Sky & Telescope - August 2024 - 6

FROM OUR READERS
All Eyes on Barnard's Star
I just wanted to write and say I really
enjoyed " Tracking Barnard's Star " by
Howard Banich (S&T: May 2024, p. 60).
Interestingly enough, at our local
astronomy club's last meeting we had
a fascinating lecture on the life and
accomplishments of Edward Barnard.
(He grew up here in Nashville, and our
local club is named after him, too.)
So when I got home that night and
saw my new S&T waiting for me, I was
enthused to see the article about Barnard's
Star that I had always heard of
but knew very little about.
Now, I plan to observe (or maybe
image!) Barnard's Star as part of a
future observing session. Thanks again
for the article!
Brad Hill
Nashville, Tennessee
I appreciate the current editorial direction
of Sky & Telescope. The recent
features " The Story of Wolf 359 " by
Ken Croswell (S&T: May 2024, p. 34)
and Howard Banich's article on Barnard's
Star unite history, astronomy,
and observational possibilities in a way
that appeals to your core readership.
The piece on Barnard's Star drew my
attention particularly because back in
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Barnard's
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2009-2010, I carried out an observing
project to measure both the star's proper
motion and parallax.
I reported the project in a paper
titled " The Proper Motion and Parallax
of Barnard's Star: Errors and Precision
in Small-Telescope Astrometry " that I
presented at the Society of Astronomical
Sciences' 30th Annual Symposium
on Telescope Science in 2011. The project
started during a summer student
workshop when I wondered what was
the shortest interval that would allow
the student to detect Barnard's Star's
proper motion. Could we see it during
the three-day workshop? The answer
turned out to be yes if we were willing
to average multiple astronometric
determinations of right ascension and
declination each night.
The paper describes the techniques
involved with an 8-inch f/4 Newtonian
telescope and CCD camera. Each night, I
shot 60 images when Barnard's Star was
near the meridian and averaged them
to obtain the star's coordinates for that
night. It turns out that this small telescope
produced positions good to about
1
/25 of an arcsecond each night, and that
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it was possible - as I demonstrated - to
see the movement of Barnard's Star from
one night to the
next. The path of
the star on the sky
is not a straight
line, of course,
but a sine wave
with an amplitude
determined by the
parallax of the
star. I was able
to collect enough
observations to
show that the parallax
is a bit over
half an arcsecond.
Amateurs can
indeed do good
work with small
telescopes!
Richard Berry
President of AAVSO
Dallas, Oregon
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Eclipse Chasing
I enjoyed reading Alan Whitman's
account of his experience with the
July 20, 1963, total solar eclipse in " A
Teenager's First Eclipse Chase " (S&T:
Apr. 2024, p. 84). Like him, I was
also 16 at the time. I began attending
Lane Tech High School in Chicago
the year before. The school bulletin
announced that there would be a
meeting of the Science Society after
Tidbit of History
On reading the April issue of S&T,
I was pleasantly surprised to see a
reproduction of a drawing of the
Caroline Island encampment of
astronomers to observe the May 6,
1883, solar eclipse (S&T: Apr. 2024,
p. 28). Former Editor Joseph Ashbrook
wrote an Astronomical Scrapbook
piece (S&T: Mar. 1978, p. 211) about
this expedition and its findings.
This is of special interest to our
club, the Amateur Astronomers
Association of Princeton, New Jersey,
because the telescope second from the
left edge of the drawing, the HastingsByrne
6¼-inch refractor, is currently
in our observatory in Washington
Crossing State Park. I wrote up a history
of this telescope in the Gleanings
for ATM's article of the March 1979
issue on page 294. I also wrote a Focal
Point about it with William Murray
entitled " Three Centuries, One
Scope " (S&T: Dec. 2016, p. 84).
I and several members of my
immediate family were fortunate
to see the recent total eclipse from
a fairground near Urbana, Ohio.
On viewing the magnificent solar
corona for the fourth time, going
back to March 1970, I couldn't help
recollecting that Charles S. Hastings
studied it with this particular
telescope in 1883. The fact that he
erroneously attributed the corona
to diffraction at the Moon's edge
(https://is.gd/Hastings1883Report)
lends a piquant touch to our current
enjoyment of this lens's continuing
fine performance at age 145.
John A. Church
Princeton, New Jersey
Star magnitudes
https://www.is.gd/Hastings1883Report
Sky & Telescope - August 2024

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Sky & Telescope - August 2024
