FEBRUARY 2012 ISSUE

Pages 6

-7

Faulkes Tele

scope:

Hints and Ti

ps

Pg 14-15

A-Bombs – Why Should

Astronomers Care?

Pages 4-5

ASTRONOMY NOW’S DR

EMILY BALDWIN—POSSIBLY

THE COOLEST JOB!

Pg 12-13

A VERY BRIEF HISTORY OF HAWKING Pg 10-11

PREDICTING

ARMAGEDDON

Pages 8-9

Editor: Chloe Partridge.

Copy Editor: Martin Griffiths

Contributors: Chloe Partridge, Louisa Connolly

Columnists: Phill Wallace, Martin Griffiths, Emily

Baldwin, Sam Whitaker

Faulkes Telescope Images: Chris O'Morain

If you would like to contribute in any way,

either by sending us your Faulkes images, or

perhaps even writing an article , then get in

touch, we would love to hear from you.

Editorial Contacts :

10017607@glam.ac.uk

mgriffi8@glam.ac.uk

EDITORIAL

Welcome to the first ever issue of Glam Uni-verse. The

magazine has been put together by the Observational As-

tronomy students and is a reflection on everyone's interest

in astronomy- from the link between the internal processes

in stars to the nuclear physics of an A-bomb, both of which

are related. The diversity of the Observational Astronomy

degree means that all the students have different passions

and interests within the same field of science; this has

enabled us to create a magazine which incorporates a di-

verse range of articles, which hopefully readers will enjoy.

This month we can look forward to an exclusive from Dr

Emily Baldwin—the deputy editor of Astronomy Now, as well

as a feature article on Dr Lyn Evans who last year visited

the University of Glamorgan to talk us about his life works

and achievements. It has been an exciting few weeks put-

ting the magazine together and there are many interesting

articles from students and guest writers all of whom I

would like to thank. They have helped to put together a mag-

azine which has never been published before for the Obser-

vation Astronomy course which is a great achievement. I

look forward to the next few months, and the exciting is-

sues to come. ...Next stop AstroFest!

Chloe Partridge

IMAGE REFERENCES:

PG4-5. A Bomb www.officialpsds.com

PG6-7. Lyn Evans www.techniche.org - CERN wall.alphacoders.com

PG8-9. Asteroids Earth Impact www.armageddononline.org AR85 Earth Impact www.tribbleagency.com

PG10-11. Stephen Hawking Wikipedia.com mediaarchive.ksc.nasa.gov

PG12-13. Paul Sutherland

PG14-15. Sam Whitaker , Chris O'Morain

PG16. Carl Sagan www.thefamouspeople.com

F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 2 I S S U E

GLMAORGAN

ASTRONOMY

C O S M O L O G I C A L N E W S !

6 - 7 . D R L Y N E V A N S

T H E L I F E W O R K O F D R L Y N E V A N S - D I R E C T O R O F T H E L A R G E H A D R O N C O L L I D E R - A N D

I T S R E C E N T E X C I T I N G D I S C O V E R I E S .

8 - 9 . P R E D I C T I N G A R M A G E D D O N

W H A T C A N W E D O A B O U T T H E T H R E A T F R O M C O M E T S A N D N E A R E A R T H A S T E R O I D S ? D O W E H A V E A N Y T H I N G T O

W O R R Y A B O U T ?

1 0 - 1 1 . A V E R Y B R I E F H I S T O R Y O F S T E P H E N H A W K I N G .

W E C E L E B R A T E T H E 7 0 T H B I R T H D A Y O F O N E O F T H E M O S T E M I N E N T B R I T I S H S C I E N T I S T S B Y

S U M M A R I S I N G H I S L I F E A N D W O R K I N A S H O R T A R T I C L E .

4 - 5

1 4 - 1 5 . F A U L K E S : A M O N T H I N I M A G E S

W E T A K E A B R I E F L O O K A T H O W T O I M P R O V E T H E D E T A I L A N D N O I S E

L E V E L O F Y O U R I M A G E S .

1 2 - 1 3 . D R E M I L Y B A L D W I N - P O S S I B L Y T H E C O O L E S T J O B !

D R E M I L Y B A L D W I N S F O R A Y I N T O S C I E N C E W R I T I N G A N D U L T I M A T E L Y B E C O M I N G D E P U T Y

E D I T O R O F A S T R O N O M Y N O W M A G A Z I N E . 1 4 - 1 5

4 - 5 . A - B O M B S W H Y S H O U L D

A S T R O N O M E R S C A R E ?

A T O M B O M B S A R E A S T R A N G E T H I N G F O R A S T R O N O M E R S T O B E I N T E R E S T E D I N , A N D Y E T T H E I N T E R E S T I S T H E R E . I N T H I S A R T I C L E I E XP L O R E T H E D E E P H I S T O R I C A L T I E S

B E TW E E N B O M B S A N D S T A R S

8888----9. 9. 9. 9.

Page 4 C O S M O L O G I C A L N E W S !

At first glance, atom bombs have nothing at all

to do with astronomy. So why are we learning

about them at all? The reality is that astrono-

my, in a pure sense, has nothing to do with

bombs (except possibly irate astronomers

complaining about light pollution from the

rising fireballs). However, bombs have an

intimate connection with astrophysics, that is;

the study of stars, how they are born and how

they live and die. Before I go any further, a I

must make another distinction . A-bombs (that

is, fission weapons) have nothing to do with

stars. It’s “hydrogen” bombs that are related

to stars, in that they generate most of their

energy by fusion. So then, what are nuclear

bombs? They’re weapons, but unlike any other

weapon in history. They are physically small

but contain immense power, enough to divert

the course of history, topple governments and

bring about the Apocalypse if ever actually

used. In physical terms, they are fairly simple.

For the most basic type of nuke, you need two

masses of Uranium-235 in a large tube with

explosives at either end. Each of the U-235

pieces are “subcritical,” meaning they’re too

small to sustain a nuclear chain reaction. But

when the explosives detonate and the two

pieces of U-235 are fired together they

reach critical mass and starts to fission.

Neutrons released from other elements slip

into a U-235 nucleus, making it unstable and

causing it to break in half, releasing a pair of

smaller nuclei and two or three more neu-

trons. Each of those goes on to fission more

atoms, and so on in an exponential sequence.

First, one fission, then three, then nine, then

twenty-seven and on and on, in a matter of

nanoseconds.

The part that makes this a weapon rather

than a scientific curiosity is that the mass of

all the neutrons and smaller nuclei released

from the Uranium atom have a total mass

slightly less than that of the original atom.

About 0.7% of the mass disappears from the

reaction. However, energy has to be con-

served, and Einstein showed that energy and

mass are equivalent. So that tiny fraction of

the original atom gets turned into energy. And

when E=Mc2, that is a lot of energy.

A-Bombs – Why Should Astronomers Care?

Page 5 F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 2 I S S U E

In physics terms, each Uranium fission re-

leases (on average) 931 MeV. In layman’s

term, that’s about enough energy to make a

grain of sand ump into the air. And that’s

from just one atom. The energy released

from the whole critical mass of Uranium is

enough to level a large chunk of a major city

in a second. The largest US bomb, Castle

Bravo, had a blast energy greater than all the

bombs used in World War Two combined,

including the atom bombs dropped on Hiro-

shima and Nagasaki. Now, I’ve described

fission bombs, and as I said above, these

have little to no relation to stars. Hydrogen

bombs however, are identical in basic princi-

ple to stars. They derive their energy from

fusion. In simple terms, you take two Hydro-

gen-2 or -3 atoms (a proton and a neutron,

or two neutrons in the case of H-3), heat

them up to several million degrees and under

intense pressure. They crash into each other

and combine into one larger nucleus of Heli-

um. As with a fission reaction, some mass is

lost: the combined mass of the two Hydrogen

atoms is slightly more than the mass of the

resultant Helium atom. And as with fission,

this is released as energy. In physics terms,

one fusion event releases approx. 16 MeV of

energy. That’s a lot less than the Uranium

reaction, but you can fit a lot more Hydrogen

into the same volume.

Now, I said you need high temperatures and

pressures to make fusion happen, and this is

where fission bombs come in. On Earth, the

easiest way to generate those energies are

by detonating a fission bomb, and designing

the bomb case to channel and redirect the

energy to compress the fusion fuel to the

right pressures (hundreds of times the den-

sity of Lead). And this, finally, is the link be-

tween stars and bombs. A star generates its

colossal energy in precisely the same way as

a fusion bomb; the fusion of Hydrogen into

Helium. The difference is the Sun doesn’t

need a fission bomb to generate the temper-

atures and pressures; it has its immense

mass to do that naturally.

A star is a huge, dense ball of superheated

Hydrogen plasma. At its core, the tempera-

tures approach 15 million Kelvin, and pres-

sures are inconceivably high. Here, Hydrogen

fuses to Helium naturally, releasing the ener-

gy outwards, further heating the core region

(and sustaining the reaction) and pushing

outwards at the same time. Counteracting

this push outwards is the mass of the star,

pulling everything in to the centre and holding

the Hydrogen in place. So then, you can think

of a star as a hydrogen bomb so massive its

gravitational pull holds it together while it

explodes. That’s the physical connection. The

historical link is equally strong. At the start of

the 20th century, the Sun was thought to

mostly be made of Iron, due to some impres-

sive mis-reading of the spectra. Cecilia Payne

eventually showed the Sun was made mostly

of Hydrogen, with about a quarter of it being

Helium. Once this was accepted, astrophysi-

cists reached a problem: if the Sun is made

of Hydrogen, what powers it? It can’t be sim-

ple combustion; the Sun would either burn

itself out in only 50 or so years of life, or it

would not be enough to balance the gravity

and the star would collapse in on itself.

Developments in nuclear research in Europe

proceeded onwards, quite uninterested in the

astronomer’s woes. In 1932, Mark Oliphant

successfully fused heavy Hydrogen (H-2 or H-

3) in the lab, building upon the transmutation

work pioneered by Ernest Rutherford at Cam-

bridge. With the knowledge of the fusion pro-

cess in hand, Hans Bethe set about working

out the complete fusion processes in stars

over the rest of the ‘30’s. In the 40’s fusion

theories took a darker turn, when many of

the scientists involved were drafted into the

Manhattan Project to build the first nuclear

bomb. Even at those early stages, some, like

Edward Teller, began to consider fusion

bombs, dreaming of controlling the powers of

the stars like Prometheus of legend.

So, we have seen the physical connection

between stars and bombs, and the closely

linked theoretical development of both. That

answers part of the question, but the main

points remains; why should we as practical

astronomers care about bombs at all? The

answer is; we shouldn’t. For purely practical

astronomy, you can go an entire career with-

out any knowledge of the bomb. But, for aca-

demics, and for those interested in the how

and why rather than the what of the universe,

learning about stars leads inexorably to

learning about bombs. And that’s just the way

it is.

For more information, obviously, go to the

lectures.

B Y P H I L ‘ S T A R M A N ’ W A L L A C E

Page 6 C O S M O L O G I C A L N E W S !

Evans the Evans the Evans the Evans the

Atom Atom Atom Atom

Dr Lyn Evans once stated that his pas-

sion for science was fuelled by relatively

small bangs he had created with his

chemistry set at his house in Aberdare.

Little did he know then that he would go

on to create bangs at the world’s largest

particle accelerator .

Dr Lyn Evans was born in Aberdare in 1945.

In 1956 he attended Aberdare Boys’ Gram-

mar School where he studied Mathematics,

Physics and Chemistry, obtaining top

grades in all three subjects. Knowing he had

always wanted to be a scientist he went on

to study Chemistry at University College,

Swansea in 1963, quickly switching to Phys-

ics as he found it easier. Here he gained

first class honours; shortly after gaining a

PhD, for a combined theoretical and experi-

mental study of the interaction of intense

laser radiation with gases.

Dr Evans then went to the European Organi-

zation for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Swit-

zerland as a Research Fellow where he

worked on the development of linear accel-

erators. After receiving a permanent posi-

tion, and being dubbed ‘Evans the Atom’, he

then went on to become the project leader

for the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) -which

Dr Evans refers to as his “greatest

achievement” . As leader of the project, Dr

Evans is responsible for a staff of 2500

performing some of the most exciting ex-

periments in modern science.

The LHC is the world's largest and highest-

energy particle accelerator. 27 miles in

circumference, the LHC was built by CERN

over a ten year period from 1998 to 2008.

It is hoped that the particle accelerator will

mimic the conditions less than a billionth of

a second after the Big Bang, revealing clues

to the origins of the fundamental laws

which governed our universe. According to

Dr Evans “We are addressing some of the

most fundamental questions, the origin of

mass, the matter-antimatter asymmetry,

what is dark matter and dark energy, all in

a world-wide collaboration. “

The particle accelerator is made up of six

detectors, ATLAS, CMS, ALICE, LHCb, TOTEM

and LHCf which are located underground at

the LHC's intersection points. ATLAS and

CMS have been at the forefront of recent

scientific news, as the two independent

detectors have been searching for clues on

Higgs boson and they may finally have

caught a glimpse of them; although as of yet

LHC does not have enough data to substan-

tiate it claims. The Higgs boson is believed

to be the particle by which things in the

Universe obtain their mass. The importance

of LHC is to systematically look and try to

detect the exact mass of particles which

the Standard Model does not predict.

“We are addressing some of

the most fundamental ques-

tions, all in a worldwide

collaboration”

F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 2 I S S U E Page 7

B Y C H L O E P A R T R I D G E

Perhaps though the most controversial de-

tection LHC has made is of neutrinos travel-

ing faster than the speed of light. The detec-

tion by the OPERA experiment, which is being

dubbed an anomaly, has detected that neu-

trinos produced at CERN, appear to travel

faster than light when arriving at the Gran

Sasso Laboratory in Italy. However if this is

true Einstein’s theory of special relativity

would be in violation; a fundamental key in

our understanding of modern physics and

the world around us. The experiment which

created a form of neutrinos, muon neutri-

nos, at CERN's older SPS accelerator, is

under great scrutiny . Scientists and inde-

pendent tests by other collaborators are

being carried out to verify or refute the

OPERA results.

“The best way to prove or disprove it is with

a completely independent experiment.” says

Dr Evans -which he is working on as he

“does not believe that relativity is wrong.”

However “If it proves to be a correct result

then it would need a completely new theory

probably involving extra dimensions, but

let’s wait for the independent results before

we worry about that” remarks Evans.

So only time will tell if the LHC has revealed

some of the most fundamental secrets in

our Universe and the implications these

findings may have upon our understanding

of modern Physics.

“The best way to prove or dis-

prove it is with a completely

independent experiment.”

LHC Timeline

30 Nov 2009

CERN successfully fired the first protons around the entire tunnel circuit in stages.

23 Nov 2009

10 Sep 2008

First particle collisions in all four

detectors, ATLAS, CMS, ALICE, LHCb, at 450 Giga electron volts.

LHC becomes the world's highest-energy particle accelerator achieving 1.18 TeV per beam.

28 Feb 2010

The LHC continues operations at 3.5 Tera electron volts (TeV )for 18 months to two years, after which it will be shut down to prepare for the 7 TeV per beam.

30 Mar 2010

The two beams collided at 7 TeV (3.5 TeV per beam) in the LHC at 13:06 CEST, marking the start of the LHC research program.

23 Sept 2011

OPERA experiment, results appear to show that neutrinos produced at CERN, appear to travel faster than light when arriving at the Gran Sasso Laboratory in Italy

Dec 2011

At Cern the heads of Atlas and CMS announce they see "spikes" in their data at roughly the same mass as a

what a Higgs Boson is thought to be.

Page 8 C O S M O L O G I C A L N E W S !

Since the beginning of our modern scientific time it has been known that the Earth is sub-jected to a continuing celestial rain of cosmic debris. Nearly all of it is fine dust or slightly larger objects that mostly burn up in the at-mosphere and are of little consequence to our environment. Occasional larger objects survive to be found on the ground and are known as meteorites. Every couple years a meteorite causes damage, penetrates a roof, strikes a car, or is otherwise a nuisance, but such events are newsworthy only because of their rarity and unusual nature. Yet what is disturb-ing about this rain of cosmic debris is that the distribution of this meteoritic material has no large-size cut-off, and unlike terrestrial natu-ral hazards the implications of a collision with a large object from space may have extreme

consequences for our planet.

Very rarely (every few 100,000 years or so, or 1 chance in several thousand during a human lifetime) a comet or asteroid more than a mile in diameter strikes the earth with serious glob-al environmental consequences that could well threaten the future of civilization as we know it.

More rarely (every 100 million years or so but it could happen this decade) a cosmic projec-tile 5 to 10 miles across strikes, with conse-quences so terrible that most species are threatened with extinction. It is plausible that an even larger object, perhaps 25 miles across or larger will strike the Earth during our Sun's lifetime with the possibility of virtually steriliz-

ing the surface of our planet.

This discovery has recently generated a rather belated programme called Spacewatch which attempts to give prior warning of, and try to predict the chances of any asteroid or comet that could come within striking distance of the Earth. The destructive scenario envisioned by an impact of such an object has brought a new undertone to the words apocalypse and Arma-geddon. This cosmic catastrophe is bigger than biblical proportions and differs from all other

natural hazards in two ways:

• The potential consequences of a major impact exceed any other known natural or man-made hazard (including nuclear war).

• The probability of a major impact oc-curring in a politically relevant time-scale (say, during our lifetimes) is extremely low, but not outside the bounds of possibility

The impact hazard is, therefore, a terrifying prospect that remains the ultimate high-consequence, low-probability hazard that en-genders our ideal of Armageddon. However, trying to predict such a catastrophe is not very easy, and the predictions themselves run a gamut of risks. Predicting Armageddon is more than producing an array of facts and figures, but involves genuine concern based upon evi-dence of recent impacts. Although insurance underwriters use the term “act of God”, a ca-tastrophe of this type is simply a hazard of

living in a planetary system.

A number of impacts have already occurred in the last century. The first impact was in Sibe-ria, at a place known as Tunguska in June 1908, and the second was in Brazil in 1930. Thankful-ly, both areas are depopulated and not a single human being was killed, but the consequences

could have been very different, and the threat

PREDICTING ARMAGEDDONPREDICTING ARMAGEDDONPREDICTING ARMAGEDDONPREDICTING ARMAGEDDON

Page 9 F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 2 I S S U E

B Y M A R T I N G R I F F I T H S

brought to the world’s attention sooner, if these impactor’s had demolished a city or town. In 1966 an object exploded in an airburst over the frozen Canadian north with a de-structive force of 25 kilotons but caused no damage on the ground. In 1992 a similar inci-dent occurred in the south Pacific with anoth-

er airburst measuring 30 kilotons.

Now that the threat is out in the open, greater attention is being paid to astronomical pro-grammes which seek these threats from space, and alongside them, more balanced views of startling media reports such as the one proclaiming a forthcoming "near-miss" of Earth by a mile-wide asteroid (predicted for the year 2028, with initial reports suggesting a serious possibility of actual impact) which generated front-page news in March 1998. Astronomers dare not appear to be like Ae-

sop’s fable of “The boy who cried wolf” by playing on fears and making banner headlines whenever an object appears which passes closeby, but far enough away to cause no harm. To do so would mean a loss of credibility in an arena in which they might someday have to forecast an event that would deserve to be taken seriously at the highest public and gov-

ernmental levels.

What could be done about an impending im-pact? Once we know that an event was likely, we could attempt to deflect the asteroid or comet from its interception course with the Earth. This could be done with a high yield nuclear weapon, which may move the object from its course if the weapon is delivered in plenty of time - say months to years - before the impact event. At present there exists no rocket vehicle capable of lifting a high yield

warhead into deep space, and one is unlikely to be developed due to the high cost factor in the

face of such a low risk event.

The alternative approach to this threat would involve destroying the potential impactor com-pletely. Depending on the size of the incoming object, a high yield warhead, or several of them may be able to accomplish this goal. The problem of delivery and synchronization of the explosions have yet to be overcome, and few scientists are worried enough to provide al-ternate solutions. However, would the costs of self-preservation be too much to ask, espe-cially in the face of the unlikelihood of such a catastrophe? There are several opinions on this point, some that actively see the nuclear deterrent as a bigger threat than destruction by natural means, as the possibility of nuclear accidents or deliberate misuse loom over

mankind in the short term.

Most astronomers downplay the threat of such events, and statistically they are correct. We have a 1 in 20,000 chance of such an impact event happening within our lifetime, and as our technological capability to discover and deal with such threats grows, so do our chances of avoiding this kind of apocalypse. However, the current scientific debate about protecting the earth from such impacts is essentially the latest chapter in the long and violent history of our planet. Most recommend that we simply get on with our everyday lives with a fateful

acceptance of the facts.

In short, the most sensible thing to do about these potentially destructive asteroids is try

not to think about them.

Page 10 C O S M O L O G I C A L N E W S !

A A A A veryveryveryvery brief history brief history brief history brief history of of of of

Stephen Hawking.Stephen Hawking.Stephen Hawking.Stephen Hawking.

On the 8th January 2012, Professor Stephen Hawking reached the milestone age of 70. As one of the most acclaimed scientific figures of the last century, we briefly ex-plore his life, his work and his achieve-ments in modern cosmology and theoreti-cal physics. Stephen William Hawking was born in Ox-ford in 1942 during the second world war. At the age of 11 he attended St. Albans school and with an interest in Science and Mathematics he later went on to study at University College, Oxford. Originally, he sought to study Maths – a course, unfortu-nately, not offered by the University. In-stead he pursued Physics. After three years of what would seem ‘easy’ study, he gained a first class hon-ours degree in Natural Sciences. Following this, he proceeded in researching Cosmolo-gy at Cambridge where his supervisor was Denis Sciama; despite his wish for Fred Hoyle, who was working at Cambridge at the time. After acquiring his PhD, he be-came first a Research Fellow and eventual-ly a Professorial Fellow at both Gonville and Caius College. After leaving the Institute of Astronomy in 1973, he upheld the prestigious position of Lucasian Professor of Mathematics from 1979 to 2009 within the department of Mathematics and Theoretical physics. He still plays a substantial part in the depart-

ment for applied Maths and Theoreti-cal Physics at Cambridge; his official title being ‘Director of Research at the centre for theoretical cosmology. Hawking’s principle fields of research are Theoretical Cosmology and Quan-tum Gravity. His work with Roger Penrose showed that Einstein’s General theory of Relativity implied that space and time would have a beginning in the Big Bang, and an end in black holes. This suggested that it was necessary to unify the General Theory of Relativity with Quantum theory. This unification would mean that black holes should not be completely black but should emit radiation and eventually evaporate and disappear. This is today known as Hawking radiation. Another conjecture was that the universe has no edge or boundary in imaginary time. This infers that the way the universe began was completely deter-mined by the laws of Science.

Hawking’s has made many publications, both academic and more popular books, of which have contributed into making him a household name. These include – The large scale structure of space-time with G. R. Ellis, General Relativity: An Einstein Cen-tenary survey with W. Israel, and more publicised books such as the bestseller – A brief history of time and his more recent work – The Grand Design (2010). Many awards have been presented to the professor including 12 honorary degrees. He was also award the CBE in 1982, made a companion of honour in 1989 is a fellow of the Royal Society and a member of the US National Academy of Science. In 2009 he was also awarded the highest civilian award in the United States of America – the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Shortly after his 21st birthday Professor Hawking was diagnosed with the most com-mon form of motor neurone disease - amy-otrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). A neuro-degenerative disease that affects nerves and muscle and is at present incurable. He first experienced symptoms while he was

“The downside of my celebri-

ty is that I cannot go any-

where in the world without

being recognized. It is not

enough for me to wear dark

sunglasses and a wig. The

wheelchair gives me away.”

– Steven Hawking

Page 11 F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 2 I S S U E

B Y L O U I S A C O N N O L L Y

enrolled at Cambridge. Over time he grad-ually lost use of his arms, legs and voice. He is now completely paralysed as of 2009. After contracting pneumonia in 1985, Hawking was forced to have an emergency tracheotomy. This resulted in him losing the remaining ability of speech. He has since communicated through an electronic voice synthesizer. He has used the same version of this for several years, giving him an American English accent – the distinguishing voice of Hawking. The illness was expected to cut short Hawk-ing’s life within a few years of the symp-tom’s arising yet he continued to live a full

and impressive life. In April 2007, in celebration of his 65th birthday, Hawking took a zero-gravity flight on Virgin Galactic’s space service. Doing this, he experienced weightlessness eight times, becoming the first quadriple-gic to float in zero-gravity. Hawking’s personal life involves two mar-riages which ended in divorce . He has three children, Robert, Lucy and Timothy and three grandchildren.

Possibly one of the most significant roles

Stephen Hawking has played is in popular-

ising physics in a way no other has. His

work and publications have inspired and

interested thousands in subjects such

physics, astronomy, cosmology. He cer-

tainly has one of the greatest minds of this

generation, and still continues in his re-

search in theoretical physics as well as

having an extensive programme of public

lectures.

3 quick facts!3 quick facts!3 quick facts!3 quick facts!

o Was born exactly 300 years after the death of Galileo.

o Occupies the same post, as Lucasian professor of math-

ematics at Cambridge University, as was earlier occupied by Sir

Isaac Newton.

o Has played himself in "Star Trek: The Next Genera-

tion" (1987), "The Simpsons" (1989) and "Futurama" (1999)

"We are just an advanced

breed of monkeys on a mi-

nor planet of a very average

star. But we can understand

the Universe. That makes us

something very special”

Steven Hawking.

Stephen Hawking during his zero-gravity flight on April 27 2007. This was the

first time in forty years that he moved freely, without his wheelchair.

Page 12 C O S M O L O G I C A L N E W S !

My interest in astronomy began when I was about eight, at a school open evening run by local astronomy societies – I got to look through telescopes at the Moon and Jupiter and its satellites, and I remember being wowed by how fast the satellites moved. I also won a signed copy of Patrick Moore's Universe for the Under Tens – I was hooked on all things space-related since that mo-ment. Later on I was involved with school magazines and loved the media section of

my english language GCSE.

I did a fairly eclectic choice of A-Levels (Geography, French, Physics and AS Maths), and then found my dream degree in plane-tary science at University College London, where I stayed on to do a PhD in impact cratering. During my PhD I got involved with the Society for Popular Astronomy – my supervisor Ian Crawford was the then-

President and took me along to a discussion meeting about how to encourage more young people to join the society. I promptly became Editor of the (now discontinued) Prime Space supplement, was co-opted onto the SPA council, and subsequently set up an under 16s section called the Young

Stargazers.

At the same time as the Young Stargazers was evolving I was also starting to write up my PhD, and realising that I was getting far too much enjoyment in the writing up stages than was deemed normal and, moreover, I appeared to be better at writing about my research than actually doing it! Two things then happened at about the same time which bolstered my decision to move into science writing rather than stay in re-search. First I was given the opportunity (by simply asking the editor, Ted Nield) to write

short planetary science news stories for the Geological Society of London's maga-zine, Geoscientist. Then, as a result of my efforts with the Young Stargazers launch, which was featured in an issue of Astrono-my Now, I was approached by Keith Cooper (editor of Astronomy Now) to help with his International Year of Astronomy 2009 pro-ject Starlight – an eight page glossy news-letter about space which was sent to school children and science centres in the lead up to and during IYA (five issues in total, reaching out to 120,000 school children). After I'd written my first piece for Starlight, I then showed Keith some of my Geoscien-tist articles as evidence of my 'grown-up' writing, and asked if there might be an op-

portunity to write for Astronomy Now.

Possibly The Coolest

Job !

Dr Emily Baldwin and the Shuttle Atlantis after its final flight !

My foray into science writing and ultimately becoming Deputy Editor of Astronomy Now magazine is a somewhat convoluted tale, but

here goes...

F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 2 I S S U E Page 13

B Y D R E M I L Y B A L D W I N

I wrote my first commissioned feature about how gas giant planets are formed, and the trickle of Astronomy Now com-missions over the following few months helped fund my living in London while I

over-ran on the PhD.

About two weeks after I handed in my PhD thesis in March 2008 I started a full-time position as Astronomy Now's Website Editor, and in the four years that I've been there I've written over 900 news stories for the website, as well as numerous fea-tures for the magazine, yearbooks and special publications. In July 2009 I also took on the role of Deputy Editor, which means I take care of some of the regular sections of the magazine – commission-ing articles, editing them, doing image

research and making design suggestions.

Even though I've been at the magazine four years I still sometimes can't quite believe that I work here! I've had some

great opportunities over the last year especially – spending some time at our sister company Spaceflight Now reporting on shuttle launches and various NASA activities, including talking to the astro-nauts onboard the International Space Station in a live press conference link-up, was a definite hight point! I was also invit-ed on a media trip to Chile to visit the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (VLT), Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) and the site for the planned European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT) last year, the follow-up report is featured in the November 2011 issue of Astronomy

Now.

The best piece of advice I can offer to someone looking to break into science writing is to not be afraid to ask people for work experience, and to accept the fact that you might not get paid for it! I started by writing for society magazines,

and for free, just to build up my portfolio, but the writing I did for Geoscientist re-sulted in Astronomy Now offering me a feature commission instead of "starting me off with a news story", which eventu-ally led to me having a full-time position here. So, please don't hesitate to ask me for advice or for some writing work expe-rience for astronomynow.com if you're interesting in pursuing a science journal-

ism career. Good luck!

Dr Emily Baldwin looking out over the ALMA telescope array in the Atacama Desert in Chile.

Page 14 C O S M O L O G I C A L N E W S !

Hints and Tips for improving your images.

When taking images with the Faulkes Telescopes, the images obtained may not appear as one would expect, nor look as beautiful as modern culture has us believe. However with the following simple tricks, you will be well on your way to pro-

ducing professional images.

The foremost piece of advice is to have good software! Photoshop is probably the best and is most readily available and as such, this guide will refer to that. To open any image taken with Faulkes you will also need to be able to open and alter FITS files, so you will need to download FITS liberator, a free programme from the internet. How-ever, different pieces of software interpret data files in different ways, with no two being exactly the same. Fits liberator has a Photoshop plugin but beware as it does not open the files as Faulkes itself interprets

them, so do not expect an exact match.

The first way to improve your im-ages is to use narrow band filters as op-posed to the standard RGB filter set. This allows for much more detail to be captured by the CCD with longer exposure lengths, as the filter is not letting as much light through

to the CCD. The images below are all taken with the Hydrogen Alpha filter, within the red part of the spectrum, whereas an Oxy-gen III filter is midway between blue and green giving a teal colour not normally cap-

tured by standard filters.

Increasing the length of an exposure in-creases the number of photons that the CCD receives, so longer exposures give better detail, though be careful not to do CCD captures, as there is a limit to the length of any exposure. If it is too lengthy you may end up burning out cells on the CCD and cause over bleeds or damage to the

camera.

Image 1 below is a 30s shot of M27; Image 2 is a 200s exposure. The second is obviously less fuzzy and has much greater detail in the internal structure. Taking multiple shots of the same object in the same filter and stacking them with Photoshop can improve this further. In total, image 3 contains 10 individual shots, amounting to 1100s of expo-sure time, and has far more detail then

either of Image 1 or 2.

To stack in Photoshop, put all of your imag-es into the one page, Lighten and then select

them all. Hit Edit, and then Auto-Align. Not all of the images will able to be aligned this way so a little bit of manual moving may be needed. Once everything is lined up, select all your images again and click Layer and Smart objects. Repeat this and a new set of options will have opened up. Click stack mode, and select the most appropriate for the type of image you have taken. I person-ally prefer to use median, which averages out the intensity of all the images taken. Adjust your image from Grayscale to RGB

mode, and Rasterize if necessary.

You should now see a high detail and low noise image, which is now ready for some colour. We will be looking at different colour stacking techniques and some func-

tions in Fits Liberator next month!

1. 2. 3.

B Y S A M W H I T A K E R

F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 2 I S S U E Page 15

NGC 1501

NGC 1501 is located in the constellation Camelopardalis. It is a planetary nebula that was discovered in 1787 by William Herschel. It is also known as the Blue Oyster Nebula due to its colour & central star which is classed as a Wolf-Rayet star of the 14th magnitude. Wolf-Rayet stars are evolved massive stars (over 20 solar masses) that are losing mass rapidly by means of a strong stellar wind at speeds of 2000 km/s, such as commonly found in planetary nebulae. While our own Sun loses ap-proximately 10−14 solar masses every year, Wolf–Rayet stars typically lose 10−5 solar masses a year. Wolf–Rayet stars are very hot, with sur-

face temperatures in the range of 25,000 K to 50,000 K.

NGC 7635 NGC 7635, The Bubble Nebula, is located in the constellation Cassiopeia and is an H II ( a low density ionized gas) region surrounding an O6 emission line star, this central star is currently going through an evolu-tionary phase into a Wolf-Rayet class star. The strong winds emitted by the central star is what has caused the H II gas to form a shell around it while the ultraviolet radiation emitted by this hot star is what has caused the Bubble Nebula to glow in the man-ner it does. This is a composite image taken with Faulkes Telescope North; 60 se-cond RGB, 100 second Sloan i, 100 second Hydrogen-alpha, 100 Second

Hydrogen-Beta.

M13 M 13, the Hercules Globular Cluster, is a large globular cluster of 300,000 stars located in the constellation Hercules. It is just visible to the naked eye on a clear night, otherwise small telescopes can image this cluster quite clearly. This image was taken with the Faulkes Tele-

scope North with a 10 second RGB capture.

This months Images and descriptions by Chris O'Morain

BSc (Hons) Observational AstronomyBSc (Hons) Observational AstronomyBSc (Hons) Observational AstronomyBSc (Hons) Observational Astronomy

“If you wish to make an apple pie “If you wish to make an apple pie “If you wish to make an apple pie “If you wish to make an apple pie

from scratch, you must first invent the from scratch, you must first invent the from scratch, you must first invent the from scratch, you must first invent the

universe.” universe.” universe.” universe.” Carl SaganCarl SaganCarl SaganCarl Sagan