Volume 42 No. 07 July 1, 2005 NEXT MEETING 7:30 p.m., Monday, July 11, 2005 Maturango Museum, 100 East Las Flores Avenue, Ridgecrest PROGRAM FOR THE JULY 11 MEETING Among the favorite deep sky objects at our star parties are star clusters. Let's discuss these at our July meeting. If you have pictures, observing tips, or other information bring them along. We will also discuss our observing trip tot he Mount Wilson 60-inch telescope. The trip has been rescheduled for Saturday September 24,2005 from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. DATES TO KEEP IN MIND Monday, July 11, 2005: Regular CLAS Meeting at the Maturango Museum in Ridgecrest, 7:30 p.m. Friday, July 1, 2005: Public Star Party. See below. Thursday, July 21, 2005: SPACE WEEK.High Desert Engineering Association Dinner meeting. See below. Friday, August 5, 2005: Public Star Party. See below Wednesday, July 20, 2005: Deadline for next Skywatchers Newsletter Monday, August 1, 2005: Regular CLAS Meeting at the Maturango Museum in Ridgecrest, 7:30 p.m. SPECIAL EVENT: HIGH DESERT ENGINEERING ASSOCIATION DINNER MEETING The High Desert Engineering Association annual observance of Space Week will be a dinner meeting at 6:00 p.m. on Thursday evening July 21, 2005, at Victoria's at the Heritage. The speaker for the evening will be Steve Edberg, from JPL, who will update us on the Cassini Mission to Saturn. Tickets are $20.00 each in advance, and may be obtained from Carroll Evans, call 760-375-5681. The High Desert Engineering Association (hIdea) is an umbrella group of local scientific and engineering societies. The China Lake Astronomical Society is a member of the group. 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, 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. MT. WILSON STAR PARTY Many of us were eagerly awaiting a visit to the Mount Wilson Observatory to get to use the 60-inch telescope visually. We were to get our chance Saturday evening April 30. The sky fell in, so to speak, late Wednesday afternoon, the 27th. There were two separate issues. First, the weather forecast was not at all favorable. Second, the Mt Wilson staff had realized that the aluminum coating on the mirrors had deteriorated drastically. CLAS was faced with the need to notify people of the cancellation at more or less the last minute. And indeed, the word was passed successfully. As it turned out, the weather was bad when we had planned to be there. The visit to Mt Wilson has been rescheduled for 9:00 p.m. on Saturday September 24 to 1:00 a.m. Sunday morning. Transportation details will be provided later. Larry Evans, Carroll's brother, spent several days helping with the aluminizing process, and he provided the following URL, which has pictures of the project: http://www.mssimmons.com/60Aluminization/ THE SKY IN JULY (Roger Brower) 1. Venus and Mercury move together for the first few days of July but then Mercury moves toward the sunset and disappears. 2. Saturn after passing Mercury and Venus in late June sinks into the sunset as july progresses. 3. Jupiter, although also moving west is still well placed for evening viewing. Look for it in the southwest after sunset. 4. Mars rises about 1a.m. and continues to brighten throughout the month. 5. The southern Delta Aquarid meteor shower peaks on July 27th. CLAS OUTREACH (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. (Note, the June 4 event was cancelled because Sherman Pass was still closed by snow.) ASTRONOMY NEWS VIA EARL TOWSON MARS OPPOSITION ERROR: In my last issue, I stated that there would be an opposition of Mars in August - that is in error; it will occur in early November of this year. While Mars will be slightly further away form the earth than the one in 2003 it will be at a higher declination making observations in North America even better. For details go to: http://www.shallowsky.com/mars.html. Editor's note: I went to the URL. Here is a quote from it: This year's opposition will not be as close as the 2003 opposition. But here's the good news: For northern hemisphere observers, Mars will be much higher in the sky, 60° vs. only 37° in 2003. That makes a huge difference in the steadiness of the atmosphere. Even though the disk of Mars will only be 20.2" in size (vs. 25" in 2003, or 14" at very unfavorable oppositions), the steadier seeing may allow use of much higher magnification. 2005 may be the best opposition in years. DEEP IMPACT APPROACHES TEMPEL 1: The final prelude to impact will begin early on July 3, 24 hours before the 1:52 a.m. EDT July 4th impact, when the flyby spacecraft releases the impactor into the path of the comet. Like a copper penny pitched up into the air just in front of a speeding tractor-trailer truck, the 820-pound impactor will be run down by the comet, colliding with the nucleus at a closing speed of 23,000 miles per hour. Scientists expect the impact to create a crater several hundred feet in size; ejecting ice, dust and gas from the crater and revealing pristine material beneath. The impact will have no significant affect on the orbit of Tempel 1, which poses no threat to Earth. Nearby, Deep Impact's "flyby" spacecraft will use its medium and high resolution imagers and infrared spectrometer to collect and send to Earth pictures and spectra of the event. The Hubble and Spitzer Space Telescopes, the Chandra X-ray Observatory, and large and small telescopes on Earth also will observe the impact and its aftermath. NASA News Release: 2005-104; June 28, 2005. EARTH FORMED FROM MELTED ASTEROIDS: Many of the Earth's volcanic rocks might have come from melted asteroids, according to researchers from the UK's Open University. The scientists have discovered that many early asteroids were quite volcanic and would have had large magma oceans. These asteroids would have become layered with lighter rock forming near the surface while denser rocks were deeper inside. The Earth probably grew from the accumulation of these melted asteroids. NEW RADIO TELESCOPE NOW ON LINE: The European Space Agency's new powerful 35-meter radio antenna in Cebreros, Spain came online earlier this month, to assist communications with the agency's growing fleet of spacecraft. Construction of the dish went very quickly; workers only broke ground a little more than a year ago. The dish has already received signals from the ESA's Rosetta and SMART-1 spacecraft as well as several radio-emitting stars. The Cebreros dish will also support the Venus Express spacecraft, due for launch in October 2005. SOLAR SAIL LAUNCH FAILS: The Planetary Society's solar sail prototype Cosmos 1 was launched from a Russian submarine yesterday, but it seems have gone missing. There are conflicting reports coming from Russian news sources that say that the Volna rocket booster failed 83 seconds after launch because of problems with the first stage of its three-stage rocket. This is different from a US team also working to track the solar sail who said they've detected it a few times in orbit. THE SHAPE OF STARS USING GRAVITATIONAL LENSING: The faster a star spins, the more it flattens out, changing from a sphere to something more egg-shaped. Since stars are points of light in the sky, it's difficult to determine their shape, but astronomers are now using gravitational lensing to get a sense of the shape of stars. This depends on the light from a distant star being deflected by the gravity of something closer. In a recent lensing event, where a closer star eclipsed a more distant star, astronomers were able to detect that the background star was slightly elongated. This is impressive considering the distant star was 16,000 light-years away. 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) 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 11, 2005: "Star Clusters" AT THE MATURANGO MUSEUM, 100 EAST LAS FLORES AVE. CLAS WEB PAGE INDEX OF CLAS NEWSLETTERS