Alamogordo Astronomy Club August 2005 Newsletter President: Bob Unger runger@charter.net Vice Present: Jack Dembicky astrman@yahoo.com Treasurer: Bill Galther galther@pvtnetworks.net (505) 687-2333 Secretary: Myra Galther galther@pvtnetworks.net (505) 687-2333 Membership benefits Regular monthly club meetings with speakers and workshops Observing sessions, campouts, field trips and parties Online discussion forum Membership in the Astronomical League, including a subscription to The Reflector Discounted subscriptions to Sky and Telescope and Astronomy magazines This monthly newsletter Our club meetings are held on the third Friday of each month (except December) at 7:30 PM at the Hubbard Building of the New Mexico Museum of Space History. For more information Our web site: http://www.zianet.com/aacwp/ Alamogordo Astronomy Club P.O. Box 4151 Alamogordo, New Mexico 88310 August Meeting Our regular club meeting will be held on Friday, August 19 th, 2005 at 7:30 PM in the Hubbard Building at the Space Center. Our pre-meeting dinner will be at the Fair. Program: Go to the Fair! Constellation of the Month Corona Australis & Telescopium The President s Message Well we are almost at the end of another year. It's already August and time for the Fair! It's also time to nominate for next year's officers. If you know of someone who would like to play a more active part in the business of the club, see if they would like to run for office. I was asked to write about where our club is heading in the future. Maybe it would be better to say where I envision our club in the future. One thing I see is the club taking a more active role in public outreach. For those of you who weren't at the meeting this past month, we picked up three new members! One of 1
them had seen a member at the Valley of Fires Star Party give a presentation from the Night Sky Network materials and got so excited with what she saw and heard her husband bought her a telescope. Remember when you were that excited about Astronomy? I see us resurrecting our observatory program so that everyone in the club has access to an observing place and a telescope. White Sands Star Party Sept. 30-Oct. 1 White Sands Star Party is a major event in New Mexico and is hosted by the NM Museum of Space History, White Sands National Monument, and the Alamogordo Astronomy Club. Activities include workshops, Museum visits and IMAX movies, visits to the National Solar Observatory and Apache Point Observatory, a pizza party and camping in White Sands Monument. The guest Speaker will be Tom Polakis, contributing editor for Sky & Telescope magazine. Questions? Call the Space Center at 1-505-437-2840 The White Sands Star Party is moving along well. We still need volunteers for gate assignment and various jobs during the party. Remember as a club, we can volunteer at WSSP, in return, we receive a 50% refund of our registration fee. Four (4) hours is the necessary time. It goes by very quickly, and can be quite fun. Myra Galther Featured Astronomers of the Month Bill and Myra Galther Bill and Myra Galther are amateur astronomers. For me, Bill, it all started just over eleven years ago when my counselor made a mistake. He let me take astronomy as an elective. He should have made me take something in humanities since I was full up on math and science. But astronomy sounded interesting and I had always wondered about it but didn t know how to go about it. At any rate, class was interesting and I came from class one day mumbling something to Myra about how it might be fun to have a modest scope. This was early on in our relationship. I hadn t known she had started college as an astrophysics major and was interested in astronomy too. Her father worked on the early US missile projects. Myra became interested in astronomy during Junior High School. She would lie on the grass and watch the stars, and a few 2
years later looked for satellites. After I mentioned a scope, the next thing I know, we were members of TAAS and we have a 7inch Refractor on a go-to mount. Our interest grew as did our scopes both in size and number. We now have several scopes including a 20 Obsession push-to. At first we tried viewing from the back of the Sandia Mountains behind Albuquerque where Myra had a couple of acres suitable for viewing and building a home. But when we tried viewing from there we knew it wouldn t do. Waaay too much sky glow. So we fixed that. We moved to the darkest place we could find within reason, and now live five miles past Cloudcroft where you can see your shadow from the Milky Way and even from Mars. It should be great this summer. Keep looking up! Bill and Myra Galther Upcoming s Events 8/5 Brantley Lake State Park star Party 8:30 8/12 Carlsbad Star Party & Bat Breakfast 8/13 8/19 Club Meeting at 7:30 and dinner at 5:30 8/18-20 Otero County Fair booth 8/27 Caballo Lake State Park Star Party 7:30 9/30-10/1 White Sands Star Party Night Sky Network Our Alamogordo Astronomy Club is in a nationwide coalition of amateur astronomy clubs bringing the science, technology and inspiration of NASA's missions to the general public. We share our time and telescopes to provide you with unique astronomy experiences at science museums, observatories, classrooms, and under the real night sky. Our Goal is to Inspire, astound and amaze! For more information logon at http://nightsky.jpl.nasa.gov/ or http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/ 3
Carl Kohler and Shuttle Camp Class 7-20-05 Mike Smith setting up two scopes! 7-20-05 Night Sky Network Class 7-20-05 Chris Jones and Rochelle Williams setting up. 7-20-05 Two logged events were given in August. 8/20 Shuttle Camp Night Sky Network Presentations. Gene Mangold presented HOW DO WE FIND PLANETS AROUND OTHER STARS? Carl Kohler gave three activities HOW DO STARS AND PLANETS FORM?, WHERE ARE THE DISTANT WORLDS? AND WHY DO WE PUT TELESCOPES IN SPACE? There were 19 students and 5 others in attendance. Club Members were Mike Smith, Chris Jones, Mike Moiser, Rochelle Williams. 8/27 Shuttle Camp Night Sky Network Presentations. Chris Jones presented WHY DO WE PUT TELESCOPES IN SPACE? Carl Kohler presented HOW DO WE FIND PLANETS AROUND OTHER STARS? WHERE ARE THE DISTANT WORLDS? There were 35 students and 5 others in attendance. Club members were Mike Smith, Chris Jones and Mark Simpson. 4
Otero County Fair Booth fund raiser Aug. 18-20 A sign up sheet is on the Yahoo Web site or call Bill Galther. The work segments will be in 2 hour pairs, on the even hours. Hours are 4-12 on Thursday and Friday evenings and 10am to 12 midnight on Saturday. From the Treasurer Last chance to get a 2006 Astronomy Calendars: We only have a few Astronomy calendars left. They cost only $12.99 each. Please remember about your magazine subscription renewals and club membership renewals as they are due in September. Nominations for officers and board members will occur at the August meeting with elections during the September meeting. Magazine Subscriptions: Discounted magazine subscriptions to Astronomy ($29.95) and Sky and Telescope($32.95) are renewable at any time of the year. However, for folks whose magazines expire near the end of the year, renewals should happen in August to ensure continuous issues. Forms are available on the club site and also at club meetings. Last year we were playing catch-up and fix-up with multiple mailings and corrections to five folks with missed subscriptions. This year it should be smoother. If anyone has unresolved magazine subscription problems, let me know so we can get them fixed. Please know that both magazines have a disconnect between the subscription and advertising departments. Even though the renewals are processed, the warning notices of expirations are still sent out. Everyone, please fill out a form, tape the mailing label(s) from your magazine(s) to it, make a check out to the "Alamogordo Astronomy Club" and get your magazine subscriptions and renewals to me. Thank You, by Bill Galther, Treasurer Alamogordo Astonomy Club Certificate Program 5
The club has a certificate award program designed to encourage observing accomplishments. It has four divisions: Unaided Eye, Binocular, Small Telescope 4 max, and large Telescope. There are three levels: Basic, Intermediate and Advanced. There will be log entry forms available at the next meeting or find them in the Yahoo File web page. Bill Galther received Unadided Eye Intermediate and Large Telescope Basic. Eric Shalita received Basic, Intermediate and Advanced for Bin Members in the News Eric Shalita Visits and Receives Observation Certificates Eric, Caryn, Jesse and Heather Shalita came for a brief visit on Saturday July23. Bill and Myra Galther hosted a potluck dinner at 5:30 pm for them. Bob Unger presented Eric with long overdue awards for his outstanding observations prior to being transferred to New Jersey. He is now on his way to Las Vegas to another tour of duty. He said there was no opportunity in Jersey to do any observations so he is looking forward to darker skies away from the Las Vegas strip. John Pijawka at Bottomless Lakes State Park-East of Roswell 7-9-2005 Really cool sinkholes! BLSP scheduled a Star Party at Lea Lake Recreation Area. Park Manager Steve Patterson, and Interpretative Naturalist Kathryn Jones attended, as well as 2 members of the Roswell Astronomy Club. There were a total of 35 people. So-so cloudy night- telescopes were not set up because of passing clouds. I volunteered to give a 45 minute program: 1. Update on Deep Impact/Comet Tempel 1 2. Native American Archeoastronomy- "Chaco Canyon". Presentation went OK... by John Pijawka 6
Articles Need for the Newsletter Please send your articles to Gene at nmdarksky-2@yahoo.com for the newsletter. If you attend a star party, do a Night sky Network presentation, buy a new piece of astronomy hardware or discover a new comet, We want to know so we can share it with your fellow members. Thanks to John, Bill, Myra and Bob for contributing to the newsletter. Sky Events August 4, 2005 /// New Moon 11:05 P.M. EDT August 4, 2005 /// Moon at apogee The point in the Moon's orbit when it is farthest from Earth. August 5, 2005 /// Mercury in inferior conjunction Mercury passes between the Sun and Earth. August 7, 2005 /// Venus 1.2 south of Moon, occultation An occultation occurs when one object passes in front of a smaller one, temporarily obscuring all or part of the background object from view. August 8, 2005 /// Neptune at opposition Opposition occurs when a planet farther from the Sun than Earth appears opposite the Sun in the sky. It is the best time to observe a planet. August 10, 2005 /// Jupiter 1.3 north of Moon, occultation An occultation occurs when one object passes in front of a smaller one, temporarily obscuring all or part of the background object from view. August 11, 2005 /// Perseid meteors The Perseid shower is created by the dust trail of Comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle. August 12, 2005 /// First Quarter Moon 10:38 P.M. EDT August 14, 2005 /// Antares 0.4 south of Moon, occultation An occultation occurs when one object passes in front of a smaller one, temporarily obscuring all or part of the background object from view. August 15, 2005 /// Mercury stationary The body appears motionless in the sky due to the turning point between its direct and retrograde motion. August 18, 2005 /// Neptune 5 north of Moon August 19, 2005 /// Full Moon 1:53 P.M. EDT August 19, 2005 /// Moon at perigee The point in the Moon's orbit when it is nearest to Earth. August 20, 2005 /// Uranus 2 north of Moon August 23, 2005 /// Mercury at greatest western elongation (18 ) Elongation is the apparent angular separation of an object from the Sun. August 25, 2005 /// Mars 6 south of Moon August 26, 2005 /// Last Quarter Moon 11:18 A.M. EDT August 31, 2005 /// Saturn 5 south of Moon August 31, 2005 /// Moon at apogee The point in the Moon's orbit when it is farthest from Earth. August 31, 2005 /// Uranus at opposition Opposition occurs when a planet farther from the Sun than Earth appears opposite the Sun in the sky. It is the best time to observe a planet. 7