VOL 34 NO 11 NOVEMBER 2005 PUBLISHED MONTHLY
Orion Acres Star Parties: Saturday, Nov 26 and Saturday, Dec 3.
Sunset is around 5:30 PM EST..You can camp overnight if you want to, and Victor’s motor home
will be available for bathroom facilities.
MEETING NOTICE:
The November meeting will be held on November 10th at the UTC University Center. This will be a special joint meeting with the American Chemical Society and will feature a program by Dr. Robert L. Marlowe entitled “Interstellar Molecules and Life”. See inside for details
PROGRAM:
OFFICERS
President………………………………………...…..Tom AdkinsVice-President……………………………………….George Bell
Secretary………………………………………….Gary Caldwell
Treasurer……………………………………………..David Witt
STAR Editor……………………………………….Steve Ramey
Webmaster…………………………………………….Rod Ruch
Database Manager………………………………....Bill Seymour
Star Party Chairman………………………………Victor Rogers
October Minutes
The October meeting of the Barnard Astronomical Society was called to order by president Tom Atkins at 7:45PM on October 13,2005. There were ten regular members and two guests present, Sarah Candler and her companion.
Announcement
The November meeting of the Society will be held at UTC on November 10. The program, Interstellar Molecules and Life, will be presented by Dr. Robert Marlowe. The program will be preceded by dinner which will be $8.95. Reservations for dinner must be made. The dinner and program will be in the Student Center.
Treasurer's Report:
The account now has a balance of $493.56. The check to the Astronomical League had cleared as of the September meeting. Book sales have helped sustain a balance. The book sales netted $13 in September. A check in the amount of $50 will be written for the renewal of the International Dark Sky Association membership.
Old Business:
The annual Christmas party will be at St. Peter's Church on Ashland Terrace. Dates for the party are December 3, 10 or 17. The consensus was that the earlier the better depending on availability.
Past due letters have been sent. Those receiving the letters will have a grace period until January,2006 to become current or be dropped from the membership.
New Business:
The committee for the selection of the Lewellyn Evans Award recipient will be staffed by Vic Rogers, David Witt and Bobby Potts, all of whom volunteered.
There are a number of star parties in the near future. There will be a star party on November 4 at Orion Acres for the Whitwell Middle School. We have requests for events for Snow Hill Elementary School, Soddy Elementary School and ???? at Shallowford.
Calendars will be ordered from Sky & Telescope this year. The calendars will cost $7.77 from S & T. They normally retail for $12.95. A motion was made and seconded to order 22 calendars to be sold for $8.00 to $10.00.
There needs to be an increase in the dues. A motion was made by Steve Ramey to give the executive officers power to set dues by meeting once each year for that purpose. Any increase in dues will become effective by majority vote of the membership. The motion was seconded by Dwayne Smith. The motion was passed unanimously. This will be published in the newsletter.
The Peach State Star Gaze will be on November 3rd - 6th.
Program:
The New Mars was presented by Gary Caldwell. A comparison of the knowledge about Mars during the first half of the 20th Century and the second half reveals a number of interesting things. Most of the information we now have was obtained in the last 15 -20 years with the various orbiters and landers. The knowledge of the first half of the century was obtained by telescopic observation and some fanciful speculation.
Respectfully submitted
Gary Caldwell, 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:
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 this month asking these members if they wish to renew, and those who don’t respond will be removed from the mailing list.
ANNOUNCEMENT OF SPECIAL NOVEMBER BAS MEETING
The November BAS meeting will be held on Thursday, November 10th, 2005 at the UTC University Center as described below ( Note that there will not be a BAS meeting at the Jones Observatory during November):
What-
Special Joint Meeting of The Barnard Astronomical Society and The American Chemical Society (ACS), Chattanooga Section* featuring a program entitled, “Interstellar Molecules and Life” by Dr. Robert L. Marlowe, Professor of Physics at UT-Chattanooga.
The ACS is a professional organization for Chemists and Chemical Engineers. The ACS requires that an advance abstract of a speaker presentation be published in the program announcement, as follows:
The primary components of life as we know it are remarkably few: twenty amino acids are found in living organisms, comprised essentially of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen. These four and other elements, along with simple compounds, are found throughout the cosmos. This presentation will look at our current understanding of how these compounds came to be so widely distributed, what techniques are used in investigating their presence, and what evidence has been found for biomolecules (and life?) in the interstellar medium. We will begin with the catastrophic end of massive stars as Type II Supernovas which fertilize the interstellar medium with “metals.” We then investigate the detection of important compounds, and visit the recipe developed by astronomer Frank Drake for estimating the number of intelligent societies in our own galaxy. Lastly, we touch on a possible stellar explanation for the characteristic “handedness” of the important biomolecules of life on earth.
Where-
UTC University Center
Chickamauga Room UC 353 for Buffet Dinner
Raccoon Mountain Room UC 269 for Program
When-
Dinner at 6:00 P.M.
Program at 7:30 P.M.
Please RSVP for dinner reservations to Bill Seymour (870-8552 or swafseymo@aol.com) not later than Tuesday, November 8th so that we can notify UTC Food Services of how many persons to expect. Those who signed up for dinner in advance at the last BAS meeting ( Tom Adkins , Gary Caldwell , Bill Seymour, Bobby Potts, Doug Mashburn, Duane Smith) can disregard the RSVP.
If you had planned to attend only the program by Dr. Marlowe and skip the dinner, we urge you to reconsider and attend the meal as well. UTC Food Services is preparing a nice buffet and your cost is only $8.95.
Let's have a strong attendance from BAS to support the efforts of Dr. Marlowe, the University Center Staff, and The ACS group. It should be a very timely and interesting program as Dr. Marlowe brings his training and background in biophysics to address certain important current issues in astronomy.
ANNOUNCEMENT:
Proposed amendment to BAS By-laws:
At the October, 2005 meeting it was motioned and seconded that the executive officers be given the power to recommend adjustment of the annual dues amount no more than 1 time per year, subject to ratification by a majority vote of the membership. In keeping with the by-laws, this notice will be published for 3 consecutive months in this newsletter.
DEADLINE- All articles and other materials for publication in the next STAR are due no later than Wednesday, November 30th. 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.
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. A sign will be posted at 7pm on Saturday May 7th.
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, May 7th.
A new generation of ground-based telescopes could be up to 10 times the size of existing instruments and have vision 40 times as sharp as the Hubble space telescope.
Astronomers have been hailing the plans, as a European project to build an Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) enters a design testing phase. An ELT is vital if the pace of astronomical breakthroughs is to continue, say experts.
The plans were outlined at the UK National Astronomy Meeting in Birmingham. Concepts for ELTs include the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) being considered by the US and Canada; and the Euro50 and Overwhelmingly Large Telescope (Owl) proposals put forward by Europe. The size of any European telescope has not yet been set, but the European Southern Observatory's Owl concept could be by far the largest telescope ever built, with a spherical primary mirror that could stretch up to 100m across.
The diameter of a telescope is its key performance characteristic, because larger mirrors collect more light to concentrate in images. ELTs would incorporate adaptive optics, a computer controlled system that deforms the mirror to adjust for the atmospheric turbulence that distorts light waves coming into the telescope. One of the most exciting areas in which ELTs are certain to have a major impact is the search for Earth-like planets and by extension extra-terrestrial life.
Astronomers have already detected about 150 planets orbiting other stars using indirect methods, such as the so called wobble effect in which the presence of the target world is inferred from the gravitational influence it has on its parent star. More recently, groups have released images which they claim show distant worlds in other Solar Systems directly. Many astronomers are unconvinced - but, even so, all of these exoplanets so far detected are unlikely to be much like our own.
What all these projects have in common is that you can't build a mirror bigger than about 8m across in one piece. If you want to make something bigger than that, you have to make it from smaller pieces. Some ELT designs involve combining several circular 8m-wide mirrors. But others, like the Owl and the Euro-50, will have mirrors constructed from many small hexagonal segments.
The Owl design uses a spherical, rather than the usual parabolic, mirror shape to cut down on cost. This means its segments can be the same shape and size and can be mass-produced. But this also means the telescope's field does not have a focus, so the Owl requires several corrective mirrors.
The Owl concept works for a telescope of around 100 meters, but below the 60 meter mark, the Euro-50 design - with its smaller parabolic mirror - may strike a better deal between cost and performance.
The design study which is currently underway will determine which of these concepts Europe should go with. The Royal Astronomical Society's National Astronomy Meeting has been held at the University of Birmingham.
Good Seeing!