Astronomy.com blog : destinations

On the Eve of civilian space travel

Bill Andrews — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 15:35:00 GMT

We’re one step closer to taking vacations in space, it seems, after Virgin Galactic showed off its latest launch vehicle Tuesday at the Experimental Aircraft Association’s annual AirVenture event in Oshkosh, Wisconsin.

Named WhiteKnightTwo but nicknamed Eve, the plane resembles the hull of a catamaran, with the space between its booms intended to carry the still-in-development SpaceShipTwo, and its paying customers, into space as early as 2011. (Presumably Virgin will come up with a good nickname for SpaceShipTwo as well.)

Of course, it’s not cheap, with tickets costing $200,000 for what might be minutes in space. But according to Virgin Galactic President Will Whitehorn, they’ve already received $40 million in deposits and will need five more spaceships just to meet demand. The company also made a deal Tuesday with an Abu Dhabi investment firm to build a spaceport there by 2014 in exchange for stake in Virgin Galactic.

The spaceship will also be able to act as a mother ship to launch satellites, as well as allow scientists to conduct experiments in space. It’s the successor to WhiteKnightOne and SpaceShipOne, which under aircraft designer Burt Rutan’s direction 4 years ago won the X Prize for sending a civilian into space.

I don’t know about you, but easy space travel can’t come soon enough for me. Perhaps it’s because I love science fiction so much, but I’ve always wondered just what the heck was wrong with us that we possessed the ability to explore space, but not so much the desire. Even NASA, which I admire as much as the next space geek, has sent people no farther than Earth orbit for more than 35 years. Sure, it might be more feasible to send robots or unmanned ships in many cases, but the symbol of sending mankind to another celestial body is huge! We owe it to ourselves to keep striving for more.

Along with flying cars and laser guns, casual space travel represents the future to me. Presuming I can get my hands on $200,000, you can bet I’ll be a part of it.

What about you? Can’t wait for space vacations either? Or will Virgin Galactic go the way of Virgin Express and Virgin Blue?

(image credit of WhiteKnightTwo: Mark Greenberg)

On the road: Galileo’s Italy

David Eicher — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 18:55:00 GMT

Tomorrow I’ll leave for a 10-day trip to Italy along with 25 Astronomy readers and our tour partner, Melita Thorpe of MWT Associates. In this magical year of celebrating the 400th anniversary of Galileo’s first observations, we’ll explore sights in Rome, Florence, and Pisa associated with Galileo and the amazing ancient and Renaissance history of Italy. Within Rome, we’ll explore the Vatican — St. Peter’s Basilica, the Vatican Museums, and the grandeur of everything associated with this unique place.

We’ll discover the Roman Forum, the Colosseum, and of course pizza margherita and gelato — the best in the world. In Pisa we’ll see, of course, that tower where Galileo dropped weights. And in Florence we will set out to the Uffizi Gallery, the Duomo and Baptistry, the Ponte Vecchio, and more. Nearby, we’ll stop in at the dwelling in Arcetri where Galileo spent the last years of his life under house arrest.

It will be an amazing trip, and I look forward to providing blog updates on our activities as often as I can.

Related:

Blog: Galileo's Italy, Day Six
Blog: Galileo's Italy, Day Five
Blog: Galileo's Italy, Day Four
Blog: Galileo's Italy, Day Three
Blog: Galileo's Italy, Day Two
Blog: Galileo's Italy, Day One
Blog: Galileo's Italy, preview
Video: "The day Galileo changed the universe," by Astronomy editor David J. Eicher
More Astronomy magazine "Trips and Tours"

Photo credit: David J. Eicher

Join Astronomy on a Kenyan eclipse tour

David Eicher — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 22:45:00 GMT

The year 2010 is going to be a big one for eclipses. Not only is there the summer total eclipse that many of us will be traveling to, but also a great annular eclipse in January. Astronomy will sponsor a tour, along with Melita Thorpe of MWT Associates, to see the January eclipse in Kenya.

While we’re there, we’ll also take in a big-game safari adventure like none you’ve ever seen before. We have a special web page now set up to describe "The Great Rift Valley Annular Eclipse and Kenya Safari" details. We also created a video that describes the trip.

I look forward to accompanying you on this exciting adventure of a lifetime!

Image © Dennis Mammana / dennismammana.com

On the road: One last fabulous night

Michael Bakich — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 21:38:00 GMT

Thursday was my third and final night at Rancho Hidalgo in Animas, New Mexico. Daytime hours saw only a slight breeze and not a cloud in the sky. After sunset, we decided to let the 30-inch Starmaster reflector cool until moonset. That's when we'd start observing.

I walked back outside as the Moon was setting in the west. I watched the thin crescent disappear behind the low mountains, but, as it did, I saw another nice sight. The earthshine-lit part of the Moon was still easily visible, a testimony not only to the darkness of the site but also to the clarity of the sky.

After assuring ourselves that the drive was accurately aligned, we observed half a dozen or so nice planetary nebulae. Among them were NGC 2346 in Monoceros and NGC 2392 in Gemini. That one, slightly less than 1' across, contained a brilliant central star. OK, it glows at magnitude 10.4, but through the 30-inch scope, it looked really bright. We also saw NGC 2438, NGC 2440, and NGC 2452, all in Puppis.

Several spiral galaxies were next. We observed NGC 2500 in Lynx because of my love of round numbers. We also targeted NGC 2517 and NGC 2525, both in Puppis. The Bear Claw Galaxy (NGC 2537) in Lynx followed. Although this galaxy has a common name, it's tiny — only 1.7' by 1.5'. That means you'll need a large scope to discern any details. Well, we had a large scope, and at 428x under one of the clearest, steadiest skies I've seen, NGC 2537 indeed looks like a bear's claw.

One object I wanted to see through such a large aperture was open cluster Pismis 1 (NGC 2568). I remember being disappointed at its appearance through a 14-inch telescope. Imagine my surprise when I was again disappointed through a 30-inch scope! Unless one of the stars blows its top, this could well be my last look at Pismis 1.

After several more targets, I asked Gene to point the telescope at the Beehive Cluster (M44). He was puzzled until I told him we'd be looking through the cluster to try to see spiral galaxy NGC 2624. This small object (only 36" by 30") glows dimly at magnitude 13.9. "Sounds like a challenge!" he said, smiling. Once the scope's drive stopped moving, however, he reported the galaxy was easy to see. "Oh, and there's another one nearby," he said. The other was magnitude 14.3 NGC 2625. Neither showed much detail, but, hey, it's not every day you get to look through a star cluster at much more distant galaxies.

Next, we observed NGC 3109, a spiral galaxy that's a member of the Local Group. This nearby galaxy measures 19' long by only 4' wide. The galaxy's total magnitude is a seemingly bright 9.8, but its light spreads out over quite an area. That brings the surface brightness down significantly. Well, in most scopes, that is. Through the 30-inch, this object appeared well-lit and thicker toward one end. Gene described its shape as that of a speedboat.

Our next target might have been a worthy challenge on any other night. It was Abell 1060, a distant galaxy cluster in Hydra. At the time we viewed it, Abell 1060 stood only about 15° above the horizon. Even at our lowest magnification (143x), however, we saw a loose chain of about a dozen galaxies stretching from the top to the bottom of the eyepiece's field of view. Among them were NGC 3308, NGC 3309, NGC 3311, NGC 3312, NGC 3314, NGC 3316, and several galaxies from the Principal Galaxies Catalog, also known as the PGC. All we could say was "Wow!"

One other notable object was the Ghost of Jupiter (NGC 3242) even though it sat low in the sky when we observed it. We used all of Gene's eyepieces, but the best view came at 428x. At that power, the inner shell appeared eye-shaped with tiny extensions at the ends. The outer shell was translucent, and the whole planetary nebula glowed with an even blue light.

Such nights are not common even for those of us whose job is astronomy. Still, perhaps to prove how jaded I've become, I claimed the night was the best observing run I've had since October — the last time I visited Rancho Hidalgo!

On the road preview: Into the night once again

Michael Bakich — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 19:53:00 GMT

Tuesday the 27th is a big day for me. I’m headed once again to observe from the pristine skies of Rancho Hidalgo in Animas, New Mexico. During the three nights I’m there, I’ll be using developer Gene Turner’s magnificent 30-inch Starmaster reflector (pictured at right with Astronomy Editor David J. Eicher). I have compiled an observing list of challenging winter deep-sky objects that would make most observers’ mouths water.

I also created lists of galaxies to target in Cancer, Leo, and Ursa Major. I can’t wait to see the galaxy group Copeland’s Septet through the 30-inch. The brightest member glows weakly at just above 14th magnitude, but I expect to see details in most of the seven through that large an aperture. And I wonder how many galaxies I’ll be able to count in the galaxy cluster Abell 1367.

In the daytime on Wednesday, January 28, I’ll attend a dedication ceremony for the reflecting telescope Clyde Tombaugh used after he retired from New Mexico State University (NMSU) in Las Cruces. He set this telescope up in his backyard and made numerous observations with it.

Turner acquired the scope and has erected it in a community area of Rancho Hidalgo he calls “Pluto Park.” Also attending the ceremony will be Tombaugh’s wife of 62 years, Patsy, Walter Haas, founder of the Association of Lunar and Planetary Observers (ALPO), author (and Astronomy columnist) David Levy, representatives from NMSU, and others.

Stay tuned to Astronomy.com because I’ll be blogging about all my activities.

Galileo’s big day

David Eicher — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 17:55:00 GMT

Once a week I’ll pick an image from a recent trip of mine that will cast some light on an astronomical subject — or maybe sometimes it’ll just be a cool image that will stray a little from astronomy.

To start things off, here’s an important place: St. Mark’s Square in Venice, Italy. The tower shown at right is the Campanile of St. Mark’s, the (reconstructed) tower where Galileo first demonstrated his brand-new telescope. It’s an amazing story:

Stunned by news of a freshly invented telescope and the possibility of a Dutch lens maker showing it to the Doge in Venice, Galileo rushed home to Padua and, from only what he had heard, August 2–3, 1609, invented his own telescope. He used a well-placed friend in Venice to cancel the Doge’s appointments, craftily locking out the Dutchman. After returning to Venice August 25, he marched the Doge, his assistants, and the Venetian naval commanders up the tower and showed them views of distant cities, ships on the horizon, and parishioners entering a church on the island of Murano, all of which had been invisible to the eye alone.

The Doge was awestruck. The military had a powerful new secret weapon. Venice was confirmed again as a triumph. Galileo presented the Doge with the telescope on his knees and received a doubled salary, a lifetime appointment, and a bonus amounting to a year’s wages.

By the fall of 1609, Galileo would, in a moment of wonder, slide his telescope toward the Moon. The world would then change forever.

And by the way, the kid in the foreground is my son Chris.

On the road: Arizona Sky Village, Day Two

Matt Quandt — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 19:51:00 GMT

Astronomy magazine Editor David J. Eicher filed this report from his trip to Arizona Sky Village:

Friday opened up great adventures on our journey to the Arizona Sky Village (ASV). Senior Editor Michael Bakich and I continued our stay at Rancho Hidalgo, the newest development of ASV creator Gene Turner and his associates. The ranch lies just across the New Mexico border from ASV near the little town of Animas. Gene and his girlfriend, Loy Guzman, have opened their house to us and provided spectacular meals, one after another. These included a large feast for many who joined us Friday night, including well-known astroimagers Jack and Alice Newton. The sense of hospitality and community between the ASV group is really second to none.

Last night we had another amazing round of observing with Gene’s 30-inch Starmaster Dobsonian scope, which I’ll describe in a moment. But before we got to that, we had the day to fill. As it turned out, that wasn’t a problem.

Following a very nice lunch at the cute little Portal Café (where we saw Astronomy for sale), and a visit to a few folks at the ASV site, we returned to Rancho Hidalgo and took Gene’s Jeep over a long, winding, and sometimes perilous road up into the mountains. Descending into a large “bowl” depression with mountains ringing us on several sides, we started off on a long walk up to some isolated rock formations. Gene showed us several caves ancient Native Americans — possibly Mimbres and Anasazi — used as shelter and as community centers at least 800, and as many as 2,000 years ago.

Inside some of the caves and around the rock outcrops, we found dozens of artifacts, mostly stone chips that ancients had worked. To see debris lying undisturbed for centuries is an astonishing thing.

Following our gala dinner, we visited the nice observatory belonging to Adam and Tracy Clayson, our observing friends from Toronto. They have a house at ASV with a 30-inch Obsession scope and an impressive roll-off-roof structure that gets you under the whole sky. The meteors started rolling out nicely.

We moved to Gene’s 30-incher to go after some serious deep-sky objects. We looked at the Perseus Galaxy Cluster, with its high-energy weirdo galaxy NGC 1275. We enjoyed the beautifully bright lenticular galaxy NGC 1023 in Perseus, an underrated object. We then moved on to one of the Holy Grails of deep-sky observing, and saw it well as an amorphous glow underlying a group of tiny stars — the obscured galaxy Maffei 1. Discovered by the Italian astronomer Paolo Maffei in 1968, it is a nearby galaxy lying just a little farther away than the Local Group galaxies.

We then started a run on nearby galaxies including NGC 404, the dazzling little elliptical galaxy lying beside Beta Andromedae; the outlying Andromeda Galaxy satellites NGC 147 and NGC 185 (quite a contrast of shapes and surface brightnesses); NGC 925, the beautiful thin spiral galaxy in Triangulum; and IC 10, the distorted irregular in Cassiopeia that is both a weird starburst galaxy and — at 2.2 million light-years away — a member of the Local Group.

We rifled off a whole list of nebulae, planetary and otherwise, that simply stunned us. Some of the highlights included NGC 1514 in Taurus, a strange shell of gas surrounding a bright central star; Hind’s Variable Nebula, NGC 1554–5, a large, angular mass of nebulosity with a bright, arc-shaped central shell that surrounds the orange star T Tauri; the emission nebula NGC 1491 in Perseus, with its sheaf of gas floating over an 11th-magnitude central star; and a killer planetary nebula, NGC 246 in Cetus. This last one is a keeper: a large, ghostly shell with several bright stars across its face and a dark rim inside, surrounded by an irregularly-shaped, bright and mottled disk that reminded us of a pumpkin (maybe because of the season). It’s a great object.

Pulling into the boundary between night and morning, we kept at it and looked at an array of objects. Some of the best were the under-observed globular cluster NGC 288 in Sculptor and the Veil Nebula in Cygnus, always a spectacular sight.

It’s now Saturday morning and we have another day ahead of us and then another beautiful night of observing. Today we’ll be heading to Hachita, New Mexico, nearby us, where we’ll explore a turquoise mine and a ghost town from the boom days of the 1870s and 1880s, when lead, silver, and copper mining ruled these mountains.

More tomorrow.

Editor's note: Check out our gallery of images from Dave and Michael's trip to Arizona Sky Village.

Previous post: Arizona Sky Village, Day 1

On the road: Arizona Sky Village, Day 1

David Eicher — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 18:41:00 GMT

“The skies on our first night did not disappoint. Armed with the group’s 30-inch f/4.4 Starmaster Dobsonian reflector and a computer-controlled database, we went after dozens of deep-sky objects.”

After flying from Milwaukee to Denver to Tucson, Senior Editor Michael Bakich and I arrived at the eastern arm of the Arizona Sky Village (ASV) yesterday and immediately began an on-the-spot star party with a group of ASV owners. Instead of going to the main ASV site near Portal, Arizona, however, we strayed about 20 miles away to the site’s eastern branch, dubbed Rancho Hidalgo, where a large development operation is underway.

Editor's note: Check out our gallery of images from Dave and Michael's trip to Arizona Sky Village.

“This is going to be a center for astronomy, archaeology, horseback riding, enjoying the mines and caves in the area, and one of the best skies on Earth,” says ASV developer Gene Turner, our host. The eastern site, where dozens of amateur astronomers already have purchased land and will build houses with observatories, lies just across the New Mexico border near Animus, at about 31° north latitude, at an elevation of about 4,600 feet.

Incidentally, our arrival was delayed by about 2 hours by stalled traffic on Interstate 10 heading east from Tucson. We couldn’t for the life of us imagine how we could be at a dead stop on this stretch of highway. Finally, we inched along, were merged into one lane, and came upon a small pass where the grass on both sides of the highway had freshly burned. We kept rolling slowly past police and came upon the completely burned-out wreckage of a semi truck that was filled with lettuce and/or cabbage, burned and spilled all over one lane of the highway. It was an incredible spectacle and must have been an unbelievable, fiery wreck — we only hope the driver is OK.

The skies on our first night did not disappoint. Armed with the group’s 30-inch f/4.4 Starmaster Dobsonian reflector (pictured above) and a computer-controlled database, we went after dozens of deep-sky objects. The sky was inky black and awash with stars; you know it’s a premier observing site because the Milky Way appears unusually rich from the gray-blue light of countless faint stars, giving it a rich velvety appearance you simply don’t see in most places. And the dark rifts were starkly chiseled into the glowing band in mind-numbing detail.

Our observing group this night consisted of Gene, Michael, myself, Stewart Wilson, and Adam and Tracy Clayson. Stewart is a former 747 pilot who flew commercially for many years for TWA and a longtime amateur astronomer. In fact, he was the discoverer of Comet Wilson-Hubbard (1961 V) in 1961. He discovered the comet while piloting a Pan Am 707 en route from Honolulu to Portland! The Claysons run a freight staffing company in Toronto. All of us are avid deep-sky viewers, and we heated up that 30-inch scope like there was no tomorrow.

Some of the first night’s most memorable objects were planetary nebulae. After warming up on the Ring Nebula (M57) and seeing a razor-sharp image of the nebula, its faint outer shell, the central star, and surface brightness irregularities along the rim, we kept on our nebular kick. The next planetary was a great favorite of mine, NGC 6781 in Aquila (pictured at left, editor's note: image displayed is not from this observing session) — a big, faint ring with illuminated gas throughout. The diminutive NGC 6905 in Delphinus came next, a beautiful little spot of nebulosity surrounded by bright stars in a rich field. The nice thing with a 30-inch scope is that you’re not really limited in what you can go after. With NGC 6905, we saw the asymmetrical glow of the outer nebulosity encapsulating the round, bright shell. Everything looks pretty much like a photo without the color.

Some of the many objects that stuck out during this night included NGC 1, NGC 7006, M2, NGC 7008, and the Helix Nebula. NGC 1, a spiral galaxy in Pegasus, is an “average Joe” galaxy that is famous, of course, for being the first object listed in the New General Catalogue. I was really astonished by our view of the distant globular cluster NGC 7006 in Delphinus, which lies 135,000 light-years away. We saw a bright spot of the cluster’s center but also, amazingly, a well-resolved cloud of minute stars spread across it. Resolving this cluster was impressive. By contrast, the bright globular M2 appeared like a beehive of rich stars resolved cleanly straight across its face.

If you’re not familiar with NGC 7008, a train-wreck planetary in Cygnus, take a look at the photo on the right (editor's note: image displayed is not from this observing session). We saw it with quasi-photographic caliber: bright stars lie right off its edge, and the disk is unevenly illuminated. There’s an easily visible dark area cutting into the center of the nebula and also a bright arc of nebulosity that appears roughly C-shaped. All is set in a very rich star field. It’s a stunning sight. We observed many more objects, but I’ll simply say that the Helix Nebula in Aquarius was breathtaking: a photo-like view of a glowing, green-white disk in which you could easily see the corkscrew-like form of the brightest parts.

Today we’re going to set off on some adventures from Rancho Hidalgo, and tonight we’re going to go after some increasingly weird and obscure deep-sky objects. I’ll keep you posted on the next set of observations!

On the road: Arizona Sky Village preview

David Eicher — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 15:32:00 GMT

Later today I’m heading west, along with Senior Editor Michael Bakich, to a desolate area southeast of Tucson, Arizona, to visit the Arizona Sky Village (ASV).

Michael and I will spend the next few days observing, observing, and observing. We’ll be fortunate enough to be guests of Gene Turner, founder of the ASV. The Arizona Sky Village is a development project near Portal, Arizona, tucked at the base of the Chiricahua Mountains, and it offers a community of sorts where amateur astronomers are building houses and constructing observatories under one of the darkest skies on the planet. Check out our video tour of ASV.

As anyone reading this knows, dark skies play a big part in our hobby. And living in Milwaukee, you just don’t get them — ever. So the periodic trip to a very dark sky allows us editors to make some really useful observations that will form the backbone of significant stories in the magazine over the coming months. And we’ll be bringing you daily blogs sharing our activities with telescopes, stars, and daytime desert, starting tomorrow. The Astronomy road show is rolling westward.

Stay tuned!

Image gallery from eclipse trip to Russia

David Eicher — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 19:54:00 GMT

From July 18 through August 2, 2008, Astronomy magazine had the pleasure of hosting a total eclipse expedition — along with MWT Associates — to visit Russia and witness the August 1 total solar eclipse. It was great fun, made so largely by the fantastic organization and energy of Melita Thorpe, president of MWT. I accompanied Senior Editor Rich Talcott, our readers, and travelers from Chicago's Adler Planetarium and the Astronomical Society of the Pacific.

What a fabulous time we had! The excursion carried us from Moscow on a cruise to St. Petersburg along the Volga River and Europe's two biggest lakes, Onega and Ladoga. We visited many churches and Russian Orthodox icons, toured the amazing treasures in the Moscow Kremlin and St. Petersburg's Hermitage State Museum, and were stunned over the beauty of the Tsarist palaces of Catherine and Peterhof. And we saw a perfect total eclipse in a bright blue sky that had been largely cloudy the day before and after. Clearly, we did something right.

For those who could not come along with us but may be looking to join us on our eclipse trip to China next year, I present a short gallery of images from this year's trip.