Insect Repellents
A discussion of insect repellents was given by Ron Zink. Ron’s
repellents covered the whole gamut from banned DDT to the
popular DEET; from citronella candles to repellent treated clothing.
Some of the high tech electronic gadgets using ultrasonics
could cost hundreds of dollars. The conclusion I reached, was
that the most practical solution would be one of the DEET
variations which come in a variety of concentrations, including 100%.
The Southern Hemisphere Constellations
To expand our horizons, it was decided to explore the constellations
of the southern hemisphere on a more or less monthly basis.
Doug Miller, who spent a year or so in New Zealand has agreed
to advise and guide us in our endeavor. Toward
this end, Doug gave us an overview of the constellations.
The total number of constellations is officially 88, as of 1930, including
both the northern and southern hemispheres. The
RA and DEC coordinates are for the epoch 1875. As you study the southern
hemisphere you’ll have to adjust to a lot of
differences; the asterisms will be upside down or at an angle you’re
not used to. While the constellations will always go from
east to west, when you face south, the northern hemisphere constellations
go from left to right but in the southern hemisphere when
facing north, they will go from right to left. The 2nd and 3rd
brightest stars (Canopus and Rigil Kentaurus) can be found in the
southern hemisphere, as can the twonearest stars (a Centauri and Proxima
Centauri).To find and learn the southern constellations,
skymaps.com provides monthly sky maps forboth the northern and southern
hemispheres in concise but relatively crude maps.
Sky and Telescope does the same thing in each monthly issue of their
magazine in a more elegant color version. If you don’t want to
be restricted to monthly maps, you might consider a planisphere
of the southern constellations but then you still have to select a
latitude range. If you don’t want to feel restricted in any way to
time or location, I recommend you do what I did and take your
favorite star chart software and simply enter your observing latitude
as 90° South.and your longitude to whatever setting allows
you to read the star labels. This assures that you won’t leave out
a single southern hemisphere constellation.
This map is shown below
If your software is The Sky, you can directly view the southern
hemisphere without the need of entering a viewing location.
From the President’s Desk....
September 5, 2003 - Sharing our hobby This past July some
Delmarva Star Gazers had the pleasure of hosting a group of
13-14 year old Astronomy Campers at our Tuckahoe observing site.
The purpose was to introduce the kids to the night sky.
After all, they were spending two weeks in a summer astronomy
camp at Salisbury State’s Center for Math, Science
& Technology.
Our program began about an hour before dusk. We had several
different types of scopes set up for our nightly activities and
for our guests’ introduction to “Scopes 101”. Each scope owner
sang the praises and denounced the limitations of their instruments.
The campers were awed by such an array of “large” telescopes.
Most commented the only scopes they had seen or had access
to were the 2-3 inch department store type.
As dusk approached we relocated to the picnic pavilion for a slide
show of the night sky wonders. Last year I presented the
Digitized, Colorized, Computer Enhanced version that we had just purchased.
This time I decided to go with the un-
enhanced slides that I have accumulated over the years via my own photography
efforts. As owls hooted and the other night
critters began their chorus our group settled into a wonderful tour
of the Milky Way via real amateur views of the
night sky captured through the camera lens. The interest level
of the kids was just as sharp as it had been on the observing field
with the scopes. They were polite; they had lots of questions
about the subjects and about how they were captured on film.
They raised their hand to ask questions and to make comments; they
spoke in complete sentences. And when I had exhausted
my supply of slides I could tell there was a bit of disappointment
that we had reached the end.
Now that it was completely dark we moved back to the observing field.
Clear skies favored us. A few meteors greeted us as
we walked out into the clear area of the baseball field. The
Milky Way was in it’s Sunday-go-to-meeting best dress. The
Teapot, Scorpion, Swan, Eagle, Dippers… all were just as the kids had
seen in the slide presentation. They drank in the views
and migrated to the scopes to see the jewels of the Summer Milky Way
up close. Polite? These kids actually spoke in
whispers as they went from scope to scope. They thanked the scope
operator each time they looked through the eyepiece.
I was impressed that 13-14 year old kids could be so interested
in our hobby and be polite! By 11:00 PM I could tell they
were on the short side of long day – their adult leaders called it
a “day” andpacked the kids into the vans for the trip back to
Salisbury State. We had completed another successful one-on-one
transfer of knowledge to the next generation stargazers.
Icing on the cake: I was presented a package of very well written Thank
You letters at our September meeting.
I read every one of them. The pleasure I got from sharing the
night skies with the kids was increased as I read each letter.
Sharing is a vital part of Amateur Astronomy. Let’s take every
opportunity to share what we know and what we have
with anyone interested in learning about our Universe. If you
do you too will be rewarded.
Mars for the Public! We arranged public Mars viewing sessions
at Smyrna Elementary School’s playground for the weekend
of August 28-30 and September 4-6. Actual viewing was done on
August 28, September 5 & 6. The other nights were
clouded out. Jim Acker, Dick & Audrey Gardner, Doug Norton
and I placed several scopes on the playground for our guests
to view Mars and the moon. People came in a fairly steady flow
from 8:00 PM to Midnight. At times we had some long lines but
there was order to the effort and most people were WOWED by the views.
Each night the seeing became steadier as Mars
rose higher; by midnight we were using all the power our scopes and
eyepiece combinations could produce. I found the image of
Mars to be especially pleasing around 300-350X with a light pollution
reduction filter. The Mars image was pastel; there were
subtle pinks, blues, darker blues to blacks, and of course the snow
white ice cap. Our guests ranged from the very
young to the elderly and we even had one gazer in a quadriplegic wheel
chair. It took some effort to et his wheelchair maneuvered
into a positon so that he could look into the eyepiece. As
he looked through the eyepiece Doug focused the image and I knew
by the Wows that this young man was seeing a part of his world up close
for the first time. I especially enjoyed the last night when
the moon was near full; I brought out a 4 inch F-6 refractor on a short
equatorial mount for the little children to gaze at
the moon. They enjoyed having a scope they could use without being
lifted around the waist or jumping up and down to get to the eyepiece.
Our sessions at Smyrna Elementary School were a huge success.
Several people thanked us for taking the time to show Mars to
the community. Oh, the people came from not just Smyrna but also
from several small surrounding towns; some as much as 25 miles.
Rewards? I have mine.
We will have a few Delmarva Star Gazer hats for sale at the No-Frills.
If there is enough interest we will have more hats and will have
some knit shirts with our logo later. We have some RASC 2004 astronomy
calendars. These make great stocking stuffers.
And the RASC Observer’s Handbooks for 2004 are on order and should
be here for the October meeting. The calendars are $10
and the Handbooks are $15.
Stay tuned for more info; see you at Tuckahoe or the Church.
Don…
The Moons of Mars Frank Sheldon
Whenever the planet Mars is in the media for an extended period of time,
I’m invariably reminded of the clairvoyance of Jonathan Swift.
Jonathan Swift wrote Gulliver’s Travels, a satire in the form of a
children’s book. It is from this book that the clairvoyant Martian
episode
derives. More specifically, it involves the Astronomer’s Cave
in the floating island, in the land of Laputa.
It is in this section, that Gulliver describes the activities of the
Laputian astronomers.
Below is Gulliver’s verbatim description of the Laputian Mars observations:
“They spend the greatest part of their lives observing celestial bodies
which they do by the assistance of glasses far exceeding ours in
goodness……They have likewise discovered two lesser stars or satellites,
which revolve about Mars whereof the innermost is distant
from the centre of the primary planet exactly three of the diameters,
and the outermost five; the former revolves in the space of 10 hours
and the latter in twenty-one and an half; so that the squares
of their periodical times are very near in the same proportion with the cubes
of theire (sic) distance from the center of Mars, which shows
them to be governed by the same law of gravitation that influences
the other heavenly bodies.”
Bear in mind that the above was written in 1726 and that Mars’
two moons, Deimos and Phobos, weren’t discovered until 150 years later
in 1877 by the American astronomer Asaph Hall.
Unlike Nostradamus and other prophets, Swift’s observation is before
the fact, not after the fact.
By that I mean that a kid who had just read Gulliver’s Travels in 1877,
could march into the Naval Observatory just before Hall’s
actual discovery and ask: “Hey Mister; how come you don’t know that
Mars has 2 moons?”
Sun and Moon Data for October 2003 Tuckahoe MD
38.98°N 75.93°W 5hrW Daylight Time Astronomical Twilight
Sun Moon
Date Twi. Rise Transit Set Twi. Rise Transit Set %
10/1/2003 5:31a 6:59a 12:53p 6:47p 8:16p 1:32p 6:09p 10:44p 37
10/2/2003 5:32a 7:00a 12:53p 6:45p 8:14p 2:37p 7:10p 11:44p 49
10/3/2003 5:32a 7:01a 12:53p 6:44p 8:12p 3:32p 8:09p ***** 60
10/4/2003 5:33a 7:02a 12:52p 6:42p 8:11p 4:17p 9:05p 12:50a 70
10/5/2003 5:34a 7:03a 12:52p 6:41p 8:09p 4:54p 9:56p 1:58a 79
10/6/2003 5:35a 7:04a 12:52p 6:39p 8:08p 5:24p 10:43p 3:06a 87
10/7/2003 5:36a 7:05a 12:52p 6:38p 8:06p 5:50p 11:28p 4:11a 93
10/8/2003 5:37a 7:06a 12:51p 6:36p 8:05p 6:13p ***** 5:15a 97
10/9/2003 5:38a 7:07a 12:51p 6:35p 8:03p 6:35p 12:10a 6:16a 100
10/10/2003 5:39a 7:08a 12:51p 6:33p 8:02p 6:58p 12:51a 7:16a 100
10/11/2003 5:40a 7:09a 12:51p 6:32p 8:00p 7:21p 1:32a 8:16a 98
10/12/2003 5:41a 7:10a 12:50p 6:30p 7:59p 7:47p 2:14a 9:17a 95
10/13/2003 5:42a 7:11a 12:50p 6:29p 7:57p 8:16p 2:57a 10:17a 90
10/14/2003 5:43a 7:12a 12:50p 6:27p 7:56p 8:50p 3:43a 11:18a 84
10/15/2003 5:44a 7:13a 12:50p 6:26p 7:54p 9:31p 4:31a 12:17p 76
10/16/2003 5:45a 7:14a 12:49p 6:24p 7:53p 10:19p 5:21a 1:13p 68
10/17/2003 5:46a 7:15a 12:49p 6:23p 7:52p 11:14p 6:12a 2:05p 58
10/18/2003 5:47a 7:16a 12:49p 6:21p 7:50p ***** 7:05a 2:50p 49
10/19/2003 5:48a 7:17a 12:49p 6:20p 7:49p 12:15a 7:57a 3:30p 39
10/20/2003 5:49a 7:18a 12:49p 6:19p 7:48p 1:21a 8:48a 4:04p 29
10/21/2003 5:50a 7:19a 12:48p 6:17p 7:46p 2:30a 9:38a 4:34p 19
10/22/2003 5:51a 7:20a 12:48p 6:16p 7:45p 3:40a 10:27a 5:02p 11
10/23/2003 5:52a 7:21a 12:48p 6:15p 7:44p 4:52a 11:16a 5:29p 5
10/24/2003 5:53a 7:22a 12:48p 6:13p 7:43p 6:05a 12:07p 5:57p 1
10/25/2003 5:54a 7:23a 12:48p 6:12p 7:41p 7:21a 12:59p 6:27p 0
10/26/2003 5:55a 7:24a 12:48p 6:11p 7:40p 8:39a 1:55p 7:02p 2
10/27/2003 5:56a 7:25a 12:48p 6:09p 7:39p 9:59a 2:55p 7:44p 7
10/28/2003 5:57a 7:26a 12:48p 6:08p 7:38p 11:16a 3:57p 8:34p 14
10/29/2003 5:58a 7:27a 12:47p 6:07p 7:37p 12:27p 5:01p 9:33p 23
10/30/2003 5:59a 7:29a 12:47p 6:06p 7:36p 1:28p 6:02p 10:40p 33
10/31/2003 5:59a 7:30a 12:47p 6:05p 7:35p 2:17p 7:00p 11:49p 44
