The News Letter of the Buffalo Astronomical Association

The Spectrum

In this Issue...

Volume xx Issue x Month / Month Year

The News Letter of the Buffalo Astronomical Association

The Spectrum

In this Issue...

Volume 14 Issue 4 July / August 2012

From the Presidentpage 1

Observatory Reportpage 2

BAA Calendar of Eventspage 3

College of Fellowspage 4

Venus Transit ­ Dan Mpage 4

Venus Transit ­ Rowlandpage 6

Member Photographypage 7

iPhone Photographypage 9

BAA Annals page 9

From the Lame DuckFour years and 24 Spectrums ago I wrote my first column asBAA president. The landscape was oddly familiar… theeconomy was a mess, Barack Obama was in the midst of acampaign for the presidency, fielding barbs by a Republicancandidate for being a tax and spend liberal. The topic of thatday (and the title of my first column) was a The 3 MillionDollar Overhead Projector ­ about the political falloutsurrounding a proposed new projector for the AdlerPlanetarium in Chicago. A lot of water has passed under thebridge since then. The Adler has a new projector. And BarackObama… well, I’ll stop with current events right there.I’ve enjoyed a much easier ride in my tenure as president andI’ve enjoyed just about every minute of it. Indulge me while Ilook back fondly on a few personal highlights. Topping the listwould be the beautiful new mount and telescopes under theroll off roof at Beaver Meadow. The huge collective effort thatmade this happen is likely the biggest fundraising drive in thehistory of our club. Let’s hoist a toast and a high five. Theequipment is up and working, taking pictures and providingstunning views of the sky for club members and the visitingpublic to enjoy. I even got to shoot some daytime pictures ofVenus through it.I’ve attended every dinner banquet since I joined the BAA inthe late 1990s. I think we really went for the stars with thebanquet held at the Buffalo Museum of Science four yearsago. It was a packed house for dinner in the main hall. Wedoubled our usual crowd with a dress up party honoring ErnstBoth and featuring a wild demonstration by everyone’sfavorite mad scientist, Cliff Stoll. How lucky am I that ourvice­president Janice Gardner is also WNY’s best partyplanner. And just so you know, our new president is a partyguy with excellent credentials as a master grill chef.

Continued on next page

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Observatory ReportDan Marcus

I have been trying to get to theObservatory for the Monday night sessionsespecially if clear, but have not always beensuccessful in getting there. I will try tomake it on Clear 3rd Saturdays of theMonth as well. We will be having a repairweekend July 7/8th The outriggers for theroof need some of the supports repairedand we need to paint the Observatory. Planon having a bring a dish to pass dinnerafterwards before we start public night. Iwill post more information on egroupsbefore hand, if you do not have internetaccess, call me at home 773­5015, cell at445­4991Star Parties:

There are 4 scheduled star parties.What is a star party you might ask? Well itis when members congregate some place toview the sky, discuss astronomy, and tryout each other’s astro toys. It is a fun wayto learn about the hobby. No matter whatthe level of your experience is, you canalways learn a new trick, and get to assistor get assistance from your fellow clubmembers. These are fun social events anda great place to introduce your family tothe joys of astronomy. The first to happenis Larry Carlino’s on Saturday July 14, DrJack and Jayne Mack’s on Friday August 10,and the Annual BAA Star Party SaturdayAugust 18 along with one New MoonSaturday July 21 at the Observatory. Seelisting of events for more information ontimes and locations.(See next page for BAA events)Keep looking up!Daniel Marcus

From... (continued from page 1)Our membership roster is currently at itshighest number in years. Even moreexciting is the level of involvement of newermembers in club activities and leadershiproles. Come out to BMO some night whenDan and friends are working with the newscope and you will meet many folks who’vebeen a member for only a year or two. OurSpectrum editor is a BAA youngster. Cherijoined the club just two years ago. Boardmember Neal Ginsberg joined after Cheri.Rowland has been around for a bit longer.His spunky determination to keep us awareand true to our history is a gift that youhave to experience through board serviceto fully appreciate. Thank you to all thegreat folks I’ve had the pleasure to workwith on the board. Thanks also to all whogive their time in other ways. The effort wemake to share the wonders of the universewith the public is deeply appreciated by ourprogramming partners at Beaver Meadow,the Museum of Science, the Libraries, Canalside… and by all the folks whoseimagination we touch at these places. Ihear this again and again and I apologize ifI haven’t shared this gratifying feedbackwith you often enough. It makes what wedo what we love to do.I miss the members we’ve lost recently…Edith, Darwin, Ted, Gus. I’m richer for theopportunity to know you through the BAA.Mike, you will be a fantastic BAA president.You’ve got a huge aperture for this workand the sense of humor to make it fun forall of us. Now I get to take off one of myhats (I still have a few left) and sit in thefront row and take pictures. Watch yourback, my friend!Have a wonderful summer!Alan

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We will need HELP at the Observatory for the following events:July 7th public night/ and daytime for work party Noon to 6pm; Dinner 6­8, andpublic night 8­11pmJuly 8 work party Noon to 5pmAugust 4th Public nightAugust 12th meteor shower night

Schedule of BAA Events for 2012ATTENTION : Observatory Public Night Schedule Change: This year it will be on the FirstSaturday of the Month from April through October.July 7 – Public night at BMOJuly 8 – work party Noon till 5July 14 – STAR PARTY ­ Larry Carlino invites you to his Star Party at 7118 Kinne Road,

Lockport, Saturday from 8pm till Midnight. Phone 433­3432. Larry has alarge collection of telescopes (2” all the way up to 28”)and lots ofaccessories. That coupled with his experience with astro toys andreasonably dark skies makes it a good place to learn about the night sky aswell as all sorts of astro gear. This is a rain or shine event. You can checkCleardarksky.com and check New York State and go to DaVinciObservatory for weather and mapshttp://cleardarksky.com/c/DVncObNYkey.html?1

July 21 – New Moon Star Party ­ Saturday at the Observatory – Come before sunset andcheckoutVenusandMercury inthedaytime,andlearnhowtousetheobservatory.

July 28 ­ Wilson Star PartyAugust 4 – Public night at BMOAugust 10 (Friday) ­ STAR PARTY ­ Jayne and Prof. Jack Mack invite you to their home on

1 Hunters Lane, Williamsville 14221 on Friday August 10, from7:00pm till11pm. Phone 632­6210. This is a rain or shine event. Feel to bring ascope, or just come and smell the flowers in Jack’s garden. If cloudy wecan always have a lively astro discussion. If clear we can hone our suburbanskiesviewingskills.Youwouldbesurprisedwhatyoucanseeinalightpolluted environment! Children welcome. Free to bring munchies.

August 11 ­ Wilson Star PartyAugust 12 – Sunday night – hosting a public meteor watching evening at BMO. There is

nothing like watching meteors with a bunch of enthusiastic people. If clearwill be great for kids of all ages.

August 17/18/19 Star Fest, Mount Forest, Ontario, CanadaAugust 18 – The BAA’s annual New Moon Star Party at the Observatory. The festivities will

start around 5pm after the August Board Meeting. This is a bring a dish topass party. Daniel Marcus will have a small tabletop gas grill if anyoneneeds tocookanything.Shouldbea fun time. Comeand learnhowtoobserve the planets in the daytime.

August 25 – Star Bites at the Buffalo Museum of Science

Continued on page 4

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September 1 – Public Night at BMOSeptember 14 – BAA meeting at Buff State 7:30pmSeptember 14/15/16 Black Forest Star PartySeptember 23 – Wilson Star PartyOctober 5/6 BMO is closed to members till after 10:30pm due to the annual fall festival.

The BAS has requested that we do not come to the Obs until after they closedown their festivities for the night as they have a LARGE paying crowd thatshows up annually for this event

October 12 – BAA meeting at Buff State 7:30pmOctober 13 – Wilson Star PartyNovember 9 ­ BAA meeting at Buff State 7:30pmDecember 14 BAA Annual Holiday Party

Venus Transit AdventureDan Marcus

Did you manage to see the Venus Transitfrom Buffalo? Well you can thank me forleaving town. My thanks to Peter Proulx,Rick Guerin, and Mike Potar for helping meleave town. I started with a posting on theegroups and found a couple of victims topartake in chasing the clear skies. Wewaited till the day before the transit todetermine where we were going, andsettled on Columbus, Ohio as being the

College of Fellows ReportRowland A. Rupp

Anthony Davoli received the College ofFellows award “for his design anddevelopment of innovative components forthe astronomer and astrophotographer” atthe BAA’s annual dinner meeting held onApril 14th at the Banchetti Banquet Hall.No new members were nominated to thecollege.

Our dinner speaker was Dr. JosephVeverka from Cornell University who spokeon “The Mystery of Comets.” Somewhathampered by technical difficulties, Dr.Veverka carried on successfully to provideus with new insights into these transientvisitors.

center of possible clear skies. After muchhemming and hawing we determined whatto bring. As usual I traveled light; onlyhad 7 large boxes, two chairs, a table anda laptop. Mike and Rick only traveled alittle lighter. Peter on the other hand hadto showoff and come with an attaché caseand a laptop. He managed to set up inabout 60 seconds and had a great timelaughing at us with all our stuff. Originallywe were going to travel in Pete’s SUV tillhe heard how “lightly” we were traveling,and wisely decided to find a larger vehicleto avoid having to take two vehicles. Wehad almost enough room for 4 guys andall our equipment in a Hummer. Nice tohave a comfortable ride to an event. Didnot hurt we could drive to any land basedlocation without getting stuck. Theweather was iffy when we settled in thehotel, so after a powwow, and muchsurfing the internet, we checked ourhoroscopes and decided on Conneaut,Ohio Township Park. Where Google Mapsshowed a nice park at the lakes edge. Wegot up the next morning to clouds andrain, but the Clear Sky Clock said go Eastyoung men so East to the Ohio/Pa borderwe went. At the park we found a greatlocation at picnic area at the top of a bluffwith a paved lot and electric power wecould use. After carefully consulting TheSky 6 to determine where the Sun set, we

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Second contact, in H-alpha

by Dan Marcus

Venus and an active region,

in H-alpha

by Dan Marcus

all go out our compasses and triedto figure out exactly where the Sunwould hit the water. Ourcalculations were accurate and wewatched the Sun and Venus setover Lake Erie. All and all a mostenjoyable adventure.

First contact, in H-alpha

by Dan Marcus

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Venus TransitRowland A. Rupp

I missed the June meeting where the Venustransit was featured, but I wanted to tell ofmy experience, so I’ll do it here. I went toWilliamsville North High School where Ifound ten or twelve telescopes manned byBAA members and a couple of hundredeager viewers waiting for the transit tobegin. I had resurrected my old CriterionRV­6 telescope (the last entry in myobserving log book was August 2003), foundmy sun filter and brought them with theintention of observing. But the 100 yard,more or less, walk from the parking lot tothe observing venue, lugging an awkward 50pound telescope, didn’t appeal to me. Afterall, I did have a small hand­held filter Ihoped to use.

Viewing the transit without magnificationproved unrewarding, however, so I decidedto set up my telescope next to my car. Withthe help of my wife, Irene, we set up near asand pile (mistake). I soon found the finderscope and the main scope weren’t aligned,so I couldn’t get the sun in the6­inch. I was about to remedy this problemwhen I discovered six or eight people hadlined up waiting for a view. I figured a viewthrough the X6 finder was better than noneat all, so I let them get a look. By then theline had extended to twenty and shortlyafter to thirty to forty. I gave up on the 6­inch and settled for a view of the transit andfive or six sunspots seen in the finder. Thepublic was thrilled with what they saw andprofusely thanked me for setting up.

The only dissent came from a fellowwearing a “NASA” emblazoned shirt, whosuggested I should have set up with theother telescopes 100 yards away. I said Iwould be glad to if he would carry thetelescope over there. He blustered a bit,turned, and faded away.

Finally I halted viewing for a minuteor so, and luckily got the sun in the 6­inch at

X30, using my longest focal lengtheyepiece. The entire sun was in the fieldshowing the contrast between its size andthe planet, several more sunspots, andlimb darkening. I had to move thetelescope more frequently than before, butat this low power several people could viewbetween moves. The long line continuedfor nearly two hours and I estimate I musthave shown the transit to 250 to 300people, perhaps more. Each viewer tookonly about a half minute, so many could beaccommodated. A couple of them cameback for a second look. I didn’t actuallycount, but I heard approximately fifty“wow”s, an “amazing” and sixty or seventy“cool”s. I thought the latter exclamationsomewhat inappropriate when viewing thesun, but I suppose one must makeallowances for modern idioms, howevermisplaced.

I discovered that adults use atelescope for looking, while kids use it forgrabbing. After a few unfortunateexperiences I came to exclaim “don’ttouch” when kids approached thetelescope, (as also did their parents), butwith limited success. Fortunately, I found Icould find the sun again fairly easily; infact, I got pretty good at it. Experiencecounts! As for the sand pile mentionedearlier, I had forgotten the affinity kidshave for sand. The parents’ reactionsranged from “don’t go on the sand,” to“get off there,” to indulgent acceptance ofa messy offspring.

All in all, it was a very satisfyingexperience. There were countless thankyous and expressions of appreciation fortaking the trouble to bring a telescope togive people a view of a rare event. I laterremarked to Irene that that was probablythe first time most of those people hadseen a sunspot. She responded with“that’s probably the first time most ofthem have looked through a telescope.”

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BAA Member Photographs

Here's one of the crowd viewing

the Transit of Venus at

Wil l iamsvil le's

Planetarium. BAA members

Richard Janas, Rowland Rupp,

Larry Carl ino and Jack

Mack are in there somewhere.

Photo by Mark Percy

Photo by Bob WengewiczTaken with a Canon T3 camera witha 18­55mm lens @ 18mm (stocklens) on a CG­5 mount. This is asingle 5 min image of the southernMilkyway taken On June 24th @12:45 AM at BMO.

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Photo by Peter Proulx: a mosaic of the North American and Pelican Nebula. Theimage was August 12, 2011 ­ North American and Pelican Nebula Mosaic ­ 8x600sec. Hydrogen Alpha (HA) ­ QSI583 AT65­Astrograph *False color

Photos by Peter Proulx:

M42 the Orion and Running

Man Nebula taken this

February, this is a LRGB Image.

Below is the same image in HA.

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BAA ANNALSRowland A. Rupp

5 YEARS AGO ­ Summertime is star partytime, but I found no mention of comingparties in the July/August 2007 Spectrum,other than that the party held earlier by theMacks was a success. Alan Friedman wroteon “Taking Pictures from Bad Places.” Wecan all guess where the primary “bad place”Alan refers to is, but then he providesguidance in producing good planetaryimages even from Buffalo. Bill Halpertreported on his successful effort to build aDobsonian mount for his 4 ½ inch reflector.Bill Smith’s article, “Double­doubles DoubleSorta Double”, highlighted some double­double stars other than the famous one inLyra that we all know about. There was alist of nine members’ websites compiled byTom Bakowski.

iPhone PhotographyCheri Harper

I thought some of you expertphotographers may be amused by myphotos I have taken with my iPhone.Here's a shot I took in my front yardsometime in May with my 5" Newtonianand a white light filter, just simply holdingup the phone to the eyepiece.

Here's my venus transit photo, taken with my

H-alpha scope:

It is tough to hold the camera just right,so I decided to buy the SteadyPix Adapterfor iPhone from Orion. Let me advise younot to waste your money. I made twohonest efforts to use it and I'm quitedisappointed. This is the best shot I could

I'm going to keep trying to get more shots,just holding up the phone by hand. Whilethese pictures pale in comparison to theexperts in our club, it is fun to point, shoot,and share with your family and friends inan instant. I never thought I'd be doing thiswith a phone even a few years ago!

get of the moon on June 27.

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Annals continued...10 YEARS AGO ­ Hosts for summer starparties for 2002 were: Alan Friedman,Dennis Hohman, the Macks, and AnthonyDavoli. A plan to install a Satellite InternetLink at BMO in conjunction with UB wasoutlined by Peter Proulx. This link wouldalso benefit our club members by having anInternet connection for our planned robotictelescope. Observatory Director Bill Aquinoannounced that work had already begun onthis new telescope installation. Bill thankedMark Swiderski for troubleshooting ourcomputer network system and getting itinto working order. Carl Milazzo wroteabout some more of his adventures underthe stars ranging from glow worms toinquisitive police.15 YEARS AGO ­ Dan Marcus organized starparties for 1997 as he’s doing again nowfifteen years later. The Rupps, the Macks,the Sigurdsons, Bob Hughes and LarryCarlino were hosts. Much of this Spectrumwas devoted to convincing members of thebenefits obtained from attending starparties such as trying different equipment,meeting members, talking astronomy and ­­eating! Appropriately enough Bill Aquinowrote an article entitled “Cloudy Nights” inwhich he commented on the growingnumber of astronomy related televisiondocumentaries becoming available that canbe seen on those few occasions when cloudsprevent observing. We were looking for aco­director for the observatory to help outour director, Neil Dennis, on public nights.25 YEARS AGO ­ In addition to the starparty schedule there was actually news inthe July/August 1987 Spectrum. Therewere brief reports from President KenBiggie, Observatory Director John Yerger,and Instrument Section leader, Ed Lindberg,

who reported on collimating the 12 ½ inchtelescope whose mirror Ed had ground andpolished a couple of decades before.Darwin Christy received the College ofFellows award for his achievement in hisstudy of micrometeorites. The presentationwas at a dinner, but The Spectrum didn’ttell where. Carl Milazzo reported on anumber of his observations including Plutowhich was “easily seen.” A summary of“Saturn 1987" by Richard W. Jakeil covereddetails of its globe with its belts and zonesas well as its system of rings. Oh yes, thestar parties. The Rupps were hosts as wereKen Biggie, Richard Jakeil, Bill Kirst, theMarcuses, the Morrises and Larry Carlino.A trip to Dunlop Observatory at theUniversity of Toronto was also on thesummer agenda.35 YEARS AGO ­ After serving ten years asSpectrum editor Ernst Both resigned hisposition; Larry Carlino was scheduled to beour new editor. Ernst also resigned asBoard member, a post he held forseventeen years by virtue of his being theMuseum’s Curator of Astronomy. He citedincreased demands on his time caused bythe extensive renovations being made atthe Museum. Secretary Rowland Ruppreported the findings of a survey of themembership. As typical for BAA surveys,nothing concrete came of it. The Boardwas considering starting a lending library,but lamented the disappearance of oldissues of Sky & Telescope formerly in theclub’s possession. Carl Milazzo sketchedsome views of Saturn that we might expectto see when space probes scheduled to flyby the planet starting in 1979 will sendback pictures. There were star parties in1977 hosted by David Steinagle and TomDessert (jointly) and Paul Curtin, and apicnic at Chestnut Ridge Park.

President: Alan Friedmanalan@greatarrow.comVice President: Janice GardnerSecretary: Jan ZehrTreasurer: Mike IsraelAt Large Directors: Mike Anzalone

Larry CarlinoNeal Ginsberg

Membership: Alan Friedman(716) 881­4310Observatory Co­Directors: Derek Bill

Dan MarcusStar Parties: Dan Marcus(716) 773­5015

College of Fellows: Rowland Rupp(716) 839­1842Spectrum Editor: Cheri Harpercheri.harper@gmail.comBAA Yahoo E Group: Mike O’Connor

Dennis HohmanBAA Website: Mike O’Connorwww.buffaloastronomy.comBAA Voice Mail Box: (716) 629­3098Location/Time of Meetings:BAA meetings are held on the 2nd Friday ofthe month from September to June startingat 7:30 P.M. Our meetings will be held inClassroom Building C122 located just to thenorth of the Science Building. Followdirections (#35) on the Buffalo StateCollege map.

BAA Officers and General Information