Volume 29—Number 6 June 2012

Roanoke Valley Astronomical

Society Amateur Astronomy News and Views

In Southwestern Virginia

RVAS NL— June 2012— Pg 1 of 9

Richmond Astronomical Society to Host VAAS

Jim Browder, of the Richmond Astronomical

Society, announces they will host this year's

meeting of the Virginia Association of Astro-

nomical Societies on September 15 at a dark

sky site west of Richmond.

The event will be held at the Heart of Virginia

Scout Reservation in Goochland County. It will

begin on the morning of September 15 and

continue with an observing session through the

night. The facility is an excellent location for

the meeting with a large dining hall adjacent

to open areas for observing. AC power and

WiFi are available in the field.

More details to follow at:

http://www.richastro.org/

Messier 66

(NGC3627) is a lovely

barred spiral in the

Constellation of Leo

the Lion, part of the

triplet with M65 and

NGC 3628. Consulting

Wikipedia, it confirms

that this trio is gravi-

tationally interacting,

and the belief is that

M66 had a past en-

counter with NGC

3628 (lovingly called

the Hamburger Gal-

axy by some ama-

teurs). Another inter-

esting statement is a

“resolved noncorotat-

ing clump of HI mate-

rial apparently re-

moved from one of

the spiral arms”, (Jewel Continued on page 2)

A Jewel in Leo By Michael Good

RVAS NL— June 2012— Pg 2 of 9

which has this galaxy listed in the Atlas of Pe-

culiar Galaxies. A quick glance does show a

perturbance to the left of the central bar

(with a bluish tint), as well as “arm material”

down and to the right, between the two well-

formed arms. The dust lanes were enhanced in

this image by using an Unsharp Mask in Pho-

toshop.

The Wiki article references an Astrophysical

Journal article from 1993 (Zhang, Wright, Al-

exander). In this article, the authors used a

Berkeley-Illinois-Maryland Association inter-

ferometer array with 7” resolution to map car-

bon monoxide data, and they used the VLA at

30” resolution to map the 21cm emission of

neutral hydrogen for the entire galaxy. This

data has yielded theories on the gravitational

torque that M66 experienced in its encounter

with NGC 3628. Their work indicates our

friend M66 may be in the process of having its

nucleus become active, with a process to

“channel the interstellar medium into the cen-

ter of the galaxy to fuel nuclear starburst and

Seyfert activities”. (Reference http://

adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1993ApJ...418..100Z )

The attached picture is the result of multiple

nights of experimentation. The better

datasets had to be discarded due to flat field-

ing issues (the cotton obstruction discussed in

last month’s newsletter). The back-end in-line

focuser is now removed, and the Robofocus is

now attached directly to a drive gear on the

Celestron 14” mirror focus knob. The focal re-

ducer elements are inside a Ted Agos adapter,

which nestles inside a very nice 2” adapter

(Astro-Physics), which is mated to the Celes-

tron 3” equipment threads. All these words

mean that the CCD plane is now closer to the

proper placement, reducing vignetting through

the optical path.

This image is only four 10 minute Lum images,

shot Friday, May 25, with a young crescent

moon, and very poor transparency (2/5). A sin-

gle 15 min exposure was made at 2x2 binning

for each of the color frames (again – not ideal,

but enough to eek some color into the image).

No deconvolution was applied. Data was cap-

tured with CCDSoft, and processed with

AIP4Win, before using Fits Liberator to con-

vert the FIT format to TIF, which was read

by Photoshop CS4, where the color data was

assembled and married to the luminance. Lev-

els/curves and unsharp masking were used

(along with feathering and some color balance

adjustment). Star spikes were added by a Pho-

toshop Carboni add-in. You can see a satellite

graced the image along the right hand side.

(Jewel Continued from page 1)

Cameras Trump Telescopes? By John Goss

RVAS NL— June 2012— Pg 3 of 9

Each year hand-held digital cameras improve

regarding their resolution and sensitivity.

With advances in pixel size, quantum efficien-

cy and pixel number,

who know what awaits

the photographer —

and astrophotogra-

pher?

This shot was taken

on May 25 with a Can-

on point-n-shoot set

on manual mode and

manual focus. The exposure settings were 200

ASA, 1/125 second, f/5.6. The optical zoom

was 12x with about another 4 power digital

zoom multiplying that,

giving at least 48x.

The image of the cres-

cent Venus, taken 40

minutes after sunset,

is crummy, for sure.

Considering, though,

that no telescope was

used, it doesn't seem

so bad!

The current slate of nominees that have

agreed to serve as our RVAS Executive Board

for 2012-13, are:

President: Frank Baratta

Vice President: Sharon Stinnette

Secretary: Rick Rader

Treasurer: Jeff Suhr

Member at Large: Carol Mesimer

----- positions above are elected -------------

Immediate Past President: Michael Good

Past President: Paul Caffrey

Per our By-Laws, unless there is a request by

another member to serve, then hearing no oth-

er nominations, we will NOT have to hold bal-

loting on June 18, and this will be the slate of

officers for next year as we can elect them

without balloting.

Executive Board formed for 2012-2013

Waxing nostalgic for a look at amateur scopes of the 50’s, 60’s, or beyond? Try this link:

http://www.philharrington.net/old50.htm

RVAS NL— June 2012— Pg 4 of 9

RVAS NL— June 2012— Pg 5 of 9

New at your local cinema is Battleship, a $300

million dollars evil-space-aliens epic loosely

based on the board game of the same name.

It is set in Hawaii, scene of the Pearl Harbor

“cultural alien” attack by the Japanese. In

this version today’s Japanese and the retired

battleship Missouri help save the day.

Astronomers will chuckle when the evil in-

vaders show up quickly after we beam our

presence to distant stars via multiple Hawaii-

based radio telescopes, relayed and focused

by a satellite no less. Science absurdity

aside, this movie does deal with the global ex-

tinction possibility. As one of the actors said,

it’s like what happened after Columbus met the

Indians; and this time we are the Indians.

There are multiple other dramas using the

same extinction theme, going back to Orson

Wells and his Martians. Each time something

minor has a major impact on the outcome.

Bacteria killed off Martian invaders; and a

simple Mac laptop was more recently used to

defeat the Independence Day bad guys. To-

day’s heroes use naval weapons for the same

end. Each movie of this type is very patriotic,

and we humans stand victorious at the end, or

(SETI Continued on page 6)

SETI vs. Battleship

by Clark M. Thomas

NASA—Martian Explorers and Pressurized Rover

RVAS NL— June 2012— Pg 6 of 9

do we?

Mexico’s Cinco de Mayo celebrates the first

ever victory over invading French forces by

natives. However, a larger French army ap-

peared and defeated the locals. With nasty

space aliens eager to feast on our flesh, or

whatever, there is always method to their

madness. These aliens seem like avatar pro-

jections of the very worst aspects of human

nature, somewhat

like the Mongol

invasion of medie-

val western civili-

zation.

Modern humans

are reaching out

to the stars for

multiple purposes.

The only place we

may intend to col-

onize is Mars. Going interstellar is very diffi-

cult, due to the immense distances. Neverthe-

less, with deep hibernation, or even machine-

like life, a journey at nearly luminal speeds is

possible within the proximal galaxy. In other

words, the bad guys must really want to hunt

and hurt us to go to such efforts.

If we had unique technologies, or critical min-

erals, or something else urgently needed for

survival in this region of the MW, maybe in-

vade. Good and bad are in the eye of the be-

holder. My guess is that such “visitors” would

rather negotiate a mutually beneficial arrange-

ment, after they intimidate us. However, they

might be highly enlightened and come in pure

peace to help us, as did the aliens in Contact.

They could even be stranded “space tourists,”

like ET, or the man who fell to Earth.

Looking at the list of possibilities, we cannot

logically exclude the most evil scenarios.

Problem is, we cannot place a probability on

any scenario. Most likely, if we have already

been visited by

aliens, as many be-

lieve (and don’t

test my DNA),

then our future is

good, as long as a

new bunch of bad

guys doesn’t show

up to overwhelm

the local alien

good guys.

Good tends to overcome evil. If we use human

history as a systems theory predictive model,

a new hybrid good follows a bad era. Whether

the initial body count is in the thousands or

millions, civilization is like metal, where the

best steel is tempered by the hottest flame.

Ultimately, cooperation is more efficient than

deadly competition.

Modern human civilization is becoming like a

transitional alien society. Autonomous civiliza-

tions increase in complexity and power to

(SETI Continued from page 5)

(SETI Continued on page 7)

NASA— Discovery II Fusion Spacecraft

RVAS NL— June 2012— Pg 7 of 9

where they develop the power to self-

exterminate, if only by accident. I contend

that the most critical event in human history

was the Cuban missile crisis. We got lucky.

Visiting alien societies may have had their own

version of our crisis. If all their nukes had

been unleashed in a global war on a home plan-

et, only a small population would be left in a

stone age, or maybe no life forms at all would

be left that we

would enjoy. We

might some day

travel to another

blue planet which

is only a remnant

of its past.

Any life forms

coming at us could

be a remnant

crowd looking for a

new home. More

likely, they would

settle much closer

to their damaged home planet, on another plan-

et within a habitable zone. Even if they only

obliterate some of their already populated

planets, that extinction lesson would be awe-

some. Therefore, I conclude that it is likely

that anybody who shows up will not be amped

on space testosterone, but full of wisdom.

Because it is impossible to exclude all Mongoli-

an horde hypotheses, I suggest that the pas-

sive listening approach of SETI is most pru-

dent. Sadly, their array of telescopes has

been hibernating for a year due to insufficient

operational funds. That’s OK in the big pic-

ture. The funds will come, and SETI will again

be operational: http://www.space.com/15803-

jill-tarter-seti-search-retirement-qanda.html

We already have unintentionally reached out to

potential aliens. Starting with early radio

broadcasts, and

then with early TV,

we have shown the

aliens who we real-

ly are, and that in-

cludes the first TV

signals featuring

Adolf Hitler.

Hopefully, future

visitors will not be

in a hurry to visit,

because subse-

quent TV featured

The Honeymoon

ers and I Love Lucy.

If I were an advanced space alien civilization

looking for something worth conquering,

Earth’s vast wasteland TV signals would be

sufficient reason to avoid such a quarrelsome

and primitive place.

(SETI Continued from page 6)

NASA—Antimatter Spacecraft

The Roanoke Valley Astronomical Society is a membership organiza-

tion of amateur astronomers dedicated to the pursuit of astronomical ob-

servational and photographic activities. Meetings are held at 7:30 p.m.

on the third Monday of each month, at Western Va. Community College

Natural Science Center, 3102 Colonial Ave. S.W. Roanoke, Virginia. Meet-

ings are open to the public. Observing sessions are held one or two

weekends a month at a dark-sky site. Yearly individual dues are $20.00,

Seniors $18.00. Family dues are $25.00, Senior Family $22.00 . Student

dues are $10.00. Articles, quotes, etc. published in the newsletter do not

necessarily reflect the views of the RVAS or its editor.

RVAS web page: http://rvasclub.org

Officers/Executive Committee/Editor

Michael Good, President ( president@rvasclub.org )

John Goss, Vice President (vicepresident@rvasclub.org)

Rick Rader, Secretary (secretary@rvasclub.org)

Jeff Suhr, Treasurer (treasurer@rvasclub.org)

Carol Mesimer, Member at Large (memberatlarge@rvasclub.org)

Paul Caffrey, Immediate Past President (immediatepastpresident@rvasclub.org)

Randy Sowden, Past President (pastpresident@rvasclub.org)

David E. Thomas, RVAS Newsletter Editor (editor@rvasclub.org)

Astro-Quiz By Frank Baratta

While we’re on the subject of chemical elements, in addition to mercury and the three others

figuring in the answer to last month’s quiz (see below), two other elements, selenium and tellu-

rium, also have a solar system connection to each other. What’s this connection?

Answer to Last Month’s Astro-Quiz: Remember the “periodic table of the elements” we all

studied in Chemistry class? One of the elements with which we have become all-too-familiar

in the atomic age is number 92, uranium, named in 1789 in honor of the discovery of the planet

Uranus eight years earlier. In 1940, element number 93 was finally synthesized in the Univer-

sity of California, Berkeley, cyclotron. Since this element came after uranium, it was, fittingly,

given the name “neptunium,” for the planet Neptune, next after Uranus in the solar system.

But hold on, later in 1940, element 94 was similarly synthesized. It was called, as you probably

know or can guess . . . “plutonium,” for obvious reasons.

RVAS NL— June 2012— Pg 8 of 9

Calendar of Events By Frank Baratta

MONTHLY MEETING: Monday, June 18th, 7:30 p.m., Natural Science Building

(next to the Arboretum), Virginia Western Community College, Roanoke. The

meeting will feature the Ice Cream Social and other delicious subjects. .

RVAS WEEKEND OBSERVING SESSIONS: Unless otherwise indicated, observ-

ing sessions are held at Cahas Mountain Overlook, milepost 139 on the Blue Ridge

Parkway.

◊ Friday and Saturday, June 8th and 9th. Sunset is at 8:40 p.m. Astronomical

twilight ends at 10:32 p.m. The Moon rises at 12:07 and 12:39 a.m., respectively.

◊ Friday and Saturday, June 15th and 16th. Sunset is at 8:42 p.m. Astronomical

twilight ends at 10:36 p.m. The Moon sets at 5:23 and 6:18 p.m., respectively.

◊ Future Sessions: July 13th and 14th; July 20th and 21st.

ROANOKE CITY PARKS and RECREATION PUBLIC STARGAZE: Saturday,

June 16th, 9:15 p.m., Cahas Overlook, Milepost 139 Blue Ridge Parkway. Non-

members must register with Parks & Rec. at 540-853-2236. Members can call 540

-774-5651 for information. (Next session: July 14th, 9:30 p.m., Cahas Overlook.)

RVAS NL— June 2012— Pg 9 of 9