STARGAZER NEWS
NEWSLETTER OF THE DELMARVA STARGAZERS
September 2004                     www.DelmarvaStargazers.Org                 Volume 12 Number 3
There was no inside meeting in August so the September newsletter will be a pot pouri of odds and ends starting with the president’s remarks .
  From the President’s Desk... August 15, 2004
 This has been the week amateur astronomers both dream about and fear.  It was the week of the new moon, the week of the Perseid meteor
showers, huge sunspots and solar flares,Stellafane, and our trip to the Mountain Institute near Spruce Knob, WVA.  So what is thereto fear?
Clouds, stalled weather fronts and Hurricane Charlie, that’s what.  This was a real bummer by Mother Nature.
In fact this has been a summer of almost no decent viewing opportunities.  This summer, most o fJune, July and now August, has been one of cloudy
nights and day after day of the muggies.  My telescopes have been in the same position so long they are growing roots.  And it has been so long
since I had a decent view of the night sky I may have to break down and buy some digital setting circles just to find the Messier objects.
My other summertime hobby, gardening, has been great and I have eaten so much corn on the cob, lima beans, squash, and TOMATOES that
I truly need a diet diversion.
But, it is the middle of August and soon we will cut off the AC, open the windows and welcome some of Canada’s finest Arctic air.  I call those Canadian
fronts Continental Conditioning.  Sleeping will be done to the sound of crickets instead of the AC blower and you may even get up during the night
to add a blanket.  I like those Add-a-blanket nights of Early Fall.  Speaking of Early Fall – I predict that is exactly what is in store for us.  The
trees, garden plants, flowers – mostly all plants, started early this spring and matured early.  Even the crickets and summer bugs (cicada
bugs) seem to have come early.  So, you heard it here first – Surles predicts an Early Fall. By the time you read this we will have only a
couple of weeks until the Ninth No Frills Star Party.  I know, it seems like just last month we hosted the Tenth Delmarva Star Gaze.  Time is
marching on.  So, tell your friends and family there is plenty of space available for the No Frills – we will be at the Tuckahoe Equestrian
Center again.   This is a star party of lower humidity, longer nights, cooler temps, good fall food in the form of veggie soups, crab stew, fried
fish, late season corn on the cob, and other fall garden goodies.  Can you wait?  Oh, the viewing isn’t bad either.  There will be the late summer
Milky Way from sunset until 10-11 PM and by morning you can watch Orion and the winter sky rising in the east. We will meet September 7 for our first
inside meeting since June.
We will meet on Tuesday night at 7:00 PM in First Presbyterian Church (same time and place as last always).  It will be good to see
each of you and to hear about your summertime astronomy adventures. I will have a description of the Observing Program
and Bob Mentzer will deliver his presentation on Edmund Halley.  But, that leaves the topics on Eyepieces and Apollo without presenters.  So,
please don’t be shy – there is plenty of data available on both topics.  The numbers 4,6,8,9,10/71 and 3/72 are issues of S&T that have excellent articles
on Apollo.  The issues are in my garage (along with several hundred others to be used as resources for other programs during the coming
year.   Eyepiece design is outlined on the panels of Orion Telescope brochures and on their website.Our plans for monthly programs for the coming year are shown below:

Please review the topics and volunteer to be responsible for those that are of interest to you.  Remember our very successful programs last year were the
product of our volunteers.   I want to thank each person who researched, prepared presentations, and shared their work and knowledge with us.
We really did have some excellent presentations last year and I am sure each member enjoyed the effort they expended to make them a reality.
An Email to me is the best way to volunteer for one of the topics –my address is:  don.r.surles-1@usa.dupont.com
Well, it is approaching noon, it is Sunday, and I have to go to the garden to gather the corn on the cob, lima beans, KY Wonder snap beans, squash,
tomatoes, okra, etc.  This is a ritual that allows Karen to assemble another of her Sunday dinners that has produced a more mature and plump physique
for one who was once considered to be skinny and actually nicknamed “Slim” in his earlier years.
So, enjoy the remainder of your summer and I will see you at the Church or at Tuckahoe.
Don…

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Gamma Ray Bursts and Hypernovae  Frank Sheldon
As late as 1997, gamma ray bursts were still one of the biggest mysteries in astronomy. The reason for this may be the difficulty in studying them
since gamma rays are completely invisible to the eye and, are unable to penetrate the earth’s atmosphere. These bursts are intense emissions of
gamma rays.  They are the very highest frequency Xrays.   Gamma rays have the shortest wavelength in the electromagnetic spectrum and have
the highest energy photons.
Gamma ray bursts were first detected in 1973 by US Airforce Vela Satellites when checking for violations of the then recently signed nuclear test ban
treaty.  The 16 gamma ray bursts detected by the Vela Satellites however, were not from nuclear tests but appeared to be more of galactic origin
than local origin. At that time, it was assumed that all of these bursts occurred in the disk of our own galaxy.Later in 1995, when 800 more grbs were
observed by NASA’s improved BATSE instrument, they seemed to be occurring everywhere.
In 1997, when a very intense gamma ray burst occurred concurrently with a supernova in the Large Magellenic Cloud, a logical question arose: is there
some connection between grbs and supernovae?  In 1998, this link was reinforced when Supernova SN1998bw occurred in a distant galaxy
accompanied by gamma ray burst GRB980425. (Note the grb naming system GRBYYMMDD Year Month Day.)

As instrumentation and techniques improved, more milestone observations were made.   On January 23,1999, in Corona Borealis, GRB990123
produced the highest energy explosion ever known!  It was equivalent to a million billion suns!
What forces could power an event of such high energy?  Speculation turned towards blackholes and hypernovae.  The GRB990123 optical remnants were observed with the10-meter (33-ft.) Keck II telescope in Hawaii, to analyze the visible light from the gamma-ray burst. While the burst had faded
considerably, it was still possible to measure a redshift of 1.6 for the visible light, indicating a distance of 9 billion light years.
 On January 31, 2000, GRB000131 was picked up by the gamma-ray detectors of the Interplanetary Network, giving us  the most distant and thereby the
oldest gamma ray burst observed to date. With a redshift of 4.5,  GRB000131 is 11 billion light years away and occurred 2 billion years after the Big
Bang when the Universe was less than 1,500 million years old, or only 10% of its present age.  The energy of this explosion is estimated to be
equivalent  to 1,000,000,000,000 Suns!
On March 29 in 2003, a gamma ray burst (GRB030329) was detected by NASA's High-Energy Transient Explorer (HETE ) and appeared concurrently
with its hypernova in a nearby galaxy in the constellation Leo. This was the brightest and closest burst yet recorded and is the “smoking gun” that finally
confirmed the   grb/supernova relationship.  More accurately, it is the “hypernova/collapsar model," conceived of by Stan Woosley in 1993. GRB030329 was nicknamed the Rosetta Stone after the stone of archeology fame, that finally permitted deciphering of the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics.
GRB030329 occurred at a distance of approximately 2.65 billion light years away (redshift 0.1685).  The galactic proximity of  both GRB030329
and its related hypernova permitted the first detailed study ever made of the actual formation of a GRB.  This event began with a  Wolf-Rayet star (mass
of 10 suns and radius of one sun).  The core of this star collapsed independently of the outer shell, producing a spinning black hole inside the star, along
with its nickel 56 accretion disk, thus creating the spinning gamma ray photon jet. The jet shatters and breaks out through the disk and the star causing the
resultant hypernova/grb.  Although gamma rays are invisible, the spinning double ended gamma ray photon beam does emit visible light, if seen on-end or
within 4 degrees of on-end.  Some of this light is attributed to the fragmented Nickel 56 disk.   Almost everything is converted into pure energy (gamma rays)
a la e=mc2 where “m” is the mass of 10 suns and “c” is the speed of light.
While it is unlikely that the study of grbs will help us see the Big Bang, it will lead to a greater knowledge of  the nuclear synthesis of  chemical elements
as well as subatomic particles. It also gives us the opportunity to learn many of the details of stellar evolution of the elusive “o” and “b” super giants and their
Wolf Rayet descendents.    The study of the optical remnants of hypernova/grbs will broaden our knowledge of measuring age and distance in the early universe.
There may be opportunities to measure extragalactic red shifts of  both the gravitational field and the expansion of the universe itself.

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Observing Report Wednesday August 5  2004 Kent Blackwell    Wednesday seemed  promising for an observing session, so I loaded up the car with the
Orion 10" IntelliScope (love that oh, so portable scope) and headed south, to Coinjock NC. The sky looked promising, you say?  Perhaps I'm being mendacious;
I was just desperate to observe.     Well, dear folks, by arrival time I stepped out of the car expecting to see a beautiful Milky Way but all that could be seen
was a very thick haze and swarms of mosquitoes.   Shall I leave, thought I?  No, I chose to stay, though not even all of the stars in the Big Dipper were visible
to the naked eye!  I'd estimate  limiting magnitude was 3.5 - 4.0 However, several objects did shine through the muck. Comet C/2003 K4 LINEAR, now in Bootes, appeared quite bright, with a large wedge-shaped coma. I could see a faint tail exension due east. It was a nice contrast to see the comet share the same field of view with the 8th magnitude star HD 1203334.
Several other objects, which proved quite nice, included several open clusters in Cygnus: NGC 6991, 7031, 7044, 7067, and 7082.
I continued the open cluster quest with N7129 in Cepheus and N7245 in Lacerta. While unsuccessfully looking for Comet C/2001 Q4 NEAT I stumbled
on a pretty little double star in UMa, HD 100054, a pair of close and colorful 7.31 and 8.25 magnitude stars.
My next quest was several galaxies, a fatuous quest on such a muggy night. Despite 20 bites from those damn mosquitoes I did pick up about a dozen
galaxies hitherto seen before by yours truly. Mind you, they were only a faint hint of a whisper.
The last object before packing up and returning on the one hour plus drive home was interesting. Next time take a look at NGC 7129 in Cepheus.
SkyTools incorrectly shows it as an open cluster in one location and a diffuse nebula in another! The cluster is very faint with one bright 11th magnitude
star TYC 04261-1507 involved. The diffuse nebula, which should be designated LBN 497 in SkyTools and not NGC 7129, was quite nice. I'll have to
revisit the area on a clear evening. By now the moon had risen and the haze thickened so I did what any respectablepessimist would do. I vacated the
observing site and headed home.            Kent Blackwell

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The Solar system in September Paul Riley
Be sure to duck on Sept 29th, when the asteroid 4179 Toutatis (1989AC) breezes by us only 4 LD away (LD=lunardistance). It is ~ 4 Km in
diameter and will reach mag 9. I'm sure the club would appreciate seeing any photos taken by a member.
This time of year is a good time to just spend the whole night looking around the "teapot" (Sagittarius). The Galactic Center of the Milky
Way is just off to the right of the 'spout'. It almost looks like the Milky Way is 'steam' coming out of the teapot!
There are 16 Messier objects around the teapot, plus other cool stuff like Baade's Window (where there is little opaque dust), The dark Pipe Nebula,
and NGCs 6357, 6334, 6723 (might be hard to find these without BIG glass).
The Bright planets Mercury, Venus and Saturn may all be seen in the morning twilight.  Mars and Jupiter will be hiding behind the Sun.
Uranus, Neptune and Pluto are all shown on your Skymap for September 14 at 10:00 p.m.
I'll see everyone at the "No Frills" star party at Tuckahoe.    Paul

Monthly Observing List  Keith Lohmeyer
After years of going through the northern constellations and touching on the southern constellations last year, we are retiring the constellation of the month. It was suggested that we replace it with a monthly observing list of objects well placed in the evening sky to provide a starting point for those new to the hobby.  We will continue to have Paul Riley’s solar system report and will add some double stars, Messiers, and some challenge objects. Kent Blackwell has agreed to provide the challenge objects each month but we need volunteers for the double stars and Messier sections. If you would like to take on a section for a while send an e-mail to kcl@dmv.com .

Double stars
Beta Cygni (mag 3.1,5.1; sep 34.0”)– Common name Albireo. Excellent yellow and blue pair. Easy to locate at the foot of the Northern Cross.
Alpha Herculis (mag 3.5, 5.4; sep 4.7”)– Common name Rasalgethi. Close pair with orange primary and greenish secondary.
11 Aquilae (mag 5.2, 8.7; sep 17.5”)- A yellowish primary and blue secondary.

Messier Objects
M 11 (open cluster, Scutum)- Common name Wild Duck Cluster. Excellent large OC easily found with binos or scopes. It has several dozen bright members with similar magnitudes.
M 27 (planetary nebula, Vulpecula)- Common name Dumbell nebula. The shape of this object is due to our point of view along its equatorial plane.
M2 (Globular cluster, Aquarius)- A rich compact cluster of about 150,000 stars. It has a slight elliptical appearance.

Obscure Objects In The September Sky   Kent Blackwell kent@exis.net
I thought it would be of interest to briefly discuss several obscure objects visible in the September skies. Each is visible in 8” telescopes
under dark, clear skies. Good luck, and contact me if you see them.
IC 3568
Baby Eskimo Planetary Nebula
RA: 12h33m06.9s, Dec: +82°33'49" (2000) in Camelopardus
Magnitude: 11.60
Size: 10"
IC 3568 is a bright, but seldom observed planetary nebula. In my 12.5” scope I saw it as very bright, green in color with a bright central star.
Lies a few seconds E of a 14th mag star. The planetary has high surface brightness so a filter is not necessary.

Palomar 8  Globular Cluster
RA: 18h41m30.0s, Dec: -19°49'36" (2000) in Sagittarius
Magnitude: 10.90
Size: 5.2'
Observing with my 25” from bright city lights I was really surprised how bright Pal 8 is. With averted vision I even suspected seeing resolution.
In a dark sky you might catch a glimpse of it with an 8” scope.

IC 4997
Planetary Nebula RA: 20h20m08.8s, Dec: +16°43'53" (2000) in Sagitta
Magnitude: 11.60
Size: 1.6"
IC 4997 is a bright, and gloriously green nearly stellar PN in my 10” f/4.7 Dobsonian. You’ll recognize it as a PN even unfiltered because of the telltale color.
An OIII our UHC filter will confirm it even further, as it will outshine everything else in the field. Watch how it blinks beautifully with the 9.9 mag star GSC1631:1973, only 1.1' to the SW.