Volume 31—Number 8 August 2014

Roanoke Valley Astronomical

Society Amateur Astronomy News and Views

In Southwestern Virginia

RVAS NL— August 2014— Pg 1 of 7

With his June Presidential Election a distant memory,

Michael Good’s brief presidential interregnum ended as

he assumed his presidential duties with his opening re-

marks. After welcoming RVAS members and guests to

the evening’s proceedings, he focused the audience’s

attention on outgoing President Frank Baratta and First

Lady Carolyn Baratta. Michael thanked them for their

service and provided them with a small token of appreci-

ation from our club. He immediately introduced Frank

as the new Membership Committee Chair. Moreover, as

the new RVAS Secretary, I certainly hope Carolyn and

other members continue contributing photos for the

RVAS Meeting Notes.

Next, Michael opened the floor to discuss members’

observing reports. With comments from Jeff Suhr (an

Explore Park visit) and Clark Thomas (a Devil’s Backbone

Overlook visit), the consensus was that evenings that

dared show us the stars were few. For those few, the

brief tantalizingly clear skies soon succumbed to twin-

kling planets and wisps of clouds. Then the astronomical

seeing and transparency really cratered.

The final agenda item before our featured speaker’s

presentation was Michael’s brief announcement that the

RVAS had received another donation for our LiTel Pro-

ject, the library telescope loaner outreach program be-

gun in Dec 2011. With a scheduling conflict for this

meeting, John Goss will provide more details at a future

meeting. Our January 2012 newsletter contains an early

description of the LiTeL program.

With the business portion of the meeting concluded,

Michael introduced our evening’s speaker: Clark

Thomas.

(Meeting Continued on page 3)

July RVAS Meeting Notes

Gravitons to a Packed Gallery

by Dan Chrisman, RVAS Secretary

Clark Thomas begins his talk on the “Graviton Theory of

Everything” at the July meeting.

Photo by Carolyn Baratta

The Roanoke Valley Astronomical Society is a membership organization of amateur astronomers dedicated to the pursuit of observational and photographic astronomical activities. Meetings are held at 7:30 p.m. on the third Monday of each month. See calendar on last page of news-

letter for location. Meetings are open to the public. Observing sessions are held one or two weekends a month at a dark-sky site. Yearly dues are: Individual, $20.00; Senior Individual, $18.00; Family, $25.00; Senior Family, $22.00; Student, $10.00. Articles, quotes, etc. published in the

newsletter do not necessarily reflect the views of the RVAS or its editor.

Officers/Executive Committee/Editor/Webmaster Michael Good, President (president@rvasclub.org )

Rand Bowden, Vice President (vicepresident@rvasclub.org) Dan Chrisman, Secretary (secretary@rvasclub.org)

Jeff Suhr, Treasurer (treasurer@rvasclub.org) Carol Mesimer, Member at Large (memberatlarge@rvasclub.org)

Frank Baratta, Immediate Past President (immediatepastpresident@rvasclub.org) Michael Good, Past President (pastpresident@rvasclub.org)

David E. Thomas, RVAS Newsletter Editor (editor@rvasclub.org)

Roger Pommerenke & David E. Thomas, Webmaster (webmaster@rvasclub.org)

RVAS web page: http://rvasclub.org

RVAS NL— August 2014— Pg 2 of 7

Roanoke Valley Astronomical Society

August 18, 2014, 7:30 p.m.

“Tracing Inside-out Growth in UV-bright Nearby Early Type Galaxies”

Dr. Sara Petty

Research Scientist, Virginia Tech

The RVAS is pleased to welcome Dr. Petty as its featured speaker at the August 18th monthly meeting. An astrophysicist at Virginia Tech, Dr. Petty works on topics in galaxy evolution based on observational astronomy. She specializes in comparing galaxy mor-phologies, photometry, and model fitting of a wide range of galaxy types from the earliest galaxies to what is observed today in our nearest galaxy neighbors.

RVAS NL— August 2014— Pg 3 of 7

To prepare us for the slide show “Graviton Theory of

Everything”, the audience was immediately equipped

with sea salt gluten-free potato chips, Oreo-like cookies

and a one-page handout.

The handout includes many Web page links for post-

presentation consideration. One link references a PDF

version of the slide show:

http://astronomy-links.net/GToE.slideshow.pdf

A second link points to Clark’s main essay, which serves

as the basis for his presentation:

http://astronomy-links.net/GToE.html

Because Clark could not cover in depth many facets of

the material in the allotted time,

the remaining eight links in the handout guide the read-

er to background information. The aforementioned one-

page handout is also accessible at

http://astronomy-links.net/GToEhandout.pdf

Beginning his presentation with a Carl Sagan quote

“Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be

known”, Clark provided many threads for our considera-

tion. Yin and Yang. Isaac Newton’s 1st, 2nd and 3rd laws

of motion. Isaac Newton, Nicolas Fatio, Georges-Louis

Le Sage, Henri Poincare’, Niels Bohr and Albert Ein-

stein. Ordinary matter, Dark Matter and Dark Energy.

Atoms, protons, neutrons, electrons, quarks, neutrinos

and gravitons. Newtonian Mechanics, Special Relativity,

Quantum Mechanics, General Relativity, Quantum Field

Theory and String Theory. With a goal of “presenting a

new paradigm for our consideration”, Clark used these

threads to weave together a presentation of Science

and Conjecture where gravitons bridge the gap between.

In brief, Clark’s “Graviton Theory of Everything” seeks

to explain and unify gravity with the other fundamental

forces in nature. But it goes further. Whereas Quan-

tum Physics views the theorized-but-as-yet-

unconfirmed “graviton” as the particle that “mediates”

the force of gravity, much as photons, gluons, and W

and Z bosons mediate the other forces, Clark has come

to view gravitons as the single, underlying constituent of

material reality. Existing, in theory, at the smallest

conceivable scale—at least trillions of times smaller

than a proton, where matter and energy become virtual-

ly indistinguishable—uncountable flows of gravitons per-

vade our universe. These flows originate both from

within our own universe and from others comprising the

theorized “multi-verse”. Rather than a warping of space

-time, as in General Relativity, gravity is in fact the

manifestation of bodies mutually blocking and reducing

the graviton flow between them. This creates a low

graviton pressure zone between the bodies, so that they

are drawn (or, more properly, pushed) toward each oth-

er by the higher pressures coming from the opposite

directions.

For roughly an hour, all in attendance worked to concen-

trate on the dense features of the Graviton Theory of

Everything and how it differed from and could improve

upon Newton’s and Einstein’s conceptions. Then, at pre-

cisely 8:45 pm, a tractor beam pulled us back to a brief

Q&A session.

Closing the meeting, Michael reminded us that Virginia

Tech Research Astronomer Dr. Sara Petty is the

speaker for our August 18th meeting.

(Thanks to Frank Baratta for his help with this article.

D.C.).

(Meeting Continued from page 1)

About 25 members and guests turned out for the

July meeting and Clark Thomas’ talk.

Photo by Carolyn Baratta

RVAS NL— August 2014— Pg 4 of 7

In July, I attended the Astronomical League's three-

day annual conference, ALCon 2014, in San Antonio,

Texas. The San Antonio Astronomical Association and

the Association of Lunar and Planetary Observers host-

ed the event.

Here are a few lessons that I learned about making a

presentation at an Astronomical League conference.

#1: As one of many participants making presentations,

aspire to present FIRST and set the bar HIGH. Erika

Rix of the Austin Astronomical Society succeeded at

both with her delightful talk, "Art of Astronomical

Sketching". In 2004, her husband’s interest in astro-

photography was her avenue into Astronomy. With se-

cret Ninja illustration skills, professionally honed, Erika

eschewed the photography in 2005 and embraced the

challenges of sketching the views at the eyepiece.

She rewarded the audience with a small sample of her

work and with a commentary on her tools and practical

techniques. RVAS members will be rewarded by reading

her books [“Astronomical Sketching: A Step-by-Step

Introduction” and “Sketching the Moon:

An Astronomical Artist's Guide”] and by browsing these

websites:

www.astronomy.com/magazine/erika-rix

and

www.pcwobservatory.com.

Note that in July, the Astronomical League Executive

Committee approved the development of an observing

program concerning astronomical sketching.

#2 PERK UP that PowerPoint presentation with PRETTY

PICTURES. Some people might take this advice by us-

ing keywords from their presentation to search the

Google Images web page, download the images, and in-

sert them. Donald Olson is not one of those people. As (ALCON Continued on page 5)

Member Activities

Lessons Learned at ALCon 2014

by Dan Chrisman

Bullialdus Crater, Mare Nubium: 2008 November 12, 0100-

0300UT. Lunation 9.95, Altitude +41 deg 25’, Azimuth +144

deg 51’, Position angle –22.0 deg. 10” LX200 Classic with

diagonal, 8mm Televue Plossl,~312 magnification, no filters.

Temp. 39F, Humidity 60%, Winds 5 mph, S 5/5, T 2/3 to

4/5. Sketch media: Rite in the Rain paper, charcoal.

Sketch by Erika Rix.

a professor at Texas State University, he has coordi-

nated multiple aspects of his astronomical research

around pretty pictures from the Masters like Vincent

van Gogh, Claude Monet, Edvard Munch, and Ansel Ad-

ams. For Olson, forensic astronomer, the pretty pic-

ture is the object of scientific study, the inspiration

for field study and the conduit for involving his honors

class students. The students participate in his field

research and coauthor his publications.

For example, the Art World has documented a signifi-

cant provenance concerning the oil painting "The Cliff,

Etretat, Sunset”.

The North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh, NC owns

this painting by Claude Monet. Monet was French, the

scene is in France and he painted it while in France.

Specifically, the scene is in Etretat, a small farming

town on the upper coast of Normandy. The Art commu-

nity knew the scene’s latitude and longitude. However,

based on documents and opinions, they only loosely un-

derstood the date of the scene being about 1882-1883.

By combining onsite visits, celestial mechanics software,

an archive of Monet’s letters, Normandy weather obser-

vations and tide levels, Olson’s team proposed that the

scene of this “Pretty Picture” occurred on February 5,

1883 at 4:53 pm local mean time. Mystery solved.

Over more than a decade, Olson and his students have

published articles in “Sky and Telescope”. His ALCon

2014 presentation included several of these investiga-

tions, all of which he details in "Celestial Sleuth: Using

Astronomy to Solve Mysteries in Art, History and Liter-

ature”. This book comprises thirty chapters where each

chapter considers a different mystery that has befud-

dled historians and art critics. He is a modern day real

life Encyclopedia Brown.

#3: Provide the audience with an opportunity to solve

YOUR problems. William Bucklew, a member of the As-

tronomical Society of the Palm Beaches, described his

two years of contributions as a citizen scientist for the

Lowell Observatory (Flagstaff, AZ). Allocating his time

and money, he participates from Florida in the Lowell

Amateur Research Initiative [LARI].

Getting involved was easy. After reading about the LA-

RI opportunities, Bucklew completed an online form.

The LARI program coordinator matched his research

interests and capabilities with the needs of Dr. Gerard

van Belle, an astronomer at Lowell Observatory with

previous stints at the European Southern Observatory,

the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and CalTech. Currently,

Bucklew and three other volunteers form the backbone

for a virtual distributed data processing system. These

volunteers perform data ingest, analysis, and output.

During data ingest, each volunteer gathers star-specific

multiple-waveband stellar brightness observations from

SIMBAD (a database of measurements of objects out-

side of our solar system, which the Centre de données

astronomiques de Strasbourg (CDS), France maintains).

(ALCON Continued from page 4)

(ALCON Continued on page 6)

"The Cliff, Etretat, Sunset”.

Painting by Claude Monet

Bolometric Flux vs. Wavelength (Observed and Fitted)

of HD183589, a Double Star with Supergiant Spectrum

in Aquila.

May 13, 2009 Presentation by Gerard T. van Belle

RVAS NL— August 2014— Pg 5 of 7

During data analysis, the software, provided by van

Belle, interpolates and extrapolates the photometric

observations to form a profile for a given star.

The profile is the star’s bolometric flux (i.e. an X-Y plot

of stellar brightness versus wavelength described here:

http://lowell-lari-bgbf.wikispaces.com).

Earth’s atmosphere blocks certain wavelength bands

from reaching the ground-based stellar brightness sen-

sors. Interstellar dust distorts the brightness meas-

urements, known as wavelength-specific “reddening”.

The software attempts to correct for both of these

phenomena. Based on the uncertainty of the original

stellar measurements and of the research models to

correct for the aforementioned distortions, some stars

require hundreds of processing runs to produce a bolo-

metric flux within acceptable error tolerances.

For the final step, Bucklew provides the stellar bolo-

metric flux to van Belle for a final assessment and sub-

sequent use with his colleagues.

To date, Bucklew has processed more than one hundred

twenty stars, chosen from a list based on van Belle’s

current research interests. With the results, van Belle

computes the fundamental properties of stars: masses,

linear radii, and temperatures. He has applied his exper-

tise to many stellar objects including carbon stars,

stars with accretion disks, Cataclysmic Variables and

Mira Variables.

For those looking for an opportunity to learn and con-

tribute to citizen science, Bucklew provided a wonderful

testimonial and there is plenty of stellar data to pro-

cess.

#4: Leave the audience wanting more. As the first-

place winner in the 2014 National Young Astronomer

Award (NYAA) program, 14-year old Pranav Sivakumar

presented a portion of his research “Morphological

Identification of Wide-Separation Gravitationally

Lensed Quasars “. He is developing an algorithm to find

instances of a quasar being gravitational lensed in the

Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Specifically, he identifies a

pair of closely located stellar images. He assesses each

image’s stellar class, spectral color and redshift charac-

teristics. Then he categorizes the pair of images as ei-

ther separate stars or gravitationally lensed images of

the same star. For the portion of the data set that he

has assessed, his algorithm has identified all of the in-

stances currently identified by other techniques.

Moreover, he has identified a few heretofore-

undiscovered instances.

Based on the audience’s enthusiastic applause and the

size of crowd that surrounded him after his talk, they

will welcome a return performance in the coming years.

#5: After your presentation, reward yourself with an

evening along San Antonio’s River Walk.

(Thanks to Bill Bucklew and Bob Guzauskas of the As-tronomical Society of the Palm Beaches and Frank Bar-atta for their help with this article. D.C.).

(ALCON Continued from page 5)

Bill Bucklew and Bob Guzauskas from the entrance of

Landry’s Seafood, San Antonio, Texas.

Photo by Dan Chrisman

RVAS NL— August 2014— Pg 6 of 7

Monthly Calendar

MONTHLY MEETING: August 18th, 7:30 p.m., Center on Church, Downtown Roanoke. Dr.

Sara Petty, Research Scientist at Virginia Tech, is our featured speaker. She’ll be talking

about her research and how ultraviolet light detected in early type galaxies is yielding new in-

sights regarding how galaxies formed.

RVAS WEEKEND OBSERVING OPPORTUNITIES: Unless otherwise indicated, observing is held at Cahas Moun-

tain Overlook, milepost 139 on the Blue Ridge Parkway.

-- Friday and Saturday, August 15th and 16th. Sunset is at 8:11 p.m. Astronomical twilight ends at 9:47 p.m.

The Moon rises at 11:22 p.m. and 12:03 a.m., respectively.

-- Friday and Saturday, August 22nd and 23rd. Sunset is at 8:02 p.m. Astronomical twilight ends at 9:36 p.m.

The Moon sets at 6:09 p.m. and 6:45 p.m., respectively.

-- Future Sessions: September 19th and 20th; September 26th and 27th. (Note: September 20th is the Annual

RVAS Picnic and Star Party at the Claytor Nature Study Center, Bedford.)

ROANOKE CITY PARKS and RECREATION PUBLIC STARGAZE: Saturday, August 16th, 9:00 p.m., Cahas

Overlook, Milepost 139 Blue Ridge Parkway. Nonmembers must register with Parks & Rec. at 540-853-2236.

Members can call 540-774-5651 for information. (Next session: September 13th, 8:00 p.m., Cahas Overlook.)

Astro-Quiz

Sci-fi/fantasy author Frank Herbert turned to astronomy for the names of many of the worlds appearing in his

novels. The traditional name of the most famous world in his most famous novel involves a notable north circum-

polar constellation. What’s the name of the novel, the world’s traditional name and the constellation?

Answer to Last Month’s Astro-Quiz: It takes about 200 million years for our solar system to orbit the center

of our Milky Way galaxy. With respect to the Local Standard of Rest, we’re currently moving along a trajectory

toward a point in the sky near the star Vega and away from a point near the star Sirius. These points are known,

respectively, as the “Apex of the Sun’s Way” (or “solar apex”) and “Antapex of the Sun’s Way” (or “solar

antapex”). The early evening hours during January are a good time of the year to see both points at the same

time. Vega will be low in the northwest and Sirius will be low in the east-southeast. (Have an answer to this

month’s quiz (or a question to suggest)? E-mail it to astroquiz@rvasclub.org !)

RVAS NL— August 2014— Pg 7 of 7