ASTRONOMY/SPACE ALERT FOR SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA Brian Webb Ventura County, California E-mail: kd6nrp@earthlink.net Web Site: http://home.earthlink.net/~kd6nrp Reaching more than 2,100 e-mail addresses worldwide 2003 July 16 (Wednesday) 20:24 PDT ---------------------------------------------------------------------- MARS ROVER SEEN After several delays, a Delta II rocket carrying NASA's MER-B (Opportunity) Mars rover was successfully launched on the evening of Monday, July 7th from Florida's Kennedy Space Center. Liftoff occurred at 20:18 PDT. Several minutes later the rocket entered a temporary parking orbit. At 21:34 PDT, the rocket's third stage fired, sending the rover on its way to the Red Planet. Using some research and a small telescope, reader Randy John saw Opportunity as it sped away from Earth enroute to Mars. A couple of days before launch, he logged on to JPL's Horizons web site and had it predict MER-B's position, in one minute intervals, relative to his home in Pleasant Hill, California. About an hour after launch, Randy went outside to his 4-inch refracting telescope. At first he tried to spot the spacecraft using the smaller finder scope, but didn't have any luck. Randy noticed JPL's web site predicted the rover would appear to pass close to the bright star Altair at 21:54 PDT. Using a low power (26 mm) eyepiece to obtain a wide field of view, he pointed his telescope towards Altair and waited. According to his account, "Sure enough a very slowly moving star appeared. It was faint (about mag 10 or 11) but easy. I was able to follow it for about 5 minutes until my house got in the way." Randy was able to see the spacecraft because his location was in darkness but the spacecraft was illuminated by the Sun. A noteworthy feat when you consider MER-B's rather small size and the fact it was more than 7,000 km from Earth. Congratulations Randy and thanks for the details of your observation. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- VANDENBERG AFB LAUNCH SCHEDULE As of 2003 July 14 This schedule is a composite of unclassified information approved for public release public from government, industry, and other sources. It is essentially accurate at the time of publication, but may disagree with other launch schedules (including the official Vandenberg AFB schedule). This listing does not provide sensitive or potentially sensitive information on military launches. Launch Time/Window Date (PST/PDT) Vehicle Pad/Silo -------- ----------- ------------- -------- AUG Unannounced Minuteman III LF-26 ICBM test launch (non-orbital). Payload is at least one unarmed warhead. Impact area is in the Reagan Test Site at Kwajalein the central Pacific. GT-183GB AUG 12 19:06-20:02 Pegasus XL Offshore Payload is the Canadian Space Agency's SciSat 1 ozone monitoring satellite. Pegasus will be air-launched from an L-1011 staged from Vandenberg AFB SEP Unannounced Minuteman III LF-10 ICBM test launch (non-orbital). Payload is at least one unarmed warhead. Impact area is in the Reagan Test Site at Kwajalein in the central Pacific. GT-181GM SEP 14 09:17-09:27 Titan II SLC-4W Payload is a DMSP military weather satellite NOV-DEC Unannounced Atlas II SLC-3E Payload is a classified National Reconnaissance Office satellite(s). NOV 13 08:44 Delta II SLC-2W Payload is NASA's Gravity Probe B scientific satellite ---------------------------------------------------------------------- ASTEROID OCCULTATION TOMORROW Tomorrow night the asteroid Varsavia will occult (pass in front of) the star SAO 1000819. The following is an edited version of a Sky & Telescope AstroAlert for Occultations issued by David Dunham: "We need YOUR help to cover the path for the occultation of 6.4-mag. SAO 100819 (= HIP 68516) by (1263) Varsavia late Thursday evening, July 17. The star is less than 4 deg. from Arcturus and bright enough to observe with good binoculars, although a small telescope is recommended. This is the brightest star that will be occulted by a sizeable asteroid in the U.S.A. and southern Canada this year. Please let me know if you will try to observe the occultation, to help with locating our mobile stations to avoid your line across the asteroid and get the best coverage for determining the size and shape of Varsavia. It would help if mobile observers could suggest locations from which they might observe, including approximate long. and lat., if possible; if I find that they are already very close to someone else's line, I'll suggest a change. The occultation will take place shortly after 11 pm PDT July 17 (6h UT July 18 UT date). Key cities crossed by the almost north-south path are Vancouver and Victoria, British Columbia (just before 11:03 pm); Seattle, Washington at the eastern edge (11:03 pm); Portland, Oregon; and Fresno, Bakersfield, Lancaster, and Los Angeles, California (11:04 pm). Observers especially in those areas are encouraged to make a special effort to observe the occultation, and to get others in their astronomy clubs to observe it from as many separate locations as possible. Observers are also encouraged to attempt observations from cities within the "1-sigma" uncertainty zones where an occultation is very possible, considering the errors involved; in this zone are Salem and Eugene, Oregon; Sacramento, Stockton, and Modesto, Calif. on the west side, and Reno, Nevada and Riverside and San Diego, Calif. on the east side. Detailed path maps are on Steve Preston's Web site at http://www.asteroidoccultation.com ; the most detailed maps enclose the nominal updated path with black lines and the wider 1-sigma uncertainty zone with red lines. The path is 80 km wide and the 1-sigma uncertainty is 62 km (0.77 path-width). ...The Accuweather forecast is encouraging for most locations, only scattered cirrus from Seattle all the way to Pasadena, Calif., but more cloudiness is possible from "monsoon" weather from the southeast in the western Mojave Desert and possibly the San Gabriel and southern Sierra Nevada Mountains, and marine clouds are likely to affect the southern part of the Los Angeles area and San Diego by 11 pm. The star is at J2000 RA 14h 01m 36.8s, Dec. +17 deg. 40' 06", about 3.5 deg. west-southwest of Arcturus and just under 2 deg. east- southeast from the 3rd-mag. star eta Bootis (Muphrid). The chart by Edwin Goffin, annotated by David Werner, in the 2003 North American Asteroidal Occultation supplement to Occultation Newsletter, also available in the "planetary chart" column in the table of 3rd-quarter asteroidal occultations on the asteroidal occultation page of the main IOTA Web site at http://www.lunar-occultations.com/iota is good for locating the star. A central occultation is expected to last just under 3 seconds. Varsavia, which is the Latin word for Warsaw, is only 16th mag. so most observers will not see it...." ---------------------------------------------------------------------- TELESCOPE CLINIC THIS FRIDAY The Ventura County Astronomical Society will hold its monthly meeting at Vista Fundamental School, 2175 Wisteria, Simi Valley at 7:30 pm. This moth's meeting will be a telescope user's clinic, providing basic observing information and one-on-one hands on help for new scope owners. VCAS club member will be available to answer questions about collimation, telescope building, filters, optics and more. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- TELL A FRIEND Do you know a space enthusiast or skywatcher who doesn't already receive this newsletter? Please take the time to forward him or her this issue. Be sure to point out the link at the bottom for subscribing. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- SYMBOLS, ACRONYMS, AND ABBREVIATIONS ' Minutes " Seconds Dec. Declination. The celestial equivalent of latitude. Used to locate objects in the sky deg. Degrees DMSP Defense Meteorological Satellite Program h Hours km kilometers m Minutes mag Magnitude. A measure of brightness MER-B Mars Exploration Rover B mm Millimeter PDT Pacific Daylight Time PST Pacific Standard Time RA Right ascension. The celestial equivalent of longitude. Used to locate objects in the sky s Seconds UT Coordinated Universal Time (also referred to as "Zulu")