In the beginning...A follow-up

Michael Nelmes

In the last Journal (p6) appeared an extract from CAS Journal Volume 1, No.1 of September 1969, with the editorial note that "Our Society appears to have had more than one beginning…" Putting on my CAS Historian hat, I queried Albert Brakel and our librarian Grant Coles about this at the October meeting. I hoped to discover just when the inaugural meeting was held that kicked-off the first CAS - which, I had learned from founding chairman Michael Sealey in 1999 while compiling the CAS history, had formed "a few years" prior to 1969. I was also aware of a letter dated October 1965, addressed to Australian astronomical societies and co-authored by Joe Kowalski of CAS, which was the seed for the inaugural National Australian Convention of Amateur Astronomers (NACAA) at Mt Stromlo at Easter 1967 (see NACAA history at www.assa.org.au/nacaa/history.pdf).
Albert delved into his stash of goodies, and out came six gems: early issues of the CAS quarterly bulletin, which had been handed over by a past member about six months ago. Three were dated between September 1964 and June 1965, while the others simply had a volume and issue number.

The first issue (Vol.1 No.1) was undated, but luckily proved to be fairly straightforward to pin down to a date. As Vol.2 No.2 was dated March 1964 and Vol.3 No.1 March 1965, and assuming four quarterly issues per volume, then Volume 1 would logically have appeared in 1963. If so, which month was No.1? A notice in the issue announcing "Next meeting August 4th - Mt Stromlo", along with evidence from later issues that meetings were held on the first Sunday night of each month - and 4 August 1963 was indeed a Sunday - pointed to July 1963. And, helpfully, the following article also appeared in it:

A short history of the CAS
[from CAS bulletin Vol.1 No.1]

The Canberra Astronomical Society was founded about 18 months ago. It then consisted of a handful of boys. Immediately the need for adult membership was recognised. An intensive campaign brought results. Some months later Wing Commander P.F. Raw consented to become President.

The director of Mt. Stromlo observatory, Prof. B.J. Bok, noticing that the young Society did not have a meeting place very kindly offered the use of the Mt. Stromlo dining hall. This put the society on its feet. Contact was made with similar Societies both in Australia and overseas. The Society subscribed to the "Southern Observer", a bulletin published by "James Cook Astronomers" [formed 1961; later Sutherland Astronomical Society]. Lectures on star navigation and celestial co-ordinates were given by Mr Raw. Mt. Stromlo's Liaison Officer [Malcolm Miller, who wrote the 'sky at night' column in the Canberra Times] has delivered a number of interesting lectures on the instruments of the observatory and on topics of general interest to the amateur. As well as this he has guided us on many tours to some of these instruments.

About seven months ago, Mr Raw was forced to resign because of his posting overseas. A temporary three-man committee was drawn up to conduct the Society. It was intended that this committee remain in office until the Society had acquired enough members to elect a permanent president. Mr. Smart [the interim president] delivered an interesting series of lectures, introducing the amateur to telescopes, their uses and peculiarities.

The Society has not done any organised observing as a body. This is largely because weather is bad on most meeting nights. There have been a few nights however when members have gazed through 'scopes to satisfy their curiosity.

Also, a number of members conduct their own observations at home, which are subsequently recorded.
It is generally felt that at this time membership is adequate both to start a magazine and to keep it going and also to elect a permanent president and committee.

J. Kowalski [Secretary]

Assuming that the society was then about 18 months old as stated, CAS was founded in about February 1962.

Hoping for a bit more background, I started phoning some of the names listed among the committee members. The bulletin's second editor Joe Mifsud, who recently retired as a cartographer with Geoscience Australia, was in Year 9 at school at the time and remembers that the group consisted primarily of Queanbeyan-based boys. Joe was friends with Michael Sealey and Victor Kowalski. It was Victor's 17-year old brother Joe who was the driving force of the group, and impressed the members by making an 8-inch telescope. On contacting Victor, who remembered little of his brother's involvement, I learned that Joe Kowalski died in 2003, aged 57.

And what of the first CAS president? It turns out that Wing Commander Peter Raw DFC AFC had a distinguished war record with the RAAF. Born in Victoria in 1922, he was an electrician before signing up with the air force during WW2. Serving with No.178 Squadron RAF he flew Liberator bombers from bases in Italy, air-dropping Allied partisans into northern Italy and Poland. For this dangerous and exacting work he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Kzy? Walecznych (Polish Cross of Valour). His next assignment was as a squadron commander with No.205 Group RAF. Post-war, he was awarded the Air Force Cross.
Following the overseas posting that ended his CAS presidency, Group Captain Raw commanded the RAAF contingent at Vung Tau, South Vietnam from 1966. As Task Force Air Commander and Deputy Commander of RAAF Forces, Vietnam, he was the senior air officer with the Australian Task Force. Awarded the Distinguished Service Order, he later rose to the rank of Air Commodore and the position of honorary Aide-de-camp to the Governor General. Raw is mentioned in the Australian official histories of both WW2 and the Vietnam War. CAS member Byron Soulsby records that in 1972 he observed his first lunar eclipse with Raw. He retired from the RAAF in 1978.

The question that needs to be considered now is whether our Society can claim a 1962 origin - seven years earlier than previously thought. To answer that will require more digging, but at present our connection with the earlier group seems somewhat tenuous. Although they had the same name and began in Queanbeyan, the 1962 and 1969 incarnations of CAS appear to have had only one committee member in common: Michael Sealey, the observations officer of the first group and president of the latter. Another factor is the length of time that passed between the two. I have yet to find evidence that the first CAS continued beyond 1965 when Joe Kowalski wrote his letter to amateur groups (it is not, for example, listed among the 11 clubs represented at the 1967 NACAA).

And now another intriguing line of research opens up. John Perdrix, in the history of NACAA cited above, states that the CAS referred to in that 1965 letter was in fact the second so-named society. The plot thickens…

If anyone knows of any other pre-1969 CAS bulletins having survived, or can add to this story, I'd be very interested to hear.

CONSTELLATIONS OF THE MONTH - Pisces

Ross Gould

Pisces, the fishes, is an ancient constellation, passed to us via the Greeks from ancient Babylon, situated on the zodiac and listed by Ptolemy. It sits between Aries and Pegasus, touching Andromeda in the north and Cetus and Aquarius in the south. The traditional representation of Pisces is of two fish, bound by cords around their tails.

Pisces is large in area but composed of rather faint stars, and being distant from the Milky Way, can offer the amateur observer only double stars and galaxies. Some of the doubles are fine coloured objects, and the best of the galaxies is M74.

Doubles
There are plenty available - here I've listed 11, Sissy Hass's book Double Stars for Small Telescopes (Sky Publishing, 2006) describes 27, and my observing list includes dozens more.

STF 3009 2324.3, +0343. An easy and effective pair, orange and white, mags. 6.9 and 8.8 at 6.6".

35 Psc 0015.0, +0849. Easy, attractive: mags. 6.1 and 7.5 at 11.4" - good at low power and shows well in small 'scopes.

38 Psc 0017.4, +0853. A yellow pair of 7th mag. stars at 4.0".

55 Psc 0039.9, +2126. A very attractive uneven pair, mags. 5.6 and 8.5, presenting a nice colour effect of orange primary with bluish (by contrast) secondary. Separation is 6.6".

65 Psc 0049.9, +2743. Bright even double, both stars mag. 6.3 and yellow, 4.3" apart, in a field of scattered fainter stars. Hartung: "excellent for small apertures".

Psi-1 Psc 0105.7, +2128. One of four bright stars making a binocular asterism (the others are Psi-2, Psi-3, and Chi Psc). Psi-1 also has a companion, nearly as bright, at 30". Nice effect at low power.

BU 303 0109.7, +2348. Yellowish pair, very close (0.7" in 2001) and probably a long period binary. The stars are mags. 7.3 and 7.6. Needs good seeing and preferably at least 20 cm aperture.

Phi Psc 0113.7, +2435. An uneven pair (mags. 4.7 and 9.1) at 7.8" - colours deep yellow and white.

Zeta Psc 0113.7, +0735. Fine wide pair (23") of mag. 5 and 6 stars, yellow and white.

STF 138 0136.0, +0739. A 7th mag. pair of yellow stars at 1.7", perhaps needing 10 cm aperture.

Alpha Psc 0202.0, +0246. A fine white pair of mags. 4 and 5, at 1.9" (2004). It is a long period binary (P = c.900 years).

Galaxies
There are not many bright galaxies in Pisces, and even M74 benefits greatly from a larger aperture. The following short list is a starting point. Those with larger scopes (30 cm or more) or with CCD cameras can pursue many fainter examples.

NGC 488. 0121.8, +0515. Galaxy with moderately bright core and hazy surround, a little elongated.

NGC 520 0124.6, +0348. Two irregular galaxies, described as "two parallel bright streaks … separated by a dark lane". Faint with 20 cm, seeing detail probably needs at least 30 cm and, as so often with galaxies, a very dark sky. (Photo in negative form, to show details better.)

NGC 524 0124.8, +0932. Not difficult with 20 cm, but showing little detail - a round halo with a bright tiny core. Larger apertures show some other galaxies nearby (see photo).

M74 (NGC 628) 0136.7, +1547. Discovered by Mechain in 1780, and seen by Messier soon after, it has a reasonably bright central region with a larger fairly faint circular halo. Hartung saw hints of the spiral arms with 30 cm ("…suggestion of concentric zoning").