CCAS July Newsletter
Celestial Observer Newsletter: July 2010
You’ll find monthly sky highlights, new meeting location information, and more in our monthly newsletter. Click here to view the pdf, or right-click (PC)/control-click (Mac) the link to download the file to your computer.
Adobe Reader is required: Download the free software.
CCAS June Newsletter
Celestial Observer Newsletter: June 2010
You’ll find monthly sky highlights, new meeting location information, and more in our monthly newsletter. Click here to view the pdf, or right-click (PC)/control-click (Mac) the link to download the file to your computer.
Adobe Reader is required: Download the free software.
New Star Site for CCAS Members
Saturday, June 5, 2010 at Sunset
CCAS Members are invited to a private star party just for CCAS members at an 80-acre ranch in Templeton, owned by retired professor Peter Huber (who is also an amateur astronomer).
The ranch is an eco-friendly retreat center available to CCAS free of charge on select nights. The site is very dark, has 360-degree visibility and no annoying lights (like at KOA). There are two possible observing sites on the property that have already been previewed by Lee Coombs, Tom Frey, and Jim Carlisle this month (who all gave the thumbs-up!), so bring your scope and drive right up!
What you need to do: Bring a snack to share and arrive early so you can meet Peter and look around before it gets too dark. Just send us an email if you plan to attend so we know to look for you.
CCAS May Newsletter
Celestial Observer Newsletter: May 2010
You’ll find monthly sky highlights, new meeting location information, and more in our monthly newsletter. Click here to view the pdf, or right-click (PC)/control-click (Mac) the link to download the file to your computer.
Adobe Reader is required: Download the free software.
Star Party Report from Dave M.
Dancing Deer Ranch 17 Apr 2010:
We had a small group of 7 people and 2 telescopes. Just a nice small informal group. We had a retired physicist who is a new member to the club along with one of Peter’s staff who live on the grounds. Along with Aurora we had a couple of us oldtimers (well -I’m an oldtimer to astronomy though still a “Rookie” in the club). And to round it off we had a couple of artists who brought their 8” Dob that they just bought used.
Unfortunately the sky had clouded up during the day with cirrus-thick enough to seriously affect the seeing but still thin enough to see constellation patterns.
Aurora started out the evening with the “Pop Quiz” question of the night. What is that bright object hanging there in the western sky? Venus – of course. Telescopically it is still fairly small and as it is still on the far side of the sun relative to earth exhibited a gibbous phase.
I helped the couple with the 8” dob get their scope aligned with the finder. I had a little bit of trouble with the finder-mainly due to fact that the finder bracket was mis-aligned with the optical tube just enough to hit the stop before an object could be centered in the crosshairs. But we got things centered enough to make it useable. Then with Aurora we were able to get a reasonably good collimation. This is a sweet little scope with very smooth bearings -far smoother than the bearings on my dob. Here’s hoping they bring it on out to Star Hill on the 8’th!
Once we started doing some observing we got some reasonable views of the Moon and Venus. The sun shadow angles were still low enough that the line of craters Langrenus and Petavius were still easily discernable although I could not see the rillle in Petavius.
We spent some time in and around the Orion complex and one of us was able to see two stars inside the trapezium in spite of the high cirrus.We spent the next hour or so showing Polaris and giving the sky tour. We rounded out the evening with some some of the spring galaxies such as M65/66, M81/82 and M51 and M104 although with the seeing these were washed out.
I finished off the evening with some of my Mira variables. R Hya which is nearing minimum at 9.1, R Leo which is brightening at 9.8 and R Com which was fainter than last nights magnitude limit of 13.9 for my 12” Dob.
The dew monsters made their rounds about 11:30 PM when I decided to quit for the night.
Dave M.
Citizen Sky Blog
Here’s a website with the Epsilon Aurigae IR images:
http://www.citizensky.org/content/big-announcement
CCAS April Newsletter
Celestial Observer Newsletter: April 2010
You’ll find monthly sky highlights, new meeting location information, and more in our monthly newsletter. Click here to view the pdf, or right-click (PC)/control-click (Mac) the link to download the file to your computer.
Adobe Reader is required: Download the free software.
CCAS March Newsletter
Celestial Observer Newsletter: March 2010
You’ll find monthly sky highlights, new meeting location information, and more in our monthly newsletter. Click here to view the pdf, or right-click (PC)/control-click (Mac) the link to download the file to your computer.
We’ve also got the March 2010 Sky Map for you to download, too!
Adobe Reader is required: Download the free software.
Space and Astronomy News
YouTube: KSBY TV News Report of Delta IV Heavy launch from Vandenberg in December 2010
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upq6bsvjLS0&feature=youtube_gdata
Santa Maria Times Article: VAFB Gets Ready for Heavy Duty (Delta IV Heavy)
http://www.santamariatimes.com/news/local/military/article_e5e6b9c2-2119-11df-948a-001cc4c002e0.html
Scientific American Article: Does the U.S. Produce Too Many Scientists?
You can provide your views and comments to the author of this “draft” article
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=does-the-us-produce-too-m&sc=WR_20100224
Scientific American Podcast: The Complex Physics of Clouds
http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=the-complex-physics-of-clouds-10-02-22&sc=WR_20100224
NASA Unveils New Space-Weather Science Tool – Integrated Space Weather Analysis (iSWA) system
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=30279
GLOBE at Night Event March 3-16
Join thousands of teachers, students and families around the globe March 3-16, 2010, in a hunt for stars. Take part in this international event to observe the nighttime sky and learn more about light pollution around the world. GLOBE at Night is an easy observation and reporting activity that takes approximately 15-30 minutes to complete.
Global Learning and Observations to Benefit the Environment, also known as GLOBE, is a worldwide, hands-on science and education program for primary and secondary schools. For more information about the event, visit http://www.globe.gov/GaN/. E-mail questions about this event to globeatnight@globe.gov .
Dark Matter in Distant Galaxy Groups Mapped for the First Time
http://www.universetoday.com/2010/02/21/dark-matter-in-distant-galaxy-groups-mapped-for-the-first-time/
Soul Nebula in Stereo – Using your Normal Vision fascinating
http://www.universetoday.com/2010/02/15/stereo-soul-a-visualization-by-jukka-metsavanio/
MIT Streaming Video:
Climate Change in a Changing World: Meeting the Needs of Humanity and the Planet
1-hour video by Steven Hamburg
http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/742
Hubble Space Telescope
This is Part 1 in a series of ten videos produced by the ESA for public distribution about the Hubble Space Telescope and much more. If you want to watch all ten videos, click on the player below and you’ll be taken to You Tube, where you can access all ten.