A Good Talk, and Summer Musings on the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence

Hamilton Amateur Astronomers

Summer 2001 Volume 8 Issue 9 A Good Talk, and Summer Musings on the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence

Doug Black as a very capable and realistic own choice of what to look at person, and I could also see when), commensal where Carl Sagan's Ellie Ar- (piggyback) and data mining. t was back at the end of roway had originated. But it's a huge search; with x, I May. The crowd filed y, z, t, frequency, polarization, into the Convention Center's As I recall (and I can only hope modulation etc the search Chedoke Room, casual but that at least some of these space has nine dimensions! with lots of anticipation. Dr details are right!) the talk Jill Tarter, who directs Project started with a general current There are also three direc- Phoenix for the SETI Institute, picture of SETI. tions in which SETI searches was about to give the Helen are heading. The first way is to Sawyer Hogg Lecture. This Life is generally associated build an inexpensive array of annual public lecture was set with planets. So far, we've radio dish telescopes.from off up by the Canadian Astronom- found 67 planets plus three the shelf components to moni- ical Society (CASCA). Its title around a pulsar, four planetary tor about 100,000 stars. A was "SETI: Pulling Signals systems. We could detect second direction is to search Out of Noise", and maybe just planets just like Jupiter and for very brief light pulses from that slightly technical tone kept Saturn but do need time for about a million stars. And away the folks with questions them to orbit a bit. The pro- finally, an omnidirectional sky about aliens, or even the "face posed Kepler Mission would survey array could look for on Mars". For whatever rea- watch 100,000 stars for tran- strong transient radio output son, they weren't at the talk. I sits. We're starting to look for from "billions and billions" of suspect that a lot of the ama- short laser pulses, and this is stars. That last method seems teur astronomers present had promising because it's not too to be gaining favor. read the April Sky and Tele- hard for them to outshine their scope article on "The Future of star at some frequency. The Project Phoenix targeted SETI" and had been thinking search listens to frequencies about it. I'd never heard a talk There are three kinds of from 1.2 to 3 GHz, although by Dr Tarter. She came across searches: directed (SETI's (Continued on page 4)

New Options page 2 September Night Skies page 7 inside... Mosquitos page 3 Cosmology page 8 Perseids page 5 Calendar of Events page 8 Page 2 Event Horizon - New Options for Delivery what you wish to save in hard- copy vent Horizon is a publication - you will help to keep our Eof the Hamilton Amateur he HAA has always Astronomers (HAA). prided itself as being membership fees low - there is no hard page limit T"affordable". Not too surpris- The HAA is an amateur astronomy (due to mailing costs) for an ingly, one of the major costs in club dedicated to the promotion and our yearly budget is mailing expanded EH which might be enjoyment of astronomy for people of issues of our newsletter, Event warranted before or after all ages and experience levels Horizon, to our members. In special astronomical events The cost of the subscription is very rough terms, every Event - it might even be environmen- tally friendly! included in the $25 individual or $30 Horizon which we put in the family membership fee for the year. mail costs $1. Event Horizon is published a If you have a very slow dial-up minimum of 10 times a year. Many, but not all, of our mem- connection, then you may wish to continue to receive Event HAA Council bers have access to the Inter- Hon. Chair Jim Winger net. If a fraction of our mem- Horizon's by Canada Post. During the last two years, PDF Chair Marg Walton bers who currently receive pa- Second Chair Grant Dixon per copies elects to receive versions of Event Horizon Secretary Stewart Attlesey their Event Horizon's by e-mail have varied between 125 and Treasurer Barbara Wight as a PDF (Portable Document 480 kilobytes. We will make Obs. Dir Bret Culver Publicity Doug Black Format) file, we can dramati- every effort to keep the size of the PDF files as small as possi- Editor Rosa Assalone cally lower our mailing costs. Membership Dir. Ann Tekatch The usual PDF reader, called ble, but you should judge your HAJA Coord Rosa Assalone Adobe Acrobat, is available patience with e-mail down- free of charge as a standalone loads accordingly! Councillors Ray Badgerow program and it also contains If you interested in participat- Sheila Overall free "plugins" for the most Doug Welch popular Web browsers. ing in this new trial, please send an e-mail to Ann Tekatch Web Site There are a number of advan- at: [email protected] http://www.science.mcmaster.ca/HAA/ You can switch back to the tages to receiving the PDF ver- Mailing Address sion: "snail mail" version of the- PO Box 65578 Dundas, ON L9H 6Y6 newsletter at any time. - they will arrive more quickly - they can include colour Marg Walton and Doug - you can receive them when Welch you are away from home, but still have access to your e-mail - you can elect to print only

Event Horizon - Hamilton Amateur Astronomers Page 3

NNNnnnnnNNNNnnnnn - Know Your Mosquito f you have been observing this summer, you get bitten while sleeping, to "DEET" in effectiveness. you may have noticed this is useful knowledge to Isome our winged "friends" allow you to seek revenge!) Mosquitoes seem to take hanging around, sucking flight in great numbers blood, and generally being a The female lays her eggs in about 20 min- nuisance. In the spirit of still water. So if you want lots utes after "knowing your enemy", I have of mosquitoes, it is an excel- sunset, so il- sought to learn more about lent idea to build your obser- lumination these beasts. I have no illu- vatory near a marsh. level is clearly sions that this will aid me in a trigger in terms of how ac- being bitten less often - How do the male and female tive they are. Temperature mosquitoes have been on this find each other? Personal and relative humidity also are earth much longer than hu- ads, usually. Well, not ex- important. mans and I'm sure when their actly. It turns out that the most delectable species is no wingbeat frequency of the fe- You might be amused to know longer around, they will make male is well-matched to a very that ultrasonic devices have due. peculiar set of antennae of been repeatedly shown to the male mosquito's head. have no repellant value what- First, you should know that The male will "go for the soever. Not too surprising for only the females bite. There. gusto" if it hears the appropri- a bug which mainly is tuned to I've said it - despite it probably ate, species-specific buzz. a frequency slightly above not being politically- correct. (The male mosquito also has middle C! What do the males eat? a wingbeat frequency, but for- Steak and eggs, of course! tunately for all concerned, it is It would be very interesting to No ... actually they eat ... nec- typically a few hundred cycles find out which species we tar - and they call themselves per second higher in pitch.) havehere in the Hamilton males! The females actually area. If it gets cloudy some can get by on nectar, too, There are a night you are observing, think unless they want to produce a number of about collecting up some little brood of eggs - they need "attractants" for beasties for identification. If their "blood meal" for the extra female we get organized, maybe we energy required for this activ- mosquitoes. Ex- can make some recording of ity. The itching is caused by a haled carbon diox- female wingbeats and see if substance the female injects ide, lactic acid, and sweat we can tell the species apart to prevent the have all been reported as from each other! "bite" from having some attractant value. clotting while None is overwhelmingly more Doug Welch she loads up important than the other. Hav- with blood. If ing warm, exposed skin is there is a verti- certainly a plus, as far as cal surface nearby, you will female mosquitoes are con- frequently find that the fe- cerned. While a number of males heads over to it to rest chemicals have some repel- immediately after dining. (If lant value, none come close

Event Horizon - Hamilton Amateur Astronomers Page 4

Extraterrestrial Intelligence (Continued from page 1) Optical SETI was next. To lizations may switch, as we are they'd really like to examine make an optical signal stand doing, to digital transmissions 1-10 GHz. They look for nar- out as a beacon, an efficient which resemble noise as op- rowband signals, using two way would be to send it as very posed to our early analogue widely spaced telescopes in the brief pulses. The Harvard Tar- transmissions. US and Great Britain to rule geted Optical SETI project out local signals. To be chosen and other related projects look What if we do somehow detect the star must be at least three for just such brief pulses. The someone "out there"? What billion years old. By the way, Harvard project is piggy- about contacting them? Jill the signal from Pioneer 10 has backed, on a telescope used to Tarter seems to feel that we're been used as a standard, to search for orbiting companions not yet an old enough civiliza- give Phoenix something to cal- of stars. tion to be deliberately trans- ibrate to. It's being replaced, mitting. as it disappears, by signals Dr Tarter continued, on the bounced off the moon. topic of arrays of simple, sta- I personally agree completely Phoenix has now run long tionary radio antennas which with that, but one thing still enough to rule out "strong ter- can image the whole sky. Ohio bothers me about the whole restrial radars" from 500 stars, State University's Argus Pro- idea of contact. Whether out to 155 light years. ject is one of these (see "they" were a bit behind us, or www.bigear.org). The limiting more likely well ahead, The Allen Telescope Array at factor here is definitely com- wouldn't we have a big diffi- Hat Creek California extends puting power. As I under- culty communicating, or even Project Phoenix. When com- stood it, to run a 4000 by 4000 understanding them? Except plete in a few years it will be element array would need to- in the sense that astronomy 365 six-metre dishes, made day's computers plus 15 years' includes all the other disci- from inexpensive components, application of Moore's Law. plines, this isn't specifically an looking at frequencies from (This "law" is an observation astronomy problem. More like 0.5 to 10 GHz. The array is that computer chip density a mathematics-and-biology compact, but irregular, shaped and/or computing speed dou- problem. It's about our inabil- a bit like Darth Vader! It can bles every 18-24 months.) ity to understand even beings be "steered" a bit, so that sensi- which are very near us in intel- tive directions can be pointed The lecture ended. An excel- ligence and genetics. When we at targets, and the "nulls" can lent summary of SETI as far as someday have a generalized be pointed at satellites. And it I could tell. During the ques- way to understand other mam- will search the Galactic Plane, tion period, Doug Welch of- mals, maybe we'll be able to covering 100,000 stars in fered the suggestion that at extrapolate, to understand about seven years. But why frequencies reserved for as- folks who may be ahead of us, stop at a hectare? Future plans tronomy by a civilization, we and maybe even to understand include a Square Kilometer may actually see a lack of sig- ourselves better. Something to Array, at maybe under $600 nals. (The alien astronomers look into! per square meter. may be much better at preserv- ing those frequencies for their own searches!) This becomes more important as other civi- Event Horizon - Hamilton Amateur Astronomers Page 5

Perseids - The Legendary Shower...

observer is out under a dark Medusa into a monster, with her he Perseids are probably country sky, and if the radiant, beautiful hair becoming a the best known meteor the area in the sky where the squirming mass of snakes. Tshower for observers and meteors seem to come from, is the public alike! directly overhead. Perseus took off to slay her, out- fitted with winged sandals from This year, the Perseid (PER) These famous meteors radiate Hermes, the messenger god; a maximum falls on August 12th - from the legendary constellation sword of diamond from Hephaes- a weekend! This is a real plus for of Perseus. In ancient Greek tus, the god of fire and the forge; getting friends and family out to mythology, Perseus was a hero. and a magical helmet to make see this wonderful show. These His mother was Danae - a hu- him invisible, from Hades, god of are fast meteors, at about 59 km man. His father was the god the underworld. He accom- per second, and often leave Zeus, the son of Saturn and plished the feat of slaying trains behind them. There are Rhea of the race of Titans, who Medusa without directly looking many bright Perseids, so even were the children of Earth and at her by using her reflection in from a less than perfect sky loca- Heaven, which sprang from his shield. The blood from the tion, an observer will see a re- Chaos. unfortunate Medusa's severed spectable number of mete- head, upon hitting the earth, cre- ors. For the best effect ated the great winged horse Pe- though, try to get out into the gasus, who was caught and country, away from the light pol- tamed by Minerva and presented lution of streetlights. You will see as a gift to the Muses, the daugh- many more meteors for every ters of Zeus and Mnemosyne. extra little bit of dark sky. The Muses presided over litera- ture, art and science. Perseid meteor rates are ex- pected to have several peaks - at There On Perseus' way home, he came 14 hours UT and at 17 hours UT was a upon the princess Andromeda, on August 12th. UT refers to prophesy that Per daughter of King Cepheus, Universal Time, over in Green- seus would slay his own grandfa- chained to a rock as a sacrifice to wich, England, so calculate your ther, so mother and son were the sea monster Cetus because local time accordingly. For ex- locked in a wooden chest and of the vainful boasting of her ample, 14 hours UT on August thrown into the ocean. The chest mother, Queen Cassiopeia. 12th, converted to Eastern Day- surfaced, and floated to the is- Perseus rescued the fair maiden light Time (EDT) for someone on land of Seriphus, where Perseus and married her, then turned her the east coast of North America, grew up. The king of the island, intended husband, her uncle would translate to 14 minus 12 Polydectes, started to fall in love Phineus, to stone using the head hours equals 2 p.m. at Green- with Danae, and decided to try to of Medusa. After further exploits, wich, which would be 10 a.m. in get Perseus out of the way. He he gave the severed Gorgon North America, with the 4 hour asked him to go slay the famous head to Athena, who placed it in time difference. female monster Medusa, a Gor- the center of her shield. gon whose gaze turned men to At maximum on August 12th, the stone. At a later time, Perseus, while Perseid radiant will be located at attending a funeral in Thessaly, 046 degrees, ie RA 3h 4.2m, Dec It wasn't Medusa's fault that she accidentally killed his own grand- +58, which is about 4 degrees was a fearsome Gorgon. She father as the prophecy had pre- north of the star gamma Perseus, had once been a beautiful mor- dicted. Perseus and Andromeda the middle star of the out- tal. Poseidon, Zeus' brother, had had a daughter whom they stretched right arm of Perseus. seduced her inside a temple of named Gorgophone, and a num- The Zenithal Hourly Rate (ZHR) Athena. Athena, the goddess of ber of sons, including Perses, is about 110 meteors per hour, both war and wisdom, was so who is considered to be the fa- visible with the unaided eye, if an enraged that she changed (Continued on page 6)

Event Horizon - Hamilton Amateur Astronomers Page 6 Perseids....

(Continued from page 5) changed much by the influence ther of all Persians. His grand- of our large planets such as This is a wonderful meteor daughter Alcena would bear a Jupiter. It was Schiaparelli, the shower to observe visually and son named Hercules. In the end, astronomer most noted for ob- also a wonderful shower to try Perseus, Andromeda, King serving so-called "canali" on taking photos of. Traditionally, it Cepheus, Queen Cassiopeia, the Mars, who discovered that the has been difficult to photograph great winged horse Pegasus, and Perseid meteors were related to meteors as they can occur in any the sea monster Cetus were all Comet 1862 III, also known as part of the sky, and being fast, given places in the stars - and 109/P Swift-Tuttle. This was the are hard to register on your film. you can see these constellations first proven association between With the Perseid shower, there in your star maps for summer! a comet and a meteor shower. are a lot of bright meteors and The star beta Perseus, known as there are hundreds of them over Algol, the Demon Star, is named The parent comet itself, 109/P the course of the night in a dark after Medusa - it fades and Swift-Tuttle, was discovered in sky. This increases the chances brightens every 2.87 days, and July of 1862 by both Lewis Swift of capturing some on film. You was the first eclipsing variable of Marathon, New York and Ho- will need a camera that you can star ever discovered. race Tuttle of Harvard Observa- take time exposures with, usually tory, Massachusetts. It was about about 10-20 minutes in length, a The famous Perseid meteor magnitude 7.5 at discovery and cable release to keep the shutter shower has been observed for brightened to about magnitude 2 open, and a tripod or something about 2000 years, with the first by early September, which is to steady your camera if you are known information on these me- about the same brightness as the resting it on a solid surface. Set teors coming from the far east. In stars in the Big Dipper. It sported the camera to wide open, ie. the early Europe, the Perseids came a tail of between 25 and 30 de- smallest f-stop that you have, or to be known as the "tears of St. grees long, and was quite im- close to it, and set the focus to Lawrence." Mark Littmann has a pressive! By length comparison, infinity. You should use fast film wonderful article on the history of the pointer stars of the Big Dip- of some sort, ASA 400 or higher, the Perseids on the Sky and per are about 5 degrees apart. regardless of whether you wish to Telescope website (at http:// The comet comes around to our use black and white, or color film. www.skypub.com), and writes: part of the solar system about every 120 years and was seen In legend or in reality, Perseids "Saint Lawrence was tortured most recently in the mid 1990's. are fascinating. We study the and killed in Rome on August 10, In November of 1992, it bright- meteoroid stream - and we 258 during the reign of the anti- ened to about magnitude 5.0. dream about the ancient myths Christian emperor Valerian... Cit- that spawned the constellation ing Quetelet, 'a superstition has The magnitude or brightness of the meteors come from in the 'for ages' existed among the the meteors themselves is inter- sky! Catholics of some parts of Eng- esting as well. Studies by Hruska land and Germany that the burn- and Ceplecha in the 1950's indi- Clear skies! ing tears of St. Lawrence are cated that the Perseids generally seen in the sky on the night of the seem to be brighter before the North American Meteor Network 10th of August; this day being the date of maximum activity than Mark Davis, Coordinator anniversary of his martyrdom.'" afterwards, but that some periods of brighter or fainter meteors do ([email protected]) Because the orbit of the Perseid occur. This tends to indicate http://web.infoave.net/ meteoroid particles is tilted so some filamentary structure in the ~meteorobs much in relation to the plane of Perseid meteoroid stream. In our own solar system, the Per- other words, we encounter Lew Gramer, Public Outreach seids have stayed fairly similar in clumps of brighter or fainter me- ([email protected]) characteristics since ancient teors as the earth passes through http://www.tiac.net/users/ times, and have not been different layers of long-ago de- lewkaren/meteorobs bris shed by Comet Swift-Tuttle.

Event Horizon - Hamilton Amateur Astronomers Page 7 Cosmology Discussion

Presents: The Analysis of Eclipsing Binaries Contain- Dave will discuss the ing Cepheid Variables. Grad- difficulties encoun- uate student Dave Lepischak tered and the re- will do our presentation. sults obtained from the first analysis of sev- It has been called the “Rosetta eral systems explifying Stone” of variable star re- this rare coincidence of search: a cepheid variable star disparate types of stellar which is a member of an eclips- variability, ing binary system. Such a system would allow the first The meeting will be held: direct measurements of a Saturday, September 29th, Cepheid’s stellar properties, 2001, 8pm in McMaster’s For further informa- such as mass and change in Burke Science Building, Room tion, call Larry at radius, improving both our un- B148 (905) 529-1037. derstanding of stars’ internal Refreshments will be provided. structure and our ability to We welcome our members to measure distance in the uni- bring a small entree. Everyone verse. welcome, open discussion.

CALENDAR OF EVENTS

· August 17, 18, 24, 25 ~ 8pm BINBROOK OBSERVING NIGHTS - For confirmation or directions call September 7, 8, 15 Ann Tekatch 575-5433, Marg Walton 627-7361, Rob Roy 692-3245 · August 16-19 STARFEST - River Place Campground, Mount Forest. Details on page 6. · August 21-25 GREAT MANITOU STAR PARTY - held on Manitoulin Island at Gordon’s Park. Go to this party for dark skies and a great beach! Details on page 4. · Friday, September 14, 7:30pm HAA GENERAL MEETING - The meeting will be at the Spectator Building auditorium. Dr. Alison Sills, a new faculty member in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at McMaster, will speak on "When Stars Collide!" · Saturday, September 29th, 8pm COSMOLOGY DISCUSSION GROUP - The meeting will be held at McMaster Univeristy, Burke Science Building, Room B148. Dave Lepischak will speak about: The Analysis of Eclipsing Binaries Containing Cepheid Variables. Call Larry at (905) 529-1037 to confirm.

Event Horizon - Hamilton Amateur Astronomers