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Constellation of the Month: Leo   Presented by Paul Riley
Mythology- Paul chose the Greco-Roman mythology involving the labors of Hercules. His first labor was to kill the Nemean lion,  who had descended to Earth in the form of a meteor and was terrorizing the countryside around Corinth.  The lion’s  hide was so tough that no weapon could penetrate it. Hercules had no trouble finding the lion’s cave which had 2 entrances. When the lion showed itself, Hercules released an arrow right to its heart.  The arrow merely bounced off and fell to the ground.  Hercules then realized that regular weapons were useless against the beast.  He then sealed off one of the cave’s entrances and followed the lion inside through the other entrance.  Using all his strength,  Hercules grabbed the lion and strangled it by ramming his fist down its throat.
With the lion over his shoulder Hercules, returned to show King Eurystheus that he had fulfilled his first labor.    Hercules then skinned the lion and used its tough hide as a protective shield.
So angry was Queen Hera at Hercules' success that she raised the soul of the lion high into the sky, where today he can be seen as the constellation Leo, the Lion.
Astronomy
 Stars-The brightest star of this constellation, alpha Leo, called Regulus (meaning: the little king), is a blue-white star (spectral type B7 V) of 1.35 mag. When seen with a small telescope, a wide 8th magnitude companion is revealed.
At the tip of the lion's tail is the beta Leo, Denebola, an optical double with an orange companion.  The Denebola triangle points into the constellation Virgo, home of the famous galaxy cluster and close to the galactic north pole.
Wolf 359- This is currently the third nearest star known (7.75 light years).  Very faint, at magnitude 13.6, it is a red dwarf.  Although probably very common, red dwarfs are rarely seen because of their extreme faintness.
Double Stars-
Gamma Leo, called Algieba , is a binary double,  consisting of a 2.6 mag. orange-red giant and a yellow giant at 3.8 mag. It may be split with a small telescope. With binoculars, an unrelated 5th mag star, 40 Leo, can be seen with them.
Another optical double is tau Leo; which consists of an orange 5th mag star  and a 7th mag companion which can be seen with binoculars.  Also with very low power, 54 Leo can easily be resolved into a pair of 4.5 mag and 6.3 mag stars.
Between eta Leo and gamma Leo is the double, a-7704 ; but to resolve its components into single stars (both are about 7.5 mag), requires telescopes of at least 100mm aperture.  Zeta Leo is an optical triple star of 3.44 mag. Using binoculars this star seems to have two companions of 6th mag, which are not physically related.
Variable Stars  There are a lot of variable stars in Leo  but  we’ll mention only the long period variable red giant star, R Leo.   Its brightness varies from mag 4.4 to mag 11.6 (the Bright Stars Catalog gives an average of 6th mag) with a period of about 313 days. It is located in the Lion's foreleg.
Leo is located far  enough away from the Milky Way that  distant galaxies are visible. While important astronomically,  they are not readily seen in small telescopes.
Deep Space Objects- Below are some of the closer deep space objects:
M65 and M66 : Discovered by Mechain in 1780, these spiral galaxies were missed by Messier when Messier’s comet of 1773 passed through the field but were still named for him. At a Hubble distance of 28 million light years, they may be a sub-cluster of the Virgo cluster of galaxies. M95 and M96 are fainter spiral galaxies,also discovered by Mechain and at a distance of 29 million light years, may be be members of the same sub-cluster.
Also included in these groups are NGC 3628, and M105(aka NGC 3379).
Meteor showers are also associated with this constellation (Leonids). Remember the spectacular display  which most of us
saw back on November 18th,  2001.  These were particles of the Tempel-Tuttle comet of 1866.

Program:  Telescope Mounts  3 different types of  telescope mounts were discussed and demonstrated as follows:
German Equatorial Mount- More specifically this  was Doug Norton’s Great Polaris  mount made by Vixen.  It is easy to polar align and is primarily used by Doug as a mount for his Celestron C102HD 4” refractor.   It is also Doug’s favorite for astrophotography since he claims that it is more stable to vibration than a fork mounted SCT which brings us to Steve Long’s mount.
Fork Mount-Steve’s scope was a fork mounted SCT. The actual model was the Celestron C-8 Deluxe.  It came with an advanced equatorial wedge with very fine azimuth adjustments to enable easier polar alignment.  It also has declination and R.A. motors with a hand controller.  Steve added the Deluxe Latitude Adjustment kit, which replaced all the hex bolts that held the wedge in declination and right ascension with larger knob-ended bolts to make loosening and tightening easier and faster.  The kit also included a long screw that presses against the movable end of the tilting face on the wedge, thus enabling very fine adjustments in declination.
Dobsonian Mount- In its simplest form the Dobsonian mount is a friction operated altazimuth mount. It usually carries a Newtonian reflector which can then be slewed to any point in the sky. This mount carried Keith Lohmeyer’s 10” Newtonian reflector.  The superb craftsmanship in its construction is vintage Lohmeyer and can be seen under the member web pages on our Stargazer club  web page. Among its unique features are: A modified Crayford focuser to provide optimal friction,  A main tube which can be spun to allow best focus/finder position and sidebearing rings which can adjust the balance for different finder scopes or focusers.   Finally to make the scope perform as good as it looked,  Keith had the mirror refigured  by Steve Swayze.

From the President’s Desk
April 17, 2002
Delmarva Star Gaze VIII is history.  We made many new acquaintances and renewed some old ones.  Tuckahoe displayed a Spring blush and treated us to the call of wild turkeys, owls, and who knows what some of those other critter cries were.  Our food was superb and plentiful.  The field was full of motor homes, trailers, and other forms of camping.  I made a mental note that the days of a tent and six inch dob are no more.  Computers, portable domes, go-to drives, $500-700 eyepieces, forty-foot motor homes… where is my hobby going?
For the first time in eight years and fourteen weekends (eight Star Gazes and six No Frills), we did not have a clear Friday or
Saturday night.  Although Wednesday night was great and Thursday was ok through midnite, not having a Friday or Saturday night observing session was disappointing.  I was also disappointed in the lack of interest in presentations and presenters.  We should make a note to improve in this area;  maybe appoint/annoint an entertainment czar.  Our swap meet continues to lag behind other parties – appearances by Hands-on-Optics and Burgess Optical did shore up this department but there is a definite void of other participation; make a note to improve in this area also.
I noticed more children and families attending; in my opinion this is good and maybe we can add some activities for children – any volunteers, suggestions?
One other piece of information that came to my attention: for those who stayed the entire time there seemed to be a contentment that came from “just being outside”, ie, looking thru a telescope was unnecessary for our satisfaction.  Maybe we
can promote the non-observing activities at our future parties.  Also, some of our attendees made the trip to DC and the Smithsonian – could we organize a day trip?
What does the future hold for Delmarva Star Gazers?   First, during the May meeting we will accept nominations for officer candidates for the coming year.  The list of candidates will be published in the June issue of our newsletter, Star Gazer News,
and we will elect our new officers during the June meeting.  A desire and capacity to serve plus simple nomination by a fellow Gazer is all that is required to become a candidate.  Your current slate of officers have served Delmarva Star Gazers well; please consider them (Kathy Sheldon, Lyle Jones, John Flynn and myself) for the coming year.
Next comes the July 4th Picnic and then a special to-be-announced event for August.  After a planning meeting for 2002-2003 in September comes the No-Frills Star Party in late September.
Please check our website or the StarGazer News for further information about the goings-on of our organization.
We are also continuing our efforts to improve the creature comforts for our monthly observing sessions at Tuckahoe.  Stay tuned for updates.
Did you see Comet Ikeya-Chang?  If you saw it more than a few times I am sure you were either lucky or very persistent.  For myself, I have seen it several times but I do have to say it has been the shyest comet I can remember.  There always seems to be clouds or light or something that prevents getting a good view and capturing it on film. This morning (April 21) is no
exception.  I saw it briefly, very close to Cepheus, with 7X50 binos.  By the time I retrieved my 20X80’s it was covered with clouds!
And to make matters worse, I checked the NOAA website for solar activity and found there is approx 100 thousand times normal proton flux – a sure bet for auroras – and it is cloudy for the next two days!!!  This is the highest flux since November 5, 2001.  Here is the address:
 http://www.sec.noaa.gov/ftpdir/plots/proton/20020421_proton.gif

For the current date just change the “20020421 to YYYYMMDD. So much for this month – see you at .
The First Presbyterian Church or Tuckahoe.
Don…

The Editor’s Quadrant....
The Solar System in May For  most of May, the first first 5 planets will be lined up with each other after sunset similar to the May 20 configuration shown below. Mercury will be the first to leave the group as it gets ever closer to conjunction with the sun on May 27.
May 20 alignment
As for the remaining planets, Uranus and Neptune can be found straddling Capricornus and Pluto will be found in the southern part of Ophiochus.
Online Newsletter-
Our new Online Newsletter has been so successful that a number of our readers have said they prefer downloading the electronic version which comes in color with superior graphics, and also saves the club postage.  With the May edition of the newsletter, we will have an online version available, which is identical to the snail mail version you receive each month.  Any one preferring to download this version, in lieu of the snail mail, please notify me.
Clear Skies!,  Frank Sheldon  f.a.sheldon@att.net

Future Meetings...Future Meetings...The remaining meeting dates  for 2002 will be:
  May 07, June 04, July 06 Picnic at Tuckahoe,  August 06 to be announced, September 03,  October 08, November 05,  and December  03.
 The regular meeting format includes discussion of club activities, observing highlights and an advertised presentation. We solicit suggestions for topics and presenters.

Club Observing... Observing is (usually) scheduled for the Friday nearest the New  Moon to maximize the hours of  deepnight  without the moon in the sky.   Unless otherwise stated,  the observing site will be at the baseball field in the camping  area at Tuckahoe State Park. The remaining monthly observing days for the year 2002 will be:   May 10, June 07, July 12, August 9, September 9, No-Frills VII October 2-6, November 1, and December 6   The cloud or rain date for the monthly Friday observing will be the following Saturday, but don't trust the weather man!  Go outside and look for yourself or check the CNN weather link on our web page.   If  you still can't decide, Call Don Surles (302) 653-9445 or Lyle Jones (302) 736-9842.