A Miracle Near Munich Centerline through Solar Eclipse As Seen...

Copyright © 1999 San Jose Astronomical Association, Inc.Volume 10 Number 11 Official Publication of the San Jose Astronomical Association, November 1999

October31 End of Summer time. Set

clocks back 1 hour, andapologize to your honestsundial.

November6 Star parties at Henry Coe,

Fremont Peak. Sunset 6:37p.m., 2% moon rises 8:12a.m.

12 Houge Park star party. Sunset6:30 p.m., 36% moon sets10:55 p.m.

15 Star Party at Pinnacles20 General Meeting at Houge

Park, 8 p.m.. Dr. Ken Croswellon Magnificent Universe, afollow-on to Timothy Ferris’Galaxies

25 Thanksgiving

SJAA Activities CalendarJim Van Nuland

Chasing the shadow of the Sun - Eclipse tales from the SJAA

Continued on page five

24 Hour News and Information Hotline: (408) 559-1221http://www.seds.org/billa/sjaa/sjaa.html

At about 7:00 a.m. EasternEuropean Daylight Time (EEDT), the800-passenger cruise ship, MVMarco Polo, slowed to a stop in thewestern Black Sea at the selectedcenter-line location (43 6.615 northlatitude; 29 43.069 east longitude)for the last total solar eclipse of themillennium (no total solar eclipseswill be visible on Earth in the year2000). This position is about 115miles north of Istanbul, 75 miles eastof Varna, Bulgaria, and 150 milessouth of the southern tip of theUkraine). Many of the passengersand crew members began to prepareto witness the eclipse. By noon, sixother cruise ships, a freighter, and aferry had arrived in the area andlined up near us under completelycloudless skies and dead calm seas.They must have spotted the specialeclipse flag that Russell Sipe of Sky& Telescope magazine had flyingfrom the mast and figured that weprobably knew what the hell wewere doing. Actually, this wasCaptain Erik Bjurstedt’s secondeclipse and he in fact did know whatto do. He got the ship into exactlythe right spot for viewing thiseclipse.

Eclipse day started out for mewith the sound of scraping. Ourcabin was near the bow and amaintenance crewman was sandingdown the handrails and stairs on thebow in preparation for revarnishingthem that day. Definitely not theright day to be painting rails and

Do you believe in miracles? Ido. After a cliff-hanger experiencein Germany - it can happen.

Early on the morning of August11th in Einsbach, Germany, ourhome away from home for theeclipse, the sun rose against abeautifully clear blue sky. It was likeIndia in 1995 and Australia inFebruary 1999. Not a cloud in theentire sky.

After breakfast I made a call to

Continued on page three

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Centerline throughBucharest

Daniel Stefanescu

Honestly, I could hardly wait tosee this eclipse. For over threeyears, since my last visit with familyin Bucharest, the capital city ofRomania, I had known and in factanticipated the passing of the lunarumbra over the very place I hadcalled home during my childhood.Indeed, calculations had placed thecenterline within about a quartermile south of the apartment building.

With two days to go, fanned in

A Miracle Near Munich

Ernie Piini

Robert A. Garfinkle, F.R.A.S.

The August 11, 1999 TotalSolar Eclipse As Seen in the

Black Sea

December3 Houge Park star party. Sunset

4:50 p.m., 13% moon rises3:57 a.m.

4 Star party at Fremont Peak.Sunset 4:49 p.m., 7% moonrises 4:51 a.m.

11 Star party at Fremont Peak.Sunset 4:50 p.m., 13% moonsets 8:16 p.m.

17 Houge Park star party. Sunset4:52 p.m., 72% moon sets2:22 a.m.

18 Christmas Potluck at HougePark, 8 p.m. Bring a dessert.

January22 General Meeting at Houge Park

8 p.m.. Michael Light will talkabout his book, Full Moon.

SJAA EPHEMERIS November 1999

Bob Garfinkle on the Black SeaContinued from previous page

Near second contact over Altomunster, Germany, by Ernie Piini

stairs where dozens of people wouldbe standing in a few hours to seethe eclipse. I called the pursers’office and had them stop the workbefore any painting was started.

By 9:00 a.m., people werealready staking out viewing spots. Aforest of tripods had emerged upfrom the teak bow and stern decksof the converted Russian trooptransport. The Marco Polo startedlife in the 60s as the AlexandrePushkin. Orient Lines has done amarvelous job in converting the shipinto a first-class cruiser. I added mytwo tripods to the forest, and then

proceeded down to one of thelounges to give a presentation on thebeginnings of the lunar nomenclatureto about 60 people. At the sametime, former Space Shuttle astro-naut, Jay Apt, was reprising of oneof his talks on the view of Earthfrom the Shuttle. He had ridden intospace four times on the Shuttle, andhad great stories to tell of being inspace.

I use two tripods on my solareclipse expeditions. One has aspecial bracket that holds myMinolta 5000 camera with a f/1.7,400-mm lens and my Nikon F with a50-mm lens. I also mount a metalair-conditioning thermometer and amicrotape audio recorder on thetripod. This tripod stands on a set ofKevin Medlock’s antivibration pads.An analog tape camcorder getsmounted on the second tripod. Therewere several people using newdigital camcorders, and they gotexcellent results of the eclipse.Batteries were replaced and lensescleaned before I brought the equip-ment out of the cabin.

One of the disadvantages ofviewing an eclipse from sea isusually the rocking of the ship fromside to side or bow to stern. The

seas were so calm and windlessthroughout the entire eclipse that theSun did not swing back and forththrough the camera viewfinder, butheld rock steady. No pendulumeffect on this trip!

From the time I set up myequipment until after the eclipse wasover, I periodically checked the airtemperature. The temperature was asteady 96 F forabout an hourbefore first contact,which occurred at12:49 p.m. EEDT(10:49 UT). Thetemperature pro-gressively droppedto a low of 82 F afew minutes afterthird contact (endof totality at 1:16p.m.; 11:15 UT). Itslowly rose to only88 F about a halfhour after fourthcontact (2:35p.m.). The Sun was62 degrees abovethe horizon.

We could see the Moon’sshadow approaching from the westand the colors of everything beganto take on an orange hue about 10minutes before totality. Shadowsbecame stark, and even individualhairs cast singularly black shadows,which lacked an outlining penumbralshadow. This began in the last fewminutes before the main event andoccurred again after totality. With asmall Moon, Baily’s Beads and theDiamond Ring were very fast. I couldsee a large detached prominencelocated at about the 8:00 o’clockposition (southeast), even during thefirst diamond ring.

The corona was circular andextended out only about one solarradius. This was the smallest (butmost interesting) corona I have seenduring totality. The small coronamade the skies darker than I haveseen before. The inner coronasparkled, because portions of thechromosphere were still visible along

the rough lunar limb throughouttotality. The corona had thin yetvery bright radial streaks thatseemed to emanate all the wayaround the limb of the Moon. Icounted seven prominences thatwere easy to spot in the cameraviewfinders or my 15×54 Canonelectronic image stabilizing binocu-lars. At magnitude 4.2, Venus was

an easy target to spot and Mercury atmagnitude +0.9 was a little harder. Iglanced at Spica toward the 360-degree rosy horizon (an advantage ofbeing at sea for an eclipse is anunobstructed view of the horizon allaround you). The eclipse lasted 2minutes 21 seconds at our location.It was fun watching the shadow boilaway toward the east, knowing thattotality was about to began overeastern Turkey. Obviously unknownto any of us on board the MarcoPolo on the August 11 was thepending disaster welling up underthose lands. After the eclipse, wevisited Nesebur, Bulgaria, andIstanbul. My family and I leftIstanbul about 45 hours before theearthquake hit. Now we need to getready for Africa in June 2001 for thefirst total solar eclipse of the newmillennium.

The temperatureprogressively dropped to a

low of 82 F


Continued from first page


Ernie Piini from Germany

Beth Yule, the tour agent for Ama-teur Astronomers Inc. (AAI) fromNew Jersey, for instructions as towhere to join her group. I’ve knownBeth and members of AAI since theeclipse expedition to the AfricanSahara Desert in 1973 and I waspleased that she invited us along,and also had a chance to meeteclipse chasing friends of old.

We met on a soccer field in thesmall town of Altomunster whichlies very close to the eclipsecenterline about 30 km (18 miles)northwest of Munich (Latitude: 48º,23', 05" N; Longitude: 11º. 14',50" E. to be exact). When wearrived the sky was completelyovercast with a threat of rain. My

cousin, Mienrado Pifferini, a hugeand strong Swiss and youngest of afamily of 16, carried my telescopeand mount to the site as if theywere toys. There we set up next toJoe and LaVonne Shrock, goodfriends of mine from Mt. View,California.

The telescope at this point wasonly partially assembled with an-other half-hour of set-up and align-ment to go. For the first time in 21eclipses I was forced to set up whileit was raining. About this time Ibegan to wonder if this was allworth it and did we have a chanceto see the eclipse? Totality was stillthree hours away.

Final assembly of equipmentwas done under an umbrella andheavy rain. I waited about an hourbefore I could focus my two tele-scopes and the camcorder. The sunwas playing peek-a-boo with theclouds and moments like this madeit possible to focus with the filteroff.

First contact was reported at

around 11:12 a.m. With totalityscheduled to occur around 12:36p.m. the hour-plus wait was agoniz-ing. We saw small blue sky openingsfar to the West and much time wasspent studying the distance, direc-tion of travel, and point of possibleinterception with the eclipsing sun.A couple of these clearings came toosoon and moved past our site. Morerain and even a sound of thunder offin the distance made our chanceseven more gloomy.

But one clearing had thenecessary ingredients if all condi-tions held. And they did!

At 12:36:31 p.m., secondcontact occurred with a show ofBaily’s Beads and a brilliant “Dia-mond Ring”. I ran off 14 one-secondexposures using Kodak Royal-400print film with my 3-way Telescopeequipped with my special U2 filter.This filter is designed to eliminatemuch of the stray corona around theeclipsed sun and enhance the beauti-ful coronal streamers. Since thiseclipse occurred during a maximumsunspot period, the shape of thecorona was quite symmetrical butspiky.

My C-90 telescope, which ridespiggyback on the 3-way telescope,captured the fast changing display ofBaily’s Beads, Diamond Ring, androsy red prominences, using KodakRoyal-100 print film. I made 27exposures each at 1/60th second.

My Canon 2000 camcorder isbracketed to one side of the 3-WayTelescope. I use it to record exacttimings of totality events plus anyother event which might require awide angle view.

Since all my cameras areremotely controlled, running off over40 exposures is easily done. I hadtime to allow several of my cousinsto peer into my C-90 Telescope andgaze at the garden of rosy redprominences. I counted eight artisti-cally spaced magnetic storms aroundthe black disc of the moon. One ofthe prominences had a section thatwas disconnected and in space.

This eclipse was a real beauty.Was it because we prayed so hardfor the sky to clear or was it simplyan exceptional sight? The planetVenus was hidden behind someclouds but I finally got to see itmoments after third contact. Thirdcontact was recorded at 12:38:48p.m., making our total eclipse time 2minutes and 17 seconds.

Minutes later the sky becametotally overcast with threat of morerain.

The temperature dropped 8º

from 69 ºF around 11:45 a.m. to61ºF shortly after the end of totality.The humidity varied between 95 and100 percent as would be expectedin rainy weather.

The wind was mild during theentire event with only a slight breezeduring totality.

No shadow bands were seen asthe green grass of the soccer fieldmade it difficult to see the minutechanges in contrast.

That evening, the entire AAIgroup and our contingent fromSwitzerland, enjoyed a dinner partyhosted by Beth Yule. A one-manorchestra played a variety of Germanmusic on his piano and accordion.He even played John Denver’s“Country Road” for our group. Thiswas the song played at Meinradoand Sabrina Pifferini’s weddingearlier this year. Their wedding party

A Garden of rosy pink prominences encirclethe totally eclipsed sun by Ernie Piini

For the first time in 21eclipses I was forced to set

up while it was raining.


parade of two busses included adonkey that was transported bytrailer to the church ceremony.There the animal was side-saddledwith traditional wedding candies andwas a hit for all who attended.

Our side trips before and afterthe eclipse included much of the

picturesque country where myparents and elderbrothers and sistercame from. The valleys,shouldered by the shearcliffs of the alps andspeckled with homesbuilt totally with rocks,is a sight to behold. Weeven took a walk up tothe home where myfamily resided andlaughed at the second-story balcony in whichmy brother Enos, then5-years old, fell off ontothe dirt path below.

My mother used totell us about the thun-der and lightning thatoccurs in the alps. For about threenights in a row they happened. I waspetrified at how noisy and scary itgets. It rains simultaneously hardand steady and the clouds diffuseeach lightning bolt.

One day we took the train intoMilan, Italy and visited the famousDuoma. My folks often talked abouttheir honeymoon trip there. Weclimbed onto the roof to get a close-up view of the many figurines andstatues that make up this majesticcathedral.

In Germany we enjoyed thecleanliness of the country, itsvineyards and green fields of corn.We visited the main square inMunich weaving through the crowds

Well, this is it. November isthe big month for meteor types,since that’s when the Leonidshappen. And as everyone knows bynow, they were pretty active lastyear, and are expected to be evenbetter this year in some regards.The Leonids run for more than oneday... basically the week surround-ing November 17/18. But they dohave a sharp peak. The shower isthe product of particles from cometTemple-Tuttle, which reachedperihelion in 1998. A great concen-tration of particles exist near theparent comet. In years when thecomet is far from the inner solarsystem, activity remains low.However, for approximately 10hours centered on the perihelionpassage, rates can skyrocket. So,the possibility of a storm exists,and if it’s at all clear the night ofthe 17th, get out there and look,starting about 11 p.m. and goinguntil nearly dawn the next day (youwill, hopefully, know when you’vehad enough). A peak of 5 a.m. isfairly normal. The favored locationscalculated to have the best shot areon the other side of the world,basically (Europe and the MiddleEast) but this kind of guesswork isnot all that precise, so there’s agood chance of one heck of a showfor any location that night. Andafter last year’s fireball storm...

But the Leonids are notthe only shower in November.There are also the twin-spikes ofthe Taurids (how apt!) There arereally two different peaks, thoughall the meteors are attributed tocomet Encke. Generally they areslow and bright, sosome of them can bequite spectacular.The first peak isexpected the night ofNovember 4/5, andthe second the nightof 11/12. Both aresimilar in character.

Watch “The Big Event” David North

Leonid AirborneMission Logo

[Ed. note: Reportsfrom the Leonid Mission soon!]

Continued from page three

Symmetrical corona typical for period of maximum sunspotactivity by Ernie Piini

to see some of the historic structures.Finally got to see the Glockenspielmechanized clock tower but arrivedabout 20 minutes too late to see the 11o’clock show. We also took in just asmidgen of the Deutch Museum. Ichose to see the Sun Dial garden onthe rooftop and later the popularAmateur Astronomy section. The placeis like the Smithsonian. Plan on spend-ing several days to see it all properly.

Finally I must say that the eclipsewas truly a miracle. I’ve had theopportunity to see many eclipses in thepast but I prayed that my brother andcousins would get to see this one.They may never go to see another butthis will surely remain in their memoriesas long as they live. Viva el eclisse.

The Miracle eclipse in a nutshell,

by May Coon:Ernie, video, 3 camera InventionEclipse map IntentionWeather at first AttentionCloudy ContentionEclipse clearing SuspensionWipe brow Sustention

I wish to thank Joe Heim andMay Coon for their assistance inediting this article. Ernie Piini

This eclipse was a realbeauty. Was it because we

prayed so hard for the sky toclear?



part by media fervor, the excitementwas becoming apparent throughoutBucharest. One could find eclipseglasses virtually spilling onto theground from boulevard kiosks andbazaar tables, yet pins, cups and t-shirts were surprisingly scarce. Inretrospect, I suppose that theeconomic hardships of Romaniamade such souvenirs prohibitive formost people. I also found foreignersto be almost nonexistent withinBucharest itself. That was until Ilearned that most internationaleclipse chasers had camped-out 80miles to the west of the city by thetown of Rimnicu Vilcea, the place ofgreatest eclipse duration. An excep-tion was the opera tenor, LucianoPavarotti, who was to remain inBucharest to view the eclipse by dayand to serenade a sold-out crowd bynight.

With one day to go, I haddecided to tie up loose ends regard-

Daniel Stefanescu in Bucharest

ing my equipment and observingsite. I had chosen to view theeclipse from the top of our twelve-

story apartment building for as muchpictorial as sentimental reasons. Ifeel that witnessing an astronomicalevent of such intensity from familiarsurroundings would add so much tothe experience. Some of the activi-ties that I had planned include:recording the temperature dropbetween first and second contactand changes in wind intensity anddirection; photograph the partialphases, totality, pinhole crescents;and observe shadow bands, brightstars and the inferior planets; and ohyeah, actually to look at it too.Months before, experienced observ-ers warned me not to do too manythings: “you’ll forget to see it!” theysaid.

With an hour to first contact, acrowd of family, friends and neigh-bors started to appear around me. Agrill was lit on the lower terrace andsoda and beer started to flowgenerously. I supposed that wordhad spread that I was up there andthat I knew what was happening.Not really, I had only read or heardfrom others what to look for andwhat to expect from a total eclipse.Nevertheless, I felt pretty confident.After all, I had in my possession twopremium eclipse glasses, three #14welding filter plates: two for visualobservation and one for my 7x20Nikon binoculars, a Sony digitalvideo (DV) camera fitted with asmall welding-type glass filter from a

department-store refractor and witha 2x tele-extender that had yielded40x, my 35mm Nikon with its400mm lens covered by an 80mmThousand Oaks Type 1 glass filter,and another Sony video camera(Hi8), left with its exposure settingin a fixed position and situated torecord ourselves throughout theeclipse. In addition, I brought aneclipse ephemeris by NASA’s FredEspenak with the exact lunar transittimed for Bucharest and a watch

synchronized to the UT. For aqualitative wind measurement Ifashioned a small, yellow foam ballwith a five-foot fishing line and tiedit to a roof antenna element in clearview of the Hi8 video camera. Forrecording temperature fluctuations, Iused a room thermometer carefullywrapped in reflective paper placed inthe relative shade of the Hi8 videocamera.

With less than 30 minutesbefore first contact, I discovered acamera instability when viewing thesun’s disk through the 35mm Nikon.It seemed the weight of camera wasnot sufficient to dampen vibrationscaused by sporadic winds. I thenloaded its tripod with about 20pounds of concrete roofing platespreviously loosened by heavy win-ters. Now, come what may, I feltready!

With first contact now immi-nent, I found it difficult to believehow synchronized the clouds were

continued from page one


with the advancing penumbral edge.Just after 12:41 p.m., I confirmedfirst contact at my location. Lookingat the little bite through tenuousclouds made my heart sink a little. Iphotographed the lunar progressionevery ten minutes. As the air cooledand contracted with increasingrapidity, a remarkable change in airmovement was felt. The winddirection was now directed toward

the advancing darkness as it rushedpast us in a strong, laminar flow. Allagreed that the breeze was quiterevitalizing. After all, we hadendured 100F temperatures sincenoon.

The sun’s crescent had gradu-ally decreased to less than 5%; aneerie yet pleasing effect occurred-one might compare it to a darkstorm cloud passing in front of thesun, yet instead of dissolving, if youcan imagine, all shadows retain arazor-sharp quality. Shadows ofbuildings, people and things hadbecome so sharp and distinct thatthe entire scene took on a surrealis-tic appearance. Thin clouds remainedon the scene, but a reassuringopening had lingered around the sunfor quite some time. By then, thetemperature had dropped by 20degrees since first contact; it feltreally good.

I could sense my pulse rateclimbing as the remaining rays ofsunlight trickled past the moon’seastern limb. “Mai sunt zece

Stefanescu from Centerline

continued from page five secunde!” (Ten seconds left!), Ishouted. Already, I had a feelingthat I was missing it for somereason. It was too quiet, too fast,and too smooth to be real! Sud-denly, Baily’s beads appeared. Likedistant welding arcs, they lit up thethin clouds with their bluish-whitebrilliance. Then, within two sec-onds, they merged to form the firstdiamond ring. For an instant, thediamond increased in brightness dueto heightened contrast with thedarkened sky. Three, two, one!Wow, Totality! I tried to give specialattention to the visual extent andstructure of the sun’s coronalstreamers as well as to its numerousprominences. The inner corona wasbluish-white and was punctuated bysmall crimson nodes. A half of asolar radius beyond, most of thegossamer streamers was obscuredby haze. I was fascinated by thechange in light of the inner coronaas it was occulted first by thetrailing edge and then by the leadingedge of the moon. I was alsomoved by the unusual look ofBucharest at this time. Streetlightsturned on as did the large neonbillboards, which were affixed tobuildings just south of the centerline.

That evening, as an addendumto a glorious spectacle, the U.S.ambassador to Romania extended aninvitation to American citizens to his

residence in commemoration of thisgreat event. Present were astrono-mers of the Romanian AcademyAstronomical Institute including Dr.Magda Stavinschi with whom I hadpreviously conversed. In addition, aRomanian cosmonaut who had flownon a space shuttle mission accompa-nied Dan Goldin, NASA’s principaldirector. After meeting with thehoards of American tourists andfellow astro-nerds, Dan gave a briefspeech describing present missionsand future space telescope projects.His presence was made even moreremarkable by his declaration ofhaving significant Romanian ances-try.

The remainder of my stay inRomania included visiting with familyas well as more sight-seeing inBucharest and a trip to the ancientport city of Constanza by the BlackSea.


MooningDave North

First, some lunar events: Thestrongest eastern libration willoccur around November 2 and 30(twice!), which will be near thirdquarter (both times). There won’tbe any terminator over there, but itshould be a very good opportunityto look over the eastern Maria (suchas Anguis, Humboltianum, etc). Thewestern libration will be November18, which is more or less a mirrorimage of the eastern libration, andshould afford a good glance of theactual Mare Orientale. This onehappens at a convenient hour(starting right about sunset) so it’sa definite “consider looking.” Themoon will pass very near Venus,Uranus, Neptune and Aldebaran atvarious times this month, but noneof the occultations will be visiblefrom the SF Bay Area (though itlooks like Africa will get some realtreats).

I get mail, oddly enough. Andquestion/comments about thecolumn, the moon, and the state ofobservations. Some of it was prettyinteresting this month, so I think I’lldo a “talkback” column this month.One of the more interesting ques-tions was posed by Bill Arnett, whoasked me if I knew anyone whowould know where everything witha name in Rukl’s atlas would be onthe moon. Having not thoughtabout it before, I realized I didn’t...and in fact didn’t know anyonepersonally who knew more namedmoon locations than me (though Iforget them all the time). He wascurious if there was a “Jack Zeiders& deep sky” of the moon aroundhere. The answer is, no. And that’ssomething of a sorry state ofaffairs, when you think about it.Here in the shadow of Lick, wherelooking at the moon was so wellexecuted... However, just for ducksI tried counting how many things Icould identify on the moon, andgave up (got tired) at 150. Lest youfind this monumental, think abouthow many people around here caneasily match that in Messier and

NGC numbers. Probably hundreds!But how many named items arethere on the moon? I don’t know.Rukl lists (if I count right) over 800craters alone! Plus eight catenae, 34lakes, 34 dorsae, 40 seas, 23individual mountains and 18 ranges,three marshes, 80 rilles, an ocean...I don’t think I’m up to it. It’s not astough as memorizing the NGC,maybe, but more than I’ll ever do.And perhaps we shouldn’t be sur-prised that there aren’t that manyaround after all...

A note from Frank VanSlager

pointed out that my explanation of thelibration in latitude was incorrect; thatthe bunk about the ecliptic was justrumor and innuendo and the realreason was much more simple anddirect: that the moon’s equator isinclined to its orbit, just like ours is(which causes the seasons and, youguessed it, exposes first one of ourpoles — then the other — to the sun. Yow!Not only did that make sense, it mademore sense than the old explanation Iread some thousand years ago andrepeated in last month’s column. Thatprompted me to look it up, and sureenough he’s dead right. The inclination(for nitpickers) is 6.41 degrees by mostsources, which matches closely (butnot quite) to the actual librations.There are other factors, but theysimply don’t add up to much. Public

Three of the many lunar featuresknown to the author: cratersWalter, Regiomontanus andPurbach. Sketch by Jane

Houston 7/1/98 6 inch reflectorat 133X

peer review: what a concept! You getto air your silly ideas where everyonecan see them. But this one is particu-larly onerous in that the wrong explana-tion is much harder to understand thanthe right one. Anyone who has read ahistory of dissemination of misinforma-tion knows “innocent” (unthinking)parrots like myself are usually thebiggest single factor in the continua-tion of such goofy folklore. Goodcall, Frank! Besides, it’s nice toknow someone reads the column.

Another point worth mention-ing: the guy who put together anincredible collection of moon photosin a recently released book, MichaelLight, will be our January speaker.This should be extremely interesting.He spent four years scanning thearchives of the National Aeronauticsand Space Administration in Hous-ton, reviewing photographs takenfrom the six Apollo missions to themoon. He then employed digitaltechnology to enhance the originalNASA “master dupes.” His book,Full Moon, inspired the SF Museumof Modern Art to put on an exhibi-tion of very large copies of hisphotos until January 4, 2000. Don’tworry, the moon is Y2K compli-ant....

Sinus Iridum, the Bay of Rainbows, sketched7/4/98 by Jane Houston. using 6 inch “Red

Dwarf” at 133X.


Slide and Equipment night is bynature a showcase event in theSJAA. This year was no different.Well it was a little different, actually.How many astronomy slide showsbegin with the Pastorale fromHandel’s Messiah, and end with theAdagio from Mahler’s SecondSymphony? If you attended theSeptember 25th meeting you’llknow what I’m talking about. If youdidn’t, my description cannot beginto portray the visual and aural feastwe were served. Paul Graves beganhis incredible Solar Eclipse slidepresentation with moon and music.Paul travelled to Hungary for theeclipse, and his slides from the airwere almost as spectacular as hiseclipse slides! First the moonrisewas visible all the way across thecontinents and oceans from theairplane, compliments of the polarroute. The clouds were so spectacu-lar! Across the English channel andon he flew. His final destinationwas the town of Balatonfured onLake Balaton in Hungary. Mike Koopand his group were staying at thesame hotel as Paul and his group!What a small world this is!

The slides showed so muchmore than the eclipse. Haystacks atthe centerline. The views Paulshowed of the eclipse, from thedramatic cloudy sky just a few hoursbefore the event, to the darkeningsky during, and through to the endof the eclipse kept the audiencespellbound. We all shared the joy asthe clouds moved away to reveal oursun. First contact through to totality,from the diamond ring to promi-nences and corona, the slides flowedfrom one to the other, revealing theunfolding majesty of the solareclipse. Each special slide waspunctuated by an appropriate andregal musical selection. Near theend of his slide presentation, Paulselected Hungarian composerAntonin Dvorak’s Symphony “Fromthe New World” composed in New

Show and Tell 1999Jane Houston

York in 1893. The movement,entitled “Going Home” was emotion-ally powerful, as were the slides. AsPaul was “Going Home”, he spent asmuch time as he wanted in thecockpit, snapping pictures of the icywhite continent of Greenland. Theimages of glaciers and icebergsthrough the cockpit window werebreathtaking! He finally had torelinquish his birds-eye view aboutthe time for decent and landing. Itwas time to go home at last.

This was the main event atslides and equipment night, but therewere other shows and tels. I hadthe misfortune to follow Pauls slideshow with a few slides of sunset atAyers Rock, Australia. Luckily, Paullet me use his smooth slide projectorand cool music to accompany myshow, so the audience didn’t get tooedgy.

On the Equipment end ofthings, Paul Mancuso showed his

digital camera setup and someimages he took with it at FremontPeak using his C-8. Orion demon-strated the new Nextstar scope.Gary Mitchell showed his solar filter,and I’d better stop now because Ilost my notes of who else had stuffto show. Let’s see...Dave North andAkkana Peck showed their amazing3-D spackle moon, complete withthirty or more geologically correctlunar features. Rich Neushaefershowed his new AP scope. AnotherAP, Rich? The 92.5mm F4.9 “Stow-away” with a flourite triplet objec-tive is another of Roland’s creations.What else is new?? Oh yeah, JayFreeman had a puzzle for us tounravel. Any luck finding the edgesyet, Jay?

If I forgot anything, just drop anote to the Editor [email protected] and I’llcover it next time.

Mark Taylor and Jane Houston look over new mirrors from last year’s SJAAmirror grinding class.


The big news this month is theMercury transit on the afternoon ofNovember 15. This is a fairly rareevent — once a decade or so —sobreak out your solar filter and take alook! (Of course, the usual warningsabout solar viewing apply — don’tlook at this without a safe front-aperture solar filter or a projectionsetup.)

Mercury will be very close tothe sun’s northern limb, and becauseof limb darkening (the tendency forspherical objects to appear darker atthe edges), some observers predictthat it may be somewhat difficult tosee the silhouette of the small planet(only 9.9 arcseconds) against thesun’s limb, so seeking out clear skiesand good seeing may be worthwhile.Use a relatively high magnification,rather than the low power full-sunview many people prefer for sunspotand general solar viewing.

Viewed from San Jose, theplanet should first hit the sun’snortheast limb at about 1:11pmPST, and end its transit almostexactly an hour later. Some observ-ers of past transits have reportedseeing Mercury slightly before firstcontact, silhouetted against the innercorona.

What do you do at night whileyou’re waiting for the 15th? Well,look at Jupiter and Saturn, ofcourse! The biggest planets are bothhigh in the sky, visible all night, andperfectly placed for observing thismonth. Jupiter just passed opposi-tion on October 23rd — as close asit will be to us for the next decade— while Saturn’s opposition, a niceone with its rings tilted a generous20 degrees to us, will occur onNovember 5th.

On Jupiter, the Great Red Spot(more like light pink) and the whiteovals following it are interesting

targets, as are the festoons (longpink streamers running from thebands into the equatorial zone) andtransits of its moons and theirshadows. You can get transit timesfor Jupiter’s moons and for the GRSin magazines like Sky & Telescope,or use my Java applet: http://www.shallowsky.com/jupiter.html

On Saturn, look for Cassini’sdivision, a narrow gap between thetwo main (A and B) rings, and forthe semi-transparent C or “Crepe”ring inside the main rings. Insteadier seeing, try for the much

The Shallow SkyAkkana Peck

Comet Comments For November 1999Don Machholz

Comet LINEAR (1999 J3)heads south rather rapidly, whileComet Lee fades in our evening sky.Periodic Comet Machholz 2 reap-pears on its first return since it wasdiscovered from Colfax, California inAugust 1994. At that time itoutburst, and four secondary com-ets, labeled Components B-E, werefound by amateurs using photogra-phy and CCD. In 1994 the cometwas ahead of us in our orbit, thistime it trails behind us, remaining ata declination of -11 for severalmonths. It was recovered by RobertMcNaught on Aug. 3 at magnitude21.

In the past month the SOHOsatellite found two more cometsentering the solar vicinity. One wasfound on Sept. 4, the second onSept. 16. A new comet was foundby Robert McNaught and F. Watsonusing the U.K. Schmidt Camera inAustralia. It will remain faint as willa couple of instrument-discovered

comets found recently. But anothercomet, 1999 S4 (LINEAR), is pres-ently at magnitude 15 but maybrighten up to naked-eye visibility bythe middle of next year.

COMET HUNTING NOTES:Until three years ago, the search forNear-Earth Objects (NEO’s) wascarried out in both the Northern andSouthern Hemispheres. Then, in1996 the Australian governmentstopped the funding so the SouthernHemisphere search was shut down.In the meantime the NorthernHemisphere increased its searchcapabilities, especially with theaddition of LINEAR, in New Mexico,about a year ago. Now the SouthernHemisphere search has been re-funded and should begin soon.Robert McNaught will manage it andall the equipment is being updated.

more difficult gaps in the outer Aring.

Mars is low in the western sky,and isn’t well placed for observingsurface details, but a telescope willshow it as a red, gibbous disk,perhaps with a few smudges oflighter and darker color. Neptuneand Uranus follow a bit behind Mars,while the shrimps of the solar sys-tem (hey, I resemble that remark!),Pluto and Mercury, are both lost inthe sun’s glare. Venus shines high inthe morning sky, showing exactlyhalf phase as November opens.

Comets continued on next page


EphemeridesC/1999 H1 (Lee)Date(00UT) R.A. (2000) Dec El Sky Mag10-09 23h50.6m+ 4 2 d 2 2 ' 141d M 8.710-14 23h21.8m+ 3 5 d 1 6 ' 142d E 9.110-19 23h02.0m+ 2 8 d 5 1 ' 140d E 9.410-24 22h48.4m+ 2 3 d 2 3 ' 135d E 9.810-29 22h39.0m+ 1 8 d 5 1 ' 129d E 10.211-03 22h32.6m+ 1 5 d 1 0 ' 123d E 10.511-08 22h28.4m+ 1 2 d 0 9 ' 117d E 10.911-13 22h25.8m+ 0 9 d 4 3 ' 111d E 11.211-18 22h24.4m+ 0 7 d 4 3 ' 105d E 11.511-23 22h24.0m+ 0 6 d 0 6 ' 99d E 11.811-28 22h24.3m+ 0 4 d 4 6 ' 94d E 12.112-03 22h25.2m+ 0 3 d 4 1 ' 89d E 12.412-08 22h26.7m+ 0 2 d 4 8 ' 84d E 12.6

141P/Machholz 2Date(00UT) R.A. (2000) Dec El Sky Mag10-09 17h23.5m-11d37' 66d E 15.210-14 17h32.8m-11d44' 64d E 14.510-19 17h42.9m-11d49' 61d E 13.810-24 17h54.0m-11d53' 59d E 13.110-29 18h06.0m-11d54' 57d E 12.411-03 18h19.0m-11d53' 55d E 11.711-08 18h32.9m-11d50' 54d E 10.911-13 18h47.8m-11d46' 53d E 10.111-18 19h03.8m-11d39' 52d E 9.411-23 19h20.8m-11d33' 51d E 8.711-28 19h39.0m-11d27' 50d E 8.211-03 19h58.5m-11d25' 50d E 7.712-08 20h19.5m-11d29' 50d E 7.4

1999 J3 (LINEAR)Date(00UT) R.A. (2000) Dec El Sky Mag10-09 07h53.5m+ 0 6 d 1 3 ' 77d M 8.310-14 07h41.9m-08d55' 82d M 8.210-19 07h26.8m-26d03' 87d M 8.310-24 07h06.1m-42d25' 91d M 8.610-29 06h37.1m-55d39' 92d M 9.011-03 05h55.8m-65d07' 91d M 9.511-08 04h59.2m-71d08' 90d M 10.011-13 03h50.8m-74d18' 88d M 10.511-18 02h43.2m-75d16' 85d E 10.911-23 01h48.8m-74d54' 83d E 11.411-28 01h10.4m-73d52' 80d E 11.812-03 00h44.8m-72d35' 78d E 12.112-08 00h28.2m-71d16' 76d E 12.5

ElementsObject: LeePeri. Date: 1999 07 11.1725Peri. Dist (AU): 0.708101 AUArg/Peri (2000): 040.7006 deg.Asc. Node (2000): 162.6490 deg.Incl (2000): 149.3533 deg.Eccen: 0.99974Orbital Period: 142,000 yrs.Ref: MPC 35553Epoch: 1999 08 10Absol. Mag/”n”: 6.5/4.0

Object: P/Machholz 2Peri. Date: 1999 12 09.2752Peri. Dist (AU): 0.748905 AUArg/Peri (2000): 149.2991 deg.Asc. Node (2000): 246.1434 deg.Incl (2000): 012.8116 deg.Eccen: 0.751075Orbital Period: 5.22 yearsRef: MPC 35815Epoch: 1999 12 08Absol. Mag/”n”: 12.0/7.5

Object: LINEAR (1999 J3)Peri. Date: 1999 09 20.1699Peri. Dist (AU): 0.9774750AUArg/Peri (2000): 161.9509 deg.Asc. Node (2000): 229.0006 deg.Incl (2000): 101.6670 deg.Eccen: 1 .0Orbital Period: 63,000 yrs.Ref: MPC 35553Epoch: 1999 09 20Absol. Mag/”n”: 9.4/4.0

Don Machholz (530) [email protected] Page: http://members.aol.com/cometcom/index.html

Got questions? SJAA has answers! The Editors have received arequest for a “mailbag” column, similar to what Dave North did thisMooning month. Send your questions to the Editors, and we’ll eitherpublish them (with answers of course) or post to the SJAA list.

Celestial CalendarNovember 1999Richard Stanton

LUNAR PHASES:Date Rise Trans Set

NM 19:53 PST 07 06:03 11:43 17:18FQ 01:03 PST 16 13:19 18:48 00:22FM 23:04 PST 22 16:59 00:01 05:57LQ 05:19 PST 29 00:03 05:56 12:45

NEARER PLANETS: R. A. Dec.Mercury — 0.68 A.U. Mag. 2.207 08:08 12:55 17:44 15:55.0 -22:3617 06:29 11:36 16:43 15:16.0 -17:2127 05:23 10:41 15:59 14:57.3 -14:12

Venus — 0.82 A.U. Mag. -4.907 02:49 08:58 15:06 11:54.7 + 0 1 : 3 517 03:02 08:59 14:56 12:35.2 -02:0327 03:17 09:02 14:47 13:17.3 -05:57

Mars — 1.60 A.U. Mag. +0.407 11:29 16:12 20:55 19:08.7 -24:0917 11:17 16:05 20:52 19:41.2 -22:5927 11:04 15:57 20:51 20:13.4 -21:25

Jupiter — 4.06 A.U. Mag. -2.807 16:13 22:45 05:22 01:46.3 + 0 9 : 2 217 15:31 22:02 04:37 01:41.9 + 0 8 : 5 927 14:49 21:19 03:54 01:38.3 + 0 8 : 4 1

Saturn — 8.22 A.U. Mag. +0.507 17:01 23:47 06:37 02:48.1 + 1 3 : 2 717 16:19 23:05 05:54 02:44.9 + 1 3 : 1 327 15:38 22:23 05:11 02:41.9 + 1 3 : 0 1

SOL Star Type G2VIntelligent Life in System ?Hours of Darkness

Date Rise Trans Set R.A. Dec10:37 07 06:38 11:51 17:04 14:48.0 -16:1110:53 17 06:49 11:53 16:56 15:28.6 -18:5411:06 27 06:59 11:55 16:51 16:10.6 -21:04

Astronomical Twilight:Begin End

JD 2,451,489 0 7 05:10 18:33499 1 7 05:19 18:26509 2 7 05:28 18:22

Sidereal Time:Transit Right 07 00:00 = 02:56Ascension at 17 00:00 = 03:36Local Midnit 27 00:00 = 04:15

Darkest Saturday Night: 06-Nov-1999Sunset 17:05Twilight End 18:33Moon Set 16:47Dawn Begin 05:09Hours Dark 10:35

Comet Comments continued from page 9


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