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Club Address:
65-1158 Mamalahoa Hwy.
Kamuela, HI 96743
An electronic publication of The West Hawaii Astronomy Club -
Club Officers:
Co-Presidents:
Craig Combes,
Craig Nance,
Doug Summers
Secretary:
Laura Kinoshita
With Support From:
Canada-France Hawaii Telescope and
W. M. Keck Observatory
This website is currently maintained by
Doug Summers
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March 2006 Club Meeting Report
Agenda:
| | Welcome / Greetings |
Pierre Martin/All |
10 min |
| Show and Tell |
TBD |
TBD |
| The Sky This Month |
Scott Hartman |
15 min |
| Virgo Cluster discussion |
Pierre Martin |
20 min |
| Messier Marathon discussion |
Doug Summers |
10 min |
| Jupiter's Red Spot discussion |
Pierre Martin |
5 min |
| Club Business |
TBD |
TBD |
| Open Discussions/Socialization/Fun! |
All |
Finish by 9:00pm |
The March meeting was held at CFHT. Pierre Martin conducted the meeting.
During the Show & Tell portion of the meeting, Craig Combes showed off a new short tube, 80 mm refractor (actually belonging to Carlton Lane) made by Astro-Tech (Astronomy Technologies). This new telescope costs $379 plus shipping. Craig and Carlton are going to take it with them on a southern adventure in the near future. Of particular note is this telescope's dual focusing capability (including an 11/1 fine focus), rotating focuser element, and retractable dew shield. It's a very nice travel scope.
Also during the "Show & Tell" time, Pierre showed off a very nice star almanac, HB AstroAtlas, which costs about $120 and is very handy as a desk reference and/or for those who don't use or like computers for charting functions.
Carlton also shared some images of a solar eclipse corona and 47 Tuc, and talked a bit about his upcoming trip south to view the southern sky. Craig may take his 16 with them?
Scott Hartman spoke on the topic of the SKY tonight. He mentioned that Craig Nance provided the material for the slide show, and that he was doing the subject as a favor in exchange for Craig giving a talk (on the same night) to his old astronomy club in Philadelphia.
Craig is actually on a mirror making conference trip!
The night sky charts (morning and evening) were discussed, and several interesting Messier objects were pointed out. The "focus" object for this section of the meeting was the Orion Nebula.
Scott described the nebula in detail and included some Hubble and Keck images of proplyds. Proplyds are star forming shells of condensing gas and dust that range in shapes and sizes, often containing disks of material with exotic processes including polar jets. The Orion nebula contains many proplyds in its large "star factory". The constellation Orion is slowly escaping our night skies, but will still be around for another 3 months or so before giving way to the scorpion who rules the summer sky.
Doug Summers provided an additional Sky Tonight discussion of two interesting comets visible in the night skies currently. These are C2006/A1 (Pojmanski), and 73P-C/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3.
Of particular interest is the latter comet. It has broken into 7 subcomponents, and 2 of these are expected to reach naked-eye brightness in the May timeframe.
All 7 are expected to reach telescopic brightness as shown in the light curve profiles (available on our website links under weekly update on comets).
The sight of parallel naked eye comets will surely catch the eye of the press in the near future; it has the makings to be an awesome event to watch unfold in the May timeframe. The comets are going to pass by the earth at a near 0.08 AU. While that's not exactly earth-grazing, it's still relatively close providing an opportunity for interesting viewing. It remains to be seen how much (if any) of a tail these objects will create, and/or whether the comet fragments will be a "bust" as so many comets turn out to be. Only time will tell, so stay tuned.
Pierre provided the night's talk on the subject of the Virgo cluster. This cluster is very important to astronomers because of its close proximity, large variety of galaxy types (Edwin Hubble used the Virgo cluster extensively to create the tuning fork classification scheme), and interesting physical characteristics.
The location of the core was described relative to Leo and the "bowl" of Virgo. The Virgo cluster has at least 3 major centers of activity centered around M86, M87, and M49. M87's active jet was shown, and its globular clusters were said to number about 1000 (as compared to the Milky Way's 150 or so).
These elliptical galaxies are all monsters, eating up dwarfs and anything else that gets too close to them.
The recent M100 type 1A supernova was shown and described, including its importance as a distance ladder indicator. M100's supernovae hasn't yet finished its light curve (the whole curve is needed to accurately measure the distance profile). When complete, the distance can be compared to other distance measurements (either confirming and/or creating more questions!)
Pierre also had a nice set of transparencies (shown after the meeting) of Schmidt plates centered around the Virgo core (extending to M100 on the North to M49 on the South. As big as the Virgo cluster is, it's still being sucked toward the "Great Attractor", a mysterious massive object towards the direction of Centaurus.
(As an afterthought, the scribe notes that a very nice recent article on the Great Attractor appears in UH News, showing that an even "Greater Attractor" lies further distant in the Shapely Supercluster).
Following the talk on the Virgo cluster, Doug shared some thoughts on the upcoming Messier Marathon. The club has previously had a talk on Messier and the history of these objects; this talk was on the "observer's perspective".
A nice chart of the Messier objects was shown (Images from the Grasslands Observatory...available in print via Sky & Tel and other outlets). Using the program "Where the Stars Are", Doug showed the early, mid, and late night horizon perspectives, and described what it's like to go through a marathon.
He also described his "go-to" marathon project consisting of 400 objects ordered in Messier Marathon style, and asked for anyone who was interested and able to view with their "go-to" telescope to call him so different sized telescopes could participate in evaluation of the list objects.
Everyone was encouraged to attempt a Messier Marathon at some point in time as a "rite-of-passage" to knowing the night sky and having the experience of seeing these objects first hand.
Pierre then gave a nice short topic talk on the newest "red spot" on Jupiter. This new spot is actually the combination of 3 older spots that used to be white! The details of why the spot has turned red are not well understood.
The object is visible to backyard astronomers though. The "old" red spot was described as well...this spot is about 400 years old (or older....). It is a huge storm (at least twice the diameter of the earth) with ferocious winds. The two red spots have different transit frequencies, and should be interesting to watch in the coming years.
The meeting concluded in time for discussions and a look at the Virgo cluster transparencies. At the end of the meeting, several items (a Subaru calendar, and a couple of software titles) were given away.
Thanks everyone for a great meeting! Clear skies!
Don't forget, this year's Messier Marathon activities will be held on the weekend of March 24 through March 26 (some of us have an extra day due to the Hawaiian holiday on the 27th).
The next WHAC meeting will occur on Tuesday April 11, 2006 at 7pm in the Hualalai conference room at Keck headquarters, hosted by Laura Kinoshita. See the club website for further details on the agenda.
At 6pm that evening many club members gather for the customary pre-meeting dinner at the Parker Ranch Food Court.
Previous meeting minutes:
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