Mississauga Astronomical Society

Thirtieth Meeting

Members’ Night

 

Day:                Friday, November 12, 2004

 

Chair:         Phil Mozel

 

Speakers:   Randy Attwood

                   Bob McCall

                    Chris Malicki

                    Gordon Williams

                    Phil Mozel    

                              

 

 

Lunar eclipse, Titan Flyby, Jupiter occultation

 

Randy Attwood showed various images of the recent total lunar eclipse. One of  these illustrated the size of the earth’s shadow silhouetted as a  portrait of totality on overlapping lunar images; another demonstrated parallax with images from the UK and Montreal. Randy also showed a movie and images of the recent aurora.

Voyager 1, flew by Titan, the only moon with an atmosphere, in 1980 but the moon looked only like a hazy orange ball.  The Cassini spacecraft with its special filters and radar has showed us very detailed views of the moon’s surface. Randy reminded us that the Huygen’s probe will land on Titan in January and find either a solid or liquid surface.

In the early morning of December 7, a rare and interesting occultation of Jupiter by the moon will take place.  Randy showed a map with times of disappearance and re-appearance. Parallax was demonstrated by different occultation paths from various cities. Three of the Galilean moons will also disappear behind the moon.

 

Greenwich on Mars

 

Bob McCall described the history of the prime meridian on Earth beginning with the Prime Meridian conference of 1842 establishing Greenwich as the location. The actual zero longitude is 300 yards away from the Greenwich transit. Sanford Fleming established the time zones but ignored the polar regions because there was no human presence in these areas. By the 20th century, however, this had become a problem.

For Mars, the rotation was established in the 1830’s. Schiaparelli created a map of the planet in 1877. Flammarion established the zero longitude in Sinus Meridiani and currently the crater O in Airy forms the actual prime meridian on the planet. In order to avoid multiple time zones in a small area on Mars’ polar regions, Bob proposed that the regions between 60 and 90 degrees of latitude, and a strip at the Martian prime meridian share the same time zone; the time there to be called Airy mean time.

 

An Independent Discovery of a Comet

 

In the early morning of Oct. 11, 2004, Chris Malicki was observing the eight galaxies near the star 1 Arietis when he noticed an interloper just to the west of the field. Chris showed how he carefully sketched the comet’s position and noted movement in a time span of 20 minutes. Of the 34 comets he has seen, this is the first one that he has independently “discovered” i.e. identified an object as a comet without knowing about it in advance. Later that day, a web search revealed that Comet Tucker had been discovered two months before, in Arizona. He described the thrill of discovery. 

 

Tracking the Transit

 

Gordon Williams traveled to Egypt with the Toronto Centre RASC expedition to observe the transit of Venus in June.  Gordon showed slides of his trip including Cairo, Alexandria with its ampitheatre, Giza with the pyramids and sphinx, Memphis, Sakkhara, the step pyramid, Aswan, Nile cruise and Karnak, the Valley of Kings and Luxor. On June 8, the group observed the transit of Venus from a Red Sea Hotel under a clear sky. Gordon showed images of the transit taken by various members and various telescopes and filters. He described different people’s observations and contact timings.

 

Historical Vignettes

 

Phil Mozel described a telescope that he chanced upon at Fort Malden in Amhersburg near Windsor. The Gregorian reflector telescope was in a display dealing with the war of 1812 and was inscribed with the manufacturer J. Vanderbildt Franeker. This was an instrument maker from Holland ca. 1750. The telescope belonged to Alexander McKee who was Indian agent for the British Army. The instrument was perhaps used for surveying even though it is an astronomical telescope. Phil encouraged the members in the audience to look up this telescope when they are in the Windsor area.

 

 Submitted by Chris Malicki, Secretary  Chris Malicki, Secretary                               back to M.A.S. meeting reports page
Mississauga Astronomical Society