Mississauga Centre RASC

110th Meeting

                                                      Members’ Night 

Day:                Friday August 15, 2008

Chair:                Randy Attwood

Speakers:          Chris Malicki

                          Randy Attwood 

                          Roy Swanson 

 Total Solar Eclipse August 1, 2008

Chris Malicki and his wife Liz traveled to Xinjiang Region in China with the Calgary Centre RASC to observe the total eclipse of the Sun of August 1.   After a few days in Shanghai, the group of 60 astronomy enthusiasts under the direction of Glen Hawley and Don Hladiuk flew to Urumqui in Xinjiang Region visiting archeological and scenic sites there and in Turpan.  In western China, the eclipse would last just under 2 minutes and the weather prospects were the most favourable for a clear sky. Nonetheless, there were various days of thick cloud and even some rain in the desert in the days before the eclipse.  Fortunately, the large weather system moved off the day before the eclipse.

On August 1, the group drove from the city of Hami through several military checkpoints to the centreline near the town of Yiwu.  There, the Chinese government had constructed an “eclipse city” complete with a dome housing astronomical exhibits, astroturf, and ceremonies.  Eclipse stamps were issued but were in very short supply.  The Chinese missed a marketing opportunity with this and with lack of other eclipse souvenirs for the several thousand foreign eclipse enthusiasts at the site.

With ominous clouds forming over the mountains and blowing towards the Sun as the afternoon wore on, the group jumped onto the buses and drove towards the Mongolia border where they observed the eclipse from a forbidden military zone, almost being ejected by the military.  The approaching shadow from Mongolia was spectacular. The 1 minute 57 sec of totality featured an asymmetric sunspot-minimum type of corona with 4 streamers.  Mercury and Venus shone brightly above the eclipsed Sun. There was one nice prominence.  Shadow bands were faintly seen after totality.   After the event the group celebrated with the usual champagne toast.

Other groups were also successful observing the eclipse from the air over the Canadian arctic, and form the ground in Novosibirsk, Russia.

RASC, Starfest, STS-8

Randy Attwood discussed the RASC and benefits of membership including the DVD library on loan to members.  He brought the membership up-to-date about club business and the observing program. 

Starfest was held on the second weekend of August near Mount Forest, ON. It is the largest annual amateur astronomy event in Canada, held near New Moon every August.  Observing was very good on Friday with viewing through  Attila Danko’s 25” scope being one of the highlights.  Saturday had rain.  Among the talks at Starfest were various presentations about the recent eclipse of the Sun including the flight above the clouds and an icebreaker voyage to the eclipse path.

Randy then spoke about the launch of the Space Shuttle25 years ago in August 1983, STS-8.  This was the first night launch since Apollo 17 in 1972 .  It was quite a challenge to set up a remote camera triggered by sound to take pictures of the launch from close up especially since a thunderstorm moved through the night before and could have triggered off the shutter as happened to other photographers.    Randy solved the problem by not allowing the camera to trigger until an alarm went off – much later than the thunderstorm.  As a result, he obtained spectacular pictures of the night launch.  He also obtained images of the walkout of the astronauts to the shuttle with pouring rain and the storm.  Randy also described the launch and the sound experience of witnessing it.

The Sky for September

Roy Swanson spoke about the sky happenings for September including the quarantid meteor shower and the autumnal equinox on September 22.  He described lunar occultations and how to observe them, as well as the close gathering of Mars, Venus, Mercury and Spica.  

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