PPrime Focurime Focurime Focuss A Publication of the Kalamazoo Astronomical SocietyA Publication of the Kalamazoo Astronomical Society

General Meeting: Friday, April 13 @ 7:00 pm

Kalamazoo Area Math & Science Center - See Page 12 for Details

Observing Session: Saturday, April 14 @ 8:00 pm

Venus & Saturn - Kalamazoo Nature Center

Astronomy Day: Saturday, April 21 @ 10:00 am

Kalamazoo Nature Center - See Page 4 for Details

Observing Session: Saturday, April 21 @ 8:00 pm

Venus, Saturn, & the Moon - Kalamazoo Nature Center

This Months This Months KAS EventsEvents

April 2007

Highlights of theHighlights of the April SkyApril Sky. . .. . .

-- -- -- 22ndnd -- -- -- Full MoonFull Moon

-- -- -- 33rd rd -- -- -- PM: Spica above Moon.PM: Spica above Moon.

-- -- -- 77thth -- -- -- AM: Antares left of Moon.AM: Antares left of Moon.

-- -- -- 88th th -- -- -- AM: Jupiter above Moon.AM: Jupiter above Moon.

-- -- -- 1010thth -- -- -- Dusk: Pleiades 3Dusk: Pleiades 3ºº right of right of Venus next 3 evenings.Venus next 3 evenings.

Last Quarter MoonLast Quarter Moon

-- -- -- 1313thth -- -- -- Dawn: Mars lower left of Dawn: Mars lower left of Moon.Moon.

-- -- -- 1717thth -- -- -- New Moon.New Moon.

-- -- -- 1919th th -- -- -- PM: Pleiades lower right, PM: Pleiades lower right, Venus upper left of Moon.Venus upper left of Moon.

-- -- -- 2020th th -- -- -- PM: Venus below Moon.PM: Venus below Moon.

-- -- -- 2121st st -- -- -- ASTRONOMY DAYASTRONOMY DAY

-- -- -- 2222nd nd -- -- -- PM: Pollux above Moon.PM: Pollux above Moon.

-- -- -- 2323rd rd -- -- -- AM: Lyrid meteor shower AM: Lyrid meteor shower (10(10--20 per hour).20 per hour).

-- -- -- 2424th th -- -- -- PM: Saturn left of Moon.PM: Saturn left of Moon.

First Quarter MoonFirst Quarter Moon

-- -- -- 2525thth -- -- -- PM: Saturn right, Regulus PM: Saturn right, Regulus left of Moon.left of Moon.

-- -- -- 2828th th -- -- -- Dawn: Uranus 1Dawn: Uranus 1ºº above above Mars next two mornings.Mars next two mornings.

-- -- -- 3030th th -- -- -- PM: Spica above Moon.PM: Spica above Moon.

www.kasonline.org

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

Board Meeting Minutes......................... p. 2

Observations........................................... p. 3

Astronomy Day 2007............................ p. 4

Observing Clubs..................................... p. 5

2007 Winter Star Party........................ p. 6

New Horizons Swings By Jupiter........ p. 8

NASA Space Place.................................. p. 9

April Night Sky........................................ p. 10

KAS Officers & Announcements........ p. 11

April 2007

The general meeting of the Kalamazoo Astronomical Society was brought to order by President Richard Bell on Friday, March 2, 2007 at 7:15 pm. Approximately 35 members and guests were in attendance at the Kalamazoo Area Math & Science Center (KAMSC). Our guest speaker for the evening was one-time KAS member and president, John Kirchhoff. John called his presentation High Resolution Lunar & Planetary Imaging - Recording More Than the Eye Can See. Before webcams were invented, high resolution planetary photography was a frustrating ex-perience. Webcams revolutionized planetary imaging because of their ability to take hundreds, even thousands of images in the span of a few minutes. These images could then automati-cally be stacked and aligned while simultaneously filtering out the moments of bad seeing. The result is planetary images so sharp they surpass the human eye. John showed us some of the webcams available today. The most popular model is the Philips ToUcam. Both Meade and Celestron make planetary imagers similar to webcams. Higher end models include CCD instruments from Atik and Lumenera. John then discussed other pieces of equipment required to produce sharp images. He uses a Celestron 9.25” Schmidt-Cassegrain on a German equatorial mount. He highly recommended a remote zero image-shift focuser, such as the ones produced by JMI. Ultra-violet and infrared cut-off filters were also recommended. Some of the factors for high resolution imaging are a precise collimation of the telescope and allowing ample time for your instrument to reach thermal equilibrium. John showed some amazing images of tube currents radiating out of his telescope. There are several types of software available today for stack-ing and aligning images. The most popular is RegiStax. The best part, besides the fact that it’s very powerful and easy to use, is that it’s FREE! John ended his presentation by show-ing some of his incredible images of the Sun, Moon, and plan-ets such as Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. Richard give his president’s report after the snack break. Vol-unteers are still needed for Astronomy Day. The robotic tele-scope imaging session is tentatively scheduled to take place on June 16th. A $5 participation fee is necessary to help off-set costs. The Coronado PST that the KAS just purchased was on display. It’ll be available for check-out soon. Don Stilwell mentioned that Webster Telescopes has invited KAS members to observe through some their giant Dobsonians. Observing will take place at the Lake Hudson Dark-Sky Pre-serve at the earliest opportunity. Contact Don for details. Other news items discussed included the New Horizons flyby of Jupiter (see page 8) and incredible new views of Saturn by Cassini. The meeting concluded at 9:02 pm.

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Board Meeting MinuteBoard Meeting MinuteBoard Meeting Minutesss

The KAS Board met on March 3rd at Sunnyside Church. President Richard Bell brought the meeting to order at 5:05 pm. All board members were present for at least part of the meeting (Jean DeMott, Dick Gillespie, Rich Mather, Dan Morgan, Jack Price, Dave Woolf, and Roger Williams). Rich Mather presented the Treasurer’s Report, which showed total current assets of $8,629.05. Income so far in 2007 in-cluded $1255 in dues, $75 in donations, $215 for Owl Obser-vatory Fund, and the $1,000 Pfizer grant obtained by Jean. Follow-up business items included the equipment check-out form being developed by Dave Woolf. Dave still needed in-formation about the accessory items to be listed on the form. Considerable discussion then ensued about the desirability of having KAS and Observing Session brochures printed in color. The original idea was to print the observing dates di-rectly on the brochure, but this leads to problems in estimating the number needed and possibly having extras to discard at year’s end. There was as yet incomplete information about the price structure for different numbers of copies. No deci-sion was made, but the cost appeared prohibitive at this time. In other previous business, Jack had bought the plexiglass required for a red-light sign, and he said that it would be built soon. Richard brought a proposal to buy a 55 mW green laser pointer (about $210) to help with the public star lectures. After a motion by Jean and a second by Dick, the Board voted unanimously to do this. A major item relating to Astronomy Day was the need to ob-tain Table Top Displays for the exhibits. Richard and Jean had located an internet bargain price of $98 for a tri-fold board with Velcro-attachment capability. Unfortunately, it was apparently too good a bargain and it had been discontin-ued by the time of the meeting. The alternatives located so far were closer to $250 in price. After further discussion, it was moved by Roger and seconded by Jack that a maximum of $1,000 be authorized for the purchase of three displays (this insures no net loss to the treasury, since the $1,000 can be recovered by Jean with the 2007 Pfizer grant). The motion passed 7-1 (Dick Gillespie gave the opposing vote). Participation by KAS members in the Air Zoo Scout Rally on the last weekend in August was endorsed. Jean reminded everyone of the kick-off for her 2007 Perpetual Plant Sale and asked anyone cleaning up flower beds to keep her in mind for donations. She also asked interested parties to join in a sub-group working on land acquisition, with a request for a 2-year commitment to allow for serious progress on the project. Be-cause of scheduling conflicts, the next meeting date was set for April 22nd, same time and place. Respectfully submitted by Roger Williams

March Meeting MinuteMarch Meeting MinuteMarch Meeting Minutesss

mailto:kirchhoff22 [at] tc3net [dot] comhttp://www.meade.com/lpi/index.htmlhttp://www.celestron.com/c2/product.php?CatID=50&ProdID=354http://www.telescope-service.com/atik/start/atikstart.htmlhttp://www.lumenera.com/astro/index.phphttp://www.jimsmobile.com/http://www.alpineastro.com/http://registax.astronomy.net/http://www.coronadofilters.com/products_pst.htmlhttp://www.webstertelescopes.com/mailto:stilwelldb [at] comcast [dot] nethttp://pluto.jhuapl.edu/http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/news/press-release-details.cfm?newsID=725

April 2007

Success! The KAS Saint Patrick’s Day Messier Marathon had the luck of the Irish. Skies were clear and the seeing was excellent. Not only did we bag some M objects, but we had some fantastic views of Venus and Saturn. Hopefully we’ll have a full report in next months edition of Prime Focus. The big news is that Robert Norton and Don Stilwell observed 109 of the 110 Messier Objects. They missed M30, which is very difficult to observe in the morning twilight at our latitude. This beats Mark Miller’s record of 103 set in 1999. By the way, the next St. Patty’s Day Marathon will be held in 2018. The “regular” Marathon will return next year. Let’s hope our good luck continues, because it’s time for another season of Public Observing Sessions and Astronomy Day! The first observing session of the month is on April 14th, the day after the general meeting (delayed one week due to the holiday weekend). We’ve been able to pull-off the first ses-sion of the season for the past two years now. Let’s hope the streak continues! Our biggest outreach and educational event of the year, Astronomy Day, is a week later on April 21st. Check out the poster on the next page for the complete sched-ule. Volunteers for the hands-on tables are still needed, so show some Astronomy Day spirit and sign-up now. Oh yes, we still need some 6 ounce tomato paste cans. Please bring what you’ve got to the April General Meeting. A special debut will take place on Astronomy Day (weather permitting). As you may have already read, the KAS pur-chased a Coronado Personal Solar Telescope (PST) and a Tele Vue Tele-Pod with the $1,000 grant we received from Pfizer (courtesy of Jean DeMott). We got a nice deal on a slightly used PST and Dan Morgan has generously donated the Tele-Pod head. Thank you, Dan! So, if you attend Astronomy Day, you’ll have a chance to take it for a spin. Once Dave Woolf creates a check-out form, the PST and Tele-Pod will be

available for loan to all members in good standing. If you’d like to learn more about the PST, check out the Test Report in the February 2005 issue of Sky & Telescope (page 96). If you’d like to take pictures of the Sun with the PST then read the article in the September 2006 issue of Sky & Telescope (page 100). Observing the Sun in Hα is a lot of fun and will only get better as we get closer to solar maximum! Finally, I have some sad news to report. Long-time KAS member Dr. William Carlson passed away on February 14th at the age of 80. Dr. Carlson was a Professor of Psychology at Western Michigan University. I first met Bill (as he was known to us) and his wife Inez in the Hans Baldauf Planetar-ium at the old Kalamazoo Public Museum. They regularly attended my shows and he always stayed after to chat about astronomy. I encouraged him to join the KAS and he attended his first meeting in November 1995. Bill was a regular attendee at our general meetings after 1995 and, like at the old planetarium, would always be sure to chat with me about astronomy. Kirk Korista commented that Bill always asked very intelligent questions during his presenta-tions. That wasn’t surprising, since Bill always said astron-omy was much more interesting than Psychology! Bill moved to Baltimore, Maryland to be closer to his family after his wife passed away a few years ago. Even then, he supported the KAS and was a member until the end of 2006. I meant to call him for the longest time and finally tried this past Janu-ary, but by then it was too late. It just goes to show that no matter how busy we get with our daily lives, we have to take the time to stop and smell the roses, or in our case, stop and look up to the stars.

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ObservationsObservations by Richard S. BellRichard S. Bell

Bill & Inez Carlson at the general meeting of the KAS on December 4, 1996; then held in the Kalamazoo Valley Museum Planetarium.

The KAS purchased this Coronado PST and Tele Vue Tele-Pod for member use. It’ll make its official debut on Astronomy Day.

mailto:richard.s.bell [at] gmail [dot] comhttp://www.richardbell.net/

presents

MAIN PROGRAMMINGMAIN PROGRAMMING 10:00 am 10:00 am -- 4:00 pm 4:00 pm

Hands-on Activity Make a miniature model of the Hubble Space Telescope out of a toilet paper tube and an aluminum can or cut out and decorate some stars to hang from your ceiling. Displays Check out some of our members best astrophotography, take a close look at the Hubble, Chandra, and Spitzer Space Telescopes and the beautiful images they have created. Solar Observing View our star close up! Telescopes with safe solar filters will be setup on the deck outside the Glen Vista Room and/or in the Nature Center’s main parking lot (weather permitting).

Ask the AstronomerAsk the Astronomer 10:00 am 10:00 am -- 4:00 pm 4:00 pm

The most knowledgeable members of the KAS will be on hand throughout the day to answer any and all questions about telescopes, constellations, planets, stars, black holes, galaxies, and much more.

Astronomy Day TheaterAstronomy Day Theater 10:00 am 10:00 am -- 4:00 pm 4:00 pm

From our closest neighbor (the Moon) to distant galaxies, explore bizarre facts about the universe, intriguing what ifs, and fascinating answers that will inspire more questions. A new documentary begins at the top of every hour. Check our web site to see what’s playing!

Saturday Night StargazingSaturday Night Stargazing 8:00 pm8:00 pm

Observe the Moon, Venus, Saturn and the deep sky delights of spring through our 12” telescope in Owl Observatory as well as member telescopes (weather permitting).

Visit KAS Online for more Information: www.kasonline.org

7000 North Westnedge Ave.

April 2007

Have you had the experience of waiting days for clear view-ing weather and then finding excuses for not setting up all of your equipment when a good night finally presents itself? One way to maintain enthusiasm for getting out under the sky is to have a long-range viewing plan or goal. As a mem-ber of the KAS, you are also automatically a member of the Astronomical League. This makes you eligible to receive observing awards from a large variety of observing clubs. These are summarized on KAS Online (click on Astroweb and then Observing Programs), with links to the A.L. site. Each club has a set of required observations or activities to be carried out and documented. After verification of the observing logs, A.L. awards a certificate and a pin. There are appropriate clubs for every level of experience and equipment. For the new enthusiast, a planisphere and eye-balls are all that is needed to carry out the observations of the Constellation Hunter Club or Universe Sample Club. Add a pair of binoculars, and you can do the Lunar Club, Sky Puppy Club (children 10 or younger), or Binocular Messier Club. For telescopic observations, several levels of difficulty are presented. The Messier Club requires observation of 70 of the 110 M-objects, with an Honorary certificate available for observa-tion of all 110 (there are six KAS members on the Messier Club list, but the last was added in 1998). Moving up in dif-ficulty, the Herschel 400 Club chooses 400 NGC objects from the Herschel catalog that are not on the Messier list. Two of our members (Mark Miller and Robert Wade) have completed this list. An even greater challenge is offered by the Herschel II Club, with a list of another 400 NGC objects. Other observing clubs concentrate on asteroids, comets, dou-ble stars (4 KAS members completed this one, the last in 2000), meteors, planets, and the Sun. While some of the observing programs require dark skies and large-aperture telescopes, others are deliberately oriented towards mediocre viewing conditions. The Urban Observing Club actually requires that light pollution should prevent the Milky Way from being visible to the naked eye. Whatever program is chosen, it is important to learn the de-tails of the requirements from the A.L. web site before begin-ning observations, because the rules differ. Programs that want to teach recognizing the skies and finding deep-sky objects may prohibit using GOTO telescopes and computers to find the objects. Those that concentrate more on observ-ing the objects may allow any method of finding them. Some are strictly visual, while others may allow or even rec-ommend imaging.

All require keeping observing logs that include specified data fields. Most of the targets can be downloaded as lists from the A.L. site, but a few (i.e., the Globular Cluster Club) re-quire buying a guidebook. Finally, some certificates are awarded based on confirmation of the observations by your ALCOR, while others require a copy of the observing log to be submitted to a specified A.L. representative. So find a club that fits with your interests, learn the rules, and get out there under the skies! It is time for more KAS member names to be added to those awards lists.

Here’s a breakdown of observing clubs completed by past and present KAS members: Binocular Messier Club Richard Bell, Becky Csia, Michael Dupuis, Mark Miller, Eric Schreur, and Mike Sinclair. Deep Sky Binocular Club Richard Bell, Mark Miller, and Mike Sinclair. Double Star Club Richard Bell, Michael Dupuis, Mark Miller, and Mike Sin-clair. Herschel 400 Club Mark Miller and Robert Wade. Lunar Club Richard Bell, Becky Csia, Mark Miller, and Mike Sinclair. Messier Club Richard Bell, Michael Dupuis, Mark Miller, Eric Schreur, Mike Sinclair, and Henry Van Gamert. Southern Sky Binocular Club Mark Miller Universe Sampler Jeff Kavanaugh, Christopher Sinclair, Karen Sinclair, Kim-berly Sinclair, and Mike Sinclair. Roger Williams is our resident CCD expert and serves as the Secretary and Astronomical League Correspondent (ALCor) for the KAS. Strangely enough, he’s never completed an A.L. Observing Club! Perhaps that’ll change in the near future...

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Observing ClubsObserving Clubs Motivate & Direct Your ViewingMotivate & Direct Your Viewing

by by Roger WilliamsRoger Williams

http://www.kasonline.org/astroweb.html#OPhttp://www.kasonline.org/http://www.astroleague.org/http://www.astroleague.org/

April 2007

February 12th was the starting day for the 2007 Winter Star Party near Marathon in the Florida Keys. This was the first time (for WSP) that a long and heavy rain occurred on the set-up day and this caused flooded puddles and lots of mud. Most of the big RVs made it in but ruts were left in many places so that cars had difficulties. This year, my wife and I stayed at a nearby resort so I skipped by and planned on a day 2 set-up in forecasted sunshine. When I drove in to set up, I was greeted by Dennis Schmalzel from rural Flint and he invited me to set-up by him on the beach. The Girl Scout camp still had about 10% unusable landscape due to puddles and ruts. Many other attendees were at the same resort so that my breakfast time had many opportunities for star party conversations. You can easily tell who’s who by the T-Shirts. A full array of vendors had setups of mounts, accessories and telescopes for frobbing: Tele Vue, Oceanside, Wolf, APM, Burgess, Denkmeier, Howie Glatter, Stellarvue and more. Meade had a small(er) tent with the $60K monster RCX400/MAX scope. It sounds like a garbage disposal when slewing and easily dews up in Florida. Dennis wondered how

anyone or two could lift the 200+lb. OTA over your head and attach it safely. Several observatories of plastic construction were on display. The Sky Shed POD (skyshedpod.com) was too small for me but did appear to be sturdy. I didn’t like the half roof open design but others may. Speaker programs started on the afternoon of the second day. Wil Tirion gave a presentation about star atlases and how he got started in creating more useable star maps. He showed historical constellation globes and ancient map examples that were mainly artwork of the period. Recently the scientific star positions were added but not to any benefit for beginner observers. So, Wil made his own by applying his graphic art skills while aiming to visually see the real sky like his observing experience. He eventually worked on dozens of similar projects over the years and eventually had to give up his day job. He is nearing retirement age now and hopes to reduce his working hours to only a few prime projects soon. Richard Schmude gave us the recent updates on observational characteristics of Uranus. This tiny dot in the sky has advanced a few interesting theories about polar/equator brightness variations and some possible atmospheric material that can be visually penetrated and perhaps understood by composition and temperature. He will be releasing a book on the subject soon. Jerry Lodriguss (astropix.com) completely reviewed his DSLR camera experiences. He is a professional sports photographer so has modern equipment and imaging support in his day job. He explained a lot of Do’s and Don’ts and various optimized and limiting settings for best astrophotography results. He is one of many “pretty picture” Photoshop experienced fellows that create the wow pictures we see in magazines. I am more of a classic (old fashioned) science type and event image collector but I appreciate these astro-beauty advances.

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Here’s Camp Wesumke, located on West Summerland Key, as seen from the air. Can you see Bill waving to the camera?

Legendary star map maker Wil Tirion gave one of many presentations at the 2007 Winter Star Party.

http://skyshedpod.com/http://astropix.com/

April 2007

Some people have lots and lots of computer time and resources. Jack Newton also presented his updates that mentioned (plugged) his booked-up B&B in Osoyoos, BC and Sky Village developments in Portal, AZ. He also showed DSLR images he had recently collected documenting interesting astronomy events. He uses his DSLR for polar alignment by taking continuous images near Polaris while making suitable mechanical mount adjustments. Don Parker went through Jupiter image processing and showed his decisions leading to the best results. He is most interested in preserving scientific details while not “overdoing it”. He has recently crossed over to the Dark Side by trying a few deep sky images. He has so many buddies to assist or do the image processing that his TV time is still maximized. Sheldon Faworski has many years of telescope building experience and described the details of his 4” f/4 reflector astrograph designed for a CCD camera only. This small sized instrument puts a one degree image on a ¼-inch chip and is lightweight enough to be added to most mounts. Putting it on a Paramount monster needed no counterweights. Sheldon’s buddy, Sean Walker, does a lot of the imaging and processing – again, pretty pictures were the goal. Continuing on to the nth degree in Photoshop was the Scott Ireland presentation on color management for monitors, printers, and each program used in processing. Use calibration devices if you want correct color results. Many eyeball views are not the same as calibrated measurements. Most of this applies to publications of pretty pictures with minimum color failures. Ron Diulio gave a presentation on spectroscopy in astronomy. He showed the 3 major spectrographs currently on the market and typical results. These allow a CCD camera to record the spectra of astronomical objects at low resolution optics for stellar classification and high resolution for unique object analysis. Several simpler attachments were described also; especially the ones used in his educational projects. Russell Romanella from NASA wrapped up the speaker programs with an update on the near future space program describing budget driven schedules for man-to-Mars, Moon Base, and shuttle replacement programs. See Popular Mechanics magazine for details. He is the payload manager for the current shuttle program at Cape Canaveral. When you stay off-site you can have a more selective schedule; sleeping in during cloudy weather, shower anytime, local restaurants to visit, and driving around freedom. Campers have the full time advantage of vendor visits and demos, telescope talking on the berm, and meeting new people constantly. Off-site people must park on the road for night time visits and I used a wagon to haul in/out my optics and electronics on clear nights. The mount was set up but left covered at other times. I suffered a few fire ant bites on my sandaled toes and will use a large tarp under my mount in future WSP’s with a chemical treatment on my beach sand area. Saturn was at opposition but I didn’t get the excellent seeing I hoped for. Three years ago everybody at WSP was going up

to 400x and 500x. This year each clear night seemed to be in some kind of transition and only allowed me 250x. I cruised through the Milky Way at 25x and hit most of the atlased objects. I watched Dennis using his DSI pro for imaging. We concluded that most of his aiming difficulties could be reduced by having a parallel finder/guider with a wide field eyepiece. Finding with a small chip is always tedious. I talked to Kevin from Texas as I viewed thru his 24 inch. The Rosette and Hubble’s Variable Nebula were thoroughly examined. A couple of days later we recognized each others voice at the resort breakfast table. WSP concluded with a cool and windy session of door prizes that left me lucked out again. I did take home great educational information and updated contacts with friendly experts. Also notice that observing many NGC objects thru “upper Puppis” never takes place from Michigan. The 2008 Winter Star Party will be held from February 4th - 10th at Camp Wesumke on West Summerland Key. For more information check out the official WSP web site:

http://www.scas.org/wsp.htm

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Bill Nigg was caught in the act as he tried to make off with Meade’s 20” RCX400 Not-A-Ritchey-Chrétien Telescope on the ultra-massive (and apparently ultra-noisy) MaxMount.

April 2007

NASA's New Horizons spacecraft successfully completed a flyby of Jupiter on February 28th, using the massive planet's gravity to pick up speed for its 3-billion mile voyage to Pluto and the unexplored Kuiper Belt region beyond. "We're on our way to Pluto," said New Horizons Mission Operations Manager Alice Bowman of Johns Hopkins Uni-versity Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), Laurel, Md. "The swingby was a success; the spacecraft is on course and per-formed just as we expected." New Horizons came within 1.4 million miles of Jupiter at 12:43 a.m. EST, placing the spacecraft on target to reach the Pluto system in July 2015. During closest approach, the spacecraft could not communicate with Earth, but gathered science data on the giant planet, its moons and atmosphere. At 11:55 a.m. EST mis-sion operators at APL e s tab l i shed con tac t through NASA's Deep Space Network and con-firmed New Horizons' health and status. The fastest spacecraft ever launched, New Horizons is gaining nearly 9,000 mph from Jupiter's gravity - accelerating to more than 52,000 mph. The spacecraft has covered approximately 500 million miles since its launch in January 2006 and reached Jupiter faster than seven previous spacecraft to visit the solar system's largest planet. New Horizons raced through a target just 500 miles across, the equivalent of a skeet shooter in Washington hitting a target in Baltimore on the first try. New Horizons has been running through an intense six-month long systems check that will include more than 700 science observations of the Jupiter system by the end of June. More than half of those observations are taking place this week, including scans of Jupiter's turbulent atmosphere, measure-ments of its magnetic cocoon, surveys of its delicate rings, maps of the composition and topography of the large moons Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto, and a detailed look at

volcanic activity on Io. "We designed the entire Jupiter encounter to be a tough test for the mission team and our spacecraft, and we're passing the test," says New Horizons Principal Investigator Alan Stern from the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo. "We're not only learning what we can expect from the space-craft when we visit Pluto in eight years, we're already getting some stunning science results at Jupiter - and there's more to come." While much of the close-in science data will be sent back to Earth during the coming weeks, the team also downloaded a

sampling of images to verify New Horizons' per-formance. The outbound leg of New Horizons' journey in-cludes the first-ever trip down the long "tail" of Jupiter's magnetosphere, a wide stream of charged particles that extends more than 100 million miles beyond the planet. Amateur backyard tele-scopes, the giant Keck telescope in Hawaii, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and Chandra X-Ray Observatory and other ground and space-based telescopes are turn-ing to Jupiter as New Ho-rizons flies by, ready to provide global context to the close-up data New Horizons gathers.

New Horizons is the first mission in NASA's New Frontiers Program of medium-class spacecraft exploration projects. The Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Md., manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washing-ton. The mission team also includes NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.; NASA's Jet Propulsion Labo-ratory, Pasadena, Calif.; the U.S. Department of Energy, Washington; Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colo.; and several corporations and university partners. For the latest news and images from the New Horizons mis-sion, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/newhorizons

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Swings By JupiterSwings By Jupiter

April 2007

We all know that birds eat worms. Every day, millions of birds eat millions of worms. It’s going on all around you! But how often have you awakened in the morning, stalked out in the dewy grass, and actually seen a bird having breakfast? Even though we know it happens all the time, a bird gulping a worm is a rare sight. Just like a black hole gulping a star… Every day in the Universe, millions of stars fall into millions of black holes. And that’s bad news for the stars. Black holes exert terrible tides, and stars that come too close are literally ripped apart as they fall into the gullet of the monster. A long burp of X-rays and ultraviolet radiation signals the meal for all to see. Yet astronomers rarely catch a black hole in the act. “It’s like the problem of the bird and the worm,” says astronomer Christopher Martin of Caltech. “You have to be in the right place at the right time, looking in the right direction and pay-ing attention.” A great place to look is deep in the cores of galaxies. Most galaxies have massive black holes sitting in their pinwheel centers, with dense swarms of stars all around. An occasional meal is inevitable. A group of astronomers led by Suvi Gezari of Caltech re-cently surveyed more than 10,000 galactic cores—and they caught one! In a distant, unnamed elliptical galaxy, a star fell into a central black hole and “burped” a blast of ultraviolet radiation. “We detected the blast using the Galaxy Evolution Explorer

(GALEX), an ultraviolet space telescope,” explains Gezari. Her team reported the observation in the December 2006 issue of The Astrophysical Journal Letters. “Other telescopes have seen black holes devouring stars before,” she adds, “but this is the first time we have been able to watch the process from beginning to end.” The meal began about two years ago. After the initial blast, radiation diminished as the black hole slowly consumed the star. GALEX has monitored the process throughout. Addi-tional data from the Chandra X-ray Observatory, the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope and the Keck Telescope in Hawaii helped Gezari’s team chronicle the event in multiple wave-lengths Studying the process in its entirety “helps us understand how black holes feed and grow in their host galaxies,” notes Mar-tin. One down, millions to go. "Now that we know we can observe these events with ultra-violet light,” says Gezari, “we've got a new tool for finding more.” For more on this and other findings of GALEX, see www.galex.caltech.edu. For help explaining black holes to kids, visit The Space Place at spaceplace.nasa.gov. This article was provided by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

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NASA Space PlacNASA Space PlacNASA Space Placeee

by by Dr. Tony PhillipsDr. Tony Phillips Early Bird Gets the WormEarly Bird Gets the Worm

In this artist’s concept, a giant black hole is caught devouring a star that ventured too close.

An artists impression of GALEX in orbit around the Earth. The Solar panels are deployed and the telescope cover is open, nominal operations are proceeding.

or “Black Hole Breakfast”

http://spaceplace.nasa.gov/

April Night Sky............................April Night Sky............................

NORTH

EAST W

EST

rilliant Venus, the goddess of love and beauty, will be 3º away from the Pleiades, the seven

sisters, for three days beginning on April 10th. Binoculars and short focal length telescopes will easily place these celestial ladies in the same field of view.

Venus moves between the Pleiades and the Hyades by mid-month. The Lyrid meteor shower peaks during the early morning hours on April 23rd. Approximately 10-20 meteors will appear to radiate near the bright star

Vega every hour. Briefs outbursts are possible. In 1982 the rate unexpectedly increased to 90 for one hour, and 180 to 300 for a few minutes! The Lyrids have been observed for over 2600 years. The source of this ancient shower is Comet Thatcher (C/1861 G1).

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

SOUTH

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

Late March 11 pm Early April 10 pm Late April 9 pm Early May 8 pm

PRESIDENT Richard S. Bell 373-8942 richard.s.bell@gmail.com VICE PRESIDENT Jack Price 343-3193 ka8aob@arrl.net TREASURER Rich Mather 629-5312 rlm512@yahoo.com SECRETARY/ALCOR Roger Williams 375-4867 ngcphile@sbcglobal.net MEMBERS-AT-LARGE Jean DeMott 381-1406 jeamott@hotmail.com Dick Gillespie 966-9653 rwgillespie@comcast.net Dan Morgan 964-3156 speedster2333@comcast.net Dave Woolf 762-8268 medalguy@netzero.net

KAS OFFICERSKAS OFFICERS April 2007 Page 11

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

Mystery of the Missing Seasons Saturday 11:00 AM, Sunday 1:30 PM

ASI: Cosmos

Wednesday 3:00 pm & Saturday 2:00 PM Explorers of Mauna Kea

Saturday & Sunday 3:00 PM

GET OUT GET OUT & OBSERVE!OBSERVE!

with the Kalamazoo Astronomical SocietyKalamazoo Astronomical Society

APRIL OBSERVING SCHEDULE Kalamazoo Nature Center 7000 N. Westnedge Ave.

Saturday, April 14 @ 8:00 pm Venus & Saturn

Saturday, April 21 @ 8:00 pm

Astronomy Day

S&T Subscription Discount S&T Subscription Discount One of the many benefits of KAS membership is a $10 discount on a one year subscription to the premiere astronomical magazine, Sky & Telescope. A regular one year subscription costs $42.95; you pay only $32.95. It’s like receiving two free issues! To take advantage, bring a check (made payable to Sky Publishing) to the next general meeting or contact the KAS Treasurer, Rich Mather (629-5312) or Bill Nigg (665-7545) for more information. You must pay through the KAS to receive the discount.

mailto:richard.s.bell [at] gmail [dot] commailto:ka8aob [at] arrl [dot] netmailto:rlm512 [at] yahoo [dot] commailto:ngcphile [at] sbcglobal [dot] netmailto:jeamott [at] hotmail [dot] commailto:rwgillespie [at] comcast [dot] netmailto:speedster2333 [at] comcast [dot] netmailto:medalguy [at] netzero [dot] netmailto:rlm512 [at] yahoo [dot] commailto:william.a.nigg [at] pfizer [dot] com

© April 2007, Stargazer Productions

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

STAMP

General Meeting Preview

Presented byPresented by Will MillarWill Millar Professor of Astronomy, Grand Rapids Community College

Objects in the Universe emit many forms of energy, which is picked up by ground and space-based instruments. X-ray and Radio emissions from some of these objects could be an indication of a supernova event. Using the instruments at Siding Spring Observatory in Australia, our speaker spent seven nights obtaining optical spectra of 51 of these objects - located in the face-on spiral galaxy NCG 300 in the constellation Sculptor - which will be used to verify whether these objects are actually SNRs (supernova remnants). Mr. Millar will give us a photographic tour of the observatory and the equipment he used, Australia in general, and some of the results of his ongoing research into these objects.

Friday, April 13 @ 7:00 pm Kalamazoo Area Math & Science Center

600 West Vine, Suite 400

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