THE DARK-SKY OBSERVER

MINUTES OF MAY & JUNE

MAY 9th & MAY 22nd were BOTH clouded out and nothing was done either night. Also, on the 14th, Rick was supposed to do a program for students from Washington Middle School, but that was also clouded out MAY 30th- - Rick & I went to Rolla, to meet Carole & John Hudler, to get acquainted and talk to him about getting a chapter of EMDSO started there. John's an AVID observer and has 3 telescopes (a 6" f/7 Astrophysics refractor, a 16" Celestron Schmidt-Cass., & a JMI, "NGT-18" Equatorial Dob) all permanently mounted & under roof at his home, about 6 miles north of town. The construction of the Observing Deck & the piers will be outlined with photos in an up-coming issue of the "DSO'. We discussed how we'd go about the formation, what we want to accomplish with the new club, and what he felt the objectives of the group might be. Rick & Judy had to leave a little early, so John and I went outside to the observatory and did a little star-hopping. He seems to be pretty knowledgeable, well experienced as an observer and very friendly. He will be a real asset to this group & a good leader for the group down there, if he so wishes to be. One of his comments was that he likes the idea of 'outreach', but he also likes to have plenty of time for 'solo' observing. Well, gee John, that sounds pretty much like the rest of us. After all, we ALL need to hone our own skills to be better at the outreach, plus, there's just the self-satisfaction, and the NEED to commune with the Universe privately. We kind of shut things down about 1:30 or 2:00 a.m., I hit the road and got home about 3:15, sat down & wrote this before hitting the hay. He told me that the observatory at the college (UMR), is used on a regular basis by the general public and that there seems to be a pretty good crowd there on public nights. He said that there is sometimes 20-30 people standing in line waiting their turn at the eyepiece. This is completely different from what I was led to believe. I was under the impression that the UMR facility was falling into disuse and was virtually unusable due in part to its' location in town. But from what he said, there seems to be a real good possibility that there will be a very strong and favorable response to a club being formed there. The FIRST Introductory meeting of the Rolla Chapter of the EMDSO is tentatively scheduled for JULY 25th (Saturday) at about 8:00 p.m., (exact location TBA). I'm planning on going down on that evening with portable scopes, to display & use later in the evening, if the sky is clear. I'll be doing a slide presentation of Deep-Sky pics & some slides and a talk about the EMDSO, its' objectives, philosophy, facilities and what we have to offer them, or how we can help them make their group a success. It would be really neat to have a number of current club members to go down as a show of support.

June 6th was a 'Work Day' at the Colter-Menke Observatory. The project at hand, was to construct a permanent latrine next to the building. The 'His & Hers' bushes were dying and no longer provided enough privacy. Also, if you happened to mistake Poison Ivy for TP, there might be cause for subsequent discomfort. The new "MOON ROOM" has been located in the small grove of Cedar trees at the EAST end of the parking area.

Also, on JUNE 6th, there was a business meeting at Colter-Menke attended by Travis Wolff, David Lee, Les & Judy, Rick, Jim Debnam and myself. We up-dated the Membership List and mostly talked about the up-coming 'STAR-B-Q. JIM DEBNAM also brought along a PRETORIA Eyepiece, that he wanted to donate to the Observatory. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the Pretoria, it was designed SPECIFICALLY for an F/4 optical system, which is what the 30" is. This eyepiece provides total coma correction and ELIMINATES 'Field Curvature', which a common problem with virtually ALL other eyepieces on the market, especially with a fast Newtonian like ours. I had a chance to use one of the FIRST THREE Pretorias ever made, one night back in the early 80's on my 4-1/4" Newtonian that we use as a viewfinder on the 30". Believe me, I was totally blown away by its' performance: My entire field-of-view had crisp, sharp, pin-point stars right to the edge. I was very pleasantly surprised that my little scope could perform as well as it did. The eyepiece was designed by some opticians in South Africa, hence the name. They originally made three 'prototype eyepieces' and gave them to Internationally known experts in the field of optics. One of these people was ROBERT E. COX, a member of the St. Louis Astronomical Society, and long-time friend. Anyway, he obtained this eyepiece to take around to the various astronomy gatherings held each year around the country to see what kind of response it received. Well, he just happened to bring it to a club meeting one night at McDonnell Planetarium (before it was the Science Center) and talked about this eyepiece. As it also just happened, I had, out in the car this little 4-1/4" F/4 Newtonian and said "You know Bob, I'd like to try out your toy, cause I just happen to have a scope in the car". He said, Well, like I said, it's designed specifically for an F/4 and really won't do much for an instrument with a higher F ratio". "Guess what, Bob, it is an F/4. I use it as the viewfinder for my 10" f/ 5.6 and for some unknown reason, I put it in the car this afternoon ". "Well", said he, "Here it is. Tell me what you think and the makers would like to have an idea of what someone would be willing to pay for it. So, try to put a dollar amount on what you see. Oh, and another thing, Please don't drop it....there are only three of these in the whole world". SO, THANK YOU, JIM FOR A REALLY NEAT DONATION !!

The JUNE meeting of the EMDSO at ECC on the 13th was simply an Open Telescope Night for the general public with some discussion about the up-coming 'STAR-B-Q", which was held this year at my place in Marthasville, on SATURDAY, the 20th-21st. Election of Officers- NANCY NEURNBERGER accepted nomination for Vice President and was elected unanimously. She feels unsure of her own abilities, but I for one, am completely confident that she'll do an EXCELLENT job, and she deserves all the support that we can offer. CONGRATULATIONS NANCY !!

June 20th, the 'STAR-B-Q' was attended by Rick & Judy SCHWENTKER, Les & Judy KEMP, Mark BIRKMANN and JODI, with her two children, John & Lola BOCHERT, Walter BREVILLE, Chris KINCAID, Dave LEE and Nancy NEURNBERGER. Due to the cloudy weather, the highlight of the affair was our unceasing feeding of the MOSQUITOES which didn't stop ALL DAY & EVENING !! Normally, they only feed at dusk & again at morning twilight, but at the Star-B- Q, they must have been having a convention of their own, and the caterer was on strike. Anyway, we'll have it here again next year, if no one else wants to host it. But I promise to 'Fog' the premises the night before and again the morning of the 'Star-B-Q', so there won't be ANY unauthorized feasting.

Friday, June 26th was Open Telescope Night @ ECC, and we had quite a crowd in attendance. Members present were Dave Lee, Bob Kirschenmann, Donna Paul, Chris Kincaid, Kevin Dixon, Les Kemp, Pat McDonald, Rick Schwentker and myself. Together, we had 7 telescopes and the 20x80 binoculars in operation. I was surprised that in addition to the Cub Scout group that came there were also an additional 10 or 15 people that showed up. The evening was very clear and mild, especially after the heat of the day: it was very pleasant. We finally packed-up and went home about midnight. Dave Lee started working on his Messier List recently and added a couple of objects Friday. Also, there was a family, recently moved from St Louis, who seemed to enjoy the evening very much. Their daughter was surprisingly knowledgeable about astronomy and I hope they join the club. I spent more than normal time with them, showing the daughter how to operate the Unitron refractor and the 10" Newtonian; which she did very well & used them to find a couple of deep-sky objects, M-4 & M-7. She was able to point out some constellations to her parents, which seemed to surprise them. She has a small refractor of her own, but has had some difficulty making it work, so she seemed to really have fun using our instruments.

OLD BUSINESS

KEEP SAVING YOUR 2 LITER SODA BOTTLES. WE NEED THEM FOR 'LUMINAIRES' FOR THE OBSERVATORY & OUR 'PUBLIC \\ GROUP OBSERVING' SESSIONS AT REMOTE SITES.

NEW BUSINESS

ANOTHER 'Chapter' in the history of the EMDSO is about to be begun, with the formation of the 2ND Chapter of the EMDSO, in ROLLA. As stated earlier, the first 'Informational meeting' is set for JULY 25th, at 8:00 p.m., at a location as yet to be determined. (Call by the 23rd, if you plan on attending, for directions to the Meeting Place.) Attendance by current EMDSO members is encouraged. We will have a 'Star Party' after the meeting, however it's not been decided yet whether it'll be in Rolla, at the meeting site, or at John & Carol Hudler's home. It's probably going to depend in part, on how many people show up.

For the past three or four years, maybe longer, there's been comment about the 'counter-weighted Binocular Mounts that people occasionally show-up with. These things sell retail for a couple or three hundred bucks and members who've seen them with a pair of 20x80's on them always came away with a positive comment. Well, I've been thinking about them off and on ever since, and also thought that it'd be real neat, if we could have one that would carry more than one pair of binoculars AND be able to operate them in tandem. Last week I got on the Autocad and came up with a design for a 'Binoc-Mount' that would handle FIVE pairs of binoculars. When it's finished, the operator will operate the center pair which will be mechanically attached to the other four, so that every movement the operator makes, will be duplicated in the other four pairs. So, some one can take four other people on a guided tour with binoculars simultaneously and ALL can look at the same time at the same objects and there's left no room for confusion a/o mis-identification. Anyway, I brought the operational, though incomplete mounting to the observatory Friday night (26th), so that my 20x80's could be used and even with only one pair on the thing, it received approving comments. Well, gang, wait til ya' see it finished !

I'll probably be finishing up at East Central in May '99 & will be heading off to Cape Girardeau for two years to finish with my degree pursuits. While I'm there, I'll attempt to get a chapter of the EMDSO started there, with the help of one of my old observing partners and dear friend, Peggy Hill and her husband Hamner. He's a tenured professor at SEMO and she's a Physicist working on research there. They are both interested in getting a club going there and they know several people not associated with the University that are also interested in astronomy who'll probably jump on the idea too.

Newsletter e-mail: emdso@mo-biz.com

Check out the EMDSO HOME PAGE at:

http://www.mo-biz.com/emdso/

WELCOME TO NEW MEMBERS

DIETZ, ALAN FLORISSANT, MO 63031

STRAATMANN, KEVIN VILLA RIDGE, MO 63089

ARNOLD, MARC & KATHLEEN ST. PETERS, MO 63376

AND THE RETURN & CHANGE OF ADDRESS OF ANOTHER

HOWARD, Peggy - ( no phone listed ) 8806 HWY 100 - NEW HAVEN, MO - 63068

OBSERVATORY NEWS

SCHMIDT-SCOTT SCHEDULE of "OPEN TELESCOPE NIGHTS"

• SATURDAY - JULY 11th
• FRIDAY - JULY 24th
• SATURDAY - AUGUST 8th
• FRIDAY - AUGUST 22nd

In addition to the regularly scheduled Observing Nights, there will occasionally be Special Events where we may have an observing session for a Scout or School group, where we'll need people to man telescopes and answer questions and/or just help out.

KICK IT & WEEP

The formation of the Jefferson City Chapter is temporarily 'on hold', due in large part to the inability of David Meyer to give any time currently to the project. He's got small children, and is in the process of building a house, and there are serious demands on his time at work. So, if there's anything done for Jeff. City, I guess I'll have to do it from here, which will be pretty difficult and ineffective. I'll just have to wait and see how things work out there.

OCCASIONALLY we get letters; not very often, so when it happens, it's almost a time for celebration. I could ALMOST count the number I've received over the past 5-6 years on my thumb. WELL,,, that's not really fair. I've gotten a couple from Mary SCOTT, a couple from Les & Judy KEMP, one of which, was a description of the US Naval Observatory, one from Larry ROBINSON, which was an article about an evening & morning spent searching for Herschel Objects, one from Jim MARSH on the software package 'MEGASTAR', three or four from Walter BREVILLE, concerning several topics from Book Reviews to Suggestions about Club operations, a couple from Fran & Jim DEBNAM, one of which was a very nice article about their trip to the Southern Skies Star Party at Lake Titicaca, in Peru ( they went again this year and promised an article with pics for an up-coming issue of 'DSO'), and another about their trip to Australia, AND there have been a few more from various members, mostly inquiries about this or that. Whenever I get one, I try to put it into the 'DSO' for the general readership, unless requested otherwise. Sometimes, however, I just can't work it into the space available and it doesn't get printed. For that I apologize. PLEASE, Keep sending them. I DO try to keep EVERYTHING in a file, and now with Judy's aid, an archive is being developed, where ALL correspondence will be filed. These articles and letters AREN'T TRASHED --lost sometimes, but never intentionally thrown away!

KEEP IT IN THE DARK

THE SUN

The SUMMER SOLSTICE occurs on June 21st at 10:03 a.m. CDT, or 05:03hrs CUT. Also, it's getting closer to the time of Maximum activity on the Sun's surface. This is a cycle with an eleven year length and at Solar Max, it's a good time to keep an eye open for the AURORA BOREALIS, otherwise known as the 'NORTHERN LIGHTS'.

PLANETARY DATA

MERCURY - During the early part of July, Mercury may be hard to spot. Look above the WNW horizon, 30 - 45 minutes after sunset. It's well to the lower-right of the star Regulus. It then drops back out of site, to become a 'morning' object. During August it passes to the right of much brighter VENUS. This happens on the 25th. Mercury stays pretty close to Venus through the end of the month.

VENUS -drops lower into the early morning twilight each week through July & August. On August 19th Venus passes in front of M-44, the "Beehive" cluster.

MARS - is VERY low in the East during most of July, but toward the end of the month it begins to rise up out of the dawn glow. You may need binoculars to detect it just to the lower-left of Venus which is 100X brighter. A thin crescent Moon shines to the lower-right of Venus on the 21st. Mercury & Venus are still heading for a close pairing (conjunction), which occurs at the end of the month. -

JUPITER - makes its appearance on the eastern horizon about midnight in early July, and comes up about a half-hour earlier each week. Jupiter also, is slowly pulling away to east, from URANUS & NEPTUNE which are BOTH found in eastern CAPRICORNUS

SATURN comes up during the early morning hours but is still well to Jupiter's lower-left as twilight begins. Over the next few years, they will close on each other til they have a conjunction of their own, then they'll move farther apart, 'til they rise 12 hours apart.

PLUTO - might be visible in the 30". We need to give it a try. We ought to, we have the ability to see it and there aren't very many amateur astronomers who HAVE seen this rather illusive denizen of the deep (interplanetary sky).

THE MOON

The MOON reaches 1st Quarter on JULY 1st, FULL on the 9th, 3rd Quarter on the 16th and NEW on the 23rd. We'll also see a SECOND 1st Quarter on JULY 31st. In AUGUST, Full Moon is on the 7th, 3rd Quarter is the 14th and New Moon is the 21st, and 1st Quarter is the 29th. - * -

METEOR SHOWERS FOR 1998

Meteoroids are small solid particles moving in orbits around the Sun. On entering Earth's atmosphere at velocities of between 15 and 75 kilometers per second they are heated by the friction of passage through the atmosphere and are vaporized. These luminous trails we call "Falling Stars" or meteors and Fireballs". At certain times of the year, the Earth encounters a "Stream" of meteoroids traveling together in the same orbit about the Sun. These 'streams' are thought to be the remnants of usually, long dead comets. The effect of this encounter is what we call a METEOR SHOWER. The MAJOR Meteor Showers of JULY & AUGUST are the , PERSEIDS, LYRIDS, , DELTA AQUARIDS, ETA and the AQUARIDS JULY - During a 20 day period centered on the 6th, Earth passes through the SAGITTARIID Meteor Stream.

Almost immediately, from another part of the sky in the south & during another 25 DAY period, centered on the 22nd, Earth passes through the CAPRICORNID Meteor Stream.

DELTA AQUARIDS - JULY 29th, radiate from 22Hrs 36m, -17 degr. DECL. SOHR , 20 with duration of less than ONE DAY, however there IS a broad 20 Day period where one can expect to see SOME meteors associated with this shower.

July rounds out the month with another 20 Day passage through still another Meteor Stream, the PISCIS AUSTRALIDS, which is centered on the 30th. Its RADIANT is (340,-30)

AUGUST - A broad Meteor Stream is encountered during a 30 DAY period, centered on AUG 1st. This is the ALPHA AQUARIID; Radiant near Alphard (Alpha Aquarii). There's no available SOHR for this one either, but it really looks like JULY and AUGUST are pretty busy, with meteors zipping this way and that, and it may be lots of fun to try to determine which group this or that meteor belongs to.

STILL ANOTHER Meteor Stream, the Northern Delta AQUARIIDS, with a duration of about 30 days, centered on the 3rd may be seen with its RADIANT at (337,00), which is right on the Celestial Equator.

AND another, with an overall duration of approximately 40 days centered on the 5th is the NORTHERN AQUARIID Meteor Stream. Its' Radiant is at (331,-06)

The SOUTH AQUARIID Meteor Stream is another 40 DAY duration program centered on the 5th. Its Radiant is (335,-15), which is only four degrees west and nine degrees south of the OTHER ONE. ENJOY trying to separate them !!

The PERSEIDS peak on the 11TH. These are fast, Blue and radiate from 03Hrs 04m, +58 degr. DECL. in the constellation PERSEUS at about 60 kps. The SOHR will generally be about 50. These are associated with the 3rd Comet of 1862.

On the 18th another Meteor Stream is encountered; the CYGNIDS. The maximum duration length of this group is about 15 days centered on the 18th. Radiant (290+15). No known SOHR.

DEEP SKY

WITH all the hoopla about CCD imagers and Astrophotographs permeating the media, it's difficult to come up with any material that concerns how an object really appears to the eye through a telescope of given aperture. With this in mind, I've decided that I'll give a try to make a series of drawings of my eyepiece impressions of selected objects through some of the various apertures that the club has access to. For instance, 'What does M-51 really look like to the visual observer through the 4" Unitron or the 6" Newtonian, a 10" or maybe the 30"? With these drawings, which I will do in ordinary pencil, a person with virtually NO KNOWLEDGE of what they're supposed to be able to see, will be able to identify the objects of their attention and be SURE that they are looking at what they're supposed to be looking at. These drawings will be copied and will appear from time to time in subsequent issues of the 'DSO'. Perhaps some of you would like to try your hand at doing some of these. I will gladly use YOUR drawings and written descriptions in this column, so PLEASE, give it a try !! Use the "EMDSO Standard Observing Form" for your drawings and we'll keep them in a notebook in the Club Library for reference. It would be hoped, that we could get drawings of ALL the Messiers, Herschels & Caldwell objects into this collection, along with selected other NGC's. It'd be real neat to have several hundred drawings that we could use as reference material for any one who wanted it.

DENEB, or Alpha Cygni, is a 1st magnitude star ( Mv +1.26 ) which lies at a distance of 1,600 light-years from the Sun. This INTRINSICALLY, the brightest First Magnitude star in Earth's night sky. It's farther away than any other, but still appears as one of the brightest. It ranks as 19th brightest in all the sky. Another star, Rigel, in Orion is similar in brightness, but it's fainter than Deneb by a factor of 3,000 times the brightness of the Sun. The brightness of stars is given relative to the Sun and Rigel is 57,000 times as bright as the Sun; Deneb is 60,000 times brighter than the Sun. The fact that Rigel APPEARS to be a little brighter than Deneb is because of the distance factor. Rigel is 950 light-years away and Deneb is 1,600. APPARENT MAGNITUDE ( Mv ), is simply a number given to a star to describe how bright it APPEARS in the sky, but ABSOLUTE MAGNITUDE ( Ma )is a kind of yardstick astronomers use to gauge the intrinsic brightness of stars. It describes how bright the given star would APPEAR if it were placed at a distance of 10 PARSECS, or 32.6 LIGHT-YEARS from the Sun. At this distance the Sun itself would be a rather faint magnitude +4.85, or in other words, would be well toward the LOWER limits of 'naked-eye' delectability. The star ARCTURUS, would appear as magnitude +0.06 and is the star used as a 'yardstick' because it's the one closest to 0.00. RIGEL, on the other hand would be brilliant at -7.0 and DENEB would appear to us as -7.1. To give some kind of comparison, the planet VENUS appears to us as magnitude -4.0, and the FULL MOON appears as -12.0, so Deneb would appear brighter than Venus by 3.1 magnitudes, a factor of about 20 TIMES !! Even though 32.6 light-years away, it would still be bright enough to cast a faint shadow on the ground, at night, and would probably be uncomfortable to look at directly. Not only that, but it'd also be bright enough to 'wash out' the rest of the sky and make most of the rest of the sky uninteresting. ASTRONOMY JUST WOULDN'T BE THE SAME.

IN THE constellation CYGNUS, the star ALBIREO, or BETA CYGNI, is described as being the 'eye' of the Swan, or if one refers to the area as 'the Northern Cross', then Albireo is the 'base' of the Crucifix. Albireo, is VISUAL BINARY. this means that the two stars seen are not actually related, but are simply a 'line-of-sight' pairing. Still, it's one of the most striking doubles in the sky. The brighter one is an ORANGE Giant star, with a Spectral Type of K3, Mv is +3.09. The secondary star, described by some as 'Sapphire' in color, appears to me as 'Sky Blue', is Mv +5.11, Spectral Class B8, which gives it a surface temperature of around 15,000 degrees. The two stars are separated by 34.3 Arc Seconds, so are easily separated at 30 power or so. This is also the best magnification to show the color contrast. At higher magnifications the colors seem to 'wash-out' and become less noticeable. Also, smaller apertures show the color contrast better than large ones. Until just recently, Albireo was thought to be a 'physical pair, and the computed distance is 410 light-years. Recent studies have shown, however, that the blue component is actually TWICE AS FAR away as the Primary, with resulting actual luminosities of about 240 Suns for the Blue & 760 Suns for the Yellow.

M-29, NGC 6913; OC, This cluster is rather faint, as star clusters go, rather sparse. There are several dozen Non-Messier's that are more impressive, but it's fairly easy to find, since it's only about TWO DEGREES straight south of GAMMA CYGNI, the 'central' star of the Northern Cross. M-29 has about a dozen or so stars in a 'Trapezoid shaped grouping, of 8-9th magnitude stars in a 5-7 arc minute field, at magnitude 7.5. Part of the reason for its' inconspicuousness is the fact that it's in one of the richest portions of the northern Milky Way. Another, is the fact that it also lies in a region where there is an immense amount of extinction of starlight by interstellar dust: as much as 3 Magnitudes. The cluster is estimated to be about 7200 light-years away, diameter 15 light-years, total actual luminosity of about 50,000 Suns.

M-39, NGC 7052; OC, Found about 9 degrees ENE from Deneb, this large loose Open or Galactic cluster is a GOOD BINOCULAR object, but too large and sparse to make a good telescopic object. M-39 consists of some 30 stars arranged in a rough triangle, spanning about a half degree. At a distance of 800 light-years, it's actual diameter is 7 light-years and is seen at about Mv 7.

NGC 6960, 6979, 6992-5; DN, Known variously as the 'Cygnus Loop', 'The VEIL Nebula", the 'BRIDAL VEIL', the 'Filamentary Nebula' or 'Cirrus Nebula', this Super-Nova remnant is about 3 degrees in diameter, which at its distance of maybe 1,500 light-years corresponds to about 70 Lt-Yrs diameter. The Cygnus Loop is thought to be about 30 - 40,000 years old. It's pretty faint, but can be glimpsed with a 6-8 inch scope under very dark skies, and is not at all difficult with a 10", even under not-so-good conditions. The 'Veil' has actually been glimpsed with 7x50 binoculars. Spectral analysis shows that the nebula glows by Fluorescence, but the star that excites the gas is not to be seen.

M-57, NGC 6720; PN, The famous "RING NEBULA", favorite of our warm weather star parties, is about 1,500-2,000 light-years away, about 30,000 Astronomical Units ( about 1/2 light-year ) in diameter, which makes it the 'physically smallest' of all the Messier Objects. The faint central star is visible on a good night through the 30" scope, but otherwise, forget it; it glimmers at approx. +15.4 magnitude ( Mv ), and is a BLUE DWARF, with a surface temperature of approximately 100,000 degrees K. Most of the star's radiation is in the Ultra-Violet region of the spectrum, so it appears intensely blue.

M-56, NGC 6779; is a small, faint Globular Cluster found about half-way to two-thirds of the way between the Ring Nebula in LYRA & Albireo, in Cygnus. The beginnings of resolution occur with a six inch scope. Larger apertures show a fairly even distribution of stars with real concentration in the center, and a total diameter of about 5', a visual magnitude of 9.5, a distance of 46,000 light-years and an actual luminosity of about 90,000 suns.

NGC 7000 The 'North America Nebula', is a faint though large Diffuse Nebula found just 3 degrees to the EAST of DENEB, Alpha Cygni. It derives its' name from the very distinctive shape of the 1.5 degree diameter 'cloud'; it looks like a map of North America, complete with Hudson Bay, Florida Peninsula, Mexico the Yucatan Peninsula, Panama and the Gulf of Mexico. The 'west coast' kind of fades off into nothingness and star fields though and the whole thing is embedded in a rich portion of the Milky Way. It's sometimes visible to the un-aided eye, and occasionally in binoculars, if the sky is dark enough. Generally, however, it requires the use of a telescope fitted with a Nebula Filter, so that it's not confused with the background star field. It shows up very well on long-exposure photographs as very RED, which is caused by ionized Hydrogen. The nebula lies about the same distance as Deneb which is probably one of the stars that excites the nebula to glow.

The "GREAT RIFT". If you look up into the constellation Cygnus, you'll probably notice that there, the Milky Way seems to divide in two, with one portion going off toward the western portions of AQUILA & on into Scorpius; the other part going a little farther east into eastern Aquila and fading into nothingness. What you're seeing is NOT the Milky Way splitting, but instead, you are seeing the presence of dark interstellar dust clouds obscuring the background stars. These 'clouds' are found along the Equatorial planes of Spiral Galaxies like ours. All along the Milky Way from the north polar regions to the southern portions of Sagittarius and on into the southern hemisphere, beyond our southern horizon, these 'Dark Nebulae' can be seen permeating the full length of the Milky Way. Some of them are so prominent that they are given names, like the 'Great Rift' & the "Pipe Nebula" "The COAL SACK"or the "Lagoon". THIS is the stuff that makes New Stars. These clouds often coalesce, becoming more compact: becoming what is called BARNARD OBJECTS. In time, these will condense further to become "BOK GLOBULES", which are thought to be SOLAR NEBULAE; containing individual Proto-Stars.

TRIVIA

1. WHEN, EXACTLY, WAS THE SUMMER SOLSTICE ?

2. WHAT ARE THE NAMES OF THE BRIGHT STARS OF THE 'SUMMER TRIANGLE' ?

3. WHERE'S THE 'COATHANGER' ? 4. WHERE'S THE 'LITTLE COATHANGER' ?

Answers to last issues' questions

DUH!! der wernt nun

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MEMBERSHIP in the THE EASTERN MISSOURI DARK-SKY OBSERVERS is open to any one with an interest in the science of astronomy, regardless of age or experience level. Dues are $24.00 per year, running from Jan 1 thru Dec 31, and are pro-rated the first year. Fill out the Membership Application and return it with dues payment to:

EMDSO

8247 HWY 'YY'

NEW HAVEN, MO 63068

You will receive a Membership Card at the next club meeting, or by mail, if you prefer.