The Family Tree

Volume 17, Number 10, January, 2012

A Publication of the SunTree Travel Club
SunTree Travel Club is an affiliate of The American Association for Nude Recreation
(AANR), AANR-West, the International Naturist Federation
and The Naturist Society

Thought for the Month
No matter how much you push the envelope, it'll still be stationery

The SunTree Traveler

What Happened in December

Between the holidays in Las Cruces

Sandy and Larry have invited the SunTree folks to a “between the holidays” event at their home in Las Cruces. They had installed a brand new hot tub spa in their back yard welcoming the SunTree Olympic soaking team. That is a wonderful hot tub and was plenty big for most of the event attendees to use it as a conversation pool, though not quite as large as the one at Mira Vista RESORT that we are all used to.

We had our usual gift exchange as well as an overly large menu for our potluck meal.

The participants as well as the club in general want to thank Larry and Sandy for hosting this event in their beautiful home.

What’s Happening in 2012?

First of all, I want to comment that even though the phone number, the website URL and the e-mail address for SunTree Travel Club was provided to the new owners of Faywood Hot Springs following their announcement that “We expect to open around Christmas”, no word has arrived as yet. I assume that the startup of the facility is a bit more complicated than they anticipated. Of there is more information provided, it will be passed along to the SunTree newsletter recipients as well as posted on this website.

At the  button, you can see that there has been an update for our “guess” for what will be happening throughout the new year. I have included some (but not yet all) of the national events. If you have any comments or suggestions for these or additional events, do not hesitate to click on the  button and send your thoughts. Remember that this club is here for the members and friends. Participation in the planning process is just as important as participating in the club events.

Celestial News for January

Another Meteor Shower in January and Two Brilliant Planets to Watch

I have an apology to present to the readers this month. This is not really an earned mistake because even the most brilliant of the meteor experts have a difficult time in predicting the antics of those pesky “falling stars”. Last month, I probably discouraged meteor watchers from making the effort to see the Geminid shower on the morning of 14 December because of the bright full Moon. I was so wrong. Apparently, in spite of the full moon, this Geminid shower was one of the best ones in recent memory. It consisted of bright “skipping” meteorites and some “exploding” ones as well. I missed it too (upon occasion, I actually read my own newsletter and this time, I actually believed myself).

Venus welcomes in the New Year by being high in the western sky around 45 minutes after sunset gleaming at magnitude -4.0. By the end of the month, she will be brightening to magnitude – 4.1

Jupiter is still bright at the start of the new year at magnitude -2.6 and higher in the southeastern sky around nightfall. During the month, Jupiter will fade a little bit, but not really noticeable. During this and next month, Jupiter will start creeping up on the lovely Venus until they have a scheduled meeting in March.

2 Evening: Jupiter is below and to the left of the moon tonight.

3 Night: If you drag out your telescope tonight, you will be able to see that Europa and Ganymede cast their shadow on Jupiter simultaneously from 9:27 to 10: 57 MST. If you do not know who they are, they are two of Jupiter’s moons. Those giant gas bags are able to talk their way into getting more than one moon, unlike poor little Earth. That is why we keep sending up artificial moons.

4 Pre-dawn: There will be a brief, but intense Quadrantid meteor shower strongest between moonset and the first glimmering of dawn. I will not attempt to discourage your watching of this one. It looks like it might be sort of nice.

4 Earth passes through perihelion, the closest point to the Sun for the year (we will be 1 part in 30 closer to the Sun than we are at aphelion in July).If you want to go outside to watch this event, you might have a difficult time since most of the readers of this articles reside on the Earth. You might not even notice it, but it sure explains why it is so much hotter on Earth this time of the year than in July when we are so much farther from the Sun.

19 Dawn: the star Antares will be just barely to the lower right of the crescent Moon

25 - 26 Dusk: Venus will be hanging close to the crescent Moon on both of these nights, She will be blazingly bright, but I think that you may be able to distinguish her from the Moon (after all it will be a crescent Moon).

29 – 30 Evening: That bright object above and just to the right of Jupiter on these two nights is called “The Moon”.

© 2004 SunTree Travel Club - Site updated Spring 2012