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BRAS Newsletter August 2013
www.brastro.org August 2013 Next meeting Aug 12th 7:00PM at the HRPO Dark Site Observing Dates: Primary on Aug. 3rd, Secondary on Aug. 10th Photo credit: Saturn taken on 20” OGS + Orion Starshoot - Ben Toman 1 What's in this issue: PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE....................................................................................................................3 NOTES FROM THE VICE PRESIDENT ............................................................................................4 MESSAGE FROM THE HRPO …....................................................................................................5 MONTHLY OBSERVING NOTES ....................................................................................................6 OUTREACH CHAIRPERSON’S NOTES .........................................................................................13 MEMBERSHIP APPLICATION .......................................................................................................14 2 PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE Hi Everyone, I hope you’ve been having a great Summer so far and had luck beating the heat as much as possible. The weather sure hasn’t been cooperative for observing, though! First I have a pretty cool announcement. Thanks to the efforts of club member Walt Cooney, there are 5 newly named asteroids in the sky. (53256) Sinitiere - Named for former BRAS Treasurer Bob Sinitiere (74439) Brenden - Named for founding member Craig Brenden (85878) Guzik - Named for LSU professor T. Greg Guzik (101722) Pursell - Named for founding member Wally Pursell -
Discovery of a Pulsar Wind Nebula Candidate in the Cygnus Loop
Discovery of a Pulsar Wind Nebula Candidate in the Cygnus Loop 2 3 S Satoru Katsuda" Hiroshi Tsunemi , Koji Mori , Hiroyuki Uchida" Robert Petre , Shin'ya 1 Yamada , and Thru Tamagawa' ABSTRACT We report on a discovery of a diffuse nebula containing a pointlike source in the southern blowout region of the Cygnus Loop supernova remnant, based on Suzaku and XMM-Newton observations. The X-ray spectra from the nebula and the pointlike source are well represented by an absorbed power-law model with photon indices of 2.2±0.1 and 1.6±0.2, respectively. The photon indices as well as the flux ratio of F nebula/ F po;.,li" ~ 4 lead us to propose that the system is a pulsar wind nebula, although pulsations have not yet been detected. If we attribute its origin to the Cygnus Loop supernova, then the 0.5- 8 keY luminosity of the nebula is computed to be 2.1xlo"' (d/MOpc)2ergss-" where d is the distance to the Loop. This implies a spin-down loss-energy E ~ 2.6 X 1035 (d/MOpc)2ergss-'. The location of the neutron star candidate, ~2° away from the geometric center of the Loop, implies a high transverse velocity of ~ 1850(8/2D ) (d/540pc) (t/lOkyr)- ' kms-" assuming the currently accepted age of the Cygnus Loop. Subject headings: ISM: individual objects (Cygnus Loop) - ISM: supernova remnants - pulsars: general - stars: neutron - stars: winds, outflows - X-rays: ISM 'RlKEN (The Institute of Physical and Chemical Research), 2-1 Hirosawa, Wako, Sailama 351-0198 2Department of EaTth and Space Science, Graduate School of Science, Osaka University, 1-1 Machikaneyama, Thyonaka, Osaka, 60-0043, Japan SDepartment of Applied Physics, Faculty of Engineering, University of Miyazaki, 1-1 Gakuen Klbana-dai Nishi, Miyazaki, 889-2192, Japan ' Department of PhysiCS, Kyoto University, Kitashirakawa-oiwake-clto, Sakyo, Kyoto 606-8502, J apan 'NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Code 662, Greenbelt MD 20771 - 2 - 1. -
XMM-Newton Observation of the Northeastern Limb of the Cygnus Loop Supernova Remnant
XMM-Newton Observation of the Northeastern Limb of the Cygnus Loop Supernova Remnant Norbert Nemes Graduate School of Science, Osaka University, 1-1 Machikaneyama-cho, Toyonaka, Osaka 560-0043, Japan 04 February 2005 Osaka University Abstract We have observed the northeastern limb of the Cygnus Loop supernova remnant with the XMM-Newton observatory, as part of a 7-pointing campaign to map the remnant across its diameter. We performed medium sensitivity spatially resolved X-ray spectroscopy on the data in the 0.3-3.0 keV energy range, and for the first time we have detected C emission lines in our spectra. The background subtracted spectra were fitted with a single temperature absorbed non-equilibrium (VNEI) model. We created color maps and plotted the radial variation of the different parameters. We found that the heavy element abundances were depleted, but increase toward the edge of the remnant, exhibiting a jump structure near the northeastern edge of the field of view. The depletion suggests that the plasma in this region represents the shock heated ISM rather than the ejecta, while the radial increase of the elemental abundances seems to support the cavity explosion origin. The temperature decreases in the radial direction from 0:3keV to about 0:2keV , however, this ∼ ∼ decrease is not monotonic. There is a low temperature region in the part of the field of view closest to the center of the remnant, which is characterized by low abundances and high NH values. Another low temperature region characterized by low NH values but where the heavy element abundances suddenly jump to high values was found at the northeastern edge of the field of view. -
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. -
Pos(MULTIF15)020 Al
Suzaku Highlights of Supernova Remnants PoS(MULTIF15)020 Satoru Katsuda∗† Institute of Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS), Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), 3-1-1 Yoshinodai, Chuo, Sagamihara, Kanagawa 252-5210, Japan E-mail: [email protected] Hiroshi Tsunemi Department of Earth and Space Science, Osaka University, 1-1 Machikaneyama-cho, Toyonaka, Osaka 560-0043, Japan E-mail: [email protected] Suzaku was the Japanese 5th X-ray astronomy satellite operated from 2005 July 10 to 2015 Au- gust 26. Its key features are high-sensitivity wide-band X-ray spectroscopy available with both the X-ray imaging CCD cameras and the non-imaging collimated hard X-ray detector. A number of interesting scientific discoveries have been achieved in various fields. Among them, I will focus on results on supernova remnants. The topics in this paper include (1) revealing distributions of supernova ejecta, (2) establishing over-ionized plasmas by discoveries of radiative-recombination continua, (3) constraining progenitors of Type Ia SNRs from Mn/Cr and Ni/Fe line ratios, and (4) searching for X-ray counterparts from unidentified HESS sources. These results are of high sci- entific importance in physics of supernova explosions, non-equilibrium plasmas, and cosmic-ray acceleration. XI Multifrequency Behaviour of High Energy Cosmic Sources Workshop, 25-30 May 2015 Palermo, Italy ∗Speaker. †A footnote may follow. © c CopyrightCopyright owned owned by the author(s) under the terms of the Creative Creative Commons License Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International. http://pos.sissa.it/ Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). -
Hubble Revisits the Veil Nebula 2 April 2021
Image: Hubble revisits the Veil Nebula 2 April 2021 this stellar violence, the shockwaves and debris from the supernova sculpted the Veil Nebula's delicate tracery of ionized gas—creating a scene of surprising astronomical beauty. The Veil Nebula is also featured in Hubble's Caldwell Catalog, a collection of astronomical objects that have been imaged by Hubble and are visible to amateur astronomers in the night sky. Provided by NASA Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, Z. Levay This image taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope revisits the Veil Nebula, which was featured in a previous Hubble image release. In this image, new processing techniques have been applied, bringing out fine details of the nebula's delicate threads and filaments of ionized gas. To create this colorful image, observations were taken by Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 instrument using five different filters. The new post-processing methods have further enhanced details of emissions from doubly ionized oxygen (seen here in blues), ionized hydrogen, and ionized nitrogen (seen here in reds). The Veil Nebula lies around 2,100 light-years from Earth in the constellation of Cygnus (the Swan), making it a relatively close neighbor in astronomical terms. Only a small portion of the nebula was captured in this image. The Veil Nebula is the visible portion of the nearby Cygnus Loop, a supernova remnant formed roughly 10,000 years ago by the death of a massive star. That star—which was 20 times the mass of the Sun—lived fast and died young, ending its life in a cataclysmic release of energy. -
Monthly Observer's Challenge
MONTHLY OBSERVER'S CHALLENGE Compiled by: Roger Ivester, North Carolina & Sue French, New York September 2020 Report #140 The Veil Nebula in Cygnus Sharing Observations and Bringing Amateur Astronomers Together Introduction The purpose of the Observer's Challenge is to encourage the pursuit of visual observing. It's open to everyone who's interested, and if you're able to contribute notes, and/or drawings, we’ll be happy to include them in our monthly summary. Visual astronomy depends on what's seen through the eyepiece. Not only does it satisfy an innate curiosity, but it allows the visual observer to discover the beauty and the wonderment of the night sky. Before photography, all observations depended on what astronomers saw in the eyepiece, and how they recorded their observations. This was done through notes and drawings, and that's the tradition we're stressing in the Observer's Challenge. And for folks with an interest in astrophotography, your digital images and notes are just as welcome. The hope is that you'll read through these reports and become inspired to take more time at the eyepiece, study each object, and look for those subtle details that you might never have noticed before. This month's target The Veil Nebula has long been modeled as the remnant of a supernova explosion that occurred within an interstellar cavity created by the progenitor star. However, a recent study by Fesen, Weil, and Cisneros (2018MNRAS.481.1786F ) using multi-wavelength emission maps indicates that the large-scale structure of the Veil Nebula is due to interaction of the remnant with local interstellar clouds. -
Transactions 1905
THE Royal Astronomical Society of Canada TRANSACTIONS FOR 1905 (INCLUDING SELECTED PAPERS AND PROCEEDINGS) EDITED BY C. A CHANT. TORONTO: ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL PRINT, 1906. The Royal Astronomical Society of Canada. THE Royal Astronomical Society of Canada TRANSACTIONS FOR 1905 (INCLUDING SELECTED PAPERS AND PROCEEDINGS) EDITED BY C. A CHANT. TORONTO: ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL PRINT, 1906. TABLE OF CONTENTS. The Dominion Observatory, Ottawa (Frontispiece) List of Officers, Fellows and A ssociates..................... - - 3 Treasurer’s R eport.....................--------- 12 President’s Address and Summary of Work ------ 13 List of Papers and Lectures, 1905 - - - - ..................... 26 The Dominion Observatory at Ottawa - - W. F. King 27 Solar Spots and Magnetic Storms for 1904 Arthur Harvey 35 Stellar Legends of American Indians - - J. C. Hamilton 47 Personal Profit from Astronomical Study - R. Atkinson 51 The Eclipse Expedition to Labrador, August, 1905 A. T. DeLury 57 Gravity Determinations in Labrador - - Louis B. Stewart 70 Magnetic and Meteorological Observations at North-West River, Labrador - - - - R. F. Stupart 97 Plates and Filters for Monochromatic and Three-Color Photography of the Corona J. S. Plaskett 89 Photographing the Sun and Moon with a 5-inch Refracting Telescope . .......................... D. B. Marsh 108 The Astronomy of Tennyson - - - - John A. Paterson 112 Achievements of Nineteenth Century Astronomy , L. H. Graham 125 A Lunar Tide on Lake Huron - - - - W. J. Loudon 131 Contributions...............................................J. Miller Barr I. New Variable Stars - - - - - - - - - - - 141 II. The Variable Star ξ Bootis -------- 143 III. The Colors of Helium Stars - - - ..................... 144 IV. A New Problem in Solar Physics ------ 146 Stellar Classification ------ W. Balfour Musson 151 On the Possibility of Fife in Other Worlds A. -
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). -
Astronomy Targets: September 2018 Unless Stated Otherwise, All Times Are for Mid-Month, for Birmingham UK and Are GMT+1
Astronomy targets: September 2018 Unless stated otherwise, all times are for mid-month, for Birmingham UK and are GMT+1. Rise & set times are for 20 degrees above horizon. Dark & light times are nautical twilight times (Sun 12 degrees below horizon) and astronomical darkness (Sun 18 degrees below horizon). © Andrew Butler, 2018. Sun and Moon data sourced from US Naval Observatory. Sun times Monday date Sunset Naut Astro Astro Naut Sunrise Moon Moon % Dark Dark Light Light 03/09/18 1951 2110 2158 0416 0504 0623 2353 → 40% 10/09/18 1935 2052 2137 0433 0518 0635 2% 17/09/18 1918 2033 2117 0448 0531 0647 ← 2346 60% 24/09/18 1902 2016 2057 0502 0544 0658 1916 → 100% Calendar 9 Sep New Moon 24 Sep Full Moon Planets Cygnus Sunset-0300, best 2210 Mars (low at Sunset) Emmission nebulae: Jupiter (low at Sunset) NGC6888 Crescent Nebula Saturn (low at Sunset) NGC6960 Veil Nebula Uranus (2230-Sunrise) IC5070 Pelican Nebula Neptune (2130-0330) IC7000 (C20) North American Nebula Planetary nebulae: Ursa Major Sunset-0150 IC5146 (C19) Cocoon Nebula Planetary nebula: M97 Owl Nebula NGC6826 Blinking Nebula Galaxies: NGC7008 Fetus Nebula M81 Bode’s Galaxy & M82 Cigar Galaxy Open clusters: M101 Pinwheel Galaxy M29 M108 M39 M109 NGC6871 Multiple star: Mizar & Alcor ζ-UMa (zeta-UMa) 3 white NGC6883 NGC6910 Rocking Horse Cluster Canes Venatici Sunset-2130 Galaxy: NGC6946 (C12) Fireworks Galaxy Globular cluster: M3 Multiple stars: Galaxies: Albireo β-Cyg (beta-Cyg) gold & blue M51 Whirlpool Galaxy 61-Cyg orange & red M63 Sunflower Galaxy M94 Delphinus Sunset-0240, -
Hardy 1 Williamina Fleming
Hardy 1 Williamina Fleming: Breaking Barriers with A Universe of Glass Isabella L. Hardy Junior Division Individual Performance paper 500 words In the past, women in the sciences were often overlooked, so for National History Day, I chose to focus on an under-recognized female scientist. Early in my research, I found Williamina Paton Fleming. I was surprised I had never encountered her although I had heard of her colleagues, Annie Jump Cannon and Henrietta Leavitt. I have always loved studying the stars and am fascinated by the role of women in astronomy whose important contributions are sometimes forgotten. Williamina Fleming’s unique ability to interpret astronomical photographs changed astronomy in nineteenth- century America and beyond, breaking barriers for scientists and for women. In preliminary research, I located Harvard’s digital scans of Fleming's diary and excellent period photographs, as well as many academic articles about her and other women at the Harvard Observatory. I was also privileged to interview Dr. Lindsay Smith, current Curator of Astronomical Photographs at Harvard. She was extremely helpful in suggesting sources and later reviewed the performance script. Not much is known about Fleming’s early years in Scotland. After her husband abandoned her, she worked for Harvard Observatory Director Edward Pickering, who hired her for the new project to map the night sky. The process involved taking images though telescopes, then mapping all the stars in that small section of sky. Using this process, Fleming discovered stars, novae, and nebulae and encouraged the work of other astronomers, while facilitating many important discoveries. I chose performance to give a voice to a person who has been largely unnoticed. -
Atlas Menor Was Objects to Slowly Change Over Time
C h a r t Atlas Charts s O b by j Objects e c t Constellation s Objects by Number 64 Objects by Type 71 Objects by Name 76 Messier Objects 78 Caldwell Objects 81 Orion & Stars by Name 84 Lepus, circa , Brightest Stars 86 1720 , Closest Stars 87 Mythology 88 Bimonthly Sky Charts 92 Meteor Showers 105 Sun, Moon and Planets 106 Observing Considerations 113 Expanded Glossary 115 Th e 88 Constellations, plus 126 Chart Reference BACK PAGE Introduction he night sky was charted by western civilization a few thou - N 1,370 deep sky objects and 360 double stars (two stars—one sands years ago to bring order to the random splatter of stars, often orbits the other) plotted with observing information for T and in the hopes, as a piece of the puzzle, to help “understand” every object. the forces of nature. The stars and their constellations were imbued with N Inclusion of many “famous” celestial objects, even though the beliefs of those times, which have become mythology. they are beyond the reach of a 6 to 8-inch diameter telescope. The oldest known celestial atlas is in the book, Almagest , by N Expanded glossary to define and/or explain terms and Claudius Ptolemy, a Greco-Egyptian with Roman citizenship who lived concepts. in Alexandria from 90 to 160 AD. The Almagest is the earliest surviving astronomical treatise—a 600-page tome. The star charts are in tabular N Black stars on a white background, a preferred format for star form, by constellation, and the locations of the stars are described by charts.