Volume 11, Number 4&5 July / October 1997
Minutes of the Meetings ... THERE were 72 attendees at the Annual EMDSO Star-B-Q, held this year at the EMDSO's club observatory. Some left before dusk, but the ones who stayed were gathered around the 30" for a group photo. Unfortunately, I misplaced my camera for a couple of months and so the film wasn't developed in time for the newsletter. It WILL be in the NEXT issue, along with some other images of the observatory and the one at ECC. If all the members of the club had shown up with their families, there would have been as many folks there as there was at the Schmidt-Scott Observatory dedication in April. As it was, there were 14 members along with their family members and guests. The party began about 3:30 p.m., and the Webers were fired up almost immediately, and the side-dishes were set out. Everyone was in great spirits and almost everyone got better acquainted. Judy Kemp tried to get all the attendees to sign the guest register that Kim has at the observatory. Rick had to go over to East Central and open the observatory there for a Public session as advertised at the Dedication and in the Missourian. He was gone a couple of hours, and when he came back, there seemed to be a sudden influx of people at the Star-B-Q, so apparently, he brought along any one who wanted to come from ECC. As the afternoon progressed, we kept watching the sky, in the hopes that it would clear-up completely, so we could have a REAL GOOD observing night, but as usual, even though it was ACCEPTABLY clear, there was a haze due to high humidity that worsened as the evening progressed. Later in the evening the dew got pretty bad and the optics were fogging up. We were, however, able to view 24 objects, even with the long lines of folks waiting to get a look through the large instrument. The early part of the evening was spent mostly on the Moon and Mars, and a little later much more time was spent on Globular clusters like M-13 with its' companion galaxy NGC 6207., the Ring Nebula M-57, and several Open or Galactic star clusters. Most were 'blown away' by the sight of M-13, seeing it completely resolved right down into the center at 90-360 power. If there hadn't been any haze, we could have shown them the galaxies of LEO, VIRGO, COMA BERENICES & perhaps even CORONA BOREALIS' ABELL 2065, or the obvious spiral arms of M-51 & M-81 or NGC 2403: Ahh, Well..... In addition to the 30", I brought out my 10" f/9 Newtonian and Kim brought his newly acquired 8" Celestron SCT, but as was said before: Even with the three telescopes, there were still long lines and maybe a five minute wait to see an object. Next year, we MUST have every telescope club members have out on the field. There is more reason for this, in that, people can also get more experience USING scopes and FINDING objects on their own, with the guidance if necessary, of an experienced observer. When I took the group photo, I remembered that the previous evening, I'd noticed VENUS low in the west and issued a challenge to everyone to see who could be the first to spot it. A couple of dozen folks went outside to try their hand. After about 15 minutes Pat Pinnell pointed it out about 15 deg. up & won the challenge. The "STAR-B-Q' will be held next year , SAME TIME SAME PLACE. -
* - OUR ASTRONOMY DAY application received "HONORABLE MENTION". 1st Place went to OGLETHORPE Astronomical Association, of Savannah, GA. -
* - On the 13th of JUNE, the St. Louis Astronomical Society hosted the Astronomical League Mid-States' Region's convention at Washington University. Several EMDSO members attended and it was a first-time experience for them. They all seemed to enjoy the experience and looking forward to next year's convention. -
* - July - saw the National AL convention, held in BOULDER, CO. As far as I know, no one from our club attended. -
* - The Open Telescope Night, which would have been on the 1st Friday, was moved to the 11th, for obvious reasons. -
* - I needed some volunteers to go along with me for TWO observing sessions I did for the Girl Scouts. The first was in Lion's Park in Washington: the other was north of TROY, under dark skies at a Resident Camp, TUCKAHO. Rick & Scott MacKenzie showed up for the one in Washington, but I was unable to get any one to go to TUCKAHO. There, I had around 150 kids to show the sky to, ONE telescope and just me. Even still, I think that they had a pretty good time and the Scout Leader, Kelly Roy thinks that she'd like to make this an ANNUAL event. SO would I. -
* - AUGUST - had the PERSEID METEOR SHOWER, which peaked on the 10-11th, however, it was cloudy in Marthasville that night and I was unable to go out to either of the observatories, and I didn't hear from anyone who might have seen them from some other location. There were however, a lot of meteors on the several nights PRECEDING the actual shower peak, so I think it MAY have been pretty good this year. -
* - SEPTEMBER 13th SATURDAY night - Meeting at East Central College, 7:30 p.m., AD Bldg. LOBBY. OPEN TELESCOPE NIGHT at SCHMIDT-SCOTT -
* - WELCOME TO NEW MEMBERS
EMDSO NEW MEMBER PACKET
YES MARTHA, the EMDSO DOES have its' own HOME PAGE. The ADDRESS is:
http://www.mo-biz.com/emdso/
TRIVIA
-*- SCHMIDT-SCOTT 'LITTLE DIPPER' WITH the opening of the SCHMIDT-SCOTT observatory, membership in the club has mushroomed. For those of you who don't know it, we are still asking for VOLUNTEERS to operate the telescope for Public Observing sessions. We will be purchasing some eyepieces for the scope that will be permanently housed with the scope, so that we needn't use our own. I'm in the process of machining camera adapters that can be used for astrophotography also.
- * - EMDSAF 'BIG DIPPER' JIM DEBNAM has taken delivery of his new 5" APOCHROMATIC refractor, and I've designed & built some parts for it to attach the scope to the saddle, stiffen the saddle rings, and adapters for either Tripod or permanent pier mounting at the club observatory. As an aside, I also have made an adapter for the 4" UNITRON to mount on the same pier, when the 5" is not present. Jim has also made a very generous donation of a set of 5 Brandon eyepieces, ranging from 32mm to 8mm focal length. Originally, he was thinking about giving them to the Schmidt-Scott Observatory, but they might be used at the other one instead; or they may be used at BOTH.
KICK IT & WEEP
EDITORIAL COMMENTARY - JUST ANOTHER COMMENT about the Bi-Monthly newsletter. It seems apparent that people lose or just toss their 'Newsletters' because they don't seem to make it very often to club functions. Two months is a long time to have something lying around the house for reference, or reminder, when so much is going on in people's lives. Now, I realize that the bi-monthly issue of the 'DSO' saves a bunch in postage, but these things are beginning to get a little thick, and the Post Office is gonna start griping about adding more postage anyway, so, why not just have a Monthly instead ? I believe it would be more timely, and we'd be able to keep more abreast of current events in astronomy, there'd be less repetition, and I'll be able to use more graphics, which take up a lot of room. It's really tough to get two months worth of Planetary & Lunar data with the resources that I have at my disposal. The use of 'Finder Charts' for objects discussed in "KEEP IT IN THE DARK", for instance, would be a real asset, as would MAPS to the various places where we have Public or Private Star Parties or other types of gatherings. When we did the Public session last year in Sullivan, and P/Comet HYAKUTAKE was in the western sky, we were at a VERY good observing spot on the west side of town at the Old Airport. BUT NO ONE SHOWED UP, because 1) we didn't have a MAP and 2) we didn't advertise well enough and 3) apparently, no one read the Newsletter to find out about the session in the first place_ this was in evidence because we received few phone calls of inquiry from members, which is usually the case. - * - I'd really like to see letters and comments from the membership that I can publish in the 'DSO'. - * - OOOPS !! The GALAXY that was seen next to Globular Cluster M-13 in HERCULES was identified (by me) as NGC 5209. IT AIN'T. It's NGC 6207, and can be seen in the photo in "BURNHAM'S CELESTIAL HANDBOOK", Vol. 2, P.979, in the upper left-hand corner of the photo of M-13. - * - I'm not quite sure how to express my concern about this, but I'll see if I can't just muddle through. For the last few months I've had a growing feeling of foreboding about introducing beginners to astronomy with the 30" telescope. The feeling grew stronger during the evening of the Annual Star-B-Q, watching people stand in line to view objects in the big scope, and not even trying to use smaller instruments. The two 'Loaner' scopes weren't there and they should have been, the Unitron wasn't there either and IT should have been, and ALL should have been IN USE. Those who have personal telescopes, didn't bring them, with only a couple of exceptions. Now, I realize that this VERY large instrument is something that most people don't get a chance to use every day; it's not something that you see all the time and an occasional view through the thing can be a REAL GOOD FIX for "PHOTON DEPRIVATION SYNDROME", but it may become habit-forming, at the expense of the use of smaller instruments and the gaining of PERSONAL observing experience. The 'Star-B-Q' is intended to be a 'Star Party', where everybody brings their telescopes, binoculars or whatever, to do personal observing in a situation where there are experienced observers on-hand to help, if needed and where several telescopes are aimed a different parts of the sky simultaneously and folks can wander from telescope to telescope and see a lot of different types of objects in one evening, talk to the person operating the instrument and find out how they found this object or that, then try it out for themselves with the instrument they brought, or are sharing with some one. I'm afraid that this type of situation may be seriously altered if there isn't some restraint from letting someone else do all the finding and just standing in line waiting for your turn at the eyepiece. I'm afraid that folks are going to get so used to the images seen in the 30", that when they see what their 6, 8 or so, inch telescope will show them that they'll be disappointed and not bother any more: And THAT Would be a REAL PITY. The 30" DOES have its' place though, in that, it makes it possible to see objects that that we would NEVER be able to image otherwise; things that are too far out in space to see with a lesser instrument. For instance, Mark Birkman & I were out there one evening a couple of months ago, looking at some 'Faint Fuzzies', which was a Galaxy Cluster with 400+ galaxies inside the amount of sky covered by the Full Moon. Now, this cluster's brightest members are about magnitude 16.5, or about TEN TIMES FAINTER than can even be detected by a 10 inch scope, under perfect conditions, and this cluster is about ONE POINT THREE BILLION LIGHT-YEARS away. It also will allow us to use extremely high magnifications for Planetary observations, in excess of 1,500X, once it is on a driven mount. At magnifications like that, Jupiter would full much of the field of view. At something over 1200X, my 10" showed Saturn's ring system spilling out both sides of my field of view at the 'Star-B-Q' held at Lohmeyer's a few years ago. Images like that just aren't possible with most amateur telescopes, but should be fairly routine with the 30". I DIGRESS. My real point is: that if one expects to see photo-like images all the time, look at photos. But to get FIRST-HAND knowledge about some of the intricacies AND REWARDS of astronomical observation, USE THOSE SMALLER TELESCOPES to their full potential AND YOUR OWN. Then, you'll also be a LOT MORE APPRECIATIVE of the images you'll see in the "GALAXY BUSTER". J. KELLEY ----- *** -----
The "EASTERN MISSOURI DARK-SKY OBSERVERS"(EMDSO) is the Astronomy club for the Warren, Gasconade and Franklin counnties' region. DUES for the E.M.D.S.O., are $24.00 per year, and PRO-RATED from JANUARY THRU DECEMBER. In addition, subscriptions are available for "SKY & TELESCOPE" Magazine, at the reduced rate of $27.00 per year (non-members pay $36.00). To join the club fill out the enclosed membership application and send along with dues payment to;
EMDSO, c/o LESLIE KEMP, 8247 HWY 'YY', NEW HAVEN,MO 63068