Arrowhead Astronomical Society
Arrowhead Astronomical Society
Letters & Emails received:
Observing with Teachers at Korrki:
Eric, (Eric Norland, AAS)
I've just returned from tonight's observing and I have to tell you that it was successful far beyond my wildest dreams.
It began with your willingness to work with us from the start, making sure you kept open the lines of communication so that we could be sure to observe with you. Then we showed up at the viewing site and saw those amazing telescopes. My college didn't have telescopes that good!
Your presentation was just fantastic. You are a born orator and a gifted speaker as well as an amazing astronomer. You educated while entertaining, and did it so naturally that it made the teacher inside of me a bit jealous! From the history of the viewing site to the story involving the deer and the apple tree to using a star chart, I was impressed with your breadth of knowledge and your ability to convey that knowledge to us.
I am not sure when I'll be returning to this area, but I will be sure to look you up when I do. And if you're ever in the Washington DC area, feel free to give me a call. Hopefully by the time you visit our capital, I'll be able to return the favor with an observation from the east coast!
Thanks again for everything. Please extend thanks to Mike as well, both for the help with the observations and for the jacket!
Eric
Teacher's request for observing:
Dear Michael,
We would be very interested in your special observing site- hopefully it will be clear one of the 3 nights we're in the area. Our dates are: Tues and Wed July 17 and 18, (then we head up to Silver Bay for 2 days), and again back to Duluth/Superior on Sat the 21st. There will be 11 of us, all adults. Our hotel on July 17 and 18 will be the Best Western Downtown Inn, and then on the 21st we're staying at the Holiday Inn Express Suites in Superior. The trip leader is actually John Rodgers, so I believe that the rooms will be in his name.
Hope to see you next week. I'm heading out to Mpls today, but will find a place to check my email in the cities.
Thanks,
Lyn Samp
P.S. Have you seen any aurora lately?
----- Original Message -----
From: MichaelSangster <>
To: Lyn Samp <
Cc:
Date: Tuesday, July 10 2007 09:51 AM
Subject: Re: Mid July astronomy observing
Lyn,
Hi!
My name is Michael Sangster and I am a member of the Duluth Arrowhead Astronomical Society (AAS), and also the web master for our site.
If you are interested, our club has a private observing site (relatively dark sky) that you and your students could observe at with club members. We have a variety of telescopes, from a 17" dob to APO refractors. Will you have transportation? How many would attend?
Let me know, and we can work something out...
- Michael Sangster
On Jul 7, 2007, at 6:54 AM, Lyn Samp wrote:
To whom it may concern,
I will be visiting in the Duluth area with a group of graduate students from July 17-21 for a Lake Superior region field trip. Could you please tell me 1) where might be a good observing location in your area and 2) will there be any special astronomical events or objects visible during that time other than the Venus-Saturn-Regulus grouping? A couple of will have binoculars, but that's about it.
Thanks,
Lyn Samp
Westwood, Massachusetts
Strange Letter (Warning: Not to be taken seriously) June 6th, 2007
Could Important Theories in Astronomy be Wrong?
Bahram Katirai has written a scientific book that could revolutionize our
understanding of stellar objects such as binaries, star clusters, novas
and galaxies. Katirai claims that most of the current theories in
astronomy are based on faulty assumptions and speculations that were made
centuries ago.
A series of recent studies, produced by cutting edge technology such as
Hipparcos and others, actually contradict the theories. These theories, in
turn, have created numerous unanswered problems such as why the direction
of the motion, velocity and types of star near the sun do not conform to
the current ideas about the Milky Way. Katirai pinpoints the root problems
by examining how astronomers determine the distances of stars.
First of all, Katirai shows that the ability of a telescope to see distant
stars has been greatly exaggerated. Contrary to the general belief that a
large telescope enables us to see stars millions of times farther than the
naked eye can see, a large telescope such as the Hubble that collects
127,000 times more light than the naked eye, enables us to see only 357
times farther than the naked eye.
Astronomers try to find the distance of a star by measuring its relative
parallax against a small and faint background star, supposedly so far away
that its absolute parallax is negligible. Katirai presents strong evidence
that there is a fundamental problem with the relative parallax and that
all small and faint objects in the Milky Way, thought to be very distant
stars, are actually nearby objects. For this reason the measurement of the
relative parallax could give a wrong idea about the distances of the
stellar objects in the Milky Way.
Calculation shows that an object 12 times farther than Pluto will have an
absolute parallax as small as 7 arc-minutes and that its relative parallax
could be hundreds or even thousands of times smaller. For this reason, the
measurement of the relative parallax has given faulty distances for many
objects in the Milky Way. This, in turn, has led to wrong ideas regarding
the size, luminosity and nature of many objects such as binaries, star
clusters, novas and galaxies such as the Milky Way.
For example, the wrong distances have led some to believe that many
objects, such as Betelgeuse, are hundreds of millions of times larger than
the sun, but have masses 20 – 60 times the sun. This means that these
objects have densities so low, that most of their volumes are made of
almost a vacuum. In other cases, many objects are thought to have
densities millions of times that of the sun. Again, in many other cases,
despite the fact that many object in the Milky Way, that through a
telescope show up with large disks and despite the fact that these objects
give much less heat than Uranus, yet, all these objects are thought to be
hot stars rather than cool planets. Moreover, two objects in a binary with
a short period of orbit such as several hours or a few days and thought to
be a large star orbiting another star, is actually a satellite orbiting a
planet. He points out that star clusters are not conglomerates of many
burnt out stars located thousands of light years away, but rather,
conglomerates of many planetoids located a few light hours or days away.
Novas are not exploding stars, but planets that suddenly show up as they
get into positions that reflect the light of their stars in our direction.
Katirai provides evidence indicating that the large number of luminous
points in the Milky Way, thought to be stars, are actually planets or
asteroids reflecting the light of the sun. Katirai presents evidence such
as colors, spectra, luminosity, infrared radiation (heat), ultraviolet
light, proper motions, the Doppler effects, and the telescopic
magnifications, the direction of motion, the velocity and distance of
objects in relation to the sun, and many others, to show that these
objects are planets orbiting the sun.
Galaxies are not systems made up of billions of stars, but rather
planetary systems with only one star at their center. The Milky Way is
also a planetary system with its center being the sun. Although dozens of
studies in the 19th and early 20th century have consistently indicated
that the sun is located at the center of the Milky Way, it appears that no
one has suspected the sun to be the center of the Milky Way, with all
objects in the Milky Way reflecting the light of the sun.
Astronomers not being able to find a bright center for the Milky Way had
no choice but to accept H. Shapley’s idea that the center of the Milky
Way, somehow, must be completely hidden behind clouds of dust and gas,
located tens of thousands of light years from the sun. Katirai
investigates all these claims and shows why Shapely’s ideas could not be
correct. He provides evidence why the sun is positioned at the center of
the Milky Way. He further provides evidence to show that the sun is the
center of the Milky Way.
It is believed that when a star erupts and gives off clouds of dust and
minerals, into its surrounding space, it is dying. However, Katirai has
evidence that the star is not dying, but rather, it is creating planets. A
spinning star causes its planets, asteroids, clouds of dust and minerals
to circle the star.
He questions the correctness of the densities that previous physicists
have calculated for all the objects in the solar system such as the sun,
the moon, all the planets and their satellites, and why all these
densities are lower than that of the Earth. In doing so, he pinpoints why
all the calculations could be wrong.
Katirai believes that his simple solution attempts to solve the current
problems in astronomy, without the need for mythical and unproven ideas
such as collapsed stars, black holes, or neutron stars that the
theoreticians have suggested.
Finally, he shows why the idea of the expansion of the universe is faulty,
and why the causes of the red shift of the distant galaxies are due to
their distances rather than their hypothetical accelerations.
Sigh, do people really believe this stuff???
Telescopes.com: April 4th, 2007
Dear AAS,
My name is Jason Mulek and many of you I have met out observing. I work for Telescopes.com and have re-located to Omaha NE.
I have enjoyed communicating with all of you, and I have been known to offer deals to support our local enthusiasts.
I would like to continue to offer to all of you my services directly at Telescopes.com. My email address is jmulek@telescopes.com and if there is anything I can do to help, please let me know.
Thank you all very much!
Jason Mulek
Telescopes.com
Dear Arrowhead Astronomical Society,
My name is Duane Deal and I belong to the Rochester Astronomy Club (RAC) in Rochester, MN.
Our club has had members attend various events in the Midwest
(Astrofest, NCRAL, Sola Fide, etc…). I have begun to wonder what
great things we might be missing.
I would be happy to travel and attend other astronomical societies.
Hopefully even bring back something to make our group better.
We’ve had some great speakers at our monthly RAC meeting. We have
a great dark sky meeting every month (weather permitting). It is my
belief that if a member from another club had an interest in a
particular event, they might make a trip to Rochester to attend it. The
problem is, they would never know about it.
What is needed is a communication tool where people from clubs in the
region can post their schedules, speakers, events and other
information. Then we can share knowledge and bring amateur astronomers
in this locale of the country together.
There already is such a tool. It’s Yahoo Groups. With Yahoo
Groups I have built a MacAstronomers group. Astronomers who use
Macintosh are not exactly common. None-the-less, we are now 75 strong
and able to glean information from each other regarding astronomy and
astro-photography.
If you are familiar with Yahoo Groups, then you already know about its
tools. If you’re not familiar with it, then I’d like to
tell you about the user list where people can communicate with each
other, the calendar where people can add their events, a database where
you can add information, files where useful items can be placed and a
photos area where people can post pictures of their events or
astrophotography.
I have just created a group called Midwest Amateur Astronomy (MAA) and
posted all the groups websites and locations. Now it’s time to
invite all the groups and get them to post information about their
clubs. That is why I am writing you.
Join and share information about your club. See what the other groups
have to offer. Mention it to your members and glean information for
your own meetings.
If you are unfamiliar with Yahoo Groups (or like many of our RAC
members, not very familiar with computers), feel free to write me for
help. If you have questions about Yahoo groups, feel free to ask me and
I’ll do my best to answer you.
If you still don’t want to join but want to benefit from the
group, feel free to just e-mail me information and I will do my best to
add it. However, there are 49 groups in the Midwest and it is unlikely
I would be able to keep up with all of them.
I used the weather services definition of Midwest, which includes
Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, North Dakota, Nebraska, South Dakota and
Wisconsin. Seven states, 49 astronomy clubs and a lot of astronomers.
Go to this URL and try out the MAA group:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/maastro/
Thank you for your time and I hope you find this beneficial to your organization.
Duane Deal
Dear Michael,
I was surfing the net to try to find out how to align my EM10 mount.
When doing so, I came across your writing about the Korrki Star Party
in April. Interesting story. It looks like you guys have a pretty good
club with AAS.
Also interesting to hear you say that you didn't know how to align it for computer use.
I, too, have the Tak EM-10 mount to go with my FSQ106. I, too, have not
figured out how to align it. Have you since figured out how to align
it??
If you know of any web site that tells how to align the EM10, could you forward it my way??
Clear skies.
Larry Pudwill
Greetings!
I'm interested in visiting Duluth from time to time and wanted to know what
your fall winter schedule for Star Parties will be. I visited the web site
but the latest update seemed to be the end of March '05. Is there a new
schedule available that could be sent to me? Will your web site be updated
soon? I have my own telescope (Celestron - NexStar 4GT) and I would like
to visit from time to time and join in on one of your star parties.
When you reply, please send your response to both e-mail address below. I
would really appreciate it. Thanks,
Al (Allason) N. Owens