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Stsci Newsletter: 1997 Volume 014 Issue 01
January 1997 • Volume 14, Number 1 SPACE TELESCOPE SCIENCE INSTITUTE Highlights of this issue: • AURA science and functional awards to Leitherer and Hanisch — pages 1 and 23 • Cycle 7 to be extended — page 5 • Cycle 7 approved Newsletter program listing — pages 7-13 Astronomy with HST Climbing the Starburst Distance Ladder C. Leitherer Massive stars are an important and powerful star formation events in sometimes dominant energy source for galaxies. Even the most luminous star- a galaxy. Their high luminosity, both in forming regions in our Galaxy are tiny light and mechanical energy, makes on a cosmic scale. They are not them detectable up to cosmological dominated by the properties of an distances. Stars ~100 times more entire population but by individual massive than the Sun are one million stars. Therefore stochastic effects times more luminous. Except for stars prevail. Extinction represents a severe of transient brightness, like novae and problem when a reliable census of the supernovae, hot, massive stars are Galactic high-mass star-formation the most luminous stellar objects in history is atempted, especially since the universe. massive stars belong to the extreme Massive stars are, however, Population I, with correspondingly extremely rare: The number of stars small vertical scale heights. Moreover, formed per unit mass interval is the proximity of Galactic regions — roughly proportional to the -2.35 although advantageous for detailed power of mass. We expect to find very studies of individual stars — makes it few massive stars compared to, say, difficult to obtain integrated properties, solar-type stars. This is consistent with such as total emission-line fluxes of observations in our solar neighbor- the ionized gas. -
Lurking in the Shadows: Wide-Separation Gas Giants As Tracers of Planet Formation
Lurking in the Shadows: Wide-Separation Gas Giants as Tracers of Planet Formation Thesis by Marta Levesque Bryan In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY Pasadena, California 2018 Defended May 1, 2018 ii © 2018 Marta Levesque Bryan ORCID: [0000-0002-6076-5967] All rights reserved iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost I would like to thank Heather Knutson, who I had the great privilege of working with as my thesis advisor. Her encouragement, guidance, and perspective helped me navigate many a challenging problem, and my conversations with her were a consistent source of positivity and learning throughout my time at Caltech. I leave graduate school a better scientist and person for having her as a role model. Heather fostered a wonderfully positive and supportive environment for her students, giving us the space to explore and grow - I could not have asked for a better advisor or research experience. I would also like to thank Konstantin Batygin for enthusiastic and illuminating discussions that always left me more excited to explore the result at hand. Thank you as well to Dimitri Mawet for providing both expertise and contagious optimism for some of my latest direct imaging endeavors. Thank you to the rest of my thesis committee, namely Geoff Blake, Evan Kirby, and Chuck Steidel for their support, helpful conversations, and insightful questions. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to collaborate with Brendan Bowler. His talk at Caltech my second year of graduate school introduced me to an unexpected population of massive wide-separation planetary-mass companions, and lead to a long-running collaboration from which several of my thesis projects were born. -
Meeting Announcement Upcoming Star Parties And
CVAS Executive Committee Pres – Bruce Horrocks Night Sky Network Coordinator – [email protected] Garrett Smith – [email protected] Vice Pres- James Somers Past President – Dell Vance (435) 938-8328 [email protected] [email protected] Treasurer- Janice Bradshaw Public Relations – Lyle Johnson - [email protected] [email protected] Secretary – Wendell Waters (435) 213-9230 Webmaster, Librarian – Tom Westre [email protected] [email protected] Vol. 7 Number 6 February 2020 www.cvas-utahskies.org The President’s Corner Meeting Announcement By Bruce Horrocks – CVAS President Our next meeting will be held on Wed. I don’t know about most of you, but I for February 26th at 7 pm in the Lake Bonneville Room one would be glad to at least see a bit of sun and of the Logan City Library. Our presenter will be clear skies at least once this winter. I believe there Wendell Waters, and his presentation is called was just a couple of nights in the last 2 months that “Charles Messier and the ‘Not-Comet’ Catalogue”. I was able to get out and do some observing and so I The meeting is free and open to the public. am hoping to see some clear skies this spring. I Light refreshments will be served. COME AND have watched all the documentaries I can stand on JOIN US!! Netflix, so I am running out of other nighttime activities to do and I really want to get out and test my new little 72mm telescope. Upcoming Star Parties and CVAS Events We made a change to our club fees at our last meeting and if you happened to have missed We have four STEM Nights coming up in that I will just quickly explain it to you now. -
Messier Objects
Messier Objects From the Stocker Astroscience Center at Florida International University Miami Florida The Messier Project Main contributors: • Daniel Puentes • Steven Revesz • Bobby Martinez Charles Messier • Gabriel Salazar • Riya Gandhi • Dr. James Webb – Director, Stocker Astroscience center • All images reduced and combined using MIRA image processing software. (Mirametrics) What are Messier Objects? • Messier objects are a list of astronomical sources compiled by Charles Messier, an 18th and early 19th century astronomer. He created a list of distracting objects to avoid while comet hunting. This list now contains over 110 objects, many of which are the most famous astronomical bodies known. The list contains planetary nebula, star clusters, and other galaxies. - Bobby Martinez The Telescope The telescope used to take these images is an Astronomical Consultants and Equipment (ACE) 24- inch (0.61-meter) Ritchey-Chretien reflecting telescope. It has a focal ratio of F6.2 and is supported on a structure independent of the building that houses it. It is equipped with a Finger Lakes 1kx1k CCD camera cooled to -30o C at the Cassegrain focus. It is equipped with dual filter wheels, the first containing UBVRI scientific filters and the second RGBL color filters. Messier 1 Found 6,500 light years away in the constellation of Taurus, the Crab Nebula (known as M1) is a supernova remnant. The original supernova that formed the crab nebula was observed by Chinese, Japanese and Arab astronomers in 1054 AD as an incredibly bright “Guest star” which was visible for over twenty-two months. The supernova that produced the Crab Nebula is thought to have been an evolved star roughly ten times more massive than the Sun. -
Winter Constellations
Winter Constellations *Orion *Canis Major *Monoceros *Canis Minor *Gemini *Auriga *Taurus *Eradinus *Lepus *Monoceros *Cancer *Lynx *Ursa Major *Ursa Minor *Draco *Camelopardalis *Cassiopeia *Cepheus *Andromeda *Perseus *Lacerta *Pegasus *Triangulum *Aries *Pisces *Cetus *Leo (rising) *Hydra (rising) *Canes Venatici (rising) Orion--Myth: Orion, the great hunter. In one myth, Orion boasted he would kill all the wild animals on the earth. But, the earth goddess Gaia, who was the protector of all animals, produced a gigantic scorpion, whose body was so heavily encased that Orion was unable to pierce through the armour, and was himself stung to death. His companion Artemis was greatly saddened and arranged for Orion to be immortalised among the stars. Scorpius, the scorpion, was placed on the opposite side of the sky so that Orion would never be hurt by it again. To this day, Orion is never seen in the sky at the same time as Scorpius. DSO’s ● ***M42 “Orion Nebula” (Neb) with Trapezium A stellar nursery where new stars are being born, perhaps a thousand stars. These are immense clouds of interstellar gas and dust collapse inward to form stars, mainly of ionized hydrogen which gives off the red glow so dominant, and also ionized greenish oxygen gas. The youngest stars may be less than 300,000 years old, even as young as 10,000 years old (compared to the Sun, 4.6 billion years old). 1300 ly. 1 ● *M43--(Neb) “De Marin’s Nebula” The star-forming “comma-shaped” region connected to the Orion Nebula. ● *M78--(Neb) Hard to see. A star-forming region connected to the Orion Nebula. -
Naming the Extrasolar Planets
Naming the extrasolar planets W. Lyra Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, K¨onigstuhl 17, 69177, Heidelberg, Germany [email protected] Abstract and OGLE-TR-182 b, which does not help educators convey the message that these planets are quite similar to Jupiter. Extrasolar planets are not named and are referred to only In stark contrast, the sentence“planet Apollo is a gas giant by their assigned scientific designation. The reason given like Jupiter” is heavily - yet invisibly - coated with Coper- by the IAU to not name the planets is that it is consid- nicanism. ered impractical as planets are expected to be common. I One reason given by the IAU for not considering naming advance some reasons as to why this logic is flawed, and sug- the extrasolar planets is that it is a task deemed impractical. gest names for the 403 extrasolar planet candidates known One source is quoted as having said “if planets are found to as of Oct 2009. The names follow a scheme of association occur very frequently in the Universe, a system of individual with the constellation that the host star pertains to, and names for planets might well rapidly be found equally im- therefore are mostly drawn from Roman-Greek mythology. practicable as it is for stars, as planet discoveries progress.” Other mythologies may also be used given that a suitable 1. This leads to a second argument. It is indeed impractical association is established. to name all stars. But some stars are named nonetheless. In fact, all other classes of astronomical bodies are named. -
August 13 2016 7:00Pm at the Herrett Center for Arts & Science College of Southern Idaho
Snake River Skies The Newsletter of the Magic Valley Astronomical Society www.mvastro.org Membership Meeting President’s Message Saturday, August 13th 2016 7:00pm at the Herrett Center for Arts & Science College of Southern Idaho. Public Star Party Follows at the Colleagues, Centennial Observatory Club Officers It's that time of year: The City of Rocks Star Party. Set for Friday, Aug. 5th, and Saturday, Aug. 6th, the event is the gem of the MVAS year. As we've done every Robert Mayer, President year, we will hold solar viewing at the Smoky Mountain Campground, followed by a [email protected] potluck there at the campground. Again, MVAS will provide the main course and 208-312-1203 beverages. Paul McClain, Vice President After the potluck, the party moves over to the corral by the bunkhouse over at [email protected] Castle Rocks, with deep sky viewing beginning sometime after 9 p.m. This is a chance to dig into some of the darkest skies in the west. Gary Leavitt, Secretary [email protected] Some members have already reserved campsites, but for those who are thinking of 208-731-7476 dropping by at the last minute, we have room for you at the bunkhouse, and would love to have to come by. Jim Tubbs, Treasurer / ALCOR [email protected] The following Saturday will be the regular MVAS meeting. Please check E-mail or 208-404-2999 Facebook for updates on our guest speaker that day. David Olsen, Newsletter Editor Until then, clear views, [email protected] Robert Mayer Rick Widmer, Webmaster [email protected] Magic Valley Astronomical Society is a member of the Astronomical League M-51 imaged by Rick Widmer & Ken Thomason Herrett Telescope Shotwell Camera https://herrett.csi.edu/astronomy/observatory/City_of_Rocks_Star_Party_2016.asp Calendars for August Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat 1 2 3 4 5 6 New Moon City Rocks City Rocks Lunation 1158 Castle Rocks Castle Rocks Star Party Star Party Almo, ID Almo, ID 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 MVAS General Mtg. -
69-22,173 MARKOWITZ, Allan Henry, 1941- a STUDY of STARS
This dissertation has been microfilmed exactly u received 6 9 -2 2 ,1 7 3 MARKOWITZ, Allan Henry, 1941- A STUDY OF STARS EXHIBITING COM POSITE SPECTRA. The Ohio State University, Ph.D., 1969 A stron om y University Microfilms, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan A STUDY OF STARS EXHIBITING COMPOSITE SPECTRA DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Allan Henry Markowitz, A.B., M.Sc. ******** The Ohio S ta te U n iv e rsity 1969 Approved by UjiIjl- A dviser Department of Astronomy ACKNOWLEDGMENTS It is a sincere pleasure to thank my adviser, Professor Arne Slettebak, who originally suggested this problem and whose advice and encouragement were indispensable throughout the course of the research. I am also greatly indebted to Professor Philip Keenan for help in classifying certain late-type spectra and to Professor Terry Roark for instructing me in the operation of the Perkins Observatory telescope, I owe a special debt of gratitude to Dr. Carlos Jaschek of the La Plata Observatory for his inspiration, advice, and encourage ment. The Lowell Observatory was generous in providing extra telescope time when the need arose. I wish to particularly thank Dr. John Hall for this and for his interest. I also gratefully acknowledge the assistance of the Perkins Observatory staff. To my wife, Joan, I owe my profound thanks for her devotion and support during the seemingly unending tenure as a student. I am deeply grateful to my mother for her eternal confidence and to my in-laws for their encouragement. -
Chapter 16 the Sun and Stars
Chapter 16 The Sun and Stars Stargazing is an awe-inspiring way to enjoy the night sky, but humans can learn only so much about stars from our position on Earth. The Hubble Space Telescope is a school-bus-size telescope that orbits Earth every 97 minutes at an altitude of 353 miles and a speed of about 17,500 miles per hour. The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) transmits images and data from space to computers on Earth. In fact, HST sends enough data back to Earth each week to fill 3,600 feet of books on a shelf. Scientists store the data on special disks. In January 2006, HST captured images of the Orion Nebula, a huge area where stars are being formed. HST’s detailed images revealed over 3,000 stars that were never seen before. Information from the Hubble will help scientists understand more about how stars form. In this chapter, you will learn all about the star of our solar system, the sun, and about the characteristics of other stars. 1. Why do stars shine? 2. What kinds of stars are there? 3. How are stars formed, and do any other stars have planets? 16.1 The Sun and the Stars What are stars? Where did they come from? How long do they last? During most of the star - an enormous hot ball of gas day, we see only one star, the sun, which is 150 million kilometers away. On a clear held together by gravity which night, about 6,000 stars can be seen without a telescope. -
Skywatch Number 67 (New Series) : Two Eyes
Amateur Astronomy WITH AN ATTITUDE from Chaos Manor South! Rod Mollise’s March-April 2003 Volume 12, Issue 2 “A Newsletter for the Truly Outbound!” Skywatch Number 67 (New Series) : two eyes. Only when it’s time to look <[email protected]> through a telescope do we squint Great, Huge one closed and look at the universe Inside this Issue: through a single peeper. This is SUPERSIZED uncomfortable, and, since our brain is used to getting the input from two eyes, we lose detail. A binoviewer is How I Learned to Stop Issue! the supposed cure. It’s a device that Worrying and Love uses prisms to take the light coming 1 Binoviewers! from your lenses and mirrors, split it, and direct the image into two Lucy Looks Skyward! How I learned to eyepieces. Put one of these on your 2 scope and you can view the Stop Worrying wonders of the heavens through two The EyeOpener! eyes as nature intended. 3 and Love Too bad this idea didn’t seem to MX7C Conversion! work well—at least not for me. Many 4 Binoviewers were the times I’d been offered the Confessions of an Astromart chance to use a binoviewer, given it Junkie! a try, and come away shaking my Denkmeier Optical, Inc. 5 head at the idea anybody could like 100 Pinehurst Road one of these things. Didn’t seem to Berlin, MD 21811 Lunar Software! matter which brand I tried, either, Information:(410)208-6014 Toll-Free 6 including expensive TeleVues and Order Line: (866)340-4578 AP branded units. -
A Basic Requirement for Studying the Heavens Is Determining Where In
Abasic requirement for studying the heavens is determining where in the sky things are. To specify sky positions, astronomers have developed several coordinate systems. Each uses a coordinate grid projected on to the celestial sphere, in analogy to the geographic coordinate system used on the surface of the Earth. The coordinate systems differ only in their choice of the fundamental plane, which divides the sky into two equal hemispheres along a great circle (the fundamental plane of the geographic system is the Earth's equator) . Each coordinate system is named for its choice of fundamental plane. The equatorial coordinate system is probably the most widely used celestial coordinate system. It is also the one most closely related to the geographic coordinate system, because they use the same fun damental plane and the same poles. The projection of the Earth's equator onto the celestial sphere is called the celestial equator. Similarly, projecting the geographic poles on to the celest ial sphere defines the north and south celestial poles. However, there is an important difference between the equatorial and geographic coordinate systems: the geographic system is fixed to the Earth; it rotates as the Earth does . The equatorial system is fixed to the stars, so it appears to rotate across the sky with the stars, but of course it's really the Earth rotating under the fixed sky. The latitudinal (latitude-like) angle of the equatorial system is called declination (Dec for short) . It measures the angle of an object above or below the celestial equator. The longitud inal angle is called the right ascension (RA for short). -
GU Monocerotis: a High-Mass Eclipsing Overcontact Binary in the Young Open Cluster Dolidze 25? J
A&A 590, A45 (2016) Astronomy DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/201628224 & c ESO 2016 Astrophysics GU Monocerotis: A high-mass eclipsing overcontact binary in the young open cluster Dolidze 25? J. Lorenzo1, I. Negueruela1, F. Vilardell2, S. Simón-Díaz3; 4, P. Pastor5, and M. Méndez Majuelos6 1 Departamento de Física, Ingeniería de Sistemas y Teoría de la Señal, Escuela Politécnica Superior, Universidad de Alicante, Carretera de San Vicente del Raspeig s/n, 03690 San Vicente del Raspeig, Alicante, Spain e-mail: [email protected] 2 Institut d’Estudis Espacials de Catalunya, Edifici Nexus, c/ Capitá, 2−4, desp. 201, 08034 Barcelona, Spain 3 Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, Vía Láctea s/n, 38200 La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain 4 Departamento de Astrofísica, Universidad de La Laguna, Facultad de Física y Matemáticas, Avda. Astrofísico Francisco Sánchez s/n, 38205 La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain 5 Departamento de Lenguajes y Sistemas Informáticos, Universidad de Alicante, Apdo. 99, 03080 Alicante, Spain 6 Departamento de Ciencias, IES Arroyo Hondo, c/ Maestro Manuel Casal 2, 11520 Rota, Cádiz, Spain Received 30 January 2016 / Accepted 3 March 2016 ABSTRACT Context. The eclipsing binary GU Mon is located in the star-forming cluster Dolidze 25, which has the lowest metallicity measured in a Milky Way young cluster. Aims. GU Mon has been identified as a short-period eclipsing binary with two early B-type components. We set out to derive its orbital and stellar parameters. Methods. We present a comprehensive analysis, including B and V light curves and 11 high-resolution spectra, to verify the orbital period and determine parameters.