An Astronomy Conference Report:

By Ted N.
Copyright 2000, Astronomical Society of Harrisburg. May not be reused or posted elsewhere without permission.

On Saturday, April 29, 2000 fellow ASH member Dave Mitsky and I traveled to Masters Hall at Gettysburg College for the "20th Annual Central Pennsylvania Consortium Astronomers’ Meeting." The purpose of this yearly meeting is to provide a place for local college professors and students to present research they have completed during the year, to a variety of people interested in astronomy. The meeting is aimed primarily at professional astronomers but does include presentations by amateurs as well.

Dave and I arrived about an hour into the meeting, and arrived in the middle of Dr. Carlson Chambliss’ (of Kutztown University) talk on "Extrasolar Planets - Some Basic Considerations." Dr. Chambliss’ talk detailed efforts to search for planets outside of our own solar system. Current efforts right now are mainly based on Jupiter-sized planets orbiting extra-solar stars since earth-sized planets are too small to detect. The process of finding an extra-solar planet was discussed, we were informed that changes in a stars brightness can indicate a planet eclipsing an extra-solar star. A long list of stars thought to have planets was chronicled.

We then took a break and returned for the keynote address by Dr. Christine Jones of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Her talk was entitled "The Universe According to Chandra." Dr. Jones, herself is involved with studying the data received from the Chandra X-Ray Observatory that was launched into space about a year ago. The talk was very informative, and went into supernovae, and Chandra’s trouble getting into space. If you recall, a hydrogen leak caused by a loose bolt occurred during the shuttle launch and the shuttle did not achieve the proper orbit. Nevertheless, Chandra’s booster engines were able to get it to the expected orbit.

Lunch was then enjoyed by attendees, and we arrived back for an afternoon of talks. The first talk was given by Elizabeth Praton (of Franklin and Marshall College) and titled "The Identification of a Possible Redshift Artifact in the Ursa Major Region through the use of the Tully-Fisher Relation." This talk explained research to identify a Redshift Artifact ("thumb of god") in the Ursa Major Region using the Tully Fisher Relation.. The Tully Fisher relation is a method that relies on the fact that there is a relationship between the rate at which a spiral galaxy spins and its intrinsic luminosity.

Following her talk, a talk prepared by Dr. Wulff Heintz (of Swarthmore), and Harry Augensen, Vincent Bonina, Kelly Sweeney, and Martin Schultz (of Widener University) titled "Confirmed Variability in Several Variable Suspects Based on Observations Made at Jeff Sproul Observatory and NURO," was given. The subject of this talk was variable star research. Several stars could be cataloged as variables, and may not be variables. The talk was given by Harry Augensen. On a side note, Dr. Heintz, was a speaker at ASH a few years ago, and was very active in discovering binary stars, with over 900 to his credit, before retiring.

Harry Augensen, then gave another talk prepared by, himself, Stephen Madigosky (of Widener), Wulff Heintz (of Swarthmore) titled "Misconceptions in the Astronomy Classroom: Can They Be Overcome in One Semester?." This talk detailed the common misconceptions about astronomy that students and the general public believe to be true. Solutions to correct these misconceptions were given. An example of a misconception given was that winter is caused by the earth being farther from the sun.

Next, Elizabeth Praton (of Franklin and Marshall) gave a talk titled "No More Tears: Teaching Atomic Spectra the Active-Learning Way." This talk detailed the way she taught her students the atomic spectra, a way which she felt made it easier to learn.

Following her talk Fred West (of Hanover, PA) gave a talk titled "More About Callisto's Recently Detected Tenuous Carbon Dioxide Atmosphere." This talk was very in depth, and explained how sublimation could have possibly created or helped to create a semi-atmosphere on Callisto.

The last talk of the day was given by Glenn Snyder (of Gettysburg College) this talk was titled "Project CLEA:The Search For Object-X." The talk explained Gettysburg Colleges CLEA Program, (http://www.gettysburg.edu/academics/physics/clea/CLEAhome.html) and development of laboratory software for astronomy students.. CLEA stands for Contemporary Laboratory Experiences in Astronomy.

Following the talk a demonstration of spectroscope made by students and staff at Bucknell University was given. A tour was then given of Gettysburg College’s observatory. The observatory has a 16" classical Cassegrain telescope with a full CCD and photometer setup.

Dr. Larry Marschall (of Gettysburg College), who has spoken at ASH meetings, and is on the ASH mailing list, and organized the days events, then invited Dave and I to return that evening to do some observing. Dave and I agreed to come back later that evening to observe like the professionals do.

To pass time, Dave and I, toured the Gettysburg Battlefield. We spent quite a few hours seeing the historical sights and put a few miles on our feet. Dave and I then went to dinner, and headed back to the observatory.

The skies were partly cloudy even though the forecast called for clear skies, so when we arrived Dr. Marschall showed us some asteroid observations and the way calibration is done on the telescope. He then explained to us how everything worked in greater detail, and the objects they concentrated their observing on at the observatory. The dome was shut up, and we walked back to the parking lot with Dr. Marschall who invited the society to come out and tour and observe at the facility in the fall of this year.

Of course as luck would have it the skies later cleared, but not before we had been in Gettysburg and on the road for 13 hours.