WILL’S WORDS BRENDA’S MINUTES

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OCTOBER 2015 ISSUE

ROSETTE

STARGAZER ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY OF SOUTH EAST TEXAS

P O BOX 654

BEAUMONT, TEXAS 77619

ASSET NEWSLETTER

President - Will Young

president@asset-astronomer. org

Vice-President - Kyle Overturf

vice-president@asset-astronomer.org

Secretary - Brenda Tantzen

secretary@asset-astronomer.org

Treasurer - Courtney Young

treasurer@asset-astronomer.org

Newsletter Editor - Howard Minor

newslettered@asset-astronomer.org

OVERFL

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PARKIN

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THE CLUB WEB SITE: asset-astronomer.org

NORTH ST.

19T

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10

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ASSET Meeting Directions

BISD PLANETARIUM

OCTOBER ASSET MEETING FRIDAY, OCT. 16, 2015

(NOTE: Meeting Change to the 3rd Weekend)

THERE IS NO PRE-MEAL BEFORE THE ASSET MEETING AT 7 PM

HORSEHEAD NEBULA

ASSET Minutes Sept. 4, 2015

There will be a star party at

King Middle School on October 19,

with a backup date of 10/21. Don’t forget the

All Clubs meeting at the Houston Museum of

Natural Science, 10/23, and Astronomy Day at

the George 10/24 from 3-10 p.m. There will be

a Martin Dies Star Party on November 14. Bill

had a sunspot report.

I recently read The Martian by Andy

Weir. The movie will have come out by the time

you get this newsletter. The events are very

realistic and plausible—so there’s lots of real

science you can relate to. I really enjoyed the

book and the movie. I’m using past tense be-

cause I’m sure I’ll have already seen it when you

read this. Attendance: 18

Refreshments: Mitch and Donna

Brenda Tantzen

ASSET Secretary

October is here and that means cooler weather and those awesome fall/winter skies! The Okie Tex star party this year was

an amazing one! 560 people attended and the skies were clear all week! A very rare thing. I think I observed almost every night and the skies were pretty clean. I had tons of fun with Courtney, Lon-nie, Janie and Bill. Bill had his new 10” refractor out and the views were amazing. I spent a good amount of time with some friends from the Hou-ston Astronomical Society and logged about 30 or so objects I needed. My Herschel List is well over half way done and I’m very excited about that. For those who haven’t yet made it to an Okie Tex par-ty you NEED to. Try for next year if you can. It’s simply an amazing party. The Eldorado Star Party is coming up quick! Lots of us ASSET members will be there. I will have a recap of both parties at the October meeting. I hope some of you got to see the eclipse online. Rain killed it here… See you all at the October 16th meeting!

Will

Christy Robins has

passed away Page 3

Okie/Tex report Page 2

NASA Space Place Page 4

Pluto & Meteors Page 5

Calendar & The Solar

System Page 6

The Fall Sky Page 7

OBSERVERS’ PAGE

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+ TRAN-

RITTER SAB-INE

ARM-COL-

An Astronomy Team

To Take Care Of All

Your Astronomical

Needs

Clayton 713-569-7529

Ron 979-702-0258

REPORT FROM ARUBA ON THEIR SKIES & Alpha Centauri Well, Jane and I slipped away to Aruba. I had great expectations to see the southern skies

where we would be on the 12° latitude. But we only had very poor seeing, because of pollution. The

wind never dropped below 15 mph. Anyway on the bright side, we saw a faint Alpha Centauri, (Rigel

Kent), about 15° above the southern horizon. It is the 3rd brightest star in the sky.

We can see 4 of the first 5 brightest stars here, and they are, 1-Sirius, 2-Canopus, 4-Arcturus,

& 5-Vega, but not 3-Rigel Kent. So that was a first for Jane & me, as it lies well below the southern

horizon in Beaumont. As far as the rest of the trip, a vacation on a white sand beach in the Caribbean

Sea is great. We went snorkeling and had a delicious seafood meal right on the beach. Aruba is a

little different in the way of topography, and that made it very interesting. Lots of Iguanas. Howard

OKIE/TEX STAR PARTY WAS A SEPTEMBER BIGGIE Will & Courtney, Lonnie & Janie and Bill made the long trip to the panhandle of Oklahoma, on

the New Mexico line. It is over 800 miles, up hill and against the wind most of the time towing their trail-

ers, until they get to 4,500 feet elevation. But it is worth it for skies that you will never see here in East

Texas. If astronomy is going to be a major hobby for you, you have to go to a dark sky star party and

go many times. There were over 550 people attending, with their astronomy hardware covering a box

canyon floor. There were afternoon talks, giveaways, activities and places to see in the area. Observ-

ers stay up until the wee hours of the morning, or all night if clouds permit. This is our favorite star party.

On Sunday the 27th, People around the world have observed a rare celestial event, as a lunar eclipse coincided with a so-called "supermoon." As luck would have it, in our area of East Tex-

as, all we observed was rain and clouds. Howard

NASA NEWS RELEASE - SEPT. 28TH Potentially life-giving water still flows across the ancient surface of Mars from time to time. NASA scientists reported this Monday by revealing a potential breakthrough in both the search for life beyond Earth and human hopes to one day trav-el there. While the discovery doesn't by itself offer evidence of life on Mars, either past or present, it does boost hopes that the harsh landscape still offers some refuge for life. "The existence of liquid water, even if it is super salty briny water , gives the possibility that if there's life on Mars, that we have a way to describe how it might survive," said John Grunsfeld, associ-

ate administrator for the Science Mission Directorate at NASA. (CNN)

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RIMA HYGINUS & CRATER HYGINUS (Hyginus hi-ji-nes) This is a great object on the Moon, even in small telescopes.

Rima Hyginus is a linear rille which branches to the north-

west and the east of Hyginus crater. Rima Hyginus formed

through faulting, and is actually a graben. A graben is a section of

the crust that sunk as two parallel faults pulled apart. Collapse

craters formed after the graben. Hyginus crater is one of a few

craters on the Moon that was not created as a result of an impact,

and is instead believed to be volcanic in origin. It lacks the raised

outer rim that is typical with impact craters. Together the crater

Hyginus and Rima Hyginus form a distinctive and prominent fea-

ture in an otherwise flat surface. Smaller craterlets can also be

discerned along the length of this rille, again possibly caused by a

collapse of an underlying structure. "Rima" is the Latin word for a

rill, which is a long, winding gash or depression on the moon. Rima Hyginus is very close to the center

of the moon as it faces toward us. While most rimae virtually disappear from view a day or so after lu-

nar sunrise, Rima Hyginus gets brighter as the Sun rises, and is easily visible even during a full moon.

SOME AVANCED OSERVING IN DELPHINUS Delphinus does not have any bright stars; its brightest star is

magnitude 3.8. The main asterism in Delphinus is Job's Coffin, formed

from the four brightest stars: Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and Delta Delphini.

The cluster objects are NGC 7006 (Caldwell 34), & NGC 6934. Also

there are 2 planetaries, NGC 6891 & 6905. These 4 objects will give you

a little challenge. Globular Cl. 7006 is 3.6 min. in dia. and 10.6 mag.

and 160,000 ly away. Gl. Cl. 6934 is 7.1 min. in dia. and 8.9 mag. And

at a distance of 62,000ly. Both planetaries are low surface brightness

and that will make them a test. You will need at least an 8- inch and

good skies. Delphinus was one of the 48 constellations listed by the

2nd century astronomer, Ptolemy, and it remains among the 88 mod-

ern constellations .

Job's Coffin

Ursa Major As A Star Clock In the Northern hemisphere Ursa Major never sets below the horizon, and is visible the whole year round. It is circumpolar. In the Northern USA it does a complete rotation every 24 hours around the ‘North Star’. This motion has made an excellent star clock throughout history.

Just a note: The Moon is in position to view Purbach’s X for the last time this year. The viewing time

will start Monday evening, on October 19th at 9:11 PM. Roger sent me this info. Thanks Roger.

SAD NEWS: ASSET MEMBER CHRISTY ROBINS RECENTLY PASSED AWAY

Christy was born June 8, 1967 and died Saturday, September 26, 2015

Christy Robbins, 48, of Beaumont, apparently drowned. As of this printing, arrangements for Ms. Robbins

were pending under the direction of Broussard's, 2000 McFaddin Ave., Beaumont. 409-832-1621.

Christy joined ASSET in November of 2011 with Kyle Overturf. The Club sends their condolences.

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This article was provided by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with the

National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Measure the moon's size and distance during the

next lunar eclipse - By Ethan Siegel

The moon represents perhaps the first great paradox of the night sky in all of human

history. While its angular size is easy to measure with the unaided eye from any loca-

tion on Earth, ranging from 29.38 arc-minutes (0.4897°) to 33.53 arc-minutes (0.5588°)

as it orbits our world in an ellipse, that doesn't tell us its physical size. From its angular size alone, the

moon could just as easily be close and small as it could be distant and enormous.

But we know a few other things, even relying only on naked-eye observations. We know its phases

are caused by its geometric configuration with the sun and Earth. We know that the sun must be far-

ther away (and hence, larger) than the moon from the phenomenon of solar eclipses, where the moon

passes in front of the sun, blocking its disk as seen from Earth. And we know it undergoes lunar eclip-

ses, where the sun's light is blocked from the moon by Earth.

Lunar eclipses provided the

first evidence that Earth was

round; the shape of the portion

of the shadow that falls on the

moon during its partial phase

is an arc of a circle. In fact,

once we measured the radius

of Earth (first accomplished in

the 3rd century B.C.E.), now

known to be 6,371 km, all it

takes is one assumption—that

the physical size of Earth's

shadow as it falls on the moon is approximately the physical size of Earth—and we can use lunar

eclipses to measure both the size of and the distance to the moon!

Simply by knowing Earth's physical size and measuring the ratios of the angular size of its shadow

and the angular size of the moon, we can determine the moon's physical size relative to Earth. During

a lunar eclipse, Earth's shadow is about 3.5 times larger than the moon, with some slight variations

dependent on the moon's point in its orbit. Simply divide Earth's radius by your measurement to figure

out the moon's radius!

Even with this primitive method, it's straightforward to get a measurement for the moon's radius that's

accurate to within 15% of the actual value: 1,738 km. Now that you've determined its physical size and

its angular size, geometry alone enables you to determine how far away it is from Earth. A lunar

eclipse is coming up on September 28th, and this supermoon eclipse will last for hours. Use the par-

tial phases to measure the size of and distance to the moon, and see how close you can get!

Image credit: Daniel Munizaga (NOAO South/CTIO EPO), using the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, of an eight-image

sequence of the partial phase of a total lunar eclipse.

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Barnard 93 Bar-

PLUTO FROM NASA’S NEW HORIZONS - PICS KEEP COMING This is a small partial post written by Alex Parker, a research scientist at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, working on NASA’s New Horizons mission.

The world is Pluto, the far-from-home machine is New Horizons, the atmosphere is a tenuous skin of nitrogen, carbon monoxide, and methane gases, and the hazes permeating that atmosphere are sus-pended organic particulates. The right picture is just 15 minutes after its closest approach to Pluto on July 14, 2015, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft looked back toward the sun and captured this near-sunset view of the rugged, icy mountains and flat ice plains extending to Pluto’s horizon. Please go to NASA’s New Horizon’s web site to see

more pictures and explanations for them and read Alex Parker’s article.

The Tartarus Dorsa Mountains

Rise Up Along Pluto

Ice Mountain Also Rises up

Closer Look: Majestic Mountains and Frozen Plains

THE ORIONID METEOR SHOWER, October 20 and 21, 2015 The above dates present the probable best nights of the annual Orionid meteor shower. And an awesome shower it is! For one thing, it stems from debris from the most famous of all comets, Comet Halley. The object in the picture at the right isn’t a meteor, but Comet Halley. The comet last visited Earth in 1986 and will re-turn next in 2061. Debris in the orbit of this comet – the Orionid meteor stream – is now encountering Earth’s atmosphere. The meteors will become visible, starting at late evening, and usually put on their greatest display in the dark hours before dawn on October 21

and 22. At the peak, from a dark site, you might expect to see about 10 to 20 meteors per hour.

Comet Halley

NASA GOES EAST; WEATHER SATELLITE SHOWS YOU THE CLOUDS http://weather.msfc.nasa.gov/GOES/goeseastconus.html or Google GOES East Satellite to see where the clouds are near you for whatever you are doing. You can zoom in the satellite image and watch a loop of the cloud movement. The Geosta-tionary Operational Environmental Satellite system (GOES), operated by the United States' National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS), supports weather forecasting, severe storm tracking, and meteorology research. Spacecraft and ground-based elements of the system work together to provide a continuous stream of environmental data. The National Weather Service (NWS) uses the GOES system for its United States weather monitoring and forecasting operations, and scientific researchers use the data to better understand land, atmosphere, ocean, and climate interactions. The GOES sys-tem uses geosynchronous satellites which—since the launch of SMS-1 in 1974—have been a basic element of U.S.

weather monitoring and forecasting. The cloud information is very helpful in setting up observing sessions.

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WHAT’S HAPPENING IN THE SOLAR SYSTEM?

WHERE ARE THE PLANETS?

OCTOBER 2015

Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat

1 2 3

4 5 6 7 8 9 10

11 12 13 14 15 16 17

18 19 20 21 22 23 24

25 26 27 28 29 30 31 Moon closest

to Earth, Perigee

Moon farthest from Earth,

Apogee

FULL

1ST

NEW

3RD

ASSET CLUB

MEETING

7:00PM

NOTE: ASSET MEETING 3RD FRIDAY

DUE TO ELDORADO STAR PARTY, (ESP)

SATURN— It is now sinking fast into the SW. It has been our premier planet all summer. To view, get

out just after the Sun sets, when you can first see it, and study the rings and moons till it gets too low.

PLUTO— Is in Sagittarius and is still viewable in the south & SW. You can view it at 14th mag. just as

total darkness sets in. You can go to skypub.com/pluto2015 to locate it. NEPTUNE— is at 7.9 mag. and

is high in the south, in Aquarius. URANUS— is at its brightest now at 5.7 mag. Uranus is in Pisces, and

will be high in the south at mid-month. When it reaches its highest point in the due south, which is the

central meridian, that is called reaching “opposition”. Uranus is 3.7” in dia. And Neptune is 2.3” in dia.

Use your SkySafari or skypub.com/urnep to find their locations. That takes care of the evening skies.

The morning skies has all the bright planets gathered together for their pre-dawn show. VENUS, MARS,

JUPITER AND MERCURY PLUS THE STAR REGULUS— are all there in October spaced in a line,

from top, Regulas down to the horizon to the crescent Moon. Regulus, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Mercury,

and a very thin crescent Moon, on the morning of Oct. 11th. During the month these planets pass each

other and positions change. Mercury is highest on Oct. 16th. Jupiter passes each planet above it as it

moves faster than the others and on the 26th, is the Jupiter, Venus conjunction again. It is less than 1°.

There is a meteor shower on the 8th and 9th of October called the Draconids. Some years it is

quite good, then other times is a fizzle. But when its good, it can produce as many as 100s per hour.

Those going to ESP will have dark skies to see them. So let’s hope for a good year for the Draconids.

Read about the Orionids on page 5.

DRACONID METEORS

ORIONID

METEORS

MERCURY HIGHEST

IN MORNING SKY

ALDEBARAN

IN OCCULATION

WITH MOON

HERE IS THE NIGHT SKY OF FALL -

Go Out With Binoculars To view the bright stars of the late summer sky, look up. High overhead you will see the dazzling blue-white star Vega in the small constellation Lyra, the Lyre. The larger constellation Cygnus and its bright star Deneb lie Northeast of Vega. Its informal name, is the “Northern Cross”. Further to the Southeast you will see the bright star Altair in Aquila, the eagle. The stars Vega, Deneb, and Al-tair form what’s known as the “Summer Triangle”. Next to Vega, almost directly overhead, you’ll see a “keystone”-shaped group of four stars which marks the body of the constellation Hercules. Look to the South and SW you’ll find the long band of star clouds of the Milky Way in the constellation of Sagittarius. If you have dark sky, and binoculars you will see clusters and nebula with them, as faint misty patches of silver-white. You can print this page, or all the StarGazer, as it is a PDF file.