Mag 3 Skies

Almost Heaven Star Party

2006-09-21T09:51:00.000-04:00

I've been meaning to blog about the Almost Heaven Star Party, which was an unqualified success last month. It's about the only stargazing I've managed to do all summer, hence the spotty blogging. I'll make a full report tomorrow, but in the meantime, here's a picture of our little setup before the hoardes arrived:

New developments at StargazerTees

2006-09-21T09:26:00.000-04:00

I've got a bunch of new designs up at StargazerTees. I'm particularly fond of the Astronomer/Werewolf design—but maybe my sense of humor is just a little skewed. The Cosmic Birthday shirt currently is set up for decade years from 40 to 90, but I can easily customize it for other ages.

If you're in the capital today...

2006-07-21T10:09:00.000-04:00

The National Air and Space Museum celebrates its 30 years on the Mall Friday with "Mars Day!," a day of free family activities. The museum opened in July 1976 at a ceremony that began with a signal from the Viking 1 Mars explorer. There will be hands-on art workshops, talks by curators, the latest images and a Red Planet quiz show. Admission and all activities are free.

"MARS DAY!" Friday from 10 to 3 at the National Air and Space Museum, Sixth Street and Independence Avenue SW (Metro: L'Enfant Plaza, Smithsonian). 202-633-1000 or www.nasm.si.edu.

Little-known astronomer's disease

2006-07-20T13:12:00.000-04:00

A lot has been made of so-called "aperture fever"—the uncontrollable desire for bigger and bigger telescopes. But you don't hear much about our other major compulsion—eyepieces.

You know who you are.

You're the guy in the club who always has the latest and greatest and most expensive glass. You refer to Al Nagler as "Uncle Al," and chase him down at astro conventions just in case he might impart some pre-release tidbits you can impress your buddies with. For you, no apparent field is ever wide enough, no carrying case deep enough, no scheme to hide your latest purchase from She Who Stingily Controls The Purse Strings is cunning enough.

Anyway, Stargazer Tees has a shirt for you:

A 3-hour cruise?

2006-07-19T16:43:00.000-04:00

Virgin Galactic Aims to Fly Passengers by 2008
Designer Philippe Starck, former soap star Victoria Principal and "Superman Returns'' director Bryan Singer have booked their flights for tourist trips in outer space, an official from the company selling the galactic voyage said Monday. (space.com)

Ummmm... maybe it's just the mention of washed-up actor Victoria Principal, but I'm thinking "outer-space version of Gilligan's Island" here. Oh wait, they already did that.... "Lost in Space." But still.

According to the article, crazy rich people are paying $200,000 for the privilege of going up in the air for an hour, entering suborbital space for 15 minutes (of which 5 minutes will be in freefall), and then coming back down. The weightlessness part sounds like it might be fun—except when you remember how uptight airlines have gotten about passengers wearing seatbelts at all times and not waiting in the aisle outside the bathrooms. And you can bet there won't be any beverage service in freefall. Or bathrooms, for that matter.

Helping fight light pollution

2006-07-19T14:28:00.000-04:00

I feel pretty strongly about light pollution, especially since I live in a heavily light polluted area that gets worse every year. Not to mention that every year, my club's observing sites become more encroached upon by exurban sprawl. Currently, I'm driving 60 miles to get to darkish skies. In a few years, it will be 80 miles.

I've been planning this for months, but I finally got some time to reorganize the Stargazer Tees site and put all my designs into sections, including a section for anti-light pollution designs.

To put my money where my mouth is, I'm donating a dollar of every item purchased from the Light Pollution section to the International Dark-Sky Association. I've currently got three t-shirt designs (lots more coming!), some bumper stickers, and a license plate frame. Check it out and let me know what you think:

When I get a few sales, I'll start a running tally of how much I've raised. Not only will the IDA be able to do some good with the money, but I hope if people wear the shirts, it will help raise awareness. After all, bad lighting is not only detrimental for stargazing, but it's incredibly wasteful, and has been proven not to increase public safety (contrary to popular misconception).

What's going on with Venus?

2006-07-18T11:53:00.000-04:00

Lots of findings and groovy images from the Venus Express team. In particular this strange vortex discovered at the South Pole (imaged in infrared), which has an unexpected elongated morphology.

I wasn't aware that Venus has no intrinsic magnetic field, unlike Earth, to shelter it from the solar wind. Apparently the reason for this is not well understood since presumably Venus has a similar metal composition to the Earth and may also have a molten core. A quick internet search suggests that the prevailing theories posit Venus's slow rotation and/or lack of plate tectonics as possible causes.

Sign #357 of the apocalypse

2006-07-12T15:52:00.000-04:00

Probably these so-called "megacryometeors" are old news to you. But I'm just getting to hear about them, so on the blog they go.

Exhibit A, giant ice chunks fall out the sky in Spain in 2000. Since then they've been reported falling in many other countries, including a "440-pound behemoth" in Brazil. The Spanish researcher who chased down the ice chunks and analysed them speculated that low ozone levels due to global warming might be the cause.

It's no wonder all those wacko fundies think the End of Days is nigh. I'm really looking forward to swimming to work while trying to dodge giant ice balls from the sky and snakehead fish from below.

Top five astronomy sites you may not know about

2006-07-05T15:56:00.000-04:00

Most experienced amateur astronomers will already have this information, but the hobby attracts newbies all the time who have to learn everything from scratch. So if that latter description fits you, here are a few websites you need to know about:

Heavens Above - www.heavens-above.com
You have to register to make best use of the site, but it's well worth it (and free). Enter your latitude and longitude and you'll be able to look up sun and moon data for your location as well as transit times for various bright satellites, most notably the International Space Station (ISS) and Iridium satellite flares. Most people use this site to track satellites, or to identify a satellite they saw after the fact. If you haven't seen an ISS pass, it's well worth it, especially if you know exactly what time to look up and can persuade your dinner guests to step outside for a few minutes.

Cloudy Nights - www.cloudynights.com
Cloudy Nights is the top telescope review site on the web, although it covers more than just scopes. Volunteers write reviews on everything from astronomy software to eyepieces to CCD cameras. The reviews are available to anyone, although you have to register to post to the classifieds and the bulletin board. Definitely check this site out before you buy.

AstroMart - www.astromart.com
After you've read the reviews on Cloudy Nights and know what equipment you want, you'll definitely want to check out AstroMart, which has got to be the largest online astronomy buy-and-sell community. Registration is required and free. Most experienced telescope buyers will avoid eBay for astronomy gear because eBay tends to have nothing but department store telescopes that are being sold by people who never used them. On AstroMart you'll usually get a fair to excellent price on used equipment that has been thoroughly vetted (and often upgraded) by the owner. The site also has paid classifieds from commercial retailers selling new equipment and an active bulletin board and review section.

SkyMaps - www.skymaps.com
The SkyMaps site publishes monthly sky calendars that list the best small-telescope objects for that month. While not particular useful if you have already progressed beyond the basics, SkyMaps are perfect for children's groups or sky tours and they allow free distribution to educational groups and individuals. Also, they have a really nice online store with astronomy books, atlases, and posters.

Clear Sky Clock - cleardarksky.com/csk
The Clear Sky Clocks page is one of the most valuable resources to active astronomers that you've probably never heard of. It's basically an astronomy weather page that is uncannily accurate down to the hour. A totally home-grown effort by programmer Attilla Danko, the site is supported by individuals or clubs who usually sponsor a map for their particular observing site. If your local site isn't up there, it's well worth becoming a sponsor to have it added.

No thanks

2006-06-29T14:23:00.000-04:00

Stephen Hawking is best known for thinking about time, space, and those teratoid trash mashers known as black holes. But in a recent talk in Hong Kong, the famous physicist digressed from his usual subject matter to tell the audience that they'd better get off the island, and he didn't mean Kowloon. Instead, the Cambridge don was urging the crowd to get off the whole, gosh-darn planet. Hawking was hawking space colonization.

I don't even know where to start criticizing this article. First, the idea that population pressures will force us to colonize space. Second the theory that a round planet is an inefficient use of surface area. Third, the challenges of space travel. Fourth, the challenges of living on another planet.

I'll stick to my main objection: Maybe I'm too cynical, but I find all this talk of colonizing space to be a collosal waste of brain power. Even if you could find a way to travel quickly enough, it's just too dangerous at our current technological level. And, if you believe scientists at all, global warming is a much more pressing issue. My answer to people who want to live on Mars is, let's try setting up a human colony at the bottom of the ocean first. If we can figure out how to live safely in a place that's only a few miles away, then maybe we can move on to more dangerous environments.

Mooning for moons

2006-06-26T16:52:00.000-04:00

I'm suffering under the indignity of living on the only planet in our solar system with one lousy moon. Yes, I know that Venus and Mercury have no moons, but all the planets that have moons have more than us. I'm always struck with a stab of envy when I see science fiction movies depicting worlds with lots of moons. How cool would that be? (Unless it's that multi-moon planet in "Pitch Black." That wasn't so cool.)

Also, I think it's time we came up with a better name for our moon than, "The Moon." Now that Pluto's satellites have official names ("Nix" and "Hydra"), not only do the mooned planets have more moons than us, but their moons have better names. For a world that used to think it was the center of the universe, this situation is shockingly negligent. Although I suppose that calling it "THE Moon" actually betrays a certain geocentricity of thought.

Of course, it's hard to think of a good name that isn't particular to one's own culture. Which means "Elvis" is right out. Based on the current naming system, though, it seems common to reach back to old mythology from defunct cultures. And since Irish mythology seems underrepresented in moon-naming, I propose the name "Luchta." It even sounds a little like Luna (an unofficial name for the Moon).

I wonder who I should see about my revolutionary proposal...

Galileo's middle finger

2006-06-20T09:16:00.000-04:00

One of the highlights of our trip to Italy was visiting the History of Science Museum in Firenze (Florence) where they have a couple of Galileo's telescopes.(Maybe these are the only ones in existence, actually.)

It's a fascinating museum, and makes an especially nice change if you've made your feet sore for a week looking at liturgical art in churches. Although the display with Galileo's finger did remind us uncomfortably of the many holy relics we saw at the Medici chapel and elsewhere—splinter of the "true cross," anyone? The Medicis were clearly a gullible bunch, but that's another story. They're also largely responsible for this museum.

The collection is massive—room after room of beautifully preserved instruments, sometimes dozens of versions of the same thing. It's not just astronomical objects, but all science: mechanics, optics, barometry, fluid dynamics, medicine. Instruments for measuring as well as didactic devices to demonstrate physical laws and properties.

My only complaint is that you really needed an item-by-item guide in English to appreciate what you were looking at. I've just discovered that such a thing is available on their website, but of course that didn't help at the time. Still, now I can learn more about some of my favorites: the Jovilabe, the Lady's Telescope (complete with beauty cream), the Astronomical Compendium, and Galileo's inclined plane, which one of the docents kindly demonstrated for us.

Back in the saddle

2006-06-19T11:56:00.001-04:00

After a well-deserved vacation (plus an extra week to decompress), I'm back. Since sales have dropped off at Stargazer Tees, I'm starting off by putting in a plug for the shop.

Summer is here and it's time to start hitting those star parties. And there's no better conversation starter than a funny or eye-catching shirt. Stargazer Tees carries original designs you won't find anywhere else. Our best sellers are:

Messier Marathon 2006

90% Inspiration, 10% Collimation

Astronomers Like It Messier

Stargazer Squares

Check 'em out and tell me what you think!

Observing report 5.20.06

2006-05-24T16:27:00.000-04:00

I meant to post this earlier, but it's been a hectic week. I'm going to Italy for two weeks tomorrow and should have lots to say about the birthplace of Galileo when I get back.

In the meantime, I did manage to get out stargazing on Saturday night. I didn't go all the way out to Virginia, but instead hit my local site near Damascus, MD. Usually, this is not a very dark site because it's located too near the I-270 corridor, which is quite built up with housing and shopping malls. But for some reason Saturday was uncommonly clear with virtually no haze or ambient light at all. One of those nights where, instead of hunting and hunting for objects, you just point your telescope and there they are.

Unfortunately, the steadiness was pretty bad, so planets and doubles were out of the question. But galaxies... that was a different story. I made the limiting magnitude out at 5.5 or 5.6 (based on the Astrocards chart, which I'm not sure is particularly accurate). But still, that was very good for this location.

Anyway, I hit a bunch of the Coma-Virgo group where there were sometimes as many as 4 galaxies in a single field of view -- lovely! And a few old favorites like M81, M51, and M57 (below). I was able to just get a hint of the arm between the two disks of M51 and for the first time saw the little star lying next to the Ring Nebula.

"Life on Mars"

2006-05-19T15:06:00.000-04:00

Not the scientific concept, silly, the David Bowie song.

OK, yes, his album, "Hunky Dory" was already 15 years old when I was really into it (more than 15 years ago). But there's nothing like listening to the albums of your youth to make you feel all that teenage angst all over again. Anyway, "Life on Mars," is kinda like that for me. And the digitally remastered version sounds great, nothing like the old turntable.

Expand your word power

2006-05-17T09:11:00.000-04:00

I have an extreme and inexplicable fondness for the word "perijove,"—probably because I've always been intrigued by words in which an adjectival or compound form uses a different root. For example "Mancunian" (someone from Manchester) or "Jacobian" (from the era of King James). Mostly because they're not at all intuitive—you just have to know.

Perijove refers to the closest approach of an orbiting body to the planet Jupiter ("Jove" being the greek version of the god's name, by Jove). Just as we have perigee/apogee for the Earth, perihelion/aphelion for the Sun, and periastron/apastron for other stars, you can extrapolate the formula to get similar constructions for the other celestial bodies:

Saturn: perisaturnum/perikrone
Moon: periselene/perilune
Mercury: perihermion
Tom Cruise: peripleo*

Wikipedia has a pretty comprehensive rundown.

* Actually, this was more apt than I intended because, of course, "cruise" already means to traverse or circumnavigate.

What they don't tell you about southern skies

2006-05-16T13:28:00.000-04:00

Most amateur astronomers are aware of the fact that there are all kinds of constellations and objects that are visible only in the Southern Hemisphere—like the Eta Carinae nebula, the Southern Cross, and the Coal Sack. But what surprised me on a trip to New Zealand last year is that everything is upside down.

Think about it—to get to the southern hemisphere you travel down the earth's surface, past our equator and underneath the ecliptic. So all of a sudden the ecliptic is in the north, not the south, which means that the moon is never where you think it ought to be. But, more shocking, the moon is upside down! Here's the drill: if you're in New York looking at a first quarter moon crossing the meridian due south, the bright side is to the right (west) and the dark side is to the left (east). You start walking south until you get to the equator. Now the moon is directly overhead. If you keep walking south until you get to Chile, the moon starts to move toward the north. If you turn around and stare at the moon, the lit side is still facing west, but now that's to your left. What used to be the top of the terminator in New York is now the bottom.

And, naturally, all the constellations that are near the ecliptic—like Orion—are upside down, too.

When I was in New Zealand, my young cousins were telling me about the only constellation they knew, "the Pot." I had never heard of this, so I asked them to point it out to me one night. Come to find out, it's actually Orion. Only, Orion upside down with the head and shoulders pretty low in the sky. So all you see is the bottom of his tunic, upside down. Kind of like a pot.

The speed of two wheels

2006-05-11T12:26:00.000-04:00

I'm trying to keep this blog on topic, but right now my entire psyche is consumed with the Giro d'Italia (bicycle race). For those who don't obsessively follow European road racing, this is one of the Grand Tours (3-week races) along with the Tour de France and the Vuelta a Espana, that are the crowns of the racing season. I'm alternately blessing and cursing OLN for providing a live internet pay-per-view broadcast of each day's stages, which means that I can't get any work done until after 11am. (Luckily, I work for myself, or this would NOT be an option.)

The speed of gravity

2006-05-11T12:19:00.000-04:00

I gather it's been more or less proven that gravity moves at the speed of light, and not instanteously (or at an infinite speed) as has been previously suggested. This is the sort of issue that makes me wish I'd stuck with Physics and Math in college, since I find both subjects really fascinating but can't even hope to comprehend 10% of them.

This is how deluded I am: I was reading a book (for the layperson, natch) about string theory, and got so excited that I bought a little volume at my local used book store about tensor calculus. Riiiight. This is the person who dropped out of calculus in first year of college because I couldn't score more than 20% on any of the tests due to a complete inability to figure out limits. Sadly, it was one of those things where I understood the explanation and could follow along in class, but as soon as I had to do a proof on my own it was like my brain turned into molasses. Very humbling. I remember thinking, "this is what stupid people feel like."

Anyway, since I never seem to learn from the past, I thought I might try and slog through this paper online: The Speed of Gravity – What the Experiments Say.

Wedding presents

2006-05-08T10:50:00.000-04:00

Regular readers will be thrilled to know that I managed to find a pair of shoes in time for the wedding, which was a lovely event. The father of the groom, who's more than a little eccentric, gave a long, rambling speech full of limericks he invented over the years and passed around 11x17 color photos of the groom in various embarassing poses from his youth. Of course, there had to be a grand gesture at the end (I was hoping in vain for something along the lines of "My Big Fat Greek Wedding"), which turned out to be a giant, framed certificate from—you guessed it!— the International Star Registry!

Anyone who hangs out with astronomers knows that the International Star Registry (ISR) has absolutely no legal or scientific standing anywhere. It's like selling people real estate on the moon. Basically, the deal is you send the ISR money to name a star after you. They send you a beautiful, expensively printed certificate and a star chart showing where "your" star is. Which is all very lovely and sweet except that you could name a star yourself, print yourself a certificate, save the $139 and it would be just as valid as theirs. Astronomers have their own internationally agreed-on classification and naming systems and are not going to start referring to SAO 067174 in the constellation Lyra as "Huggie Bear" just because you paid the ISR to call it that.

This issue came up on our astronomy club listserv and most of the people who piped up expressed disgust at the way the ISR preys on people's ignorance and sentimentality. But of course, someone had a story about their husband who was dying of cancer and the kids got together and named him a star from the ISR. Like my friend's father, they really meant well and wanted to make a special gesture.

The ISR website is careful to state (in small, hard-to-read type at the bottom of the page) that "International Star Registry star naming is not recognized by the scientific community." But on their "About Us" page (a large link at the top of the page), they say, "Because these star names are copyrighted with their telescopic coordinates in the book, 'Your Place in the Cosmos,' future generations may identify the star name in the directory and, using a telescope, locate the actual star in the sky." So, on balance, they're making it seem more legitimate than it is. And as far as I can tell, they don't claim anywhere that they won't sell the same star to different people—not that that really matters since it's all meaningless anyway, and furthermore there are a dozen other companies doing the same thing.

As with any flim-flammery, some people will say that if it makes you feel good or happy or loved, then what's the harm? Apart from fleecing the credulous, I'm not sure that there's any direct harm caused by the ISR. But there are plenty of wrong ideas that are harmful, so I don't think we ought to be encouraging even the ones that seem innocuous.

If you know someone who's considering buying into one of these star-naming scams, send them to the website of the International Astronomical Union (the people who ACTUALLY name stars) where they ruthlessly and humorously debunk the entire industry, while simultaneously making you feel like a total asshole for even considering it. Genius!

Mother's day, shmother's day

2006-05-05T09:02:00.000-04:00

Actually, tomorrow is Astronomy Day, but—as previously mentioned—I'll be at a wedding instead of hanging out with my astronomy club wishing the skies would clear up. So far, the forecast is . . . how shall I say . . . rainy. Which is also going to make for a fun wedding, especially since I'm getting all tarted up in a sleeveless frock meant for the middle of summer and some sort of impractical shoes that I hope to purchase at the last moment later today. (If you're female and you hate to shop, getting dressed up can be a monumental pain in the @$$.)

But back to the topic at hand. Having completely neglected to create an Astronomy Day design to sell on Stargazer Tees (a major marketing faux pas), I decided I couldn't let Father's Day get by me. And yes, Mother's Day is only a week away, but how many mothers do you know who have enough time and energy to stay up half the night stargazing? So we'll be giving Mother's Day a complete miss and going straight to Father's Day:

Any feedback from the peanut gallery? I'm guessing that women will be buying this shirt, not men, so it has to simultaneously appeal to women and just possibly look like something a guy would wear. Which is pretty tough to parse out and something I'm still learning. Personally, this is too sentimental for my taste, but I've come to discover that my taste is not mainstream enough to build a t-shirt retailing venture on.

Where it all started

2006-05-02T19:03:00.000-04:00

Actually, I can't remember where it all started—I was always interested in the sky and the stars. Even though stars were scarce in New York City, we went camping often enough so that I learned the major constellations. In high school I even took some classes as the Haydn Planetarium. In those days the classes were held in the basement and you had to walk through the dusty meteorite exhibit to get to them. Nothing like the the snazzy, multimedia Haydn Planetarium of today.

I have this defining intellectual memory, however, of reading a book I found on the shelf at home: Nigel Calder's Einstein's Universe. He has a chapter called "Directed Futures" in which he uses the concept of the "light bubble" to explain space-time. Imagine a spaceship with beacons on the outside. A flash of light will spread outwards from the spaceship at the speed of light, and since nothing can travel faster than that, that light bubble defines the spaceship's possible future:

Now, put our spaceship near a massive object. Gravity displaces the light-bubble off-centre and as a result the astronaut's future is somewhat biassed in a certain direction in space—towards the massive object. An interchange occurs between time and space. Its meaning assails our prejudices about time more fiercely than the slowing down of clocks. A black hole again clarifies the point. Imagine the spaceship just crossing the dire perimeter at the surface of a large black hole. The astronaut is trapped for ever. His future now lies inside the black hole, because the light constituting the light-bubble cannot, by definition, escape from the black hole.

That image has stayed with me ever since, which is probably a testament to Calder's engaging style, at least as much as the subject matter.

Observing report 4.29.06

2006-05-01T09:27:00.000-04:00

Despite perfectly clear skies all day, as I was driving out to the wilds of Virginia a bank of high, thin cloud rolled in from the west. This was the view from the observing site at sunset:

Plenty of folks turned up so we made the best of it. It was supposed to be our second chance at the Messier Marathon but I didn't even make an attempt because of the conditions. Many of the early objects were going to be lost in the sunset and the cloud bank wasn't going to help. (I later found out that one of our club members actually stuck it out and logged 84 Messiers!)

Also, I was operating on a major sleep deficit and knew I wasn't going to have much stamina. The problem with driving for an hour to your observing site is that you have to drive back when you're tired, on the Capital Beltway, with a whole bunch of drunk drivers on a Saturday night. Not to mention the deer. So, it's a bad idea to wait until you're really tired. My preferred method of staying awake is to drink coffee before I leave for home and crank up my iTunes sing along playlist. Although I've noticed that when I'm really sleepy, I forget to sing along.

So, basically, I took it easy and checked out Saturn, a few galaxies in Leo, and made another attempt at Comet Schwassman-Wachmann. The latter was sadly almost lost in the eastern light dome and high cloud (I feel a bit cursed trying to view this object). But I did get one sketch of the C fragment:

If I'd been able to stay up later when it was higher in the sky, I think I would have had a better time of it. Couldn't find the B fragment at all -- I didn't have any current charts with me. I took a quick peek at Jupiter before I packed up at about 10:30. I'm pretty sure there was a little moon shadow just starting to cross the disk, but the view was boiling in the low altititude, so I couldn't be sure.

Where's the Strauss?

2006-04-28T08:45:00.000-04:00

Some enterprising fellow captured a video of Suitsat flying by Vega. In theory, this is pretty cool since we're talking about an astronaut's suit that's orbiting the earth rather than the usual space junk—tiles, wrenches, bolts, urinal pucks, freeze-dried ice cream (I'm guessing here...). But in reality, the video is a bit disappointing, since it looks like every other satellite you see flying by at high speed.

I realize I was irrationally hoping it would be more like those videos of the ISS crossing the sun. Or better yet, a silhouette of the suit tumbling by slowing, with one hand outstretched as if it were waving to us, preferably to the strains of a Strauss waltz.

Evil eyes

2006-04-27T11:46:00.000-04:00

This very beautiful image was released by the Spitzer team today showing a galaxy merger in Canis Major. I don't know much about the physics of these things, but what's intriguing to me is the fact that the galaxies seem to be merging edge-on. Possibly, this is just an optical illusion—the larger galaxy certainly seems to be face-on to our line of sight, but the smaller one may be tilted in some dimension.

I would think the odds of galaxies merging in the same plane would be pretty small unless there's some gravitational force inclining them that way. Another possible explanation, of course, is that face-on galaxy mergers make nicer pictures.

By the numbers

2006-04-26T08:16:00.000-04:00

I had occasion recently to receive some advertising information from a major astronomy magazine which contained the results of their reader survey. As you would imagine, amateur astronomers are overwhelmingly male, upper-income professionals, but I was surprised by the fact that more people reported having attended a star party (19%) than belong to an astronomy club or observing group (15%).

Male: 86%

Mean age: 52.6 years

Household income: $95,800

College grad or better: 68.7%

Professional/managerial/technical career: 69.1%

Involved in astronomy hobby (mean): 21.3 years

Replacement cost of current astronomy equipment (mean): $2,614

Average hours per month spent on astronomy activities: 8.9 hours

Readers who describe themselves as intermediate/advanced: 61%

Average magazine subscription: 6.3 years

Actually, this correlates pretty well to the demographic makeup of my club—or at least he folks who ever show up for anything (about 10% of membership). So I reckon this is probably a pretty good description of the people who are really involved in the hobby. I'm sure lots of kids are interested in astronomy, at least in general, but it's really more of a hobby for grownups since it involved staying out late, owning plenty of equipment, and possessing more a little patience.

Backyard comet observing

2006-04-25T08:37:00.000-04:00

After my abject failure to locate Comet Schwassmann-Wachmann the other night (scroll down for post), I decided to give it the old college try again last night. Conditions were about the same: clear, warm, plenty o' light pollution, Corona Borealis barely visible over the trees next door, through the power lines. This time I set up the Meade 2080 instead of the TV-60, for maximum light-gathering.

Just to give you an idea of what I'm dealing with, there's a sodium streetlight about 12 feet from my back deck such that I don't need a flashlight to read or sketch (and a floodlight across the street at the neighbor's and downtown Silver Spring about 2 blocks away in the other direction). I did get a towel to use as a shroud, so that I didn't get light bouncing off my eyeball onto the eyepiece (yes, this is an issue).

While I was waiting for the earth to turn, and by way of comparison, I checked out galaxy M94 (mag 8.2) and the globular cluster M3 (mag 6.2) in Canes Venatici. I figure if I could find M94, I ought to be able to see this comet, right?

I had two charts, the one from S&T's May 2006 issue and a printout from Skyhound.com (link courtesy of Belt of Venus). The charts were crucial since I could only see about 3 stars in CrB naked eye -- I had to do all my other navigating in the finder scope and eyepiece. Here are my results:

I think I might have found fragment B, but it really looked like a double star, so maybe that's what it was. I was pointed a little bit east of eta CrB. I kinda wish I had one of those astronomy software programs so I could know for sure.

Then I turned my attention to fragment C. This should have been a lot easier to find, but it took a while. I didn't actually have a location for where it should be last night, so I had to extrapolate from my charts. I eventually found it about halfway between R and iota CrB. This was definitely it, but it was so faint, I actually lost it once after finding it -- I just couldn't see it anymore and I twiddled the controls and lost it. Anyway, found it again, but boy was it ever faint -- much harder to see than M94. Oddly, putting on a shroud didn't help, it just made it harder to see.

Painful, but worth it!

Banner day in news

2006-04-24T11:50:00.001-04:00

Space.com reports today that:

Doomsayers and Chicken Little-types can now strike "deathray from a star" from their list of possible ways to die. A new study finds that the chances of a gamma ray burst going off in our galaxy and destroying life on Earth are comfortingly close to zero.

Sigh. I don't know where people get these wacky ideas. Everyone knows you don't DIE from gamma-rays. Just ask this guy:

Stargazing accessories

2006-04-24T10:59:00.002-04:00

I really want to go to star parties, but the only one I've managed to make it to is our club's Almost Heaven Star Party in West Virginia. And I had to go to that one because I was signed up as a volunteer. It was a great experience, but I still haven't figured out the whole star party thing. How do people deal with things like:

1. Getting away from work during the week
2. Leaving my sweetie by himself for days on end since he probably doesn't want to be stuck at a star party for a week with a bunch of astronomy geeks he doesn't know
3. Driving anywhere further than a day away by myself (and driving back)
4. Flying, but then having to lug astronomy gear, rent a car and camping gear?
5. Camping by myself for a week

I could see driving somewhere 4-6 hours away, let's say, and maybe going for a long weekend. But anything longer than that and I'd essentially be taking a vacation without himself. Which seems really lame, and not particularly enjoyable. Which kind of limits my options.

I can only figure that people either take their whole families to these things, or their spouse is also an astronomer, or they don't particularly care about their spouse and don't mind spending a whole lot of time apart.

But I think I may have solved at least one of these issues. We got a wild hair and decided to buy a popup camper this weekend! It's about 22 years old, but in quite good nick. And I'm hoping it's going to enable me to -- if not start attending a lot of star parties -- at least get out to somewhere dark with the sweetie, with the camping gear, and with the telescope.

Eureka!

Comet frustration

2006-04-20T14:11:00.000-04:00

I spent about an hour last night in my heavily light-polluted backyard trying to locate Comet Schwassmann-Wachmann—to no avail. I swear I was looking in the right place, according to the May 2006 Sky & Telescope charts, but no dice. I started a bit early and had to wait for the appropriate region of the sky to rise above the treeline across the street. But I figured it should have been a short hop away from alpha CrB, right? And according to S&T, it ought to be around Mag 7 by now. I just didn't see anything that looked like a comet. I figure one of the following went wrong:

1) I was looking in the wrong place (not too likely)
2) Light pollution washed the sky out too much
3) The comet might be largish, making for a low surface brightness
4) The TV-60 just doesn't have enough photon-gathering power for this object

or some combination thereof.

And to top it all off, the smell of lilacs near the deck was so cloying as to induce mild nausea. I never have cared for perfume.

Farsighted

2006-04-19T10:52:00.000-04:00

I have this nerdy trick question that I like to ask people sometimes:

"What's the furthest you can see?"

Usually people assume you mean on the earth, so they'll say a mile or ten miles or whatever. But then I get a smug look and tell them, "Well I can see for about 2 million light years." (OK, I never actually do this because it would be insufferable, but I'm thinking it.)

Even in light-polluted skies, on a clear night you can see the Andromeda Galaxy, which is more than 2 million light years distant. A fact which strikes me as one of those mind-blowing bits of trivia that's so well-known as to have become banal. Which is what gave me the idea for this design:

And then there's the Grand Canyon. In Arizona, your sense of visual distance is easily fooled because the air is so clear, you don't get the usual clues that help you determine distance and scale. For example, we were walking around the Painted Desert and saw some striated mountains in the distance. They looked just like all the other sandy hills you see there, and we wondered out loud how far they must be. After a few more minutes of walking we realized that they were only a few dozen yards away and were in fact, only about 30 feet high!

Similarly, we drove from Canyon de Chelly to Monument Valley. A few miles out of Tuba City, still about 80 miles from our destination, we saw a distinctive mesa in the distance which looked just like the ones you see on postcards from Monument Valley. But we thought, there's no way we could see that from here. We were wrong again.

And don't forget the Grand Canyon. When you're on the south rim, it looks like the north rim is easily a couple of miles away. Come to find out, it's ten miles! And at the Grand Canyon, on a clear night, you can see at least 10 million light years -- NGC 891 in Andromeda is a naked-eye object, if you can believe that.

All I'm saying is that every stargazer should go there once before you die, if only to see what the real sky looks like.

In my experience, that rocky outcrop is the single best place to set up your telescope in the lower 48 states.

Certificate of authenticity

2006-04-18T09:07:00.000-04:00

If you've already blown through the Astronomical League's observing lists and have run out of places to get official kudos for your observing prowess, you're in luck!

The authors of The Night Sky Observers Guide have come up with two new observing lists for which they are offering certificates.

1. The Showpiece Objects Certificate – An introductory certificate requiring the observation of 94 objects. This is a listing of Kepple and Sanner Volumes 1 & 2 ***** objects with Declinations north of –30o. It includes many bright, familiar objects (e.g., M-Objects) and helps the observer begin his pursuit of the more challenging Comprehensive Certificate. While the Declination “cut-off” of –30o eliminates 7 spectacular objects (e.g., NGC-5139 and NGC-5128), the remaining objects should be observable by individuals from northern latitudes similar to that of the Kiski Astronomers.

2. The Comprehensive Certificate - This is a listing of all Kepple and Sanner Volumes 1 & 2 ***** and **** objects regardless of Declination. Observing all 400 objects may require observations to be conducted from various sites at a variety of latitudes. Kepple and Sanner recently updated the visual ratings of several of these objects. Consequently, 7 of them were promoted to while 9 others were removed from the ***** and **** lists. Thus, your volumes will not be in a 1:1 agreement with the attached K&S logging sheets.

They'll even give you credit if you've completed the AL's Messier list. The certificates are being offered through the Kiski Astronomers club of Vandergrift, Pennsylvania.

Off-topic: Word play

2006-04-14T12:01:00.000-04:00

On the way home yesterday, I was thinking about made-up words that are a combination of two other words, like ginormous or stepmonster or edutainment or sacrelicious.

There's a kind of subclass that describe hybrid objects where you need a new word:

Fork + Spoon = Spork
Skirt + Shorts = Skort

A couple of my other favorites are "Spave" (when you spend in order to save) and "Swunt" (an unintentional bunt, when you swing but don't make connection with the ball properly).

(I googled "made-up words" and came across an index called Unwords.com -- a great time-waster if you're a word junkie like me.)

Siteseeing

2006-04-14T11:58:00.000-04:00

Spitzer Space Telescope Podcasts

I'll be checking these out at lunch. By the way, it's OK to misspell "sightseeing" when you're talking about web SITES. At least, that's what I say.

Space ride more realistic than planned

2006-04-13T13:07:00.000-04:00

Space.com reports that a second person has died after riding Disney's "Mission: Space" amusement park ride. To paraphrase the old saying, to lose one customer is a misfortune; to lose two starts to look like carelessness.

Still, Disney does assert that "This ultimate interactive thrill-packed adventure is as close as you can get to blasting off into space without leaving Earth." With some of the inherent dangers, too, it seems.

I don't know how many people have been on this ride so far, probably tens of thousands. If we assume 100,000, then that's a death rate of only 0.02%. Compare that with actual space flight. According to Wikipedia, 457 people have been in space. Of those, 21 have died on the job. That's a rate of 4.5% -- WAAAAY higher than the death rate even among Alaska fishermen (which is popularly thought to be one of the most dangerous civilian jobs around), at 0.1%.

Abhors a vacuum

2006-04-12T15:41:00.000-04:00

Astroprof has one of the most interesting blog entries I've read in a while: What happens when the human body is exposed to a vacuum.

Which immediately brings to mind that cartoonishly yucky scene in Total Recall where the governator starts to experience explosive decompression on the surface of Mars. And, for those of you who were into Farscape, the fact that one of their alien characters (d'Argo) could survive for several minutes in a vacuum. They never explained how, exactly, but it was a crucial plot point in at least two episodes.

Image from farscapeworld.com

Gamma-ray bursts

2006-04-10T21:15:00.000-04:00

We had a great guest speaker at our club meeting last night: Dr. Derek Fox, an assistant astronomy prof at Penn State. He's a young guy with a ton of enthusiasm for the subject matter, which was admittedly intriguing: short and long gamma-ray bursts. After summarizing the history of our observations of GRBs and the evolution of various ground- and space-based detectors, he showed us the research that led to the current theories of the two types of GRBs. The most fascinating part of the presentation (along with the sexy "Hollywood" animations of stars collapsing and polar jets forming), was the evidence that led his team to be the first to pinpoint a short GRB and measure its distance.

It's experiences like this that make me regret I didn't go into sciences like I intended to in college. The thrill of discovery must be really fantastic, and I think Dr. Fox did a great job of giving the audience a brief vicarious experience of that thrill.

Astronomy Day

2006-04-10T07:32:00.000-04:00

If you're in the Washington, DC - Northern Virginia area or know someone who is, our club is planning a rockin' Astronomy Day fest. Last year being our 25th anniversary, we pulled out all the stops and got John Dobson and Richard Berry so speak. This year's speakers will be less-well-known club members, but it should be pretty great nonetheless. I've got a wedding to go to, so I'll be giving it a miss this year, unfortunately. A downloadable PDF flyer (do I even need to say, designed by yours truly?) is available from the club website:

Earth Day 2006

2006-04-07T11:21:00.000-04:00

I think Earth Day counts as an astronomy topic.

This year Earth Day will be on April 26. And Astronomy Day follows hard on its heels on May 6.

Anyway, I'm having a lot of success at Stargazer Tees with my Earth Day 2006 t-shirt. This is actually an illustration I did a few years ago for a Christmas card, but I think it works OK in this context:

Yes, it's true, only women have purchased this design. Oddly enough, I'm making at least half my sales to women, even though astronomy is a hobbly largely pursued by men. I assume that this is because women are the "gift buyers" in the family. So, the conundrum becomes, should I design shirts that appeal to men or shirts that appeal to women shopping for men? Welcome to retail.

Spirit is willing, but the wheel is stuck

2006-04-05T13:35:00.000-04:00

NASA/JPL-Caltech

Spirit is literally dragging a wheel through Mars' dusty soil since the right front wheel has stopped working. And, based on the picture above, it looks like all that dragging has scraped off some of the wheel treads. Must be pretty abrasive soil.

As we all know, the Mars rovers have lasted waaaay longer than anyone expected, and they're still hoping there's life in the old girl yet. NASA engineers are using test rovers to figure out how to get around on Mars with only five wheels.

I just can never get over the fact that these awesome pictures are from the surface of another planet! I always wonder if people will eventually get to Mars and how they'll feel about running into one of our old rovers or crashed spaceships. I sort of imagine it would give you a weird time-traveller feeling. Because it's not like the equipment is going to get all rusty or covered with vines. They'll probably look exactly the same in 500 years as they do now. Maybe covered with dust, though.

Magical occultation 4.1.06

2006-04-04T12:08:00.000-04:00

I had a lot of fun telling people last week that I'd be going out on Saturday to view an "occultation of the Pleiades by the Moon." Occultations are one of those things that no-one outside of astronomy has heard of, so you can really bamboozle them with big words: "Ogga-what?"

I'm the first to admit that the Moon passing in front of a bunch of stars doesn't sound like something rare or particularly interesting, but you really had to be there to appreciate it. Here's my description from Saturday night (with a very rudimentary sketch):

So beautiful to watch—the unlit part of the moon is clearly visible against the sky—kind of a velvety dove-grey against black—can see some details of lunar surface even in the shadows.

Even the photo gallery at Space Weather doesn't convey how magical it was. Every time a star would get close to the edge of the Moon, someone would yell out and we'd all fix our eyes to scopes or binoculars. You'd hold your breath, and as soon as the star winked out, everyone let out an involuntary exclamation, "Oh! There it goes," or something like that. Just the sight of the Moon amid the starry field was particulary lovely since it's something you don't often see.

M108

We had a fair amount of cloud drifting in and out early on, so there was as lot of time to chat and check out other people's scopes. But I did bag a few Messiers. I'm currently re-working my way through the list and doing sketches of every object so I can apply for the Astronomical League certificate. One of the things I love about sketching is comparing my drawing with a photograph of the object. I'm always amazed how close they look. (The drawing is mislabeled: the actual magnification is 105x.)

Mu Boo

2006-03-30T16:15:00.000-05:00

This is what happens sometimes instead of working. You're pretending to be designing a newsletter and suddenly you get an idea for a T-shirt and have to drop everything to explore your Creative Vision. I don't know why I never get these Uncontrollable Creative Urges for client work. Oh well.

Seriously, did you ever think about the fact that there's a star called "µ Boo"? Which got me thinking about the various versions of the "boo" story, which I think originated with Lou Gehrig ("They're not yelling 'boo,' they're yelling, 'Lou!' "). There was also a comedian who had a riff about Little League in which his father told him, "They're not yelling "boo," they're yelling "Jew!" And of course, the one everyone knows these days, Hans Moleman: "I was saying Boo-urns."

My personal favorite was from an interview with Tom Petty on, I believe, the "History of Rock 'n' Roll" series, in which he described opening up for Bruce Springsteen way back when. He thought everyone was yelling "boo," and was so disgusted when they finished their set, he mentioned it to a roadie. "They weren't yelling "boo," they were yelling "Bruce," said the roadie. Tom Petty shrugged, "What's the difference?"

Which is all a long preamble to my latest oeuvre, the "Bootes" t-shirt:

Tongue-twister

2006-03-30T09:46:00.000-05:00

Try saying "Schwassmann-Wachmann" five times fast.

Or, better yet, my favorite tongue-twister:

Many an anemone has an enemy anemone

The pre-Copernicans

2006-03-30T09:02:00.000-05:00

It's easy to read too much into these surveys that expose scientific/math/geography illiteracy among the U.S. population. You know, the ones that show how a large percentage of students can't find the U.S. on a globe or name the current President. But there's plenty of ignorance to go around: after being pressured to join my office basketball pool, for example, I realized that I didn't have any idea how many periods they play -- something that I'm sure a lot of people would find to be an incomprehensible gap in knowledge. (Ask me about bicycle racing, MotoGP, or rally and I might have a little more to offer.)

Sure, I think it's important to understand that the earth revolves around the sun. To me, this seems like a basic fact about the world that everyone ought to know. But I can also accept the idea that not everyone views this as relevant information. In particular the sun thing. After all, personal experience and language itself tell us that the sun "rises" in the east and "sets" in the west. And it doesn't really hamper your day-to-day life to believe otherwise.

When it comes to believing things that aren't true, I'd much rather see a reduction in the number of people who believe in miracles, new-age "medicine", psychics, and so on -- beliefs that, if acted upon, could actually harm you or your children.

Today's eclipse

2006-03-29T09:36:00.000-05:00

EUMETSAT

Clear skies over the Sahara made for excellent satellite images of today's eclipse.

The littlest Messier object: M40

2006-03-28T09:15:00.001-05:00

SEDS

I love those posters of the Messier objects—especially the ones in color where you can see the lovely nebulas and galaxies in all their glory. [cue soaring classical music[

And then there's M40. [screech of needle skipping off phonograph]

If you're contemplating the Messier marathon this weekend, it pays to know what you're looking for. In this case, an unremarkable double star. It's not hard to find, but M40 does seem like a plastic mug among Ming vases.

The SEDS database points out that this is an optical (line-of-sight) double, not a binary system. In 1863 the angular separation was 49.2" and in 1991 it had increased to 52.8". So assuming they keep moving apart at this rate (3.6" every 128 years), it will only take another 1,880 years to double their current angular separation, which will hardly count as a double star at all.

So I guess the moral of the story is, check out M40 now while it still looks like something.

Mag 3 skies—or not?

2006-03-28T08:42:00.000-05:00

So, last night I took my light pollution reading for the Globe project. Turns out my neighborhood has closer to magnitude 4 skies than mag 3! Well, I don't think I'll change the name of the blog, even if it is a bit pessimistic.

I took my reading across the street in a neighbor's yard since I couldn't actually see Orion from my backyard -- a giant tulip poplar is in the way. There were two bright streetlights in my view; I used my hand to shield my face from the closest one. A bit of thin cloud or contrails made the transparency a bit worse even than it could have been.

It's true that when you get a good clear, dry night, you really can see a few stars around my house. It's mostly the streetlights, power lines, trees, and buildings that make actual stargazing virtually impossible. And if there's moisture in the air, forget about it. The whole sky looks like the inside of a giant, orange zeppelin.

We've come a long way, baby

2006-03-23T10:14:00.000-05:00

Checking out some of the recent images from the Astronomy Picture of the Day website, I was struck by this plot of known objects in the inner solar system. First of all, I love a graph with a ton of data in it (thank you, Edward Tufte). But second, I'm gobsmacked by the sheer amount of knowledge that this graph summarizes. Especially when you compare it to the state of knowledge in Copernicus's drawing below.

2002
Credit & Copyright: MPC,CBAT,Harvard CfA,IAU

ca. 1530

Pan-tastically small

2006-03-21T09:53:00.000-05:00

Cassini took this picture of Saturn's rings, the moon Rhea, and also: "A couple of bright pixels at the center of the image mark the location of the tiny moon Pan (26 kilometers, or 16 miles across)."

They weren't kidding about "a couple of pixels"! Even with a red arrow pointing straight at it, it's hard to see.

Time, time, time is not on my side

2006-03-20T15:01:00.000-05:00

Duriscoe et al./NPS

Extending from the city in all directions, the light from Las Vegas, for example, reaches 8 of 38 parks that Moore has surveyed. About 150 km away from Las Vegas, the city's lights are the dominant cause of light pollution in Death Valley National Park, where Moore's collaborator Dan Duriscoe works. On the other hand, "we can barely detect Las Vegas from Bryce Canyon," about 300 km away, says Moore, who's based in Utah at that national park. Science News Online

I already feel bad when I don't get out stargazing on a clear weekend, for whatever reason. And now I find out that time's a-running out. According to the National Park Service:

Two–thirds of Americans cannot see the Milky Way from their backyard, and 99% of the population live in an area that scientists consider light polluted. The rate at which light pollution is increasing will leave almost no dark skies in the contiguous US by 2025.

So get yer ground-based astronomy in now, while the gettin's good.

Observing report 3/18/06

2006-03-19T10:41:00.000-05:00

We had a great public event last night at Crockett Park. I was obviously not the only one feeling photon deprived, as we had quite a good turnout of scopes -- at least 15 or 20. Not bad for a relatively cold, breezy evening. I made the limiting magitude out at about 5.2. I don't think the seeing was that great -- I took a stab at Saturn later in the evening and it didn't look too crisp. The public participation was low, which suited me just fine since I was hoping to do a practice run at the Messier Marathon.

It's not that I have anything against public nights exactly -- and when you get talking to someone who's really keen but not very knowledgable you certainly can feel like a hero --but overall I prefer club-only events. Mainly because I get out so infrequently that I feel like my time under the stars is precious and I want to jealously guard it. But also because public nights are noisy (kids) and bright (headlights, flashlights). Probably I'm just a crabby misanthrope. Most of the club member seem to love showing Saturn to newbies over and over and explaining what a planetary nebula is.

Anyway, I arrived shortly after sundown. Luckily the wind had died down almost completely, and it was probably about 40 degrees. Perfectly clear, dry, and good transparency. My equipment for the night consisted of binoculars and the Meade 2080 equipped with a 40mm Plossl and Telrad finder. It turns out binoculars are absolutely crucial for Messier Marathoning, because you can knock off a bunch of objects very quickly with them. I was able to locate galaxies M81 and M82 with them. Boom! Crossed off the list.

I had done my homework and came equipped with a list downloaded from Richard Bell's website and my Astrocards, reordered to match the list. The Astrocards were crucial. I've discovered that if I can't find something with the Astrocards, it's because I started from the wrong locater star. They always work if you use them correctly. And of course, a clip board, pencil, and my handy-dandy Ultra Darklight (a your truly product).

The other crucial piece of equipment I was trying out for the first time were my Carhartt insulated bibs. That's the first time I've ever actually been warm in cold-weather observing. Actually, I was HOT. Those things are the bomb. Nuff said. I just wish I'd bought them years ago.

Sadly, I was unable to find the very first object on the list, M74. I don't think it got dark enough. I was definitely in the right spot. I was able to detect M77, which was very faint and low on the horizon. My only other mysterious failure was M110 -- yes, the one right next to the Andromeda Galaxy. I dunno. I just couldn't find it. I've seen it lots of other times.

Anyway, I worked steadily through the list until someone near me said, "The moon's coming up." I had completely forgotten that this wasn't a new moon weekend. Even coming up through the trees, the waxing gibbous was so bright it looked like a beacon that lit up the whole field. I was really pleased with myself for staying out late and not feeling tired or hungry or cold for a change. I thought, it's really late, I wonder what time it is? So I went to check my cell phone clock and I was so shocked, I thought, that can't be the right time. It was only 10:40. Ha.

So, from about 6:30 to 10:40 I bagged 38 Messiers, not too bad. I think getting close to the 110 is possible, I just don't know if I have the will/stamina to stay out all night. Hopefully we'll get another good night next weekend when the actual club Messier event is happening, so I'll be able to have another go.

I'll say this about the Messier Marathon. I always felt secretly that it seemed a bit of a waste to just try and rocket through the list and not spend any time appreciating each object. Usually, I like to sketch and take my time trying to eke out as much detail as I can. But there is some value in finding an object and moving on: you really start to learn where things are. I was able to hit M35 in the scope for some tourists last night in about 3 second. That's got to be faster than slewing.

Astronomy in Ireland

2006-03-17T14:26:00.000-05:00

In recognition of St. Patrick's Day, check out a story I wrote a couple of years ago about visiting Birr Castle in County Offaly, Ireland. Birr Castle is the site of the famous "Leviathan," which at one time was the largest telescope in the world. The Earl of Rosse who built the telescope used it to first discern the spiral structure of the Whirlpool Galaxy. They have a really nice, recently redesigned web site, if you want to read more.

More fun Irish facts:

The Washington Post notes today that over 34 million Americans describe themselves as having Irish ancestry, which is more than 9 times the current population of Ireland. Of course, before the Famine, there were something like 10 million people in Ireland, which is hard to believe if you've been there. It must have been terribly crowded.

In 1981 I went to see the Rolling Stones at Slane Castle in Ireland and there were reportedly a million people there. Which at the time, was 1/3 of entire population of the Republic. At one rock show.

And for those of you with XM Radio, you can listen to great Irish music all day on channel 15.

Almost Heaven Star Party

2006-03-15T07:03:00.000-05:00

There's nothing like leaving work late last night and then getting up at six so you can come in early and work some more! Actually, I just about had a panic attack last night thanks to a job that came in with 40% more pages than it's supposed to have and I'm already just about out of budget. Wheee! What fun.

So instead of blogging, I'm going to refer you to our club's upcoming star party (logo & site designed by your truly, natch), the Almost Heaven Star Party. We're still getting a few things sorted out, but it's really going to be a great event.

Stardust surprises

2006-03-14T09:03:00.000-05:00

NASA's Stardust Findings May Alter View of Comet Formation

"We have found very high-temperature minerals, which supports a particular model where strong bipolar jets coming out of the early sun propelled material formed near to the sun outward to the outer reaches of the solar system," said Michael Zolensky, Stardust curator and co-investigator at NASA's Johnson Space Center, Houston. "It seems that comets are not composed entirely of volatile rich materials but rather are a mixture of materials formed at all temperature ranges, at places very near the early sun and at places very remote from it."

Of course, I'm all signed up for the "Stardust at Home" research project. I don't think there's any other science where amateurs at home can actually make meaningful contributions -- whether it's analysing data, discovering comets, measuring variable stars, or monitoring gamma ray bursts. Astronomy is so cool.

Messier Marathon 2006

2006-03-13T10:03:00.000-05:00

Our club is gearing up for Messier Marathon season. I'm just hoping the weather cooperates and that I actually have the time to get out. Every year I swear I'm going to spend more time stargazing and it never happens.

Part of the problem is that I have a new interest that seems to conflict with stargazing: cycling. You wouldn't think it, since cycling happens during the day, but of course, the nicer the weather, the more likely I am to go for a long ride on the weekends. And after a long ride, I'm usually too pooped to contemplate getting up off the couch, never mind loading up all my gear into the car, driving for over an hour to the wilds of Virginia, and standing around in the cold for hours, then driving back in the middle of the night. You kinda want to be well-rested and fresh for that sort of thing.

Anyway, my only previous recorded attempt at the Messier Marathon was several years ago, when I just got started in the hobby -- a grand total of 29 objects. I think I can probably do better than that this time, since now I know you can use binoculars to find some of the easy objects, which ought to speed things up. I know the Virgo cluster is going to kill me, though. I made it through this mess one night many years ago, but it took me 4 hours to find 16 galaxies. The main problem is knowing which ones you're looking at. Some of them are NGC objects and not Messiers at all.

Downtown Silver Spring

2006-03-10T11:56:00.000-05:00

Here's the light pollution bane of my existence, the Courtyard Marriott:

How does it offend me? Let me count the ways.
1. Lights pointing into sky, illuminating top-level bedrooms (!) and architectural nightmare concrete "Stonehenge" thing on top of building.
2. Visible from my bedroom window, while I'm in bed.
3. Disgusting waste of electricity that serves no purpose, not even an aesthetic one.
4. They installed upward-facing lights in the SIDEWALK around the building, so as to blind you as you walk past. I think they've realized these are incredibly obnoxious and have ceased turning them on.

The only creatures who seem to enjoy the light pollution are swallows, who swarm over the hotel in the summer, eating bugs who are attracted to the light.

Exhibit B, downtown Silver Spring:

To be fair, this is a vast improvement in terms of enjoying the neighborhood over what was here before (empty lots, parking lots, an armory, more parking lots).

Major offenses:
1. Brighter than daylight at night.
2. Noise pollution bonus: Outdoor PA playing music 24 hours a day. Even at 4 am, when no-one's around. The worst thing is about this is that two building across the street from each will play DIFFERENT music, at competing volume. And the Baja Fresh on the corner plays it's own, different music. Whoever thought of this should be hamstrung.
3. Macaroni Grill.

The creatures who seem to get the most benefit out of the new downtown are kids on skateboards.

Star-hunting party

2006-03-09T12:40:00.000-05:00

If you live in a severely light-polluted area like me, here's something we can do to help quantify it:

Join thousands of other students, families, and educators by participating in GLOBE at Night—an international event designed to observe and record the visible stars as a means of measuring light pollution in a given location. Participation is open to anyone—anywhere in the world—who can get outside and look skyward during the week of March 22-29, 2006! There is no cost to participate in GLOBE at Night. Help us reach our goal of 5000 observations from around the world!

I reckon it would take me about a minute to count all the stars I can see in Orion from my backyard—all ten of them. Sigh.

Fish on Enceladus?

2006-03-09T12:36:00.000-05:00

NASA's supposed to make an Exciting Announcement today at 2pm, but there's already news going around that's it's about warm water on Enceladus, which is a prerequisite for life as we know it! Looks like I might have to update my "Fish on Europa" shirt...

IDA needs help

2006-02-25T13:48:00.000-05:00

The International Dark-Sky Association can always use your help, especially financially, for their good works. But I'm talking about their website. What a mess! I received a piece of mail asking me to vote for 6 board members. They kindly included a short bio for each candidate, but I thought I'd go to the website and find out more about them and what their platforms are. No such luck. Not only is there no mention of the Board elections on the home page (if you can call it that), but it doesn't seem to be available anywhere.

You know there's a problem when a website has a link called "Site users guide" at the top (in addition to "keyword index," "site map," and "search the site"!) If you have to explain it how your site works, then you've done something wrong. It's dreadful in just about every aspect.

When I get more time, I'm going to seriously consider sending them a proposal for a redesign. That site is like a cry for help.

Saturn tonight

2006-02-24T23:25:00.000-05:00

I finally got out tonight for the first time since about November for a little stargazing. It was a perfect night, if a bit nippy. Except for the fact that I was set up in the backyard with multiple neighbor's lights shining in my eyes, cars passing by, and that goddamn tulip poplar obscuring most of the sky. In spite of all that, the sky was very clear and much more steady than usual. I put my 5.8mm Antares in (345x) and sat peacefully with a towel over my head to block out some of the light and spent a good hour and a half with Saturn.

Saturn is truly amazing. After looking at it for a while, the disk looks completely three-dimensional. You almost feel like you can touch it. And it's almost impossible to believe that those bright rings are a 1-km-deep plate of dust. Tiny Tethys was barely visible in the glare near the rings. Here's hoping we get another good night tomorrow, when I'm planning to head out of town for some slightly darker skies.

The fighting sparrows

2006-02-13T12:56:00.000-05:00

We've got a permanent colony of sparrows in the south eave of the house. Normally, they seem pretty content with their prime spot. But this morning a violent turf war broke out among what seemed to be two factions. Such a fussin' and a feudin'! Actually, it was pretty cool watching pairs of them fall out of the air locked in mortal combat.

UK legislates against bad lighting

2006-02-13T12:07:00.000-05:00

Under the Clean Neighbourhood and Environment Act 2005 light pollution will find itself on similar footing to noise pollution and residents plagued by intrusive bright lights will be able to ask the authorities for an abatement order if the light is 'prejudicial to health or a nuisance'.

Fines of up to £5,000 will be meted out to individuals who refuse to comply while businesses could face penalties of up to £20,000.

» MORE

Sunset 1-12-06

2006-02-13T10:29:00.001-05:00

Watch this space

2006-02-12T17:06:00.000-05:00