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, November 3, 2015

2015 November

AEA Astronomy Club Newsletter November  2015

Contents
AEA Astronomy Club News & Calendar p.1
Video(s) & Picture(s) of the Month p. 2
Astronomy News p. 8
General Calendar p.11
    Colloquia, lectures, mtgs. p. 11
    Observing p. 12
Useful Links p. 14
About the Club p. 14

Club News & Calendar.

Club Calendar

Club Meeting Schedule:


5 November
NO AEA Astronomy Club Meeting
Cancelled mtg.



AEA Astronomy Club meetings are now on 1st  Thursdays at 11:45am.  For all of (except Aug. 6) 2015, the meeting room is A1/1735. 

The Nov. 5 club mtg. is cancelled.  No program had been arranged, and Mark Clayson is still out on leave after surgery.  He expects to be back for the Dec. mtg.

Club News:  

From Jim Edwards:  I captured this "high resolution" of the moon a couple nights back.  Its actually a composite of several overlapping images (the moon is too big to fit into a single image, even when I use a focal reducer to bring my scope down to an f/4.3).  Jeff did some final polishing within Photoshop to blend the edges of the individual images, balance the contrast across them, and merge into a single JPEG.
Interestingly, each pixel corresponds to approximately one square mile at the center of the moon's image.  Kewl...



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


VIDEO:  Massive Black Hole Shreds Passing Star https://youtu.be/hu6hIhW00Fk
Illustration Video Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, CI Lab
Explanation: What happens when a star gets too close to a black hole? Recent observations from Earth-orbiting observatories of an event dubbed ASASSN-14li, in a distant galactic center, appears to be giving one star's harrowing story. Although angularly unresolved, variations in high energy light indicate that some of the star became shredded and reformed into a disk swirling around the dark abyss. In the hypothesized scenario envisioned, a jet formed on the spin axis of the black hole. The innermost part of the disk, colored white, glows most strongly in X-rays and may drive a periodic wind, shown in blue. Future X-ray and ultraviolet observations of stellar disruptions by black holes -- including those in the center of our own galaxy -- hold promise of telling us about the complex dynamics of some of the hottest and highest-gravity places in the universe.
VIDEO:  Flying Past Pluto https://youtu.be/gHwnkEIfNgs
Video Credit: NASA, Johns Hopkins U. APL, SwRI, Stuart Robbins
Explanation: What would it look like to fly past Pluto? The robotic New Horizons spacecraft did just this in late July and continues to return stunning pictures of the dwarf planet. Some well-chosen flyby images have now been digitally sequenced to create the featured video. The animation begins by showing New Horizon's approach to the Pluto system, with Pluto and its largest moon Charon orbiting a common center of mass. As the spacecraft bears down on Pluto uniquely, surprising surface features are nearly resolved that, unfortunately, quickly rotate out of view. New Horizons then passes just above and near a large, fascinating, light-colored, heart-shaped, and unusually smooth region now known as Tombaugh Regio. The spacecraft then pivots to look back at Pluto's night side, seeing an encompassing atmospheric haze. Finally, Pluto fades away in a final sequence illustrated with the orbits of many of Pluto's smaller moons. Although humanity has no current plans to return to Pluto, the New Horizons spacecraft may well be directed next to fly past an asteroid currently known only as 2014 MU69.

VIDEO:  When Black Holes Collide https://youtu.be/Qg6PwRI2uS8
Video Credit & Copyright: Simulating Extreme Spacetimes Collaboration
Explanation: What happens when two black holes collide? This extreme scenario likely occurs in the centers of some merging galaxies and multiple star systems. The featured video shows a computer animation of the final stages of such a merger, while highlighting the gravitational lensing effects that would appear on a background starfield. The black regions indicate the event horizons of the dynamic duo, while a surrounding ring of shifting background stars indicates the position of their combined Einstein ring. All background stars not only have images visible outside of this Einstein ring, but also have one or more companion images visible on the inside. Eventually the two black holescoalesce. The end stages of such a merger may provide a strong and predictable blast of gravitational radiation, a much sought after form of radiation different than light that has never yet been directly observed.
A Blue Blood Moon 
Image Credit & Copyright: Dominique Dierick
Explanation: This sharp telescopic snapshot caught late September's Harvest Moon completely immersed in Earth's dark umbral shadow, at the beginning of a total lunar eclipse. It was the final eclipse in a tetrad, a string of four consecutive total lunar eclipses. A dark apparition of the Full Moon near perigee, this total eclipse's color was a deep blood red, the lunar surface reflecting light within Earth's shadow filtered through the lower atmosphere. Seen from a lunar perspective, the reddened light comes from all the sunsets and sunrises around the edges of a silhouetted Earth. But close to the shadow's edge, the limb of the eclipsed Moon shows a distinct blue hue. The blue eclipsed moonlight is still filtered through Earth's atmosphere though, originating as rays of sunlight pass through layers high in the upper stratosphere, colored by ozone that scatters red light and transmits blue.

Bright from the Heart Nebula 
Image Copyright: Simon Addis
Explanation: What's that inside the Heart Nebula? First, the large emission nebula dubbed IC 1805 looks, in whole, like a human heart. The nebula glows brightly in red light emitted by its most prominent element: hydrogen. The red glow and the larger shape are all created by a small group of stars near the nebula's center. In the center of the Heart Nebula are young stars from the open star cluster Melotte 15 that are eroding away several picturesque dust pillars with their energetic light and winds. The open cluster of stars contains a few bright stars nearly 50 times the mass of our Sun, many dim stars only a fraction of the mass of our Sun, and an absent microquasar that was expelled millions of years ago. The Heart Nebula is located about 7,500 light years away toward the constellation of Cassiopeia. At the top right is the companion Fishhead Nebula.
Jupiter in 2015 
Image Credit: NASA, ESA, Amy Simon (GSFC), Michael Wong (UC Berkeley), Glenn Orton (JPL-Caltech)
Explanation: Two remarkable global maps of Jupiter's banded cloud tops can be compared by just sliding your cursor over this sharp projection (or follow this link) of image data from the Hubble Space Telescope. Both captured on January 19, during back-to-back 10 hour rotations of the ruling gas giant, the all-planet projections represent the first in a series of planned annual portraits by the Outer Planet Atmospheres Legacy program. Comparing the two highlights cloud movements and measures wind speeds in the planet's dynamic atmosphere. In fact, the Great Red Spot, the famous long-lived swirling storm boasting 300 mile per hour winds, is seen sporting a rotating, twisting filament. The images confirm that Great Red Spot is still shrinking, though still larger than planet Earth. Posing next to it (lower right) is Oval BA, also known as Red Spot Junior.
A Gegenschein Lunar Eclipse 
Image Credit & Copyright: Petr Horálek; Rollover Annotation: Judy Schmidt
Explanation: Is there anything interesting to see in the direction opposite the Sun? One night last month, there were quite a few things. First, the red-glowing orb on the lower right of the featured image is the full moon, darkened and reddened because it has entered Earth's shadow. Beyond Earth's cone of darkness are backscattering dust particles orbiting the Sun that standout with a diffuse glow called the gegenschein, visible as a faint band rising from the central horizon and passing behind the Moon. A nearly horizontal stripe of green airglow is also discernable just above the horizon, partly blocked by blowing orange sand. Visible in the distant sky as the blue dot near the top of the image is the star Sirius, while the central band of our Milky Way Galaxy arches up on the image left and down again on the right. The fuzzy light patches just left of center are the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds. Red emission nebulas too numerous to mention are scattered about the sky, but are labelled in a companion annotated image. In the image foreground is the desolate Deadvlei region of the Namib-Naukluft National Park in Namibia, featuring the astrophotographer himself surveying a land and sky so amazing that he described it as one of the top experiences of his life.
In the Center of the Trifid Nebula 
Image Credit: Subaru Telescope (NAOJ), Hubble Space Telescope, Martin Pugh; Processing: Robert Gendler
Explanation: Clouds of glowing gas mingle with dust lanes in the Trifid Nebula, a star forming region toward the constellation of the Archer (Sagittarius). In the center, the three prominent dust lanes that give the Trifid its name all come together. Mountains of opaque dust appear on the right, while other dark filaments of dust are visible threaded throughout the nebula. A single massive star visible near the center causes much of the Trifid's glow. The Trifid, also known as M20, is only about 300,000 years old, making it among the youngest emission nebulae known. The nebula lies about 9,000 light years away and the part pictured here spans about 10 light years. The above image is a composite with luminance taken from an image by the 8.2-m ground-based Subaru Telescope, detail provided by the 2.4-m orbiting Hubble Space Telescope, color data provided by Martin Pugh and image assembly and processing provided by Robert Gendler.

Astronomy News:
(from http://esciencenews.com/topics/astronomy.space)

Most earth-like worlds have yet to be born, according to theoretical study

Published: Tuesday, October 20, 2015 - 14:03 in Astronomy & Space

Related images

Credit: NASA, ESA, and G. Bacon (STScI)
Earth came early to the party in the evolving universe. According to a new theoretical study, when our solar system was born 4.6 billion years ago only eight percent of the potentially habitable planets that will ever form in the universe existed. And, the party won't be over when the sun burns out in another 6 billion years. The bulk of those planets -- 92 percent -- have yet to be born. This conclusion is based on an assessment of data collected by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and the prolific planet-hunting Kepler space observatory.
"Our main motivation was understanding the Earth's place in the context of the rest of the universe," said study author Peter Behroozi of the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Maryland, "Compared to all the planets that will ever form in the universe, the Earth is actually quite early."
Looking far away and far back in time, Hubble has given astronomers a "family album" of galaxy observations that chronicle the universe's star formation history as galaxies grew. The data show that the universe was making stars at a fast rate 10 billion years ago, but the fraction of the universe's hydrogen and helium gas that was involved was very low. Today, star birth is happening at a much slower rate than long ago, but there is so much leftover gas available that the universe will keep cooking up stars and planets for a very long time to come.
"There is enough remaining material [after the big bang] to produce even more planets in the future, in the Milky Way and beyond," added co-investigator Molly Peeples of STScI.
Kepler's planet survey indicates that Earth-sized planets in a star's habitable zone, the perfect distance that could allow water to pool on the surface, are ubiquitous in our galaxy. Based on the survey, scientists predict that there should be 1 billion Earth-sized worlds in the Milky Way galaxy at present, a good portion of them presumed to be rocky. That estimate skyrockets when you include the other 100 billion galaxies in the observable universe.
This leaves plenty of opportunity for untold more Earth-sized planets in the habitable zone to arise in the future. The last star isn't expected to burn out until 100 trillion years from now. That's plenty of time for literally anything to happen on the planet landscape.
The researchers say that future Earths are more likely to appear inside giant galaxy clusters and also in dwarf galaxies, which have yet to use up all their gas for building stars and accompanying planetary systems. By contrast, our Milky Way galaxy has used up much more of the gas available for future star formation.
A big advantage to our civilization arising early in the evolution of the universe is our being able to use powerful telescopes like Hubble to trace our lineage from the big bang through the early evolution of galaxies. The observational evidence for the big bang and cosmic evolution, encoded in light and other electromagnetic radiation, will be all but erased away 1 trillion years from now due to the runaway expansion of space. Any far-future civilizations that might arise will be largely clueless as to how or if the universe began and evolved.
The results will appear in the Oct. 20 Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Source: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center

NASA studying 2015 El Nino event as never before

Published: Monday, October 19, 2015 - 20:32 in Astronomy & Space

Related images

Credits: NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Every two to seven years, an unusually warm pool of water -- sometimes two to three degrees Celsius higher than normal develops across the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean to create a natural short-term climate change event. This warm condition, known as El Niño, affects the local aquatic environment, but also spurs extreme weather patterns around the world, from flooding in California to droughts in Australia. This winter, the 2015-16 El Niño event will be better observed from space than any previous El Niño. This year's El Niño is already strong and appears likely to equal the event of 1997-98, the strongest El Niño on record, according to the World Meteorological Organization. All 19 of NASA's current orbiting Earth-observing missions were launched after 1997. In the past two decades, NASA has made tremendous progress in gathering and analyzing data that help researchers understand more about the mechanics and global impacts of El Niño.
El Niño is a fascinating phenomenon because it has such far-reaching and diverse impacts. The fact that fires in Indonesia are linked with circulation patterns that influence rainfall over the United States shows how complex and interconnected the Earth system is, said Lesley Ott, research meteorologist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland.
Using NASA satellite observations in tandem with supercomputer processing power for modeling systems, scientists have a comprehensive suite of tools to analyze El Niño events and their global impacts as never before. Throughout this winter, NASA will share the latest scientific insights and imagery updates related to El Niño.
For instance, scientists are learning how El Niño affects the year-to-year variability for fire seasons in the western United States, Amazon and Indonesia. El Niño may also affect the yearly variability of the ground-level pollutant ozone that severely affects human health. Researchers will be keenly focused on how the current El Niño will affect the drought in California.
We still have a lot to learn about these connections, and NASA's suite of satellites will help us understand these processes in a new and deeper way, said Ott.
Many NASA satellites observe environmental factors that are associated with El Niño evolution and its impacts, including sea surface temperature, sea surface height, surface currents, atmospheric winds and ocean color. The joint NASA/NOAA/CNES/EUMETSAT Jason-2 satellite measures sea surface height, which is especially useful in quantifying the heat stored and released by the oceans during El Niño years.
NASA satellites also help scientists see the global impact of El Niño. The warmer than normal eastern Pacific Ocean has far-reaching effects worldwide. These events spur disasters like fires and floods. They change storm tracks, cloud cover and other weather patterns, and they have devastating effects on fisheries and other industries.
NASA's Earth-observing satellites help monitor those and other impacts by measuring land and ocean conditions that both influence and are affected by El Niño. For instance, NASA's Global Precipitation Measurement Mission provides worldwide precipitation measurements every three hours. NASA's Soil Moisture Active Passive mission measures soil moisture in the top layer of land. Both of these satellites are useful for monitoring drought, improving flood warnings and watching crop and fishing industries.
NASA is at the forefront in providing key observations of El Niño and advancing our understanding of its role in shaping Earth's weather and climate patterns, said Duane Waliser, chief scientist of the Earth Science and Technology Directorate at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

Source: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center

 

 


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.  . Click here for more information.
5 Nov
NO AEA Astronomy Club Meeting
Cancelled











6 Nov
Friday Night 7:30PM SBAS  Monthly General Meeting
in the Planetarium at El Camino College (16007 Crenshaw Bl. In Torrance)
Friday Night 7:30PM Monthly General Meeting
Topic:   ?
Speaker: ?
November 5 & 6 The von Kármán Lecture Series: 2015

The Juno Mission to Jupiter

Launched in August of 2011, the Juno spacecraft will reach Jupiter in July of 2016. Jupiter is by far the largest planet in our solar system, with more than twice the mass of all the other planets combined. It was almost certainly the first planet to form, and understanding Jupiter's formation is key to understanding how our solar system began. It has the strongest magnetic field of any known planet, and its magnetosphere is arguably the largest structure in our solar system. Despite Jupiter's importance, and despite the fact that it was one of the very first astronomical objects to be studied with a telescope, some major aspects of the giant planet remain a mystery. We don't yet understand its interior structure, including the size or even existence of a central core. The global atmospheric abundance of water, perhaps the most important component from a planetary origin point of view, remains unknown. Fundamental aspects of Jupiter's atmospheric dynamics remain to be explained. Its magnetic field is understood to originate in the swirling motions of an enormous interior ocean of liquid metallic hydrogen, but the specific workings of that dynamo remain a mystery. From a highly elliptical polar orbit, Juno will investigate these and other scientific questions. Juno is expected to survive Jupiter's dangerous radiation environment for over a year, long enough to make over 30 close perijove passes. Skimming a few thousand kilometers above the cloud tops, Juno will measure the magnetic and gravitational fields, use microwave radiometry to determine the global water abundance, image the planet at visible, infrared, and ultraviolet wavelengths, and measure the fields and particles in the Jovian magnetosphere. Improving our understanding of Jupiter will enable us to better understand the history of our solar system and our own origin story.
Speaker:
Dr. Steven Levin, Project Scientist, JUNO

Webcast:
Click here to watch the event live on Ustream (or archived after the event)
Locations:
Thursday, Nov. 5, 2015, 7pm
The von Kármán Auditorium at JPL
4800 Oak Grove Drive
Pasadena, CA
› Directions

Friday, Nov. 6, 2015, 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.


9 Nov
LAAS LAAS General Meeting.
Griffith Observatory
Event Horizon Theater
8:00 PM to 10:00 PM

Observing:
The following data are from the 2015 Observer’s Handbook, and Sky & Telescope’s 2015 Skygazer’s Almanac & monthly Sky at a Glance.

Current sun & moon rise/set/phase data for L.A.:  http://www.timeanddate.com/astronomy/usa/los-angeles

Sun, Moon & Planets for November:


Moon: Nov 3 last quarter, Nov 11 new, Nov 19 1st quarter, Nov 25 full                 
Planets: Saturn is in the SW for an hour after sunset.  Venus, Mars & Jupiter rise and are visible in the East a few hours before sunrise. Mercury is hidden in the sun’s glare.
Other Events:
2-4 Nov Mars & Venus < 1 deg apart in pre-dawn sky

7 Nov Venus & Mars < 2 deg N of Moon

7 Nov
LAAS Private dark sky  Star Party: Griffith Observatory Grounds 2-10pm


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


?
SBAS out-of-town Dark Sky observing – contact Greg Benecke to coordinate a location. http://www.sbastro.net/.  

17-18 Nov the typically weak Leonid meteor shower is likely to peak this night.  Best observed between midnight and morning twilight.

4,11,18,25 Nov
LAAS The Garvey Ranch Observatory is open to the public every Wednesday evening from 7:30 PM to 10 PM. Go into the dome to use the 8 Inch Refractor or observe through one of our telescopes on the lawn. Visit our workshop to learn how you can build your own telescope, grind your own mirror, or sign up for our free seasonal astronomy classes.

Call 213-673-7355 for further information.
Time: 7:30 PM - 10:00 PM
Location: Garvey Ranch Obs. , 781 Orange Ave., Monterey Park, CA 91755


21 Nov
LAAS Public  Star Party: Griffith Observatory Grounds 2-10pm

22 Nov Uranus < 1 deg N of Moon

Internet Links:

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, membership in The Astronomical League, 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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