The CHESTERFIELD ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY

Newsletter JUNE 2016

CAS website www.chesterfield-as.org.uk Registered Charity No. 514048

Secretary: Marilyn Bentley

Newsletter: Sue Silver newsletter@chesterfield-as.org.uk

President – Mark Eustace. Secretary – Marilyn Bentley. Treasurer – Graham Leaver. Newsletter Editor – Sue Silver. Committee Members: – Sue Silver, David Frost and John Marsh

Subscriptions - full membership £65 or £6.50 per month by Standing Order (10 months) Senior citizens (60 yrs and over) and students (18 yrs and over) £45 or £4.50 per month by Standing Order (10 months) Juniors members - (17 yrs and under) £0. (All juniors must be accompanied by an adult who must be a fully paid up member).

CAS News The AGM Friday 6th May This went relatively smoothly. Reinhold had decided to step down as president after many years service and Mark Eustace was elected. Many thanks to Reinhold for all his years of hard work and loyalty and good luck to Mark. Two committee members also stepped down, Calvin Karpenko and Peter Cory. They were duly thanked for their help. In their place the two new committee members are David Frost and John Marsh. The subscriptions were set at last year's AGM to be put up by £5 (as you will see from the header) and at this year's AGM it was agreed that they would stay the same and not be put up next year. Reinhold Gasser stepped down as President at AGM As mentioned above Reinhold stepped down from his position as president. He has held this post for a number of years. He has been the driving force behind many projects and has worked tirelessly for the Society. A very big thank you to him for all his efforts over the past years and to show our appreciation Mark Eustace, our new president, presented him with a lovely case of whiskey with a named brass plaque.

Transit of Mercury – Monday 9th May What a fantastic afternoon! For once the weather was great. As we reached tea time there was a film of cloud but nothing too serious. Quite a few members turned up along with some visitors. We had solar scopes to show the sun in hydrogen alpha and some telescopes with filters showing the sun in white light. There were also telescopes just projecting the image into a white sheet of card. The transit started at 12:12 (just after Noon) and went through to 19:40. Most people stayed until around 16:30-17:00. As you can see below all this month's pictures are just from this event. Photo gallery................ Our photo gallery this month is dedicated to the transit of Mercury which took place on Monday 9th May. All the photos originally earmarked for this edition you will see in the July news letter. These pictures have been taken by members with varying degrees of expertise and equipment and for once the weather was almost perfect!

In this one Mercury can just be seen just in from between 2 and 3 o'clock. Taken by Catherine Wood on her phone. Catherine writes...."please could you include a thank you to Rob McGregor and Dave Frost for their help setting up the telescope and board?"..........Good effort Catherine! You can just see Mercury leaving the edge.

All these below were taken by Rob McGregor....................

These are taken by Graham Leaver..................

These were taken by Jo Statham, a visitor to the Observatory.

Good effort Jo. This is from Graham Leaver after I asked if he could show the "dotted line". This is two images merged together. I understand it took a few hours to achieve this and multiple telescopes! .

Thanks Graham.

These are taken by Peter Davison.........."These 3 pictures were taken through my Celestron Nexstar 127 mak telescope using Mark's Seymour solar filter that he kindly let me have the use of."

These two below were taken by Peter "... using one of Graham Leaver's telescopes, I've just tweaked the colour so it looks more Sun like." (on all the five pictures).

Thanks Peter.

This one has to be the best! It was taken by Mick Nicholls. Mick came to give us a show at the Observatory some time ago. Mark Eustace contacted him and he has kindly given his permission for us to put this in our news letter. Thanks Mick. I will say no more!

Coming up............... Friday 10th June – Talk by Michael Merrifield This is on "21st Century Telescopes. Please put this in your diaries, sounds interesting. Haddon Grove Astro Camp – Friday 14th to Sunday 16th October 2016 Please see below from Peter Davison...................one for the diary.......... The next astro-camp will take place over the weekend of Fri 14th Oct - Sun 16th Oct. The event will take place at our normal venue Haddon Grove and is open to all members of the Society and also friends of the society. The campsite takes caravans as well as tents and it also has electric hook-up if needed. Haddon Grove has some of the darkest skies in Derbyshire. Weather permitting we will be able to observe several globular clusters M13,M92,M56,M15 and M2, planetary nebula's M57 and M27. Planets Saturn and Mars (early evening) and Uranus plus a few galaxies. If anybody fancy's coming camping but does not have any camping equipment let me know and I will open my camping library, just let me know 3 or 4 weeks before the astro-camp so that I can bring the equipment up to the observatory. If anybody wants to come up to the campsite just to observe for the night on either the Fri or Sat night, again just let me know so that I can inform the campsite. If you are interested then please contact me at peterdavison45@virginmedia.com or by phone 07806670609. Things to see in June................ All this month keep a look out for noctilucent clouds. These are normally visible 90-120 minutes after sunset low in the northwest or a similar time before sunrise low in the northeast. Wednesday 1st With the Moon largely out of the way this is the best part of the month to see some of the summer objects such as the Ring Nebula (M57), the Dumbbell Nebula (M27) and the beautifully coloured binary star Albireo at the head of Cygnus. Friday 3rd Saturn is at opposition today. It is around opposition that the rings brighten due to the Seelinger effect. (See "Astrostuff" below).

Saturday 4th Two planets and a star are forming a distinctive pattern low in the south. Mag. -1.9 Mars, mag. +0.4 Saturn and mag. +1.0 Antares form an attractive right-angled triangle. Friday 10th Today is the start of the annual June Lyrid meteor shower. The shower peaks on the night of the 15th/16th June but this year is unfavourable due to the Moon. Saturday 11th The waxing crescent Moon (44% lit) is 2° south of Jupiter but in broad daylight. Locate them by finding the Moon at 18:50 BST. It will be due south, roughly halfway up the sky. Use binoculars or a scope to glimpse ghostly Jupiter, four apparent Moon diameters above and slightly left. Saturday 18th Titan reaches greatest western elongation from Saturn today. It is possible to glimpse Titan using binoculars and a steady hand. Sunday 19th As Saturn is only just past opposition when the Moon is close to the planet this month, it too will be close to its own opposition position and will appear almost full. The Moon will be 97% lit and lie 2.3° from Saturn at 02:00 BST. Monday 20th The Sun reaches the June solstice at 23:34 BST. This represents the point in its apparent motion around the sky where the rate of change of declination with time, for an instant, is zero. ASTROSTUFF The Seelinger Effect on Saturn This explanation was first proposed by Hugo von Seelinger in 1887. The opposition surge is the brightening of a rough surface or an object with many particles when illuminated from directly behind the observer. With the opposition of Saturn approaching on 3rd June it is good time to observe the plant from around 26th May through to 10th June to witness the Seelinger effect. This affects the brightness of the planet's rings. The rings consist of small particles ranging in size from microns to several metres across. Each casts a shadow in the opposite direction to the Sun. When viewed from the side, the particles closest to the Sun are fully illuminated while those behind are partially shadowed from their sunward neighbours. At opposition, the Sun, Earth and Saturn are more or less in line so the individual shadows line up behind the face of each

particle. Here we see the fully illuminated faces of each particle unaffected by its sunward neighbour's shadow. The net result is that the rings appear brighter in the days around opposition. Of course from Earth we cannot see each particle individually but do get to witness an overall ring brightening. Saturn is currently in a low part of the sky and from the centre of the UK the planet only reaches about 16° in altitude at its highest point when due south. This will present problems with trying to get a clear view of the planet as it will mean you are looking through a thicker layer of atmosphere which in turn will cause more wobbles than if the planet was higher in the sky. The best strategy is to keep the magnification high enough to be able to see the planet and rings convincingly but low enough to lessen the effect of the wobbles. If you do this from the end of May through to the second week of June it should be possible to see the Seelinger effect in action. FUN STUFF SPACE MONKEYS NASA decided to send a shuttle into space with two monkeys and an astronaut on board. After months of training, they placed all three in the shuttle and prepared for launch. Mission Control Centre announced, "This is Mission Control to Monkey One. Do your stuff." The first monkey began frantically typing and the shuttle took off. Two hours later, NASA's mission control centre announced, "This is Mission Control to Monkey Two. Do your stuff." The second monkey started typing like mad and the shuttle separated from the empty fuel tanks. Another two hours later Mission Control Centre announced, "This is Mission Control to Astronaut... " At this, the astronaut shouted "I know, I know -- feed the monkeys and don't touch anything."

That’s all folks.

This newsletter is sent out to all present members without whom the Society could not survive. Also to previous members and people with an interest in astronomy in the hope that they may wish to join/re-join the Society. If you no longer wish to receive this newsletter by e-mail

please let us know. Thank you.

Sue