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: Cornelis DuToit, 301-286-1026.
Editor: George Gliba, 301-286-1119.

Cornelis duToit presiding.

Upcoming celestial events and reports of members observations and ATM projects were given. Member accounts were given and pictures of the InOMN star party at the NASA/GSFC Visitor's Center last month were shown. Nelis showed the alluminum pieces that were welded and machined for the 12-inch Meade SCT telescope for the south pier at the GAC GGAO observatory. Plans are for this custom mounting to be completed before the end of October. That is when the telescope is to become operational. Member Jeff Guerber gave a report on the options for a new mounting for the 7-inch Questar MCT telescope, which will be portable. He looked at several models and recommended the Celestron CG-5, which can handle up to 30 lbs. This should be enough for this telescope, which weighs 21 lbs. Members also discussed the volunteers that would have their telescopes for solar observing this week on the NASA/GSFC Mall for Middle School Week, from October 12th to October 15th. Future star parties were also mentioned.

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There will be a star party for the Cub Scouts on November 20th. Details will become available at the next meeting. Contact Armen Caroglanian for more details.

The next New Moon is on November 6, 2010. Check out this site for new moon dates.

Astronomical Society of Greenbelt, our sister organization, meets on the Last non-holiday Thursday of each month at the Owens Science Center at 7:30 P.M.

New Pier and Meade LX200 Installed at the GAC GGAO Observatory

Goddard Astronomy Club members Cornelis Du Toit, Howard Dew, and Armen Caroglanian were able to install the new telescope pier at the GAC GGAO Observatory after much effort in getting some parts fabricated and machined. Our 12-inch Meade LX200 SCT telescope now has a new home. They managed to drill the four .75 inch diameter holes in the concrete slab fairly easily. One of the holes came out slightly misaligned, so the associated hole in the aluminium plate had to be filed out a little. After that, assembly of the pier went without any trouble. They also cleaned up the observatory somewhat as needed.
Pix from Pier Construction

A few days later, on October 21st, this GAC ATM team was able to install the 12-inch Meade LX200 onto this customized telescope pier, made mostly at NASA/GSFC. Everything seems to be fine. So, now the GAC GGAO observtaory has two 12-inch telscopes for the first time, one with 20th century technology, and another with 21st century technology! Both are excellent scopes. Congratulations to the GAC ATM team for a job well done.
Pix from Scope Installation

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Comet 103P/Hartley 2 and Orionid Meteor Shower - by G.W.Gliba

I was able to get a look at comet 103P/Hartley 2 from downtown Greenbelt, when it was in the same field as the Double Cluster in Perseus on the evening of October 8th. I first spotted it with my 12x63 binoculars, and later the same night was able to see it with 8x50 binoculars. It was large and diffuse, about 20 arcminutes in extent, and around 5.5 magnitude. It was a beautiful sight in the same field as the Double Cluster and Stock 2. GAC member Armen Caroglanian also saw it a few miles away with 12x50 & 8x50 binoculars, and a 6-inch telescope. In the 6-inch he could make out the central condensation, but lost some of the outer coma.

During its closest approach to Earth, Lynne and I were able to get some good looks at 103P/Hartley 2 while visiting our cabin at Mountain Meadows, West Virginia. We used 12x63 binoculars, and a couple of telescopes. After moonset on the morning of October 18th, I was able to see the comet with only the naked-eye. The coma was large and diffuse, and only the inner 10 arcminute part was visible in a couple of telescopes and the naked-eye. A more condensed inner coma, near the central condensation, was seen with a 3-inch F13 refractor telescope. The comets motion was swift and motion could be detected in only a few minutes because of the many reference stars in the background Milky Way stars of Aurigia. A nice 6th magnitude sporadic blue-white fragmenting telescopic meteor was seen passing over the comet with 12x63 binoculars. Interestingly, several hours later, another 8th magnitude Orionid telescopic meteor was seen in the same field as the comet.

I was able to do two hours of formal meteor observing looking for the pre-maximum Orionid meteors after moonset. I observed from 7:02 to 8:02 UT and saw 17 Orionids during an apparent mini-outburst! The sky was clear, with some haze, and a limiting magnitude of about 6.2 or so. The next hour, from 8:02 to 9:02 UT, the Orionid rate was back down to 7 per hour with the same conditions. The best meteors seen were nice -3 and -2 magnitude Orionids, both with persistent trains, seen at 7:40 and 7:56 UT respectively. The comet was just north of Zenith and could be seen with the naked eye most of the time.

The comet was harder to see with the naked-eye as it got closer to the star Epsilon Aurigae, in the apex of the kids asterism. This is an interesting eclipsing binary star system that is now having one of its rare minima that occur once every 27 years and lasts for a year! This eclipse started last summer and the minimum started a couple months ago. The next night was mostly cloudy and ended up raining, but in the early evening Lynne and I saw a nice lunar halo around the nearly Full Moon. It was a great setting as we heard Coyotes howling and owls hooting in the distance. We could see brighter lightining accompanied by thunder as storms approached, but we got mostly just rain, as the worse part of the storms winds and fury was to the north.

The last night, October 19/20, we had partly cloudy conditions before moonset, and were able to see 103P/Hartley 2 again with the 5.3-inch F/8 Newtonian reflector. We also looked at the Pleiades, M36, M37, and open star clusters in Taurus and Auriga before the clouds returned, ending our star gazing for the night. We could also hear some local Screech Owls, and the Coyotes howling closer than the previous night. Flashes of lightining were seen to the south, but no thunder was heard as they were far away. Few stars and no meteors were seen the rest of the night for us.