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EYEPIECE Journal of the Amateur Astronomers Association of New York
April 2013 Volume 61 Number 4 ISSN 0146-7662
Imagine finding yourself in a room with a theoretical
physicist, an experimental physicist, an astrophysicist, a cos-
mologist, a philosopher, and a science journalist. This must be
an episode of The Big Bang Theory. But it’s not - you’re actu-
ally sitting with 1,500 other riveted audience members and
thousands of online streaming viewers, as they all experience
the AMNH 2013 Isaac Asimov Memorial Debate. This year’s
thought-provoking topic: “The Existence of Nothing.”
Your esteemed debate panelists:
Eva Silverstein: Professor of physics at Stanford University
and the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
Lawrence Krauss: Foundation Professor in the School of
Earth and Space Exploration and Director of the Origins Pro-
ject at Arizona State University
John Richard Gott, III: Cosmologist and professor of astro-
physical sciences at Princeton
Jim Holt: Philosopher, longtime contributor to the New
Yorker, and writer on string theory, time, infinity, numbers,
truth and nonsense (yes, nonsense, he says)
Charles Seife: NYU professor of journalism, author, and theo-
retical mathematician
Moderating the debate was AAA’s own Neil DeGrasse
Tyson, Director of the Hayden Planetarium. Tyson created a
relaxed atmosphere, describing this debate more as a
“conversation that the scientists would have in a bar.” (I won-
dered if that’s the reason panelists were drinking their water
out of wine glasses).
Debate About Nothing (con’t on Page 3)
Isaac Asimov Memorial
“Debate About Nothing” By Richard Brounstein
NASA ROVER FINDS CONDITIONS ONCE SUITED FOR
ANCIENT LIFE ON MARS
WASHINGTON - An analysis of a rock sample collected
by NASA's Curiosity rover shows ancient Mars could have
supported living microbes.
Scientists identified sulfur, nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen,
phosphorus and carbon - some of the key chemical ingredients
for life - in the powder Curiosity drilled out of a sedimentary
rock near an ancient stream bed in Gale Crater on the Red
Planet last month.
"A fundamental
question for this mis-
sion is whether Mars
could have supported a
habitable environment,"
said Michael Meyer,
lead scientist for
NASA's Mars Explora-
tion Program at the
agency's headquarters
in Washington. "From
what we know now, the
answer is yes."
Clues to this habitable environment come from data re-
turned by the rover's Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) and
Chemistry and Mineralogy (CheMin) instruments. The data
indicate the Yellowknife Bay area the rover is exploring was
the end of an ancient river system or an intermittently wet lake
bed that could have provided chemical energy and other favor-
able conditions for microbes. The rock is made up of a fine
grain mudstone containing clay minerals, sulfate minerals and
other chemicals. This ancient wet environment, unlike some
others on Mars, was not harshly oxidizing, acidic, or extremely
salty.
The patch of bedrock where Curiosity drilled for its first
sample lies in an ancient network of stream channels descend-
ing from the rim of Gale Crater. The bedrock also is fine-
grained mudstone and shows evidence of multiple periods of
wet conditions, including nodules and veins.
Curiosity's drill collected the sample at a site just a few
hundred yards away from where the rover earlier found an
Ancient streambed in September 2012.
NASA Rover (con’t on Page 5)
NASA’s Curiosity Drills to Test Martian Surface Materials
BREAKING NEWS: MARTIAN SPACECRAFT LANDS IN NJ
(April Fools!)
2
April’s Evening Planets : Saturn is at opposition on April 28th. On this day Saturn rises in the east when the Sun sets. Jupiter gets lower during the month but is still gloriously bright. In the last week of April, Venus appears in the western twilight.
April’ s Evening Stars: Still around are the brilliant winter constellations, now in the west, including Orion, Taurus the Bull, Auriga the Charioteer, the Dogs Canis Major and Canis Minor and Gemini the Twins. To find the stars of spring, look overhead to spot the Big Dipper. If we imagine a leak in its pot, its contents would land on Leo the Lion, containing the bright star Regulus. Returning to the Big Dipper and this time follow the arc formed by the pot’s handle, we arrive at Arctu-rus in the constellation Bootes the Herdsman. Continuing along the arc takes us to Virgo, with its bright star Spica. April’s Morning Planets : Mercury will be difficult to spot low in the east. Mars is too close to the Sun. Fortunately, Sat-urn can be seen almost the entire night.
April’s Morning Stars: The spring constellations of Bootes, Virgo and Hercules are getting ready to set in the west. The Summer Triangle (with the constellations Lyra, Cygnus and Aquila and corresponding bright stars Vega, Deneb and Altair) is near the zenith. Sagittarius is very low but if you have a dark sky the view is magnificent. The au-tumn constellations in the east include Cassiopeia, Perseus, Pegasus and Andromeda.
April 3 Last Quarter Moon at 12:37 a.m. (EDT) April 10 New Moon at 5:35 a.m. (EDT) April 14 The Moon is 2.2° from Jupiter. Nearby is the bright star Aldebaran April 17 Mars is in conjunction with the Sun and passes into the morning sky. It will not be seen for several months April 18 First Quarter Moon at 8:31 a.m. (EDT) April 20 The Moon is 5.6° south-southwest of Regulus April 22 The Lyrid meteor shower peaks this morning April 24 The Moon is extremely close to Spica April 25 Full Moon at 3:57 p.m. (EDT). The Moon is 3.5° south-southwest of Saturn April 27 Saturn is at opposition April 28 Venus is getting far enough from the Sun to be seen
For additional information visit: www.aaa.org/month413
WHAT’S UP IN THE SKY
AAA Observers’ April Guide
By Richard Rosenberg
April 2013
April “Skylights”
Nebula of the Month Eskimo Nebula NGC 2392
By Evan Schneider Winter - it’s cold outside. It’s even colder in space. But across the void, we look out onto a vast assortment of nebulae, burning at temperatures way beyond our 5,000K Sun.
The Eskimo Nebula is in one such area of space, just 5,000 light-years from us - its heated gasses reaching 30,000K. The dying star, named for the image resembling a face in a fur parka, was dis-covered in 1787 by British astronomer William Herschel. N A S A / H u b b l e ’ s Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2
show us that the parka is actually a disk of stellar material with a ring of comet-like objects, their elongated tails trailing as they streak away from center of the planetary nebula. The ejected material travels at high speeds, up to 900,000 mph, on a journey outward that started about 10,000 years ago.
Astronomical Fact of the Month Asteroid Belts and Planets By Evan Schneider Similarities abound in space. The Herschel and Spitzer telescopes have tagged bright stars Vega and Fomal-haut as kindred spirits. Sitting 25 light-years away from Earth, both have warm and cool asteroid belts separated by a gap, just as we have between Mars and Jupiter, and the Kuiper Belt’s distant icy region beyond Neptune. Astronomers believe this stellar architecture suggests that multiple planets will be found between the belts in both systems. There are other simi-larities as well. Both stars are approximately twice the mass of our Sun, and burn a hotter, bluer, color in visible light. Both are around 400 million years old, but Vegas may be aging better, and actually be as much as 800 mil-lion years old. For now, Fomalhaut’s main focus is its known extrasolar planet, Fomalhaut b, in its eccentric orbit at the inner edge of the system’s cometary belt.
EYEPIECE
NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope captures Vega
3
Debate About Nothing (Cont’d from Page 1)
Our contributors are all accomplished scientists and pro-
fessors. Each has published one or more books relevant to the
subject of “nothing”. Laurence Krauss, for example, published
A Universe from Nothing. Charles Seife published Zero: The
Biography of a Dangerous Idea.
Tyson asked the distinguished group to describe
“nothing” any way they wished to interpret it. Sometimes, the
conversation turned to mathematics, discussing the value “0.”
Other times, the discussion encompassed aspects of cosmol-
ogy, multi-verses, and the birth of our universe. Most interest-
ing, was listening to the panelists as they tried to imagine what
“nothing” actual is, and what it may look like.
HISTORY OF NOTHING
Seife was quick to point out that the Greek and Roman
civilizations refused to integrate a zero into their number
scheme, unless absolutely necessary for calculations. This had
more to do with a cultural desire to always have something and
not to accept that there could ever be nothing. This also goes
into the longtime be-
lief that the universe
has always existed.
Remember - the Big
Bang Theory was not
created until the 20th
century. Before then,
few accepted that
there was a time when
there was no uni-
verse…when there
was indeed nothing.
Over time, socie-
ties accepted our very
useful mathematical placeholder, zero, and accepted the fact
that there was once nothing when there was no universe. If not
for this early hypothesis, advanced mathematics, and thus all
engineering projects, would have been impossible to create
without the value “zero.”
WHAT EXACTLY IS NOTHING?
Each panelist was asked to define the term “nothing.”
Surprisingly, this is not an easy answer. Holt gave a thought-
provoking reply: “If not the universe, then what?” He would
have us imagine a sphere with a radius. Then imagine the ra-
dius shrinking to smaller and smaller sizes until it shrinks to
zero. That is his “nothing.” It was Gott, however, who gave a
humorous, but effective interpretation. He put his hands over
his eyes and said: “See that blackness. That is what nothing
looks like. It is all black.” He put his hands behind his head
where he could not see them and said “This is what the uni-
verse looked like before the Big Bang. It is impossible to see.”
THE QUANTUM WORLD AND NOTHING
After discussing the concept of nothing by eliminating all
matter, eventually we fall into the quantum world and how
even the vacuum of space is still something that is not
“nothing.” Silverstein joined the conversation, pointing out
that shrinking the radius of a sphere to nothing does not take
into account all the chaotic behavior of matter in the quantum
world. In addition, she queried, quantum mechanics and String
April 2013
Theory can provide a unique solution to the concept of
“nothing.” String Theory requires 10 spatial dimensions of
matter. As we go back in time to the Big Bang, the special
dimensions disappear and we eventually approach “nothing.”
CAUSE AND EFFECT
Holt pointed out how cause and effect are important
when determining the origins of the universe. He would ask
“What is the First Cause?” As you go back in time to the
cause of every state of matter, at some point you get to the first
cause that resulted in matter. At some point, therefore, matter
must have been created from nothing.
WHY DOES OUR UNIVERSE EXIST AT ALL
The discussions bordered on both philosophical and sci-
entific perspectives. Krauss explained that only religion needs
a creation theory of how something had to exist to create the
universe out of nothing. Science accepts the concept of a uni-
verse created from nothing. This follows the Anthropic Prin-
ciple, allowing the universe to be possible because we are here
- very comforting even if it is self-centered for humans. Holt
added that our universe is also very imperfect. He just does
not understand what the creator was thinking, telling the audi-
ence “It looks like it was made in a lab by hackers.”
FINAL THOUGHTS ON NOTHING
Most scientists did agree that “nothing” simply means
that there is not anything there. Seife provided a mathematical
description: Start with 0. Remove it and you get the null set.
That is nothing. Silverstein, taking the most technical scien-
tific posture, defined “nothing” as the “ground state of a
gapped quantum system.”
In the end, it was certainly “something” of an evening.
EYEPIECE
Neil DeGrasse Tyson focuses his audience on the concept of “Nothing”
And the Winner of the Largest-Known
Spiral Galaxy Contest Is…
NASA: The spectacular barred spiral galaxy NGC
6872 has ranked among the biggest stellar systems for dec-
ades. Now, a team of astronomers from the United States,
Chile and Brazil has crowned it the largest-known spiral,
based on archival data from NASA's Galaxy Evolution Ex-
plorer (GALEX) mission.
Measuring tip-to-tip across its two outsized spiral
arms, NGC 6872 spans more than 522,000 light-years,
making it
more than
five times
the size of
our Milky
Way gal-
axy. The
g a l a x y ' s
u n u s u a l
size and appearance stem from its interaction with a much
smaller disk galaxy named IC 4970, which has only about
one-fifth the mass of NGC 6872. The odd couple is located
212 million light-years from Earth, in the southern constel-
lation Pavo.
4
EYEPIECE
Our Location: Woodlawn Cemetery is a national historic
landmark that has commanding open area views, free of
glare from local lighting, where the majority of the urban
night sky can be seen. There will be telescopes of various
magnifications and design, capable of reaching out into the
Milky Way galaxy and beyond. Come have a look at the
universe from the Bronx.
Our Targets: Our astronomical targets will be both near
and far. In our solar system, the cloud bands of Jupiter, its
moons, and our Moon will be easily visible. Beyond, we will
observe distant galaxies, star clusters, and nebulae. The sky
is filled with opportunities each night.
Directions: Enter at the Jerome Ave. entrance located one
block north of the intersection of Jerome Ave. & Bainbridge
Ave. Look for a table staffed by AAA members.
Member Volunteers Needed
The AAA Spring Starfest is finally here!
Come join your fellow amateur
astronomers as we support our club
and all of NYC. Volunteer opportunities
are open to all members, their families,
and even non-members.
Wanted: Event Night Staff
1 Experienced photographer
1 Writer/Tweeter/ blogger
10 Raffle tables staff members
10 Event staff members to set-up/ break
down and distribute hand-outs
(must be able to lift 15 lbs.)
2 Runners
Our AAA Gift to You
All staff volunteers will
receive a special event
“Limited Edition” T-shirt
For more information
and to join the AAA team
Contact: Susan Andreoli at [email protected]
VISIT THE AAA STORE
for
NEW STARFEST EVENT ITEMS
www.cafepress/amateurastronomersofny
April 2013
Become a AAA Spring
Starfest Team Member
5
Hello Members:
I hope you saw comet Pan-STARRS in March. I was able to see it at our Winter Astronomy Class 2013. We had a fun night,
and most students got to observe the comet from high above midtown Manhattan.
On April 13, we will have our first Spring Starfest “live” from Woodlawn Cemetery. It will kick off the AAA observing
season. For more information, visit the AAA website at: http://www.aaa.org/springstarfest. Be sure to check out more about our
observing sites at http://www.aaa.org/observing, and see our full calendar of events at http://aaa.org/calendar.
For our AAA Lecture Series at the AMNH, we have jus announced a surprise guest speaker. Al Nagler from Tele Vue Optics
and inventor of the Nagler Eyepiece will present "Giant Eyepieces That Swallow Spacecrafts" on Friday, April 5. The balance of
this season's schedule is available at http://www.aaa.org/lectures1213, or at the back of this issue of Eyepiece.
We are currently interviewing candidates for the Board of Directors of the AAA. If you would like to be considered, please
contact me at [email protected].
Thanks, everyone!
Sincerely,
Marcelo Cabrera
President, AAA
A Message from AAA President Marcelo Cabrera
EYEPIECE
NASA Rover (con’t from Page 1)
"Clay minerals make up at least 20 percent of the compo-
sition of this sample," said David Blake, principal investigator
for the CheMin instrument at NASA's Ames Research Center
in Moffett Field, Calif.
These clay minerals are a prod-
uct of the reaction of relatively fresh
water with igneous minerals, such as
olivine, also present in the sediment.
The reaction could have taken place
within the sedimentary deposit, dur-
ing transport of the sediment, or in
the source region of the sediment.
The presence of calcium sulfate
along with clay suggests the soil is
neutral or mildly alkaline.
Scientists were surprised to
find a mixture of oxidized, less-
oxidized, and non-oxidized chemi-
cals providing an energy gradient of
the sort many microbes on Earth
exploit to live. This partial oxidation
was first hinted at when the drill
cuttings were revealed to be gray
rather than red.
"The range of chemical ingredients we have identified in
the sample is impressive, and it suggests pairings such as sul-
fates and sulfides that indicate a possible chemical energy
source for micro-organisms," said Paul Mahaffy, principal
investigator of the SAM suite of instruments at NASA’s God-
dard Space Flight Center.
An additional drilled sample will be used to help confirm
these results for several of the trace gases analyzed by the
SAM instrument.
"We have characterized a very ancient, but strangely new
'gray Mars' where conditions once were favorable for life,"
said John Grotzinger, Mars Science Laboratory project scien-
tist at the California Institute of
Technology in Pasadena, Calif.
"Curiosity is on a mission of discov-
ery and exploration, and as a team
we feel there are many more excit-
ing discoveries ahead of us in the
months and years to come."
Scientists plan to work with
Curiosity in the Yellowknife Bay
area for many more weeks before
beginning a long drive to Gale Cra-
ter's central mound, Mount Sharp.
Investigating the stack of layers ex-
posed on Mount Sharp, where clay
minerals and sulfate minerals have
been identified from orbit, may add
information about the duration and
diversity of habitable conditions.
NASA's Mars Science Laboratory Project has been using
Curiosity to investigate whether an area within Mars' Gale
Crater ever has offered an environment favorable for microbial
life. Curiosity, carrying 10 science instruments, landed seven
months ago to begin its two-year prime mission. NASA's Jet
Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., manages the project
for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.
(Article Credit: NASA/Dwayne Brown, JPL/D.C. Agle)
April 2013
Contacting AAA
Membership: [email protected]
Eyepiece: [email protected]
General Club Matters and Observing: [email protected]
Telephone: 212-535-2922 Website: www.aaa.org
NASA’s Curiosity at the “John Klein” site, taken with the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI)
NOTICE: AAA Annual Meeting
May 15, 2013 - 6:00 p.m. - 9:30 p.m.
505 Eighth Avenue, 20th Fl
Food, Fun, and Astronomy!
6
through mathematics and not experiments.
Our hope for the future is to someday confirm gravita-
tional theory and find experimental evidence. What if we can
do more than just understand it? Science would prefer to affect
gravity in a practical way and not just by introducing mass to
create a gravitational field. What if we could find the elusive
Graviton (particle or string) and find a way to interrupt some
or all of its effect on matter? Science fiction stories have been
doing this for years. When you see people walking on the
USS Enterprise in Star Trek, they walk in an artificial gravity
field created by “gravity plating” on the floor. No one ex-
plains exactly how this magical floor works, but it makes it
much easier to work on a spaceship (as well as much easier to
film stories).
What if we could someday
create a device that can either
interrupt gravity or enhance it
somehow? How would this
shape our world of the future? I
think the first invention people
would want are anti-gravity
devices on vehicles. We could
finally have flying cars just like
on “The Jetsons” or “Back to
the Future P2”. Parking would
still be a problem for your fly-
ing car even if no longer had to
sit in traffic. Not every problem
is gravity’s fault. We could
have everything flying much
more easily: skateboards, jet
packs, cars, and more. I want to
see someone run a marathon in anti-gravity shoes. We won’t
count their finish time. It would just be an experiment. Offi-
cial athletes must use the natural gravity field.
Getting into outer space would no longer cost $10,000 a
pound. We could get into orbit with much larger machines
using much less fuel, and land on Earth as easily as a helicop-
ter lands on a platform.
Landing on Mars would also be much less of a challenge.
The very impressive Curiosity landing was a great feat of engi-
neering. Just attach our anti-gravity device and use a small
rocket to land a 50 ton habitat on Mars, and we’re ready to let
scientists do the work. I also want regular deliveries of sup-
plies for the same price as shipping them across the oceans
here on Earth. We would have a self-sufficient Martian colony
up and running in just a few years.
Somewhere out there is the illusive Graviton (wave, par-
ticle or string). We will keep searching for it, since we know
something must exist. I think of it every time I step on the
scale and dream of losing 10 pounds. If you need me, I will be
at the gym fighting gravity.
Richard Brounstein’s monthly column, “WHAT IF,” explores what today
seems improbable or impossible. Stay tuned for more fascinating concepts.
In March, scientists at the CERN Large Hadron Col-
lider confirmed that the sub-atomic particle in the family of
Boson particles known as the Higgs exists. They were pretty
sure last year (about 99.997% sure). That wasn’t enough for
these quantum scientists. After going through several
petabytes of data, scientists are now calling the experiment a
success. This is a huge accomplishment for science. The
Higgs particle is the messenger that creates mass in our uni-
verse. It is the reason that we have stuff from atoms and peo-
ple to stars and galaxies. In the Standard Model of particle
physics, this discovery checks off the list another critical point
particle in nature that is no longer theoretical, but is factual.
While the physics world is celebrating, we still have this
big elephant in the room. The Standard Model doesn’t explain
why a baseball, football, or
spacecraft falls to the Earth. It
does not explain gravity.
To explain gravity, scien-
tists have a theoretical elemen-
tary particle called the Graviton
Boson. The Graviton communi-
cates the force of gravity just as
the Higgs Boson communicates
the mass of our existence. We
experience gravity everywhere
in the universe, so something
must exist. Yet no quantum
experiment has found it, leaving
us with just a theory.
One might think that all
we have to do is discover this
messenger particle with an ac-
celerator, the same way that scientists discovered the Higgs
Boson, right? Unfortunately, the Standard Model cannot fit
the Graviton Particle into its theory because its energy ap-
proaches infinity.
There are other more cost effective efforts under way to
better understand gravity. NASA/ESA’s Laser Interferometer
Space Antenna (LISA) consists of three spacecraft positioned
five million kilometers apart in outer space. Each probe will
maintain a constant laser beam shot at the other two detectors.
It would detect the ripple of gravity waves created by black
holes or stellar collisions. This will help confirm Einstein’s
General Theory of Relativity, and may even produce direct
measurements of the Big Bang. We haven’t seen the light at
the moment of the Big Bang yet, but gravity waves may be
detectable, bringing us closer to the single most important
event in the known history of the universe. This does not actu-
ally help us find the elusive Graviton, but it is a step in the
right direction.
Another effort to explain gravity is String Theory, where
all matter is made up of tiny one-dimensional oscillating lines
of energy that exist in 10 spatial dimensions. It can describe
the Graviton as a type of string with its unique properties.
Problem solved, except that it is only a theory expressed
EYEPIECE April 2013
WHAT IF??? Can We Really Discover Gravity?
By Richard Brounstein
NASA/ESA concept drawing for LISA Trapping gravity waves in space
7
Spin Doctors at NASA
Two X-ray space observatories, NASA's Nuclear
Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) and the European
Space Agency's XMM-Newton, have teamed up to definitively
measure the spin rate of a black hole with a mass two million
times that of our sun. The supermassive black hole lies at the
dust and gas-filled heart of a galaxy called NGC 1365, spin-
ning almost as fast as Einstein's theory of gravity will allow.
The observations are a powerful test of the theory, which says
gravity can bend space-time, the fabric that shapes our uni-
verse, and the light that travels through it. "We can trace mat-
ter as it swirls into a black hole using X-rays emitted from
regions very close to the black hole," said NuSTAR principal
investigator Fiona Harrison of the California Institute of Tech-
nology. "The radiation we see is warped and distorted by the
motions of particles and the black hole's incredibly strong
gravity." NuSTAR, an Explorer-class mission launched in
June 2012, is designed to detect the highest-energy X-ray light
in great detail. It complements telescopes that observe lower-
energy X-ray light, such as XMM-Newton and NASA's
Chandra X-ray Observatory. Scientists use these and other
telescopes to estimate the rates at which black holes spin. Until
now, these measurements were not certain, because clouds of
gas could have been obscuring the black holes and confusing
the results. With help from XMM-Newton, NuSTAR was able
to see a broader range of X-ray energies and penetrate deeper
into the region around the black hole. The new data demon-
strate that X-rays are not being warped by the clouds, but by
the tremendous gravity of the black hole. This proves that spin
rates of supermassive black holes can be determined conclu-
sively. Measuring the spin of a supermassive black hole is
fundamental to understanding its history and that of its host
galaxy. "These monsters, with masses from millions to billions
of times that of the Sun, are formed as small seeds in the early
universe and grow by swallowing stars and gas in their host
galaxies, merging with other giant black holes when galaxies
collide, or both," said Guido Risaliti of the Harvard-
Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, and the Italian National
Institute for Astrophysics. Supermassive black holes are sur-
rounded by pancake-like accretion disks, formed as their grav-
ity pulls matter inward. Einstein's theory predicts the faster a
black hole spins, the closer the accretion disk lies to the black
hole. The closer the accretion disk is, the more gravity from
the black hole will warp X-ray light streaming off the disk.
Faster Than a Speeding Bullet
A new study using observations from NASA's Fermi
Gamma-ray Space Telescope reveals that expanding debris
of exploded stars produces some of the fastest-moving matter
in the universe. This discovery is a major step toward under-
standing the origin of cosmic rays, one of Fermi's primary mis-
sion goals. "Scientists have been trying to find the sources of
high-energy cosmic rays since their discovery a century ago,"
said Elizabeth Hays, from NASA's Goddard Space Flight Cen-
ter. "Now we have conclusive proof supernova remnants, long
the prime suspects, really do accelerate cosmic rays to incredi-
ble speeds." Cosmic rays are subatomic particles that move
through space at almost the speed of light. About 90% of them
are protons, with the remainder consisting of electrons and
atomic nuclei. In their journey across the galaxy, the electri-
cally charged particles are deflected by magnetic fields. This
scrambles their paths and makes it impossible to trace their
origins directly. Through a variety of mechanisms, these
speedy particles can lead to the emission of gamma rays, the
most powerful form of light and a signal that travels to us di-
rectly from its sources. The Fermi results concern two particu-
lar supernova remnants, IC 443 and W44, which scientists
studied to prove supernova remnants produce cosmic rays. IC
443 and W44 are expanding into cold, dense clouds of inter-
stellar gas. These clouds emit gamma rays when struck by high
-speed particles escaping the remnants. Scientists previously
could not determine which atomic particles are responsible for
emissions from the interstellar gas clouds. After analyzing four
years of data, Fermi scientists see a distinguishable feature in
the emissions of both remnants. The feature is caused by a
short-lived particle called a neutral pion, produced when cos-
mic ray protons smash into normal protons. The pion quickly
decays into a pair of gamma rays, emission that exhibits a
swift and characteristic decline at lower energies. The low-end
cutoff acts as a fingerprint, proving that the culprits in IC 443
and W44 are protons. "The discovery is the smoking gun that
these supernova remnants are producing accelerated protons,"
said Stefan Funk, an astrophysicist with the Kavli Institute for
Particle Astrophysics. "Now we can work to better understand
how they manage this feat and determine if the process is com-
mon to all remnants where we see gamma-ray emission."
EYEPIECE April 2013
AAA BRIEFS IN ASTRONOMY
8
blocks. Calculations
show Kepler-10b’s
radius is 1.4 times that
of Earth. From radius
and orbital period, we
can measure the dis-
tance of the planet
from its star and its
temperature: the longer
the orbital distance, the
cooler the planet. Ke-
pler-10b lies extremely
close to its star, too
hot to support life.
Surface temperature on
its star-lit side is ap-
proximately a blazing
2800°F.
Kepler 10-b may
be lifeless, but it has
given life to a new
field of science,
“astrogeology.” Scientists have learned a great deal about the
exoplanet. In addition to size and temperature, we also know
its mass, density, and composition. To determine mass, scien-
tists turned to the W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii. The
Keck measures the wobble of a star due to gravitational pull
from an orbiting planet. Wobbles are variations in the star’s
radial velocity, or the speed with which it moves towards or
away from Earth, and show up as displacements in a star’s
spectral lines due to Doppler Effect. Keck can observe ex-
tremely small radial-velocity variations to one in 1,000 pixels.
While the Doppler method cannot determine a planet’s true
mass, it can set a lower limit on it. Kepler-10b wobbles in
sync with its star, and its mass is about 4.5 times that of Earth.
Knowing mass and volume (from its radius), Kepler-10b’s
density is calculated as 8.8 g/cm3. The density of Earth is 5 g/
cm3, so surely this planet is rocky! Marcy ranks the discovery
of Kepler-10b “as among the most profound scientific discov-
eries in human history,” and predicts the planet “will go into
every textbook worldwide.”
Very few Earth-sized exoplanets have been discovered.
Kepler can’t see them all because of their small size, and be-
cause the telescope’s fixed view only sees planets that orbit
edge-on. Investigators had to correct for the limitations of
Kepler and created new software to test the efficiency of its
findings. With that efficiency factored in, Marcy reported
brand new data, yet to be published, which reveals that 23% of
Sun-like stars have planets with sizes ranging from 1-3 times
the radius of the Earth and that orbit within 0.25 astronomical
units of their host stars. Earth-sized planets are not just com-
mon in our universe, they are typical.
What about life? Can Kepler tell us if there are other
Kepler to Universe (con’t on Page 9)
“We find ourselves at a special moment in time for sci-
entific discovery – as with Christopher Columbus, the Apollo
Moon Missions, and the Human Genome Project – there is a
sense in the air that we are on the brink of a breakthrough.
The breakthrough within our grasp is the discovery of life
elsewhere in the universe. We’re very close.”
Geoff Marcy - Co-investigator/Kepler Mission
Geoff Marcy has discovered more extrasolar planets
than anyone - over 250 so far. On March 11, he presented
“Other Earths and Life in the Universe,” to a breathless audi-
ence at the AMNH Frontiers Lecture Series. Marcy, a key
planet hunter with the NASA Kepler Space Telescope Mis-
sion, works to detect exoplanets, characterize their properties,
and understand their origins. His current focus is on finding
Earth-size planets and solar systems similar to our own.
The transit method of detection measures the change in
brightness of a star when a planet has passed in front of it. It is
harder to detect small, Earth-sized planets, because their tran-
sits result in only a tiny decrease in light received. Typically,
their host star’s brightness drops by only 0.01% during a tran-
sit. That’s where Kepler comes to the rescue.
Launched on March 9, 2009, the telescope is especially
suited to detecting Earth-sized planets. It has the ability to
measure brightness to within 0.01%. Perfectly suited for this
assignment. Trailing behind Earth in a solar orbit, Kepler con-
tinuously observes the same field of stars, pointing to the con-
stellations Cygnus, Lyra, and Draco. To date, nearly 3,000
exoplanets have been found with the help of the Kepler Obser-
vatory. Of those, over 100 are Earth-like in size.
One such “Other Earth” is Kepler-10b, the first con-
firmed terrestrial planet discovered outside our solar system.
Kepler-10b’s transit dims its host star’s light by about 0.01%
every 0.84 days. The transit method can tell alot about a
planet. If we know the radius of a star, then we can find the
radius of a transiting planet based on the fraction of light it
EYEPIECE April 2013
NASA Mission: Kepler to Universe: “Is There Anybody Out There?” By Amy Wagner
WHY WE EXPLORE
Kepler’s final inspection before its 2009 launch
Brightness drops over time as an exoplanet transits its star (Illustration by Hans Deeg)
9
Earths could be 10 billion years old; perhaps their techno-
intelligent life died out long ago. Also, the lifetimes of ad-
vanced civilizations must overlap for communication between
them, and maybe, we missed the window. Or for those that
lived contemporaneously and communicated with each other,
it is possible that their contact was not amicable; they may
have destroyed each other. And of course, there is the possi-
bility that they destroyed themselves.
“The takeaway message is this,” says Marcy, “Take care
of our planet; take care of ourselves.”
It is only through the continued work of the Kepler Space
Telescope and investigators like Geoff Marcy that we can we
hope to learn how to take care of our planet or find neighbors
who will talk to us. Unfortunately, we may be running out of
time. Kepler could die on us any day now. Although NASA
added another four years to Kepler’s initial four-year mission,
one of its four reaction wheels has already failed; another is
showing signs of friction.
It is sad to think that we could lose Kepler so soon; how-
ever, this vital program has already produced so much data
that we can hardly sift through it all. More than 400 multi-
planetary systems have been discovered so far – the Kepler-11
system alone has as many as 6 planets orbiting its host star –
but there just aren’t enough astronomers around to deal with
all that information.
However powerful and prolific telescope may be, its data
is meaningless without Marcy and other dedicated astrono-
mers. So, lend a hand with the Kepler project, you amateur
astronomers - join Planet Hunters - www.planethunters.com.
Kepler to Universe (con’t from Page 8)
habitable planets out there, and if so, how many could there
be? In a breathtaking paper published in February this year,
Harvard graduate student Courtney Dressing calculated the
occurrence of habitable planets in our universe. From the Ke-
pler data, she looked at systems with red dwarf stars, the most
common type in our universe. Three out of every four stars in
the Milky Way galaxy are red dwarfs. They are small stars,
and an Earth-sized planet would block more of its light during
transit. Red dwarfs are also cooler and more likely to host
planets with habitable zones. After targeting just red dwarfs,
Dressing honed in on 95 planetary candidates, showing that at
least 60% of red dwarfs have orbiting planets smaller than
Neptune. Of this sample, three had the right conditions to sup-
port life based on size, temperature, and orbital distance. From
this, she extrapolated that 6% of the 75 billion red dwarf stars
in the Milky Way must have Earth-sized planets that orbit in a
habitable enough distance to allow liquid water to exist.
Our Sun is surrounded by a swarm of red dwarf stars, and
using Dressing’s calculations, the closest Earth-like world is
likely to be just 13 light-years away. “If the Milky Way Gal-
axy were the size of the U.S., then the nearest star with a habit-
able planet would be across Central Park,” said Marcy to the
Hayden audience.
So, what is the likelihood that habitable planets have pro-
duced not just life, but intelligent life? According to Marcy,
even the most pessimistic calculations would predict thousands
of advanced civilizations in the Milky Way. Is our own galaxy
teeming with intelligent life? If so, then why haven’t they
called? SETI is trying to change all that, but no takers yet
from intergalactic space.
Life itself may be rare. Earth
has water, but just the right amount, a
thin veneer of 0.06%. Most rocky
planets discovered are either desert
worlds with only 0.03% water, or
water worlds with 0.12%. “There
may be fish there, but no smart peo-
ple,” jokes Marcy. Life could swim,
but it wouldn’t walk around. Earth’s
perfect water ratio may just have
been a lucky delivery from asteroids
and comets.
Intelligence may also be rare.
Does evolution necessarily select for
techno-intelligent life? Dinosaurs
lived over a million years without
getting smarter. If it weren’t for the
mass extinction of those giant, bird-
brained reptiles, sly little mammals
would not have selected for evolu-
tionary advancement.
And for intelligent life out there,
what is the typical lifetime of a civili-
zation? Red dwarfs live longer than
our Sun, so it is possible that life on
their habitable planets would be
much older and much more evolved
than life on Earth. These Other
EYEPIECE April 2013
Artist's concept of the red dwarf star CHRX 73 (upper left) and its companion CHRX 73 B in the foreground (lower right) weighing in at 12 Jupiter masses. CHRX 73 B is one of the smallest
companion objects ever seen around a normal star beyond our Sun (Illustration Credit: NASA/ESA/)G. Bacon STScl)
10
was again.
T h e 1 5
brought out
the tail and
b r igh tened
the nucleus,
but it didn't
have the
striking divi-
sion that you
see in a deep
photo. I
switched to
the 17mm
Ethos eyepiece, and then it really shone. It was easy to focus
on a dim star that was right next to it, 51 Pisces, so now I knew
the focus. I could see dimming in the tail that made it look
like two tails. The wind was picking up, or else I would easily
have seen the brightening and dimming of jets and changes. It
was bright and clear enough, but the scope wagged around
under the wind. Donna peered intently at it during a calm
wind moment, and she saw changes in brightness and possible
movement. The comet had been seen, and we'd witnessed this
little miracle. Now the wind was whipping us, getting much
colder, as the comet dipped below the horizon. Though Orion
came out from the clouds and Jupiter beckoned, we were spent
and frozen. Not even five layers could keep us warm in the
dark night air.
Packing the scope always takes longer than you want,
and it always takes longest in a cold wind. But off we went,
and down through the woods, the sheltering trees now cover-
ing us as we returned to Earth. Donna was happy to get
warmer, and we put the scope away slowly, making sure that
every part was handled with care. Each part helped us see this
winged interloper, and each was valuable. Ninety minutes
after we saw PanSTARRS dip below the horizon, Donna and I
were sharing drinks at the Piper's Kilt, our traditional after-
observing location. We toasted each other, and talked about
this once in a lifetime experience. Walking home hand in
hand we remembered something my uncle said at our wed-
ding. A marriage is a story that tells the world what love is,
that as we live together, we write our book of love. Going
home, we realized that we'd just written a good chapter, thanks
to an auspicious comet named PanSTARRS.
A Date With Comet PanSTARRS By Jason Kendall
On Thursday, Mar 14, I wanted to see the comet
for the first time on my own. But more importantly, I wanted
my wife, Donna, to share it with me. She had never seen a
comet, and I have only seen a few. I'd always wanted to share
the stars with her, especially a unique, 100 million-year orbit
Oort Cloud starry messenger. So I left work early and bolted,
right on schedule. The comet, however, knew no schedule
other than its own. It was to pass over our heads just once,
returning long after every nation I knew or ever will know will
have passed away and been replaced by many, many more.
This comet was visiting us from nearly the next star, and in its
ice was held the dust of eons, the tiniest flecks of the origin of
our Sun and Earth.
So, I ran in from the subway, and we bundled up for
the cold. Hurriedly, we tromped downstairs to get our tele-
scope. The Sun was rapidly sinking lower in the sky, so I
moved with deliberate speed. We loaded our equipment, and
Donna suggested we also take the binoculars, a gift from a
grand class. The electric cart hurdled down the street and up
into the park at a breathtaking walking pace. We chatted, and
realized that it was colder than we had thought. The Sun was
only a hand above the horizon as we walked through Inwood
Hill Park, hauling 200 pounds of observing equipment in what
amounted to a race. You see, the clouds were also a factor this
evening. Donna and I looked westward with concern, tracking
several foreboding near-horizon clouds. We wondered if the
cold and the two hours prep and takedown would be spoiled by
an opaque condensation of water. As we arrived at Bear Rock
Meadow, the Sun was just about to graze the horizon. Donna
jumped on the binoculars, and started hunting. I built the 15"
scope from the box, my fingers already burning from the freez-
ing air and gusty winds. But it set up well, and it was now
show time.
Our hunt was on. The sky darkened, but the comet re-
fused to be seen. It was hiding up in those low clouds. We
had a 10° window above the horizon, holding steady. After
going back and forth between the binocs and the scope, I
found it. There it was, tail pointing away from the Sun, shim-
mering like a little fish in a reddish sea. I gave Donna the
binocs right away, and there was an immediate peal of joy:
"There it is! I see the comet!" I then found the comet in the
15" Obsession UC with a goodly 35mm Panoptic. And there it
EYEPIECE April 2013
Comets, Comets, Comets...
Kleegor’s Universe By Joshua M. Erich, www.pixelatedparchment.com
11
covered on any exoplanet, and carbon dioxide may be present
as well.
The planets also are “redder,” meaning that they emit
longer wavelengths of light, than celestial objects with similar
temperatures. This could be explained by significant but
patchy cloud cover on the planets.
With1.6 times the mass and five times the brightness, HR
8799 itself is very different from our Sun. The brightness of
the star can vary by as much as 8 percent over a period of two
days and produces about 1,000 times more ultraviolet light
than the Sun. All of these factors could impact the spectral
fingerprints of the planets, possibly inducing complex weather
and sooty hazes that could be revealed
by periodic changes in the spectra.
More data is needed to further explore
this solar system’s unusual character-
istics.
“The spectra of these four worlds
clearly show that they are far too toxic
and hot to sustain life as we know it,”
said co-author Ian Parry, a senior lec-
turer at the Institute of Astronomy,
Cambridge University.“But the really
exciting thing is that one day, the tech-
niques we’ve developed will give us
our first secure evidence of the exis-
tence of life on a planet outside our
solar system.”
Project 1640 helps scientists clear
this hurdle by sharpening and darkening a star’s light. This
technical advance involves the coordinated operation off our
major instruments: the world’s most advanced adaptive optics
system, which can make millions of tiny adjustments to the
device’s two 6-inch mirrors every second; a coronagraph that
optically dims the star but not other celestial objects in the
field of view; an imaging spectrograph that records 30 images
in a rainbow of colors simultaneously; and a specialized wave
front sensor that distinguishes between residual starlight that
sneaks through the coronagraph and the light from planets,
allowing scientists to filter out background starlight more ef-
fectively.
Altogether, the project has produced images of celestial
objects 1 million to 10 million times fainter than the star at the
center of the image, with only an hour of observations. It is
also capable of measuring orbital motion of objects.
“Astronomers are now able to monitor cloudy skies on
extrasolar planets, and for the first time, they have made such
observations for four planets at once,” said Maria Womack,
program director for the Division of Astronomical Sciences at
the National Science Foundation. “This new ability enables
astronomers to now make comparisons as they track the at-
mospheres, and maybe even weather patterns, on the planets.”
Researchers have conducted a remote reconnaissance
of a distant solar system with a new telescope imaging sys-
tem that sifts through the blinding light of stars. Using a suite
of high-tech instrumentation and software called Project 1640,
the scientists collected the first chemical fingerprints, or spec-
tra, of this system’s four red exoplanets, which orbit a star 128
light-years away from Earth. A detailed description of the
planets – showing how drastically different they are from the
known worlds in the universe - was accepted for publication in
The Astrophysical Journal.
“An image is worth a thousand words, but a spectrum is
worth a million,” said lead author Ben R. Oppenheimer,
AMNH associate curator and chair of
the Astrophysics Department. Oppen-
heimer is the principal investigator for
Project 1640, which uses the 200-inch
Hale telescope at the Palomar Obser-
vatory in California (see image at
right). The project involves researchers
from the California Institute of Tech-
nology, NASA/JPL, Cambridge Uni-
versity, NYU, and the Space Telescope
Science Institute, in addition to Oppen-
heimer’s team at the Museum.
The planets surrounding the star
of this study, HR 8799, have been im-
aged in the past. But except for a par-
tial measurement of the outermost
planet in the system, the star’s bright
light overwhelmed previous attempts to study the planets with
spectroscopy, a technique that splits the light from an object
into its component colors - as a prism spreads sunlight into a
rainbow. Because every chemical, such as carbon dioxide,
methane, or water, has a unique light signature in the spec-
trum, this technique is able to reveal the chemical composition
of a planet’s atmosphere.
With this system, the researchers are the first to deter-
mine the spectra of all four planets surrounding HR 8799. “It’s
fantastic to nab the spectra of four planets in a single observa-
tion,” said co-author Gautam Vasisht, an astronomer at JPL.
The results are “quite strange,” Oppenheimer said.
“These warm, red planets are unlike any other known object in
our universe. All four planets have different spectra, and all
four are peculiar. The theorists have a lot of work to do now.”
One of the most striking abnormalities is an apparent
chemical imbalance. Basic chemistry predicts that ammonia
and methane should naturally co-exist varying quantities
unless they are in extremely cold or hot environments. Yet the
spectra of the HR 8799 planets, all of which have “lukewarm”
temperatures of about 1340 degrees Fahrenheit, either have
methane or ammonia, with little or no signs of their chemical
partners. Other chemicals, such as acetylene, previously undis-
EYEPIECE April 2013
Project 1640 Astronomers Conduct First Remote
Reconnaissance of Another Solar System
AMNH RESEARCH
12
STARRS and the moon to be at about the same altitude and
about 5° apart on Mar 12. After spotting the thin crescent
Moon about 30 minutes after sunset, we looked to the left with
binoculars – but found emptiness. I framed the Moon in the
right side of my camera’s viewfinder while
using a 300mm lens, which has an angle of
view of around 8°. So I knew that some-
where in the picture would be the comet.
Some might wonder why we didn’t
use one of the new iPhone/smartphone as-
tronomy apps. Well, we didn’t have any
apps, and neither of us had a smartphone.
But we did have digital camera technology
to help us.
I kept shooting photos and checking
the screen on the back of the camera.
Around 7:50 p.m., over 45 minutes after
sunset, I finally spotted the comet on the
camera screen, its bright head and short,
conical-shaped tail pointing away from the
Sun. So we finally knew it was out there.
Rush tried hard to see it in the binoculars,
but was unable to resolve it in the dark New Mexico night.
It still took many long minutes for the sky to fully
darken, and for PanSTARRS to become more visible in the
photos. In pictures, the earthshine that lighted the “dark” part
of the moon was incredible. The super-thin, lit portion of the
upturned crescent seemed to hold up the rest of the moon. To-
gether with the comet it made for a breathtaking photographic
image.
Exposing for the comet and Moon was tricky. The proc-
ess involved taking a light meter reading of the sky around the
Moon, taking a
photo, looking at the
screen on the back of
the camera, and mak-
ing adjustments
based on what I saw.
To be consistent, I
used f5.6 and an ISO
800, varying the
shutter speed to get
the right exposure.
The times ranged
from 1/25 of a sec-
ond, when we first
spotted the comet, to
8 seconds as it set
beyond the horizon. I
used a cable shutter
release so I wouldn’t
jar the tripod-
mounted camera and
lens. This was help-
ful during longer exposures. Comet Chasing (con’t on Page 13)
FOCUS ON THE UNIVERSE
I wasn’t expecting to dodge cow chips while photo-
graphing Comet PanSTARRS. Running across the high desert
floor and carrying my camera, telephoto lens and tripod, I was
trying to get a better angle on the comet and a beautiful cres-
cent moon as they set behind the giant dish
antennas of the Very Large Array (VLA)
radio telescope. I had come to the clear
skies of New Mexico to shoot the celestial
pairing, which would only happen on Mar
12-13. A forecast of rain and cloudy
weather for those days in New York made
the decision easier.
Landing in Albuquerque, I met
my astronomy/photographer friend Rush,
who suggested that the VLA in central
New Mexico would make an interesting
foreground for the photos. We set off after
lunch, arriving in the late afternoon after a
two-hour drive to the south. The observa-
tory, located on the Plains of San Agustin
near the town of Magdalena, is large and
flat, and, at 6,500 feet, the perfect place for
radio astronomy. The array was featured in the 1997 movie
“Contact,” based on Carl Sagan’s novel of the same name.
Jodie Foster’s character uses the antennas to search the cosmos
for evidence of other civilizations as part of the SETI program,
and detects signals from the star Vega - indicating intelligent
life outside our solar system.
Up close, the 25-meter wide antennae are just as im-
pressive as anything Sagan or Hollywood could dream up,
especially in the waning desert light. We took a short walking
tour around one of the dishes, with the idea of trying to line up
the antennas with the
setting comet and
Moon.
The land
around the telescopes
had been used for
cattle grazing, so
memories of the
small piles of cow
manure seen while
scoping out the site
flashed through my
mind as the evening
light faded. It turned
out that avoiding the
stinky piles was the
easy part – spotting
the comet was much
harder. But the really
great thing about the
universe is that many
events happen in a
very predictable way. Articles and charts described Pan-
EYEPIECE April 2013
Comet Chasing: Photographing PanSTARRS
By Stan Honda
13
frames might show it off well.
In all, it was an extremely productive trip. Rush and
I agreed that both nights were successful. Of all the celestial
events, comets attract a great deal of attention. Maybe the po-
tential of observing a truly spectacular object in the sky stirs
their curiosity. For me, capturing the images of PanSTARRS
was a truly memorable event – to visit just for a while with this
icy ball hurling through space on its long elliptical orbit
around the Sun, and then back out into the dark void of space.
Comet Chasing (con’t from Page 12)
The lenses I relied upon were a 300mm f4 and 70-
200mm f2.8 zoom. With the 300mm it was easy to get both the
comet and the Moon in one picture. It’s a relatively small and
light lens that travels well. A longer telephoto lens would have
been better for just the comet, but I was interested in seeing it
in context with the Moon and the landscape. The zoom lens
worked for slightly wider angle shots but as the focal length
decreased, the comet got progressively smaller in the frame.
On the first evening of shooting, my attention was fo-cused on the western horizon. About 8:15 p.m., I caught a
glimpse of lights to my left. Looking up to the south, I saw a
dense field of stars against an inky black sky. Wow! I turned
east and saw even more stars. It was only over an hour after
sunset, yet we were seeing one of the darkest skies we had
ever experienced. I had an urge to shoot some wide-angle
shots of the unusually vivid sky, but the comet and Moon were
setting rapidly in the west. After the lighted portion of the cres-
cent Moon set, the camera picked up the “dark” part of the orb
lit by earthshine. So an eerily dark Moon appeared to be peek-
ing up from behind one of the distant mountains - great impact
on the photographic composition.
Our adventure continued on March 13. Rush suggested
we go west of Albuquerque to check out an area of lava flows.
The ranger at the El Malpais National Conservation Area had
heard of the comet and gave us of good viewing locations. We
hiked up a small bluff that gave us a sweeping view of the long
-dormant lava bed below us. We also could see a second bluff
with trees that had the potential to create a nice foreground
object if the comet lined up with it.
We knew the Moon was supposed to be higher in the sky
in relation to the comet, but instead it seemed to be much far-
ther away. That made spotting the comet even harder. I finally
thought I saw it through the 300mm lens, and confirmed that
with a photo. As the sky darkened, I actually could see it with
my eyes, as long as I knew exactly where to look. It was truly
faint and fuzzy, like a nebula or galaxy. It seemed to be on its
way to becoming a naked-eye object, though still quite faint.
Once again, I was able to shoot the comet all the way
to the horizon using a variety of lenses. I took a few photos
with wide-angle lenses, which resulted in great scenery, but
small images of the comet. Still, a large print of one of those
EYEPIECE April 2013
Stan Honda is an accomplished professional photographer and
contributing writer. In this continuing series of articles, he shares his
extensive knowledge of photographic equipment and techniques.
(All photo credits: Stan Honda, 2013; www.stanhonda.com )
14
Wanted: Writers for “My Own Space”
Dear Readers:
In our March issue of Eyepiece, AAA board member Jason
Kendall shared a touching story with us - his experience with the
night sky in “Counting the 107.” This unique perspective got me
thinking.
We all have memories of our first encounter with space. It
may have been through the eyepiece of a telescope - the first time
Jupiter came into focus and its four Galilean moons were seen in
an aligned orbit. Or maybe it was that first trip to the Hayden
Planetarium as a student, looking up at the projected, twinkling
stars, and flying through the universe from the comfort of your
cushioned seat in the darkness. So many of us have been there in our lifetimes.
Some of you have been fortunate enough to travel great distances to observe the aurora borealis, its
shimmering glow floating across the sky. Many have seen total eclipses of the Moon and Sun far away from
the bright lights of New York City. Eyepiece writer and night sky photographer Stan Honda has stood under
the Milky Way in the Grand Canyon and the Petrified Forest, pointing his camera up at the heavens to record
its beauty. His story is told through his stunning photographs and Eyepiece articles.
As an amateur astronomer, I was in awe at my first glimpse of Jupiter, of Venus, and that very first
time I stood on my front porch in NJ, viewing Saturn and its tilted rings through my refractor, some 650 mil-
lion miles away. Wow. Touching another planet with my eyes was a close encounter I will never forget. My
visit to Saturn was just three years ago, when I joined AAA and bought my first starter scope. Standing in
that same spot one cold morning after the Hurricane Sandy blackout, I looked up at thousands of stars, all
waiting there to be seen, but forever blanketed by the cold night lights of Long Branch. We are missing so
much due to light pollution.
Space is personal to each of us. Some have
goals to view as many distant targets as possible. Oth-
ers share their love of astronomy by hosting observing
sessions with both members and total strangers. For
me, I accepted stewardship of Eyepiece so that I could
touch a broad wealth of information each month and
share it with you - NASA missions, the development of
major earthbound telescope arrays, and the exciting
exoplanet research of the Kepler mission. I marvel at
the vastness of space, at the incredible distances be-
tween astronomical bodies, and at the immense power
of supernovae and quasars. We float through space on
our tiny blue planet, and the incredible universe around
us is alive with untold wonder.
So, my fellow members, I would like you to join
us at Eyepiece, just for awhile. Look inside yourselves, and give us your thoughts on what space and astron-
omy has meant to you. Share a personal experience, and we will publish your perspective on this page called
“My Own Space.”
I hope that many of you take up this challenge - to relive some of your special memories, and to re-
mind yourselves why you still get goose bumps each time you look up at the night sky.
Evan Evan B. Schneider, Editor
EYEPIECE April 2013
“Moonset “over the Petrified Forest (Photo Credit: Stan Honda, 2011)
Jupiter and Moons (Photo Credit: Mike Hankey)
15
AAA Events on the Horizon April 2013
Friday, April 2, 9, 16, 23, 30 Dusk - 10:00 p.m., P,T,C
Observing on the High Line - Manhattan
Next Month: May 7, 14, 21, 28
Thursday, April 11 6 p.m. - 8:00 p.m., M
Seminar on Recent Advances in Astronomy - Manhattan
4 Washington Place (NYU)
Next date: May 2
Friday, April 12 7 p.m. - 10:00 p.m., P,T,C
Observing in the Bronx - Van Cortlandt Park
Next date: May 10
Saturday, April 13 2 p.m. - 4:30 p.m., P,T,C
Solar Observing in the Bronx - Woodlawn Cemetery
Next date: May 11
Saturday, April 13 7 p.m. - 10:00 p.m., P,T,C
Spring Starfest in the Bronx - Woodlawn Cemetery
Next date: May 11
Friday, April 19 7 p.m. - 10:00 p.m., P,T,C
Observing at Floyd Bennett Field– Brooklyn (new location)
Next date: May 17
Friday, April 19 8 p.m. - 11:00 p.m., P,T,C
Observing at Carl Schurz Park - Manhattan
Next date: May 17
Sunday, April 28 1 p.m. - 3:00 p.m., P,T, C
Solar observing in Central Park, at the Conservatory Water Next date: May - To be announced on AAA website
Please confirm all events at www.aaa.org/events before attending
Legend for Events: M: Members; T: Bring telescopes, binoculars, etc.
P: Open to the public C: Cancelled if cloudy
AAA 2012/2013 Lecture Series Calendar
The AAA is proud to present an astronomy lecture
series. Members and the public are welcome to attend. Ad-
mission is free, and no reservations or tickets are required.
Lectures are held at the Kaufmann Theater,
American Museum of Natural History, Central Park West
between 77th and 81st streets (use 77th Street entrance).
Lectures begin at 6:15 p.m. and run to 8:00 p.m.
Apr 5 Al Nagler, Founder, TeleVue Optics:
“Giant Eyepieces that Swallow Spacecraft”
Apr 26 National Technical Institute for the Deaf at RIT -
Astrodance at CUNY Graduate Center
EYEPIECE April 2013
NEXT MONTH IN EYEPIECE
Everything you want to know about astronomy and current events in space! Stay tuned, and read Eyepiece every month.
Eyepiece Staff - March Issue
Editor: Evan B. Schneider
Writers: Richard Brounstein, Joseph Fedrick,
Stan Honda, Jason Kendall, Amy Wagner
Special Sections: Marcelo Cabrera, Joshua Erich,
Edward Fox, Richard Rosenberg
Io's Shadow Transits Jupiter
Seeking PanSTARRS
By Joe Fedrick
I watched the shadow of one of Jupiter's moons, Io,
transit the planet Jupiter on the evening of Mar 4-5.
The shadow was barely visible in my 60mm achromatic
refractor at 100x. The cloud belts of Jupiter have changed little
since January - there were two main brownish equatorial belts
and a moderately prominent, but fading, north temperate belt.
Several fainter gray, barely discernible, belts were present at
high latitudes. In sharp contrast to Io’s smaller shadow, the
shadow of Jupiter's largest moon, Ganymede, was much easier
to detect with my 60 mm refractor on the night of Jan 10-11.
I was out observing the crescent Moon in March, a thin
curved, silver thread with beautiful earthshine above. The old
Moon was in the new Moon's arms on the evening of Mar 13,
as I attempted to locate the comet PanSTARRS in the urban
night sky. Sunset was beautiful, but I had no luck from my
viewing location in the Bronx. A hill to the west and southwest
obstructed the horizon, where the comet was streaking toward
its close encounter with the Sun. I hope to have news for you
all next month, if I am able to find higher ground for my ob-
servations.
Joe Fedrick is an experienced and dedicated AAA observer, always
watching the night (and daytime) skies. His continued observations
bring us new dimensions to viewing the cosmos and solar activity.
Focus On:
The Very Large Array - Socorro, New Mexico Meet one of the largest radio telescope arrays in the world, the
National Radio Astronomy Observatory. This compliment of 27
antennae, each 82 feet in diameter combines to produce the
equivalent of a single antenna 22 miles wide. Telescopes are
shuttled into various configurations every four months to per-
form different tasks. Look familiar? It was the facility used for
the 1997 film “Contact,” starring Jodie Foster.