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May Term 2008 Astronomy Trip Results Michael Herriage, Jeanette Schofield, & Aaron Ward Department of Physics, Mcmurry University, Abilene, Texas 79697

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May Term 2008 Astronomy Trip Results Michael Herriage, Jeanette Schofield, & Aaron Ward Department of Physics, Mcmurry University, Abilene, Texas 79697 May Term 2008 Astronomy Trip Results Michael Herriage, Jeanette Schofield, & Aaron Ward Department of Physics, McMurry University, Abilene, Texas 79697 Introduction Astraea Pluto Saturn In May of 2008, Dr. Keith and three McMurry students Astraea is an asteroid in the main asteroid belt. The Pluto was discovered in 1930 by Clyde Tombaugh at Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and is classified travelled to Flagstaff, Arizona to observe the stars for a asteroid was first discovered in 1845 by Karl Ludwig Lowell Observatory. While on the trip, we stopped by Lowell as a gas giant. One of Saturn's most distinctive features week on the National Undergraduate Research Hencke. We observed Astraea because its well-known Observatory and were able to see the actual device that are its rings which are composed of many small particles Observatory’s (NURO) 31" Telescope. We spent our nights location allowed us to easily practice locating a moving Tombaugh used to discover Pluto. The device, which is orbiting the planet. at the observatory taking data and went sightseeing during object. called a blink comparator, is shown below. We took images of Saturn to get practice in stacking the day. For four of the five nights we were there, we used The image on the right was taken approximately three images. Normally, images taken of Saturn are sharper and the telescope to take images of the night sky (on the fifth hours after the image on the left. By blinking the images do not have a yellow tint. The reason why are images are night, it snowed and we were unable to collect any back and forth quickly, we were able to locate the so fuzzy is due to the combination of a cloud cover the night data). These images were used for two different purposes: asteroid. In the images below, Astraea is the bright dot the images were taken and the fact that we should have blinking and stacking. inside the blue squares. It can easily be seen that Astraea's taken more images of the planet. location relative to the background stars changed in just a few hours. Blinking Seeing where Pluto was discovered inspired us to also find Pluto ourselves. To do this, we had to take images of it Blinking is a technique often used in astronomy to locate over a couple of nights. The reason for this is that Pluto is a moving target. When two images are blinked together, moving much slower than an asteroid so we had to allow they are overlapped and then flashed back and forth enough time to pass for Pluto to move in relation to the quickly. Stars are very far away from Earth so they will not background stars. Pluto is the bright dot inside the small move in the images. However, objects that are much closer square below. (such as an asteroid in the asteroid belt) will be able to be identified moving in the images. Since there is a lot of noise captured in images taken of the night sky, it is best to take Right Ascension : 12:50:03 / Declination : 12:48:20 Right Ascension : 10:17:52 / Declination : 12:28:16 images of the target object at a couple different periods of time. In years past, locating a moving object using blinking Searching for a New Discovery What to do When it SnowsSnows………… techniques was time intensive. An astronomer would have to manually move the telescope into position before taking a Asteroids and comets are found by astronomers looking To be able to observe the sky, the weather conditions picture of the night sky. Due to the Earth’s rotation about its at unknown areas of the sky and trying to see if they can need to be just right. Rain or snow could damage the axis every 24 hours, the telescope had to be readjusted find a new, undiscovered object. We took images of three Right Ascension : 12:55:04 / Declination : -5:53:24 observatory’s telescope. In addition, cloud cover caused often in order to keep track of the same group of random areas of the sky in hopes of finding a new asteroid images taken of the night sky to be fuzzy. Thankfully, the stars. After all of the images had been acquired, the of object. Unfortunately, we did not find anything new. The weather cooperated for most of the week and we were able astronomer would use a device called a blink comparator to images below are the three different areas that we looked Stacking to gather a lot of data. However, on the last night of locate any moving objects. Despite the fact that blinking at. observations, it snowed. Of course, we weren’t too upset… was very time intensive, it was used to discover various Stacking is a technique often used in astronomy to asteroids and comets as well as Pluto. improve the clarity of a celestial object in an image. When Today, computers have made the process of finding a an astronomical image is taken, there is a lot of noise. By moving target much faster. At the observatory, movement of taking many images of the same object and combining the telescope was controlled via computer and a camera them, the noise in the images can be reduced and a clearer was mounted onto the telescope. Thus, by just inputting picture of the desired object can be obtained. The more coordinates for the desired area of study, the telescope images that can be taken of the desired object, the clearer would automatically be moved to that location. We then Right Ascension : 12:55:04 / Declination : -5:53:24 the final image will be. took images of the area using the NASACAM’s To use stacking, we took multiple images, one after programmable adjustments, controlling exposure time, another, with the same intensities for each image. We then number of exposures, and filter types. A few hours later (or, uploaded each image into an imaging software program Acknowledgments in the case of planets, a few nights later) we once again where each image was treated as a layer. Once all the took pictures of the same area. Thank you to Dr. Keith for putting up with us for a whole week and images were uploaded, we used Registax4 to “stack” the showing us how cool observational astronomy can be. Once we had collected enough data, we used Project images on top of each other, creating a single image. This The background picture is from http://www.cgtextures.com/. CLEA's (Contemporary Laboratory Experiences in newly-created image showed the desired object with most Astronomy) Astrometry of Asteroids software program to Right Ascension : 12:55:04 / Declination : -4:53:24 of the background noise removed. blink them. To find the desired target, we uploaded two In addition to noise reduction, stacking can also be used Questions or CommentsComments???? different images of the same location, each taken at a to create colored images. The telescope had five different different time. CLEA automatically aligned the stars so that lens settings: a red, green, or blue filter, an ultraviolet filter, Please contact Michael at [email protected], the images would line up. After the stars were aligned, and no filter. By combining images taken in the red, green, Jeanette at [email protected], or Aaron CLEA blinked the images together. [email protected]. An online version of this poster can be and blue filters, we were able to create colored images. We found at cs1.mcm.edu/~schofield.jeanette/physics/ssp/mayTerm.ppt During the trip, we started out by observing the well- dubbed these colored images "pretty pictures." known targets of Astraea and Pluto. Then, we moved the camera to three random locations in the hope of finding a Right Ascension : 12:55:04 / Declination : -3:53:24 new asteroid or comet..
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