Astronomy.com blog : conferences

2009 AIC recap: Heavenly images abounded, part two

Michael Bakich — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 19:44:00 GMT

Longtime astroimager and Astronomy magazine contributor Tony Hallas thinks about his upcoming acceptance speech. The Advanced Imaging Conference committee awarded Hallas its most prestigious award, the Hubble Award, for his service and the advances he brought to astroimaging. Michael E. Bakich photo

In my previous blog, I described the first day at the 2009 Advanced Imaging Conference (AIC), which occurred October 30 through November 1 at the San Jose, California, Doubletree Hotel. Day 1 revolved around imaging workshops.

Some of the workshops dealt with equipment, and some focused on imaging techniques, but the majority assumed the attendees could get good images. The rest of the workshop presenters, therefore, offered image-processing tips.

Day 2 was the general session for this, the sixth incarnation of this event. Registration and a continental breakfast took place between 7 a.m. and 8:15 a.m. Then, at 8:15 a.m. sharp, the conference’s opening remarks began. Ken Crawford, AIC’s president and long-time image contributor to Astronomy magazine, welcomed some 300 attendees and introduced AIC’s founder, Steve Mandel, who talked about the early days of the organization and new projects he’s working on.

Some of you may know the name Mandel from the Mandel-Wilson Unexplored Nebula Project. (Michael Wilson was the project sponsor.) This survey searched for low surface-brightness interstellar clouds in the Milky Way that appeared on some wide-field photographs of deep-sky objects.

Astronomer Beverly T. Lynds first noticed the phenomenon — dubbed “galactic cirrus” or “integrated-flux nebulae” — in 1965 on photographic plates taken at Palomar Observatory. But it wasn’t until December 2004 that Mandel recorded them on a wide-field image of Bode’s Galaxy (M81) and the Cigar Galaxy (M82) in Ursa Major. Astronomers now know that these nebulae are primarily thin dust clouds located at high galactic latitudes, that is, away from the Milky Way’s plane.

Michael E. Bakich photo

Next on the agenda was the presentation of AIC’s Hubble Award, the highest honor the organization bestows. This year, AIC president Ken Crawford handed the award to renowned astrophotographer Tony Hallas for the many ways Hallas has advanced astrophotography through the years.

Regular readers of Astronomy magazine will recognize Hallas’ name from his numerous images that have appeared through the years. Most recently, Tony won top honors in our 2009 Astroimage Contest, the results of which ran in the September issue. After receiving the award, Hallas presented a high-level, entertaining lecture on — what else? — astroimaging.

As with day 1, in the short time between workshops, during breaks and before and after meals, AIC encouraged attendees to visit a large exhibit hall called the Technology Showcase. There, more than 30 of our hobby’s top vendors showed off their best telescopes, cameras, filters, software, and accessories.

The conference continued through Sunday morning, November 1. Two imagers offered workshops, and the AIC staff presented door prizes. The Technology Showcase closed at 11:30 a.m., and AIC 2009 was over.

This was a great conference for me. During the entire event, attendees said nothing but great things about Astronomy magazine. Lots of astroimagers thanked me for running their work in the magazine. Actually, I’m the one who continually needs to thank you, the many celestial photographers who send in such great images. Without you, we wouldn’t be the world’s most beautiful astronomy magazine. So, please, keep sending me your stuff. And the more, the merrier. See you next year!

Editor's note: Watch videos from the 2009 Advanced Imaging Conference Michael took with a handheld camera, including interviews with AIC President and astroimager Ken Crawford, Steve Cullen of LightBuckets, and Adam Block of Mount Lemmon SkyCenter.

2009 AIC recap: “Advanced” doesn’t begin to cover it, part one

Michael Bakich — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 17:31:00 GMT

Renowned astroimager Adam Block of the Mount Lemmon SkyCenter presented a pair of workshops at the 2009 Advanced Imaging Conference. Michael E. Bakich photo

As part of my duties as photo editor for the world’s most popular astronomy publication, I attended the sixth annual Advanced Imaging Conference (AIC) October 30 through November 1 at the San Jose, California, Doubletree Hotel. If you’re one of our many readers who love the “eye candy” that top-level astroimagers produce, future issues of Astronomy will be required reading for you.

Organizers of the conference break it into two parts: They devote day 1 to workshops. Day 2 is the general session. In this blog, I’ll tell you about day 1.

Registration, which features a continental breakfast, began at 7 a.m., and the first workshops started at 8:30. AIC wasted no time or space. Some 300 registrants filled four workshops that all started at 8:30 a.m. Then, at 10:15 a.m., 1:45 p.m., and 3:30 p.m., four more workshops began. That’s 16 1.5-hour presentations in one day!

Most of the imagers I talked to attended four sessions, with a break only for lunch. Attendees raved about the talks. Listeners took detailed notes or photographed every slide. I can sum up the only complaint with this statement: “I had to miss such-and-such’s workshop because I was in so-and-so’s presentation.” Thoughtfully, AIC’s organizers will put all the workshop presenters’ PowerPoint talks online for the registrants to review at their leisure.

These talks were not for the faint of heart. For example, renowned astrophotographer Tony Hallas presented a workshop entitled “Image Processing with a Master.” He wasn’t kidding. I was in and out of all the workshops to sample their flavors and get some pictures. At one point I heard Tony talking about manipulating an image’s individual pixels to produce superior results. And he wasn’t the only one to get into that kind of detail. It’s those kinds of post-processing procedures that make today’s celestial images superbly detailed, rich in color, and accurate in what they show.

In the short time between workshops, during breaks, and before and after meals, AIC encouraged attendees to visit a large exhibit hall called the Technology Showcase. There, more than 30 of our hobby’s top vendors showed off their best telescopes, cameras, filters, software, and accessories. The Technology Showcase was open until 9 p.m. each night, so everyone had a chance to spend quality time there.

Tomorrow, we'll recap day 2.

Stephen James O’Meara recaps the George Moore Astronomy Workshop

Matt Quandt — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 18:59:00 GMT

Please enjoy this guest post from Astronomy magazine Columnist Stephen James O’Meara:

Just wrapped up with a successful and fun George Moore Astronomy Workshop at Camp Maskepetoon near Pigeon Lake in Alberta. The Edmonton Centre of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada sponsors the event and hosted me.

Aside from meeting old friends, like Astronomy magazine Contributing Editor Alister Ling, who gave a wonderful presentation on how best to use the Sky Clock to maximize your chances of heading outside on a great starlit night, we had a full evening of starlight. Larry Wood of Edmonton set up his 12-inch f/5 reflector and treated many of us to views of obscure planetary and reflection nebulae.

Variable star guru Rick Huziak of Saskatoon shared some wonderful views of the Veil Nebula and other deep-sky delights through his 10-inch 5/5.6 reflector. Most impressive, however, was something I had seen for the first time: four geosynchronous-orbit satellites in a z shape (the brightest of which was 3rd magnitude). We viewed this pattern through Rick's scope at high power. We turned off the drive and watched the satellites stay in the field of view while the stars zipped by “behind” them. Awesome!

Kathleen Houston had fun finding M81 and M82, and a special guest — Sverir Rrudmundsson of Iceland — shared the wonders of observing from his home country and provided an international flavor to the event.

Thanks, Steve!

Division of Planetary Sciences meeting, Thursday recap

Liz Kruesi — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 21:45:00 GMT

Thursday was a short day at the conference. I had to check out of the hotel in the late morning, so I had time only to jump between two sessions (another exoplanet one, and one about near-Earth asteroids [NEAs]).

Editor's note: Liz is posting updates regularly from DPS09 to Twitter.com/AstronomyMag.

The exoplanet session focused on what I’ve noticed to be an extremely popular topic here at the conference — modeling exoplanet atmospheres. That’s good to hear, because a near future issue of Astronomy will feature an article about this. So make sure to keep an eye out for it!

I then headed over to the NEA session. This was interesting stuff. I haven’t heard much about Apophis lately … until these presentations. Apophis is the asteroid that was in the news about 5 years ago because astronomers predicted there was a chance as high as 1 in 37 of it slamming into Earth in 2029. Scientists quickly revised that prediction … but not after the public – and the media – freaked out about it. Now we know there’s a 0 percent chance the asteroid will hit our home planet in 2029.

There is a chance, however, that it could pass through a gravitational “keyhole.” This is a small window (about 600 meters in diameter) where the gravitational forces would set up a collision with Earth. But the chance of such a collision has now been downgraded to just 1 in 250,000 in 2036, said David Tholen of the University of Hawaii and Steven Chesley of Jet Propulsion Laboratory today at DPS. Following additional observations and modeling, Tholen’s group estimates Apophis could pass through another keyhole in 2067, which would send it on a 2068 collision course with Earth. This keyhole, however, is just 2m in diameter … that’s pretty tiny. The chance of impact is even smaller than 2036’s chances — about 1 in 333,000.

It sounds like we’re pretty safe from Apophis, but we’ll need more observations to determine whether this fact holds true for all the other NEAs out there. Upcoming large-scale surveys should provide some of these much-needed observations.

All right, I’m off to explore Puerto Rico’s El Yunque rainforest and bioluminescence bay. Then the Arecibo Observatory on Saturday.

Previous post: Wednesday recap

Division of Planetary Sciences meeting, Wednesday recap

Liz Kruesi — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 20:20:00 GMT

I started off Wednesday at a lunar science session where presenters focused on results from the Japanese Kaguya mission and the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO). Robert Reedy of the Planetary Science Institute discussed Kaguya maps of the Moon. The probe measured gamma rays to study the distribution of elements, and it produced the first global uranium map of the Moon.

Editor's note: Liz is posting updates regularly from DPS09 to Twitter.com/AstronomyMag.

A few presenters talked about early LRO results — that mission is already chugging out some great science. And it’s only been taking data for (depending on the instrument) 1-3 months. Benjamin Greenhagen of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory presented information about the Diviner instrument, which measures surface temperatures. Early findings with this instrument were actually in the news a few weeks ago: Scientists used this device to discover portions of the permanently shadowed regions at the Moon’s south polar region are around 35 kelvin. That means these regions are looking like the coldest areas in the solar system. Greenhagen added that we’re approaching lunar summer now, so it appears these regions are warming a small amount, but they’re still under 50 K. That’s cold.

Next I headed over to a near-Earth asteroid (NEA) session. Mike Nolan of Arecibo Observatory talked about the diversity among NEAs, which I found extremely informative. Astronomers split NEAs into the following categories: irregular bodies (potato-like), spheroids, binaries, and bars (elongated asteroids, termed “bifurcated asteroids”). The bifurcated ones look like someone smashed two play-doh spheres together. As Nolan is also the observatory director, he touched on how important radar observations of NEAs are; this is one type of research astronomers use Arecibo for. He ended his talk on a fairly sad note regarding funding for the next few years. It sounds like they have significantly less funding starting in 2011.

After a quick lunch, I sat in on another exoplanet session. This one focused on transiting exoplanets — those that pass in front of their stars from our point of view — and observing and modeling some of those planets’ atmospheres. While I already knew about this method (characterizing some extrasolar planet atmospheres), it was interesting to hear more about how the researchers do this. It sounds like this area will continue to grow … just like the entire field of exoplanet research.

To end the day, I walked through the exhibit hall and looked over some of the posters. Tomorrow I’ll bounce around between another exoplanet session and an asteroid session. Then I’m off for a day to explore the natural side of Puerto Rico (I’ll do a bit of kayaking and hiking).

On Saturday I head to Arecibo Observatory to tour the huge instrument before flying back to cold Wisconsin.

Previous post: Tuesday recap

Division of Planetary Sciences meeting, Tuesday recap

Liz Kruesi — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 19:10:00 GMT

One thing I’ve noticed at thisi year’s Division of Planetary Sciences meeting is how well members of the planetary science community support each other. Often when asking a question regarding a talk, the questioner starts out with “great talk.” It’s refreshing to see. There’s a lot of competition in the sciences (so much of a career rides on how many papers one publishes), but clearly there’s a lot of collaboration as well.

Editor's note: Liz is posting updates regularly from DPS09 to Twitter.com/AstronomyMag.

OK, back to the updates from the DPS meeting. Tuesday morning began with a few awards. First up was the first-ever Jonathan Eberhart Planetary Sciences Journalism Award, presented to Sky & Telescope Senior Contributing Editor J. Kelly Beatty. After he received his award, Clark Chapman of the Southwest Research Institute discussed Mercury and the three MESSENGER flybys. The September 29 flyby showed additional examples of volcanism, according to Chapman. The probe is scheduled to enter its science orbit around Mercury March 18, 2011, and promises more discoveries.

The next award — the Urey Prize — went to Sarah Stewart of Harvard University, for her research of impacts onto icy bodies. Then the DPS awarded the Kuiper Prize to Tobias Owen of the University of Hawaii at Monoa “for his outstanding contributions to the field of planetary science.”

Owen, “one of the fathers of the Cassini mission,” still works on the project. He gave a great lecture — it had spots of humor and covered a fairly broad topic (so that even I, with my little planetary science expertise, understood the majority of it). It sounds like he has impacted many areas in planetary science. It was a pleasure sitting in on his talk.

At lunch I tried driving to a grocery store only to discover that none of the streets in Fajardo, Puerto Rico, is labeled. Mission failed.

The second half of the day switched gears and was filled with science sessions, so I tried to jump around to a few different ones.

First I attended a session about irregular satellite debris belts. Anne Verbiscer of the University of Virginia announced her team’s discovery of an enormous dust ring around Saturn. Douglas Hamilton of the University of Maryland followed with additional details. This ring is the largest known planetary ring in the solar system. It’s some 40 times Saturn’s radius (Rsat) high. Its inner edge starts around 128 Rsat out from Saturn and extends to 207 Rsat. The ring seems to be inclined 27 degrees to Saturn’s equatorial plane.

The team observed this huge ring with the Spitzer Space Telescope. Saturn’s irregular satellite, Phoebe, is within the ring. The team described how impacts with Phoebe produced debris that remains in a thick disk around the satellite’s orbit, therefore creating this huge ring. Hamilton explained that if you were standing within the ring, the density is such that you’d be hit by a particle about once per minute — that’s a pretty low density. The October 7 issue of Nature includes the team’s study.

After sitting in on a few presentations in a session about Titan’s surface, I stopped by a science discussion about the atmospheres of jovian planets. In this presentation, Teresa Del Rio Gaztelurrutia of the Universidad del Pais in Vasco, Spain, described a long-lived cyclone in Saturn’s atmosphere. This cyclone has been around for at least 4 years (Cassini instruments have observed it from June 2004 through May 2008).

Wednesday looks like another jam-packed day. I’m definitely looking forward to wandering through the exhibit hall to view the posters.

Previous post: Monday recap

Images and videos from PATS 2009

Michael Bakich — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 20:06:00 GMT

The Pacific Astronomy and Telescope Show (PATS) was a great success for many manufacturers and exhibitors that I talked to while there. I also thought it was a fun and rewarding trip. Take a look at some of the photographs and videos I made while at PATS. You might see someone you know, at least by name in Astronomy magazine.

At right, Astronomy Contributing Editor Mike Reynolds, Scott Roberts, president of Explore Scientific, and Astronomy Contributing Editor Stephen James O’Meara pose for a pic after a Chinese lunch.

Credit: Michael E. Bakich

On the road: The 2009 Division of Planetary Sciences meeting

Liz Kruesi — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 19:13:00 GMT

This week I’m in Fajardo, Puerto Rico, at the Division of Planetary Sciences meeting. I’ll be blogging daily and posting updates regularly to our Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace pages.

Then on Saturday I’ll have the opportunity to tour Arecibo Observatory, which is a once-in-a-lifetime experience. It should be a good week, filled with lots of news, science updates, and humid temperatures.

The best astroimagers will gather in California

Michael Bakich — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 19:00:00 GMT

During Halloween weekend, when most people are worrying about ghosts, goblins, and what candy to give away, some 300 avid astroimagers from around the world will meet in San Jose, California, for the 2009 Advanced Imaging Conference (AIC). And, guess what? I’ll be there, too.

AIC’s board of directors once again invited me to the conference because Astronomy is important to astroimagers. Our magazine represents the largest audience available to photographers who target celestial objects.

So who will be there? Many astroimagers who regularly contribute to the magazine: Adam Block, Thomas Davis, Bob Fera, Jay GaBany, Tony Hallas, Warren Keller, Dean Salman, and more. But I’m even more jazzed about meeting imagers who haven’t appeared in the magazine.

At the 2008 meeting, I presented a talk entitled “What Astronomy’s Photo Editor Wants.” The 300 imagers who heard me learned what they should include when sending images, what happens to images after they arrive, and, most importantly, the objects I’m looking for. And, you know what? The talk was a tremendous success! The past year was the best one ever at Astronomy for the number and quality of astroimages we received.

So what do I hope comes out of this year’s meeting? First, more of the same. I want to continue to entice the imaging community to keep sending their great work to Astronomy magazine.

Second, as the editor here who deals with the hobby and equipment end of our science, I’ll chat with manufacturers about their latest and greatest cameras, filters, software, and accessories. Who knows how many reviews may come from this one meeting?

Indeed, I think AIC 2009 will provide many more treats than tricks. Interested?

Related:

2008 Advanced Imaging Conference, by Michael E. Bakich, senior editor
Online Reader Gallery

Hawaii Alt-Az Conferences looking up

Bill Andrews — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 18:48:00 GMT

As the wind picks up and the skies cloud over (at least here in Wisconsin), it can be hard to remember that nice, balmy weather will someday return. That’s why Russell Genet’s work is so important. As the facilitator of the Alt-Az Initiative and co-chair of its Hawaii conferences, he works not just to promote development of and scientific research on smaller telescopes, but to keep astronomy buffs warm in the cold months too. Mostly, though, it’s the former, with a focus on “matching instruments and scientific research programs.”

On New Year’s Eve 2008, the initiative’s first conference, “Galileo’s Legacy: A celebration of small telescopes and astronomical research four centuries later,” helped launch the International Year of Astronomy. For 5 days the Oahu, Hawaii, meeting paid tribute to Galileo, his telescope, and the hundreds who have followed in his footsteps by designing new telescopes and training them on the skies.

The subject was particularly well-suited for the Alt-Az Initiative because it promotes “the development of low-cost, lightweight, modest-aperture (2 meters or less) research telescopes.” In addition, Genet hopes these conferences particularly encourage undergraduate students to engage with the smaller scopes. This year two undergraduates attended and spoke at the meeting, and one of them, Jo Johnson, is the other co-chair of the conferences.

This year, Galileo’s Legacy provided attendees with more than 40 talks and workshops that Genet says were “relaxed and friendly, with lots of nitty gritty.”

One of the most popular events was Gemini Observatory Director Doug Simons’ workshop on technology transfers from large to small alt-az telescopes. After the conference ended, many of the participants visited Gemini itself in Hilo, Hawaii, for a special tour, where, Genet says, the discussions continued with “lots of details on control systems, lightweight mirrors, instruments, and science programs.”

Of course, it being Hawaii in the wintertime, I’m pretty sure science wasn’t the only attraction. The Makaha Resort hosted the conference. It features a golf course, swimming pool, and close proximity to Makaha Beach, home of the annual Big Board Surfing Contest. Despite this selection of recreation options, Genet says the resort’s veranda and pool were frequent sites for informal discussions and dialogue.

Working in this field, I like to think of myself as a bridge between the two different worlds of science and fun. These Hawaii conferences — the next one is February 2010, also at the Makaha Resort, will tackle many of the same issues — seem like a nifty way of bridging the divide, too.

So, what do you think? Is the combination of tropical paradise and telescope conference enough to entice you to go? Or are you a cold-weather lovin’ big-scope fan?

Photos credit: Richard Berry