SKYWATCHERS NEWSLETTER OF THE CHINA LAKE ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY Volume 41 No. 7 July 1, 2004 NEXT MEETING 7:30 p.m., Monday, July 12, 2004 Maturango Museum, 100 East Las Flores Avenue, Ridgecrest, California JULY 12 MEETING Jim Leonard has been doing research on Black Holes and he will share his findings with us on July 12. The subject of Black Holes arose at our May meeting which featured Steve Edberg, but it has been several years since we have had an entire program on the subject. If black holes are a mystery to you, this is a good time to unravel some of that mystery. If you have been thinking about them for some time, here is a chance to catch up on the latest findings. DATES TO KEEP IN MIND Monday, July 12, 2004: Regular monthly meeting, see above. Wednesday, July 21, 2004: Deadline for next Skywatchers Newsletter Friday, July 16, 2004: Regular star party, see below. Monday, August 2, 2004: Regular CLAS Meeting at the Maturango Museum in Ridgecrest, 7:30 p.m. Note that the July meeting will be a week later than normal, because of the Fourth of July holiday. STAR PARTY SCHEDULE FOR THE 2004 SEASON: Star Parties will be held on the dates listed below. Star Parties are an activity where members and guests join together to share views of the skies. If you have a telescope, bring it. If not, come and look through someone else's. Star parties are held at a site in the open desert south of Ridgecrest. To reach the star party site from Ridgecrest, go south on China Lake Boulevard 6.5 miles from its intersection with Ridgecrest Boulevard. Continue straight across Highway 395 and you will be on Brown Road (Old Highway 395). Follow Brown Road as it curves to the right and goes west. After 2.3 miles there will be a 30-inch orange cone on the left. Turn left and follow the dirt road marked by 12-inch cones. The CLAS Star party is 0.5 miles along this road. Watch for signs and cones, which will be put out about a half-hour before viewing starts. Call Carroll Evans 760-375-5681, or Bruce Churchill 760-375-7247, for more information. Friday, July 16--Signs out at 8:30 p.m., Star viewing at 9:00 p.m. Friday, August 13--Signs out at 8:00 p.m., Star viewing at 8:30 p.m. Friday, September 10--Signs out at 7:00 p.m., Star viewing at 8:00 p.m. Friday, October 15--Signs out at 6:30 p.m., Star viewing at 7:00 p.m. Friday, November 12--Signs out at 6:30 p.m., Star viewing at 7:00 p.m. TRANSIT OF VENUS OBSERVED BY CLAS MEMBERS CLAS President Earl Wilson and your editor, Carroll Evans, each saw and recorded the event. Earl from Iowa, and Carroll from Florida. OUTREACH (Carroll Evans) As is our custom, the China Lake Astronomical Society will provide programs to the Forest Service. Slide programs and telescope viewing will be provided at Tillie Creek (on the shore of Lake Isabella) and at the Black Rock Ranger Station. July 24 and August 21, both Saturdays, have been selected for Tillie Creek. Please contact Carroll Evans at 375-5681 to offer your help with a telescope or binoculars. July 17 and August 14 are scheduled for the Black Rock Ranger Station. Contact Neal Barry at 939-2607 (Work) or 375-3283 (Home) to volunteer. THE SKY IN JULY (Roger Brower) 1. Venus has moved to the morning sky and presents a fine view in the east for very early risers. 2. Saturn is lost in the Sun's glare most of the month. 3. Jupiter is also heading towards the Sun and will only provide good viewing at the beginning of the month. 4. Mercury will be visible most of the month very low in the western sky after sunset. On July 10th it will be joined by a very faint Mars. They will only be about 0.2 degrees apart. 5. The Delta Aquarid meteor shower peaks on the 27th. A PAIR OF GOOD URLs Provided by Larry Evans, who got them from someone else. Reportedly you can't find them with Google. You can find pages listing early Mount Wilson Contributions, MWO Annual reports, and trade instrument catalogs at these links. Both URLs are updated frequently. Enjoy! http://adsabs.harvard.edu/historical.html http://www.sil.si.edu/digitalcollections/trade-literature/scientific-instruments/explore.htm REPORT ON THE JUNE STAR PARTY (Bruce Churchill) Our June star party was held on Friday, June 18,2004. Although it was a hazy, breezy day in Ridgecrest, viewing conditions were better than expected. With the Moon only hours old, and only Jupiter visible among the planets, it was a darker than usual sky. One of the early attractions was Jupiter with all four Galliean moons in a line to one side. Comet Neat was also a spectacular sight again this month. The best seasonal objects were in the vicinity of the summer triangle. Cygnus overhead featured the M29 and M39 open clusters and the beautiful blue and yellow double star, Albiero. Canes Venatici featured the M3 globular cluster, the M51 Whirlpool galaxy, and the M63 Sunflower galaxy. The M13 and M92 globular clusters were observed in Hercules, and the M65 and M66 galaxies were seen in Leo. The M57 Ring Nebula is always impressive in Lyra.. ASTRONOMY AND SPACE NEWS PROVIDED BY EARL TOWSON SPACE ENGINEERING & MISSION STATUS: CASSINI: Seven years after launch on a four-planet gravitational bank shot covering more than 2 billion miles, NASA's $3.3 billion nuclear-powered Cassini probe - the most sophisticated robotic spacecraft ever built - has finally reached the solar system's most spectacular target: The ringed planet Saturn. On a typical day, Cassini will spend 16 hours collecting data, spending part of the time in an orientation that favors optical or radar studies and part of the time doing fields and particles work. The Huygens descent probe will be released from Cassini on Christmas Eve to land on the moon Titan in mid-January. Cassini represents the end of an era in U.S. spacecraft and mission design, a multi-billion-dollar, multi-instrument robot with a broad science agenda requiring the efforts of more than 5,000 scientists and engineers from 17 nations. To get into the desired orbit around Saturn, Cassini's main engine must fire for 96.4 minutes beginning at 10:35:42 p.m. EDT on June 30 (0235:42 GMT July 1). An underburn, or early cutoff, could doom the mission. http://spaceflightnow.com/cassini/040612preview.html NEW HORIZONS (PLUTO) MISSION: Scheduled for launch in 2006, the New Horizons mission will finally get a close up view of Pluto, the only planet never visited by spacecraft. On board the robotic spacecraft will be the Solar Wind Around Pluto (SWAP) instrument, which will measure the interactions between Pluto and the high-speed stream of particles flowing out from the Sun called the solar wind. Since it'll be so far from the Sun, SWAP will be the largest aperture device ever built to measure the solar wind. It'll have lots of time to measure; the trip to Pluto will take 9 years. http://www.swri.org/9what/releases/2004/SWAP.htm MARS EXPRESS ORBITER SEES EVIDENCE OF PAST FLOODING: The High Resolution Stereo Camera on Europe's Mars Express orbiter has captured new pictures of the Martian region at the mouth of the Mangala Valles and Minio Vallis outflow channels. The small-scale chaotic terrain is characterized by isolated blocks of surface material which have been randomly arranged during the release of subsurface water and subsequent collapse of the surface. http://spaceflightnow.com/mars/marsexpress/040609marsexpress.html FOR MISSION STATUS REPORTS GO TO: CASSINI-HUYGENS CLUSTER HUBBLE INTEGRAL ISO SOHO ULYSSES XMM-NEWTON MARS: The Spirit rover is exploring a range of Martian hills that took two months to reach. It is finding curiously eroded rocks that may be new pieces to the puzzle of the region's past. Spirit's twin, Opportunity, is also negotiating sloped ground. It is examining exposed rock layers inside a crater informally named "Endurance." Spirit began climbing into Columbia Hills late last week, and right away sent pictures of tantalizing rocks. Some of the rocks appear to be disintegrating. They have an odd kind of rotting appearance, with soft interiors and resistant rinds or hulls. The strangest things they have encountered are what they are calling hooded cobras, which are evidently the resistant remnants of some of those rocky rinds. They stand above the surface like small canopies. Another rock, dubbed "Pot of Gold," appears to have nodules and resistant planes in a softer matrix. Scientists have chosen it as a target for Spirit to examine with the instruments on the rover's robotic arm. Afterwards, controllers plan to send Spirit to an outcrop farther uphill. Although it's too early to even speculate as to the processes these rocks have recorded, they are tremendously excited over the new prospects. The Columbia Hills rise approximately 90 meters (about 300 feet) above a plain Spirit crossed to reach them. Scientists anticipate a complex blend of rocks in the hills, perhaps holding evidence about a broader range of environmental conditions than has been seen in the volcanic rubble surfacing the plain. The entire area Spirit is exploring is within Gusev Crater. Orbital images suggest water may have once flowed into this Connecticut-sized basin. NASA News Release: 2004-151; June 15, 2004 MEMBERSHIP INFORMATION Basic CLAS dues are $20.00 per year, which includes the Skywatchers Newsletter. As a benefit of membership you may also receive Astronomy Magazine and/or Sky and Telescope Magazine. The fee schedule is as follows: Basic membership $20.00 per year Membership with Astronomy magazine $49.00 per year Membership with Sky and Telescope magazine $53.00 per year Membership with both S & T and Astronomy $82.00 per year Send your check to: Roger Brower, Treasurer, China Lake Astronomical Society, P.O. Box 1783, Ridgecrest, CA 93556. PRESIDENT - Earl Wilson - (email zearlw@hotmail.com) VICE-PRESIDENT - Bruce Churchill - 760-375-7247 (email bchurchill@atsecure.net) SECRETARY - Ted Hodgkinson - 661- 824-2738 (email longeyes@antelecom.net) TREASURER - 760-375-1181 (email brower@iwvisp.com) NEWSLETTER EDITOR - Carroll Evans Jr. - 760-375-5681 (email clevans@ridgenet.net) WESTERN AMATEUR ASTRONOMERS WEB SITE Meetings of the China Lake Astronomical Society are held at the Maturango Museum at 7:30 p.m. on the first Monday evening of each month, except when the first Monday is a holiday. SKYWATCHERS Newsletter of the CHINA LAKE ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY POST OFFICE BOX 1783 RIDGECREST, CA 93556-1783 NEXT MEETING: 7:30 p.m., MONDAY, July 12, 2004: "Black Holes" AT THE MATURANGO MUSEUM, 100 EAST LAS FLORES AVE. CLAS WEB PAGE INDEX OF CLAS NEWSLETTERS