BCC Astronomy Club's
Monthly News Letter
For June 2010
ASTRONOMY NOOZE LETTER
JULY
Once again, greetings, fellow
Earthlings...
Our next meeting is scheduled for Friday,
July 23, 2010, at 7:30 pm, EST. at Hagar Hall.
This will give us a near full moon to
stare at.
Our last meeting (thanks for being there)
gave us an opportunity to gaze at the post-first quarter phase and
allowed a decent view of several mares, most of which we can
complete during our next meeting. Gadget Man Rick has begun the
map-labeling project which we will check out during the next
meeting. The idea being (for those with interest) to make a wall map
(suitable for framing) showing where we visually went to the moon
during our summer vacation.
After we complete our lunar missions
(after August), we need to pack extra goodies as we are headed
further out to space...we'll go looking for the Northern hemisphere
constellations. During this time, we may, at times, be camping out
in Rick's back yard as he has the darkest sky that is centrally
located for all.
Meanwhile, enjoy the night sky...stay
warm..........................Terry
Calendar of Events
This
is to let you know of events Next month, there will be Meteor
showers all of August. But the best time to watch them is 13/14 just
after dark until morning.
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Pan-STARRS
asteroid hunter and sky surveyor now fully operational
The telescope will map large
portions of the sky nightly, making it an efficient sleuth
for not just asteroids, but also supernovae and other
variable objects.
Provided by Harvard-Smithsonian Center, Cambridge
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Astronomers announced June 16
that the first Panoramic Survey Telescope & Rapid
Response System (Pan-STARRS) telescope, PS1, is
fully operational. This innovative facility will be
at the frontline of Earth defense by searching for
"killer" asteroids and comets. It will map large
portions of the sky nightly, making it an efficient
sleuth for not just asteroids, but also supernovae
and other variable objects.
"Pan-STARRS is an all-purpose machine," said Edo
Berger at the Harvard Smithsonian Center for
Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts. "Having a
dedicated telescope repeatedly surveying large areas
opens up a lot of new opportunities."
"PS1 has been taking science-quality data for 6
months, but now we are doing it dusk to dawn every
night," said Nick Kaiser from the University of
Hawaii Institute for Astronomy (IfA).
Pan-STARRS will map one-sixth of the sky every
month. By casting a wide net, it is expected to
catch many moving objects within our solar system.
Frequent follow-up observations will allow
astronomers to track those objects and calculate
their orbits, identifying any potential threats to
Earth. PS1 also will spot many small, faint bodies
in the outer solar system that hid from previous
surveys.
"PS1 will discover an unprecedented variety of
Centaurs — minor planets between Jupiter and Neptune
— trans-Neptunian objects, and comets. The system
has the capability to detect planet-sized bodies on
the outer fringes of our solar system," said Matthew
Holman from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for
Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Pan-STARRS features the world's largest digital
camera — a 1,400-megapixel (1.4 gigapixels) monster.
With it, astronomers can photograph an area of the
sky as large as 36 Full Moons in a single exposure.
In comparison, a picture from the Hubble Space
Telescope's WFC3 camera spans an area only
one-hundredth the size of the Full Moon, albeit at
very high resolution. In 2008, Gizmo Watch rated
this sensitive digital camera as one of the "20
marvels of modern engineering." "We played as close
to the bleeding edge of technology as you can
without getting cut," said inventor John Tonry from
IfA.
Each image, if printed out as a 300-dpi photograph,
would cover half a basketball court, and PS1 takes
an image every 30 seconds. The amount of data PS1
produces every night would fill 1,000 DVDs.
"As soon as Pan-STARRS turned on, we felt like we
were drinking from a fire hose!" said Berger. He
added that they are finding several hundred
transient objects a month, which would have taken a
couple of years with previous facilities.
To learn more about Pan-STARRS and other all-sky
surveys, check out the July 2010 issue of
Astronomy, on newsstands now.
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BCC Astronomy Club's
Monthly News Letter
For May 2010
Spectacular new image of the Sculptor Galaxy
By observing in infrared light, VISTA's view is less affected
by dust and reveals myriad cooler stars as well as a prominent
bar of stars across the central region.
Provided by ESO, Garching, Germany
June 17, 2010
The European Southern
Observatory's (ESO) Visible and Infrared Survey
Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA) at the Paranal
Observatory in Chile has taken a spectacular new
image of the Sculptor Galaxy (NGC 253) as part of
one of its first major observational campaigns. By
observing in infrared light, VISTA's view is less
affected by dust and reveals myriad cooler stars as
well as a prominent bar of stars across the central
region. The VISTA image provides new information on
the history and development of the galaxy.
The Sculptor Galaxy lies in the constellation of the
same name, and it is one of the brightest galaxies
in the sky. It is prominent enough to view with good
binoculars, and Caroline Herschel from England
discovered the galaxy in 1783. NGC 253 is a spiral
galaxy that lies about 13 million light-years away.
It is the brightest member of a small collection of
galaxies called the Sculptor Group, one of the
closest such groupings to our own Local Group of
galaxies. Part of its visual prominence comes from
its status as a starburst galaxy, one in the throes
of rapid star formation. NGC 253 is also very dusty,
which obscures the view of many parts of the galaxy.
Seen from Earth, the galaxy is almost edge on, with
the spiral arms clearly visible in the outer parts,
along with a bright core at its center.
VISTA, the latest addition to ESO's Paranal
Observatory in the Chilean Atacama Desert, is the
world's largest survey telescope. After being handed
over to ESO at the end of 2009, the telescope was
used for two detailed studies of small sections of
the sky before it embarked on the larger surveys
that are now in progress. One of these "mini
surveys" was a detailed study of NGC 253 and its
environment.
As VISTA works at infrared wavelengths, it can see
right through most of the dust that is such a
prominent feature of the Sculptor Galaxy when viewed
in visible light. Huge numbers of cooler stars that
are barely detectable with visible-light telescopes
are also seen. The VISTA view reveals most of what
was hidden by the thick dust clouds in the central
part of the disk and allows a clear view of a
prominent bar of stars across the nuclear region, a
feature that is not seen in visible-light pictures.
The majestic spiral arms now spread over the whole
disk of the galaxy.
The spectacular viewing conditions VISTA shares with
ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT), located on the
next mountain peak, also allow VISTA images to be
exceptionally sharp for a ground-based telescope.
With this powerful instrument at their command,
astronomers wanted to peel away some of the
mysteries of the Sculptor Galaxy. They are studying
myriad cool red giant stars in the halo that
surrounds the galaxy, measuring the composition of
some of NGC 253's small dwarf satellite galaxies,
and searching for undiscovered new objects such as
globular clusters and ultra-compact dwarf galaxies.
Using the unique VISTA data, they plan to map how
the galaxy formed and evolved
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