2012 November

AEA Astronomy Club Newsletter November  2012

Contents
AEA Astronomy Club News & Calendar p.1
Video(s) & Picture(s) of the Month p. 3
Astronomy News p. 6
General Calendar p. 7
    Colloquia, lectures, mtgs. p. 8
    Observing p. 9
Useful Links p. 10
About the Club p. 10

Club News & Calendar.

Calendar

Club Meeting Schedule:

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 3^rd 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:  

Club booth at the AEA October Festival on Oct. 24. 

  

  

  

Astronomy Video(s) & Picture(s) of the Month

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

Time lapse of Shuttle move from LAX to CA Sci Ctr.  http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap121022.html

2012 October 14

The Hubble Extreme Deep Field
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, G. Illingworth, D. Magee, and P. Oesch (UCSC), R. Bouwens (Leiden Obs.), and the XDF Team

Explanation: What did the first galaxies look like? To help answer this question, the Hubble Space Telescope has just finished taking the eXtreme Deep Field (XDF), the deepest image of the universe ever taken in visible light. Pictured above, the XDF shows a sampling of some of the oldest galaxies ever seen, galaxies that formed just after the dark ages, 13 billion years ago, when the universe was only a few percent of its present age. The Hubble Space Telescope's ACS camera and the infrared channel of the WFPC3 camera took the image. Combining efforts spread over 10 years, the XDF is more sensitive, in some colors, than the original Hubble Deep Field (HDF), the Hubble Ultra Deep Field (HUDF) completed in 2004, and the HUDF Infrared completed in 2009. Astronomers the world over will likely study the XDF for years to come to better understand how stars and galaxies formed in the early universe.

2012 October 12

Pan-STARRS and Nebulae
Image Credit: PS1 Science Consortium
Processing: Nigel Metcalfe, Peter Draper (Durham Univ.), Gene Magnier (IfA Hawaii)

Explanation: A single field from the world's most powerful survey instrument captures this spectacular skyview. Looking toward Sagittarius, the scene spans nearly 3 degrees or six times the width of the Full Moon. At bottom, upper right, and lower left it covers the Lagoon Nebula (M8), the Trifid Nebula (M20), and NGC 6559, in the crowded, dusty starfields of the central Milky Way. The adopted color scheme shows dust reddened starlight in red hues and normally red emission from hydrogen atoms in green. Built and operated by the Pan-STARRS project, the instrument features a 1.4 gigapixel (billion pixel) digital camera and telescope. Pan-STARRS, the Panoramic Survey Telescope & Rapid Response System, is intended to scan the skies for potentially dangerous near-earth asteroids and comets, exploring the Universe with a unique high resolution, wide field view.

2012 October 11

Aurorae over Planet Earth
Image Credit : NASA, NOAA, GSFC, Suomi NPP, Earth Observatory,
processing by Jesse Allen and Robert Simmon

Explanation: North America at night is easy to recognize in this view of our fair planet from orbit, acquired by the Suomi-NPP satellite on October 8. The spectacular waves of visible light emission rolling above the Canadian provinces of Quebec and Ontario in the upper half of the frame are the Aurora Borealis or northern lights. Encircling the poles and extending to lower latitudes, impressive aurorae seen during the past few days are due to strong geomagnetic storms. The storms were triggered by a solar coronal mass ejection on October 4/5, impacting Earth's magnetosphere some three days later. The curtains of light, shining well over 100 kilometers above the surface, are formed as charged particles accelerated in the magnetosphere excite oxygen and nitrogen in the upper atmosphere.

Astronomy News:

Large water reservoirs at the dawn of stellar birth

Published: Tuesday, October 9, 2012 - 11:08 in Astronomy & Space

The European Space Agency's Herschel space observatory has discovered enough water vapour to fill Earth's oceans more than 2000 times over, in a gas and dust cloud that is on the verge of collapsing into a new Sun-like star. Stars form within cold, dark clouds of gas and dust -- 'pre-stellar cores' -- that contain all the ingredients to make solar systems like our own.

Water, essential to life on Earth, has previously been detected outside of our Solar System as gas and ice coated onto tiny dust grains near sites of active star formation, and in proto-planetary discs capable of forming alien planetary systems.

The new Herschel observations of a cold pre-stellar core in the constellation of Taurus known as Lynds 1544 are the first detection of water vapour in a molecular cloud on the verge of star formation.

More than 2000 Earth oceans-worth of water vapour were detected, liberated from icy dust grains by high-energy cosmic rays passing through the cloud.

"To produce that amount of vapour, there must be a lot of water ice in the cloud, more than three million frozen Earth oceans' worth," says Paola Caselli from the University of Leeds, UK, lead author of the paper reporting the results in Astrophysical Journal Letters.

"Before our observations, the understanding was that all the water was frozen onto dust grains because it was too cold to be in the gas phase and so we could not measure it.

"Now we will need to review our understanding of the chemical processes in this dense region and, in particular, the importance of cosmic rays to maintain some amount of water vapour."

The observations also revealed that the water molecules are flowing towards the heart of the cloud where a new star will probably form, indicating that gravitational collapse has just started.

"There is absolutely no sign of stars in this dark cloud today, but by looking at the water molecules, we can see evidence of motion inside the region that can be understood as collapse of the whole cloud towards the centre," says Dr Caselli.

"There is enough material to form a star at least as massive as our Sun, which means it could also be forming a planetary system, possibly one like ours."

Some of the water vapour detected in L1544 will go into forming the star, but the rest will be incorporated into the surrounding disc, providing a rich water reservoir to feed potential new planets.

"Thanks to Herschel, we can now follow the 'water trail' from a molecular cloud in the interstellar medium, through the star formation process, to a planet like Earth where water is a crucial ingredient for life," says ESA's Herschel project scientist, Göran Pilbratt.

Source: European Space Agency (ESA)

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.

3 Nov

SBAS Monthly General Meeting at El Camino College planetarium. 7:30 PM Topic: Planetarium Show, Shimonee Kadakia, El Camino College  http://www.sbastro.net/.

Nov. 8 & 9 The von Kármán Lecture Series: 2012

Exploring New Worlds with the Dawn Mission

"Dawn's goal is to characterize the conditions and processes of the solar system's earliest epoch by investigating in detail two of the largest objects in the Main Asteroid Belt between Mars and Jupiter. These objects, Vesta and Ceres, are actually protoplanets that have remained intact since their formation, preserving a unique record. Each body has followed a very different evolutionary path constrained by the diversity of processes that operated during the first few million years of solar system evolution. Upon completing Dawn's investigation at Vesta in July 2012, we will have a powerful new dataset to understand the formation and evolution of a building block of the terrestrial planets, an enhanced knowledge of the dynamics of solar system bodies in the earliest epoch, and a better understanding of what the Howardites-Eucrite and Diogenite meteorites from Vesta are telling us about its formation and geological history.

Speaker:

Dr. Carol Raymond Dawn Deputy Principal Investigator, JPL

Locations:	Thursday, Nov 8, 2012, 7pm The von Kármán Auditorium at JPL 4800 Oak Grove Drive Pasadena, CA › Directions Friday, Nov 9, 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.

15-Nov-12

Upper Atmospheric Disturbances Using RAIDS and Ground-Based Measurements

Rebecca Bishop & Andrew Christensen

Aerospace

A1/1029A/B

19 Nov

LAAS LAAS General Meeting.

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

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 November:

Moon: Nov 7 last quarter, Nov 13 new, Nov 20 1^st quarter, Nov 28 full                                 

Planets:  Mars is visible just after sunset. Jupiter rises just after sunset. Venus, Mercury & Saturn are visible in the pre-dawn sky. 

Other Events:

3 or 10 Nov

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

10 Nov	LAAS Dark Sky Night : Lockwood Valley (Steve Kufeld Astronomical Site; LAAS members and their guests only)
10 or 17 Nov	SBAS out-of-town observing – contact Greg Benecke http://www.sbastro.net/.

17 Nov – Leonid meteors peak

17 Nov

Public  Star Party: Griffith Observatory Grounds 2-10pm

27 Nov Venus 0.6 deg S of Saturn

28 Nov Penumbral lunar eclipse (greatest visibility 1400-1500 UT)

29 Nov Jupiter 0.6 deg N of Moon, occultation

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

e! Science News Astronomy & Space

NASA Gallery

Astronomical Society of the Pacific (educational, amateur & professional)

Amateur Online Tools, Journals, Vendors, Societies, Databases

The Astronomy White Pages (U.S. & International Amateur Clubs & Societies)

American Astronomical Society (professional)

More...

Regional (esp. Southern California)

Western Amateur Astronomers (consortium of various regional societies)

Mt. Wilson Institute (www.mtwilson.edu/), including status for visits & roads

Los Angeles Astronomical Society (LAAS)

South Bay Astronomical Society (SBAS)

Orange County Astronomers

The Local Group Astronomy Club (Santa Clarita)

Ventura County Astronomical Society

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