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Nobel Prize in Physics 2011

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It was announced today that the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics is being awarded to three astronomers for their work on the nature of the expansion of the universe.  The following is an excerpt from nobelprize.org.

“The Nobel Prize in Physics 2011 was awarded “for the discovery of the accelerating expansion of the Universe through observations of distant supernovae” with one half to Saul Perlmutter and the other half jointly to Brian P. Schmidt and Adam G. Riess.”

Dr. Patterson and I have been teaching our students about this discovery for years and we have been following the work and results for sometime.  It was a stunning and very surprising discovery that countered everything we expected about the expansion of the universe.

They measured distances to galaxies using the measured brightnesses of type 1a supernovae (exploding white dwarfs) and measured the redshift of these galaxies.   Using the apparent peak brightnesses of these supernovae, they could calculate the distances to the galaxies where these supernovae occurred.  The redshift is used in the Hubble Law to calculate the speed at which galaxies are moving away from us.  The finding wasn’t that the expansion of the universe was slowing down in its expansion, as one would expect, but is in fact speeding up!

The cause may be some kind of vacuum energy, often called “dark energy” or “the cosmological constant”.  The nature of this energy is a complete mystery and is often referred to as the most important problem in physics and astronomy today.

There is little dispute about the correctness of the measurements.  However, the finding all hinges on the idea that all type 1a supernovae explode with identical brightnesses and that nothing like the rotation rate of the white dwarf causes variations in these supernovae.

Astronomy, News, Uncategorized

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Images Apollo Landing Sites

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Not that this will stop the conspiracy theorists who insist that Apollo happened on a soundstage, but for the rest of us, this is pretty darn cool! The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) is in a very low orbit around the Moon, and using its hi-resolution camera it was able to capture images of the Apollo 12, 14, and 17 landing sites. You can see the equipment left on the surface, rover tracks, and foot paths left by the Apollo astronauts.

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Do You Want to Help Out with Astronomy Research?

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Today, there are astronomy projects out there that are designed to get the general public involved to assist in realresearch.  Two such projects are Galaxy Zoo, and Galaxy Zoo Supernovae.

At Galaxy Zoo, hundreds of thousands galaxies in Hubble Space Telescope images need classifying.  Astronomers need these classifications to help solve the puzzle of how galaxies form and evolve.  People wanting to participate are run through a simple tutorial.  After completing the tutorial they are given new images of galaxies to classify.

The Galaxy Zoo Supernovae project involves looking at images of galaxies where bright spots have recent appeared.  Supernovae are exploding stars and there are different types of supernovae.  Participants then compare the bright spots with older reference images to see if these spots are indeed supernovae.  Like Galaxy Zoo, a simple and brief tutorial is completed before they are set loose on new images.

If you love astronomy or just want to be a part of professional astronomy research, check these sites out.

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Summer Work

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The corn is starting to dry out, so it must be time for the Fall semester to start up again. Here at JCCC, though, the work doesn’t stop just because its Summertime. This past summer term, I had an honors student that worked on astrophotography and differential photometry. Both were fun projects, and I’ll write more about the variable star photometry later. For now, let me show off some of the excellent images G. W. Francis took with our SBIG ST-8 CCD camera and his own Nikon D40.

A solar prominance seen throuh a Hydrogen-alpha (H-a) filter. The solar disc has been masked to enhance the prominance.
A solar prominance seen throuh a Hydrogen-alpha (H-a) filter. The solar disc has been masked to enhance the prominance.

Every Monday evening in June, it seemed, was cloudy, so we decided to take advantage of a sunny afternoon and image the Sun using an H-alpha filter. This filter only allows the one wavelength of red light emitted by hydrogen atoms which enables us to see features like the prominence shown above.

Ursa Major obscured by the reflected light from sodium vapor lamps.
Ursa Major obscured by the reflected light from sodium vapor lamps.

GW mounted his D40 onto the piggyback mount of our Celestron 8″ SC telescope and tried to take an image of the constellation Ursa Major. Most of what he got was the reflected light from the sodium vapor lamps in the parking lot. This was the last night of observing at the college. The light pollution was just too much for us.

21 30-sec exposures from the D40 rotated and stacked to form a single image of the Northern Sky. Polaris is the bright star in the center of the image.
21 30-sec exposures from the D40 rotated and stacked to form a single image of the Northern Sky. Polaris is the bright star in the center of the image.

21 30-sec images from the D40 stacked, but not aligned so that the rotation of the Earth is evident by the trails formed by the stars.
21 30-sec images from the D40 stacked, but not aligned so that the rotation of the Earth is evident by the trails formed by the stars.

GW mounted his Nikon D40 on a tripod and pointed it northward, centering Polaris in the field of view and collected 21 images each with a 30-sec exposure. By rotating and aligning each image, a detailed view of the Northern Night Sky is revealed. When the images are not rotated, but simply stacked and merged together, the rotation of the Earth becomes apparent as the stars leave trails through the sky. Notice that Polaris, which is very close to the North Celestial Pole, remains nearly fixed in place.

M57 - The Ring Nebula
M57 - The Ring Nebula

Before settling down onto the program variable star for the evening, the we targeted several Messier objects. M57, the Ring Nebula, is a planetary nebula. A star, not unlike our Sun, threw off its outer layers as it died leaving behind an expanding shell of gas and a small but staggeringly hot white dwarf in the center.

M16 - The Eagle Nebula imaged by peeking through the gaps in a maple tree.
M16 - The Eagle Nebula imaged by peeking through the gaps in a maple tree.

M16, The Eagle Nebula, made famous by the Hubble Telescope’s image Pillars of Creation, had to be imaged by peeking through the gaps in a maple tree near where we had setup the telescope. The location was chosen for optimum viewing of the variable star DY Her, not M16, but we got lucky. In the image you can make out the famous pillars in the top center of the image.

M13 - The Great Cluster in Hercules
M13 - The Great Cluster in Hercules

M13, the Great Cluster in Hercules, is one of the closest (relatively speaking) globular clusters to our planet. This dense cluster is home for around a million ancient stars.

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New Pics

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Rather than using the SBIG ST-8 CCD camera, I opted for my Nikon D90 for these photos. In some respects its better, in other ways not so much. First stop: The Sun.

The chromosphere shown in H-alpha
The chromosphere shown in H-alpha

In this image, you can see the Sun’s chromosphere and a small prominence on the left side of the image. The camera doesn’t have the resolution nor dynamic range of your eyeball, so cool though this may be, nothing substitutes for seeing the Sun live. This image was taken through a DayStar H-alpha filter threaded to the back of our 12″ Meade on the roof of the CLB with my D90. I’ve tried doing solar imaging with the SBIG camera, but even at the fastest shutter speed, the image saturates. Even in the above image, the disc of the Sun is overexposed in order to make the chromosphere visible.

The double star Alberio in the constellation of Cygnus.
The double star Alberio in the constellation of Cygnus.

Alberio is a nice double star in the constellation of Cygnus. If you have a pair of binoculars, this is an easy target. The color difference between the two stars is due to their different temperatures. The bright blue star is extremely hot where as the yellow star is cooler (relatively speaking) with a temperature closer to that of our own Sun. This image is a single 30″ exposure with the D90 set at ISO3200. The noise isn’t too bad, but being a single shot, there’s more noise and less detail than one could get by taking multiple images and combining them. I’ll try that some time soon. With the D90 as opposed to the SBIG, the colors of the two stars are really easy to capture. With the SBIG, one would have to take three separate images through a red, a green, and a blue filter and combine them to form the color image. Doable, but definitely more work.

The Great Cluster in Hercules, M13
The Great Cluster in Hercules, M13

This image of the Great Cluster of Hercules, M13, is a single 30″ exposure like the image of Alberio, but with the much dimmer object comes a lower signal-to-noise ratio. Imaging objects like this is where the SBIG becomes vastly superior to a digital SLR like the D90. As with the Alberio image, this image could be improved by combining multiple exposures.

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EWtS Wrap-Up

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The Evening With The Stars this spring had a great turn out. Thanks to all who came out. Leo gave a great talk, and I’ve heard from many of the attendees that they really enjoyed the evening. Unfortunately, the weather was not as cooperative and clouds ruined our planned observing. We’ll try again in the Fall when we have our EWtS event again. Here are some pictures from the evening.

Kings and Queens, Myths and Monsters: A Tour of the Spring Sky
Kings and Queens, Myths and Monsters: A Tour of the Spring Sky
Leo Bud Johns talking about the joy of observing the night sky.
Leo "Bud" Johns talking about the joy of observing the night sky.
Attendees of the EWtS event.
Attendees of the EWtS event.
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Evening With The Stars

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The JCCC Science Division presents anEVENING WITH THE STARS

April 4th at 7:00pm
in the Craig Auditorium, GEB 233

Leo “Bud” Johns
of the Astronomical Society of Kansas City
will give a presentation on
Kings and Queens; Myths and Monsters: A Tour of the Spring Sky

Followed by night sky observing, weather permitting, with Prof. Doug Patterson at the Paul Tebbe Observatory located on the roof of the CLB. Some objects of note that will be viewable are:

  • The Orion Nebula
  • The Pleiades Cluster
  • The Double Cluster in Perseus
  • Saturn
  • and the Moon.

For more information, contact either
William Koch, wkoch@jccc.edu, at (913) 469-8500 x3725
or
Doug Patterson, dpatter@jccc.edu, at (913) 469-8500 x4268.

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Ulysses Update

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The Ulysses spacecraft is slowly dying, but its not quite finished yet! Its demise was slated for July 1, 2008, but even without its primary X-Band transmitter whose heatsink doubles as the heater for the fuel lines, its been surviving. Here’s the latest update on the health of the only spacecraft ever to explore the polar regions of the Sun.

Dear Ulysses colleagues,

Yesterday was mission day 6712 and we surpassed 400 days of S-band mission operations. Given that we thought the spacecraft would only survive a few months after the X-band transmitter failure on 15 January 2008, that’s pretty good going! The last month or so has seen a dramatic increase in data return. This is due in part to a request by NASA HQ for additional DSN coverage and also due to the fact that we can record and play back data again on board the spacecraft. That’s possible because the spacecraft-Earth distance is low enough to support a 1024 bps telemetry data rate at the moment (this situation will last until sometime in mid-March). I’ve attached a plot of our weekly data return percentages which clearly shows the recent improvements.

As far as the hydrazine is concerned, it’s obviously not frozen yet, but there can’t be very much left. Our estimate is that we have almost no fuel left even using our best-case estimates. However, it’s very difficult to get an exact figure of fuel usage over the mission given that we have had about 3 years of closed-loop conscan operations to control nutation when the spacecraft fired the thruster autonomously. During those periods, we had to estimate the number of pulses fired by monitoring the increase in catalyst bed temperature after each period of thruster activity which is not the easiest thing
to do. So the bad news is that we don’t have an exact estimate of how much fuel is left but the good news is that it’s still above zero! We hope that the data returned is continuing to excite you as the solar activity slowly begins to increase.

Best regards,
Nigel