Download Aye LADEE - Robert Ferguson Observatory

Summer2003
2013
Spring
Aye LADEE
Volume
XVI
Number 32
Volume
VI Number
By Robert Davis
I’m not sure if me learning how to play cause out gassing, mostly neon, helium,
the bagpipes had anything to do with hydrogen and argon, but nobody is sure
deciding to write about a space explo- how much of each process contributes
ration mission with the name LADEE to the whole. It’s one of the questions
or the fact I’m a bit of lunatic and this they hope to answer with this mission.
mission will be studying one of my Because the Moon’s gravity is small
favorite objects in the sky: the Moon. and it doesn’t have a magnetic field
LADEE is, of course, an acronym and it to protect it from the solar winds the
stands for Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Moon has a difficult time holding on
Environment Explorer. This mission to what little atmosphere it can create.
was originally slated for launch back If the entire atmosphere of the Moon
in 2011. It was then rescheduled for were condensed to Earth temperature
January of 2013. Now it seems they and density, it would fit within 210
are in their final testing stages and cubic feet. NASA really wants to get
are shooting for a launch sometime a good picture of the Moon’s atmobetween August 10 and October 13 sphere before future human activity
of this year.
potentially changes it.
Now if you are thinking to yourself,
Moving on the second half of the
“Wait a minute, the Moon doesn’t acronym we get to the dust part. If
have an atmosphere” then you need NASA wants to study dust they could
to sign up for next year’s Night Sky probably save a few million dollars
Moon class (or you could just continue and just come over to my place. But
reading). The Moon doesn’t have an then again, Moon dust is special. It
atmosphere in the usual sense one seems that dust was a real nuisance
thinks about an atmosphere. In fact, for the Apollo astronauts. It stuck to
it has a particular kind of atmosphere everything – spacesuits, equipment and
called an exosphere. An “exosphere” instruments. The dust is basically the
is an atmosphere that is so thin and lunar surface that has been smashed to
tenuous that the molecules don’t a fine powder by billions of years of
even collide with each other. The space rocks slamming into it. The reexosphere is generated by ultraviolet sulting material can be abrasive, made
rays from the Sun reacting with the of sharp, glassy grains, be electrostatilunar surface, radioactivity from the cally charged, and may even pose a real
(turn to LADEE on Page 7)
moon’s interior, and material released
from lunar impacts. Each of these can
http://www.rfo.org
Public Events at
Robert Ferguson
Observatory
July 13, Saturday
Public Solar Observing noon – 4 pm
Public Observing Night 9 pm
August 10, Saturday
Public Solar Observing noon – 4 pm
Public Observing Night 9 pm
August 11, Sunday
Public Observing Night 9 pm
Perseid Meteor Shower
September 7, Saturday
Public Solar Observing noon – 4 pm
Public Observing Night 9 pm
October 5, Saturday
Public Solar Observing 11 am – 3 pm
Public Observing Night 8 pm
Evening public viewing is $3 per
adult, 18 years or older, plus $8 per
car parking fee. Donations accepted.
Dress for cold nights! For current
observatory information call (707)
833-6979.
RFO Classes (see Page 3)
Night Sky Summer Series
July 8 & 29
August 5
Night Sky Fall Series
September 30
October 7 & 28
Be sure to check out our new website
at http://www.rfo.org for more
interesting astronomical events and
information.
Page 2
Focused
A quarterly newsletter
published by:
The Valley of the Moon
Observatory Association
P.O. Box 898
Glen Ellen, CA 95442
707.833.6979
www.rfo.org
Editor: Derek Braud
Publisher:
Colleen Ferguson
Contributors: Robert Davis
Colleen Ferguson
Loren Stokes
Ella M. Talfax
Jack Welch
Subscriptions
Fill out & mail form on back page
Advertising
Contact the editor, Derek Braud:
[email protected]
Submission Guidelines
Unsolicited submissions are welcome and will
be published at the discretion of the editorial
staff. Send submissions to the acting editor,
Derek Braud:
[email protected]
VMOA Mission Statement
The VMOA is a group of volunteer amateur
and professional astronomers organized as
a non-profit association to provide educational programs about science and astronomy
for students and the public. To that end,
the VMOA operates the Robert Ferguson
Observatory in Sugarloaf Ridge State Park in
association with California State Parks.
VMOA Board of Directors
President:
Colleen Ferguson
Vice President: Rob Davis
Treasurer:
Steve Peterson
Secretary:
George Loyer
Members: Mark Hillestad
Larry McCune
Bill Russell
Steve Smith
Gordon Spear
President’s Message
by Colleen Ferguson
It’s time for a first anniversary celebration! On June 1, Sugarloaf Ridge State
Park completed one full year of operation by the nonprofit partners in Team
Sugarloaf. Instead of an observatory
operating in a closed State Park (a
very sad scene…), for the past year
hikers stopped by RFO for amazing
views of the sun, campers walked up
to RFO for nighttime star parties, and
groups reserved the campground at
RFO for their own private observatory events. This beautiful park full
of hikers and campers is the perfect
complement to the dazzling sky views
above RFO. You can find news and
information about events in the park
at SugarloafPark.org.
One of our Team Sugarloaf partners,
the Valley of the Moon Natural History
Association (VMNHA), is a long-time
supporter of Sugarloaf Ridge State
Park and of RFO. In fact, the Valley
of Moon Observatory Association
originally formed under the umbrella
of the VMNHA. Their strong support continues with volunteers that
work with RFO docents on public
star party nights. These busy nights
require many hands away from the
observatory to greet people as they
arrive, collect funds for the park and
the observatory, show people where to
park vehicles, cover flashlights with
red filters, and otherwise provide a
pleasant experience before RFO visitors get to the first telescope. A gold
star to our friends at VMNHA!
There is so much more to celebrate!
*Spring and Summer Night Sky
classes are going strong - thanks to Jack
Welch and all the docents who come
to help and soak up the knowledge
poured out in these classes
*The Project 40 team is making progress, using interferometry to fine-tune
Summer 2013
the big mirror. Go to http://project40.
wordpress.com/ for details.
*The new solar telescope is getting
lots of use - for public solar observing,
of course, but also for lots of private
events. Thanks to the solar astronomers. Here comes the sun!
*New subscribers to VMOA sent
contributions to fund RFO’s programs
– thank you!
*An awesome new docent class graduated on May 15th. Thanks to Steve
Smith for recruiting, coordinating
and organizing the new docent class,
to the crew who shared their skills
during docent training, and to the new
docents for volunteering their time and
energy to bring astronomy and science
education to the community.
*A very successful yard sale on June
1 brought in $2,700 for RFO! Big
thanks to Greg Reynolds who did an
amazing job organizing the yard sale
and to everyone who helped, donated,
and shopped.
*Docents brought RFO on the road to
several events:
- April 20th, Astronomy Day at the
California Academy of Sciences
- May 5th, Day Under the Oaks at Santa
Rosa Junior College
- June 12th, Santa Rosa Downtown
Market
Thanks to all who made these events
successful and promoted RFO.
Looking ahead to the summer
months, the RFO calendar has an
(turn to PRESIDENT on Page 7)
Summer 2013
2013 RFO Summer Class Schedule
Page 3
Night Sky Series
Each class includes a lecture on the constellations of the season, their history and mythology, and how to find objects
within them. Learn the bright stars, deep-sky objects, and visiting planets of the night skies. After each presentation
(sky conditions permitting), you will enjoy a review of the constellations in the actual night sky and learn how to
find them for yourself. The constellations, and the objects within them, will be viewed through binoculars and
telescopes, including the Observatory ’s 24-inch reflecting telescope, until or beyond 10:30 pm (depending upon
interest and enthusiasm).
The continuing Summer Series classes will be held on Mondays
Classes start at 8:00 pm on July 8 & 29 August 5
The upcoming Fall Series classes will begin on Monday, September 30 at 7:00 pm
Fee: $75 for 6-class series or $23 for a single class
E-mail: [email protected] to reserve a space in this popular class
Look for more information about RFO’s Night Sky Classes online at http://www.rfo.org
Observing Labs
An intensive telescope observing session after a brief presentation on the night’s theme.
Handouts/Observing lists provided. Attendance limited to 6.
Fee: $30.
For reservations, email: [email protected]
The next scheduled Observing Lab, ‘Star Death: The End of Stellar Fusion’, is Saturday, September 28 at 7:00 pm
Look for more information about RFO’s Observing labs online at http://www.rfo.org
It’s Elemental: A Series of Discussions on the Chemical Elements
by Ella M. Talfax
This discussion is on element 46: Palladium. It is also about for cars.
an ancient burglary and a contest between an olive and a
Pd alloys (combinations of Pd with other elements) are
horse. How can that be? Read on and see.
used in making hairsprings for mechanical watches because
Palladium has an atomic number of 46, which is the they are very elastic, nonmagnetic, and do not expand or
quantity of protons in a palladium atom’s nucleus, and is contract much with changes in temperature.
also the reason it is called element 46. Palladium’s symbol
Pd is used in miniature multi-layer ceramic capacitors,
is Pd, and that is what I will use from here on to save ink with the alternating layers of Pd and ceramic forming the
and paper. If you look on the periodic table of the ele- plates and dielectric. Over 400 billion of the capacitors
ments, which is a very informative and entertaining thing are made and used each year in devices like cell phones,
to do, you will see that Pd is in column #10 under Nickel computers, etc.
and above Platinum. This means we can expect Pd to have
Pd was discovered (isolated) by William H. Wollaston
similar properties to those elements, which it does. All in 1802. Pd was named for the asteroid Pallas which was
three of these elements resist corrosion and are often used discovered in March 1802, about the time that Pd was first
as coatings to protect other materials from chemical attack. isolated. The asteroid Pallas, in turn, is named for the godPd also absorbs the element hydrogen to the extent of dess Pallas Athena (more about her later).
more than 900 times its own volume of the gas at room
Wollaston was doing research into the refinement and
temperature. This property can be used to purify hydrogen. properties of the element platinum. He had dissolved some
The hydrogen enters the Pd on one surface of a sheet of the platinum into aqua regia, a mixture of acids. Wollaston
metal, diffuses through the Pd, and then emerges as pure precipitated the platinum out of the aqua regia with sodium
hydrogen on the other surface of the sheet of the metal. hydroxide and ammonium chloride. But he knew that the
The impurities are blocked by the Pd and left behind in remaining solution contained other metals, and by adding
this process.
mercury cyanide he caused the precipitation of palladium
Pd is used as a catalyst for chemical reactions. The major cyanide. Heating this compound produced pure Pd.
use of Pd (60% of production) is for catalytic converters
(turn to ELEMENTAL on Page 5)
Page 4
Watching the 2013 Summer Sky
Summer 2013
by Jack Welch
2013 is an unusually good year for lovely planetary Venus is to Earth! Both Venus and Mars have orbits near
conjunctions in the dawn and dusk skies. This happy that of Earth and long synodic periods for this reason.)
circumstance allows us to get a first-hand observer’s sense
Now… recall that Mars joined Mercury in the evening
of the relative motions of the various planets. Thus, I will sky this past February as Mars, left far behind by Earth,
mostly discuss the solar system in this article.
headed toward conjunction on the far side of the sun while
The two planets that orbit closer to the sun than Earth, Mercury was approaching Earth and inferior conjunction.
Mercury and Venus, are known as the inferior planets for (I wrote at the time that I’d have more to say about this
that reason. Nearer the sun, they experience a stronger later in the year!)
gravitational pull and thus travel faster along their shorter
That same month, Venus ended its reign as “Morning
orbits than does Earth. Periodically they pass us on their Star” disappearing into the sunrise and approaching superior
“inside track” orbits, between Earth and the sun. This is conjunction. (Next, around the end of March/early April,
known as inferior conjunction. (Conjunction refers to two Mercury had a very poor morning apparition.) Venus
objects passing near each other in the sky. In this case it is emerged into the evening sky in late April and was joined by
understood that we mean conjunction with the sun, as seen speedy Mercury in late May, forming the famous “triangle”
from Earth. And in the case of both planets and conjunctions, conjunction on 5/26 with Jupiter, which then vanished into
“inferior” means “near” and “superior” means “far.”)
the setting sun as it neared conjunction. Mercury and Venus
At dawn we are on the leading side of Earth as it orbits danced together for much of June then Mercury sank into
around the sun. So after these planets pass us they appear the sun and inferior conjunction.
in the pre-dawn sky, growing higher as they move away
Pokey Mars has been hiding behind the sun since March
from Earth. Eventually they move so far ahead of us that but emerges into the morning sky by July … as does Jupiter,
they travel around toward the far side of the sun, sinking which has only been hiding with Mars since late May.
lower each day in the sky toward the rising sun. When This striking difference in times between the subsequent
they are on the opposite side of the sun we say they are at pairings with Mercury for these two planets should now
superior conjunction.
make sense if you followed the discussion above! Mars
Next, they start catching up with us from behind and we and Jupiter will be very close together around 5am on the
see them rise into the dusk sky after sunset from our vantage morning of 7/22. Then Mercury joins Mars and Jupiter
point looking backward in our orbit. After again reaching from about 7/24 to 8/10 for a good morning apparition.
a maximum altitude, they sink back into the setting sun as The crescent moon joins the three planets and the stars
they once again come between Earth and the sun, completing of Gemini in early August (see figure) for another lovely
what we call one synodic period. Mercury, closest to the planetary conjunction.
sun, travels fastest and completes slightly more than 3 such
You will then note that Jupiter climbs higher into the
periods each year. It also remains rather low to the horizon, predawn sky faster than does Mars as summer continues into
though now and then we can see it easily at a good altitude fall. That is because Earth easily catches up with Jupiter
when conditions are right. Much more leisurely Venus takes but has to “work hard” to slowly catch up with Mars.
about 19 months to complete each such period.
Speaking of Earth’s “leading edge” view in the morning
The superior planets, Mars, Jupiter and so on, mostly skies, the famous Perseid Meteor Shower has favorable
move eastward across the sky with respect to the stars. viewing free of moonlight this year. Meteors are most
Starting with such a planet at conjunction on the far side of viewable when the Earth is “plowing into” the debris stream
the sun, faster moving Earth starts to catch up with them so with its leading edge, i.e. in morning skies. The peak is
they rise in the pre-dawn sky and keep rising until they are predicted for 1pm on 8/12, give or take a few hours…
high overhead and up all night at opposition, when Earth daylight for us. This means that the best viewing should
passes them on our faster inside track. As we leave them be the mornings of 8/12 and 8/13, though Perseids occur
behind, they set earlier each night until eventually they sink for 2 or 3 weeks around the maximum. Note that Perseids
into the glare of sunset as they again approach conjunction. do not appear until after about 10:30 or 11:00pm when the
Because the outer planets orbit so slowly, their synodic radiant rises above the horizon. RFO is open on the evenings
periods (time between conjunctions) are just slightly more of 8/10 and 8/11 for night viewing and meteor watching.
than one year. But Mars, orbiting near Earth, takes somewhat
Saturn lingers in the evening sky during the first half of
more than 2 years to complete this cycle because it does a summer but gradually drops lower in the western twilight
better job of keeping up with Earth! (Earth is to Mars as as it approaches conjunction this fall. Meanwhile, Uranus,
Summer 2013
in Pisces, will be approaching opposition in early fall so
becomes a good telescope target by late August or so. And
Neptune, in Aquarius, is at opposition on 8/26. The asteroid
Juno is at opposition in Aquarius on 8/3 (consult references).
Venus will be very near the large and bright star cluster
Praesepe (M44) around 9pm on 7/3 in the west. Then, Mars
will pass in front of M44 on the mornings of 9/8 and 9/9
in the east, visible around 4:30am. Use binoculars in both
cases, and shutterbugs get those cameras ready!
The crescent moon is near Venus around 9pm on 7/10 and
8/9 and very near Venus around 8pm on 9/8. The crescent
moon is near Jupiter around 5:30am on 8/3, 4am on 8/31
and 2am on 9/28.
The moon is at perigee (closest to Earth) 22 hours before
July’s full moon on 7/22, causing large tides from about
7/21 to 7/24. This is the last of a sequence of months with
large tides around the full moon.
From 9/3 to 9/16 we have the opportunity to view the
Zodiacal Light in the eastern sky before morning twilight.
This somewhat faint band of light rises from the eastern
horizon along the path of the Ecliptic as a tapering tall
triangle. The glow is caused by sunlight reflecting off fine
debris in the plane of our solar system. Look for it around
4:30 to 5am. You need a location with a dark eastern
horizon free of light pollution. For instance, it is easy to
spot from RFO.
For additional sky events and details, use the “What’s
Up in the Night Sky” link on our website. Or join our email
list (link on website) and receive monthly emails with skywatching details and more. The summer officially ends
with the autumnal equinox at 1:44pm on 9/22.
Page 5
(ELEMENTAL from Page 3)
An interesting fact about Pd is that it occurs naturally
as an alloy of gold. In the 1700’s gold miners in Brazil encountered this alloy, which they discarded, calling it ouro
podre “worthless gold”.
Most Pd is now produced as a by-product of the refinement of nickel in Canada and Russia. World production is
approximately 300 tons per year.
All very interesting you say but what about the ancient
burglary and the contest between an olive and a horse?
Well, Palladium is also the name of a statue of the goddess Pallas Athena. The Greek myths say it was sent from
heaven by Zeus to Ilus, founder of Troy. As long as Troy
kept the Palladium, the city was safe. During the Trojan
War, the Greeks decided that the only way they were going
to conquer Troy was to get the Palladium out of Troy first.
The hero Ulysses and his friend Diomedes disguised themselves, snuck into Troy, snuck into the temple, purloined
the Palladium, and absconded with it. This was a sort of
ancient grand-theft-statue, and probably one of the first
burglaries on record. This bit of larceny was such a morale
booster to the Greeks, that they were encouraged to build
and deploy the ‘Trojan Horse’, and the rest is history. The
Palladium legend lives on in the form of the modern usage
of the word; a palladium is anything that affords protection
or guarantees security. For example, trial by jury is considered to be a palladium of the civil rights of the people.
So there is one (Trojan) horse story, but what about the
horse and the olive? The Greek myths say that the people of
the region of Attica wanted to name their chief city after the
god or goddess who gave mankind the most useful object.
So the gods had a contest. Poseidon created the horse and
Pallas Athena created the olive tree. The judges of the contest
decided that the olive tree was more valuable to mankind.
The olive won the contest, and the chief city of Attica was
named Athens for Pallas Athena. This was very fortunate
for the Greeks since if the horse had won the contest their
chief city would have been named Poseidonopollus, which
is a heck of a lot harder to say than Athens.
So the next time you have an olive, remember the element
Palladium, Wollaston the chemist, the asteroid Pallas, the
goddess Pallas-Athena, the stolen statue Palladium, your
civil rights, the Trojan horse, the olive and horse contest,
and the city of Athens.
Think about it, there must be higher love, down in the
heart or hidden in the stars above, Without it, life is
wasted time, look inside your heart, I’ll look inside mine.
Things look so bad everywhere, in this whole world, what is fair?
We walk blind, and we try to see, falling behind in what could be
- Steve Winwood
Page 6
Black Holes, Einstein, and BEVs
Summer 2013
By Loren Stokes
The June 2013 issue of Sky and Telescope magazine has
an article about the first direct evidence of a supermassive
black hole. The article, written by Suvi Gezari, a young
astrophysics professor at the University of Maryland,
describes how she and her team observed a supermassive
black hole tidally shred a star and eat it.
Also in the same issue is an article about a telescope
built for Albert Einstein in 1954. Gezari’s remarkable
connection to that article is that the telescope was made by
her grandfather, Zvi Gezari. The article contains several
photographs of her grandfather and 11-year-old father
Daniel, with Einstein in his garden in Princeton, New Jersey,
the day Einstein received the telescope. Her father is also
an astrophysicist. I highly recommend both articles.
Black holes were one of the first solutions to Einstein’s
equations of General Relatively. Most thought black holes
to be only a mathematical curiosity. But now there is direct
evidence of supermassive black holes. If a star ventures too
close, tidal forces from the black hole’s gravity can shred
a star. Tidal forces, such as that of the Moon on Earth’s
oceans, occur because the gravitational pull of the Moon
on the near side of Earth is stronger than on the far side.
For the star near a black hole, the star bulges toward the
black hole. When it gets too close, the tidal forces become
stronger than the gravitational force holding the star together.
The star is shredded in a matter of minutes. Half the star
is pulled into the black hole, while the other half forms a
one-million-degree debris disk that takes several months
to also be eaten by the black hole. During that time, the
hot debris disk is emitting X-rays that can be seen with
space-based telescopes.
The event horizon for a black hole, that is, the distance
from the black hole for which nothing can escape, including
light, grows proportional to the black hole’s mass. However,
the distance from the black hole where a star will be shredded,
called the tidal reach, grows more slowly, proportional to the
cube root of the black hole’s mass. For the supermassive
black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy, with a
mass of four million suns, the event horizon is several times
closer to the black hole than is the tidal reach. So we can
see a star shredded by the X-ray energy from the debris disk,
until the debris disk is pulled beyond the event horizon.
However, for a super massive black hole with a mass
of more than 100 million suns, the event horizon is further
from the black hole than the tidal reach. A star venturing
too close will simply disappear from sight before being
shredded. There would be nothing to see as none of the
action could leave the black hole. We think that some
galaxies have central supermassive black holes of at least
this mass, maybe into the billions of suns. So stars could
disappear from sight, leaving no hint of what happened.
Now on to another topic related to Einstein. Energy
and mass are equated by Einstein’s famous equation E =
mc2. We can apply this to a new type of automobile, the
battery electric vehicle (BEV). Lately I have seen many a
Nissan Leaf (Leaves?) around town. My neighbor has one,
as does an RFO docent. The lithium-ion battery capacity is
24 kilowatt-hours of energy, an energy unit we are familiar
with through our electric utility bills. This battery pack
energy is equivalent to 86.4 megajoules (a watt-second is
a joule). Dividing this by the speed of light (300,000,000
meters/second) squared gives the mass equivalent, which
is about 1 microgram. So a charged Nissan Leaf battery
pack has a mass of 1 microgram more than a discharged
one. As the battery pack is discharged, it losses mass
continuously, albeit at a rate that would be very hard to
measure. Every time one charges a Leaf, one is turning
energy to mass. Driving turns that mass back to energy.
The challenge of BEVs is competing with the immense
energy stored in each gallon of gasoline. The thermal
energy released in burning one gallon of gasoline is
121 megajoules, which is equal to 33.7 kilowatt-hours.
The internal combustion engine in an automobile has a
thermodynamic efficiency of at most 30%, meaning that
only about 30% of the heat energy is transformed into useful
work propelling the automobile. So let’s say 1 gallon of
gasoline is like having a 10 kilowatt-hour battery. We see
the problem – the Nissan Leaf can store the energy of only
2.4 gallons of gasoline in its battery pack. Hence the 80ish mile driving range on a fully charged battery. By the
way, electric motors are very efficient; better that 90%, as
almost all of the electric energy goes into propelling the
car (plus a little wasted heat in the electric motor).
There is another way of looking at batteries versus
gasoline – energy density. A gallon of gasoline weighs
about 6 pounds. A 10 kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery
weighs about 250 pounds, 40 times as much. The Nissan
Leaf battery pack weighs 600 pounds, containing the
equivalent of 2.4 gallons of gasoline. The weight (and
cost) of having a BEV with the stored energy of, say, 10
gallons of gasoline is prohibitive. The Tesla Model S does
come close, with an 85 kilowatt-hour battery pack. But
the car weighs over 4,600 pounds, not counting the extra
several micrograms with a fully charged battery.
Summer 2013
(LADEE from Page 1)
danger to astronauts if too much is inhaled. Again, NASA is
looking to the future and thinking that the dust really needs
to be fully understood if future lunar colonies are going to
be developed. Ironically, some vials of moon dust were
recently discovered gathering Earth dust for over 40 years
in a Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory warehouse.
The instrument payload for the mission is fairly small: a
couple of spectrometers to measure the atmosphere and the
Lunar Dust Experiment to directly measure dust particles.
LADEE will also be demonstrating a new method of sending
and receiving data called the Lunar Laser Communication
Demonstration. As the name suggests, the ‘lasercom’ will
be using a laser to transfer data instead of radio waves.
The system uses an infrared laser beam, and the real trick
is keeping the beam aimed at the receivers on Earth while
the spacecraft is moving in its orbit around the Moon. It is
described as being equivalent to a golfer hitting a hole-inone from five miles away. If they can pull it off, they will
achieve a data transfer rate almost 6 times higher than the
state-of-the-art radio systems of today. The system weighs
less and requires less energy than radio as well, so NASA
is looking at laser as the future of space communications.
The LADEE mission is scheduled to last 100 days after
which time it will crash into the lunar surface. Makes one
wonder how much it will disturb the tenuous atmosphere it
spent all that time studying and if it will be able to measure
the dust it will raise.
Page 7
Off Campus Observatory News
RFO Docents will once again matriculate to the
upcoming 2013 Tolay Fall Festival. Last years festival
was so successful that the RFO couldn’t pass up the
opportunity to promote the observatory and its programs
at such a well attended event.
The festival will run October 10-13 and October 16-20.
(PRESIDENT from Page 2)
abundance of events scheduled to show the wonders of
the night sky, and the sun, to the people who come to
Sugarloaf Ridge State Park. Some come specifically to go
to RFO; others come to hike and camp and then discover RFO Docent Dickson Yeager, introducing a new astronomer
RFO is open and have their park visit enriched with an
to the nearest star, at the 2012 Tolaya Festival
observatory experience. RFO docents know the scene
well: The tentative approach to the telescope, the gentle
lean towards the eyepiece, the moments for the image to
register, then the exclamation “Wow, that’s awesome!”
followed by another peek in the eyepiece, a step back and
enthusiastic urging to others to take a look. Then come
the questions, discussions, looking up – learning about the
natural world above us and around us. Here’s to another
year of successful park and observatory operations!
Man must rise above the Earth, to the top of the clouds and
beyond, for only thus will he fully understand the world in
which he lives.
- Socrates
The hours of folly are measured by the clock,
but of wisdom no clock can measure.
- William Blake
RFO Docent Rob Davis with a customer at a recent Santa
Rosa Downtown Market.
RFO Docents regularly promote the RFO at such events.
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VMOA
P.O. Box 898
Glen Ellen, CA 95442
Address Service requested