The Hubble Ultra Deep Field Image (see description on the right, below)

The Hubble Ultra Deep Field Image
(10,000 galaxies in an area 1% of the apparent size of the moon -- see description on the right, below)

Tuesday, September 11, 2012

2012 September


AEA Astronomy Club Newsletter                      September  2012

Contents
AEA Astronomy Club News & Calendar p.1
Video(s) & Picture(s) of the Month p. 3
Astronomy News p. 7
General Calendar p. 9
    Colloquia, lectures, mtgs. p. 9
    Observing p. 12
Useful Links p. 13

About the Club p. 13

Club News & Calendar.

Calendar

Club Meeting Schedule:
20-Sep-12
Star Trackers
Art Okawauchi
Aerospace
A3/1607A/B
18-Oct-12
High/Wide Dynamic Range CMOS Imagers
Blake Jacquot (and Hung Ngo)
Aerospace
A1/1029A/B
15-Nov-12
Upper Atmospheric Disturbances Using RAIDS and Ground-Based Measurements
Rebecca Bishop & Andrew Christensen
Aerospace
A1/1029A/B
19-Dec-12
Beyond Next Generation Access To Space
Scott Martinelli and Jay Penn
Aerospace
A1/1029A/B


AEA Astronomy Club meetings are on 3rd Thursdays at 11:45am.  For 2012, April-May we meet in A1/1026; June-July & Oct.-Dec. in A1/1029A/B;
Aug. in A1/2143 and Sept. in A3/1607A/B.

News:  

The Mallincam Extreme astronomical video eyepiece camera has arrived and is ready for use.  I believe Jason Fields has assembled and had first light with the new 16-inch Dobsonian, and we are anxious to hear his report (I believe he’s on travel now).

From Jim Edwards:
Hey Mark...

Well, I'm gone but hopefully not (fully) forgotten!   ;-)

On this sizzlingly hot day I decided that I needed to break out the Coronado again and see what Big Sol is up to, causing all this trouble.  As you can see from the (tuned) image, he's very active today!  I've also included a couple of shots of the equipment setup for the uninitiated.  Please feel free to share any/all/none of this with the club as you see fit.
   




Btw, I am loving the motorized mini-equatorial mount that I got thru Orion.  Its just like the one that I had borrowed (for several years) from a friend and which you've seen in the past.  It works very well and is very affordable.  You should consider getting one of these for the club to go with the solar scope.

Best to you all there, pass on my regards.
Jim

From Paul Rousseau:

I joined Alan and his family at the Griffith Observatory star party on Saturday night. I brought my new camera and Alan brought his 8-inch Dobsonian telescope. Before sunset, there was some excitement due to a helicopter rescue of someone at Griffith Park. The exciting items in the sky that we enjoyed were the Moon and Saturn. In the first photo, you can see the Moon above the observatory. In the second photo, if you look carefully, you can see Mars, Saturn and Spica. You can find a few more photos that I captured yesterday in this Flickr set:









Astronomy Video(s) & Picture(s) of the Month
(from Astronomy Picture of the Day, APOD: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/archivepix.html)
Video(s)

A Flight Through the Universe: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120813.html  

Mars in the Loophttp://www.twanight.org/newTWAN/photos.asp?ID=3003742                                                                     (also http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120809.html)

DNA: The Molecule that Defines You:  http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120821.html


Spiral Galaxy NGC 4038 in Collision
Image Credit: Data Collection:
Hubble Legacy Archive; Processing: Danny Lee Russell
Explanation: This galaxy is having a bad millennium. In fact, the past 100 million years haven't been so good, and probably the next billion or so will be quite tumultuous. Visible on the upper left, NGC 4038 used to be a normal spiral galaxy, minding its own business, until NGC 4039, toward its right, crashed into it. The evolving wreckage, known famously as the Antennae, is pictured above. As gravity restructures each galaxy, clouds of gas slam into each other, bright blue knots of stars form, massive stars form and explode, and brown filaments of dust are strewn about. Eventually the two galaxies will converge into one larger spiral galaxy. Such collisions are not unusual, and even our own Milky Way Galaxy has undergone several in the past and is predicted to collide with our neighboring Andromeda Galaxy in a few billion years. The frames that compose this image were taken by the orbiting Hubble Space Telescope by professional astronomers to better understand galaxy collisions. These frames -- and many other deep space images from Hubble -- have since been made public, allowing an interested amateur to download and process them into this visually stunning composite.


Curiosity on Mars: Still Life with Rover
Image Credit:
NASA, JPL-Caltech
Explanation: What does the Curiosity rover look like on Mars? To help find out, NASA engineers digitally synthesized multiple navigation camera images taken last week into what appears to be the view of a single camera. Besides clods of Martian dirt, many of Curiosity's science instruments are visible and appear in good shape. Near the middle of the rover is an augmented reality tag intended to enable smartphones to provide background information. Far in the distance is a wall of Gale Crater. As Curiosity will begin to roll soon, its first destination has now been chosen: an intriguing intersection of three types of terrain named Glenelg.


Curiosity on Mars: A Wall of Gale Crater
Image Credit:
NASA, JPL-Caltech, MSSS
Explanation: If you could stand on Mars, what would you see? The above image is a digitally re-colored approximation of what you might see if the above Martian landscape had occurred on Earth. Images from Mars false-colored in this way are called white balanced and useful for planetary scientists to identify rocks and landforms similar to Earth. The image is a high resolution version of a distant wall of Gale Crater captured by the Curiosity rover that landed on Mars last week. A corresponding true color image exists showing how this scene actually appears on Mars. The robotic Curiosity rover continues to check itself over and accept new programming from Earth before it begins to roll across Mars and explore a landscape that has the appearance of being an unusually layered dried river bed.



A Filament Across the Sun
Image Credit & Copyright:
Bret Dahl
Explanation: Is that a cloud hovering over the Sun? Yes, but it is quite different than a cloud hovering over the Earth. The long light feature on the left of the above color-inverted image is actually a solar filament and is composed of mostly charged hydrogen gas held aloft by the Sun's looping magnetic field. By contrast, clouds over the Earth are usually much cooler, composed mostly of tiny water droplets, and are held aloft by upward air motions because they are weigh so little. The above filament was captured on the Sun about two weeks ago near the active solar region AR 1535 visible on the right with dark sunspots. Filaments typically last for a few days to a week, but a long filament like this might hover over the Sun's surface for a month or more. Some filaments trigger large Hyder flares if they suddenly collapse back onto the Sun.


Astronomy News:
(from AIAA Daily Launch & NASA JPL News)

WISE Reveals New Type Of Galaxy, More Supermassive Black Holes.


The CBS Evening News (8/29, story 11, 0:25, Pelley) reported, "NASA scientists today showed off their latest discovery. It's a type of galaxy they've never seen before. They call it a 'hot DOG.' It pumps out as much light as 100 trillion suns and there are thousands of these galaxies. They're very far away, about ten billion light years, which means they formed when the universe was in its infancy."
        Reuters (8/30, Klotz) notes the new hot DOGs, also called hot, dust-obscured galaxies, objects were found using the WISE telescope and could represent a missing stage in galaxy evolution. Scientists are unsure whether the early universe was special or hot DOGs can form today. WISE project scientist Peter Eisenhardt of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory said, "There is either just a weird set of circumstances that rarely comes up, or a common set of circumstances that comes up for only a very short period of time." Meanwhile, the article also notes WISE has found millions of supermassive black holes during its two years of observations in space.
        According to the Wired (8/30, Mann) "Wired Science" blog, astronomer Daniel Stern said during the press conference announcing the results, "This is a jackpot of black holes, two to three times more than have been found by any other survey."
        SPACE (8/30, Moskowitz) reports that although WISE is no longer making any observations, "scientists anticipate many more discoveries are still to come from its observations." Universe Today (8/30, Atkinson) also covered the story.

NASA's WISE Survey Uncovers Millions of Black Holes
The full version of this story with accompanying images is at:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2012-265&cid=release_2012-265

PASADENA, Calif. -- NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mission has led to a bonanza of newfound supermassive black holes and extreme galaxies called hot DOGs, or dust-obscured galaxies.

Images from the telescope have revealed millions of dusty black hole candidates across the universe and about 1,000 even dustier objects thought to be among the brightest galaxies ever found. These powerful galaxies, which burn brightly with infrared light, are nicknamed hot DOGs.

"WISE has exposed a menagerie of hidden objects," said Hashima Hasan, WISE program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "We've found an asteroid dancing ahead of Earth in its orbit, the coldest star-like orbs known and now, supermassive black holes and galaxies hiding behind cloaks of dust."

WISE scanned the whole sky twice in infrared light, completing its survey in early 2011. Like night-vision goggles probing the dark, the telescope captured millions of images of the sky. All the data from the mission have been released publicly, allowing astronomers to dig in and make new discoveries.

The latest findings are helping astronomers better understand how galaxies and the behemoth black holes at their centers grow and evolve together. For example, the giant black hole at the center of our Milky Way galaxy, called Sagittarius A*, has 4 million times the mass of our sun and has gone through periodic feeding frenzies where material falls towards the black hole, heats up and irradiates its surroundings. Bigger central black holes, up to a billion times the mass of our sun, may even shut down star formation in galaxies.

In one study, astronomers used WISE to identify about 2.5 million actively feeding supermassive black holes across the full sky, stretching back to distances more than 10 billion light-years away. About two-thirds of these objects never had been detected before because dust blocks their visible light. WISE easily sees these monsters because their powerful, accreting black holes warm the dust, causing it to glow in infrared light.

"We've got the black holes cornered," said Daniel Stern of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., lead author of the WISE black hole study and project scientist for another NASA black-hole mission, the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR). "WISE is finding them across the full sky, while NuSTAR is giving us an entirely new look at their high-energy X-ray light and learning what makes them tick."

In two other WISE papers, researchers report finding what are among the brightest galaxies known, one of the main goals of the mission. So far, they have identified about 1,000 candidates.

These extreme objects can pour out more than 100 trillion times as much light as our sun. They are so dusty, however, that they appear only in the longest wavelengths of infrared light captured by WISE. NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope followed up on the discoveries in more detail and helped show that, in addition to hosting supermassive black holes feverishly snacking on gas and dust, these DOGs are busy churning out new stars.

"These dusty, cataclysmically forming galaxies are so rare WISE had to scan the entire sky to find them," said Peter Eisenhardt, lead author of the paper on the first of these bright, dusty galaxies, and project scientist for WISE at JPL. "We are also seeing evidence that these record setters may have formed their black holes before the bulk of their stars. The 'eggs' may have come before the 'chickens.'"

More than 100 of these objects, located about 10 billion light-years away, have been confirmed using the W.M. Keck Observatory on Mauna Kea, Hawaii, as well as the Gemini Observatory in Chile, Palomar's 200-inch Hale telescope near San Diego, and the Multiple Mirror Telescope Observatory near Tucson, Ariz.

The WISE observations, combined with data at even longer infrared wavelengths from Caltech's Submillimeter Observatory atop Mauna Kea, revealed that these extreme galaxies are more than twice as hot as other infrared-bright galaxies. One theory is their dust is being heated by an extremely powerful burst of activity from the supermassive black hole.

"We may be seeing a new, rare phase in the evolution of galaxies," said Jingwen Wu of JPL, lead author of the study on the submillimeter observations. All three papers are being published in the Astrophysical Journal.

The three technical journal articles, including PDFs, can be found at
http://arxiv.org/abs/1205.0811, http://arxiv.org/abs/1208.5517 and http://arxiv.org/abs/1208.5518 .

JPL manages and operates WISE for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The principal investigator, Edward Wright, is at UCLA. The mission was competitively selected under NASA's Explorers Program managed by the Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. The science instrument was built by the Space Dynamics Laboratory, Logan, Utah, and the spacecraft was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colo. Science operations and data processing and archiving take place at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.

More information is online at
http://www.nasa.gov/wise, http://wise.astro.ucla.edu and http://jpl.nasa.gov/wise .


General Calendar:

Colloquia, Lectures, Seminars, Meetings, Open Houses & Tours:


Colloquia:  Carnegie (Tues. 4pm), UCLA, Caltech (Wed. 4pm), IPAC (Wed. 12:15pm) & other Pasadena (daily 12-4pm):  http://obs.carnegiescience.edu/seminars/ 

Carnegie astronomy lectures – only 4 per year in the Spring www.obs.carnegiescience.edu.    Visit www.huntington.org for directions.  For more information about the Carnegie Observatories or this lecture series, please contact Reed Haynie.

7 Sept
SBAS Monthly General Meeting at El Camino College planetarium. 7:30 PM
Topic: “Dark Energy and Dark Matter” Dr. Michael Harrison:.  http://www.sbastro.net/.  

10 Sept
Griffith Observatory
Event Horizon Theater
8:00 PM to 10:00 PM

Sep. 4 The von Kármán Lecture Series:  Voyager Celebrates 35 Years in Space


The twin Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft continue exploring where nothing from Earth has flown before. They each are more than 100 times as far as the distance between the Earth and the Sun. Both are now in the heliosheath – the outermost layer of the heliosphere where the solar wind is slowed by the presence of interstellar gas. The Voyagers will explore the outermost edge of the Sun’s domain… and beyond.
Speakers:
Dr. Ed Stone, Voyager Project Scientist
Cosmic Ray Subsystem Principal Investigator

Panel:
Stamatios (Tom) M. Krimigis, Principal Investigator
Low-Energy Charged Particles

Norman F. Ness, Principal Investigator
Magnetometer

John D. Richardson, Principal Investigator
Plasma Science

Donald A. Gurnett, Principal Investigator
Plasma Wave Subsystem
Location:
Tuesday, Sep. 4, 2012, 7pm
Save the dateClick here to add the date to your online calendar
The von Kármán Auditorium at JPL
4800 Oak Grove Drive
Pasadena, CA
› Directions
Webcast:
We offer two options to view the live streaming of our webcast on Thursday:
› 1)
Ustream with real-time web chat to take public questions.
› 2)
Flash Player with open captioning
If you don't have Flash Player, you can download for free
here.


Sep. 13 & 14 The Challenge of Mars Exploration
Mars is an enigmatic planet, and studying it is no easy task. All told, Mars missions have failed more often than they have succeeded, but the information gathered by those that have outwitted, out-engineered and out-lucked the planet has shown it to be an intriguing place where water likely existed in liquid form on the surface, and where one can imagine the possibility of all manner of bacteria living just below the surface. The remarkable success of the Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, gave impetus to the development of an even more capable spacecraft: The Mars Science Laboratory. If successful, this new spacecraft may open the door for a future mission with the potential to detect whether or not life may have ever existed on Mars.
Speaker:
Richard Cook
Mars Science Laboratory Deputy Project Manager, JPL

Locations:
Thursday, Sept 13, 2012, 7pm
The von Kármán Auditorium
at JPL
4800 Oak Grove Drive
Pasadena, CA
› Directions

Friday, Sept 14, 2012, 7pm
The Vosloh Forum at Pasadena City College
1570 East Colorado Blvd.
Pasadena, CA
› Directions
Webcast:
We offer two options to view the live streaming of our webcast on Thursday:
› 1) Ustream with real-time web chat to take public questions.
› 2)
Flash Player with open captioning
If you don't have Flash Player, you can download for free
here.

20 Sept
AEA Astronomy Club Mtg. Star Trackers
Art Okawauchi
Aerospace
A3/1607A/B

Observing:
The following data are from the 2012 Observer’s Handbook, and Sky & Telescope’s 2012 Skygazer’s Almanac & monthly Sky at a Glance.

A weekly 5 minute video about what’s up in the night sky:  www.skyandtelescope.com/skyweek.

Sun, Moon & Planets for August:



Moon: Sept 1 full, Sept 8 last quarter, Sept 15 new, Sept 22 1st quarter, Sept 30 full                                  

PlanetsMercury is hidden in the Sun’s glow. Venus and Jupiter are visible in the pre-dawn sky.  Mars and Saturn are evening planets
Other Events:

1-2 September Alpha Aurigids Meteor Shower
The annual maximum ZHR may be as high as 9, but outbursts of over 30 occurred in 1935 and
1986.

7-8 September Gamma Aquarids Meteor Shower
This shower is active during September 1-14, with maximum occurring on September 7.
Its highest rates of activity only reach 1-4 meteors per hour.

8 Sept
SBAS Star Party (weather permitting): RPV at Ridgecrest Middle School 28915 North Bay Rd.

11-20 September Southern Piscids Meteor Shower
This weak and diffuse annual shower is active during the period of August 12 to October 7. The
peak intensity of about 5 per hour extends from about September 11 until about September 20.

12-13 September Eta Draconids Meteor Shower
No trace of this meteor shower can be found in the major lists of visual radiants. It seems to have
been discovered by the Radio Meteor Project in the 1960s. Whether this stream produces a strictly
telescopic shower is not currently known. The radiant is not well placed in the sky, as it crosses the
zenith during daylight hours. The best time for observations is during the early evening hours
following sunset---a period usually ignored by observers due to generally low meteor activity.


15 Sept
LAAS Dark Sky Night : Lockwood Valley (Steve Kufeld Astronomical Site; LAAS members and their guests only)
15 Sept
SBAS out-of-town observing – contact Greg Benecke http://www.sbastro.net/.  

22 Sept
Public  Star Party: Griffith Observatory Grounds 2-10pm

23-24 September Gamma Piscids Meteor Shower
Another meteor shower that was first discovered by the Radio Meteor Project in the 1960s. In the
1970s visual observation of this shower was made. It has been observed several times since then.
The hourly rate is typically given at 4.

Internet Links:

Link(s) of the Month

A weekly 5 minute video about what’s up in the night sky:  www.skyandtelescope.com/skyweek.

General
Regional (esp. Southern California)
Mt. Wilson Institute (www.mtwilson.edu/), including status for visits & roads



About the Club

Club Websites:  Internal (Aerospace): https://aeropedia.aero.org/aeropedia/index.php/Astronomy_Club  It is updated to reflect this newsletter, in addition to a listing of past club mtg. presentations, astronomy news, photos & events from prior newsletters, club equipment, membership & constitution.  We have linked some presentation materials from past mtgs.  Our club newsletters are also being posted to an external blog, “An Astronomical View” http://astronomicalview.blogspot.com/
 
Membership.  For information, current dues & application, contact Jim Johansen, or see the club website where a form is also available.  Benefits will include use of club telescope(s) & library/software, discounts on Sky & Telescope magazine and Observer’s Handbook, field trips, great programs, having a say in club activities, acquisitions & elections, etc.

Committee Suggestions & Volunteers.  Feel free to contact:  Paul Rousseau, Program Committee Chairman (& club VP), TBD, Activities Committee Chairman (& club Secretary), or Jim Johansen, Resource Committee Chairman (over equipment & library, and club Treasurer).

Mark Clayson,
AEA Astronomy Club President

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