Prime Focus (04-20)

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

Prime Focus (04-20) Highlights of the April Sky - - - 1st - - - First Quarter Moon 6:21 am EDT A Publication of the Kalamazoo Astronomical Society DAWN: Saturn and Mars are 1° apart, with Jupiter about 6° to the upper right. - - - 3rd - - - PM: Venus is in the Pleiades. The brilliant planet will not be closer to the Seven KAS Sisters unl April 2028. - - - 7th - - - Full Moon General Meeting: Friday, April 3 @ 7:00 pm 10:35 pm EDT - - - 14th - - - Observing Session: Saturday, April 11 @ 8:00 pm DAWN: The Moon, Jupiter, Saturn, and Mars form an arc that spans 20° above the south-southeastern horizon. Observing Session: Saturday, April 25 @ 8:00 pm Last Quarter Moon 6:56 pm EDT ― ALL CANCELED DUE TO THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC ― - - - 15th - - - DAWN: The Moon is 3° below Saturn, with Jupiter and Mars flanking the pair. - - - 16th - - - Inside the Newsletter. DAWN: The Moon is nearly 4° to lower right of Mars. March Meeng Minutes.................... p. 2 - - - 22nd - - - AM: Lyrid meteor shower Board Meeng Minutes..................... p. 4 peaks (10 - 20 meteors/hr.). KAS Library Update............................ p. 4 New Moon 10:26 pm EDT Observaons...................................... p. 5 - - - 25th - - - Messier Marathon Report..................p. 7 DUSK: A thin waxing crescent Moon is 3.5° right NASA Night Sky Notes........................ p. 8 of Aldebaran. Membership of the KAS..................... p. 9 - - - 26th - - - DUSK: The Moon is 4° to the April Night Sky................................... p. 10 lower right of Zeta Tauri (Taurus’ southern horn), KAS Board & Announcements............ p. 11 Venus is 7° to Moon’s le. Miller Planisphere.............................. p. 12 - - - 30th - - - First Quarter Moon 4:38 pm EDT March Meeting Minutes The general meeting of the Kalamazoo Astronomical Society Leonard James Ashby Telescope will [hopefully] be held on was brought to order by President Richard Bell on Friday, Saturday, May 30th at 6pm. All KAS members are strongly March 6, 2020 at 7:09 pm EST. Approximately 63 members encouraged to attend. Please! and guests were in attendance at the Kalamazoo Area Math & Science Center (KAMSC). Richard ended his report with an announcement. He will not be seeking another term on the KAS Board at the end of the In his President’s Report, Richard started with an update on year. Richard said that this is his 26th year as a KAS member Jeff Goldblum and National Geographic shooting footage for and 25 of those have been spent serving on the Board (15 as the Disney+ series The World According to Jeff Goldblum at president). He feels he’s accomplished all he can and it’s Arizona Sky Village (ASV). The crew was due to arrive at time to step aside. Therefore, he made the announcement so 7pm on March 1st, but arrived 3 hours late. They were soon in the year to give other members time to step forward planning to record scenes from inside Rick Beno’s and serve. Richard said he still plans to act as Newsletter observatory, but never made it in there (much to Rick’s Editor and Webmaster as well as serve as Program and dismay). Instead, they asked some ASV residents to stage a Membership Chair. Much of his effort will also go into mock observing session (as it was totally overcast) on Rick’s promoting and encouraging use of Owl Observatory and the cement pad and this is where all the recording took place. Remote Telescope. After a few chaotic hours, the crew packed up their gear and left at 1am. Mike Patton said it wasn't worth all the effort. The evening’s guest speaker, Dr. Elias Aydi, is a Research Hopefully the footage shot will survive editing and be Associate in the Physics & Astronomy Department at released later this year or early 2021. Mike & Kathy did get Michigan State University. He graduated from the University a nice photo with Mr. Goldblum (see below), so that was of Cape Town with a PhD in astronomy and got his Masters something! at Notre Dame University in Beirut. His research interests involve working on eruptive stars and optical transients. The Richard thanked all those members that recently volunteered title of his well-received presentation was Where is their time with community outreach. Dave Garten, Scott Everybody? The Fermi Paradox. Macfarlane, and Don Stilwell passed out KAS literature at the Nature Center’s new "Club Connection" event on Proxima Centauri, 4.24 light-years distant, is the nearest star February 8th. Arya Jayatilaka and his daughter Akila joined to the Sun. An exoplanet, Proxima Centauri b, was found Don at Family Science Night on February 19th at Hastings orbiting this red dwarf star in 2016. The discovery of a Public Library. Don also setup a table on February 29th second planet was announced in April 2019, but remains when the Battle Creek Symphony performed The Planets. unconfirmed. If intelligent life exists on Proxima Centauri b Richard then covered upcoming outreach, including and they observed the planets of our solar system with a Vicksburg Middle School’s annual Science Night on March large telescope, they would see Earth as it appeared 4 years 11th (volunteers for this event included Dave Garten, Arya, ago. This is due to the time needed for light to travel the Thenuka, and Akila Jayatilaka, Jack Price, Don Stilwell, and distance between the two worlds. This phenomenon is Dave Woolf). known as lookback time. In another example, if an alien civilization about 50.7 light-years away focused a very Greg Sirna (unable to attend due to a non-coronavirus powerful telescope on the Moon, they would witness the first illness) e-mailed Richard some pictures of the new cabinet Moon landing on July 20, 1969. for Owl Observatory. This cabinet will secure eyepieces, filters, cameras, etc. when not in use. The dedication of the The Milky Way Galaxy is approximately 100,000 light-years in diameter. The Sun is located about two-thirds (or about 28,000 light-years) from the galactic center. It is estimated to contain 200 - 400 billion stars. The nearest big galaxy to the Milky Way is Andromeda (M31), located about 2.5 million light-years away. Civilizations in M31 with even bigger telescopes pointed at the solar system would see an Earth devoid of humans. Instead they would see Homo habilis, the first human ancestors known to use tools. The Hubble eXtreme Deep Field was released in 2012. The Hubble Space Telescope took an equivalent exposure of 23 days over the course of 10 years in an area of the sky measuring only 2.3ʹ × 2.0ʹ. It contains around 5,500 galaxies, the most distant of which is 13.2 billion light-years away. The observable universe is estimated to be 93 billion light- years in diameter. Although, thanks to the universe being 13.8 billion years old, we cannot actually view galaxies more distant than 13.8 billion light-years. Light simply hasn’t had enough time to travel further than that. Prime Focus Page 2 April 2020 Most stars in the Milky Way are now thought to contain at least one planet of its own. Today, we know of over 4,000 exoplanets orbiting stars other than the Sun (most of these stars are relatively nearby). Therefore, our galaxy alone likely contains trillions of planets. The observable universe contains at least 100 billion galaxies. Doing a bit of math, there are 1021 total stars in the universe. So, the total number of planets in the universe is staggeringly large! Dr. Aydi then covered the two most successful techniques to discover exoplanets utilized today, the radial velocity and transit methods. The Kepler Space Telescope and Transit Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) were also discussed. (Richard covered these topics in his talk on exoplanets last year. Please see pages 2 - 4 of the March 2019 issue of Prime Focus to learn more.) Dr. Elias Aydi, a Research Associate in the Physics and The existence of planets around distant stars, along with Astronomy Department at MSU, was the guest speaker at possible inhabitants, has long been speculated. Therefore, in our meeting on March 6th. 1950, the Italian-American physicist Enrico Fermi, asked (over lunch with his colleagues) “Where is everybody?” If climate of their planet? If this were the case, alien races the Milky Way has been inhabited with intelligent wouldn’t last long enough to discover one another. If alien extraterrestrial civilizations for tens of million of years then civilizations do exist, but are infrequent, then they would be they’ve had plenty of time to spread out and explore the scattered throughout the Galaxy. This would make visitation Galaxy, including visits to Earth. Since no visitations have or even communication very impractical. Perhaps most alien occurred, intelligent life beyond Earth must not exist. societies aren’t transmitting signals. And finally, maybe highly advanced alien cultures just don’t find us interesting. In 1961, the American astronomer Frank Drake developed Dr. Aydi used the analogy of driving down the highway. If what became known as the Drake Equation, used to calculate you saw an ant hill would you bother to stop and try to share the number of currently active communicative extraterrestrial your technology? Dr. Aydi then asked “would we want them civilizations. Making various assumptions for the variables, to visit us?” If our history is any indication, a less advanced the number of advance alien societies can range from 20 to culture often suffers when visited by a technologically 50,000,000 in our galaxy alone. However, Dr. Aydi argued superior people. Very alien cultures may frankly be too that non-intelligent life is far more abundant in the universe. different for us to understand.
Recommended publications
  • The Dunhuang Chinese Sky: a Comprehensive Study of the Oldest Known Star Atlas
    25/02/09JAHH/v4 1 THE DUNHUANG CHINESE SKY: A COMPREHENSIVE STUDY OF THE OLDEST KNOWN STAR ATLAS JEAN-MARC BONNET-BIDAUD Commissariat à l’Energie Atomique ,Centre de Saclay, F-91191 Gif-sur-Yvette, France E-mail: [email protected] FRANÇOISE PRADERIE Observatoire de Paris, 61 Avenue de l’Observatoire, F- 75014 Paris, France E-mail: [email protected] and SUSAN WHITFIELD The British Library, 96 Euston Road, London NW1 2DB, UK E-mail: [email protected] Abstract: This paper presents an analysis of the star atlas included in the medieval Chinese manuscript (Or.8210/S.3326), discovered in 1907 by the archaeologist Aurel Stein at the Silk Road town of Dunhuang and now held in the British Library. Although partially studied by a few Chinese scholars, it has never been fully displayed and discussed in the Western world. This set of sky maps (12 hour angle maps in quasi-cylindrical projection and a circumpolar map in azimuthal projection), displaying the full sky visible from the Northern hemisphere, is up to now the oldest complete preserved star atlas from any civilisation. It is also the first known pictorial representation of the quasi-totality of the Chinese constellations. This paper describes the history of the physical object – a roll of thin paper drawn with ink. We analyse the stellar content of each map (1339 stars, 257 asterisms) and the texts associated with the maps. We establish the precision with which the maps are drawn (1.5 to 4° for the brightest stars) and examine the type of projections used.
    [Show full text]
  • Frankfurt Pleiades Star Map 2
    FRANKFURT PLEIADES STAR MAP 2 In investigating the Martian connection of the Pleiadian pattern of Frankfurt, one cannot avoid to address the origins at least in the propagation of this motif in the modern era and in all the financial powerhouses of today’s World Financial Oder. This is in part the Pleiades conspiracy as this modern version of the ‘Pleiadian Conspiracy’ started here in Frankfurt with the Rothschild dynasty by Amschel Moses Bauer, 1743. This critique is not meant to placate all those of the said family or those that work in such financial structures or businesses and specifically not those in Frankfurt. However the argument is that those behind the family apparatus are of a cabal that is connected to the allegiance of not the true GOD of the Universe, YHVH but to the false usurper Lucifer. It is Lucifer they worship and venerate as the ‘god of this world’ and is the God of Mammon according to Jesus’ assessment. According to research and especially based on The 13 Bloodlines of the Illuminati by Springmeier, the current financial domination of the world began in Frankfurt with Mayer Amschel. They were of Jewish extract but adhere more toward the Kabbalistic, Zohar, and ancient Babylonian secret mystery religion initiated by Nimrod after the Flood of Noah. The star Taygete corresponds to the Literaturahaus building. T he star Celaena corresponds to the Burgenamt Zentrales building. The star Merope corresponds to the area of the Timmitus und THE PLEIADES Hyperakusis Center. The star Alcyone corresponds to the Oper FINANCIAL DISTRICT The Bearing-Point building is Frankfurt or the Opera House.
    [Show full text]
  • Optical Spectroscopic Monitoring Observations of a T Tauri Star V409 Tau
    International Journal of Astronomy and Astrophysics, 2019, 9, 321-334 http://www.scirp.org/journal/ijaa ISSN Online: 2161-4725 ISSN Print: 2161-4717 Optical Spectroscopic Monitoring Observations of a T Tauri Star V409 Tau Hinako Akimoto, Yoichi Itoh Nishi-Harima Astronomical Observatory, Center for Astronomy, University of Hyogo, Hyogo, Japan How to cite this paper: Akimoto, H. and Abstract Itoh, Y. (2019) Optical Spectroscopic Mon- itoring Observations of a T Tauri Star V409 We report the results of optical spectroscopic monitoring observations of a T Tau. International Journal of Astronomy Tauri star, V409 Tau. A previous photometric study indicated that this star and Astrophysics, 9, 321-334. experienced dimming events due to the obscuration of light from the central https://doi.org/10.4236/ijaa.2019.93023 star with a distorted circumstellar disk. We conducted medium-resolution (R Received: July 24, 2019 ~10,000) spectroscopic observations with 2-m Nayuta telescope at Ni- Accepted: September 16, 2019 shi-Harima Astronomical Observatory. Spectra were obtained in 18 nights Published: September 19, 2019 between November 2015 and March 2016. Several absorption lines such as Ca Copyright © 2019 by author(s) and I and Li, and the Hα emission line were confirmed in the spectra. The Ic-band Scientific Research Publishing Inc. magnitudes of V409 Tau changed by approximately 1 magnitude during the This work is licensed under the Creative observation epoch. The equivalent widths of the five absorption lines are Commons Attribution International License (CC BY 4.0). roughly constant despite changes in the Ic-band magnitudes. We conclude http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ that the light variation of the star is caused by the obscuration of light from Open Access the central star with a distorted circumstellar disk, based on the relationship between the equivalent widths of the absorption lines and the Ic-band magni- tudes.
    [Show full text]
  • Winter Observing Notes
    Wynyard Planetarium & Observatory Winter Observing Notes Wynyard Planetarium & Observatory PUBLIC OBSERVING – Winter Tour of the Sky with the Naked Eye NGC 457 CASSIOPEIA eta Cas Look for Notice how the constellations 5 the ‘W’ swing around Polaris during shape the night Is Dubhe yellowish compared 2 Polaris to Merak? Dubhe 3 Merak URSA MINOR Kochab 1 Is Kochab orange Pherkad compared to Polaris? THE PLOUGH 4 Mizar Alcor Figure 1: Sketch of the northern sky in winter. North 1. On leaving the planetarium, turn around and look northwards over the roof of the building. To your right is a group of stars like the outline of a saucepan standing up on it’s handle. This is the Plough (also called the Big Dipper) and is part of the constellation Ursa Major, the Great Bear. The top two stars are called the Pointers. Check with binoculars. Not all stars are white. The colour shows that Dubhe is cooler than Merak in the same way that red-hot is cooler than white-hot. 2. Use the Pointers to guide you to the left, to the next bright star. This is Polaris, the Pole (or North) Star. Note that it is not the brightest star in the sky, a common misconception. Below and to the right are two prominent but fainter stars. These are Kochab and Pherkad, the Guardians of the Pole. Look carefully and you will notice that Kochab is slightly orange when compared to Polaris. Check with binoculars. © Rob Peeling, CaDAS, 2007 version 2.0 Wynyard Planetarium & Observatory PUBLIC OBSERVING – Winter Polaris, Kochab and Pherkad mark the constellation Ursa Minor, the Little Bear.
    [Show full text]
  • Why Are There Seven Sisters?
    Why are there Seven Sisters? Ray P. Norris1,2 & Barnaby R. M. Norris3,4,5 1 Western Sydney University, Locked Bag 1797, Penrith South, NSW 1797, Australia 2 CSIRO Astronomy & Space Science, PO Box 76, Epping, NSW 1710, Australia 3 Sydney Institute for Astronomy, School of Physics, Physics Road, University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia 4 Sydney Astrophotonic Instrumentation Laboratories, Physics Road, University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia 5 AAO-USyd, School of Physics, University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia Abstract of six stars arranged symmetrically around a seventh, and is There are two puzzles surrounding the therefore probably symbolic rather than a literal picture of Pleiades, or Seven Sisters. First, why are the Pleiades. the mythological stories surrounding them, In Greek mythology, the Seven Sisters are named after typically involving seven young girls be- the Pleiades, who were the daughters of Atlas and Pleione. ing chased by a man associated with the Their father, Atlas, was forced to hold up the sky, and was constellation Orion, so similar in vastly sep- therefore unable to protect his daughters. But to save them arated cultures, such as the Australian Abo- from being raped by Orion the hunter, Zeus transformed them riginal cultures and Greek mythology? Sec- into stars. Orion was the son of Poseidon, the King of the sea, ond, why do most cultures call them “Seven and a Cretan princess. Orion first appears in ancient Greek Sisters" even though most people with good calendars (e.g. Planeaux , 2006), but by the late eighth to eyesight see only six stars? Here we show that both these puzzles may be explained by early seventh centuries BC, he is said to be making unwanted a combination of the great antiquity of the advances on the Pleiades (Hesiod, Works and Days, 618-623).
    [Show full text]
  • The Annual Compendium of Commercial Space Transportation: 2017
    Federal Aviation Administration The Annual Compendium of Commercial Space Transportation: 2017 January 2017 Annual Compendium of Commercial Space Transportation: 2017 i Contents About the FAA Office of Commercial Space Transportation The Federal Aviation Administration’s Office of Commercial Space Transportation (FAA AST) licenses and regulates U.S. commercial space launch and reentry activity, as well as the operation of non-federal launch and reentry sites, as authorized by Executive Order 12465 and Title 51 United States Code, Subtitle V, Chapter 509 (formerly the Commercial Space Launch Act). FAA AST’s mission is to ensure public health and safety and the safety of property while protecting the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States during commercial launch and reentry operations. In addition, FAA AST is directed to encourage, facilitate, and promote commercial space launches and reentries. Additional information concerning commercial space transportation can be found on FAA AST’s website: http://www.faa.gov/go/ast Cover art: Phil Smith, The Tauri Group (2017) Publication produced for FAA AST by The Tauri Group under contract. NOTICE Use of trade names or names of manufacturers in this document does not constitute an official endorsement of such products or manufacturers, either expressed or implied, by the Federal Aviation Administration. ii Annual Compendium of Commercial Space Transportation: 2017 GENERAL CONTENTS Executive Summary 1 Introduction 5 Launch Vehicles 9 Launch and Reentry Sites 21 Payloads 35 2016 Launch Events 39 2017 Annual Commercial Space Transportation Forecast 45 Space Transportation Law and Policy 83 Appendices 89 Orbital Launch Vehicle Fact Sheets 100 iii Contents DETAILED CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY .
    [Show full text]
  • The Herschel-SPIRE Legacy Survey (HSLS): the Scientific Goals of A
    The Herschel-SPIRE Legacy Survey (HSLS) The Scientific Goals of a Shallow and Wide Submillimeter Imaging Survey with SPIRE Members of the HSLS Study Team Asantha Cooray1, Steve Eales2, Scott Chapman14, David L. Clements4, Olivier Dor´e5, Duncan Farrah6, Matt J. Jarvis8 Manoj Kaplinghat1, Mattia Negrello3, Alessandro Melchiorri9, Hiranya Peiris11, Alexandra Pope12, Mario G. Santos13, Stephen Serjeant3, Mark Thompson8, Glenn White3,15, Alexandre Amblard1,7, Manda Banerji14, Pier-Stefano Corasaniti16, Sudeep Das17, Francesco de Bernardis9, Gianfranco de Zotti78, Tommaso Giannantonio18,88, Joaquin Gonzalez-Nuevo Gonzalez19, Ali Ahmad Khostovan1, Ketron Mitchell- Wynne1, Paolo Serra1, Yong-Seon Song20, Joaquin Vieira86, Lingyu Wang6, Michael Zemcov86,5 Filipe Abdalla11, Jose Afonso56, Nabila Aghanim49, Paola Andreani21, Itziar Aretxaga84, Robbie Auld2, Maarten Baes85, Andrew Baker58, Denis Barkats68, R. Belen Barreiro60, Nicola Bartolo89, Elizabeth Barton1, Sudhan- shu Barway23, Elia Stefano Battistelli9, Carlton Baugh25, Alexander Beelen49, Karim Benabed49, Andrew Blain86, Joss Bland-Hawthorn46, James J. Bock5,86, J. Richard Bond40, Julian Borrill22,41, Colin Borys67, Alessandro Boselli51, Fran¸cois R. Bouchet79, Carrie Bridge86, Fabrizio Brighenti96, Veronique Buat51, David Buote1, Denis Burgarella51, Robert Bussmann39, Erminia Calabrese9, Christopher Cantalupo22, Raymond Carlberg38, Carla Sofia Carvalho63, Caitlin Casey100, Antonio Cava47,77, Jordi Cepa47, Edward Chapin37, Ranga Ram Chary86, Xuelei Chen87, Natalie Christopher35, Sergio Colafrancesco62,78, Shaun Cole25, Peter Coles2, Alexander Conley93, Luca Conversi74, Jeff Cooke1, Steven Crawford23, Catherine Cress91, Elisa- bete da Cunha95, Gavin Dalton15,35, Luigi Danese19, Helmut Dannerbauer80, Jonathan Davies2, Paolo de Bernardis9, Roland de Putter70, Mark Devlin33, Jose M. Diego60, Herv´eDole49, Marian Douspis49, Joanna Dunkley35, James Dunlop54, Loretta Dunne31, Rolando D¨unner105, Simon Dye2, George Efstathiou102, Ei- ichi Egami39, Taotao Fang1, Patrizia Ferrero47,77, Alberto Franceschini71, Christopher C.
    [Show full text]
  • The Pleiades: the Celestial Herd of Ancient Timekeepers
    The Pleiades: the celestial herd of ancient timekeepers. Amelia Sparavigna Dipartimento di Fisica, Politecnico di Torino C.so Duca degli Abruzzi 24, Torino, Italy Abstract In the ancient Egypt seven goddesses, represented by seven cows, composed the celestial herd that provides the nourishment to her worshippers. This herd is observed in the sky as a group of stars, the Pleiades, close to Aldebaran, the main star in the Taurus constellation. For many ancient populations, Pleiades were relevant stars and their rising was marked as a special time of the year. In this paper, we will discuss the presence of these stars in ancient cultures. Moreover, we will report some results of archeoastronomy on the role for timekeeping of these stars, results which show that for hunter-gatherers at Palaeolithic times, they were linked to the seasonal cycles of aurochs. 1. Introduction Archeoastronomy studies astronomical practices and related mythologies of the ancient cultures, to understand how past peoples observed and used the celestial phenomena and what was the role played by the sky in their cultures. This discipline is then a branch of the cultural astronomy, an interdisciplinary field that relates astronomical phenomena to current and ancient cultures. It must then be distinguished from the history of astronomy, because astronomy is a culturally specific concept and ancient peoples may have been related to the sky in different way [1,2]. Archeoastronomy is considered as a quite new interdisciplinary science, rooted in the Stonehenge studies of 1960s by the astronomer Gerald Hawkins, who tested Stonehenge alignments by computer, and concluded that these stones marked key dates in the megalithic calendar [3].
    [Show full text]
  • 00E the Construction of the Universe Symphony
    The basic construction of the Universe Symphony. There are 30 asterisms (Suites) in the Universe Symphony. I divided the asterisms into 15 groups. The asterisms in the same group, lay close to each other. Asterisms!! in Constellation!Stars!Objects nearby 01 The W!!!Cassiopeia!!Segin !!!!!!!Ruchbah !!!!!!!Marj !!!!!!!Schedar !!!!!!!Caph !!!!!!!!!Sailboat Cluster !!!!!!!!!Gamma Cassiopeia Nebula !!!!!!!!!NGC 129 !!!!!!!!!M 103 !!!!!!!!!NGC 637 !!!!!!!!!NGC 654 !!!!!!!!!NGC 659 !!!!!!!!!PacMan Nebula !!!!!!!!!Owl Cluster !!!!!!!!!NGC 663 Asterisms!! in Constellation!Stars!!Objects nearby 02 Northern Fly!!Aries!!!41 Arietis !!!!!!!39 Arietis!!! !!!!!!!35 Arietis !!!!!!!!!!NGC 1056 02 Whale’s Head!!Cetus!! ! Menkar !!!!!!!Lambda Ceti! !!!!!!!Mu Ceti !!!!!!!Xi2 Ceti !!!!!!!Kaffalijidhma !!!!!!!!!!IC 302 !!!!!!!!!!NGC 990 !!!!!!!!!!NGC 1024 !!!!!!!!!!NGC 1026 !!!!!!!!!!NGC 1070 !!!!!!!!!!NGC 1085 !!!!!!!!!!NGC 1107 !!!!!!!!!!NGC 1137 !!!!!!!!!!NGC 1143 !!!!!!!!!!NGC 1144 !!!!!!!!!!NGC 1153 Asterisms!! in Constellation Stars!!Objects nearby 03 Hyades!!!Taurus! Aldebaran !!!!!! Theta 2 Tauri !!!!!! Gamma Tauri !!!!!! Delta 1 Tauri !!!!!! Epsilon Tauri !!!!!!!!!Struve’s Lost Nebula !!!!!!!!!Hind’s Variable Nebula !!!!!!!!!IC 374 03 Kids!!!Auriga! Almaaz !!!!!! Hoedus II !!!!!! Hoedus I !!!!!!!!!The Kite Cluster !!!!!!!!!IC 397 03 Pleiades!! ! Taurus! Pleione (Seven Sisters)!! ! ! Atlas !!!!!! Alcyone !!!!!! Merope !!!!!! Electra !!!!!! Celaeno !!!!!! Taygeta !!!!!! Asterope !!!!!! Maia !!!!!!!!!Maia Nebula !!!!!!!!!Merope Nebula !!!!!!!!!Merope
    [Show full text]
  • The UV Perspective of Low-Mass Star Formation
    galaxies Review The UV Perspective of Low-Mass Star Formation P. Christian Schneider 1,* , H. Moritz Günther 2 and Kevin France 3 1 Hamburger Sternwarte, University of Hamburg, 21029 Hamburg, Germany 2 Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research; Cambridge, MA 02109, USA; [email protected] 3 Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, University of Colorado, Denver, CO 80203, USA; [email protected] * Correspondence: [email protected] Received: 16 January 2020; Accepted: 29 February 2020; Published: 21 March 2020 Abstract: The formation of low-mass (M? . 2 M ) stars in molecular clouds involves accretion disks and jets, which are of broad astrophysical interest. Accreting stars represent the closest examples of these phenomena. Star and planet formation are also intimately connected, setting the starting point for planetary systems like our own. The ultraviolet (UV) spectral range is particularly suited for studying star formation, because virtually all relevant processes radiate at temperatures associated with UV emission processes or have strong observational signatures in the UV range. In this review, we describe how UV observations provide unique diagnostics for the accretion process, the physical properties of the protoplanetary disk, and jets and outflows. Keywords: star formation; ultraviolet; low-mass stars 1. Introduction Stars form in molecular clouds. When these clouds fragment, localized cloud regions collapse into groups of protostars. Stars with final masses between 0.08 M and 2 M , broadly the progenitors of Sun-like stars, start as cores deeply embedded in a dusty envelope, where they can be seen only in the sub-mm and far-IR spectral windows (so-called class 0 sources).
    [Show full text]
  • Seeking the Pleiades
    Seeking the Pleiades By Irvin Owens Jr., Island City Lodge No. 215 Introduction As a child, I attended a Quaker school. As is typical with Quaker education, we spent a good amount of time learning to respect and understand the impacts that nature would have on us, as well as the impact that we could have on nature. My first experience with the Pleiades was when our science teacher brought an astronomer into our class who began telling us about the constellations. I was mesmerized as he began showing us those ancient twinkling orbs through his telescope. When he got to the Pleiades, I was captivated by the beauty of the six clustered blue stars, as well as the heart-wrenching story of their flight from the lecherous Orion. I failed to understand how things were better for the Pleiades after Zeus turned them into a flock of doves. As I became interested in Masonry and began to study the Entered Apprentice tracing board, I noticed that Jacob's ladder pointed to the Moon surrounded by the Pleiades in many depictions. This is a powerful and beautiful symbol, which is important to understand more deeply in order to truly appreciate the power of the first degree. Mythology Ancient Greece and Rome The Pleiades feature prominently in Greek literature, beginning with Homer’s second book of the Georgics of Hesiod. In this poem, he describes the Pleiades as an aid to understanding when to harvest: “When, Atlas’ birth, the Pleiades arise, Harvest begin, plow when they leave, the skies. Twice twenty days and nights these hide their heads; The year then turning, leave again their beds, And show when first to whet the harvest steel.
    [Show full text]
  • Aldebaran B's Temperate Past Uncovered in Planet Search Data Farr, Will M.; Pope, Benjamin J
    University of Birmingham Aldebaran b's temperate past uncovered in planet search data Farr, Will M.; Pope, Benjamin J. S.; Davies, Guy R.; North, Thomas S. H.; White, Timothy R.; Barrett, Jim W.; Miglio, Andrea; Lund, Mikkel N.; Antoci, Victoria; Andersen, Mads Fredslund; Grundahl, Frank; Huber, Daniel DOI: 10.3847/2041-8213/aadfde License: Other (please provide link to licence statement Document Version Publisher's PDF, also known as Version of record Citation for published version (Harvard): Farr, WM, Pope, BJS, Davies, GR, North, TSH, White, TR, Barrett, JW, Miglio, A, Lund, MN, Antoci, V, Andersen, MF, Grundahl, F & Huber, D 2018, 'Aldebaran b's temperate past uncovered in planet search data', The Astrophysical Journal, vol. 865 , no. 2, L20. https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/aadfde Link to publication on Research at Birmingham portal Publisher Rights Statement: Checked for eligibility: 23/10/2018 The final version of record can be found at: https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/aadfde General rights Unless a licence is specified above, all rights (including copyright and moral rights) in this document are retained by the authors and/or the copyright holders. The express permission of the copyright holder must be obtained for any use of this material other than for purposes permitted by law. •Users may freely distribute the URL that is used to identify this publication. •Users may download and/or print one copy of the publication from the University of Birmingham research portal for the purpose of private study or non-commercial research. •User may use extracts from the document in line with the concept of ‘fair dealing’ under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (?) •Users may not further distribute the material nor use it for the purposes of commercial gain.
    [Show full text]