A L A C H U A A S T R O N O M Y C L U B

APRIL 1991

GREETINGS,

March has come and gone so fast that I didn't get a chance to go out and look at the spring sky. This household vent to the Chiefland "rain," I mean starparty. We were nice and warm and dry, had fun in the local "antique" shop. For the most part the folks at the Starparty were much less than friendly. It left a very bad impression on me, enough that I vill not go back again.

Thanks to everyone who helped in Spring Arts, what a good job done!! Don't forget Astronomy Day May 12th at the Florida Museum of Natural History. We will do the planning at the April meeting.

The April Starparty will be Saturday the 13th at the Haile site. We will have guests for this event--members of the Florida Trail Association. These folks requested this get-together last fall. So try to come if at all possible.

Starting Monday night, April 8th at 8 P.M., on PBS Channel 5, will be The Astronomers. This series will cover subjects ranging from black holes, to quasars and gravity waves etc. It should prove interesting. I will try vidiotaping the series for those of you who miss it.

There are two starparties in the near future almost in our own backyard. Brooksville, is the same date as the ours on April 13th so ve will stay here. The other is in the Blue Ridge Mountains, my old home, we have information on these if you are interested.

Gilbert Bernardo has written a grant—more about this later in the newslette and is doing all kinds of good things in Branford. We need to help support him in his efforts all we can. He arranged for us to use the awning at Spring Arts. Gilbert was not able to bring some of his students due the the death of his mother this week. (Gilbert you are in our thoughts and prayers. If we can do anything plese let us know.)

See you Tuesday night.

Andi Clear Skys i

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Electromagnetic Spectrum George Russell.

I guess that it's no secret that I have more interest in the electromagnetic spectrum than perhaps I should. Never the less, there is just something about it that is indeed fascinating.

Some of us are aware that in the electromagnetic spectrum, all forms, that is, Radio, Infrared, Visible, Ultraviolet, soft and hard X-rays, and Gamma rays are all identical except for wavelength and frequency. Note that there is a relationship be-tween wavelength, frequency and the speed of light that can be expressed readily in the equation v = c/A where v is the frequency, c is the speed of light and A is the wavelength. The range of wavelengths from one end of the electromagnetic spectrum to the other is just enormous.

Over the years, various detection schemes have been devised to seek out desired regions of the electromagnetic spectrum to see if something useful could be achieved. In reviewing the list of the various forms within the spectrum^ it is ap-parent that the visible portion has been . known for a long time. Our telescopes have been used for only just a few hundred years to detect visible light from the vastness of space.

The development of radio and the significance of the various schemes to trap, so to speak, signals in the invisible portion of the electromagnetic spectrum came next. This in turn led to further research in detection schemes of uncanny sensiti-vity to explore other portions of the band of frequencies within the spectrum as well but only within the past 100 years or so.

Just recently, exquisite images have been received from the planet Venus as it is currently being methodically mapped by RADAR with electronic and optical devices that were unheard of just a few years ago.

What is next? Improvements on our current detection schemes would be my first guess. By the end of this millennium, we should see new surprises as the development of new detection schemes and new methods of presenting raw data are discovered.

GILBERT SEZ

"Picked this up on the campus of SFCC. Perhaps this is a group ve should do a starparty for and get them on the bandwagon against excess urban lighting..."

Bring your ideas to the meeting...

EVERY DAY IS * " > ~ ;

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2

A SECOND OPEN LETTER (cont.)

Some Suggested Topics for our Meetings (cont.)

7. In-depth studies of particular planets (cont.): f. Uranus g. Neptune h. Pluto, i. moons and minor planets of the solar system.

8. Nebulae in the Milky Way and the Clouds of Magellan 9. A guide to the Pleiades 10. A guide to the Hyades 11. A survey of Globular Clusters 12. A survey of Open or Galactic Clusters 13. Getting your telescope in shape: cleaning, aligning, and

collimating your 'scope 14. An annual guide to new products in the Astronomy market 15. X-Ray Astronomy 16. Infrared Astronomy 17. William Herschel, the greatest observer of all time 18. Solar Photography 19. CCD Devices and Amateur Astronomy 20. Galileo's Studies' of the Sun and Moon 21. How to Star Hop in Observing Sessions 22. Cosmology: the Origin of the Universe 23. Comparative Distances in Astronomy 24. Digital Imaging in Astronomy 25. Double and Multiple Stars 26. Dark Matter in the Universe 27. Burnham's Celestial Handbook and Sky Atlas 2000: the Amateur

Astronomer's Two Best Friends 28. BASIC Programs in Astronomy for the PC 29. Seasonal Sky Tours 30. Supermassive Stars 31. Spiral Galaxies 32. Elliptical Galaxies 33. Comets and Meteoroids 34. Olber's Paradox: Why is the Sky Dark at Night? 35. Quasars

I look forward to hearing your ideas in the near future.

Sincerely,

James D. Adams Program Chair (904)-376-9544 (Answering Device

attached)

A SECOND OPEN LETTER

March 1991

Dear Friends:

The title of this letter harks back to my opening comments in August of 1990, when I accepted the Program Chair for the Club. I continue to feel that we have a useful role to play in promoting curiosity, reverence for nature, and respect for scientific modes of thought, all through the vehicle of amateur astronomy. I'm sure most of you will agree that, subject to various constraints, we have in fact reached out to the community in order to promote these goals. A significant fraction of the membership has participated in this. And we've had a lot of fun along the way.

As many of you know, I'm moving to Washington in July to assume a new job in my field, which has become centered in recent years on the economics of science and technology. Because of this imminent departure I'm calling on you to commit now to a set of upcoming presentations at our meetings, even though on many occasions I'm sure all we want is to go out and stargaze. If we can line up some presentations the next Program Chair won't have to struggle for speakers during the early part of their tenure. For the next two months we have:

April: Steve Detweiler (UF, Physics) "Black Holes and Cosmology"

May: Jim Adams "Journey to the Clouds of Magellan."

Obviously the Summer and Fall are still left to plan for. The club needs your help on this. We cannot ask the Faculties of Astronomy and Physics at the University to do these presentations for us on an regular basis. They're just too busy for that, and in any case that setup would cause the rest of us to lose our involvement. In order to provoke some thought along these lines I reproduce my original list of topics from last August. We've just barely started to touch on these and many other subjects— though I would also like to say that we've started.

Some Suggested Topics for our Meetings

1. Stellar Evolution: The Life and Death of Stars 2. Spectral Analysis: the Study of Starlight 3. A Grand Tour of Nearby Galaxies 4. The Milky Way in Color 5. Aristarkos of Samos, the first Heliocentric Astronomer 6. Celestial Navigation, Part II 7. In-depth studies of particular planets:

a. Mercury b. Venus c. Mars d. Jupiter e. Saturn

Gilbert's Grants

Just an unpdate on what's happening in astronomy education at

Branford High School (K-12). In addition to the $5000 grant I received for

Solar Astronomy and Weather, I was recently notified that $1840 has been

granted for my project "Star Search".

My rationale for "Project Star Search" is as follows. Since most

astronomy takes place at night, and school takes place in the day, some-

thing must be done to bridge the gap. This grant provides for telescopes

that can be checked out of the library for a period of three weeks to be

utilized by the entire family, friends, neighbors, etc. I have ordered

three 8" Odysseys from Coulter Optical along with Telrad finders and low

and medium power eyepieces. I think these will make good beginner tele-

scopes .

As in many "free-bees" from government agencies, there is a "clinker

in the works. These grants are called "in kind" grants. The grant was

written for a total of $1840. However, I only realized $1140 in actual

cash. The other $70 0 is "in kind". That means volunteers donate goods

and services that are assessed a dollar value to make up the balance. I

hope to call upon the ACC for help in this part. On behalf of the ACC, I

am donating an f/10 5" reflector to the project, and if ACC members could

donate a little time by offering a star party or two, the rest of the "in

kind" obligation could be fulfilled. The sky is beautiful in and around

Branford, the students and their parents are interested, and I'm sure

a community wide star party would be very well received. I'll keep you

posted.

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