Mississauga Centre RASC
144th Meeting
Members' Night
Day:
Friday March 12, 2010
Chair: Terry Hardman
Speakers: Terry Milligan and James Cooper
James Crombie
Denis Grey
Randy Attwood
The Mississauga Library System and What to Read
James Cooper and Terry Milligan spoke about the resources of the Mississauga Library System
especially with regards to astronomy. The library strives to communicate, consult and
collaborate. The physical space of the library was described. Resources can be accessed online
through www.mississauga.ca/library. Various astronomy books and their categories were
described including telescopes, astronomical knowledge, history, kids books as well as DVD's.
These items were available for people with library cards to borrow.
This Week in the News in Astronomy
James Crombie described the latest astronomy news stories as reported on the internet including
telescopes from the ground up, degradation of the lunar reflectors over time, supernovae halting
star formation, jet packs and their cost of $100,000, the Orion Nebula and life-enabling
molecules, the Nemesis-hypothesis book (dark object postulated but the object Sedna should not
be where it is), water at the Moon's pole, 137 years of Popular Science on-line, and a large crater
discovered in the Dem Rep. of Congo.
Deep in the Heart of Texas - the 2009 Texas Star Party
Denis Grey described the Texas Star Party, one of the oldest star parties. At a star party,
campers observe around the time of New Moon. Astronomers come to share the experience.
There may be swap tables, talks and the environment must be kept dark. The Texas star party, in
April-May 2009, had about 500 observers with a major observatory, McDonald nearby. The
location at Prude Ranch in west Texas was described. With an elevation of 5051 feet and latitude
of 30 degrees, Omega Centauri and Cen. A can be easily observed. Talks were given by
Terrence Dickinson, Jack Newton, and Don Pettit on being an amateur astronomer on the ISS.
McDonald is a major US National Observatory with a visitor centre and 3 telescopes: the Harlan
J. Smith Telescope, Otto Struve Telescope and Hobby-Eberle Telescope. The latter has an 8.2
meter segmented mirror that is fixed whereas the secondary moves. Practically, it is a 2 1/2 meter
spectroscopic instrument.
The star party last year was mainly cloudy and had only one night of observing. The next one is
scheduled for May 9 - 16, 2010.
The Constellation Leo
Randy Attwood described the constellation Leo. It is the 5th of 12 zodiac constellations and with
its sickle head, has been represented as a lion for many years. Regulus the main star is 85 light
years away and is 5 solar diameters in size. Because it lies so close to the ecliptic, Regulus is
often occulted by the Moon and even by planets as in 1959 by Venus. Denebola is the star at the
eastern end. R Leonis, a binocular variable of the Mira type (varying in size and shedding its
atmosphere) ranges between 5th and 10th magnitude. Also in Leo, the star Wolf 359 is only 7
1/2 light years away and the star Gleise 436 has a Neptune-sized planet. Leo has many galaxies
notably M65, M66 and NGC 3628 as well as the triplet M95, M96, M105, in addition to the Leo
1 group of galaxies. The Leonid meteor shower occurs in November and can put on the
occasional meteor storm. This month, the asteroid Vesta is in the sickle of Leo.
Chris Malicki, Secretary