2004 Speakers

2004 Adult Speaker Program in review:

I woke up this morning and realized this year's star party came and went like the blink of an eye. Why can't they last like a super nova? After a heavy thunder and lightning storm the Monday morning after the party was over, I was ready to pack my wet things and descend the mountain and get home. Now only 48 hours later, I'm wishing I was still up at 6300' with the gathering of astronomers. I guess I'm ready to start all over again for next year. Even though I spend nine nights on the mountain and only get in as much viewing as most will do in three, I thoroughly enjoy every minute of the week. I’m glad I got an opportunity to get down to Joe Rottmann's 30" Dobsonian for a view of M51 and over to Jim Bielaga's 29 1/4" Dob to view M17. It’s views like that that deter me from going back and uncovering my 8" LX200, but I guess it’s equipment like Joe's and Jim's that let me get to bed early enough so I can get up and do the job I’m up there to do. Then it is also views like those that make me want to build a big light bucket for myself.

Hosting the Speaker Presentations always seems to keep me busy during the three "official" days of the Star Party, but I suppose that also keeps me from having too much free time to wander the vendor's booths and spend all my money. We had another full year with 21 different talks presented over the three days with over 1000 attendees combined.

Thursday started off in the afternoon with Johnathan Fay from the Squak Mountain Gang presenting Design and Construction of a Home Observatory. Johnathan covered the pluses and minuses of the different designs that could be utilized in his back yard. After settling on a dome style building he walked us through the one-year construction process, which was completed utilizing materials mostly from Home Depot and Radio Shack. You can review and keep current on his project by visiting his Bear Creek Observatory web site.

Next up was Linda Khandro giving a presentation on the Project AstroBio program which is an exciting and innovative way to make hands on astronomy and other sciences available to Puget Sound area schoolchildren. The University of Washington, the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, NASA's Astrobiology Institute, and private benefactors, supports the program. Most importantly, the cadre of dedicated volunteers delivers it to the thousands of inquiring minds each year. To contact Linda and help deliver this program to the communities, check out Project AstroBio's web site.

After the dinner break Curtis Snow of the Puget Sound Chapter of the Mars Society made his presentation on the Considerations for the Human Exploration of Mars. Curtis discussed the physical considerations of space travel and the distance one must travel to get to Mars. Some of the issues covered were the impact on the human immune system, the musculoskeletal system, the neurovestibular system, and the exposure to radiation. You can learn more about these topics and other issues considered when traveling for great lengths in space at The Mars Society web site.

Donna Hensley followed with her presentation on Bats: Astronomer's Best Friend. The traditional "Bat talk" at Table Mountain is always a big draw, and this year was no different. Donna started by dissolving common myths of bats to the full house. She also covered the efforts that are taken to keep people from disturbing bat caves and the process of educating the public on bats. Her slide show had images from a Mexican Freetail Bat cave in San Antonio that has over 20 million bats housed inside. She talked about some of the benefits of bats, such as the pollinating species, and how some medications are developed from the Vampire Bat. Donna also shared several images of what many of us thought were pretty funny looking bats, such as one that looked like Scooby-Doo, and one that looked like a rooster. There was also an image of a Bumble Bea Bat that is the smallest mammal on Earth and weighs less than a penny. There are over 1000 different species of bats around the world, of which 18 can be found here in Washington State. You can learn more about bats and Donna's passion for them at Donna Hensley's Bat Colony.

Returning again this year we had Joe Rottmann with his very informative talk on How to Find Stuff in the Sky. Joe is a member of the Rose City Astronomers and has been at Table Mountain for the last several years assisting the beginner to become familiar with the sky and how to locate objects. He instructed the listeners on star hopping techniques, described "field of view", gave pointers of binocular use, and listed publications and tools that are available to the beginner to assist them. I also learned not to walk out of Joe's talk, as you will probably come back in and ask a question that was covered while you were outside.

We finished up the first night with Patrick Hyers and his "Woman in the Moon" talk on Native American Star Lore and Astronomical Histories. He explained how the agricultural tribes discovered the relationship of crops growth to the sun's travel across the sky and it's relationship to the warm and cold times of the year. He also explained how the plains tribes used stars for navigation. Patrick told the story of "How the Moon got its Spots", explained the correlation between the water ladle of sweat lodges and the Big Dipper, how the Milky Way represents the highway of death, and he also told the story of the Sun and the Weasel. Now we know why we have solar eclipses.

After some observing Thursday night and a little bit of sleep, the speaker presentations continued on Friday morning with Linda Khandro providing the adult portion of the Geology Talk and Walk. She led the adults in a brief overview of the geology of the area and then joined up with the students to go on a walk in search for geodes. I'm not sure if they found many, but they sure had a great day for a hike in the mountains.

Then in the afternoon we had Solar Richard, who was the first Solar Power producing customer of Tacoma Public Utility. He explained what you need and how to set up a system in your home that can produce more power than you consume allowing you to sell the excess back to the power company. He also described how these techniques could be used to power automobiles, recreational vehicles and other energy consuming devices.

We were pleased to have Greg Donohue with Celestial North make his presentation "Mars Attacked!" He first explained the similarities between Earth and Mars, and why we want to explore Mars. While hearing about the many missions the US and Russia have made to Mars we learned that over 1/3 of them have failed to reach the planet or meet their objectives. Greg described what it takes to get to the Red Planet and lead us on a virtual trip to Mars from the launch pad to the science collecting experiments conducted on the surface. We learned about the instruments that are on the Mars Exploration Rovers (Spirit and Opportunity), and how they get around by autonomous navigation systems. Finally Greg covered an important discovery of each of the two missions; how Spirit found the "Pot of Gold" rock on it’s Sol163 and how Opportunity scraped "Bounce Rock" while landing and made a "hole in one" after traveling over 300 million miles.

Ajai Sehgal and Frank Gilliland made a presentation on Arizona Sky Village in the absence of Gene Turner who had to stay back in Arizona for a meeting about a possible new telescope to be installed on site. The Arizona Sky Village is a community being developed in the foothills of the Chiricahua Mountains by Gene Turner and Jack Newton for the benefit of astronomers. This site is perched at the mouth of the world famous Cave Creek Canyon in Portal, Arizona and is located under some of the darkest skies in the United States.

Greg Donohue returned with Ted Vosk and Jim Ehrmin of Celestial North and they described the activities of their organization. Celestial North is a local non-profit astronomy education group that promotes astronomy/space related education through school programs, public presentations, and the CelestialNorth.org web site. They also produce a weekly "It’s Over Your Head" radio show on KSER 90.7 FM that has aired continuously for almost a decade in the Seattle market.

Friday evening the speaker presentations continued with Dr. Gregory Arkos giving his talk on Schiaparelli to Spirit: A History of the Human Exploration of Mars. We started off by covering the telescopic explorations of Huggens and his sketched drawings of 1659, Cassini's discovery of the polar caps in 1666, Herschel's 1777 discovery of the tilt and rotation of Mars, and continued with the 1877 discovery by Asaph Hall of the moons in 1877, and Schiaparelli’s descriptions of the "canali." Of course this last discovery led to the canal myth due to the American translation of the word "canali" into canal. This followed with Lowell's "discovery" of canals in 1893. It was this myth that helped perpetuate the physical exploration of Mars. Little did we know at that time that the real "Mars Invasion" would be humans invading Mars. Dr. Arkos continued with some of the successes and failures of the human explorations and dived into the goal of "Looking for Life" in these missions.

Our next speaker on Friday evening was our featured presenter Dr. Donald Brownlee from the University of Washington covering the Stardust Discovery Mission. Dr. Brownlee endured a four and one half hour drive through a backed up freeway on the way to Star Party from Seattle to provide us his presentation on this mission of which he is the Principal Investigator. He answered the question of why make this mission to Comet Wild 2 (pronounce Vilt), and he explored the design of the spacecraft, which included the collection process and the methods of protecting the craft from the comet debris bombardment. He also discussed the requirements for imaging this comet during the flyby. Next he covered the vehicle launch, the Earth flyby and the flyby of Comet Annefrank. We learned that during this mission the telescopes at Pollamar and Keck Observatories were pointed as low as they have ever been to image Wild 2 before the Stardust flyby. Dr. Brownlee continued by providing everyone in the audience with 3-D glasses and showing images that gave impressive detail of the surface of this comet. They included examination of the cliffs, jets, flat and jagged surfaces. These were some very impressive images for everyone in the room. He left us with some speculation as to what we may learn from this encounter. Stay tuned and be sure to check back with this mission when it returns to Earth on January 15, 2006.

Closing up Friday night, Joe Rottmann returned for an encore presentation of his How to Find Stuff talk. This night he discussed how to star hop to the globular cluster M13 in Hercules, the Ring Nebula M57 in Lyra, and the Dumbbell Nebula M27 in Vulpecula. Joe also helped listeners find Arcturus and Spica, and he explored the Summer Triangle. Next he covered the power, aperture, and coatings of binoculars, and how to identify good quality equipment. Also included was a discussion on the viewing aids such as planispheres, atlases, and magazine publications that one can use. Joe concluded by leading a tour of the stars to help the listeners get started on their quest to discover the night sky.

Saturday morning the Speaker’s Presentation Tent was taken over by the Swap Meet, as is customary. Linda Khandro held her adult portion of the Geology Talk behind the tent and then met up with the students for a walk to search out geodes of the area.

Joe Rottmann returned Saturday afternoon for his beginner's class on viewing equipment entitled "Which End Do You Look Through?" He began by explaining what all the numbers describing binoculars mean, and he defined "fully multi coated optics" for us. Before you go out and purchase a telescope, Joe suggested that you purchase a pair of binoculars and use them for a year. If you are still interested in standing out in the cold and dark, then purchase a telescope. He had borrowed some examples of a Newtonian and a refracting telescope from Sean's Astronomy Shop to assist in pointing out the different parts and how to use them. Joe’s talk really helped the beginner understand f-ratio, aperture, field of view, and the difference between a reflector and a refractor.

Tom Gwilym of the Squak Mountain Telescope Gang returned this year to give his talk on Low Cost Imaging with a Web Cam. He started the presentation by covering the cost of equipment and the setup. If you are interested in imaging he suggests starting with the moon and planets since they are the easier and brighter objects. Tom explained the recoding methods and then covered the processing stages to complete the images. Next he presented some of the images he has taken and how his technique has improved over the last few years. To continue on, Tom explored the deep sky imaging and the modifications to the camera to allow for long exposure. Since the web cam process of imaging is a video collection, he finished up by describing the software and the procedures to render the video into one single bright image. You can find out more about Tom, his equipment and his images at his web site.

Back after a year absence was Bruce Weertman with the International Dark-Sky Association. With the increased glow of Ellensburg that we can see from Table Mountain we all know the importance of preserving our night skies. (When I first saw the Aurora on Friday night I thought it was Wenatchee.) Bruce introduced us to IDA founder Dave Crawford and the IDA philosophy of "no enemies, only uneducated." He explained the elements of light pollution and we found out that over $2 Billion of electric light production is illuminated into the night sky and wasted. The urban surface only reflects 10% of the light that is shined upon it, however street lighting accounts for 40% of the sky glow. Bruce then gave examples of good lighting fixtures, such as Full Cut Off Lighting, as well as describing other solutions. He continued by expressing the human health issues and effects of wildlife caused by excessive night lighting. His presentation was concluded with the message to "Get Involved" and build "Social Capital" to help reduce the excessive lighting across the country.

We took a short break to allow for time to give away some prizes to those that remained on site Saturday afternoon. Everyone gathered in the field by the food vendors and several wonderful items were given away. Everyone loves seeing those "little black boxes" that produce expansive views of the stars. Wasn't it exciting to see Catherine Giedd win that Meade 8" LX200? For someone who didn’t own a telescope until then, that was the perfect way to conclude a star party.

After dinner Saturday we continued with Dr. Monika Kress and her Search for Meteorites. Dr. Kress was a member of the Antarctica Search for Meteorites program (ANSMET) in 2003-04. Why go to Antarctica? Well, she explained the benefits of searching this region, and how dark meteorites will travel and migrate to the surface of the white ice making them “easier” to spot. Before she could look for these black “rocks” she had to take an eight-hour flight to the Ross Ice Shelf and McMurdo Station…oh wait, the first attempt had to turn around after only getting half way there due to weather. She would have to try again. Once at McMurdo Station she had to learn how to ride a snowmobile and how to get out of a crevasse. Oh yea, then there was the all-important process of "identifying a crevasse." Don’t want to fall into one of those. After making sure one was well protected from the elements it was time to start collecting samples. Now identifying a black meteor may seem easy on a white ice field, but remember there are also rocks out there. You don’t want to stop what everybody is doing and call them over to see this wonderful sample of a common rock. Dr. Kress explained the tell tail signs of meteorites and how to identify them by the fusion crust. The only problem is that some samples didn’t have any fusion crust. She said spotting the meteorites became pretty easy after a while. I guess she is right, because by the end, when she was showing images of rock fields, many of those listening to her presentation could spot the one or two meteorites in the picture. After returning home Dr. Kress informed me that on July 20, 2004 NASA announced that a 1.6lb sample that ANSMET found, officially designated MIL 03346, was actually a Martian Meteorite called nakhlite. This is the first Martian sample found in Antarctica in nine years. You can read the press release and see the first picture of this meteorite at the Office of Legislative and Public Affairs web site.

Next up was Jonathan Fay returning to continue his presentation on home observatories. His second talk entitled Automating Your Observing covered how one goes about setting up observing sessions with software. He presented various software packages, what they can accomplish, and how you can interface them to your telescope. Jonathan also included methods of setting up unattended observing sessions, where you enter into the software a list of priorities and criteria for your imaging, and then you can leave on vacation and let the computer control the observatory and imaging process. No more wasted imaging of deep sky objects during a full moon.

Concluding the 2004 Table Mountain Star Party Speaker Presentations was Gary Seronik of Sky & Telescope Magazine. He enlightened us all with his talk entitled "Little Victories: Optimizing a Newtonian Reflector for Deep-Sky and Planetary Observing". After starting off by describing NEWT software by Dale Keller that can assist with Newtonian design parameters, Gary explained some of the ways one can improve his or her telescope. The first item covered was focal length and how a longer length makes it easier to fix optics when grinding your own mirror. The second point was to start with a high quality mirror. Third, he explained to keep the secondary as small as possible to minimize obstruction. Next was to baffle the tube preventing stray light from reaching the mirror. Gary also explained that by keeping the tripod legs as short as possible the telescope would be more stable. The sixth point that was raised was to use curved and thin vanes for the secondary mirror spider. This will again reduce the obstruction on the primary mirror. Finally the topic of the thermal boundary layer around the primary mirror was addressed. By installing small fans that blow the air around the mirror you can achieve a quicker cool down time and it will also keep the mirror closer to the ambient air temperature. To conclude, Gary reminded any one considering making their own Newtonian that they are better off if they make the telescope they want. Basically what he means is, if you have a specific need, i.e. planetary viewing, deep-sky viewing, or a portable telescope for travel, you will be happier if you build one that achieves your goals.

So now another year’s Star Party is over and it's time to take what we purchased and learned and put it to use. I hope everyone had a great time and I already look forward to seeing you all again next year.

Thank you for all your support.

Russ Vodder

Speaker Program Chairman