Recently the HAA started sending emails to notify the members when there will be observing at the Binbrook Conservation Area (an example was sent two nights ago, on May 12th). Although we had previously simply posted this information on the website blog (that you are reading now) this practice was discontinued to ensure the safety and protection of the park and our members.

It seems that not everyone is receiving the email notifications. We would like to work toward finding a solution the meets the needs of our members.

If you did not receive the email from May 12th, but would like to receive future email notifications, please contact the Observing Director at observing@amateurastronomy.org , with the subject heading “DID NOT RECEIVE”.

If you are receiving these emails but would rather not receive any future emails about observing opportunities, please contact the Observing Director at observing@amateurastronomy.org , with the subject heading “NO FUTURE EMAILS”

Thank you very much for your help with this matter. The nice weather is coming and I would like to see as many people as possible have the opportunity to get out and observe with the club. In the mean time, anyone is free to contact me (observing@amateurastronomy.org) if they would like to go observing and want to know if the park will be open, and of course the Alternate Site is always open to anyone who wishes to use it. If you have any questions please feel free to contact me, and lets get out and have some fun observing!

A clear night was too much of a temptation for myself and three fellow members, despite the fact that it was a weeknight. Ann, Jackie, Jim and I met at the hill in Binbrook for an evening with a little bit of everything for us.

Jim was eager to try his hand at astrophotography using his new digital camera, and immediately had it attached to his scope. Saturn proved an appropriate first target, and even on the little viewscreen on the camera we could see that several moons had been captured. I am looking forward to seeing the results of his efforts!

Ann was set up quickly with her 6″ dobsonian, and I was only able to find time for one view through it. Ann allowed me to have a peek at one of my favourite galaxies, NGC4565, and the view did not disappoint! Through her scope this edge-on galaxy appeared razor thin, and at times the seeing would give us a brief but startlingly clear view! I was sorry that I did not allow myself any more views through Ann’s fine scope.

I enjoyed taking a few pictures of the sunset over the lake and then set up my little scope. I think my favourite views though, were with the unaided eye, as we had two Iridium flares and a passage of the International Space Station. It’s always fascinationg to me when they appear right on schedule. The Iridium flares were listed as magnitude -4 an -5, and it’s amazing just how bright that looks in a dark part of the sky. A couple of us were able to follow the ISS through our scopes and it appears as a very distinct and odd shape.

For a good part of the evening we were joined by Jim Douglas, the park superintendant. Jim was a welcome addition to the group and gave us lots to talk about, from the results of clean-up day to plans for the upcoming 50th Anniversary Event on May 30th. I encourage you to attend and participate, as the HAA will have a presentation and there will be lots of other things going on that day. Most interesting of all were the little tidbits about the park that Jim described so enthusiastically, from wildlife signs to a honey tree. Thanks to Jim, I am now looking forward to more daytime visits to the park to see what I have been missing in the dark!

Keep an eye out for email notices of when the park will be open for another evening of observing, and join us if you can!

The International Space Station appears as a streak in the sky as it passes over a familiar tree in Binbrook.

This coming May 5, at McMaster, there’s a Free astronomy talk about Galaxy formation
and cool stuff.

8 PM for 1 hour.

Here’s the abstract…

Beyond the Visible Universe: Galaxy Collisions, Star Formation, and Galactic Evolution

McMaster University, Michael DeGroote Centre for Learning and Di ? Hamilton, ON

The astronomical research of the next decade will focus on understanding the origins of planets, stars, galaxies, and even the universe itself. Millimeter-wave radio astronomy is a novel and crucial tool in this quest for origins, because it allows us to probe into the cold, dark regions of space where many of these formation processes occur. This talk will illustrate the promise and potential of these techniques by examining spectacular galaxy collisions that have triggered intense bursts of star formation, as well as new results which shed light on the more quiescent star formation which is the norm in galaxies like our own Milky Way. In addition, the talk will describe how new facilities currently under construction, such as the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA), promise a revolution in our understanding of the origin of structure in the universe.

It’s got some overlap with our Speaker’s presentation on Feb 13, so if you missed that one, you might
catch up if you get to this talk.

Steve

What a successful International Astronomy Day!

Despite some clouds, we had pretty good weather for both the afternoon solar observing session, and for the evening Lunar/Saturn public events.

In our afternoon event down at Lakeland Community Centre, we had 5 scopes set up from a 40mm Coronado PST up to an 8″ Schmidt. This provided a great variety to see the Sun with different luminosity and spectral views. Regrettably the small sunspot from earlier in the week had gone around the edge of the Sun, so we couldn’t see it, but Joe had some videos and images he collected from the SOHO website to show our visitors. However a little later the Sun did put on a bit of a show with a few small but distinct flares which we saw in the PST.

Even the dogs enjoyed the views of the Sun. So much for Sirius being the “Dog” star.

We had about 30-40 people show up, mostly drop-ins from the walking path nearby. Few had seen any of our promotions, however some had. A breezy afternoon with lots of clouds, but enough breaks the wait wasn’t too bad and most everyone who stopped got to see the Sun. A little last minute email blast on Fri resulted in a videographer from CH News coming out and doing a small segment on us which appeared on the 6pm news.

CH News and others enjoying the show between the clouds breaks.

The evening session at Bayfront Park was very well received. We had more than a dozen scopes and when you add in the binos, we had about 2 dozen optical instruments trained at the Moon and Saturn. About 20 members of the HAA were on hand to share their love of astronomy with the public. I think each and everyone of them did our club proud. I saw so many smiling faces as people left.

Astronomy Day 2009

We guessed we had about 130-150 people show up to enjoy the show. Many had seen one of our promotions, but a fair number were just in the area and were curious about the hub-bub. However the actual number may have been higher. We were so busy answering questions from a very interested audience, that we didn’t often take the time to look up and “count” the crowd. I think everyone who had a scope or bino set up had some crowd at one time or another. People were really interested in the different views each of the instruments would provide.

Sometimes we had traffic jams at scopes to just get a view when the clouds parted.

We handed out HAA brochures, copies of the EH and thanks to the generosity of SkyNews, free copies of their magazine they had donated to us to the information hungry crowd.

Brenda giving her big binos a chance to cool off after collecting so many lunar photons.

Towards the end of the night, I noticed standing quietly off to the side was Steve Ruddick from CH News with his son. Steve had called me earlier in the day and had expressed a personal interest in astronomy and made a point of stopping by. We had a nice chat and I was quite pleased in his interest.

By 10:30, things were starting to wind down, so we gradually packed up and 6 or 7 of us reconvened at a near-by Tim’s to relax and reflect on a successful day and night.

Our thanks to everyone who came out made this a very worthwhile event. It was great to share with the Hamilton area once again.

This is from Mike Jefferson.

As part of the Origins Institute’s Public Lecture Series, Christine Wilson is going to be the speaker at The Origins Institute at McMaster University this Tuesday, May 5, 2009 at 8:00pm. The talk will take place at the Michael DeGroote Building, right behind the McMaster Medical Centre. You can park on King Street for free.

Click here for more details and information.

When I arrived, Glenn had already set up a solar system walk that disappeared to the far corner of the open field behind the Centre. There were 11 TV tables, some with heavy weights on them to keep them from blowing away, and each having an appropriate write up and photograph of a planet firmly attached with duct-tape.

I set up my binocular parallelogram and pointed it towards Pluto. It was too windy to use Glenn and Gail’s 6″ Dob but it made a nice addition to the display.

At times, the wind was almost gale-force behind the building. I did not think a wind could blow that hard on such a nice day.

Joe McArdle set up his 4 inch reflector, with a Baader solar filter, for views of the sun, and it was interesting to compare the magnification and contrast of Joe’s neutral density filter to Glenn and Gail’s Coronado PST.

Joe’s telescope was able to track the Sun, while the Coronado had to be re-pointed from time to time.

I noticed that a part of my binoculars has snapped, making it difficult to retain focus on the left eyepiece. I guess this is my chance to adjust it so that the diopter setting on the right eye will allow travel through the range that works for me to use both eyes without the glasses, so it’s good news that it broke, in a way.

G&G also had a nice little Starblast which was pointed at the “planets” along the walk. Lots of the kids who looked through it were struck by the fact that “it’s upside-down”!

Everyone enjoyed a look at the Sun through the Coronado. I saw a couple of flares, and later in the afternoon one of them seemed to get a twin, nearby. My efforts to try afocal photography through the eyepiece were unsuccessful, although I did get a red circle.

There was some cake to share after everything was done.

I watched some of the raptor presentations. It was amazing to listen to the cameras click when the red-tailed hawk put out her wings to steady herself in the wind.

I learned how to pick up and carry a snapping turtle too.

On the astronomical side, about 100 people had a good look at the sun, and almost that many went for a solar-system hike, and had a look through the terrestrial telescopes.

All were advised what kind of scope not to buy, and many who already had telescopes mentioned they don’t use them much because they cannot get them to align.

Many HAA brochures were handed out, and we had a chance to remind people about Astronomy Day on May 2.

Channel 17, WNED in Buffalo is broadcasting “400 Years of the Telescope” at 4:00 p.m. on Sunday, April 26.

For more information on this documentary, follow this link: http://www.pbs.org/soptv/400years/.

Ann T.

If the weather cooperates (and it rarely seems to), there will be an nice conjunction at sunset on Sun 26 April 2009.

Just after sunset while it is still twilight, the Moon, Mercury and the Pleiades will be visible within a binocular field of view near Taurus. The Moon will be a whisper thin crescent, just coming out of new Moon and should be visible first (look for possible Earth shine on the “dark” side). The Mercury will pop out as a 1st magnitude “star”, and then the Pleiades star cluster will appear. (sky map shown below)

(Taken from NASA website)

If you have a telescope set up, then you may be able to resolve Mercury into a crescent. But because it is nearing its relative maximum elongation (at the end of the month) as seen from Earth, it will be a fuller crescent than the Moon.

You don’t even need a telescope or dark skies to enjoy this event. Just a clear view to the western horizon. Your eyes are enough to appreciate this presentation. But binos or a scope will always be quite welcome to help enhance the view of the terminator on the sliver Moon. And of course they will reveal hundreds of stars in the Pleiades instead of the 6 or 7 we can see from within the city with just your eyes. Always a beautiful sight.

This isn’t a particularly rare event, but it is infrequent. So try and take advantage of it while you can. If the skies are cloudy on Sun, you could try again on Mon 27 Apr, but the moon will be slightly larger and further away. Still worth the view.

Reminder:
RaptorFest is this Sat 25 Apr (10am to 4pm) and the HAA will be present during the day with some scopes, binoculars and information about astronomy and the HAA. Come out to lend a hand or just give your support.

Details can be found here: RaptorFest

Update Tue 28 Apr 2009
Well the weather didn’t cooperate on Sun as expected, but I did get some clearing on Mon evening. The clouds were coming in from the west before Mercury and the Pleiades became visible, but at least I was able to capture the 2 day old crescent moon. Here’s a scaled down image.

2 day old crescent moon.

NGC 4565 by Bob Christmas

I posted some of the astrophotos I took up at Spectacle Lake in mid-April on my personal website (Click on the title).

Look for the thumbnail pictures labelled “new”. Click on any thumbnail to enlarge.

Bob Christmas

Well, right now there’s a beautiful occultation of Venus happening, but all I see are clouds.

A few hours ago my alarm went off and somehow I knew before I stepped outside that it was going to be clear. The air just had that feel to it. And sure enough, there was a sky that was just dark enough to show Arcturus in the west and Vega high overhead. Looking to the east I noticed Jupiter first, shining very brightly, and then, still behind some trees, I spotted Venus and the Moon in the predawn sky. Lovely!

I set us my scope and turned it to Jupiter first. The air didn’t seem too steady and although it showed four moons and some bands, the view wasn’t great. Perhaps the scope needed a few minutes to cool down (ah, the beauty of a small scope; it really does only need a few minutes and not hours like some larger scopes) but I wouldn’t get a second look at Jupiter because already the clouds were coming in from the southwest.

Turning to the main event, I was able to get both the Moon and Venus in my wide field eyepiece at the same time. Both showed the same crescent phase and this symmetry certainly added to the aesthetic value of the view.

The Moon approaches Venus (in the larger image you can see the crscent phase of Venus clearly)

Most noticable was how much brighter Venus was than the moon. This shouldn’t be surprising since Venus’s albedo (surface reflectivity) is around .7 (making it one of the brightest objects in the solar system) and the moon’s albedo is .12 (making it one of the darkest). Still, it was interesting to see it demonstrated so clearly in the eyepiece.

Unfortunately, those clouds just kept on coming, and true to the forecast the sky was completely cloud covered before the occultation started. It is now fully daylight and fully overcast. I’m sure the HAA has proven to be one of the more active groups around when it comes to grazing occultation expeditions, even though many of us have yet to actually see even one! Like Ann said, at least we’re consistent. See you at the next one!

Maybe next time!