MEETING NOTICE: The regular meeting of the BARNARD ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY will be held Thursday, June 12 th at Jones Observatory on Brainerd Rd . Refreshments and social hour begin at 7:00 p.m. The business meeting will be held at 7:30 p.m. followed by the program at 8:30 .

PROGRAM: Bill and Melinda Lord will present a program on supernovas from the Night Sky Network Kit.

 

The Barnard STAR is the official publication of the Barnard Astronomical Society.

Planned Activities to Enjoy The Wonders of Astronomy—
Celebrating Amateurs Who Are Professional in Knowledge

“Giving amateurs their due: The term ‘amateur' is often used negatively as a synonym for ‘unskilled.' Not here! In astronomy, the word remains true to its Latin root, amator, meaning ‘lover.' Amateur astronomers spend countless hours under the starry sky purely for the love of it. Many become as skilled at telescope observing or astrophotography as any professional—often more so.”

Discovering the Joy of Astronomy
“The joy of astronomy comes from finding your way around the starry sky and understanding what you see.” –The Editors, SKY AND TELESCOPE MAGAZINE

 

Mourning the Increasing Loss of Dark Night Skies in Our Cities

“There is no more important task for the modern amateur astronomer than to fight the steady growth of light pollution in urban areas. Already we are witnessing the tragedy of the first generation of city children who might never see the beauty of a dark night sky.”

--Director, Observatory, Houston Museum of Natural Science.

Note: BAS endorses outdoor lighting restriction efforts by the International Dark Sky Association (IDSA) and also by local organizations such as Save Roane Starry Skies (SRSS) at The Tamke-Allan Observatory, Roane State College, Harriman , TN.

 

Technical Areas of Specialization within BAS for Member Participation

 Large Aperture/Dark Sky/Deep Space Optical Astronomy
For more information, contact David Witt or Victor Rogers.

Astrophotography
For more information, contact David Hanon , Dr. Gary Caldwell, or Victor Rogers

Radio Astronomy
For more information, contact Bill and Melinda Lord, Bill Seymour, or John Mannone.

 

May Regular Meeting Program

Every amateur Astronomy club in America has many persons who are very technically advanced in the subject. However, few groups have an individual like BAS member Dr. John Mannone who can bring together both the scientific and the cultural sides of Astronomy.

At the May BAS program, “Adventures in Astronomy: A Rediscovery”, he did just that. He utilized art (“Starry Night” by the renowned Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh), literature (poetry by Walt Whitman and Robert Frost) as well as some uncanny intuitions from the writer Edgar Allen Poe. Poe, a non-scientist, nevertheless found the answer to Olbers' Paradox (from German Wilhelm Olbers).

This famous scientific question asks why, with so many stars in the universe, the sky is not constantly ablaze with blinding light. The answer is, of course (as Poe correctly deduced) that most starlight generated has not yet reached the earth from such a vast cosmos.

Dr. Mannone's program also dealt with some other very interesting scientific issues. John gave some fascinating techniques for determining the number of visible stars to the unaided eye down to apparent magnitude of six in a dark sky: approximately 3,000 stars per hemisphere.

Also, he discussed the Hubble Space Telescope Deep Field Keyhole procedures (0.082 arc seconds in a narrow view to the edge of the universe at the 30th magnitude) to estimate the total number of galaxies in the visible universe: approximately 5 E+11 (5 followed by eleven zeros).

Following that, he showed how the total number of stars in the known universe can be calculated: approximately 1 E+23 (1 followed by 23 zeros).

Other subjects discussed included dark matter, dark energy, gravitational lensing of light from very distant sources, and ionizing to reveal exotic matter.

One of the most meaningful topics in the program was a time line of science, including many important milestones in astronomy and cosmology.

(Note: BAS members might want to download this extremely important chronology for their personal records;
http://www.ucar.edu/tour/link=/the_universe/uts/timeline.html; or,
http//mhhe.com/physsci/astronomy/arny/student/timeline3mhtm.)

John concluded his presentation with “Nightshade”, one of many poems that he has written dealing with the night sky.

Thank you, John! BAS is indeed fortunate to have you share your vast interests with us and teach us more of the scientific as well as the broader cultural perspectives of our hobby.

May Regular Meeting Program

At the Jones Observatory on Thursday, May 8, 2008 Dr. John Mannone, Distinguished Professor of Physics for Knox County Schools, will present a program titled, “Adventures in Astronomy: A Rediscovery.” Abstract: This talk will explore just some of the fascinating facets of astronomy through a set of eyes complementing the astronomer's—a rediscovery of astronomy through history, culture, and literature. The topics will range from ancient astronomy to modern cosmology. The presentation will be interactive and particular topics developed according to audience interest and participation. DON'T MISS THIS FASCINATING INTERDISCIPLINARY AND CULTURAL APPROACH TO ASTRONOMY!

Meeting Format

7:00 P.M. — Observatory Opens for Refreshments and Social
7:30 P.M.--- Business Meeting Begins
8;10 P.M.--- Break
8:30 P.M.--- Program Begins

 

In What Ways Do You Think Amateur Astronomy is Being Revolutionized by The Internet?

Give us your opinions in a Survey to be taken at the June BAS meeting and published in the July BARNARD STAR.

As we all know, the vast changes in nearly every area of modern life as a result of the Wide World Web are also sweeping through amateur astronomy.

A few examples of the many Internet sites designed specifically for amateur astronomers are given below.

To participate in CalSky.com presumes some technical knowledge and mainly supports the use of personal equipment (telescopes and binoculars) at field locations.

Sites offering remote telescope operation, such as slooh.com on top of a mountain in The Canary Islands and rent-a-scope.com in the clear skies of New Mexico are available on a lease or subscription basis for advanced amateurs. It is interesting that some recent discoverers of supernovae, who first detected these events with low power from their ground observation points in places such as Europe and Japan then verified their findings with high magnification rent-a-scope remote viewing arrangements.

Thus far in 2008, perhaps the most dramatic and far-reaching Internet development for amateur astronomy has been the opening of two new web sites for the masses of people—googlesky.com and Microsoft's worldwidetelescope.org. In the broadest definition, anyone who uses one of these sites is an amateur astronomer. Potentially, millions of persons all over the world with little or no technical knowledge will now be exploring the universe on the Internet from their home computers, and without owning a telescope, binoculars, or having a dark sky location.

What does all of this mean for traditional amateur astronomy clubs such as BAS? Are persons increasingly going to stay away from formal club meetings in favor of the convenience of pursuing their astronomy interests in front of their home computers? Or, will there be a new surge of participation, fueled by the Internet astronomy sites, in seeking out and joining local Astronomy clubs?

To a great extent, this is more than just a philosophical discussion. The future success of BAS may be determined by how we assess this new Internet Era for amateur astronomy and respond to it and mesh successfully with it. We must plan our future programs, activities, and recruiting accordingly. Your help is needed. Plan on giving your opinions at the June meeting Survey.

 

More to Read

Death by Black Hole and Other Cosmic Quandries; by Dr. Neil DeGrasse Tyson, 2007; A collection of essays on the cosmos from the pages of Natural History Magazine by the well-known author and Director of The Rose Center for Earth and Space at The American Museum of Natural History in New York City.

This an beginner-intermediate level treatment of astronomy and cosmology recommended by STARDATE, a publication of The University of Texas McDonald Observatory; May/June 2008

 

The Basics

Equinox
From the Latin aqequus, “equal”; and nox, “night”.

Vernal
From the Latin, vernalis, “belonging to Spring”. The start of Spring in the Northern Hemisphere, it occurs when the path of the earth's Sun (in the plane of the ecliptic) crosses the plane of Earth's equator, called the celestial equator. It also defines the starting point for the 24 hour East-West celestial coordinate system, known as Right Ascension. So, at the moment of the Spring Equinox on about March 21, the Sun will be at coordinates 0, 0.

Autumnal
From auctummus; probably of Etruscan origin. Occurs about September 22 and marks the beginning of Fall the Northern Hemisphere. Once again, the event is marked by the intersection of these two vast planes in the sky—the celestial equator and the plane of the ecliptic.

At each semiannual Equinox (vernal and autumnal), day and night are of equal length in all parts of the Earth.

(Source: STARDATE, a publication of The University of Texas at Austin McDonald Observatory; March/April 2008.)

Election of 2008 BAS Officers

At the May BAS meeting, members will elect officers from the slate prepared by the Nominating Committee below and from any nominations from the floor.

President—Dr. Gary Caldwell
Vice-President---Bill Lord
Secretary---Bill Seymour
Treasurer---Melinda Lord
Barnard Star Editor---Steve Ramey
Webmaster---Rod Ruch
Star Party Chair—Victor Rogers
Program Committee--- Co-Chairs Dr. John Mannone and Bill Lord
Member-at Large David Witt

 

The Basics

Planetary Reflections

A planet's or moon's reflectivity is known as albedo. Venus has an albedo of about 65, which means that it reflects about 65 percent of the sunlight that strikes it back into space. The earth's moon has an albedo of around 10 and appears bright to viewers on earth only because the moon is so close and therefore quite large in the sky. Other high albedo planets include Jupiter and Saturn, which are enveloped by clouds. The planet with the lowest albedo is Mercury, which like the earth's moon has a surface of volcanic rock.

(Source: STARDATE, a publication of The University of Texas at Austin McDonald Observatory; January/February, 2008)

 

Should BAS Permanently Relocate to A Mountain Top in New Mexico ?

Just kidding! However, after three successive failures of planned Star Parties in recent months due to inclement weather (Dade County, Fall Creek Falls, and Camp Columbus), it doesn't seem like such a bad idea to wish for a geographical location with clearer skies.

Several years ago, BAS member and Chattanooga resident Jim Lauck did move to the top of a mountain in New Mexico where he built a house and observatory to enjoy more than 250 beautiful nights per year.

Meanwhile, back in East Tennessee optical astronomers will usually have to live with an average of only 3-4 dark and clear nights per month (after weather and the new moon are factored in) for deep space viewing. In our region, the weather odds are not very good at all for a Star Party scheduled more than 5 days in advance during certain rainy months.

How we envy you, Jim!

 

Start Your Own Micro-Meteorite Collection

Through a special purchase arranged by the University of The South , BAS is obtaining a large meteorite collection at an unusually low price per gram. These meteorites will be offered for sale to BAS members as a fund-raiser for the Club treasury. Watch for future announcements.

 

Editor's Note

With all of the great submissions to the newsletter this month, I ran out of space. I was sent several very good pictures of last month's meeting at Sewanee, but I have to keep the newsletter under 8 pages or the postage goes to $0.84. I'll try to post them next month.

Matter, Antimatter and Now --- Unmatter?

Cosmology is awash with exotic ideas that lack a key ingredient - they fail to make a prediction that can be tested and verified by experiment.

Not in this case, however. Prof. Georgi believes we may even be on the verge of seeing the first unparticles, when the world's biggest experiment, the Large Hadron Collider atom smasher in Geneva , powers up in a few weeks.

He stumbled across the idea when trying to predict what the LHC would detect. Prof Georgi started off by playing with a theory of the atomic world, quantum field theory, to understand what happened if he abandoned a key assumption that is usually made - that the forces that govern the way particles act on each other are different at different length scales.

He was surprised by how different it was from the physics of particles. "I did think I was crazy," he recalls. He can hardly contain his excitement at the prospect of the LHC finding the tell tale signature of unparticles. "Unparticle stuff would astonish us immediately," not least because it will help the global effort to update or even replace the Standard Model, the current mathematical framework that describes the fundamental constituents of matter and their interactions: what physicists use to understand life, the universe and everything.

Although successful, there are flaws in the Standard Model. It fails to explain observations of particles called neutrinos and does not unify all four main forces. Perhaps this can be overcome with the help of unparticles.

An unparticle does not have one given mass, but can take on any possible mass or have all possible masses at the same time, depending on how you look at it. This characteristic means that these unparticles don't change appearance when viewed at different scales- which is very different from objects we're familiar with.

One implication of unparticles has been worked out by Prof Pran Nath and his colleague Prof Haim Goldberg in the journal Physical Review Letters, who investigated what happens when unparticles interact with the common-or-garden matter we are all familiar with. Here gravity becomes slightly stronger at short distances and effects of the additional ungravity, though subtle, could be detected by ultra-sensitive gravity probes now under development. "The "ungravity force if true would be a very interesting modification of Einstein gravity," says Prof Nath.

And, of course, scientists could have already seen the effects of unparticles in another guise: that of dark matter. Prof Georgi himself is cautious about making this claim until it is properly studied. As if to underline his prudence, his latest paper, published online in arXiv, is entitled: "Another Odd Thing About Unparticle Physics."

Stay Tuned and Good Seeing!

 

DIRECTIONS TO ORION ACRES

FROM NORTH HAMILTON COUNTY :

From 27 (corridor J) take hwy. 111 to Dunlap, continue through the Sequatchie Valley up the next mountain ( Cagle Mountain ). When you reach the summit about 5 miles turn LEFT onto hwy. 399 (sign reads 'to Savage Gulf State Park ' Stay on 399 until it ends, which will be in Grundy Co. Now make a LEFT onto hwy. 108 South. This goes thru Palmer TN. Continue on 108 up to a higher elevation. When this levels off, turn RIGHT onto Palmer Fire Tower Rd. This is a large open area with possibly trucks loaded with timber for the paper mills. Orion Acres will be on the RIGHT about 8 tenths mile.

 FROM INTERSTATE 24 (to Nashville ):

Go to the Dunlap/Whitwell exit (#155). This is hwy. 28. Exit right and keep on 28 for about 11 miles, passing Hardee's on your left. Continue through the stoplight and take the next LEFT on Hwy. 108 North. Continue another 11 or so miles. You will see ' Grundy County ' sign. Take the next left. This is Palmer Fire Tower Rd. Go 8 tenths of a mile and Orion Acres is on the RIGHT

 

BAS WEB SITE
http://bas.chattanooga.net

 

Officers

President……………………………………….... Gary Caldwell
Vice-President………………………………………….Bill Lord
Secretary…………………………………...………Bill Seymour
Treasurer………………………………………….Melinda Lord
STAR Editor……………………………………….Steve Ramey
Webmaster…………………………………………….Rod Ruch
Star Party Chairman…………………...…………...Victor Rogers
Outreach Coordinator………………...…………...John Mannone
Program Committee Co-Chairs…...... John Mannone and Bill Lord
Member-at Large………………..……………………David Witt

 

May Minutes

At his last meeting as President, Tom Adkins called the meeting to order at 7:40 P.M. There were 14 persons present. The minutes of the April meeting were read and accepted with the addition that Dr. John Mannone is added to the list of nominations as Outreach Coordinator (his name was inadvertently omitted). A book raffle was held to raise money for the club treasury.

Old Business

The final report on the bank account was given by outgoing Treasurer David Witt-- a balance of $643.64.

After two consecutive months where the recommendations of the Nominating Committee were published, a secret ballot was conducted per the requirements of the BAS Constitution. The following officers were unanimously elected for 2008:

President—Dr. Gary Caldwell
Vice-President—Bill Lord
Secretary—Bill Seymour
Treasurer—Melinda Lord
BARNARD STAR Editor—Steve Ramey
Webmaster—Rod Ruch
Star Party Chair—Victor Rogers
Outreach Coordinator—Dr. John Mannone
Program Committee—Co-Chairs Dr. John Mannone and Bill Lord
Member-at-Large—David Witt

Dr. Durig's proposal for the research project at Orion Acres was discussed. (multiple automated telescopes with different filters taking simultaneous CCD images of the same object).

New Business

The Lord's have prepared stickers advertising BAS to put on old copies of “Astronomy' and “Sky and Telescope” for distribution to business and professional waiting rooms in the Chattanooga area.

Several possible locations for Sidewalk Astronomy Sessions, such as Starbucks and The Tennessee Aquarium, where people are already congregated, were discussed. Coolidge Park is also a possibility. What seems to work well is a sidewalk session at the time of a major astronomical event, such as the upcoming planetary conjunction of Saturn and Mars on July 8-9. Tom Adkins volunteered to lead the effort now that his term as President has expired.

Dr. John Mannone will be representing BAS at a major astronomy conference: the May 31-June 1 St. Louis Meeting of The Astronomical Society of The Pacific (this is probably the most prestigious of the amateur clubs in America ). John has been awarded a $600 a scholarship but is expecting his expenses (especially travel) to exceed the amount of money awarded to him. Several BAS members have volunteered to give money to John for the trip. Melinda Lord is collecting donations.

Plan to see a detailed report from John about his St. Louis meeting experiences in a future issue of THE BARNARD STAR. He should learn things and bring back materials that will be of great benefit to BAS.

Respectfully submitted.
Bill Seymour, Secretary

 

REMINDER- Your annual BAS dues of are now due on the anniversary of your membership in accordance with the adopted amendment to the by-laws. The due date appears below your name on the address on the front of this newsletter. If your expiration date says “Overdue” or if you don't agree with the date shown, contact David Witt to resolve discrepancies. The current dues rates 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:

Melinda Lord
354 N West Cir NW
Cleveland , TN 37312-1011

Along with the group subscription rate of $32.95 for Sky and Telescope, or $34.00 for Astronomy. Note the increased rate for Astronomy. This was effective July 31, 2005

 

DEADLINE- All articles and other materials for publication in the next STAR are due no later than Wednesday, July 2 nd . The following media are acceptable: hard copy, disk (IBM), video tape (VHS), prints, or e-mail to bas@chattanooga.net or s tramey@catt.com and attach a file or mail to:

Steve Ramey
109 Sioux Trail
Ringgold GA 30736

PHOTOGRAPHS ARE ALSO ACCEPTABLE.