Back Then, Baby Galaxies. Next, a Super-Mega Galactic Cluster? Like basketball scouts discovering a nimble, super-tall teenager, astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope reported recently that they had identified a small, captivating group of baby galaxies near the dawn of time. These galaxies, the scientists say, could well grow into one of the biggest conglomerations of mass in the universe, a vast cluster…more
-NYT
Second ‘Impossible’ Ring Found Around Distant Dwarf Planet Earlier this year, astronomers announced that a tiny world beyond Neptune with a diameter about one-third that of Earth’s moon possessed a Saturn-like ring that should not be there. It now turns out that there are two such “impossible” rings…more
-BBC
Royal Society: Four incredible objects that made science history One of the first scientific findings signed by a woman is now online for the public to see for the first time. Martha Gerrish’s descriptions of the stars in 1734 joins discoveries by Isaac Newton, Victorian fossil hunters and pioneer photographers…more
-NYT
The Smallest Moon of Mars May Not Be What It Seemed New high-resolution images of tiny Deimos taken by an Emirati orbiter suggest that it may not be the captured asteroid that scientists once said it was. “We’re getting the highest resolution ever,” said Hessa Al Matroushi, the science lead on the mission at the Mohammed Bin Rashid Space Center in Dubai…more
-NYT
A Giant Telescope Grows in Chile LAS CAMPANAS OBSERVATORY, Chile — To walk among the observatory domes of the Atacama Desert is to brush your hair with the stars. The Atacama, on a plateau high in the Chilean Andes, is one of the driest and darkest places in the world. During the day one can see to Bolivia, far to the east, where clouds billow into thunderstorms…more
-NYT
A Fresh View of an Increasingly Familiar Black Hole A patch of pure nothing in a faraway galaxy has lately become the gravitational center of attention for radio astronomers. That would be a giant black hole, with the gravity of 6.5 billion suns, that spits high-energy particles from the center of the galaxy Messier 87, which lies some 50 million light-years from Earth…more
-NYT
A Mysterious Spiral in the Alaska Sky Had an Earthly Explanation At first, Ronnie Cole thought the bright light in the sky over southern Alaska was an airplane.Mr. Cole, a tour guide with Alaska Photo Treks, was setting up a portrait with two of his clients in the early hours of Saturday when he noticed “there was something weird about the light”…more
-Nature
Solar eclipse: Thousands flock to remote Australian town for rare celestial event A rare solar eclipse has thrilled thousands of people who flocked to a tiny Australian town for one of the best vantage points on Earth to see it. The sky in Exmouth in Western Australia turned dark for about 60 seconds on Thursday, when the Moon cast a 25 mile (40km)-wide shadow over the area…more
-NYT
From Bullets to ‘Bird Residue,’ the Many Trials of Telescopes Few things in science appear to be as delicate or precarious as the giant mirrors at the hearts of modern telescopes. These mirrors — doughnuts of glass meters in diameter, weighing tons and costing millions of dollars — are polished within a fraction of a wavelength of visible light into the precise concavity required…more
-BBC
Satellites Threaten Astronomy, but a Few Scientists See an Opportunity Each night, the stars of the sky compete with thousands of satellites. The number of intruders is only growing as constellations of satellites proliferate, with companies planning to launch orbiters by the tens of thousands to transmit internet and other communications signals back to Earth…more
-NYT
New Mars Map Lets You ‘See the Whole Planet at Once’ A new global map of Mars offers a fresh perspective on the planet. The map, released earlier this month, was pieced together from 3,000 pictures taken by the United Arab Emirates’ Hope spacecraft, and it shows the red planet in its true light. “These are all natural colors on Mars,”…more
by Rex Parker, PhD director@princetonastronomers.org
April 11 Meeting – Archeoastronomy. After last month’s wind driven last minute decision to go virtual only, we’ll again plan to convene at Peyton Hall on the Princeton campus on Tues April 11 (7:30pm). The University wants us to park in the new garage at 148 FitzRandolph Rd, off of Faculty Rd. Please arrive early enough for the walk from the garage (~15 min). This month we’re rolling out a very different guest presentation – cinema! It’s been an ambition for a few years to feature archeoastronomy, and one of the best movies ever made on the topic of southwest American Indian culture and knowledge of the sky is the movie Sun Dagger. This 1983 documentary is now considered a classic. Member Ira Polans will introduce the ~1-hour movie and guide a discussion afterwards. Sun Dagger reveals the remarkable celestial calendar in stone created in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico by the Anasazi over 1000 years ago. The film’s copyright status means that if you join the meeting by Zoom from home then you will need to pay a small fee to log in, while AAAP is covering for the Peyton showing. Please see Program Chair Victor Davis’s section below for more information.
After the Break. For the April meeting we’ll have a discussion of Archeoastronomy after the break to help coordinate the virtual and Peyton audiences. In addition to this, our tradition each month is for a member to give an Unjournal Club, a brief informal and fun astro presentation to begin the second half of the meeting. There’s plenty of time in the April agenda, or in future meetings, for you to contribute by giving an UnJournal presentation. PowerPoint slides, JPEG’s, astro-images, travel pictures, book reviews, your imagination is the limit (bring a USB memory stick). To get onto the schedule for an upcoming meeting, please contact me or the program chair.
Nominations for Club Officers. AAAP has a straightforward organization structure that depends on members stepping forward to positions on the Board of Trustees (the elected officers) as well as a few appointed positions. Through our 60-year history we have elected officers for new 1-year terms at the May meeting, as provided in the by-laws. Member Lee Sandberg has agreed to serve as Nominations Chair to identify candidates for the slate for this cycle. The elected positions are: Director, Assistant Director, Treasurer, Secretary, Program Chair, Observatory Chair, and Outreach Chair. The constitution, by-laws and position descriptions are on the website https://www.princetonastronomy.org/club_by_laws.html. I hope you will consider stepping forward for one of the positions. If you are interested, or want to nominate a fellow member, send a note to nominations@princetonastronomy.org.
Seasonal Time. Where did we get the idea for “Daylight Savings Time? The notion that clock time should spring forward and fall back with the seasons seems quite unnatural. Perhaps the least likable feature for amateur astronomers is that it makes summer sunsets so late, keeping telescopes waiting an hour longer than our internal biological clocks prefer. Of course, we could become early morning observers with that extra hour, but psychologically that seems harder to do. Messing with diurnal rhythms is never a good idea for mammals highly tuned to the solar cycle ever since their primordial beginnings on this planet. Modern human society bears the considerable burden of changing this rhythm, for the sake of – just exactly what?
The common story goes that an agricultural community benefits from a later work day, but this doesn’t match the reality that farmers also need to work in the early morning. Daylight Savings Time originated in the US and Europe a century ago with the idea of improving train schedule efficiency and saving fuel and power during World War I. Then WW2 led to enactment of year-round “war time” in the US for the same reasons. After spring forward/fall back was reinstated, permanent daylight savings time was again enacted during the 1970s energy crisis for the sake of power savings, but again this didn’t stick very long. Today the states are not required by federal law to switch time forward and back, yet only Hawaii and most of Arizona don’t.
Now the spring forward/fall back cycle is again being questioned. But rather than abolishing it for the sake of natural, longitude-based time zones, Congress is considering making Daylight Savings Time permanent again. In my opinion this would be the worst idea for amateur astronomers. Fortunately, we’re not the only ones who might feel this way and the argument is far from decided. There are plenty of economic arguments both pro and con. Next time you consider writing your representative, ask them to consider abandoning time tinkering altogether.
AAAP Observatory Opening in April. Thanks to observatory chair Dave & Jenn Skitt, the club’s facility at Washington Crossing Park is getting set for the new season. Public open house Friday nights, run by the Keyholders, will commence on April 7. The superb astronomy equipment at the observatory is listed in my section in last month’s Sidereal Times. Although we’d like to schedule a couple of member-only observing sessions, the vagaries of weather make it impossible to schedule in advance. Therefore, this season we are asking members to bring personal telescopes out to the observatory field each Friday night when weather supports a public session. This gives members a secure dark site to do astronomy and there’s plenty of room to set up with excellent sky views. Let’s see just how many member telescopes we can get onto the field (I recall the current record is 12). You can check for observatory opening status on our Twitter feed (https://twitter.com/princetonastro), the AAAP Discord server, or call the observatory phone at 609-737-2575.
Welcome to Peyton Hall The April 2023 meeting of the AAAP will take place on Tuesday, April 11th at 7:30 PM in Peyton Hall. As usual, the meeting is open to AAAP members and the public.
Options for Attending the April Meeting You may choose to attend the meeting in person or participate via Zoom or YouTube as we’ve been doing for the past few years. (See How to Participate below for details). This evening’s presentation is a film “The Sun Dagger” produced by Bullfrog Films. It will be proceeded by an introduction and commentary by Ira Polans and followed by Q&A conducted by Ira. Showing the film has a bit of a tortured history, and has had to wait for several years as we suffered through Covid and for Princeton University to welcome the club back to Peyton Hall. Ira acquired the film several years ago, pre-Covid, and, since copyright restrictions prevent the club from streaming the movie over the internet, we originally anticipated that viewing the film would be a strictly in-person experience.
A New Plan We are pleased to announce that there is now an option to view the film online. You may now open an account with Google or Vimeo and pay a $3.99 fee to view the 59-minute film on your digital device. You may stream the film at:
In order to accommodate this dual method of viewing while still maintaining a close approximation of our usual meeting agenda, we’ve modified the meeting agenda a bit:
(Times are approximate)
Please note that the break (extended to ten minutes) will occur following the film but prior to the Q&A. This will allow online participants time to log in to Vimeo, rent and view the film, and then rejoin the meeting in time for the discussion.
Getting to Peyton Hall The parking lots across the street (Ivy Lane) from Peyton Hall are now construction sites, unavailable for parking. We’ve been advised by the administration of the astrophysics department that we should park in the new enclosed parking garage off Fitzrandolph street and walk around the stadium and athletic fields. Here’s a map of the campus and walking routes from the parking garage to Peyton Hall. The map shows the recently completed East Garage. Not shown is an access road Sweet Gum that connects from Faculty Road to an entrance at the lower left corner of the garage. Stadium Road connects from Fitzrandolph Road to another entrance at the opposite corner (and higher level) of the garage. It’s about a 10-15 minute walk from the parking garage to Peyton Hall.
Featured Speaker: Ira Polans Former Program Chair AAAP sky_watcher72@yahoo.com
The Sun Dagger: Chaco Canyon and the Anasazi Archeoastronomy combines the disciplines of archeology, astronomy, and others to study how people of the past understood the sky and its phenomena. Examples of such sites include Stonehenge, Newgrange, the pyramid El Castillo, built in the center of Chichen Itza in Mexico. It also includes artifacts such as the Antikythera mechanism. Many sites around the world mark or seem to mark the solstices or the equinoxes. In this month’s meeting we will cover an example of a site that is closer to home.
Chaco Canyon, the home of the Anasazi, showing Fajada Butte. Credit: Wikipedia
Several groups of indigenous people lived in what is now the four corners region of the United States where Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah meet. This region is covered by hundreds, if not thousands, of ancient ruins. Some are excavated while others have not been. This month’s talk features a film on the Sun Dagger, which was found in the 1970’s by Washington artist Anna Sofaer in Chaco Canyon, NM. The Sun Dagger was built by the Anasazi (Ancestral Puebloan) Indians who built this calendar and thrived in the arid canyon environment a thousand years ago. Since then, the Sun Dagger has marked the seasonal solstices and equinoxes in vivid symbolic images of light and shadow on stone. To enhance your understanding of the film a brief introduction to the region and its people will be given prior to the screening.
Ira Polans Ira is a lifelong amateur astronomer, former Program Chair of the AAAP, AAAP keyholder, and former volunteer at the Franklin Institute, including during the Galileo exhibit in 2009.
As a teenager he spent several summers camping in the Southwestern United States where he first visited Chaco Canyon and other Ancestral Puebloan sites. He has been back to the Southwest several times as an adult. His most recent trip was in the Summer of 2016 for the camp’s 90 anniversary.
He has travelled to see Halley’s Comet in Australia in 1986, visited Italy in 2009 for the 400 anniversary of Galileo pointing his telescope to the sky, the Venus Transit at Kitt Peak in 2012, to the Total Solar Eclipse in Oregon in 2017 as part of the AAAP eclipse group, and to Yerkes Observatory in 2018. He is looking forward to next April’s Total Solar eclipse!
There will be no “Meet the Speaker” dinner this month. Weather and logistical considerations have prevented us from honoring John Church, Joe DePasquale and now Ira with free eats at Winberie’s, but please make plans to join us there next month when we honor them along with May’s guest speaker Alain Maury who’s driving down from NYC to be with us. Please let me know if you plan to attend.
Hats Are Here! …though I’ve yet to pick them up. The club has invested in a new stash of AAAP baseball caps, to thank our guest speakers and to try to shake loose “unjournal club” recruits. Contact me or Rex to line up your fifteen minutes of fame.
AAAP webcast: This month’s AAAP meeting, beginning with Rex’s opening remarks and ending at the beginning of the business meeting, will be webcast live on YouTube and recorded for subsequent public access on AAAP’s YouTube channel. Be aware that your interactions during this segment, including questions to our guest speaker, may be recorded for posterity.
Join YouTube Live to listen to the speaker Ira Polans using the link below –
This session will be recorded and saved on YouTube. Send me an email at program@princetonastronomy.org if you have any concerns.
Using Zoom: While we are social distancing, the AAAP Board has chosen to use Zoom for our meetings, based on our belief that many members have already used Zoom and have found it easy to use. One of its great features is you can choose whether you want to install the software on your computer or use it within your browser.
Please make sure you have Zoom installed on your computer. You do not need a Zoom account or to create one to join the meeting. Nor are you required to use a webcam.
Please see below for the link to the meeting, or visit our website.
There is no “Unjournal Club” presentation scheduled this month. As you may know, guest speakers receive a baseball cap with the AAAP logo embroidered upon it as a “thank you” for making a presentation to us. We’re expanding the hat giveaway to members who contribute an “Unjournal Club” presentation to encourage participation.
We hope to make these short presentations a regular feature of our monthly meetings. We’d like to know what members are doing or what members are thinking about in the broad range of topics encompassed by astronomy. A brief ten-minute (or so) presentation is a good way to introduce yourself and the topics you care about to other club members. If you are interested in presenting a topic of interest, please contact either director@princetonastronomy.org or program@princetonastronomy.org.
A look ahead at future guest speakers:
May 9, 2023
Alain Maury, Astronomer and discoverer of comets and asteroids. Alain Maury operates a time-sharing observatory near San Pedro de Atacama, Chile. He’s also an active observer and discoverer or co-discoverer of several dozen comets and asteroids, several of which (i.e. 3780 Maury) were named in his honor. He’ll talk about his observatory, its operation, and his numerous astronomical activities.
June 13, 2023
Bill Murray, AAAP’s Outreach Director and staffer at NJ State Museum planetarium Bill will give his traditional planetarium show at the New Jersey State Museum in Trenton.
Summer Hiatus
Later this fall
Gary Rendsburg, Distinguished Professor of Jewish Studies and History at Rutgers Prof. Rendsburg will talk about “The Jewish Calendar,” with emphasis on its astronomical connections to lunar months, intercalated month to adjust to the solar year, festival days, and new moon observances.
As always, members’ comments and suggestions are gratefully accepted and much appreciated.
Director Rex Parker convened the meeting at 1930 on Zoom due to inclement weather. He presented an outline of topics for the meeting that will follow the speaker.
At 1940 Program Chair Victor Davis introduced speaker Joseph DePasquale, and his presentation Unfolding the Infrared Universe with the James Webb Space Telescope. He is the Senior Science Visuals Developer in the Office of Public Outreach at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland. He had wanted to drive up and address us in person, and hopes to be able to do so in the future. A question period followed the talk.
NOTE: The recording of this and other AAAP talks can be found on the AAAP YouTube page.
There were 79 logged in on Zoom during the talk.
Following a break, the meeting was reconvened at 2105 with an Un-Journal presentation by Director Rex Parker about the science and imaging of planetary nebulas.
Observatory Co-Chair Dave Skitt reported the preparations being made for reopening the observatory next month. Two 2’x4’ folding tables have been purchased to hold literature on public nights, so no one need bring them each month. Acquisition of benches is still under investigation, as is professional installation of carpet.
Mention was made of the upcoming astronomy fairs NEAIC on April 13-14 and NEAF on April 15-16. They are the world’s largest and should be experienced, even if one can manage keep the wallet securely in place.
Appreciation of the Astrovideo Live presentations was repeated along with the hope that one could be planned for March 24. It might provide an opportunity to view a selection of planetary nebulas.
Members were reminded that they can request to have the observatory opened for them on other than a public night. Obviously, our ability to meet the request depends on the availability of Keyholders to operate the telescopes.
There is still no response from the Washington Crossing State Park about making long overdue repairs to the gates and the shameful condition of our entrance road.
Merchandise Facilitator Rich Sherman is continuing his investigation into another vendor which can provide an expanded line of AAAP store items.
The meeting was adjourned at 2210.
Our membership currently numbers 206. 20 have joined so far in 2023. We have had 31 renew while 8 have allowed their membership to expire, giving us a 79% retention rate.
Spring is here and so is warm weather apparel at our AAAP store. Out goes the hoodies and in come the t-shirts and the like. Visit https://aaap1962.logosoftwear.com/ or you can just go to the AAAP’s main website, and click on the “Membership” tab, and “Merchandise” is the first option. Either way you get there, you will need the password, which is: SiderealTimes. If you have a special request (e.g., you want a color you don’t see on the AAAP store), email Rich Sherman at rjsherman@hotmail.com and we will do our best to get you whatever you need.
Also, stay tuned to the Discord app and our next edition of Sidereal Times as we are adding a second vendor. We will have many more items, from water bottles and pennants, to backpacks and beach towels, and additional apparel items like puffer jackets and socks.
As many visual astronomers do, I happen to like Albireo, the Binary star in the Constellation Cygnus. Albireo A and B have two incredibly bold, blue and gold colors that make it simple to explain to observatory visitors how stars at different stages of life portray different colors, all related to their fusion temperature. To bring the analogy closer to home, I often pair my Albireo explanation with the different colors and temperatures found within a candle flame.
Visually, under stupid high power, Beta1 CygnI and Beta2 CygnI (aka, Albireo A and B) stare back at you like two eyes, sort of like the eyes in NGC 457, the Owl Cluster in Cassiopeia (another visual favorite of mine). But I wondered if I could get a good EAA (electronically assisted astronomy) photograph of the Cygeye duo that really showed their true colors. So, on March 4, 2023, at 1217, I set out to do so.
I attached my Celestron 8” SCT onto the clubs eYeOptron AZMP mount. I ran the scope at its native focal length of f/10. At the back of the scope, I mounted my SkeYelight Express, UltraStar Color camera. This combination would give me a FOV of 0.25 degrees by 0.19 degrees. I used a general light pollution filter to cut down on the New Jersey dayglow. I took n000 subs at n0.0 seconds each to not blow out the colors in each sub. I stacked the images in PixeYeSight and used the Star Eliminator plug-out so Albireo A and B would shine through. Here is my final image:
Not a bad image for sooo much work. But what caught my I was the indistinct white dot at the top center of the image. It couldn’t be a star since I had used the PixOutsight Star Eliminator plug-In. Since it was still dark and flat out, I decided to drill down to see if I could EAA image that pale white thing. Given the narrow FOV I needed just for Albireo A/B, I knew I had to bring out the big camera guns to resolve that tiny object.
I called in a favor from A-I Associates Matossian. They loaned me their OPTOS, P2000Dtx camera. After a bunch of off-the wall adapters and filter thread changes, I managed to get the binocular imager attached to my SkeYe-watcher 8” Quattro f/4, Imaging Newtonian. Thank God the iOptron AZMP mount was up to the task, thanks to its new Teflon clutch washer!
In no time biased, I had my light frames. Post processing, however, took much longer than the blink of the eye. Initial clipping was done on my eYePad. Some touch up work was done with the spray paint feature in Microsoft Paint 3D. Finally, a little bit of overlay work was done in GIMP. Here are the final two images from that brief imaging session. I am not sure, but I think I discovered some unknown beYenary retina nebula!
by Rich Sherman, the self-appointed co-chair of the Extreme Southern Princeton chapter of the AAAP.
On a warm and extremely buggy night in Big Cypress National Preserve in late March, Mike DiMario and I had the opportunity to chat with a couple of other astrophotographers that were set up a few yards from us. During our conversation, I learned about Dr. Mario Motta who is a trustee of the American Medical Association (AMA). He is also a board-certified cardiologist and clinical professor of medicine at Tufts University. Dr. Motta is also one of us: he is a long-time amateur astronomer, and is known for having built a 32″ f/6 telescope with five corrector lenses.
His website has a section on street lighting (https://www.mariomottamd.com/street-lighting/) where he references the peer-reviewed pivotal 2012 study that he co-authored, “Light Pollution: Adverse Health Effects of Nighttime Lighting.” This research paper discusses higher cancer rates, especially endocrine-based carcinomas as a result of circadian rhythm disruption. He also mentions General Electric which affirmed his research, and Apple which adjusted its nighttime iPhone display following the published paper.
If you are like me, you probably get a lot of blank stares whenever you talk about lighting issues. However, this web page offers lots of evidence that lighting really does matter to safety and health. Dr. Motta also provides several links for additional reading on the topic—from National Geographic to PBS, and much more.
Perhaps we can get Dr. Motta as one of our guest speakers…? In the meantime, I suggest we share the link to Dr. Motta’s website—educating ourselves and others can only help.
I teach electives to 8th graders at Link Community Charter School in Newark. Ten students are lucky enough to be going to the Island School in the Bahamas for a week of enrichment at the end of April and I am working with them on various topics so they will be better prepared for the trip.
Island School on Eleuthera in the Bahamas
One thing I have done with them is to compare the sky in Newark versus the Bahamas to show them the differences they will see if they look up in the day or night. I used Stellarium software as it can be adjusted for the school’s location and view any part of the sky on any day or time.
The first thing we discussed is the apparent altitude of the north star at both locations, which is equal to your latitude. I rounded Newark to 40 degrees north and the Island School to 25 degrees north, which is a 15 degree difference. If you set Stellarium to a time at night and then jump between Newark and the Bahamas you can easily see the north star move up and down on the screen between 25 and 40 degrees.
Another thing we discussed is the difference is constellations you can see in both locations. Since the north star is lower in the Bahamas, as the stars circle it, some of the constellations that are always visible in Newark, like Cassiopeia, will dip below the northern horizon in the Bahamas. If you look south the constellations are about 15 degrees higher than in Newark, so some will be visible that you can’t see in Newark, like Telescopium.
I gave the students two low tech planisheres, one manufactured for each location, which are excellent for showing what I just discussed. These are dual plastic disks that can be spun and set to any date and time and show the stars that are overhead at that setting. The north star is the central rivet that everything twirls about and you can quickly compare how far above the horizon it is at both locations by holding the two planispheres next to each other; the 15 degree difference is immediately visible.
Also, an interesting thing about a planisphere is that if you turn the outer disk one full revolution you can see all the stars that will ever be visible for its range of latitudes at any time of the year, at any time of day. Of course if the time you set is when the sun is out its light overwhelms the stars and they are not visible, while a nighttime setting will show visible stars.
This is interesting because I have worked with a lot people from the general population who don’t truly understand why we see different stars at different seasons. The truth is that the earth is always pointing to the same place in space and the exact same stars are circling across the sky every day, all year long at any one location. It is only the fact that at different seasons the dark night hours occur when different stars are overhead and again this is easily seen and understood by looking at the planishpere. Of course there are many stars that are visible all year round.
The other thing I wanted to explain to the students is the difference in the sun’s path across the sky in Newark versus the Bahamas, specifically its maximum sun angle. The sun is highest in the sky each day at solar noon when its azimuth is 180 degrees (toward the south). The highest maximum solar angle occurs around June 21st and the lowest maximum around December 21st.
The formula for finding the highest altitude on these two dates is 90 minus your latitude plus or minus 23.5. So in Newark the sun will reach an altitude of 72 degrees (90 minus 40 plus 23) on June 21st, which is the highest you will ever see it in there. In the Bahamas the highest the sun will ever get is 88 degrees (90-25+23), which is almost directly overhead. That formula (subtracting 23 degrees) shows that the highest the sun gets on December 21st is 27 degrees in Newark and 42 degrees in the Bahamas.
Using Stellarium software we found the highest the sun will get on April 30th, when the students will be at the Island School, is 79 degrees, and if they were home in Newark it would be 64 degrees, which is a noticeable amount.
The other things we discussed are what planets and artificial satellites will be visible at the Island School when they will be there (April 30 – May 6th). We looked on web sites and found that the Hubble Telescope will be visible along with some planets, notably Venus. The beauty of Stellarium is that in our class we could set the date and location to where they will be there and see exactly what the sky will look like then, including the planets and the Hubble moving quickly across the sky. If they bring a laptop running Stellarium outside during the actual viewing they can use it to zoom in on what they are looking at (like Venus) and see a simulated telescopic view.
When the students return May 7th, I’ll get a report from them as to what they actually saw.
As a final thought, when I was 10 in 1957 and living in Albuquerque my father brought me outside to watch Sputnik I travel across the sky. At the time it was the only artificial satellite and now there are many thousands so that on any given night you will probably see at least one.
We heard in the last couple of lectures how the data from the James Webb telescope is processed by visual specialists using tools like specialized algorithms and Photoshop to come up with the stunning images of the universe. A grand intersection of science and art. The fact that so much processing is done before the images are produced is due to what our eyes are geared to see. To overcome the limitations of human sight.
That brings us to the question of what is sight, what does it mean to “see” ? At a high level, light emitted by an object or light reflected off an object is received by our eyes and the image of the object is perceived by our brain. Light is a small part of the spectrum of electromagnetic waves. The spectrum comprises radio waves, microwaves, infrared waves, light, ultraviolet waves, x-rays and gamma rays. Radio waves oscillate at the lowest frequencies while gamma rays do so at the highest frequencies. Different colors represent different frequencies of oscillation. Other than light, the rest of the spectrum is invisible to human eyes. In fact it is a boon to mankind that we cannot see other forms of radiation. Else, the radio waves all around us going from our cell phones to the cell towers would block our vision and we would not be able to “see” beyond a few feet due to the ambient haze.
All bodies in our universe emit radiation. The type of radiation depends on two factors. One factor is how hot the body is. Hot bodies like the Sun emit visible light, largely yellow. Hotter bodies than the Sun emit blue light. Colder bodies than the Sun emit red light. Still colder bodies like Earth emit infrared light. Infrared light is basically heat, which we feel but cannot see unless we wear the special night vision glasses.
Second factor which governs the type of radiation is if the body is moving away from us or towards us and at what speed. Our universe is expanding, which means the galaxies are moving away from each other very rapidly. Due to “Doppler effect”, the radiation from receding objects drops in frequency. The waves get stretched or are “red shifted”. Faster the object is receding from us, the more red shifted it is. As Edwin Hubble discovered, the further an object is, the faster it is moving from us. Most of the light from distant objects is so red shifted that it falls in the infrared region by the time it reaches us. The James Webb space telescope operates in the infrared region – both near and mid, as opposed to the Hubble space telescope which is visible plus near infrared region. Due to this factor and the bigger size of the mirror, James Webb can see farther than Hubble. Seeing further means looking backwards in time.
Now back to the eyes. Ants can see ultraviolet light.Some birds, fish and reptiles can detect ultraviolet light. There are some photo receptors in the eyes which consist of proteins called “opsin” which can absorb a photon. There are different types of such pigments. Humans are trichromatic meaning that they can see three colors – red, blue and green. Every other color is synthesized from these three colors. Birds are quadchromatic, which means they can see four colors as primary colors. That could be the reason some birds can see ultraviolet light. Also, in human beings, our lenses block out the ultraviolet light. It is reported that the French painter Claude Monet lost his eye lens at the age of 82. He then started seeing ultraviolet light. It is supposed to be perceived as whitish blue. His later paintings of water lilies show this kind of a hue.
Another feature of the distant objects is that the radiation from them is very feeble, having traveled millions and billions of light years in its journey. More radiation needs to be collected over a period of minutes or hours before any sense can be made out. Eyes are very poor at staring at some object for a longer time to collect enough light to form a sensible image. Cameras contained within the James Webb telescope can collect and tabulate the data received.
The collected data is manipulated so that it is shifted to the visible spectrum to show colors which humans can perceive. What is the utility of “photoshopping” such data to produce artistic images ? Because the basic data collected is good for doing research and drawing conclusions. My 2 cents is that the artistic touch is for the purposes of public outreach. When billions of government dollars are spent on complex scientific instruments, we cannot just throw a table of numbers or a graph to educate the taxpayers. Besides, scientists who spend most of their lifetimes on such missions need some visuals to feel good about. Increasing sophistication of each generation of such images represents the progress being made in development of more complex scientific instruments.
At some point in the future, when the universe might stop expanding, we might see light from distant objects without any manipulation ! But Earth-like planets will still emit feeble infrared radiation.
by David Ackerman, AAAP member, astro-imagers subgroup
Since the Comet, I have not had time and clear skies coincide so it is a relief this mid-March weekend, that the recent New Moon allowed a peek at the Flaming Star Nebula (IC405) as well as IC410 and IC417, all taken with OSC camera as it sunk into the light pollution of the western horizon. A total of 6h of 300s light frames using William Optics Z73 (430mm, F/5.9) with ZWO ASI6200MC camera on iOptron GEM45 mount using KStars automation, APP stacking followed by PixInsight and Photoshop for post-processing.
Optics: William Optics Z73 (430mm, F/5.9) Sensor: ZWO ASI6200MC (OSC)Mount: iOptron GEM45 Exposure: 6h of 300s light frames during New Moon, skies 20.1 asec/mag^2 Software: KStars, Astro Pixel Processor, PixInsight, Photoshop
As for me, I’m a new member of AAAP and Astro-Imagers sub-group having joined in Feb 2023. I am also new to astrophotography having started in early 2022. I am a physicist with a fairly broad background including optics, instrumentation and image sensor design — so I have enjoyed the technical challenges of astrophotography. I am also a member of Gallery 14 in Hopewell, a fine art photography gallery and have enjoyed the artistic challenges of producing astro images. But mainly, I am looking forward to meeting fellow Astro-Imagers, trading ideas and methods and sharing the wonders of this interesting pursuit.
I’m not sure how many months I’m going to write about cloudy nights but at least I had a moment with the Waxing Crescent Moon recently during the day at Sandy Hook on 3/26/23.
A Big Rover Aims to Be Like ‘U.P.S. for the Moon’ A rover the size of a Jeep Wrangler is heading to the moon, and it’s going to need a big ride to get there. Astrolab Inc., the tiny start-up that is building the rover, chose the biggest ride possible: Starship, the new giant spacecraft under development by Elon Musk’s SpaceX rocket company…more
-NYT
April Space Events: Artemis Astronauts, a Journey to Jupiter and More If you’re looking for space news in April, you won’t have to wait long. On Monday, NASA will introduce the four astronauts who will travel on the Artemis II mission. The Artemis program — a successor to the Apollo missions of the 1960s and ’70s — aims to return Americans to the moon…more
-BBC
Space scientists reveal brightest gamma explosion ever Scientists have revealed how Nasa satellites detected the brightest gamma ray explosion in space. The gamma-ray burst (GRB) occurred two billion light-years from Earth and illuminated much of the galaxy. Images of the rare and powerful cosmic phenomenon show a halo and “bullseye” like shapes…more
-NYT
A Paler Uranus Emerges in the Latest Hubble Telescope Image With the passage of the vernal equinox a few days ago, we in the Northern Hemisphere can look forward to the warmer days of spring while those in the Southern Hemisphere will begin to feel the chill of autumn. The seasons change on other planets too, none more so than Uranus…more
-BBC
‘Ultramassive’ black hole discovered by Durham astronomers Astronomers say they have found one of the universe’s largest black holes to date using a new technique. Scientists at Durham University discovered the “ultramassive” black hole by observing its pull on passing light, called gravitational lensing. Dr James Nightingale who led the study said…more
-BBC
Massive asteroid passes between Earth and Moon The object, named 2023 DZ2, was discovered a month ago. As predicted by scientists, it passed within 175,000km of the Earth on Saturday after flying past the Moon. It is rare for such a huge asteroid – estimated to be between 40 and 90m in diameter – to come so close to the planet…more
-BBC
Photographers’ joy over northern lights in south of England An aurora is formed by a solar flare erupting on the Sun, sending charged particles towards the Earth that interact with our atmosphere, but it is seldom seen in southern England.The BBC spoke to some of the people who captured the phenomenon on camera to find out how they did it…more
-Nature
Uracil in the carbonaceous asteroid (162173) Ryugu The pristine sample from the near-Earth carbonaceous asteroid (162173) Ryugu collected by the Hayabusa2 spacecraft enabled us to analyze the pristine extraterrestrial material without uncontrolled exposure to the Earth’s atmosphere and biosphere…more
-NYT
Centuries of Stargazing Leave Jesuit Names Written in the Heavens Centuries after the Holy See muzzled Roman Catholic stargazers for questioning the centrality of the Earth in the cosmos, Jesuit astronomers from the Vatican’s in-house observatory are increasingly writing their names in the heavens. The Vatican, run by Pope Francis, the first Jesuit pope in history…more
-BBC
NASA’s Webb Spots Swirling, Gritty Clouds on Remote Planet Researchers observing with NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope have pinpointed silicate cloud features in a distant planet’s atmosphere. The atmosphere is constantly rising, mixing, and moving during its 22-hour day, bringing hotter material up and pushing colder material down. The resulting brightness changes are so dramatic…more
Amateur Astronomers Association of Princeton 