VOL 34 NO 2 FEBRUARY 2005 PUBLISHED MONTHLY

Star Party at Orion Acres: Saturday, March 5th. Camping is fine if you wish to spend the night. All Star Parties are weather dependent, and subject to cancellation due to clouds or rain. For more information or for confirmation the event is a go in the event of questionable weather, call Victor Rogers at (423) 842-5595. See the BAS website for directions to Orion Acres or visit www.orionacres.org 

MEETING NOTICE:

The regular meeting of the BARNARD ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY will be held Thursday February 10th at 7:00 PM at Room 319 in UTC's Grote Hall, located on Vine Street across from the UTC library. Parking should be available in the lot next to Grote Hall or along Vine Street.

PROGRAM:

Jerry Armstrong from the Atlanta Astronomy Club will present at program on meteors.  

Officers

MINUTES

This month we play catch-up on publishing the minutes for the last couple of meetings.

NOVEMBER MINUTES

The November meeting of the Barnard Astronomical Society was called to order at 7:40PM by President Tom Atkins. There were twelve members and no guests present. 

The minutes of the October meeting were read and accepted without any additions or corrections.

Treasurer's Report: David Witt reports a balance of $800. Expenses were $260 for the Astronomical League membership.

Old Business: The Society's annual Christmas Party will be at St. Peters School on Ashland Terrace on December 4 at 6:30 PM. There will be donated books as rewards for correctly answering the president's astronomical "trivia" questions.

New Business: Star Parties are tentatively scheduled for Saturday, Nov13 and Tuesday, Nov 16 at 5:00 Pm at Orion Acres weather permitting. 

The program for February or March will be Jerry Armstrong from the Atlanta Astronomical Society whose expertise is meteorites. David Hanon will contact Mr. Armstrong. Arrangements for the meeting to be held at the UTC Physics Department will be looked into by Tom Atkins. 

The orerry table located in the observatory library will be covered. 

There have been a number of books donated to the library over the past year which need sorting and cataloging. The "program" for the January meeting will be dedicated to getting this job done so that the library may be reactivated. 

On Sunday, November 14 there will be a CD program presented at the Observatory. 

The February program may be a tape presentation from Great Courses depending on the scheduling of Jerry Armstrong's program.

Program: Ongoing and Future NASA missions. Mars rovers, Cassini and Huygens.

DECEMBER MINUTES: 

Christmas Party!!!!!! Good food, good fellowship and Victor Rogers was the recipient of the 2004 Lewellyn Evans Award.

January Minutes: 

The January meeting of the Barnard Astronomical Society was called to order at 7:45 PM by President Tom Atkins. 

The November and December minutes were accepted as read.

Treasurer's Report: David Witt reports a current Balance of $617.86. Expenses were: Astronomical League $260, International Dark Sky Assoc. $50, Expenses for Christmas party $50 for facility and $100 for food, Lewellyn Evans plaque $50. There has been a $41 profit on the sale of the 2005 calendars. There are a few calendars left if anyone is interested.

Old Business: Jerry Armstrong has been scheduled for the February program. Arrangements are being made to hold the February meeting at UTC. 

The Great Courses tapes have been pushed to the March meeting.

New Business: A Star Party is scheduled for March 12 at Orion Acres. There will be 3 - 4 Star Parties scheduled this year. 

The next meeting will be February 10 with the public invited for Jerry Armstrong's program about meteorites. 

There was quite a lot of discussion around the press's reporting of green lasers being used to "attempt to bring down aircraft". If a government regulatory agency (FAA, NTSB, FBI, DHS etc) gets involved in this it may well spell the doom of a useful tool for astronomical instruction at star parties or other gatherings. If you own a green laser use it wisely. Turn it on only for the time necessary to point out the object. If aircraft are in the area leave it off until they have cleared your area. NEVER, NEVER POINT YOUR LASER AT AN AIRCRAFT OR OTHER VEHICLE. 

Trip to Sewanee???

Program: Cataloging donated books and reactivation of the Society's library.

Respectfully submitted

Gary Caldwell, Secretary

REMINDER

Your annual BAS dues of are now due on June 1, in accordance with the adopted amendment to the by-laws. They are as follows: REGULAR $15.00, REGULAR ASSOCIATE $7.00, JUNIOR $8.00, JUNIOR ASSOCIATE $5.00. Your Sky & Telescope or Astronomy subscription will continue to be handled as in the past. When you receive your subscription reminder card, submit it to:

David Witt
4503 Cove Lane
Chattanooga, TN 37415-2306

Along with the group subscription rate of $32.95 for Sky and Telescope, or $29.00 for Astronomy.

DEADLINE

All articles and other materials for publication in the next STAR are due no later than Wednesday, January 5th. The following media are acceptable: hard copy, disk (IBM), video tape (VHS), prints, or e-mail to bas@chattanooga.net or stramey@catt.com and attach a file or mail to:

Steve Ramey
109 Sioux Trail
Ringgold GA 30736

PHOTOGRAPHS ARE ALSO ACCEPTABLE.

TENNESSEE SPRING STAR PARTY

Please note that the Tennessee Spring Star Party announced below is not organized by the BAS, nor are we involved in any official capacity. Since Fall Creek Falls is very close to Orion Acres, it was decided to encourage our members to attend there, and not to have an Orion Acres star party on that weekend. A call to Fall Creek Falls confirmed the dates for the event, and that there is no cost to set up and observe. If you wish to stay at the Inn or camp in the regular campground, please call Fall Creek Falls for reservations and costs.)

TENNESSEE SPRING STAR PARTY

FALL CREEK FALLS STATE PARK

FRIDAY MARCH 11TH THROUGH SUNDAY 13TH

ACTIVITIES:

The first annual Tennessee Spring Star Party is being presented by the Astronomy in the Parks Society and hosted by Fall Creek Falls State Park. The purpose of TSSP is a gathering of like minded individuals to learn and share information on Astronomy. There is no cost for this event, other than food and lodging. Fall Creek Falls State Park has created a special star party package for lodging at the Inn and will offer group camping. You will find this special offer very affordable.

Fall Creek Falls State Park is among the premier parks in Tennessee with a very dark sky, 1850 ft. elevation, and 22,000 acres of prime forest, streams, and lakes. There are miles of hiking trails, a beautiful 256 foot waterfall, and many other amenities. Please call 1-800-250-8610 for reservations or more information.

TSSP is open to all who are interested in astronomy and will get started Friday evening with star viewing. A star party schedule, park map, and red light rules will be available at the lobby of the Inn. There will be special areas and leaders for both Messier Marathon participants and for general public viewing. All red light rules will apply and red cellophane will be available on the viewing field. There will be no registration, all services and activities will be on a first come first served basis. Please call 1-800-250-8610 for more information. Come and enjoy a wonderful weekend of astronomy and outdoor activities.

For more information contact Lloyd Watkins or Rocky Alvey at 615-824-3005 or watkinslk@comcast.net .

Notice of proposal to change the BAS Constitution.

David Witt has proposed that we move away from a June to June membership year, and simply make everyone's BAS membership be a rolling 12 months. This way, if you join and pay your dues on Jan 1st, 2005 your dues would next be due on Jan 1st, 2006. This is currently way it works in practice anyway, so it is already the de facto way we do things. The reason is because it is not practical to prorate a membership to June, when you get a check for a full year already filled out, usually in the mail. With the BAS database, the plan is to keep track of when each members membership expires.

A second proposed change to the BAS Constitution is to make the BAS membership dues changeable when the Astronomical League (AL) raises its membership fees. This was proposed by Tom Adkins. Currently the amount of the AL membership fee in the BAS dues is given explicitly in the BAS constitution, which requires us to amend the BAS constitution every time the AL increases its membership fees. Under the proposed revision the BAS constitution would only state the amount of the BAS dues which do not include the AL fees, so we could easily increase the total BAS dues when the AL raises its rates, to pass along the costs.

Changing the amount of the BAS dues going to cover AL membership would now just require a majority vote at a meeting to pass. At some point in the future it is anticipated that BAS dues will need to be increased to cover the increased cost of AL membership, hence this change. These proposed changes to the BAS constitution will appear in the February and March newsletters, and then will be voted on at the March BAS meeting.

THE STRANGE CASE OF SS 433

By now all have seen "The Weirdest Star in the Sky" by Ray Villard, in the March 2005 issue of Astronomy.

At the Texas Star Party of 1996 I had the great fortune to look over the shoulders of some of the astronomers at the 107 inch McDonald Observatory Telescope. In particular there was one four hour period that Dr. Bill Wrenne let me take in with Dr. Klaus Jδger, a visiting astronomer from Gottingen Germany. His AOI was the strange object in Aquila SS-433.

Dr. Jagar and I had a very interesting conversation that evening over dinner about the object's interesting character which carried over to his getting up the Texas Instrument CCD camera and its Nitrogen Duwar chamber ready for his night's run on the object. Dr. David Doss was also in the control room on the Nova 4 Data acquisition system and went through all the guiding procedure on the telescope.

My 35 mm Olympus Camera and my note pad could not keep up with the pace but I was rewarded with a good paper for the home university and Jack Lorenz and I had many hours of reading time about the object.

Dr. Jδger was very kind to talk with us as he made several exposures that would hopefully give some insight into the peculiar behavior of SS-433. In the meantime I threatened Dr. Wrenne that I would handcuff myself to the table if he didn't let me stay all night. He did let us stay and I will always be grateful. It was a night for great learning and I shall never forget it.

I spent the next day on the telephone with Jack Lorenz getting all the fine points on tape. The object SS-433 it seems defies all logic and seemingly the laws of physics. As Ray Villard implies, it simply does not know if it is coming or going! Parts of the object are red shifted and others blue shifted. Further, the parts are obviously tied together!

Go Figure Friends.

Good Seeing!