=========================================================================<br /><br /> * * * * SKY & TELESCOPE's WEEKLY NEWS BULLETIN - May 31, 2002 * * * *<br /><br />=========================================================================<br />Welcome to S&T's Weekly News Bulletin. Images, the full text of stories<br />abridged here, and other enhancements are available on our Web site,<br />SkyandTelescope.com, at the URLs provided below. Clear skies!<br />=========================================================================<br /><br />CELESTRON, TASCO OUT OF BUSINESS?<br /><br />Telescope giants Tasco Worldwide and Celestron International are once<br />again in the news following Wednesday's announcement that Tasco is<br />liquidating its assets after defaulting on nearly $30 million in loans.<br /><br />In 1998 Tasco purchased Celestron, becoming the sole owner of the<br />California-based telescope manufacturer that changed the world of amateur<br />astronomy when it began mass marketing high-end Schmidt-Cassegrain<br />telescopes in the 1970s.<br /><br />Currently it is unclear whether Tasco's liquidation will mean that the<br />company is sold intact or in pieces. Celestron's vice president of<br />engineering, Rick Hedrick, told Sky & Telescope that despite Tasco's woes<br />Celestron is fully staffed and "continuing normal operations" at its<br />Torrance, California, headquarters....<br /><br />>
http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/current/article_618_1.asp<br /><br />------------------------------------------------------------------------<br /><br />BIG ASTRONOMY IN BIG BEAR<br /><br />This past weekend, more than 1,700 astronomers from the southern<br />California region and beyond gathered in the mountains above Los Angeles<br />for the 34th annual Riverside Telescope Makers Conference and Astronomy<br />Expo (RTMC). The three-day event, begun by the Riverside Astronomical<br />Society, is the largest star party in California. This year saw near<br />record attendance in spite of a full Moon and a bleak weather prediction.<br /><br />For many conference attendees, RTMC is all about equipment -- both home<br />built and commercially manufactured. This year's crop of amateur gear was<br />impressive. Highlights included Gerry Logan's 16-inch Shafer Cassegrain,<br />which won the merit award for outstanding craftsmanship in mechanics and<br />optics, and Scott Rychovsky's 12.5-inch Dall-Kirkam Cassegrain. An unusual<br />4-inch f/345 solar scope brought to RTMC by Dwight Elvey also attracted a<br />lot of attention. This instrument projected a 12-inch image of the Sun<br />onto a screen 115 feet away by directing sunlight through a long-focus<br />lens via a flat mirror....<br /><br />>
http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/current/article_617_1.asp<br /><br />------------------------------------------------------------------------<br /><br />HUGE ICE DEPOSITS FOUND ON MARS<br /><br />Only a few months into its 2.5-year survey of the red planet, NASA's 2001<br />Mars Odyssey orbiter has discovered that huge tracts of water ice lie<br />buried in the Martian northern and southern hemispheres. In fact, the<br />frozen reservoir is so pervasive at latitudes poleward of about 60<br />degrees, an area far larger than Mars's permanent polar caps, that its<br />total volume probably exceeds 10,000 cubic kilometers -- enough to fill<br />Lake Michigan twice.<br /><br />Odyssey's measurements suggest that the ice-rich terrain is overlain by a<br />relatively thin cover of dusty debris that may be 1 meter thick at<br />latitude -42 degrees but no more than about 30 centimeters (1 foot) deep<br />at -77 degrees. While it's clear that the ice lies very close to the<br />surface, "the jury is still out on whether this covering is really thick<br />and thin," notes investigator William C. Feldman (Los Alamos National<br />Laboratory)....<br /><br />>
http://SkyandTelescope.com/news/current/article_616_1.asp<br /><br />------------------------------------------------------------------------<br /><br />HIGHLIGHTS OF THIS WEEK'S SKY<br /><br />* Last-quarter Moon on June 2-3.<br />* On June 3rd Venus and Jupiter are only 1.7 degrees apart at dusk in<br />North America.<br />* Pluto is at opposition on June 6th.<br /><br />For details, see This Week's Sky at a Glance and Planet Roundup:<br /><br />>
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http://SkyandTelescope.com/campaigns.asp?id=41<br /><br />------------------------------------------------------------------------<br /><br />Copyright 2002 Sky Publishing Corp. S&T's Weekly News Bulletin is provided<br />as a free service to the astronomical community by the editors of SKY &<br />TELESCOPE magazine. Widespread electronic distribution is encouraged as<br />long as our copyright notice is included, along with the words "used by<br />permission." But this bulletin may not be published in any other form<br />without written permission from Sky Publishing; send e-mail to<br />permissions@SkyandTelescope.com or call +1 617-864-7360. More astronomy<br />news is available on our Web site at
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