PETERBOROUGH ASTRONOMICAL ASSOCIATION The Reflector Volume 12, Issue 1 ISSN 1712-4425 January 2013 Partnering to Solve Saturn’s Mysteries This false-colored Cassini image of Saturn was taken in near-infrared light on January 12, 2011. Red and orange show clouds deep in the atmosphere. Yellow and green are intermediate clouds. White and blue are high clouds and haze. The rings appear as a thin, blue horizontal line. by Diane K. Fisher rom December 2010 causing it to have seasons as Earth According to Dr. Scott Edgington, H4 Fthrough mid-summer 2011, a does. Deputy Project Scientist for Cassini, giant storm raged in Saturn’s But even more surprising than “Ethylene [C2 ] is normally present northern hemisphere. It was clearly the unseasonal storm was the re- in only very low concentrations in visible not only to nasa’s Cassini lated event that followed. Saturn’s atmosphere and has been spacecraft orbiting Saturn, but also First, a giant bubble of very warm very difficult to detect. Although it is astronomers here on Earth — even material broke through the clouds in a transitional product of the ther- those watching from their back- the region of the now-abated storm, mochemical processes that normally yards. The storm came as a surprise, suddenly raising the temperature occur in Saturn’s atmosphere, the since it was about 10 years earlier in of Saturn’s stratosphere over 150°F. concentrations detected concurrent Saturn’s seasonal cycle than ex- Accompanying this enormous “burp” with the big ‘burp’ were 100 times pected from observations of similar was a sudden increase in ethylene what we would expect.” storms in the past. Saturn’s year is gas. It took Cassini’s Composite So what wassee going “Saturn” on? on page 16 about 30 Earth years. Saturn is tilted Infrared Spectrometer instrument to Chemical reaction rates vary on its axis (about 27° to Earth’s 23°), detect it. 2 | peterboroughastronomy.com President’s Message Happy New Year ell the world didn’t end on ings. I promised less business at meetings December 21st, but the year did and I think we’ve done that but maybe not end on December 31st. It’s hard enough. Instead of searching for guest Wto believe an entire year has passed since I speakers for every meeting we are thinking became president. We begin the new year of utilizing the talent that we have in the with the same executive members that were membership and do some real education in place. I trust we’ve done a reasonably oriented sessions. We’ll cover the basics of good job or there would have been nomina- astronomy, the night sky, the solar system tions at the a.g.m. to oust us. and beyond. The planning is at the very The past year had a number of successes early stages but I hope we can get this go- as reported in the December message and ing. We’ll use the feedback from the mem- I hope this year goes as well. I plan to hold ber’s survey to help shape our plans. an executive meeting in January where I’m looking forward to another great year we can plan the year with the main focus of astronomy related activities and I hope on the monthly meetings themselves. As that many members are as well and will par- reported our membership is at an all time ticipate in making the year successful. high but attendance at meetings seems to be dwindling. We need to understand this Rodger Forsyth and try to correct the problem. Included in PAA President our plans is to possibly re-shape the meet- Onward and Upward his issue marks the twelfth year of ing we have photos of John Crossen receiv- publication for this newsletter. It is ing a bouquet of flowers. Okay they were for a point of honour for this club that Deb but he did get an honourary member- Letter from the Editor T ship. we have continued to publish consistently. Without the contributions of some key members — John Crossen and Rick Stankie- Phillip Chee wicz — it would be a thin palimpsest indeed Editor, The Reflector (I leave it to the reader to decipher this mixed metaphor!) Peterborough John Crossen has an article on the life and times of Sir Patrick Moore, whom sadly Astronomical passed away at the end of 2012. John also Association writes about the Peterborough Planetar- The Reflector is a publication of the Peterborough Astronomical ium. Dean Shewring contributes a short Association (P.A.A.) Founded in 1970, the P.A.A. is your local profile of Chris Hadfield, the first Canadian group for astronomy in Peterborough and the Kawarthas. www.peterboroughastronomy.com • [email protected] to command an International Space Station Phone: 705.292.0729 mission. Rick Stankiewicz explains how you Club Mailing Address Rodger Forsyth, President can participate as a Citizen Scientist. And Peterborough Astronomical Association 536 Robinson Road RR #1 for those whom missed the last club meet- Peterborough, ON K9J 6X2 The Reflector Vol 12 | Issue no. 1| January 2013 | 3 Astronomer Patrick Moore Left Much to Many Patrick Moore and globes. JOHN CROSSEN ir Patrick Moore had all the But Patrick’s real gift was in making as- qualities that make a hero. tronomy exciting and relevant to the gen- As a child, heart ailments kept him eral public. As the spokesman for the bbc’s Sfrom attending school and playing sports. Sky at Night program he inspired millions But not to be denied anything, he devoted of Brits to become involved in astronomy. his youthful energy to reading about sci- He had the honour of being moderator for ence and became particularly fascinated the longest lasting television series in his- with astronomy — especially the Moon. tory — from 1957 until the night of his death At the age of 13 he wrote his first paper on December 9, 2012. describing the features of a crater he had During that 50 + years on TV Patrick seen through a small telescope. He was interviewed the first man to fly — Orville also the youngest member to join the Royal Wright; the first man in space — Yuri Astronomical Society in London. Gagarin, and the first man to walk on the He was the consummate observer, keep- Moon , Neil Armstrong. ing records of his observing sessions from He was also a seasoned writer, authoring childhood through his adult years. His fas- over 100 books, mostly on astronomy and cination with the Moon led to his 1940 dis- one on cats. All of which were pecked out on covery of the Mare Orientale a crater just on his 1908 Woodstock typewriter. the far side of the Moon. Later in life both During recent years Patrick co-authored the Russians and the Americans sought his a book on the universe with Brian May, lead lunar expertise in their race to the Moon. See “Sir Patrick” on page 11 4 | peterboroughastronomy.com The Dearly Departed are Departing for Outer Space Your launch time and vehicle will depend on what rockets are available and where you are heading. It’s defi- nitely faster than the bus, but you may have to wait awhile for your ride. Then again, you’ve got all of eternity. Photo credit: Celestis. JOHN CROSSEN Currently over 300 people have been hen I was in college a “buried” in outer space. Most have been movie came out called “The cremated and had their remains placed Loved One.” It was a send- in orbit around Earth. The movie sol- upW on the Southern California funeral emnly referred to this as being lovingly business, most specifically Forest Lawn launched into “Eternal Orbit” — a resting Cemetery. It seems the cemetery was place reserved for astronauts, explorers running out of space to bury their cus- and test pilots. tomers in elegance and style. But wait, there’s more. In 1997 twenty- The gist of it all came down to launch- four people, including Star Trek creator ing the corpses into outer space and Gene Roddenberry, had some of their converting the old cemetery into a ashes stowed in a capsule that was senior’s residence. The turnover rate in purposely crashed into the Moon. In senior’s homes is high. So you can fleece 1999, Eugene Shoemaker, who was at ‘em while they’re here and then blast the one time a member of the astronaut cadavers into space and drain the last bit program had a portion of his ashes of cash when they’re gone. Brilliant, and slammed into the Moon at the conclu- at the time I thought it was hysterically sion of the Clementine lunar mission. funny. But I laugh no more. See “Celestis” on page 15 The Reflector Vol 12 | Issue no. 1| January 2013 | 5 Citizen Science RICK STANKIEWICZ hat is “Citizen Science?” galaxy classifications an hour. In the end, It has been around for years more than 50 million classifications were now and is ever increasing in received by the project during its first year, Wpopularity among both citizens and sci- contributed by more than 150,000 citizens. entists. Scientific researchers have found I am proud to say that I was one of them. It that especially when either faced with was fun, but more than that, it was edu- mountains of data (typically visual) or when cational and my contribution along with requiring an accumulation of data, comput- thousands of others has added to a body of ers have their limitations and it has been many research papers. As an added bonus, shown that the human eye and brain is still if data that you contributed to gets used better at some of these tasks.