Volume 42 No. 05 May 1, 2005 NEXT MEETING 7:30 p.m., Monday, May 2, 2005 Maturango Museum, 100 East Las Flores Avenue, Ridgecrest PROGRAM FOR THE MAY 2 MEETING Peter Eiserloh will conclude his talk on orbital mechanics at our May 2, 2005 meeting. In particular, he will discuss the observational data needed to predict future positions of planetary objects. DATES TO KEEP IN MIND Monday, May 2, 2005: Regular CLAS Meeting at the Maturango Museum in Ridgecrest, 7:30 p.m. Friday, May 6, 2005: Public Star Party. See below. Wednesday, May 25, 2005: Deadline for next Skywatchers Newsletter Monday, June 6, 2005: Regular CLAS Meeting at the Maturango Museum in Ridgecrest, 7:30 p.m. STAR PARTY INFORMATION IS BELOW THE FOLLOWING SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT *************************************************************************************** MT. WILSON STAR PARTY Don't forget our observing trip to Mount Wilson on Saturday April 30, 2005. As we go to press there is at least one additional opening, so call Bruce Churchill at 760-375-7247 if you are interested. Our chartered bus leaves the Maturango Museum parking lot at 5:00 p.m. The observatory provides a restroom, cold water, and an urn of hot water. Bring any other sustenance you require, but alcoholic beverages are prohibited. Also be sure to bring observing supplies such as maps, notebook, etc. The observatory is at 5700 feet above sea level, with no heat, so DRESS WARMLY. *************************************************************************************** STAR PARTY SCHEDULE FOR THE 2005 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, May 6--Signs out at 8:00 p.m., Star viewing at 8:30 p.m. Friday, June 3--Signs out at 8:30 p.m., Star viewing at 9:00 p.m. Friday, July 1--Signs out at 8:30 p.m., Star viewing at 9:00 p.m. Friday, August 5--Signs out at 8:00 p.m., Star viewing at 8:30 p.m. Friday, September 2--Signs out at 7:00 p.m., Star viewing at 7:30 p.m. Friday, September 30--Signs out at 6:30 p.m., Star viewing at 7:00 p.m. Friday, October 28--Signs out at 6:30 p.m., Star viewing at 7:00 p.m. THE SKY IN MAY (Roger Brower) 1. Venus appears in the west after sunset and can be seen in the evening sky for the rest of the month. 2. Mercury is in the morning sky but will be visible only a few days at the beginning of the month. 3. Saturn is well placed for viewing in the evening sky but will set earlier each day. 4. Jupiter rises in the east shortly before sunset and so will be visible almost all night long. 5. Mars rises about 3 a.m. this month and will be brightening through out the month. 6. The Eta Aquarid meteor shower peaks on May 6th. STAR PARTY REPORT (Bruce Churchill) The April star party was clouded out. CLAS OUTREACH IN THE FUTURE (Carroll Evans) We will be presenting astronomical programs and telescope viewing for the Forest Service again this year. We are scheduled for the Tillie Creek Campground amphitheater on Saturday evenings June 11, July 9, and August 13. These evenings have the Moon near first quarter. Dark Sky events are scheduled for June 4 and August 6 at the Black Rock Ranger station. OLD JOKE BROUGHT BACK In honor of Peter Eiserloh's scheduled presentation at the May meeting, I bring back the following from the CLAS Newsletter archives.: Question: What does a celestial mechanic do? Answer: He fixes stars. Will NASA Put an End to Astronomy's Golden Age? Extracted from the Web by Robert Shaw (Pared down to one page by your Editor, my apologies for taking some points out) Along with the self-destructive decision to cancel a shuttle mission to maintain the Hubble Space Telescope, which will die in orbit within the next couple of years without servicing, the moves on the Voyagers and other Earth-Sun System spacecraft give clear indication that astronomy's golden age is in danger of ending with a series of whimpers. In October 2003, the sun exploded with some of the most violent eruptions on record, spewing billions of tons of particles and gases into the solar system. These expulsions, which interfered with telecommunications on Earth and dosed the two astronauts in the International Space Station with multiple X-rays' worth of radiation, gave clear evidence that the sun is nearing the end of a 22-year magnetic cycle. Unfortunately, both the hard-won achievements and the future promise of this age are threatened by a shift by the United States toward a focus on crewed space missions over robotic ones, even though the latter have proved their worth, and cost-effectiveness, many times over. An inspiring example of that are the most distant spacecraft in the Earth-Sun System, the twin Voyagers that provided us with the first detailed look at Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, as well as their moons and rings, in the late 1970s and through the 1980s. Now 11 billion and 14 billion kilometers (6.8 and 8.7 billion miles) away, the Voyagers are at the very edge of the sun's domain; they're the most distant artifacts of human civilization. When the solar eruptions finally reached Voyager 2 last April, its instruments determined that they had both merged and slowed. Thanks to the Voyagers and other spacecraft, we now know far more about how these "coronal mass ejections" form and dissipate. But this process isn't over: The sun continues to rumble with unusual activity, and we're in the excellent position of being able to monitor it with great precision. As this story makes clear, although the Voyagers have been in flight for almost 30 years, they haven't been kept operational out of nostalgia. Both have fully functional cosmic-ray, plasma-wave and charged-particle detectors, as well as other scientific instruments, and they have enough power to run them until at least 2020. And they're beginning to report phenomena unlike any detected before: plasma-wave oscillations and energetic particle activity that may indicate that they're entering the "bow shock" region where the sun's wind collides with the thin gas between the stars. The Voyagers, in other words, are on the verge of becoming the first true interstellar spacecraft, and give every indication of providing discoveries just as important as their previous ones. But although these astonishingly hardy machines remain well equipped to continue their mission, their supporters are having a hard time defending them in NASA these days. Some hold out hope that the incoming NASA administrator, Michael Griffin, will reverse this decision. But it's hard to imagine Griffin, an ardent advocate of crewed spaceflight, doing so, at least in the current fiscal climate, without direct congressional intervention. © 2005 International Herald Tribune. ©2005 Sci-Tech Today. 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, MAY 2, 2005: "ORBITAL MECHANICS PART 2" AT THE MATURANGO MUSEUM, 100 EAST LAS FLORES AVE. WESTERN AMATEUR ASTRONOMERS WEB SITE CLAS WEB PAGE