Non-Fiction – Page 17 – Into the West

Comet and Crescent Moon Sail into the Sunset

You can tell it’s spring time in Kansas by my frustration with clouds and astronomical observing. I don’t grumble much, so long as the clouds provide relief for our record drought, as they did last weekend with two days of good rain on top of the melting snow left over from Winter Storms Q and Rocky. I decided to skip, again, the ASKC‘s Messier Marathon, scheduled for Monday evening, mostly because it fell on a week night, but also because the clouds did not appear to be cooperating. And the drive home, westward, did not fill me with confidence for my odds of spotting comet PanSTARRS and the thin crescent moon, potentially one of the youngest I’d yet observed.

Upon arriving home, clouds still obscured the sun sporadically to the west. My husband and I grabbed a quick bite to eat at the local Arby’s and I walked Apollo upon returning home, despite the brisk wind out of the northwest. I had just sat down to watch something with Terry when I checked out the window one last time. Miraculously, the western horizon appeared cloud free. I handed Terry the remote, shoved on my boots, grabbed the camera, binoculars and tripod and ran to the van. As I drove west along Eisenhower Road, I received a call from my Dad, who was back in Lansing, at the spot where we observed the Transit of Venus last June. I told him I was heading to a small rural church parking lot at the corner of Eisenhower and County Shop Road, because it has slightly less light pollution than the hill overlooking Main Street (K-7/US-73) in Lansing.

I arrived about ten minutes before eight o’clock. I uncapped my binoculars and took a quick look at the thin crescent moon, one of the slimmest ones I’ve yet observed. Later, I calculated it was also the youngest I’ve observed, just twenty-nine (29) hours old. Here’s the photo I took of it fifteen minutes later, after I’d setup the tripod and put the telephoto lens on my camera:

NewMoon0804pm — Young Crescent Moon (8:04 p.m. CDT 03/12/2013)

I continued to take photographs for another twenty-five minutes but never did find the comet with my naked eyes. Using my binoculars, I did locate comet PanSTARRS about a quarter after eight. When I reviewed my photographs after downloading them to my computer, I realized I’d actually captured it earlier, in a photo taken one minute after the one shown above. The best shot of the crescent moon and the comet came another fifteen minutes later though:

NewMoonPlusComet0821pm — Click image for rest of album

I plan to keep trying for the rest of the week, or as long as comet PanSTARRS is visible. I may even drive down to Powell Observatory Friday evening. I read an announcement via the Astronomical Society of Kansas City‘s Twitter feed declaring a special pre-season opening of the observatory to view the comet.

I called my dad back, since we’d gotten cut off by bad cell phone reception out in the county. He confirmed his inability to spot the comet without optical aid and wished me a good night. I packed up the equipment and returned home. I fed the dogs while I downloaded the photos to Terry’s computer and quickly reviewed them, selecting a few of the better shots to upload to Flickr to share with family and friends. By that time, I needed to hit the sack, so I left writing this blog until morning.

Happy hunting to all of you this week. Grab a pair of binoculars and look west, young men and women, look west for comet PanSTARRS.

PanSTARRS_finder_large — Bring binoculars to pick the comet out of the twilight low in the west. (Don’t expect it to look this obvious!) The scene is drawn for about 40° north latitude, and the Moon is placed for a viewer near the middle of North America.

Space Weather with Dr. Patterson

My father and I drove to UMKC Saturday evening to attend the first club meeting of 2013 for the Astronomical Society of Kansas City. We went an hour early to take in Astro 101 (topic: telescope mounts).

Astro 101 (topic: telescope mounts) Jan 2013

After sifting through club business, including some great observing awards and a new observing program for asterisms, our Education director, Jay Manifold, flashed through the observing highlights for the upcoming months. He paused at the end long enough to introduce our special guest speaker, Dr. Doug Patterson, Professor of Astronomy and Physics at JCCC, and his topic “Space Weather: Understanding the Sun-Earth Connection.”

Dr. Patterson’s first slide, at first glance, did not appear to be related directly to space or weather. He explained that besides astronomy and physics, his other abiding passion happened to be photographing race cars. For the past twenty years, despite appearing quite youthful and brimming with energy, he’s been teaching astronomy and physics at the Johnson County Community College.

Astronomy in academia really only requires a research computer and spreadsheet program. Incredible amounts of data (terabytes upon terabytes) are freely available for astronomical researchers.

Dr. Patterson joked that he frequently tells his students that “Space is not empty!”

Highlights from his “Space Weather” talk:

Super Flare 1859 observed by Carrington (on 9/1/1859 around noon). The flare took seventeen (17) hours to read Earth.
Birkeland and his aurora machine

Kristian Birkeland and his terrella experiment. The Figure shows the whole arrangement with the new vacuum-box of 320 litres. Floor and ceiling are here made of 12 mm. steel plates, the pillars between are of bronze, and the sheets of plate-glass at the sides are 30 mm. in thickness. The experiment shows the “zodiacal-light ring”. It requires little magnetising of the globe (11.3 cm. in diameter), but a great discharge-current (up to 100 milliamperes).

Solar Wind discovery and proof
- comet tails
- Super-Sonic Model by Eugene Parker confirmed by Mariner 2 on way to Venus.
- Voyager 1 is beyond solar wind and actually in interstellar space (first man-made ‘spaceship’ to be truly interstellar).

Dr. Patterson showed a video of the corona and sun from NASA’s solar satellites. He also displayed an animation of a coronal mass ejection (CME).

Fluctuations in the solar wind compress our magnetic field. Some of the effects on Earth include:

compression and fluctuations
electrical conductors embedded in Earth’s mag field
radiation & navigation airline flights over arctic
interference with GPS (and Google Maps)
In Mar 1989, we (the Earth) learned the hard way (Quebec w/o power for three (3) days).

As a result, NASA launched the Advanced Composition Explorer (real time plots available here of solar wind data), which gives us one (1) hour advanced warning. This satellite is parked in a halo orbit at L1. Real time space weather data is available at spaceweather.com.

Van Allen Belts

Discovered by Explorer 1, the first satellite we launched into orbit

We just sent our second probe last year, a gap of over fifty years
Trapped radiation and particles
Why study the belts?
Low Earth Orbit (LEO) very cluttered
GPS already in the belts

The Van Allen Probes (fka Radiation Belt Storm Probes) were launched last year and Dr. Patterson had the privilege of witnessing the launch first hand, despite hurricane Isaac. Note to self: Rocket ion trails make great lightning rods.

Dr. Patterson concluded with a Q&A opportunity where several ASKC members asked cogent questions and received animated responses.

Dr. Patterson during the Q&A time after his talk (ASKC Jan 2013)

Due to the warmth of the evening (upper 40s or lower 50s), the club opened up the Warko Observatory on the roof of Royall Hall for a brief time. A haze obscured nearly everything except the full moon and Jupiter. Dad and I skipped the climb to the roof and headed home to Leavenworth.

Orion Rising

I went outside Wednesday evening to photograph our exterior Christmas lighting decorations. As I walked down the front steps, I could see most of Orion rising in the east. The Hunter seemed to be reclining in a dreamy, wispy, foggy pose. I couldn’t resist taking a couple of photos, the best of which is displayed below:

Venus Dives Past Saturn

Twelve degrees Fahrenheit this morning as I setup the tripod and camera for the third pre-dawn photo shoot of Saturn and Venus. Completely calm, unlike yesterday morning, so no jiggles to the camera, beyond my fumbling numb fingers. I opted for longer exposures (three or four seconds), so I ended up with some trails, especially when using the telephoto lens. Otherwise, much the same as before, with the exception of the planetary dance partners.

SaturnVenusMercury3secExp18mmWithLabels — Venus slipping below Saturn pre-dawn Tuesday 11/27/2012 (click image for rest of album)

I don’t plan on repeating this for a fourth time tomorrow morning, but I do plan on trying to capture the full moon as it approaches Jupiter tomorrow night. There also happens to be a penumbral lunar eclipse occurring Wednesday evening.

Wednesday, November 28
Full Moon arrives at 9:46 a.m. EST. It appears against the background stars of Taurus the Bull before dawn this morning, approximately midway between the Pleiades and Hyades star clusters and below brilliant Jupiter. (The Moon will slide within 1° of the planet after sunset tonight.) But the Moon has a lot more going for it today. First, it passes through the outer part of Earth’s shadow. This penumbral lunar eclipse will slightly darken the Moon’s northern half. People in much of North America can see the eclipse’s early stages, which begin at 7:15 a.m. EST. (Those in Australia, eastern Asia, and the Pacific islands have the best views of the event.) Second, this Full Moon is the smallest (29.4′ in diameter) of 2012. Our satellite’s relatively diminutive size arises because it reaches the farthest point in its orbit around Earth at 2:37 p.m. EST today, when it lies 252,501 miles (406,362 kilometers) from Earth’s center. (Astronomy.com ‘The Sky This Week – November 23 – December 2, 2012’)

Saturn Squeezing Venus

I went to bed Sunday night lamenting the end of my longest vacation in over a decade. I double-checked and triple-checked my return-to-work checklist (security badge, laptop, cell phone, sunglasses, lunch bag, work clothes and shoes, etc.) before nodding off. I woke up fifteen minutes before my alarm went off at five o’clock. I jumped out of bed and had myself dressed and ready to go before half past five. I wanted to make sure I didn’t miss this morning’s Saturn-Venus photo opportunity.

I got everything, including the camera and tripod, packed into the back of the van and drove up the hill, squinting through the frosty windshield, to the library parking lot. I left the van running with the defroster on half-blast, but turned off the headlights. I setup the tripod and camera on the sidewalk, but quickly became concerned by the slight breeze from the north, which could (and did) jiggle the camera during the longer exposures necessitated by the pre-dawn darkness.

I changed lenses on the camera back to my normal lens and took a couple of wide angle shots to begin with:

I adjusted the brightness (something I rarely do since I don’t own Photoshop and need to learn how to use Gimp) to make the horizon a bit more visible.

Shortly after six o’clock, I observed Mercury and took a photo in portrait orientation (vertical) to include all three planets and the star Spica:

Because I needed to begin the commute to work at a quarter past six, I had to stop taking photos early. A good thing, too, since my batteries, which I had just put in before yesterday morning’s photo session, had already depleted due to the cold temperatures and long exposure times. I did take the time to switch back to my telephoto lens to zoom in on several of the prime targets.

I managed to snatch a closeup of Venus and Saturn and of Mercury and Alpha Librae before I packed up the equipment and left for work:

VenusSaturnCloseupwithLabels — Saturn squeezing closer to Venus (click image for rest of album)

MercuryAlphaLibraeBrightenedwithLabels — Mercury just risen near Alpha Librae (adjusted brightness to improve visibility)

Tomorrow morning, weather permitting clear skies, I will attempt to capture Saturn as it slips past and above Venus.

Begining of the End

I learned last night at the November general meeting of the Astronomical Society of Kansas City that we have just fifty days (forty-nine as I write this blog) until the end of a Mayan age (the 13th Bak’tun). More commonly known to us as the Winter Solstice on December 21, 2012 (12/21/12 or 21/12/12 depending on your longitude). I had a lot on my mind as I drifted off to sleep last night, but when I woke to clear skies and a newly risen Venus blinking at me through the bare branches of trees along my eastern horizon, I shook off the last vestiges of ancient doom and gloom and braved the brisk late fall pre-dawn environs with my tripod and camera.

Armed with new tips and techniques garnered from Tom Martinez’s astrophotography presentation during the club’s Astro 101 session, I attempted a long exposure (ten seconds long) of the Big Dipper using my normal lens:

I was gratified to discover that my camera can take even longer exposures without the necessity of a handheld remote. Not that I don’t plan to purchase a remote for it soon though.

I didn’t attempt to capture Canis Major or Orion in a long exposure since I would have been shooting west over the well-lit parking lot of City Hall. Instead, I turned my camera towards the southeast and bright shining Venus and the slightly dimmer Saturn.

VenusSaturnMercurySpicaArcturusWideAngleShot3secExpWithLabels — Wide angle shot of Venus, Saturn and Mercury (click image for rest of album)

I knew Mercury had risen shortly after six o’clock, but I couldn’t see it clearly until about a quarter after.

MercuryAlphaLibrae4secExp — Mercury & Alpha Librae in a four second long exposure.

Later, I accidentally captured not only Mercury, but a passing plane, as it took off from KCI (northeast of my location).

MercuryAlphaLibrae1secExpAWBwithPlaneStreak — Passing Plane (the streak) approaching Mercury

When I got back to my laptop and downloaded the photos, I also double-checked and compared them to the alignment at the time they were taken using the Star Dome Plus java applet at Astronomy.com:
A short successful photo shoot this morning. I didn’t hang around for the sunrise, since I judged it wouldn’t be as pretty as the one I captured Saturday morning.

VenusSaturnMercuryAlphaLibrae3secExpAWB — Venus-Saturn-Mercury Line-up Sunday morning 11/25/2012

Weather permitting, I’ll be repeating this activity for the next two or three mornings. I’m excited to see Venus and Saturn pass each other in the night (or very early morning).

And next week I’m going to wish I was visiting Egypt to witness a once in 2,737 years event involving these same three planets and the Great Pyramids at Giza.

Return of Saturn

The new moon occurs tomorrow just eight minute’s past four o’clock in the afternoon. I reviewed the sun rise and moon rise times for today, tomorrow and the next day as compared to the time the new moon happens. And, once again, the ‘holy grail’ of observing a moon less than one day from dying or one day new-born eludes me. Tomorrow morning, on the 13th of November, 2012, moon rise occurs at 6:41 a.m. Central, just twenty minutes before the sun rises. If that wasn’t ‘bad’ enough, I’ll be driving the van for the Tuesday commute to work at that time. My final rider pickup occurs at that time, so I may be able to take a couple of minutes with my binoculars to see if I can see the almost dead moon about eight hours before it is reborn as the new moon. I don’t have high hopes though, as twenty minutes before sun rise is quite bright and the eastern horizon will be hazy unless I’m extremely lucky. And the chance of catching any sign of the extremely young moon (less than an hour old by sun set tomorrow night) is even slimmer than the crescent moon would appear at that time.

Countertop & Backsplash Refinishing (click photo for rest of album)

I woke up knowing the temperatures had plummeted to the lower 20s overnight, leaving the sky crystal clear and killing the wind we’ve had for the past week. Since my kitchen is completely unusable for the next week or so, I decided to pack up the van for the Monday commute, start it up (since frost completely covered all the windows) and gather up my camera equipment for an pre-dawn frigid photo shoot of the nearly dead moon.

I drove the still cold and nearly empty van up the hill to the dead-end in front of City Hall. I left the van running to continue the process of thawing out the windows and doors while I took the tripod and camera a few feet back up the hill to the east side lawn of City Hall. I could barely see the new risen moon through the leafless trees lining the south and southeastern horizon. I found a spot where the moon just clear the tree limbs and setup the camera equipment. I took my first photo at 5:47 a.m., about nineteen minutes after the moon rose (at 5:28 a.m.). I tried various settings and exposures, while trying to keep my hands warm and not shake the camera too much. I took several unsatisfactory photos for about ten minutes and then returned to the van. I needed to fill up the gas tank and get something warm to drink before heading south to pickup my first setup of riders. My local rider had the day off because he’s a federal employee and today is the day set aside to observe and honor our veterans.

ThreePercentIlluminated0610am12Nov2012 — Illuminted 3% at 6:10 a.m. Central Mon 12 Nov 2012

After filling up the van, I drove back up the hill so I could cross Main Street using the light between City Hall and the Library and just happened to look east again. I noticed the colors caused by twilight and pulled into the Library’s parking lot for a second photo shoot. I quickly reset up the camera and took another ten minutes worth of photos before continuing on to Scooters for a warm mocha and a caramel apple scone.

VenusSpicaSaturnWaningMoon0712am12Nov2012labeled — Venus, Saturn, Spica and the Waning Moon

I downloaded the photos from the camera and reviewed them. I threw away most of the first photo shoot because I forget to set the two second delay timer and most of them were blurry. I logged into my Astronomy.com account and downloaded the sky dome for the east-southeastern horizon to confirm and label the objects photographed above.

I had completely forgotten that Saturn had finally come out from behind the sun to become visible once again in the early morning. In fact, Saturn rose just nine minutes after the moon did, although my camera did not capture it in my first photo shoot, probably because it was hiding behind some tree limbs.

I also photographed the Big Dipper, Orion, Canis Major and the Pleiades, but decided not to share the photos with anyone yet. Because I didn’t change from my telephoto lens to my normal one, I did not get all the stars in the handle of the Big Dipper nor did I capture all of the stars in Orion.

I’ll probably miss this weekend’s meteor shower, as I will be otherwise occupied during the day and not in a location that will provided dark enough skies to properly observe a shower. A solar eclipse occurs tomorrow, but only for those excessively lucky people who live in the South Pacific. For more of what’s up this week, visit Astronomy’s the Sky this Week website.

Grasping at Stars

Despite a busy weekend of van maintenance (oil change/tire rotation), hair maintenance (shampoo, cut & style), yard maintenance (leaves, leaves and more leaves and now pine needles), home improvement projects (refinishing lower kitchen cabinets) and exercise (very long walk with Apollo), I squeezed in an hour of star gazing after a night out with Terry and friends at Jack Stack on the Plaza. I’ve been wanting to get the scope out for a couple of weeks now, but the evening skies have not cooperated, remaining hazy at best or completely cloud covered at their worst. Upon parking the car in the driveway Saturday night, I looked up and decided the skies looked good enough to attempt some star gazing. I didn’t even take my purse into the house. I drug the telescope out of the garage and began hunting down more targets on my Astro Quest observing award checklist.

I did make one trip inside to retrieve my binoculars, pocket star atlas, clipboard and checklist. I used Jupiter to re-align the finderscope and spent several minutes enjoying an interesting moon alignment (see image above).

Using binoculars, I easily found the Andromeda galaxy and the Double Cluster (between Perseus and Cassiopeia). I checked off two stars from my list, Algol in Perseus and Gamma Cassiopeiae. Since the constellation Pegasus was nearly directly overhead, I went hunting for the Triangulum galaxy, also known as M33. I could barely see the three stars in the constellation Triangulum, but no matter how hard I searched (with binoculars, not naked eye), I could not find this galaxy. I should have been able to trace a line from M31 through two stars in the constellation Andremeda (Mu and Beta Andromedae) to find M33, but I was defeated once again by urban (and prison) light pollution. I had hoped to stumble upon it with binoculars, especially since M31 was so easily visible and found (almost naked eye Saturday night, but not quite).

I became more chilled as the evening wore on, neglecting to put on my sweater and just ignoring the 40 degree temperatures. The lack of wind helped shore up my illusion of warmth. I thought I’d try one last object before packing the scope up and returning it to the garage. I went hunting for the Garnet star in the constellation Cepheus. With my naked eyes, I could barely make out some of the stars that form the ‘house’ asterism. I knew the general area to look for Mu Cephei so I aimed my binoculars between the alpha and delta stars. Whoa! Way, way too many stars visible, thanks to the backdrop of our own Milky Way galaxy. Staring again with just my eyes, I squinted against the light pollution, but could still only see some of the anchor stars of Cepheus and no Milky Way stars.

I gave up, because I knew I would need to study several star atlases closely and device a star hop from Alpha Cephei to Mu Cephei, a trail I would need to memorize, so I wouldn’t have to take my reading glasses on and off while attempting to observe.

Another star trail I need to work on is finding M15 in the constellation Pegasus. I really shouldn’t have had any trouble finding M15, since you can draw a nearly strait line from Theta Pegasi through Epsilon Pegasi to point to that globular cluster. Either my skies were not dark enough, or I kept misidentifying Enif (Epsilon Pegasi) in my binoculars.

Blast from the Past: A Glimpse Into Rare Science Book Collection

My dad and I attended the general meeting of the Astronomical Society of Kansas City yesterday evening. We arrived earlier enough to also attend the Astro 101 class. The topic happened to be on binoculars, although I vaguely remembered it advertised as astrophotography. Next month, perhaps, provided the speaker doesn’t postpone for the third time this year. Nevertheless, we learned quite a bit about binoculars and the handout included a dozen or so winter observing targets.

With just five minutes to spare, Dad and I changed lecture halls in Royall Hall, walking across to the larger one where the general meetings are held. Jay Manifold and Rick Henderson made several announcements. Another club member, Bob Sandy, gave a brief ten to fifteen minutes demonstration of his equipment used to videotape the Transit of Venus, including the video from that event and also a separate one of the re-appearance of the asteroid Ceres from behind the Moon.

Jay introduced our guest speaker, Bruce Bradley Librarian for History of Science at the Linda Hall Library of Science, Engineering and Technology, who spoke about the library’s rare books on astronomy. The Linda Hall Library, located just two hundred yards west of Royall Hall, is the world’s foremost independent research library devoted to science, engineering and technology.

Title Page of Starry Messenger by Gallileo

The collection Mr. Bradley oversees is kept in the Helen Foresman Spencer Rare Book Room in the History of Science Center at the library which is open to the public Monday through Friday from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. An appointment is not necessary for individual readers and visitors, but groups are advised to make an appointment in advance of a proposed visit.

In February of 2004, several ASKC members visited and marveled at these well preserved treasures:

The oldest book in the place printed by Nicolas Jenson in Venice in 1472, Pliny the Elder’s (23-79 AD) Naturalis Historiae Liber open to a section entitled”CAII PLYNII SECVNDI NATURALIS HISTORIAE LIBER X,” subtitled”De Natura auium Cap. i.” Beginning with a beautifully illuminated capital S in blue, red, green and gold, the colors appeared to have barely faded in 532 years.
Tycho Brahe’s Astronomiae Instauratae Progymnasmata from 1602 open to a star map showing the location of the supernova
of 1572 in Cassiopeia.
Galileo’s Dialogo, printed in Florence,”Per Gio: Batista Landini,” 1632., displaying a Copernican diagram of the Solar System showing orbits of the planets, the Moon and the four large moons of Jupiter that Galileo discovered.
A handwritten observational journal of William Herschel open to a section containing observations of Saturn with drawings, formulas and figures.
A very large format book with a full-color, two-page drawing of Tycho’s observatory, labeled Stellaeburgum (also called Uraniborg) as it appeared in 1558.

On of Galileo’s illustrations/engravings of the Moon

At the October general meeting, Mr. Bradley started with a history of the founding of the library. He then showed us many images taken of the rare books in the collection. He also related interesting and intriguing stories about the men who wrote these early science books. We even got a crash course in the Gutenberg printing process, right down to the materials used for the bindings, the paper and the ink. Mr. Bradley spent quite a bit of time paging through a couple of Galileo‘s books (see excerpt at right) and explaining the challenges Galileo and his printer faced in publishing his ground-breaking astronomical observations and conclusions confirming Copernicus‘ theory of a sun-centered universe (solar system).

He concluded his talk with a question and answer session and an invitation to the Library to see these treasures first hand. I plan to make a trip during lunch to the Linda Hall library’s current exhibit, called ‘On Time: The Question for Precision‘ featuring revolutions in time keeping within the next week or so.

Youngest Slimmest Moon Sliver Yet

The new Moon occurred at 7:02 a.m. Monday October 15, 2012. Since sunset on Monday occurred less than twelve hours after the new moon, I didn’t even bother searching the western horizon for an assuredly invisible sliver of the young moon. Besides, we were still finishing up the hanging of the new garage doors.

Tuesday evening, after a quick repast of leftover grilled chicken and some frozen veggies (reheated of course), I gathered up my camera equipment and my binoculars and went in search of a good observing site. I ended up just past the entrance to Mt. Muncie Cemetery, with a clear view of the horizon, overlooking the local Home Depot and the Hallmark plant.

The clouds became a concern, obscuring my early efforts to locate the slim sliver of the young waxing moon. I appreciate clouds for their sunset value (see photo and album below), but they just get in the way when I’m hunting the young moon or Mercury (which happened to be very close to the moon Tuesday evening). While I continued to take photos of the sunset, I used my binoculars to scan southwest and vertical along the ecliptic, hoping to catch a glimpse of the moon through the clouds. Ten minutes after sunset, I stumbled across the sliver in my binoculars, so beautiful and almost filling my field-of-view (if it had been a full moon). Stunning sliver, so slim and delicate, peeking through some dark purple blue clouds, took my breath away. This has to be the youngest thinnest moon I’ve observed yet.

First sighting of Waxing Crescent Moon: 7:51 p.m. Tuesday 16 Oct 2012

24 hrs + 12 hrs + 49 mins = 36 hrs 49 mins

Ten minutes later:

Meanwhile, just a bit to the right, a nice sunset continued:

Mid-October Sunset (click image for rest of album)

Highlights from his “Space Weather” talk:

Solar Wind discovery and proof

Van Allen Belts