Astronomical Society of Eastern Missouri

The regular meeting of the Astronomical Society of Eastern Missouri was conducted on Saturday, October 14, 2006 at the Weldon Spring Site.  There were 24 individuals who enoyed at pot luck supper before the meeting which began with a quick observing session outside to view a magnitude -2 Iridium flare at 19:03:55 that was visible in the South.

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On Saturday, October 7 Cook Feldman, John Beaury, Marvin Stewart, Don Gummow and myself provided telescopes for some 40 Cub Scouts and their leaders/families at Klondike Park in South St. Charles County, near Augusta.  Skies were decent but a full Moon wiped out any hope of seeing the Milky Way or many deep sky objects.  Basically we fell back on double stars but I put the 25×100 binoculars on the Moon and, I must say, it was an impressive sight.  I found the leaders were very much interested in learning more so they could help the boys on future camping trips.

Jim Roe

 What’s up October, ‘06

 All of the players are waiting for their que now in the wings, waiting for the curtain of darkness to fall, then the age old story of Andromeda and Perseus will unfold. October is the month that all of the characters are visible. Cassiopeia, King Cepheus, Pegasus the winged horse, Cetus the sea monster and the lead roles, Andromeda and Perseus. How old is this story? Richard H. Allen in his book STAR NAMES THEIR LORE AND MEANING  says it  possibly goes back to seven centuries before Christ.

  Was the story made up to help long distant travelers find and remember star patterns,  and find navigation stars, or was the myth applied to the stars?

 Gotta get back to you on that one.

 Each of the constellations has a wealth of objects for small telescopes, Binary stars, variables, open clusters, globular clusters, and galaxies. Take some time and sit down with a star atlas,  it will amaze you.

 Other things of interest this month:

 On the ninth the Moon occults the Pleiades

 On the sixteenth Mercury reaches it’s greatest elongation.

 There will be a possible Draconid meteor shower on the eighth. Best in Eastern Europe.

 The Orionid meteor shower peaks on  the 20th, 10 to 30 per hour is maximum.

Tom Richards and Jim Twellman provided telescopes to this camp on Saturday 9/30/06.

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