OCTOBER NEWSLETTER 2004
INDEX: MEETINGS, OTHER NEWS, CONTACTS
WADHURST
ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY
The
society was set up as a logical follow up to the adult education class held at
Uplands in 1996, offering a programme of talks and the opportunity to view the
stars as and when the English weather allowed.
We possess two good telescopes and one poor one for members to borrow and
use at home; we have 47 members and our finances are healthy - with some £1700
in the bank.
Talks
are generally well attended with over half the membership at any one.
There is a reasonable amount of general discussion over coffee and
biscuits - but members tend to leave at the end of the talk.
The society's telescopes have hardly been used; attendance at star
parties has been very thin - we realise the weather has not helped - and, since
the Mars extravaganza, we have not taken telescopes out at Uplands after
meetings.
The
committee feels that we should shift back to the original idea of an astronomy
club that would both provide an educational function - through a programme of
talks - and an observing function - by seeking to watch the stars after the
evening talk and better attendance at star parties on Ashdown Forest, where the
viewing is better. This could
involve a shift of the coffee and biscuit break, taking the speaker first, then
coffee then outside if the weather permits - or a members' discussion after the
break. We need your views at the
October meeting.
More
critical, however, is the composition of the committee.
As you all know, Murray Barber is unable to continue as chairman, having
served us so well over the last six years.
Our Talks Secretaries travel from north Kent - and are, understandably,
considering whether they can continue. A
significant change in personal circumstances mean that our Director of
Observations cannot continue and our treasurer would like to step down, having
filled the post since the start - and, he claims, because he is feeling his
years. Without an influx of new blood, we do not feel we can
continue to run the society as it should be run.
We
therefore - urgently - need three or four volunteers to come forward before the
end of our financial year, either at the October or November meeting.
The task is really not that onerous - after all, many of the current
committee have carried the load without obvious stress. It does mean attending
perhaps four committee meetings a year in Wadhurst and as many society meetings
as possible; for the Chairman, it means taking a little more responsibility -
introducing speakers and running the meetings; it should be possible for the new
committee to find ways of easing a newcomer in to this function - you would not
be dropped in at the deep end and left to sink or swim!
But without a positive result - three or four new members on the
committee by November - we shall reluctantly have to propose, at the November
meeting, that the society close. Subscriptions
would not be collected for the year commencing 1 December and our funds would
pass to Uplands for the use of the school.
LAST MEETING
Jerry
Wakeman is the Chairman of Harringay Astronomical Society and he has talked to
our society previously on the Subject of the planet Mars.
He has a prepared talk about the planet Saturn but for this evening he
had adapted it to talk about the NASA Cassini Mission.
First
he covered the observational history of the planet from Galileo's first observations
when he thought the planet was in fact a triple planet.
Later Huygens saw Saturn as a planet with a very striking ring system
and also discovered the largest moon, Titan.
Cassini was able to define the rings more clearly and discovered a large
gap that we now know as the 3,000 miles wide Cassini division.
As telescopes improved, Enke described a faint 200 miles gap near the
outer edge of the rings.
Then
with the NASA Space Mission Pioneer 11 in 1979, the faint "C" ring and
"F" ring were discovered, and it was found that the moons of Saturn
were all very different from one another. Several new moons were discovered
despite the relatively poor quality images at that time.
It
was already know that Saturn was a gas planet but in 1980 and 1981 Voyagers 1
and 2 respectively visited Saturn and now it could be seen that the cloud tops
extended for a distance of 600 miles. The
chief components of the planet are hydrogen and helium gas with traces of
ammonia, methane and possibly phosphine. A
great amount of energy was generated in the clouds with wind speeds in excess of
1,000 miles per hour! Spots and
cyclones were also observed although not as dramatic as on Jupiter.
The
core was found to be something of an enigma, thought to be composed of mainly
water ices with very little rock but also containing metallic hydrogen.
The material is electrically conducting, setting up a huge magnetic field
in excess of a thousand times the earth's magnetic field.
The average density of the planet is 0.7 that of water and would float in
it if there was an ocean big enough.
Voyagers
1 and 2 were used to complement each other and many new moons were added to the
known list of 25, many of them less than 100 miles across.
The number is expected to grow still further during the Cassini Mission.
Also during the Voyager missions hundreds of rings systems were now
discernable and the phenomenon know as spokes were seen moving around the rings
rather like shadows; still to be explained if still visible.
Already
the cameras on board Cassini have sent back stunning pictures of Jupiter as it
passed, and Jerry projected many of these from a set he had recently purchased.
The detail is very encouraging for the expected images of Saturn.
Views of Saturn's ring system are already being received and they are
equally clear. It is now know that
the rings consist of particles generally from the sizes smaller than a lump of
sugar up to objects the size of a block of flats so it has been decided that
proposed flights through or close to the rings would be unwise, and the rings
will be viewed from edge on at some distance away and from some way above and
below the system.
Cassini
will also explore the moons and there are about 80 planned orbits of Saturn
itself. Considerable interest is
being shown in the moon Titan with about 40 orbits by Cassini, which will
incorporate radar mapping of the surface.
There
is a possible BBC broadcast of the fly-by of Titan by the Huygens probe, which
will be released from Cassini on the twenty-fifth of December.
Huygens is expected to send back about 1,000 images of the surface before
a proposed "landing" on the surface of Titan in January 2005.
Jerry
concluded his talk by showing several excellent slides of the surfaces of many
of the moons of Saturn taken by Voyagers 1 and 2 and then some artists' impressions
of what might be found by the Cassini Mission.
Finally
Jerry showed some of the photographs he had managed to take of the Transit of
Venus in July. As expected, he had
some very good images right from the first contact through to fourth contact.
NEXT MEETING
The
next meeting of the Wadhurst Astronomical Society will be on Wednesday 20th
October 2004 when the speaker will be Martin Frey and his talk is entitled
"Basic Astronomy".
As
usual, the meeting will be held in the Drama Studio at Uplands College.
The doors open at 7.15 and the meeting starts at 7.30 prompt.
A NOTE FROM THE TREASURER
The
general understanding of the Society's "year" seems to cause a bit of
confusion and this might explain the odd pattern in which subs come in.
There are a few who view it as starting with the beginning of the school
year in September, there are the traditionalists who view it as the calendar
year and others who connect it to the financial year starting in November.
It is the old treasurer who is at fault for arranging to have the
accounts ready for examination a month ahead of the business community, thereby
causing the least inconvenience to our generous account examiner. That is a long-winded way of saying that annual subs will be
due at the beginning of NOVEMBER this year.
On
behalf of the committee I particularly wish to thank Amina and Chris for
providing refreshments spot on time for each of our meetings, and for kindly
doing the washing up afterwards.
We
cannot let the opportunity pass without thanking Murray for his valuable
contribution to this society over the past seven years and leading us for six.
We offer Val and Murray our very best wishes for whatever they plan for
the future and hope that they will try to call in us on some third Wednesday
whenever they can.
The
list of contenders to join the committee is now open. Yours and 40 or so names are on the cards to jointly carry
the Society forward. Surely from
that number there must be members who are willing to give just four one hour
slots in a year to the running the organisation.
If not the future of WAS could be in jeopardy. If you want to know more, please phone me, the Editor or the
Membership Secretary.
Our
current Secretaries have already made good progress in booking outside speakers
for 2005. You can imagine it must
be far from easy to match diaries especially when other societies are engaged on
similar missions. If you have a
particular astronomy related topic you would like covered do let them know now.
Chairman:
Vacant at present
Steve Camp
01474 321105
Treasurer:
Ian Reeves
01892 784255
Membership
Sec: Joan Grace 01892
783721
Editor:
Geoff Rathbone 01959 524727
Geoff@rathbone007.fsnet.co.uk
Publicity
& Web Site: Michael
Harte 01892
783292
michael@greenman.demon.co.uk
Dir.
of Obs:
Sean Tampsett
01892 667092
sean_tampsett@hotmail.com
Any material for inclusion in the November Newsletter should be with the
Editor by October 31st 2004