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)

Thursday, January 9, 2014

2014 January

AEA Astronomy Club Newsletter January 2014

Contents
AEA Astronomy Club News & Calendar p.1
Video(s) & Picture(s) of the Month p. 2
Astronomy News p. 5
General Calendar p.7
    Colloquia, lectures, mtgs. p. 7
    Observing p. 9
Useful Links p. 10
About the Club p. 11

Club News & Calendar

Calendar

Club Meeting Schedule:

16 Jan 2014
Club Pizza Party & Presentation
Observing with the 16-inch Dobsonian
Jason Fields
A1/1735
20 Feb 2013
Club Meeting
A Tour of the new Aerospace E POD (A6) Telescope & Facility
Richard Rudy
Gather in A6 Lobby then to E Pod

AEA Astronomy Club meetings are on 3rd Thursdays at 11:45am.  For all of 2013 except September, the meeting room is A1/1735.

News:  

For the Jan. 16 club mtg., in addition to the pizza party, Jason Fields will give a presentation on observing with the 16-inch Dobs, including a demo.

Pizza & drink are free for members, $5 for others -- must RSVP to Mark Clayson (mark.clayson@aero.org, x60708) by Jan. 13 w. preferences – see menu below). 
Menu options for Jan. 16 lunch (give 1st & 2nd choices when you RSVP by Jan. 13 – we’ll have to share pizzas & pitchers of drink so you may not get your first choice – hopefully at least your 2nd):

Pizzas (order drink separate (see below):
The Works Pizza
Three Cheese Pizza
Barbecued Chicken Pizza
Margherita Pizza with Fresh Basil, Tomato and Mozzarella
Grilled Vegetable Pizza

Drinks:
Bottled or canned juice, water or soda (specify)
Pitcher of water

Wraps (includes a green salad or chips, choice of assorted cookies & sodas – please specify):
Grilled Chicken Caesar Wrap
Garden Vegetarian Wrap

A reminder that for most of us, our club membership expired Dec. 31 (except those who joined in the last few months and likely paid also for 2014).  If you haven’t yet, we invite you to renew for 2014 at your earliest convenience & in time for the pizza lunch Jan. 16 (the first of 2 (or 4?) for the year) -- we must have your $12 dues payment (& pizza order -- see the menu above) by Monday Jan. 13 to get member credit.  See the club website for the many other benefits of membership.  Please submit the renewal form (available on Aerolink at https://aerolink.aero.org/cs/llisapi.dll?func=ll&objId=13659520&objAction=browse&viewType=1, or attached) with your payment ($12 check made out to AEA Astronomy Club) to Alan Olson at M1-107.

The 5-inch refractor & GoTo mount have arrived, and are looking for someone to check them out. 

We will shortly subscribe to a group membership in the Astronomical League.  For that, we need each member to provide (if you haven’t yet) your home mailing address for quarterly League newsletter mailings.

For our Feb. 20 mtg., Rick Rudy of the Remote Sensing Dept. will give us a tour of the new in-house-built telescope in the A6 E Pod.   See the Orbiter story on the new telescope here: http://pages.aero.org/orbiter/2013/08/12/in-house-telescope-provides-new-capabilities/


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

Video:  Time-Lapse Auroras Over Norway http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap131229.html
Credit & Copyright: Terje Sørgjerd; Music: Gladiator Soundtrack: Now we are Free
Explanation: Sometimes, after your eyes adapt to the dark, a spectacular sky appears. Such was the case in 2011 March when one of the largest auroral displays in recent years appeared over northern locations like the border between Norway and Russia. Pictured in the above time-lapse movie, auroras flow over snow covered landscapes, trees, clouds, mountains and lakes found near Kirkenes,Norway. Many times the auroras are green, as high energy particles strike the Earth's atmosphere, causing the air to glow as electrons resettle into their oxygen hosts. Other colors are occasionally noticeable as atmospheric nitrogen also becomes affected. In later sequences the Moon and rising stars are also visible. With the Sun currently hovering near its time of maximum activity, there may be many opportunities to see similarly spectacular auroras personally, even from areas much closer to the equator.

Video:  Phobos 360 http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap131225.html
Video Credit: Mars Express, ESA
Explanation: What does the Martian moon Phobos look like? To better visualize this unusual object, images from ESA's Mars Express orbiter have been combined into a virtual rotation movie. The rotation is actually a digital illusion -- tidally-locked Phobos always keeps the same face toward its home planet, as does Earth's moon. The above video highlights Phobos' chunky shape and an unusually dark surface covered with craters and grooves. What lies beneath the surface is a topic of research since the moon is not dense enough to be filled with solid rock. Phobos is losing about of centimeter of altitude a year and is expected to break up and crash onto Mars within the next 50 million years. To better understand this unusual world, Mars Express is on course to make the closest flyby ever on Sunday.
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap131225.html
SDO's Multiwavelength Sun 
Image Credit: GSFC Scientific Visualization Studio, SDO, NASA
Explanation: Today, the solstice is at 17:11 Universal Time, the Sun reaching the southernmost declination in its yearly journey through planet Earth's sky. The December solstice marks the astronomical beginning of winter in the northern hemisphere and summer in the south. To celebrate, explore this creative visualization of the Sun from visible to extreme ultraviolet wavelengths, using image data from the orbiting Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). Against a base image made at a visible wavelengths, the wedge-shaped segments show the solar disk at increasingly shorter ultraviolet and extreme ultraviolet wavelengths. Shown in false-color and rotating in a clockwise direction, the filters decrease in wavelength from 170 nanometers (in pink) through 9.4 nanometers (green). At shorter wavelengths, the altitude and temperature of the regions revealed in the solar atmosphere tend to increase. Bright at visible wavelengths, the solar photosphere looks darker in the ultraviolet, but sunspots glow and bright plasma traces looping magnetic fields. Watch the filters sweep around the solar disk in this animation of SDO's multiwavelength view of the Sun.
Titan's Land of Lakes 
Image Credit: Cassini Radar Mapper, JPL, USGS, ESA, NASA
Explanation: Saturn's large moon Titan would be unique in our solar system, the only world with stable liquid lakes and seas on its surface ... except for planet Earth of course. Centered on the north pole, this colorized map shows Titan's bodies of methane and ethane in blue and black, still liquid at frigid surface temperatures of -180 degrees C (-292 degrees F). The map is based on data from the Cassini spacecraft's radar, taken during flybys between 2004 and 2013. Roughly heart-shaped, the lake above and right of the pole is Ligeia Mare, the second largest known body of liquid on Titan and larger than Lake Superior on Earth. Just below the north pole is Punga Mare. The sprawling sea below and right of Punga is the (hopefully sleeping) Kraken Mare, Titan's largest known sea. Above and left of the pole, the moon's surface is dotted with smaller lakes that range up to 50 kilometers across.

The Coldest Place on Earth 
Image Credit: Ted Scambos (National Snow and Ice Data Center) et al., Landsat 8, USGS, NASA
Explanation: How cold can it get on Earth? In the interior of the Antarctica, a record low temperature of -93.2 °C (-135.8 °F) has been recorded. This is about 25 °C (45 °F) colder than the coldest lows noted for any place humans live permanently. The record temperature occurred in 2010 August -- winter in Antarctica -- and was found by scientists sifting through decades of climate data taken by Earth-orbiting satellites. The coldest spots were found near peaks because higher air is generally colder, although specifically in depressions near these peaks because relatively dense cold air settled there and was further cooled by the frozen ground. Summer is a much better time to visit Antarctica, as some regions will warm up as high as 15 °C (59 °F).
Astronomy News:

Starless cloud cores reveal why some stars are bigger than others

Published: Friday, December 20, 2013 - 17:06 in Astronomy & Space



This image shows the ALMA data overlaid on an artist's impression background. The ALMA data show two main cores as imaged by emission from the molecular ion N2D+ (two nitrogen and one deuterium atom). The core on the right is particularly bright and rounded, suggesting it is self-gravitating and poised to form a massive, single star – a very rare occurrence in star formation. The other core appears more distorted and fragmented, potentially leading to the formation of multiple lower-mass stars. This fragmentation is a normal process in star-forming clouds.

Credit: Bill Saxton & Alexandra Angelich (NRAO/AUI/NSF); ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)
Massive stars -- those at least 8 times the mass of our Sun -- present an intriguing mystery: how do they grow so large when the vast majority of stars in the Milky Way are considerably smaller? To find the answer, astronomers used the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) telescope to survey the cores of some of the darkest, coldest, and densest clouds in our Galaxy to search for the telltale signs of star formation.
These objects, known as Infrared Dark Clouds, were observed approximately 10,000 light-years away in the direction of the constellations of Aquila and Scutum.
Since these cloud cores are so massive and dense, gravity should have already overwhelmed their supporting gas pressure, allowing them to collapse to form new, Sun-mass stars. If a star had not yet begun to shine, that would be a hint that something extra was supporting the cloud.
"A starless core would indicate that some force was balancing out the pull of gravity, regulating star formation, and allowing vast amounts of material to accumulate in a scaled-up version of the way our own Sun formed," remarked Jonathan Tan, an astrophysicist at the University of Florida, Gainesville, and lead author of a paper published today in theAstrophysical Journal. "This suggests that massive stars and Sun-like stars follow a universal mechanism for star formation. The only difference is the size of their parent clouds."

Average stars like our Sun begin life as dense, but relatively low-mass concentrations of hydrogen, helium, and other trace elements inside large molecular clouds. After the initial kernel emerges from the surrounding gas, material collapses under gravity into the central region in a relatively ordered fashion via a swirling accretion disk, where eventually planets can form. After enough mass accumulates, nuclear fusion begins at the core and a star is born.
While this model of star formation can account for the vast majority of stars in our Milky Way, something extra is needed to explain the formation of more massive stars. "Some additional force is needed to balance out the normal process of collapse, otherwise our Galaxy would have a fairly uniform stellar population," said Tan. "Alternatively, there has been speculation that two separate models of star formation are needed: one for Sun-like stars and one for these massive stars."
The key to teasing out the answer is to find examples of massive starless cores -- to witness the very beginnings of massive star birth.
The team of astronomers from the United States, the United Kingdom, and Italy used ALMA to look inside these cores for a unique chemical signature involving the isotope deuterium to essentially take the temperatures of these clouds to see if stars had formed. Deuterium is important because it tends to bond with certain molecules in cold conditions. Once stars turn on and heat the surrounding gas, the deuterium is quickly lost and replaced with the more common isotope of hydrogen.
The ALMA observations detected copious amounts of deuterium, suggesting that the cloud is cold and starless. This would indicate that some counter force is forestalling core collapse and buying enough time to form a massive star. The researchers speculate that strong magnetic fields may be propping up the cloud, preventing it from collapsing quickly.
"These new ALMA observations reveal objects that are quite similar to the nurseries of Sun-like stars, but simply scaled-up by tens or a hundred times. This may mean that nature is more important than nurture when it comes to determining a star's size," concludes Tan.
These observations were conducted during ALMA's early science campaign. Future studies with ALMA's full array of 66 antennas will uncover even more details about these star-forming regions.
ALMA, an international astronomy facility, is a partnership of Europe, North America and East Asia in cooperation with the Republic of Chile. ALMA construction and operations are led on behalf of Europe by ESO, on behalf of North America by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), and on behalf of East Asia by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ). The Joint ALMA Observatory (JAO) provides the unified leadership and management of the construction, commissioning and operation of ALMA.
The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a facility of the National Science Foundation, operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc.

Source: National Radio Astronomy Observatory



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.

10 Jan.
SBAS Monthly General Meeting at El Camino College planetarium. 7:30 PM
Topic: “A Night on Mauna Kea,” Tom Bash http://www.sbastro.net/.  
Jan. 16 & 17  The von Kármán Lecture Series: 2014

The Mars Exploration Rovers: A Decade of Exploration

It was inconceivable that a rover mission designed for 90 days of operation would still be operating after a decade in the harsh environment of the Red Planet's frigid surface. In spite of our limited human imagination, the Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity is still functioning and exploring ten years after landing on Mars. For a decade now, the rover has been dutifully conducting field geology on the Martian surface day after day. Opportunity and her twin Spirit have traversed great plains, climbed mountains, descended into deep craters and survived rover-killing dust storms and frigid winters. As the rovers move, each day becomes a brand new mission with new sights, new geology and new opportunities to explore. The rovers have made significant scientific discoveries in understanding the Red Planet, finding evidence of past habitable environments that could possibly have supported life. Although Spirit's mission concluded after an unimaginable six years, exciting adventures of exploration still lie ahead for the still very capable Opportunity rover even after ten years. Please join us for a special celebratory 10th anniversary event on Thursday evening in Beckman Auditorium on the Caltech campus. Then, on Friday evening, please join us again for a lecture at the PCC Forum. This lecture will provide a glimpse of Opportunity's current investigations and upcoming challenges, as well as highlights of the first decade. Both events are free and open to the public. All events start at 7:00 PM and seating is on a first come, first served basis.
Speaker:
John Callas
Project Manager, Mars Exploration Rover Project

Locations:
 Thursday, Jan. 16, 2013, 7pm
The von Kármán Auditorium at JPL
4800 Oak Grove Drive
Pasadena, CA
› Directions

Friday, Jan. 17, 2013, 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.



12 Jan
LAAS LAAS General Meeting.
Griffith Observatory
Event Horizon Theater
8:00 PM to 10:00 PM

19 Dec 2013
Club Meeting &           Officer Election
Mars Exploration Concept
Matthew Eby
A1/1735

Observing:
The following data are from the 2014 Observer’s Handbook, and Sky & Telescope’s 2014 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 January:


Moon: Jan 1 new, Jan 7 1st quarter, Jan 15 full, Jan 24 last quarter, Jan 30 new                 

Planets:  Mercury & Venus are visible after sunset in the SouthWest.  Jupiter is up all night (transits at midnight).  Mars & Saturn are in the pre-dawn sky in the East.

Other Events:

3/4 January Quadrantids Meteor Shower Peak
The Quadrantid meteor shower is one of the strongest meteor showers of the year, but observers
can be disappointed if conditions are not just right. The point from where the Quadrantid meteors
appear to radiate is located within the extinct constellation Quadrans Muralis. On modern star
charts, this radiant is located where the constellations Hercules, Boötes, and Draco meet in the
sky.
The Quadrantids generally begin on December 28 and end on January 7, with maximum generally
occurring during the morning hours of January 3/4. The Quadrantids are barely detectable on the
beginning and ending dates, but observers in the Northern Hemisphere can see from 10 to around
60 meteors per hour at maximum. The maximum only lasts for a few hours.

4 Jan
SBAS out-of-town observing – contact Greg Benecke http://www.sbastro.net/.  

4 Jan
LAAS Dark Sky Night : Lockwood Valley (Steve Kufeld Astronomical Site; LAAS members and their guests only)

5 Jan Jupiter at opposition

11 Jan
Public  Star Party: Griffith Observatory Grounds 2-10pm

11 Jan Venus at inferior conjunction

 
   25 Jan
SBAS Saturday Night In Town Dark Sky Observing Session at Ridgecrest Middle School– 28915 NortbBay Rd. RPV, Weather Permitting: Please contact Greg Benecke to confirm that the gate will be opened! http://www.sbastro.net/

31 January Mercury at Greatest Eastern Elongation
If the sky is clear, look to the west after sunset and you might see a very thin crescent moon,
Mercury is about 4o higher up. And if you’re really lucky and have a telescope set up, you might
even see distant Neptune which is about 4o up from Mercury.

Internet Links:

Link(s) of the Month

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

Telescope, Binocular & Accessory Buying Guides


General


Regional (Southern California, Washington, D.C. & Colorado)
Southern California & Beyond Amateur Astronomy Organizations, Observatories & Planetaria
Mt. Wilson Observatory description, history, visiting


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 Alan Olson, or see the club website (or Aerolink folder) where a form is also available (go to the membership link/folder & look at the bottom).  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:  Mark Clayson, President & Program Committee Chairman (& acting club VP), TBD Activities Committee Chairman (& club Secretary), or Alan Olson, Resource Committee Chairman (over equipment & library, and club Treasurer).

Mark Clayson,
AEA Astronomy Club President 
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