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)

Monday, September 7, 2020

2020 September

 

AEA Astronomy Club Newsletter September 2020

 

Contents


AEA Astronomy Club News & Calendar p.1
Video(s) & Picture(s) of the Month p. 2
Astronomy News p. 10
General Calendar p. 12

    Colloquia, lectures, mtgs. p. 12
    Observing p. 14

Useful Links p. 15
About the Club p. 16

Club News & Calendar.

Club Calendar

 

Club Meeting Schedule: --

3 Sept

AEA Astronomy Club Meeting

 TBD -- Great Courses video

(Teams)

     

1 Oct

AEA Astronomy Club Meeting

TBD -- Great Courses video

Teams

 

 

AEA Astronomy Club meetings are now on 1st  Thursdays at 11:45 am.  For 2020:  March 5 & April 2 in A1/2906 and for the rest of 2020 (Jan., Feb., May-Dec), the meeting room is A1/1735. 

 

Club News:  

 Our new selection of Great Courses (DVD lectures) on astronomy for the club library and for club meetings (links describe the lecture topics within each course):

Description

A Field Guide to the Planets https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/science/a-field-guide-to-the-planets.html

Experiencing Hubble: Exploring the Milky Way  https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/science/experiencing-hubble-exploring-the-milky-way.html

How the Earth Works https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/how-the-earth-works.html

Introduction to Astrophysics https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/science/introduction-to-astrophysics.html

Life in Our Universe https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/science/life-in-our-universe.html

Radio Astronomy: Observing the Invisible Universe https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/science/radio-astronomy-observing-the-invisible-universe.html

The Theory of Everything: The Quest to Explain All Reality https://www.thegreatcourses.com/courses/science/the-theory-of-everything-the-quest-to-explain-all-reality.html

 

We need volunteers to help with: 

 

·         Assembling our new 16-inch Hubble Optics Dobs

·         Installing our new software on our tablet & laptop

·         Populating our club Sharepoint site with material & links to the club’s Aerowiki & Aerolink materials – Kaly Rangarajan has volunteered to help with this

·         Arranging future club programs

·         Managing club equipment & library (Kelly Gov volunteered to help with the library)

 

 

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

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

VIDEO:  SS 433: Binary Star Micro-Quasar  https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap200831.html
Animation Credit: DESYScience Communication Lab

Explanation: SS 433 is one of the most exotic star systems known. Its unremarkable name stems from its inclusion in a catalog of Milky Way stars which emit radiation characteristic of atomic hydrogen. Its remarkable behavior stems from a compact object, a black hole or neutron star, which has produced an accretion disk with jets. Because the disk and jets from SS 433 resemble those surrounding supermassive black holes in the centers of distant galaxies, SS 433 is considered a micro-quasar. As illustrated in the animated featured video based on observational data, a massive, hot, normal star is locked in orbit with the compact object. As the video starts, material is shown being gravitationally ripped from the normal star and falling onto an accretion disk. The central star also blasts out jets of ionized gas in opposite directions – each at about 1/4 the speed of light. The video then pans out to show a top view of the precessing jets producing an expanding spiral. From even greater distances, the dissipating jets are then visualized near the heart of supernova remnant W50. Two years ago, SS 433 was unexpectedly found by the HAWC detector array in Mexico to emit unusually high energy (TeV-range) gamma-rays. Surprises continue, as a recent analysis of archival data taken by NASA's Fermi satellite find a gamma-ray source -- separated from the central stars as shown -- that pulses in gamma-rays with a period of 162 days – the same as SS 433's jet precession period – for reasons yet unknown.

VIDEO:  The Sun Rotating https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap200819.html
Video Credit: SDONASADigital Composition: Kevin M. Gill

Explanation: Does the Sun change as it rotates? Yes, and the changes can vary from subtle to dramatic. In the featured time-lapse sequences, our Sun -- as imaged by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory -- is shown rotating though an entire month in 2014. In the large image on the left, the solar chromosphere is depicted in ultraviolet light, while the smaller and lighter image to its upper right simultaneously shows the more familiar solar photosphere in visible light. The rest of the inset six Sun images highlight X-ray emission by relatively rare iron atoms located at different heights of the corona, all false-colored to accentuate differences. The Sun takes just under a month to rotate completely -- rotating fastest at the equator. A large and active sunspot region rotates into view soon after the video starts. Subtle effects include changes in surface texture and the shapes of active regions. Dramatic effects include numerous flashes in active regions, and fluttering and erupting prominences visible all around the Sun's edge. Presently, our Sun is passing an unusually low Solar minimum in activity of its 11-year magnetic cycle. As the video ends, the same large and active sunspot region previously mentioned rotates back into view, this time looking different.

 

 

VIDEO:  Visualization: A Black Hole Accretion Disk https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap200825.html
Visualization Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight CenterJeremy Schnittman

Explanation: What would it look like to circle a black hole? If the black hole was surrounded by a swirling disk of glowing and accreting gas, then the great gravity of the black hole would deflect light emitted by the disk to make it look very unusual. The featured animated video gives a visualization. The video starts with you, the observer, looking toward the black hole from just above the plane of the accretion disk. Surrounding the central black hole is a thin circular image of the orbiting disk that marks the position of the photon sphere -- inside of which lies the black hole's event horizon. Toward the left, parts of the large main image of the disk appear brighter as they move toward you. As the video continues, you loop over the black hole, soon looking down from the top, then passing through the disk plane on the far side, then returning to your original vantage point. The accretion disk does some interesting image inversions -- but never appears flat. Visualizations such as this are particularly relevant today as black holes are being imaged in unprecedented detail by the Event Horizon Telescope.

 


NGC 6357: Cathedral to Massive Stars
Image Credit: NASAESA and Jesús Maíz Apellániz (IAA, Spain); Acknowledgement: Davide De Martin (ESA/Hubble)

Explanation: How massive can a normal star be? Estimates made from distance, brightness and standard solar models had given one star in the open cluster Pismis 24 over 200 times the mass of our Sun, making it one of the most massive stars known. This star is the brightest object located just above the gas front in the featured image. Close inspection of images taken with the Hubble Space Telescope, however, have shown that Pismis 24-1 derives its brilliant luminosity not from a single star but from three at least. Component stars would still remain near 100 solar masses, making them among the more massive stars currently on record. Toward the bottom of the image, stars are still forming in the associated emission nebula NGC 6357. Appearing perhaps like a Gothic cathedral, energetic stars near the center appear to be breaking out and illuminating a spectacular cocoon.



Two Worlds, One Sun
Left Image Credit & Copyright: Damia Bouic;
Right Image Credit: NASAJPL-CaltechMSSSDigital processing: Damia Bouic

Explanation: How different does sunset appear from Mars than from Earth? For comparison, two images of our common star were taken at sunset, one from Earth and one from Mars. These images were scaled to have same angular width and featured here side-by-side. A quick inspection will reveal that the Sun appears slightly smaller from Mars than from Earth. This makes sense since Mars is 50% further from the Sun than Earth. More striking, perhaps, is that the Martian sunset is noticeably bluer near the Sun than the typically orange colors near the setting Sun from Earth. The reason for the blue hues from Mars is not fully understood, but thought to be related to forward scattering properties of Martian dust. The terrestrial sunset was taken in 2012 March from MarseilleFrance, while the Martian sunset was captured in 2015 by NASA's robotic Curiosity rover from Gale crater on Mars. Last week a new rover and a helicopter -- onboard Mars 2020 -- launched for Mars.

 


The Valley of Orion
Visualization Credit: NASAESA, F. Summers, G. Bacon,
Z. Levay, J. DePasquale, L. Frattare, M. Robberto, M. Gennaro (STScI) and R. Hurt (Caltech/IPAC)

Explanation: This exciting and unfamiliar view of the Orion Nebula is a visualization based on astronomical data and movie rendering techniques. Up close and personal with a famous stellar nursery normally seen from 1,500 light-years away, the digitally modeled frame transitions from a visible light representation based on Hubble data on the left to infrared data from the Spitzer Space Telescope on the right. The perspective at the center looks along a valley over a light-year wide, in the wall of the region's giant molecular cloud. Orion's valley ends in a cavity carved by the energetic winds and radiation of the massive central stars of the Trapezium star cluster. The single frame is part of a multiwavelength, three-dimensional video that lets the viewer experience an immersive, three minute flight through the Great Nebula of Orion.

Crescent Moon HDR
Image Credit & Copyright: Miguel Claro (TWANDark Sky Alqueva)

Explanation: How come the crescent Moon doesn't look like this? For one reason, because your eyes can't simultaneously discern bright and dark regions like this. Called earthshine or the da Vinci glow, the unlit part of a crescent Moon is visible but usually hard to see because it is much dimmer than the sunlit arc. In our digital age, however, the differences in brightness can be artificially reduced. The featured image is actually a digital composite of 15 short exposures of the bright crescent, and 14 longer exposures of the dim remainder. The origin of the da Vinci glow, as explained by Leonardo da Vinci about 510 years ago, is sunlight reflected first by the Earth to the Moon, and then back from the Moon to the Earth.

Seeing Titan
Image Credit: VIMS TeamU. ArizonaU. NantesESANASA

Explanation: Shrouded in a thick atmosphere, Saturn's largest moon Titan really is hard to see. Small particles suspended in the upper atmosphere cause an almost impenetrable haze, strongly scattering light at visible wavelengths and hiding Titan's surface features from prying eyes. But Titan's surface is better imaged at infrared wavelengths where scattering is weaker and atmospheric absorption is reduced. Arrayed around this visible light image (center) of Titan are some of the clearest global infrared views of the tantalizing moon so far. In false color, the six panels present a consistent processing of 13 years of infrared image data from the Visual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) on board the Cassini spacecraft. They offer a stunning comparison with Cassini's visible light view.

Perseids Around the Milky Way
Image Credit & Copyright: Jingyi Zhang

Explanation: Why would meteor trails appear curved? The arcing effect arises only because the image artificially compresses (nearly) the whole sky into a rectangle. The meteors are from the Perseid Meteor Shower that peaked last week. The featured multi-frame image combines not only different directions from the 360 projection, but different times when bright Perseid meteors momentarily streaked across the sky. All Perseid meteors can be traced back to the constellation Perseus toward the lower left, even the seemingly curved (but really straight) meteor trails. Although Perseids always point back to their Perseus radiant, they can appear almost anywhere on the sky. The image was taken from Inner MongoliaChina, where grasslands meet sand dunes. Many treasures also visible in the busy night sky including the central arch of our Milky Way Galaxy, the planets Saturn and Jupiter toward the right, colorful airglow on the central left, and some relatively nearby Earthly clouds. The Perseid Meteor Shower peaks every August.



The Origin of Elements

Image Credit & LicenseWikipediaCmgleeData: Jennifer Johnson (OSU)

Explanation: The hydrogen in your body, present in every molecule of water, came from the Big Bang. There are no other appreciable sources of hydrogen in the universe. The carbon in your body was made by nuclear fusion in the interior of stars, as was the oxygen. Much of the iron in your body was made during supernovas of stars that occurred long ago and far away. The gold in your jewelry was likely made from neutron stars during collisions that may have been visible as short-duration gamma-ray bursts or gravitational wave events. Elements like phosphorus and copper are present in our bodies in only small amounts but are essential to the functioning of all known life. The featured periodic table is color coded to indicate humanity's best guess as to the nuclear origin of all known elements. The sites of nuclear creation of some elements, such as copper, are not really well known and are continuing topics of observational and computational research.

 

 

Astronomy News:

New search methods are ramping up the hunt for alien intelligence

Six decades of radio silence hasn’t stopped scientists from seeking E.T.



Astronomers are enlisting new technologies in the quest to answer one of the most intriguing research questions of all: Are we alone in the universe?

ZHENGZAISHURU/ISTOCK/GETTY IMAGES PLUS

For about a week in 1960, radio astronomer Frank Drake thought he might have discovered aliens.

He had pointed the National Radio Astronomy Observatory’s new 26-meter telescope at the star Epsilon Eridani on April 8 of that year, and within minutes, the instruments went wild. The telescope’s readout device, a chart recorder that used a pen to scratch out signatures of incoming signals on paper, scribbled erratically. A speaker connected to the telescope blared a train of strong pulses — just the kind of transmission expected from an intelligent sender. Drake was stunned. Could finding E.T. really be this easy?

It wasn’t. When the telescope found the signal again several days later, a radio antenna pointed in different direction also picked up the noise. The signal wasn’t otherworldly at all; it was coming from an earthly source, like an airplane.

Drake never picked up any interstellar broadcasts during his two months observing Epsilon Eridani and another sunlike star, Tau Ceti, with the radio telescope in West Virginia (SN: 4/30/60). But that first foray into the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, or SETI, sparked a growing field of efforts to scout out fellow intelligent creatures among the stars. And now, with recent discoveries in astronomy, new technologies and a flush of new money, SETI is in renaissance.

 


In April 1960, radio astronomer Frank Drake used a 26-meter telescope at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in West Virginia (pictured) to observe two nearby, sunlike stars for alien radio broadcasts. The observing campaign, which he dubbed Project Ozma, was the world’s first modern search for extraterrestrial intelligence.NSF, AUI, NRAO

“It’s really difficult to overstate how much the field has been transformed” in the last few years, says Andrew Siemion, director of the University of California, Berkeley’s SETI Research Center.

Bigger and better telescopes are probing deeper into the night sky. Sophisticated computational tools are poring over massive datasets on increasing numbers of stars and at a wider variety of frequencies. Observatories around the world are performing regular observations as part of Breakthrough Listen — a $100 million effort funded by Israeli-Russian billionaires Yuri and Julia Milner to conduct the most comprehensive search for extraterrestrials yet (SN: 7/20/15).

So far, SETI scientists have found nothing but radio silence. Still, they are undeterred. They’ve scoured only a tiny fraction of the places E.T. could be (SN: 9/30/18). And SETI’s collective observing power will make scientists 1,000 times more likely to find E.T. during this decade than they were in the 2010s, Siemion says.

This is, he says, “a boom time for SETI.


 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/ 

 

3 Sept

AEA Astronomy Club Meeting

 TBD -- Great Courses video

(Teams)

 

 

Cancelled for now

 

Friday Night 7:30PM SBAS  Monthly General Meeting

in the Planetarium at El Camino College (16007 Crenshaw Bl. In Torrance)

 


Sept. 17  The von Kármán Lecture Series: 2020


Visualizing Space Exploration: AR, VR & Emerging Tech

Time: 7 p.m. PDT (10 p.m. EDT; 0200 UTC)
We will explore how Augmented Reality, Virtual reality, and other forms of Mission Ops visualization can influence our Public Outreach and vice versa. As we delve deeper into the synergy of this work, we will see how it affects the way we design our spacecraft and the way we look at the world.

 

Host:
Brian White

 

Speaker(s):
Sasha Samochina, Deputy Manager of the Ops Lab, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Jason Craig, Visualization Producer, NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Webcast:
› Click here to watch the event live on YouTube
› Click here to watch the event live on Ustream

Past shows are archived on YouTube.

› Click here for the YouTube playlist of past shows

 

 

14 Sept?

LAAS General Mtg. 7:30pm Griffith Observatory (private)

 

 

 

Sep

20

2020

  

DR. ANDREW DAVIS

ROCKS AND MINERALS FROM STARS

Location: https://ucla.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJEqduyupj0vGd3S0_52FsbHTbPjYr0sZQUj


Time: 2:30PM

One of the most remarkable discoveries of the twentieth century is that some meteorites contain dust grains made around other stars that lived and died more than 4.5 billion years ago, before our Solar System formed. Stars only twice the mass of our Sun eventually turned into red giant stars and lost much of their mass as gas and dust. More massive stars ended with spectacular explosions called supernovae, and throw off much of their mass. Both kinds of stars return copious amounts of dust to the interstellar medium (the stuff between the stars), a portion of which formed new stars like our own, and we have recognized dust grains from both red giants and supernovae in meteorites. Each dust grain retains a chemical and isotopic record of the star around which it formed and by analyzing individual dust grains in the laboratory, we can study the interiors of stars in ways not possible by astronomy with telescopes. The study of stardust in the laboratory has led to new understanding of how the chemical elements are made in stars. Stardust was also not uniformly mixed into the solar nebula, the disk of gas and dust from which the Sun and planets formed. This caused small differences in isotopic composition among Solar System materials that have proven to be powerful tracers of the relationships between planets and different kinds of meteorites.

s


 

1 Oct


AEA Astronomy Club Meeting

TBD -- Great Courses video

Teams

 

Observing:

 

The following data are from the 2020 Observer’s Handbook, and Sky & Telescope’s 2020 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 September:

 


 
  

 

Moon: Sept 2 Full, Sept 10  last quarter, Sept 17 new, Sept 24 1st quarter                       

Planets: Venus is a brilliant morning star all month.  Mars rises in the evening, culminates before dawn. Jupiter transits at dusk and sets after midnight, Saturn roughly 8 degrees east of Jupiter,  Mercury is hidden in the Sun’s glare all month.

Other Events:

 

 

Cancelled

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

 

6 Sept Mars 0.03 deg S of Moon

 

?

SBAS In-town observing session – In Town Dark Sky Observing Session at Ridgecrest Middle School– 28915 NortbBay Rd. RPV, Weather Permitting: Please contact Ken Rossi or Ken Munson to confirm that the gate will be opened. http://www.sbastro.net/.   Only if we get permission to use the school grounds again and CDC guidelines are reduced

 

11 Sept Neptune at opposition

 

14 Sept Venus 4deg S of Moon

 

19 Sept

LAAS Private dark sky  Star Party

 

?

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

 

22 Sept Equinox

 

Cancelled

LAAS Public  Star Party: Griffith Observatory Grounds 2-10pm See http://www.griffithobservatory.org/programs/publictelescopes.html#starparties  for more information.

 

25 Sept Jupiter 1.6deg N of Moon, Saturn 2deg N of Moon

 

Internet Links:

 

Telescope, Binocular & Accessory Buying Guides

Sky & Telescope Magazine -- Choosing Your Equipment

Orion Telescopes & Binoculars -- Buying Guides

Telescopes.com -- Telescopes 101

 

General

 

Getting Started in Astronomy & Observing

The Astronomical League

 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 (Southern California, Washington, D.C. & Colorado)

Southern California & Beyond Amateur Astronomy Organizations, Observatories & Planetaria

Mt. Wilson Observatory description, history, visiting

Los Angeles Astronomical Society (LAAS)

South Bay Astronomical Society (SBAS)

Orange County Astronomers

The Local Group Astronomy Club (Santa Clarita)

Ventura County Astronomical Society

The Astronomical Society of Greenbelt

National Capital Astronomers

Northern Virginia Astronomy Club

Colorado Springs Astronomical Society

Denver 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 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, Walt Sturrock, VP, Kelly Gov club Secretary (& librarian), or Alan Olson, Resource Committee Chairman (over equipment, and club Treasurer).

Mark Clayson,
AEA Astronomy Club President

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