January 26, 2012, 7:30PM: 2012 Inaugural Urban Observing Star Party
Please join your fellow HAS members for our first Urban Star Party of 2012! We're meeting at Bear Creek Park; directions below, follow this link for a Google Map.
Directions: Turn south off of Clay Road, into the park onto Bear Creek Drive. This is at the northeast corner of the golf course, so you will have park on the left and golf course on the right. The very first left is North Schulz Lane and the next left is South Schulz lane. Turn left on South Schulz Lane, which immediately has parking on both sides.
We will set up on the picnic area on the south side, just north of the bathrooms, which are close to the big pavilion number 6.
In the event of cancellation due to weather, a notice will be sent via the HAS netslyder email system and the STARLINE (832-464-4270) will be updated at 6:00PM advising of the events status, either canceled or that it will still be held.
Object: M44—The Beehive
Forty light years from Earth, a rocky world named “55 Cancri e” circles perilously close to a stellar inferno. Completing one orbit in only 18 hours, the alien planet is 26 times closer to its parent star than Mercury is to the Sun. If Earth were in the same position, the soil beneath our feet would heat up to about 3200 F. Researchers have long thought that 55 Cancri e must be a wasteland of parched rock.
These two clusters are a magnificent site in binoculars or a wide-field telescope. The picture to the right is from TheSky X software, and the light blue circle is one degree on the sky. So, you need optics that will provide a visual field of at least one degree to get both clusters in the field.
I first met Chris Westall two years ago at the dedication of the Blinn College Schaefer Observatory” and star party in Schulenburg, Texas. I had recently restored the college’s ‘70s-era Celestron C-14 Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope. While operating the refurbished SCT that evening under the dome, I was introduced to Chris.