San DiegoAstronomy AssociationCelebrating Over 50 Years of Astronomical Outreach

http://www.sdaa.orgA Non-Profit Educational Association

P.O. Box 23215, San Diego, CA 92193-3215

July 2017

Next SDAA Business MeetingJuly 11th at 7:00pm7270 Trade Street

San Diego, CA 92121

Next Program Meeting July 19th at 7:00pm

Mission Trails Regional ParkVisitor and Interpretive Center1 Father Junipero Serra Trail

CONTENTSJuly 2017, Vol LV, Issue 6Published Monthly by the San Diego Astronomy AssociationIncorporated in California in 1963J u l y P r o g r a m M e e t i n g . . . . . . . 1J u n e M i n u t e s . . . . . . . . . . . 2S DA A P r e s i d e n t ’s M e s s a g e . 42 0 1 7 T D S S c h e d u l e . . . . . . . . . . . 5Volunteers for Big Dig at TDS.....5J u l y C a l e n d a r . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6S D A A C o n t a c t s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7M e e t t h e M e m b e r s . . . . . . 8Space P l ace Par tner s Ar t i c l e . . . 9A s t r o n o my C a r t o o n s. . . . . . . . . . . . 1 1

Newsletter DeadlineThe deadline to submit articles

for publication is the15th of each month.

July Program MeetingDate: July 19, 2017Speaker: Alex Tardy, NOAA/National Weather Service: Topic: How to use NWS Forecasts

Alex Tardy, is the warning coordination meteorologist at the National Weather Service in San Diego. Alex has worked at several locations across the country including Vermont, Virginia, Texas, and Utah in a variety of positions including senior weather forecasting duties and science operations officer. Alex is in charge of working with a variety of public and private partners to ensure that weather and hazard information and education is received in the most efficient ways to save lives and property. Alex received a bachelor of science in atmospheric science from the State University of New York in Albany. He has worked for the National Weather Service for 22 years.

San Diego Astronomy Association (SDAA) sponsors speakers on a wide range of astronomy topics on the third Wednesday of every month at the Mission Trails Region-al Park Visitors Center. The program meeting begins at 7:00pm. Each attendee receives one free door prize ticket. After announcements and a small amount of business, the audience is treated to the featured presentation. At the close of the meeting the door prizes are presented. The event is open to the public. The Mission Trails Regional Park Visitors Center is at One Fr. Junipero Serra Trail, San Diego CA 92119. Call the park at 619-668-3281 for more information or visit http://www.mtrp.org.

San Diego Astronomy Association

2

San Diego Astronomy Association Board of Directors Meeting June 13, 2017 – Unapproved and subject to revision

1. Call to Order

The meeting was called to order at 7:05pm with the following board members in attendance: Mike Chasin, President; Kin Searcy, Vice President; Gene Burch, Treasurer; Scott Dixon, Corresponding Secretary; Brian McFarland, Recording Secretary; Dave Wood, Director; Jeff Herman, Director; Pat Boyce, Director; Dave Decker, Director. Members in attendance: Jeff Flynn; and Brian Delgado and Andrew Leriano representing Blue Dot Education and High-Tech High. Several of their students attended as well.

2. Approval of Last Meeting Minutes

The May meeting minutes were approved. 3. Priority / Member Business

a. Brian Delgado and Andrew Leriano presented their pad proposal, which was approved by the Board. Their next step is to construct a model to determine if there are any obstructions to their neighbor’s views.

b. Ben G and Dave D provided the status of the bathroom upgrade. Due to the extent of the damage and the number of code violations in the plumbing, they recommended we hire a professional to finish the job. They received a quote from a reputable local licensed plumber - $3,600 to complete both bathrooms. The Board approved a ceiling of $4,000 to complete.

4. Treasurer’s & Membership Report

a. Gene presented the treasurer’s report; it was approved. b. The club will pursue an affiliation with the Astronomical League. It appears we can offer it to the membership for $7.50 per year,

and tie it to their membership dues. Kin S will follow up. c. Gene B signed up for QuickBooks. d. An anonymous donor paid for the dumpster on cleanup day – many thanks to whoever that was. e. We need to schedule the annual audit, and we think we have volunteers. f. The new member handbook is being finalized.

5. Standard Reports

a. Site Maintenance – Still waiting for an opportunity to finalize the electrical repair. We still have the roboscope equipment onsite, and no use for it. It all works, so we should offer it to the membership. We marked the area for the electrical upgrade dig alert - we just need someone who can be at TDS to meet SDG&E.

b. Observatory Report – Star parties are up and running. We have an LXD55 8” on a GEM in the loaner program that is not a good loaner scope. The user interface is awful and too difficult. It would be a good raffle item at the banquet. We recently received an 8” or 10” Dobsonian that would be great in the loaner program.

c. Private Pad Report – Mark S will be executing two more leases as soon as he gets some information on renewal dates from Gene. That will leave two free pads and three people who are looking to lease.

d. Program Report – Currently $10 in the black. No plan for August yet, and that might be a very light attendance – a lot of people will be heading to the eclipse. Also, we’d like to post the meeting schedules and topics on Facebook.

e. AISIG Report – Stewart Foreman filled in last month. This month will be an overview of Sequence Generator Pro for DSLRs. f. Newsletter Report – Impressive work by Andrea K as always. We need to repost a corrected version (wrong date for the June

program meeting speaker). g. Website Report – Nothing to report. h. Outreach Report – Good public turnout again this month with over 1200 attendees, and topping 5500 for the year. The school

events are now complete for the 2016/2017 school year. We enjoyed a wonderful solar event for Space Day at the Air and Space Museum with decent weather and a steady flow of visitors outside of the SR71 aircraft. We also began our campground summer series this month with KQ Ranch.

Kin is working on resolving an annoying problem at West Sycamore where the security staff do not understand how to chain locks on the gate. Last month we were locked out, and this month we were again locked out, but with all new locks in place? Mission Trails promises to rectify this issue.

San Diego Astronomy Association

3

Dave D occasionally receives scope donations at outreach events, the latest is an ETX-60 that we’ll use for star party training on Go-To scopes. We also received an older 8” Meade Newtonian with good optics on a pipe-mount equatorial.

We still need a South Coordinator to handle requests in the south bay and Coronado area.

Below is a summary of our May activity.

Totals for Month: Events Completed 10.0

Events Cancelled 3.0

Attendance: 1205.0

Mem Support: 52.0

Averages: Mem/Event: 5.2

Attendees/Scope 23.2

Year to Date since January 1

Number of Events since January 1:

50

Attendees since January 1:

5519

i. Merchandise Report – No report. j. TARO – The scope is tracking well and ACP seems to work great. k. Cruzen Observatory – Gene B paid for the pier that will support the TOA-130. The pier for the DK Cass is now onsite and ready

for install. Jim, Melany, and Brian spent the weekend at TDS trying to complete the roof installation to no avail – we are missing several roof panels. Brian will contact Vito at Pier Tech to try and get them.

l. Social Media – Facebook has been a great outreach tool over the last month. In the last month, 605 people have viewed our published events, and 171 of those people have interacted with our events. That’s up a little bit from the previous month. I’ve been adjusting the days on which I publish our events to try to reach the most people. It seems like Friday, Saturday, and Sunday; from 9AM to 3PM are the ideal times to publish events. Since I’ve been doing that, our Facebook metrics have been rising so I’m going to continue on that trajectory. Our posts are getting some nice attention as well. Post shares and comments averaged around 23 per post/event and each post/event was clicked on 58.4 times on average. Our Space Day post was the most popular last month with 120 clicks and 24 likes/shares/reactions. Nothing new to report for twitter, we do have a couple new followers, but no new engagement. The same goes for Instagram. I’m trying to think of ways to raise engagement on those platforms.

6. Old Business a. Budget adoption – finished. Will roll the bathroom upgrade expense to FY18. b. Spring cleanup was a success.

7. New Business – We received an offer for a binoviewer donation from Norm – we can use it in the Cruzen observatory. 8. Adjournment – Adjourned at 9:15pm.

San Diego Astronomy Association

4

President’s Message

Hello everyone

As you may have read in a previous newsletter we have decided to remodel the bathrooms. I want to thank Ben Grunbaum and Dave Decker for their work on this project. The newly remodeled bathrooms will be much easier to clean and we will be depriving the mice of many of the places they have previously established nests. We will be putting in wall mounted sinks and we will have a wall mount-ed cabinet in each bathroom for bathroom cleaning supplies, toilet paper and paper towels.

In short, we will be making it more inhospitable for the four legged creatures attempting to establish residence in our bathroom and we will be making it much easier and safer to clean should they get into the building. The County of San Diego emphasizes using wet cleaning methods anywhere mice may inhabit because of the risk of Hanta virus. Upon completion of this project, we will be able to use water to clean the bathroom without damaging anything in the bathroom.

From the 2nd of July through the 7th of July, the water at TDS will likely be off and the bathrooms will likely be shut down. Both bathrooms will be out of commission the first several days of the project. The water to the whole property may be off the first few days of the project as well. Ben will have the plumber replace the main valve in to the building as soon as possible (hopefully the first day) so we can turn on the water to the rest of the property. We will notify everyone once we turn on the water to the property again in case you really wanted to come out that week. The bathrooms will be ready by the weekend of the 8th and 9th should anyone be planning on heading out to TDS for the full moon.

The men's bathroom vanity has been dismantled but the toilet is currently operational and will be operational until Sunday the 2nd. If the other bathroom is occupied and you urgently need to use the bathroom feel free to use the toilet in the men's bathroom. Half of the partition is gone so be sure to knock on the door before going inside.

If you have any questions feel free to contact Ben at bengrunbaum@gmail.com.

San Diego Astronomy Association

5

2017 TDS SCHEDULE

DATE MOON DATA SUNSET ASTRO TWILIGHT

Jul. 15 R-12:11a 54% 7:53p 9:31p Public

22 S- 7:21p 1% 7:49p 9:25p

Aug. 12 R-10:50p 77% 7:32p 9:02p Public

19 Closed For Solar Eclipse

Sep. 16 S- 4:44p 17% 6:48p 8:11p

23 S- 9:08p 11% 6:39p 8:01p Public

Oct. 14 R- 2:43a 27% 6:12p 7:34p

21 S- 7:41p 3% 6:04p 7:26p Public

Nov. 11 R-12:38a 33% 4:46p 6:10p Public PST

18 S- 5:18p 0% 4:42p 6:07p

Dec. 9 R-11:50p 57% 4:39p 6:07p Public

16 S- 3:57p 3% 4:41p 6:09p

Looking for Volunteers to Come to the Big Dig at TDS on July 8th

We are upgrading the electrical service at TDS from 90A to 200A – a significant enhancement to the site. Come see Jim Traweek excavate the conduit trenches with a Mini-X and get a chance to operate an electric jackhammer too. We’ll work through the morning of the 8th. Please arrive by 8:00am or so – we expect to be finished by noon. This is worth a couple beers at least for any volunteers who can pitch in. Please contact Pat Boyce at 619-227-9614 if you can come or if you have questions.

San Diego Astronomy Association

6

July 2017 Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday

1

2

3

4

5 Stars in the Park

MTRP

Foundation

6

7

8

OakOasis

9 Full Moon

10

11 SDAA Business

Meeting

12

13

14 Stars at Mission

Trails

15

Mt Helix Park Public Star Party

TDS

16

17

18

19

SDAA Program Meeting

20

21

Stars at Sycamore Canyon

22

KQ Ranch

TDS Member Night

23 New Moon

24

25

26 AISIG Meeting

27

28

West Sycamore

29 Cuyamaca

Rancho State Park

30

31

San Diego Astronomy Association

7

SDAA ContactsClub Officers and Directors

President Mike Chasin President@sdaa.org (858) 210-1454Vice President Kin Searcy VicePresident@sdaa.org (858) 586-0974Recording Secretary Brian McFarland Recording@sdaa.org (619) 462-4483Treasurer Gene Burch Treasurer@sdaa.org (858) 926-9610 Corresponding Secretary Scott Dixon Corresponding@sdaa.org Director Alpha Dave Decker DirectorAlpha@sdaa.org (619) 972-1003Director Beta Jeff Herman DirectorBeta@sdaa.org Director Gamma Pat Boyce DirectorGamma@sdaa.org (619) 227-9614Director Delta Dave Wood DirectorDelta@sdaa.org (858) 735-8808

CommitteesSite Maintenance Bill Quackenbush TDS@sdaa.org (858) 395-1007Observatory Director Jim Traweek Observatory@sdaa.org (619) 207-7542Private Pads Mark Smith Pads@sdaa.org (858) 484-0540Outreach Kin Searcy Outreach@sdaa.org (858) 586-0974N. County Star Parties -Vacant- NorthStarParty@sdaa.org S. County Star Parties -Vacant- SouthStarParty@sdaa.org E. County Star Parties Dave Decker EastStarParty@sdaa.org (619) 972-1003Central County Star Parties Kin Searcy CentralStarParty@sdaa.org (858) 586-0974Camp with the Stars -Vacant- CampWiththeStars@sdaa.org K.Q. Ranch Coordinator Dennis Ammann KQ@sdaa.org (619) 247-2457Newsletter Andrea Kuhl Newsletter@sdaa.org (858) 547-9887New Member Mentor Dan Kiser Mentor@sdaa.org (858) 922-0592Webmaster Jeff Stevens Webmaster@sdaa.org (858) 566-2261AISIG Dave Wood AISIG@sdaa.org (858) 735-8808Site Acquisition -Vacant- SecondSite@sdaa.org Field Trips -Vacant- FieldTrips@sdaa.org Grants/Fund Raising -Vacant- Grants@sdaa.org Julian StarFest -Vacant- info@julianstarfest.com Merchandising -Vacant- Merchandising@sdaa.org Publicity Jeff Flynn Publicity@sdaa.org Loaner Scopes Ed Rumsey loanerscopes@sdaa.org (858) 722-3846 Governing Documents TBDTDS Network Dave Wood TDSNet@sdaa.org (858) 735-8808Amateur Telescope Making -Vacant-

Have a great new piece of gear? Read an astronomy-related book that you think others should know about? How about a photograph of an SDAA Member in action? Or are you simply tired of seeing these Boxes in the Newsletter rather than something, well, interesting?

Join the campaign to rid the Newsletter of little boxes by sharing them with the membership. In return for your efforts, you will get your very own byline or pho-tograph credit in addition to the undying gratitude of the Newsletter Editor. Just send your article or picture to Newsletter@SDAA.Org.

SDAA Editorial StaffEditor - Andrea Kuhlnewsletter@sdaa.org

Assistant Editor: Craig Ewing

San Diego Astronomy Association

8

Meet the Members

Bruce Sokol with his 18” Obsession making a rare appearance on the public pads at TDS.

San Diego Astronomy Association

9

NASASpacePlaceAstronomyClubArticle June2017

This article is provided by NASA Space Place. With articles, activities, crafts, games, and lesson plans, NASA Space Place encourages everyone to get excited about science and technology. Visit spaceplace.nasa.gov to explore space and Earth science!

The Shape of the Solar System By Marcus Woo

When Stamatios (Tom) Krimigis was selected for the Voyager mission in 1971, he became the team's youngest principal investigator of an instrument, responsible for the Low Energy Charged Particles (LECP) instrument. It would measure the ions coursing around and between the planets, as well as those beyond. Little did he know, though, that more than 40 years later, both Voyager 1 and 2 still would be speeding through space, continuing to literally reshape our view of the solar system. The solar system is enclosed in a vast bubble, carved out by the solar wind blowing against the gas of the interstellar medium. For more than half a century, scientists thought that as the sun moved through the galaxy, the interstellar medium would push back on the heliosphere, elongating the bubble and giving it a pointy, comet-like tail similar to the magnetospheres—bubbles formed by magnetic fields—surrounding Earth and most of the other planets "We in the heliophysics community have lived with this picture for 55 years," said Krimigis, of The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland. "And we did that because we didn't have any data. It was all theory." But now, he and his colleagues have the data. New measurements from Voyager and the Cassini spacecraft suggest that the bubble isn't pointy after all. It's spherical. Their analysis relies on measuring high-speed particles from the heliosphere boundary. There, the heated ions from the solar wind can strike neutral atoms coming from the interstellar medium and snatch away an electron. Those ions become neutral atoms, and ricochet back toward the sun and the planets, uninhibited by the interplanetary magnetic field. Voyager is now at the edge of the heliosphere, where its LECP instrument can detect those solar-wind ions. The researchers found that the number of measured ions rise and fall with increased and decreased solar activity, matching the 11-year solar cycle, showing that the particles are indeed originating from the sun. Meanwhile, Cassini, which launched 20 years after Voyager in 1997, has been measuring those neutral atoms bouncing back, using another instrument led by Krimigis, the Magnetosphere Imaging Instrument (MIMI). Between 2003 and 2014, the number of

San Diego Astronomy Association

10

NASASpacePlaceAstronomyClubArticle June2017

measured atoms soared and dropped in the same way as the ions, revealing that the latter begat the former. The neutral atoms must therefore come from the edge of the heliosphere. If the heliosphere were comet-shaped, atoms from the tail would take longer to arrive at MIMI than those from the head. But the measurements from MIMI, which can detect incoming atoms from all directions, were the same everywhere. This suggests the distance to the heliosphere is the same every which way. The heliosphere, then, must be round, upending most scientists' prior assumptions. It's a discovery more than four decades in the making. As Cassini ends its mission this year, the Voyager spacecraft will continue blazing through interstellar space, their remarkable longevity having been essential for revealing the heliosphere's shape. "Without them," Krimigis says, "we wouldn't be able to do any of this." To teach kids about the Voyager mission, visit the NASA Space Place: https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/voyager-to-planets

Caption: New data from NASA’s Cassini and Voyager show that the heliosphere — the bubble of the sun’s magnetic influence that surrounds the solar system — may be much more compact and rounded than previously thought. The image on the left shows a compact model of the heliosphere, supported by this latest data, while the image on the right shows an alternate model with an extended tail. The main difference is the new model’s lack of a trailing, comet-like tail on one side of the heliosphere. This tail is shown in the old model in light blue. Image credits: Dialynas, et al. (left); NASA (right)

San Diego Astronomy Association

11

MEMBERSHIP INFORMATIONSend dues and renewals to P.O. Box 23215, San Diego, CA 92193-3215. Include any renewal cards from Sky & Telescope or Astronomy magazine in which you wish to continue your subscription. The expiration date shown on your newsletter’s mailing label is the only notice that your membership in SDAA will expire. Dues are $60 for Contributing Memberships; $35 for Basic Membership; $60.00 for Private Pads; $5 for each Family membership. In addition to the club dues the annual rates for magazines available at the club discount are: Sky & Telescope $32.95 and Astronomy $34. Make checks payable to S.D. Astronomy Assn. PLEASE DO NOT send renewals directly to Sky Publishing. They return them to us for processing.