20141213ACAKBMin

20150110ACATHMin

The Astronomy Club of Augusta met on January 10, 2015, Saturday at 5:30PM for its Monthly Dark Sky Star Gaze at NMR-DSO. Twelve members attended, and one former member.

First thing, many came in time to see NMR’s first quadruplet kids, just 5 days old but already jumping and running around, and a bunch more pregnant nannies, due in March.

Finally, this past week has been spectacular observing. It has been clear and cold, but not too cold. Saturday night we had a dark sky star gaze, and enjoyed seeing Venus and Mercury very close together SW just above the setting sun. As we turned eastward and to the darker sky, we saw the Winter Hexagon, with a great opportunity to review the names of its stars, and related stars, and how we can star hop from one to the next. Then we hopped from Aldebaran in Taurus the Bull up to the Pleiades, the seven sisters, with their dazzling pearl necklace. Then we craned our necks or decided to lay down on the ground to observe a dim fuzzy, Comet Lovejoy C/2014 Q2. And all this naked-eye! With a pair of binoculars, Comet Lovejoy came into full view. What a fantastic sight! Then Stan and John focused on it with low power telescopes. We could distinguish the solid nucleus in the center and nebulous coma around it. There was some visual evidence of a tail at about 8 o’clock, but it wasn’t very long, as the comet is coming rather directly into the center of our solar system. The comet is brightest for us this week.

It was interesting to note how much brighter the comet was than Andromeda (NW). Of course the huge Andromeda Galaxy is 2.4 million light years (ly) away, while the relatively itty-bitty comet is down home at one-half to one-and-a-quarter AUs, traveling at ~80,000mph. If you want to see the comet, do so NOW. It will be ~8000 years (epoch 2050) before it comes close again!

We took a break to get warmed up with some chili, chips, coffee, and hot chocolate. Ken and Cathy spent some time planning for our road trip in March. New members got answers to some of their questions. When we went out again to see it all again, and Jupiter and its moons.

On Tuesday, members who could not come on Saturday came over to observe. Clear skies again. Venus was easily visible, and finally Mercury came out of the red setting clouds that were turning darker by then. Mercury was so bright and clear, almost better than Venus, which was now fighting some of the clouds. We then turned east and reviewed the Winter Hexagon, went up to the Pleiades, over to the right (west) and saw Comet Lovejoy again. It is really a spectacular comet. Saturday it seemed to be almost face-on, but last night we saw a small tail again at about 8 o'clock. With regular nightly viewing, we can tell that it is slowly moving further west toward the sun and away from the Pleiades.

This week: skyandtelescope.com/observing

Respectfully submitted,

Tedda Howard

20150123ACARPMin

The Astronomy Club of Augusta met on January 23, 2015 for its monthly meeting at GRU, Georgia Regents University, New Science Center Auditorium W1008. Despite rainy weather, we had a nice group of 25: 18 members and 7 guests.

1900 - After concluding Stan Howard’s video presentation of our 2014 SEED program, the 1957 Vangard RUD, and another on star size comparison, the meeting began. Introductions/opening comments by Kenneth Beard and Mark Moffatt.

1910 - John White began his game of Wheel of Misfortune with an explanation of the procedures, rules and prizes. Mark filled the role of Vance (Vannah) White.

1938 - First puzzle solved: Comet Lovejoy C/2014 Q2 viewed over Nine Mile Range spectacular. Our discussion began with comments about the clear skies last Saturday night and great observing. John explained the importance of comets, and how comets are currently named. C/2014 Q2 means that the comet is C (long period or non-periodic), was discovered in 2014, in the Q half-month (first half of Sept.), and that it was the 2 (second comet) discovered during that half-month. This is followed by the name of the discoverer: C/2014 Q2 Lovejoy. Still, C/2014 Q2 Lovejoy will often be listed with 2015 comets because it will reach perihelion in 2015.

Lovejoy discovered it with an 8” Schmidt-Cassegrain. He has now found five 5 comets over the years. Comet Lovejoy was closest to us on January 7, will be closest to the sun on January 30 at ~130,000 mi, is a long period comet and won’t be back for ~8000 years, sooner than originally expected because it came so close to the inner planets, which perturbed its orbit somewhat. We talked about other comets, and Virginia pointed out that Haley’s Comet arrived in November 1835 and November 1910 (75 year cycles), the same month and year that Mark Twain was born and died. We also discussed the source of the green color of the comet gases: cyanogen and diatomic carbon: not good breathing material!

1944 - Next puzzle started.

2005 - Second puzzle solved: New Horizons space craft alive, well, and approaching near Pluto, Charon, Nix, Hydra, Cerberos and Styx. Our group discussion included the fact that Pluto was discovered by Clyde Tombaugh, and some of his ashes are famously included with the names of 2 million other people listed on a chip and included onboard. The New Horizons space craft took off 9 years ago, and after a Jupiter gravity assist (slingshot), it is traveling at 38000mph, the fastest object ever built. It still took 10 years to arrive at Pluto! NASA will start taking photos of Pluto area this coming Sunday. John listed some of the equipment on NH, a good review of the charts that Michael set up for SEED in October, and available online. By acronyms, they include: SWAP, Lorri, Alice and Ralph, PAM, REX, RTGs, SDC, named for 11 yr old Venetia Burney who chose the name for planet Pluto (not related to Disney). The SDC has been counting dust particles from Earth to Pluto.

2020 - Third puzzle solved: RUD: Rapid Unscheduled Disassembly! briefly discussed SpaceX program and recent missed platform (failed) landing.

2024 – John demonstrated an inexpensive ($17) universal camera mount, which he found at Amazon (NEEWER) for telescopes to aid in astrophotography.

2030 - Tally of scores from Wheel of Misfortune, Collin won a nice book with photos of Messier objects, Suzanne won inferred flashlight, and four more won nice sized observing log books. The rest of us got snickers, gum, or other small candies during the program.

2037 - Final announcements by John as well as a moving tale about his daughter’s trip to New Zealand and a star gazing opportunity, as well as an offer to see the pictures in a book she made for him.

Kenneth passed around a sign-up list for our MEA3 Road trip to Georgia Southern Univ./Statesboro on March 28. He thanked Cathy and Tedda for their help in putting it together.

Many thanks to Suzanne and Gary (Hayward) Harris for delicious cheese and sausage refreshments, crunchy chocolate stars, spaceship cheese crackers, tangy yogurt stars, and sodas. We also congratulated her on her announcement that she is having a baby (first!) There was plenty of interesting informal discussion.

Respectfully submitted,

Ray Peters

Many thanks to Ray Peters, ErvinD and MorrisM for volunteering to take minutes of the meeting. Ray got his in first.