October 2012

Highlights of theHighlights of the

October SkyOctober Sky. . .. . .

-- -- -- 33rdrd -- -- -- DAWN: Venus is ¼° south DAWN: Venus is ¼° south of Regulus.of Regulus.

-- -- -- 55thth -- -- -- PM: The Waning Gibbous PM: The Waning Gibbous Moon is 4° below Jupiter.Moon is 4° below Jupiter.

-- -- -- 88thth -- -- -- Last Quarter MoonLast Quarter Moon

-- -- -- 1212thth -- -- -- DAWN: Venus is 7° to the DAWN: Venus is 7° to the left of a Waning Crescent left of a Waning Crescent Moon.Moon.

-- -- -- 1414thth -- -- -- DAWN: Look for a very thin DAWN: Look for a very thin crescent Moon low in the crescent Moon low in the east about 45 minutes east about 45 minutes before sunrise.before sunrise.

-- -- -- 1515thth -- -- -- New MoonNew Moon

-- -- -- 1616thth -- -- -- DUSK: Use binoculars to DUSK: Use binoculars to search for Mercury and a search for Mercury and a very thin crescent Moon very thin crescent Moon very low in WSW just after very low in WSW just after sunset.sunset.

-- -- -- 1717thth && 1818thth -- -- -- DUSK: A Waxing Crescent DUSK: A Waxing Crescent Moon passes Mars and Moon passes Mars and Antares low in the Antares low in the southwest.southwest.

-- -- -- 1818thth → 22→ 22ndnd -- -- -- DUSK: Mars passes a few DUSK: Mars passes a few degrees above Antares degrees above Antares -- a a good opportunity to good opportunity to compare these similar compare these similar looking objects. Look low looking objects. Look low in the southwest 45 to 90 in the southwest 45 to 90 minutes after sunset.minutes after sunset.

-- -- -- 2020thth → 22→ 22ndnd -- -- -- AM: Orionid meteor shower AM: Orionid meteor shower peaks. ~20 meteors per peaks. ~20 meteors per hour predicted.hour predicted.

-- -- -- 2121stst -- -- -- First Quarter MoonFirst Quarter Moon

-- -- -- 2929thth -- -- -- Full MoonFull Moon

www.kasonline.org

General Meeting: Friday, October 5 @ 7:00 pm

Kalamazoo Area Math & Science Center - See Page 10 for Details

Observing Session: Saturday, October 6 @ 7:00 pm

Galaxies of Autumn - Kalamazoo Nature Center

Field Trip: Saturday, October 13 or 27 @ 5:30 pm

Veen Observatory - See Page 4 for Details

Observing Session: Saturday, October 20 @ 7:00 pm

Jupiter & The Great Square - Kalamazoo Nature Center

This Months This Months KAS EventsEvents

Prime FocusPrime FocusPrime Focus A Publication of the Kalamazoo Astronomical SocietyA Publication of the Kalamazoo Astronomical SocietyA Publication of the Kalamazoo Astronomical Society

Inside the Newsletter. . .Inside the Newsletter. . . September Meeting Minutes................ p. 2

Board Meeting Minutes......................... p. 3

Observations........................................... p. 4

Field Trip to Veen Observatory..........p. 4

I Got a New Telescope & Stuff........... p. 5

Three Night Owls at Owl Obs........... p. 6

NASA Space Place.................................. p. 7

October Night Sky................................. p. 8

KAS Board & Announcements............ p. 9

General Meeting Preview..................... p. 10

October 2012

The general meeting of the Kalamazoo Astronomical Society was brought to order by President Richard Bell on Friday, September 7, 2012 at 7:19 pm EDT. Only 28 members and guests were in attendance at the Kalamazoo Area Math & Science Center (KAMSC). Our featured speaker of the evening was Dr. Gerald Dobek, a Professor of Astronomy from Northwest Michigan College in Traverse City. The title of Dr. Dobek’s presentation was Edward Emerson Barnard: A Lifetime of Astrophotography. Dr. Dobek is an authority on E. E. Barnard since he recently republished Barnard’s masterpiece, A Photographic Atlas of Selected Regions of the Milky Way. Dr. Dobek said he always felt a special connection with Barnard, since their birthdays are very similar. Barnard was born on December 16, 1857; while Dr. Dobek was born on that date in 1957. Barnard grew up in an impoverished family in Nashville, Tennessee. His father died before he was born, so his Mother raised Edward and his older brother Charles alone. Barnard received very little education in his youth. At the age of nine he took a job at Poole’s Photography Studio to earn income for the family. Barnard was trained to use Jupiter, a massive outdoor enlargement machine. Barnard’s job was to keep Jupiter pointed toward the Sun by turning large wheels on its side. It was very tedious work that would prove invaluable later in life. Barnard eventually developed an interest in astronomy and purchased a 5” refractor in 1876. Barnard would use it to make detailed observations of the night sky and discovered his first comet in 1881. That same year he married Rhoda Calvert. In the 1880’s Hulbert Harrington Warner offered $200 per discovery of a new comet. Barnard discovered a total of five, and used the money to build a house (dubbed the “Comet House”). Barnard eventually left the photographic studio to become a student and astronomy lab instructor at Vanderbilt

University. In 1887, he was offered a position at Lick Observatory in California. He left Vanderbilt without graduating, but would one day receive the only honorary degree ever given by that institution. After three years and numerous clashes with observatory director Edward Holden, Barnard got to use the venerable 36” refractor. He would use it to discover a fifth moon of Jupiter, Amalthea. This was the first moon of Jupiter discovered since Galileo in 1610 and the last moon of the solar system discovered visually. In 1895 Barnard became a professor of astronomy at the University of Chicago and used the new 40” refractor at Yerkes Observatory. He would go on to take a series of photographs of the Milky Way and concluded that dark regions were actually clouds of dust and gas that obscured our view of the stars beyond. He made over 4100 photographic plates during his career. Barnard selected 51 of his best images to appear in his famous Photographic Atlas. The atlas was not published until 1927, four years after his death. Only 700 copies were published, most of which have been lost. Most copies are owned by universities. Dr. Dobek concluded his excellent presentation by showing several of Barnard’s most remarkable images. (His atlas can be viewed online, courtesy of the Georgia Tech Library.) Richard gave his customary President’s Report after the snack break. He asked for possible general meeting topics or other activity ideas for 2013. Richard also mentioned he’s hoping to move forward on the Robotic Telescope Project with actual grant writing. Members that have not yet contributed to the project can expect another donation letter in the mail in the near future. Richard then shared images from the Curiosity Landing Party that he and five other KAS members attended at the University of Michigan. Richard then moved right into observing reports by sharing images from the recent Badlands Astronomy Festival (both these events were covered in last month’s issue of Prime Focus). Jack Price and Mike Sinclair then gave a report on their trip to Starfest, near Mount Forest, Ontario, Canada. They reported excellent skies on Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday. They had a pretty hard rain storm on Thursday night. This year’s theme was gravity, so Mike and Jack attended many interesting presentations on that topic. Under astronomical news and events, Jean DeMott mentioned the passing of Neil Armstrong on August 25th at the age of 82. Roger Williams reported that Dawn broke orbit around asteroid Vesta. It will rendezvous with Ceres in 2015. The 35th anniversary of the launch of Voyager 2 and Voyager 1 occurred recently. Scott Macfarlane encouraged members to attend this years Great Lakes Star Gaze. The meeting concluded at about 9:15 pm.

Prime Focus Page 2

September Meeting Minutes

October 2012

The KAS Board met on September 9, 2012 at Sunnyside Church. President Richard Bell called the meeting to order at 5:11 pm. Present were board members Joe Borrello, Rich Mather, Scott MacFarlane, Jack Price, Don Stilwell, and Roger Williams. Rich Mather presented the Treasurer’s report with the caveat that there was a small discrepancy between the line items and the totals, indicating that something had been entered into the accounting program in the wrong category (the totals were in agreement with the bank account numbers). He will track it down before the next meeting. Jack asked about the financial arrangements for our last speaker. It was reported that KAS had paid the hotel bill, and Richard suggested that in view of the travel distance, an honorarium of $75 should be paid. The Board agreed, and Rich wrote a check. Regarding upcoming events, Richard noted the upcoming public viewing nights on September 22nd, October 6th, and October 20th (the last public viewing of this season). Jack handed around information on International Observe the Moon Night, which was set for September 22nd. As a part of the activities, the website suggested handing out certificates of participation, and Jack suggested that we could do this. Joe agreed to prepare some certificates, which could be filled out on the viewing night. Richard reported that while there was no recent activity on the Robotic Telescope Project, donations totaling $750 had been received for the telescope fund in honor of John Grace, who will be genuinely missed in the KAS. Richard plans to move as soon as possible into serious grant-application mode. A question arose about the other aspect of the Robotic Telescope Project, namely whether we were providing the support promised to Mike Patton in getting his remote system up and running. Richard said that Mike had apparently not needed anything from us recently, but all agreed that we should be sure to be available when support is needed. Since Mike Cook was unable to attend this meeting, Rich gave a brief report on the Library Telescope initiative. Things are going so well at Portage that they have decided to purchase a second scope. The Oshtemo telescope lost use of the red dot finder when someone pushed a finger down the

tube and broke the LED. Mike has mounted a small conventional finder in the meantime. The Board returned to a previously-considered but postponed discussion of a cleaning session for Owl Observatory. Besides vacuuming and general cleaning, plans are to stain the exterior, paint the door trim, and fill some cracks and holes. Jack planned to wood putty the holes at the first opportunity. Another suggested change was replacing the white board in the observatory with an accessory cabinet (like a medicine cabinet). After considering some Saturday dates which had conflicts, the Board scheduled the job for Sunday afternoon, October 7th at 1 pm. Regarding New Business, Jack mentioned Education Day on Saturday, September 29th at the WMU Seelye Center from 5 – 6:30 pm. Upon a motion by Richard, the Board voted unanimously to take part as we have done the last couple of years. Don then moved to provide a minimum of two people for solar observing at CraneFest, October 13th and 14th, 1-5 pm. After a second from Richard, the motion passed unanimously. Richard suggested a field trip to the Grand Rapids Club’s Veen Observatory, October 13th or 27th, depending on the weather, and all were in agreement. Richard asked for ideas regarding 2013 General Meeting topics and other activities. One suggestion for Full Moon Theater was The City Dark. Unfortunately, while this can be bought inexpensively for home use, there is a $95 fee for presentation to a group. Possible solutions were discussed. On another topic, Joe raised the question of liability insurance, which he had also discussed with a friend who is a lawyer. Don had done a lot of homework on this topic previously, with discouraging results. In general, policies which were affordable did not cover special events (like our Transit of Venus event), which are the areas where the insurance is most needed. Other policies gave more favorable coverage but had a prohibitively high minimum premium. These estimates were just for liability insurance, and it is expected that equipment insurance for the robotic telescope would be even more problematic. It was agreed that more information needs to be gathered. Finally, it was announced that a 10” f/6 Starsplitter Dobsonian telescope has been donated to the KAS, with no restrictions on its use. Rich moved and Don seconded that we sell the scope, and the motion carried. Because of a conflict with CraneFest, the next meeting was set for October 7th, during or after the Owl Observatory cleanup. The meeting was adjourned at 6:47 pm. Respectfully submitted by Roger Williams

Prime Focus Page 3

Board Meeting MinutesBoard Meeting Minutes

October 2012 Prime Focus Page 4

ObservationsObservations by Richard S. BellRichard S. Bell

What a rare and wonderful gift we received on the weekend of September 14th. Skies were clear and the Moon was new! Naturally, I couldn’t pass this up so I decided to head out to my not-so-secret dark-sky site, North Fulton Cemetery, for some astrophotography. North Fulton is located on East V Avenue, between 42nd and 44th Street, in Wakeshma Township. This is the darkest part of Kalamazoo County with minimal light pollution to the south. There’s plenty of space with no graves at the rear of the cemetery, but you have to setup your telescope in just the right spot to avoid an obnoxious mercury vapor light. It’s also far enough toward the back so I’m not visible from the road and car lights don’t interfere with imaging or observing. I sent out a handful of invitations on September 14th, but I was all alone the first night. My goal was a 2 hour exposure of NGC 6888, the Crescent Nebula in Cygnus. My equipment included an Astro-Tech 8” f/4 Newtonian and a Hutech-modified Canon 550D camera (with a Baader Planetarium Multi-Purpose Coma Corrector). I had wanted to originally image M16, the Eagle Nebula but I arrived too late. It was getting too low anyway, so the Pillars of Creation will have to wait another year. Sigh. Overall things went pretty well, despite some technical issues early on. There was one problem I had little control over. GOOD GOLLY WAS IT EVER HUMID! My TEMPerHUM device (which measures the local temperature, humidity, and dew point) said the humidity reached a peak of 89%. Never have I seen my equipment get so wet. Normally I carefully pack up all my gear at the end of the night, but this time I simply tossed everything in my Jeep so it could properly dry off. My secondary mirror did dew up, but my 70mm guidescope was fine thanks to the Kendrick Dew Controller. Jim Kurtz joined me on September 15th. He did come out on the 14th, but left before I arrived since he forgot his telescope rings. Jim imaged the western half of the Veil Nebula (NGC 6960) with his Tele Vue NP-101 and SBIG ST-2000XCM CCD camera mounted on the Astro-Physics Mach1GTO German Equatorial Mount. I did another 2 hour exposure with the Astro-Tech 8” f/4. This time my target was the Cocoon Nebula (IC 5146) in Cygnus. It was just as humid as it was the night before, but my scope didn’t seem to get as wet this time. Probably because it was a little warmer? If all goes well I hope to process the images I took that weekend (and at the Badlands Astronomy Festival) and show them during Astrophotography Night on October 5th. I hope all the other sky shooters in the KAS plan to do the same. Astrophotography Night is one of our oldest traditions (second only to Gadget Night), so I hope you can join us.

Veen Observatory, located in Lowell Township, is owned and operated by our neighbors to the north - the Grand Rapids Amateur Astronomical Association. Like us, they hold observing events twice a month between April and October. Their last two Public Nights of 2012 occur on October 13th and October 27th. We have no observing sessions scheduled for those dates, so let’s pay them a visit on October 13th (with 27th as back-up). Our itinerary will include: 1. Meet at the D Avenue Park-and-Ride for carpooling

between 5:15 - 5:30 pm.

(Located just off Exit 44 on the west side of U.S. 131)

2. Depart for Veen Observatory at 5:30 pm SHARP!

3. Arrive at Veen at ~6:30 pm. Tour the facility. Details:

Veen Observatory was built entirely by the GRAAA membership over a five-year span in the late 1960's, and became fully operational in 1970. The building consists of 2 Ash Domes. The West Dome contains a Meade 16” LX200 SCT and 4” Takahashi refractor. The East Dome contains a Celestron 14” SCT on a Software Bisque Paramount ME. The East Dome is not open during Public Nights, but GRAAA members will give us a brief tour. A 17” Dobsonian is also located on the grounds.

4. Public Night begins at 7:30 pm.

5. Depart Veen Observatory at ~10:30 pm.

6. Arrive in Kalamazoo at ~11:30 pm.

To register, use the contact form located on KAS Online. Please attend the general meeting on October 5th for last minute details. Registered members will be contacted by e-mail in case we need to cancel on October 13th and reschedule for October 27th.

Field Trip toField Trip to Veen ObservatoryVeen Observatory

October 2012

So, the last two Transits of Venus in my lifetime have come and gone. I learned many lessons in those intervening years from 2004 to 2012, the most important driven home this past June when my son and I met Greg Sirna on the bluffs over-looking Lake Michigan at South Haven. While I struggled and stomped and harrumphed about setting up my 8″ LX200 SCT, Greg put together his 90-mm refractor in about five minutes. Mind you, we both enjoyed great views of the

Transit, but a creeping realiza-tion of the ease and simplicity of Greg’s preparation caused some de-gree of angst. I’ll admit it; I was jeal-ous. So, for Father’s Day, my wife Ka-ren surprised me by offering to let me pick out a gift...

and I knew just what I wanted: An Astro-Tech AT72ED 72mm f/6 ED doublet refractor and an iOptron SmartEQ port-able GoTo equatorial mount. All for less than $800. I ordered them along with an Astro-Tech 1.25″ 99% reflectivity dielec-tric mirror diagonal, I anxiously awaited the arrival of several packages for the last few weeks of June. Mind you, I was working at Notre Dame this summer, so the weekends came very, very slowly this summer. But I was not disappointed. So, here’s my review of Mike’s Complete Lightweight Re-fracting Telescope Package: First off, I sadly discovered that the Vixen mount for the AT72 was 45 mm across while the SmartEQ had a Vixen slot that was 43 mm. Ouch. Bad call on my part. Luckily, I have a good friend who carefully ground down the edge of the Vixen slot to match the 45 mm mount on the ‘scope. That took an extra two weeks away from using the telescope. Now I was ready for first light. Wrong. So, the first thing the SmartEQ owner’s guide “recommends” is to input all of the settings into the GoTo controller. That would be the wise thing to do, if somebody actually reads the directions. Suffice it to say, I did not. At least, I didn’t read the owner’s manual until I realize I couldn’t get the mount to actually work properly. After carefully following directions, I set my location (latitude and longitude) and my time zone in the SmartEQ, aligned the ‘scope on Polaris, then ran a 1-star alignment with the mount (I used Mizar because I know what

it looks like), and discovered that the equatorial mount actual-ly works! Excellent. First light: Saturday, July 14. So, August rolled around and Jack Price and I decided to hightail it to the annual Starfest star party sponsored by the North York Astronomical Association. And it was the perfect venue to put the scope and mount through their paces. With perfectly clear skies on Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday – August 15, 17, & 18 – I thoroughly tested out my equipment. What a joy! So, the scope is light in weight but big on features. The AT72ED has a 430mm focal length, f/6 focal ratio air-spaced doublet lens using Ohara glass. It also has an extra-low dis-persion glass element to reduce color halos and fringing. While Astro-Tech doesn’t claim apochromatic performance (like a Takahashi or Astro-Physics), it is awfully close. It also sports a dual speed Crayford focuser, an extendable dew shield, and is solidly constructed throughout. No plastic on this baby! Every image I saw was crisp, clean, and bright. The telescope is an amazing bargain at $380 . . . and I strongly recommend this ‘scope! So, what about the mount? Well, the iOp-tron SmartEQ is – in my opinion – a little too lightweight. I will say that, once I got past the slot size problem, the mount is quick, respon-sive, and surprisingly accurate. I really en-joyed “re-learning” how to use a German equatorial, and like this mount and the GoTo controller. However, that said, if I were to do it all again, I’d probably go with a slightly heavier and more stable equatorial system. But don’t get me wrong, the iOptron SmartEQ is a nice, little, incredibly easy equatorial mount and I recommend it for portability and ease of use. So, overall, it’s a pretty nice telescope package. If you want to see it in action, drop in and check it out at one of the up-coming KAS Public Observing Events. See you there! Mike Sinclair teaches at KAMSC and is a past president of the KAS. Let’s hope he actually starts attending observing sessions again now that he has a new telescope!

Prime Focus Page 5

October 2012

On September 15th, Daniel Flanagan, my wife Ellen and I made our way to Owl Observatory for an evening of stargazing. Since Richard had recently trained a few of us on the use of the observatory, my goal was to gain more experience during an off-time with only a small group. Opening the observatory went without a hitch. Then, we removed the space-suit like cover of the 12” telescope. Immediately, we encountered an aroma quite similar to what the spacewalkers in the movie 2010 experienced upon entering the disabled Discovery. We were less fortunate than they were, as this was indeed the smell of death. Some poor critter no doubt had crawled into the hollow metal pipe of the pier and died. After calibrating the telescope’s navigation using the bright blue star Vega, we tried to ignore the smell and move on. The first celestial destination was the beloved double star Albireo. Albireo lies in the constellation Cygnus, at the base of the Northern Cross. This is a showpiece double, with one star being yellow and the other blue. The next stop was NGC 457 in Cassiopeia, an interesting open cluster that looks startlingly owl-like. Meanwhile off in the distance, we heard the characteristic hoot of an owl (don’t know which kind). Later we could hear the descending whinny of a screech owl. Cool!

The smell of death was diminishing, so it was time for some smell-o-scopic, uh, telescopic views of planetary nebulae. First was the famous Ring Nebula in Lyra (M57), which appeared as a distinct smoke ring. The evening would not have been complete without visiting my favorite, the ghostly Dumbbell Nebula (M27). The Blinking Planetary (NGC 6826) in Cygnus was the last of the trio of planetaries. At one point, we set the controls to Star 908 (the telescope’s nickname for Neptune), but which of those dim stars in the eyepiece was the real blue planet? While Ellen sat on the bench sorting through pictures on her Nikon camera, Dan and I fussed with charts and cell phone “Apps” trying to positively identify it. With the lack of detail on the cell phone, the upside down view in the finder-scope, and the right-left inversion of the main telescope, navigation got very confusing. I should have listened to Dan when he asked earlier if he should bring his laptop. After 20 minutes or so, we decided to give up. Did we see Neptune or not? Other objects viewed were the sparkling globular clusters M13 and M92 in Hercules, the Andromeda Galaxy a mere 2.5 million light-years distant, and the spectacular Double Cluster. We were also graced with a few meteors. Ellen saw three, one of which was quite bright. At one point, Dan suggested we piggy-back Ellen’s camera onto the telescope and try our hand at some relatively short exposure astrophotography. He demonstrated the critical adjustments necessary on the camera to make this so. The photo shown features the constellation Lyra, with the bright star being our old friend Vega. Dan later showed me how to do this at home with my inexpensive EQ-2 mount and clock-drive, replacing the scope with the camera. Thanks, Dan!

Prime Focus Page 6

This image shows the region around the constellation Lyra, featuring the bright star Vega. It was taken by Ellen Comiskey, with assistance from Daniel Flanagan. It is an approximately 3 minute exposure at ISO 800 taken with a Nikon D60 and zoom lens set at 40mm (f/5.3). Processing done and constellation lines added by the Editor.

October 2012

Mariner 2 to Venus, the first interplanetary flight, was launched over fifty years ago (August 27, 1962). This was a time when scientists were first learning that Venus might not harbor jungles under its thick atmosphere after all. A Russian scientist had discovered that atmosphere during the rare Venus transit of 1761, because of the effects of sunlight from behind. Mariner 2 proved interplanetary flight was possible, and our ability to take close-up images of other planets would be richly rewarding in scientific return. But it also meant we could use the spacecraft itself as a “light” source, planting it behind an object of our choosing and making direct measurements. Mariner 4 did the first occultation experiment of this sort when it passed behind Mars as seen from Earth in July 1965. But, instead of visible light from the Sun, this occultation experiment used the spacecraft’s approximately 2-GHz radio signal. The Mariner 4 experiment revealed Mars’ thin atmosphere. Since then, successful radio science occultation experiments have been conducted at every planet and many large moons. And another one is on schedule to investigate Pluto and its companion Charon, when the New Horizons spacecraft flies by in July 2015. Also, during that flyby, a different kind of radio science occultation experiment will investigate the gravitational field.

The most recent radio science occultation experiment took place September 2, 2012, when the Cassini spacecraft carried its three transmitters behind Saturn. These three different frequencies are all kept precisely “in tune” with one another, based on a reference frequency sent from Earth. Compared to observations of the free space for calibration just before ingress to occultation, the experiment makes it possible to tease out a wide variety of components in Saturn's ionosphere and atmosphere. Occultation experiments comprise only one of many categories of radio science experiments. Others include tests of General Relativity, studying the solar corona, mapping gravity fields, determining mass, and more. They all rely on NASA’s Deep Space Network to capture the signals, which are then archived and studied. Find out more about spacecraft science experiments in “Basics of Space Flight,” a website and book by this author:

http://www2.jpl.nasa.gov/basics Kids can learn all about NASA’s Deep Space Network by playing the “Uplink-Downlink” game at:

http://spaceplace.nasa.gov/dsn-game This article was provided by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Prime Focus Page 7

Doing Science with a Spacecraft SignalDoing Science with a Spacecraft SignalDoing Science with a Spacecraft Signal by David DoodyDavid DoodyDavid Doody

In this poster art of Mariner 4, you can see the parabolic reflector atop the spacecraft bus. Like the reflector inside a flashlight, it sends a beam of electromagnetic energy in a particular direction. Credit: NASA/JPL/Corby Waste.

The Cassini spacecraft, orbiting Saturn since 2004, re-cently conducted another radio occultation experiment. This stunning color image was taken on May 6, 2012.

October Night Sky......................October Night Sky......................

NORTH

EA

ST

WE

ST

V enus will be within 2½° of Regulus before dawn from October 1st & 5th. Begin looking

due east about 2 hours before sunrise. The closest approach occurs on October 3rd. The pair will only be ¼° apart! A Waning Gibbous Moon will be 3° or 4°

below Jupiter on the night of October 5th/6th. The Moon will rise at 10:33 pm EDT on October 5th. Brilliant Venus shines about 6.5° to the left of a Waning Crescent Moon starting about 90 minutes before sunrise on October 12th. Look due east.

Use binoculars to search for Mercury and a very thin crescent Moon on October 16th. Look very low in the west-southwest starting after sunset. The Orionid meteor shower is predicted to peak during the early morning hours between October 20th & 22nd.

SOUTH

This star map is property of the Kalamazoo Astronomical Society. However you may make as many copies as you wish free-of-charge, so long as it is for non-profit educational purposes and full credit is given to the KAS.

www.kasonline.org

Early September 11 pm

Late September 10 pm

Early October 9 pm

Late October Dusk

This map represents the sky at the following local standard times:

PRESIDENT

Richard S. Bell 373-8942

VICE PRESIDENT

Jack Price 343-3193

TREASURER

Rich Mather 629-5312

SECRETARY/ALCOR

Roger Williams 375-4867

MEMBERS-AT-LARGE

Joe Borrello 321-0410 Mike Cook 762-2241 Scott Macfarlane 679-2865 Don Stilwell 963-5856

E-MAIL a BOARD MEMBER

KAS BOARDKAS BOARD October 2012 Page 9

Planetarium admission is $3.00 per person. The Kalamazoo Valley Museum is located at 230 North Rose Street in downtown Kalamazoo. For more information please call (269) 373-7990 or visit us on the web at www.kalamazoomuseum.org

The Little Star That CouldThe Little Star That Could Mon. - Fri. @ 11am; Sat. @ 1pm; Sun. @ 2pm

The Starry MessengerThe Starry Messenger Tues. & Thurs. @ 3pm; Sat. @ 2pm

Wonderful WorldsWonderful Worlds Sun., Mon., Wed., Fri. & Sat. @ 3pm

Public Observing SessionsPublic Observing Sessions

Kalamazoo Nature Center Kalamazoo Nature Center ◆ 7000 N. Westnedge Ave.7000 N. Westnedge Ave.

WANTED: Volunteers for CraneFest The  KAS  has  been  invited  to  return  to  the Sandhill Crane & Art Fes val (a.k.a. CraneFest), held  at  the  Kiwanis  Youth  Conserva on  Area located at 22300 15 Mile Road in Bellevue.  Volunteers are needed to staff a booth and set‐up  telescopes  for  solar  observing  on October 13th & 14th from 1:00 ‐ 5:00 pm.  Please contact us to volunteer and let us know what day(s) you’d like to volunteer. Thanks! 

Saturday, October 6th Features: Galaxies of Autumn

Saturday, October 20th Features: Jupiter & The Great Square

Gates Open: 7:00pm Observing Begins: 8:00 pm

© October 2012, Stargazer Productions

Kalamazoo Astronomical Society c/o KAMSC 600 West Vine, Suite 400 Kalamazoo, MI 49008

STAMP

General Meeting Preview

The  tradi on  con nues!    Every  October  the  general mee ng  of  the  Kalamazoo  Astronomical  Society  is devoted  to  astrophotography,  the  art  of  photographing the  night  sky.  Over  the  years,  KAS  shu erbugs  have traveled to exo c places, ascended to dizzying heights, or just hung out at the Kalamazoo Nature Center and other locales, working the graveyard shi  with their  impressive array of camera gear. Now  they are  ready  to show  their ar s c wares. So come on out for what always proves to be one of our best mee ngs of the year! 

 

Friday, October 5 @ 7:00 pm

Kalamazoo Area Math & Science Center 600 West Vine, Suite 400 • Use Dutton St. Entrance

- Dutton Entrance Locked by 7:10 pm -