A L A C H U A A S T R O N O M Y C L U B — J U N E 1 9 9 0 —

HE ALACHUA ASTRONOMY CLUB MEETS THE SECOND TUESDAY OF EACH MONTH AT THE DOYLE CONNER BUILDING, S.W. 34th STREET & 20th AVENUE AT 7:30 PM. EVERYONE INTERESTED IN ASTRONOMY IS INVITED TO ATTEND. CALL ANDI1 VANN-JENSEN AT 475-1014, FOR MORE INFORMATION ON MEETINGS AND OTHER ACTIVITIES.

***PROGRAM*** ***PROGRAM*** ***PROGRAM««* **«PROGRAM*«» ***PROGRAM*»*

DR. LEON ROBERTS, PROFESSOR EMERITUS OF PHYSICAL SCIENCE AND ASTRONOMY

UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA

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WILL DISCUSS THE FUNDAMENTALS OF CELESTIAL NAVIGATION.

HUBBLE IN ORBIT—PROPOSALS WANTED 1 Five amateurs have already been awarded about 17 hours on HST. Will you

be next?! For info and instructions write HST Proposal, AAVSO, 25 Birch St., Cambridge, Mass. 02138. Only research that cannot be done from the ground will ne considered. Deadline is Nov. 1, 1990. One suggestion....test HST's resoluti

HELP NEEDED...MARK YOUR CALENDAR FOR JUNE 25 AND HELP CUB SCOUT TROOP 109. Melrose Scout Troop 109 is having a night of Astronomy on June 25. We need

your help, your expertise, your scopes, your starcharts, and interest! If you can help, please call Chuck or Andi at 475-1014.

STARPARTY STARPARTY STARPARTY STARPARTY

The AAC's next STARPARTY is on June 22nd., just after the new moon. Meet at the University of Florida Teaching Observatory at 9:30 P.M. The alternative date in case of clouds is June 23rd. Call Chuck or Andi at 475-1014 or Mark Cowan at 375-2564.

FOR SALE FOR SALE FOR SALE CELESTRON C-8, WITH COATINGS, SEVERAL EYEPIECES, TRIPOD, CLOCK DRIVE ETC.

HALL CHUCK 475-1014 FOR DETAILS.

Notes for June

For the May 25th Starparty we had a beautiful, clear night. A thin crescent Moon and Jupiter were in the west at dusk - Saturn and Comet Austin were up after Midnight. Andi1, Chuck, young persons Edie and Adam, Charlie, Jeff, Mark and I enjoyed ourselves. That's right, our guest Mark came with a surprize 12f inch reflector on a Dobsonian mount. He treated us to views of UJ (omega) Centauri, globular cluster at Declination -U70 12", south of Virgo, a gorgeous swarm of stars 17 light years distant, Ml3 in Hercules, the Ring Nebula in Lyra, and more. We saw some bright meteors which I thought were sporadic, but I see in the Observers Handbook 1990, we were in the midst of the T (tau) Herculids, a minor shower which lasts from mid-May to mid-June.

Our next star party is again just after the new Moon - June 22nd, Friday 9:30 pm, right after we go to the U of F Teaching Observatory, which is tended by Dirk Terrell for the summer. Alternate date in case of clouds - June 23rd, Saturday 9:30 pm. The site will be the Haile Plantation exercise field, unless another suggestion comes up at the regular meeting.

Summer skies bring up for view the rich constellations toward the Galactic center - Scorpio and Sagittarius, with 19 Messier Objects in them. Seven more M- Objects are in Ophiuchus (of - I - u'- kus), named the Greek for "serpent handler", appropriate, for he is in the middle of the two-part constellation Serpens (Caput - head, near Corona Borealis and Hercules on the west,) and Serpens (Cauda - tail, near Aquila and Scutum on the east). We will be looking at all we saw in May, and more. Come join usi Bring a folding chair and a blanket and bug repellent. The rising summer Milky Way is very fas-cinating. It is so thick it looks like a band of clouds comins over.

Some support is in order for community outreach in Junel The Melrose Boy Scout and Cub Scout Troop 109 is having an evening of astronomical learning, Monday June 25th. Please give the gift of your experience, and help Andi', who has siven her time so generously to our club. Call her at U75-101U and arrange to attend.

We can all be proud of our club's particioation in Astronomy Day 1990, at the Florida Museum of Natural History. Nearly 500 visitors camel rlease see the letter of thanks from Marilyn Roberts, Education Programs Coordinator.

I noted an ad in the Sun for a telescope, so I called and here are the particulars: Meade b" Newtonian, f6, model 826-C with extras. Call Larry Fife if you are interested. The price is $700. 373-7363

Clear nights are fewer in these hot months. When you go out and the seeing is good, get your club roster out and call someone. Go out and get some experience in the summer sky.

Mark Cowan

ALACHUA ASTRONOMY CLUB

BOARD MEETING

MAY 17, 1990

The President opened the meeting discussing the viewing site that was offered by Erica Svar. He asked the members of the board to assist Doug Richards in meeting with Ms. Svar.

Jan Sugalsky is donating an 8" mirror to the club. The board approv-ed $30.00 for the glass blank. Randy Warren and Joe Haldeman offered a mount.

Andi suggested that the club compile a library.

The secretary was asked to send thank you letters to the speakers presenting the programs.

Andi announced that she will be resigning as program chairman in September.

The President will ask the club if they are interested in building a telescope.

Jim Adams attended the meeting and expressed his desire for the club to increase it's appeal to the community. He offered his services towards this end.

Respectfully submitted, Doris L. Andrew Secretary

ALACHUA ASTRONOMY CLUB

MAY 8, 1990

The President reported that the star parties were clouded out.

The club was asked to post posters of the May 12th Astronomy Day where they work and at their church.

Twenty-two memberships were sent to the Astronomical League.

The next star party will be May 25th and if cloudy it will be May 26th.

Doug Richards offered to meet with Erica Svar regarding the property she has offered for star gazing.

Chuck Broward asked that information for the newsletter be sent two weeks in advance.

The Board will meet May 17th at the home of Mark Cowan at 7:30 pm.

Program: Jim Adams - - COSMIC JETS Howard Cohen - Stellar Magnitudes

Respectfully submitted, Doris L. Andrew Secretary

Hubble Space Telescope George Russell

"Our image quality is significantly better than we were concerned that it might be" says James Westphal of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. HST has finally achieved "First Light". With the good wishes of astronomers everywhere and as this $2 billion space craft opens up the door of the universe just a smidgen more, all of us wait in anticipation for the first meaningful pictures to be released from HST's mission control at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

The pictures seen on CNN television were interesting in that one of the two was a CCD image from HST, sharp and bright and with sufficient resolution to show what was actually two stars in a cluster. The other photo taken from the ground showed the same area before enhancement. The contouring seen was due to the nature of the signal processing techniques and it was somewhat distracting. This second photo was taken at the Las Campanas Observatory in Chile using the 100-inch DuPont reflector telescope. The space based picture had a resolution of about 0.2 arc-seconds where the one from Chile was 1.1 arc-seconds.

The sharpness of the pictures from HST should be doubled as attention is direct-ed to improve the instrument's focus by adjusting its mirror. The engineers also want to reduce several "wobbles" and aiming uncertainties that limit the telescopes aiming accuracy. Improved stability and better focusing should help sharpen photos that require the telescope to hold steady for long periods of time.

Whether or not the other instruments have been activated such as spectromet-ers, photometers, etc., hasn't been widely reported as yet and we wait patiently for results from them as well.

These are indeed exciting times for astronomy as the space shuttle makes it e-ven more possible to move sophisticated scientific instruments into outer space to help measure the universe. We continue to wait for further developments with great anticipation.

The foregoing was adapted from Science News, May 26, 1990, Vol., 137, No. 21.

a FLORIDA \ MUSEUM OF

NATURAL HIjIOKY RESEARCH • EXHIBITS • EDUCATION UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA GAINESVILLE 9 0 4 / 3 9 2 - 1 7 2 1

Mark Cowan, President M a Y 1 4' 1 9 9 0

Alachua Astronomy Club IS44 S.E. 2nd Avenue Gainesville FL

Dear Mark,

On behalf of the Florida Museum of Natural History; Dr. Peter Bennett, Director; and Mr. Vincent Gabianelli, Chairman, Department of Interpretation, I would like to thank the Alachua Astronomy Club for participating in and cosponsoring Astronomy Day 199 0 at the Museum. The weather was perfect and approximately 500 visitors enjoyed the talks, demonstrations and model rockets. The displays, slides, mirror grinding demonstration and the solar telescope set ups were outstanding. It is really a pleasure to work with such an excellent organization and I look forward to your participation again next year.

Sincerely,

Marilyn M. Roberts Education Programs Coordinator

Our Vanishing Skies

OUR SKIES ARE GONE...OUR SKIES ARE GONE The image above is our state taken from orbit....where are our dark

skies? Check out the articles in Sky and Tele on dark skies and how you can help preserve YOUR skies.

By the way, the University of Florida is planning to invest almost two hundred thousand dollars on "security lighting" two cents worth in to make the lighting choices

, FOR SALE FOR SALE FOR SALE FOR SALE

Meade 8 in, Model 826-C. with extras, call 373-7363

Celestron C-8, coated, wedge, tripod, extras, $750., call 475-1014

HELP HELP HELP HELP HELP

Mz Rachel Warner —National Heaophilia Assn needs YOUR help! Call 1-800- 999-5433 if vou can help on one night froa JULY 22-28 camp to teach kids astronoavHH call Chuck or Andi to coordinate! i Now It

this coming year. Put your environmentally sound!!

UF Astronomy Teaching Observa-tory: View celestial objects through an 8-inch (20 cm) aperture Clark Re-fractor, a 1214 inch aperture (32 cm) Cassegrain Fridays (when UF is in session) from 8:30 to 10 p.m. at the observatory, UF campus, south of the Reitz Union parking lot driveway and west of the Engineering Building. Call 392-5294 after 7:30 p.m. Fridays in case of cloudy weather. Call 392-2052 for Sunday evening tours.