SKYWATCHERS NEWSLETTER OF THE CHINA LAKE ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY Volume 41 No. 9 September 1, 2004 NEXT MEETING 7:30 p.m., Monday, September 13, 2004 Maturango Museum, 100 East Las Flores Avenue, Ridgecrest, California SEPTEMBER 13 MEETING This has been a good year for comets and it is time for a program on them. Ted Hodgkinson will bring his outstanding photos. If you have pictures of comets bring them along. We would also like to hear about your experiences observing comets. DATES TO KEEP IN MIND Monday, September 13, 2004: Regular monthly meeting, see above. Wednesday, September 22, 2004: Deadline for next Skywatchers Newsletter Friday, September 10, 2004: Regular star party, see below. Monday, October 4, 2004: Regular CLAS Meeting at the Maturango Museum in Ridgecrest, 7:30 p.m. The September meeting will be one week later than usual because of the Labor Day 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, 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. SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT I was contacted by the Skirball Museum (in Los Angeles, on the way to UCLA) to see if we want to make a field trip to see a special exhibit about Albert Einstein. It will be showing from September14, 2004 to May 29, 2005. As a group we would have our own guide. There would be the modest charge of $10.00 each. We will talk about this at the September meeting. Here are the details. Making its only West Coast appearance at the Skirball, Einstein is the most comprehensive presentation ever mounted on the life and theories of Albert Einstein (1879-1955), one of the greatest scientists of all time. Co-organized by the Skirball, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and the American Museum of Natural History, this exhibition brings together original manuscripts and personal treasures, most never before exhibited to the general public, with interactive exhibits that illuminate Einstein's most revolutionary theories. The exhibition will explore the legacy of Einstein both as a scientific genius who reconfigured our concepts of space and time and as a politically conscious individual who spoke out against segregation, anti-Semitism, McCarthyism, and nuclear armament, and who championed such causes as the formation of the State of Israel. OUTREACH (Carroll Evans) As is our custom, the China Lake Astronomical Society provided programs to the Forest Service. Slide programs and telescope viewing were held at Tillie Creek (on the shore of Lake Isabella) July 24 and August 21, both Saturdays July 17 and August 14 were scheduled for the Black Rock Ranger Station., but weather conditions prevented either event. The event at Black Rock has been rescheduled for September 11. Contact Neal Barry at 939-2607 (Work) or 375-3283 (Home) to volunteer THE SKY IN SEPTEMBER (Roger Brower) 1. Venus remains brilliant in the morning sky and presents a fine view in the east for very early risers. 2. Saturn is also in the morning sky this month. 3. Jupiter passes the Sun on its way to the morning sky this month so is mostly unobservable. 4. Mercury will be visible in the morning sky at midmonth. 5. The Autumnal equinox occurs on September 22. This is when the Sun crosses the equator and day and night are of equal length. TELESCOPE FOR SALE CLAS member Bill Manatt has a Colter Optics 13.1-inch f 4.5 Dobsonian telescope for sale. It is in good condition, it has always been kept indoors (except when actually in use). The suggested price is $200, call Bill at 760-375-2373 REPORT ON THE FIELD TRIP TO MT. WILSON OBSERVATORY (Alex Shlanta) On 21 August we drove to Mount Wilson to visit their famed Observatory. To get there we took the scenic route of the Angeles Forest Highway turnoff just south of Palmdale. The trip was arranged by Carroll Evans as a China Lake Astronomical Society outing. This was a most worthwhile and informative visit. There were about 25 China Lake Astronomical Members and friends making the trip. Upon arriving at the Observatory we went to the visitor center. From there you can see the top of the smog layer of the Los Angeles basin. Seeing all the radio antennas on top of the mountain was rather impressive. We started our visit with the regularly scheduled tour given by the observatory and we all felt the docent was very good. On the regular tour we saw the Snow Solar Telescope and the 60-ft solar tower operated by USC. We also went inside the 150-ft solar tower operated by UCLA. On their in situ display we got to see 4 sunspot groups. Much of the current work with this telescope is research on solar magnetic fields and solar oscillations. We also saw the CHARA array consisting of six 40-inch optical reflecting telescopes in a "V" type of arrangement. This interferometer array was built and is operated by Georgia State University. 8-inch diameter vacuum pipes carry the starlight from these telescopes to a central beam-combining building near the dome of the 100-inch telescope. This system is used to measure disk diameter of stars. The CHARA system has the capability to resolve a foot print on the surface of the moon. However, the contrast to do this is not there with this system. We passed by the 60-ft reflecting telescope but going inside the dome was not part of the regular tour. The highlight of the tour for me was a visit to the Hooker 100-inch telescope. This telescope was the largest optical telescope in the world from 1917 to 1948. Edwin Hubble made his famous discoveries with this telescope in the early 1920's demonstrating that spiral nebulae are distant galaxies outside the Milky Way and that the Universe is expanding. This reflector is still a very viable telescope being updated with the use of computers and two state-of-the-art adaptive optic systems that compensate for most of the atmospheric turbulence. The Hooker telescope is behind glass in an environmentally controlled room. Although we couldn't touch the telescope, its 42 foot length is impressive. This ended the tour given by our docent. guide, Tim Thompson. Carroll then turned the CLAS members and friends over to his brothers Larry and Ken Evans for a behind the scenes tour. Larry is retired and Ken is employed by JPL. Larry and Ken both volunteer for special projects at Mt Wilson. Larry has been involved in the resurfacing of the mirrors on both the 60" and 100" telescopes. Larry showed us the Physics lab building that George Ellery Hale used at Mount Wilson. He also told us that Michelson did his famous experiment of measuring the speed of light from Mount Wilson. We went inside the old power house and machine shop that was built around 1908 and upgraded in 1914. The 50 hp Fairbanks Morse engine and 40 KW 125 volt DC generator was used to power the Mountain top facility. This equipment was refurbished and made operable once again by Larry and Ken Evans (with assistance from Mike Jones) about four years ago. The same engine powered an overhead line shaft that drove several machine tools such as a lathe, mill, drill press, and electrically driven hack saw. Larry and Ken then took us inside the dome of the 60-in reflecting telescope and this time we could touch the telescope. This telescope saw first light in 1908 and was the largest telescope in the world until the Hooker telescope came on line. Many lessons were learned from building this large telescope that were subsequently used in building the Hooker. It showed that large silver-on-glass reflectors were practical. This was also the first telescope to be built primarily for photographic and spectrographic use. Harlow Shapley used this telescope for his work on RR Lyrae and Cepheid variable stars. I was pleased to see that a Telrad reflex sight was attached to this telescope as the primary sighting device. It made me feel like I was on the right track. Currently this telescope is rented out to groups for astronomical seeing. I know I would enjoy spending an evening looking through such a telescope. REPORT ON THE AUGUST STAR PARTY (Bruce Churchill) Our August Star Party scheduled for Friday the 13th was clouded out. Rain actually fell in our valley on the 14th, but there has been some good observing weather this month. ASTRONOMY AND SPACE NEWS PROVIDED BY EARL TOWSON PLANETARY & LUNAR ASTRONOMY: LUNAR METEORITE HAS RECORD OF ITS LAUNCH SITE: Scientists have pinpointed the source of a meteorite from the moon for the first time. It contained high levels of radioactive uranium, thorium and potassium. Gamma ray-spectroscopy lab tests told them that the ratios between these elements fit only one enigmatic group of lunar rocks called "KREEP," the acronym of K for potassium, REE for rare earth elements, and P for phosphate. They are the first to precisely date Mare Imbrium, the youngest of the large meteorite craters on the moon. That date, 3.9 billion years ago, is a new key date for lunar and even terrestrial stratigraphy. The Imbrium impact basin on the lunar nearside is the only area where KREEP rocks are found. KREEP rocks are known both from samples returned by the Apollo missions and by NASA's Lunar Prospector Orbiter radioactivity survey in 1998-99. 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) 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, September 13, 2004: "Comets" AT THE MATURANGO MUSEUM, 100 EAST LAS FLORES AVE. WESTERN AMATEUR ASTRONOMERS WEB SITE CLAS WEB PAGE INDEX OF CLAS NEWSLETTERS