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Árbol del Sol
Thought for the Month The SunTree Traveler A Note of apology: This update to this website is being posted late this month. Apologies are offered for any inconvenience that it may cause to readers. I could call upon the activities required by my position as activities officer for the Southern New Mexico Congress for Progressive Procrastination for delaying this posting (and it may have some validity), but I did not want to start on this entry until after the Halloween Club Event in order to get more complete information into this edition. You will note, that through this issue, I will have included additional excuses for other failures. I hope that will add to your enjoyment.
That Halloween Event at Elephant Butte The memory of this event which will remain with me for a long time will be several other breaks with tradition. It was the last weekend in October and the SunTree gang, along with some visitors (from Albuquerque and Organ) were sitting on the patio in those traditional SunTree uniforms (nothing or next to nothing at all) with no frost on us at all. We were enjoying the weather, the companionship, the Comet Holms in the sky and the third game of the World Series. All of those were breaks with tradition. One of the traditions that did not get changed was the volume and quality of the food available. I know that it gets old to read about the food at our events, but I do have to add that since it always is good and it seems that after everybody had eaten enough to feed a third-world nation, there seems to be just as much left over as we started with. I will not comment here about the World Series (I just did, didn’t I?). What happened to Comet Holmes that was promised by that inept editor of the newsletter? Well, I will put an explanation into the celestial news portion of this newsletter, but I had been all excited by some friends who had told me that the comet was seen during a night of almost full moon the previous Thursday and it was exceedingly bright. I am sure that I picked it out in the sky during our event, but it did not look any more bright than any of the stars in the sky. Once again, the SunTree members were conned by that newsletter editor into expecting something spectacular, only to be disappointed. Read my excuse later in this document. In spite of all of the disappointments of the weekend, I am told that all had a good time at this event and we are all looking forward to our Christmas event at the same location in November (What’s this? Another con cob? Read further)
The Annual Christmas Event (in November) (Note: we have not cancelled the pre-Thanksgiving event. We are planning to have a pre-Thanksgiving event in December, probably on the weekend of 8 December. Stay tuned! We now return you to the announcement concerning the Christmas – in – November event.) Bring along the usual tonnage of food because this will, once again be a potluck event. Since this is our Christmas event, this is the one where all participants are expected to bring a gift for a gift exchange. The gift should not cost more than $10.00. The giver must select the gift to be appropriate for another person of their own sex. In other words boys give gifts to boys, girls give gifts to girls (I must protest that those are not the words of your editor. They are the words of the hosts of this event. Maybe I would have said ‘Men give Manly gifts and Women give Girly gifts’ but I probably would have gotten in trouble for that too. Put no names on the gift, but indicate in some way whether the gift should be to a male or female victim (sorry, I mean recipient) Be sure to call to indicate that you will be participating in this event, what you plan to bring for the potluck and if you plan to stay overnight. It will be on Saturday and Sunday, with an evening potluck on Saturday and a breakfast potluck on Sunday morning.
The Comet Holmes in the Sky Full Story Here is my explanation about the non-celestial event during our Halloween happening at Elephant Butte. The headlines in Friday’s (26 October) papers said, “Amateur astronomers the world over have been stunned and amazed by the weirdest new object to appear in the sky in memory. And it's one of the easiest to see, too.” Why couldn’t the SunTree bare-observers see this spectacular comet? This is what the Astro Letter said (a journal for professional astronomers). “Explanation: What's happened to Comet Holmes? A normally docile comet discovered over 100 years ago, Comet 17 P/Holmes suddenly became nearly one million times brighter last week, possibly over just a few hours. In astronomical terms, the comet brightened from magnitude17, only visible through a good telescope, to magnitude 3, becoming visible with the unaided eye. Comet Holmes had already passed its closest to the Sun in 2007 May outside the orbit of Mars and was heading back out near Jupiter's orbit when the outburst occurred. The comet's sudden brightening is likely due to some sort of sunlight-reflecting outgassing event, possibly related to ice melting over a gas-filled cavern, or possibly even a partial breakup of the comet's nucleus. This picture, through a small telescope last Thursday, Comet Holmes appeared as a fuzzy yellow spot, significantly larger in angular size than Earth-atmosphere blurred distant stars. Although Comet Holmes' orbit will place it northern hemisphere skies for the next two years, whether it will best be viewed through a telescope or sunglasses remains unknown. “ Now that I have gotten that out, here is some things that may or may not happen in November: Evening: What's wrong with these planets? They have abandoned the evening sky. This month, for the first time since last January, there are no planets in the evening sky for the naked eye observer. Everybody has moved over to the early morning sky. Morning: Mercury puts on a spectacular showing every morning during the first 24 days of November. It's bright in the predawn east (Of course, it will be ignored because of its sister planet, Venus putting on a dazzling performance higher in the sky. The crescent Moon has a close encounter with Venus on 5 November. It then drops down below Mecury on 8 November just 40 minutes before sunrise to aid you in finding that cute little planet. With its orbit temporarily more oval than usual, the Moon will be at its farthest distance of the year (about 252,705 miles) on 9 November. A week later, Saturn will enter stage-East when he rises by 1 AM. The big story is Mars, now turning up the brighness scale rapidly and rising by 8:30 PM at midmonth. The evening sky finds Jupiter sinking; it's conspicuous early in the month but very low by Thanksgiving.
© 2004 SunTree Travel Club - Site updated Summer 2008 |
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What Happened in October?