The Celestial Observer

Newsletter of the North Shore Amateur Astronomy Club

March, 2004

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From the President

Opportunities to observe or even to get together as a club have been few, and in keeping with a decent sense of proportion my remarks this month will be brief.

At this next business meeting we’re electing new club officers. The same elements that have constrained our observing over the past few months – holiday schedules, the weather – have conspired to reduce the opportunities for the election process to work as we would have hoped.

Over the last 90 days, most of the discussion about club officers’ roles has taken place in the newsletter or on the listserve, with little participation by the membership at large. I hope we’ll see most of you at the business meeting on March 5, so we can make this less of a top-down exercise. We still need some volunteers, and I suspect we’ll be starting the meeting that night with some unfilled (or reluctantly-filled) slots for 2004.

The new officers will have some pressing issues to deal with as they start their terms. As a club we especially need to come to terms with the reality of the deteriorating observing conditions at VMP, and if for no other reason than this, I hope many of you will attend this month so we can begin to address this situation while there’s time to be orderly and deliberate about it.

In the meantime, don’t miss Saturn and Jupiter.

Mike Deneen

President

Recurring VMP note: If you think you will want to observe at VMP during the week any time in the coming months, you should contact a board member as soon as possible for instructions.

NSAAC Welcomes Our New Members:

Jon Michel of West Newbury

Henry F. Lou of Gloucester        

Jim Robinson of South Hamilton

Minutes of the Feb. NSAAC Business Meeting

The February Business Meeting was cancelled due to the weather being its typical astronomically-unfriendly self (this time, even managing to nix an indoor activity...)

Nominations Committee Notes

Dear fellow NSAACers!

Elections for 2004 officers are coming up at the March NSAAC General Business meeting. If you, or someone you know, would be interested in running for one of the available officer's spots, please contact the all-volunteer 2004 Nominations Committee as soon as possible!

(The Nom Com this year consists of Lew Gramer, Chris Nicholl, and Barrie Sawyer.)

The elected members of the NSAAC Board are:

  President *
  Vice President
  Secretary *
  Treasurer
  Membership Director
  Two (2) Members-at-Large

* Note those offices with an asterisk next to them are currently open on the slate, and so we are in special need of someone to fill them.

To be on the slate: For those with email, contact the NomCom at nominations@nsaac.org.

Or for those without email, feel free to call the NomCom chairperson, Lew, at 781-396-7822.

Lew Gramer

Chairperson, Nominations Committee

Talk for March

We have rescheduled our “show and tell” meeting for March, due to the weather forcing cancellation of our meeting last month. We invite members to bring something of interest to the meeting. It could be something that you received for Christmas, or something that you just wish to share with the group. We won’t expect you to talk more than a few minutes. It can even be a matter of seconds, if you want. The important thing is to share your experiences with others and enjoy yourself.

We are still looking for more volunteers to speak at future general meetings about their scopes and other astronomical subjects. The scope talks don’t have to be positive reviews. You can talk about a scope you really hate. The purpose of these talks will be to acquaint other members of the club with different scopes, binoculars, or scope projects, so that they can make an informed decision as to whether they wish to acquire, or make, one for themselves. We also accept volunteers to speak on other topics, such as mounts, CCDs, photographic techniques, astronomy trips, the ten things that got them interested in astronomy, etc. Giving a talk can be a lot of fun. In addition, I’m looking for non-members willing to do a talk on astronomy related subjects. If you know of anyone, please contact me at (781) 438-7375, or at dgudzevich@comcast.net, or at the general business meetings.

Dennis Gudzevich

Program Coordinator

Star Party News

Our first star party is Wednesday, February 11, 2004 at Rupert A. Nock Middle School, 70 Low Street,

Thanks to Dave Fournier, Kevin Ackert and Barrie Sawyer for helping with the Star Party at Nock Middle School. More than three hundred fifth graders, siblings and parents participated. This capped a six week program on astronomy that the fifth graders just finished. The evening featured clear skies and many thanks from the participants.

March 2004 NSAAC Star Party

Our next star party is, Thursday March 25, 2004 at Rupert A. Nock Middle School, 70 Low Street, Newburyport, MA. Set-up time is 6:30 PM and the program (Moon and spring equinox) starts at 7:00PM. Telescope observations will start about 7:30 PM and last until 9:00PM. Three hundred plus people are expected. The group will be sixth graders and parents. This event will not be cancelled for weather.

Directions to Nock Middle School From Route 95:

Rt. 95 North, take EXIT 57, go right off exit (Rt. 113 E). At 2nd set of traffic lights (.3 mi.) turn right at Shell gas station onto Low Street. The Nock Middle School is about 1 mile on the left.

New Feature: DSO of the Month

Beginning this month, the Observer will feature a Deep Space Object of the Month for our membership’s hunting pleasure. The inaugural object was personally selected by Lew Gramer from his (extensive) observing logs.

Have any DSO’s you would like to share? Submit them to newsletter@nsaac.org by the business meeting date of the month preceding the observation period. I’ll print as many as will fit. Hint: If you wait for Lew’s supply to run out before submitting your own, you may have to wait a long, long time… And now, without any further ado, here is our inaugural DSOM:

Observer: Lew Gramer

Date/time of observation: 1998-03-10/11 01:00 UT

Location of site: Medford, MA, USA (Lat 42oN, Suburban site)

Limiting magnitude: 5.1, Seeing Scale (10 best): 5

Instrument: 8" f/10 SCT on fork, Magnification: 90x, 170x

Object(s): M67, Category: Open cluster.

Constellation: Cnc, Position: RA 08:50 DEC 11:49

Data: mag 6.9 size 30'

Description: The ancient open cluster M67 was just a short RA-axis sweep due W of alpha Cnc. By far the brightest member of the cluster is a very striking mag. 8 yellowish star near the ENE edge. At 90x the other member stars, all much fainter, seem to be scattered pretty evenly around a 30' area. Some 50 could be counted with averted vision. Near the SW corner is a pretty trio of white and orangish mag. 9 stars. Just E of the trio is an intriguing "fuzz patch" – what seemed to be a multiple star just on the edge of resolution. At 170x, the count of stars in the slightly oblong cluster went up to 80, with somewhat concentrated in the N.

The little "fuzz patch" SW resolves into a pretty clump of 4 or 5 faint stars, yet STILL embedded within a further haze: is this more unresolved stars, or a trick of the eye? At all powers, the cluster is somewhat elongated NE-SW.

Getting to Veasey Memorial Park

From Interstate 95 north, take the Route 133 west (54B) exit, and follow it into Georgetown Center. Go straight through the light, now on Route 97N. Go about 1.5 miles and take a left onto Salem Street (Tea Garden Restaurant at this intersection). Stay on Salem Street and turn left onto Washington Street. VMP is down a bit on the right.

Contact Information

For more information about the club and its activities, contact Barrie Sawyer, Membership Director, email: membership@nsaac.org or contact Mike Deneen, President, e-mail at president@nsaac.org. If you have no email access, you may phone Richard Bickerton, Vice President at 978-887-8533.

The NSAAC web site is: http://www.nsaac.org.

The Celestial Observer is edited by Leor Zolman. Feedback, and member contributions are welcome. Contact: newsletter@nsaac.org.

E-Mail Listserve

If you have email access and are an NSAAC member in good standing, you may want to subscribe to the email notification system that Lew Gramer established for the Club in 1996. This is a "members only" system that places you in contact with other members for late breaking news concerning spontaneous observing activities, outings, tech talk, etc. You can subscribe by emailing your request to the address below. Your message should look like this:

To: majordomo@nsaac.org

Subject: Email list (you can put anything here)

Body: subscribe NSAAC Full-Name <email-address>

To remove yourself from the email list send the same message but replace subscribe with "unsubscribe" in the message body.

Star.net is our Internet service provider. Please look them up if you need Internet service!

NGC2264 "Cone Nebula"
Nebula  and Open Star Cluster in Monoceros

Astrophotographer: John Boudreau

Telescope:  TeleVue 85 refractor, H-alpha filter