Volume 27 – Number 4 April 2010 Roanoke Valley Astronomical Society News About Amateur Astronomy in Southwestern Virginia RVAS NL – April 2010 – Pg. 1 of 18 Contined next page Tri-Star Conference A Day Immersed in Amateur Astronomy Early March means Tri-Star. This annual all- day conference is sponsored by the Cline Ob- servatory (pictured here) at Guilford Technical Community College, and hosted by the Greens- boro (NC) Astronomy Club. It unofficially kicks off the year’s amateur astronomy events. The RVAS was well represented by seven members, several of whom contributed to this article, with Jack Gross contributing the photos. Over one hundred people were greeted with morning refreshments of coffee, soft drinks, cookies and donuts. Everyone was encouraged to visit the wonderful amateur images of M33, M51, and the Horsehead Nebula that were in the astro-photo display room. Also included were sketches of the Leo Trio of galaxies, and the fall galaxy, NGC 253. Destination Siberia! Imagine being selected to join an interna- tional team of scientists whose mission was to extract deep core samples from beneath a frozen lake bed in Siberia. While not exactly everyone’s cup of tea, it definitely would be a life-experience for the right person. Tim Mar- tin, an earth science teacher from Greensboro Day School, described his Siberian adventures in his talk, “Arctic Impact.”
Transcript
Volume 27 – Number 4 April 2010
Roanoke ValleyAstronomical
SocietyNews About Amateur Astronomy
in Southwestern Virginia
RVAS NL – April 2010 – Pg. 1 of 18 Contined next page
Tri-Star Conference A Day Immersed in Amateur Astronomy
Early March means Tri-Star. This annual all-day conference is sponsored by the Cline Ob-servatory (pictured here) at Guilford Technical Community College, and hosted by the Greens-boro (NC) Astronomy Club. It unofficially kicks off the year’s amateur astronomy events.
The RVAS was well represented by seven members, several of whom contributed to this
article, with Jack Gross contributing the photos.
Over one hundred people were greeted with morning refreshments of coffee, soft drinks, cookies and donuts. Everyone was encouraged to visit the wonderful amateur images of M33, M51, and the Horsehead Nebula that were in the astro-photo display room. Also included were sketches of the Leo Trio of galaxies, and the fall galaxy, NGC 253.
Destination Siberia!
Imagine being selected to join an interna-tional team of scientists whose mission was to extract deep core samples from beneath a frozen lake bed in Siberia. While not exactly everyone’s cup of tea, it definitely would be a life-experience for the right person. Tim Mar-tin, an earth science teacher from Greensboro Day School, described his Siberian adventures in his talk, “Arctic Impact.”
Contined next pageRVAS NL – April 2010 – Pg. 2 of 18
Over 3.5 million years ago, a meteor slammed into far northeastern Siberia, creat-ing the twelve mile wide impact site known as El’gygytgyn. The resulting crater has long since filled with water which remains frozen for much of the year. The thick ice provides a safe plat-form for mounting a massive drilling rig to send a drill 500 feet to the lake floor, then another 1000 feet into the fractured rock. Core samples taken, hopefully, will provide clues as to the nature of the impact, how it affected local life, and the effects on the area of subsequent cli-mate change. This analysis is ongoing.
If our Earth were a moon
Our Earth’s history has been greatly influ-enced by it having only one moon, and a rather large one at that. Imagine our Earth, not as a planet, but as a large moon of an even larger
world. In “What if the Earth Were a Moon,” Dr. Neil Comins of the Uni-versity of Maine (photo at left) de-scribed his thoughts as he outlined a scenario of the
Earth orbiting a Neptune-sized planet. This sys-tem would be the same distance that the Earth is from the sun, ie., it would be located in the “Goldilocks Zone” of being neither too hot nor too cold for life to flourish.
Dr. Comins showed that the Earth-sized moon would experience strange orbital conse-quences:1.) Both it and its parent world would be tidally locked so that each body would have a hemi-sphere that would continually face the opposing world.2.) A total solar eclipse would occur every day at noon, and last for a couple of hours.3.) Its far side would never have the Neptune-sized parent world in the sky. 4.) Ocean tides would be about one-third of what they are on our Earth.
5.) Its orbital plane would match the orbital plane that its parent world has around its sun.6.) Its orbital tilt would be about zero degrees. Therefore, it would have no seasons.7.) At midnight on its near side, its 9 degrees-wide parent world would reflect vast amounts of sunlight, preventing true night time darkness.
This would be truly a setting for science fiction yarns. Think “Avatar.”
What amateur astronomers do
Observing is what amateur astronomy is all about. In his talk “Visual Observ-ing in a Digital Age,” Roger Ivester of the Cleveland County (NC) Astronomical Society encour-aged people to
spend more quality time under the stars.
Today’s gear and equipment are great, but don’t discount yesteryear’s scopes and accesso-ries. In other words, even if you don’t own the latest and greatest, go out and observe. Great views can still be had with forty year old six inch reflectors equipped with Erfle eyepieces.
Mr. Ivester emphasized that past great as-tronomers took good observing notes, and that today’s amateurs should also. This should be done because of other reasons besides poster-ity. If amateurs practice describing the details of what they see, they will find that they can learn to see more. Plus, sketching what is seen through the eyepiece can train the observer to see more still.
The results will be as if the telescope has at least 20% greater aperture than it really does. Mr. Ivester’s big message is “observe and document.”
Frank Baratta’s Astro-QuizStonehenge, near Salisbury, England, gets all the glory among Neolithic as-tronomical monuments. In fact, Ireland has its own astronomical site to rival Stonehenge. What’s the name of this Irish site?
Answer to Last Month’s Astro-Quiz: New Moon in March is the time of the Messier Marathon. Of the 110 objects on the list, M74 and M30 are the two that most often defeat Marathoners. M74 is an 11th magnitude spiral galaxy in Pisces. It’s the Messi-er object closest to the western horizon at sunset. It quickly gets too low in the murk to log. M30, an 8th magnitude globular cluster in Capricornus, has the opposite prob-lem. It clears the eastern horizon barely 45 minutes before sunrise, making it rather difficult to locate.
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The end is near?
“People believe crazy things,” began Dr. Tony Crider of Elon University in his presentation “2012: Exploitation of the Mayan Long Count.” Doomsday fanatics will be telling us much about their and so-called Mayan predictions of a worldwide cataclysm in 2012.
Dr. Crider, an authority on Mayan culture and the Mayan calendar, explained why the Mayan calendar does not end on December 21, 2012 and that the Mayan’s did not predict the end of the world.
Dr. Crider described his experiences dealing with the public’s too common belief of hoaxes. He discussed how they get started, why they are perpetuated, and how to debunk them. Unfortunately, the public does not respond well to the presentation of well-documented facts. However, he found that a good way to combat these silly beliefs is to let people know about the individuals behind the fanciful stories. Once people learn about them, see who they are, and listen to them promoting their ideas, they quickly realize how ridiculous their “theories” really are.
One final bit of business
The day ended with the popular door prize segment. Congratulations to RVAS member Roger Yeager for win-ning not one, but two door prizes: a gift certificate from Lumicon and a Galil-eoscope.
The Roanoke Valley Astronomical Society is a membership organization of amateur astronomers dedicated to the pursuit of astronomical observational and photographic activities. Meetings are held at 7:30 p.m. on the third Monday of each month, at the Center in the Square in downtown Roanoke, Virginia. Meetings are open to the public. Observing sessions are held one or two weekends a month at a dark-sky site. Yearly individual dues are $20.00. Family dues are $25.00. Student dues are $10.00. Articles, quotes, etc. published in the newsletter do not necessarily reflect the views of the RVAS or its editor.
RVAS web page: http://rvasclub.orgOfficers/Executive Committee/Editor
A few years ago RVAS club member Paul Caffrey wowed the audience at a club meeting by demonstrating how to make cheap astro pho-tos simply by modifying a web cam. This article will show you how to make even cheaper astro photos – and you don’t even need a web cam.
The secret for ‘taking’ really cheap astro photos is to download the same files used by professional astronomers: Flexible Image Transport System (FITS).
FITS files have been used by professional astronomers since 1982. (Information can be found at http://fits.gsfc.nasa.gov/fits_intro.html). However it wasn’t until 2004 that amateurs had a tool to ‘liberate’ the photo from the file. This tool is a plug-in developed for Adobe Photoshop and aptly named FITS Liberator. You can download this free plug-in at http://www.spacetelescope.org/projects/index.html. While there, make sure your version of
Photoshop and Photo Elements will accept the plug-in.
After the plug-in is installed you will need to download your dataset of FITS files at http://www.spacetelescope.org/projects/fits_libera-tor/datasets.html Note that there is more than one file. Each file was taken through one of 24 different filters, e.g., OIII, H-alpha, 555nM, 814nM, SII, etc. And don’t forget to get the de-tailed instructions.
This is a very brief summary of the process:
1. Liberate the images from the files.2. Adjust white and black levels. It is fun to play with different ‘stretch functions’.3. Stack the images.4. Add color to each layer of the grayscale im-ages. There are suggested colors to use with each filter.5. The fun part -- adjust color.
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A Spirited Evening Under the Stars in Northern Botetourt County
Blue Ridge Vineyards near Eagle Rock held an “Equinox Star Party” and wine tasting — on March 20, of course — with five RVAS members attending. Clear skies and warm temperatures greeted the one hundred stargazers as they looked through the scopes at the Moon, Venus, Saturn, Mars, and M42.
NASA also jumped into the act by sending the International Space Station to slowly sweep overhead, reaching magnitude -3.3. A few minutes before that, an Iridium Flare briefly appeared, burning at magnitude -8. The crowd of the very happy wine tasters actually clapped!
Thank you Paul Caffrey, John and Genevieve Goss, Gary Hatfield, Larry Mattox, and Chris Pohlad-Thomas for making this a memorable evening for all!
RVAS NL – April 2010 – Pg. 6 of 18
The Eyes Have It...
March RVAS Meeting Looks at EyepiecesBy John Goss
The most critical component of a telescope, other than its primary lens or mirror, are the eyepieces. They can make or break the view through any telescope. The March RVAS meet-ing focused on discussing these essential items.A few important terms were examined.
Eyepiece focal length. This is the distance from the image plane, which is between the objective and the field lens of the eyepiece. It can also be derived from a complicated formula which includes the focal lengths of the indi-vidual lens elements. The eyepiece’s focal length is always printed on either the eyepiece barrel or eyelens cap.
Eye Relief. The distance between the eye lens and the point where the image forms. In general, an eye relief greater than 15 mm is considered good.
Exit Pupil. This is the diameter of the cone of light which enters the eye. An exit pupil greater than 7 mm is considered wasteful be-cause not all the light enters the eye through the eye’s nighttime adapted pupil. The value of the exit pupil is found by dividing the objective diameter by the magnification.
Field of view. The apparent field of view is a property of its construction and is gener-ally printed on information that comes with the eyepiece. It can be found by multiplying the magnification by the true field of view.
Eyepieces Panel
Three RVAS observers, each of whom uses a different style of optical telescope, discussed their experiences with eyepieces: Clark Thomas - reflectors, Fred Davis - refractors, and Mark Hodges - Schmidt-Cassegrains.
A 16 inch f/4.9 Dobsonian reflector with a motorized tracker is the scope of choice for Clark Thomas. This instrument gives great views of galaxies and globular star clusters. Clark commonly uses 8 mm and 22 mm Lantha-num eyepieces. He often uses the 22 mm eye-piece to give him a magnification of about 90x. On very rare occasions he boosts it to 600x.
Fred Davis enjoys observing the planets and moon with his 6 inch f/8 refractor. He also does occasional galaxy and globular cluster observ-ing. Most of the time he uses a 40 mm Plossl eyepiece which gives 30x with his scope.
An 11 inch f/10 Celestron Schmidt-Casseg-rain is Mark Hodges’ favorite instrument. This provides him with great all-around views of the planets, moon, clusters, nebulae and galaxies. He has a set of Nagler and Panoptic eyepieces, which provide magnifications of 50x - 300x. These eyepieces provide a very wide field of view with great eye relief.
Eyepieces are at the heart of any telescope. The best way to determine which style that is best for the cost is to try them on your own scope under real observing conditions.
The next time you observe with other mem-bers, why not swap oculars? You may just find your next great eyepiece discovery!
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Congratulations, Randy and Vivian. Now we know why our es-teemed president cannot renew his presidency. He’s busy grooming another successor.
Nicolas will take over right after his big brother, Benjamin (below left), serves his own RVAS presidency.
Future President of RVAS Arrives
Nicolas Allen Sowden arrived at 9 a.m. on Monday, 3/22/2010. He weighed in at 8 pounds and 6 ounces, and he is 20 inches long. Mom and baby are doing fine.
Eugene Shoemaker, born in 1928, was originally to be the first scientist on the Moon, fulfilling a lifelong dream. However, a minor adrenal gland disorder disqualified him from serving. Instead, he trained his friend and replacement, geologist Harrison Schmitt. Over the next 40 years he shifted his attention from the study of craters on the Earth and Moon to the study of the bodies that created them. In 1993, Shoemaker along with his wife, astronomer Carolyn Shoemaker, and David Levy discovered and named the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9. The comet became a media sensation when, in 1994, it collided with Jupiter. In 1997, while on a trip to Australia, Shoemaker was killed in an auto accident.
Bart Jan Bok was born in 1906, also in the Netherlands. Bok was a popular personal-ity in the field of astronomy, noted for his af-fability and humor. The Asteroid 1983 Bok was named for him while he was still living. In the ceremony announcing the award, he thanked the IAU for giving him “a little plot of land to retire and live on.” In his work, he mapped the spiral arm of the Milky Way, studied star clus-ters, interstellar gas, and the small, dark stel-lar clouds of gas now known as Bok globules. In 1975 Bok coauthored the statement “Objections to Astrology” which was endorsed by 186 as-tronomers, astrophysicists, and other scientists, including nineteen winners of the Nobel Prize.
Two Famous April Birthday AstronomersBy Genevieve Goss
RVAS NL – April 2010 – Pg. 8 of 18
Cloudy, With a Slight Chance of Extinction
By Jack Gross
Over a light-year from our star dwells a spherical swarm of primordial crud called the “Oort cloud.” This seething horde is made up of a guesstimated 10 trillion chunks of frozen am-monia, methane and water. It is also believed to be the source of all the long-period comets such as Halley’s Comet.
Astronomers believe that the bits and pieces comprising the Oort cloud formed much closer to the Sun. However, they were un-able to coalesce, so that very early in the solar system’s evolution they were scattered out into space by the gravita-tional slingshot effects of the giant planets.
The Oort cloud has never been imaged, but the Dutch astronomer Jan Hendrik Oort postulated its existence in 1950. The existence of our Oort Cloud is only a working hypothesis, since the evidence is mostly inferred from the aphelia of long period comet orbits which appear to lie at the distance of about one light year from the Sun. Orbits of these long period comets are so elliptical that they spend only two to four
years in the inner part of the solar system where planets are located, and most of their time 0.8 to 1.6 light years from the Sun.
With such long orbital periods, their pres-ence within the inner solar system is, for all practical purposes, a one-time event. However,
astronomers discover several of these long period comets every year, so there is prob-ably a very large source for this type of comet out there somewhere. If Halley’s Comet’s mass is typi-cal of these comets, then the Oort cloud could have a total mass greater than all of the planets put together.
At the vast distance of the Oort Cloud, the gravitational lure of nearby passing stars can perturb their orbits, and send them careening into the in-ner solar system. Jupiter and Saturn also can deflect long period comets completely out of the solar system. Or they may devour them as Jupiter did with Shoemaker Levy-9. A similar impact with our planet is possible, though less probable in the near term. There are scars left
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RVAS NL – April 2010 – Pg. 9 of 18
on Earth’s surface by high velocity impacts of large objects from outer space. For more proof, take a look at the Moon!
One such blow caused a mass extinction of
life on Earth and killed off the dinosaurs. Pa-leobiologists, paleontologists, and astronomers pretty much agree that one of the worst mass extinctions in our history occurred about 65 million years ago. It was probably caused by the impact of a large comet or asteroid that created the Chicxulub crater which is now hid-den on the Yucatan Peninsula and beneath the Gulf of Mexico.
The evidence for that event is strong, and found in a thin layer of rock distributed around the world, called the K-T layer, which separates the Cretaceous from the Tertiary period. Rare Iridium concentrations, which are hard to find on Earth, but abundant in most asteroids and comets, are found in the K-T boundary. In addition, shocked quartz granules and tektite glass spherules are also found in large quantities. This evidence is the smoking gun proof of a massive impact from outer space around the time the big dinosaurs vanished.
The small, but nevertheless possible danger of a catastrophic impact to our planet originat-ing from the asteroid belt, the Kuiper belt, and the Oort cloud has been the subject of my last several newsletter articles. My interest arouse partly because the wide ex-posure of “end of the Earth” scenarios found in the popu-lar media, and partly because of the astronomical attention given by professional re-searchers to this subject.
However, there are at least five other well documented mass extinctions of life on this planet, and perhaps as many as fifteen. Except for the Cretaceous-Tertiary one, there is little
evidence that any of these were primarily caused by impacts of asteroids or comets.
An even greater extinction occurred just before the dinosaurs took over. Called “the great dying,” this event at the end of the Permian era could have been the result of both massive volcanism, and a massive asteroid im-pact. Coincidence, or cause and effect? See this site: http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2002/28jan_extinction.htm?list485357
We may prefer to think that the dinosaur-killing impactor came from the Oort cloud, so that any repeat would be very unlikely. Think again. Recent science points to a rocky collision inside our nearby asteroid belt creating the big object that liberated us mammals from the dinosaur monarchy: http://www.astronomy.com/asy/default.aspx?c=a&id=5941
If I were a betting man, I would place my wager on a series of natural events, aggravated and hastened by mankind, for the next mass extinction. Current theory suggests our planet is already undergoing a sixth mass extinction, brought about by humanity itself: http://www.well.com/user/davidu/extinction.html
Below is an illustration about Dinosaurs and the Deccan Traps. See http://filebox.vt.edu/artsci/geol-ogy/mclean/Dinosaur_Volcano_Extinction/
RVAS NL – April 2010 – Pg. 10 of 18
SkyFi and SkyVoyagerBy Clark Thomas
At the recent 2010 MacWorld Expo one of the Best of Show winners was a cordless sys-tem for GoTo telescopes. If you have, or plan to acquire, an iPod touch or an iPhone, then consider the advantages of this advanced sys-tem for your scope.
Carina Software has developed two products. The first is called SkyFi, and it is a WiFi-to-Se-rial adapter. The second complements the first. It is called SkyVoyager, and is an iPhone app. SkyFi is a Wi-Fi device that con-nects to a Go-To tele-scope’s RS-232 port. Use your Mac or PC as a remote control.
The SkyFi can use the WiFi capabilities built into your Mac, PC, iPhone, or iPod Touch. It is
the only such device specifically designed for telescope control. It is battery-powered for field use. Unlike bluetooth devices, SkyFi re-quires no pairing, and no special drivers. It uses TCP/IP protocols, the language of the
Internet. Once powered on, SkyFi creates its own 802.11 wireless network. More info: http://www.carinasoft.com/products/skyfi/index.html
SkyVoyager is a pow-erful planetarium pro-gram for the iPhone and iPod Touch. It has a da-tabase of 300,000 stars to the 10th magnitude,
and 30,000 deep sky objects, plus many other cool features. It can work alone, or with the SkyFi. For full information, see: http://www.carinasoft.com/products/skyvoyager/index.html
RVAS NL – April 2010 – Pg. 11 of 18
Kitt Peak National ObservatoryBy Jiri Kolejka
This year on Valentines Day I celebrated with the second great love of my life, astrono-my. On February 10th I had left the first great love of my life, my wife Anne, in snow covered freezing Roanoke, and headed for the more inviting climate of Arizona.
The unusually tough winter with continually clouded night skies in Virginia helped me accept a long standing invitation by my son Michael to visit The Kitt Peak National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO) in southern Arizona. The Kitt Peak of Quinlan Mountain chain is located high above Sonoran Desert in Tohono O’odhan Nation reservation at 6880 feet altitude, 75 miles southwest of Tucson, near the border with Mexico.
Kitt Peak has the largest collection of op-
tical telescopes anywhere in the world — 25 telescopes with mirrors ranging from 0.4 meter up to 4 meters, including a giant solar tele-scope, plus 2 radio telescopes. The Observa-tory was leased in 1950 for 25¢ per acre per year from the Tohono O’odham under perpetual agreement. Its operations are funded by The National Science Foundation (NSF), and since 1958 the site has been administered by The As-sociation of Universities for Research in Astron-omy (AURA).
The principal instruments of the Observa-tory are the Mayall 4-meter and the WIYN 3.5-meter Ritchey-Chretien telescopes, the Mc-
Math-Pierce solar telescope and the ARO radio telescope. The Mayall 4-meter telescope has a quartz mirror by General Electric that weights 16 tons, but its mechanism is balanced so well that it is operated by one 1⁄4 hp rated motor.
The WIYN 3.5-meter telescope is newer in design with herringbone design mirror weighing only about 1600 lbs.
The McMath-Pierce unobstructed solar telescope is the largest in the world with focal length 82.6 meters penetrating deep under-ground and oriented against Polaris.
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RVAS NL – April 2010 – Pg. 12 of 18
The ARO radio telescope with its 12-meter diameter dish is a part of The UofA Steward Observatory.
Kitt Peak is also famous for its first 91 cm reflector telescope used in search for near Earth asteroids.
In 2005 the Tohono O’odham brought a lawsuit against the NSF to stop construction of gamma ray detectors under Kitt Peak summit because they interfered with the tribe’s Sacred I’itoi spirit.
Everyday the Observatory is open to the public from 9 am till 4 pm, and offers hour-long guided tours for a small fee. Afterwards the Observatory is limited to a maximum of 60 visitors who have made advance reservations, and paid a $45 fee to participate in audio-vi-sual programs in the Visitor Center and celestial observations with binoculars and with three Ritchey-Chretien telescopes, one with 20” and two 16” mirrors. The Observatory also of-fers The Kitt Peak Advance Observing program (AOP), all-night use of a telescope to advanced
amateur astronomers for about $850 per night. I had planned for the all-night activity, but after receiving a huge utility bill from Ap-palachian Power in January, I scaled down my expectation to the $45 program.
Our evening program started with a tour of the 2.4-meter robotic telescope remotely oper-ated by the AURA, followed by an unforgettable sunset observation. The weather conditions on that Valentine night were perfect for celestial observations. According to the instructor guid-ing our group, it was the first clear sky night of this year! I have never seen so many stars and the Milky Way so clearly. The night sky view from the Visitors Center patio was awe-some.
Our group had 18 people and was assigned the 20” telescope located above the visitor cen-ter. Our instructor was an astronomy undergrad student from Tucson. He started the show with Castor and Mars, then the Orion nebula (M42), several star clusters and galaxies, including open cluster M37 in Auriga, Andromeda galaxy (M31) and the Cigar galaxy (M82). I have seen them all many times before, but never in such a detail that made me gasp at them with open mouth. Our celestial observations lasted till 10:30 pm, well past the normal closing time, I guess because the instructors enjoyed the ex-ceptionally clear sky night too.
Afterwards, following our instructor’s van with our vehicle headlights turned off, it took us half an hour to descend Kitt Peak, and an-other hour of driving to our hotel in Tucson. I must admit it was the most memorable Valen-tines Day for me ever, at least away from my number one love.
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Tycho Brahe’s Mysterious DeathBy Jiri Kolejka
The famous Danish-born astronomer Tycho Brahe’s death is still surrounded by a mystery that might be finally resolved by the Czech authorities granting permission to experts from Danish Aarhus University to explore the astron-omer’s grave in Prague’s Tyn Church.
Tycho Brahe died in Prague in 1601 under suspicious circumstances linking Danish king Christian IV to his death. There are several theories about what happened to Tycho Brahe.
One legend is mentioned in the Czech-born author Milan Kundera’s novel “Immortality.” It says Tycho Brahe’s bladder burst during a din-ner party with Emperor Rudolf, because he was
too polite to leave the table while the ruler was present.
Another and more plausible legend says the great astronomer was murdered on behest of the Danish king Christian IV, whose portrait is shown below. The Danish researchers suspect Tycho Brahe was in fact the king’s father.
The goal of this Danish project is to analyze the astronomer’s remains in Prague for any signs of arsenic, and also to carry out research in Denmark on the king Christian IV remains that would include comparison of their DNA.
The consequences of this research could be far reaching, meaning that the Danish kings of the 300-year period since the Christian IV reign are bastards, though the present Danish queen is not his descendant.
To us astronomers it might seem that Tycho Brahe did more than just observe the sky late at nights, eh?
[Source of this story: Czech Radio 7, Prague.]
Apollo Moon PanoramasBy Dave Thomas
During the Apollo Moon landing program there were many photographs made by the astronauts. This month I made panoramas of some of the photographs from Apollo missions 15, 16, and 17 that have been digitized from the original film rolls. I was able to put to-gether four panoramic scenes from the collection posted by NASA on the web.
Apollo 15 landed close to Mount Hadley and Hadley Rille on Mare Imbrium. This mission also included the first use of the LRV, Lunar Rov-ing Vehicle. The Apollo Lunar Surface Experiment Package, ALSEP, was deployed. The mission had a two day stay at the site, July 31 - August 1, 1971.
[Images at left and immediately below from Apollo 15.]
The Apollo 16 landing site was the Descartes Highlands. The mission included a speed test of the LRV. The ALSEP experiment package was also deployed. The time on the surface was four days, 20-23 of April 1972. [The top two images on the next page are from Apollo 16.]
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The Apollo 17 mission was the last Lunar mission, and the last manned mission beyond low earth orbit. Apollo 17 landed on the Moon on December 11, 1972. The landing site was the Montes Taurus region of Mare Serenitatis. The astronauts deployed the ALSEP package and explored the local area using the LRV. [Images below from Apollo 17.]
The Lunar Module lifted the crew off the Lunar surface on December 17, 1972.
No human has returned to the Moon since.
RVAS NL – April 2010 – Pg. 15 of 18
Are We at the Center of the Universe?By Clark M. Thomas
One of the ways those who are “in” with Relativity show their superior wisdom over those who are not yet so enlightened is to explain how everybody is apparently at the center of the Universe.
There are two visual aids used to demonstrate this fact: the baking raison loaf, and any line of galaxies. Both are correct, but only within limits.
The loaf of bread that contains many rai-sins expands as it bakes. Every raisin that was together in the begin-ning thinks they alone are at the center, when no raisin really is.
Any one straight line of galaxies represents a large number of lines that could be drawn in all directions from any reference point in space. For simplicity, one line of galaxies features expansion, with each galaxy’s residents feeling they are stationary, while all others are reced-ing. Indeed, if we feel we are stationary, other galaxy residents in deep space can look at our galaxy and feel the same about themselves as we recede from them. These are all relative perspectives.
Be it galaxies or raisins, the idea goes back to the brief period of inflation shortly after the local big bang. During inflation our tiny universe expanded very rapidly, only to slow down for a few billion years, and then about five billion years before our present era start to accelerate expansion again. In other words,
the first inflationary geometry was set off by the colossal bang itself; followed by an expan-sion era where Dark Energy and Dark Matter were similar in strength; and then followed by Dark Energy assuming an increasingly greater dominance.
Within the current idea of one universe the gravitational force of Dark Matter and the expansive force of Dark Energy almost canceled each other’s effects for several billion years. However, Einstein’s anti-implosion fudge factor is Dark Energy, which gathers strength as time/distance passes.
Some would say that the known universe will eventually expand into an ethereal vastness, followed by eventual chaos as entropy (chaos) triumphs over negen- tropy (order) many billions of years hence. This is a logical consequence of accelerating Dark Energy within a unitary Universe.
This vision is compelling, but likely very wrong. For example, looking again at the ex-panding raisin bread loaf, it is true that each raisin sees others expanding from itself, creat-ing the illusion of being at the center of the loaf. However – and this is very important – that raisin loaf in the whole does indeed have an external shell or boundary, much like the objective “shell” of the expanding universe. At the objective boundary raisins can look in many directions to see other raisins receding, but they cannot look outward beyond the shell to see any more raisins at all.
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You could argue that the relative boundary we are seeing is Hubble’s radius. In Hubble’s horizon model we are inside an increasingly expanding universal horizon. This boundary is a function of the observer’s position. In contrast, black hole event horizons are small and fairly fixed in size, where even light does not escape.
Universal space itself appears to be expanding under the force of increasing Dark Energy, to where distant galaxies appear to be approaching the speed of light (relative to us) as they accelerate beyond our Hubble radius. This is fine, but eventually a real radius beyond our apparent Hubble radius exists, as determined by the history of our big bang.
Just inside the objective expanding bound-ary of our big bang universe anything nearby would not appear to be accelerating fast at all — even if they could appear to be accelerating near the speed of light relative to another per-spective deeper within the known universe.
Of course, this reality does not exclude ap-proaching objects produced by an adjacent universe. Approaching ob-jects moving ap-parently slower than the speed of light at our universe’s objec-tive border would exhibit a blue shift, whereas objects within our universe would shift red.
This blue shift phenomenon is a window for dis-covery. With the right instruments we could penetrate the red-shifted Cosmic Microwave
Background, and then see elements with blue shifts beyond.
Consider any line of galaxies within our ex-panding known universe. That line does not ex-tend outward infinitely in all directions, just as it does not extend inward infinitely. All but the last galaxies toward either end of the line can see others receding, helping them feel like they are at the center. However, within the limits of detectability, when you are approaching the outward “end of the line” you will be able to see more movement in one direction than in the other direction. At the outward end of the line you will be like a raison on the real surface of the loaf of bread.
It is possible to contend that the total Uni-verse goes infinitely in all directions, and that model is intellectually compelling. However, the unitary Big Bang idea has only one Universe, whereas a multiverse may extend infinitely, but only within a “bubble soup” of many individual big-bang universes, of which ours is but one.
Even if there is but one Universe, and beyond our big bang there is nothing organized that we can detect, then there will be a historical “end of the line” for galaxies created by baryonic matter which emerged several million Earth years after the big bang.
In other words, from a raisin-loaf perspective, our detectable universe would end, even if the Universe beyond our local big bang universe did not.
RVAS NL – April 2010 – Pg. 17 of 18
RVAS NL – April 2010 – Pg. 18 of 18
Calendar of Eventsby Frank Baratta
MONTHLY MEETING: MONTHLY MEETING: Monday, April 19th, 7:30 p.m., Center in the Square, Roanoke. There will be the first installment of “The ABCs of Amateur Astronomy,” directed at people new to the hobby. Then, upcoming astronomy events, both celestial and terrestrial, will be described. Finally, RVAS member Dave Thomas will present a short non-optical talk on solar radio bursts in the 15 meter shortwave band. RVAS WEEKEND OBSERVING SESSIONS: Observing sessions are held at Cahas Mountain Overlook, milepost 139 on the Blue Ridge Parkway.
❊ Friday and Saturday, 2nd and 3rd. Sunset is at 7:44 p.m. Astro-nomical twilight ends at 9:14 p.m. The Moon rises at 1:09 a.m. and 1:59 a.m., respectively.
❊ Friday and Saturday, 9th and 10th. Sunset is at 7:25 p.m. As-tronomical twilight ends at 9:22 p.m. The Moon sets at 3:31 and 4.27 p.m., respectively.
❊ May Sessions: 7th and 8th; 14th and 15th.
ROANOKE CITY PARKS DEPT. PUBLIC STARGAZE: Saturday, April 10th, 8:30 p.m., Cahas Overlook, milepost 139, Blue Ridge Parkway. For City, County and other area residents; RVAS members welcome. Call 540-774-5651, for information. (Next session: May 8th, 8:30 p.m., Cahas Overlook.)
FRANKLIN COUNTY PARKS DEPT. PUBLIC STARGAZE: Saturday, May 1st , 8:45 p.m., Franklin Co. Recreational Park. For Franklin County residents; RVAS members welcome. Call 540-774-5651, for information.
