telescopes 87

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:

Life with Sweet

Charity

Uncle Rod

ou know, Charity, my littleETX 125PE whose coming toChaos Manor South I

reported on here a couple of years

back. How are the two of us gettinalong now that the honeymoon islong over? I get that question a lotlately, mainly because of recenthuge price reductions on this littleCAT, I reckonAstronomics.comwill sell you one for $698.00, just alittle more than half what I paid formine.Well, then, how about some ETXimpressions from this past

Memorial Day weekend? Ill admit Ihadnt had the scope out muchlately, but with that particularSaturday evenin looking iffy, butme wantin to see somethingfromour club dark site, it seemed like theperfect time to let Charity proveherself. Actually, there was more toit than that. This informal holidayweekend run would likely determineSweet Charitys fate. Would shestay? Or would she be listed on the

Astromart? I had let a cute lil 4-inchStellarvue ED refractor turn myhead, you seeHow wasthe weather down here inPossum Swamp over MemorialDay? Hazy, muggy, and warm (mid-seventies long after sunset). TheETX125 is easy enough to set-upand teardown, though, 5 - 10

minutes tops, that I didn't mindtaking a chance on not seeinnuttin honey. It did look as if thamight be the case; I drovethrough a fairly intensethundershower on the way out tothe club dark site near themetropolis of Tanner-WilliamsAlabama. By the time I'd arrivedunpacked, and schmoozed withthe three bubbas o' mine who'dshown up, the skies were lookinga littlebetter, howsomeever--ihardly perfect. While conditionswere far from ideal all eveningmy dark site getaway turned outto be well worth the trip. Hell, iwas worth the trip for Saturnalone. The seeing was very gooddespite poor transparency.Some o' the stuff Sweet Charityshowed me:Saturn. Yeah, seein was purtyhot even if transparency wasnt. A9mm Celestron "Circle T" Orthofrom way back when did a goodjob. As always, I was struck bythe way subtle disk details standout in this 5-inch MCT thanks toher good contrast. The N/Sequatorial belts--and othefeatures --are starkly visible. Noonly did I see Cassinis Divisiondespite the current ring aspect,

even glimpsed the Crepe ring.M13. Nice. Charity didn't give upmuch to a buddy's NexStar 8 SEIn fact, Charitys view of the GreatGlobular was slightly better, thought, with a darker background(at comparable magnifications)under these poor conditions--lotsa

DOWN HOME GumboAstronomy from Chaos

Manor South!

Number 87 (New Series)

In this Issue:

1

Sweet Charity!

2

Galileos Go-to!

3

Jacks Mini Reviews!

4

The Astro Club!

7

Space Place!

8

My Back Pages!

Skywatch1207 Selma StreetMobile, AL 36604U.S.A.

Y

Uncle Rod MollisesSkywatch


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light scatter from the light-dometo the east.NGC 6210. Well, I sawthe TurtleNebula, at least.M5. Again, my little friend didn't

give up much to the C8, and thisbig ol' grandpappy of a globlooked amazing.M92: Hercules' "also ran"globular star cluster was nearlyas good as Numbers 5 and 13.M10 and 12 were OK, but bothof these Ophiuchus globs werein a particularly yucky part of thesky all evening and not as nice

as they usually are.M82. When the haze thinned abit, I picked up a fair amount ofthis weird galaxys dark-lanedetail.

M3 and M53.These springglobulars bothshowed decentresolution.M80: well, itwas there,anyway. Thissmall, compact(Shapley Sawyer ClassVII) globulardoesnt oftenlet me seestars withanything lessthan the C11 ifconditions aintjust right.M4, the Cat'sEye Cluster,did indeedshow off its

cat's eye aspect.M68 is not often a standout, and inthese skies, it was only a dimmishfuzzball.M67: This aged galactic cluster has

always been one of my faves, andon this late spring night Iremembered to catch it before itplunged too far into the westernmurk.M65 and 66. I had a look at theseLeo showpiece galaxies in the C8"next door" first. They weren't thatobvious in the 8-inch, and werebarely there at times--but therenevertheless--in the ETX.

M105 and company. When thisarea of Leo was positioned in agood sucker hole, I was able to seenot just 105, but the brighter of itstwo companion galaxies. I eenimagined I saw a hint of NumberThree with averted visionquite afeat for a 5-incher on a poor night.

Omega Centauri was, by thetime I thought to go there, abou10 degrees above the truly ickysouthern horizon. The Mother oAll Globs appeared as a vaguebut large nebulous patch, nomuch worse than what it was inthe C8.M104: at times the galaxys dustlane was visible.M87. This monster elliptical wasvisible, sure, but dimmer than iusually is in this scope.M107: "BARELY there" in theETX125 orthe C8. I had toconvince myself I was reallyseeing this cluster in either scopeGhost of Jupiter (NGC 3242)this planetary was not only largeand bright, but showed off astrong robin's egg blue color. Theunexpected hit of the evenin.And so it went until the skiesclosed down completely at aboumidnightLet me add that every single

object I requested was in the fieldof the 26mm Meade Plssl after ago-to. I didn't obsess aboualignment. Didn't level the tripodjust plunked her down. Didn't pickspecial alignment stars. Merelydid an LNT Easy Align andaccepted whichever stars theAutostar came up with (Arcturusand Procyon). I diduse a 25mmcrosshair eyepiece to center thealignment stars, but that was the

only particular care I tookCertainly not everything was deadcenter in the eyepiece after go-tos, quite the opposite, bueverything wasin the Plsslsfield somewhere, from one side othe sky to the other.


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Some folks question anETX125PEs utility as a go-toscope what with all themcomputer alignments andAutostar button-pushin. Truthis, Easy Align makes this a verypractical scope for shortobserving sessions, though itwouldnt be my choice for a 5-minute glance at Miss Moonfrom the backyard. All thatsrequired to get the 125PE goinis to set the scope in a simpleHome Position that consists ofrotating the tube in azimuth acouple of revolutions till you hitthe hard stop. Once the o-n/o-f-f switch is switched to o-n, thescope does a little dance, findingnorth and leveling, and heads tothe first of two alignment stars(you dont have to enter time ordate; the battery-backed LNTmodule remembers all that).Center this star and the next onein the LNT red dot finder--much,much nicer than the insaneoptical finders of the old ETXes--and the scope is good to go.Eyepieces? One of the joys ofSweet Charity is that she is not

picky about eyepieces. I justslung a box of el cheapo 1.25-inchers in the car. In addition tothe supplied Meade 26mmPlssl, I used a 20mm Orion(Synta) Expanse, a 15mmExpanse, an 11mm Birdseye(Anacortes, 80 degree AFOV),and, as above, an ancient CircleT Celestron Ortho. None ofthese oculars cost more than 50bucks, give or take, but all

essentially offered pinpoint starsto the field edge--one of thebenefits that comes withCharitys f/15 focal ratio.Evenings like this (and vacationtrips) are why I bought CharityHope Valentine in the first place,and she again impressed me in

this role. You know what, though?The views she was delivering wereso good that I began to wonderwhat she might do at a real DARKsite. Maybe someday, you neverknow. Get rid of her? No way. Thelove affair continues. Two and ahalf years down the road, this littlescope is still Uncle Rod's Best Girl--or thinksshe is, anyway.

Galileos Go-to

Ken HutchinsonThe Prehistory of The TelescopeThe telescope had a curiously longgestation period and was mostlikely invented and reinventedseveral times by isolated individuals

before becoming generallyknown. The Iraqi astronomer Ibnal-Haytham wrote what isprobably the first book on opticatheory in 1020 AD. Positive glasslenses were used as magnifiers inEurope from the 11th centuryBoth Robert Grosseteste andRoger Bacon describe in their 13th

century writings devices thaappear to be

telescopesEyeglasses focorrecting fa

sightednesswere known inEurope from1290, perhapsearlier in ChinaEyeglasses withnegative lensesto correct nea

sightednesswere invented byNicholas of Cusain 1451. Thereare othe

documentedreports of peopleusing or making

telescopesduring these

years, foexample

Leonard Diggs inthe 16th century.In spite of thefact that thelenses requiredto make at leas

crude telescopes had beenavailable since the 11th centuryand all the pieces needed to

make the type of telescope thaGalileo popularized had beenavailable since at least 1451, thetelescope remained a one-ofdevice known to only a fewpeople until something happenedin October of 1608 in theNetherlands. Exactly what thasomething was is a bit of a


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mystery. Making a telescopefrom lenses that had been inspectacle maker's shops for 150years was child's play and,indeed, some believe it waschildren playing with lenses inthe shop of Hans Lippersheywho inspired his development ofa practical telescope. Two otherDutch spectacle makers,Zacharias Janssen and JacobMetius, were also exhibitingworking telescopes in public thatfall. We can't tell which of thethree might have been first, butit is apparent none of them weretruly the first and that anunknown number of people musthave done the same thing overthe previous 300 years. We doknow that Lippershey was thefirst to apply for a patent and thatthe Dutch government rejectedthe application because thedevice was, in their opinionm,too easily copied by other lensmakers!Galileo heard of this "new" Dutchdevice during a visit to Venice inMay of 1609. He claimed to havemade his own telescope within

two days of his return to Padua,confirming the judgment of theDutch patent examiners. Overthe next year, he madeprogressively better telescopesand used them to study the sky.In March of 1610 he publishedSidereus Nuncius, the firstscientific report on telescopicastronomy. His work in thefollowing years was so importantto astronomy that he is credited

with being the father oftelescopic astronomy; hebecame the spark plug for acrisis in the Roman CatholicChurch, and thus his namebecame attached to thetelescope that Lippershey,Janssen, and/or Metius haddeveloped.

Its been speculated that it was animprovement in lens-grindingtechnology that made the telescopea going concern starting in 1608,but Galileo reported he could findonly 3 acceptable lenses in a lot of300 that a local supplier deliveredto him, so perhaps that technology,if it existed, had not made its way toItaly by then.No matter how many unansweredquestions remain about the genesisof the telescope, one thing isclear;the fall of 2008 marks the 400thanniversary of the beginning of the"telescope age" and several othernotable 400th anniversaries relatedto the use of the telescope willoccur over the next two years. It isa good time to consider theconstruction of a replica of theseground-breaking instruments.Making Galileo's TelescopeI got the bug to build a Galileanscope because of a conversationabout building or buying theseinstruments on Cloudy Nights.There is a Dutch museum that sellsreplica kits, but only to people who

physically visit the museum, andthese kits are not really suitable forastronomy. There are onlinesources for kits that have the sameproblem; however, I wanted atelescope that could reproduce theastronomical sights that astoundedGalileo. I found the answer on TomPope's website:http://www.pacifier.com/~tpope/Additional_Info.htm#Additional_Info

This page is a treasure trove ofinformation on the topic. I copiedhis PVC pipe approach to makingthe OTA, and rather than duplicatehis instructions here, I will referthose interested in making theirown scope to the website. Tom alsodiscusses some alternatives such

as using cardboard tubes. What will do here is outline the designchoices I made, and note theconstruction differences betweenMr. Popes finished telescope andmine.The easiest way to make a replicaof Galileo's telescope is to dowhat Galileo did at least part ofthe time, and purchase the lensesfrom someone else. Somespeculate that he ground some ofhis own lenses, but it is certainthat he bought at least some ofhis lenses. The survivinginstruments attributed to Galileoconsist of two telescopes and alens in the Galileo Room at theMuseum of the History of Sciencein Florence, Italy. One of thetelescopes seems to have an eyelens from a later period andneither is definitely attributed toGalileo--although both are typicaof instruments from the periodThe lens, however, islikely thelens from Galileo's "OldDiscoverer" telescope he used todiscover the moons of Jupiter anddemonstrate they orbited thaplanet. This was the death knel

for the geocentric theory of theuniverse and the source oGalileo's trouble with the ChurchThis lens is the one I chose tocopy for my replica. It has anaperture of 58 mm and a focalength of 1700 mm. Based on thesuggestion of Pope's web site used Opto Sigma as my lenssupplier and their 50 x 1500 mmplano convex lens, 011-3384, asmy objective.

The eye lenses in the twomuseum telescopes are close to20 mm in diameter so I adoptedthat as my eye lens diameter. AGalilean telescope is just like amodern telescope in that themagnification equals the objectivefocal length divided by the


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eyepiece focal length. Galileoused up to 32x for hisobservations and stated in hisnotes that at least 20x would beneeded to reproduce them.Looking at the Opto Sigmacatalog, I saw they had a 50 mmplano-convex lens that wouldgive me 30x and an 80 mmplano-convex lens that wouldgive 19x, so I ordered one ofeach. These are part numbers015-0140 and 015-0146respectively. All this glass set meback $82.75 with shipping.My design only approximatesGalileo's Old Discoverer; it is theclosest I could come with theOpto Sigma lenses. There is noparticular reason to expend a lotof effort to approach it any closerunless you are trying to make amuseum quality replica.

I made my tube out of PVC pipewhich is easily obtained at anyhome center or hardware storein the United States. I used a 50-inch length of 2-inch pipe for themain body of the telescope. Imade two eye lens draw tubes16-inches long from 1.5-inchpipe. You wrap the drawtubeswith duct tape in two places to

build them up to a smoothfriction fit in the main tube. Foran objective cell, I used a 2-inchto 1.5-inch adapter and I boredout the 1.5-inch side on a latheto allow the objective to fit. Onthe drawtubes, I mounted a 1.5-inch coupling sleeve and into theopen end of this I nested adapterbushings until I reached a size

compatible with my eye lenses. Ithen did some more lathe work tomake cells for the eye lenses. Iended up buying $12.00 of pipe,fittings, and duct tape for the projectand I have some of the pipe and alot of the duct tape left over. Thelathe work is something I chose todo because I wanted to. Tom Popediscusses alternative methods ofmaking the lens cells that dontrequire a lathe. With some creativityand a sharp hobby knife you couldmake the cells from cardboard.

The white interior of PVC pipemakes a terrible telescope tubebecause it reflects stray light sowell. I spray painted mine with thelens cells attached by blowing paintfrom a spray can into one end andthen the other a few times. Isprayed all the components of mylens cells at the same time as therest of the tubes, and this was amessy mistake as theaccompanying photographs show.It workedbut if you paint and makefancy turned lens cells like I did,you should mask off the areaswhere the lenses and mountingcomponents go. Paint them later byhand with a hobby brush; I wish Ihad done it that way.One thing that might take you bysurprise is that the drawtube makesa nice piston in the well-sealedcylinder formed by the rest of theOTA. I knew this, and was trying tohandle everything gingerly until Igot around to drilling some ventholes in the drawtube, but I stillmanaged to launch my precious

objective halfway across thebasement once by moving thedrawtube in too quickly! Luckily, acardboard box broke its fall, andeven though it ended up on theconcrete floor it emergedunscathed. You can see one ofthe vent holes I drilled in thedrawtube in the photo where I amholding the spare drawtube. Thephotos illustrate pretty well how made my telescope, which, afteall, is a pretty simple device.Walking in Galileo's ShoesGiven that he made his firstelescope within two days of hisreturn to Padua, Galileo's firsnight under the stars may havebeen similar to mine. I just hadeverything rough fitted togetherThere was PVC dust still in thetubes and fingerprints and moredust on both lenses. I lashed thewhole affair semi-securely to acamera tripod and had at it. Thefirst thing that will strike you asyou turn it on terrestrial targetswhile you wait for night to fall isthat the apparent field of view istiny. People like to say that Abbe

Orthoscopic eyepieces have asoda straw-like AFOV. You don'know what a soda straw view isuntil you look through a Galileantelescope! Pope gives the mathon his website and I haven't duginto it yet, but I read elsewherethat the

apparent field is equal to theangle subtended by your eye'spupil at the distance between itand the objective. So that would


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be roughly the inverse tangent of7mm/1500mm for my telescopeor 16 arc minutes!

This will not seem so bad in thedaytime. You sight along thetube, compare what you seethrough the eyepiece with whatyou see with your naked eye,and you can quickly home-in onyour target. When you do that,

the view you get is as clear anddetailed as you would expectfrom a modern telescope. Thereis chromatic aberration, howcould there not be with twosimple lenses made from thesame glass? It doesn't preventyou from seeing far more thanyour naked eye reveals on adistant target, though. As youstudy a daytime target youquickly discover another quirk of

the Galilean telescope. Theapparent field is small, but thetotal true field you see in thetelescope is fairly generous. Youjust have to move your eyearound and that tiny circle ofvisible image pans around thetarget allowing you to see a totalarea many times the size of theimage circle. It is like viewing theworld by peering through aknothole in a fence.

At night that tiny AFOV becomesa major impediment to findingtargets. I was out for an hourwith this scope the first night,and in that time I succeeded inobserving only three targets, andtwo of those were stars topractice and focus on. It took memany tries and many minutes to

get the hang of pointing thetelescope accurately and holding itsteady with my rickety connectionto the tripod. Eventually, I felt readyto try for Saturn. A little morefiddling with the aiming while sittingon the ground due to the length ofthis OTA, and then my heartstopped. There it was! A tiny,unmistakable disk floating in thelittle scopes miniscule image circle.Could it be? Yes, Saturn appearedto have "ears"! This is it; this is thething that started a revolution.Surprisingly, there is virtually noinformation on how Galileomounted or aimed his telescopes,but one night under the stars wasenough to prove to me that he musthave had workable solutions forboth problems to be able to makethe observations he made. Mysolution was that I would put aVixen dovetail for my ASGT mounton the tube when I did the finalassembly of it, and that I would usemy second drawtube to holdmodern positive eyepieces andswap the negative eye lenses inand out of the other drawtube whenI wanted to change powers in

Galilean mode.Positive eyepieces give you a muchlarger AFOV; the telescopebecomes a conventional refractorwhen used with a modern eyepiece.Historians speculate that thenegative eye lens was prized for itsday. The tremendous AFOVadvantage of a positive eye lenstook a few years to be recognized,but it eventually became the

standard for "astronomical"telescopes. Later, erecting lensesallowed the use of positive eyelenses for terrestrial telescopes too.My second night out with the now-completed Galilean telescope wentmore smoothly. I had bothconventional eyepiece capability for

finding purposes, and a decentsupport. With the scope placed onmy computerized CG5 GEM, ibecame a Galilean go-to on amount so sophisticated as to bebeyond Galileos wildest dreamsClean lenses and a blackenedtube did not hurt either. Findingtargets was no longer a problemand once found they can be heldin view indefinitely. Saturn wasas before, a disk with a hint ofears. A nearly full moon was outhis time. Unfortunately, theterminator was nearly on the limbDespite that, there were a fewlarge craters that were nicelyhighlighted by oblique lightingQuite sufficient to show that thisperfect (by doctrinal decreeheavenly orb was not perfectafter all. Normal low contrastdetails could also be seen acrossthe face of the moon.Once again, even a brief view isenough to give you a sense of thefeeling that Galileo must have hadupon viewing the moon for thefirst time. My intention is to try toduplicate as many of hisobservations as I can over the

next two years, and that is why took some pains to replicate hisrefractor fairly closely. I want tosee what hesaw, and the earlyindications are that this telescopedoes that very well. I'll also turn iton some favorite targets ofmodern astronomers to see whait can do with them--knowing thathey are there gives me a big legup on Galileo. I'm not planning todevote my observing life to this

effort, but I do think that it will bean enjoyable and rewardingadjunct to my normal observing.You might think modern opticsare vastly better than anything hecould have made or bought, buas Tom Pope discusses on hispage, this does not seem to be


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the case. By hand-selecting onlythe best samples from large lotsof lenses, Galileo was able to getoptics that were up to the task he

set them to. Even the refractiveproperties of his glass and itsclarity compare well with the BK7used in my Opto Sigma lenses.The resolutions he obtained canbe inferred from his observingnotes, and they comparefavorably with the limits set bythe aperture he used. His Old

Discoverer objective is larger thanmine, but the evidence is that hestopped it down to 38 mm clearaperture. Most telescopes of this

era are similarly stopped down.Lens production techniques of theday tended to produce large edgedefects--though the lens centerscould be quite good. Aperture stopswere used then, as today, toeliminate the effects of a turnededge!

There are half measures youcould take to sample the Zen othe Galilean telescope with lesseffort. You can certainly run amodern telescope in Galileanmode and stop it down to a 38mmaperture. All you need is anegative eye lens to convert aconventional telescope to aGalilean. An old, cheap eyepiececarcass could hold a negativelens from Opto Sigma or anothesource and give you 20-30x withthe telescope of choice. A shorterpossibly lower power, telescopemade as Tom Pope describes wilillustrate many of the principlesand "features" of the Galileantelescope, and could work well asa prop for talks and meetings.With the 400th anniversary of themodern era of astronomyapproaching, I think we all shouldspend some time trying to viewthe universe through the eyes ofthe first telescopic astronomerSomething as simple as a 38mmaperture stop and an eyepiecethat gives 30x will do just thatGive it a try in memory of the manwho founded the pursuit we love.

Jacks Mini-

ReviewsJack FoxDiscover the Moonby JeanLacroux & Christian Legrand,Cambridge University Press

2003, soft cover, 9 x 7-inches143 pages.


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As books on the Moon go, thisone is most unique in itsconcept. Besides having abright yellow and blue cover,making it easy to spot day ornight, the Lunar images are

presented both as seen in arefractor/catadioptric scopeequipped with a star diagonal(mirror reversed) andas inNewtonian telescope (inverted)on facing pages.The book begins with a chapteron its use, which is followed withexplanations of Moon astronomybasics. Next, it moves intoequipment, when and how to

observe, and, finally, basicastrophotography and electronicimaging.The main body of the book isdevoted to observing the Moonnight by night starting after thenew Moon and ending with thefull. Each photo of the Moonsphase has a compass/telescopeicon to let you know whichtelescope orientation you are

looking at. The inside front andback covers have a full photo ofthe full Moon in the properorientation for each view. Eachphases image has boxes withnumbers highlighting the mostinteresting features of thatevenings view. The textcorresponds to the numbersgiving you a written description

of the numbered feature. A yellowbox in the lower right side page liststhe features numerically for a quickglance of the nights highlights. Inaddition, most pages have a bluebox giving interesting bits of lunarinformation.The last chapter deals withobserving the Moon in its waninggibbous phase with pagereferences as to which photosmatch from the waxing phasesfeatured in the main body of thebook. The book concludes with alist of lunar resources and a modestglossary of terms.This book was originally publishedas Decouvrir la Lunein French in2000, and translated into English byCambridge University Press. This isoccasionally evident as somecaptions are still in French. My onlymajor complaint is that I wish it wasspiral bound so that it would lay flatat the observing table.Nonetheless, this is an outstandingbook for Lunar-tics who cant getenough of our nearest celestialneighbor.

A Dictionary of Modern StarNamesby Paul Kunitzsh & TimSmart, Sky Publishing, 2006, 2ndedition, soft cover, 5 x 8 1/8-inches, 68 pages.

Originally published in 1986 asAShort Guide to Modern StarNames and Their Derivationsin

Germany, this book has an OldWorld look and feel to it. Thepaper stock has an almostnewsprint quality and an antique-looking type face. It is like a reathrough the 101 Arabian Nightswith all the references to Arabicand Greek origins andmythologies.The introduction explains thecorrect pronunciation, derivationsand origins of the names used forthe 254 stars in the book. It alsincludes a brief time-line, andexplains how the names werechanged or reinterpreted in eachtime. Charts on how variouslanguages pronounce theivowels assist you as you readthrough the book.The main section is broken downby constellations and by the majorstars, which are listedalphabetically with theicorresponding Greek letters. Thstar names only are also listedalphabetically in the index at theend of the book.In each chapter, the stars listed

have their pronunciations(sometimes multiple) to the righof their names, and also aparagraph or two giving you thehistorical significance and thederivation (if any) of the star plusany other interesting fact abouthe star.This book is not intended tofurther your general astronomicaknowledge, but to educate you on

name origins of these celestialights. It is a nice referencesource and the information can beentertaining should the topic ostars come up in you nextconversation.Double Stars for SmalTelescopesby Sissy Hass


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Sky Publishing, 2006, 173pages, size: 8 x 11-inches.

This clearly-written book coversthe basic information needed tounderstand the attraction doubleand multiple stars have for theamateur astronomer and, mostimportantly, how to find them.Reading the introduction, yourealize that the author has anexcellent understanding of hersubject matter andcommunicates it well to thereader. This shows in her abilityto explain and keep my attention(no easy task). Her explanationsand examples kept my interestand made me want to startobserving immediately. Thecharts and graphs includedillustrate very well the technicalaspects of observing, withdetailed descriptions of the manysubtle colors of the stars as theyappear to the eye through thetelescope. The explanationsillustrate how stars aremeasured by magnitude, color,

temperature and separation. Ahandy chart is printed on how farapart the stars will be separatedin various scopes by theiraperture.An easy to understand legend infront of the first catalog pagehelps you locate your target. The

catalog is organized byconstellations. With each star youare given the right ascension,declination, name, year, positionangle, separation, magnitude,spectral type, status and observerscomments. Most comments, madeby contributing astronomers,include the aperture and power ofthe telescope used.Sissy Hass show us how to gain yetmore pleasure from our scopes inobserving the unlimited beauties ofour universe. This is a referencebook I will keep close by for one ofthose leisurely nights where I amnot rushed to find yet anotherchallenging object before it movesout of sight, but can instead enjoythe beautiful multi-colored lights ofthe heavenly Christmas tree.Patterns in the Skyby KenHewitt-WhiteSky Publishing, 2006, soft cover,size: 6 x 9-inches, 98 pages.

Ive been having fun with astronomyfor the past 17 years, but still

consider myself a novice. That iswhy I get excited about new bookswritten for astronomy-challengedpeople like me. Patterns in the Skyby Ken Hewitt-White is just such abook. It was one of the first in aseries of books sold in conjunctionwith Sky Publishings now-discontinued but excellent Night

Sky Magazine, which was aimedat beginning and intermediate-level astronomers.The introduction gives the readera concise overview of basicastronomy with colorfuillustrations that make it easy tounderstand. It contains a list constellations and stars you wilbe viewing throughout the yearand two fold-out star chartscovering all four seasons. Thebook is organized by seasonswith the best objects visible beingshowcased. Each seasonschapter contains interesting astro-facts, mythology, charts, photosand diagrams to help the studenfind those objects in the sky. Thebook concludes with a helpfuglossary and resourceinformation.You dont need a large telescopeor huge binoculars or vastknowledge of the sky to use thisbook to find celestial wondersThis is entry-level astronomydirected at the masses, but canbe a stepping stone to a greaterunderstanding of the stars.

The Great

American

Astronomy

Club

Uncle RodHow about it? What is the state ofthe great American astronomyclub? What do Ithink? Its inconsiderably better shape at thisjuncture than I figgered it wouldbe. For a while there, I--and quitea few other members of theamateur astronomy chattering


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classes--believed the non-virtualastronomy club was dead. Whatwith sci.astro.amateur (s.a.a.),Cloudy Nights, Astromart, andthe Yahoogroups ridin high 24hours a day, who needed thatboring monthly meeting down tothe school, college, sciencemuseum, whatever?Reality has turned out to be alittle different than we imagined itwould back in those heady daysof the new amateurastronomyInternet amateurastronomyin the mid-1990s.For one thing, s.a.a. has more orless imploded at this point,having been taken over by trollsand nutcases. Sure, the otherabove-mentioned I-net venuesare insanely popular in a modestamateur astronomy sort of way.B-U-T. But many of us havediscovered virtual doesnt quitefill the bill club-wise.Nice as the online hangouts maybe (Cloudy Nights forums areelegantly functional and veryactive places), you cant goobserving with most of your

Astromart forum buddiesordrinking afterwards with yourYahoogroups chumsand, moreimportantly, the InternetAstronomy club doesnt fosterthe public outreach thats thelifes blood of our hobby.Some new amateurs do comeonboard our avocation afterstumbling across SCT-User orTalking Telescopes online, but

most Newbies still come thesame old way they always have:after a look through a scope atAstronomy Day or a public stargaze. If for no other reason,thats why the Americanastronomy club must and shallsurvive.

Some Random Observations (thatfit every club Ive ever belonged to,and Ive belonged to a fewover thelast 40 years):

--Uncle Rods Club Law: No matterwhat the size of your membership,multiply that number by 0.1 if youwanna know how many folks willshow up at a club star party, apublic outreach sessionor anyother non business-meetingfunction. I used to worry about this,but have come to realize that its aconstant that will never change.The Gravitational Constant of theAstronomical Society, I guess.

--Ever notice the same people whocomplain about the cost ofAstronomical League dues are alsothe first to complain if their issue ofThe Reflectoris a day late?

--You also have to wonder if thisbunch readsThe Reflectorwhen itarrives, as theyre alsothe oneswho, when the dues discussioncomes around (again), make itknown loudlythat they have no ideawhat the League does.

--There is a place for armchairastronomers in every club. But Ialways wonder about a mindset thatfinds business meetings andRobert's Rules of Ordermoreinteresting than telescopes.

--Amateur astronomy is not theprivate preserve of middle-agedgeeks. When that brand-new andyoung novice shows up at ameeting, enthusiastic and full of

innocent questions, make her/himfeel WELCOME. Dont do as manyamateurs Ive known do and glowerand start talking about UGCgalaxies and Strehl ratios. Smileand TRY to answer the time-honored question, Which is better,the Meade or the Celestron?"

--When was the last time you tooka good look at your membership?Is it all middle-aged white males?If this hobby is to grow or evenmaintain an even keel, we MUSTtake it to women and minorities.

--And when was the last time youraised your hand? To volunteer todo a program for the nexmeeting? To serve as an officer?To chair a committee?

--All business and no fun makesfor dull clubs. Deadly dull. Onething we do down here in PossumSwamp is hold at least onemeeting a year in a nicerestaurant and eat and drink intothe wee hours. Believe you meafter a few bourbons you'll cometo know your fellow membersmuchbetter.

--You know that guy at your clubwho annoys the hell out of you?You annoy him just as much.

--Why is it (Andy Rooney modeON) that those people who lobbythe most for a dark/darker clubobserving site are the same ones

who would never dream oshowing up at said site toobserve?

--Doing too much (as a club) canbe as bad as doing too little. Stopand smell the roses once in awhile.--Finally, I will say it again, if youclub does nothing else, takeadvantage of every public

outreach opportunity that comesalong. Even just a 15 minute talkand a peep at Mr. Sun at the locaschool. These little presentationsmake ripples, and you neverknow how far they will spread. Iis not too much to say the futureof amateur astronomyandmaybe even professiona


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astronomydepends on yougettin your butt down to theCherry Street Elementary Schoolway-too-early on a Monday.I could go on, but my gutfeeling? The Astronomy Club willsurvive ifwe want it to and ifwework at it. Now, get out there anddo that!

Ozone, the

Greenhouse

GasWe all know that ozone in thestratosphere blocks harmfulultraviolet sunlight, and perhapssome people know that ozone atthe Earth's surface is itselfharmful, damaging people'slungs and contributing to smog.But did you know that ozone alsoacts as a potent greenhouse

gas? At middle altitudes betweenthe ground and the stratosphere,ozone captures heat much ascarbon dioxide does.In fact, pound for pound, ozoneis about 3000 times stronger asa greenhouse gas than CO2. Soeven though there's much lessozone at middle altitudes thanCO2, it still packs a considerablepunch. Ozone traps up to one-

third as much heat as the betterknown culprit in climate change.Scientists now have anunprecedented view of this mid-altitude ozone thanks to aninstrument aboard NASA's Aurasatellite called the TroposphericEmission SpectrometerTESfor short.

Most satellites can measure onlythe total amount of ozone in avertical column of air. They can'tdistinguish between helpful ozonein the stratosphere, harmful ozoneat the ground, and heat-trappingozone in between. By lookingsideways toward Earths horizon, afew satellites have managed to

probe the vertical distribution ofozone, but only to the bottom of thestratosphere.Unlike the others, TES canmeasure the distribution of ozoneall the way down to the heat-

trapping middle altitudes. "Wesee vertical information in ozonethat nobody else has measuredbefore from space," saysAnnmarie Eldering, DeputyPrincipal Investigator for TES.The global perspective offered byan orbiting satellite is especiallyimportant for ozone. Ozone is

highly reactive. It is constantlybeing created and destroyed byphotochemical reactions in theatmosphere and by lightning. Soits concentration varies fromregion to region, from season toseason, and as the wind blows.


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Data from TES show thatozone's heat-trapping effect isgreatest in the spring, whenintensifying sunlight andwarming temperatures fuel thereactions that generate ozone.Most of ozone's contribution tothe greenhouse effect occurswithin 45 degrees latitude fromthe equator.Increasing industrialization,particularly in the developingworld, could lead to an increasein mid-altitude ozone, Elderingsays. Cars and coal-fired powerplants release air pollutants thatlater react to produce moreozone."There's concern that overallbackground levels are slowlyincreasing over time," Elderingsays. TES will continue tomonitor these trends, she says,keeping a careful eye on ozone,the greenhouse gas.Learn more about TES and thescience of ozone attes.jpl.nasa.gov/. Kids can get a

great introduction to good ozoneand bad ozone atspaceplace.nasa.gov/en/kids/tes/gases.This article was provided by theJet Propulsion Laboratory,California Institute ofTechnology, under a contractwith the National Aeronauticsand Space Administration.

.


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My Back PagesCrimson flames tied through my ears

Rollin' high and mighty trapsPounced with fire on flaming roads

Using ideas as my maps"We'll meet on edges, soon," said I

Proud 'neath heated brow.Ah, but I was so much older then,

I'm younger than that now.

Club Notes: News of the MobileAstronomical Society

Whats happenin down yonder at your friendly,

neighborhood astro-club? Some newsbytes from the

MAS:

Alas, were continuing our tradition ofclouded-out public star gazes. We attemptedone for the Mobile Police Departments CampGrace youth project. Good turnout by themembership considering the fact that there

were clouds everywhere by sunset. Viewing?None. We hope to work with the MPD onfuture projects, however.

As for our Members Only Star Parties, weveactually been fairly lucky. No, conditionshavent always been good, but weve seen a loto stuff this spring. Never been to one, butwant to try your scope under dark skies? The

only requirement for attendance is that you bea paid-up MAS member. Contact any of yourclub officers: George, Rod, Judy, and Martinfor details.

Bad news time. Not only is the execrable Beavis and

Butthead show back on the air, the two imbeciles

have been HELD BACK for yet another year in high

school (they must be in their thirties by now).

Soexpect more huh-huh/heh-heh foolishness for the

foreseeable future.

HEY, YOU IDIOTS. WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH

THAT MAYO JAR. YEAH, THE ONE KEPT ON

FUNK AND WAGNALS PORCH FOR A

FORTNIGHT. YOUD BETTER NOT THROW--

RUMOURSWanna learn all about Celestron? As I have saidmany times, theres no better place to do that than inthe pages of Robert Piekiels fantastic e-book,Celestron: The Early Years. How do you get it? Hereit is straight from the horses mouth:People interested in purchasing my Celestron: TheEarly Years CDROM can email me direct [email protected]. I regularly advertise it on


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Astromart, but there are lot of readers out there whodon't use Astromart. Thanks, Bob Piekiel.Youre welcome, Bob. My opinion? And Uncle Rodsopinion? Every SCT-using amateur NEEDS this book!More Meade worries. While the recent teleconferencecall sounded hopefulthe Meade bunch even said theyhave a new telescope product coming in the nextfew months (apparently beginner-oriented)--its hardto know how much stock to put in such optimism.Meades stock is, in fact, now trading below $1.00 ashare, and if it doesnt climb soon, the company will bede-listed. Which doesnt sound good to me. Othernews from the fone-call? All production is now inMexico (high end products) and China (ETX andeverything else). Meade worldwide personnelheadcount is down to 250. It is hoped the companywill break-even next year.The most interesting news from Celestron aintabout Celestron. The company, at parent Syntasbehest, has cranked-up Sky-Watcher U.S.A. to sellmore Synta scopes and accessories under the Sky-Watcher brand name, including the new flex-tubeDobbies and Sky-Watcher branded SCTs mounted onSyntas EQ5 (see page 12). One thing the AnonymousOne noted on the companys website: the 11-inch SCTis much more expensive than its C11-SGT (CG5mounted) twin. Its over THREE GRAND. Misprint?Dunno. The same price is quoted in the Sky-Watcherads in the current issue ofSky and Telescope. People

are wondering what impact Sky-Watcher U.S.As birthwill have on Orion. My guess? None. Synta is only toohappy to sell its gear under as many nameplates as itcan. I hardly think theyll yank their stuff from the BigO.Speaking ofSky and Telescope, we were distressed tolearn that MR. SKY AND TELESCOPE, ExecutiveEditor Kelly Beatty, is leaving because his position hasbeen eliminated. Real bad move on your part, NewTrack Media. With all astronomy magazines having ahard time at the moment, getting rid of somebody with

more than thirty years of experience at Sky andTelescope is NOT smart. Sigh.Problems in LX90 land. The LX90, which hasheretofore been one of Meades most problem freetelescopes, is causing a lot of frustration for newowners. During normal alt-azimuth tracking, manyLX90 users, including recent purchaser MikeWeasner, are reporting significant vibration/image

movement in declination/altitude. The scope jumps.Initially, Meade was replacing 90s, but is now offeringto repair them instead, since replacement scopes allappear to suffer the same affliction. Stay tuned andwatch the LX90 Yahoogroups before purchasing thisusually sweet scope. Meade needs to jump on thisJUMP with both feet or risk creating lots of new CPC800 customers.The other famous Chinese (Taiwanese) scope

maker, GSO, is moving on a couple of fronts. First,with a new series of truss-style Dobsonians, which areto be sold initially by Zhumel and Astronomics. Thisscope line, which includes an inexpensive 16-inch,appears poised to create some real competition fortroubled Meades LightBridges. Even cooler is apopular-priced Ritchey-Chrtien (in 6 and 8-inchapertures for now) which is to be sold, like the Dobs,by Astronomics. How popularly priced? For theunheard of fares (for RCs) of 1295 and 2995 USgreenbacks, respectively.Synta aint hatching any RCs that I know of, but theydo have the new truss-style Flex Tube Dobbies.Yeah, I know, flex aint a particularly promisingname for a scope, but according to the folks whoveused them, these 8, 10, and 12-inch (no 16-inch)scopes are solid. The flex part refers to the fact that,when used as intended, the upper cage and truss tubesare not removed for transport, but collapsed, leaving acompact and quickly assembled package. When willthese be seen these in the U.S.? Until the other day Id

have said dont hold your breath, but with thecoming of Sky-Watcher USA, Ive changed that tosoon.--The Anonymous Astronomer

The Wrap-UpA little thin this time, you say?

Well, yeah. You know why, doncha?

Because YOU ALL didnt contribute

enough stuff. If you read this herelittle newsletter regularly, and want

to see it continue, resolve to

contribute somethinga cartoon, a

review, an image, a star party

reportto the Fall issue. OK, soapbox

mode off. See yall then. Keep them

Naglers dry.

--The Skywatch Gang

telescopes 87

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