At the April Meeting-Don Surles brought the meeting to order at 7:15 with 21 members and guests attending.
New Members  Bill Collins, Arnold, MD; Susan Pinsky,  New York, NY; Tom Goldring, Silver Spring, MD
Outreach:
Shehan Audubon Sanctuary  The Under the Stars astronomy program has been rescheduled 4 times  and as of now, it still hasn’t happened.
 Dover Little School  On March 24,   Jim Acker and Lyle Jones brought their telescopes to the Little School's  Annual Art Show.  Little School is a pre-school and afternoon day care center that held an art show of the kids’ work.  We showed Saturn and Jupiter to over 350 kids, parents and grandparents from 6:30 to  8:30 on Monday night. In fact some parents left the art show and told their friends about our telescopes. Their  friends came  later with their kids.  At times lines over 25 feet long formed at each telescope.  Most parents looked longer than their kids.  Jim had a little tike  who after viewing Jupiter,
stepped back from the eyepiece and said: "DAM- WOW!". Lyle Jones
 
Killen’s Pond State Park On  July 12 and August 8, 2003, Killen's Pond State Park has invited the Delmarva Star Gazers to bring their telescopes to the park to have an observing session with the park visitors. More details to come later.
Lyle Jones   (302-736-9842)
 
Constellation of the Month 
The constellation of the month for April was Ursa Minor (ER-suh MY-ner) The Little Dipper aka the Little Bear .It was presented by Tim Milligan.
This constellation was of some importance to the Phoenician navigators, since it provided asterisms closer to the pole.
It is also important to amateur astronomers today for evaluating sky transparency by determining the limiting visual magnitudes in a 12o field around Polaris (See the Observer’s Handbook).
Polaris (Alpha Ursae Minoris) is by far the most interesting star in that it is both a double star and a Cepheid variable.
Deep Space 0bjects While there are no Messier objects, there are 98 galaxies brighter than M15, and lots of clusters of galaxies from the Abell Catalog.

Program- Filter Roundup Don Surles– Amateur astronomers use filters to improve image contrast.   There are versions for solar, lunar, planetary, and nebula viewing.
Here are some comments about several types of filters.
Solar viewing – normally solar filters are aluminized glass or aluminized mylar film, light reducing glass (welders lens), or a solar film such as Baader Solar Film.   The filters reduce incoming light to a small fraction of the amount available and blocks ultraviolet light so that it is safe to view our star.   My favorite is Baader Solar Film.  A polarizing filter in conjunction with a solar filter improves the surface detail contrast.
Lunar viewing – here we can use neutral density, polarizing, or colored filters.   Neutral density filters reduce the incoming light uniformly across the entire spectrum, ie, in camera terms they reduce the aperture.  Polarizing filters improves the contrast and enhance surface relief.  Colored filters also reduce light but change the color of the image.
Light pollution reduction filters are designed to block light of certain wavelengths – normally the wavelengths associated with manmade urban street and advertising lighting.  The telescopic image appears against a darker background; thus contrast is enhanced.  These filters work very well in light polluted areas.
Minus violet filters are used to reduce the chromatic aberration associated with short focal length refractors of the doublet (fraunhoffer) design.  I have tried these on 6 inch f-8 refractors and found them to work very well.
My favorite filters are the so-called nebula filters that are used for improving the viewing of various nebulae.  I do not try to remember the wave length of light each affects…I enjoy trying different filters on my favorite objects such as the Veil, Dumbell, Swan, Ring, etc.   Examples of these filters are the Lumicon UHC and OIII, and Orion’s Skyglow and Ultrablock.  I cannot
detect a difference in Lumicon and Orion versions.
The  Horsehead filter?  I don’t own the so-called Horsehead filter but it is on my list.
Colored filters…varying shades of Red, Green, Blue, and Yellow, improve the surface details to be seen on our sister planets (why don’t we have some “brother” planets?).   Try them all – the results can be different from night to night for Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and Venus.
There are other filters that allow us to see solar prominences (Daystar, Coronado) and our own Prom Scope with a 1 nanometer filter centered on 656.3 nm.
So, if you want to learn which filter suits your scope, eyepieces, and viewing habits, find someone with a case full of filters and try them.  And tell Santa what your needs are…filters make excellent stocking stuffers.  You can also read the side panels of Orion Telescopes’ catalogues – there is a wealth of information in the Orion catalogue.
Don…
 
From the President’s Desk....
April 16, 2003   Are your taxes paid?  I hope so.  It’s now Springtime and that means warm weather, fresh flowers, sittin’ on the back porch, and hopefully, some star gazin’.   All that 1040 stuff is in the past; the war is winding down…time to relax and enjoy life.

Mars is coming! We are sending two Rovers to explore the planet and the European Space Agency is sending British-built Beagle 2 aboard the Mars Express via a Russian Soyuz-Fregat launcher.  Our Rovers will tool around the planet looking for clues to what happened to Mars over the eons of time.  Each Rover weighs approximately 400 pounds and is not tethered to a
base station as was Pathfinder – they are self contained and can move about freely.  The Beagle 2 (named after Charles Darwin’s ship that took him to the Galapagos) will be dropped to the surface and will dig as deep as five feet down for samples that could contain water.  It will also look for clues about the possibility of past life on Mars by measuring carbon isotope ratios.
 
Mars Express will orbit the planet and act as a communications tower for Beagle 2 plus it will continue to map and analyze Mars.  The ultimate goal of all the missions is to find water in some form.  Stay tuned for additional details as the missions unfold.  These missions should be much more productive than 1997’s very successful Pathfinder – remember how exciting it was to actually see the surface of Mars and in 3-D?   Let’s hope these new missions are successful…our (USA, Soviet Union, and Russia) track record for missions to Mars is less than perfect.  But practice does make perfect.

MARS IS COMING!  Amateur astronomers should be preparing for the arrival.  We need to get the best scopes possible, the best eyepieces, some colored filters, a solid mount, and dedicate some of our time to watch the approach of our neighbor planet.  Be prepared to spend some time (more than just a glance) at the eyepiece – you will be surprised at how Mars’ surface changes over just a short period of time.  You will also be surprised at how the image increases in size over a period of a few days.

I finally took my Meade 10” F-4 Schmidt-Newtonian and it’s Orion Atlas mount out for first light last Saturday night.  The moon was nearly full but the sky was clear, the temps were just right and the Blackbird Forest mosquito did not attend.  Even though I played basketball with the scope a couple of weeks ago (I dribbled it on the driveway) it performed very well.
The Atlas mount is sturdy and carries the scope without excessive wiggles and vibration.
Overall, Scope and Mount both earned the Surles Stamp of Approval.  Next test is to put a camera on the scope
and check out the drives’ errors.

Delmarva Star Gaze IX…it’s almost here.  We have ordered clear and dark nights, about 55 degrees at night and 80 in the afternoon.  The trees will be wearing their new Spring outfits for your visual enjoyment.  There will be music by Mother Natures Critters of the Forest ensemble.  And amateur astronomers will have the best time ever.  So get your gear and make the trip to
Tuckahoe.  You will enjoy the getaway. Coming events: We will begin a project to mplete a large mirror for a Club scope this summer.  So if you would like to learn the how-to’s of finishing a large mirror please contact Lyle, Keith or me.  This project will be a lot of fun and it will be a great learning experience.
What are your astronomical needs?  Please give this some thought and pass along your desires – it is possible that your Star Gazers can help.  Our organization has a lot of talent, expertise (a lot of “been there and done thats”…), and some pretty sophisticated equipment of just about every sort.  You are not alone…your fellow amateur astronomers can help and we do like to help.  Just ask…
Til next time, Don…
 
New Newsletter Format-  The first physical change in the newsletter will be trying other type faces.  In this issue ,we have switched  to a typeface which is much easier to read in the smaller font sizes.
In  actual content, we are still feeling our way with emphasis on the things that we do best; amateur and observational astronomy.  We intend to involve as many people as feasable  Much will be abstracted from postings on the DMSG Yahoo pages. This alone means that more people will participate in the content of the newsletters.  There are certain things we can do better than the regular Astro Magazines, like the personal observations sessions.
Also, in reviewing equipment, as hardcore amateurs, we can let you know when the emperor’s wearing no clothes.
A case in point was Don’s recent review of LXD55.
This practical approach doesn’t mean that we will shy away from highly technical subjects like cosmology; very often, one can present these subjects in a fresh manner that will spark the interest of everyone.  A PBS program recently took a subject like  nuclear synthesis in stars and whipped it into a lively show by emphasizing the theme that everything and everyone in the universe, with no exceptions,  was made in a star. Nifty stuff....
There are also areas  where amateurs can contribute to the body of astronomy itself.  Our former member, Paul Gray, from Canada co-discovered a supernova and when you think about it, most of the comets are discovered by amateurs.   There are certain areas of astronomy that actually depend on amateur input.  Cataloging Double stars offer something for everyone and for every size scope, from enjoying the actual beauty, to measuring the separation and even orbital motion.
Observing and measuring magnitudes and periods of  variable stars, depends almost entirely on amateurs. It is done through the American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO).  The Amateur’s observations are entered into the AAVSO international data base.
International Occultation Timing Association (IOTA) is another group that encourages amateurs with CCD Camcorders to record asteroid occultations.  These data submitted from a variety of sites allow astronomers to determine the actual shape of  the asteroid.
Another opportunity is astrophotography where amateur’s images rival those of the pros.  In April of 2000, our stargazers turned in images of Aurora Borealis equaling anything in the astromags.
Doug Miller’s images have appeared a number of times in the astronomy picture of  the day. So get over to the Yahoo pages and introduce yourself.  Tell us about yourself and the specific areas in astronomy which interest you.  Together we can write the newsletter.
Frank Sheldon