It is cloudy again, but if it clears up for a few minutes tonight, you have the chance to see a hugh Iridium flare. Iridium 15 will flare with a magnitude -6.2 at 19:05:50 local time at azimuth=178.5° S, altitude= 34.7° in constellation Eridani. This information is for the Covington, Social Circle, Charlie Elliott area. For you living half way between Atlanta and CE, the flare will be at a magnitude of -1.1 and in Atlanta it will not flare at all
Clear Skies
Theo

Hello everyone,

Because of next week’s holiday, we are starting the reminders for our Pot Luck Dinner Meeting on December 27th a few days earlier. This is a reminder that it’s time to start thinking about what to bring to this quarter’s Pot Luck Dinner for the Charlie Elliott Chapter meeting. It starts at 3:00PM at the Charlie Elliott Visitor’s Center, next week Saturday, December 27th. Everyone is welcome. Plan on being there and show off the astronomy related presents you received, or see what others got and if you need help in how to operate, I am sure we can help. We also have a very exciting program for the last meeting of the year. And if the weather allows, share the views of the Universe with the others after the meeting at the observing field. The AAC will join us at the observing field with their December DSO.

To get things started, just let me know what you plan to bring, desert, drinks, covered dish, etc) and I’ll add that to our menu and post it on the Charlie_Elliott_Chapter Yahoo group as I get your emails. Early next week, I may send out an email with the summery of the menu so far.

So, give it some thought, post a message or email me, and we’ll add this to the list!

Clear Skies,
Theo Ramakers

WEEKEND METEORS: Earth is entering a stream of debris from extinct comet 3200 Phaethon, and this is causing the annual Geminid meteor shower. The shower is expected to peak on Dec. 13th and 14th. Normally, as many as 100 meteors per hour shoot out of the constellation Gemini, but this year a bright Moon will interfere with the display, reducing hourly counts to only 20 or so. That’s could still be a nice show. For best results, watch the sky from 10 pm local time on Saturday night (Dec 13th) until dawn on Sunday morning (Dec. 14th).

BIGGEST FULL MOON OF THE YEAR: The Moon that’s causing trouble for the Geminid display happens to be biggest full Moon of 2008, as much as 14% wider and 30% brighter than lesser Moons we’ve been earlier this year. An astronomer would say this is a “perigee Moon” because it occurs at perigee, the side of the Moon’s elliptical orbit closest to Earth. Go outside tonight and take a look. The meteor rate may be low, but the lunar beauty index is off the charts.

IRIDIUM FLARES. Tomorrow night you also will be able to witness two very bright Iridium flares when you live in within 20 miles of Covington. Iridium 94 will flare with a magnitude of -5.6 at Azimuth=269.6° W altitude= 19.5° in constellation Ophiuchus at 17:33:50h and if this is too early to see, Iridium 29 will flare with Magnitude=-5.3mag at Azimuth=271.2° W and altitude= 16.6° in constellation Ophiuchus at 17:47:12h

If you have a few minutes step out and enjoy this.
Theo Ramakers

I was passed on this link which is to a website listing 10 powerpoint and Adobe pdf presentations about the moon. This is a fantastic resource if you are interested in the moon! Take a look and downoad them.

http://www.spudislunarresources.com/moon101.htm

Clear Skies
Theo

Shuttle Endeavour is scheduled for lift off from on Friday November 14 from Kennedy Space Center’s launchpad 39A at 7:55pm for mission STS-126. The Space Shuttle Endeavour will launch on assembly flight ULF2, and will deliver a Multi-Purpose Logistics Module to the International Space Station. with the number of shuttle launches counting down, this might well be the last opportunity to witness a night launch from Charlie Elliott.

The weather forecast for Friday evening is 67% clouds and 40% chance of rain, so chances to see the launch from here are low. However, if the weather improves, take a trip out to Charlie Elliott and see the blast off rise over the tree tops, something that not many have witnessed from the Atlanta area!!

Clear Skies,
Theo

The meeting was called to order by Chapter director Theo Ramakers at 4:05pm. 17 members and guests attended the meeting and 62 persons took advantage of the observation field since the last meeting. Following a welcome to all attendees, a request to change the April meeting date was discussed. The request was made to avoid a conflict with the annual star party of the Flint River Astronomy Club. The request to change our meeting date was approved to the weekend preceding the old date. We now need to check with CEWMA if they will allow the change. The home page of the CE website has been updated with the chapter meeting dates for 2009

Following a short introduction of Paul Tankersley by Theo, Paul started his presentation about Narrow Band Imaging in the City. Paul’s extensive presentation discussed this topic in much detail. He explained why he got interested in this, the evaluations he went through, the challenges one has to overcome when imaging from light polluted areas, the equipment he needed for this and finally the process when doing this the right way. His presentation was very complete and everyone had a chance to see his beautiful album of images made by Paul over the one year he has been doing this.

We all enjoyed Paul’s presentation very much. You can review Paul’s presentation on our website in the Presentations Page. After thanking Paul and his wife Gail for coming out to Charlie Elliott, bringing donuts, and showing us this very exciting part of observing the night sky, Jon Wood did his continuation of the Observing 101.
In addition to reviewing the night sky for November, location of Venus and Jupiter, Jon discussed the discussion he had with the management of Charlie Elliott about the hunting season and the fact that the observing field is not located in the Safety Zone. We are sharing the observing field with everyone. It was explained that the wildlife is very active around sunset and sunrise. This means to be very cautious around these times of the day during hunting season, and it would be better to come a little later than earlier. We have added the hunting season information on our website. A link to this section has been added at the home page of the site: . http://ceastronomy.org/blog/directions . The information can also be found at the website of CEWMA: http://georgiawildlife.dnr.state.ga.us/hunting.aspx.
Jon also discussed a new focusing tool he is using: the Bahtinov mask. This focus mask is based on the principle of moving diffraction spikes. His presentation included screen captures of in and out of focus objects and gave a great overview of the ease of operation. A URL for a generator of a mask template is : http://astrojargon.net/maskgen.aspx

The last item of the agenda was Theo’s Current Events in Astronomy and Space Exploration. Theo discussed the advancement of some foreign countries in space exploration, notably China with the first manned space flight and India with the launch of their first mission to the moon and gave an overview of recent and current outreach events. A review of recent images made by chapter members was followed by a status review and images of Odessey, Phoenix, and Cassini. An overview and movie about of the Indian mission Chandrayaan to the moon completed this month’s Current Events. A link to this presentation can be found on the Events page of the website.
After the meeting it was out to the observing field, where several additional observers joined and some students and parents from George Walton High took the opportunity to see some nice sky objects.

Respectfully submitted by
Theo Ramakers
Director, Charlie Elliott Chapter of the AAC.

I received an email with the following from Julie Duncan, the Residential Program Director at Charlie Elliott:

“We are hosting a very small workshop for teachers to help us plan our curriculum for the new CEWC Residential Program.  They will be with us Sept. 24-25.  I wondered if it might be possible to share your astronomical enthusiasm with them on Wednesday night – weather permitting.  We wouldn’t require much, just a chance to get outside, learn, and enjoy.  

I’m thinking about asking Stephen if he could come by on Thursday (same location – Discovery Room) for about an hour. ”

I would encourage everyone if you have the time to come out Wednesday evening or Thursday noon and let these teachers see what amateur astronomy is about!!!  This is a perfect opportunity to reach out.

Please let me know if you can make it Wednesday evening and show the night sky and/or Thursday for a Solar hour.

Clear Skies
Theo Ramakers

SpaceWeather.com issued the following alert:

This Saturday, August 16th, people on every continent except North America can see a lunar eclipse. At maximum, around 2110 UT, 81% of the Moon will be inside the red core of Earth’s shadow.

The eclipse lasts for more than three hours (19:36 UT to 22:44 UT), so there is plenty of time to gaze, drink coffee and take pictures. Follow the links for webcasts and more information:

Live webcasts from the Netherlands; from Norway; from the Canary Islands; (these begin around 3:30 pm EDT)

For further details on the URLs go to SpaceWeather.com

Tonight the ISS is scheduled to make a pass over our area between 8:27 and 8:37. It will rise very low in the NW and set low in the SE. It will be almost overhead at 8:32 at 82 degrees to the SW.

The challenge is that its brightness is -4.1 and the sun will be only 1 degree below the horizon. So knowing where to look you might be able to see it!!

Clear Skies
Theo

Thanks to our members Stephen Ramsden, Jon Wood and Theo Ramakers for finishing the 2nd week’s presentations and observing sessions for the Summer Camp participants at Charlie Elliott!

The weather did not cooperate much. For the morning solar observing we had to wait several times for up to 45 minutes to catch a break in the clouds. However the wait was well worth it. The kids were able to see three good sized filaments on the surface of the sun, one of them a big arc.

The evening presentations went well with a trip though the inner and outer solar system, the Phoenix landing, and some not so common images of the Moon and Jupiter.

Outside the clouds had moved in, except for a small opening around Jupiter, so everyone was able to see Jupiter with three moons and a little later 4 moons, when Io’s transit ended. The clouds kept us busy trying to find the best spots to see. A faint M57 could be seen once in a while, and a faint coming and going Alberio also. Despite the adverse cloud conditions, the observing session was well accepted by all!

For pictures of yesterday’s event click here.

Thanks again to everyone who was able to contribute time , including the staff at Charlie Elliott and especially Julie Duncan, to make this another successful astronomy event.

Theo Ramakers