SKYWATCHERS NEWSLETTER OF THE CHINA LAKE ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY Volume 42 No. 2 February 1, 2005 NEXT MEETING 7:30 p.m., Monday, February 7, 2005 Maturango Museum, 100 East Las Flores Avenue, Ridgecrest, California FEBRUARY 7 MEETING - "MESSIER MARATHON PREVIEW" Let's have our Messier marathon preview a month earlier this year to get everyone mentally prepared. The new moon in March occurs on the tenth this year, so it will be here before we know it. If you have pictures, observing tips, or observing tales bring them along. If you are new to astronomy this is an opportunity to learn about the most widely used catalogue of astronomical highlights. DATES TO KEEP IN MIND Monday, February 3, 2005, 7:30 p.m.: Regular monthly meeting, see above Tuesday, February 23, 2005: Deadline for next Skywatchers Newsletter Monday, March 7, 2005: Regular CLAS Meeting at the Maturango Museum in Ridgecrest, 7:30 p.m. PUBLIC STAR PARTIES WILL RESUME IN MARCH 2005 THE SKY IN FEBRUARY (Roger Brower) 1. Venus moves from the morning to the evening sky this month and will not be well placed for viewing. 2. Mercury shows up in the evening sky at the end of the month. 3. Saturn is just past opposition and will be visible all night long. 4. Jupiter will rise about 11PM on the 1st of February and will rise a bit earlier each night. 5. Mars remains in the morning sky and on February 7th will pass between the Trifid and Lagoon Nebulae. 6. Comet Machholz although past its prime should still be visible in binoculars and small telescopes and to the naked eye at dark sites throughout the month. CANADIAN HANDBOOKS AND CALENDARS ARE ON HAND We still have a few of the Royal Canadian Astronomical Society's Observers Handbook for 2005, plus their Observer's Calendar. They will be available at the December meeting, or by calling Roger Brower (375-1181) or Carroll Evans (375-5681). These products are invaluable aids to observing, and are $15.00 for the Handbook, and $10.00 for the calendar. HISTORY OF PLANETARIUMS - From the Rittenhouse Astronomical Society Robert Richards, our Philadelphia correspondent supplied a recent newsletter from the Philadelphia based Rittenhouse Astronomical Society, the following is based on their newsletter. The featured speaker for the December 2004 meeting was Derrick Pitts, Chief Astronomer and Planetarium Director of the Franklin Institute. Derrick will give us. a behind-the-scenes tour of the Fels Planetarium Facility and an in-depth look at the new StarField software. The Fels now has an all-dome video projection system where six windows are blended into one image. Derrick will also give us a brief look at the future of the planetarium. Derrick Pitts has been associated with the Franklin Institute Science Museum since 1978. He is the television and radio spokesperson for the museum and has been seen regularly on CNN, CBS News, The Today Show, MSNBC, Good Morning America and the History Channel. For 14 years he has hosted SkyTalk and SkyTour, the award-winning weekly radio programs on the Philadelphia NPR affiliate, WHYY 91 FM. A little history... - Twenty centuries ago, maps of the sky were placed on the outside of globes to illustrate the heavens for the purposes of art and of learning. Some actually moved, reproducing the diurnal motion. Archimedes is credited with the first device demonstrating planetary motions about 250 B.C. After he was killed by invading Romans, the device was taken to Rome as booty where it was seen and described by Cicero. Its fate remains a mystery. Later, Ptolemy's globe is alleged to have even demonstrated the precession of the equinoxes. The next improvement came with the enlargement of the globes. The most famous, the Gottorp globe constructed in the middle 17th century (it took 20 years!), was about 4 meters in diameter, weighed over 3 tons, and could seat several persons inside on a circular bench. The stars were holes in the globe. Other globes like the Gorroro sphere were built, one of the last being the Atwood globe in 1913 for the Museum of the Chicago Academy of Sciences. With a diameter of almost 5 meters the Atwood globe shows 692 stars, and a moveable light bulb represents the Sun. Apertures along the ecliptic, which can be uncovered as necessary, represent the planets. With the coming of the Copernican idea and with advances in instrument- making, various models of the planetary system were constructed as teaching devices. These are called "orreries" in English, but they are also known as planetaria. The orreries reached their culmination in the large ceiling orreries at Munich, Chapel Hill, and New York. Meanwhile, elaborate astronomical clocks were developed showing various sky events. Thus the stage was set for the entrance of the next advance. Generally considered as the first projection device for showing planetary motions is the Orbitoscope, invented about 1912 by Prof. E. Hindermann in Basel. This instrument is driven by springworks and has two planets revolving about a central Sun. A small light bulb on one of the planets projects shadows of the other two objects in the directions they would be seen from that planet, reproducing accurately the retrograde loops and speed changes. The idea of realistically reproducing the sky in detail is due to astronomer Max Wolf. He was involved with the Deutsches Museum, a then new institution- devoted to science and technology. The museum was the brainchild of Oskar von Miller, an engineer interested in all aspects of science. In 1913, Wolf had suggested to von Miller the idea of a device for his museum, which would reproduce not only the stars but also the planetary motions. Von Miller approached the well. known optical firm of Carl Zeiss in Jena, and they agreed to look into the problem. It was from this background that the planetarium sprang. About March 1919, Walther Bauersfeld, chief design engineer and later director of Carl Zeiss, hit upon the idea of projection of the celestial objects in a dark room. Five years of calculations and. trials were needed to bring this idea to fruition. Five years, in which Bauersfeld and a large staff of scientists, engineers, and draftsmen considered the astronomical principles involved and the mechanical devices that would realize them. They rediscovered the work of Christian Huygens, who had used the mathematics of continued fractions to construct his famous orrery in 1682. They constructed star plates of film with images of 4500 stars. They found ways of interconnecting the daily and annual motion drives so the planets would stay in proper relative positions. In short they invented the modern projection planetarium. In August 1923, a 16-meter dome was set up on the roof of the factory in Jena, and the first Model I projector was installed. The "Wonder of Jena" had its first unofficial showings there. Then the instrument was taken down, shipped to the Deutsches Museum, and installed there in a 10-meter dome. The planetarium so impressed many scientific and civic leaders in Germany that in the few years following the first Model I, several other cities ordered and received projectors. Dusseldorf installed a Model I, and then replaced it with a Model II, which Zeiss had developed in the meantime. (This planetarium had a 30-meter dome, one of the largest ever constructed, and totally destroyed in the war.) The Model II was the large dumbbell-shaped projector, which everyone has since identified with Zeiss. 1927 saw the first planetarium outside Germany, a temporary installation in Vienna. The Rome planetarium opened in 1928 and the Moscow planetarium in 1929. Some early installations had linen domes. In 1928, Max Adler, a Chicago philanthropist, heard of the "Wonder of Jena" and took his wife and an architect to Germany to see it. He was so impressed, he donated to his home city the first planetarium in the Americas. On May 12,1930, the Adler Planetarium greeted its first visitors. Also attracted to the Zeiss planetarium about the same time were Samuel Fels of Philadelphia and Charles Hayden of New York They saw the machine in operation and were sufficiently impressed to give planetaria to their comunities. The Fels Planetarium became the second in the U.S., opening on Nov. 1, 1933, and 1935 saw the opening of the Griffith Planetarium on May 14 and the Hayden Planetarium on October 2. All were Model lIs. In 1936, Armand Spitz, a Philadelphia newspaperman, took a part-time job as a lecturer at the Fels Planetarium and immediately saw the pedagogic possibilities of the planetarium. He also saw that it was impossible for a small school or museum to have one because of the great cost in money and space. He set out to build a projector which would give a reasonable reproduction of the sky but sell for a couple of orders of magnitude less than that of the large Zeiss. The result was the famous Spitz dodecahedron used in the Models A, A-I, and A-2. The Spitz Model A-I improved on the Model A by having star images of different brightnesses. The control panel was modified and enlarged. Next came the A-2 and then the idea of a much larger projector with planet motions and suspended by cables from the dome. During the 1960's, Spitz widely sold the Models A-3 and A-3.P with planet motions and spherical star projectors as well as the more advanced and larger Model STP (Space Transit Planetarium). Planetary motions for these instruments differed from the Zeiss concept in that they were derived from electrical analogs instead of gearworks. Still later have come the Spitz A4 and A4A (now System 512), which may be completely automated. The company has pioneered in one-way planetarium seating and inclusion of azimuth rotation among other innovations. There are now some 700 Spitz projectors of varying sizes throughout the world. The latest and most sophisticated development is the Model STS (Space Transit Simulator), a departure from standard planetarium design both in the projector and the theater. Complete programming is possible with a built- in digital computer, and the system resides in a tilted hyperhemispherical dome. The first STS was installed in early 1973 at the San Diego Hall of Science. Towards the late 19S0s, Seizo Goto, a leading Japanese industrialist, used the expertise of his company in the field of telescopes to produce the first Goto planetarium. After trials in Japan, the first Goto in the United States filled the sky with stars in Bridgeport, CT, on January 20, 1962. The Goto Company was actually the first to produce a small projector, which included planetary motions. Somewhat later, the Minolta Company of Japan decided to officially enter the planetarium business, and they now produce a line of projectors of all sizes. AN INTERESTING WEB PAGE, suggested by Larry Evans http://www.starimager.com/ 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 - 760-876-5455 (email zearl.email@gmail.com) VICE-PRESIDENT - Bruce Churchill - 760-375-7247 (email bchurchill@atsecure.net) SECRETARY - Ted Hodgkinson - 661- 824-2738 (email longeyes@antelecom.net) TREASURER - Roger Brower - 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, FEBRUARY 3, 2005: "MESSIER MARATHON PREVIEW" AT THE MATURANGO MUSEUM, 100 EAST LAS FLORES AVE. WESTERN AMATEUR"> ASTRONOMERS WEB SITE CLAS WEB PAGE INDEX OF CLAS NEWSLETTERS