May 2014
Treasurer’s report:
April 1 opening balance 1632.74
2 new members 40.00
Donation 0.26
Expenses Sunfest booth registration fee -30.00
Ending balance April 30 1643.00.
New members: Kristi and Derrick Herrman and Kelly Fox
Sunfest: May 30-June 1
Volunteers to man our booth are Steve Plank, Phill Lorenz, Daryl Doughty, John Grismore, Karen Cruse, Diane Dixon, Gary Nelis, Duane Perkins and Denise Gregg
Next meeting: June 2
Daryl’s report:
Solar activity--
April 9: tiny spots
April 16: more spots
April 22: some spots
May 2: some spots
Blood moon eclipse—April 15. Had beautiful pictures of the eclipse cycle.
Saturn and moon very close to each other—May 14
New meteor shower, Camelopardalids—May 24, appx. 3-4 am
Presentation on Radio Astronomy by Mike Maloney
Radio astronomy began in the 1930s; it was started by Karl Jansky with Bell Labs. He built a very large array of radio telescopes in the New Mexico desert.
Web site: nrao.org
Grote Reber, an electrical engineer, built an antenna in the shape of a parabolic disk, 9.5 meters in diameter, in his back yard.
Gradually larger and larger scopes were built with better synchronization to get better resolution. Beam width is a function of wave length of radio signals.
One radio telescope in New Mexico can out-perform the Hubble in resolution.
In 1956, a facility was built in West Virginia that was designated as a radio wave quiet zone. As radio telescopes can get interference from radio noise. telescopes must be built in a quiet area with no use of cell phones, microwave ovens, etc. This West Virginia site was designated as such a zone. Lowering the temperature of a reflector can also reduce thermal noise. These telescopes have a wider frequency range. They have even located sugar molecules in space.
VLA radio telescope study completed in 1980: each antenna of these telescopes 90 feet tall, 52 feet in diameter. Built in a Y pattern. Invisible light captured by these telescopes reveals the birth of stars and black holes. There is now a VLA expansion project using a supercomputer, the correlator, created by Canada. Increases capacity more than 2000-fold. The telescopes are moved every 4 months; each captures a different aspect of space.