Mississauga Centre RASC

66th Meeting

    Members’ Night

Day:                Friday, June 23, 2006

Speakers:         Jim and Colin Jackson

                         Brian Alexander

                         Roy Swanson

                         John Boyd 

                         Bob Anderson

Interactive Astronomy Session

Jim and Colin Jackson portrayed a conversation between a father and son discussing various astronomical and related topics including astrology, skepticism, mathematics, evolution and creation, black holes, multiple universes, the Big Bang and others. 

Making a Dob

Brian Alexander described his endeavor in building a Newtonian telescope on the dobson model. His motivation was to have a tool for observing, learn about optics, and build optical and mechanical components. The scope had to be portable, transportable, suitable for a non-expert and requiring simple tools. As a result, he chose a 7.75” primary mirror, f5.16 with plans from the internet. Theoretically, the telescope could see to mag. 13.2. Brian showed images of the tube, spider, eyepeice and focuser, mirror cell, mount made of plywood. Exterior work, installing the spider and mirror cell, balancing and collimating the scope are still jobs to be done.

The Sky Next Month

Roy Swanson spoke about July happenings. On July 4, the Earth is at aphelion and the  anniversary of the Crab supernova takes place (1054). When the Sun is high in the sky, the full Moon is low. At very high latiudes, it won’t rise at all on some days. At the end of the month, the South delta Aquarid meteor shower takes place.

Roy also expounded on the meeting from June 9. He stated that Van Allen belts are associated with any planet that has a magnetic field and atmosphere. The Van Allen belts focus the magnetic field to the atmosphere.

Book Review – Archives of the Universe

John Boyd recommended the book “Archives of the Universe” by Marcia Bartusiak which discusses the 100 most important discoveries in astronomy and the universe including the Maya, Egyptians, Kepler, Newton, Nicholas Copernicus, Tycho Brache and the supernova of 1572 and others.

M16 Eagle Nebula image

Bob Anderson described the Eagle nebula. In 1745, De Chesseaux using a 14 foot refractor, registered it first as a cluster of stars in Serpens close to Scutum and Sagittarius.  Messier recognized stars and nebulosity and described his observations. Bob, inspired by the “pillars of creation” image of Hubble imaged the nebula, described where it is in the galaxy and showed his picture of M16 at 656 nm (RBG image at 0.56 arcsec per pixel). His images demonstrates the “trunks” of the pillars as per the Hubble image. Galactic star cluster stars are starting to blow away the gas and dust surrounding them. 

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