Wycombe Astronomical Society

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Latest News & reports - 2012

January Practical meeting

2012 got off to a flying start at WAS with the first practical meeting of the New Year,  "Finding your way around the night sky".

An article was published in December's Bucks Free Press magazine "Elite" on the night sky and WAS and this generated a big response with lots of members of the public enquiring about the practical evening.

Knowing that this meeting had the potential to be a lot bigger than usual we arranged to use the sports hall at Woodrow House instead of the Frankie Vaughan Studio - this turned out to be the right decision as on the night we had a total of 58 people. Thirty-one of these were guests who had come along as a result of the article.

The evening started with a presentation from our Observatory Officer Chris Rowland. Chris took us on a tour of the winter night sky and was able to show the members of the audience the bigger, more well known constellations and how to star hop and find your way from constellation to constellation. We took a trip from Orion to Taurus and then the Pleiades then back down to Canis Major and across to the twins of Gemini. In the north we looked at The Plough in Ursa Major and Chris showed the audience how to find the pole star - indicating the direction of the North Pole. Chris also talked a bit about resources that can be used; including the Internet, planetarium programmes such as Stellarium and mobile phone aps.

The presentation was kept quite short - the main object of the evening was to get outside and show the guests what they could see and to see how easy it is to move around the night sky. The skies were particularly clear that evening which was great. The moonlight interfered a little with observing some of the objects closer to it but generally all that Chris had talked about was visible.

Many members of WAS had set their telescopes up and the observatory was open for the public to go in and have a look through the telescope. Jupiter and the Orion Nebula were of particular interest. The evening was a great success. Many people stayed on till 10pm or so and genuinely seemed interested in what they had seen and in WAS. Several people indicated that they were interested in coming along to the telescope evening later on in the month.

There are lots of people to thank for making this evening a great success: The Bucks Free Press for publishing the article, Chris for the handout and talk, Sandy for the rolling slide presentation, Jackie and Paul for all the organising, Jan for collecting the entry fees, Steve for directing people and then all the members with their scopes: Morton, Danielle and Richard, Carol and Richard and David to name a few and finally Brian for opening up the observatory.












Sarah

Two photos of early arrivals to the meeting

January Meeting -Wednesday  18th - Telescope evening

The New Year continued to be a busy one for WAS with our January annual "telescope evening". Continuing on from our public event at the beginning of January many members, new members and guests came along to this annual event armed with their telescopes, Christmas presents (new scopes) and other astro kit. The two halves of the drama hall that we use for our monthly meetings were full of telescopes - a lovely sight to see. Members were on hand to talk to the guests about their telescopes and demonstrate to them how to set them up etc and it appeared that many were grateful for the advice given and were looking forward to putting it into practice at the next clear night.

At the same meeting Paul, our chairman, presented Patrick Clough with his prize for winning the advanced category of the 2011 photographic competition. Unfortunately Pat was unable to come to the December meeting when the prizes were handed out and this was the earliest opportunity.

This was a busy evening enjoyed by all - young and old, guests and members and hopefully this enthusiasm will continue on in 2012.










































Above left - Pat receives his trophy - other images general views of meeting

Sarah

Meeting held on Wednesday February 15th

February's meeting was titled "Atoms, where do they come from?" and was presented to us by Edmund Hall, a new speaker to the Society. At the start of the meeting Edmund referred us to a book called "The Magic Furnace" - this book is the story of how atoms are made and is a good reference point for those wishing to further their knowledge on the subject.

The meeting was well attended and it was lovely to see so many people, especially new members!

Many questions were asked at the end of Edmunds Lecture and then the photographic competition was judged; well done to Peter Phelps who won the beginners section and to David Godwin who won the advanced. The next photographic competition is in April - please all give it a go and enter!

Sarah


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Wednesday March 21st - The Titanic


Our lecture this month was given by Mr. Andrew Lound.  Andrew has given us some Odyssey Class lectures in the past, and this was titled “Astronomy and the Titanic.”


Andrew gave us a history of the Titanic, and mentioned that Halley’s Comet was seen at the time the ship was being built in 1910.  Titanic’s initial concept arose at a dinner party in 1907 and was one of 3 Olympic Class steamships built by Harland and Wolff in Belfast for the White Star Line.  It was launched on May 31st 1911.   It had 29 boilers, 159 furnaces, and 2 turbines with only one in use at a time.  There were only 16 lifeboats, sufficient for 1,200 passengers instead of the 3,000 who were onboard.  The ship had 24 hour electricity. Slides showed the 1st Class luxury accommodation for wealthy millionaires, financiers, industrialists and celebrities, (the cost of a 1st class suite today would be £65,000).  We saw the grand staircase with the famous clock. The 2nd class accommodation was good, (but with no lampshades), and 3rd class was basic with men at the front and women partitioned at the back. The 3rd class passengers were health checked before being allowed onto the ship.


The Captain, Edward J. Smith from Stoke-on-Trent, was technically retired, but was asked to take this as his last voyage.  The ship was run by the Royal Naval Reserves, and flew the blue ensign.  We then saw an image of Captain James Cook who wrote extensively about navigation using Astronomy.  The crew of the Titanic used his same navigation methods.


The ship left Southampton in 1912 for Cherbourg, then on to Queenstown and finally New York, it carried coal and mail as well as passengers.  There were 3 compasses.  The main compass was on the upper deck, and the other two compasses were calibrated from it.  The ship had 3 chronometers and a sextant.  Each officer had his own small sextant with which he took measurements daily. We saw a slide of a sextant and Andrew explained how it worked.


With 24 hour wireless communication and a range of 400 miles the ship received messages about icebergs, and Titanic travelled further south to avoid them.  Unfortunately, the 3rd officer forgot to put the binoculars into the crow’s nest for the lookouts to use, but because there was no moon that night and the horizon could not be seen these would have been of little use because of its poor optics.  Andrew showed us a pair of old marine binoculars.  A set of keys from the Titanic recently sold for £91,000.  After dinner passengers came on deck to look at the wonderful starlit sky.   Although there was only a gentle bump when Titanic hit the iceberg the damage was extensive, and the boat sank within 2 hours due to the flooding between 5 compartments. The ship was thought to be unsinkable.  Although alarms were sounded the passengers were unaware of the gravity of the situation, and continued to look at the stars.  The lifeboats were lowered only for women and children initially, but many women would not go without their husbands, and consequently the lifeboats were only half full.  Passengers thought that lights in the distance were ships coming to their rescue but these were in fact stars and planets, and the haze of the milky way.  The lights went out and all that could be seen was the starry sky. There were 1,000 people in the water.  Rockets  were launched, and in 6 hours the Carpathia rescued 707 passengers 2 of whom who died.   


The Newspapers were only interested in the eclipse of the sun on the 17th April 1912, and not the Titanic disaster.  There were two courts of enquiry, and it was felt that a lack of lifeboats, not heeding the ice warnings, and travelling too fast into the danger zone were causes of the disaster.   There is a statue of Captain Smith in Lichfield.


In 1985 Halley’s comet was again seen, and a submersible research vessel went to the bottom of the ocean and photographed one of Titanic’s boilers, and this was printed in the National Geographic magazine.


The spectacular night sky with all its stars and planets which is perfect for astronomers, had no moon on that fateful night and caused doom and disaster for the Titanic.  As Andrew said “it was a starry night to remember.”


Members put questions to Andrew, and Paul Millington thanked him for yet another very interesting and informative talk.   We look forward to another lecture next year.


Forty three members and guests attended the evening. The raffle was drawn, and coffee and tea was available.  The meeting closed at about 10pm.


Jan









Andy’s lecture








Member’s questions











Andy Lound Captain of the Titanic

Wednesday 18th April


Bob Mizon returned to the society to give a very interesting talk titled “Oddities of the solar system” - taking a walk through our solar system “picking out” objects that were “odd” for one reason or another.


Did you know, for instance, that opticians used Mizar and Alcor, a double star system in Ursa Major to see if their patients needed glasses? They would test the eyes by asking them to see if they could see Alcor….if they could see it they didn’t need glasses if they couldn’t they did.


Mercury has the most extreme temperature range within the solar system. Its surface temperature at perihelion is 427°C and 277°C at aphelion. The dark side of Mercury is -163°C. A solar day on Mercury last for 176 Earth days and its orbital period is 88 Earth days.


Venus, the hottest planet was named by the Romans’ after the Goddess of Love. It constantly rains acid rain on Venus but it never reaches the ground…it is so hot that by the time it reaches the ground it has evaporated.


Did you know that Earth has two moons and not one? As well as the actual Moon there is a 5km asteroid orbiting the Earth. Asteroid 3753 was discovered in Australia in 1986.


Mars’ oddity is a white “fluffy” object on its surface. Nobody knows what it is and it remains a mystery. Its second oddity is that of Phobos, one of its moons, which is said to be hollow.


Eros, a 34km long by 11km wide asteroid is the only asteroid to be named after a boy and it was the first asteroid landed on, on February 12th 2001.


Oddities about Jupiter? Well, Earth fits into the giant red spot three times and its four large moons are completely different from each other.


Uranus differs from all of the other planets in that it is really tilted. It is believed that a collision occurred at the beginning of our solar system and Uranus never corrected itself. Uranus also has 42 years of sunlight followed by 42 years if darkness. Miranda, one of its moons has cliffs up to 10km high.


This was an interesting and informative talk by Bob Mizon that was well received by WAS members and guests. At the end of the evening the raffle was drawn and Bob was asked to judge the photographic competition.


Sarah




















Photos by Jan


Bob before the talk

Bob judges the photo competition