Comet McNaught by LAS member Gary Garzone (2 views)

Longmont Astronomy Society Newsletter

July 2010

From the President:

The next meeting of the Longmont Astronomical Society will be this Thursday, July

15th, at the IHop Resturaunt, 2040 Ken Pratt Blvd., Longmont, CO. A group of us

will meet for dinner around 6 pm at the resturaunt. The general meeting will begin

at 7 pm.

The speaker is Chris Peterson, a Research Associate at the Denver Museum of Natural

History and principal investigator for the Allsky Network. He operates the Cloudbait

Observatory in Guffey, Colorado.

The title of his presentation is "The Colorado Allsky Camera Network"

The Denver Museum of Nature and Science established a network of allsky meteor

cameras in 2001. These cameras operate around Colorado, mostly in schools. Although

originally intended to provide data useful for locating freshly fallen meteorites, the

resultant data has proven itself valuable in many other areas: shower analysis, particle

size statistics, sporadic meteor orbit analysis, adjunct data to other instruments such as

radar and infrasound. Chris will discuss the hardware and software aspects of the cameras

themselves, the data collection and consolidation process, and present some of the more

interesting results.

Googling around a bit, I came across his bio at the Midwest Astro Imaging Conference ,

part of which is copied below...

Chris Peterson

Chris started developing computerized, guided mounts in the late 1970s. His

astronomical interests follow two paths: instrumentation and analytical imaging. On the

instrumentation front, he has designed or consulted in the design of a number of mount

controllers. Very early on he became interested in aspects of remote observation, and has

worked with methods of accessing astronomical instrumentation over local and wide

area networks. He has also developed numerous CCD and CMOS cameras, both for

imaging and for guiding, and developed guiding systems currently used on space-based

platforms. Imaging interests include photometry of eclipsing binaries and fast rotators, as

well as video analysis of occultations.

Chris has a BS in Applied Physics from the California Institute of Technology. He

owned a California company for many years which designed and built ophthalmological

surgical instruments. He is currently an independent consultant, and a Research

Associate at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. He operates a network of allsky

cameras which collect meteor and fireball data over Colorado and the surrounding states.

He lives in the tiny town of Guffey, Colorado, with his wife Louise and their assortment

of animals. When not working in his observatory or analyzing data, he might be found

hiking or riding in the local mountains.

Addendum:

Our own "all sky" camera should be in place in a few weeks. A few tests have been run

over the past several days. You can access images from the camera on the LAS website

by clicking on the "All Sky Camera" link near the top on the left side

(http://www.longmontastro.org/allsky). The camera calibration software is not

completed nor is motion detection. The images need to be brightened as well. You'll

need a current browser such as Firefox or Chrome to view. The images and overlays are

displayed using the HTML5 "canvas" feature. Internet Explorer works too but not as

well.

At the June meeting a number of changes to the club's by-laws were proposed and

approved. We made great progress but there are a few issues yet to consider. We'll try to

complete at the meeting in August or September.

Sadly this year's star party at Fox Park has been cancelled. The area is being used to

stage equipment and crews to down beetle kill trees in the area.

In the sky this month:

Meteor Showers

The Perseids are coming! The usual night of August 12-13, and a pretty dark sky will

add to the enjoyment. Enjoy the usual clear skies of Colorado, as the editor will be

looking from the top deck of a cruise ship in the Baltic on the way to the fjords of

Norway. Clear skies would be unusual, but I'm anticipating my usual good luck (remind

me to tell you about the foggy morning in Canada for the Perseids) There are the usual

wild-eyed predictions of “this year will be the best ever” on the internet to dream about.

Planets

Mercury:real low in the West at sunset – might be lost in the peaks

Venus: low in the West at sunset and sinking

Mars: higher than Venus in the West, but sinking

Jupiter: finally getting there, high in the South at sunrise

Saturn: beside Mars, high in the West

Interesting Stars/Galaxies

From Astronomy.com, Phil Harrington's list of 10 binocular targets

The Hercules Cluster (M13)

The Butterfly Cluster (M6)

Ptolemy's Cluster (M7)

The Lagoon Nebula (M8)

The Swan Nebula (M17)

M22

The Wild Duck Cluster (M11)

The Dumbbell Nebula (M27)

The Coathanger (Collinder 399)

The North America Nebula (NGC 7000)

Go for it! (and good luck...)

Club Calendar:

LAS Meeting August 19 at the IHOP. There might be a missing newsletter this month,

as the editor will be under restricted conditions (half in the bag from aquavit).

Fiske Planetarium:

CO Skies: Mars Update Thursday, July 15, 2010, 8:00pm (2 days from now)

Come join us as we reveal the latest information from and about Mars.

Mars Revealed Friday, July 16, 2010, 8:00pm (3 days from now)

Explore Mars from a new perspective with panoramas and vistas from the Mars

Exploration Rovers as well as orbital spacecraft.

Internet Resources:

http://media.skyandtelescope.com/documents/hobbyqa200812.pdf good article from

Sky & Telescope on “how far can we detect exoplanets” that has some nice stuff on

seeing in the night sky.

http://science.nasa.gov/media/medialibrary/2010/06/25/reentryvideo.mp4 On June 13,

some high school students were flying commercial at 41,000 feet, camera in hand, when

the Hayabusa came cruising into the atmosphere in the South Pacific. Wanna watch? Of

course you do – this is a most fine flick!

Working Space Missions:

Herschel reveals details of distant galaxies and quasars

Astronomers gain new insights into the different types of galaxies in the distant

universe, which will allow them to explore part of the universe as it was some 11

billion years ago.

Provided by UK Space Agency, Swindon,England

This image shows the region of sky around the massive galaxy cluster Abell 2218, as

seen by Herschel and Hubble. On the left, the images at the three SPIRE wavelength

bands are shown, while the center image is a false-color composite. The center of the

galaxy cluster is shown as a white cross-hair, while the large yellow blob just below it is

a more distant galaxy. The light from this distant galaxy is being bent and magnified by

the immense mass of the Abell 2218 cluster, allowing astronomers to see it in more detail

than would otherwise be possible without this chance alignment. It is seen as it was

around 2.6 billion years after the Big Bang. The other structures in the image are largely

due to closer, fainter galaxies which are observed by optical observatories such as the

Hubble Space Telescope, as shown on the right. ESA/SPIRE and HerMES Consortia

(left); ESA/NASA/STScI (right) [View Larger Image]

Planck unveils the universe — now and then

From the closest portions of the Milky Way to the farthest reaches of space and

time, the new all-sky Planck image is an extraordinary treasure chest of new data

for astronomers.

Provided by ESA, Noordwijk, The Netherlands

The microwave sky as seen by Planck. ESA [View Larger Image]

July 6, 2010

The European Space Agency's (ESA) Planck mission has delivered its first all-sky image.

It not only provides new insight into the way stars and galaxies form, but also tell us how

the universe itself came to life after the Big Bang.

"This is the moment that Planck was conceived for," said David Southwood, director of

science and robotic exploration at ESA. "We're not giving the answer. We are opening

the door to an Eldorado where scientists can seek the nuggets that will lead to deeper

understanding of how our universe came to be and how it works now. The image itself

and its remarkable quality is a tribute to the engineers who built and have operated

Planck. Now the scientific harvest must begin."

New Horizons:

June 18, 2010: Zipping through space at nearly a million miles per day, NASA's New

Horizons probe is halfway to Pluto and just woke up for the first time in months to look

around.

"Our spacecraft is way out in exotic territory, in the middle of nowhere," says Hal

Weaver, New Horizons project scientist at Johns Hopkins University. "And we have a lot

to do."

It's the perfect opportunity to test New Horizon's instruments before the probe reaches

Pluto in 2015. "We don't want to miss a single breathtaking moment during the Pluto

encounter," he says. "So we're checking everything out now to make sure we're ship-

shape and ready to go."

The 9 weeks of testing commenced on May 25th. Mission controllers plan a thorough

checkout and recalibration of all seven science instruments onboard.

Humor Dept:

I've been getting a bumper crop of letters from accountants at obscure African banks

offering to split dead people's accounts with me, substantiated by including a link to a

news source about the plane crash that did the guy in. And I'm a lucky guy, too: I've won

about 6 lotteries in the past month, all without buying a ticket. Since I'm a registered

independent, I've split the the information that I send them between Barry Obama and

Jack McClain.... I'm considering working Sally Palin and Nan Pelosi into the mix to

satisfy the demands of equal opportunity legislation.

OK, OK – we've got a bumper crop of pics this month. Aren't you glad we don't have to

pay for printing and postage? Fatten this newsletter up!

Gee, this Veil Nebula is a beauty

and the Eagle isn't bad, either

NGC 6946, nice pinwheel

Gary is still learning how to use PhotoShop – noticed how he's erased one of the stripes

by “accident”? And left that black dot on the right?

Love dem clusters.