Volume XIX No. 9 May 2008 What's Inside… Anne Anderson Pg 6 Ernst Öpik Pg 7 Stewart's Skybox Pg 10 David Kuchinsky Pg 15 General Meeting Pg 15 Contacts & Schedules Pg 16 Theater in the Sky Pg 17 Science Outreach and Update Pg 18 Note: Use bookmark panel in Adobe Reader. L ast month we stood on the four inner planets and on their three moons, and looked out at our surroundings. This month we continue the journey outward from the Sun. The Scene at Jupiter Our next stop is Jupiter, king of the planets. While Jupiter has no solid surface (at least not anywhere near its visible boundary), let us suppose we set up a floating observing platform just above Jupiter's visible surface. The Sun is noticeably smaller and dimmer at this point. Its disk is 6 minutes across, just large enough to re-solve as a disk with the (filtered) naked eye, and it shines at a magnitude of -23. Solar panels produce only about 4% of what they produce on the Earth, and the illumination is noticeably dimmer than a clear day on the Earth, though the brightness level is still conspicuously "daytime." The terrestrial planets are lost in the Sun's glare. Even Mars can get no farther than 19 degrees from the Sun; the Earth no more than 11 degrees, and Mercury and Venus are constrained to 5 and 8 degrees, respec-tively. Saturn's appearance at opposition is noticeably more imposing than it appears from the Earth. Appearing four times as bright as it does from the Earth, peaking at a magnitude of about -2, its disk would also subtend almost exactly twice as great an angle. The planet itself would have a disk about 42 seconds in diameter (about the size of Jupiter's disk as seen from Earth), and the outermost ring edge would be nearly 95 seconds across! Uranus, Neptune and Pluto, somewhat surprisingly, still look pretty much the same as they do from the Earth, although their oppositions occur much less frequently, separated by more than 12 years. But the Jovian sky would be dominated by Jupiter's extensive network of moons. The four Galilean satel-lites, in order of distance, are Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto. At their full phases, their magnitudes would be approximately -11, -10, -9 and -7, respectively. Io would appear about half a degree across (similar to our own Moon), while Europa, Ganymede and Callisto would be 16, 17 and 9 arc-minutes across. All four are thus large enough to resolve as disks with the naked eye, and any of the four can totally eclipse the Sun as seen from a narrow swath of Jupiter's face. All four can (and frequently do) pass through Jupiter's enormous umbral shadow; these phenomena can be observed both from Jupiter as well as the Earth, and would appear from Jupiter to be rather similar to a terrestrial lunar eclipse. The four moons have periods of 2, 3.5, 7, and 17 days, so their phases could be followed on a day-to-day basis by a Jovian observer. And good luck finding a dark-of-all-moons weekend to do deep sky observing! As for Jupiter's smaller inner moons, the brightest would be Amalthea, visible to the naked eye as a starlike point of maximum magnitude -5. (It is 14th magnitude and lost in Jupiter's glare to all but the largest instru- ments as seen from Earth.) Its brethren, Metis, Adrastea, and Thebe, which were not discovered until the Voy-ager probes studied Jupiter, would also be visible to the naked eye as stellar points of maximum magnitude -2 to -3. In a telescope Amalthea would be an oval blob some 4 arcminutes across, while the others would be 1-1.5 arcminutes across. Jupiter's dozens of known outer moons would be considerably dimmer, visible only in a telescope as unre-solved points of light; by a fair margin the brightest of these would be Himalia, which, at its brightest, would hover near the naked-eye limit. The View From Jupiter's Moons Before departing for Saturn, let's take a look at Jupiter as seen from its moons. From Io, Jupiter's disk would subtend an angle of 20 degrees across the sky; although it goes through a full sequence of phases, the naked-eye view of the "full Jupiter" phase is comparable to a high-resolution Voyager or Galileo image on your com-puter screen a few feet from your eye. From Jupiter's innermost moon, Metis, Jupiter would appear to have a magnitude of roughly -20, with a total apparent luminosity a few percent of the Sun's, and its disk would sub-tend an eye-popping 68 degrees, the same as the field of view of a Panoptic eyepiece! Since all of Jupiter's inner moons are in spin-orbit lock, from any position on any of these moons, Jupiter will appear to hover in the same position (aside from small motions due to libration), looming large over the frozen landscape. Jupiter's outermost moons, such as Autonoe and Callirhoe, orbit some 24 million km from Jupiter, more than half the distance from the Sun to Mercury, with orbital periods of 2 years or more. From these moons, Jupiter would appear slightly less than half a degree in diameter, at a magnitude of about -10. Even at this distance, Jupiter is capable of totally eclipsing the Sun; Jupiter indeed casts an umbral shadow extending about 0.5 AU behind it. Heading to Saturn One thing that becomes apparent as you travel in the outer solar system is that the distance scale increases rapidly. Our trips from Mercury to Venus to Earth to Mars were rather short, only 30 million miles each. The trip from Mars to Jupiter was about ten times longer than that, and the trip from Jupiter to Saturn even longer yet. By the time we reach Saturn, we're well into the boondocks of the solar system. From Saturn, the inner solar system is but a distant memory. The Sun is barely 3 arcminutes across, barely resolvable as a disk even by those with sharp eyes. It shines at magnitude -22, with about 1% the intensity of light that reaches the Earth. While theoretically still bright naked-eye objects, the terrestrial planets are lost in the glare, with even Mars drifting no more than 10 degrees from the Sun. Jupiter appears as an inferior planet to Saturn, and, thus goes through a full set of phases, and, at great-est elongation, is separated by 33 degrees from the Sun. Its maximum angular diameter, achieved only at infe-rior conjunction, is approximately 45 arc-seconds, comparable to the view from the Earth. Its maximum bright-ness is somewhat less than as seen from Earth, since, at closest approach, only a thin crescent is illuminated. At its brightest, Jupiter reaches a peak magnitude between -1 and -2. Even from Saturn's vantage point, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto aren't all that enhanced relative to the familiar view since, even as far out as we are, we're still only halfway to Uranus, a third of the way to Neptune, and a fourth of the (average) distance to Pluto. From the Earth, they shine at magnitudes 6, 8, and 14, respectively, and present disks 4, 2 and 0.1 arcseconds in diameter; Uranus hovers near the limit of naked-eye visibility, Neptune is a good binocular target, and Pluto remains a challenge even with a sizable telescope. To terrestrial observers, Uranus and Neptune present featureless bluish disks in a telescope, whereas Pluto is an unre-solved stellar point in all but the largest telescopes, and even then, is only resolved adequately if adaptive op-tics are used, or if the telescope is in orbit, free from the obscuring effects of the Earth's atmosphere. From Saturn, Uranus' brightness at opposition is increased to the 4th magnitude, noticeably brighter but not dramatically so. Its disk is similarly expanded up to about 8 arcseconds. The effects on Neptune and Pluto are more subtle; their brightness at opposition is increased by about one magnitude and Neptune's telescopic disk is expanded to about 3 arcseconds. As is the case with Jupiter, the Saturnian sky is dominated by elements of its own system. Saturn is famous, of course, for its rings. While the rings are prominent, they are quite thin, and in fact can seem to disappear when we see them edge-on. The rings will rapidly close down during the rest of 2008, will become invisible from Earth in 2009. From a point near Saturn's equator, the rings will be difficult to see, and, at most, will ap-pear as an unremarkably thin stripe. But from higher latitudes the rings will be by far the dominant feature of the Saturnian sky, traversing a wide swath from one horizon to some point in the sky at which they will sud-denly become very dim, namely where the rings fall into Saturn's own shadow. What about Saturn's moons? For the most part, they are less spectacular than Jupiter's moons. Titan would be a reddish-brown disk about 15 minutes in diameter, about half the diameter of our own Moon. Tethys would range from 12-15 minutes across, Dione and Rhea about 8- 12 minutes each, Mimas and Enceladus about 5-10 minutes, and a few others would be barely large enough to resolve with the naked eye. Distant Iapetus would be about 1.5 minutes across, and thus would appear stellar to the eye, although it and a number of other moons would be resolvable in a telescope. Most of the large inner moons have peak magnitudes of about -6 to -7. The medium-sized shepherd moons such as Janus and Epimetheus would be in the low negative magni-tudes. The infamously two-toned Iapetus would be somewhat dimmer, with a variable peak between about 0 and -2. Hyperion would peak at about 0, exhibiting in telescopes an irregular half-arcminute disk. Dim and dis-tant Phoebe would peak somewhere near the naked-eye limit of 6 to 7. The rest would be visible as stellar points only in telescopes. Views of Saturn from its inner moons would be simply breathtaking. Unfortunately, the innermost moons all orbit in planes very close to that of the ring system, so from their vantage point, the rings would be perpetually "closed" and not nearly as prominent as they could otherwise be. From the inner shepherd moons, there would also be a strong perspective effect, since the nearer parts of the rings are significantly closer and appear much larger than the more distant portions. The innermost moons, in fact, orbit within the ring system so the rings would be seen to extend 360 degrees around the sky. All the inner moons, as in the previous cases, are in spin-orbit lock, so Saturn would appear stationary in their skies. Traveling Onward: Uranus Traveling outward once again, this time covering a distance comparable to all our previous travels com-bined, we arrive at Uranus. By this point, the Sun's disk is less than 2 arcminutes in diameter, and would ap-pear stellar to the (filtered) eye. The Sun shines at magnitude -20, almost exactly intermediate between the brightness of the Sun and Moon as seen from the Earth. This distinctly twilight illumination is sufficiently dim that the Voyager 2 software had to be modified to allow their camera to track because of the longer exposures required at this great distance from the Sun. Uranus rotates with an axis tilted 98 degrees from the ecliptic plane. For this reason, Uranus has the most "extreme" seasons of any planet. On the Earth, the most dramatic effect occurs near polar latitudes, where at times the Sun is observed to neither rise nor set, and there is continuous day or night for up to six months. On Uranus, though, this "midnight Sun" effect can last for as much as forty years, and it occurs to some extent for all latitudes farther than 8 degrees from the equator, which is almost the entire planet. Aside from this extreme midnight Sun effect, the sky from Uranus is rather bland. Even Saturn comes no closer to Uranus than it does to the Earth, and, as an inferior planet, Saturn cannot get more than 29 degrees from the Sun. However, Saturn would be quite a sight in a telescope, as it goes through its sequence of phases (although it would take about 50 years to complete a full cycle). Jupiter, at its closest approach to Uranus, is three times further away than it is at its closest approach to the Earth, and can get no more than 16 degrees from the Sun. The terrestrial planets are all within a 5-degree region, a binocular field, of the Sun. Neptune, at its closest approach to Uranus, comes within about 10 AU. At this distance, Neptune reaches the 6th magnitude, and thus is visible to the naked eye. Telescopically it presents a disk some 7 arc-seconds in diameter at opposition; nearly three times larger than it appears from Earth. Pluto, at its closest approach to Uranus, reaches the 12th magnitude, so it is still a challenging telescopic object. What about the Uranian moons? Ariel would be about 20 arcminutes in diameter, with Miranda, Umbriel and Titania around 15 arcminutes across, Oberon about 10 arcminutes across, and a few of the larger shepherd moons would be visible as disks to the unaided eye. Ariel would be the brightest moon, peaking at -7, with Miranda, Umbriel, Titania and Oberon at -5 to -6. The larger shepherd moons would be in the low negative magnitudes, while the outer irregular moons would be strictly telescopic objects (the largest, Caliban and Sycorax, would be about 9th magnitude at their brightest). On to Neptune Traveling another 10 AU outward, we come to Uranus' superficial twin, Neptune. With a rotational inclination of about 25 degrees, a rotation period of about 17 hours, and a single large moon, in a few respects Neptune's parameters are rather similar to the Earth's. But the similarities end there. From Neptune, the Sun is barely 1 arcminute across, indistinguishable from a pinpoint to the naked eye. But it still casts a significant amount of light, at magnitude -19, even though solar panels will produce only 0.1% of what they produce on Earth. The inner planets are unremarkable at this point. Uranus gets no more than 40 degrees from the Sun, and is barely visible to the naked eye even at its brightest; its most interesting appearance is as a 7-arcsecond di-ameter crescent in the vicinity of superior conjunction. Saturn is confined to an 18-degree region around the Sun, and the others are even more tightly restricted. As far as moons go, Neptune's largest is Triton. Triton is unique in that it orbits retrograde, meaning that it rises in the west and sets in the east, even though everything else in the sky moves in the usual way. Triton's disk subtends about 25-30 arcminutes, roughly the same as the Earth's full moon, but only peaking at magnitude -6, a victim of the reduced illumination available at this distance. Neptune's largest inner moon Proteus would have an irregular disk about 12-15 arcminutes across, and shine at a peak magnitude of -2, while other inner moons would be somewhat smaller and dimmer. Neptune's large outer moon, Nereid, travels in an extremely elliptical orbit that takes it above and below the naked-eye threshold; its distance from Neptune varies by a factor of 7 over the course of its 360-day orbit, and thus its brightness fluctuates by a factor of 50, or slightly over 4 magnitudes. Pluto, the Special Case The most interesting (from an academic standpoint) object to observe is Pluto. First I must dispel a few notions about Neptune and Pluto. It is true that for about 15 to 20 years of every 248-year orbit, Pluto is closer to the Sun than is Neptune. It is incorrect, however, to state that their orbits cross, much less that they are in imminent danger of crashing into each other. Pluto's orbit is inclined 17 de-grees with respect to the ecliptic. At the point in Pluto's orbit where it is closer to the Sun than Neptune, it is approximately 8 AU above the ecliptic, therefore, we may naively conclude that the closest that Neptune and Pluto can get to each other is about 8 AU. It turns out that Pluto's perihelion and the points at which its orbit crosses the ecliptic plane are separated by a long-term average of exactly 90 degrees, with a 10,000- year os-cillation which has an amplitude of 38 degrees about that mean value. Because of this, perihelion occurs at or relatively near where Pluto's orbit is maximally displaced from the ecliptic. But there's more. Pluto's orbit is, in fact, perturbed by the presence of Neptune. Neptune's gravity has forced Pluto into a situation in which it completes exactly 2 orbits for Neptune's 3, and its orbit is kept elliptical such that its closest approach to Neptune is significantly out of the ecliptic plane. In addition, this resonance guaran-tees that whenever Pluto is at or near perihelion, Neptune will be some place else in its orbit. The closest Nep-tune and Pluto ever get is about 17 AU. In fact, Pluto comes closer to Uranus than it ever does to Neptune. Pluto's orbital resonance is stable on the timescale of millions of years, so even the most vehement Pluto-haters of the world will not live to see the demise of their erstwhile planetary nemesis. However, it is the fact that Pluto is gravitationally perturbed into a Neptune-avoiding orbit that causes it to fail the last part of the IAU's current three-step rationale for planethood. Anyway, with all this said, what is clear is that Pluto acts as neither a superior nor an inferior planet to Nep-tune, but instead undergoes a more complex motion throughout the sky. This motion takes it not only well out of the ecliptic plane, but Pluto's path through the sky is extraordinarily complex, with multiple periods of many thousands of years. Given that the closest Neptune and Pluto ever get is 17 AU, the maximum brightness Pluto has as seen from the vicinity of Neptune is about magnitude 12.0, and at their greatest separation Pluto falls to nearly 16th magnitude. Ernst Julius Öpik (1893-1985) By Mike Luciuk An Astronomer's Astronomer Introduction I t's difficult to think of an astrophysicist who has made as wide a variety of contributions to astronomy as did Ernst Öpik (Figure 1). The breadth of his astronomical knowledge was often acknowledged by his associates. Although mainly a theoretician, he also was very much at home observing and designing equipment. This Estonian born astronomer was educated in Russia and Estonia. He held academic posts in Turkestan, Harvard University, the University of Maryland, and in Ireland's Armagh Observatory. He was also a talented musician and composer. Öpik won many awards for his contributions to astronomy. Asteroid 2099 Öpik was named in his honor. He received the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1975 and the Bruce Medal in 1976 as well as many honorary doctorates, Following are astronomical areas he excelled in: 1. Öpik made significant contributions to the understanding of stellar physics. His work on the structure of giant stars, turbulent mixing of gas flows in stellar convection zones, and the roles of radioactivity in the Sun's core are examples. The process of new star formation from the death of stars was another area of his research. 2. Öpik was one of the first astronomers to assess the distance of spiral nebula. In 1922, he determined that M31 was 450,000 parsecs distant, quite an accurate result by astronomical standards of the time. In effect, he established the extragalactic nature of nebulae. 3. Much of Öpik's activity related to planetary work. His cometary investigations in 1932 led him to research that predated the Oort Cloud hypothesis by eighteen years. Whipple always referred to it as the Öpik-Oort Comet Cloud. 4. His work in meteors was legion. He was a pioneer in the basic physics of meteor formation. Öpik did research on the formation of meteor craters and, in 1951, he said: Öpik's work on the Arizona Meteor Expedition will be the main topic in this article. The Harvard Arizona Meteor Expedition In 1930, the Harvard College Observatory under Harlow Shapley decided on a project to evaluate meteor velocities. Shapley, along with most astronomers at the time believed that meteoroids were of interstellar ori-gin. He hoped that their study would offer insight into understanding the interstellar medium and stellar struc-ture, areas he was interested in. The direct way to determine whether meteors were of interstellar origin was to measure their velocity. If their average velocity exceeded 42 kilometers/sec, the Sun's escape velocity at Earth's location, they would not be under the gravitational influence of the Sun, and were therefore interstellar. He hired Ernst Öpik to lead the study, assisted by Fred Whipple (1906-2004). The expedition started in November, 1930 and concluded mid 1932. The staff included five astronomers and observers plus many part-time participants. There had been criticisms of earlier meteor velocity determina-tions based on visual meteor observations. However, Öpik knew that although photographic velocity determi-nations would be more accurate, film emulsions available at the time were only sensitive enough to photograph magnitude +1 meteors, while visually, magnitude +6 meteors could be observed. A hundred times more mete-ors could be detected visually than via photography, so he decided to carry out the Arizona meteor study visu-ally. Öpik developed a rocking mirror device that he expected could be used to determine angular meteor ve-locities (Figure 2): Two observing sheds (Figure 3) were constructed for accurately observing meteor sky positions and directions. The sheds were placed on an east-west line, about 35 km apart near Flagstaff. They were aligned to the meridian, permitting observations for two observers in each shed for viewing at a 45o zenith distance north and south. The observers viewed meteors through reticules that had an effective field of view of about 60° diameter. It was then possible for a meteor, seen simultaneously by observers in the two sheds, to have its altitude and direction accurately determined. This was accomplished by estimating the altitude and azimuth angles from each shed's location (Figure 4). Observers watched on a lunation basis of four days after and until four days before a full moon for maximum dark skies. A total of 25,728 meteor observations were made on 366 observing nights. They detected 280 me-teor showers, those with group radiants, from 5,050 meteors. Every meteor has a radiant, a sky location from where it appears to originate. However, meteor showers (multiple meteors) appear to originate from the same sky location, a group radiant. The project carried out: The Arizona Meteor Expedition was a monumental scientific effort. It laid to rest the old illusion that some meteor radiants were stationary. Although most astronomers of the time already recognized this, prominent observers like W. F. Denning (1848-1931) insisted that stationary meteor radiants had been seen. The expedi-tion accurately determined meteor heights on a seasonal basis. They found that only about 20% of meteors came from group radiants. Most meteors were random, and are now called sporadic meteors. However, in spite of the rocking mirror device, the calculated velocities tended to be inaccurate. They were too high, giving Öpik the impression that 70% of meteors were of interstellar origin. Subsequent photographic velocity studies by Whipple and radar studies by Lovell confirmed that virtually all meteors were not of interstellar origin, but were part of the solar system. As a result of the erroneous meteor velocity determinations, a major objective of the expedition was unfulfilled. References Doel, R. E., 1996. Solar System Astronomy in America, Cambridge University Press Knudson, 1986. Obituary-E. J. Öpik, Royal Astronomical Society, 27-3 Knudson, 1986. Obituary- Öpik Ernst-1893- 1985-the Man and the Scientist, Irish Astronomical Journal, 17-4 McKinley, D. W. R., 1961. Meteor Science and Engineering. McGraw-Hill Company Millman, P. M., 1972. Ernst Öpik and Meteoritics, Irish Astronomical Journal, Vol 10. Shapley H., Öpik E. J., Boothroyd S. L., 1932. The Arizona Expedition for the Study of Meteors. Proceedings for the National Academy of Sciences 18. Stewart's Skybox by Stewart Meyers S ince Astronomy Day falls on May 10th, I decided to continue a kind of tradition where the column closest to Astronomy Day covers issues of either astronomical public outreach or of astronomical public relations. This column will cover how non-news, non-documentary, mainstream broadcast media perceive space science, our hobby, and us. Note: The examples mentioned in this column are based on what I have seen or read about. It may not be a complete listing. If you know of any items I may have missed, please let me know. They might be mentioned in a future column. Going Commercial Astronomy and space science seldom figure into advertising. This is not surprising since astronomers, ama-teur and professional, make up a small percentage of the population. Of course, most of the time when celes-tial objects are mentioned in television advertising, it is usually in the most mythological or infantile manner possible. One example is the current series of Jimmy Dean ads. Evidently, the ad agency that created those has a number of four-year old children on their staff. Then there is a company that named their line of women's razors "Venus". It seems they never got the news (known for over forty years) that Venus is actually a planet with sulfuric acid clouds, crushing atmospheric pressure, and surface temperatures of nearly 900 degrees (Fahrenheit), which is definitely not a feminine image. Then there is the large number of silly commercials de-picting the Moon, including one for Gatorade that is a parody of Apollo 14 when the late Alan Shepard hit a golf ball on the Moon. The ad depicts Mars as implausibly close to the Earth-Moon system. Maybe the ad men got that bogus email that goes around during every Mars opposition. However, there are a few cases where the ad men actually get things right. One was a recent ad for the Toyota Sequoia SUV. The commercial starts off as SUV ads generally do with a family riding to some remote location. However, instead of just barreling through some natural countryside, they arrive at a desert location where there are other people. As the family gets out of the SUV, you see that it is actually a star party and that a few telescopes are set up. And these are not cheap department store refractors. There was at least one good-sized truss tube Dobsonian as well as a Schmidt- Cassegrain or two. It turns out that Saatchi & Saatchi, Toyota's ad agency, and Park Pictures, the production company that filmed the spot, actually consulted with the Antelope Valley Astronomy Club (http://www.avastronomyclub.org) and a few members appear in the ad with their equipment, though most of the other people are actors. The location was Saddleback Butte State Park near Palmdale, California. While not in the field of amateur astronomy, another commercial got its space science accurate. The prostate medicine, Avodart, currently runs an ad that shows a man who works at a planetarium making models for their exhibits. The models are rather accurate and they have many details right. For instance, in the model solar system, Uranus is shown with about the correct tilt to its axis (the commercial showed it tipped 90 degrees - the actual value is 98 degrees) though it shows the Uranian cloud structure too clearly. Saturn is depicted quite accurately as well, and, although the color is not quite what you see through the telescope, it is reasonably close. Either Avodart's ad agency used a real planetarium employee or they actually researched this. Dramatic Pause With all manner of activities and behavior depicted in television dramas (daytime and prime time), one would figure that at least amateur astronomy would crop up from time to time. Actually, it has, but very rarely. One example is from a long-forgotten series called "Blue Skies". In one episode, some of the characters are using an 8-inch Celestron (classic orange tube) and discussing some astronomical facts. This scene did not really serve any purpose to advance the plot but was probably filler to bring the episode to the proper length. The only other instance (that I know about) of any astronomical event appearing in a TV series that was not intended to be comical was on the "Baywatch" episode "Eclipse". For some reason, the writers decided to in-corporate a lunar eclipse into the miniscule plot of the episode. However, they included an impossible "dia-mond ring" effect. Most of the other appearances of amateur astronomical equipment in dramatic TV programs use the tele-scopes as set dressing. It is sometimes fun to try to figure out the make and model of the instrument, a task complicated by the fact that the props department occasionally puts tape (carefully chosen to match the tube color) over any identifying marks. Most of the time, these "prop scopes" are the small refractors which are made to look (unconvincingly) like 19th century brass telescopes or are simply department store refractors. Comedy Tonight Oddly enough, amateur astronomy and space science have been depicted a bit more often in the world of situation comedies. Starting off in the area of science in general, with a brickbat no less, a sitcom on CBS called "The Big Bang Theory" which has nothing to do with the origin of the universe, the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), or cosmic inflation revolves around two men who are supposed to be physicists, possibly astrophysicists. It's main accomplishment is to show that the TV industry thinks science is safe to ridicule. The only live-action American sitcom that I am aware of that even mentioned anything related to amateur astronomy was "Married With Children". In one of the episodes, it was revealed that the normally stupid Kelly Bundy knew just about every constellation visible from the latitude of Chicago. But the writers never meant this line as any comment on astronomy. They were just implying that Kelly spent lots of time on her back at night outdoors, though for non-astronomical purposes. Mmmm… Astronomy… Not every sitcom is against us. One has, surprisingly, depicted amateur astronomy and space science with some accuracy. But it is not a typical sitcom. I refer to none other than the longest running comedy series of all time, "The Simpsons". Elements of amateur astronomy have been depicted in a number of episodes. For ex-ample, in the episode, "Bart's Comet" (written by John Swartzwelder), Bart has to assist Principal Skinner with his pre- dawn comet search as punishment for a prank with a weather balloon. In real life, amateur comet searches are usually done during either the pre-dawn hours or shortly after sunset. This allows searching the space near the Sun, and it increases the chances of finding a comet that has just started showing activity. An-other bit of accuracy is that Skinner keeps track of the coordinates of the area he is searching, though he should not have been able to read the coordinates from his telescope's alt-azimuth mount. In fact, this episode is about the only time on television that I have heard the terms "right ascension" and "declination" used cor-rectly. Based on the coordinates (RA: 4:12, Dec +8 7'), the comet was in Taurus, near Mu Tauri, when it was discovered. The part where Skinner reads off coordinates while Bart writes them down, while not actually done during comet hunting, might have been a tribute to the making of a famous star catalogue. In 1859, German astrono-mer F.W. Argelander began work at the Bonn observatory on the Bonner Durchmusterung, the foremost star catalogue of the 19th century. If you have ever seen a star whose designation begins with "BD", the BD came from this catalogue. The catalogue was made using the astronomical equivalent of mass production. An ob- server would set the 3-inch refractor to observe a strip of sky at a set declination. The drive was not used, so the Earth's rotation would cause the stars to move across the field. When a star crossed the vertical crosshair in the eyepiece, the observer would stomp the floor and shout the declination to another man in a lit room one floor down who then wrote down the coordinates, using a sidereal clock to get the right ascension. Or possibly, the reference may have been a tribute to the Herschels as William Herschel would often call out his observa- tions to his sister, Caroline, who wrote them down while sitting with a light on the porch of the house. When the comet is discovered, Bart calls the local observatory to report the discovery. The actual procedure is to send a detailed report to the Central Bureau of Astronomical Telegrams (CBAT) based at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Either Swartzwelder did not know this (though it is something that could have been found out in a few minutes of searching on the Internet) or he just wanted to keep the action of the story centered in Springfield. Later in the episode, while the townspeople are panicking over the comet that is headed towards Earth, Homer says that the nucleus of the comet would largely burn up in the atmosphere (though he thinks that the thick layer of smog over Springfield would accelerate the process), and any part that makes it to the ground would be quite small, "about the size of a chihuahua's head". Incredibly, Homer had his basic facts straight. In most cases, meteorites that reach the ground are much smaller than they were before they hit the atmosphere. Homer was wrong, however, about comet nuclei. Their fragile, icy nature means that they would explode at high altitude. If the explosion is low enough and strong enough, it can do considerable damage at ground level, like in Tunguska in June of 1908. Still, it is probably the most accurate discussion of falling cosmic debris ever seen in a sitcom. Finally, in another stroke of accuracy, Bart picks up the freshly fallen meteorite and stuffs it in his pocket. Contrary to popular belief, meteorites are not hot when they land. In another episode, "'Scuse Me While I Miss The Sky" (written by Dan Greaney), Lisa Simpson takes up amateur astronomy. This episode is the first non-documentary show in the history of television to take on the issue of light pollution, a fact that the International Dark-sky Association (IDA) failed to notice. The IDA could have used the episode to gain quite a bit of publicity. The episode did present both sides of the issue. Some of the townspeople oppose the idea of cutting back on outdoor lighting out of a concern over crime. Lisa naturally supports our side of the argument. Finally, Lisa gets Homer to take some action on the issue and, as a result, the skies are darkened in time for the townspeople to enjoy a rare meteor shower. While not pertaining to amateur astronomy, but possibly showing the level of research the writers do when it comes to space science, consider the episode "Simpsons Tall Tales" (written by John Frink). In their retelling of the story of Paul Bunyan, the giant lumberjack tried to stop a large incoming meteorite, only to send it crashing into the city of Chicago and starting the great Chicago fire. Believe it or not, there is an actual theory that claims the fires that hit Chicago and destroyed Peshtigo (a town in Wisconsin) as well as other large fires in that vicinity in October of 1871 were started as the result of a Tunguska-like event. This was first proposed in detail by Mel Waskins in 1985 and is based on the similarities of some of the eyewitness reports to those from the Tunguska event. However, this theory never gained wide acceptance though it still has some adherents. It is entirely possible that Frink was aware of this theory when he wrote the episode. If this was the case, he cer-tainly did quite a bit of research. Great White North One live-action sitcom mentioned amateur astronomy on a number of occasions. But, it was not an Ameri-can sitcom. It was a Canadian program called "The Red Green Show" (http://www.redgreen.com). The show was about a men's lodge in the mythical small town of Possum Lake, Ontario where lodge members would take on various projects, usually with tools and techniques totally unsuited to the task. One of the sketches that had an astronomical theme was a black and white segment (made to resemble a home movie) where two of the lodge members try their hand at amateur astronomy with hilarious results. On another episode, Red Green did a segment called "Handyman Corner" where he tries to make a tele-scope. For the tube assembly/mounting, he uses a portable cement mixer. The primary mirror is an aluminum pie plate, a salad bowl is used as a corrector lens and a mirrored lens from a pair of sunglasses acts as a sec- ondary mirror. While this was not accurate in any way, it was apparent that it was meant as a parody of tele-scope making, and that the writer had to know something about the actual telescope making process to parody it. In fact, this was so. During an interview that Steve Smith (creator of the program) gave to my brother Don (a reporter on the Provo Daily Herald at the time), he explained that Rick Green (the Canadian comic who played Bill on the program) wrote that particular sketch. Apart from being a comedian - a member of the Canadian comedy group known as "The Frantics" (http://www.thefrantics.com) - and a TV producer, Rick also has a bachelors degree in physics and has taught science at the Ontario Science Center. Then, there was an episode concerning a lunar eclipse. The lodge members were excited about the event and made preparations to observe it. They had a location picked out on top of a hill and they even got an RV to make the trip in style. However, as always happens on the show, and frequently in real- life amateur astronomy, things went wrong. The lodge members missed the eclipse and their plan to videotape it failed when one of them forgot to remove the lens cap from their camcorder. The Future If TV science fiction is any indication of the future, astronomy will become even less prominent than it is to-day. Astronomy was hardly mentioned at all in the "Star Trek" franchise. The "Star Trek: The Next Generation" episode "The Nth Degree" made reference to a subspace telescope, something resembling a large version of those concepts that one sees every now and then for space-based radio telescopes. In the "Star Trek: The Next Generation" episode "Tapestry", astrophysics and astrophysicists are seen to be held in very low regard in Starfleet. About the only possible mention of amateur astronomy is in the "Star Trek: Voyager" episode "Someone to Watch Over Me". In sort of a parody of George Bernard Shaw's play, "Pygmalion", the Voyager EMH (Emergency Medical Hologram) - portrayed by Planetary Society member Robert Picardo - tries to teach Seven of Nine how to have a social life and go on dates. As a result of trying to figure out Seven's interests, it is decided that, since Seven works in the Stellar Cartography department on the ship, she is interested in as-tronomy. Other science fiction shows don't even give astronomy that much mention. However, there is one exception - "Stargate SG-1". In the episode "Singularity", an observatory (apparently a roll-off roof design) is seen on an alien planet. The observatory and the large Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope inside were set up by scientists in the Stargate program to observe a black hole in a nearby star system. But, this played almost no role in the plot except as an excuse to have the SG-1 crew visit the planet and discover that the locals were almost totally wiped out by a plague created by the Goa'uld. The biggest display of astronomy on the show was in the episode "1969". In order to resolve the time travel plot complication, the SG-1 gang needed to know what was happening on the Sun. In order to get that informa-tion, Samantha Carter somehow manages to get into an observatory (presumably closed since it is during day-time), locate the solar filters, install the filters on the telescope, and use it to observe the Sun and find the needed solar flare. Unfortunately, all this happens while the onscreen action is centered on other characters, so we don't see how she does it. To be able to pull something like this off, Major Carter must have been quite a resourceful woman and would probably make a great amateur astronomer. Knowing Right and Wrong As this article has shown, depictions of amateur astronomy, astronomy, and space science in mainstream entertainment broadcast media run the gamut from very accurate (quite rarely) to the laughable. The difference between an accurate depiction and an inaccurate one is a simple one. The people who produced the accurate depictions made just a tiny bit of extra effort. The makers of the Toyota Sequoia ad actually asked amateur astronomers to help them. And, in the case of those "Simpsons" episodes, it is very likely that the writers actu-ally looked stuff up, which, in this Internet age, is very easy to do. Why, then, are astronomical concepts portrayed incorrectly so often? Here are several possible reasons. One is simply arrogance. The writer, producer, or director, believes in the idea of doing things his or her way or not at all. A specific example of this concerns "Asteroid", a made-for-TV movie about a potential cosmic impact (this sub-genre of films will be dealt with in a future Astronomy Day column). A reporter actually confronted one of the producers about the numerous glaring inaccuracies in the film, including the total ignorance of the role of CBAT when it came to the asteroid's discovery and orbit. The producer snapped back that he didn't care what Brian Marsden or the IAU (International Astronomical Union) thought. The fact that he actually mentioned Marsden and the IAU meant that he was aware of them, but he felt it was his story and he didn't want to be confused with the facts. He probably also believed that amateurs and others who actually knew a thing or two about things in space were a small, non-influential portion of the population and that they could be safely ig-nored - a view that is probably way too prevalent in the industry. Another reason is that some writers and producers probably feel that asking for help is the same as admit-ting weakness and that they want to maintain the impression that they are totally in control of the production. Of course, there is also ignorance. Many in TV and film production simply do not know how easy it is to get this stuff right. One can always look things up online or even ask amateur astronomers. I do not know of any amateur who would refuse to impart astronomical knowledge to a TV or film producer. Most of us would proba-bly leap at the chance. Finally, fear may play a small part. It has been stated at a recent astrobiology conference in Chicago (the Space Daily article can be read at: http://tinyurl.com/52y7eb ) that quite a few of the people in mainstream me-dia, mostly journalists, but probably others as well, are scared of astronomers of both kinds (amateur and pro-fessional). Also, there is an anecdote that Timothy Ferris told during his presentation on the Night Sky Network ( http://nightsky.jpl.nasa.gov/ ). He was appearing on one of the network morning news shows, and the an-chorwoman who was interviewing him, an unidentified 15-year veteran on the job was literally shaking in fear of him prior to the interview. This was a woman who had interviewed all manner of people, even criminals, yet she was scared of an amateur astronomer. Ferris, as he calmed her down, discovered she was afraid he would make her look stupid. I'm sure there are others in film and TV who share such views. One thing that can be done to try to improve the depiction of astronomy in the mainstream media is to make people in the media aware that it is not difficult to get accurate information on astronomical matters. So, at any reasonable opportunity, we should offer our knowledge to those in the media. I have already made a step in this direction. At a recent convention, I met independent filmmaker James Kerwin who works in the Helicon Arts Film Cooperative (http://www.heliconarts.com). While most of his films have been based on Shakespear-ean plays or have featured mythological themes, his most recent film, "Yesterday Was a Lie", is a film noir story with a science fiction twist. It also features some real science (quantum physics) and it even has a num-ber of astronomical references. I was impressed by this and I found that he actually researched this stuff on his own. So, I let him know that if he ever had any questions of an astronomical nature, all he had to do was con-tact me. Kerwin agreed. If only more amateurs made that kind of effort, we might make some progress and improve our public rela-tions to boot. Dave Kuchinsky 1915 - 2008: A Remembrance I first met Dave Kuchinsky back in the fifties when AAI was meeting at the Stillman School in Plainfield. He loved to read popular books on astronomy by Eddington and others. He particularly liked to discuss the Big Bang and even suggested that it might have been a local event. Dave, with his wife Gloria, led solar eclipse expeditions to Kenya, Manitoba, Indonesia, and Hawaii. As a Certified Public Accountant, Dave handled all the financial matters on these expeditions. I remember the night just before the eclipse in Indonesia. It was raining hard as tropical rains often do. Dave and I wondered if any- one there would see the eclipse. Earlier that day, we had told the people attending our lecture at the Gaja Mada University where we were staying to look when the sky turned dark to see a wonderful sight. After the lecture, a professor thanked us for saying what the government prohibited him from saying. Officially one could only view the eclipse on the TV and then only briefly or you would turn blind. The day of the eclipse was beautiful. We had clear skies from horizon to horizon, but, just as we were set-ting up, armed forces surrounded our viewing field. Dave and I wondered if we were about to be arrested for what we had said the night before. We soon learned, however, that the troops were sent to hold back the crowds so that we could do our experiments. It is events like this that make our trips so memorable. Thanks, Dave, for making it possible for us to be pre-sent for such great events. Dr. Lew ANNUAL MEMBERSHIP MEETING May 16, 2008 "Annual Members' Meeting" - Members of AAI AAI reserves this month's meeting for speakers from our membership who would like to share their research, astrophotos/imaging, telescope-making and other activities. The election of officers will also take place. 8PM IN THE ROY SMITH THEATER EMAIL CONTACTS presi-dent@asterism.org President of AAI editor@asterism.org Editor of The Aster-ism Ray Shapp, Editor Deadline for submissions to each month's newsletter is the first Friday of that month. member-ship@asterism.org AAI Membership Chair trustees@asterism.org All three Trustees of AAI ray@asterism.org Ray Shapp for the website exec@asterism.org Executive Committee plus Trustees QOs@asterism.org All Qualified Observers Info@asterism.org AAI president, corresponding secretary, and computer services chair MEMBERSHIP DUES Regular Membership: $21 Sustaining Member-ship: $31 Sponsoring Member- ship: $46 Family Membership: $5 First Time Ap-plication Fee: $3 Sky & Telescope: $32.95 Astronomy subscription: $34 (Subscription renewals to S&T can be done directly. See "Membrship- Dues" on website for details.) AAI Dues can be paid in person to Membership Chair or Treasurer, or by mail to: AAI, PO Box 111, Garwood, NJ 07027-0111 DR. LEW'S SEMINARS See Dr. Lew Thomas for possible upcoming seminar topics. (Choice of topic at Dr. Lew's seminars is determined by par-ticipants' interest) DOME DUTY May 23 Team C May 30 Team D June 6 Team E June 13 Team A June 20 Team B FRIDAYS AT SPERRY May 23, 2008 Ask The Astronomers Dr. Lew May 30, 2008 TBA June 6, 2008 What's Up: A Down-to-Earth Sky Guide Kathie Vaccari June 13, 2008 TBA June 20, 2008 TBA All schedules above were accurate at time of publication. Please check www.asterism.org for latest information (click on "Club Activities") June 2008 welcomes Jupiter back into the late evening sky and gives us the first half of a lovely ballet among Mars, Saturn, and Regulus. But the best news is that none of the events of June require getting up be-fore sunrise! Saturn starts the month just three degrees to the upper left of Regulus, the heart of Leo, the Lion. By the end of June, this interval has only increased to five degrees. Mars, which started the month about 18 degrees to the lower right of Regulus races in to within one degree by the end of June. Their actual conjunction, which happens just as July begins, is the closest of the year between a planet and a first magnitude star. Exactly four years ago, Venus passed directly across the face of the Sun. A second transit will occur in ex-actly four more years. This month Venus establishes a center of symmetry by passing directly behind the disk of the Sun. This may also explain why the planet's past three-month period of near-invisibility in the morning sky will be matched by a similar difficult period coming up in the evening sky. The next transit of Venus will not happen until December 2117 beginning a similar eight- year pattern. Venus passes close to Mercury five times this year. The next quintuple conjunction of Mercury and Venus will not happen until 2048. This rare event can occur only when the middle conjunction is very close to the Sun, as it is this month. The first two conjunctions were lost in the predawn sky around the end of winter, while the last two will be hard to observe after sunset in late summer. The Moon moves about twelve degrees to the left over a twenty-four hour period. We get a nice chance to see this starting on the 7th when the crescent Moon is about one degree to the lower left of Mars. Along with Saturn, Regulus is twelve degrees to the upper left of Mars. Sure enough, the following evening the crescent Moon is about one degree to the lower left of Regulus. Partly due to 2008 being a leap year, summer begins on the 20th instead of the usual 21st. This is fairly common for the western hemisphere, but for Universal Time, the astronomical standard, it is not common at all. In fact, by arriving just 38 seconds before midnight in Greenwich, England, summer starts on the 20th for the first time since 1896! NASA Science Outreach and Update by Ken Kremer Phoenix Landing on May 25 Phoenix is NASA's newest Mars science spacecraft and is on course and set to land in less than 2 weeks on the Martian north polar icy soil on May 25, above Mars' Arctic Circle. Using a powerful scoop located at the end of the robotic arm, Phoenix will dig into the hard as cement and ice-rich soil and analyze samples to study the history of water in the ice, search for evidence of climate cycles, monitor weather of the polar region and investigate whether the subsurface Martian polar environment has ever been favorable for microbial life. Phoenix Mars Lander scoops into icy soil (artist's rendition). Download image here: http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/images/gallery/sm_139.jpg Phoenix Website: http://phoenix.lpl.arizona.edu/index.php New View of Doomed Moon Phobos NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) took the stunning new color image of Phobos (next page) on March 23, 2008. Approximately 13.5 miles in diameter, Phobos is the larger of the two Martian moons. With less than one-thousandth the gravity of Earth, that's not enough gravity to pull the moon into a sphere, so it's oblong. Phobos was 4,200 miles away when the HiRISE camera on board took the photograph. The camera was able to see features as small as 65 feet across at that distance. "Phobos is of great interest because it may be rich in water ice and carbon-rich materials," according to Al-fred McEwen, HiRISE principal investigator at the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona, Tucson. Previous spacecraft, notably Mars Global Surveyor, have taken higher-resolution pictures of Phobos because they flew closer to the moon. "But the HiRISE images are higher quality, making the new data some of the best ever for Phobos," says Nathan Bridges, HiRISE team member at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. "These new images will help constrain the origin and evolution of this moon." Phobos orbits about 3500 miles above the Martian surface. The moon is doomed because gravity is pulling it down, and stresses will likely shatter it in about 100 million years to form a ring of decaying debris around Mars. Phobos from MRO: Download medium resolution version of this new image here http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/mro/gallery/press/20080409b/PIA10368_br2.jpg Send Your Name to the Moon and Space LRO: NASA invites people of all ages to join the lunar exploration journey with an opportunity to send their names to the Moon aboard the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO, spacecraft. LRO is being built at the NASA Goddard Spaceflight Center in Maryland. The Send Your Name to the Moon Web site enables everyone to participate in the lunar adventure and to place their names in orbit around the Moon for years to come. Par-ticipants can submit their information, print a certificate, and have their name entered into a database. The database will be placed on a microchip that will be integrated onto the spacecraft. The deadline for submitting names is June 27, 2008. Website: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/LRO/main/index.html Kepler: NASA has announced an opportunity for anyone to submit their name to be included on a DVD that will be rocketed into space as part of NASA's Kepler Mission, scheduled to launch in February 2009 from NASA's Kennedy Space Center, Florida. The goal of this mission is to discover the first known Earth-like plan-ets beyond our solar system. Name in Space is an international activity associated with the International Year of Astronomy 2009 in recognition of the 400th anniversary of Johannes Kepler's publication of his first two laws of planetary motion. The deadline for submissions is November 1, 2008. Website: http://kepler.nasa.gov View from STS-123 Mission to the International Space Station (ISS): The next Space Shuttle mission, STS 124, is set to blast off with a 7- person crew on May 31, and deliver the giant Japanese Kibo pressurized science module to the ISS. Kibo will be the largest lab on the Space Station and it will be attached to the Harmony module. Farewell View of the ISS through the window of Shuttle Endeavour as it undocked on March 24, 2008: http://www.nasa.gov/externalflash/123_gallery/hi-resjpgs/28.jpg Astronomy Outreach Gloucester County College (GCC): Sewell, NJ, April 23. GCC "On Mars" in 3-D: At the kind invitation of GCC student Dan McCormick (and fellow member of the Rit-tenhouse Astronomical Society in Philadelphia), I was privileged to present a lecture titled "Exploring Mars (and Asteroids), the Search for Life, and a Journey in 3-D" to an enthusiastic crowd as the first speaker at the GCC Astronomy club. Photo: Dan McCormick GCC Astronomy Club Officers and Ken Kremer after the Mars Lecture: Newspaper announcements appeared in the Philadelphia Inquirer and Gloucester County Times which broadened the audience to members of the general public and fellow amateur astronomers from the south jersey area. Thanks to Dan (holding the RAT science drill) and the GCC staff ! Details here: http://www.gccnj.edu/general_information/ken_kremer.cfm Washington Crossing Nature Center: Titusville, NJ, April 12 The crowd enjoys the Solar System in 3-D via projected images and giant 3-D display posters at my talk on "Mars, Saturn, Asteroids and Beyond". Learn more and hear a Phoenix update at my UACNJ talk on Saturday, June 28 (details below). Please contact me for more info or science outreach presentations by email. My upcoming Astronomy talks include: United Astronomy Clubs of New Jersey (UACNJ) at Jenny Jump Observatory/Park: Hope, NJ, June 28, Sat, 8 PM. "Twin Robots Exploring Mars (in 3-D)" . Website: http://www.uacnj.org/Stella Della Valley Star Party and Bucks Mont Astronomical Association (BMAA): Ottsville, PA, Oct 25, Sat. "Launching DAWN to Asteroids: From Behind the Scenes at Kennedy Space Center". Dr. Ken Kremer Email: kremerken@yahoo.com NASA JPL Solar System Ambassador