Mississauga Centre RASC

74rd Meeting

                                                        Members’ Night

Day:                Friday November 17, 2006 

Chairs:                Randy Attwood

Speakers:          Ray Khan, Roy Swanson ,Chris Malicki, Randy Attwood

Sky Scout, Personal Planetarium

Ray Khan, owner of Khan Scope Shop, spoke about Celestron’s Sky Scout, the 2006 version of the planisphere.  New technology is especially good for children because they are computer literate.  The Sky Scout can get them “hooked” on astronomy. It has GPS sensors and magnetic sensors enabling the device to “know” where it is pointing. The database contains 6000 stars and 1500 double and variable stars, 88 constellations and over 100 deep sky objects, and is able to update through a website.  One can either aim at any star and click the target button to identify the star, or one can select a name and the Sky Scout will direct to person to that object. An audio narrative is available for over 200 popular objects, astronomers, comet history, asteroids and others. There are data bases for “tonight’s must see’, 10 best objects.  Ray emphasized that this is not a telescope or a finderscope largely due to magnetic interference. The cost is $460, and weight 16 oz.

My Theory for Easter Island

Roy Swanson visited Easter Island in the Pacific Ocean in 2002.  Inspired by the Moai statues, he formulated a theory that extraterrestrial beings had visited the island. Most extrasolar planets discovered to date are Jupiter-sized or larger gas giants. Rocky metal planets like the Earth are rare in the cosmos. Around 2000 years ago, therefore, our planet was desirable to other beings as a repository of minerals.. These were mined in the Andes mountains with the extraterrestrial legacy visible at Sacsahuaman and Nazca in Peru with shuttle-like ornaments and other signs. Because the spaceships were unable to carry all their metals, a group of beings were left behind at the spaceport of Easter Island where they constructed the Moai which are conspicuous for their lack of legs and their faces turned upwards towards the horizon from where a spacecraft would eventually come to pick them up. The Moai do not look like human faces but as a gesture to earthlings, one of them was made to look like a human.

Roy Swanson also discussed the night sky for December, the stars, ecliptic, meteor showers, the solstice, layout of the solar system and the planets.

Observing transits of Mercury

Chris Malicki gave a presentation about the three Mercury transits that he has attempted to observe.

On November 15, 1999 a transit of Mercury was visible just before sunset from southern Ontario. In order to gain a few degrees of solar altitude, Chris and his wife Liz drove to Point Pelee National Park on Lake Erie. To their great fortune, the clouds parted on time and they successfully observed and photographed the transit from the southernmost land area of Canada. The photos were published in the J.RASC and in Sky and Telescope.

On May 7, 2003, Chris was clouded out at sunrise in Mississauga for the next transit.

On November 8, 2006, Randy and Chris drove to Fort Erie to observe the latest transit of Mercury. It was a very cloudy day but patches of clear forecast for a few areas on Lake Erie. Although they did see the Sun 1/2 hour before 1^st contact, the clouds then rolled in. A 2 hour drive westwards managed to get them into a clear sky only 5 minutes before sunset; however turbulence and tree branches precluded successful viewing of the transit. So the batting average is 1/3 for Mercury transits.

Transits of Mercury

Randy Attwood demonstrated Mercury transits using Starry Sky software, and explained why they currently occur only in May and November. He spoke about the attempted observations of the November 2006 transit.

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

Submitted by Chris Malicki, Secretary