Desert Skies

Tucson Amateur Astronomy Association

Volume XLIX, Number 6, July, 2003

Contents

Calendar of Events

Main Meeting: Friday, July 11th the Steward Observatory Auditorium - Room N210

BEGINNERS LECTURE: 6:30 pm
Title:TBA
Speaker:TBA

GENERAL MEETING: 7:30 pm
Title: A new class of sub dwarf B variable stars
Speaker: Elizabeth Green, PhD

Dr Elizabeth Green, with the help of undergraduate students, recently discovered a new subclass of variable stars. Sub dwarf B stars are hot stars that are entering the white dwarf phase. Normally they vary their light output over a time scale measured in minutes. The newly discovered subclass sub dwarf B stars vary their light output over periods measured in timescales of about an hour. By studying the light curve of these stars, astroseismologist are able to study the interior structure of these stars in much the same way that earthquake sound waves are used to study the interior of the earth. Dr Green will explain why this new subclass of stars is so important to the field of astroseismology and the current model for their evolution. She will also show us preliminary results of a recently completed two-month photometric and spectroscopic observing campaign on one of these stars.

Dr Green is an assistant staff astronomer as Steward Observatory. She received her PhD in 1981 from the University of Texas, Austin. Her research interests are stellar populations and stellar evolution.

Board of Director's Meeting: Wednesday, July 16, 7:00 pm at Steward Observatory Conference Room

Star Parties and Events:

Newsletter Schedule: Deadline for articles: Sat, July 19. Printing: Mon, July 21. Folding Party: Tues, July 22. Mailing: Wed July 23. The newsletter is mailed at least one week prior to the following month’s General Meeting.

Note: The board of directors meeting is the first Wednesday after the monthly meeting. The astrophoto SIG is the first Thursday after the monthly meeting.

General Information





		
             Office               Name                Phone        Email
             ------               ----                -----        -----
             President            Thom Peck          795-3585     thomas.peck@optics.arizona.edu
             Vice-President       Steve Peterson     762-8211     swpeterson@thereiver.com
             Secretary            Ken Wheelock       579-9099     kenandclancy@yahoo.com
             Treasurer            Terri Lappin       579-0185     tklappin@earthlink.net
             Member-at-Large      Ed Finney          296-9266     cefinney@NetZero.com
             Member-at-Large      Bill Lofquist      297-6653     wlofquist@aol.com
             Member-at-Large      Ray Toscano        529-3074     ray_toscano@Earthlink.net
			 
			Other Officers for 2003

            School S. Party Schedule Coordinator    Steve Marten        906-0049   steve1636@aol.com
            School S. Party Volunteer Coordinator   Robert Wilson       744-0263   rasjwilson@aol.com
            Desert Skies Editor                     George Barber       822-2392   barbergj@flash.net
            AstroLeague Correspondent               Nick de Mesa        797-6614   demesan@onsetbeach.com
            Astrophotography SIG                    Dean Ketelsen       293-2855   ketelsen@as.arizona.edu
            Astrocomputing SIG                      Roger Tanner        574-3876   rtanner@seds.lpl.arizona.edu
            Chief Observer                          Wayne Johnson       586-2244   mrgalaxy@juno.com
            Webmaster                               Dean Salman         250-0407   E-Mail
TAAA Mission Statement

Membership in the TAAA

Desert Skies Publishing Guidelines

Desert Skies is published monthly by the Tucson Amateur Astronomy Association, PO Box 41254, Tucson, Arizona 85717

President's Message

Club News

Meeting Night Change

Due to the July 4th holiday, our July meeting will be held on second Friday in July the 11th. Normal times: 6:30pm for the Beginners Lecture and 7:30pm for the Lecture and General Meeting.

Member News

We welcome the most recent members to join the TAAA: Robert Fritz, Vernon Dunlap, Charles Klingberg, Molly Moore and Tom Perry, Rob Nelson, and Brad Sexton. Glad to have all of you join! New members should be sure to pick up a new members pack at a meeting. Hope you’ll make it to our star parties or meetings so we can all get to know you. (Updated membership lists are available to any member at most regular meetings, so pick one up if you need it.)

Astro-Photo Special Interest Group
17 July, 7pm
China Rose, NE corner Speedway/Rosemont

As usual, the astrophoto SIG will meet the Thursday after the main meeting, in this case, delayed to 17 July, after the main lecture is delayed to the 11th. We have had some great presentations lately and as we slide towards the monsoons, we can review some of the work that has been done by club members lately. See you there!

Dean Ketelsen

TAAA Email List-Server

The TAAA Email List-Server, located on Yahoo®! Groups, allows quick communication with our members. The TAAA board strongly encourages those with email to subscribe to this list-server. It is designed for one-way messaging; only board members and a selected few individuals can post messages. It is not a chat list and replies do not go to the list. It is a very low volume list with only a few messages each month. Generally, the messages have been late breaking news, stuff that didn’t make the newsletter, last minute information about star parties, and requests for telescope support at our school and convention group star parties. To join the list, email Terri Lappin (tklappin@earthlink.net) and ask to be invited. This is the only way to join. Be sure to include the email address you want to receive messages at and your first and last name so Terri can verify that you are a paid member of TAAA. If you decide later that you don’t want to remain a member of the list-server it is easy to unsubscribe. Each message includes directions to unsubscribe. Yahoo®! Groups is free of charge but advertising supports it, so each message also includes an ad.

In addition to the List-Server, the TAAA has a Yahoo®! Groups website where members can upload photos or find useful information such as TIMPA Rules and Procedures and a FAQ page (answers to questions like: Can guests attend star parties?). To access these features, you must register with Yahoo®! Groups (go to www.yahoogroups.com and click on “Register”). Registering with Yahoo®! Groups is voluntary and not required if you only want to receive the emailed messages. Before registering with Yahoo®! Groups, the TAAA Board encourages members to read the Yahoo®! Groups Privacy Policy. Links to this policy can be found throughout the Yahoo®! Groups website.

For additional information, email or call Terri (579-0185).

Items of Interest

WEBSITES: TRIPS ON THE INTERNET SUPER-SKYWAY
Serious ATMing

No, I am not going to talk about some ritual of going around and withdrawing money from various Automatic Teller Machines. In this case, for the uninitiated, the ATM stands for Amateur Telescope Making, a rapidly vanishing art among amateur astronomers in this age of telescope wealth. But there is
still a core of people, united by the Internet, that make or improve their telescopes themselves.

For the novice there is a nice little Newtonian design page where you can actually do the designing interactively on your browser! It's called the Newtonian Telescope Design Planner at:
http://home.earthlink.net/~flyj/scopcalc.html

This is a fun website with CGI designers for Internet Explorer versions (and it worked on my LINUX Mozilla browser too so I assume Netscape will handle it as well). This page also contains some good information on collimation of Newtonians (often a problem with the fast Newts I've seen).

If refractive systems are what you are interested in, a good place to start is with the website of Roger Ceragioli here at our own University of Arizona at:
http://alice.as.arizona.edu/~rogerc/

If you are contemplating the construction of a refractor telescope or camera, this website is a must! This is a comprehensive presentation of the designs of refractor systems, including some that are commercially available as well as the medial (Schupmann) refractor and the dyalytic designs. It is unfortunate that this latter has not been exploited by amateur since the designs are very conservative of glass and weight. This website gives a lot of basic information on lens aberrations, design and optimizing things like color correction and field curvature. He has good bibliographical references all throughout the work so you can research designs in detail. Many of the references are German but those familiar with optics know this is unavoidable (thanks to Fraunhofer & Utzschneider, Merz & Mahler, Zeiss etc.).

There is a very fun website called Weird Telescopes that can be found at the URL:
http://bhs.broo.k12.wv.us/homepage/alumni/dstevick/weird.htm

These pages include stories about various tilted mirror telescopes, unobstructed designs and unusual refractive systems like the Shupmann refractor. The stories are a delight to read (like Pete Manly's old book UNUSUAL TELESCOPES). This is a great way to pass a cloudy evening and may well inspire you to get out your grinding powders and tools!

If you are so inspired, there is a sub-page off this website at:
http://bhs.broo.k12.wv.us/homepage/alumni/dstevick/software.htm

that contains five freeware telescope design programs for PCs.

Finally, and this by no means exhausts what is available on the web but only gets you started, there is a good bibliographical page of articles at:
http://www.telescopes.ru/articles/

These too cover a wide range of advanced topics, mostly focused on the Russian Maksutov design in one form or another.

Enjoy these, get inspired and improve your system or dream about building another one. After all, the dreams are half the fun!

As always, if you know of a particularly good website you would like mentioned here, drop me a line at: rhill@lpl.arizona.edu

 

Star Parties and Events

Tucson Children's Museum Star Party Central
Saturday, 7/19/03 No. of Scopes: 7

Tucson Children's Museum will be holding a Star-B-Que at 200 S. 6th Avenue and TAAA has been asked to provide a solar scope for late afternoon and scopes for the evening with set-up at 7.30, viewing at 8pm to 9pm. To get there go left on Stone to Broadway, then left on Broadway to Scott Avenue. Take a right on Scott to 13th Street, then left on 13th Street to 6th Avenue to 200 S. 6th Avenue. It’s across from Armory Park and the viewing will be from the south lawn of grounds. Contact person Xochitl Gil can be reached at 792.9985 or email tcm@tucsonchildrensmuseum.org. Set-Up Time: 4:30pm Observing will be from 5:00pm to 9:00 pm. Sunset: 7.30pm , Dark Sky: 8.06pm Moon Phase: Full Moon.


TAAA Star Party at TIMPA
Saturday, 7/19/03

Come on out and enjoy the summer skies! TIMPA star parties are great for both beginners and experienced observers. Our novice members can get help with observing issues or equipment problems, as there are many experienced members there who would be happy to help. If you don’t own a telescope, come anyways, because there are lots of telescopes set up and everyone is invited to look through them. This is a great way to check out different telescope designs before you make that all-important decision to buy. There is no scheduled talk for this activity, just come out and enjoy. We’ll do our best to get you the answers you need. If you have friends or relatives who are curious about amateur astronomy, feel free to bring them along. The TIMPA site features a large parking area, and full restroom facilities. Be prepared for a possible rain shower, as the monsoon season has started. Directions to the TIMPA site are located on the outside flap of this newsletter.


TAAA Star Party at Las Cienegas (Empire Ranch)
Saturday, 7/26/03

Las Cienegas (formerly Empire Ranch) has been our normal dark-sky observing site for quite a number of years. Please try to arrive before sunset. Stay as long as you like, but let everyone know when you are ready to leave; someone may be taking astrophotos. Bring a telescope if you have one, but you don’t need one to attend. Any member would be glad to let you look through their telescope. There are no restroom facilities at the site, so be prepared. At 4000 feet, it will be cooler than the Tucson area. Also, be prepared for a possible rain shower, as the monsoon season has started. Attendees should park their vehicles either perpendicular to the airstrip facing toward the center of the strip, or parallel to the airstrip along either side facing west. That way, when you are ready to leave, you will not have to back up and turn on your bright white backup lights. See the directions to Las Cienegas on the outside flap of this newsletter.

 

Dark Skies for June 

DARK SKIES (no twilight, no moonlight) for Tucson in 24-hour MST: 18=6pm, 20=8pm, 22=10pm, 0=12am
RISE, SET, VISIBILITY for sun and bright planets: rise for morning object, set for evening object


Mo/Tu 30/ 1  21:15 -  3:41         Fr/Sa  11/12    -   -   -          Mo/Tu  21/22  21:05 -  0:24
Tu/We  1/ 2  21:34 -  3:41         Sa/Su  12/13    -   -   -          Tu/We  22/23  21:04 -  0:55
We/Th  2/ 3  22:14 -  3:42                                            We/Th  23/24  21:03 -  1:29
Th/Fr  3/ 4  22:49 -  3:42         Su/Mo  13/14    Full Moon          Th/Fr  24/25  21:02 -  2:09
Fr/Sa  4/ 5  23:22 -  3:43         Mo/Tu  14/15    -   -   -          Fr/Sa  25/26  21:01 -  2:54
Sa/Su  5/ 6  23:53 -  3:44         Tu/We  15/16  21:09 - 21:31        Sa/Su  26/27  21:00 -  3:47
                                   We/Th  16/17  21:08 - 22:05                                   
Su/Mo  6/ 7   0:24 -  3:44         Th/Fr  17/18  21:08 - 22:36        Su/Mo  27/28  20:59 -  4:02
Mo/Tu  7/ 8   0:57 -  3:45         Fr/Sa  18/19  21:07 - 23:03        Mo/Tu  28/29  20:58 -  4:03
Tu/We  8/ 9   1:32 -  3:46         Sa/Su  19/20  21:06 - 23:30        Tu/We  29/30  20:57 -  4:04
We/Th  9/10   2:14 -  3:46                                            We/Th  30/31  20:56 -  4:05
Th/Fr 10/11   3:02 -  3:47         Su/Mo  20/21  21:05 - 23:56        Th/Fr  31/ 1  21:24 -  4:06


Weekend    Sun   Sun      Mercury     Venus      Mars     Jupiter    Saturn                       
Sa/Su      Set   Rise     Set  Vi    Rise Vi   Rise  Vi   Set  Vi    Rise Vi   Vi=Visibility      
                                                                                                  
 5/ 6     19:32  5:21     19:39 -    4:29  4   22:40 -1   21:38 0    4:40 9    -3 brilliant       
12/13     19:31  5:25     20:09 8    4:39  4   22:18 -2   21:14 1    4:17 6     0 conspicuous     
19/20     19:28  5:29     20:26 6    4:51  6   21:56 -2   20:51 2    3:53 3     3 moderate        
26/27     19:24  5:33     20:33 5    5:04  7   21:31 -2   20:28 4    3:29 2     6 naked eye limit 
 2/ 3     19:19  5:38     20:32 4    5:18  9   21:05 -2   20:05 6    3:05 1     9 binoculars limit

By Erich Karkoschka
Meeting Minutes

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