Important announcements

	Our next meeting will be on Wednesday, January 6, at 8 PM at Poricy Park. Our speaker will be STAR's own Dr. Ed Collet, who will speak about Understanding the Practical Aspects of Astronomical Optics and Binoculars. We will also, weather permitting, have the usual scopes set up on the lawn in front of the hall.
	Several people have told me they're receiving the newsletter on paper and would prefer an electronic copy. If this describes you, please send me e-mail at mikel@att.net, because if you're getting this on paper, I don't have your e-mail address. Remember, you can get the newsletter on-line at http://home.att.net/~mikel/star.html.
	Got an idea? Would you like to write an article for the Spectrogram about it? See http://home.att.net/~mikel/star/author.html for article submission guidelines, or ask me for a paper copy at the next meeting.

Events

	May 1, 1999 is the 11th annual StarConn Convention at Wesleyan University in Middletown CT. This one day event is sponsored by the Astronomical Society of Greater Hartford. For information contact Scott Tracy (860-653-0179 or 76616.1027@compuserve.com) or Suzanne_Marinan@compuserve.com.
	May 16, 1999 is the Northeast Astronomy Forum at the Holiday Inn in Suffern, featuring many speakers and 54 vendors. For more information, contact Don Urban (201-768-6575 or durban1@aol.com).

Notes from December

by Penny Fischer

We were greeted with hazy/cloudy skies for a near-full moon for our December meeting. Once again our meeting hall at Poricy Park in Middletown was filled to almost standing room only.

Joe Cascella was nice enough to organize the distribution of this season's club hats and Tee shirts as well as space calendars for 1999.

Our fearless leader (aka Dan Pontone), with typical flair, started the meeting by stripping off his pants! (Gym shorts underneath..... Whew!); only to don special thermal underwear, pants, toe warmers, boots, and scarf/hat and thin gloves. This little demonstration was to show us how to dress when observing in the wintertime. And, as he admitted, the most useful cold weather accessory is a hot thermos of coffee!

Dan announced that there would be a star party for Cub Scouts on December 7th in Sea Bright [it was a big success - Ed.]. Dan also mentioned that he will be hosting a "Sidewalk Astronomers" type demonstration on New Years Eve in Red Bank. This will be part of the annual "First Night" celebration there. It will be held at Riverside Gardens Park. All are invited to attend and/or help out with scope duty.

Coyle field, the ASTRA dark sky site was discussed. Several S*T*A*R members have used it this past month, and they all deem the horizon lines excellent with less light pollution than Colliers.

Kay advised us where and when to look for the next Shuttle mission, which was supposed to launch the previous night. From New Jersey, the shuttle looks like an orange plane without blinking lights. Binoculars will let you see a v-shaped fire-plume emitting from the shuttle as it enters orbit.

Mike Lindner and David Segelstein, who have worked very hard on developing a new and exciting website, unveiled their ideas last night, with a graph showing the navigation bar and the subjects each sub-page will be covering. However, the web page redesign is in the embryonic stages and they asked anyone who would like to offer to write content, or construct web pages to contact them. HTML experience helpful, but not required, there are a lot of other tasks .

S*T*A*R now has it's own web domain! That's right, it is official and up and running at http://www.starastronomy.org and you can find our current page there as well as at the site of http://www.monmouth.com/~ksears . The turn over will be gradual as time constraints allow. Good JOB, Kay, Mike and David!

Our speaker was Jim Flood (AAI ), a chemist who was the last amateur astronomer to use the Hubble Space Telescope. He studied the interesting and irregular galaxy NGC 1808 in different wavelengths. Jim took us through the process of applying for the proposal (laborious, 500 pages long!); then the letdown of being "bumped" from the schedule a week before the observation. He had to wait another whole year! But the wait was worth it.

Jim showed us some fantastic photos taken with the HST of "his" galaxy, showing interesting areas and knots of starburst activity as well as bubbles of what are thought to be massive conglomerations of supernovae. A very interesting talk that was well received by the audience.

Constellations for January, 1999

by Greg Cantrell

I have for some time been interested in the Constellations and the legends surrounding them. This interest has a practical side, too. Knowledge of the Constellations and their locations in the night sky is essential to observational astronomy. Otherwise, the sky could appear as nothing more than a collection of randomly spaced stars.

Unlike deep sky observing, the identification of Constellations does not require any special equipment or an extremely dark site. In keeping with this, I will focus on those things that may be seen with the naked eye during the month in which the article appears. I will also include a simple star chart (see image below) that, like the accompanying article, focuses primarily on those things that can be seen with the naked eye.

I begin with the Constellation that is probably the best known in the sky, Orion the Hunter. This collection of bright stars has been associated with the figure of a person by ancient cultures around the world. To ancient Arabs, it was known as Al Jabbar (meaning "the Giant" or "great"). Inhabitants of ancient Egypt saw it as the resting-place of the soul of Osiris, god of the underworld and a symbol of creativity and the continuity of life. Ancient Indian mythology sometimes identified this Constellation as Prajapati, lord of creatures, who fathered 27 daughters destined to be brides of King Soma, the Moon.

According to Greco-Roman mythology, Orion was a great hunter who boasted that no beast could kill him. The goddess Hera, upon hearing of this, decided to teach Orion a lesson and sent a tiny scorpion to sting him. Orion killed the scorpion with his club, but not before it had delivered its fatal sting. Orion and the scorpion (Scorpius) were each placed in the heavens, but at opposite ends of the sky so that they should never appear together.

Orion contains several bright stars. Betelgeuse, located at his eastern shoulder, is a red giant star whose color is apparent even to the naked eye. Betelgeuse is perhaps the largest of all known stars and would extend out to Jupiter's orbit if placed at our Sun's location. Rigel is the brilliant white star located at Orion's western foot. Three equally bright stars (Alnitak, Alnilam, and Mintaka ) form Orion's belt, which happens to roughly lie along the celestial equator (the projection of the Earth's equator onto the night sky). A line of faint stars makes a shield that Orion wields to protect himself from the charging Taurus, the Bull. A triangle of faint stars extending northeast from Betelgeuse is his club. Hanging from his belt is a sword. If you look closely at the sword, you should be able to make out a faint, glowing patch. This is the great Orion Nebula, one of the most spectacular sights in the night sky.

A line extending southeast through Orion's belt points to Sirius, the Dog Star, in the Constellation Canis Major, or the Great Dog. This Constellation, along with Canis Minor, are Orion's hunting dogs. Like Orion, Canis Major, or perhaps more appropriately the star Sirius, has had other identities in some ancient cultures. Ancient Egyptians knew that the rising of Sirius at daybreak corresponded with the annual flooding of the Nile. This flooding refertilized the fields and constituted the beginning of a new year, and was associated with Osiris' return from the dead.

Ancient Indians saw this Constellation as a deer hunter pursuing the stars in Orion (now depicted as a deer) as his prey. Ancient Greeks originally identified the entire Constellation simply as Sirius, meaning the "scorcher." During the summer months, when Sirius is in the sky during daylight hours, these ancient people thought that the heat of Sirius was added to that of the Sun. The modern tradition of referring to the warmest period in summer as the "dog days" originates from this ancient belief.

Sirius is the brightest star in the night sky, a white star that is also fifth closest known to our solar system. West of Sirius is the star Mirzam, whose name roughly translates into "herald." Not so bright as it's neighbor, Mirzam "announces or heralds" the rising of Sirius by rising just before it.

The Constellation Canis Minor, the Little Dog, is located on a line drawn eastward from Betelgeuse. Canis Minor consists primarily of two stars, Procyon and Gomeisa. Between the stars Procyon in Canis Minor and Sirius in Canis Major lies the winter Milky Way, and the dim Constellation Monoceros, the Unicorn. Monoceros is a "modern" Constellation formed in about 1624 by the German scientist Jakob Bartsch.

Finally, at Orion's feet is the Constellation Lepus , the Hare. Despite the faintness of the stars, Lepus is among the most ancient of Constellations, depicting the rabbit that was Orion's favorite prey. Not everyone saw a rabbit, though, as ancient Arabs described this area as four camels drinking from a river.

I hope that you've enjoyed this article, and use it to better learn and appreciate the Constellations of the night sky. Please feel free to send me comments, or other versions of myths associated with these Constellations. There are many, and I've along touched on a few here.

An Amateur's Gift

by Joe Cascella (reprinted from the January 1995 S*T*A*R Spectrogram)

T'was the night before Christmas, and all through the sky

The stars were shining brightly, as seen naked eye.

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,

My hopes to find eyepieces when I looked inside there.

My children were nestled all snug in their beds,

While I prepared my flashlight, its light, of course, red.

The gifts were all wrapped, placed under the tree,

I found myself with time, at this point all free.

So while my wife slept, I felt I was deserving

To spend Christmas eve, quietly observing.

When all of sudden there arose such a noise,

I turned far too quickly and tripped on wrapped toys.

I bounced on my head, quickly got up off the floor,

Then ran down the hallway and out through the door.

I ran into the yard but was distracted by the sight

Of what appeared to be about ten billion Christmas lights.

At that point there was only one thing in my mind,

Those lights were so brilliant, my night vision would be blind.

I figured I might as well pack up my scope,

To see deep sky objects now, I really had no hope.

Coming from atop my house, I heard it once more.

Although fairly loud, it was not quite a roar.

It sounded like laughter, a voice I strangely know.

Yes, I've heard it before, a jolly HO-HO-HO!

I spun around quickly, I then had to pause,

There up on my roof, could it be, Santa Claus?!

I found myself speechless, there was nothing to say

While my eyes beheld the reindeer pulling the sleigh.

I spotted a clock, it was one minute past twelve.

It was the time for a visit from the most famous of elves.

His work at my home finished, he reappeared on my roof,

I grabbed my loaded camera, a photo would be proof.

I pointed my camera, I was ready to click,

But then I thought, "should I photograph Saint Nick?"

For part of the fun for the children should always be

Trying to spot Santa placing gifts by the tree.

A picture would only spoil part of the kid's fun.

I put down the camera, this photo project now done.

Santa jumped in his sleigh, the reindeer started to move,

Santa looked at me and smiled, my actions he approved.

Santa and his sleigh flew quickly out of sight,

But with my telescope, I could follow their flight.

They grew smaller and smaller, then finally disappeared,

I pulled away from the eyepiece, I noticed something quite weird.

Every Christmas light around me had suddenly gone dark,

In every direction, not the slightest of sparks.

No street lights, or yard lights, not a flicker could be seen.

I thought to myself "was this all a Christmas dream?"

I looked to the sky, what a wonder to behold,

For without all the lighting, the universe unfolds!

Star clusters and nebula were clear to the naked eye,

The Milky Way was so brilliant, with the scope I had to try.

The clusters in Auriga were high overhead,

But I first viewed the Andromeda Galaxy instead.

Leo the Lion was rising in the east,

The Great Bear, and Taurus, three glorious beasts.

The Great Square of Pegasus was low in the west.

The Great Nebula in Orion was its magnificent best.

The star clusters M36, 7, and 8,

I finally realized it was getting quite late.

After hours of observing deep sky objects galore,

I was beginning to tire, my eyes could focus no more.

I packed up my scope, put all the equipment away.

Morning twilight had entered, it was now Christmas Day.

After waking, my wife and the kids all raced to the tree,

Hugs and kisses were exchanged, the room filled with glee.

Santa's gifts were all opened, but there was still one more

Addressed to the man Santa saw the night before.

Inside was a note that gave me the greatest delight,

"My gift to you was dark skies on Christmas Eve night!"

Happy Holidays to everyone and here's to clear skies throughout 1999!