Lyle Jones

Hasn't September been great! The blue skies and dark skies have been magnificent. I hope that some of us got to use our telescopes.  Don Surles said there was a chance for some auroras this past week (9/9 through 9/15) and of course the clouds came! Now, does this mean rain for our star party?  We have just a week or so 'til the No-Frills and I think that all of us would appreciate some good skies to do some viewing!
Dave Groski emailed me about a guy (a retired computer science professor from Columbia University) that has tons of stuff in this garage. By stuff Dave meant lens and prism blanks and from my conversation with him, he also has some mirror blanks and optical flats. I have convinced him to come to our star party and do a talk at our meetings and perhaps at the No-Frills. So if, any one wants some glass be there on Saturday morning at our No-Frills.
I almost did not survive the first meeting as the new president! I forgot coffee and only thing that saved me was that I brought cookies.  I did find the coffee and will be ready for the next meeting in October. Both Don Surles and Doug Miller did nice programs and as always Jerry Truitt did good job on the sky. For next month meeting Doug Miller will be back and talk about the software he used for the image processing his southern sky presentation. Greg Lee will do a shorten version of his presentation on the "Transit of Venus" and the calculation that can be done on the distance to the sun.
In closing, please remember the victims of Katrina. I hope that's survivors of Katrina are getting their lives back together! See you at the No-Frills and if not at the next Delmarva Star Gazers monthly meeting.

Pj Riley
Capricornus :

At the September meeting, Don Surles presented the various mythodologies for this constellation.  A brief summary appears on page 2.  For a more detailed report on the mythodologies, please attend our monthly meetings where Don will continue this series of constellation mythodology.

On page 4, I printed a sky chart for Capricornus, or the "Sea Goat", with lots of objects displayed.  At the bottom of the page, I highlighted a few double stars and some Deep Sky Objects as a starting point for you to explore this constellation. 
 
 

Mars :

Almost everyone has heard that Mars is going to be big this year.  Some chain e-mails even said it would be as big as the moon !  ("bright as", maybe, "big as", get real !)
Mars is going to be big, but not that big.  Mars will peak at 20.2" at the end of October (actually Oct. 29-30).  This is not quite as big as it got in August 2003, where it got to 25.1"
It won't get this big again until 2018! ( in Dec. 2007 it'll be only 15.9").
Now when people talk about observing Mars, I immediately think of Bob Bunge of Bowie MD.  Bob has been active in astronomy for decades.  He has built several telescopes, of various size and portability.  Bob is also a publish author, with articles in several astronomy magazines.
Bob is also know for drawing Mars.  He has allowed me to put a few of his drawings, with descriptions, in our newsletter.  When you get to page 5, stop and compare the 4 drawings to each other.  Compare the dates of the drawings.  Bob has recorded both of Mars and equipment.
Bob gave a talk about drawing Mars at a previous star party.  I don't remember too many details, but I do remember Bob said you can't notice details on Mars with a short (5-10 sec.) look. 

When you get a chance, look at Bob's website:

www.ladyandtramp.com

Don Surles

Most of the Mediterranean and the early Chinese societies considered the double-V asterism of the constellation Capricornus as some sort of goat/fish -like person or person/animal.  The common thread of identity was "goat-like".
The classical Greek mythology associates Capricornus with the god Pan who was a grandson of Zeus.  Pan was believed to have been born with goat-like horns and feet.  He was considered to be the god of the goatherd and shepherd.  His domain was the forests, thickets, ravines and mountaintops…the places we consider to be "off the beaten path".
Pan was always in pursuit of the beautiful woodland nymphs.  And they always spurned him due to his ugly appearance.  He was especially occupied with chasing a beautiful nymph named Sirnyx and came very close to catching her one day.  But to avoid being captured by the playful but ugly horned-headed, goat-footed Pan, she jumped into a river and asked to be saved from Pan.  She was immediately turned into river reeds…the lesson here is "be careful of what you ask Mother River to do"! 
Pan was heart-broken but he harvested the reeds and made a musical instrument he named a syrinx.  He was a wonderful musician and played beautiful music on the syrinx and even competed with Apollo and his lyre to become the favorite musician of the Olympic gods.
During the revolt against the Olympic gods by the Titan Typhon the Olympic gods fled to Egypt to escape the wrath of Typhon.  Most of the gods disguised themselves while Zeus did battle with Typhon.  But poor Pan could not decide what his disguise should be and in a moment of "Pan-ick" he jumped into the Nile to escape Typhon.  While in the river his behind goat-like feet were changed into a fishlike tail.
After the Typhon-Zeus conflict ended  (with Zeus being the victor) Pan emerged from the river and Zeus was so amused by the site of his changed grandson that he immediately placed Pan's form in the sky as Capricornus for all of the Olympic gods and man to enjoy forever.

Pj Riley

It's been a hot summer, so I went surfing….I found out Apogee came out with a line of binoculars with built-in nebula filters.  The 20 x 80 model seemed like it was in my price range, so my financial advisor gave me a C.  The first pair arrived in 5 days.  Yes, I did say 'first pair'.  It turns out that the screw which attaches the eyepieces to the focuser is either stripped, or the wrong size.  Adjustment of the focuser inward left the eyepieces 'free'.  The second pair are fine.
I went out during the bright starlight (daytime) and did some terrestrial viewing.  I found out something quickly - these buggers are heavy (~7.5 pounds).  I decided I needed something to support these binocs.
I put my wetsuit back on and did some more surfing….I found a website (http://www.astrotom.com/projects/binocular_mount.htm) that shows a parallelogram binocs tripod that looked like something I could build. I am not a master carpenter, but I do know which end of the screw goes in first! The only bad thing, it used a standard camera tripod for a base. I decided to use the design for the top half and to design my own base.  I wanted it to be not only low tech, but 'Lowes' - tech.
During the Labor Day weekend, I went to Lowes and got the parts to construct the top half.  I did have a slight brainstorm; I realized that if I stacked the parallel items and drilled through them all at the same time, the holes will be aligned.  This ended a lot of double and triple measuring (I was wearing out my tape measure!).  With the parts cut and drilled, I started assembly of the top half.  All the parts fit, and it functions as it should.  The original plans call for a special piece of hardware to mount the binocs to the tripod.  Again I decided to go 'Lowes' tech.  I rummaged around my surplus stash and decided on the mounting plate from an old tripod.  This plate, mounted on the upright, should support the binos.
I came up with a design to make the tripod base that was the easiest I could figure, hope it holds up.  Three solid legs attached to a piece of wood.  A couple layers of Teflon I 'found' will give me 'fluid' motion as I turn this contraption.  I added a wood disk with attached support to the base of the top half, with the parallelogram's vertical support penetrating the disk.  Counterweights, and a big lag screw goes through the center with ease, and now you have a 'portable' custom made binco tripod that only cost ~$30-40 for parts.  Now there are no special cuts, bevels, or edging done to this device, it is a function over form design. Stop by during the star party and take a look, and a look through….