Continue reading »]]> Comet Garradd poses, M95’s Superb Supernova, Space Day with the Discovery Museum & Planetarium and Martin Hamar stacks with Registax 6

by Dan Wright

Welcome to Spring! I hope no one tried to balance any eggs or brooms on the 20th… Of course they balanced just as well Tuesday as they will in 6 weeks! I enjoy the emails we get from people asking about crazy things like this and let’s not forget the ultimate email generator: The World Not Ending on December 21. Oh, those fun loving Mayans! When the public does ask about these things, and it’s pretty regular, it’s a great moment to talk about reality instead of the silly internet stuff that injects itself into the conversations. And lately with planets aligning, an upcoming transit of Venus, comets and asteroids zipping nearby and a star blowing it’s innards across the cosmos, there is SO much to talk about!

Trusty Comet Garradd is the comet that keeps on giving. It’s looped around the Sun and now is back, close to Earth and looking better than ever around 6.8 dimming slowly as it moves through Draco. As timing goes, it’s perfectly situated right after sunset. From my own experience, even in light polluted Westport, it looks great in the 25. I couldn’t see any tail(s) but it was quite obvious what I was seeing. It was also easy to find in my binoculars since it just recently zipped by the tail star of Draco.

Just in time for our annual Messier Marathon this coming weekend (depending on the weather) is the “close” blast of Supernova 2012aw in M95! Follow the link for the latest images. This star just blew its guts and is brightening. It’s excellently positioned in Leo right next to Mars. However, it is a comfortable 37 million light years away from Westport so it won’t cause us anything more than neck strain looking through a telescope.

Public nights have been PACKED and we’ve been lucky to have a few good, clear nights in a row. However, some of our volunteers that are scheduled to be on duty haven’t shown up or called to let us know they can’t make their shift. If you can’t make it, please let us know in advance. If you have to reschedule every single time you’re scheduled, please find a time that will work for you and put it in your calendar and make it happen. Or if you have to, tell Bob that because of your prior commitments, you can’t volunteer. Fortunately, many of our amazing members not scheduled have been showing up to help, and thank you to you all.

The NASA CT Grant Consortium has selected our good friends at the Discovery Museum and Planetarium to host Connecticut Space Day and the Westport Astronomical Society will be there! Sunday, April 1, 10am – 4pm–Admission is FREE!

Scheduled Events:

• Guest Speaker, David Heshion, noted space travel historian and artifact collector
• 2 live presentations showing the rigors and challenges of living in space
• Hourly Presentations in the Henry B. duPont III Planetarium
• Westport Astronomical Society On Site
• Apollo Moon Rocks on Loan from Johnson Space Flight Center
• Space-related make-and-take tables staffed by University of Bridgeport engineering students

Weather-Permitting Events:

• Tethered Balloon Launch (in preparation for summer launch 110,000 feet up!)
• Large-Scale (5-foot long) model rocket launches
• Sun scope Observation (Safe way to explore the sun)
• Observe the Night Sky with large-aperture telescopes (7 p.m.) Orientation in planetarium followed by outdoor use of telescopes)

I’ve updated the Star Parties list for 2012 on our website. Depending on the weather, we’ll take the 25 to Cherry Springs, Stellafane, AOS StarFest and the CT Star Party. And don’t forget about NEAF coming up April 28-29 and Barlow Bob’s incredible NEAF Solar Star Party where they dig out the very best solar telescopes on the planet to look at a very active Sun!

Something else local you may have some interest in attending is a lecture from astrophysicist Kevin Manning. He’s giving a talk at the Weston Middle School on March 30. The story is in the Westport News.

HUGE thanks to long time members Phil Stevens and Robert Lang renewing their memberships and a big thank you to our newest members the Smith Family, Marilyn Richardson as well as Jim McDonald. A very special thank you to Board Member David Ives and his company TVEyes for an incredibly generous donation to help create the pier for our new 16” dome telescope! We can’t thank you enough for your support! We do humbly ask that if it’s time for you to renew your membership, please do so to keep us afloat. WAS is an all volunteer 501(c)3 that is only supported by memberships and donations. It just so happens there’s a handy membership renewal attached to this email! All memberships now come due May 1; please renew today!

* * * * * *

Our Next Meeting is THURSDAY March 22, 8:00pm

Martin Hamar returns for Part 2 of his popular Imaging the Solar System on Pennies talk. It’s a special date of Thursday March 22 at 8:00pm. We’ll be using the free processing software Registax 6 to process images of Jupiter, Mars, Saturn and the Moon. Bring a laptop, download and install Registax and make amazing images of the solar system in minutes!

Dan Wright will catch us up on the latest in The Universe and Cal’s Corner takes a break and returns in April.

We’re continuing with some GREAT speakers this year and I hope a few surprises this Fall/Winter. I’m really excited about our April speaker, Dr. Kerstin Perez. She is currently working on the NuSTAR space telescope that’s scheduled to launch in April. This orbiting X-Ray observatory will look at some of the Universe’s most energetic particles. It’s going to be pretty cool to hear everything first hand from someone so involved in this amazing project.

* * * * * *

Big 2012 Events:

The Annual Messier Marathon: March 23-24

Space Day with the Discovery Museum & Planetarium: April 1

Saturn at Opposition: April 15

Dr. Kerstin Perez – April 17 – Caltech astrophysicist/particle physicist. Currently working on the NuSTAR X-RAY Space Telescope

Lyrids Meteor Shower: April 21-22

Biggest Full Moon of 2012: May 5

David L. Rabinowitz: May 15 – Yale research scientist. ”Searching the sky for exploding stars, black holes and distant planetesimals”

Annular Eclipse of the Sun: May 20 (Visible in Western US)

WAS celebrates International Astronomy Day: May 26

The Transit of Venus: June 5

WAS Annual Picnic and Elections: June 19

Summer Solstice: June 20

Dr. Michael Inglis: July 17

Curiosity lands on Mars: August 6

The Perseid Meteor Shower: August 11

Professor Mark Swanson: August 21

Neptune at Opposition: August 24

Fall Equinox: September 22

Uranus at Opposition: September 29

Mordecai-Mark Mac Low: October 16 – Curator of the American Museum of Natural History, Department of Physics

Orionids Meteor Shower: October 21-22

Total Solar Eclipse: November 13 (Northern Australia & Pacific ocean)

Leonids Meteor Shower: November 17-18

Conjunction of Venus and Saturn: November 27

Penumbral Lunar Eclipse: November 28 (Visible almost everywhere but the East Coast)

The Geminid Meteor Shower: December 13 – 14

Winter Solstice: December 21

The World Not Ending: December 21

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ASTROWEB SITE OF THE MONTH

by Cal Powell

Cal’s Astroweb site of the Month is currently on Spring Break and will return with an all over tan in April.

Please send e-mail on your own personal web pages, or astronomy links that you find interesting or noteworthy to me at planetarium.guy@gmail.com.

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OBSERVATORY REPORT

by Bob Meadows

Carl Lancaster installed a smaller 60 mm finder on the 25 inch telescope, reducing the weight and the required counterweights. He also put in a smaller battery to reduce the weight. At the March 14 public night, this seemed to eliminate the slippage in azimuth.

The steel plate and steel tube were purchased for construction of the new equatorial pier for the 16 inch telescope. On Sunday, Feb. 19, Bob Meadows delivered them to Mike, who is making the pier. Bob made a North-South marking on the existing telescope pier base, using the sun’s shadow when it was directly south. A vertical ruler was clamped to the top of a tripod, and cardboard was placed on the floor. The point below the ruler was marked using a plumb bob, and the center of the shadow was marked at the proper time. A line connecting the two points was then transferred to the pier base. This is needed for mounting the new steel pier.

Bob Meadows replaced the lock on the warm room door. There were some problems getting it to work properly. He had to move the key cylinder about 1/16 inch to make it align correctly.

There was a star party at the observatory on Feb. 26. There were about 10 members in attendance. We saw Jupiter, Mars, comet Garradd, asteroid 433 Eros, and several galaxies and nebulae.

ROTATION SCHEDULE

March

21 Mike Bellacosa Frank Cirino David Ives *Dan Wright

28 Bob Tobin Nick LaRocca Niles Lathrop *Carl Lancaster

April

4 Karl Procop Quintin Brantley Evan Tilley

11 Tom Davis K. Moskovitz Adam Yates *Franco Fellah

18 Bob Meadows Bob Blasko Frank Cirino *Dan Wright

25 Mike Bellacosa David Ives Niles Lathrop *Carl Lancaster

May

2 Bob Meadows Bob Tobin Quintin Brantley

9 Tom Davis Nick LaRocca Evan Tilley *Franco Fellah

16 Bob Blasko Karl Procop K. Moskovitz *Dan Wright

23 Mike Bellacosa Frank Cirino Adam Yates *Carl Lancaster

30 Bob Meadows David Ives Niles Lathrop

Call Bob or make arrangements for someone to cover your shift if you can’t make it. We’re counting on you.

Continue reading »]]> The World reflects on John Glenn 50 years on, Planets Converge and a new Comet is visible to WAS telescopes!

by Dan Wright

50 years ago today the world was inspired by the courage of a man, after 10 false starts, to strap himself to the top of an Atlas rocket, some of which he watched blow themselves apart. You can watch the newsreal of John Glenn on that day right HERE.

Interestingly, the Atlas V rocket which just launched the Mars Science Laboratory toward Mars is the direct descendant of the original Atlas which launched Glenn. Atlas outlasted the Space Shuttle, which also took Glenn into orbit in 1998.

Neil deGrasse Tyson tweeted earlier today “Feb 20, 1962, The USA launches John Glenn into Earth orbit. Something America could do fifty years ago….but not today.” Draw your own conclusion to that statement. Let’s not forget that Glenn was following a menagerie of critters and the Soviet Union’s Yuri Gagarin, the first man to orbit the Earth on April 12, 1961.

* * * * * *

As we make it through this unusually warm winter the usual thing we can count on is the clouds! Of course, some of the best astronomy is when you don’t have to set up all sorts of stuff, stand in the cold and get skunked by the weather. In fact, I was really impressed with a great view of Uranus just 1/3 a degree from Venus only a few nights ago. As they say, your best telescope is the easiest one you can grab!

The winter constellations still rule the night but planets add even more spice. At the end of this month all you have to do is look West to see 3 planets squeeze together at sunset. It’s already a pretty cool show with Jupiter and Venus but Mercury will be joining the party through March with the best views of 2012. Even the crescent Moon wants in later this week!

Don’t miss Mars this month as it’s as bright as it gets this year and Saturn slowly becomes visible earlier and earlier. Saturn will be the “star” of public nights this summer.

One of my favorite things to view are comets and an amateur astronomer from Warrensburg Missouri just had his discovery named after him! Can you imagine how exciting it would be to see and discover something no one has ever seen before? How often does that happen in 2012? Comet C/2012 Bruenjes began the month in Taurus at magnitude 9.6. Look for a 3′ coma. It should fade rapidly, moving into Pisces by month’s end. I’ve attached a chart for you to find this while you can. You can read about Fred Bruenjes’ discovery HERE. 

* * * * * *

Our Next Meeting is February 21, 8:00pm

Our scheduled speaker Martin Hamar had a conflict and won’t be able to present his second part to Imaging the Solar System on Pennies. We hope to reschedule him again soon. On Tuesday February 21st we’ll have an update on The Universe, Atlas hugs Cal’s Corner this month and we have a cool choice of some amazing astronomy movies!

Big 2012 Events:

Dr. Jason Koglin: March 20
The Annual Messier Marathon: March 23-24
International Astronomy Day: April 28
Biggest Full Moon of 2012: May 5
David L. Rabinowitz – May 15
Annular Eclipse of the Sun: May 20
The Transit of Venus: June 5
Dr. Michael Inglis: July 17
The Perseid Meteor Shower: August 11
Professor Mark Swanson: August 21
The Geminid Meteor Shower: December 13 – 14
The World Not Ending: December 21

* * * * * *

ASTROWEB SITE OF THE MONTH

by Cal Powell

We live in an era of data-intensive science where anyone with an Internet connection can put on a virtual lantern helmet and mine vast quantities of publicly-available research data. Amateurs who are interested in faint variable stars can now sift through seven years of automated observation results collectively known as the Catalina Surveys.

These surveys used the 0.7 meter Schmidt telescope on Mt. Bigelow in Arizona to look for near-Earth objects (NEOs) and optical transients (such as supernovas, blazars, cataclysmic variables, and active galctic nuclei), and have released data representing about 20 billion brightness measurements of 198 million objects on the Catalina Surveys site at http://nesssi.cacr.caltech.edu/DataRelease/. The surveyed objects range from magnitude 12.5 to 20. Happy data mining!

Please send e-mail on your own personal web pages, or astronomy links that you find interesting or noteworthy to me at planetarium.guy@gmail.com.

* * * * * *

OBSERVATORY REPORT

by Bob Meadows

Carl Lancaster installed a longer altitude cable on the 25 inch telescope to allow it to wrap 3 times around the drive wheel to eliminate slipping.

On Jan. 21, there was a snow storm and we had about 5 inches at the observatory.  We had the lot plowed.  Bob Meadows used the new snow thrower for the first time.  It worked, but the drive only drove one wheel.  We are going to try making an adjustment to fix it.

The steel plate and steel tube have arrived for construction of the new equatorial pier for the 16” inch telescope.

ROTATION SCHEDULE

February
22 Karl Procop Niles Lanthrop
29 Carl Lancaster Evan Tilley

March
7 Dan Wright Tom Davis K. Moskovitz
14 Bob Meadows Bob Blasko Adam Yates *Franco Fellah
21 Mike Bellacosa Frank Cirino David Ives *Dan Wright
28 Bob Tobin Nick LaRocca Niles Lithrop *Carl Lancaster

April
4 Karl Procop Quintin Brantley Evan Tilley
11 Tom Davis K. Moskovitz Adam Yates *Franco Fellah
18 Bob Meadows Bob Blasko Frank Cirino *Dan Wright
25 Mike Bellacosa David Ives Niles Lathrop *Carl Lancaster

Continue reading »]]> Registax for (by?) Dummies, That Strange Corner of the Universe Returns, Fine Tuning the Obsession

Happy 2012! As promised, it’s another year full of great astronomy! There’s some excellent demonstrations of the clockwork of our solar system in the months ahead. A total solar eclipse down under, a penumbral lunar eclipse visible to most of the US (except the Northeast) and the big showstopper, the last transit of Venus until December 11, 2117 and Dec 8, 2125. Given the wait, you’ll probably want to get this year’s under your belt.

We’ll be set up on the tower with solar telescopes available for visual viewing and live video streaming of the transit from the anticipated installation of the dome’s 16” LX-200 Meade.

The weather has as usual, not been very cooperative on our weekly public nights as we’ve only been open 1 Wednesday out of 5. However, on those rare evenings when it is clear, it’s insanely clear.

We’ve added a gallery to the website that’s still a work in progress. If you have some great shots of the people, places and things we’ve done as WAS members, please email them and we’ll get them online.

We have a very limited amount of calendars left and we’d like to sell them this month! Get them while you can for ONLY $15! You can purchase these beauties on public nights, at our meeting and thanks to our webmaster Adam Yates, you can get them now on our website!

* * * * * *

Our Next Meeting is January 17th, 8:00pm

Longtime member Martin Hamar shows us how to easily take low resolution webcam images of the planets, Sun and Moon and make them into gorgeous high resolution images ready to frame! Martin will demonstrate using Registax, a free image processing software app that does amazing things quickly and effortlessly.

If you have a laptop, bring it and learn how to hook up a web cam to our telescopes and process your own images of the Solar System! If you just want to watch you don’t need a laptop and you’ll still get a lot out of Martin’s presentation. This is of course, completely for beginners!

Because of a scheduling conflict Professor Mark Swanson from the University of Connecticut in Stamford will not be able to attend our January meeting. We’ve rescheduled Professor Swanson to join us for our August 21st meeting.

Cal’s Corner returns and keeps it Old School on the night sky.

Big 2012 Events:

Dr. Jason Koglin: March 20
International Astronomy Day: April 28
David L. Rabinowitz – May 15
Annular Eclipse of the Sun: May 20th
The Transit of Venus: June 5
Dr. Michael Inglis: July 17
The Perseid Meteor Shower: August 11
Professor Mark Swanson: August 21
The Geminid Meteor Shower: December 13th – 14th
The World Not Ending: December 21st

* * * * * *

ASTROWEB SITE OF THE MONTH

by Cal Powell

If you are looking for a space-related activity or anniversary to celebrate in 2012, look no further than the Space Calendar web site at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/calendar/. Compiled and maintained at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) by Ron Baalke, the site has hundreds of entries for asteroid and spacecraft events, meetings, symposia, lectures, and conjunctions. Each entry contains a link to a page with more information.

Please send e-mail on your own personal web pages, or astronomy links that you find interesting or noteworthy to me at planetarium.guy@gmail.com.

* * * * * *

OBSERVATORY REPORT

by Bob Meadows
Carl Lancaster finished the upper tube of the 25 inch telescope.  He stiffened the focuser mount, installed the focuser from the 12.5 inch telescope, installed collimation knobs on the secondary holder, refinished the wood parts, and installed a new dovetail mount and rings for the finder.  He also installed a belt system and custom encoder mount for the azimuth encoder, which eliminates stress on the encoder, making it reliable.  Carl, Bob Meadows and Dan Wright cleaned the mirror and reassembled the telescope on Fri. Dec. 30.  The changes added weight to the front of the telescope, so, Carl made two additional weights to balance the telescope.

On Tuesday, Jan. 3, Bob Meadows and Dan Wright tested the 25 inch telescope.  The encoder worked well, but there was some slippage of the azimuth drive.  Carl Lancaster tightened the springs on the azimuth motor, which should help.

Bob Meadows made ramps for moving the new snow thrower in and out of the Pisces shed.

ROTATION SCHEDULE

January
4        Bob Tobin            Nick LaRocca        Adam Yates
11        Karl Procop        Frank Cirino            Niles Lathrop
18        Franco Fellah        Tom Davis            Evan Tilley
25        Dan Wright            K. Moskovitz

February
1        Mike Bellacosa        David Ives
8        Bob Tobin            Adam Yates
15        Frank Cirino        Nick LaRocca
22        Karl Procop        Niles Lanthrop
29        Carl Lancaster        Evan Tilley

March
7        Dan Wright            Tom Davis            K. Moskovitz
14        Bob Meadows        Bob Blasko            Adam Yates        *Franco Fellah
21        Mike Bellacosa        Frank Cirino            David Ives        *Dan Wright
28        Bob Tobin            Nick LaRocca        Niles Lithrop    *Carl Lancaster

Call Bob or make arrangements for someone to cover your shift if you can’t make it.  We’re counting on you.

Continue reading »]]> A Holiday Extravaganza, Saving Hubble and yet another BIG upgrade for our ALL of our Telescopes.

by Dan Wright

Happy Holidays to everyone! What a wonderful year it’s been and what an even better year 2012 will be. Thanks to many of you, WAS is becoming more active all of the time and we look to break new ground on our outreach in the years to come.

Here’s just a few things I’m proud that we’ve accomplished this year:

• A great new website
• Go-to and tracking on the 25” Obsession and many new modifications
• Installation of a new concrete pad for the 25
• The Rolnick Seismometer
• A wonderful donation of a 16” Meade LX-200, soon to be in the dome!

We’ve done some great testing on our new 16” Meade thanks to Franco Fellah and had some jaw dropping views of Europa’s shadow transiting Jupiter. With a new pier currently commissioned by Bob Meadows being built, this telescope will offer all of us impressive views as well as a great scope for astrophotography far into our future.

Our 25” Obsession is getting another upgrade; this time on the upper cage. As always, Carl Lancaster is diligently working on making it better than ever. He reports:

The upper cage assembly has been disassembled and cleaned.  All screws/bolts will be replaced with stainless steel.  The adjustment screws for the collimation of the secondary have been installed.  The cross panel holding the focuser has been replaced with a solid thicker piece of plywood.  The rings holding the finder-scope have been replaced with a set of rings and a slide bar from ADM.  The mount for the finder-scope will be replaced with an aluminum one.  It should be complete by the 20th.

The encoders have started working again, but we are going to install a timing belt so we can easily access/adjust the encoder.  All work should be complete by Dec 31.

And with the help of Anthony Madia’s behind the scenes tune up work and Martin Hamar’s donation of a reticle on our “new to us” portable 10” Orion Dobsonian for sidewalk astronomy, we are well situated for a busy 2012. This extremely portable telescope will be on location all over Fairfield county and we hope to have it out at a few of the Levitt Pavilion shows this summer.

Thanks to Franco’s wonderful work we’ve had many new and large donations this year and we hope that you will continue to support our all volunteer staff. It’s not too late to donate to the Westport Astronomical Society today! I encourage you to help keep us afloat with your tax deductable donations at the end of the year. Please contact Franco if you can donate a little something to your favorite not-for-profit.

Founding member Phil Harrington sent us a bunch of wonderful 2012 calendars who’s added his special blend of astronomical commentary. We have those for sale to members for just $10 and non-members as a fund raiser for $20. You can purchase these on public nights, at our meeting and thanks to Adam Yates, you can get them now on our website!

We also have a very limited amount of Astronomy Magazine’s 2012 Deep Space Mysteries calendar for $15. Please buy some today!

* * * * * *

Our Next Public Meeting is our HUGE Holiday Bash – December 20th at 8pm!

It’s our huge, galaxy sized Holiday Party and this year we welcome Westport’s own David Gaynes who’ll screen his excellent movie Saving Hubble. This is a great film full of colorful characters that built, repaired and use the Hubble.  It really shows the human story and essence of how the entire world feels about history’s greatest telescope!

Our holiday party is open to everyone and please feel free to bring some sweet goodies to share with all of your WAS friends!

There will be a dinner beforehand with David Gaynes and guests starting at 5:45pm at Rizzuto’s in Westport, if you’d like to join us. Please RSVP with Dan Wright before noon on Tuesday: darkenergies@gmail.com or (203) 424-0001.

Big 2012 Events:

Professor Mark Swanson: January 17, 2012
Dr. Jason Koglin: March 20, 2012
International Astronomy Day: April 28, 2012
The Transit of Venus: June 5. 2012
Dr. Michael Inglis: July 17, 2012
The Perseid Meteor Shower: August 11, 2012

* * * * * *

ASTROWEB SITE OF THE MONTH

by Cal Powell

As we approach sol invictus and the days get shorter our thoughts may turn to the Sun, our local star. Solar observer and photographer Greg Piepol has recently constructed a new observatory and has documented the process on the his Sungazer web site. Point your favorite web browser to http://sungazer.net/observatory and check out the construction and interior of his Rising Sun Observatory.

Please send e-mail on your own personal web pages, or astronomy links that you find interesting or noteworthy to me at planetarium.guy@gmail.com. Have a very happy and safe holiday season!

* * * * * *

OBSERVATORY REPORT

by Bob Meadows

Two WAS members, Adam Yates and Niles Lathrop learned to operate the 12.5 inch telescope, and received observatory keys.

The Observer’s Handbooks that were ordered have arrived.  If you would like a copy, and didn’t order one, it is available again this year from NY Skies for $20 each, postage paid.  It can be ordered at www.nyskies.org.

There was a star party on Fri. Nov. 25.  We used the 25 inch telescope to observe comet Hill in Taurus.  We set up the16 inch Meade telescope.  The hand controller worked and we slewed to several objects using the Go To, with no problems.  The images were good, including the shadow of the moon Europa on Jupiter.

Carl Lancaster is working on the upper tube of the 25 inch telescope.  He is stiffening the focuser mount, installing collimation knobs on the secondary holder, and refinishing the wood parts.

Bob Meadows calculated the dimensions for the equatorial pier for the 16 inch Meade.  He made drawings and supplied them to Mike Miciukiewicz, who will be making the pier.

ROTATION SCHEDULE

December
21        Bob Blasko    K. Moskovitz    *Dan Wright
28        Mike Bellacosa    David Ives    *Carl Lancaster

January
4        Bob Tobin    Nick LaRocca    Adam Yates
11        Karl Procop    Frank Cirino    Niles Lathrop
18        Franco Fellah    Tom Davis    Evan Tilley
25        Dan Wright    K. Moskovitz

February
1        Mike Bellacosa    David Ives
8        Bob Tobin    Adam Yates
15        Frank Cirino    Nick LaRocca
22        Karl Procop    Niles Lanthrop
29        Carl Lancaster    Evan Tilley

Call Bob or make arrangements for someone to cover your shift if you can’t make it.  We’re counting on you.

Continue reading »]]> An Oppenheimer, Grazing Asteroids and how about a Cold Leonids Shower?

by Dan Wright

Thankfully, I don’t have to fire up the generator to get out the current Field Of View newsletter. It’s obviously been a very difficult few weeks for some of us and our friends as we contended with yet another Storm of the Century. Fortunately, the Rolnick Observatory, other than some downed branches fared quite well. In fact, I had a friend visiting from the Hinterlands and we went up to the observatory the night after the storm and with all the power outages in Westport it was really dark!

Four of us made it up to the Dome to see asteroid 2005 YU55. Here’s an Updated Radar Movie of Asteroid 2005 YU55 from NASA. If only it looked like this through the 12.5” telescope! As it was, it was extremely dim but we did find it several times and watched it glide through the eyepiece. That’s a rare thing indeed to see something other than a satellite or plane move in your field of view.

The weather has made it difficult to open up for Public Nights recently but of course, the nights around Wednesdays have been pretty good. When we do open with good conditions, we get very good crowds.

Jupiter is still the “star” of the show at night and I’ve had some of the clearest views ever this year. Soon enough the UFO calls will come flooding in again as Venus is making it’s way higher and higher at dusk with tiny Mercury staying about 2° or 3° away.

Comet 2P/Encke left some of itself behind and Earth crosses the debris field on the 12th. Making it worth standing in the cold is that the Taurids can produce bright fireballs. A 1533 pass from comet Temple-Tuttle is responsible for The Leonid Meteor Shower which peaks on the morning of the 18th.

If the weather holds, 30 Girl Scouts will be coming to the observatory on Friday the 18th. If you can chip in from 5:15 – 7:00, I’d be forever grateful. Email me if you can help, please.

Founding member Phil Harrington sent us a bunch of excellent 2012 calendars who’s added his special blend of astronomical commentary. We have those for sale to members for just $10 and non-members as a fund raiser for $20. You can purchase these on public nights, at our meeting and thanks to Adam Yates, you can get them now on our website!

We also have a very limited amount of Astronomy Magazine’s 2012 Deep Space Mysteries calendar for $15. Please buy some!

* * * * * *

Our Next Public Meeting is November 15th at 8pm

Making his first visit to the Rolnick Observatory, we’ll host the American Museum of Natural History’s Dr. Ben Oppenheimer, a comparative exoplanetary scientist. With the explosion of amateur astronomers, orbiting telescopes and big, new land based telescopes coming online all the time, the Milky Way seems to be filling up with more planets every day (2,165 eclipsing binary stars, 1,235 planetary candidates and 25 confirmed planets according to data from the Kepler Telescope at last count). Dr. Oppenheimer’s topic is quite timely: The Universe of Worlds: Comparative Exoplanet Science.

Cal’s corner is on hiatus until January or until Cal takes a hammer to his PC.

December 20th is our huge, galaxy sized Holiday Party and this year we welcome Westport’s own David Gaynes who’ll screen his excellent movie Saving Hubble. This is a great film full of colorful characters that built, repaired and use the Hubble.  It really shows the human story and essence of how the entire world feels about history’s greatest telescope!

Big 2012 Events:

Professor Mark Swanson: January 17, 2012
Dr. Jason Koglin: March 20, 2012
International Astronomy Day: April 28, 2012
The Transit of Venus: June 5. 2012
Dr. Michael Inglis: July 17, 2012
The Perseid Meteor Shower: August 11, 2012

* * * * * *

ASTROWEB SITE OF THE MONTH

by Cal Powell

Since November is the month of the Leonid meteor shower, it is worth noting that 2011 is the 100th anniversary of the American Meteor Society which was founded in 1911 by Dr. Charles P. Olivier. Although the AMS still provides information and support for beginning meteor observers, it provides resources for professional and advanced amateur observations and studies. The AMS web site at http://www.amsmeteors.org/ contains weekly meteor activity forecasts as well as descriptions of various observing programs and a form where you can report fireball observations.

Please send e-mail on your own personal web pages, or astronomy links that you find interesting or noteworthy to me at planetarium.guy@gmail.com.

* * * * * *

OBSERVATORY REPORT

by Bob Meadows

There was a star Party Saturday, Oct. 22, but it clouded up at around 11:30.

On Nov. 8, the observatory opened at 6:00 pm to view the close approach of asteroid 2005 YU55.  We found it and lost it several times in the 12.5 inch telescope.  At magnitude 11.9, it was difficult to see with the nearly full moon.  Four members attended, and we viewed it until about 7:10.

Two WAS members, Adam Yates and Niles Lathrop learned to operate the 12.5 inch telescope, and received observatory keys.

The Observer’s Handbook, published by RASC, the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, is available again this year from NY Skies for $20 each, postage paid.  It can be ordered at www.nyskies.org.   Bob Meadows will be placing an order after the November meeting.  See him at the meeting if you want him to order one for you.

ROTATION SCHEDULE

November
16        Bob Blasko    K. Moskovitz    *Dan Wright
23        Mike Bellacosa    Nick LaRocca    *Carl Lancaster
30        Bob Tobin    David Ives    *Bob Meadows

December
7        Karl Procop    Evan Tilley
14        Tom Davis    Frank Cirino    *Franco Fellah
21        Bob Blasko    K. Moskovitz    *Dan Wright
28        Mike Bellacosa    David Ives    *Carl Lancaster

January
4        Bob Tobin    Nick LaRocca    Adam Yates
11        Karl Procop    Frank Cirino    Niles Lathrop
18        Franco Fellah    Tom Davis    Evan Tilley
25        Dan Wright    K. Moskovitz

Please call Bob or make arrangements for someone to cover your shift if you can’t make it.  We’re counting on you.

Continue reading »]]> Falling Skies, a Blurry Clock Tower and more Meteors!

by Dan Wright

After the recent UARS satellite that splashed into the ocean near Madagascar, you better dig up that Skylab hard hat you’ve been keeping in the attic since the 70’s. Once again the sky is falling with junk. Before the ROSAT X-ray telescope meets it’s ultimate demise, it’s doing a few passes over the Rolnick Observatory and the reports are that it’s +1 magnitude, easy to see and getting brighter all the time. You can see it for yourself when it’s going to pass over us. While this is smaller to the recent UARS crash, the heat resistant mirror of this telescope could survive reentry and it weighs almost 2 tons! Not to mention the 30 or so other parts that are expected to make it through the atmosphere. No one is quite sure where this will end up but it’s a best guess around October 23rd, give or take a day.

On October 8th, the annual Draconids meteor shower did have it’s anticipated burst but because of the full moon and position of the Earth, it was a bust for us here in America. We have another shot at a so-so meteor shower blasting out of the club of Orion thanks to Comet Halley on October 21st. Get up early and you may see up to 20 an hour but the last quarter moon will wash out some of the faintest meteors.

Comet Elenin flew just a wee bit too close to the sun and fell apart like a cheap suit after it got whacked by a coronal mass ejection and will at best be just a glimmer of it’s former self. Comet Garradd keeps moving West and is now in Hercules. It’s at 7th magnitude and almost naked eye visible in really dark locations. Early morning December viewing should be best but it will be around all winter.

As the days grow short and cooler the weather generally improves. When the skies have been clear we’ve had some big crowds show up for public nights. If you’re free on a Wednesday night and the observatory is open, c’mon up and shoot the breeze with our photon starved neighbors. Even if you’re not on the schedule, we’d love to have you hang out with us. Of course if you are on the schedule, we’d be mightily pleased if you show up on your night.

If and when the weather does improve, we’re going to get in another members/family/friends star party the weekend of October 21st or 22nd depending on whatever night looks best. Who knows, you may see a busted up satellite land on our campus! If the weather holds, a few of us are considering taking the 25 Obsession up to Roxbury NY the weekend of October 28 & 29. Contact Dan Wright if you’d like to come with us.

Founding member Phil Harrington is sending us a bunch of excellent 2012 calendars he’s added his astronomical commentary. We’ll have those for sale to members for just $10 and non-members only $15. We also have a very limited amount of Astronomy Magazine’s 2012 Deep Space Mysteries calendar for $15.

* * * * * *

Our Next Public Meeting is October 18th at 8pm

The Rolnick Observatory’s Director Bob Meadows gives his annual Stellafane report with a full run down of all of the star parties attended by the members of the Westport Astronomical Society in 2011. Stellafane is a favorite as the heated amateur telescope competitions are always fun and Bob has all the down and dirty optical action! As tradition goes, Bob nearly crashes the mini van trying to take yet another picture of the Clock Tower… Cal’s Corner returns from that entirely odd side of the Universe as well as jugs of apple cider.

November 15th we’ll host the American Museum of Natural History’s Dr. Ben Oppenheimer, a comparative exoplanetary scientist. This is Dr. Oppenheimer’s first visit to the Rolnick Observatory. The Milky Way is filling up with more planets every day (1,235 planetary candidates from the Kepler Telescope at last count), and his topic is quite timely: The Universe of Worlds: Comparative Exoplanet Science.

December 20th is our big, galaxy sized Holiday Party and this year we welcome Westport’s own David Gaynes who’ll screen his excellent movie Saving Hubble. This is a great film full of colorful characters that built, repaired and use the Hubble.  It really shows the human story and essence of how the entire world feels about history’s greatest telescope!

Big 2012 Events:

International Astronomy Day: April 28, 2012
The Transit of Venus: June 5. 2012
The Perseid Meteor Shower: August 11, 2012

* * * * * *

ASTROWEB SITE OF THE MONTH

by Cal Powell

The most complete collection of astronaut photos of the Earth is available from NASA’s The Gateway of Astronaut Photography Images of Earth web page at http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/. Fully indexed and searchable by mission and geographical location, you can find images of nearly every part of the Earth’s surface. An enterprising individual has used images from the Gateway to develop a YouTube time-lapse video of an ISS-eye view of an Earth orbit (at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74mhQyuyELQ). For those of us who can’t resist a test of our knowledge of geography, the site even has a nifty World Image Quiz.

My thanks go to Charles Scovil who brought this site to my attention. Please send e-mail on your own personal web pages, or astronomy links that you find interesting or noteworthy to me at planetarium.guy@gmail.com.

* * * * * *

OBSERVATORY REPORT

by Bob Meadows

The star party scheduled for Sept. 30 or Oct. 1 at the Rolnick Observatory was canceled due to the weather.  We were able to see the supernova in M101 at the public night on Oct. 5.  It was difficult to find because the Moon made the galaxy almost impossible to see.

WAS purchased a new two stage snow thrower.  It will be used for clearing the paths at the observatory.

The area to the right just after you enter the gate had fill added when the seismometer vault was built.  It has now been seeded, and the area around the telescope pad was re-seeded.

The mosquito magnet was shut down and stored for the season.

ROTATION SCHEDULE

Check the Twitter/Facebook Feeds on our website that evening if there’s any doubt about the weather. It will be updated by at least 6:00 pm every Wednesday.

October
19        Bob Blasko    K. Moskovitz    *Dan Wright
26        Mike Bellacosa    David Ives    *Carl Lancaster

November
2        Bob Tobin    Frank Cirino    *Franco Fellah
9        Tom Davis    Karl Procop
16        Bob Blasko    K. Moskovitz    *Dan Wright
23        Mike Bellacosa    Nick LaRocca    *Carl Lancaster
30        Bob Tobin    David Ives    *Bob Meadows

December
7        Karl Procop    Evan Tilley
14        Tom Davis    Frank Cirino    *Franco Fellah
21        Bob Blasko    K. Moskovitz    *Dan Wright
28        Mike Bellacosa    David Ives    *Carl Lancaster

Please call Bob or make arrangements for someone to cover your shift if you can’t make it.  We’re counting on you.

Continue reading »]]> Hurricanes, Dark Skies and an International Man of Mestre

by Dan Wright

Bob Meadows and I loaded up the 25” Obsession and took it on the farthest trip it’s ever been on as we headed to the Almost Heaven Star Party in Spruce Knob West Virginia, allegedly the darkest location on the East Coast. We were under the gun to get there as the impending doom of Hurricane Irene was going to be paying us a visit soon. To break up the trip we stopped at my brother Brad’s house in Leonardtown, Maryland. My brother is a chief in the Navy and was planning on traveling with us to the star party but the Navy had cancelled all leave as the Hurricane was expected to make a direct hit on the base. (It did) As Bob made our break neck, hasty, nearly 50 miles per hour escape from Maryland, we pulled in to the beautiful area of West Virginia where the star party was held. The 25 was all set up and we got about 20 minutes of viewing in before the clouds covered the dark sky. The next day was Hurricane Irene… My little WalMart tent was well covered in a tarp I usually use for inclement weather and just luckily happened to have the front pointed away from the brunt of the storm. At 3500 feet we had 55+ mile an hour wind gusts and heavy, heavy rain bands that came in 90 minute intervals from 7:30 pm to 4:30 am. Bob stayed in his Mystery Mobile and my little tent stayed bone dry. That wasn’t the case for many camped around me as many of their tents and awnings were destroyed. Many telescopes tipped over and filled with water but our 25 stayed secure and mostly dry. At this point, we’re ready for some of these alleged dark skies. And then we had a severe thunderstorm the last day. that soaked my clothes to the bone. The skies were perfectly clear however and we were ready! Just as sunset hit the clouds rolled up from the valley below and covered us in a thick blanket of wet, cold fog. This would recede after leaving it’s moist residue behind and once again, we’re ready for the night! Of course, everything is wet, including me and the temperature has now dropped to 45. At this point the Telrad is dripping, one of the encoders has stopped working leaving the new ArgoNavis computer useless and the finder scope is dewed over. This does not stop “Goto Bob”. He star hops until 3:00 in the now cold, dark skies finding a new object every 15 minutes or so. I lasted like a dripping icicle until midnight… You can see some of the images of the 25 at Almost Heaven here: http://tinyurl.com/5vlszz2 Regardless, I loved the experience at Almost Heaven. The food was great, the people were interesting and when we did have dark skies they were REALLY dark but man, that’s a long way to travel in the hopes you get clear skies. We installed the new shroud on the 25 we purchased from Teeter’s Telescopes and it looks great! Carl Lancaster added that awesome new table on the back and it’s really a great piece of craftsmanship. Also, many thanks to David Ives for donating 2 computers to the Rolnick Observatory. They’re in the process now of some upgrades so we can use them in the classroom and the dome. Thanks David! Many of us are headed to the New Haven club’s Connecticut Star Party this weekend from the 23rd to the 25th. If the weather holds, it’s a fun place to see some decent speakers and check out a somewhat dark location. (Anything is better than Westport!) If it’s clear, we’ll camp and have the 25” Obsession set up but there’s lots of other amazing hardware on that field. We’ll have our monthly Member/Family/Friends star party at the Rolnick Observatory the following weekend. If the skies are clear we’ll be up there on September 30th or October 1st, depending on weather. We’ll email everyone before we make a decision on the dates. As usual, Bob is doing almost all of the work at the observatory and could really use some help. I’ve been helping out with mowing the lawn lately and fortunately haven’t yet taken to listening to 50’s Do Wap music and mumbling about classic cars… Yet.

* * * * * *

Our Next Public Meeting is September 20th at 8pm

WAS Welcomes our old pal, the Discovery Museum and Planetarium’sdirector of Space Science Education and all around International Man of Mestre, David Mestre. David is going southbound on the Merritt for his annual lecture at the Rolnick Observatory and of course, he’s been as busy as ever. This year he’s talking about the future of amateur satellites as well as the high altitude balloons that get these little cubsats lifted to the upper atmosphere. Space exploration is moving to the private sector and David will explain how you too can run your very own space program! Yes, there will be apple cider. Bob Meadows is scheduled for the October meeting with his annual Stellafane and Star Party report!

* * * * * *

ASTROWEB SITE OF THE MONTH

by Cal Powell

Do you have a pair of those red/blue 3D glasses? If you do, here are some web sites that you should experience while wearing them. NASA’s STEREO Mission 3D page at http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/stereo/news/stereo3D_press.html has stunning images of the Sun. 3D Images Ltd. has a gallery of 3D astronomy images at http://www.3dimages.co.uk/gallery/v/astronomy/. SPACE-3D at http://space-3d-images.blogspot.com/ is an Italian site that contains an impressive variety of images that cover spacecraft, solar system bodies, and various space missions. Please send e-mail on your own personal web pages, or astronomy links that you find interesting or noteworthy to me at planetarium.guy@gmail.com.

* * * * * *

OBSERVATORY REPORT

by Bob Meadows

Bob Meadows and Dan Wright took the 25 inch telescope to the Almost Heaven Star Party in Spruce Knob, West Virginia, August 26-30.  Friday and Sunday were mostly cloudy.  Saturday was rainy and windy from hurricane Irene.  Monday night was humid, but clear all night. A seismograph was installed in an in-ground vault behind the benches.  There have been some internet problems, so we installed a timer on the modem and router, which resets them 4 times a day. A Star Party took place on Saturday Aug. 20.  About ten people attended.  We used the 25 inch to view comet Garradd, Globular clusters, Planetary Nebulas, Uranus, and Neptune. The only damage from hurricane Irene at the observatory was one tree and a lot of leaves and branches on the hill leading up to the observatory.

ROTATION SCHEDULE

September 21        Bob Blasko    David Ives    *Franco Fellah
28        Mike Bellacosa    Bob Tobin    *Carl Lancaster

October 5        Karl Procop    Frankl Cirino    *Bob Meadows
12        Tom Davis    Nick LaRocca
19        Bob Blasko    K. Moskovitz    *Dan Wright
26        Mike Bellacosa    David Ives    *Carl Lancaster

November 2        Bob Tobin    Frank Cirino    *Franco Fellah
9        Tom Davis    Karl Procop
16        Bob Blasko    K. Moskovitz    *Dan Wright
23        Mike Bellacosa    Nick LaRocca    *Carl Lancaster
30        Bob Tobin    David Ives    *Bob Meadows

Please call Bob or make arrangements for someone to cover your shift if you can’t make it.  We’re counting on you.

* * * * * *

Bookmark www.was-ct.org/ for semi-regular updates and now you can follow the Rolnick Observatory on Facebook and Twitter for regular updates on our speakers and current sky events! We are an all volunteer society that is financially responsible for everything at the Rolnick Observatory, and we are always short on money.  Remember, there are lots of ways to help support WAS other than cash donations.  Recently we teamed up with North American Power, a deregulated energy supplier in Connecticut that has significantly lower rates than all of the utilities, now with rates of just .0899 kWh.  Many of our members, including the Rolnick Observatory, are now NAP customers.  North American Power will donate $10 to WAS for every home or business that signs up.  You’ll save a bunch off your UI or CL&P rates by switching now.  The only way to get WAS the donation is to call Dan Wright at (203) 424-0001 if you’d like to lower your bill and help WAS out at the same time. Check out the new WAS Wear Store that’s great for the Star Parties!

Continue reading »]]> Star Parties, A Telescope Maker, Meteor Showers, Earthquakes and an updated website!

The summer is moving along quickly but it’s no time to slow down yet! The annual Perseid Meteor Shower was a bust this year even with clear skies. The full moon washed out all but the brightest meteors and reports show that even during the most active times it was only half of what’s considered a “normal” Perseid shower. Oh well, next year it’s a last quarter moon and should be a lot better!

We’ve been trying to do a star party at the Rolnick Observatory once a month for members, family and friends and we’ll try to do that again this coming weekend if we don’t get rained out. I’ll send out some emails if we can pull off a good night. Right now it will be either Friday night the 19th or Saturday the 20th after sunset. Again, we want some pretty good weather if we’re hauling out all of the gear but if the weekend shapes up, we’d love to see you! There’s a very nice comet as well as Pluto, Vesta, Jupiter and other summer goodies to our South.

There’s been quite a few changes at the Rolnick Observatory’s campus and online. First, the guys from the New England Seismic Network, located in Weston Massachusetts have installed a vault at the observatory that hosts 2 instruments. One is a seismometer that measures global earthquakes and the other is an accelerometer that measures big, local ones. We’re still having some issues with our internet connection at WAS but you can see the drums updated every 5 minutes HERE. If you step back a day or so you can see we picked up a 5.6 magnitude earthquake in Mexico. There’s historical drums that have recorded the devastating 9.0 earthquake in Honshu Japan as well as the Haiti quakes and more. While big earthquakes are rare in New England, small ones happen often and there’s a nice write up about them on NESN’s site HERE. While they were at WAS they poured a great new telescope pad in the middle of our yard for the 25 Obsession.

Something that’s been needing some big TLC for a very long time is our web site. Thanks to web master Adam Yates we’ve done a serious upgrade to the public’s first impressions of the Observatory. Adam has put together a very crisp and clean looking site using the free software WordPress. It’s easy to edit (I can do it from my phone…) and we think it gives us a very professional look. We still have quite a few things we want to update but it’s pretty much ready for Prime Time now. What do you think? http://www.was-ct.org/

Bob and I are on the road at the end of the month to try out a new star party. We’ve heard such great things about the Almost Heaven Star Party that I convinced Bob to load up the 25 in the Meadows Mystery Machine and take Spruce Knob West Virginia for a spin. What makes this long drive worth the gas is that the site is the darkest location on the east coast! It’s about 4,300 feet up and not too far from the Green Bank Radio Telescope and if it doesn’t rain on us, we should have some great stories that only massive apertures and super dark skies provide!

* * * * * *

Our Next Meeting: Tuesday August 16th at 8:00pm

WAS Welcomes Rob Teeter!

Telescope manufacturer and avid star party goer, Rob Teeter, has built several dozen custom made Truss Dobsonians since opening “Teeter’s Telescopes, LLC” in 2002.  Each scope is unique, and each one with a story. Rob recounts his most interesting telescope making adventures while he walks the audience through the virtues of what makes a great telescope, from advanced cooling techniques to the latest in construction materials. Rob’s website can be found at www.teeterstelescopes.com

ASTROWEB SITE OF THE MONTH

Image Processing for Astrophotography is a partnership (Warren Keller and Peter Proulx) that provides astronomy image processing instruction for astrophotographers of all skill levels. They offer tutorials on image capture and Adobe Photoshop processing and will even provide customized one-on-one guidance. Labeled “Your Online Resource for Visual Learning,” the web site at http://www.ip4ap.com/ has a number of free tutorials as well as links that will be of interest to astrophotographers.

Please send e-mail on your own personal web pages, or astronomy links that you find interesting or noteworthy to me at planetarium.guy@gmail.com.

OBSERVATORY REPORT

Public nights are now on Wednesdays only.

We took the 25 inch telescope to Stellafane in Springfield, VT, July 28-31.  The keynote speaker was Kuiper Belt expert Dr. Jane Luu.  Stellafane was attended by WAS members and former members Bob Meadows, Carl Lancaster, Martin Hamar, Fred Bump, Carl Nilson, Tom Davis, Todd Nelson, Nate Nelson, Dan Ritts, and Tom Little.

Bob Meadows and Dan Wright will be taking the 25 inch telescope to the Almost Heaven Star Party in Spruce Knob, West Virginia, August 26-30.

Bob Meadows painted the front beams and rear door frame of the trailer, and installed the new bracket and spare tire.

A Mosquito Magnet was purchased for the observing Field.  It was installed July 13.  It takes 2 to 4 weeks to be fully effective.

A seismometer was installed in an in-ground vault behind the benches.  It was installed by Boston College for the USGS as part of a New England network.  One chamber contains a sensitive seismometer, and a second one contains accelerometers for sensing big movements.  They also poured a pad for the 25 inch telescope in the observing field.  Carl Lancaster made a 4 foot octagonal form for the pad, and Bob Meadows installed the form and leveled the concrete.

Bob Meadows was interviewed by Amelie Wilson of Channel 12 for the Education Notebook show which was broadcast on Cablevision on July 23 and 24.

ROTATION SCHEDULE

Check the Twitter/Facebook Feeds on the website that evening if there’s any doubt about the weather. It will be updated by 6:00 pm every Wednesday.

August
17        Bob Blasko    K. Moskovitz    *Franco Fellah
24        Bob Tobin    David Ives    *Dan Wright
31        Mike Bellacosa    Nick LaRocca    *Bob Meadows

September
7        Karl Procop    Frank Cirino
14        Tom Davis    K. Moskovitz
21        Bob Blasko    David Ives    *Franco Fellah
28        Mike Bellacosa    Bob Tobin    *Carl Lancaster

October
5        Karl Procop    Frankl Cirino    *Bob Meadows
12        Tom Davis    Nick LaRocca
19        Bob Blasko    K. Moskovitz    *Dan Wright
26        Mike Bellacosa    David Ives    *Carl Lancaster

Please call Bob if you can’t make your shift.  We’re counting on you.

Bookmark http://www.was-ct.org/ for regular updates and now you can follow the Rolnick Observatory on Facebook and Twitter for regular updates on our speakers and current sky events!

We are an all volunteer society that is financially responsible for everything at the Rolnick Observatory, and we are always short on money.  Remember, there are lots of ways to help support WAS other than cash donations.  Recently we teamed up with North American Power, a deregulated energy supplier in Connecticut that has significantly lower rates than all of the utilities, now with rates of just .0899 kWh.  Many of our members, including the Rolnick Observatory, are now NAP customers.  North American Power will donate $10 to WAS for every home or business that signs up.  You’ll save a bunch off your UI or CL&P rates by switching now.

You can also buy some cool Fall gear at the WAS Wear Store that’s great for the Star Parties!

Continue reading »]]> Join us this evening for our monthly meeting going over the workings of WAS. Our new president Dan Wright is sick tonight but star of stage and the small screen Bob Meadows will conduct the meeting. Bob is fresh from his News 12 interview from this morning and has the DVD to prove it!

We’re pouring the new concrete pad for the 25″ Obsession this week as well as installing the vault for the seismograph and Bob will fill you in on what’s new there.

Cal’s Corner returns after the picnic hiatus and Carl Lancaster will show everyone how to use Software Bisque’s fresh and new astronomy package The Sky X as well as discuss his latest upgrade to the 25″.

We’re planing another private WAS member/family/friends Star Party this Saturday July 23rd if you’d like to take a peak at the new comet and the summer sky, weather depending of course!

See you tonight at 8:00!

ASTROWEB SITE OF THE MONTH

by Cal Powell

DeepSkyPedia is a wiki project that aims to be the Wikipedia of deep-sky observing. The goal of DeepSkyPedia is to help amateur astronomers plan observing sessions by providing structured pages containing information and sketches about deep sky objects. In true wiki fashion, anyone can register at http://www.deepskypedia.com/ and contribute to the site. Although many of the contributors are not native English writers, DeepSkyPedia is quite readable and worth repeated visits as the number of contributed observations increases.

Please send e-mail on your own personal web pages, or astronomy links that you find interesting or noteworthy to me at planetarium.guy@gmail.com.

OBSERVATORY REPORT

by Bob Meadows

Public nights will be on Wednesdays only, beginning with July. Having Thursday as a rain date was difficult to schedule and manage and confusing to the public.

We will be taking the 25 inch telescope to Stellafane in Springfield, VT, July 28-31. The keynote speaker will be Kuiper Belt expert Dr. Jane Luu. Bob Meadows and Dan Wright will be going to the Almost Heaven Star Party in Spruce Knob, West Virginia, August 26-30.

A new laser collimator was purchased from Howie Glatter Lasers. It uses a 635nm wavelength laser, which appears brighter than the standard red laser. The laser is very rugged and precise. A holographic attachment can be used to project a square grid. A two inch TuBlug has a Barlow lens to project the center mark on the primary onto a diagonal screen, which allows easy collimation from the back of the telescope.

Dan Wright bought new blinds for the warm room. A spare tire and mounting bracket were purchased for the trailer.

A star party took place at the observatory on Friday July 1. The 16 inch telescope needed some collimation adjustment, but then produced good images. With the 25 inch telescope, we viewed the Supernova in M51, Pluto, Neptune, and 10th magnitude comet Garradd C/2009 P1.

In mid July, a seismograph will be installed in an in-ground vault behind the benches. They will also pour a pad for the 25 inch telescope in the observing field. Carl Lancaster made a 4 foot octagonal form for the pad.

ROTATION SCHEDULE

July
6 Mike Bellacosa Tom Davis
13 Bob Blasko David Ives
20 Dan Wright Nick LaRocca *Carl Lancaster
27 Franco Fellah K. Moskovitz ** loading for Stellafane **

August
3 Mike Bellacosa David Ives
10 Tom Davis Karl Procop
17 Bob Blasko K. Moskovitz *Franco Fellah
24 Bob Tobin David Ives *Dan Wright
31 Mike Bellacosa Nick LaRocca *Bob Meadows

September
7 Karl Procop Frank Cirino
14 Tom Davis K. Moskovitz
21 Bob Blasko David Ives *Franco Fellah
28 Mike Bellacosa Bob Tobin *Carl Lancaster

Please call Bob with some notice if you can’t make your shift. We’re counting on you.

* * * * * *

Bookmark http://www.was-ct.org/ for semi-regular updates and now you can follow the Rolnick Observatory on Facebook and Twitter for regular updates on our speakers and current sky events!

We are an all volunteer society that is financially responsible for everything at the Rolnick Observatory, and we are always short on money. Remember, there are lots of ways to help support WAS other than cash donations. Recently we teamed up with North American Power, a deregulated energy supplier in Connecticut that has significantly lower rates than all of the utilities, now with rates of just .0895 kWh. Many of our members, including the Rolnick Observatory, are now NAP customers. North American Power will donate $10 to WAS for every home or business that signs up. You’ll save a bunch off your UI or CL&P rates by switching now. The only way to get WAS the donation is to call Dan Wright at (203) 424-0001 if you’d like to lower your bill and help WAS out at the same time.

You can also help WAS by shopping at the WAS Amazon Store. We get a small percentage of the sale and every penny counts. If you want us to add something to the list, we can do that easily. You can also buy some cool gear at the WAS Wear Store that’s great for the Star Parties! Buy early and buy often!

Continue reading »]]> Supernova’s, Globular Clusters and One Ring to Rule Them All!

Dan Wright

It sure is great to be getting some use out of the 25 now that it’s all upgraded and running so smoothly. And just in time too… You may have heard that what’s believed to be a Type-II supernova just blew its guts all over M51, the Whirlpool Galaxy! It’s really on the edge of what you can visually see from Westport at magnitude 14.5 but with averted vision it pops right out.

All of our telescopes have been performing superbly and we had (for Westport) some spectacular seeing last Thursday and Friday nights. If you haven’t looked through the telescopes recently on a crystal clear night, we urge you to come down and check out the summer’s serving of galaxies, globs and nebula. Of course, Saturn is the real show stopper.

Some of my favorites so far this spring are NGC 4565, the interwoven knots of NGC 6992 & 6960 (Veil Nebula) as well as the depth and density of M3. I could go on… I’ve been out a lot already!

Membership Dues

As you may have heard, we’re trying to streamline membership. Everyone will now come up annually in May. If you are due now, soon or past due, please send your dues to the Treasurer today. Thanks!

Annual WAS Picnic and Election June 21st!

Celebrate the Summer Solstice with your Westport Astronomical Society friends. It’s our annual picnic/potluck grilling extravaganza at 6:30 pm on June 21st! We’ll do the grilling and supply the burgers, buns and weenies as well as the refreshments. You supply whatever else you’d like to share with your WAS buddies. It’s also election time and we need to vote on new board members as well as a new president. A ballot has been attached to this email if you are unable to attend, please email or snail mail it back to us with your check marks or written in selections. Vote early and vote often!

We should have speakers scheduled for the rest of the year and we’ll update you as soon as the list firms up. Cal’s Corner will return in July!

Astroweb Sites of the Month

Cal Powell

If you are looking for a world-class satellite tracking web site, take a look at Chip Sufitchi’s site at http://www.n2yo.com. Chip’s Real Time Satellite Tracking site allows you to select any satellite from an extensive database and follow it over a continuously updating map. In addition to the orbital elements of your satellite, the page has satellite news items and links to other satellite resources.

Also, the Build Your Own Solar System! page on the University of Maryland’s Astronomy Workshop site can provide hours of entertainment to young and old alike. You can design a solar system with up to four planets by selecting parameters such as planet distances, sizes, and orbital eccentricities, and even star type. An animated orrery will appear and, if you make good choices, your new solar system will be stable with at least one planet that can support life. Go to http://janus.astro.umd.edu/orbits/ssbuildframe.html and try your hand at celestial construction.

Please send e-mail on your own personal web pages, or astronomy links that you find interesting or noteworthy to me at planetarium.guy@gmail.com.

Observatory Report

Bob Meadows

Astronomy day was May 7th. WAS members Martin Hamar, Dan Wright, and Bob Meadows set up two solar telescopes on Jessup Green in Westport form 1:00 to 4:00 in the afternoon. Several other WAS members also helped out. We showed the public views of sunspots between the clouds. There was an article, picture and video on the Westport News web site. Saturday evening was completely clear, and we held a star party at the observatory with about 20 public.

At the Northeast Astronomy Forum in Suffern, NY, we talked to a representative of Meade about collimation of the 16 inch telescope. We need to look at the secondary through a pinhole and adjust it until the primary is concentric. Then do fine adjustment with a star test. A laser collimator can be used to record the collimated position, so it can be replicated to re-collimate.

On June 3, Martin Hamer used a 4-laser collimation tool to collimate the 16 inch telescope. It shines parallel beams into the front of the telescope and the reflected beams are measured to make the adjustments to the secondary. We have not yet done a visual test of the collimated scope.

The 25 inch telescope is now working with Go-To and tracking. Carl Lancaster made a ground board for operation on grass. The first one was too thin, so it was springy. He made another one out of thicker plywood, and it works much better. To avoid dragging by the wheels, we need to remove the handles for motorized operation. Carl converted the handles from 4 knob-handled screws to aluminum channels with drop in pins. The new system is fast and easy to use. Thank you Carl for all the work you did to get the new Go-To system working.

Several WAS members planned to take the 25 inch telescope to the Cherry Springs Star Party in north central Pennsylvania May 26-30. We didn’t go because the weather forecast was clouds and rain for at least 3 of the 4 nights, and mostly cloudy the other night. Our next scheduled road trips with the 25 will be Stellafane followed by the Almost Heaven Star Party in West Virginia and lastly, the Connecticut Star Party.

Rotation Schedule

The Rolnick Observatory now opens only on Wednesdays from 8-10 pm. Thursdays will be our rain dates so if Wednesday is a mess, we’ll open Thursday! If there is any doubt about the weather, make sure to check the Twitter or Facebook feeds on our website to see if we’ll open. We will make a decision by 6pm each night.

June
8 Bob Meadows Nick LaRocca
9 Bob Tobin Quintin Brantley
15 Bob Blasko David Ives
16 Bob Blasko Frank Cirino
22 Dan Wright K. Moskovitz *Bob Meadows
23 Dan Wright Quintin Brantley *Bob Meadows
29 Carl Lancaster Bob Meadows *Franco Fellah
30 Carl Lancaster Bob Meadows *Franco Fellah

July
6 Mike Bellacosa Tom Davis
7 Karl Procop Bob Tobin
13 Bob Blasko David Ives
14 Bob Blasko Frank Cirino
20 Dan Wright Nick LaRocca *Carl Lancaster
21 Dan Wright Quintin Brantley *Carl Lancaster
27 Franco Fellah K. Moskovitz ** loading for Stellafane **
28 Franco Fellah Rob Lavin ** Stellafane **

August
3 Mike Bellacosa David Ives
4 Mike Bellacosa Karl Procop
10 Tom Davis Bob Meadows
11 Bob Tobin Quintin Brantley
17 Bob Blasko K. Moskovitz *Franco Fellah
18 Bob Blasko Bob Meadows *Franco Fellah
24 Dan Wright David Ives ** loading for W. Va.**
25 Karl Prokop Rob Lavin ** Almost Heaven**
31 Mike Bellacosa Nick LaRocca ** Almost Heaven**

Please call Bob with some notice if you can’t make your shift. We’re counting on you.

Bookmark http://www.was-ct.org/ for semi-regular updates and now you can follow the Rolnick Observatory on Facebook and Twitter for regular updates on our speakers and current sky events!

We are an all volunteer society that is financially responsible for everything at the Rolnick Observatory, and we are always short on money. Remember, there are lots of ways to help support WAS other than cash donations. Recently we teamed up with North American Power, a deregulated energy supplier in Connecticut that has significantly lower rates than all of the utilities, now with rates of just .0895 kWh. Many of our members, including the Rolnick Observatory, are now NAP customers. North American Power will donate $10 to WAS for every home or business that signs up. You’ll save a bunch off your UI or CL&P rates by switching now. The only way to get WAS the donation is to call Dan Wright at (203) 424-0001 if you’d like to lower your bill and help WAS out at the same time.

You can also help WAS by shopping at the WAS Amazon Store. We get a small percentage of the sale and every penny counts. If you want us to add something to the list, we can do that easily. You can also buy some cool gear at the WAS Wear Store that’s great for the Star Parties! Buy early and buy often!

WAS Officers

President: Bob Meadows

Treasurer: Franco Fellah

Secretary: Nick LaRocca

Board Members at Large: Dan Wright, David Ives, Karl Prokop, Anthony Maida

Web Masters: Adam Yates / Carl Lancaster