The CHESTERFIELD ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY
Newsletter APRIL 2015
CAS website www.chesterfield-as.org.uk
Registered Charity No. 514048
Secretary: Marilyn Bentley
Newsletter: Sue Silver
[email protected]
President – Reinhold Gasser. Secretary – Marilyn Bentley. Treasurer – Graham Leaver.
Newsletter Editor – Sue Silver. CAS Webmaster – Simon Instone, Committee Members: – Geoff Fell, Peter Cory
Subscriptions - full membership £60
or £6 per month by Standing Order (10 months)
Senior citizens (60 yrs and over) and students (18 yrs and over) £40
or £4 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
FRIDAY 20TH MARCH 2015 - PARTIAL SOLAR ECLIPSE - Morning Event
This was all part of this year's Stargazing Live shown on BBC2. We were open
Wednesday, Thursday and Friday evenings plus Friday morning for the eclipse.
This was a great event and well attended with somewhere around thirty to forty people.
The clouds were too thick to be able to use our solar scope but we did see the eclipse in
all its stages through the thin film of cloud. People were at the Observatory for around
two hours in all and whilst there, of course, got a tour of the dome as well. A great
event. (Please see photographs lower down the document).
A reminder for Haddon Grove Astrocamp..............
Haddon Grove Astrocamp – 10th – 12th April 2015
Peter Davison has sent this about the Haddon Grove Astrocamp.
The camp will take place at Haddon Grove campsite, beginning Fri 10th April - Sun 12th
April. As usual anybody wishing to attend, either camping or just coming down and
observing at a dark sky site for the night would be welcome.
If anybody would like to camp for the weekend but don’t have the equipment then I'll be
opening the camping lending library, all I need is a couple of weeks notice so I can book
you onto the campsite, also if you do decide to go and you have you own equipment
then let me know in plenty of time so I can get you booked in.
Jupiter will be on show all night along with galaxies galore in the constellations of Leo,
Virgo and Ursa Major. Towards the late evening (10:45pm, well past my
bedtime) Saturn will be making an appearance along with the constellation of Hercules
with its globular clusters M13 and M92.
I look forward in seeing you all there.
Many thanks for this Peter.
Photo gallery.........
These were taken by Graham Leaver
on 1st March. The image below is....
“whole disc on frame (sun07) with a
0.6x Barlow”.
This one is from Graham Jenkinson...... “photo of the comet that
I took last night the 7th March. It’s a total exposure time of 21 mins 44 seconds and 44
frames were stacked with deep sky stacker. It’s still with us but getting fainter and
smaller….”.
Many thanks Graham, still looks good.
This is from Peter Davison......
“On Tuesday the 24th Feb at around 6:30pm I thought that I would have a try at taking a
picture of Venus and Mars. The only problem that I could see was that I couldn't see it
from my observatory because houses were blocking my view. The only way round this
problem was to take the picture from the back bedroom window and hope that nobody
from the houses opposite noticed me. The planets where just over the roof of the
houses opposite and if seen I could have been mistaken for taking a picture of
something else. Anyway nobody knocked on my door so everything went OK.
In the words of Paul McCartney and wings "Venus and Mars look fine tonight".”
We believe him……
Thanks Peter.
Another good one from Graham Jenkinson........ “....taken 10th of March. It’s a total of
60 frames stacked with deep sky stacker and the total exposure time was 31 mins 51
seconds. The comets magnitude was 7.5.
It was taken with my 120mm F6 Refractor.
These were taken by Graham 14/03/15 ......“It’s starting to get very faint now and I had a
job finding it last night. If you have a star map of Cassiopeia and look where M109 is,
just below that is a star marked x. This is the bright star that you can see on the photo. It
will give you an idea where to locate the comet”.
It’s certainly been around for a bit now and we have had some great shots of it. Thanks
Graham.
The Partial Solar Eclipse - Friday 20th March 2015
These were taken by Peter Davison......
These are great........thanks Peter.
These are a couple of montages put together by Rob McGregor. One from the 1999
event and one from Friday morning, the 20th March 2015.
This from 1999
and the ones below from Friday morning 2015.....
These are from Mario Stevenson ..... from Austria!
He writes.......
"Nice to see you have the car park done and keeping the local youngsters entertained in the
evenings.
I had the 250 Newt set up in the garden for the eclipse just as the local infants and juniors
were having their lesson on solar viewing. Did the good relations bit and asked the teacher if
they would like to come into the garden and see it through the scope instead of the little specs.
Ended up with the whole school in the garden about 50+ plus staff. Reminded me of our nights
in the dome with the local cubs and guides.
Grabbed a couple of shots in between groups not brilliant but adequate.
Back in UK sometime in May so will pop in to see you all."
Sounds like he is keeping up the good work!!
Thanks for these Mario, look forward to seeing you again when you come over to England.
Some more Eclipse photos, these from Graham Leaver............
These are great, thanks Graham.
Also from Graham Leaver.......from 27/03/15
(I'm envious, I didn't get chance to see
this).
Things to see in April................
Tuesday 7th
The Moon's south pole is well presented from 7 – 13 April. This is a
complicated region of the lunar globe, heavily covered in craters.
Wednesday 8th
This morning's 87% lit waning gibbous Moon is just over 5° west of
mag. +0.6 Saturn. Both are due south at around 04:20 BST.
Thursday 9th
Mag. -3.9 Venus passes south of the Pleiades open cluster this
month. The closest approach is on 11th April but the planet and
cluster can be seen near to each other from tonight until the 13th.
Tuesday 14th
The eastward movement of Venus now takes it to a position where
it lies between the Pleiades and Hyades open clusters.
Wednesday 15th
Ganymede transits Jupiter between 21:10 BST on the 14th and
00:46 BST this morning. The moon's shadow follows between
02:01 and 05:35 BST.
Thursday 16th
The famous Sombrero galaxy in Virgo, M104, is due south at just
after midnight. It is quite a low object from the UK, when due south
it will be at its highest point in the sky.
Friday 17th
This evening it is Callisto's shadow that can be seen crossing
Jupiter's disc. The shadow starts to pass across the planet's
eastern limb at 22:15 BST and remains visible until 02:57 BST on
the 18th.
Saturday 18th
A rare annular occultation of Ganymede by Callisto occurs this
morning between 02:28 and 02:36 BST. Callisto's disc will be in
front of but not quite covering Ganymede's at 2:32 BST.
Sunday 19th
Mercury is visible shortly after sunset in the west-northwest. Look
carefully for the delicate crescent Moon, Mercury and Mars form an
equilateral triangle with Mars at the top.
Monday 20th
The Plough asterism lies overhead at midnight making this a great
time to investigate some of the deep sky objects nearby. These
include the Owl Nebula (good luck with this one!), galaxies M81
and M82 and the multiple star system Mizar and Alcor.
Wednesday 22nd
Mag. +1.4 Mars and mag. -1.1 Mercury are 1.25° apart low in the
west-northwest shortly after sunset.
The April Lyrid meteor shower peaks tonight and the Moon won't
spoil the show.
ASTROSTUFF
Explosions of Jupiter's aurora linked to extraordinary planet-moon
interaction
On Earth, bursts of particles spewed by the
Sun spark shimmering auroras, like the
Northern Lights, that briefly dance at our
planet's poles. But, on Jupiter, there's an
auroral glow all the time, and new
observations show that this Jovian display
sometimes flares up because of a process
having nothing to do with the Sun.
Jupiter watchers have long known that the
giant planet's ever-present polar auroras -thousands of times brighter and many times
bigger than Earth -- are powered by both
electrically charged particles from the Sun
colliding with Jupiter's magnetic field and a
separate interaction between Jupiter and one of its many moons, called Io. But there are also
auroral explosions on Jupiter, or periods of dazzling brightening, similar to auroral storms on
Eart, that no one could definitively trace back to either of those known causes.
In the aurora-making interaction of Jupiter and Io, volcanoes on the small moon blast clouds of
electrically charged atoms (ions) and electrons into a region surrounding Jupiter that's
permeated by the planet's powerful magnetic field, thousands of times stronger than Earth's.
Rotating along with its rapidly spinning planet, the magnetic field drags the material from Io
around with it, causing strong electric fields at Jupiter's poles. The acceleration of the ions and
electrons produce intense auroras that shine in almost all parts of the electromagnetic spectrum
but most brightly in high-energy bands, like ultraviolet light and x-rays that are invisible to
unaided human eyes.
Starting in January 2014, a telescope aboard the JAXA's (Japan Aerospace Exploration
Agency) Hisaki satellite, which focused on Jupiter for two months, recorded intermittent
brightening of the giant planet's aurora. The telescope detected sudden flare-ups on days when
the usual flow of charged particles from the Sun, known as the solar wind, was relatively weak.
Additional space and ground-based telescopes, including the Hubble Space Telescope, also
viewed Jupiter during these lulls in the solar wind. Both Hisaki and Hubble witnessed explosions
of the planet's aurora despite the solar wind's calm, suggesting that it's the Jupiter-Io interaction
driving these explosions, not charged particles from the Sun, according to the new study. The
new research does not address exactly what is happening in the Jovian magnetosphere to
cause the temporary brightening of auroral explosions.
FUN STUFF
I decided to make my password "incorrect" because if I type it in wrong, my computer will
remind me, "Your password is incorrect." ......that's a thought!
What's Forrest Gump’s password?
1forrest1
......think about it.
An organisation is like a tree full of monkeys, all on different limbs at different levels. The
monkeys on top look down and see a tree full of smiling faces. The monkeys on the bottom look
up and see nothing but **!*!*!*!*!*s. ......I'll let you fill in the blanks.
Two factory workers are talking. The woman says, "I can make the boss give me the day off."
The man replies, "And how would you do that?" The woman says, "Just wait and see." She then
hangs upside down from the ceiling. The boss comes in and says, "What are you doing?" The
woman replies, "I'm a light bulb." The boss then says, "You've been working so much that
you've gone crazy. I think you need to take the day off." The man starts to follow her and the
boss says, "Where are you going?" The man says, "I'm going home too. I can't work in the
dark."
That’s all folks.
Sue
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.