AEA Astronomy Club Newsletter January
2013
Contents
AEA Astronomy Club News & Calendar p.1
Video(s) & Picture(s) of the Month p. 2
Astronomy News p. 6
General Calendar p. 7
Colloquia, lectures, mtgs. p. 7
Observing p. 8
Useful Links p. 9
About the Club p. 10
Club News & Calendar.
Calendar
AEA Astronomy Club News & Calendar p.1
Video(s) & Picture(s) of the Month p. 2
Astronomy News p. 6
General Calendar p. 7
Colloquia, lectures, mtgs. p. 7
Observing p. 8
Useful Links p. 9
About the Club p. 10
Club News & Calendar.
Calendar
Club Meeting Schedule:
17 Jan 2013
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Semi-annual pizza party
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Slideshow, Amateur PV Observatory, Townhall & Election
results
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A1/1735
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AEA Astronomy Club meetings are on 3rd Thursdays at 11:45am. For all of 2013, the meeting room is A1/1735.
News:
The Jan.
17 club mtg., in addition to the pizza
party & slideshow of select NASA Astronomy Pictures (& videos?) of
the Day & club activities, will also include a short presentation on a proposed
cooperative amateur observatory in Palos Verdes. There will be a vote on a bylaw amendment to expand club membership to include any
non-employees, including former employees.
And discussion of ideas for
presentations, activities & acquisitions for 2013.
Pizza & drink are free for members, $5 for
others -- must RSVP to Mark Clayson (mark.clayson@aero.org, x60708) by Jan. 14
w. preferences – see menu below).
Menu options for Jan. 17 lunch (give 1st & 2nd
choices when you RSVP by Jan. 14 – we’ll have to share pizzas & pitchers of
drink so you may not get your first choice – hopefully at least your 2nd):
Pizzas:
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
Pitcher of water
Just a
reminder that for most of us, our club membership expires Dec. 31
(except those who joined in the last few months and likely paid also for 2012).
We invite you to renew for 2013 at your earliest convenience & in
time for the pizza lunch Jan. 17 (the first of 2 for the year) -- we must have
your $12 dues payment (& pizza order -- see the menu above) by Monday Jan.
14 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 Jim Johansen at M1-013.
New Regular
Mtg. Room. A heads up that we have secured a new, and
hopefully steady, meeting room for all of 2013 (beginning Jan. 17):
A1/1735. It is a large room w. large conference table seating 13,
and chairs for 25 more on the sides. It is located near the NE corner of
the bldg.: from the main lobby, turn right immediately after the credit
union entrance (thru the badge reader), and at the end of that hall turn left,
then right again, and it's on the right. If accessing from the door at
the NE corner of A1 (near the bridge to LAAFB), turn left after entering &
go thru the 2 sets of doors straight ahead.
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: A Total Solar Eclipse http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap121210.html (preview of the 2017 eclipse across the U.S.)
Video Credit & Copyright: Colin Legg
Explanation: Have you ever experienced a total eclipse of the Sun? The above time-lapse movie depicts such an eclipse in dramatic detail as visible from Australia last month. As the video begins, a slight dimming of the Sun and the surrounding Earth is barely perceptible. Suddenly, as the Moon moves to cover nearly the entire Sun, darkness sweeps in from the left -- the fully blocked part of the Sun. At totality, only the bright solar corona extends past the edges of the Moon, and darkness surrounds you. Distant horizons are still bright, though, as they are not in the darkest part of the shadow. At mid-totality the darkness dips to the horizon below the eclipsed Sun, created by the shadow cone -- a corridor of shadow that traces back to the Moon. As the total solar eclipse ends -- usually after a few minutes -- the process reverses and Moon's shadow moves off to the other side. Solar eclipses can frequently be experienced at gatherings organized along the narrow eclipse path as well as specialized cruises and plane flights.
2012 December 25
2012 December 21
Orion over El Castillo
Image Credit & Copyright: Stéphane Guisard (Los Cielos de America, TWAN)
Credits: D. Flores and B. Pichardo (Inst. Astronomia UNAM), P. Sánchez and R. Nafate (INAH)
Explanation: Welcome to the December solstice, a day the world does not end ... even according to the Mayan
Calendar. To celebrate, consider this dramatic picture of Orion rising over El Castillo, the central pyramid at Chichén
Itzá, one of the great Mayan centers on the Yucatán peninsula. Also known as
the Image Credit & Copyright: Stéphane Guisard (Los Cielos de America, TWAN)
Credits: D. Flores and B. Pichardo (Inst. Astronomia UNAM), P. Sánchez and R. Nafate (INAH)
Earth at Night
Image Credit : NASA, NOAA NGDC, Suomi-NPP, Earth Observatory,
Data and Processing: Chris Elvidge and Robert Simmon
Explanation: This remarkably complete view of Earth at night is a composite of cloud-free,
nighttime images. The images were collected during April and October 2012 by
the Suomi-NPP satellite from polar orbit about 824 kilometers (512 miles) above
the surface using its Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS). VIIRS offers greatly improved resolution and sensitivity compared to past global nightlight detecting instrumentation on DMSP satellites. It
also has advantages compared to cameras on the International Space Station.
While the space station passes over the same point on Earth every two or three
days, Suomi-NPP passes over the same point twice a day at about 1:30am and
1:30pm local time. Easy to recognize here, city lights identify major
population centers, tracking the effects of human activity and influence across
the globe. That makes nighttime images of our fair planet among the most interesting and
important views from space. Image Credit : NASA, NOAA NGDC, Suomi-NPP, Earth Observatory,
Data and Processing: Chris Elvidge and Robert Simmon
Astronomy News:
Ancient Maya Predicted 1991 Solar Eclipse
Miriam
Kramer, SPACE.com Staff Writer
Date: 08
January 2013 Time: 02:46 PM ET
LONG BEACH, Calif. — The
Maya, best known these days for the doomsday they never foretold, may have
accurately predicted astronomical phenomena centuries ahead of time, scientists
find. A new book, "Astronomy in the Maya Codices" (American Philosophical Society, 2011), which was awarded the Osterbrock Book Prize for historical astronomy here at the American Astronomical Society conference Monday (Jan. 7), details a series of impressive observations made by Mayan astronomers pre-16th century.
Anthropologist husband-wife team, Harvey and Victoria Bricker have devoted their lives to understanding the pre-Columbian Maya and how they understood the world around them. The Brickers conducted most of their work by translating complex hieroglyphics to see what Mayan scribes felt was most important to record on parchment.
By decoding early Mayan hieroglyphics from four different codices housed in Madrid, Paris, Mexico and Dresden, the Brickers tracked how the night sky would have looked to the Mayans when they were alive.
"We're dealing with real data," Harvey Bricker said. "They're not just squiggles."
The Brickers translated the dates cited in the Mayan calendar to correspond with our calendar and then used modern knowledge of planetary orbits and cycles to line up the Maya's data with ours. It was surprisingly accurate. [Image Gallery: Amazing Mayan Calendar Carvings]
In fact, the Brickers found the astronomical calendar dated to the 11th or 12th century accurately predicted a solar eclipse to within a day in 1991, centuries after the Mayan civilization had ended. The 1991 eclipse occurred on July 11. [and it crossed the Mayan lands. 110 members of the AEA Astronomy & Travel Clubs viewed it from Cabo San Lucas, Mexico]
First
Light Cameras Open Their Eyes
Sky &
Telescope January 2013, p. 15
Four of the
newest, largest eyes in astronomy opened to the sky in August and
September. Their creators hope that the
gigantic images they produce will help answer some equally large questions
about the universe’s fate, the largest-scale cosmic structures, and the nature
of dark energy and dark matter.
Three of
the cameras – the Dark Energy Camera on the 4-meter Blanco Telescope on Cerro
Tololo, Chile; the Hyper Suprime-Cam on the 8.2-m Subaru telescope on Mauna
Kea; and the One Degree Imager on the 3.5-m WIYN telescope on Arizona’s Kitt
Peak – are among the largest digital cameras ever made.
A typical
major observatory telescope might have a handful of CCDs tiling its focal
plane, but the Dark Energy Camera and One Degree Imager each have more than 60
CCDs in their arrays, and the Hyper Suprime-Cam has 116. As a result, these cameras are
behemoths. The largest, Hyper
Suprime-Cam, stands 3 meters (10 feet) high and weighs 3 tons.
Each camera
contains hundreds of millions of pixels, making the images some of the largest
ever taken. The cameras were designed
for efficient sky surveys covering very wide fields with each exposure.
The Dark
Energy Camera, for example, will survey about an eighth of the sky (5,000
square degrees) over five years. It will
measure the universe’s large-scale structure in 3-D, detect far-away
super-novae, record the effects of the large-scale sound waves that rippled
through the very early universe, and detect dark matter’s distorting effect on
the shapes of faraway galaxies. Each of
these measurements will help astronomers constrain the properties of dark
matter and dark energy.
The fourth
new eye is the Large Monolithic Imager on the newly opened Discovery Channel
Telescope (S&T February 2012, page 28).
Unlike the other three, which depend on vast CCD arrays, the LMI is one
of the largest single CCDs in astronomy, with 36 megapixels covering a field of
view nearly 13 arcminutes on a side. The
single chip is sensitive to light across the optical spectrum and will enable
the study of large faint objects.
These
imagers pave the way for the next generation of astronomical cameras and
surveys. The most ambitious planned is
the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), an 8.4-meter scope to be built in Chile. Using a camera the size of a small car, it
will image half the celestial sphere to magnitude 24 in six filters every three
or four days for at least 10 years.
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.
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4 Jan
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SBAS Monthly General Meeting at El Camino
College planetarium. 7:30 PM
Topic: Remote Imaging
Speaker: Tom Bash http://www.sbastro.net/.
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17 Jan 2013
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AEA Astronomy Club Semi-annual pizza party, Election & PV
Observatory
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A1/1735
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Jan. 17 & 18 The von Kármán Lecture Series: 2013
Probing
the Dark Sector with Euclid
The
past decade has seen the emergence of the so-called "concordance
model" of cosmology. In this model, the Universe started about 13.7
billion years ago in a Big Bang and is now dominated by dark matter and dark
energy. Together this poorly understood "dark sector" makes up about
95% of the Universe, but the nature of these phenomena remains elusive. Weak
gravitational lensing, whereby the observed shapes of background galaxies are
slightly distorted by foreground dark matter has proven to be one of the most
useful ways to measure dark matter and dark energy. I'll explain the basics of
weak lensing and outline some key weak lensing results. Finally, I'll discuss
The European Space Agency's Euclid mission. NASA has recently agreed to partner
on this ambitious mission to measure the dark sector in the 2020s.
Speaker:
|
Dr. Jason Rhodes, JPL
Research Scientist |
Locations:
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Thursday, Jan.
17, 2012, 7pm The von Kármán Auditorium at JPL 4800 Oak Grove Drive Pasadena, CA › Directions Friday, Jan. 18, 2012, 7pm The Vosloh Forum at Pasadena City College 1570 East Colorado Blvd. Pasadena, CA › Directions |
Webcast:
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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. |
No mtg. in Jan.
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LAAS LAAS General Meeting.
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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 December:
Moon: Jan 5 last quarter, Jan 11 new, Jan 18 1st
quarter, Jan 27 full
Other
Events:
3 Jan. Quadrantid meteors peak
5 Jan
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SBAS Star Party (weather permitting): RPV at
Ridgecrest Middle School 28915 North Bay Rd.
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10 Jan. Venus is 3 deg. South of the Moon
12 Jan
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LAAS Dark Sky Night : Lockwood Valley (Steve Kufeld Astronomical Site; LAAS members and their guests
only)
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12 Jan
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SBAS
out-of-town observing – contact Greg Benecke http://www.sbastro.net/.
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19 Jan
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Public Star Party: Griffith Observatory Grounds
2-10pm
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21 Jan Jupiter
is within 1 deg. Of the moon
Internet Links:
Link(s) of the Month
Link(s) of the Month
A weekly 5 minute video about what’s up in the night sky: www.skyandtelescope.com/skyweek.
General
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/.
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
