You Can Observe Every Night

By Bill Pellerin

Houston Astronomical Society

GuideStar Editor

On December 18, 2010, the Saturday night before the full moon that became the total lunar eclipse (that I didn’t see because of the clouds) I did some visual observations of interesting stars. In particular, these were carbon stars on the new Astronomical League Carbon Stars program. I didn’t expect to see much with the sky as bright as it was, and using a 3” telescope. Most amazing to me was the fact that I was able to see all but one of the stars on my observing list for the night. That is, I could see 7 of them, but not the 8th. Not bad. The fact that the sky wasn’t totally dark meant that the brighter star patterns were easy to see and match to the star patterns on the maps on my computer.

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The Astronomical Curmudgeon

Telescopes, not binoculars for newcomers

I’ve seen it said many times – ‘The best telescope for a newcomer is a pair of binoculars’. I disagree. The best telescope for a newcomer is, well, a telescope. At public star parties do the people who look through your telescope get excited about dim galaxies or about dim smudges of light? Of course not. You do, because you understand what you’re looking at.

The public gets excited about what they are seeing when it is nice and bright, and when you have a good story to tell about it. Saturn, Jupiter, and the Moon are the ‘wow’ objects for public star parties. After those, bright clusters (the Pleiades), a nice asterism (the coathanger) or a colorful double star (Albireo) are great public star party objects.

The telescope market has changed in the last few years and there are now quite a few choices of telescopes that are inexpensive. In fact you can get a 3” reflector with two eyepieces and a finder for under $50. With this, and other inexpensive telescopes the owner can see Saturn’s rings, the moons of Jupiter, the craters on the moon, and many bright nebulae and clusters.

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Outreach… Sharing the Sky

By Bill Pellerin

Houston Astronomical Society

GuideStar Editor

Don’t miss an opportunity to share the sky with someone. It helps swell the ranks of sky watchers, increases support for our shared goal of keeping the skies dark, and it introduces the public to an activity that can become a lifelong passion. How do you get started? This short article will give you a few ideas.

Venues

You will need to find venues for sharing the sky. Some amateur astronomers have been successful doing ‘sidewalk astronomy’ events. These involve setting up their telescopes in high foot traffic areas and inviting passers-by to look through their telescopes. These usually well-lit urban environments don’t provide dark skies, but the moon, the bright planets and other bright objects can be shared.

Other amateur astronomers have been successful bringing telescopes to organized events, to schools, to places of worship and so on. How do you connect your volunteer group to these events?

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Social Networking for Astronomers

By Bill Pellerin

Houston Astronomical Society

GuideStar Editor

You think that social networking on the Internet is only used by those who want to chit-chat about what they had for breakfast? Think again. Social networking covers a lot of ground and there is plenty of material that is of interest to astronomers. Think of this as a new mode of communications. We’ve had web sites and email for a while, but these communications capabilities allow astronomers, and others, to communicate with large groups of people in near real time.

A lot of astronomy clubs, including my home club – the Houston Astronomical Society, are working on attracting new members and are taking advantage of as many communication avenues as possible, including social networks. Professional observatories, working on public outreach as part of their mission, are also using social networking as a tool to communicate with other professionals and with the public.

These are great times for astronomy enthusiasts who want to keep up with what’s going on. The problem may be that there is too much information coming our way. You have to be selective about what you pay attention to. If you are a lunar and planetary observer, information on that subject may get your attention. If you are a double star observer, you will pay attention to information on that subject.

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The Astronomical League has received the sad word that Jack Horkheimer, Public Television’s  Star Gazer for 30 years, has died. 

He was a long time supporter of the League, including his sponsorship of the League’s Horkheimer Service and Horkheimer Youth Journalism awards.  In addition to being a giant in the planetarium field, many amateur astronomers were honored to hear him speak at various League ALCons, regional conventions and star parties.

He will definitely be missed.

Here is the link for the news story:

http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/08/20/1785361/star-gazer-host-jack-horkheimer.html

As Jack always said “Keep looking up”.

By Bill Pellerin
Houston Astronomical Society
GuideStar Editor

When amateur astronomers get together and talk about their telescopes, they usually discuss the aperture of the telescope first. Why? Because it is easy to determine, in fact, it is probably the parameter that is of most interest to knowledgeable telescope buyers.

Professional observatories make great efforts, and spend a lot of money, to increase the effective aperture of their telescopes. The Keck telescopes in Hawaii combine the light from two mirrors (two telescopes, really) providing an aperture of 280 feet and a resolution of 5 milli-arcseconds. At Mount Wilson, there is the Infrared Spatial Interferometer – three 65” telescopes, spaced up to 279 feet apart to get high-resolution infrared images.

The next most discussed parameter is focal ratio, which is stated as f/10 or f/5, whatever it is. This number defines the focal ratio, the aperture = the focal length (f) divided by the focal ratio. Or, the focal length = the aperture * the focal ratio. The focal ratio is of great importance to those who image the sky.

For example, a f/10 SCT (a common telescope in use by amateurs) of 8” diameter has a focal length of 10 * 8 = 80 inches. It is more common that the focal length is talked about in millimeters, so applying the correct conversion (1” = 25.4 millimeters) we get the focal length = 2032 mm. It’s peculiar that astronomers talk about diameter in inches and focal length in millimeters, but that is often the case.

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(Presentations to be made at National Convention in Tucson, Arizona)

(Kansas City, MO)–The Astronomical League is pleased to announce the top finishers in the competitions for its National Young Astronomers Award Program (NYAA) and the Jack Horkheimer Award Program.

The first-place winner in the NYAA program is Andrew Hitchner, Norristown, Pennsylvania. His project was entitled “A Study in Stellar Spectroscopy.” Tongji Li, Hershey, Pennsylvania, was awarded second-place in this competition for her work “Will Humans Become Extinct Like the Dinosaurs Did?” Third place was awarded to Erika Tinley, Tucson, Arizona, for “The Geometry of Active Galactic Nuclei as Evidenced by their Emission Line Spectra.” The first-place winner receives an all-expenses- paid trip to ALCon 2010, the national convention of the Astronomical League, being held in late June in Tucson, Arizona. The top three finishers receive beautiful plaques to commemorate their outstanding achievements. The NYAA is generously supported by Explore Scientific, which also provides one of its great telescopes to the first-place winner.

Other top finishers in the National Young Astronomer Award Program include Stephen Argentati, Tucson, Arizona; Gayathri Cheran, Burke, Virginia; Summer Emmons, Trussville, Alabama; Travis Le, Aica, Hawaii; Caroline Moore, Warwick, New York; Megan Parsons, Fowler, Michigan; Christina Ramsey, Humble, Texas; and Megan Rosenberger, Natrona Heights, Pennsylvania. All top NYAA finishers receive a one-year complimentary membership in the International Dark Sky Association, an organization devoted to protecting the night sky.

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The deadline for the Horkheimer Service awards program has been extended April 15.

If a member of your local astronomy club is under the age of 19  please encourage them to apply for the Jack Horkheimer awards. The Award is based upon service to the League, either directly or through service to any Astronomical League society. Service could be in the form of educational outreach, knowledge and skills at public star parties or other astronomical service.
 

Young astronomers can apply for both the National Young Astronomer Award and the Horkheimer Awards. The three awards are the Horkheimer/Smith Award, Horkheimer/Parker Award and the Horkheimer/D’Auria Award.
 

The winner of the Horkheimer/Smith Award will receive an expenses-paid trip to the 2010 Astronomical League Convention in Tucson, Arizona, a plaque presented at the convention’s awards banquet and a $1,000 cash prize. In addition, for the past several years, Celestron, Inc. has donated one of its fine telescopes to the Horkheimer winner. Top finishers for the Horkheimer/Parker Award and the Horkeimer/A’Auria Award also receive the $1,000 cash prize.

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