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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.

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.

Get ready for some Galilean Nights

Karri Ferron — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 21:27:00 GMT

Official Galilean Nights poster

Another International Year of Astronomy 2009 Cornerstone Project kicks off tomorrow night around the globe. The goal of Galilean Nights, October 22-24, is to allow hundreds of thousands of people all around the world to experience their own “Galileo moment” when they look up at the sky through a telescope for the first time. Currently there are more than 1,000 public observing events in more than 70 countries to help achieve such a goal. The Galilean Nights web site lists them all.

Plenty of astronomy clubs, universities, and professional observatories in the United States are participating, so it shouldn’t be too difficult to find an event to attend. But even if there isn’t one near you, it’s never too late to plan your own observing party. Invite friends and neighbors over one night for their first view of Jupiter. While they’re there, have them do some star counts to learn the visibility in your area. Start Stephen James O’Meara’s Ghost Hunt challenge, and see how many spooky objects on his list you can find.

The Galilean Nights organizers are also encouraging participants to photograph what they see and share the sights with the wider world through the Galilean Nights astrophotography competition. Astrophotographers of all levels are encouraged to participate.

In addition to these great activities, observatories are making their facilities available to the world for remote observing sessions. As well as attending local Galilean Nights observing events, anybody with access to the internet will be able to control telescopes on the other side of the world. Those taking part in remote observing sessions will be able to take photographs of astronomical objects from their own personal computers.

All in all, there are tons of ways to participate and enjoy some observing and outreach. So how will you be spending your Galilean Nights?

An amateur astronomer discovers an exploding star

Michael Bakich — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 16:21:00 GMT

This 5-minute exposure shows Stuart Parker’s latest supernova discovery in spiral galaxy PGC 17517. Stuart Parker photo

New Zealand amateur astronomer Stuart Parker just sent me an e-mail in which he announced his fourth supernova discovery. Parker routinely surveys numerous galaxies as part of a regular search program.

He discovered the magnitude 17.1 object October 18 in PGC 17517, a magnitude 13.6 galaxy in Pictor. PGC is an acronym that designates this galaxy as one in the Principal Galaxies Catalogue, which contains 73,197 entries.

 Peter Marples and Colin Drescher, both of Queensland, Australia, confirmed Parker’s supernova, and he received the discovery credit from the Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams. That organization designated the supernova 2009jz and announced it to the astronomical community as Central Bureau Electronic Telegram (CBET) 1984. 

World’s largest solar telescope is now online

Michael Bakich — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 13:30:00 GMT

On October 3, the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) dedicated the world’s largest solar telescope at Big Bear Solar Observatory (BBSO) in California. BBSO, located on the north shore of Big Bear Lake in the San Bernardino Mountains of southern California, is one of the world’s leading solar observatories. It sits at an altitude of 6,780 feet (2,067 meters).

The telescope, which has an aperture of 63 inches (1.6 meters), took 5 years to construct. It collects light by means of an aspheric primary mirror. Such a mirror has a complex curve ground into it to eliminate optical aberrations found in other telescopes.

The new instrument offers three times the resolution of the telescope it replaced. With it, scientists will undertake joint observation campaigns with NASA satellites to optimize the scientific output of solar studies. One such area of research will probe the fundamental scale of the Sun’s dynamic magnetic fields. These fields are of great interest to solar physicists because they can cause magnetic storms that disrupt the power grid and communications.

BBSO contrast enhanced full disk H-alpha image: The image was recorded with a 12-bit, 2048 x 2048 pixel Pulnix CCD camera. This image has been corrected by dark and flat field images, and a limb darkening estimate has been subtracted to enhance the contrast. The image was recorded at 16:07:26 (UT) on October 09, 2009.

Image and credit info: Courtesy NJIT/BBSO

Astronomy contributing editor attends White House star party

Matt Quandt — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 14:53:00 GMT

Special guest blog from Contributing Editor Martin Ratcliffe

President Barack Obama and his family joined 150 school children, dozens of amateur astronomers, professional scientists, and education and public outreach professionals Wednesday night during the Star Party at the White House. And how cool was this? “Cool” doesn’t even come close. I was lucky to be a part of the exciting events running one of the planetarium domes set up on the South Lawn of the White House.

Thirty of us spent most of the day setting up for the 2-hour evening event. And weather cooperated except for some strong winds during the daytime. A more perfect night could not have been achieved, with crystal clear skies of the nation’s capital.

Crater impact experiments and samples of Moon rock provided great activities to highlight today’s LCROSS impact on the Moon. Many telescopes ranging from 2 to 18 inches were available. Dr. Stephen Pompea demonstrated the 2-inch Galileoscope, and he showed me a great view of Jupiter’s moons. Dean Koenig of the Starizona company brought his amazing f/2 Fastar imaging system, which showed one group of children a quick image of the Andromeda Galaxy (M31) right after they had seen M31 in my planetarium dome. The teacher had asked if they could see M31 directly, and I suggested they visit the Fastar scope and ask for a CCD image, and they saw it in all its glorious detail.

This unique night included special guests such as astronaut John Grunsfeld (Hubble servicing mission), Sally Ride (first American woman in space), Buzz Aldrin (second man on the Moon), and Charlie Bolden (NASA administrator, who helped launch Hubble from the cargo bay of the space shuttle).

White House staffers said presidents are not known to spend much time at events on the South Lawn. The Obamas spent more than an hour at the event, and the family showed a great deal of interest. They looked through telescopes at Jupiter and the Moon, and after his formal remarks, the president and first lady viewed the famous Double-Double in Lyra. As readers of Astronomy magazine know well, these objects are star party favorites.

Two planetarium domes were there, one supplied by Sky-Skan, Inc., a major digital planetarium supplier, and a second from Goddard Space Flight Center. The Obama family, daughters included, climbed into the Sky-Skan dome along with 25 school children, and they spent 10 minutes flying around the solar system and asked interesting questions. With two girls of my own, I know how important it is to expose your kids to science, and astronomy is a great way to do it. It was a great privilege to present the planetarium show for the president’s family, huddled as we were inside the 25-foot diameter dome.

Providing a cosmic perspective to young children is fun, engaging, and important, and bringing astronomy to the nation’s attention for a brief moment Wednesday night was the highlight of nearly 6 months of behind-the-scenes work by NASA educators, who, following encouragement from IYA organizers and many individuals to host a star party at the White House, were called in by the White House to plan the event.

Martin Ratcliffe, in addition to being a contributing editor to Astronomy magazine, is also Director of Professional Development for Sky-Skan.

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

New video: Observe the Moon with a small telescope

Michael Bakich — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 15:55:00 GMT

What's the best time to look at the Moon? What equipment do you need? What features should you target? Astronomy magazine's latest video about observing the Moon with a small telescope answers those questions and more. Along the way, you also will learn a few techniques that will help you become a better lunar observer.

This video is available to magazine subscribers.

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

Stephen James O'Meara blogs from PATS 2009

Matt Quandt — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 21:06:00 GMT

Astronomy magazine columnist Stephen James O’Meara’s sent us two blogs from the 2009 Pacific Astronomy and Telescope Show.

Many thanks to Steve for sending these reports!

Day One
Arrived in Pasadena Saturday morning and immediately immersed myself in the telescope fever at the Pacific Astronomy Telescope Show (PATS), organized by the Riverside Telescope Makers Conference. This is not a telescope-making convention. It's a telescope expo with more than 60 vendors catering to an expected crowd of 1,000 or more over the weekend.

Before I entered the Pasadena Convention Center's doors, I found myself standing in line behind a 90mm Coronado solar telescope looking in hydrogen-alpha light at a fantastic prominence lifting off the Sun's limb like a fiery fountain with a spray of "molten flames" arcing back to the Sun's surface. Several other hedgerow prominences lifted off the surface in other places. Then, Andy Lundt displayed the H-alpha Sun through his 60mm solar systems scope with doppler shifting: With the turn of a knob, I could investigate different layers of the Sun's chromosphere, which had the effect of looking through a kaleidoscope.

I then took in a few talks.

Al Nagler, founder of Tele Vue Optics, described, among other things, how to choose the lowest high-power eyepiece that reveals the detail you're looking for, so that you have a sharper, better image in your scope. For deep-sky viewing, he says to use the highest power that frames the subject so long as the sky is not black and the atmosphere does not degrade resolution. He also said not to be afraid on the best nights to use 60x per inch of aperture.

Wally Pachoka gave an inspirational showing of his night-sky landscapes over famous monuments and attractions in our national parks. What's amazing is that he used, in most cases, a combination of natural and artificial lighting — such as nearby sodium vapor lamps, the crescent Moon, city lights, and a flashlight — to illuminate foreground objects while using a simple digital SLR camera and 35mm to 50mm lens to capture the Milky Way in color rising above these national treasures. The photography was beautiful and his passion inspirational. His work and others from around the globe have been made into a traveling exhibition that proves astronomy has no borders.

Sean Walker treated guests to an equally stunning display of his planetary photography.

But the highlight of Day One for me was meeting Apollo 9 astronaut Rusty Schweickart, who gave a revealing talk about his quest to educate the public and world leaders about the very real threat posed by near-Earth asteroids. Schweickart, who heads the Association of Space Exploration and the B612 Foundation — B612 is the asteroid that the Little Prince, from Antoine de Saint-Exupery's children’s story The Little Prince, lived on — has dedicated the last 7-8 years of his life to this project, which deals with the technology of deflecting a threatening object in its orbit as well as the geopolitical issues facing all nations on Earth in case of a pending threat.

The mission requires an early warning system, proven deflection capability, and international decision-making protocol. The task itself requires brute force and precision, but the technology exists to make it happen. The fact is we know of only 0.1 percent of the objects that could be a threat. B612's goal is to be able to significantly alter the orbit of an asteroid, in a controlled manner, by 2015. The probability of a near-Earth asteroid collision in this century is about 2 percent, and not being prepared to avert disaster is “unacceptable.”

Well. That's it for Day One!

Related: "Day 1 at PATS 2009 is a success," by Michael E. Bakich, senior editor

Day Two
Day Two at PATS was equally exciting as Day One. I spent most of the day trying to take in as many vendor displays as possible. I also spent a lot of time talking to amateur astronomers who wanted to share the wonderful things they're doing, or observing.

I was able to catch Mike Reynolds’ wonderful talk on identifying meteorites, in which he passed around numerous samples (iron, stony, and mixed) — including one now worth $25,000! I bet most of us at some point in our careers believed we have encountered a piece of outer space in our perusals of our yards or neighborhoods, but Mike made it clear how to identify "meteorWRONGS" — humor intended. At the end we were even given a chance to touch a piece of the Moon and Mars. A great experience.

Also interesting was Will Marchant's talk on the StarDust comet mission. What I didn't know is that if amateur astronomers want to help in professional science, they can volunteer on-line to become a "duster" — that is, help astronomers working on the Stardust mission find micron-sized dust particles on the craft's returned collector plate.

To find out how you can join this international community of fellow enthusiasts, go to stardust@home. Once you sign up, you are quickly training via the Web, which allows you to scan one of the 1.6 million selected areas on the collector.

Whoever finds a particle gets to name it (and get an official certificate from the Planetary Society)! As it stands, the 25,000 dusters worldwide have scanned about one-third of the collector plate. So there's a lot more to explore and discover.