SOCIETY NEWS. MEETING VENUE Music Block, Ashmole School, Southgate, London N14 5RJ.

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1 NEXT MEETING THURSDAY, 21st November 2013 THE ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY OF HARINGEY VOLUME 42 : ISSUE 1 : November

2 SOCIETY NEWS MEETING VENUE Music Block, Ashmole School, Southgate, London N14 5RJ. The day for meetings is usually the third Thursday of each month. The exceptions are August, when currently we do not hold a meeting, and this now currently applies to the December Christmas Meet, though that may change back in the future? However, in case of changes, it is always advisable to double-check the dates below. IMPORTANT Remember we have had a change of meeting room. Neither of the Sixth Form Centre rooms turned out to be really suitable, so we have been given a room in the Main Music Block, which is the two storey building, next to the original Music Room, See the next page For more on this, and general meeting information, also check the website: Latest update November 2013 Doors open pm : Main speaker pm : Finish pm sharp! New or updated information is in italics 2013 November 21 st : Michael Franks: Roll A Rocket This intriguing title is on building your own rockets - and then how to fly them, using no more than Alka-Seltzer tablets! As Michael has also been involved with the recent geocache event, co-ordinated with the launch of Rick Mastraccio to the ISS, no doubt this will come into the talk as well. December 12 th : CANCELLED As per last year, the Committee has decided to cancel this year s Christmas Meet. Things may change for next year, as a lot of decisions about the Society have to be made. But there could also be some interesting news... (Watch this space ) January 16 th 2014 Full dates will be announced after the next Committee Meeting COVER Comet ISON is flavour of the month at the moment, and this image shows the green colour, and the prominent head. Left is the same image in black and white negative form, showing even more details. More on the Sky Views and Night Sky pages Image NASA and Babek Tafreshi 2

3 SOCIETY NEWS MEETING ROOM Due to the new rooms we had been given in the Sixth Form Centre not being entirely suitable, we have moved again, this time to the Main Music Block. This is the two-storey building, next to our original room, the now-demolished Music Room (marked with the X - see the main photo on left.) Note, especially for those walking, the easiest route from the Main gate is as the arrow depicts, ie not the route you d likely think of taking through the car park! We will be meeting in one of the first floor rooms, details will be posted as you come in. We hope a 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 back page. MEETING PREVIEW : 21 st November Michael Franks : Roll A Rocket The intriguing title is about building simple rocket models from paper - and then launching them - using Alka-Selter tablets. Michael will be showing how these can be done - including launching them. OK they don t go that high, but it should be fun! Michael has also been involved with the latest geocaching event, in conjunction with the launch of astronaut Rick Mastraccio to the ISS. And if you are wondering exactly what geocaching is, read Michael s article in this issue that explains a lot more. Plus I suspect it will get mentioned during his talk. Rockets left - show a Soyuz, top, and a generic version, bottom, though with all the right markings! Mat Irvine 3

4 MEETING REVIEW : 17 th October AGM and Moondust to Spaceport We had a very poor turn-out for this meeting, but that has been par for the course of late. However the AGM was held and the current Committee was re-elected en-mass. Some discussions were then held, amongst us that were there, about the future of the Society as obviously things cannot go on as they have been. Chairman Jim Webb is aiming to hold a Committee Meeting as soon as is convenient and when - we trust - all the current Committee members can attend, as there is a lot to discuss! However and perhaps slightly ironically, we have had some news that could affect the Society in a major way in the future, though it is far too early to go into details at this stage. We can only say Watch This Space After the official part, I gave a talk Moondust to Spaceport, that combined aspects of space tourism, a subject - perhaps oddly? - has been basically ignored in mainstream science fiction in the past and even in science fact. But now with Virgin Galactic, and a number of other companies, it could be a reality for the Man - and Woman - in the street - providing they are reasonably fit and, er, have a fair wadge of spare cash! I finished with a mention of the new movie Gravity, not only as it is serious look at space, in the manner of 2001 and Silent Running, but primarily as it features my daughter, Amy, (above), though she does have a slightly smaller role than Sandra Bullock She spent most of the time as her stand-in, sometimes her double, (such as close-ups of pushing switches), though also appears on screen as the dead female astronaut! Top : one of David Hardy s production artwork for my plans for A Fall of Moondust Mat Irvine 4

5 Michael Morris Franks aka Loony Londo [geocaching name] GEOCACHING is a hi-tech treasure hunting game which uses the billion dollar GPS satellite Constellation to find hidden Tupperware worth a few cents. The details of the containers are put up on the Website with the co-ordinates, a description, a geocaching number and, hopefully, a cryptic clue. You use a GPS or a print-out of a map showing the coordinates to find a cache. Often you have to work out the meaning of the cryptic clue so geocaching combines the exercise of a walk with the challenge of puzzle solving. There are now over two and a quarter million geocaches round the world and there is probably one within a few hundred yards of you as you read this article. On October 12, 2008 Richard Garriott (right) travelled to the International Space Station, becoming the first second generation astronaut. (He is the son of Owen Garriott, who flew on Skylab 3 and early Shuttle missions - Ed.) While there he created this geocache aboard the Russian segment of the ISS. The cache itself is in locker #218 as shown in the photograph, (left) while the International Space Station itself is a Geocache No. GC1BE91! One difference to most caches, as Richard Garriott pointed out, is that there is no logbook in this location, primarily as it would be a fire hazard to include one in the locker. However he attached a travel bug to the locker, which is still there today. A travel bug is a numbered dog tag which can be tracked via the Geocaching website. 5

6 Last month NASA Astronaut Rick Mastracchio (right) announced that when he went to the ISS he would bring a travel bug with him and find the Geocache on the ISS. Groundspeak, the owners of the Geocaching website, declared that they would like geocachers round the world to hold events on the 6 th and 7 th November to mark Rick Mastracchio launch to the ISS and would give a special Geocaching In Space Souvenir (left) to everyone who attend such an event. I published the event cache on the geocaching web site as to take place on 6 th November I prepared for the event by downloading and building paper model rockets. I constructed four film pot rockets which use Alka-Seltzer and water as fuel and two more Soyuz rockets, as Soyuz is the launch vehicle. I experimented with these film pot rockets and ascertained that they could be safely launched indoors. The evening of the event I went to the pub, suitably equipped for a space event with the collection of model rockets; a coin made of metal from a space shuttle; a space shuttle pen for signing the log and my pieces of both Moon and Mars rock. I was pleased to see a large number of catchers already at the event and discussed geocaching and the International Space Station. A geocacher, by the name of Pan314159, had brought some meteorites along, which were passed round and much admired. 6

7 As the pub had free Wi-Fi, I logged my attendance at the event on the Geocaching website and was relieved to see I had been acknowledged for the Geocaching Space Souvenir, so informed the attendees that the Souvenir was being awarded. I had reserved a large area at the pub (right) and, as we had the space to ourselves, I decided it was time to launch a few rockets. I had prepared some film pot rockets. I broke up an Alka-Seltzer tablet and inserted a piece into a film pot. I added water and put the film pot in the rocket and waited for it to launch. It went off with a whoosh after a few seconds delay and went 10 feet into the air. Fortunately no one in the pub seemed to mind and the rockets did not damage the high ceiling. During the course of the evening we launched several film pot rockets. Sometime they failed to launch because the film pot lid was not tight enough so I did not use those film pots again. You can see a video of the launch at: The evening was attended by over forty cachers from all over the country who wanted the Geocaching in Space souvenir and we finished by 10 pm. I presented one of the Soyuz rockets to the pub manager, who had not objected to the indoor rocket launches. In the early hours of Thursday November 7 th, Rick Mastracchio and his two colleagues launched in their Soyuz TMA-11M on Expedition 38. They docked with the ISS after six hours in orbit. They are due to spend six months at the ISS and Rick Mastracchio should be finding the Geocache on the ISS in the next few weeks. They carried up with them an Olympic Torch, which two Russian cosmonauts took on a space walk. The Torch has now returned to Earth. We do not know when Rick will have the time to make his find on the ISS and I wonder if Rick will have his travel bug (left) in a pouch of his space suit if he goes on a space walk. Accordingly to Groundspeak there were 1,178 Geocaching In Space events worldwide attended by over 26,611 people in all. The next stage for Geocaching must be a geocache on the Moon, though who knows how long we will have to wait for that to be found? [Editorial note: To access the links for the websites in this article, those viewing the digital copy can directly click on the blue links. (Computer OS s vary, it could be ctrl-click.) However those with the hard copy I m afraid will have to laboriously note down the URL, and type it into a search engine! In the latter case NOTE the gap between the <1> and <international> - top page 6 - is actually an underscore: ie _] 7

8 CHAIRMAN S QUARTERS How does one talk in space? Ok, it s a bit of an open-ended question, but for the human voice it is not possible as there is no air up there! Radio is another matter it doesn t need air and, being electromagnetic radiation, it keeps going until it hits something. High frequency radio waves are, of course, the standard way to communicate to and from space. The problem with radio is that the waves spread out over distance and the signal gets weak quite quickly. To get round this from Earth, we use large dishes, to make the beam of waves as parallel as possible, and transmit at enormous power. From satellites it is another matter. There are limits to how much power one can transmit and how large a transmission dish can be built into a satellite. To deal with this from Earth, large receiving dishes are required with extremely sensitive detectors to pick up the very weak signals. With weak signals there is also the problem of noise. All this adds up to a situation where data has to be sent and received quite slowly to ensure it is received correctly. Recently, all this changed with the use of wait for it lasers. In early September, the Lunar Laser Communication Demonstration (LLCD) was launched to the Moon. This module was sent along with the Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE), a 100 day mission to study the Moon s tenuous atmosphere. LADEE and LLCD reached lunar orbit 30 days after launch from NASA s Wallops Flight Facility on Wallops Island, Virginia. During the trip, the team had the opportunity for LLCD to make post-flight calibrations of its pointing knowledge. Being able to make those calibrations allowed them to lock onto the signal almost instantaneously when they turned on the ½ watt laser at the Moon. The critical part of laser communication is being able to point the narrow laser beam at a very small target over a great distance! In mid October, LLCD not only demonstrated a record-breaking download rate of 620 Megabits per second (Mbps) but also an error-free data upload rate of 20 Mbps. The laser beam was transmitted over the 239,000 miles from the primary ground station, at NASA s White Sands Complex in New Mexico, to the LADEE spacecraft in lunar orbit. This breakthrough technology has a laser-based terminal that is half the weight of a comparable radio-based terminal while using 25 percent less power. The tests also showed LLCD s capability of providing continuous measurements of the distance from the Earth to the LADEE spacecraft with an accuracy of less than a centimetre. LLCD also transmitted large data files from the LADEE spacecraft computer to Earth. These first tests of the month-long demonstration have included the successful transmission of two simultaneous channels carrying high-definition video streams to and from the Moon. These results far exceeded expectations and open up the possibility to transmit huge amounts of data, that would normally take days, in a matter of minutes. The system does have drawbacks, though. All the tests have been carried out at night, as daylight would swamp out the laser signal, however, by selecting the right wavelengths, it is feasible to receive during the day as well. Also cloud would stop the beam from reaching ground, so currently a network of three stations is in operation, to ensure at least one site is able to receive data. Promising as this is, future deep space missions will need to be a hybrid of both radio and laser communications to ensure reliable communications at all times. See at the next meeting. JIM 8

9 Sky Views Dominating the astronomical news at the moment is Comet ISON, even if we are not quite sure exactly what it will do? One thing that IS certain is that it will encounter the Sun on 28 th November when it passes within 1 million miles of the Sun s photosphere. This will (OK, it s a comet - better to say should ) mean a much brighter apparition, but nothing with comets is certain. Currently it is now reported to now be just naked-eye visible, magnitude +5.5, in the morning skies before Sunrise, near to Mercury and Spica, the brightest star in Virgo. As we approach 28 th, it could be visible in the evening skies, just after Sunset. From 29 th ISON will be round the Sun, and making its way out of the Solar System and, being on a parabolic orbit, it will not return. This of course is dependent on whether it survives its close Solar encounter some comets do not, but ISON is reasonably large, and there are hopeful signs. ABOVE : The path of Comet ISON through November, up until 25 th RIGHT : The situation as of the morning of November 26 th. A conjunction of Saturn and Mercury. ISON is shown, but in reality is likely to be lost in the glare of the rising Sun. 9

10 THE NIGHT SKY : THE PLANETS November December 2013 MERCURY : In the morning skies, with Comet ISON in conjunction on 18 th -19 th November. And you get not one Comet, but two as Comet Encke is very close, though fainter. Then Mercury is in conjunction with Saturn on 26 th (See SKY VIEWS page.) Thin crescent Moon to the north on 1 st December. VENUS : Still in the evening skies and increasing in magnitude up to its greatest, -4.7, on 6 th December. The planet will also be in conjunction with the Moon to the south on the same day. MARS : Rises around four hours before the Sun, in Leo, magnitude 1.6. Moon to the south on 27 th November. JUPITER : Rising mid evening, moving forward as the month progresses, and in the sky until morning. In the south and very bright around so difficult to miss. Moon to the south on 22 nd November. SATURN : Was in conjunction with the Sun on 6 th November and now in the morning skies, low down in the east before Sunrise. Mercury in conjunction on 26 th. (See MERCURY and the SKY VIEWS page.) URANUS : Was at opposition on 3 rd October. Moon to the north on 11 th December. NEPTUNE : Moon to the north on 8 th December. COMETS Comet ISON is, of course, a comet, and consequently is being unpredictable. It was not as bright as calculations speculated it should be at that stage in its travels, and on Monday 11 th it was magnitude However two days later it was Currently it is calculated to be +5.5, which is just about on the edge of naked-eye visibility. It will reach perihelion, the closest approach to the Sun, November 28 th, which will be the testing point as to whether it survives or not - some comets don t! The crescent Moon is close by, with Mercury, on 1 st December. (Also see SKY VIEWS) Comet 2P/Encke is following ISON, with both in conjunction with Mercury on 18 th - 19 th November. Unlike ISON which is on a parabolic orbit, which means it assuming it survives the Solar encounter will never return. Encke is the total opposite; a returning comet, with the shortest orbital period of any known comet 3.3years. Encke is also the source of the Taurid meteor shower that peaked on November 5 th. There are actually two more comets in this part of the sky, Lovejoy R1 and Linear X1 though both are much fainter METEORS The Leonids peaked on 17 th November. The Geminids peak on 14 th December THE MOON New 3 rd November First 10 th Full 17 th Last 25 th New 3 rd December 10

11 THE NIGHT SKY : MAP 1 st December GMT/ 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 : Gordon Harding MEMBERSHIP SECRETARY: Alister Innes memsec@ashastro.co.uk EDITOR, P.R.O. and VICE-CHAIRMAN (and current WEBMASTER) : Mat Irvine editor@ashastro.co.uk [ GENERAL MEMBER : Mitchell Sandler GENERAL MEMBER : Liz Partridge JUNIOR MEMBER : Nicholas Lucas GENERAL MEMBER AT LARGE : Gary Marriott GENERAL INFORMATION : info@ashastro.co.uk