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The CHESTERFIELD ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY

Newsletter December 2018

CAS website: www.chesterfield-as.org.uk Registered Charity No. 514048 Our Facebook page: Our Facebook Page Newsletter Editor: Sue Silver Newsletter: newsletter@chesterfield-as.org.uk

President – Mark Eustace; Secretary – Beverley Carr; Treasurer – Graham Leaver.

Committee Members: - Sue Silver, David Frost, John Marsh, Catherine Wood, John Wheeldon and Linda Moore

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).

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Welcome to the December issue of the CAS newsletter.

CAS News

Chesterfield Astronomical Society’s 2019 Calendar

Last year, for the first time, CAS produced its own calendar for 2018. It proved to be a great success with images supplied by our own members and to that end we have produced one this year for 2019. Like in 2018 there are some stunning images which have again been produced by our members, some from experienced astrophotographers and some from members with less experience. All are welcome; having a go is what it’s about and encouraging members to try it for themselves. The front cover is given to the annual visit from the children from Belarus. This is a longstanding event, over the last seven or eight years, which we happily organise for free. There is an astro image on each of the twelve pages, one or two pages have a montage, so plenty to look at. Firstly many thanks to all the members who will have spent many a “freezing” hour and enough patience to capture all these wonderful images. Secondly thanks to Ben Broad for setting up an account to download all the images to and to Mark Eustace and Dave Frost for “judging” and collating all the images for the calendar. Thirdly and by no means least thanks to Dave Frost for setting up the calendar and organising the printing. The calendars are £7 each and will be available to collect from the Observatory by Friday 14th. Please give your order(s) to Dave Frost, you can send them to: david.frost@w3z.co.uk and he will reserve one (or more) for you as we will have limited stock and will be sold on a “first come, first served” basis. Unfortunately they will be sold on a “collect only” basis as we don’t have the facilities for distance selling and payment. All we need you to do now is buy them! All proceeds, as always, go to the Society. We hope you like them, we certainly do! Thank you.

The Origin and Development of the Universe - should we be surprised we are here? By Dr Chris Booth of Sheffield University Chris started by talking us through the big bang to present day. Explaining how the universe has developed into what we see today. From the big bang through the processes inside stars and supernova explosions which have all moulded the cosmos we have today. He explained that physical laws appear fine-tuned to provide an environment for intelligent beings like ourselves to exist. He theorised on what it would be like if the laws were tweaked slightly. For instance, if we added or took away a percentage point or two on the figures, what would happen. The fact is we would not have "happened". So our fine tuned physical laws are what have enabled us to be here. Chris, in conclusion, presented various possible scientific and philosophical explanations for why we are here. He left it to us to draw our own conclusions. The talk provoked many questions and Chris was able to answer them to our satisfaction. He left us with food for thought and left us to answer, for ourselves, the question of "should we be surprised we are here?" Marilyn Bentley Thanks Marilyn Coming up........ The CAS Christmas Party – 4th January It’s that time of year again, yes, it’s the CAS Christmas Party, Friday 4th January 2019. It is the usual format where we all bring food but please be prepared to take back home anything you bring that doesn’t get eaten. We don’t want a lot of leftover food to have to throw away. There will be the usual impossible quiz devised by Jim Fisher so perhaps a bit of swotting up might be advisable? It is the usual 8pm start time so look forward to seeing you all there. Friday 11th January 2019 Another date for your diaries..... A talk at the Observatory on Exploring the Distant Universe with Gamma Ray Bursts presented by Nial Tanvir

Photo Gallery........................... Still trying!!! Waning gibbous Moon. Static mount with Skywatcher ED80 and Canon 1100D Three imaged at 1/125, ISO 100 stacked in Registax. This was as the Moon has just cleared the trees (the one below is just before).

This is from Dave Frost...... Moonlit Holloway Panorama This was taken on the hill above Holloway, in mid October. The camera was mounted vertically on my camera tripod, and rotated about 15 degrees between each of the five shots. The shots were then stitched in Lightroom, and then finished off in Photoshop. The moon can be seen directly below the constellation of Auriga, then the Pleiades is to the right of that with Aldebaran below that. The farm is Upper Holloway Farm

Looks good, very clear.

These are from Peter Davison....... “.......these were taken when I was trying out my "new" second-hand EQ5 mount. Once I had the mount polar aligned, I had a tour around the night sky using the goto on the mount, which turned out very successful with lots of messier and NGC objects all found in the eyepiece. After a hour of viewing, I decided to change the 120mm refractor that was on the mount to my 127 Nexstar MAK telescope and then attach my camera to the scope. The pictures, although not the best I've ever seen or taken are of, M15 a globular cluster in Pegasus and M57 the Ring Nebula in Lyra.” Great Peter, thanks.

These are from Catherine....... “Here are my photos from this evening. The first one is the Moon over Chesterfield Canal. Then as it got darker I got a picture of Saturn next to the Moon. They are only taken with my phone, so not brilliant quality. I just thought it looked nice this evening.”

These are great Catherine. The Moon with Saturn is nice but can you see on the first one the reflection of the Moon in the water?

These are from Graham Leaver........ “Got around to trying to get to grips with this new camera and tried M1 and M27. M1 was 15x4min exp no filter used and multiple 3 or 4min exp only. A good start I think.” Thanks Graham.... looks good.

These are mine........ 11/11/18 The sun was still shining so I’ve darkened it down a little for contrast. I used a static mount with the Skywatcher ED80, four images stacked in Registax and finished in PaintShop Pro7. Mare Crisium is visible with crater Cleomedes just above. The crater below I believe is Langrenus to the edge of Mare Fecunditatis. The two below I used the Celestron NexStar6 and a Canon 1100D. The GoTo was working well but there is still movement with the altaz. These were my first attempts and the focus is not perfect. The Dumbbell is showing noise but I was just pleased to recognise it!! The star cluster is M15.

This is from Dave Frost.... The moon seen through a gap in the clouds above Hong Kong Island, taken from Kowloon Looks great Dave! These below are mine with my mobile, just couldn’t resist the night sky!! On the left you can see my weathervane silhouette. If you look closely (not something I normally recommend on my images!) on the one to the right you can just see the Moon tucked in between the pink clouds above a TV aerial). It also shows my non-horizon views!!

These are from Peter Davison.....

Clavius Clavius with 2 x Barlow

Copernicus with 2 x Barlow Plato Wilhelm Heinsius a b c with a 2 x Barlow Thanks Peter

These are from Graham Leaver.......

Copernicus

Tyco / Clavius

Tycho /.Clavius

Sinus Iridium Plato Thanks Graham. The Moon is very popular at the moment !!

And keeping the theme I had another go at the waxing gibbous Moon (17/11/18). You can see Plato towards the top, Montes Appenninus running down towards Copernicus with Clavius at the bottom. Things to see in December..... Monday 3rd Early risers will be greeted by the sight of the 17% lit waning crescent Moon forming part of a right angled triangle with mag. -4.6 Venus and mag. +1.0 Spica after 05:00 UT low in the southeast. Wednesday 5th This morning you can see the slender 4% waning lunar crescent and mag. +0.9 Mercury around 70 minutes before sunrise Friday 7th Mag. +0.1 Mars after the sky has darkened through binoculars or a small telescope. Mag. +7.9 Neptune is located just 8 arcminutes to the southwest of Mars (below and right as seen from the UK). Thursday 13th Tonight sees the peak of the Geminids. An early waxing Moon will set around 22:00 UT leaving the rest of the night good and dark to enjoy the show. Friday 14th This evening the 4.4% waxing crescent Moon lies 4.6° south of mag. +0.2 Mars. A telescopic view of the Moon from 21:00 UT reveals the clair obscure effects known as the Lunar X and Lunar V. They are at their best around 21:50 UT.

Saturday 15th Mag. -0.3 Mercury is currently visible low in the southeast before sunrise. Today the planet reaches greatest western elongation when it will be separated from the Sun by 21.3°. Thursday 20th Mag. -0.4 Mercury is 1.8° from mag. -1.6 Jupiter this morning visible low in the southeast approximately 80 minutes before sunrise. The planets appear even closer at just 1° apart on 21st and 22nd December. Friday 21st A 95% lit waxing gibbous Moon appears centrally within the V- shaped Hyades cluster and 2° from Aldebaran at 05:00 UT. The Northern Hemisphere’s winter solstice occurs at 22:23 UT. Saturday 22nd Tonight is the peak of the Ursid meteor shower but a full Moon will somewhat spoil this year’s display. Tuesday 25th This morning a bright 91% lit waning gibbous Moon passes 1° to the south of the Beehive Cluster, M44. The closest approach is around 05:30 UT. Things to remember......... Amazon..................... Please remember if you are ordering anything from Amazon follow the link on our website – this earns us commission!!! Thank you. Also Please check out our Facebook page by following the link below: Our Facebook Page

ASTROSTUFF

After Brief Shutdown, Hubble Goes Back to Work Following three weeks of downtime, engineers have cleared out a mechanical blockage in one of Hubble's gyroscopes and returned the observatory to full science operations.

This picture of the Hubble Space Telescope was taken by an astronaut just after space shuttle Atlantis captured the telescope with its robotic arm on May 13, 2009, to begin a mission to upgrade and repair the telescope. NASA, ESA

After a three-week hiatus, the Hubble Space Telescope is back in business. The observatory had been hibernating since October 6th, after a backup gyroscope started behaving abnormally. After working out the kinks in this behaviour late last week, the Hubble operations team returned the venerable telescope back to full science operation late on Friday. The 28-year-old space telescope completed its first science observation on October 27th at 2:10 a.m. EDT — its target was a remote star-forming galaxy designated DSF2237B-1-IR. Hubble’s gyroscopes are a key element of the telescope’s pointing control system, a collection of components that determine where the telescope is pointing at any given time. This info is vital for ensuring that the observatory stays on target and knows how to shift its gaze from one celestial body to another. Normally, Hubble uses three gyroscopes to measure the telescope’s rotation rate in three dimensions of space. On October 5th, one of the gyroscopes stopped working. The observatory switched to its last remaining backup the following day, but the replacement reported rotation rates that far exceeded what the telescope was actually doing. Hubble put itself in safe mode, a safety feature in which the telescope suspends science observations and awaits instructions from its support crew back on Earth. “We think the spinning of the gyroscope was likely affected by an inconsistency in the surrounding fluid or material,” says Tom Brown (Space Telescope Science Institute), head of the Hubble mission office. He says that because the gyroscope had been sitting inactive for several years, it may have developed an air bubble in its fluid or a stiff wire in one of its power leads. The team tried switching between operational states, which helped a bit, as well as simply turning the gyro’s power off and on, which didn’t do anything. “The next thing we could do in the realm of benign actions was to perform manoeuvres while toggling the operational state,” he says. The team commanded Hubble to go through a series of turns, hoping to reset the gyro — and it worked. With the anomaly cleared, the team put the gyro through its paces by pointing the observatory at a number of test targets while also uploading additional software safeguards, just in case. Now it’s back to business as usual. “The science instruments are all in good shape, and scientists are using them in clever ways to learn new details about the solar system, exoplanets, and even the expansion history of the universe,” says Jennifer Wiseman (NASA Goddard Space Flight Centre). “We are hopeful that Hubble will overlap with the James Webb Space Telescope, to be launched in 2021, by several years into the 2020s.”

FUN STUFF Q. What is the biggest lie in the entire Universe? A. “I have read and agree to the Terms and Conditions!

The closest a person comes to perfection is when he fills out a job application form! If people say they just love the smell of books, I always want to pull them aside and ask, To be clear, do you know how reading works? Texting one day I tried to say that I was a “functional adult” but my phone changed it to “fictional adult” and I feel that is more appropriate! As the hostess showed me to my table, I asked her to keep an eye out for my husband, who would be joining me shortly. I started to describe him: “He has grey hair, wears glasses, he has a potbelly ...” She stopped me there. “Madam” she said, “today is senior day. They all look like that.” After trick-or-treating, a young teenage boy takes a shortcut home through the cemetery. Halfway across, he’s startled by a tapping noise coming from the misty shadows. Trembling with fear, he spots an old man with a hammer and chisel, chipping away at a headstone. “I thought you were a ghost,” says the relieved boy. “What are you doing working so late?”

“Oh, those idiots,” grumbles the old man. “They misspelled my name!” That’s all folks.

Sue

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