Third Quarter 2009 Meeting Summaries
By Mark Lang
July 10, 2009 – Regular meeting – RAC swap meet. This was the first RAC swap meet. Members brought their astronomy gear that was no longer wanted or needed and tried to sell it to others. A few telescopes and accessories were sold. There were also drawings for door prizes which included some nice books. A cake and refreshments were also provided. Turnout was light due to it being a summer night, but the event was judged a success and will probably be attempted again.
July 24, 2009 – RACOBS was a big success. An estimated 15 to 20 people were present. About a dozen scopes were set up. There were a number of guests. Members attending were Mark Lang, Chuck Jaynes, Steve Izzo, Chris Cole, Pat Moore, Chris Mohr, Mike Keefe. The weather was good with the Milky Way visible. There were imagers as well as visual observers present. Folks arrived at 8:00 pm and the last to leave departed at 3:15 am.
August 14, 2009 – RACOBS. Weather caused the cancellation of the observing session, so a short indoor meeting was held. Jerry Reynolds of the Museum of Natural Sciences staff spoke to the group about the upcoming Pettigrew State Park dark sky weekend coming up in September. Also, Jim Pressley and Pat Moore showed slides of their trip to Pettigrew and the 4H center near Pettigrew. About 10 people went to dinner at Tripps afterwards.
August 28, 2009 – Regular meeting. Tonight’s guest speaker was Jeff Orrock, Warning Coordination Meteorologist at NOAA’s National Weather Service’s Raleigh Office. Jeff spoke about “Space Weather”. He started out with some facts about the sun. It is a yellow dwarf about 93 million miles away. It rotates once every 27 days and has an 11 year solar cycle. Energy from the core of the sun takes 50 million years to reach the surface. He talked about the chromosphere, the photosphere, and the corona. He discussed sunspots and how they differed from the rest of the sun’s surface.
Jeff talked about how the sun affects the Earth’s weather. Interestingly, when there are fewer sunspots, there is more energy coming from the sun. He discussed the “Little Ice Age” (1645-1750) and how that might have been related to a lack of sunspots. He talked about the solar wind and how it interacts with the Earth’s magnetic field. He also explained solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) and how they can disrupt the electric grid in the US and Canada and how it can affect satellites.
In the business meeting, Treasurer Jim DellaPenna gave report on the Club’s bank accounts and expenditures. He reported we now have 97 regular members and 37 family memberships.
Ian, who ran tonight’s meeting, gave a summary of upcoming events: the Museum’s Pettigrew event on Sept. 18-20, the observing session at the Museum of Art on Oct 2, and also an observing for the Museum of Natural Sciences on Nov. 12th or the 18th, and an event at Howell Woods on the same weekend. There will also be a meteor session at Blue Jay Point for the Geminids in December. Ian also discussed the issue of getting bumper stickers made. Due to high start up costs, this idea has been scrapped. Ian reminded people that he has Club patches available.
There was a discussion on how to deal with making the correct go no-go call on summer RACOBS nights and skipping a meeting at the Museum. It was decided that the officers will make the best call they can based on the weather. If any key holder decides to go to Bigwoods after a meeting has been cancelled, they will post their intentions to go on the list server. It the weather remains bad, those wanting to get together and eat can also post on the list and decide where to go.
The members were reminded that planning sessions for Astronomy Days at the Museum will start soon. Those who want to attend the meetings should let Ian or Doug know.
Finally, Steve Izzo gave the Club an update on the Imaging subgroup’s work with Dan Reichart on his new project called Your Skies. His team is creating a new web based program called Afterglow which will allow students and other interested astronomers access to remote telescopes to image. Steve will keep us updated after this project has gone past the initial phases.
Sept. 11, 2009 – RACOBS at Jordan Lake. The public part of the RACOBS was cancelled due to a poor forecast, but a message was posted on the list server and the gate at Bigwoods was opened up for an observing session. Only eight people showed up, but it was worth the trip. The weather turned out to be beautiful. The Milky Way was easily seen from Cassiopeia through Sagittarius. The seeing was not that great as Jupiter only gave clear views on occasion. The moon came up just before midnight, we could see some clouds on the North horizon, but they did not affect us.
We only had a modest crowd. It was Mark Lang, Pat Moore, Chris Waldrup, Mike Keefe, Jim Pressley, Al Hamrick, and Pierre Faucher with a relative.
Sept. 25, 2009 – Regular meeting at the Museum of Natural Sciences. Tonight’s talk was a team effort. The topic was “The Evolution of the Dobsonian Telescope”. Doug Lively was the moderator. He began the evening with a slide show of the history of the Newtonian telescope. He showed diagrams detailing how the scope design works. He also showed the main types of mounts – the equatorial and the Dobsonian.
Doug then introduced Jim DellaPenna who showed a low cost Orion Sky Quest 6″. He explained this was a good basic scope which weighs about 38 pounds and is easily portable with a setup time of only a few minutes. The cost of this scope is around $270.
Doug next introduced Brian Reasor who demonstrated an Orion 12 inch Intelliscope. In addition to being able to see fainter objects, this scope has a specialized computer to help you “push to” objects to find them. This scope weighs about 80 pounds. Brian then showed a North Star equatorial platform which could be used under the scope to provide 15 minutes of tracking. While not for photography, objects will stay centered in the eyepiece.
Next up was Pat Moore. Pat showed his 16 inch StarSplitter scope. This scope can be set up and operational in about 10 minutes. He added a Servo Cat drive system and an Argo Navis computer system to find objects. With this system, he can command the scope to move itself to the object to be viewed. The scope weighs around 200 pounds and cost around $6,000.
Finally, Doug had Jim Pressley show his new Dob. It is a 12.5 inch homebuilt system (with a lot of help from Pat Moore). It features a curved secondary holder instead of the traditional four vane spider. The scope was designed to be low to ground so a ladder would not be needed for viewing. It also has a Servo Cat and an Argo Navis to provide go to capabilities, but Jim also added a Bluetooth adaptor to the scope so the go to capabilities can be activated from planetarium programs like The Sky, and planning programs like Deep-Sky Planner.
In the business meeting, Jerry Watson announced the next meeting would be the Rene Ward memorial lecture featuring Dr. David DeVorkin speaking about Pluto. Doug Lively had a brief discussion about Astronomy Days coming up January 30 and 31. He covered the preliminary event list and the people needed to run them. Bill Webster reminded the group of the upcoming public observing session with the Museum of Art on Oct. 2 with a rain date of Oct. 4. The Museum is expecting thousands of visitors. Finally, Richard Ossowski gave an educational update.
