VOL 34 NO 9 SEPTEMBER 2005 PUBLISHED MONTHLY

Star Party at Orion Acres October 1st 2005. 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 September 8th at 7:30 PM at Jones Observatory on Brainerd Rd.

PROGRAM:

The program will be provided by David Hanon

OFFICERS

AUGUST MINUTES

The August 11 meeting of the Barnard Astronomical Society was called to order at 7:40PM by President Tom Atkins. There were 10 regular members present. There were no visitors.

Treasurer's Report: 
The BAS bank account currently has a balance of $616.

Secretary's Report: 
Correction to the July minutes will be made concerning John Mannone's announcement of "Poetry under the Stars". One E-Mail concerning the upcoming opposition of Mars.

Old Business: 
None

New Business: 
Melissa Gadd called inquiring about a Star Party for the residents of Creekside at Shallowford. It was recommended that it be delayed until the onset of clearer, cooler weather, preferably around the first quarter moon in October (October 10) 

The entire library inventory is to be place in the Society's data base. 

Programs for September and October will be given by Victor Rogers and Gary Caldwell respectively. 

The monthly book sale netted $14.00.

Program: 

Open discussion about various topics, especially Gamma Ray Bursts (GRB's).

Respectfully submitted by absence of Gary Caldwell

 

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:

David Witt
4503 Cove Lane
Chattanooga, TN 37415-2306

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

A Special Note to All BAS Members: 
Since he took over as treasurer, David Witt has worked hard to clean up our membership list and our dues records. We still have about 30 people listed on the rolls whose dues are 3 months or more past due.. We will be sending out one final letter in the next month asking these members if they wish to renew, and those who don't respond will be removed from the mailing list.

DEADLINE

All articles and other materials for publication in the next STAR are due no later than Wednesday, October 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.

ORION ACRES DIRECTIONS:

Our monthly star party is scheduled for July 9th. Following are directions to Victor's property, Orion Acres. Check our web site or contact Victor for late-breaking news concerning future star parties

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. A sign will be posted at 7pm on Saturday July 9th.

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. There will be a sign posted at 7pm on Saturday, July 9th.

 

Does A Second Reading Bring A Second Opinion?

Bought my copy of Clifford M. Will's book in 1986. It has indeed been passed around many times since and collected coffee stains from its festinated readers. "Was Einstein Right? Putting General Relativity to the Test" can be had from Amazon.Com used for $2.77! 

It reflects, though, some of the most profound thinking of the twentieth century. Will relates an experience one day after Sally Ride had thrashed him soundly on the tennis court. They discussed her astronaut training and her soon first hand experience with the Equivalence Principal aboard the Space Shuttle. 

It brought to mind my thoughts about this on my first reading of his book. At the time I was reading and trying desperately to understand the scalar-tensor Brans-Dicke alternative to the general theory. Now that it has fallen from grace and the many experiments that since brought Einstein back to the fore, one can read Will's book a second time and see why it was so difficult for the experimenter with early radar bounces from the moon and planets to test the two theories. 

Trying to measure radar deflection around a planet to an accuracy of "Milli" arc seconds is no easy task and it left much room for controversy and argument. Yet now we hardly give it a thought. Because of improvements in technology it is as easy as Monday lunch to get to the correct answers. The General Theory has this thing about it, just when you start to say "Ah Ha! he was wrong!". somewhere in the background you hear it said, "Oops!" And after all this time one hundred years almost to the day Einstein Was Right!

Good Seeing!

The following are a couple of poems by our own Dr. John C. Mannone:

Peeping Lights 

Like a couple of school kids, we giggled 
in the asphalt dark between the trees 
peepers screaming the intrusion 
looking for the party in the field

A field of telescopes 
fitted with all kids of focals: 
short, wide-eyed; long and squinted, 
perched as owls gathering glints of light 
to target prey

Eyes fastened as tacks on nebulous veils, 
jaws drop as drapes, agape with fascination 
Like looking through a slide viewer with earth as its wheel turning, 
stellar scenes glide past the panorama of stars to the edge 
of our seat

Jaws drop to the anticlimax of skyglow 
white-washing the indigo night 
Like opening a daylight door at a movie matinee 
Eyes daggered, joys blurred 
peepers screaming the intrusion

If only the lights would deafen to a whisper below the trees.

(First published in the International Dark-Sky Association September 2005 Newsletter)

Legacy

Tumbling rocks of petroleum ice 
and frozen snows are flung like hailstones from 
a distant cloud, a reservoir of rocks, swarming until one is sent on a mission 
towards its solar captor. As if a kamikaze with cold bravery, 
dives through the equatorial plane to the speck of sun. 
Yet, as this distant glitter grows, begins to melt in choking heat, 
spews gas, dust, rock 
Geysers shower trailing debris in the slipstream of solar wind.

Some swing too close to sun 
their fate set to vapor in the fiery plasma. 
Many are whipped back to their origin to plot another hailstorm.

Silently I spin, drifting with the waves of gravity through the black sea of space. 
Like silt flitting against the mask, comet dust brushes my lens of air, 
leaving streaks of light that shower as sparks, 
and some fall to the ground as meteorites 
as their only legacy.

A Night with The Perseids and The New Fork Mount

 by  Bill Seymour

             When Victor Rogers scheduled an observing session for the annual Perseids Meteor Shower at Orion Acres for Thursday night, August 11th immediately following the regular BAS meeting, it seemed to be a real act of faith.  Not only had the weather been generally poor for sky watching over the past several months due to prolonged cloudiness, even the view out the windows of The Jones Observatory during the BAS meeting showed significant haze and  solid high clouds.  Things did not look promising for viewing the Perseids, the most familiar annual meteor shower.

            Nevertheless, Victor persisted.  He had obtained a weather forecast for clear skies to the northwest of Chattanooga .  So, the observing session was a “go” if just one other BAS member participated.  As a retired person, I can easily schedule late sky watching on a week night, so I accepted the invitation.

            It was nearly midnight when Victor and I set up operations at Orion Acres, just as the first quarter moon was disappearing below the western horizon.  Our first few minutes were spent transferring Victor’s 16 inch Meade reflector telescope tube (converted from a Dobsonian mount) from the bed of his pickup truck to his new, home-built fork mount.  Victor loves fork mounts, and the engineering that he put into this project is very impressive.  A converted Jeep wheel and bearing assembly allows the heavy metal fork and the 100 pound telescope tube mounted in it to be moved effortlessly.  It seems to “float” on its mounting.  Using sliding cardboard mats, Victor had designed for a one-man transfer of the heavy tube from the truck bed to the fork mount, which is mounted permanently in the ground.

            After all of the previous months of terrible star party weather, we were in luck on this night.  Except for a slight haze, common in the summer months in the southern part of the United States due to high humidity, the skies were clear all night.  And it turned out that we would need the entire night to catch the Perseid show which did not peak until after 3 A.M.

            As always, the sky at Orion Acres is spectacular in clear weather. The bright and vivid milky way stretches from horizon to horizon, and all constellations present on a given date/time are usually visible.  Only a very faint sky glow in the Southeast from the lights of Chattanooga detracts from the view.

            In between watching for Perseids, we observed with the 16 inch reflector many Messier and NGC deep sky objects (galaxies, nebulae, star clusters, double stars, etc.) as well as the late rising planet Mars.  The “light bucket”, as Victor affectionately calls his 16 inch reflector, performed very well.  As Victor hand-pointed the scope at various targets, the lack of a computer “go-to” capability was not really noticed, due to his extensive familiarity with the sky and some excellent charts.

            The meteor shower’s radiant point was located between the constellations Perseus and Cassiopeia, and meteors flashed across all parts of the sky at a rate of about one per minute (agreeing with the forecast by “Sky and Telescope Magazine”).  During peak periods, up to four per minute were observed.  A total of more than 160 were seen through the night, ranging from the very faint to a few very bright ”lightning flash” events which left glowing white vapor and briefly brightened the ground around us.  Beautiful multi-colored light trails (predominantly green) were left along the track of many meteors.  The observing session turned out to be a very enjoyable “all-nighter”, and we reluctantly packed up our equipment at the first morning light.  Victor concludes with a country ham and eggs breakfast at a restaurant in nearby Dunlap for those sky observers who stay the entire night.

            As fine a sky watching experience as we had during this night at the remote, dark viewing site, it was nevertheless a sad reminder of the increasing difficulty of having a satisfactory deep sky astronomy experience anywhere within or near an American city, due to ever increasing light pollution.  The entire eastern U.S. is gradually becoming a continuous megapolis—almost one big blob of municipal lights from Boston to Miami as seen in night satellite photographs.  How can the general public, most of whom live in cities, get interested in astronomy when glancing up all they see in the night sky is a few faint points of light?  I was very fortunate to get my personal start in astronomy many years ago because I had access to a fascinating dark sky at my rural home in Concord , TN (outside of Oak Ridge where I was working in nuclear research at the time).  That area of Concord is now ablaze in suburban lights and not very likely to stimulate anyone’s interest in the night sky in the year 2005.

            The spectacular viewing possible at Orion Acres, on the other hand, has the capability to generate a strong curiosity and affection for astronomy in almost anyone.  This must be one of the best dark sky viewing sites in the eastern U. S.  Thanks, Victor, for making such a great location available to BAS members and guests.