UA Science: Sky School!

Having recently changed career paths into the Department of Astronomy at the University of Arizona, I am often asked by friends and relatives how it is working out.  Sometimes the question is straightforward, other times the question comes from a skeptical place and may be a projection of the other persons own fears of change (much more frequent from long time UA colleagues).  I generally give a short answer to the effect that I could not be happier with my new co-workers and that in particular, the projects I am working on are quite challenging and engaging.

One of these projects is now among the most rewarding things I have ever done- establishing the UA Science: Sky School.  I never would have had the opportunity if not for the ideas, hard work and dedication of my colleague and friend, Ben Blonder.  Ben envisioned a residential science school operated by the University, and together we have launched this new program.  In addition to Ben, I am very fortunate to be working with Pacifica Sommers and Rebecca Lipson who also maintain the vision and dedication to the project.  Pacifica , a PhD candidate in ecology and evolutionary biology and a NASA graduate Space Grant Fellow, and Rebecca, a highly regarded middle school science teacher have helped us to create a truly world-class educational experience.  I could go on and on, but this video explains things nicely.

Summer of Beth ~ Part 1

July 16th marked Beth's 50th birthday...and we have been celebrating all summer in various ways.  For the first time, Beth planned to join Ian and I on our annual summer trip to Colorado and I believe she will never miss the trip again.  As Beth was coming along on the (previously 'boys') trip, we figured it was high time to upgrade the experience...and saving you the painful details, we ended up purchasing an r-pod travel trailer.  This is a fairly small trailer (weighing in at 2400 lbs. dry) that can be pulled by our existing Nissan Xterra and it has many luxuries that push the definition of "camping."  At left you can see the r-pod parked at one of our favorite campsites, Woods Lake, just southwest of Telluride.  Below is an image of the lake, about a quarter mile hike from our camping spot.

This is the view of El Diente Peak from our site (a very challenging 14'er to hike):

I'll post more pictures from our trip in successive posts, but here is one of Beth in her birthday cowboy hat, getting into the Colorado spirit.

 Next up...Climbing Mt. Quandry!

Sunset time lapse

I spent the past week in Del Mar California with my family (another longer post to follow), and while there devoted some time to playing with my Canon T2i and the software Magic Lantern (freeware, actually) that I had just installed onto the cameras SD card.  The software is pretty amazing and while many of its features were designed for shooting video there are some neat features for still photos as well.  Seeing how powerful the software is, it makes one wonder why Canon has not directly incorporated many of the ideas into their newer cameras.  While I have just started to scratch the surface of all it has to offer, I did try the built in intervalometer while the sun was setting over the ocean.  The result is the animation below.  Images were taken every 10 seconds using a 24-105mm zoom lens at 32mm, with manual exposure changes as the sun was setting.  Magic Lantern has a feature to automatically ramp the exposure, but that is the next feature I need to explore.

Planetary aesthetics

If you have been watching the evening skies this past month you know that we have had some very nice alignments of Jupiter, Venus and Mercury following sunset.  While Jupiter is now departed from view, Venus and Mercury remain and this week were joined by a fresh crescent moon.  This past Saturday I was at the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum doing some astronomy outreach in support of the UA Cancer Center and took the image below.  Venus is the lower planet and Mercury the upper.  Click to enlarge to full size!

Two nights later (this past Monday), I took this image from in front of my house where the planets were joined by the crescent moon, making a nice triangle.  If you click to enlarge to full size and look closely, you will see above the moon another interloper in the image, a bat!

Hummingbird monitoring

I spent the weekend leading a group of students visiting the UA Science: Sky School up at Mount Lemmon.  On Sunday morning at sunrise some of the students assisted with the ongoing hummingbird monitoring that takes place at the Mount Lemmon SkyCenter every other weekend throughout the summer. The work is led by the The Hummingbird Monitoring Network, a research program with the ultimate goal of improving the chances for the long term survival of hummingbirds.

Birds are trapped, banded (if not already wearing a band), weighed, examined for general health, checked for pollen that may be in their breast feathers and all the data is logged into a database.  Prior to release, the birds are fed until they are satiated.  This last part was apparently enjoyable for the birds, as many of them took their time leaving post-feeding.  Those moments when volunteers were holding the birds in the palm of their hands, provided several fine opportunities to take pictures of the hummingbirds.  Click the images for full size, and if your browser automatically re-sizes images, click them again!

Globular Cluster Messier 14

For amateur astronomers, spring may be galaxy observing season, yet summer provides the opportunity to observe most of the globular clusters that inhabit the outer halo of our galaxy.  Globular clusters are to me, the most beautiful objects to observe through a telescope as they are tight swarms of stars- containing well over 100,000 stars (and some many more!) all within an apparent diameter of a few arc-minutes.  Many folks describe them as diamonds spilled on black velvet and that description is apt.  At left is an image I took of the large globular cluster M 22 in Sagittarius last summer with my Canon T2i through my TEC 140.  (It is a single exposure, not multiple exposures integrated)

These clusters are tightly bound by gravity which gives them a general spherical shape and a higher density of stars toward the center.  There are upwards of 150 known globular clusters in our Milky Way galaxy. While they contain some of the oldest stars in the Universe, the origin and role of globular clusters in the evolution of galaxies remains unclear and this is an area of active research.   Astronomers who study galactic evolution have been able to detect globular clusters in most of the galaxies they have studied, and some galaxies contain extraordinary numbers. For instance, the great Andromeda Galaxy has more than 500, and the giant elliptical galaxy M 87 in Virgo contains approximately 13,000!  (See this post for my observation of the jet emanating from the center of M 87).

Last night I was out observing and spent quite a bit of time observing globular clusters in the constellation of Ophiuchus.  There are 20 reasonably bright globular clusters in this constellation, most if not all of which should be visible in my 140mm refractor under reasonably dark skies.  Among these globulars are 7 Messier objects, from M 107 which is the dimmest of the Messier globular clusters to the majestic clusters M 10 and M 12.  After observing these, as well as M 62, M 9 and M 19, I slewed the telescope to M 14 and was surprised at what I saw.

I have observed all of the Messier objects at some point years ago, yet  I am not sure that I have returned to this cluster since that time.  The cluster, discovered by Messier in 1764, lies in a remote area of the constellation and at first glance the cluster is unimpressive.  It is difficult to resolve many stars and appears more nebulous than cluster like...which is probably why it did not stick in my memory as a great visual target.  More experienced now than I was those years ago, I began to wonder why this cluster appeared so large and reasonably bright in my telescope yet resolution of the stars was so difficult.  A little reference checking and I learned that this globular contains several hundred thousand stars and has an absolute luminosity about 400,000 times that of our own sun!  This cluster is about 30,000 light years away, and as it turns out, the light from the cluster is obscured by an extensive amount of dust in our galaxy.  Below is my sketch from last night of M 14 at a magnification of 163x.

The cluster has a brighter central region with a fainter outer halo and it is difficult to resolve member stars (the sketch is generous in this regard).  The cluster has a grainy appearance and with averted vision it does seem that some faint stars come and go.  The cluster is approximately magnitude 7.6 and has an apparent diameter of 11 arc minutes.  Again, with a cluster this large and bright one would expect to resolve stars.   Often, it is not simply the aesthetics of objects in the eyepiece that make an observation interesting; it is knowing what it is that one is looking at.  In this case, one of the most impressive facts about this cluster is that it has a diameter of approximately 110 light years.  Our galaxy is approximately 100,000 light years across, so it would take only 1000 of these clusters to span the galaxy.  that may not sound impressive until one considers that our galaxy has between 200 and 300 billion stars...

Planetary conjunctions!

Today I returned from LA to the comfy confines of Tucson and my observatory.  As the sun was setting and I was noting the beautiful colors in the Belt of Venus I was reminded of how lucky I am to live in an area with such open horizons and frequently clear atmosphere.   The evening was so nice I decided to take a picture of the planetary conjunction in the west  from my home so as to capture many of the colors in the sky that I could simply not capture from the middle of LA.  The image below was taken at 8:13 MST (0313 UT) with my canon T2i and a 24-105mm zoom lens at 88mm.  The image was .8/sec, ISO 200 at f/4.5.  Click on the images to enlarge them and if your browser automatically re-sizes images you may need to click them a second time.  The images are identical with the exception of the labels on the right hand image.

As it happens, I discovered on my cameras memory card another conjunction image that I had taken earlier in the month, on May 13th at 0332 UT when the Moon was very close to Jupiter.  Jupiter is the bright dot near the lower right of the image (click to enlarge):

This was a 1 second exposure at f/4 with a Canon 15-85mm EF-S lens set at 85mm, at an ISO of 400.  I am quite happy with the exposure on the moon, particularly in that one can appreciate not only the Earthshine, but also some of the detail on the lunar terminator.  For instance you can see how some of the crater floors are not yet illuminated by the rising Sun, resulting in a scalloped look to the bright terminator.  Below is a full resolution crop of the moon from the above image...as always, click to enlarge.

Good night moon!