OAS Astronomy Ezine Sept 2013

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EDITORIAL

The OASCast is launching for the first time this month,

produced by Pete Ainsworth andwritten and presentedby Alastair Leith FRAS. The OASCast was sug-gested by Pete who wanted to try a new project.Alastair, always amenable to new ideas thought,lets gives it a go.

Even though its a bit of a two man band justnow with Alastair recording on his cellphone and

Pete editing out his (Alastairs Umsand Rrrs etc)it seems to be working well.

The aim is to produce them monthly to

coincide with the release of the OAS Ezine. Topicsare short and to the point at the

moment aiming to introduce some key

articles into the mag, for people then to pop across and read all about it.

As always people are invited to contribute (just download the app on your phoneor

Audacity from the internet.

You can find us in iTunes just search OASCast and there we are


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CONTENTS

6Not Always Wishing for Clear Skies!

OAS Story

10

17The Shape Of Things

The Mars Society Part 2

2126 Perseid Meteor Shower

Petition for OU

3334 Brown Dwarfs

Sky Chart

35

Image by David Bood

taken at Dalby Forest

North Yorkshire in 2012

during a solar gazingevent.


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Welcome to the September edition of OAS EZine. Well we havehad some nice clear nights and hot weather throughout August. And the

amazing Perseid meteor shower amazed both amateur and professional

alike. This month we have some featured articles on viewing experiences

on observing the shower and detecting the meteor shower using radio

waves.

Enjoy!

Co-Editor

THE TEAM AT OAS

April Harper

Jasmin EvansMike Woodland FRAS

Pete Gow

Alastair Leith FRAS

Pete Ainsworth

Next month a Bio on each of us!!!!


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http://www.onlineas
http://www.onlineastronomysociety.com/http://www.onlineastronomysociety.com/


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tronomysociety.com/
http://www.onlineastronomysociety.com/http://www.onlineastronomysociety.com/


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Not always wishing for clear skies just so long asthey are interesting skies by Aprill Harper

An astronomer (amateur or professional) is always looking up and the

time of day doesnt really matter. You

find yourself having the persistent

urge to check on the by hour

weather forecast, specific for the very

location you have selected for your

dark sky site. And sure, you get

excited when you have set up ready

for the times when you can look at thestars and bask in their splendour. And

then you see the clouds roll in and your heart sinks a little.

Disappointing as this maybe initially, what you actually may get is some-

thing interesting.

I find myself now looking at clouds with an altogether different view-

point. Whereas I started to look at cloudy skies as an inconvenience,

now I find cloud formations remarkable and I came to realise no matterabout the starsI am still looking up.

So what can we look forward to?

Well, there are breath-taking dawns and fire-breathing sunsets.


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Sighing Cirrus and lonely wanderers.

There are silly monkey moons.and peek-a-boo suns.


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And dramatic storms!!!

And if you are really luck some NLCs (Noctilucent Clouds) I

have never captured those (ggrrrrrrrr) but luckily Jasmin

Evans did J.


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Online Astronomy Society

Story

The Online Astronomy Society (or OAS as its affectionately called) was

formed some 5 years ago. Founded by Alastair Leith, who saw a niche

for an organisation to take advantage of online facilities and network-ing. While the OAS is by no means the first online astronomy organisa-

tion to have formed in this way (HantsAstro has that flag), the OAS we

believe has pushed back the boundaries of how the internet can be

used to network with astronomers from all over the world.

The beginnings

The society itself began life in 2009, the idea conceived from a council

bedsit in Northampton, where I had no safe backyard to observe from

and could not guarantee the safety of the kit if it were used in public.

Politics meant I left other organisations I was member of and physicallyattended. However it did get me to think about what was there for peo-

ple who were stuck in high rise blocks of flats, or indeed disabled.

The actual name, The Online Astronomy Society came from a discus-

sion with a friend, Matthew Lane, who was fellow member of Nene Val-

ley Astronomy Society. Not able to think of a more appropriate one thename stuck.

It began its life as a single group on Facebook, Called simply the Online

Astronomy Society Group, from which relationships were forged and

projects began.

Robotic Astronomy

One of the first projects we looked at was networking with a Robotic

Telescope project as a means of permitting members to carry out ob-

servational astronomy via their desktop computer. Something which

even I could not argue beats actually getting out there, but its better

than nothing. We had some success with various organisations however


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Streaming Oberservational Astronomy

One of the things which has to a degree replaced Robotic Astronomy is

the activities on the Online Astronomy Society group itself. The forum

provides a fantastic means about which amateur astronomers can sub-

mit their work for perusal live as they are doing it. Indeed its nice to seeas people from all across the nation, sometimes even including Europe

submit their observations and work live as they are doing it. Almost kind

of like a virtual start party. Personally as director of OAS, I have always

found this to be one of the most rewarding aspects of the group.

I try to compliment and encourage people to stream their live images as

they are recording, live for others to see. I have achieved this for Sat-

urn, the Sun, along with a few other objects. Even using the opportunityto record for OASA, thats another story!

Online Forums

We have built these, however as much of the recruitment for the society

has been on Facebook, there has been less interest in the Forums as

such. In fact trying to migrate across on more than one occasion nearly

broke the group as a whole, a lot of members were hence lost.


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Subgroups

I dont think its possible to write an articleon the OAS without mentioning the pleth-

ora of affiliate groups we now have, last

count, ten in total. The main reason for

these is that the OAS main group hasgrown too large to host the astronomy that

it hosts. Members posts getting lost easily

bumped down and lost. So for the online

Astronomy Society to progress it becamenecessary to start sub-groups of which we


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Now have.

Online Astronomy Society Group (main one, numbering some 3600members and growing!)

OAS Visual Astronomers Group (moderated and run by Michael

Nicholls)

This largely deals with sketches as opposed to imaging.

OAS- Solar Observational and Imaging Group (Run again by Michael

Nicholls)

Pretty much as it says on the tin any-thing to do with solar work in

general Solar telescopes have become very affordable in recent years

and the quality of the work has increased ex-potentially with it. OAS LunarGroup

Our newest group, started at the request of Robert Pickard. I was scepti-

cal at first regarding this group, but have been pleased by its progress,

finding I am learning more about the Moon than I thought possible!

OAS Asteroid Hunters Group (Run by Pete Gow)

This group was begun at the suggestion of Ryan Laird (UKSEDS) who

notified me that it was possible to be included in a project searching forasteroids. This has only been going in the past year but has now 5 provi-

sional asteroids discovered, not bad. We should add here that the aster-

oids are found using images sent from Panstarrs.

OAS Spectroscopy Group

This group was setup to cater for the growing interest in spectroscopy, a

favourite of my own as well when I get back into it (hopefully this win-ter). Spectroscopy has become a major player in recent years for ama-

teur astronomy, with the availability of cheaper equipment.

OAS Beginners group

As the name suggests, setup to aid and assist beginners.

Its a sign of the times that I now need to refer back to Facebook to be

reminded of other groups we have which include

OAS Radio Astronomy Group (run by Pete Gow)


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This is getting a steady following going and a few projects in the making

for looking at Radio Astronomy. Something I think still remains with thetruly nerdy and needs to be bought into laymans realms a little. This is

something we are working on. We have a mixture of professional andamateur astronomers who contribute to this.

OAS Astronomy Shed

This is where the DIY enthusiasts come to discuss their recent projects.

There are other groups and various pages which I wont mention here as

They are for other ventures and staff discussion (this article is not in-

tended to be a plug for our other ventures)

The OAS Word

In recent years this mag has had a start stop history. It used to be

edited by Andrew Dumbleton who did a fantastic job, until he stepped

down late last year (after 2.5 years writing it). Due to politics (I wont go

into here) the magazine needed to be stopped. But I am happy to say

the magazine is now back up and running with its third release being

compiled (at the time of writing at least).

The magazine has a modest global circulation which we look to expand.

So with all the above where is the Online Astronomy Society now?

The Online Astronomy Society continues to grow at an astonishing rate.

We only celebrated accepting our 3000 member just earlier in August

2013, but now astonishingly its heading (at the time of writing) rapidly

towards its 4000th member, making it possibly one of the largest and

most proactive organisations of its type at least on Facebook.

I have to say, I have no idea to this day where these are coming from,but its nice to see.

Getting into the OAS Group is easy enough, provided we see some

evidence of astronomy on the profile page of the applicant.

We welcome people from all over the world (main influx seems to befrom the Far East and Asia). However we are bettered and improved by

those who join. I think this is part of what makes OAS special, we are a


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global organisation with a reputation for nurturing the wider community

of astronomers.

There are many organisations like OAS, but I think what separates us

apart from the masses are

The way in which we use the internet to market, educate and spread theword. For which Facebook has played an integral part with to a lesser

extend Twitter (we dont use Google+ much).


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The Mars Society: Humans to Mars in a Decade Part 2

By: Nicole

Willett

[Image:

The MarsSociety]

A long time ago in the Milky Way Galaxy, Chris McKay, Penelope Boston,

and Carol Stoker were on Planet Earth contemplating all things Mars.

These three scientists, graduate students at the University of Colorado,

decided to form a group called the Mars Underground and hold annual

meetings to explore the science behind putting humans on Mars. One

day, Robert Zubrin, an aerospace engineer, attended a meeting of the

Mars Underground and was inspired to start the Mars Society. In 1998the Mars Society was officially formed as a non-profit organization whose

goals include the human exploration and settlement of Mars.

The thought of one day standing on the Red Planet and looking out over

the landscape may be beyond the imagination of some, but not to the

members and friends of the Mars Society. We at the Mars Society believe

that it takes a village, and we are utilizing that concept to send hu-

mans to the Red Planet. As an entirely volunteer organization, we have

accomplished many great things since our inception.

The goal is simple explore and send humans to Mars.


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The Journey to Mars

The planet Mars has been studied and portrayed in artistic endeavors forhundreds, if not thousands of years. The road to the Red Planet has

been long and interesting. It has taken many people collaborating over

the past 100 years or so to collect enough data to design and accomplish

Mars missions.

The first real steps toward Mars began in 1903. On December 17th, Or-

ville and Wilbur Wright took a biplane made of muslin and spruce out to

a field in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. The brothers accomplished the firsthuman airplane flight, changing life on Earth as we knew it. Since that

time, technology has moved at an exponential pace. For instance, by the

time World War I broke out in 1914, there was already aerial warfare,

and by World War II, Germany had built the Me-262 jets, which first saw

combat in 1944. Quickly thereafter Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite,

was successfully launched in 1957. This was soon followed by Luna 1 in

1959, which was the first spacecraft to fly by the Moon.

Next on the spaceflight agenda was Mars. In 1964, the spacecraft Mari-

ner 4 was the first to fly-by and photograph the surface of Mars. Al-

though the pictures were black and white and not impressive to the un-trained eye, they were a major accomplishment for the United States.

Mariner 4 was followed by Mariner 6 and 7, both flybys in 1969. This co-


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incided with and was clearly overshadowed by the Apollo 11 Moon land-

ing that same year. Mariner 9 was the first orbiter to successfully arriveat Mars in 1971. Since the 1970s, there have been many successes

and many failures with spacecraft seeking to explore Mars.

Some of the most notable missions were the Viking 1 and 2 landers

(1975-6), the Mars Pathfinder-Sojourner Rover (1997), the Mars

Exploration Rovers Spirit

(2004-2010) and Opportunity (2004-still operational), the Phoenix Lander (2008),and most recently and most impressivelythe Curiosity Rover (Aug 5, 2012).

Image: NASA

The spacecraft listed above have carriedmany scientific instruments includingspectrometers, rock abrasion tools,

cameras, chemistry labs, a drill and evena laser. Together the orbiters, landers,and rovers have made many wonderfuland exciting discoveries that have addedto our understanding of the solar systemby sampling the soil, the atmosphere, andthe mineral content of Martian rocks. Theyhave discovered the first meteorite on an-other planet that water existed on thesurface of Mars and in the soil, that theinside of the rocks on Mars are grey (notred!), and that there are simple organic

molecules inside the rocks on Mars. Otherfindings include carbon dioxide (CO2)snow, mysterious globules that shrink andgrow near the legs of the Phoenix Lander,interesting geological outcroppings, sea-sonal fluctuations of methane (due to

biological or geological activity),

unequivocal evidence of past (and possi-bly current) water on the Martian surface,as well as many other discoveries. This isjust a tiny sample of what has been dis-covered on the Red Planet in recentyears. With the Curiosity Rover, armedwith more scientific instruments than anyrover or lander that has visited Mars todate, we hope to discover much more.


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Basic Mars Facts

The planet Mars was named after theGod of War from Roman mythol-ogy.

It is the 4th planet from the Sun, alsoknown as the Red Planet.]

Mars has what is known as a superiororbit, meaning that it orbits theSun outside of the orbit of Earth.

Orbit Order: SunMercuryVenusEarthMarsJupiter SaturnUranusNeptune.

Mars orbits the Sun at an average dis-tance of 1.5 Astronomical Units (1 AU is

the distance from the Sun to the Earth).Mars is regarded as the 2nd most hos-

pitable planet for the appearance oflife, after Earth.

Mars is about half the size of Earth,but if you add up the land mass onEarth it is roughly equivalent to thelandmass on Mars.

A year on Mars is 687 Earth days.

A day on Mars is 24 hours and 37minutes, compared to a day onEarth, which is 24 hours.

The axial tilt on Mars is 24o, whichgives Mars seasons similar to thoseon Earth, whose axial tilt is 23.5o.

Mars surface gravity is 1/3 of Earths.

The temperatures on the Martian sur-face range from -87oC to 20oC. On

the warmest summer day at theequator, it is room temperature.

The Moons of Mars

Mars has two satellites (moons)

named Phobos and Deimos.

The moons are oddly shaped and

look like potatoes!

They are much smaller than

Earths moon.

Phobos and Deimos orbit Mars

very quickly and are much closer

to

MaMajor Geographical Fea-tures of Mars

Valles Marineris A 3,000 mile

long Grand Canyon that looks

like a giant crack on the surface

of Mars.

Olympus Mons The largest vol-

cano on Mars and in the solar

system, three times as high asMt. Everest and covering an area

the size of Texas!

Mars has thousands of craters

covering its surface, ranging inage from billions of years old to

others that are much more re-

cent.

Water and weather on MarsTelescopic observations fromEarth have seen what appear to

be channels on Mars for many years.

Many orbiting spacecraft have confirmed these sightings with imagestaken of dry river channels on the Martian surface.

The landers and rovers on Mars have taken measurements, soil sam-ples and images that have led to an overwhelming amount of data

that suggests water existed on the surface of Mars, is there now in


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frozen form, and occasionally briefly

runs across the surface when the con-ditions are just right.

Mars has North and South Poles that

are covered in ice caps. The ice caps,

which grow and recede through theseasons, are made of H2O and CO2.

Mars has Earth-like weather systems,

including clouds, wind, dust stormsand even snow!

rs than the Moon is to the Earth.

The satellites are visible through some

larger telescopes on Earth.

Moon is to the Earth.

The satellites are visible through some

larger telescopes on Earth.

All of these wonderful facts implore us

to learn even more about Mars. That

glowing red beacon in the sky

calls us to her. Mars, beautiful and

majestic, lures us in. For those whoare more Martian than Earthling, we

understand -- that is one of the rea-sons why The Mars Society was

formed.

Mars's atmosphere is only 1

percent as thick as Earth's.Image credit: NASA


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Perseid Me20

Last month, August was the annual Perseid meteor sho

month we are going to share with you some personally

of observing this wonderful cosmic show.


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eor Shower13

er. This

xperiences


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The 2013 Perseid Meteor Shower

By: Robert Pickard

Meteor showers. They encourage people of all ages to look up and

watch shooting stars streak across the sky. The notable showers of the

year are the Quatranids, Perseids, Leonids, Orionids, and Geminids. The

Perseids and Geminids in particular are the best of the year by far, pro-

ducing 70-100 (or more) per hour!!!! This year the Perseids put on alovely show, with a waxing crescent moon that sets hours before the

peak. The shower more than doubled my count from last years shower

astonishingly..

I planned the meteor count in advance, and expecting a lot of meteors, I

used the tally method to quickly log any meteor as a line (tally). The

weather wasnt looking good days before the 11

th

, partly cloudy with a40% chance of showers. And I was expecting clouds and a turbulent at-mosphere. Sunset arrived, and it was cloudy, but I managed to catch

Iridium 72 (magnitude -1.5) in the clouds, I took a break and waited till

moonset at 10:30 to start the daring all night meteor count, (It was

crystal clear, and a stable atmosphere all night) The count started at

10:38, and stayed steady with about 2 meteors every 10 minutes, withmore or less. 50 minutes in, 20 Perseids were seen. After a 45 minute

drought of 0 meteors, at 11:54PM, 5 meteors flew by in less than 20

seconds apart!!!! At 12:05-12:10AM, the average was three per min-ute!!! The count reached 50 at 12:20AM, as the meteors came visible

closer to the radiant.

At 1:28, my record of 86 Perseids from last year, was tied, ten seconds

later, the record was broken. The number reached 100 at 1:49AM, therate picked up significantly after!!

At 3:10 it reached 145, after that, I lost count as the rate picked up to a

climax. Around 3:20 to 3:30AM, was the peak of the 2013 Perseids,

starting with 5 bright meteors in 10 seconds, then 45 more just started

flying everywhere, one here, one there, Perseids are everywhere!! Therate slowed to a crawl, and I recorded the last perseid at 5:13.. as I

looked through images from 4:00-5:00, I didnt get a single perseidthis will be a memory ill remember forever.. as my total perseid count

was 192 on the 11/12th!!

My grand total was 231 Perseids over a three day span!! Now lets get

ready for the Geminids!!!


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Perseid Meteor Radio Detection.

The Sherwood observatory is known

for its reflecting 24inch optical tele-

scope built by dedicated members atthe observatory. Radio astronomy isalso evolving.

I joined this astronomical societysoon after the hale bob comet encoun-

ter.

I under took several Radio astronomi-

cal courses at Jodrell Bank ManchesterUniversity soon after joining. This was

to broaden my knowledge in the astro-

nomical field.

I learnt that radio meteor detections

could be possible given the correctsetup using a radio receiver, antenna

and dedicated computer software to

record the meteoroids events as theypass through our Earth atmosphere. A

compressed explanation follows.

A suitable radio transmitter has to be

chosen that is located below the radio

receiving observers horizon and is

emitting within 40MHz and 110MHz

frequency. The transmitters signal is

reflected 90Km above the Earth where

(RF) energy off ionised layers is pro-

duced by the meteor trails. Distance

between the meteor receiver station

and transmitter is a factor where

approx 800 to 1600km is acceptable.


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A lot of analogue transmitters have

been phased out due to going digital.

After meticulous research I found the

Brams transmitter an ideal

candidate located in Belgium,

Left: M.Knowles below installed

antenna

.


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After thorough research I chose a 5 element yagi antenna to attain the

desired radio beam width and gain capabilities. An AOR 5000 receiver isused to enable capture of the radio meteor reflections using FM, USB,

LSB, and CW. The receiver cable leads are connected to a computer orlap top running dedicated software (spectrum lab) that decodes and

displays radio meteor images giving Meteor counts, Doppler shift,

Disintegration traces, Velocity, and Directional data. Given a good

received signal the reflected ionisation of a meteor trail the computer

sound card emits a varying pitched Doppler ping. This depends on the

meteors direction of travel in relation to the radio antenna. The PC

sound card takes audio output from the receiver.

Laptop, Speakersystem and AOR

5000 radio receiver

setup.

Below Captured radio meteor images

14/08/2013.


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The meteor radio signature traces are influenced by:

1. Velocity differences of high altitude atmospheric winds.

2. Mass composition of the meteoroid.The position of the receiver and transmitter affects the illumination angle

change of the plasma trail formed by the meteoroid. This governs the

received transmitter meteor radio signal.All these factors result in the radio shape trace and duration of

plasma trails.

Thanks to Andy Smith-G7IZU. for meteor setup config

support.

Sherwood Observatory members.

Roger Banks-GW4WND. PowaBeam Anttena DX shop.

Michael Knowles-2E0EVA.

Sherwood Observatory, Nottinghamshire.


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Petition for the Open University to offer MSc in

Astronomy/Astrophysics

With all the recent changes to higher education funding, times are pretty tough with

some very uncertain futures for most upcoming science graduates, there is cur-

rently a massive Postgraduate Gap; the number of postgraduates, especially in the

sciences, is dwindling with a quickly increasing average age of academics in the UK.The value of higher education is something that can be clearly visualised and seen;

every science and engineering graduate brings back ~1 million in their lifetime.

The demand for such graduates is bound to increase with every decade thanks to

advancements in technology, and this is where the postgraduate gap slots into the

giant puzzle, there is no funding for postgraduate Masters degree programmes

unless you were enrolled on one as an undergraduate or received a bursary/

scholarship. Not only is it expensive, but if you have work commitments/family

commitments/health problems, then doing one full-time becomes essentially an

impossible task, thats not even taking into account commuting/living costs if the

University is not nearby.

The Open University however with its years of experience in part-time distance

learning might be a solution, hence why Im petitioning the OU to construct a

Masters of Science degree scheme in Astronomy/Astrophysics, a subject that the

OU also has had many years of experience lecturing and teaching. Not only that,

but it has quite a few excellent tools in order to perform observations remotely from

your own home!

The OUs robotic telescope, known as PIRATE (Physics Innovations Robotic Astro-

nomical Telescope Explorer), is based in Majorca, Spain and presents an excellent

remote interface for communicating with the dome, instruments and telescope it-

self. There is a planned robotic radio telescope being calibrated and fitted at the

moment with the OU, there will even be eventual access to the public thanks to the

new Open Science programme.

The OU is therefore a perfect and ideal remedy for helping to broaden access to

physics and astronomy whilst solving the gap in postgraduates; the courses arecheaper, there are no additional living costs/hassle of moving away (again), latest

technology, can do it in your own time (earn while you learn) and you receive

plentiful amounts of support as an OU student.

So if you value education and giving prosperity to the future minds of Astronomy

and Physics, please support the petition for the Open University to Construct an

MSc in Astronomy/Astrophysics.

Lawrence Bilton


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Brown Dwarfs The Forgotten Stars of the Show

By Mark Woodland FRAS

Brown dwarfs are quite often overshadowed by their much more luminous co-stars

in the astronomical world. They lie quietly in the darkness of space, mostly unseen

and nearly always forgotten about..until now.

It was not until I read a recent article in a well-known popular science magazine,

that I truly started to appreciate the wonder of brown dwarfs. They are a potential

missing link as I will explain later.

Brown dwarfs are normally thought of as the corpses of low mass stars. They have

sluffed off their outer layers and have all but exhausted their fusible material. They

burn so dimly that they were not discovered from Earth until Gliese 229b was dis-

covered.

Brown dwarfs have an amazing array of morphologies, they are generally 13 to 75times Jupiters size, and still maintain fusion of hydrogen as their power source.

They range in temperature from 2100oc all the way down to a very surprising 27oc.

The temperature of a Mediterranean holiday resort, in summer. You could theoreti-

cally therefore walk (reasonably comfortably) on its surface, if you ignored all the

other factors such as Iron rain and clouds made of silicon. Yes thats right, brown

dwarfs have weather. This links back to my comment about the missing link. Brown

dwarfs are stars (as they are still fusing material) but have weather, like gas giant

planets. In the very lowest temperature examples, there could be water vapour in

the atmosphere. Scientists who have been studying these odd objects have found

elements including methane in the atmospheres.

Are brown dwarfs really brown? The answer is a resounding no. If you could observe

one close up, it would appear a very dark orange. They were named brown to distin-

guish them from all other stellar objects (they actually started out as black stars, but

this was changed some years later).

So, when you hear talk of brown dwarfs,

spare a moment to think about how oddthese lesser known objects are, and that,

there could be very strange forms of life

originating in their dim orange glow.

Follow me on Twitter @mw5868 for more

astronomy news.

http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://

www.solarviews.com/raw/ds/gliese229.jpg
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36This month, keep an eye out for a wonderful conjunction between the Moon and Venus in

the constellation of Virgo on the 8th. Saturn will be just above, and Spica just below. During

early September, Venus will be approximately 10 degrees above the horizon just after sun-

set.

Keep an eye out for the Aurigid meteors between August 28th and September 5th, at an ex-

pected rate of 6meteors/hr.

Mars will be passing through the Beehive Cluster (M44) on September 8th & 9th, making forgreat photo opportunities.

On the 28th the Moon will pass around 5 degrees south of Jupiter, so another possible photo

opportunity.

Clear skies, and happy viewing!

Documents

OAS Astronomy Ezine Sept 2013