Observatories Archives

May 20, 2008December 24, 2015 by Tammy Plotner

World’s Strangest Telescope – The IceCube

Since the 1950s and the beginning of the “space race” scientists have wanted to practice astronomy and particle physics using high-energy neutrinos. So what’s stopping them? The challenge of building the kilometer-sized observatory they predict is needed to do the science. Enter IceCube, a revolutionary new design in neutrino detecting telescopes. Deep in the frozen wastelands at the South Pole, the world’s most extreme telescope will search for neutrinos from our Universe’s most violent astrophysical sources.

Those impossibly tiny particles known as neutrinos are produced by the decay of radioactive elements and elementary particles such as pions. Unlike photons or charged particles, neutrinos originate from deep within exploding stars, gamma ray bursts, and cataclysmic phenomena involving black holes and neutron stars and make their way throughout our Universe, eluding capture and study. Nothing stops a neutrino… Unless it crashes into an atom in ice.

When the rare neutrino collides with an atom in the ultra-transparent ice, it produces a muon that in turn radiates blue light. By observing this fluorescence, scientist can then detect the path of the muon and in turn the path of the neutrino. But, this kind of work really requires seeing in the dark – total dark. By using the Earth as a type of telescope optical tube assembly, neutrinos can enter into the North Pole just as photons enter into a primary objective lens. When they interact with the pure, uncontaminated ice at Earth’s South Pole it’s a whole lot like reaching a telescope’s secondary optic. The Earth itself, like an optical tube, keeps stray photons aways and the fluorescence produced with the muon can then be collected and studied.

So what’s all the fuss about neutrinos? Say Project IceCube: “The basic motivation is to understand our Universe, specifically what powers the most energetic engines in the cosmos and fuels the bombardment of cosmic rays to the Earth. We also want to understand the nature of Dark Matter. At the end, the stuff from which we are made is only 4% of the Universe’s inventory, whereas Dark Matter is 23%. These are motivations dominantly driven by curiosity, by the dream of mankind to understand our origins, our place in the cosmos, and a far future much beyond our human horizons.”

In short, IceCube is one cool telescope!

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant Nos. OPP-9980474 (AMANDA) and OPP-0236449 (IceCube), University of Wisconsin-Madison. Photo by Daan Hubert/NSF

May 19, 2008December 24, 2015 by Astronomy Cast

Podcast: Adaptive Optics

Since the dawn of humanity, astronomers have wished to destroy the atmosphere. Oh sure, it’s what we breathe and all, but that stupid atmosphere is always getting in the way. Since destroying the atmosphere is out of the question, astronomers have figured out how to work with it. To distort the mirror of the telescope itself though the magic of adaptive optics.

Click here to download the episode

Adaptive Optics – Show notes and transcript

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May 1, 2008December 24, 2015 by Tammy Plotner

What’s Up – The Weekend SkyWatcher’s Forecast – May 2-4, 2008

Greetings, fellow SkyWatchers! Are you ready for a great dark sky weekend? Then it’s time to walk into the galaxy field of dreams as we take a closer look at part of Markarian’s Chain. Even smaller telescopes and larger binoculars will be happy with this weekend’s globular clusters! Need more or something totally unusual? Then join us as we take a look at a Wolf-Rayet star. Are you ready? Then it’s time to head out under dark skies, because… Here’s what’s up!

Friday, May 2, 2008 – With plenty of dark sky tonight, we’re heading for the galaxy fields of Virgo about four fingerwidths east-southeast of Beta Leonis. As part of Markarian’s Chain, this set of galaxies can all be fitted within the same field of view with a 32mm eyepiece and a 12.5″ scope, but not everyone has the same equipment. Set your sights toward M84 and M86 (RA 12 25 03 Dec +12 53 13) and let’s discover!

Good binoculars and small telescopes reveal this pair with ease as a matched set of ellipticals. Mid-sized telescopes will note the western member of the pair – M84 – is slightly brighter and visibly smaller. To the east and slightly north is larger M86 – whose nucleus is broader, and less intensely brilliant. In a larger scope, we see the galaxies literally leap out of the eyepiece at even the most modest magnifications. Strangely though, additional structure fails to be seen.

As aperture increases, one of the most fascinating features of this area becomes apparent. While studying the bright galactic forms of M84/86 with direct vision, aversion begins to welcome many other mysterious strangers into view. Forming an easy triangle with the two Messiers, and located about 20 arcminutes south lies NGC 4388. At magnitude 11.0, this edge-on spiral has a dim star-like core to mid-sized scopes, but a classic edge-on structure in larger ones.

At magnitude 12, NGC 4387 is located in the center of a triangle formed by the two Messiers and NGC 4388. 4387 is a dim galaxy – hinting at a stellar nucleus to smaller scopes, while larger ones will see a very small face-on spiral with a brighter nucleus. Just a breath north of M86 is an even dimmer patch of nebulosity – NGC 4402 – which needs higher magnification to be detected in smaller scopes. Large apertures at high power reveal a noticeable dustlane. The central structure forms a curved “bar” of light. Luminosity appears evenly distributed end-to-end, while the dustlane cleanly separates the central bulge of the core.

East of M86 are two brighter NGC galaxies – 4435 and 4438. Through average scopes, NGC 4435 is easily picked out at low power with a simple star-like core and wispy, round body structure. NGC 4438 is dim, but even with large apertures elliptical galaxies seem a bit boring. The beauty of NGC 4435 and NGC 4438 is simply their proximity to each other. 4435 shows true elliptical structure, evenly illuminated, with a sense of fading toward the edges… But 4438 is quite a different story! This elliptical is much more elongated. A highly conspicuous wisp of galactic material can be seen stretching back toward the brighter, nearby galaxy pair M84/86. Happy hunting!

Saturday, May 3, 2008 – Tonight let’s use our binoculars and telescopes to hunt down one of the best globular clusters for the northern hemisphere – M3. You will discover this ancient beauty about halfway between the pair of Arcturus and Cor Caroli – just east of Beta Comae (RA 13 42 11 Dec +28 22 31). The more aperture you use, the more stars you will resolve. Discovered by Charles Messier on this day in 1764, this ball of approximately a half million stars is one of the oldest formations in our galaxy. At around 40,000 light-years away, this awesome cluster spans about 220 light-years and is believed to be as much as 10 billion years old. To get a grip on this concept, our own Sun is less than half that age!

Let’s further our understanding of distance and how it affects what we see. As you know, light travels at an amazing speed of about 300,000 kilometers per second. To get a feel for this, how many seconds are there in a minute? An hour? A week? A month? How about a year? Ah, you’re beginning to see the light! For every second – 300,000 kilometers. M3 is 40,000 years away traveling at the speed of light. In terms of kilometers – that’s far more zeros than most of us can possibly understand – yet amazingly we can still see this great globular cluster.

Now let’s locate M53 near Alpha Comae. Aim your binoculars or telescopes there and you will find M53 about a degree northeast (RA 13 12 55 Dec +18 10 09). This very rich, magnitude 8.7 globular cluster is almost identical to M3, but look at what a difference an additional 25,000 light-years can make to how we see it! Binoculars can pick up a small round fuzzy, while larger telescopes will enjoy the compact bright core as well as resolution at the cluster’s outer edges. As a bonus for scopes, look one degree to the southeast for the peculiar round cluster NGC 5053. Classed as a very loose globular, this magnitude 10.5 grouping is one of the least luminous objects of its type, due to its small stellar population and the wide separation between members – yet its distance is almost the same as that of M3.

Sunday, May 4, 2008 – For those who like curiosities, our target for tonight will be 1.4 degrees northwest of 59 Leonis, which is itself about a degree southwest of Xi. While this type of observation may not be for everyone, what we are looking for is a very special star – a red dwarf named Wolf 359 (RA 10 56 28 Dec +07 00 52). Although it is very faint at approximately 13th magnitude, you will find it precisely at the center of the highly accurate half degree field photo below.

Discovered photographically by Max Wolf in 1959, charts from that time period will no longer be accurate because of the star’s large proper motion. It is one of the least luminous stars known, and we probably wouldn’t even know it was there except for the fact that it is the third closest star to our solar system. Located only 7.5 light-years away, this miniature star is about 8% the size of our Sun – making it roughly the size of Jupiter. Oddly enough, it is also a “flare star” – capable of jumping another magnitude brighter at random intervals. It might be faint and difficult to spot in mid-sized scopes, but Wolf 359 is definitely one of the most unusual things you will ever observe!

This week’s awesome image of the Virgo Galaxy Cluster is from the great folks at NOAO/AURA/NSF!

April 23, 2008December 24, 2015 by Fraser Cain

Podcast: Detectors

Our senses can only detect a fraction of the phenomena happening in the Universe. That’s why scientists and engineers develop detectors, to let us see radiation and particles that we could never detect with our eyes and ears. This week we’ll go through them all, so you can understand how we see what we can’t see.

Click here to download the episode

Detectors – Show notes and transcript

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April 19, 2008December 24, 2015 by Tammy Plotner

Australian Observatory Captures New Nova In Sagittarius

Hold on to your hats… It’s happening again. According to AAVSO Special Notice #105 released on April 19, another possible nova event is now occurring in Sagittarius. Through their quick actions, Macedon Ranges Observatory in Central Victoria, Australia was on top the alert and imaging.

AAVSO Special Notice #105
Possible Nova in Sgr
April 19, 2008

The CBAT Unconfirmed Observations Page listed
a possible nova in Sgr. After a call on VSNET-ALERT,
Ernesto Guido and Giovanni Sostero (Remanzacco
Observatory) used a robotic telescope near Mayhill, NM
to confirm the new object (VSNET-ALERT 10077).
They provide accurate coordinates (using UCAC2) as:
18:05:58.90 -27:13:56.3 J2000
No magnitude is given by Guido and Sostero, but
the original discovery magnitude was 8.4C on 20080418.
No star close to this position is seen in the
USNO-B nor 2MASS catalogs. Kato (VSNET-ALERT 10075)
indicates that this new outbursting object has
a pre-discovery observation by ASAS:
20080416.3048 11.671V (ASAS (Pojmanski, G. 2002, Acta Astron. 52,397)) but was not visible 3 days earlier.

The quick acting staff at MRO immediately went to work imaging the area and comparing their results to the sky survey plates. The results are clear… Yet another new nova has been discovered.

Says Observatory Director Bert Candusio: “This was as exciting as the first Alert exercise done by the MRO only a few days ago. Although MRO tried to get the observation to the AASVO, we decided to supply the images to Universe Today so the general public could get the first glimpses of this exciting new object.”

Once the coordinates were in place, Joe Brimacombe immediately set to work with a 12.5″ Ritchey Chretien Optical Systems telescope and began imaging the target area with a STL 6303 CCD camera. Within 90 minutes the images were processed and the painstaking process of comparison began. By isolating certain star patterns within the area, the nova event was quickly confirmed and revealed in above comparison image (click to enlarge).

In this day and age of strictly professional observations that only belong to a specific community, it’s fantastic to be able to have a group of scientists share with the general public up-to-the minute findings. We applaud their work!

April 15, 2008December 24, 2015 by Tammy Plotner

Universe Today Exclusive – Cygnus Nova V2491 Revealed for Readers

Clouds got you down? No chance of seeing V2491 Cyg because of the weather? Are you sleeping when Cygnus is up? One of the most beautiful facets of having an astronomer around is being able to share information with other observatories around the world and put them to work. This time the job was handed to our friends in Australia who were able to produce for us an exclusive look at an elusive nova.

In trial test on image acquisition utilizing the combined resources of Macedon Ranges Observatory and its resident astronomers, they were able to nab the nova in less than 30 minutes from notice being given. The image was then processed, labeled and returned again halfway around the world within hours for UT readers to enjoy.

On 15 April 2008 from 10.50 to 11.40 UT, Joseph Brimacombe from Cairns, Queensland, Australia was busy employing remote technology located at 32 degrees 54 minutes North; 15 degrees 32 min West and recording the nova with an SBIG ST-L-1001 CCD camera. Coupled with a 20″ Ritchey-Chretien Optical System, 8 separate exposures of 5 minutes duration were taken in white light, and the results speak for themselves.

By comparing the zoom map of the area presented in the original Cygnus Nova Alert it’s easy to see the identifying line of three stars which helps orient the viewer to the general area. As predicted, Cygnus Nova V2491 easily stands out amongst the background stars.

Says Observatory Director, Burt Candusio: “The exercise was primarily designed to test the imaging and response capabilities of M.R.O resident astronomers. If another similar event presents itself, we would now be confident in our capabilities of imaging a target effectively and quickly from any part of the globe. A most pleasing outcome for all concerned and especially for Joseph Brimacombe.”

But the thrill was nothing compared to Joe’s own success: “Trapped under the mostly cloudy Cairns skies, I was remotely imaging the running chicken nebula (NGC 2944) at the Macedon Range Observatory and the Pinwheel galaxy (M101) at New Mexico Skies, when my good mate Bert Candusio notified me of a new nova (V2491) in Cygnus. At the time, it was 60 degrees below the horizon at the MRO, but 50 degrees above the horizon at NMS, so I slewed my 20 inch RCOS at NMS to the co-ordinates Bert had provided. There was just sufficient time before dawn to snap 8 x 5 min luminance frames of a dense star field. Both Bert and I were delighted to find the nova near the middle of the frame. We estimate the magnitude at around 10. The beauty of NGC 2944 and M101 was not a match for the excitement of imaging an acute stellar explosion for the first time!”

In the case of V2491 Cyg, the only thing better than having the stars up above is having friends down under. Our thanks go to our friends at Macedon Ranges Observatory!

April 12, 2008December 24, 2015 by Ian O'Neill

Mysterious Omega Centauri Dazzling in Infrared: New Spitzer Observations

Omega Centauri - in infrared and optical wavelengths (NASA/NSF)

By combining ground-based optical observations with space-borne infrared images from Spitzer, an incredible new view of mysterious Omega Centauri has been revealed. Astronomers have had a hard time identifying what type of galaxy Omega Centauri actually is, so any new information on the cluster of millions of stars is needed. By combining observations in different wavelengths, stars of different ages are highlighted, possibly aiding our understanding about the origins of Omega Centauri and answer the question: Why is this galaxy so strange?

As discussed in an article last week, Omega Centauri is of particular interest to astrophysicists. Over the years this strange collection of stars has been classified as a single star (by Ptolemy), a nebula (by Halley in 1677) and a globular cluster (by Herschel in the 1830’s). Now it is believed that this dwarf galaxy may be a survivor of an ancient collision with the Milky Way which stripped away its outermost stars. This is why it may look like a globular cluster now, but doesn’t have globular cluster characteristics. For a start Omega Centauri is too big (ten times bigger than the largest globular clusters) and it contains stars of many generations (globular clusters usually contain one generation). Recent observations also show a very fast rotating galactic core, revealing the presence of an intermediate-size black hole… the missing link connecting stellar black holes with supermassive black holes. Exciting stuff.

Putting the scientific implications to one side for now, I can’t help but stare at this stunning view of this interesting cluster of star systems. I’m used to monochromatic images of space with some false-colour thrown in for good measure; this image seems to be different. Very quickly we are able to gain an insight to the dispersion of star generations, just by looking at the image. A quick glance shows the majority of young stars are clustered toward the middle (the blue stars), older red giants located around the outside of the galaxy (the red/yellow stars).

According to the NASA news release, where green and red dots overlap, yellow dots appear. These are NASA Spitzer Space Telescope stars observed in infrared. We know that these emissions come from old, large and dusty stars, the red giants. The blue dots are younger stars, much like our Sun, as observed in optical and near-infrared wavelengths by the National Science Foundation’s Blanco 4-meter telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile. I’ve included a little section from the main image with the two types of star ringed and annotated (pictured).

These new Spitzer observations show very little dust around any of the dimmest red giants and the space between the stars also does not seem to contain much dust (as interstellar dust would glow infrared radiation as nearby stars heat it). Astronomers have concluded that any dust within the cluster is quickly destroyed or lost from the galaxy.

Source: NASA

April 1, 2008April 26, 2016 by Nancy Atkinson

SuperWASP are Super Planet-Finding Observatories

The United Kingdomâ€™s Wide Area Search for Planets, known as SuperWASP consists of two 8-camera robotic observatories that cover both hemispheres of the sky. In the past 6 months an international team of astronomers have used these unique observatories to discover 10 new extra-solar planets, making SuperWASP the most successful planet-hunting observatory in the world. The discovery of these planets was announced on April 1 by Dr. Don Pollacco of Queen’s University in Belfast at the Royal Astronomy Societyâ€™s National Astronomy Meeting in the UK.

All told, scientists have found more than 270 extrasolar planets since the the early 1990s. Most of these are detected through their gravitational influence on the star they orbit. As a planet orbits a star, it tugs the star back and forth. However, making these discoveries depends on looking at each star over a period of weeks or months, making the pace of discovery fairly slow.

But SuperWASP uses a different method. The two sets of cameras watch for events known as transits, where a planet passes directly in front of a star and blocks out some of the star’s light, so from the Earth the star temporarily appears a little fainter. The SuperWASP cameras work as robots, surveying a large area of the sky at once and each night astronomers have data from millions of stars that they can check for transits. The transit method also allows scientists to deduce the size and mass of each planet.

SuperWASP-North is located on the island of La Palma, just off the Northwestern coast of Africa, and SuperWASP-South is at the southern tip of Africa at the South African Astronomical Observatory near Sutherland, South Africa.

The observatories are quite simple, but effective. They use 8 high quality digital cameras to take pictures of the sky and simply measure any changing brightness of the stars.

Each possible planet found using SuperWASP is then observed by astronomers working at the Nordic Optical Telescope on La Palma, the Swiss Euler Telescope in Chile and the Observatoire de Haute Provence in southern France, who use precision instruments to confirm or reject the discovery.

45 planets have now been discovered using the transit method, and since they started operation in 2004 the SuperWASP cameras have found 15 of them, which makes SuperWASP by far the most successful discovery instruments in the world. The SuperWASP planets have a variety of masses, between a middleweight 0.5 and a huge 8.3 times that of Jupiter. A number of these new worlds are quite exotic. For example, a year on WASP-12B (its orbital period) is just 1.1 days. The planet is so close to its star that its daytime temperature could reach a searing 2300 degrees Celsius.

Dr. Pollacco is delighted with the results. â€œSuperWASP is now a planet-finding production line and will revolutionize the detection of large planets and our understanding of how they were formed. It’s a great triumph for European astronomers.â€

Original News Source: Royal Astronomy Society press release

March 10, 2008December 26, 2015 by Fraser Cain

The World’s Most Powerful Telescope Sees First Light

First light is a big deal. That’s when a new observatory opens up for the first time and gathers light on its detectors. It’s even a bigger deal when the world’s most powerful telescope sees the night sky for the first time. Astronomers get ready for the Large Binocular Telescope.

I’ve been writing stories about the LBT for years now, so it seems a little surreal to be reporting on its first light. But here we are. So, for those of you who haven’t been obsessing about this monster since it was first conceived, here’s the breakdown.

The Large Binocular Telescope, in case you hadn’t guessed, is actually two 8.4-metre telescopes perched side-by-side. Although they’re separate, they work together to act like a single, much larger telescope. They have the light-collecting power of an 11.8-metre telescope, and their combined light produces an image sharpness of a single 22.8-metre scope.

The first light images for the LBT were captured in January, and show the galaxy NGC 2770, located 102 million light-years away. The same scene was captured in ultraviolet and green light to show the regions of active star formation. And then it was captured again in red to show the older, cooler stars. Finally, a third composite image was put together that shows both features at the same time.

Now for a bit of history. The observatory’s structure was moved up to the top of Arizona’s Mount Graham in 2002. The first mirror was delivered in 2003, and aligned in 2004. The second mirror was delivered in 2005, and the first individual images where captured soon after that. But it wasn’t until this year that both halves were brought together to act as a single large observatory.

The first light is a great step. I can’t wait for the discoveries to pour in.

Original Source: University of Arizona News Release

March 6, 2008December 26, 2015 by Ian O'Neill

The Ultimate Fund-Raising Scheme: Transmit Adverts To Aliens

OK, so there have been some strange things going on between us Earthlings and aliens lately. The deep-space Pioneer and Voyager probes carried images and artefacts of our culture into the cosmos decades ago. This plan has now been upstaged by the Deep Space Network transmitting a Beatles tune in the direction of the star Polaris. Both are different methods in an attempt to achieve the same thing – to contact alien civilizations. Extraterrestrials might even be trying to communicate with us by playing around with stars or blasting neutrinos at us…

But, in the next episode of this epic saga, as the human race feels more and more alone in a seemingly lifeless, but expanding universe… [break – this programme will be continued after a message from our sponsors]

Advertising is everywhere. It comes in many shapes and sizes, and in many forms. I just deleted four pieces of spam in my email account (one trying to sell me non-prescription pain killers, one notifying me that I have won the Russian lotto and another two with subjects I’d rather not repeat), I can hear an ad on the radio chatter (something about double-glazed windows), on my desk I can count ten magazine ads, newspaper classified ads, business cards and logos, all set out to do pretty much the same thing: to sell a product and, ultimately, to make money. Advertising is so embedded into our commercial society, it can be difficult to work out what is advertising and what isn’t.

Now it seems there is another kind of advertising on the horizon: Space Spam.

As UK physics and astronomy researchers have experienced recently, the problem with scientific research is that it mainly depends on government funding. Government funding comes and goes and can depend on who is in power and who isn’t. To avoid this, many researchers leave academia in search of better pay in industry. There is nothing wrong with this choice, but often academic institutions and universities lose their top minds to better financial conditions elsewhere.

In an attempt to save the beleaguered astronomy community in the UK, astronomers have come up with an intriguing idea. To rescue the world famous Jodrell Bank Observatory in Cheshire, astronomers intend to transmit adverts into space. This is truly the final frontier for terrestrial advertising, but is it possible that British scientists have finally lost their marbles? How can we expect alien races to pay attention to our attempts at selling them Nacho Cheese Doritos? If they did buy our products, I wouldn’t want to be in charge of the shipping department…

But there is a very serious reason for this off-beat plan. The UK is currently undergoing a funding crisis as the main funding body for UK physics and astronomy struggles to fill a Â£80 million ($160 million) hole in their finances. No help has been offered by the British government. This new fund-raising scheme is already attracting a lot of attention. The snack manufacturer Doritos has stepped in, donating an undisclosed sum in exchange for transmitting their ad. Many more companies are expected to follow suit. The publicity from helping out struggling observatories seems to be enough for big companies wanting to get involved (after all, they won’t be expecting extraterrestrial orders for at least 84 years).

The signal will be sent to the Ursa Major constellation some 42 light years away by the European Incoherent Scatter Radar System (EISCAT) in Svalbard, located in the High Arctic. EISCAT is more commonly used to measure emissions from the aurora and ionospheric dynamics. It can also be used in conjunction with other EISCAT installations in Sweden and mainland Norway to track the velocity and composition of the solar wind. Now, it seems, the powerful radar transmitter will be used to shoot commercials into space.

The first transmission will be 30 seconds long and members of the public will be invited to participate. TV advertising will also be aired in support of the project. If anyone thought UK researchers were going to stay quiet and accept the latest round of financial turmoil, they’d be wrong. Scientists and the public, backed up by advertising revenue, are about to make a very big noise.

If the Beatles tune didn’t agitate the aliens, an enforced ad break probably will, let’s just hope they are sympathetic to the UK funding crisis (and want to make a donation).

Source: Doritos.co.uk, Jodrell Bank Observatory press release