWS - compiled by Kyri Voskou World's biggest telescope ready for work The hunt for E.T. has been stepped up a notch thanks to China s latest $185 million investment a huge radio telescope dubbed FAST - Five hundred meter Aperture Spherical Telescope and is the size of 30 football fields. After five years of construction the Guizhou based telescope is undergoing final checks before it begins work in earnest next month hunting for extra-terrestrial life and unusual objects in space. The enormous installation will at first be reserved for Chinese scientists until 2019, before being made available to the wider scientific community. Pan-STARRS Telescope Spots Centaurs The Hawaiian telescope, Pan-STARRS, has rediscovered a set of unusual bodies which were first spotted five years ago by the Arizona Mount Lemmon Catalina Sky Survey. The bodies in question are unusual because of their orbits inclined by 110 degrees to the rest of the Solar System and orbiting backwards. Objects of this nature are called Centaurs and the mechanism which created them remains unclear. Astronomers don t even know how many there are in the group but have calculated that in total they measure between 50 and 120 miles across. Named Niku, their orbit goes well below Neptune and then back up and high into the distant reaches of the Solar System. The shape of a Solar System is normally a result of the natural orbit of the dust and gas around the host star. This debris coalesces to form planets and other 7

8 bodies in a generally level orbital plane. An external force must have acted on Niku to fling it onto such an unnatural path. Initial suggestions that Planet 9 might be the cause have been discounted. Niku s orbit doesn t take in anywhere near the area way past Pluto that it would need to get to in order to be influenced by a large, unknown planet. Astronomers have come across trans-neptunian bodies like this before and the excitement they cause isn t only because they are unusual. It s also because it shows that processes we don t know about have happened and may still be happening in our Solar System and are sitting there waiting to be discovered. All Life On Earth Is Related Most of us know the names of our grandparents and perhaps even the names of relatives several generations further back. For those who have put a lot more effort into researching their family tree the records can go back well over 500 years. However that pales into insignificance against the latest discovery the 4 billion year old head of every family tree. LUCA (Last Universal Common Ancestor) is the ancestor of every man, woman and child on Earth along with every life form that exists - or has existed - on our planet. William Martin led the research at the University of Dusseldorf, discovering that life began in the sea around hydrothermal vents. LUCA was, "A heat-loving microbe that fed on hydrogen gas and lived in a world devoid of oxygen", he said. Two types of ancient micro-organism were studied - bacteria and archaea. Analysis of their DNA and various genetic traits, along with over 350 gene families that were shared by the two life forms, led the researchers to their conclusions. 8

9 CHAIRMAN S QUARTERS A few years back, I was involved in an exhibition in Montenegro. I was surprised at the press coverage we got but one has to get on with it and answer all the questions fired at you. One interviewer spent quite a lot of time with me, covering a wide range of subjects, which was a pleasant change from all the questions about the exhibition. The following day we see all the articles (in Montenegrin Latin characters and several in Cyrillic) with all the standard headlines, except for one which had my picture and the headline Tesla Is My Hero. Apparently this interviewer was more interested in my comments about Nicola Tesla than the exhibits! Truth be told, I do have a fascination about the man and his work and have come across people who have some of his original notes. He is remarkable in that his vision of power generation and transmission was both visionary and practical. Without his ideas, the Westinghouse Corporation would probably have not evolved the power transmission of AC voltages that we have today. Notwithstanding that, however, he also had the vision of power transmission without wires that was a potentially practical way of distributing free energy. Westinghouse was a corporate entrepreneur who saw that by sending current through a wire one can measure the consumption of electricity and make money out of it. With Tesla s idea, which is based on picking up the power via receptor coils that can be placed anywhere, you cannot meter the current drawn, or at least identify who is drawing it. There are still many people who are trying to revive this method of 'free' wireless power transmission, but moneyed corporations resist this because they have far too much to lose. Free energy is a worthy goal as many of our resources are drying up. Of course it begs the question of what we call 'free'. Ideally it would mean not having to pay for it but that would be unreasonable as someone has to foot the bill for building the generators and transmission towers in the first place. 'Free' can also mean not being bound by the confines of cables traversing large distances. This is desirable but building Tesla transmitters demands a radical rebuild of the existing infrastructure. Another scenario would be local generators. Back in 1989, Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons built a machine which they purported produced energy from water by 'cold fusion'. Many scientists tried to reproduce the results but with no apparent success. Central to the tests was the detection of neutrons which were not found. Also one of the elements involved in the electrolytic process was not used in the tests namely a microwave oscillator. The fusion of, ultimately, four hydrogen nuclei to give helium would not result in the production of neutrons. Conventional theory also dictates that in order to fuse hydrogen, one has to use very high temperatures. By using microwaves one could force the hydrogen atoms to resonate giving very high transient velocities (i.e. temperature) enabling fusion to take place. Hundreds of scientists, worldwide, are working on cold fusion reactors, quietly - due the fact that Fleischmann was publicly excommunicated from the scientific community for his 'heresy'. Imagine each home, block of flats or large building complex being able to have their own 'personal water reactors'. As for motorised transport, water reactors might be too bulky to use there. So what is the solution for these whose standard fuel source (oil) is slowly running out? Hydrogen is the obvious solution but too many people still have the image of the burning Hindenburg etched and constantly reinforced in their minds. That apart, there are also technical problems with convenient storage of the gas but these could be solved with some ingenious technological advancement. This brings us back to Tesla the US company which makes electric cars. This is indeed a potential breakthrough if battery sizes can be brought down and reasonable drive distance per charge (with fast recharge times) can be achieved. We can but hope but do keep your eye on hydrogen. See you at the October Meeting JIM 9

10 THE NIGHT SKY : THE PLANETS October 2016 MERCURY : Reached inferior conjunction 13 th September and moved into the morning skies. The best morning showing this year is on 28 th September when it reaches its greatest elongation west 18 degrees. Very young crescent Moon to the north on 29 th September. Jupiter close on 11 th October low in the east. VENUS : At a low altitude in the evening skies and not well placed for viewing at UK latitudes. The image show the planet (dead centre as it's not that clear...) higher in the sky, but this was shot in Texas! Moon to the north on 3 rd October. Closing in on Saturn by end of October. Also see : SATURN EARTH : BST ends, 'falls back' to GMT, 30 th October MARS : In the western skies, nearby to Saturn and the star Antares. Moon to north on 8 th October JUPITER : In conjunction with the Sun on 26 th September, so not visible. Reappears in the morning skies in October, and there s a close conjunction with Mercury on 11 th October. Moon close on 28 th October SATURN : Still visible all night, but increasing approaching the horizon. Moon to the north on 6 th October. Closing in on Venus by end of October, but they will be very low down in the sky, so a clear horizon will be necessary. URANUS : In Pisces. Moon close on 16 th October. At opposition on 15 th October NEPTUNE : In Aquarius. Moon to the north on 13 th October. METEORS Orionid Meteor Shower peaks on 21 st 22 nd October THE MOON New 1 st October First 9 th Full 16 th Super Moon Last 22 nd New 30 th October s Super Moon is because it is at perigee, i.e. at its closest to Earth in its orbit, so appears slightly larger in the sky 10

11 THE NIGHT SKY : MAP 1 st October 2016, 19.0hrs GMT / 20.00hrs UTC KEY MERCURY VENUS MARS JUPITER SATURN URANUS NEPTUNE PLUTO 11

12 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: Charles Towler : secretary@ashastro.co.uk TREASURER : Kyriakos Voskou : treasurer@ashastro.co.uk MEMBERSHIP SECRETARY: Alister Innes : memsec@ashastro.co.uk EDITOR, P.R.O. VICE-CHAIRMAN and WEBMASTER : Mat Irvine : editor@ashastro.co.uk [ GENERAL MEMBER : Mitchell Sandler GENERAL MEMBER : Nicholas Lucas GENERAL MEMBER AT LARGE : Gary Marriott GENERAL INFORMATION : info@ashastro.co.uk OBSERVING INFORMATION : observing@ashastro.co.uk