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OAKLAND ASTRONOMY CLUB

NEWSLETTER

AUGUST  2007

 Bill  MacIntosh,  Editor



CLUB PRESIDENT:     Dave Holt  (248-674-1950)                                                             WEBSITES:   www.oaklandastronomy.org  Link               
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 LAST MEETING                                                                                                                                                  
                                                             
Oakland Astronomy Club Monthly Meeting Minutes
August 12, 2007
M. Jeffery, Secretary

Opening
President Dave Holt called the meeting to order at 7:35 PM. Formal agenda supplied.
12 people in attendance: 9 members. New member John shared this lesson-learned: “Don’t go viewing on golf courses in alligator country - alligators like to roam around at night.”

Visitors
Three visitors were present - Duncan, Jim, and Hal. Welcome!  

The Sky-at-a-Glance
Bill Macintosh gave a stand-in presentation, as Bill Girardin was not available until just before the meeting.
Moon: New on 8/12, 1st quarter on 8/20, Full on 8/28, Last quarter on 9/4, New 9/11.    Lunar Eclipse on 8/28 will be visible near dawn in Michigan.   Copies of SKYMAP for August were distributed for discussion of Summer favorites, many of which were offered for viewing by  guests at the previous night Star Party.       With Cygnus and Pegasus high overhead, many worthwhile faint fuzzies are well positioned for observation, including the M15 glob and the "blinking eye" planetary NGC6826.    See images below.

Observations & Presentations
Bob Berta showed a large framed picture of the Sharpless II #115 Nebula. This nebula is extremely faint - it took a lot of time to acquire the image, and from marginal skies. It looks great! Bob used a 6” scope with TMB optics and an SBIG 6303e camera.    See Bob's image of Sh2-115 below.

Mark Jeffery, inspired by Bob’s presentation two months ago on a large focal reducer, attempted to purchase one. Apparently, Lumicon has just recently discontinued this item - it is no longer available.

Bob also gave a short presentation outlining how the number of stars in the sky exceed the number of grains of sand on all our beaches. Yes, there ARE a lot of stars!     (Est 400 billion in Milky Way alone)

Perseid Meteor Shower: Friday and Saturday nights several club members reported 6-7 meteors per hour. Sky and Telescope indicated the peak viewing period was yet to come - 1-2am early Monday Morning

Observing Reports:
Five members gathered at the Addison Oaks site on  Friday August 10th for some DSO hunting with the Club 17.5" Dob.
With a clear sky, decent seeing and very few bugs, members had a enjoyable evening bagging globs, planetaries, open clusters and galaxies.    A couple of Sheriff deputies stopped by and stayed for awhile to look through the scope.

Bill Barsuhn emailed an observing report from his "Pre-Gaze" visit to the Gladwin site for GLSG5 with members of the Sunset Astronomical Society.  He was able to view with their DOBZILLA 24" club scope.


Club Activities

 Past
Wild Adventures Camp, Independence Oaks, July 26th       Rain -- no viewing.

Summer Independence Oaks Star Party: August 11th, 9-11 pm
The Star Party held at Independence Oaks on 8/11 was a great success.    Nine members with eight scopes provided viewing for about 50 guests under a clear sky with the Milky Way blazing prominently overhead.   Folks had the opportunity to see Jupiter and its moons along with selected DSO targets chosen by Club members.     Laser pointers helped guests identify the Summer Triangle,  the pointer stars to Polaris and various constellations.   

 The club was well-represented, with many scopes, including Dave Holt’s Dob, Jim Ehler's planetary refractor on his new AP1200 mount (his previous “clock works” mount has a new home in Texas), and a good variety of other scopes. Targets included Jupiter, M13, M3, Blinking Nebula, M57, Coat Hanger, “Michigan Double” (Albireo), etc. Many thanks to all who attended.    See some photos below.

Future 
Colombiere Center, Solar Viewing, I75 & Dixie Hwy, Clarkston. Thursday, August 30th, 5:30pm.
Great Lakes Star Gaze, September 13th-16th (Thursday through Sunday), Gladwin County.
“Astronomy on the Beach,” Kensington, September 21-22.
Twin Lakes Star Party, West KY, October 6th-14th.
Fall Independence Oaks Star Party: November 3rd 8-10 PM
Brooklands Elementary, November 8th ? Rochester Hills, Laura
Hugger Elementary, November 15th ?
2008 Independence Oaks Star Parties:
Feb 9th 8-10pm, May 10th 9-11pm, Aug 23rd 9-11pm, Nov 22nd 8-10pm.

SEPTEMBER Observing Night Contacts

Contact for September 7-8: Tom Hagen, 248-650-8951
Contact for September 14-15: Jim Saoud, 248-652-1496 (Jim, did they tell you?)

Business Meeting:
Financial Report: Bill Girardin presented report.   Cash flow is still a little below budget. Association fees will be due for the Astronomical League.   Members were advised that RENEWALS to Sky-and-Telescope magazine can be mailed directly for existing subscriptions.  Only NEW subscriptions will need to be submitted to Bill first to obtain the discounted Club rate.

A motion passed for spending $50 to resurrect the classic Unitron refractor currently in storage.    This scope was bequeathed to the Club by deceased member Stan Spindler about two years ago, but the mount lacks a shaft and counter-weight.     By purchasing tube rings and a universal dovetail plate, the OTA can be used on virtually any compatible mount---including Losmandy, Celestron, Vixen, Orion and Meade---which many members already own and use. Necessary components are available from SCOPESTUFF.


Adjournment: 8:53 PM

                                           
NEXT MEETING:   SEPTEMBER 9,  7:30 PM

                                                                                                                                                             
INDEPENDENCE OAKS STAR PARTY
AUGUST 11, 2007

Clockwise from upper left:
refractor setup2
0807setup4 0807setup3




DSO OF THE MONTH
From Sky-at-a-Glance

 
    NGC 6826   The Blinking Eye Planetary                                                     Credit:   Fred Calvert, Adam Block, KPNO
NGC6826 Mag 8.9
Distance = 2,200 LY
RA 19h 44.8m          DEC +50o  31'


The "blinking" effect is due to the off-axis anatomy of the fovea in the human eye.    Averted vision brings out the nebula visually, but a direct view makes it disappear.

Click the link below to see what it looks like to HUBBLE


BLINKING EYE PLANETARY
16" SCT at Kitt Peak National Observatory  CCD SBIG ST10 w/AO 7 Adaptive Optics System.   Process:  Maxim DL   MIRA AP  Adobe PS7      May 2003                                         Constellation:    CYGNUS



                                                ADVERTORIAL
                                          (CLUB PROMOTION)
Woven patches with the Club logo are available for only $3 bucks in two styles, button loop and stitch/iron on.
   		  SEE DAVE HOLT TO GET 'EM.                               


ASTRO-FACTOID OF THE MONTH

DID YOU KNOW?  

M15 in Pegasus was the first Globular Cluster identified to contain a planetary nebula.    Only about three such objects in globular clusters have ever been confirmed.   Discovered in 1928 by Francis Gladheim Pease, it is now known as Pease 1.  It is visible in the image below as a pinkish blob at about 11 o'clock above the nucleus.

M 15

Distance = 40,000 LY                                                                  Credit:   Hubblesite.org


FUNZIES
Most observers know the benefit of averted vision---looking slightly to the side to improve faint detail and perception by focusing incoming light on the most sensitive receptor located off-center inside the eye.    Variously known as "averted hallucination" or "averted imagination,"  it can be useful to pick out faint fuzzies.

Here's an exercise designed to improve your "off-axis" technique for elusive targets.

First - get up a little closer to your screen.

A little closer......

Yeah, that's about right.
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             NOW ---- SEE HOW MANY BLACK DOTS YOU CAN COUNT IN THE WHITE CIRCLES BELOW  !!
dots
     It is rumored Cosmologists may be using this method to "positively" identify Dark Matter  !!




CLUB ASTROPHOTO OF THE MONTH

Sharpless 2-115 in Cygnus  (Sh2-115)                                                               by Club Member Bob Berta



Sh2-115




Bob's Notes to above image:

Equipment used:
A&M 152mm f8 1200mm focal length APO refractor (TMB triplet) optics f8 flat field lens
SBIG STL 6303e camera equiped with Astro Don narrow band and RGB filters
Autoguider was STLs remote slave camera through a Efinder
AP 900 GTO mount
Processing via Maxim DL, Photo Shop CS2, Registax
Total of about 8 hours of exposures on several days in June and July
Sharpless-2 #115 and is located in Cygnus. It is very faint...fainter than the Veil. The Sharpless-2 catalog is a list of about 330 emission nebulas...some are found in other lists (i.e. the Veil is one of them). These are good choices for imagers who work with narrow band filter equiped cameras. The object is 30x20 arc minutes  (moon is 30 arc minutes diameter for comparison).
The image was taken over a couple of months...the luminance black and white component is the high resolution part and it was taken from Cadilac in June. The color components add color but it is not important for them to be in high resolution as the B&W component provides all the sharpness impression of the combined image. The color shots were taken from my house in Macomb Township. I am still planning on doing some image manipulation to refine it...but this is a decent shot already.






                                                                                            GLSG5  2007
This year's GREAT LAKES STAR GAZE in Gladwin will be hosted on three nights, Thursday 9-13 thru Sunday 9-16.   Details and registration forms can be obtained here:                  http://www.boonhill.net/sunset/SASGLSG.htm
       
                                 
           
                                                                        
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ASTRONOMY TECHNOLOGY TODAY

Astronomy Technology Today  - A new startup magazine for equipment geeks features reviews, specs and images from both users and distributers.   They are offering subscriptions for only $12 per year.  
Details on their website:   www.astronomytechnologytoday.com




Orbiting



Submit Club news, astro-photos, equipment sale/trades to the editor:

Bill MacIntosh
nightwinger2004@yahoo.com