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103a Films: 103a films can be obtained in 36-exposure, 135 cassettes for about S7 from Optica b/c Company. These films deteriorate unless refrigerated until needed, so “thaw” the film for about four hours before use. Kodak D-19 developer is recommended by Kodak for 103 emulsions. (Not all camera stores carry D-19, and if necessary you can use the more readily available D-76). MWP-2 is a “superdeveloper” formulated at Hale Observatories for 103 films. It is available from Clayton Chemical Co., 3867 S. Grandview Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90066.

103 films comes with a black annihilation backing (called a Ram-Jet backing) which prevents exposure of the light sensitive surface by light reflected from the back side of the film. This backing should dissolve in the developer, though it occasionally doesn’t. However, it can easily be removed after the fil m is half fixed: Rub the back with a cotton swab, soaked with developer, rinse in water, and finish the fixing.

Speed up your film – With water: Exposure time can be shortened by hypersensitization of the film. You can hypersentisize E and F films quite simply by washing them in cold water. A method that works well is to tape the film cassette to a wire suspended well above a table in a dark room. Then pull as much film as you to hypersentisize from the cassette. A deep glass of cold (about 40 degrees Fahrenheit), dilute Kodak Photoflo solution should be brought up under the film, and the film immersed for about two minutes. Be sure the water is cold – warmer water could dissolve the emulsion off the film. After removing the film from the glass, weight it with a clothespin so it hangs down without curling. Cold air from a hairdryer blown over both sides of the film for about 20 minutes will thoroughly dry it. You can touch the edges and back of the film to see if they are dry, as well as part of the emulsion near the clothespin. Then, wind the film back into the cassette. Suspending the film seems to be the best way of preventing fingerprints on the emulsion.

Hypersensitization will wear off in a few days – unless you want to place the film in the freezer, where it should last for up to five weeks – so hypersensitize only as much film as you’ll need for each night’s photography.

A Pink Planet. Illustration: Elena

Edmund Scientific Co:All Tel escopes in Shop

Ready for immediate shipment.

Shop Astronomical HQ. USA by Mail… And Save

Edmund gives you the largest selection, guarantees every item, all in stock for speedy delivery.

The famous Edmund catalog, offered free, details a huge display of telescopes, from 3” reflectors to 8” Cassegrains. You’ll also find a tremendous variety of eyepieces, lenses, finders, drives, mounts; morror grinding and polishing kits, parts, accessories – everything needed to build or equip your own scope. It contains 4500 unusual Science, Optical, Hobby values!

Photo: Elena

A. 4 1/4 “ Astronomical Telescope

Features fine f/10 mirror (verified better than 1/10 wave with a scatter plate interferometer) which insures performance to theoretical limit of resolution. Equatorial mount; rack and pinion focusing; aluminum tube, 6X finder, 25mm F.L. 45X Kelinar achromatic eyepiece and Barlow lens to double and triple power to 135X, includes FREE Star Chart, 2 Books.

# 85,107K3 (Clock Drive) Shipping weight 45 lbs – $199.50 FOB

# 85,107K3 (w/o Clock Drive) Shipping weight 42 lbs – $159,50 FOB

B. True zoom Telescope Eye Piece

C. Low cost variable speed drive and slow motion control

D. The extra power 20×60 binocular NASA chose for Apollo

E. All about telescopes by Sam Brown

F. Color super slide sets

G. Polaroid instrument astro camera

Deep Spice. Photo by Elena

Buy your new Celestron 5 or 8 Telescope from Tuthill. Stock Deivery: Free advice to present Celestron owners: Would you like to have increased protection from dewing – make lining up on the celestial pole a snap without leveling your tripod or knowing your latitude – look at the zenith easily with a large variable power finder – adjust the tripod height for sitting or standing – increase the fine adjustment of the right-ascension knob – see the setting circles with built-in lights – have a five pound sturdy portable equatorial mount which duplicates the wedge and tripod function but which stores in the box – motorize your manual declination adjustment – increase your declination circle resolution five times – have a Velvet Touch helical eyepiece focuser – have a fitted box liner for scope and accessories – carry your valuable scope securely with a sturdy retractable handle?

Write today for our Free Catalog or unique items that will enhance your pleasure in using these beautiful world-renowned instruments. We stock all the standard CELESTRON accessories, too. We invite your inquiries for our Custom Engineered Accessories for other scopes.

All you have come to expect

Another new product from our laboratories A Stereoocular on a Celestron

An astronomical accessory which lets you view with both eyes simultaneously. There is something magical about seeing the Moon, Sun, Planets, and even stars with two eyes at the same time. If you once use this Stereoocular, you may never want to view with only one eye again!

Even though the reason is not clear, those who have used the Stereoocular claim they see a three dimensional effect. These units are of our own design and have large high quality binocular microscope instrument prisms. They give very restful heavenly views.

The Stereoocular can be used with or without glasses with interpupillary adjustment from 56-75mm. It gives a full view with 1- 1/4″ eyepieces and fits standard 1 – 1/4″ draw tubes. The Stereoocular works well with refractors or CELESTRON or Dynamax scoops. It is a valuable teaching aid as two people can view at the same time. It is essential that MATCHED eyepieces be used for best results.

Stereoocular Model #1 (use your matched eyepieces) – $244.00

Steroocular Model #2 (includes two matched 1 – 1/4″ Orthoscopic eyepieces of 6, 12.5, 18 or 25mm) State choice $279.00

Stereoocular Model #3 (includes two matched 20mm Erfle eyepieces $289.00

Money-back guarantee on all products we sell. Telephone 201-232-…

Roger W. Tuthill, Inc. Box 1086A, 11 Tanglewood Lane, Mountainside, N.J. 07092.

Personal Astrology

Personal Astrology

Personal astrology is with us still: consider two different newspaper astrology columns published in the same city on the same day. For example, we can examine the New York Post and the New York Daily News on September 21, 1979. Suppose you are a Libra – that is, born between September 23 and October 22.

According to the astrologer for the Post, “a compromise will help ease tension”; useful, perhaps, but somewhat vague. According to the Daily News’s astrologer, you must “demand more of yourself”, an admonition that is also vague but also different. These “predictions” are not “predictions”; rather they pieces of advice – they tell what to do, not what will happen. Deliberately, they are phrased so generally that they could apply to anyone. And they display major mutual inconsistences. Why are they published as unapologetically as sports statistics and stock market reports?

Source of the photo: Elena

Astrology can be tested by the lives of twins. There are many cases in which one twin is killed in childhood, in a riding accident, say, or is struck by lightning, while the other lives to a prosperous old age. Each was born in precisely the same place and within minutes of the other. Exactly the same planets were rising at their births.

If astrology were valid, how could such twins have such profoundly different fates? It also turns out that astrologers cannot even agree among themselves on what a given horoscope means. In carful tests, they are unable to predict the character of people they know nothing about except their time and place of birth.

Skepticism about astrology and related doctrines is neither new nor exclusive to the West. For example, in the Essays on Idleness, written in 1332 by Tsurezuregusa of Kenko, in Japan, we read:

The Yin-Yang teachings (in Japan) have nothing to say on the subject of the Red Tongue Days. Formerly people did not avoid these days, but of late – I wonder who is responsible for starting the custom – people have taken to saying things such as, “An enterprise begun on a Red Tongue Day will never see an end”, or, “Anything you say or do on a Red Tongue Day is bound to come to naught: you lose what you’ve won, your plans are undone.” What nonsense! If one counted the projects begun on carefully selected “lucky days” which came to nothing in the end, they would probably be quite as many as the fruitless enterprises begun on the Red Tongue days”.

We should be skeptic about popular astrology, but it is a rather amazing doctrine. Image : Animated Matte and Glossy © Elena

Three Days at Taurus-Littrow

Three Days at Taurus-Littrow

When, if all goes well, Apollo 17’s lunar module Challenger makes the final approach for a landing on the Moon, it will let down toward a dramatic landscape: a wide alley guarded by three massive, well-rounded mountains that tower as high as 7, 000 feet. “Once we are there, insists Apollo 17’s commander, Gene Cernan. “I am going to get us down”. He will have little margin for error, only a few miles downrange of Challenger’s glide path are the towering Taurus Mountains; to the north-east lies the giant crater Littrow. Much as the landing site for America’s sixth (and last) scheduled expedition to the Moon’s surface will test the astronauts‘ piloting skills, it should be even more of a scientific challenge. A combination of ancient highlands and a younger lowland valley, the Taurus-Littrow Valley site promises to provide the moon walkers with two major scientific prizes: the youngest and the oldest rocks yet found on the Moon. (Taurus-Littrow site was named for the heavenly constellation Taurus – the Bull and the 19th century Austrian astronomer-mathematician Johann von Littrow.

Boulder. Astronaut Harrison Schmitt is seen next to a large boulder in the Taurus–Littrow valley on the Apollo 17 mission in 1972. The South massif is visible to the right. The picture was taken by astronaute Cernan and is of public domain

The route to Taurus-Littrow will be unusual. Because of the relative positions of the Earth, Moon and Sun in early December, Apollo 17, following the standard trajectory of the moon, would remain in the Moon shadow for nine hours. The spacecraft would, in effect, experience a total solar eclipse, which would screen it completely from the Sun’s rays, and deprive it of essential heat. Thus to avoid damage to Apollo’s systems, the spacecraft will be sent on a trajectory that shortens its “cold soak” to an acceptable two hours. The longer route will add half a day to the total flight time (85 ½ hours). That change – along with NASA’s requirements for the proper sun angle at the Taurus-Littrow site during landing – makes it necessary to launch Apollo 17 at night. Early in the Apollo program, a night launch would have given NASA pause; in the event of an abort shortly after blast-off, the astronauts would have to be fished from the waters of the Atlantic in darkness. But NASA now has such confidence in its launch and recovery techniques that it considers a night pick up to be a relatively safe procedure.

Apollo is scheduled to swing into lunar orbit at 2:49 p.m. East Sunday, December 10. Next day, leaving Ron Evans behind in America, the command ship, Cernan and Jack Schmitt will climb aboard the lunar module Challenger, cast off two hours later, and, at 2:54 p.m. touch down on the black dust of the Taurus-Littrow Valley. Less than four hours later, Cernan will emerge from Challenger’s hatch. His descent down the lander’s ladder, and the familiar post-landing activities will not be seen on Earth. To save weight for scientific experiments and fuel for hovering mission planners eliminated both the TV connections to the side of the LM and the bulky tripod on which the camera was later mounted.

Picture transmission to Earth will begin about an hour after the first EVA (for extravehicular activity) begins, when the Houston-controlled color TV camera is finally set up on its mounting at the front end of the lunar rover.

A short time later Schmitt will probably be seen carrying off the familiar dumbbell-shaped package of scientific gear called ALSEP (for Apollo Lunar Surface Experiment Package). At a site some 300 feet west of Challenger, Geologist Schmitt, with Cernan`s help, will set up the five ALSEP experiments, giving space scientists their fifth automatic observatory on the Moon. The ALSEP experiment that the scientists are particularly eager to monitor involves two probes that measure the flow of heat from the Moon’s interior. During Apollo 16, that $1,200,000 experiment was ruined when Astronaut John Young tripped over one of the cables containing the probes to the transmitter and tipped the wire loose. To avoid the possibility of a similar accident, all of ALSEP`s external leads have been fitted with stress absorbers – folded tucks in the leads that will come undone if they are tugged too hard.

After buckling themselves into the rover the astronauts will continue their first EVA by driving southeast for about one mile to the edge of a 2,000-feet-wide crater called Emory. It is here that Schmitt hopes to recover fine grained dark material, called pyroclastics (literally, broken up by fire), which may be a sign of relatively recent volcanic eruptions. If Schmitt`s trained eye happens to spot any interesting material between scheduled stops, he will be able to pick it up without leaving his seat in the rover; at hand will be an extension pole with a device similar to a Dixie cup holder at its far end. After he scoops up a rock or dust with the topmost cup in the holder, Schmitt will remove the cup and its contents, seal the little container and stow it away.

During this EVA, the astronomers will plant the first three of the eight small packages of explosives that NASA calls “the world`s safest land mines”. Equipped with radio receivers and timers, the packages will be ignited by signals from Earth after the astronauts leave the Moon. Their blasts – which will register on the ALSEP`s geophones and thus provide data about the moon`s interior – may well be seen on earth through the remote-controlled TV camera atop the abandoned rover.

Volcanic Eruption. Refreshed after an eight-hour sleep period, the astronauts are scheduled to start their second EVA at 5.03 p.m. Tuesday, December 12. Heading southwest, they will drive nearly four miles to the base of South Massif and collect samples from a rock-strewn region that scientists believe was formed by a huge landslide from the upper slopes of that mountain billions of years ago. Scientists hope that the rocks consist largely of highland material far older than the relatively young rock of the valley flour. En route back to the L.M., the astronomers will stop at a 300-feet-wide crater called Shorty, which may yield entirely different material: deep-lying rock that was either ejected by a meteor impact or a volcanic eruption that occurred after the landslide covered the area.

The final moon walk will begin at 4:33 p.m. Wednesday, December 13. Cernan and Schmitt will stop at the base of North Massif for more ancient samples. Then they will veer eastward to more gentle slopes, which they have dubbed the Sculptured Hills. Heading south again, they will stop at 260-feet-wide Van Serg (the puckish pen name of one of Schmitt’s Harvard geology professors) Crater, and thread their way through a field of giant boulders that may have been ejected from nearby Sherlock Crater.

In the final hour of the third EVA, Cernan and Schmitt will gather their samples and gear, possibly make a last check of the experimental station and park the rover far enough from Challenger to protect the TV camera from the blast-off. Schmitt will climb back into Challenger first, briefly leaving Cernan alone on the surface of the Moon – the last American to stand in lunar dust for some time to come. According to friends, Cernan is planning to say – and perhaps do – something appropriate for the memorable moment.

At 5:56 p.m. Thursday, December 14, Challenger`s ascent stage will lift Cernan and Schmitt off the Moon to rejoin Ron Evans in the orbiting America. The dramatic launch should be photographed by the rover`s camera. Early next morning, Challenger`s ascent stage will be sent crashing into the upper slopes of South Massif; the impact will also give seismologists another jolting “look” at the Moon`s interior. Almost two days later, as the astronauts pass around the far side of the Moon for the last time, they will fire America`s main engine to kick the ship out of lunar orbit and begin the three-day journey home. At 2:24 p.m. Tuesday, December 19, America should splash down in the balmy waters of the South Pacific, about 350 miles southeast of Samoa, ending the Apollo project`s farewell mission the Moon.

Time, December 11, 1972

Why Are There Leap Years?

Why Are There Leap Years?

We have a pope to thank for straightening out the glitch Our calendar year has 365 days, but the earth actually takes 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes and 46 seconds to travel around the sun. With an extra quarter-day each year, in 120 years the calendar would be ahead by a month. New Year’s Eve would arrive somewhere around Thanksgiving.

A lady awaiting for the leap year to come

Luckily, we have a built-in safeguard: the occasional February 29, which arrives every 4 years. To avoid the chaos that would ensue should our seasons fall out of sync, every fourth year an extra day is added to keep the calendar consistent with the sun. Julius Caesar introduced the leap year in 46 B.C., but despite his admirable mathematic and administrative efforts, the calendar was 10 days ahead by 1582. Enter Pope Gregory XIII, creator of the calendar we use today. He got the months back in track by dropping 10 days from October 1582.

Barbies awaiting for the leap year. Photo: Elena

He also rescheduled leap year to fall every fourth year except in the case of century years not evenly divisible by 400. So 2000, the next century year, will be a leap year, but 1700, 1800 and, 1900 were not.

Most of Europe adopted the Gregorian calendar right away, but England and its American colonies held out until 1752. At that point, they had accumulated 11 extra days. To make up for gained time, September 2, 1752, was followed immediately by September 14.

Japanese garden of stones

Multitude of Wonders

A Multitude of Wonders

Every civilization has scanned the heavens for clues to the Creation The next time you peer at the night sky and spot the North Star or the Big Dipper, think of the ancient Babylonians, Egyptians, and Mayans doing the same thing. Written records of astronomical findings and theories go back the dawn of history.

The first students of astronomy were probably the Chinese. It is said that in 2159 B.C. Two Chinese astronomers, Hi and Ho, were executed for failing to predict an eclipse. Scientists now say the two could have been spared if the official calendar had been more accurate. By 750 B.C., the Chinese were keeping accurate records of meteors, and an astronomer named Shih Shen prepared what was probably the earliest star catalogue around 350 B.C.

Photo by Elena

The Babylonians and Assyrians knew the approximate length of the year several centuries before the birth of Christ. In pre-Christian Egypt, where the astronomers were priests, the main purpose of astronomy was to keep a calendar. Both the Egyptians and Babylonians learned to build fairly accurate sundials for time-keeping. The earliest Egyptian sundial, still preserved today, is from the eighth century, B.C. The Greeks took their study of the heavens a step further than the Chinese and the Egyptians by trying to explain what they saw.

The great Greek astronomer Thales, born in 624 B.C., introduced geometric concepts into astronomy and may have realized that the earth is a globe. His contemporary, Anaximander, may have been the first to speculate on the relative distances of the Sun, the moon, and the planets. Aristotle argued against the traditional theory that the earth is flat. He recognized the changing shape of the moon during the month and considered the possibility that the earth revolves around the sun rather than the sun around the earth.

The Greek astronomer Ptolemy was the first to calculate the distance to the moon, in about 140 B.C., using a technique that is essentially the same as the one used today. The next astronomical leaps forward came from the Hindus, who developed our current system of numbers and place counting, and the Arabs, who took the Hindu number system and developed algebra. The Arab astronomers Muhammad al Battani, working in the late ninth and early 10the century, A.D., predicted eclipses and complied tables of the sun’s and planets’ positions.

It took Nicolaus Copernicus, a 16th-century Polish scientist, to argue scientifically that the earth and other planets revolve around the sun and not the other way around, as people before then believed. Copernicus’s theory of the solar system was embraced by the Italian scientist, Galileo Galilei, who built a powerful telescope for studying the moon and the planets in the early 17th century, and figured out that gravity pulls a light object to Earth as fast as a heavy one.

Galileo was followed by Isaac Newton, who built the first reflecting telescope and firmly established the role of gravity in the laws of motion. Newton also figured out that white light is a blend of all the colors of the rainbow. Knowing that, scientists today are able to study the composition of stars by analyzing the spectrum of light that they give off.