Hamilton Amateur Astronomers January 1999 Volume 6 Issue 3 Rob'serving Report T his month's Binbrook as it passes behind the planet, or observing nights are an ECLIPSE by Jupiter's Feb. 01 Io 17:40 ---> 19:53 scheduled for Jan 15/16 and shadow. 04 Europa 17:40 ---> 20:17 08 Io 19:36 --->* 22/23. Call Rob Roy (692- 12 Europa 20:17 --->* 3245), Bret Culver (575-9492), Shadow transit times which 17 Io *---> 18:13 or John McCloy (523-4359) at occur between evening and 24 Io *---> 20:08 7pm for local weather conditions morning twilight are listed and to confirm. The Binbrook below. Times are converted to For other events, search the table Conservation Area currently has Eastern Standard Time (EST). in the "RASC Handbook"- 1999, a lot of snow and it is not The first time is the start of the pages 182-3 between 23:00- plowed. Unless Mother Nature shadow crossing (ingress) and 02:00 UT. Jupiter is setting cooperates and melts some, we the second is the end (egress). *- earlier each night. "Sky and may not be able to get in. only one of the shadow's ingress Telescope" also includes and egress times may be listed Jupiter's satellite phenomena in The window of Jupiter observing when the other occurs before its monthly issues. is narrowing as evening twilight evening twilight or after Jupiter is later and Jupiter sets earlier has set. Jupiter's Red Spot each day. There are only about three hours of observing time. A window of UT (Universal You can check the list below to This will be the last report to Times) is given below so you see when the Great Red Spot is include Satellites and the Great can search in "Sky and likely to visible on Jupiter. After Red Spot until about June, 1999. Telescope" and in the "RASC each date the meridian transit Handbook" -1999 for other time is given in EST to the Jupiter's Satellite Phenomena events you may wish to observe. nearest hour, so you will see it Events on either side of this near but not necessarily on the There are only a about 1.5 window occur either before centerline of the disk at that months left for good Jupiter evening twilight or after Jupiter time. If you want exact transit observing before it gets too close has set. To get your local EST times, "Sky and Telescope" lists to conjunction with the Sun. Get subtract 5 hours from the UT them in Universal Time for each out and have a look. Possibilities shown for each event. day of the month. are: a TRANSIT of a satellite or its SHADOW across the face of Jan. 16 Io 19:20 --->* Jan. 17(8pm), 22(7p), 26(6p), 29 the planet, an OCCULTATION 25 Io *---> 17:57 28 Europa *---> 17:40 (Continued on page 5) Chair's Report page 2 Calendar of Events page 6 inside... Constellation of the Month page 3 Jupiter Report Form page 7 Astro Quiz page 4 January Star Chart page 8 Page 2 Chair's Report I have some exiting news for There is a very special web site for you about Saltfleet high school you to check out this month. It has in Stoney Creek. This three been recently redesigned through year old school is very unusual in the efforts of Gregg Caines and that it now has its own observatory. Grant Dixon. You have probably Carmen Martino, Chair of the already guessed that I am talking Science Department of Saltfleet about the HAA's own website at High School, was the driving force http://www.science.mcmaster.ca/ EE vent Horizon is a publication of the Hamilton Amateur behind the project. Over the past HAA/index.html. Thanks to Bob Astronomers (HAA). few years we have been following Botts, another site worth checking the progress of the observatory out is located at http://dspace.dial. The HAA is an amateur astronomy starting with Carmen raising funds, pipex.com/lc/halo/halosim.htm. club dedicated to the promotion and getting school board approval and This site is all about atmospheric enjoyment of astronomy for people of now finally the completion. Three halos caused by sunlight passing all ages and experience levels of our own HAA members, Grant through various forms of ice Dixon, Doug Welch and Steve crystals at different orientations. The cost of the subscription is Barnes, also played a role. There are Included on the page is a link that included in the $15 individual or $20 still a few bugs to be worked out but allows you to download a program family membership fee for the year. the scope saw first light in that simulates these halos on your Event Horizon is published a December. The telescope housed in computer. Each simulation is built minimum of 10 times a year. their 12 ft Ash dome is a Meade 16" up by accurately tracing thousands LX200 equipped with a CCD to millions of light rays through HAA Council camera. You will find this event to models of cloud crystals. On a Chair S tewart Attlesey be especially interesting when I tell Pentium 166MMX computer Second Chair Doug Welch you that the HAA will have use of 100,000 ray tracings take less than Secretary Marg Walton this observing facility one day a one minute to run. Treasurer Barbara Wight week. The details are not finalized Obs. Dir Rob Roy yet so stay tuned for more Stewart Attlesey Editor Rosa Assalone information. attlesey@interlog.com Membership Dir. Ev Rilett HAJA Coord Rosa Assalone Councillors Ann Tekatch Ray Badgerow Editor's Report Steve Barnes John McCloy Gary Sutton Web Site N ow that the nights are long dailyglobe2/355/science/ http://amateurastronomy.org/ there are many great Planetary_demolition_+.shtml it's opportunities to get out and do some an interesting read about Pluto. observing. On page seven of this issue of Event Horizon you will notice Send your articles to me for the next a Jupiter Report Form. Use it along issue of Event Horizon before the with Rob Roy's Rob'serving Report deadline of February 5th. I look when you observe Jupiter. forward to reading all your articles. During some of these cold winter Rosa Assalone days you might want to explore the assalor@mcmaster.ca world from the comfort of your home. 540-8793 Stewart makes some great web site suggestions in his Chair's Report. An additional suggestion which was sent to me from Bob Botts was to read the article at http://boston.com/ Event Horizon - Hamilton Amateur Astronomers Page 3 Constellation of the Month - Cancer Margaret Walton T a crab to aid Hydra by distracting bright (6.9) large open cluster. It is he midnight culmination of Hercules. However, as soon as the visible with binoculars and at approx. this constellation is at the crab came out of the swamp 10 billion years old is one of the most end of January or the Hercules crushed it. This is the ancient known clusters. It is about beginning of February. It once reason the constellation of Cancer 2500 light years away. marked the position of the sun at the has a crooked shape. June solstice. NGC2672 - Bright, large galaxy in Objects to see in Cancer pair with NGC2673. It has a To the Mesopotamians, Cancer was magnitude of 11.6. the gateway for the descent of souls M44 (NGC2532) - Beehive Cluster into incarnation. To the Egyptians or Praesepe. This is a group of stars NGC2775 - Bright, large spiral it was the dawn Sun-god Khephri, creating a 6th magnitude open galaxy with a sharply defined core. symbolizing fertility, life and cluster. It is visible to the naked The many arms form a dark lane. Its rebirth. eye. It was used in ancient times as magnitude is 11.2. a weather indicator. If the cluster In Greek legend, Cancer (the crab) was invisible in an otherwise clear was part of the story of Hercules, sky, it was considered to forecast involved in the second labour of the approach of a violent storm. It Hercules. Hercules was sent to kill was referenced as far back as 260 B. the Hydra, a creature with nine C. by Aratus, who refered to it as a heads who lived in a swamp near "Little Mist". Lerna. Hera, Hercules' enemy, sent M67 (NGC2682) - Condensed, very Event Horizon - Hamilton Amateur Astronomers Page 4 Minor Bodies 1999 by Ray Badgerow Here is information on some of the asteroids and comets visible from Earth during the upcoming calendar year. I have altered the format of the comet table for this year. Table 1: Close Approach NEOS Name Date JD Distance(AU) 1994 WR12 1999 Jan. 17.61 2451196.11 0.1277 1991 VE 1999 Jan. 18.91 2451197.41 0.1573 Astro Quiz: (6047) 1991 TB1 1999 Mar.18.52 2451256.02 0.1632 Size Does Matter 1992 SK 1999 Mar.26.26 2451263.76 0.0559 (1863) Antinous 1999 Apr. 1.61 2451270.11 0.1894 Denise Kaisler (6489) Golevka 1999 Jun. 2.81 2451332.31 0.0500 kaisler@astro.ucla.edu 1989 VA 1999 Nov.21.89 2451504.39 0.1938 What's the difference between a Source: CBAT homepage planet and a moon? Well if you're talking about terrestrial planets, the Table 2: Comets for 1999 answer is : not a whole lot. Below is a list of planets and satellites. See if Name T q(au) Nearest(au) Date Mag. you can put them in order of size, C/1998 M5(Linear) Jan. 24.6 1.74 1.52 Mar.9 9 from largest to smallest. 52P/Harrington-Abell Jan. 27.9 1.76 0.80 Jan.13 15-10? 60P/Tsuchinshan 2 Mar. 8.2 1.77 0.84 Jan.15 15 102P/Shoemaker 1 Mar. 16.9 1.97 2.02 Dec. 3 15 ___ Mars P/1990S1(Mueller3) Mar. 20.53.01 2.28 Nov. 7 18 ___ Uranus 105P/Singer-Brewster Apr. 6.4 2.03 1.10 Jun. 10 15 ___ The Moon P/1983C1(Bowell-Ski) Apr. 27.6 1.97 1.21 Jan 31 17 ___ Ganymede P/1991V1(S-L 6) May 2.4 1.13 2.07 Apr.25 15 ___ Mercury 37P/Forbes May 4.2 1.44 0.98 Aug.28 13 ___ Neptune 4P/Faye May 6.11.66 2.66 May 1 13 ___ Titan C/1998 T1(Linear) Jun 25.2 1.47 0.48 Jul. 2 8 ___ Venus P/1988V1(Ge -Wang) Jun. 26.8 2.49 1.65 Oct. 2 16 ___ Europa 50P/Arend Aug. 3.8 1.91 1.42 Dec.20 16 ___ Earth 84P/Giclas Aug. 25.1 1.84 1.05 Nov.22 15 ___ Pluto 10P/Tempel 2 Sep. 8.4 1.48 0.66 Jul. 11 8 59P/Kearns-Kwee Sep. 16.3 2.33 1.54 Jan.11/00 14 P/1994P1(Macholz 2A) Dec. 8.4 0.75 0.30 Jan.14/00 7* P/1992 G2(S-L8) Dec. 10.6 2.72 2.08 Mar.24 18 106P/Schuster Dec. 16.2 1.54 0.77 Oct. 24 16 63P/Wild 1 Dec. 27.4 1.96 1.25 Apr.2/00 16 There will also be 3 space missions headed towards comets & asteroids this year: On January 10th,the NEAR spacecraft will reach the asteroid Eros to begin its 1 year study of that NEO.The Stardust mission will launch on February 6th and will reach comet Wild2 in June 2004.Finally,the Deep Space 1 craft will fly past the high-inclination Mars-crosser 1992KD on July 28 or 29th ,1999 depended on how good the autonomous navigaton system is in bringing it too within 5-10 km of the asteroids surface. Event Horizon - Hamilton Amateur Astronomers Page 5 (Continued from page 1) (8p). Mercury starts its brief shift as an evening "star". Its Feb. 10(8pm), 15(7p), 22 greatest elongatin is in early (8p), 27(7p). March. T T he next meeting of the Monthly In-Sights Venus is an evening Hamilton Amateur Junior phenomenon setting at about Astronomers will be Tuesday, January 7:30 pm. January 19th at 7pm. The evening 19- 3am Crescent Moon 2 will be a fun filled evening of deg. N of Venus. Mars rises at about midnight activities. If you have children under 21- 6pm 4-day crescent in Virgo. Very small size- the age of 12 who are interested in Moon 1.8 deg. S of Jupiter. attending, contact Rosa at 540-8793. still not much of a telescope 24- 1am 6-day crescent object, but steadily increasing In February, HAJA will not be held in apparent diameter. on the usual third Tuesday. Instead, the February meeting will be held on Jupiter starts in Aquarius Tuesday, February 23rd at 7pm in moving into Pisces and shines the usual place, McMaster University, brightly until about 10pm in Burke Science Building room B148. January and 9pm in February. See you there! You can't miss it as the brightest object to the SSW at dusk. Last chance to observe it before June, when you'll have to get up early in the morning! Moon 2 deg. S of Saturn. 27- 2:50am ---> Moonset. Saturn is visible until about Gibbous Moon occults midnight in Pisces. Its fairly Aldebaran. large disk and the appreciable 31- "Blue Moon"- second tilt of the rings continue to Did you know that... full Moon this month. make it a nice fall object! The tilt of its ring system is the longest eclipse in steadily increasing from February thousands of years will about 15 degrees as we look 01- Moonrise ---> 7:00pm. occur on July 16, 2186, Nearly full Moon occults at its southern hemisphere. lasting 7min-29sec, Regulus. Neptune & Uranus are rising only 2 sec short of the 07- Moon near Mars in the maximum. early morning. in February in the dawn's twilight. 11- Pluto once again becomes the furthest planet Rob Roy Rob Roy, from the Sun after being Observing Director closer than Neptune for 20 *Please note new years since 1979. e-mail address* rroy@idirect.com The Planets Event Horizon - Hamilton Amateur Astronomers Page 6 You know you are a Deep Sky person when... ...you consider the moon a major annoyance. ...you consider Jupiter 'light pollution. ...you spend most of your time looking at or for objects you can barely see. ...your favourite objects are objects you can barely see. ...you enjoy looking at faint fuzzies with the smallest possible aperture. ...you enjoy looking at faint fuzzies with the largest possible aperture. ...you like to choose objects that are easier to imagine than to see. ...your observing schedule demands that you search for objects in twilight. ...you keep thinking that if only the stars would go away, it might really get dark. ...you wonder how your favourite objects missed getting included in the New General Catalog or the Index Catalog. ...you're not sure that anything in this solar system counts as astronomy any more. ...you're amazed that anyone needs artificial light to read star charts. ...you could do a Messier Marathon from memory, if you still bothered with Messier objects. ...you can read all the NGC abbreviated visual descriptions without using the key, but you have to be careful not to cheat by just remembering what things look like. ...you view an earthquake/hurricane/power outage as a good opportunity for a close-to-home dark-sky star party. ...you can talk while holding a red flashlight in your mouth. ...you can UNDERSTAND someone talking with a red flashlight in her/his mouth! ...you can only recognize observing buddies by their voices. CALENDAR OF EVENTS * January 15, 16, 22, 23, 8:00pm BINBROOK OBSERVING NIGHTS - For confirmation or directions call Rob Roy at 692-3245 or Bret Culver 575-9492 or John McCloy 523-4359. * Tuesday, January 19, 7:00pm HAJA MEETING - McMaster Burke Science Building, room B148. For more information contact Rosa Assalone at 540-8793. * Friday, January 22, 7:30pm HAA COUNCIL MEETING * Friday, February 12, 7:30pm HAA GENERAL MEETING - At the Spectator Building auditorium * February 12, 13, 19, 20, 8:00pm BINBROOK OBSERVING NIGHTS - For confirmation or directions call Rob Roy at 692-3245 or Bret Culver 575-9492 or John McCloy 523- 4359. * Tuesday, February 23, 7:00pm HAJA MEETING - McMaster Burke Science Building, room B148. Event Horizon - Hamilton Amateur Astronomers