October 2015

Financials:

Aug 1, 2015: $1689.67

During August paid $320.00 insurance premium

Ending balance August 31: $1369.67

September no activity

Ending balance Sept. 30: $1369.67.

27 people in attendance tonight, including at least 1 visitor.

1 new member has just joined!

Member dues are due next month! For most people, a single membership will be $20.00.

Galileo exhibit opening:

Sept. 26 Galileo exhibit opening at Schusterman Library—well attended; we estimate that 200 + people came, including a lot of children. We had several telescopes set up outside with solar filters and several others inside, along with some binoculars including binoculars on tripods.

Upcoming projects:

• OK Mozart star party at Camp Wah-Shah-She: Steve has been working on this from an insurance angle and there are some unanswered questions. BAS will have its own insurance but he would like for OKM to supply theirs also. He said there would be a bus holding 50 people to go out there from the Community Center and that the only guests to attend the star party would be the people on the bus.

• Dewey schools:

Karen Cruce is working on that; at this point she is waiting to hear back from the lady at the Dewey schools who wants a presentation.

• Webelos scouts:

Hilary with Webelos would like a presentation.

Yearly election of officers:

President—Steve Plank will continue to serve

Vice President: Karen Cruce volunteered! (Virgil will likely be moving away by year end.)

Treasurer—Vicky Travalgini (has served for several years now; would anyone like to volunteer to do this?)

Secretary—Denise Gregg

Board members—

Daryl Doughty (has been handling meeting room arrangements)

John Grismore (handles website)

Craig Brockmeier (member at large)

Duane Perkins (member at large)

Appointed positions:

Program director—Bob Young

Print publicity—Denise Gregg

Online publicity—Racheeta Agrawal

Newsletter--Mike Woods

Daryl Doughty Astrophotography Presentation:

He showed a collage of images of the Supermoon eclipse Sept 27-28 (one of the closest eclipses in 30 years) taken at 8-minute intervals using a 135mm lens with 5 second exposures. He also showed pictures of the Supermoon on the night before the eclipse (Sept. 26) and another right after it on Sept. 28. The moon got closer to Earth during the two Supermoon days and you could see this with his superimposed images. Before the eclipse started just before 8 pm you could see a faint darkening on the left side of the moon. At the midpoint of the eclipse you could see stars behind the moon. He said that recent volcanic activity made the eclipse darker. The faint bluish color you see along one edge during totality is sunlight refracted.

Solar activity:

Showed some spots Sept. 9. By Oct. 2 hardly any sunspots visible (output 30% less); approaching monder minimum.

October early-morning sight: To east, see Venus, Mars, Jupiter lined up

Mars, Ceres and Pluto, by Virgil Reese

Ceres:

The asteroid belt is between Jupiter and Mars.

The spacecraft Dawn is the first craft to orbit two space objects besides the moon and earth (Vesta and Ceres)

Vesta and Ceres are worthy of being brought from asteroid to minor planet status.

Pluto:

The New Horizons craft reached the moon in 9 hours and is now headed to the Kuyper Belt.

Virgil showed one of the New Horizon’s latest images of Pluto, with a “snakeskin” look to it.

New comet coming: Catalina

Mars:

Mars has 37% of our gravity.

It took a lot of effort just to orbit Mars. Virgil showed a pass/fail chart of the number of countries that have mounted successful (and unsuccessful) efforts to orbit Mars.

Virgil showed a collage of a lot of images taken of Mars. Some show ice in craters and others show liquid water; some show snow on a crater rim and ice in the crater. We now think that the polar ice caps on Mars are water ice with a little chlorine in them. The ice caps are cyclical.

Martian air has 5% water in it. It is possible for Martian weather to have snow!

There is also the possibility of underground aquifers with water on Mars. Billions of years ago, could here have been a large ocean on Mars? Could there be sub-surface venting of aquifers? “Heavy” water?

He showed a picture taken 10/18/08 of a 6 meter crater, and then another picture of the same crater taken 1/14/09. Earth doesn’t have craters that small to begin with, and this crater expanded due to ice under the surface.

He showed another series of pictures taken 5/2007 through 9/2012, spectrograph-assisted. Showed RSLs (recurring slope lineae) 2-3 football fields long and you can see changes in the pictures over time. The RSLs look like dark streaks 12m-15m wide and hundreds of meters long. They appear seasonally on steep warm slopes and fade as temperatures drop. They appear from the Martian equator to middle latitudes. RSLs contain chlorine which has a lower freezing point than water.

He showed another picture of colored mountains on Mars as well as a picture of Mount Sharp taken by the Curiosity rover showing hematite and iron oxide.

Chances of life on Mars would be extremely remote but it could be habitable (with proper facilities). Consider radiation: the Van Allen radiation belts protect us on Earth but there is not a Martian equivalent, although water ice on Mars would be a good (pound-for-pound) radiation shield. However, solar storms could kill astronauts en route to Mars; the current space station is protected due to its being in low Earth orbit. Traveling through the solar system you would encounter solar winds.

It would be possible to have hydroponics for growing food on Mars.

The average temperature on Mars is 80 degrees below zero, i.e., lower than the temperature on Antarctica. You could create an atmosphere on Mars but it would be hard to maintain.

He also discussed the Andy Weir’s “The Martian” movie. He said you could have very lightweight drones on Mars.

Upcoming NASA missions:

Nov 2018—an unscrewed Orion capsule the moon

2020—next Rover to land on Mars

2021—Orion capsule with crew of 4 in a retrograde lunar orbit

2026—Orion capsure with 4 crew to an asteroid previously captured and put into lunar orbit

Apart from that, robotic exploration will be the mainstay for NASA for a long time to come. Robotic craft would pave the way for human colonization in perhaps another 100 years or so.

NASA has a planetary protection officer for Mars!