Newsletter of the North Shore Amateur Astronomy Club

 

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From the President

 

May is looking like an especially interesting month for astronomy. All the usual benefits apply; galaxies start showing up everywhere, and we can revisit old friends like globular clusters the same night we watch a shadow transit on Jupiter. It’s really the perfect season, requiring neither mittens nor insect repellents (do you think of M13 when you smell Deep Woods Off? They’re permanently associated in my mind).

 

Every spring is welcome, but this year especially so: we have a few extra goodies to help usher in what can only be a vastly better season for sky watching. Closest to home, there’s a full lunar eclipse on the night of May 15/16. The 15^th is a Thursday, but it might still be one of those exquisitely rare occasions when we’ll want to get out to VMP for a full moon. This will be a great naked-eye spectacle, but for those who want to grab a scope, there’s a table of crater timings on the Astronomy.com site. Remember to subtract 4 hours from UT to get EDT:

 

http://www.astronomy.com/Content/Dynamic/Articles/000/000/001/234pdqwy.asp

 

Just a little farther away, Mercury transits the sun early on the morning of May 7^th. Go out at dawn with a solar filter; Mercury will be that little dot moving across the sun’s upper right quadrant. The sun will rise around 5:30, and Mercury should exit the sun’s face around 6:30. These transits only occur in May and November, and in May only at intervals of 13 and 33 years, so this will be a worth a look. The next transit is in November 2006.

 

Finally, don’t miss the last few chances this year to see some solar eclipses – these are on Jupiter, of course, but still fun. Tables of shadow transits of Jovian moons are posted on the club listserve every week, and a free program to generate them for yourself can be run or downloaded at http://www.cpac.org.uk/ -- it looks like there are some well-timed transits of Io and Europa in May.

 

Our next business meeting is Friday, May 2, at 8:00. We’ve improved the refreshments, and I hear that the speaker is especially good. I hope to see you there. 

 

Mike Deneen

President

 

 

Business Meeting Minutes for the April, 2003 Meeting of the NSAAC

President Deneen called the April Business Meeting of the NSAAC to order at 8:07PM.  President Deneen called for introduction of new guests: No new guests.  There were 12 members in attendance plus 5 board members.  Since there was not a quorum this was an informational meeting.

Committee Reports:

Treasurer:  Kevin Ackert announced that we have a new account at the Enterprise Bank in Billerica.  Motion made to approve the Treasurers report.  Motion approved.

 

Upcoming Events:  None

Membership:   No report.

Merrimack College:  No Report

 

Salem State:  There was a Cub Scout troop of 15 members and four adults for viewing on a         Monday evening.  The Dome still needs to be lubricated.

Star Parties:  Jim Foy received a letter from the Bates School in Salem thanking the club for the Science Night Star Party.  The star party at Endicott College was cancelled.  There is going to be a Star Party in Newburyport for the Friends of the Parker River National Wildlife Refuge on May 17^th.

 

Share System:  No report.

 Unfinished Business:  None 

 

New Business: 

Barrie Sawyer discussed that the board approved spending a small amount for the provision of soft drinks, coffee, cocoa, and tea for the business meetings.  So far he has expended approximately $65.00 but this will cover several more meetings.

Chris Nichol has undertaken to organize a monthly observing session at Veasey Memorial.

Dennis Gudzevich relayed the analysis of the problem with the club’s laptop computer.  The computer is old and the problem with the screen is not correctable and will only get worse. A show of hands indicated that the club should spend around $1,000 for a new laptop. The board will make a recommendation at a future business meeting after a careful analysis.

 

Barrie Sawyer mentioned that the club is about to receive the $750 grant from Osram Sylvania.

Dennis Gudzevich discussed the potential purchase of hats and tee shirts.  Dennis will present the information at the next board meeting and the board will make a presentation to the club at the next business meeting for a vote.

Lew Grammer is going to be giving two talks; one on May 17^th at the Council on Aging in Bedford and on June 19^th at Medford Public Library.

Barrie Sawyer is holding an open house at Starport on April 26-27^th and May 2-4^th.  All club members are welcome.

Dennis Gudzevich discussed the idea of the Club picnic.  We should continue, but maybe change the date to accommodate more of the members.

Veasy is having a work party the weekend of April 25 and 26^th. 

StarCon is going to be the weekend of April 19^th in Middletown Conn.

Dennis Gudzevich and Ralph Pass have received their Messier Certificates.

The next Board Meeting will be at Veasey on April 15^th at Veasey.

 

Program:

The evening’s program was a presentation by Hung Pham and Steve Rubin form RITI Software Company talking about Lunar Map Pro software.

Meeting adjourned at 8:50 PM

 

Respectively submitted,

John Hobbs, Secretary NSAAC

 

Star Party News

There are no star parties scheduled for May that will involve several club members with telescopes or programs  Thanks to all NSAAC members that supported the program this year!!

 

On May 17th, I will assist another club member by providing a telescope for people attending a campout sponsored by the Friends of Parker River National Wildlife Refuge.

 

Jim Foy

 

Talk for May

First of all I’d like to thank Steve Rubin and Hung Pham of RITI for giving a talk about their Lunar Map Pro^TM software package.

This month our own Lew Gramer will do a talk. The title of his talk is "Peering into the Workings of the Solar System from a Lawnchair: Observing Meteors". If you enjoy watching or hearing about meteors you’ll find Lew’s talk interesting. Please make every effort to attend. 

 

I am 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@attbi.com, or at the general business meetings.

 

Dennis Gudzevich

Program Coordinator

 

Merrimack Report    
Our most recent public observing session on April 17 was very successful. Fred Sammartino and Kevin Ackert opened the observatory at dusk and the first public viewers (a family of five recently moved from India) arrived shortly afterwards and before twilight ended. The planets were just becoming visible and we able to observe Jupiter, Saturn, and Mercury with the naked eye. Mercury was one day past it’s greatest elongation. We explained to the children why Mercury was such an elusive planet with a short lesson on the solar system. We then proceeded to observe the outer planets with the scope. Other visitors began arriving and before long the observatory was filled with about fifteen people! People left and arrived for the next hour or so. I estimate that we had about twenty people total for the evening.
The telescope had been collimated a couple month’s back, but it seemed to have a new problem now. Objects in the center of the field just would not focus correctly. Objects away from center focused better than objects in the center. At first we thought this was the result of thermal problems, but as time went on and the scope cooled down the problem persisted. By the end of the session we felt that it was not a thermal problem, but something else. If anyone has and idea on this please mention it to me at the next business meeting.

 

Kevin Ackert

Treasurer, NSAAC

 

May's Total Lunar Eclipse

For the full article go to:

http://skyandtelescope.com/observing/objects/eclipses/article_923_1.asp

On Thursday night, May 15–16, the full Moon will pass through the northern part of the Earth’s shadow, providing a colorful spectacle for observers throughout the Americas, Europe, and Africa. Lunar eclipses get their colorful red-orange hues from sunlight that is filtered and bent by the Earth’s atmosphere before it reaches the Moon. Skywatcher Mary Ward of Dublin, Ireland, once likened the totally eclipsed Moon to a "red-hot penny" in the star-filled sky — a description as apt today as it was for her on February 7, 1860.

 

A Star Prepares to Blow Its Top

For the full article go to: http://skyandtelescope.com/observing/objects/variablestars/article_843_1.asp

Keep an eye on Cassiopeia — it contains a naked-eye star that may brighten and dim dramatically in the coming months.

That was the message at a January press conference at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Seattle. Alex J. R. Lobel and Andrea Dupree (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics) both reported observations of the active hypergiant star Rho (r) Cassiopeiae, which is visible to the naked eye at magnitude 4.5. That it shines so brightly from 10,000 light-years away means that it must be huge. Rho Cas is about as hot as the Sun but roughly a million times more luminous, which makes it is so big that, if it replaced our Sun, its surface would lie beyond the orbit of Mars.

 

 

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 a short distance down on the right

 

For more information about the club and its activities, contact Dave Thomas Membership Director at, email: membership@nsaac.org or contact Mike Deneen, President, e-mail at president@nsaac.org.  No email, call Richard Bickerton, Vice President at 978-887-8533.

Better yet, visit our Web Site at: http://www.nsaac.org.

 

Members who subscribe to Astronomy or Sky and Telescope through the club should send their renewal notice, together with a check in the proper amount payable to the NSAAC and mail to N.S.A.A.C. Treasurer, C/o Veasey Memorial Park, 201 Washington Street, Groveland, MA 01834-2007.   The Treasurer then sends it on to the magazine.

 

E-Mail Listserve

If you have access to the Internet or other email system, 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)

Message: subscribe NSAAC Your Full Name <your-email-name@your-isp.com>

 

Subscribers will be verified as actual members in good standing before being granted access to the system.

 

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

 

Please support those who support us. 

 

Star.net is our Internet service provider, please look them up if you need Internet service.  Additionally, the Phoenix Press in Groveland provides printing services for our monthly newsletter.  Please consider them for any printing needs you may have.

 

 

 

 

Total Lunar Eclipse

May 15-16, 2003