Mississauga Centre RASC

121st Meeting

                                                      Members’ Night and Annual Meeting  

Day:                Friday February 20, 2009

Chair: John Marchese

Speakers:          Leslie Strike

Chris Malicki

Bob Anderson

Roy Swanson

The Constellation Taurus

As part of the constellation series, Leslie Strike spoke about Taurus her favourite because she always thought that the Sun was in that constellation during her birth. She described the shape and location of Taurus and noted the two major clusters of the Hyades and Pleiades showing her images of them form Mississauga.

Taurus is an ancient constellation from Mesopotamia, and was mentioned in Sumeria as the Bull of Heaven and in Grek mythology as Zeus courting Europa.

The Hyades form the V of Taurus with Aldebaran a bright star in the line of sight but not part of the cluster. The luminance and distance of the blue-white stars are important to ascertaining the distance scale to farther objects. Theta is a double star, delta is a triple adm epsilon has one of the first exoplanets ever found. Historically, the Hyades were the daughters of Atlas who were remembered for caring for Zeus’ infant son. They are often associated with bad weather.

The Pleides, M45, are hot blue-white stars, seven being bright; 440 light years away, younger than the Hyades and surrounded by nebulosity. They are well known in cultures of the world e.g. Subaru inJapan. Historically they are always female, in Greek myth the daughters of Atlas and Pleione and for the Hindus, the centre of 6 million persons. Native Americans considered them maidens fleeing from a bear.

The Crab Nebula, M1, is the remnant from the 1054 supernova identified by the Chinese as mag -7 to -4.5.  It is expanding at 1500 km per sec.. The central pulsar or neutron star rotates 30 times per second radiating electromagnetic waves.

The brightest star of Taurus, Aldebaran 65 light years away has a diameter 44 times the Sun. Among various myths, it was a hunter of white buffalo or for the Inuit, the spirit of a polar bear.

The Taurid meteor shower is a large stream from Comet Encke at the end of October, and beginning of November with another part in June/July.

Grazing Occultation of Maia

Chris Malicki discovered from an occultation website that there would be a graze of the Pleide star Maia visible from his backyard in Mississauga on the night of February 3. The graze path was only about 10 km long. Although the sky was a bit murky, the star was easily visible for several minutes as in blinked off and on while passing behind peaks and through valleys on the southern limb of the Moon. At least 4 appearances and disappearance were seen. This was the first grazing occultation Chris has seen and he described it as his Galileo moment of the year. He encouraged others to talk about their Galileo moments this IYA (a Galileo moment happens when one observes an interesting astronomical event or object for the first time).

3D Stereoscopy

Bob Anderson spoke about perspective in astronomy and stereoscopic imaging. “Stereo” is a Greek derivative meaning “relating to space”. Charles Wheatson (1802 – 1875) invented the stereoscope allowing 3 dimensional images. Then in 1947, holography was invented by Dennis Gabor. Currently stereoscopic images can be made using a 2 lens camera. A video demonstrating 3D filmmaking and virtual reality was shown introducing terns like claytronics, parallel vision and cross vision. He showed an image of the Veil nebula done in layers showing it as a 3 dimensional object.

The Sky This month

Roy Swanson spoke about the sky this month. He discussed Thor’s Helmet above Sirius, the Mercury-Jupiter close approach form Feb 22 to 24, the close approach of asteroid Ceres, daylight saving time on March 8, Saturn at opposition, Venus inferior conjunction and the position of the Milky Way.

The rest of the evening was taken up by the Annual Meeting of the Mississauga Centre RASC.

Chris Malicki, Secretary