Newsletter of the Big Bend Astronomical Society, Inc. August/September, 1999 Jim Walker, Editor

The meeting was called to order by President Bill Baker at 19:36:49 CDT.

The minutes from the previous meeting were accepted by acclamation.

Old Business:  The Meteor Shower party was discussed. No one in attendance indicated that they planned to go to Double Diamond Pavilion to view the meteor shower.

Star Party Report by Bill Baker: The 19 August 1999 Star Party for SRSU Student Government attracted 20-25 participants. The event was held in the parking area behind the Outdoor Amphitheatre at Kokernot Park.

New Business:  Bill Baker suggested we determine a set fee for future Student Group Star Parties. After a brief discussion Terry Eakens made a motion to charge $2.50 per person. Zelazny seconded. The motion passed unanimously.

Bernie Zelazny suggested that BBAS earmark all funds collected from Star Parties for the Murray Newman fund. After a brief discussion, Zelazny made a motion to earmark 50% of such receipts for the Murray Newman fund and the balance for the BBAS General Fund. Betty Grimm seconded the motion. The motion passed with 4 yeas, 2 nays and 1 abstention.

Bill Baker asked for volunteers to serve on the Nomination Committee.  Judith Brueske-Plimmer volunteered with the understanding that she would not be the only person on the committee. No one else in attendance who was eligible came forward. Several possible members for the committee were discussed. Bill Baker would contact potential Committee members.

The meeting adjourned at 20:09 CDT.

Respectfully submitted,
Bernie Zelazny, VP and Secretary Pro Tem

The president appointed an Election Committee consisting of Judy Brueske-Plimmer and Bernie Zelazny, Chair. A third member of the committee is yet to be appointed.

Bill reported that a star party held for participants in the Sul Ross Pass Program for incoming freshmen has yielded $50.00 for the BBAS, and another for the Student Advisory Board Delegates has yielded $62.50.  Checks will be forthcoming.

Our program was a presentation by Doug McCombs gave on the General Principles of Telescopes (see below).

Respectfully submitted,
Jim Walker, Secretary

¡News Flash!

General Principles of Telescopes

        This note is a review of a major article in the September issue of Sky & Telescope, pp. 130-133, by Clyde Bone, a BBAS member since our inception.  The article is well illustrated with photos by the author and a diagram of the optics.  Unfortunately for us, Clyde lives in San Angelo, so we have not seen him as often as we would like.  In any case, congratulations, Clyde!  (By the way, Doug McCombs is another BBASer with an S & T article, published a few years ago on his 10-inch binocular scope.)
        Marin Mersenne, a French mathematician first proposed this design for a reflecting telescope in 1636.  The design uses a concave parabolic primary mirror and a convex parabolic secondary. [Because of the difficulty of grinding these surfaces, no such telescope was ever made until long after Newtonian reflectors became common.]  Clyde has made two Mersenne scopes, a 20-inch and a 30-inch.  In addition to the reflective optics, the 20-inch uses a 4-inch refractor at the eyepiece end of the scope, and the 30-inch uses a 5.5-inch refractor. A principal advantage of the Mersenne design is the fact that the eyepiece remains at a constant, comfortable height for a seated observer independent of where the scope is pointing.  Anyone who has ever climbed a tall ladder in the dark at the Texas Star Party to look through a 30-inch monster Dob, or larger, can surely appreciate the accessibility of the eyepiece in Clyde’s design.

        Barbara and I watched the last total solar eclipse of this millennium from a point near Lizard Head, the southernmost point in England.  The line of totality came ashore from the Atlantic near Land’s End, the extreme southwest of England, near the city of Penzance.  The path of totality swept across southern Cornwall, leaving the coast south of Plymouth, crossing the English Channel, and then crossing central Europe into the Black Sea, Turkey, and continuing across India.
        The weather outlook was not good.  Before we left, we knew the climatologic history gave us only a 45% chance of seeing the eclipse where we were headed.  But we were going to Great Britain anyway, so we took our chances.
        We camped out the night before the eclipse.  The night was mostly clear, offering good views of the sky.  We even saw a few Perseids.  After years of looking at Polaris 30 deg above the horizon at home, it was fascinating to see it up nearly 50 deg.  All of England is north of the 49th parallel, which is the north line of the US.  Even so, the climate is mild enough for palm trees to grow along the coast in the south of Cornwall, thanks to the Gulf Stream.
        It was cloudy the morning of August 11, the day of the eclipse.  We considered driving somewhere else, but decided to stay put.  Good thing, because two or three minutes before totality, a hole in the clouds opened up.  We were able to see all of totality, a little over two minutes in our area. We could see the corona very well, and even some solar prominences.   But our hole in the clouds was too small to show us Mercury and Venus, about 10 and 15 deg away from the sun.  Oh  well, we saw those planets plus Jupiter during the longer eclipse last year in the Pacific.
        We were among the merest handful of people in Great Britain who saw totality.  The weather was clear in northern Scotland, but totality was confined to southern England.
        As we drove northward across England, Wales, and Scotland, we saw more and more of the northern sky.  The latitude at the little town of John o’Groats on the northern tip of Scotland is about 58.5 deg, so Polaris is nearly twice as high as at home – and it looks even higher.
        We drove 3,400 miles in three weeks, touching all the geographic extremes on the mainland of Great Britain, plus ferry trips to the Orkney Islands and the Outer Hebrides.  We found the northwest coast of Scotland especially delightful – great scenery, great salmon and trout, and a thinly populated countryside.

More on the Monahans Meteorite from NASA