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03 March 2014A.Indd Published monthly since 1985 by The Binocular and Telescope Shop 84 Wentworth Park Road, Glebe NSW 2037 and 519 Burke Road, Camberwell Vic 3124 available at the shop and at all good Astronomy clubs, centres and free by email or by post for $20 per year. www.bintel.com.au March 2014 * Volume 345 Planets ? There’s thousands of ‘em ! Had a phonecall from a poten- tial customer who asked about a telescope he’d seen advertised on the internet as “Parabolic mirror Newtorian refractor. Ideal telescope for youngsters and beginners...... It offers clear images and an excellent quality / price ratio thanks to the essen- tiality of the optical, making it a suitable instrument for all types of astronomical observation. “ If every other telescopes could combine “essentiality of the optical” with a “mirror Newto- nian refractor” life would be so much easier, ............wouldn’t it? * * * I’ve never heard of a “parabolic ..... over nine hundred for sure.... and still counting! mirror Newtonian refractor” Scientists have announced that the Kepler spacecraft had detected many hundreds of planets in our galaxy. Kepler was launched in March 2009 and was before..... and Wikipedia was no equipped with a 95-megapixel camera. The telescope aimed itself at a patch of sky about five degrees across. It contains more than 4.5 million detectable help. Anybody got any clues? stars. Kepler monitored the light from 150,000 of those suns, chosen for their likely similarity to our own Sun. The camera cannot actually see an Earth-like planet but can detect the dimming of its parent star’s light if the planet orbits between the star and the Earth. By precisely measuring those tiny changes, Kepler researchers can indirectly confirm a planet’s presence, size and distance from its sun. Four of the newly * * * confirmed planets are less than 2.5 times the size of Earth and orbit their host stars in the so-called “Goldilocks” zone where water can exist.-- a require- Which keen amateur astrono- ment for life as it is known on Earth. mer, seeing a way to improve Large planets in close orbit around their stars were relatively easy to find. Multi-planet systems can be detected by carefully studying the duration and a sophisticated telescope and frequency of a star’s dimming. make its photographic capabili- A problem could be caused if the dimming of a star was caused by random smaller star or binary stars. It was soon found out that multi-star systems were ties even better, spent hours and unstable and that planetary systems are quite precise and regular and could be predicted. hours designing and drawing an The planets announced last month were found in data collected by Kepler between May 2009 and March 2011. accessory- filling a wastepaper Study of the data shows that planets in these multi-systems are small and their rotation around the parent star is similar to that of our own solar system, basket with sheets of graph pa- where planets are in more-or-less the same plane. As researcher Jason Rowe commented; “The more we explore the more we find familiar traces of our- per, pencil shavings and rubber selves amongst the stars that remind us of home.” crumbs- then sent off the CAD Kepler completed its primary three-year mission in November 2012 but NASA managers extended the mission. However, it’s ability to gather precise drawings to the factory? information has been hobbled by stabilizer problems.promptly approved a four-year mission extension. In 2013, the spacecraft was hobbled by the failure of a second gyro stabilizer. Huge amounts of information is stored and will be analysed. It is expected that the number of detected planets will rise very * * * substantially. We may well not be alone! Which astronomer received a The Kepler space observatory, response showing the modifi- named for Renaissance astrono- Ancient sun found. cation that the factory had jus- mer Johannes Kepler was launched trecently made- very similar by NASA in 2009 to look for evi- It’s almost as old as to his own. Great minds think dence of any Earth-like planets or- alike! biting other stars. the universe itself. Designed to survey a portion of Astronomers at the Australian Na- Located in Hydrus, the star is of * * * our region of the Milky Way to tional University have identified a magnitude 14.7 and you’d need a discover dozens of Earth-size star that appears to be only a little fairly large telescope to be able to Keep an eye out for successful extrasolar planets in or near the younger than the universe itself. see it. funding proposals for scien- habitable zone, Kepler has used The ANU SkyMapper telescope The star also has a carbon content tific research into astronomy, an extremely sensitive photometer at Siding Spring Observatory near that is a thousand times more abun- weather patterns, hydraulic to monitors the brightness of over Coonabarabran is conducting a dant than the iron content. This fracturing- amongst others. Let 145,000 main sequence stars in five-year survey of ancient stars unusual result could help clear up me know if you see any. a small area of the nearby Milky and found this star just six thousand some discrepancies between pre- Way. The data obtained has been light years from Earth. dictions and observations with re- * * * examined by scientists to detect The telescope is able to detect stars gard to the Big Bang theory. Macquarie University Astron- faint dimming and brightening of with a low iron content from their The discovery of this ancient star omy Open Night will be held stars as planets cross our line of colour. Our Sun has an iron content has been confirmed by the 6.5 me- on the 5th April this year. For sight. equivalent to a thousand Earths. tre Magellan telescope in Chile anybody with kids interested in The telescope has chalked up al- The star discovered (SM0313) has which was used to obtain high astronomy in the Sydney area most a thousand confirmed plan- ten million times less iron, which resolution spectral data. this is a “must do” night. More etary objects in nearly eighty solar makes it an early second-generation The great-great-great-grand-daddy details on Page 4. systems. star from the very early universe. of stars has been found! ‘Macquarie nights’ Siamese Twins .................2 are legendary! subscribe to NIGHT SKY Paris Observatory junk .......2 Receive your copy every month free by email. March night sky ..................3 ASK [email protected] for your copy every month! Mick ‘n Don ........................4 OR send $20 for a year’s subscription and have it posted to you. Mike The Binocular and Telescope Shop, 84 Wentworth Park Road, Glebe NSW 2037. Tel: 02 9518 7255 The Binocular and Telescope Shop, 519 Burke Road, Camberwell Vic 3124. Tel: 03 9822 0033 March 2014 * Volume 345 * Page 2 Letters to the Editor We are sailing, we are sailing, Home again cross the sea. We are sailing stormy waters, To be near you, to be free. Mel hoists sail with VELA Vela the Sails, like Puppis the Stern and Carina the Keel, was also once part of the great constellation Argo Navis. When Argo Navis was divided into the three constellations we recognize today, the stars were not given new Greek letters, so Vela has no alpha or beta Velorum, gamma (γ) is the bright- est star in Vela. Vela also contains a number of stars named with Roman letters, due to the original size of Argo Navis – it was so large that astrono- mers ran out of Greek letters and had to use Roman to finish the naming of Hi Mike, all the stars. Two stars – kappa (κ) and delta (δ) Velorum form part of the Great tribute to John Dobson in feature we know as the False Cross, named as it was often mistaken for the your Feb issue - many thanks. real Southern Cross. Also, as always, good stuff inside. Vela sits in a part of the Milky Way that is rich in faint nebulosity, known One comment from Pedant’s Cor- as the Gum Nebula. It was named after an Australian astronomer - Colin S. ner (where most astronomers seem Gum, who was the first to notice it in 1952. The Gum Nebula is thought to to live...). be the remains of one or more supernovae that occurred long ago. There is The largest refractor ever made another supernova remnant in Vela, perhaps best recognized by the wonder- was the 48-in Great Paris Exhibi- ful photographs taken by David Malin at the Anglo-Australian Observatory. tion Telescope of 1900, not the Yer- This remnant contains the Vela Pulsar, which flashes 11 times per second, kes 40-in. Its extraordinary story and is one of the few pulsars that can be seen to flash in both optical and is told on pp. 244-246 of ‘Star- radio wavelengths. gazer’. One of the world’s great Apart from supernova remnants, Vela contains many tantalizing objects for couldabeens... both binocular and telescope users. Gamma (γ) Velorum is an interesting multiple star. Observers can see 2 Thanks again and all the best, bright blue white stars, which appear completely unrelated. The brighter Fred Watson of these is a special rare class of star known as a Wolf-Rayet and is about 840 light years away. Wolf-Rayet stars have very hot surfaces and short lifetimes. The fainter companion lies about 1600 light years away. There are Thanks for the correction, Fred. The also two wider companion stars that shine at 8th and 9th magnitude.
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