Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Ancient Quasar Shines Brightly, But All the Galaxy’s Stars Are Missing

Hubble Space Telescope image of J1148+5251. Credit: NASA/ESA/M. Mechtley, R. Windhorst, Arizona State University

Quasars have been the best and most easily observed beacons for astronomers to probe the distant Universe, and one of the most distant and brightest quasars is providing a bit of a surprise. Astronomers studying a distant galaxy, dubbed J1148+5251 and which contains a bright quasar, are seeing only the quasar and not the host galaxy itself. It has been thought that the quasar has been feeding on a handful of stars every year in order to bulk up to its size of three billion solar masses over just a few hundred million years. But where are all the stars?

Likely, the quasar hasn’t gone on a feeding frenzy and eaten everything in sight! But it might be eating on the sly. Near infrared views with the Hubble Space Telescope’s Wide Field Camera 3 are only providing hints of what might be taking place: the galaxy is so enshrouded with dust that none of the starlight can be seen; only the bright, blaring quasar shines through. Just how many stars this quasar is eating is now uncertain, as the carnage is taking place undercover.

While most early galaxies contain hardly any dust — the early universe was dust-free until the first generation of stars started making dust through nuclear fusion – previous submillimeter observations showed this galaxy harbors large amounts of dust, so that is somewhat of a mystery, too.

So how could this all be happening?

Artist’s impression of one of the most distant, oldest, brightest quasars ever seen is hidden behind dust. The dust is also hiding the view of the underlying galaxy of stars that the quasar is presumably embedded in. (Credit: NASA/ESA/G.Bacon, STScI)

“If you want to hide the stars with dust, you need to make lots of short-lived massive stars earlier on that lose their mass at the end of their lifetime. You need to do this very quickly, so supernovae and other stellar mass-loss channels can fill the environment with dust very quickly,” said Rogier Windhorst of Arizona State University (ASU), Tempe, Ariz.
“You also have to be forming them throughout the galaxy to spread the dust throughout the galaxy,” added Matt Mechtley, also of ASU.

This quasar was first identified in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and the follow-up submillimeter observations showed significant dust but not how and where it was distributed.

Windhorst and his team used Hubble to very carefully subtract light from the quasar image and look for the glow of surrounding stars. They did this by looking at the glow of a reference star in the sky near the quasar and using it as a template to remove the quasar light from the image. Once the quasar was removed, no significant underlying starlight was detected. The underlying galaxy’s stars could have been easily detected, had they been present and relatively unobscured by dust in at least some locations.

“It is remarkable that Hubble didn’t find any of the underlying galaxy,” said Windhorst. “The underlying galaxy is everywhere much fainter than expected, and therefore must be in a very dusty environment throughout. It’s one of the most rip-roaring forest fires in the universe. It’s creating so much smoke that you’re not seeing any starlight, anywhere. The forest fire is complete, not a tree is spared.”

Because we don’t see the stars, we can rule out that the galaxy that hosts this quasar is a normal galaxy,” said Mechtley. “It’s among the dustiest galaxies in the universe, and the dust is so widely distributed that not even a single clump of stars is peeking through. We’re very close to a plausible detection, in the sense that if we had gone a factor of two deeper we might have detected some light from its young stars, even in such a dusty galaxy.”

This result was published in the Sept. 10 issue of the Astrophysical Journal Letters in the team’s paper.

The only way to get to the bottom of this mystery, Windhorst said, is to wait for the James Webb Space Telescope to launch and come online.

“The Webb telescope is designed to make a definitive detection of this,” he said. “ We will get solid detections of the stars with Webb’s better sensitivity to longer wavelengths of light, which will better probe the dusty regions in these young galaxies.”

The Webb telescope will also have the infrared sensitivity to peer all the way back to 200 million years after the Big Bang. If galaxies started forming stars at this early epoch, Webb is designed and being built to detect them.

So only then will the true nature – and potential carnage – of this system be revealed.

Read the team’s paper.
Source: NASA

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Disco Sun: X-Class Flare Creates Strobe-Light Effect

An active region just turning into view on the left side of the Sun has emitted three large flares since Saturday: an M9, an M5 and early today blasted out an X1.8 class flare. This flare occurred around 3:17 am UTC today (or 11:17 pm EDT on Oct. 22). The strobe-light-like effect visible in the video was created by the brightness of the flare and how the instruments on the Solar Dynamics Observatory responded to it. Phil Chamberlin, Deputy Project Scientist SDO told Universe Today that built in algorithms called ‘active exposure control’ compensate for the extra light coming in from a flare. It doesn’t always result in the strobe or fluttering effect, but the algorithms create shorter exposure time, and thus a dimmer, but still scientifically useful view of the entire Sun. The algorithms go into effect whenever there is an M class or higher flare.

Solar flares are powerful bursts of radiation. Harmful radiation from a flare can’t pass through Earth’s atmosphere and pose a hazard to humans on the ground, but flares like this can disturb the atmosphere in the layer where GPS and communications signals travel, and an X-class flare of this intensity can cause problems or even blackouts in radio communications.

A Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) was not associated with this flare, and the flare was not directed at Earth, so scientists do not expect any additional auroral activity to be a result of this latest blast from the Sun.

An image from the Solar Dynamics Observatory during the X-class flare event on Oct. 23, 2012 (UTC). Credit: NASA/SDO

The SDO Twitter feed said there is a 75% chance of more M-class solar flares from this active region and a 20% chance of additional X-class flares.

This is the 7th X-class flare in 2012 with the largest being an X5.4 flare on March 7.

By observing the sun in a number of different wavelengths, NASA’s telescopes can tease out different aspects of events on the sun. These four images of a solar flare on Oct. 22, 2012, show from the top left, and moving clockwise: light from the sun in the 171 Angstrom wavelength, which shows the structure of loops of solar material in the sun’s atmosphere, the corona; light in 335 Angstroms, which highlights light from active regions in the corona; a magnetogram, which shows magnetically active regions on the sun; light in the 304 Angstrom wavelength, which shows light from the region of the sun’s atmosphere where flares originate. (Credit: NASA/SDO/Goddard)

More info: NASA, SpaceWeather.com

Posted on by Jenny Winder

Cheops – A Little Satellite with Big Ideas

Caption: Artist impression of Cheops. Credit: University of Bern

Big isn’t always better. This is certainly true at ESA’s new Science Programme. They are looking to low cost, small scale missions that can be rapidly developed, in order to offer greater flexibility in response to new ideas from the scientific community, to complement the broader Medium- and Large-class missions. Back in March ESA called for ideas for dedicated, quick-turnaround missions focusing on key issues in space science. From 26 proposals submitted, ESA has now approved a new mission to be launched in 2017. Though small in scale this mission is big on ambition: to search for nearby habitable planets.

Cheops stands for CHaracterising ExOPlanets Satellite. It has a planned mission lifetime of 3.5 years during which it will operate in a Sun-synchronous low-Earth orbit at an altitude of 800 km, free from distortion by Earth’s atmosphere. It will target nearby, bright stars already known to have planets orbiting around them.

By high-precision monitoring of the star’s brightness, Cheops will search for signs of a ‘transit’ as a planet passes across the star’s face, it will also be able to look for smaller planets, impossible to see using ground based telescopes, around those stars.

While NASA’s Kepler mission has confirmed 77 planets so far, with another 2,321 candidate planets, not one is close enough to Earth to be analysed in detail. Cheops on the other hand, will be able to take accurate measurements of the radius of the planet. For those planets with a known mass, this will reveal the planet’s density and provide an indication of the internal structure. It will help scientists understand the formation of planets from ‘super-Earths’, a few times the mass of the Earth, up to Neptune-sized worlds. It will also identify planets with significant atmospheres which can then be analysed for signs of life by ground-based telescopes, and the next generation of space telescopes now being built, such as the ground-based European Extremely Large Telescope and the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope.

“By concentrating on specific known exoplanet host stars, Cheops will enable scientists to conduct comparative studies of planets down to the mass of Earth with a precision that simply cannot be achieved from the ground,” said Professor Alvaro Giménez-Cañete, ESA Director of Science and Robotic Exploration.

The plan is for Cheops to be the first of a series of similar small missions, that can be rapidly developed at low cost to investigate new scientific ideas quickly. Cheops will be developed as a partnership between ESA and Switzerland, with a number of other ESA Member States delivering substantial contributions.

Find out more about Cheops here

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Soyuz Launches New Crew to Space Station

The Soyuz rocket with three Expedition 33/34 crew members launched to the International Space Station on Tuesday, October 23, 2012, in Baikonur, Kazakhstan. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

Three new crew members — and a stuffed hippo — are on their way to the International Space Station. Expedition 33/34 NASA Flight Engineer Kevin Ford, Soyuz Commander Oleg Novitskiy and Flight Engineer Evgeny Tarelkin launched aboard the Soyuz TMA-06M spacecraft at 10:51 UTC (6:51 a.m. EDT, 5:51 p.m. Baikonur time) Tuesday from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan. The trio is now safely in orbit, and on Thursday they will hook up with the ISS and join their Expedition 33 crewmates — Commander Suni Williams, ISS veteran Yuri Malenchenko, and Akihiko Hoshide — onboard the Space Station.

It was a beautiful daytime launch from the Site 31 launchpad, a different pad than usual. The pad that is normally used for human launches is undergoing renovations.

The stuffed hippo was given to the crew by Novitskiy’s daughter. Soyuz crews have had a history of having a mascot hanging in view of the cameras and when it starts floating is the visual confirmation of when the crew reaches orbit. The hippo isn’t the only animal on board. 32 medaka fish are stowed along for the ride, as they will be part of a new aquarium on the ISS called the Aquatic Habitat that will study how the fish adapt to microgravity.

Watch the video of the launch, below:

Ford, Novitskiy and Tarelkin will be on the ISS for about five months, until March 2013. Williams, Malenchenko and Hoshide, who have been on the station since July, will return to Earth Nov. 19.

The next launch to the ISS will be on Dec. 21 when cosmonaut Roman Romanenko, Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield and NASA astronaut Tom Marshburn head to the Station on board the Soyuz TMA-07M spacecraft.

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Gallery: The Next ISS Soyuz Rolls Out to the Launchpad

The Soyuz rocket is rolled out to the launch pad by train, on Sunday, October 21, 2012, at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls.

Expedition 33/34 NASA Flight Engineer Kevin Ford, Soyuz Commander Oleg Novitskiy and Flight Engineer Evgeny Tarelkin are scheduled to launch in their Soyuz TMA-06M spacecraft at 10:51 UTC (6:51 a.m. EDT) on Tuesday, Oct. 23, from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Also on board will be 32 medaka fish, which will become space station residents in a zero-gravity research aquarium. Yesterday the Soyuz was rolled out the launchpad, and this launch will take place from a different launch pad than usual, site 31. This will be the first manned launch from Site 31 since July 1984 when the Soyuz T-12 spacecraft carried three cosmonauts to the Russian Salyut 7 space station. The launchpad that is normally used is being upgraded.

See a gallery of images from the rollout, below.

The Soyuz rocket is rolled out to the launch pad by train. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

No smoking! Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

The Soyuz is raised to the upright position on the launchpad. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

The train engineer hangs out the window. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

Pad workers install a safety railing at the launch pad. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

The Expedition 33 backup crew, NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy (left), Russian cosmonaut Pavel Vinogradov and Russian cosmonaut Alexander Misurkin, right, are photographed in front of the Soyuz rocket shortly after it arrived at the launch pad. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

Workers climb up to the Soyuz rocket after it was erected at the launch pad. Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

See more images at NASA’s Flickr page.

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

How Have the 2012 Doomsday Myths Become Part of our Accepted Lexicon?

The whole “December 21st, 2012 Doomsday” hype had pretty much fallen off my radar. I hadn’t received an email from a concerned or fearful person for months and no one had alerted me to any new breathlessly hyped end-of-the-word videos for quite some time. Optimistically, I began to think that the Mayan-Prophecy-Pole-Shift-Nibiru (et. al) nonsense was just a passing fad.

But, somehow it seems, doomsday hype has made it into the public’s psyche. I recently saw a local newscast that mentioned the world would be ending soon, albeit jokingly, and sometimes even well-meaning publications give the Mayan prophesies undue credence with unfortunate headlines. But a couple of recent polls say that 10-12% of people have doubts they will survive past Dec. 21st of this year. And a few conversations I’ve had with those who have been on the front lines of debunking the 2012 doomsday predictions reveal that an upcoming “end of the world” is somehow very real for a measurable segment of the population.

How has something that is steeped in nonsense with no scientific accuracy whatsoever managed to capture such attention?

Dr. David Morrison has been answering the public’s questions on the 2012 predictions for over five years on NASA’s “Ask and Astrobiologist” page on the Astrobiology website. Even after all the information Morrison and other NASA scientists have made available debunking the doomsday myths and providing real scientific reasoning, Morrison said he still steadily receives 5-6 emails every day from people asking if the world will end in December.

“These are for the most part from people who fundamentally distrust science and the government,” Morrison said in an interview for a podcast for the NASA Lunar Science Institute and 365 Days of Astronomy. “It is very hard to get through to them. These are people who… get their information from the internet,” (and You Tube videos and History Channel documentaries, Morrison later added.) “And among the kids, the information just passes from person to person. I’d like to think that the things I’ve posted and the videos I’ve made help, but a lot of people just don’t get it.”

And some people don’t want to get it.

“They are so invested this,” Morrison said, “with their books and websites and videos,” and when Dec. 22 rolls around, they may not want to admit they’ve either been part of the hoax or taken in by a hoax. They may end up changing the goalposts by saying they were off by a couple of months or years, like many of the failed end-of-the-word predictions have done.

Bill Hudson, who helps maintain the 2012Hoax website – a site that offers scientific information of why the world won’t end and a forum for people to express their concerns – says he has seen a steady uptick in traffic to the website in recent months and he anticipates there will be a surge ahead of December 21st.

“Most of the astronomical claims are easily dismissed, but a lot of our visitors have apparent anxiety issues, and the 2012 rumors set those off,” Hudson said. “So they realize intellectually that it is bunk, but emotionally they struggle to get past it.”

For example one woman has written in for the past few years in a constant up and down cycle of first feeling fears for herself and her child, then feeling calm when reading information on the 2012Hoax site, but then falling back into fear if she watches a new You Tube video hyping doomsday, or if she sees a big star in the sky she thinks she hasn’t seen before (it usually end up being Venus.)

Unfortunately, Hudson said, there are more people like this, who just can’t get past their fears.

Ian O’Neill producer of Discovery Space News and former Universe Today writer who authored a series of articles for UT debunking the 2012 doomsday myths says that he’s also witnessed how the “Mayan doomsday” has worked itself into society’s lexicon.

As an example, O’Neill shared via email a story of a person next to him at the gym watching TV reports of the recent swarm of earthquakes south of LA:

“The guy watching the TV next to me asked what was going on — I said that it was a USGS press conference to discuss the mini quakes. He responded with “Yeah, it’s not long until the world ends, we’re bound to be seeing more of this kind of thing.” A little taken aback, I questioned him on it (thinking he was joking) and he was positive that the world was really going to end and that he’d seen “videos on YouTube” about it. No matter what I said to him, his view was that he’d rather be safe than sorry — he’d stocked up on fuel and water.”

O’Neill said he’s found that among the public, stories of doomsday are generally accepted. “Some people know that it’s all crap, but others are totally convinced that it’s real,” he said. “It’s really sad that, after I’ve written countless articles on the topic and appeared on several news shows and documentaries communicating the real science, people are still out there needlessly worried, happy to believe a badly edited YouTube video over science and reason.”

The real unfortunate effect here is that children are being caught up by these doomsday predictions, whether by adults in their lives who are buying into the hype or by having access to websites and videos that purport to have the “real” truth and answers.

Hudson says the 2012Hoax site has been receiving a constant stream of questions from children who are fearful, and Morrison said many of the emails he gets are from children. There are at least two documented cases of young people committing suicide from their fears of the world ending, and Morrison shared a story from a teacher he knows where parents of two children in her class have come to her saying the families plans to commit suicide so they don’t suffer in the end times coming up.

This is almost more than anyone involved in debunking these doomsday myths can bear. Morrison called the people propagating the doomsday myths “evil.”

“These are evil people, whether consciously or unconsciously whose main effect is to frighten children,” he said. “I think it is a terrible thing.”

Morrison, Hudson and O’Neill said they all hope Dec. 21 can come and go without anyone else taking drastic actions that are completely unnecessary.

Asked what he will be doing on Dec. 22, Morrison said all he really hopes is that this whole subject will be dropped, never to be heard from again.

“I’ve never dealt with anything like this before and I hope I never have to deal with it again,” he said.

Posted on by Jason Major

Valles Marineris: The Grandest Canyon of All

A digital terrain model of a portion of Mars’ Valles Marineris, the largest canyon in the Solar System. Credit: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin (G. Neukum)

Anyone who’s visited the Grand Canyon in Arizona can attest to its beauty, magnificence and sheer sense of awe that comes upon approaching its rim, whether for the first time or hundred-and-first. “Grand” almost seems too inferior a title for such an enormous geological feature — yet there’s a canyon much, much bigger stretching across the surface of Mars, one that could easily swallow all of our Grand Canyon within one of its side gullies.

The image above, released online for the first time today by ESA, is a digital terrain model of a portion of Mars’ Valles Marineris: our Solar System’s grandest canyon.
It’s easy to fall into hyperbole when describing Valles Marineris. Named for NASA’s Mariner 9 spacecraft, which became the first spacecraft to orbit Mars on November 14, 1971, the canyon is over 4000 km long, 200 km wide, and 10 km deep (2,480 x 125 x 6 miles) — that’s five times deeper than the Grand Canyon and long enough to stretch across the entire contiguous United States! It’s a rift unparalleled on any other world in the Solar System.

Valles Marineris is thought to be the result of the formation of the nearby Tharsis volcanic region, home to Olympus Mons, the Solar System’s largest volcano. As the region swelled with magma billions of years ago the planet’s crust stretched and split, collapsing into a vast, deep canyon.

Much later, landslides and flowing water would help erode the canyon’s steep walls and carve out meandering side channels.

The 45-degree view above was was made from data acquired during 20 individual orbits of ESA’s Mars Express. It is presented in near-true color with four times vertical exaggeration (to increase relief contrast.) Download a high-res JPEG version here.

The largest portion of the canyon seen crossing left to right is known as Melas Chasma. Candor Chasma is the connecting trough to the north, and Hebes Chasma is in the far top left.

Below is a video released by JPL in 2006 showing a virtual fly-through of Valles Marineris, shown as if you were on a Grand Canyon-style helicopter sightseeing tour (that is, if helicopters could even work in the thin Martian air!)

Hopefully someday we’ll be seeing actual videos taken above Valles Marineris and photos captured from its rim… perhaps even by human explorers! (Please exit through the gift shop.)

Image source: ESA. Video by Eric M. De Jong and Phil Christiansen et. al, Arizona State University.

Posted on by Tammy Plotner

Weekly SkyWatcher’s Forecast: October 22-28, 2012

Mare Nectaris - Credit: Damian Peach

Greetings, fellow SkyWatchers! It’s going to be a great week to enjoy lunar studies, but why don’t we take a look at couple of other interesting objects, too? I think this would be the perfect opportunity to chase an asteroid! Not enough? Then get out your zombie hunting equipment and we’ll have a look at the “Demon Star”, too! Whenever you’re ready to learn a little more about the history and mystery of what’s out there, just meet me in the back yard…

Monday, October 22 – Something very special happened today in 2136 B.C. There was a solar eclipse, and for the very first time it was seen and recorded by Chinese astronomers. And probably a very good thing because in those days the royal astronomers were executed for failure to predict! Today is also the birthday of Karl Jansky. Born in 1905, Jansky was an American physicist as well as an electrical engineer. One of his pioneer discoveries was non-Earth-based radio waves at 20.5 MHz, a detection he made while investigating noise sources during 1931 and 1932. And, in 1975, Soviet Venera 9 was busy sending Earth the very first look at Venus’ surface.

Also today in 1966 Luna 12 was launched towards the Moon – as so shall we be. We’ll continue our lunar explorations as we look for the “three ring circus” of easily identified craters – Theophilus, Cyrillus, and Catherina – a challenging crater which spans 114 kilometers and goes below the lunar surface by 4730 meters. Are you ready to discover a very conspicuous lunar feature that was never officially named? Cutting its way across Mare Nectaris from Theophilus to shallow crater Beaumont in the south, you’ll see a long, thin, bright line. What you are looking at is an example of a lunar dorsum – nothing more than a wrinkle or low ridge. Chances are good that this ridge is just a “wave” in the lava flow that congealed when Mare Nectaris formed. This particular dorsa is quite striking tonight because of low illumination angle. Has it been named? Yes. It is unofficially known as “Dorsum Beaumont,” but by whatever name it is called, it remains a distinct feature you’ll continue to enjoy! Also to the far south along the terminator you will see Mutus, a small crater with black interior and bright, thin west wall crest. Angling further southwest from Mutus, look for a “bite” taken out of the terminator. This is crater Manzinus.

Tuesday, October 23 – Now it’s time to look for Mare Vaporum – “The Sea of Vapors” – on the southwest shore of Mare Serenitatis. Formed from newer lava flow inside an old crater, this lunar sea is edged to its north by the mighty Apennine Mountains. On its northeastern edge, look for the now washed-out Haemus Mountains. Can you see where lava flow has reached them? This lava has come from different time periods and the slightly different colorations are easy to spot even with binoculars.

Further south and edged by the terminator is Sinus Medii – the “Bay in the Middle” of the visible lunar surface. Central on the terminator, and the adopted “center” of the lunar disc, this the point from which latitude and longitude are measured. This smooth plain may look small, but it covers about as much area as the states of Massachusetts and Connecticut combined. During full daylight temperatures in Sinus Medii can reach up to 212 degrees! On a curious note, in 1930 Sinus Medii was chosen by Edison Petitt and Seth Nicholson for a surface temperature measurement at full Moon. Experiments of this type were started by Lord Rosse as early as 1868, but on this occasion Petit and Nicholson found the surface to be slightly warmer than boiling water. Around a hundred years after Rosse’s attempt, Surveyor 6 successfully landed in Sinus Medii on November 9, 1967, and became the very first probe to “lift off” from the lunar surface.

Wednesday, October 24 – Today in 1851, a busy astronomer was at the eyepiece as William Lassell discovered Uranus’ moons Ariel and Umbriel. Although this is far beyond backyard equipment, we can have a look at that distant world. While Uranus’ small, blue/green disc isn’t exactly the most exciting thing to see in a small telescope or binoculars, the very thought that we are looking at a planet that’s over 18 times further from the Sun than we are is pretty impressive! Usually holding close to a magnitude 6, we watch as the tilted planet orbits our nearest star once every 84 years. Its atmosphere is composed of hydrogen, helium and methane, yet pressure causes about a third of this distant planet to behave as a liquid. Larger telescopes may be able to discern a few of Uranus’ moons, for Titania (the brightest) is around magnitude 14.

Let’s begin our lunar studies tonight with a deeper look at the “Sea of Rains.” Our mission is to explore the disclosure of Mare Imbrium, home to Apollo 15. Stretching out 1123 kilometers over the Moon’s northwest quadrant, Imbrium was formed around 38 million years ago when a huge object impacted the lunar surface creating a gigantic basin.

The basin itself is surrounded by three concentric rings of mountains. The most distant ring reaches a diameter of 1300 kilometers and involves the Montes Carpatus to the south, the Montes Ap-enninus southwest, and the Caucasus to the east. The central ring is formed by the Montes Alpes, and the innermost has long been lost except for a few low hills which still show their 600 kilometer diameter pattern through the eons of lava flow. Originally the impact basin was believed to be as much as 100 kilometers deep. So devastating was the event that a Moon-wide series of fault lines appeared as the massive strike shattered the lunar lithosphere. Imbrium is also home to a huge mascon, and images of the far side show areas opposite the basin where seismic waves traveled through the interior and shaped its landscape. The floor of the basin rebounded from the cataclysm and filled in to a depth of around 12 kilometers. Over time, lava flow and regolith added another five kilometers of material, yet evidence remains of the ejecta which was flung more than 800 kilometers away, carving long runnels through the landscape.

Thursday, October 25 – And who was watching the planets in 1671? None other than Giovanni Cassini – because he’d just discovered Saturn’s moon Iapetus.

Tonight let’s discover our own Moon as we take a look at Mare Insularum, the “Sea Of Islands”. Ir will be partially revealed tonight as one of the most prominent of lunar craters – Copernicus – guides the way. While only a small section of this reasonably young mare is now visible southwest of Copernicus, the lighting will be just right to spot its many different colored lava flows. To the northeast is a lunar club challenge: Sinus Aestuum. Latin for the Bay of Billows, this mare-like region has an approximate diameter of 290 kilometers, and its total area is about the size of the state of New Hampshire. Containing almost no features, this area is low albedo and provides very little surface reflectivity. Can you see any of Copernicus’ splash rays beginning to appear yet?

Today is the birthday of Henry Norris Russell. Born in 1877, Russell was the American leader in establishing the modern field of astrophysics. As the namesake for the American Astronomical Society’s highest award (for lifetime contributions to the field), Mr. Russell is the “R” in HR diagrams, along with Mr. Hertzsprung. This work was first used in a 1914 paper, published by Russell.

Tonight let’s have a look at a star that resides right in the middle of the HR diagram as we have a look Beta Aquarii.

Named Sadal Suud (“Luck of Lucks”), this star of spectral type G is around 1030 light-years distant from our solar system and shines 5800 times brighter than our own Sun. The main sequence beauty also has two 11th magnitude optical companions. The one closest to Sadal Suud was discovered by John Herschel in 1828, while the further star was reported by S.W. Burnham in 1879.

Friday, October 26 – It’s big. It’s bright. It’s the Moon! Look for a small, but very bright, small crater that you just can’t miss… Kepler! This great landmark crater named for Johannes Kepler only spans 32 kilometers, but drops to a deep 2750 meters below the surface. It’s a class I crater that’s a geological hotspot! As the very first lunar crater to be mapped by the U.S. Geological Survey, the area around Kepler contains many smooth lava domes reaching no more than 30 meters above the plains. The crater rim is very bright, consisting mostly of a pale rock called anorthosite. The “lines” extending from Kepler are fragments that were splashed out and flung across the lunar surface when the impact occurred. According to records, in 1963 a glowing red area was spotted near Kepler and extensively photographed. Normally one of the brightest regions of the Moon, the brightness value at the time nearly doubled! Although it was rather exciting, scientists later determined the phenomenon was caused by high energy particles from a solar flare reflecting from Kepler’s high albedo surface – a sharp contrast from the dark mare composed primarily of dark minerals of low reflectivity (albedo) such as iron and magnesium. The region is also home to features known as “domes” – similar to Earth’s shield volcanoes – seen between the crater and the Carpathian Mountains. In the days ahead all details around Kepler will be lost, so take this opportunity to have a good look at one awesome small crater.

This evening we are once again going to study a single star, which will help you become acquainted with the constellation of Perseus. Its formal name is Beta Persei and it is the most famous of all eclipsing variable stars. Tonight, let’s identify Algol and learn all about the “Demon Star.”

Ancient history has given this star many names. Associated with the mythological figure Perseus, Beta was considered to be the head of Medusa the Gorgon, and was known to the Hebrews as Rosh ha Satan or “Satan’s Head.” 17th century maps labeled Beta as Caput Larvae, or the “Specter’s Head,” but it is from the Arabic culture that the star was formally named. They knew it as Al Ra’s al Ghul, or the “Demon’s Head,” and we know it as Algol. Because these medieval astronomers and astrologers associated Algol with danger and misfortune, we are led to believe that Beta’s strange visual variable properties were noted throughout history.

Italian astronomer Geminiano Montanari was the first to record that Algol occasionally “faded,” and its methodical timing was cataloged by John Goodricke in 1782, who surmised that it was being partially eclipsed by a dark companion orbiting it. Thus was born the theory of the “eclipsing binary” and this was proved spectroscopically in 1889 by H. C. Vogel. At 93 light-years away, Algol is the nearest eclipsing binary of its kind, and is treasured by the amateur astronomer because it requires no special equipment to easily follow its stages. Normally Beta Persei holds a magnitude of 2.1, but approximately every three days it dims to magnitude 3.4 and gradually brightens again. The entire eclipse only lasts about 10 hours!

Although Algol is known to have two additional spectroscopic companions, the true beauty of watching this variable star is not telescopic – but visual. The constellation of Perseus is well placed this month for most observers and appears like a glittering chain of stars that lie between Cassiopeia and Andromeda. To help further assist you, re-locate last week’s study star, Gamma Andromedae (Almach) east of Algol. Almach’s visual brightness is about the same as Algol’s at maximum.

Saturday, October 27 – Tonight let’s skip the Moon and hunt down an asteroid! We’ll be locating Vesta which will be cruising along the southern border of Taurus, just about a handspan north/northwest of Betelgeuse. However, since asteroids are always on the move, the position will need to be calculated for your area, so use your local planetarium programs to get an accurate map. When you’re ready, let’s talk…

Asteroid Vesta is considered to be a minor planet since its approximate diameter is 525 km (326 miles), making it slightly smaller in size than the state of Arizona. Vesta was discovered on March 29, 1807 by Heinrich Olbers and it was the fourth such “minor planet” to be identified. Olbers’ discovery was fairly easy because Vesta is the only asteroid bright enough at times to be seen unaided from Earth. Why? Orbiting the Sun every 3.6 years and rotating on its axis in 5.24 hours, Vesta has an albedo (or surface reflectivity) of 42%. Although it is about 220 million miles away, pumpkin-shaped Vesta is the brightest asteroid in our solar system because it has a unique geological surface. Spectroscopic studies show it to be basaltic, which means lava once flowed on the surface. (Very interesting, since most asteroids were once thought to be rocky fragments left-over from our forming solar system!)

Studies by the Hubble telescope have confirmed this, as well as shown a large meteoric impact crater which exposed Vesta’s olivine mantle. Debris from Vesta’s collision then set sail away from the parent asteroid. Some of the debris remained within the asteroid belt near Vesta to become asteroids themselves with the same spectral pyroxene signature, but some escaped through the “Kirkwood Gap” created by Jupiter’s gravitational pull. This allowed these small fragments to be kicked into an orbit that would eventually bring them “down to Earth.” Did one make it? Of course! In 1960 a piece of Vesta fell to Earth and was recovered in Australia. Thanks to Vesta’s unique properties, the meteorite was definitely classified as once being a part of our third largest asteroid. Now, that we’ve learned about Vesta, let’s talk about what we can see from our own backyards.

As you can discern from images, even the Hubble Space Telescope doesn’t give incredible views of this bright asteroid. What we will be able to see in our telescopes and binoculars will closely resemble a roughly magnitude 7 “star,” and it is for that reason that I strongly encourage you to visit Heavens Above, follow the instructions and print yourself a detailed map of the area. When you locate the proper stars and the asteroid’s probable location, mark physically on the map Vesta’s position. Keeping the same map, return to the area a night or two later and see how Vesta has moved since your original mark. Since Vesta will stay located in the same area for awhile, your observations need not be on a particular night, but once you learn how to observe an asteroid and watch it move – you’ll be back for more!

Sunday, October 28 – Today in 1971, Great Britain launched its first satellite – Prospero.

Tonight we’ll launch our journey along the southern shore of Mare Humorum and identify ancient crater Vitello. Notice how this delicate ring resembles earlier study Gassendi on the opposite shore. Its slopes have been crushed by the impact that formed crater Lee to its west. As you begin to circle around Mare Humorum and start northward again, you’ll be traveling along the Rupes Kelvin – ending in the spearhead formation of Promentorium Kelvin. Here again is another extremely old feature, a triangular mountainous cape born in the pre-Imbrian period and as much as 4 billion years old. It could be as long as 41 miles and about as wide as 21 miles, but its height is impossible to judge.

Take a breath now, and we’ll look for two more dark patches to guide us on. South of Mare Humorum is darker Paulus Epidemiarum eastward and paler Lacus Excellentiae westward. To their south you will see a complex cojoined series of craters we’ll take a closer look at – Hainzel and Mee. Hainzel was named for Tycho Brahe’s assistant and measures about 70 kilometers in length and sports several various interior wall structures. Power up and look. Hainzel’s once high walls were obliterated on the north-east by the strike that caused Hainzel C and to the north by impact which caused the formation of Hainzel A. To its basic south is eroded Mee – named for a Scottish astronomer. While Crater Mee doesn’t appear to be much more than simple scenery, it spans 172 kilometers and is far older than Hainzel. While you can spot it easily in binoculars, close telescope inspection shows how the crater is completely deformed by Hainzel. Its once high walls have collapsed to the northwest and its floor is destroyed. Can you spot small impact crater Mee E on the northern edge?

Until next week, wishing you clear and steady skies!

Posted on by Aqua4U

Notes from an Amateur Telescope Maker’s Journal, Part 1

A home-made equatorial wedge used with an off-the-shelf telescope, just one of the ways you can improve your telescope experiences. Credit: Dale Jacobs

Editor’s note: Interested in DIY telescopes? Amateur astronomer Dale Jacobs will be sharing his experiences in using everyday items to build or enhance telescopes.

I am an amateur astronomer and have been since the late 1970’s. I’ll be sharing some of my adventures in building and modifying telescopes for my personal use. Hopefully I can help instill the ‘bug’ in those of you who have been thinking of building your own scope but have yet to do it, or help others avoid some of my pitfalls. I’ll also be sharing my successes, which has inspired me to continue and enhance my stargazing endeavors. As you’ll see, it doesn’t always require expensive equipment, and I’ll show you how to be creative in using some things that you may have right in your kitchen cupboard or garage.

But first: how did I get started in this great hobby? Back in the 70’s I lived in a beachside studio apartment in overly crowded southern California. One chilly mid-November night (on my birthday!) I decided to go for a walk on the mostly deserted beach in front of my apartment complex to meditate and take in whatever stars I could see through the bright city lights. When I got down to the water and looked up, I was surprised to see a swarm of meteors overhead! Wow! Unknown to me at the time, this was the annual Leonid Meteor shower. I felt blessed and lucky to see those Leonids, which fell in near ‘storm’ proportions that year. I was truly amazed and watched for hours. Soon after, I began reading Sky and Telescope and Astronomy magazines to find out more about what I’d seen and then I signed up for an astronomy class at the local junior college.

One of my upstairs neighbors in the apartment building I lived in, heard about my new fascination and offered to lend me an unused and quite dusty 80mm ‘dime store’ refractor. The telescope was mounted on a poorly built alt-azimuth style tripod and came with three overpowered and very small eyepieces. Only one of them was any good and even so the eye relief was just terrible. No matter, I was young and had good eyes back then. So I took that telescope out every chance I could get and was amazed to see Jupiter’s bands and its brighter moons, Saturn’s rings with Titan, and the great Orion Nebula! The Moon soon became a constant companion as my fascination grew.

In 1984 after breaking up with my fiancée, I decided I needed a change of pace to keep from going crazy. So I quit my aerospace job and moved to Northern California. My new ‘digs’ were on a 1,000 acre cattle ranch half way up Sonoma Mountain. The ranch was only a few miles from the town of Petaluma, yet still had that ‘country’ feel – for a ‘city boy.’ The skies were usually pretty good there, especially when the fog rolled in and covered the lights of the S.F. Bay Area. At times, the brilliant stars above literally ‘took my breath away.’ We didn’t have skies like that down in Southern California! At least not within 100 miles of the greater metropolitan area…

I opted to buy a Meade model 2040, 4-inch Schmidt Cassegrain, fork mounted telescope for about $800 rather than the T.V. I was tempted to buy. This telescope turned out to be a MUCH better ‘deal’ and has been a great night time companion over the years! Since I wasn’t dating or even interested in the opposite sex for a quite awhile, it suited and served me well. A small scope is easy to set up and transport, which is key for casual observing. I even put it on the back of my motorcycle one time and drove up to Lake Tahoe with it! (Minus the tripod – it has screw-in legs for setting up on any suitable flat surface – such as a picnic table.)

The top image is of that telescope mounted on an equatorial wedge I made for my latitude. The wedge is constructed of a hard wood core, marine grade plywood. It is very stable! The cost for this endeavor was about $10, which included the wood, glue and fasteners. It was well worth the price, and I’m still using it! The tripod is an old surveyor’s backsight that my brother, a land surveyor, found one day working way back ‘in the woods’, up on a mountaintop. It had obviously been forgotten and had been there for who knows how many years. It was probably made in the 1940’s. It sure soaked up/took a lot rejuvenating oil and rubbing to make it useful again, but I like reusing old tools.

Building this equatorial wedge was a great confidence builder and inspired me to continue my star gazing. A 4-inch scope may be considered ‘small’, but a scope this size is a GREAT beginner’s scope and is a handy adjunct for any serious star gazer. Not shown in this image is the tar paper/roofing felt tube I rubber band around the end of the scope for dew protection. Yeah… this is ‘my baby’. It has served me quite well throughout the years! I saw Comet Austin, Comet Halley, Comet Hyakutaki, and Comet Hale Bopp with this scope, along with 41 other comets! I may have been taunted by other astronomers at star parties for having such a ‘small’ scope… but I’ll tell you what… smaller scopes can sometimes ‘see’ through upper atmospheric disturbance cells and are actually better than larger scopes at doing so. I have seen where they will sometimes outperform 8-, 10- or 12-inch scopes! Many times at ‘star parties’ I was the one to found that obscure comet… long before the larger scopes did.

One thing I discovered is that while adequate for casual viewing, this scope doesn’t do all that well with faint galaxies. As a result, I’ve always dreamed of having a larger ‘light bucket’ for those clear nights, when the seeing excels. Then one day, a scientist friend of mine, who was leaving the area to work at the new Virgin Galactic space port in New Mexico, offered to sell me a 12 1/2 inch mirror he’d ground and polished back in the 1970’s. He’d never completed the project due in no small part to the arrival of babies and pressing career responsibilities. Along with the 12 1/2″ mirror he also sold me several components he’d collected to build his ‘dream’ scope, but never did. What you see below is what I ended up doing with some of those components and my own additions.

Here ‘she’ is, warts and all…. my new baby!

Dale’s 12 1/2 inch lightbucket…. or light pot. Image: Dale Jacobs.

The base of the mount I made from a modified aluminum router table. Attached to that is a Doug Fir 2X4 leveling and support base. The leveling screws I made from 8-inch long lag bolts with their rounded heads pointing downwards. The handles of the leveling screws I made from drilled out garden faucet handles. They are captured by stainless steel cap nuts and threaded inserts. The wheels on this side of the base I purchased at a local hardware store, the axle too. The two front wheels on the side opposite, are from a baby carriage! The equatorial wedge I cut from a piece of 1 inch thick plywood. The cast aluminum equatorial mount was made from an old Navy gun alignment bore sight. The R.A. axis is mounted where the spotting or alignment scope once lived. The clamps that held that bore scope now hold the R.A. shaft bearings in place.

Here’s what I did with the old refractor/bore sight.

I mounted it on a German Equatorial from an old Tasco 4 inch reflector a friend gave me. The aluminum pie pan makes the shadow for the projected solar image. To connect the imager to the eyepiece I used black PVC tubing with straightened clothes hanger metal spokes in drilled through holes. The spokes are held in place with a stainless steel tube clamp. Rubber bands behind the white projection plate hold it firmly in place. I use this scope to observe Sun spots. Not only can I see the spots but also sometimes can see the whitish faculae which frequently accompany and surround them!

I finally got the balancing just right for the 12 1/2″ scope. That was tricky! This mount allows me to move the whole assembly with a finger light touch. I made brakes to stop motion A/R in either axis from hard wood cutouts.

Here’s a view of the secondary mirror housing:

The aluminum struts I purchased at a scrap and hardware store. I made the finder scope from a pair of ‘funky’ plastic Chinese binoculars that never focused properly anyway. The finder’s body and mount are constructed from white PVC tubing and held in place with nylon screws. The base of the finder mount was made from a broken finder scope that I modified to fit with a Dremel tool. The eyepiece focuser can be moved left/right, up/down on any of the four paired dowels by loosening the attached nylon screws. Next up, I will make a ‘clocking mechanism’ so I can easily turn the secondary 90-180 or 270 degrees.

I can add other focusers, cameras or instruments on any of the 4X ‘dowel flat’ pairs. I made the secondary mirror from a precision optical flat another scientist friend gave me back in 1984 when I worked at a semiconductor equipment manufacturing company. Ever cut glass before? Triple trick! Those flats were coated with aluminum during a vacuum/deposition chamber test. The secondary housing I cut from an old fishing rod transport tube. Later, I plan to purchase a 1/10 wave or better secondary and new mirror mount. The spider legs are modified stainless steel packing straps. Both the secondary housing and main mirror housing were made from 34 qt. alum. cook pots! What’s cooking Daddy-O or Momma Mia?!

Here’s a view of the mirror cover I made from a ‘spare’ plant pot saucer. (Don’t tell the wife!) I sewed the ‘grip handles’ into the nylon mounting straps to aid in tightening the straps. Part of the two wooden brake assemblies are also shown in this view:

In this view you can see the ‘yet to be coated’ primary mirror and the ‘at that time’ mostly unpainted secondary mirror housing:

I’ll have the mirror tested and coated soon and plan on using a web cam or DSLR for imaging after I install some sort of clock drive mechanism. I hope to eventually participate in the Universe Today’s weekly online Virtual Star Parties with this ‘puppy’ (as David Letterman would say) when completed. I hope so anyway… only time will tell!

In the next episode… I hope to ‘show off’ some images! There’s that ‘only time will tell’ thing again!

Have any questions or comments for Dale about his amateur DIY astronomy? Leave comments below, or you can send him an email

All images are courtesy Dale Jacobs

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Book Review: “Planetfall” by Michael Benson

Review written by Lois Merritt

Armchair astronomer alert! If you love looking at the images sent back by the spacecraft traveling throughout our solar system, Planetfall by Michael Benson is truly an amazing book, with extra-amazing pictures. The large 15 X 12 inch pages provide great, eye-popping views of some of the most spectacular images of the planets, moons, and other bodies that make up our cosmic neighborhood. Benson has a knack for picking out the ‘best of the best’ from our interplanetary robotic photographers.

Each section of the book starts off with an introduction, a brief look at the area of the solar system involved in that chapter, and the probes that visited them. At the end of the book, there are full captions of each picture, including complete descriptions of what it is you are looking at and what spacecraft took it. The sections are: Earth and the Moon, The Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and the Asteroids and Comets.

The pictures come from the the latest landers and probes that have launched since the start of the 21st century. This includes Spirit and Opportunity, Cassini, Messenger, Aqua, the ISS crews, Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, Solar Dynamics Observatory, among others. A space enthusiast might be familiar with some of these pictures from seeing them online, but to have them bound in a large size book, where they can be examined closely, and even pulled out in some cases, is one of the things I love about this book.

The images were compiled by Michael Benson, a writer, filmmaker, and photographer, who is no stranger to astronomical imagery. His previous books include book Far Out: A Space-Time Chronicle, and Beyond: Visions of the Interplanetary Probes, which include images from previous spacecraft and ground-based observatories.

On a personal note, the Mars section was my total and utter favorite, especially given the lot of super pictures from the rovers. However, I could be a bit biased on that, given Mars has always been my favorite…

This is a great collection of images, and paging through the book is a perfect way to transport yourself whenever you need to get away from it all.