NEBULA is the official newsletter of the Goddard Astronomy Club (GAC), an employee organization of the Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771. GAC meets on the second Tuesday of each month.
WWW page: http://gac.gsfc.nasa.gov/
President: Kevin Hartnett, Code 441, 301-286-6064.
Editor: Chuck Conner, Code 428, 301-369-2800, X3060.
Kevin Hartnett Presiding.
Officer elections were held with the following results:
| President: | Cornelius duToit |
| Vice-President: | Alexia Martinez |
| Treasurer: | Howard Dew |
| Secretary: | Chuck Conner |
GAC is looking for volunteers to work on September 13 for Launchfest 2008.
Bob Dutilly will speak at the Greenbank Star Quest on July 3.
If you attend a star party, we'd like a report (verbal or written).
The next New Moon is on July 3, 2008. Check out this site for new moon dates.
Astronomical Society of Greenbelt Meetings &mdash Last non-holiday Thursday of each month at the Owens Science Center at 7:30 P.M.
Greenbank Star Quest &mdash July 2-5
Mason-Dixon Star Party &mdash July 30-August 3
Almost Heaven Star Party &mdash July 31-August 2
A calendar of star parties can always be found at the
Sky & Telescope's Calendar page
Lynne and I went to our cabin at Mountain Meadows, West Virginia on the evening of June 7/8. We had partly cloudy to mostly cloudy observing conditions, but it did clear up enough for me to get some meteor observe done. Before that, we saw a nice pass of the ISS attached to the Space Shuttle Discovery, and Lynne saw the first firefly of the season there. We also watched the lightning from distant storms in the SE direction, which was interesting and fun to see.
At around 9:11 P.M. EDT, we saw a nice pass of the ISS with the Space Shuttle Discovery. We both looked at it with the 12x63 Optolyth binoculars, and could see that it had a shape, and wasn't stellar. I thought that I noticed a backwards "L" shape, but can't be sure because it was hard to hold the binoculars steady. It was easy to spot as it was about 60 degrees up, magnitude -2, and moving to the SSE in the twilight sky.
We both looked at the Moon and Saturn with an old 4-inch F/11 Dynascope, and had nice views before I decided to meteor observe before it clouded up. We knew from the Mountain Meadows Observatory Clear Sky Chart that it would be cloudy by midnight, so I knew I needed to look for meteors early that night. As I needed to get started, Lynne agreed to bring me coffee to my lounge chair.
For a short while it became about 95% clear, and the early Summer Milky Way was a glorious sight. An occassional lightning bug would cruise by, but it was easy not to mistake them for meteors. A few satellites, including a nice -1 Iridium flare were seen, and the distant lightning continued to flash low in the SE as I began observing for meteors.
From 10:28 P.M. to 11:48 P.M. EDT I was able to see 14 meteors, with a 15% average cloud cover, and an average limiting magnitude (LM) that was around magnitude 6.3. I was looking for meteors from the Xi Draconids, June Lyrids, Omega Scorpids, and Sagittarid complex meteor radiants.
There were two possible Xi Draconids that were spotted. One, seen at 11:32 P.M. EDT, was the best meteor of the session, which was a nice -2 magnitude, that had a beautiful blue-green color. The other one lined up with both the June Lyrid and Xi Draconid radiants, but I called it a Xi Draconid because it was closer to that radiant.
I saw two meteors from both the Omega Scorpids and Sagittarid radiants, but I called them all Antihelion meteors. One strange slow moving sporadic seen at 10:47 P.M. EDT had a large, about 10 arcminute sized, orange spherical head, and a tail. It was a wierd meteor. There were six other sporadic meteors seen, but they were all normal. The clouds were too much after 11:48P.M. EDT; so I was forced to quit for the night.
A little while afterwards, when it became all cloudy, I looked out across part of the meadows and could see many fireflies blinking on and off, while the Spring Peepers sang with the Tree Frogs in the background, as the distant storms off to the SE still flashed with yellow-orange lightning. It was all a very serene and earthy setting, and made me feel one with the planet.