The Celestial Observer

 

Newsletter of the North Shore

 Amateur Astronomy Club

 

 

April, 2004

 

 

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From the President

Members attending the March business meeting elected your new Board of Directors for the upcoming year. I’d like to thank outgoing board members Dave Fournier and Michael Deneen for their years of excellent and dedicated service to the club. Having served two years as a board member under outgoing President Michael Deneen, I am very appreciative of the persistent calming effect his leadership has had on us all. Dave and Michael, your presence will be missed, but hopefully not while we’re observing the night sky!

 

I also want to thank returning board members Barry Sawyer, John Hobbs, and Lew Gramer  for re-upping for the positions of Membership Director, Secretary, and Member at Large respectively. Your dedication to the club is highly appreciated and your experience is well needed.

 

New on your Board of Directors this year will be Fred Sammartino serving as Vice-President, Art Schneiderman serving as Treasurer, and Chris Nicholl as Member at Large. The enthusiasm and experience these three are bringing to the board is exciting, and I am both fortunate and pleased to have such a great team to work with!

 

I am shifting seats this year from Treasurer to President. I welcome both the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead in guiding our club through whatever changes await us. Changes at our main observing venues have resulted in the board creating a “Site Search Committee” to research and seek out possible new venues.

 

We are compiling the data from the survey on the renewal forms so we’ll have a better understanding of what directions the membership would like the club steered. I have an open mind, and I believe anything is possible if enough of us want it to be.  I’m asking all of the board members to listen closely to what members say, and I’m asking all members to speak your minds and tell us what you feel. With the synergy of this organization, anything is possible!

 

Please welcome new Honorary Member Russ Pinizzotto, Dean of Science and Engineering at Merrimack College. Russ has a strong interest in astronomy and has already attended one of our meetings. We are looking forward to working with him and strengthening our relationship with Merrimack College.

 

Warmer weather is upon us and there are planets aplenty! I’m looking forward to seeing both them, and you, under a dark sky soon! 

 

Kevin Ackert

President

 

 

NSAAC Welcomes Our New Members:

William LeComte of Burlington

William P. Manning of Lowell

Russ Pinizzotto (Honorary Member)

 

 

Minutes of the NSAAC Business Meeting,
March 5th, 2004

President Deneen called the January Business Meeting of the NSAAC to order at 8:10PM. President Deneen called for introduction of new guests: Ralph Pass introduced Russ Pinizzotto, Dean of the college of Science and Engineering at Merrimack College, who has been made an honorary member.  There were 17 members in attendance plus 5 board members. 


Committee Reports:


Secretary: The minutes of the November and December Business Meetings were approved.

 

Treasurer: Treasurer’s report was accepted.

 

Upcoming Events:  A GO-ON event is being planned as a kid’s night or a family night so that we can get younger people involved in astronomy.  It is planned for Friday April 24.  There was discussion of having a drawing for surplus items and some donated small refractors scopes.

 

Merrimack College:  Clouded out last month.  Kevin Ackert and Fred Sammartino have been holding observing parties for cub and boy scouts.

Salem State:  Open a couple of times last month, but attendance has been sparse.

 

Star Parties: There will be a Star party IRWS on March 15th on the scale of the solar system to be given by Michael Deneen.  There will also be a star party at the Rupert Knock Middle School on March 25th in Newburyport, MA.

 

Old Business:  Board of directors voted to change the Web hosting along with the list server.

If someone wants to use Veasey weeknights they must call a board member a day before so that the board can notify Veasey that someone will be observing on a weeknight.  No observing unless these rules are followed.   Veasey is going to be having more outside events on Saturday night and therefore we should start using IRWS on Saturday night.

 

New Business:  A motion was made to allow the club to spend up to $700 to fix the lighting at Veasey.  The motion was approved with one abstention. Dave Fournier will arrange to have a switch installed on the large light at the chapel at a cost of about $600 to the club. 

 

It was reiterated that Veasey will be having more functions on a Saturday Night to raise funds.  Therefore, the club should be using IRWS on Saturdays.

 

There is a committee looking for a new place to do observing and have meetings. 

 

There was a discussion of having a Messier Marathon in March.

 

Mention was made of the upcoming events in the area including Starcon, in Suffern NY, Starfest in CT, and Stellafane in VT.  Contact Dennis Gudzevich if you want more information.

 

Next Board meeting was set for Wednesday 17th of March 8:00PM at Veasey.

 

Elections:

The slate of candidates proposed by the nominating committee was:

President-Kevin Ackert

Vice-President-Fred Sammartino

Treasurer-Arthur Schneiderman

Secretary- John Hobbs

Membership Director-Barrie Sawyer

The slate was approved by acclimation.

 

The proposed members at large were:

Lew Gramer

Chris Nicholl

The slate was approved by acclimation.

The program for this evening was a show and tell of any new items members wanted to share with the club.

 

Meeting adjourned at 9:15 PM

 

Respectively submitted,
John Hobbs, Secretary NSAAC



Talk for April

We are honored to have our own John Boudreau giving a talk this month. His talk is entitled Planetary Webcam Imaging. It will be primarily a demonstration of planetary/lunar image processing using RegiStax, and he’ll also touch upon the basic fundamentals of video acquisition, equipment, etc. Please attend this talk if you’ve ever been interested in learning about, or doing, webcam imaging. You’ll find that John is very knowledgeable, and entertaining. Plus he creates some great astronomical images. For a look at some of those images check out his website at:    http://home.comcast.net/~jeboud/astro.htm

 

Please consider volunteering to speak at future general meetings about your 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, etc. Giving a talk can be a lot of fun. In addition, we’re looking for non-members willing to do talks 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

 

Thanks to Barrie Sawyer and Ginny Mills for helping with the Topsfield School star party.  About sixty people attended the program and spent time with the NSAAC volunteers talking about astronomy and using a telescope to view astronomy pictures attached to the wall (it was cloudy that evening).

 

There are no NSAAC sponsored star parties this month.  Our next star party is May 13 at the Salem School district.

 

The star party at Eveleth School in Marblehead has been rescheduled for Friday, April 2nd @ 6:30 PM.  If you would like to help, please contact me by email on the NSAAC list server or at jefoy@comcast.net.



GO-ON News; Events for March, April

On behalf of the GO-ON committee, I'd like to just publicly thank Lew Gramer and Rick Margolies for putting on a terrific bino presentation.  For those that didn't make it, there was a brief talk on optics and other considerations in buying binos and bino mounts, some information about resources for bino observing, and then they led us through a few showpiece objects.  It was a very enjoyable presentation, and I know all of us who were there appreciate the effort and planning that went into it - thanks Lew and Rick.

 

For those of you who haven't yet made it out to a GO-ON event, these are turning out to be a lot of fun.  We had another really encouraging turnout on Friday night, and there were plenty of scopes to look through and people to talk with.

 

We continue to look for input from members on other possible topics, as well as volunteers to either lead a session or join the committee to help plan these events.  I can assure you that any of these duties is pretty light lifting.

 

Messier Marathon

 

On both of the nights Friday 19 March and Saturday 20 March (Cloud Gods willing), the Club will hold our annual "Messier Marathon" at the Veasey Memorial Park observing site. Bring your scope, your star charts and Messier Marathon guides and books, and set up for a long night of observing the "brightest and the best" of the deep sky! Set up will be at dusk for either or both nights, and some observers may be present all the way until dawn the next morning(s). Be sure to dim your headlights if you enter the lot after dark, and let others know when you
must leave the lot with headlights on... Hope to see you there!
 
Note: For more information, contact organizers Barrie Sawyer or Lew Gramer, at messier@nsaac.org.


April GO-ON Event

 
Do you know a kid (yours or a friend’s) with whom you would like to share your interest in amateur astronomy?  Then the April GO-ON event is for you and them.  We're calling it Kid's Night, but our target is younger people who already have or might have an interest in what we love to do.  The date is Friday, April 23, 2004 so get it on your (and the kid's) calendars now.  The details, including cloud date, are still being finalized but we can assure you that we are going all out to make this a star studded success!!  There will be snacks and drinks, possibly door prizes, and lots of expertly guided viewing of planets, the moon, and other spectacular astro-goodies.  We will update you by list-serv as the details become finalized.  If you are not on the list-serv and want to be updated, just call Art Schneiderman (978-352-2031) and he'll make sure you get the latest info.
 
The GO-ON Committee:

Lew Gramer

Chris Nicholl

Fred Sammartino

Art Schneiderman

Ilane Walberg

go-on@nsaac.org


 

Site Search

Due to the environment at Veasey Memorial Park changing, it has been decided that a committee would be set up to explore new sites for the club’s meetings and observing. We are in no rush to leave a site that has been very good to us and anticipate the search to take quite a while. The following are the criteria for the search.

  1. The new site should be within a reasonable distance of our current location.
  2. A site where we could both meet and observe would be preferable.
  3. A site where we could meet with a nearby site for observing would be O.K.

Even if you do not wish to participate in the site search, if you know of someone affiliated with an organization, State, Non-Profit or Private, that meet these conditions and might be willing to house us, please pass the information on. If you do wish to join the committee please e-mail us at sitesearch@nsaac.org.


 

Deep-Space Object of the Month

Lew Gramer, 30 Apr 2000, Local midnight

Location Westford MA USA (42oN)

Limiting mag 6.0, Seeing 6 of 10

Instrument: 17.5" f/4.5 dob

Magnification: 57x, 90x, 220x, 285x

Object: NGC 4559, SAB(rs)cd II-III galaxy.

Location: Coma, 12:35:57 +27:57:53

Vmag 10.01, size 10.72x4.37

Description: This large, lovely galaxy was readily found at 57x, by using a pretty arc formed by the naked-eye stars gamma, 14, 16 and 17 Comae. Imagining this arc of stars as a cross-section of a telescope mirror, I located n4559 roughly at the "focal point" of this "mirror": it can be seen as the E vertex of an equilateral triangle formed with two mag 9 stars in the "focal area". Once found, the galaxy was stunning in that it yielded more and more rich detail, the greater the power applied to it! First impression was of a very tight, bright core, surrounded by a considerably diffuse halo. At 220x, this core was obviously elongated E-W, somewhat skewed from the halo's less pronounced elongation.

 

But a surprise awaited me at higher power: with 285x the inner core suddenly began to display a more irregular shape, reminding me variously (as the seeing varied from second to second) of a peanut, an arc, or an "X" or criss-cross shape. I also noted at all powers a distinct "edge" to the halo in the South and East, with additional halo beyond this edge only suspected at higher powers. And at both 220x & 285x, tiny mottlings and "stellarings" (Brian Skiff's term for faint stellar bright spots outside the galaxy core) were suspected to be suffusing the outer core and the halo, S, N, E and W. Finally, 285x showed a tiny stellar nucleus, highly dependent on seeing and averted vision.


 

A Special Note of Thanks

On a more personal note, the Club would like to extend our collective thanks to our outgoing President, Mr. Michael Deneen. Mike came into the "hot seat" at a time when our Club was making a difficult and often contentious transition. His calm demeanor, good listening and organizational skills, and unwaveringly positive vision for the Club helped us become what we are again today - a vibrant and growing organization, focused on the needs of our members, the amateur astronomers of the North Shore. Thank you, Mike!


 

Observatory Notes

[At the recent Business meeting, I asked folks who man the telescopes at the several observatories NSAAC is associated with to tell us a bit about those sites, and how to contact them for weather information on scheduled observing nights. In this issue, Dennis Gudzevich responds with some background on the Salem State facility. –lz]

 

Salem State College Observatory (Collins Observatory)

The Salem State College Observatory, officially named the Collins Observatory, has been maintained and operated by NSAAC volunteers for approximately 11 years. Currently the principal operators are Dennis Gudzevich, Lou Grocki, and Marc O’Connor. The scope itself is a 12 inch Cassegrain/Newtonian. We currently have it set up as an F/16 Cassegrain, since we use it primarily for planetary observing. The Newtonian set up is an F/4 and is primarily used for deep sky observing. The scope hasn’t been set up for deep sky for several years now, mostly due to the heavy light pollution in the area. We are open from 7:00 PM to 10:00 PM on any mostly clear Monday night, during the school year, except school holidays, and vacation closings. We are typically open from the week after Labor Day until the last week of April, and sometimes the first week or two in May, though unlikely due to late sunsets. If anyone is interested in checking the observatory out, you’re welcome to come up. We would advise you to call first though, as Salem can sometimes be foggy when it’s clear everywhere else. The number to reach the observatory is 978-542-6452.  

Dennis Gudzevich

Principal Operator

 

 

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 Kevin Ackert, President, e-mail at president@nsaac.org.  If you have no email access, you may phone Fred Sammartino, Vice President at (978) 989-9977.

 

Our club 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!

 

Last Words – From the “Webmaster” (Leor Zolman)

In addition to my official capacity as newsletter editor, it would seem that I’ve also just inherited the hat of “webmaster” for the NSAAC web site. This is rather ironic, since I know next-to-nothing about either web site or graphic design. One thing I have no trouble at all with, however, is maintaining an existing web site, as I already do that for both my own and my wife’s web sites (neither of which I personally built). The upshot: please feel free to offer suggestions regarding the content of the NSAAC web site. It is truly a trivial matter for me to edit the content of existing pages (adding items or making corrections), or even to add new pages if they don’t require a substantially new layout.

 

For example: On the NSAAC Resources page, there’s a new link to “Binocular resources” compiled by Rick Margolies for the Bino-Night GO-ON event. What did it take to get that on there?  The GO-ON folks simply thought of asking me to do it.

 

Do you have a web site you’d like to see listed on the members’ web site page? Suggestions for the Resources (or any other) page? Just email webmaster@nsaac.org. Oh, and please remember that this is not an imposition on me!