Star Gazer News

Star Gazer News

Newsletter of the Delmarva Stargazers
www.delmarvastargazers.org

The Delmarva Stargazers
are pleased to announce

Star Gaze XIX Star Party
We'll be celebrating 20 years

of Stargazing on Delmarva
and have some special events planned.

Thursday, April 11, 2013
through Sunday, April 14, 2013
Tuckahoe State Park's Equestrian Center,

Queen Anne, MD.
Bring a friend, family, and maybe your

optics and join the fun
Check www.delmarvastargazers.org

For Registration!

Mar 5th Upcoming Events:

Meeting ! Mar 9th 7 PM Smyrna Church
Observing ! Blackbird & Eq. Cntr & Mallard
Mirror Making ! Mar 21st to 24th Dusk Mallard Lodge

March 2013 Page 1 Volume 19 Number 9

Mirror Making Update If you are not participating in the
event you are welcome to stop by and see
Don Surles what all the fuss is about...maybe even
As February winds down and March ap- walk away with a bit of the glass pushin’
fever that results in your becoming a fu-
proaches our attentions turn to mirror mak- ture MidAtlantic Mirror Maker.
ing. Mirror making is a disease...a very
contagious and chronic disease. The only Oh...once you have looked thru a
cure is to embroil oneself in glass, grit, telescope with a fine figured primary and
cerium, foucault testing, ronchii screens, enjoyed the SNAP-TO SHARP focus vs the
Ross-Null testing, courting the elusive pa- squishy rocking back & forth of commercial
rabola, and surrounding oneself with others telescopes you will know what the amateur
who share the MM malady. Once you get it, telescope mirror maker’s goal is about.
it will be with you for the rest of your
life. Here are some pics from last week-
end’s 16” grinding efforts.
There are several of us afflicted
people and we will descend on Mallard Lodge Don...
Wednesday afternoon, March 20. We will
delve into the science and the art of mir- the first mirror ready to
ror making until Sunday afternoon, March accept concrete…key
24. Mallard Lodge will be filled with tal- learning…next time use 4
ents, expertise, personalities, glass, or 6 mill polyethylene vs
grinding tables, grits and opportunities wrinkly Saran wrap
for participants to learn, perfect and ex-
pand the craft of mirror making. I am al- Cal…the concrete
ways, yes, always amazed at the efforts and finisher
the results of this special single weekend.
Some of the finest newtonian mirrors avail-
able have been produced at our MidAtlantic
Mirror making Weekends.

This year should be no excep-
tion...the tradition of pushing the amateur
mirror making envelope continues. For the
first time we will attempt to create 16” F-
3 mirrors from slumped plate glass. We
have 8 pieces of 3/4” X 16” glass that have
been successfully slumped and annealed.
Grinding has begun on two of them; hope-
fully two more can be started very soon.
The result should be a very thin 3/4” X 16”
meniscus...or a very large contact
lens...that can be used to make an astro-
graph (a large, short focal length tele-
scope used for astro photography).

In addition to the 16” slumped mir-
rors, we also have an assortment of 6, 8,
10, 12.5 & 16” mirrors for refiguring, a
few new 6” and a couple of new
12.5”ers...and a 20” F-6.4 to refigure.

So, this should be one of the best
MidAtlantic Mirror Making weekends...but I
have to admit each new one seems to improve
over the previous.

How to Join the Delmarva Stargazers: Anyone with an interest in any aspect of astronomy is welcome
NAME_______________________________________________________________New_______Renew___________
ADDRESS_____________________________________________________________________________________
CITY, STATE & ZIP______________________________________________________________________________
E-MAIL ADDRESS (If any)_________________________________________________________________________
Do you need the newsletter snail mailed to you (Y/N)?___________________________________________________
Please attach a check for $15 made payable to Delmarva Stargazers and mail to Kathy Sheldon, 20985
Fleatown Rd, Lincoln, DE 19960. Call club President Chuck Jennings at 302-449-3330 for more information.

March 2013 Page 2 Volume 19 Number 9

3 more concrete Chuck rough grinding
bases…we poured 2 16" meniscus
convex and 2 con-
cave…key learning…
the metal form should
have been the de-
sired thickness so
that it could have
been used as a level-
ing screed

Cal & Chuck Cal finishing the
checking for rough grinding 16"
astigmatism with meniscus
polarizing fil-
ters...that could drying concrete con-
have resulted cave base
from slumping -
none was de-
tected

Cal rough grind-
ing 16" …MOT

March 2013 Page 3 Volume 19 Number 9

Kepler Discovers a System of Tiny Planets

Feb. 20, 2013: NASA's Kepler mission scientists have discovered a new planetary
system that is home to the smallest planet yet found around a star similar to
our sun.

An artist's concept of
the new-found planet Ke-
pler-37b.

The planets are located in a system called Kepler-37, about 210 light-years
from Earth in the constellation Lyra. The smallest planet, Kepler-37b, is
slightly larger than our moon, measuring about one-third the size of Earth. It
is smaller than Mercury, which made its detection a challenge.

The moon-size planet and its two companion planets were found by scientists
with NASA's Kepler mission to find Earth-sized planets in or near the "habitable
zone," the region in a planetary system where liquid water might exist on the
surface of an orbiting planet. However, while the star in Kepler-37 may be simi-
lar to our sun, the system appears quite unlike the solar system in which we
live.

Astronomers think Kepler-37b does not have an atmosphere and cannot support
life as we know it. The tiny planet almost certainly is rocky in composition.
Kepler-37c, the closer neighboring planet, is slightly smaller than Venus, meas-
uring almost three-quarters the size of Earth. Kepler-37d, the farther planet,
is twice the size of Earth.

The first exoplanets found to orbit a normal star were giants. As technolo-
gies have advanced, smaller and smaller planets have been found, and Kepler has
shown even Earth-size exoplanets are common.

"Even Kepler can only detect such a tiny world around the brightest stars
it observes," said Jack Lissauer, a planetary scientist at NASA's Ames Research
Center in Moffett Field, Calif. "The fact we've discovered tiny Kepler-37b sug-
gests such little planets are common, and more planetary wonders await as we
continue to gather and analyze additional data."

Kepler-37's host star belongs to the same class as our sun, although it is
slightly cooler and smaller. All three planets orbit the star at less than the
distance Mercury is to the sun, suggesting they are very hot, inhospitable
worlds. Kepler-37b orbits every 13 days at less than one-third Mercury's dis-
tance from the sun. The estimated surface temperature of this smoldering planet,
at more than 800 degrees Fahrenheit (700 degrees Kelvin), would be hot enough to
melt the zinc in a penny. Kepler-37c and Kepler-37d, orbit every 21 days and 40
days, respectively.

"We uncovered a planet smaller than any in our solar system orbiting one of
the few stars that is both bright and quiet, where signal detection was possi-
ble," said Thomas Barclay, Kepler scientist at the Bay Area Environmental Re-
search Institute in Sonoma, Calif., and lead author of the new study published
in the journal Nature. "This discovery shows close-in planets can be smaller, as
well as much larger, than planets orbiting our sun."

The research team used data from NASA's Kepler space telescope, which si-
multaneously and continuously measures the brightness of more than 150,000 stars
every 30 minutes. When a planet candidate transits, or passes, in front of the

March 2013 Page 4 Volume 19 Number 9

star from the spacecraft's vantage point, a percentage of light from the star is
blocked. This causes a dip in the brightness of the starlight that reveals the
transiting planet's size relative to its star.

The size of the star must be known in order to measure the planet's size
accurately. To learn more about the properties of the star Kepler-37, scientists
examined sound waves generated by the boiling motion beneath the surface of the
star. They probed the interior structure of Kepler-37's star just as geologists
use seismic waves generated by earthquakes to probe the interior structure of
Earth. The science is called asteroseismology.

This line up compares artist's concepts of the planets in the Ke-
pler-37 system to the Moon and planets in our own solar system.

The sound waves travel into the star and bring information back up to the
surface. The waves cause oscillations that Kepler observes as a rapid flickering
of the star's brightness. Like bells in a steeple, small stars ring at high
tones while larger stars boom in lower tones. The barely discernible, high-
frequency oscillations in the brightness of small stars are the most difficult
to measure. This is why most objects previously subjected to asteroseismic
analysis are larger than the sun.

With the very high precision of the Kepler instrument, astronomers have
reached a new milestone. The star Kepler-37, with a radius just three-quarters
of the sun, now is the smallest bell in the asteroseismology steeple. The radius
of the star is known to 3 percent accuracy, which translates to exceptional ac-
curacy in the planet's size.

For information about the Kepler Mission, visit http://www.nasa.gov/kepler

Production editor: Dr. Tony Phillips | Credit: http://science.nasa.gov/

Your 2011-2012 Officers

Office Officer Phone email
President [email protected]
President-elect Chuck Jennings 302-449-3330
Secretary [email protected]
Treasurer Don Surles 302-653-9445
Past President [email protected]
Cal Estrada
March 2013
Kathy Sheldon 302-422-4695

Lyle Jones 302-736-9842

Page 5 Volume 19 Number 9

Cancer—from Wikipedia tures, usually those living in the water,

Cancer is one of the twelve constel- and always those with an exoskeleton.
In the Egyptian records of about 2000
lations of the zodiac. Its name is Latin
♋for crab and it is commonly represented as BC it was described as Scarabaeus (Scarab),

such. Its astrological symbol is . Cancer the sacred emblem of immortality. In Baby-
is relatively small among the constella- lonia the constellation was known as
tions with an area of only 505 square de- MUL.AL.LUL, a name which can refer to both
grees and its stars are rather faint. It a crab and a snapping turtle. On boundary
lies between Gemini to the west and Leo to stones, the image of a turtle or tortoise
the east, Lynx to the north and Canis Minor appears quite regularly and it is believed
that this represent Cancer as a conven-
and Hydra to the south.
Cancer is the dimmest of the zodiacal tional crab has not so far been discovered
on any of these monuments. There also ap-
constellations, having only two stars above pears to be a strong connection between the
the fourth magnitude.
Cancer is best known among stargazers Babylonian constellation and ideas of death
as the home of Praesepe (Messier 44), an and a passage to the underworld, which may
open cluster also called the Beehive Clus- be the origin of these ideas in much later
ter, 577 light-years from Earth. M44 con- Greek myths associated with Hercules and
tains about 50 stars, the brightest of the Hydra. In the 12th century, an illus-
which are of the sixth magnitude. ε Cnc is trated astronomical manuscript shows it as
the brightest member at magnitude 6.3. a water beetle. Albumasar writes of this
Praesepe is also one of the larger open sign in the work published in 1489 as a
clusters visible; it has an area of 1.5 large crayfish. Jakob Bartsch and Stanis-
square degrees, or three times the size of laus Lubienitzki, in the 17th century, de-
scribed it as a lobster.
the full Moon.
The smaller, denser open cluster In Ancient Greece, Aratus called the crab
Messier 67 can also be found in Cancer, Καρκινος (Karkinos), which was followed by
2500 light-years from Earth. It has an area Hipparchus and Ptolemy. The Alfonsine ta-
of approximately 0.5 square degrees, the bles called it Carcinus, a Latinized form
size of the full Moon. It contains approxi- of the Greek word. Eratosthenes extended
mately 200 stars, the brightest of which this as Καρκινος, Ονοι, και Φατνη: the
Crab, Asses, and Crib.
are of the tenth magnitude.
The Indian language Sanskrit shares a
Cancer is said to have been the place
for the Akkadian Sun of the South, perhaps common ancestor with Greek, and the San-
from its position at the summer solstice in skrit name of Cancer is Karka and Karkata.
very remote antiquity. But afterwards it In Telugu it is "Karkatakam", in Kannada
was associated with the fourth month Duzu "Karkataka" or "Kataka", in Tamil Karkatan,
(June–July in the modern western calendar), and in Sinhalese Kagthaca. The later Hindus
and was known as the Northern Gate of Sun. knew it as Kulira, from the Greek Κολουρος
Showing but few stars, and its (Koloyros), the term originated by Proclus.
In Ancient Rome, Manilius and Ovid
brightest stars being of only 4th magni-
tude, Cancer was often considered the "Dark called the constellation Litoreus (shore-
Sign", quaintly described as black and inhabiting). Astacus and Cammarus appear in
without eyes. Dante, alluding to this various classic writers, while it is called
faintness and position of heavens, wrote in Nepa in Cicero's De Finibus and the works
of Columella, Plautus, and Varro; all of
Paradiso:
these words signify crab, lobster, or scor-
“Then a light among them brightened,
So that, if Cancer one such crystal had, pion.
Athanasius Kircher said that in Cop-
Winter would have a month of one sole

day.” tic Egypt it was Κλαρια, the Bestia seu

Cancer was the location of the Sun's Statio Typhonis (the Power of Darkness).

most northerly position in the sky (the Jérôme Lalande identified this with Anubis

summer solstice) in ancient times, though needed], one of the Egyptian divinities

this position now occurs in Taurus due to commonly associated with Sirius.

the precession of the equinoxes, around In Chinese astronomy, the stars of

June 21. This is also the time that the sun Cancer lie within the The Vermillion Bird

is directly overhead at 23.5°N, a parallel of the South.

now known as the Tropic of Cancer.

The modern symbol for Cancer repre-

sents the pincers of a crab, but Cancer has

been represented as various types of crea-

March 2013 Page 6 Volume 19 Number 9

March 2013 Page 7 Volume 19 Number 9

Astrophotos

by Members and Friends

This is my image of the Jellyfish
Nebula. It is a LHaRGB combina-
tion taken through my AP 130mm
refractor with a QSI 583wsg CCD
camera.

From Wikipedia, "IC 443 (also
known as the Jellyfish Nebula and
Sharpless 248 (Sh2-248)) is a Ga-
lactic supernova remnant (SNR) in
the constellation Gemini. On the
plan of the sky, it is located
near the star Eta Geminorum. Its
distance is roughly 5,000 light
years from Earth.

IC 443 may be the remains of a
supernova that occurred 3,000 -
30,000 years ago. The same super-
nova event likely created the
neutron star CXOU
J061705.3+222127, the collapsed
remnant of the stellar core. IC
443 is one of the best-studied
cases of supernova remnants in-
teracting with surrounding mo-
lecular clouds."
- Joe Morris

Delmarva Stargazers Hosts

Annual Mid-Atlantic Mirror Making Seminar

Delmarva Star Gazers will host the 13th Mid-Atlantic Mirror Making Seminar March 21
through Sunday March 24, at Mallard Lodge, Smyrna, DE. Mirror makers and other attendees
should check into the Lodge before 11:00 AM Friday. Activities begin at Noon, March 23.

The purpose of the Seminar is to introduce proven successful mirror making techniques and
practices to those wishing to make their own mirrors. Special emphasis will be placed on
successfully figuring the mirror.

Members who would like to help with this event are welcome.

March 2013 Page 8 Volume 19 Number 9