Newsletter of the Peterborough Astronomical AssociationThe ReflectorVolume 15 • Issue 8

October 2016ISSN 1712-4425peterboroughastronomy.comtwitter.com/PtbAstronomical

There is this great idea that if you look hard enough and long enough at any

region of space, your line of sight will eventually run into a luminous object: a star, a galaxy or a cluster of galaxies. In reality, the universe is finite in age, so this isn’t quite the case. There are objects that emit light from the past 13.7 billion years — 99 percent of the age of the universe — but none before that. Even in theory, there are no stars or galaxies to see beyond that time, as light is limited by the amount of time it has to travel.

But with the advent of large, powerful space telescopes that can collect data for the equivalent

Ethan SEigEl

Galaxy cluster Abell S1063 (left) as imaged with the Hubble Space Telescope as part of the Frontier Fields program. The distorted images of the background galaxies are a conse-quence of the warped space dues to Einstein’s general relativity; the par-allel field (right) shows no such effects. Image credit: NASA, ESA and Jennifer Lotz (STScI)

One Incredible Galaxy Cluster Yields Two Types of Gravitational Lenses

See “TNOs” on page 16

of millions of seconds of observ-ing time, in both visible light and infrared wavelengths, we can see nearly to the edge of all that’s ac-cessible to us.

The most massive compact, bound structures in the universe are galaxy clusters that are hun-dreds or even thousands of times the mass of the Milky Way. One of them, Abell S1063, was the target of a recent set of Hubble Space Telescope observations as part of the Frontier Fields program. While the Advanced Camera for Surveys instrument imaged the cluster, an-other instrument, the Wide Field Camera 3, used an optical trick to image a parallel field, offset by just

a few arc minutes. Then the tech-nique was reversed, giving us an unprecedentedly deep view of two closely aligned fields simultane-ously, with wavelengths ranging from 435 to 1 600 nanometres.

With a huge, towering galaxy cluster in one field and no com-parably massive objects in the other, the effects of both weak and strong gravitational lensing are readily apparent. The galaxy clus-ter — over 100 trillion times the mass of our sun — warps the fabric of space. This causes background light to bend around it, converging on our eyes another four billion light years away. From behind the

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President’s Message

The Reflector is a publication of the Peterborough Astronomi-cal Association (P.A.A.) Founded in 1970, the P.A.A. is your local group for astronomy in Peterborough and the Kawarthas.

The Reflector

www.peterboroughastronomy.com • jaime.a.mb10@gmail.com Phone: 705.748.2038Club Mailing AddressJaime Morales, PresidentPeterborough Astronomical Association1587 Redwood DrivePeterborough, ON K9K 1N9

Astronovitiates

S o we are definitely into autumn. Night sky viewing can be a 50/50 proposition as attested by two ob-

serving sessions last month, the Family Wishes Night viewing on Armour Hill and then the club observing session the follow-ing evening at Crebar Observatory. I’ll let John Crossen report on the events.

Jaime Morales writes about an interest-ing digital astronomical clock named after a dormant volcano in Hawaii. If you are interested in taking an astronomy MOOC, he also has the 411 on that. What’s a MOOC? It’s a new type of educational offering from universities and colleges (often free) pro-vided over the Internet that mirrors the content delivered to students that have a seat on campus.

Ken Sunderland reviews a classic astron-omy book that he discovered while reading a column in Sky and Telescope.

Rick also explains last month’s Harvest Moon with visual evidence. He also de-scribes the “fireworks” witnessed at the Crebar Observatory viewing. Speaking of visuals, we have another wonderful John

O ne more time, great things are hap-pening in our paa. The past Sep-tember novice astronomy session

was well attended. This brings a lot of satis-faction to all members of the paa. Based on our Membership Director, Ken Sunderland, we have new members: Michelle Anstett, Naajila Luthfy and Rick Felstead, welcome to our club! Mark your calendar, October 7, we will have via Skype a presentation

Chumak image. However, I am impressed by the work done by Brian McGaffney on a RAW image file taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. Amateurs around the world have access to the raw imaging data from Hubble and Brian used his great skill to process it. He’s done a wonderful job.

Hope you enjoy this month’s newsletter.

Phillip Chee Editor, The Reflector

Isn’t Education Wonderful?

from Peterborough-raised astronomer Julie Banfield PhD. Visit our webpage for more details.

Finally, I want to say that the richness of our organization depends on the contribu-tion of each of our members. The paa would like to see more members involved in all kind of paa related activities. Jaime Morales PAA President

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John CroSSEn

That’s what the weather weasels promised. Instead Mother Nature trumped the knowledgeable prog-

nosticators with all their high-tech gizmos and smothered us in big, fat, tumultuous clouds. So much for Family Wishes Night on Armour Hill!

But that’s enough from grumpy-the-bear. On the positive side we had a good turn out of members. President Jaime Morales, Web Master Boyd Wood, and Club Telescope Manager Rodger Forsyth were there with all their gear and knowledge. Publicity Direc-tor Rick Stankiewicz was on hand with his new giant binoculars while Paul Ward and new member Fred Felstead rounded out the troops in the photograph above. And the ever present John Cameron (not in the photograph) did parking duties.

Let Me Make Myself Perfectly Clear

The Usual Suspects. Photograph by Rick Stankiewicz.

It speaks well of any club where in spite of the weather conditions, the core group show up ready to entertain and educate excited kids and curious adults about the wonders of astronomy.

I chatted with one young mother who, along with her son, really wanted to see the rings of Saturn. I wished that I could have scooped the clouds away with a celestial back hoe. Obviously there is interest out there and we are the only local group I know of that is actively fulfilling that need. A well-earned pat on the back is due for the paa outreach participants.

There’s not a lot more that I can say. We did our best and got beaten. It’s not the first time, and it won’t be the last. Interestingly, as I drove down the road to our house in Buckhorn I could see stars on the western horizon. Sorry, too little, too late and wrong place!

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What the Heck Was That?

John CroSSEn

riCk StankiEwiCz

On the night of our last Club Observing Night, at Crebar Ob-servatory, September 24th, those

in attendance had a great time, but more about that from John Crossen in this issue of The Reflector. The purpose of this article is to focus on one special part of the evening out under the stars. As things were starting to wrap up, after 10:30 p.m., there were still at least eight people either outside or in the observatory, when a flash appeared in the northwest sky. As luck would have it, most of us were facing this direction at the time. The majority of us saw a bright meteor fall-ing straight down toward the horizon from

the direction of the constellation Draco. This was no ordinary meteor; this was a “fireball”. The tail on this hunk of space rock as it fell through the upper atmosphere was a white streak about 20 degrees long and so bright it cast shadows and lit up faces of those watching. This only lasted and few seconds, but it was memorable.

Most meteors people see are dim, fleeting streaks of light across or in small sections of the sky. They literally last about a second and are caused by pieces of comet dust or rocky material the size of a grain of sand or slightly larger. A piece of meteor the size

Saturday’s Clear Night Brought Out the Stars and More

Unlike the preceding cloud fes-tival at Armour Hill, Saturday night at Crebar Observatory couldn’t have

been better. According to those present, the atmosphere was steady and the night remained cloud free right up to the end of the run with coffee and crumpets.

If you include the Crebar’s 14-inch SCT, the gamut of gear ran from the Crebar Colossus to a 10-inch Dob, the usual pack of 8-inch SCTs and 4-inch refractors.

Augmenting our gathering of gear came some member guests and new members and potential new members who were test driving the club.

Boyd Wood brought along his friends Arlene and Peter Blunk for their first looks through the club scopes. Trent student Matthew Thurston, one of Jaime’s students, introduced two of his friends, Tyler Logan and Holly McSmythurs to astronomy that night. Their feedback was positive with a good night and friendly, sharing members. And speaking of members, New Member

Naajila (Naaj) Lufthy also joined the grow-ing crew of star gazers. Late arrivals for the night were 11-year old PAA Novice Class stu-dent Jayden Huffman and his mom, Jessica. They were lost in space on the way to Jeanne and Pat’s but Pat guided them in.

Other “regulars” for the night included Paul Ward, Michael McCarthy, Sean Dunne, Rick Stankiewicz as well as Jeanne and Pat. This has to be the first time yet that the number of guest observers outnumbered the members. That’s a good sign!

By the end of the session new sights had been seen and new friends had been made. So it was a perfect night on all fronts. Our thanks go to Jeanne and Pat Crebar for put-ting up with us once again.

Our next observing night will be Oct 21-22 at Buckhorn Observatory and I’ll be there for sure. Meanwhile, my thanks go to Jaime Morales, Boyd Wood, Mathew Thurston and the Crebar clan for their input to this article.

See “Fireworksl” on page 15

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JaimE moralES

Astronomical Clocks

I have always been interested in astronomical clocks. Maybe you know about the Prague Astronomical Clock

(see below), famous for its astronomical features. Astronomical clocks come in dif-ferent sizes and different prices. Let’s talk about something practical and cheap, the Mauna Kea clock, from the Emerald Chro-nometer HD Version 3.9.4. iTunes app.

Mauna Kea clock (top right), named in honor of the 4,200-meter summit, loca-tion of the largest observatory for optical infrared and submillimeter astronomy. The Mauna Kea clock is one of the 16 clocks from the app.

This astronomical clock provides several pieces of astronomical information. Let’s start with the white-black outer ring. This ring is a 24 hour ring, the white color rep-resents day, the black portion night and the blackish in between is twilight. The half yel-low circle represents the sun and its exact time of sunrise and sunset.

The second circle (gray), represents the constellations of the zodiac. This ring rotates to show the constellation (Libra & Virgo) crossing the meridian (12-hrs). This ring also shows the current position of the sun (Leo & Cancer) and the moon (Aquarius & Capriconus).

Finally, the small half circle “equation time”, which is the difference between the clock time and the apparent solar time (sidereal time). A positive number means that the sundial is ahead and a negative, the sundial is behind.

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riCk StankiEwiCz

Harvest Moon

The Full Moon of September that occurs closest to the Fall Equi-nox is called the Harvest Moon and

this year, with the Equinox falling on the 22nd and the Full Moon on the 16th, that was the Harvest Moon.

There were a few clouds and plenty of “atmosphere” to shine through on this particular evening as the Moon cleared the trees on my eastern horizon near Keene. As the yellowish orb rose it quickly started to brighten and lose its tinge of colour and once it was a few degrees higher it turned to the usual bright white disk we are so used to seeing.

What I found interesting about the first image that accurately reflects the coloured lunar disk, is the pink atmospheric “glow” around it, which also reflects what I saw after moonrise. I suspect this was capturing the afterglow of the Belt of Venus. This is the longer wavelengths of light (red) shin-ing through the Earth’s atmosphere as the shadow of the Earth follows the setting Sun.

The second image is a slightly shorter exposure to show more detail on the lunar disk and capture how it would look as it climbed higher in the sky.

Both images taken tripod mounted with a Canon 60D and 70-300mm Sigma lens at 300 mm.

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kEn SundErland

Starlight Nights

O ld telescopes never die, they are just laid away.” In the star-gazing hobby, before long you’ll encounter

references to Leslie Peltier’s charming Star-light Nights, from which the opening quote is taken. Recently, its praises were sung in a Sky & Telescope column (September 2016), in which the author confesses that “More than 50 years later, I still re-read it occasionally.” My own curiosity was piqued upon seeing it on the select list of recommended books from The Backyard Astronomer’s Guide by Dickinson & Dyer, where they describe it as “A compelling and ultimately profound book chronicling one man’s odyssey in backyard astronomy.” Yes, yes … that’s it!

First published in 1965, it’s widely con-sidered a modern classic and has had many reviews over the years. For example, in a 1981 review, David Levy says “The book encapsulates a special mood, a framework of perception that any lover of the stars can emulate.” Jumping ahead to the year 2000, a review by Michael Hendrie asserts “Starlight Nights is a gem. It is beautifully written in timeless English.” Add me to the chorus of praise for this acclaimed book. I found Peltier’s sentimental journey emo-tive, (a response necessarily dependent on the reader’s background) which leads to a reservation.

I fear that the modern world is fast leaving it behind. Fewer and fewer read-ers will be able to relate to a narrative set on the farm of a century ago. To illustrate, consider this passage: “As I drove the cows to pasture I noticed that they made long dark trails through the sparkling sheen of the dew-drenched grass. This I had always found a good fair-weather sign.” With the vast majority now living in big cities, what urban reader can relate to such an observa-tion? After all, not many of us predict the weather while driving cows to their night pasture after milking!

Peltier, amazingly enough just an ama-teur, made his name as a naked-eye comet discoverer and variable star observer ex-traordinaire. These are the pursuits binding his account together. Now with robotic tele-scope surveys finding most comets, the era of naked-eye discovery is all but over. Here is yet another example of Peltier’s story be-ing left behind. With this book showing its age, read it sooner than later.

In the final chapter his innocent mood briefly darkens. He worries about the pol-lution of low orbit with Space Age debris. With the first moonshot still years away, he doubts that the present Age of Man is responsible enough for a conquest of the Moon. (What would he think of our Mars ambitions?)

What is clear, is that Peltier loved the night sky as much as is humanly possible. This is wonderfully conveyed, and it re-mains his lasting message across time. Peltier never lost that innocent sense of wonder that we all share as children. In his own words “… I gaze in childish wonder at seven little stars that sparkle in a long-gone autumn sky.” And so the book beautifully ends echoing the opening chapter.References

1. Dickinson, T., Dyer, A., (1991, 1st Ed.), The Backyard Astronomer’s Guide, Cam-den House Publishing

2. Hendrie, M., J. Brit. Astron. Assoc., 110, 164 (2000)

3. Levy, D., JRASC, 75, 158-159 (1981)4. Mariska, J., (2016, Sep), “A Tale of Two

Books,” Sky & Telescope, 845. Peltier, L., (2007), Starlight Nights: The

Adventures of a Star-Gazer, Sky Publish-ing (This is the most recent edition with a forward by David Levy but out of print. I settled for a scanned pdf version [freely available] and read it on a screen.)

BOOK REVIEW

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M52 and The Bubble Nebula Complex!

The open cluster M52 is 5 000 light-years in the constellation of Cassiopeia. The open cluster contains over a 1 000 member stars.

The Bubble is embedded in a complex of interstellar dust and gas and blown by the winds from a single, massive O-type sta. The Bubble Nebula, also known as NGC 7635, is a mere 10 light-years wide, and sits at a distance of 11 000 light-years away.

Baader Modified Canon Rebel Xsi, 5.5” ƒ/5 Newtonian scope, iso 1600, 9 × 10 minutes subs, 90 Minutes total exposure time.

Best Regards,John Chumak www.galacticimages.com

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The Pillars of Creation

This image of the “pillars of creation” was processed from “RAW Fits” data from the Hubble here at the observatory. This data is available as RAW unprocessed on line through the University of Toronto and University of Maryland.

The data is a sub set of about 150 plates, un-binned and un-aligned. I have spent the last several days processing the data (about 700 megabytes) and the end result is attached.

Hope you like it.

Best regards , Brian

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Learning Astronomy from First Class Scientists, for FREE! MOOC — Massive Open Online ClassJaimE moralES

I f you ever wanted to attend a lecture in astronomy from first class astronomers, for free? This is the time. During the last few years, hundreds of Massive Online Open Courses (MOOC) from prestigious universities have been attended online by thousands

of students around the globe. Many people like you have joined these open online courses because they wanted to

learn more about planets, the solar system, black holes, etc. There are MOOCs from almost all branches of astronomy and at all academic levels.

One very popular MOOC is “Astrophysics: Cosmology” (EDX), your professor will be the 2011 Nobel Prize-winner in Physics, Brian Schmidt, from Australian National University. It consists of 10 weeks of classes, and requires 3 hours per week (self-paced), in English and a fee of $50. Keep your eyes open for another successful course from Professor Schmidt, “Greatest Unsolved Mysteries of the Universe”.

If you google “MOOC”, you will find a huge variety of MOOC of all kind. Below is a sample list of sites that you can use to search “Astronomy courses”. Sometimes, universi-ties require an administrative fee to join the class.

If you are interested to explore what is in MOOC, visit the sites below and type “astrono-my” in the search windows, you will be surprised by what it is out there for free. Just one advice, if you decide to join any of these MOOCs, please read the syllabus first. • COURSERA: www.coursera.org• EDX: www.edx.org • OPEN2STUDY: www.open2study.com• UDEMY: www.udeny.com• FUTURE LEARN: www.futurelearn.com

Have fun learning astronomy, whatever works for you. Take a look to what you can find, when you try it!• https://www.edx.org/course?search_query=astronomy• https://www.open2study.com/search/site/astronomy

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Perhaps it’s our inherent opti-mism, but a lot of people seem to think that if an advanced species

were to land on Earth they’d bend over backwards to help us by sharing their tech-nology. That sure isn’t how it worked here on Earth when a more advanced culture en-countered one they considered to be lower down in the pecking.

Remember how the white man shared his advanced skills, tools, and medical knowl-edge with the native peoples? Not me.

History records that all our great white grandfathers shared with the indigenous tribes were his diseases and a lack of re-spect for their cultures. To them, the First Peoples were mere children. Even as late as the mid-1900s the god-fearing folk at Canada’s church schools thought nothing of beating “the savage” out of their young wards.

It’s a sad story that has repeated itself again and again as different cultures meet. Perhaps we are a bit more socially apprecia-tive of others today. Still nothing seems to be as deeply-rooted in human nature as the need for one group to dominate another.

John CroSSEn

SETI, the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence asks “is anybody out there?” I question whether we should let them know we’re here.

But let’s get back to my visitation by a species from a distant galaxy. There’s little doubt that they would have an advanced technology. How else could they get here? But would they have an advanced sense of sociology? This isn’t a Star Trek wish world. So I suspect the tale of the conquering race would happen all over again.

Stephen Hawking warned us of this possibility more than a decade ago when commenting on SETI’s mission to call out to aliens from afar. I think it’s a potential plight worth seriously considering. At the worst, we could wind up as food for our new master’s table. Anyone care for a nice tender Bob flambé with a tall glass of Pinot Ethel?

On the flip side of the coin, Dr. Brian May questions whether we humans are ready to venture into deep space. Will we make the same blunders there that we have here on our home planet? Will our space-going chil-dren wind up marauding a planet’s or an asteroid’s available resources in the name of greed and profit? Will they leave behind a trail of geological scars and industrial waste? And what if they should encounter another species? Will they be grown up enough to co-exist with them?

Is the Search for Extraterrestrial

Intelligence stupid?

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C rowd funding is fairly com-monplace these days, but not in the astronomy community. That

just changed. Dr. Tabetja Boyajian (Tabby), a Yale University professor needs more money for her research on what is hailed as the most mysterious star in our galaxy.

A Kickstarter campaign is being orga-nized to help raise money for continued research. “What we need is more data,” says Boyajian. “We need to constantly monitor the brightness of the star.”

The first observations of Tabby’s Star were made by the Kepler Space Telescope. Kepler looks for dips in the brightness of stars. Those dips might indicate that an exoplanet was transiting (passing) in front of it.

Most planets block less than 1 percent of their star’s light so it’s a bit like counting angels on the head of a pin. Still, it wasn’t long before amateur astronomers jumped in to help by using an online data base called Planet Hunters. It was created for to help sift through data, identifying light curves and possible transits. That’s when they noticed that one object (then called KIC 8462852) exhibited very dramatic drops in its light curve. On one occasion the star lost nearly 20% of its brightness, and anoth-er time close to 15% of the light dropped off.

After the amateurs observed these strange drops of light, Dr. Boyajian and her colleagues were called in. The big question is why does Tabby’s Star exhibit such un-usually large fluctuations in brightness?

Her team tested various hypotheses about what could be causing these strange dips in light. They eventually published a paper in the Monthly Notices of the Royal As-tronomy Society in the fall of 2015. The paper, entitled “Where’s the Flux” attempted to identify explanations of what was happen-ing around Tabby’s Star. The list included planets, dust clouds, asteroid belts, and comets. The best leading, natural explana-tion was that a swarm of comets passed in front of the star blocking out the star’s light.

The puzzling situation led to Dr. Boyajian and her colleagues to set up a Kickstarter, a crowd-funding project to fund extended research on the star. In short, they need money to buy observing time in an era where that funding is in short supply.

Because many amateur astronomers are interested in what their research will turn up, Boyajian says she is hoping they will stay in the loop and help out. This includes helping to fund her raise the $100,000 Kick-starter goal.

Tabby’s Star Launches a New Era In Space Funding

Demo of a transit. As an exoplanet passes in front of its host star, it blocks out a tiny percentage of the star’s light. Astronomers measure and time these light dips in the hopes of finding another exoplanet.

John CroSSEn

see “Crowd Funding” on page 15

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The North Korean Space Agency is Known as NADA

T ranslated into English the acronym stands for National Aero-nauts Development Agency. In North

Korean the word, Kukgaujugaebalkuk, is found on the globe-shaped jacket patch. It means the same as nada.

But in Spanish nada also means noth-ing. Zip, zot, squat, nada, they all add up to zilch. Unfortunately that seems to best describe the agency’s embarrassingly short list of achievements as it attempts to elevate its status among space-faring nations.

The first of North Korea’s attempts on August 31 of 1998 didn’t have the stretch to reach orbit with its science and technology research satellite. The second attempt in July of 2006 resulted in little more than a very large and expensive launch-pad fart. Lots of smoke and flame, but not much in the way of a lift-off.

When North Korea reaches the stage where it will be sending humans into space, this will probably be the crest on their uniforms.

John CroSSEn

On April 5 of 2009 and their luck im-proved, albeit only slightly. The rocket lifted off successfully, but again failed to reach orbit. The launch in April of 2013 brought yet another windbreaker on the launch pad. However their halleluiah day wasn’t far off.

On December 12 of 2013 came the suc-cessful launch of the Unha-3 rocket carrying an observational satellite. Three years later nada repeated that success by launching a Kwangmyŏngsŏng rocket with yet another observational satellite aboard.

While it may sound like I’m chiding the North Koreans on their failures (and I am just a little) an even more lengthy string of failures were also racked up during James Goddard’s first rocket launching attempts as well as those of nasa, esa and the Rus-sian Space Agency during their early days.

See “NADA” on page 15

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The Sky this MonthMercury is well placed in the morn-ing sky from the 1st to 15th. Daylight conjunction with Jupiter on the 11. Su-perior conjunction with the Sun on the 27th.Venus shines brightly in the western sky after sunset. In conjunction with Saturn on the 30th.Mars in Sagittarius and sets early in the evening.Jupiter re-emerges in the morning sky mid-month in Virgo. In daytime conjunction with Mercury on the 11th.Saturn is low in the southwest mid-evening sky and sets late evening. In conjunction with Venus on the 30th.Draconid Meteors peak 10 PM on the 7rh.Orionid Meteors peak 1 AM on the 21st.

Moon PhasesFirst Quarter 12:33 AM October 9Full Moon 12:23 AM October 16Last Quarter 4:04 PM October 22New Moon 1:38 PM October 30

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continued from page 13NADA

continued from page 4Fireworksof a pea would give off a nice show on any given night, but on the evening of the 24th the cause of this display had to be at least the size of a golf ball or hard ball. Besides being bright, white and falling straight down to the horizon, it actually started to breakup when still about 15 degrees from the horizon. It reminded me of the end of fireworks display when some of the trailing flares separate and fizzle out. It was quite a display and lucky us!

There is no photographic evidence, but there were lots of eyewitnesses.

At the present time the Las Cumbres Observatory Telescope Network, a privately owned network of telescopes designed for time domain astronomy could play a major role in solving Tabby’s mystery. It can moni-tor the star continuously because the scopes are located around the world. The Global network will also alert her team when there is activity, which is helpful because the tran-sits are unpredictable, says Dr. Boyajian.

Even the great Werner von Braun saw his share of rockets flop off the launch pad during his highly controversial tenure with the Nazi Party. After all, a rocket is just an explosion wrapped in a metal container. The force goes down in the hope of sending the rocket up.

It is interesting to note that the dates given in my article are based on the Julian calendar which the North Korean govern-ment no longer uses. Instead the current year in North Korea is Juche 104. Their new-improved calendar is based on the 1912 birth date of the country’s first leader, Kim ll Sung. Thus the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (not North Korea) is just 104 years-old.

With an eye towards future space en-deavors, nada has signed two agreements involving the exploration of outer space.

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ArticlesSubmissions for The Reflector must be received by the date listed below. E-mail submissions are preferred (Microsoft Word, OpenDoc, ASCII and most common graphic formats are accept-able). If your article contains photso or graphics, please provide a separate file for each. Typed or hand-written submissions are acceptable pro-vided they are legible (and not too long.) Copy-righted materials will not be published without written permission from the copyright holder. Submissions may be edited for grammar, brev-ity, or clarity. Submissions will be published at the editor’s sole discretion. Depending on the volume of submissions, some articles may be published at a later date. Please submit any ar-ticles, thoughts, or ideas to:phillip.chee@gmail.com

Next submission deadline:October 27, 2016

Meetings The Peterborough Astronomical Association meets every first Friday of each month, except July and August, at the Peter-borough Zoo Guest Services and Rotary Educa-tion Centre (inside the main entrance at the north end of the Zoo) at 7 p.m. P.A.A. general annoucements will begin each meeting with the guest speaker starting at 7:30 p.m.

TNOscluster, the light from distant galaxies is stretched, magnified, distorted, and bent into arcs and multiple images: a classic example of strong gravitational lensing. But in a subtler fashion, the less optimally aligned galaxies are distorted as well; they are stretched into elliptical shapes along concentric circles surrounding the cluster.

A visual inspection yields more of these tangential alignments than radial ones in the cluster field, while the parallel field exhibits no such shape distortion. This ef-fect, known as weak gravitational lensing, is a very powerful technique for obtaining galaxy cluster masses independent of any other conditions. In this serendipitous im-age, both types of lensing can be discerned by the naked eye. When the James Webb Space Telescope launches in 2018, gravita-tional lensing may well empower us to see all the way back to the very first stars and galaxies.

If you’re interested in teaching kids about how these large telescopes “see,” be sure to see our article on this topic at the nasa Space Place: http://spaceplace.nasa.gov/telescope-mirrors/en/

This article is provided by NASA Space Place. With articles, activities, crafts, games, and lesson

plans, NASA Space Place encourages everyone to get excited about science and technology.

Visit spaceplace.nasa.gov to explore space and Earth science!

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