Mississauga Centre RASC

111th Meeting

                                                      Members’ Night 

Day:                Friday September 12, 2008

Chair:                William Callahan 

Speakers:          William Callahan 

                           Ray Khan

                          Randy Attwood

How to Use a Sky Map, The Sky this Month, Observing

William Callahan described the use of a sky map including objects to see, the zenith, east and west horizons and the ecliptic.  He showed how to use the chart and the ease of finding things by dividing the chart into pie-shaped segments.  When a bright star like Arcturus is found, the rest of the constellation can be traced out. A planisphere is specific for a given latitude.

William spoke about happenings in the sky this month including the inner planets and Comet Boattini.  Timings can be made of the Great Red Spot on Jupiter and shadow transits, and phenomena can be observed for the 4 largest moons.  He spoke about the outer planets Uranus and Neptune, the deep sky and constellations, variable stars such as Mira and Algol.  The equinox occurs on September 22 and the zodiac light is best in the morning. 

The Mississauga Centre has an observing program at Forks of the Credit Park with the purpose of getting together in a dark sky location and to facilitate new members to observe.  The program, for every member of the Mississauga Centre, has Friday night as the primary night with Saturday as a backup.  New Moon is avoided as are dates of centre meetings. There was not a lot of interest in city observing, but Toronto has a program and Mississauga members are welcome.      

The Best Scope is the One You Use  

Ray Khan ask the question: “Which telescope is the best one?”  It is becoming a more difficult question to answer considering size or aperture, type of design, portability (will the telescope fit in the car?), where it will be used, whether astrophotography will be done. Astrophotography is quite time consuming and is not necessarily for every one.  

Ray described his own telescope experiences.  He first had a 60mm Tasco refractor, then a 4.5” Tasco reflector, then a C8 and next, a Nexstar 11 GPS because he could carry it.  At times, he wouldn’t use the telescope because of the inconvenience.  You can get by this by building an observatory.    Then Ray used an 80mm Williams Optics apo, a very portable telescope but he couldn’t see as much so he upgraded to a 90mm apo, then to a 120mm apo.   “This is the last telescope I’m gonna buy!” just doesn’t happen. Customers come back to get a better one. 

Poor seeing interferes with images in a large telescope especially with apertures over 11 inches. 

Ray demonstrated a 6” Celestron on a tower mount.  The size of the telescope needs to be taken into account when buying.  It can be daunting to buy a big telescope when you get older but you can get around it by buying one that can be broken down into components that can be carried. 

For daytime astronomy consider the Hα solar telescope.  Ray described the expensive Daystar telescope and the Coronado.  For a year now, we also have the Lunt Solar System, made by Andy Lunt developer of the original Coronado.  One  problem with the Hα is achieving proper focus. 

Eyepieces as well as the German Hyperion zoom eyepieces were discussed.

Finally collimating was considered.  One should be able to  defocus on a bright star and get a “donut”, or use a laser collimator. 

Three Space Videos

Randy Attwood  showed 3 videos related to the space shuttle and space station.  The first one was about “Buzz” an astronaut space doll bouncing around in the space station.  The next one showed shuttle and ISS astronauts treating each other to dinner in the Russian part of the space station.   The final video was looking down on the solid rocket booster of the shuttle at launch.  

 Submitted by Chris Malicki, Secretary  Chris Malicki, Secretary                               back to Miss Centre. meeting reports page
Mississauga Centre RASC