Transcript:
I like that me too you look like you're traveling through space I know it's
hypnotic I'm about to yeah fall in there I like that all
about okay
Carol how was the conference you were just at it was very well attended and uh
had a had a good turnout and so yeah it was some real a real good weekend did you have some good weather or did you
have rain or well we were supposed to had a star party that night but Mother Nature got in the way so we brought it
indoors yeah just talk yeah that'll work I know when we used to to do our
regional conventions up in Indiana when it did that we would have movie night and we'd set up the whole Auditorium
with a big screen and show movies people could stay up all night and watch movies if they wanted to of course they were
the old b-rated sci-fi yeah how many times C can you see the movie contact
over and over and over oh no I go way back to uh it came from outer space and
you know the way backs those black and white ones yeah
that was something we did on one of the buses when at an Alcon we were traveling somewhere we had a two-hour ride and the
bus had a TV screen and we played old old Sci-Fi movies and I thought we would
die laughing all the way back everybody was enjoying the movies and making fun
of the special effects so that always helps yes
indeed y [Music]
on November 1st 2023 NASA's Lucy spacecraft flew by the main belt
asteroid dinkes now the mission has released pictures from Lucy's longrange
reconnaissance imager taken over a roughly 3-hour period providing the best views of the asteroid to date during the
flyby Lucy discovered that dinkes has a small Moon which the mission named Salam
a greeting in the Amharic language meaning peace dinkes is the smallest main belt
asteroid ever encountered by a spacecraft and may have ejected the material that now forms Salam Lucy will
swing by Earth in December 2024 for its second gravity assist boosting its orbit
to reach Jupiter's Trojan asteroids in August 2027 [Music]
well hello everyone this is Scott Roberts and Terry man uh Terry from the astronomical League myself from explore
scientific and the explore Alliance we're the proud uh uh production guys I
guess for getting this uh this wonderful program on the air and uh uh Terry it's
U it's nice to see you uh face to face again and uh I I'll be it through Zoom
uh uh I see that Barbara Harris is logging on right now so she says uh good
evening everyone so um but uh this is the
39th astronomic live yeah right and so wonderful um and and what do we have in
store y 39 months of astronomical leag yep all right Scott thank you it is
a pleasure to see you also it's been a while um and welcome everybody to this
nice summer night I don't know how it is where you're at but it's plenty warm here but I'm not complaining we've got
sunshine so welcome again and tonight we've got an amazing program for you we
have got deed Levy that will open up for us and talk a little bit about some
poetry and Carol ore president of the league he will talk a little bit about
every everything coming up on the Le league and then we've got John gos and
he is really going to talk about something everybody is talking about and wanting to know about and then we have
Dean Ras it is such a pleasure to have Dean here and he has got an excellent talk tonight I'm really looking forward
to everything so before I go off the wall here talking I'm gonna let deid
Levy just take off and would you please uh start us off
thanks Terry and Scott it is good to be here it'll be even better to be at Al at
at Alcon next month in Kansas City I'm really looking forward to that I will be
there from Wednesday evening all the way through Saturday and uh really looking forward
to it did any of you see Comet
olders as it's coming in right now for a PA helium at the end of June it is about
sth magnitude right now it's about as bright as it's going to get I was lucky enough to spot it on uh
Monday night with my friend David roster it was behind a tree we didn't
think we' see it and David looked through his telescope first and saw two stars and a fuzzy spot and the fuzzy
spot was the comet right where it was supposed to be and boy did that mean everything to me
comet olers is not olers is is not what he's famous for as I think we all know
olers is famous for his famous Paradox in which he says that the night
sky has no business being dark olers
postulated that with the Infinity of stars in the sky every square inch of
Sky no matter where you're looking should light on the surface of a
star and the conclusion to that is that the night sky should be blindingly
bright and we should never have been life should never have been allowed to
evolve here on the earth because of the night sky the Paradox is the night sky
is not infinitely bright it is dark and life can evolve
here and here we are all of us here at astronomical League Line
and uh the the uh the Paradox wasn't really confirmed until
recently with Hubble's observations of the expanding universe and with the Hub Space
Telescope and the web Space Telescope measuring the um measuring
the the uh age of the universe and uh
so when most people think that the the person who who's who proved or disproved
over Paradox would have been Edwin Hubble it was not the person who came up
with the uh theory that disproved over's Paradox was none other than someone with
a lot of imagination the poet Eder alen po I'm going to begin by quoting a
little bit from the rating presently my soul grew stronger hesitating then no
longer for sir said I or Madam truly your forgiveness I implore but the fact
is I was napping and so gently you came wrapping and so faintly you came tapping
tapping on my chamber door but I scarce was sure I heard you here I opened wide
the door Darkness there and nothing more deep into that Darkness peering long I
stood there wondering fearing doubting Dreaming Dreams no mortal ever to dream
before but the silence was unbroken and the Darkness gave no token and the only
word there spoken was the whispered word Lenor this I whispered and an echo went
murmured back the word Lenor youly this and nothing more then this eony bird
beguiling my sad fancy into smiling by the grave and stern deor of the countenance it wore though my Crest be
shorn and shaven thou I said I sure no Craven ghastly Grim an ancient Raven
wandering from the nightly Shore tell me why thy lordly name is on the night's
plutonian Shore quote The Raven never more and uh the the
raven a few decades ago came to life when two Ravens adopted Jean and
carollyn Shoemaker and they were living nearby their house Flagstaff and of
course she and Carolyn had to call them never and more anyway the story about edar alen
Paul the side you can tell that he might have been thinking about the night sky
being dark when he wrote The Raven because the word Darkness appears three times I think I in in in The Raven the
word Darkness appears quite often but uh he wrote something El
he wrote Eureka a Pros poem he wrote it in 1848 and it was his last major
work and in it he solved the problem of W's Paradox and here it
goes since there could be absolutely no point in all that background at which would not exist a star the only mode
there in which under such a state of affairs we can comprehend the the void
which our telescopes find in innumerable directions would be by supposing the
distance of the invisible background so immense that no Ray from it has yet been
able to reach us at all and that is the solution of ob's paradox found out by
our famous poet Edgar pole and thank you for letting me do this today a little
bit of a preview of Halloween and I'd like to give it back to Terry thank
you thank you de we were just talking about old movies and you know when you
started off I could hear Bella legosi starting at the beginning of the Raven when he started to read that but yeah
that is an amazing poem thank you very much and maybe you ought to come back on on the Halloween show and start us off
that night with that poem I would love to we'll do we'll put you down there
then thank you very much appreci appreciate you being here too and I look forward to seeing you in Kansas City
next month so all right how about if we go to Carol ore Carol's been on the road
traveling around he's been a busy guy so he's been at a conference or two and uh
we just all started off the year meeting other regions and talking to other people in the regions getting to know
everybody so Carol how about if you give us an update on the league or anything else you would like to talk about sounds
good and doid thanks so much for that beautiful poetry and can't wait for Halloween next year to see what else you
come up with as Terry was saying we've been doing lots of traveling lately and it's nice to see that astronomy is
thriving and in good shape as we go around our regions uh we've just uh I've
been to one Regional within the last little bit and we've really had some wonderful times with those I'm going to
share my screen
still getting there
see anything yet not yet but not yet we can tell it's coming all right sounds
good okay
sorry about that a little bit slow this is probably more of an
internet thing than anything yeah it may be
okay I could have you try again let's see let me
unshare and then go back to try sharing again all right here we go all right and
there you are and just take it to presentation mode you're all set all
right okay um like to talk some more about Alon just coming up in the next uh
couple of weeks actually five weeks from now uh there you go it'll be held next month
does everybody see that y yes okay be held July 17 through 20th in Kansas City
and we've got some uh uh nice speakers coming along uh in the bottom right hand
there you'll see our website Alcon 2024 we uh have got a a great cast of
speakers including uh deid who will be at Linda Hall library on Thursday night
and we're looking forward to that as many of you know out there Linda Hall is a scientific library in Kansas City some
of you have been there at past conventions and looked through their rare book room we will have that again
available this year in addition though we have a couple of wonderful surprises
as some of you may know uh uh D has his whole collection of observing logs from
his uh the time he spent discovering comets they're there in the custody of
Linda Hall library in addition the very first telescope he had is also there and
so we'll be hearing more about that in that presentation at Linda Hall
Library you'll notice on the slide here we have a couple of codes there if
you're interested in registering and have it yet in the upper right there's the code uh if you got your cell phone
just go ahead and log in there and will tell you exactly how to get registered for Alcon and below the second half uh to
the left there is another code that will take you to the hotel reservation which
will be at the Double Tree and a suburb of Kansas City Overland Park
Kansas another thing that we're doing this time uh and it's something we haven't done at alons for lots of years
uh and uh Terry when she was at her Regional convention about what a month
ago or whatever it's been now and we were at the hours in the Midstates region last week we brought back the
idea of having astrophotography contests I know it used to be fairly
common place but we haven't done that in many years it was extremely successful in both locations and so we want to
bring it back here's a sample of what the award categories are going to be
we're going to have the Deep Sky category as well as the solar system
Rich field Widefield and then finally art and sketching that's the pictures
and that's the creativity so people other than just astrophotographers can also get involved we had some very
creative uh on in that last category at the convention I was just at last weekend uh in addition thanks to vice
president Chuck Allen's uh generosity and uh commitment to time he's handling
this for us he did a superb job at those conventions and it really created a ton
of interest uh people were just like little kids we had one uh person at our
last convention who got a prize in more than one category came out with four prizes and he was really getting teased
by his fellow colleagues he's stealing all the prizes but that's what you do when you have an observatory that you
can go to fairly often so we give him a a bad time about that but anyway I would
encourage you to get registered first of all and then second ly uh on Thursday uh
check with Chuck and we will get you set up on being in the contest and during a
about a five or six hour period on Friday we will have the the it'll be
open for attendees to make their choices and these are really superb looking uh
uh medals uh medallions and it'll have the League logo on there that's the one
from one of the region we were at last week but thank you it'll be a good time
uh it's just five or six weeks uh before Alcon starts so i' encourage you to get
registered now uh we've got a full compliment on Wednesday we will go to
the local planetarium at got Le uh planetarium at Union stations some of
you have heard of Union Station if you're a football fan and I've heard of the Kansas City Chiefs that's where they
tend to congregate for special events and but we also have a planetarium there and for our purposes that's more
important then on Thursday as I said earlier we go to Linda Hall Friday we
have the traditional starbq at the Arboretum in Overland Park and then
we'll go down to Pal Observatory and if the weather uh works out and hopefully
it does we will have a talk at pal Observatory uh Rachel who has been on this program before she's going to be
our speaker down there uh Rachel cat and she is a graduate student and always
brings a tremendous amount of new research to the table so we're really looking forward to that and finally then
on Saturday we have our Gayla banquet with our word ceremony and by the way uh
we will be streaming uh the entire uh uh convention so if uh uh attending is
maybe not a convenient option for you the virtual option is there and you will
get to see those programs as well so I encourage you to if that you're not available to actually attend in person
use the other option and I think that's it for now I'll stop stream sharing and
back to you Terry thank you Carol uh Carol one thing our business meeting uh that is where
you will announce all the everything new and improved for the leag Friday that be on Friday that'll be
on Friday yeah so so every go ahead yes so we'll have all the news uh everything
that's happened at our council meeting which begins on Wednesday it's the full day on Wednesday and so uh that'll I
encourage you to attend that uh we will have uh also on Friday our youth winners
will be giving their presentations and besides uh dovid's uh uh talk at Linda
Hall and his presentation on Wednesday we also uh will have a presentation at the lunch or doid I believe that's on on
Friday and he will be uh having his books available there for signing uh and
so we're really looking forward to see what's new and improved there so that and it will be a lot of fun and
we have there's a lot of amazing speakers um I know there's some from the local University deid I mean there is a
a fantastic lineup there too um are you looking I can't remember I I know Tim
Russ will be there but I don't remember there uh uh also uh fact let me my list
because I don't want to leave anybody I won't go through all yeah that's I should have had my list in front of me Robert Reeves will be there as far as a
talking about the moon and the list just goes on and on in fact our speaker from
Brown University he is a a jazz uh musician and so we're gonna have a treat
he'll be playing jazz along with our local jazz band at the starvue not starvue at the the banquet so little bit
for everybody and I'd encourage you to go on Alcon 2024 org has a complete
listing of all this we'll all have a great time I guarantee you we always have a good time in KY yeah and we're
trying to yeah we we have a reputation we get a little rowdy at times but that's okay well that that's a good
thing we have fun so everybody join us that can I guarantee you you will have a
good time so Carol thank you very much for the update appreciate it and I look forward to seeing you it's been a while
since I've seen you too it's right to see you then all right all right now we
have another really interesting talk John and I were talking earlier um I
think everybody is interested in your topic most people are interested in your topic because it is a really a rare
event so John GS is a past president of the league and he is our current media
officer he does all these great graphics you see he does an amazing job and he
does all of the maps for the Facebook pages all the challenges so John thank
you for everything you do uh it is amazing to have that Talent which I
don't have so you know we appreciate you being there so I will let you go ahead and get started with your talk okay
thank thank you Terry um as as she said that we're going to be talking about a topic tonight that is uh a lot of people
have been mentioning but I don't think enough people have been mentioning so I I'm GNA just get right in on it see what
I can do see what harm I can bring with it first of
all you're gonna hear a little bit more about Alon but I won't cover this this this
much in depth because Carl already has but it's going to be a great show and he
was talking about some of the speakers well I have a list of some of them I
think they're are 12 12 people here and I believe there are 19 speakers but I couldn't get everybody on here and I
didn't have everybody's picture so sorry you didn't make it but uh today I had a nice conversation with with Robert
Reeves who's kind of in the center there he's gonna be talking about the moon it's G be fascinating yesterday I had a
a kind of a a prepration interview with Allison kpatrick now that is one
presentation I want to see it's she's going to be talking about the evolution formation of uh super massive black
holes and galaxies Galaxy Evolution things like that so that's Cutting Edge stuff and of course David Livy that's
going to be a a very fascinating talk each time he speaks you're always going to learn something and as you can see there are a number of other people there
as well I'm not going to go through everybody here but there are a number well a whole bunch of pretty good
speakers there so I I I recommend going to Alcon and see this that's enough about Alon for right now
um a lot of you know that when I speak on these subjects I like to really address them kind of from a more
personal Viewpoint and that's how I'm going to start out with this you'll see where I'm going rather
quickly many years ago when I started out in amateur astronomy I was in eth
grade and there wasn't a whole lot of material out there that would help you
that would really help you with observing but here was one source the classic Norton star outlas and I used it
and I used it and I used it and here is one thing that I I came across took out
one of the pages looked at it this is back in 1968 which I didn't know a whole
lot but something kind of caught caught my eye when I went through the Alice here we have a star called T Corona
Borealis so you can see the line there it's something called A peculiar star and IR regular variable star what was
that all about well this is back in 1968 and this Atlas was made many years
before that they gave a little a little description of what the star was all about it's called The Blaze star it
erupted or brightened significantly last time in 1946 and it might do so again so
keep your eyes peeled for this star well here we are nearly since 1946 at 78
years later we'll be talking about that go to the next page on the atlas and here's the star chart help you find it
Corona Borealis uh easy constellation find I won't go into too much detail on how to
find it but as you can see it's it's brightest stars called Jimma and it's brightness you know if
you're not if you're not really familiar with am astronomy you wonder how bright these things are how dim they are well
just about everybody knows how bright the Big Dipper is well Jimma is about the same brightness as the major stars
and the big Dippers so it's pretty easily seen but that Nova uh in 1866 is
what we're looking at T that's going to be the star we're going to be focusing on uh tonight and it's there in Corona
Borealis later on in my life I came across this book very interesting book
by David leby who is on our screen someplace off to my side hi
David thank you for this book uh and each time I've been to an Alcon I've
wanted to bring it but I've always forgotten it because I thought I I bet I can get David to autograph it for me but
anyway uh this is a great a got to got to be an Alcon to do that um but it's a
a a good beginner book on variable stars and one of the Stars he talked about was T
Corona Borealis and he gave a map which I flipped upside down and got a picture
of and put it on here I did that in this way because uh he had an a rotated image
in his uh book because that's the way you see a lot of things reflecting telescopes but I wanted North up and
east east to the left on this so I rotated it but you can see it's uh this is about a two degree uh field of view
uh so it's about a degree from Epsilon which is visible the uned eye down to T
Corona Borealis and he he draws sort of a uh Dipper shaped pattern of stars that
you can hop along to find this particular
star so what's going on with the star why are we even talking about it well it
appears that well astronomers are are pretty strongly convinced that it is a binary system uh composed of a red giant
and a white dwarf you know white dwarfs are really small and red giants are really big so you got this big bloated
star next to this hot little star uh it's about
uh about it's about one um it's less than one astronom unit away
uh between each other so you have the the red Giant's outer atmosphere which is tenuous and kind of loosely held
getting pulled away by the intense gravitational field of the white dwarf goes on year after year of a
little bit of of of this material being pulled away the plasma which is that's to say the the hydrogen helium and other
elements being pulled onto that white dwarf after a certain length of time enough junk gets accumulated around that
white dwarf that its temperature increases enough to start a thermonuclear reaction so what happens
then here we are what what's going to happen what this is what we Hope's going to
happen you have that white dwarf erupt go NOA is they so to speak um igniting
all this fuel pretty much all at once turns very bright in the sky uh
typically we see this this white dwarf and the red giant together as being a combined magnitude of tennish
Which is far far too dim to be seen with the United eye but when that explosion
takes place it rapidly increase increases rapidly I mean like just a few hours increases from very very dim very
far below the naked eye visibility to a second magnitude star which is the same
brightness as Jimma which I was talking about earlier about the same brightness of stars of The Big
Dipper now we can look at a chart here I'll explain it the time sequence of what we're looking at a little little
bit more more closely uh we're going to go back I was going to go back to May
12th 1866 that's just too too too far away so I'm not going to talk much about that but it was uh seen on on that night
to brighten as well so up about 1935 the star was 11-ish magnitude and it
brightened up to 10 and a half 10.3 remained there for about seven or eight years and then dropped in magnitude got
dimmer for a short period for I don't know 12 months a year and a half
something like that and then it ignited shot up to 12th or excuse me second
magnitude pretty quickly like overnight remained there for I think less than a
day and then dim back down and it had a secondary eruption which is uh I'm not
going to talk about because I don't know anything about it um but anyway so it can have that uh dimming of the star
after it exploded so you go out from 1955 it remains dimmed you know name 10.3 6575 which is where I came to the
scene with my Norton star Atlas 1985 95 2005 but
now now we have a a brightening of 200 uh 15 it started to brighten a little
bit just like it did in um 1935 went for about seven or eight
years and now we're in March 2023 it started to dim again just like it did
earlier and today it is still dimming and it's it's about a magnitude 10. 3ish
something like that but the forecast is by those people in they know feeling that over the next few months it's going
to rapidly increase and we're going to have another Nova
eruption let me see what we got here okay
sorry so the astronomical league has been publicizing some of this stuff and
I have here a slide which uh uh spotlights the work by Dr Brad schaer of
LSU and here is a website which talks about uh through the dou Avo it's a
websites which which gives a webinar which tells all about this stuff here I
am just spending a few minutes on it well he spends an hour telling you all about this stuff it's history what they
believe physically is happening and all the cool stuff about the star so I I encourage you to look at
this also the league has an observing challenge uh we have a little sheet here
which tells you to find the [Music] star on this Challenge and let's look a
little more closely at it gives you a website to complete for complete information in this observing ChalleNGe
Program there's the website and it's on the League's website so if you don't get it here just go to the astrol league.org
and you'll plow through it you'll you'll you'll find it but um it's a program in
which um you don't have to be a member of the astronomical League to do you have to find the star before it erupts
so you better do it soon because we don't know exactly when it's going to erupt but you better do it soon find
that star just just identify it then after the big day comes and there it is
blown the smin look at it again and and just give your impressions on what it's all about there's a part two to this
which is it's uh a little bit more involved you have to be a league member for that you have to log on to the doua
vso website uh to find out all the details about its eruption and you need to observe it preferably preferably
through a v uh uh filter V means visual
meaning that it's it lets lics In from from 500 to 500 what 700 nanometers so
that gives a more precise reading of it so uh go on the league website find this
page see if you can uh follow it through now this is another website for
right now so the double Avo on this particular star and I will zoom in there you'll see a little bit more what what I
what I need to say here it gives you the Julian date and the calendar date and as you can see
there are a whole bunch of readings and it turns out that these readings uh each successive reading is only about 30 30
seconds apart so right now this this is taken this afternoon so I don't know
what it's doing right now hopefully it hasn't erupted since then but uh right now it is around magnitude 10.1 10.2 10
10.3 with a A V filter and the person The Observer is a wgr I don't know who
that is but person seems to be getting into this has a lot of lot of readings on it so keep keep your eyes on this
website and it'll show you if that star is really brightening and look at the visual filter uh and it should be 101
10.2 10.3 something like that that's pretty much what it has been for quite a
while so there you have it keep your eye on Corona Borealis for a new star now
I'm looking at this picture here I wanted to really kind of Spotlight this picture because not so much of Corona
balis but a friend of mine John winovich took this Photograph on May 10th remember May 10th that was the night of
the spectacular Aurora and he wasn't meaning to take one of Corona Borealis he just happened to get
it in this picture which you can see the at least on my screen you can see the orange and green streaks going going
across it and that's not that's not a photographic error that that's that's the Nova not the Nova that's the Aurora
hopefully it'll be a Nova someday but that's the Aurora in this but anyway keep that all in mind and see if you can find the star practice with the leagues
program and good luck thank you thank you John you know I know
nothing about this um and but it's one thing I want to do this because I think it's something very special to see so
Scott I'm gonna ask a question and do me a favor kind of watch for the answers to come in I know Dr Barb Harris is out
there I don't have a v filter what do I do I know I know it's a visual but if
you don't have it and that's what they recommend can can somebody out there answer that question what what would a
person without the filter do just do it without the filter um I I I think so
well for for the um for one of those levels of the league program um just do
it visually you don't you don't need the filter for that but you know to get more meaningful reading so you got to have a
narrow um limit the the wavelengths that you can see because uned eye sees more
on either side but not a whole lot more so this narrows it down and gives it precisely these filters um you know they
just screw on filter to your eyepiece but they're not cheap I mean yeah I think I saw excess of $100 just
for this this this one type of filters but you're right this is an exciting thing because this is something
that should be at least I think on everybody's bucket list astronomy bucket
list because you may never see something like this you probably will never see this star do it again or you may never
see a Nova from any other star because they aren't very common but it's you know something
check off your list so yeah definitely especially you know I walk out I can walk outside and see the constellation
every night that it's clear you know and so I find myself every night I go out and I'm looking up just checking to make
sure but that's that's something I would like to do the ne the second level if I
possibly could so Barbara is uh she says she's
out every clear night you know um getting data of the of uh T Corona
Borealis uh but she says also you can use a DSLR or an osc camera and extract
the green channel it's very similar to the visual Channel or V channel so okay
that sounds great thanks Barb I appreciate that she has done some incredible variable star work I knew she
would have an answer uh so yeah that's good to know because a lot of people anymore have dedicated Astro cameras or
dslrs or you know anything that they could use if they wanted to try the second level on there but you do have to
be an astronomical League member for the level two so well John thank you um this
will be really exciting we're gonna have to have an Al live show dedicated to uh
what has happened you know after it does happen get some feedback from everybody so that would be
fantastic um and I also see Dean had did you say you've written an article Dean
okay correct yes yeah I just uh had one for the Farmers Almanac so I put a link
to that in the chat I don't know if that goes uh somewhere but uh yeah look up Farmers Almanac and the corona Borealis
and uh put a little info in there I can't wait to see it this is GNA be exciting I I keep looking every night so
uh just gotta happen one of these times right yeah it's got to so yeah well
thank you John and Dean thank you for being here tonight I know everybody knows you but I'm going to read just a
little bit about you so astronomer Dean Ras shares his Adventure as the
astronomer and residents at the Grand Canyon what it's like to live there work
and hike in America's most what is it like I'm sorry what is it like to work live and hike in America's most famous
National Park Dean gives amazing tales of exploring the canyon and the night
sky as well as a preview of the annual Grand Canyon star party which is a week
long telescope Festival Under the Milky Way he has highlight he also highlights
visits to other national parks like Joshua Tree Bryce Canyon greater Lake
and yuse and Dean I think you would agree with me there is nothing like being under truly Dark Skies absolutely
absolutely yes well welcome I will let you go ahead and start well thanks very much and uh good evening everybody uh
thank you very much for having me here to talk about uh uh astronomy in the national parks and uh for those that
haven't met me before my name is Dean rguez I uh started my career in astronomy working at a planetarium a
little 20 seat maybe 20 seat probably more like 16 seat planetarium uh and
then was longtime astronomer for the Cincinnati Observatory uh and then also was the co-host of the PBS show
stargazers that took over uh picked up the mantle from Jack horkheimer for uh
nine years and so for me astronomy is is definitely not just a hobby this is uh
not just a career this is well it's my lifestyle it's affected everything that
I do pretty much because I am one of those rare breeds that's star crazy well
I don't know maybe I'm not that rare because I think everybody else on the screen is probably the same way so I'm I'm in good company I think with a lot
of folks here um but there is one thing about astronomers is when you get hooked
you get hooked pretty good and so uh the the the I've been really lucky to be
able to have some really cool astronomical experiences including uh working with the national parks because
the national parks have been making an effort to do night sky programming there's the famous tagline half the park
is after dark and they have really embraced the night sky the dark sky as
an attraction in itself and um in my time working with the Grand Canyon
especially I was I've been there for seven of their star parties that's seven
annual star parties every June and then I've been out there twice as kind of a Stines astronomer and residence um one
of the amazing things that I found was that if I set up a telescope in a public
place and let people come and you know do more like sidewalk astronomy and I show people the planets and the stars
and that kind of thing um they are incredibly blown away and for folks that
have done sidewalk as strong I know you probably have experienced this this is really amazing moving thing you get
people excited that didn't think they were going to get excited about astronomy but one thing that was
different about doing this at the Grand Canyon was I heard several people say
seeing the night sky was better than seeing the Grand
Canyon and I you know like the the way one of them said it was like this is the
best part about my trip and I'm literally the canyon is right behind me and I'm like did did you see the canyon
too I mean they're like yeah yeah this is better than that and so that's what working with the parks has really kind
of open my eyes to this is that this is something that people don't get to experience in their normal uh lives and
they will travel for it and and really be moved by it afterwards so uh I'm
going to share my screen well I want to share a few uh photos and some stories from Grand Canyon and a few other places
uh so let me share my screen let's see how this goes hopefully it goes smoothly all right well there's my website that's
one thing okay that's good all right how about that can you see uh See my uh PowerPoint okay everybody out
there well Y what do you I got it okay just double checking because I can't see anybody else now so I have no idea
what's going on just uh so uh well so this is myh picture from Grand Canyon
and U this is when I was their astronomer residence and what that meant was that I got to live and work in the
canyon for about a month doing astronomy programming and education mostly so
that's on the south rim and hiking down to Phantom Ranch down at the river at the bottom of the canyon and so these
experiences really changed my entire life and my perspective on things because I'm from Cincinnati Ohio so this
is a you know Urban location and then coming out to live in one one of the
more remote places one of the darker places I got to be honest with you it it
changed my outlook on uh cities and I'm
sorry but I'm I'm gonna do all I can to like live more there in those kind of
places than in cities I need to uh have some Dark Skies well plus also for anybody in Ohio you know that's cloudy
half the time so at least in Arizona it's cloudy 10% of the time or something like that but um so uh I uh also been uh
doing a podcast if you get uh podcast check this out it's called looking up with Dean Ruez we have a new episodes
every two weeks where I interview guests and people and uh I need to interview some uh some uh astronomy astronomical
League people for this I think we should talk about Alcon we should have oh okay let me think about that anyway wherever
you get your podcast check those out uh I'm also the author of six books including 100 things to see in the night
sky one th facts about space and my semic
controversial how to teach grown-ups about Pluto this is the uh Illustrated
guide for kids to walk their traumatized adults through the loss of a
planet so as you can maybe imagine it's well I think it's funny but I guess some
people don't think it's but I think it's a fun look at how science works and how it changes and also um I I I don't know
if you've ever seen a kids's book that has the five stages of grief Illustrated so you can follow along to see where you
are in your Pluto uh process from denial hopefully to acceptance on the end so
check those out wherever you get your books um but um I think I have another
random slide here first um I can't remember if I put this next or not let's see if we get this one here um huh how'd
this one get in here uh does anybody on the panel recognize this
wh too far well uh this was a kind of a candid
taken of me and uh David Levy at an eclipse in
2006 no doesn't look familiar oh man well that was memorable for me at least
uh this was in Greece seeing the eclipse in 2006 and uh I don't know I don't know where I I just stumbled upon this I was
like I got to put this in here that's pretty good so that's going on 18 years now anyway let's get back to the Grand
Canyon because this is one of the most amazing places to see and experience and
so many people visit here there's about five million visitors come through the Grand Canyon every year and so there's
the the the the view from the south room and most people never go down below the
rim they go to the overlooks and that's about it because you know the Grand Canyon does have a thing to it it's it's
bigger than you think it's so massive it's so extensive you it's it's kind of a little
scary too I mean looking down there I I'm not afraid of heights but this is such a huge thing you you can't even
wrap your brain around it and so looking down in the canyon is so vast so from one side the other is about 15 miles or
so and that's about a mile deep and you see these little trees and these little structures down here uh that's five
miles away that's only halfway down to the river basically um so it is just
humongous and spectacular and so I was able to hike down to the C bottom to the river also uh which was really amazing
and I I hopefully have time to talk a little bit more about that as we go along and uh seeing some of the other uh
views of the canyon it just was spectacular and so going out there is
really you know it's it's an American thing to do but there's also a lot of people from a lot of different countries
that come to this too and as busy as it can
get it uh you know this is the busiest spot this is called Mather point this is where everybody goes to watch the sunset
but this is the only place where I felt like there's a crowd like you can get away from all those people very very
quickly and get your own kind of views of the canyon and especially once it gets dark after five o'clock the park
almost empties out and after sunset you have the place to yourself and so uh 34
35 years ago they started uh this thing called the uh annual the Grand Canyon
star party and it's a weekl long uh program where they do star gazes oh yeah
there's one of the talks all right we'll go back to this one first um because uh
this is uh one of the one of the big things about this is that for eight nights and this this year it was uh June
1st to June 8th where they have uh amateur astronomers and professional astronomers set up their telescopes for
the public to look at and they have a nightly talk uh outside now that's where they have the talks and you have about
500 600 people come to the talks and more than a thousand people a night
coming to telescope viewing and um so the the kind of the the the parks are
really involved in this and really do the main uh planning but it's also conjunction with the Tucson amateur
astronomy Association in Tucson Arizona and uh other people come from San Diego
and from uh you know Phoenix and from other places as well and uh the the
knights that I was there this past year they had 57 telescopes on average that
were out there so 57 telescopes for the public to see and this is the the ranger
who kind of heads it up his name is Raider Lane uh and he is just a a whirlwind of excitement and
interestedness and is like you know really keeps this thing going and uh um
and so it's thanks to him that this thing is like really I think as successful as it goes so this is my talk
from last year where you know we got hundreds and hundreds of people out there it's this kind of Co Festival atmosphere and at night they're sitting
out there watching the the stars and watching you and then um and then you go
around the corner to where the telescopes are so here's the telescope lot and so it it's not the darkest part
in the park but it is accessible and I think that's the main thing is that people can kind of come around the
corner and then look through telescopes and we also do green laser uh constellation talks so you can point a
green laser up with the constellations and do some stories about those uh this was back uh last fall when I was there
and this was when there was a rocket launch going across the sky and you really just get in touch with kind of
the things going on in the canyon as well Double Rainbow by the way the double rainbow
and this rocket launch happened on the same like within hours of each other it
was like a weird uh it was it was such a cool night because it was raining and I
thought oh how am I going to get a talk outside when it's raining and then it cleared and then it had the rainbow and
then I had the rocket launcher and it's one of those things where if I was inside at my house in
Cincinnati I wouldn't notice these things or if it'd be like a just being outside and being out in the elements
really helped out with this so um they also do a star party at
the north rim that whole those eight days as well so this the north room of the Grand Canyon which is about a 4H
hour drive around and so um last uh this
was a pictures from two years ago but I did this also this just last week I was out at the North Rim uh so I did three
days working at the south rim two days at the north rim one back around to the South again and the north rim is a is
quite a bit different of a feel to it it's a thousand feet higher in elevation um so a lot cooler a lot more trees and
you're also pushed back away from the canyon a little bit so the Canyon's more extensive from this direction and you're
looking down on the other things so here's a view from uh the
lodge out from the bright angel point in the north rim uh and so it just was a memorable
time to be out there and uh it's much smaller event there so in the south rim
you have your uh 1,000 people a night here it's more like 150 people a night
or so um but still it's anybody pretty much anybody that's in the park that's what they're going to come and do and
and look at this so uh just the last week also after I went to the north rim
then I went to Bryce Canyon in Utah where they have their star party their annual star party which is usually also
in June as well so you can kind of go from one to the other in one week and so
Bryce Canyon is known for those beautiful rock formations as very unique rock formations but is also one of the
darkest skies in the country so once it gets dark it gets really really dark and
so this was another great event to see this and it's mostly the uh amateur stron from the Salt Lake City area that
set up the telescopes for these kind of things and are able to see uh this from uh so so the the routine that I usually
go into with this is uh I uh you know wake up early because I'm usually
on Eastern time when I'm out there so I wake up before everybody else and uh get out do do some hikes uh go home nap eat
dinner go out stargaze all night so uh this pretty much the routine I was in
from June 1st through June 8th through all this uh and so it was a lot of fun to be able to go out there and see Bryce
Canyon again as well so those are the two star parties
that I just recently went to and have been to quite a few times but there's other parks that do things as well and
that uh do night sky programs including Crater Lake National Park in Oregon now
this is one of the most beautiful little parks and I say little because it's not as extensive as the Grand Canyon or
anything like that but it's one of those uh you know really special places to me at least because I think of the this is
I I used to volunteer here at Crader Lake back in the early 2000s where I would like walk the trails and that kind
of thing uh and answer questions and talk to visitors um and then so I spent
uh quite boy I don't know quite a few months uh over over a few years at this
park and so I know it pretty well it's just such a beautiful part seeing this Crystal Clear Blue Lake uh from all
different angles it's just a really magical place um and so uh lots of people
similarly they drive to the overlooks they take a look and then they drive out not very many people stay the night and
it's in Central Oregon so it's kind of away from things a little bit uh and so you get some pretty nice Dark Skies as
well but uh just the picturesque views of this is just incredible um and you
can hike up to the highest point which called Mount Scott and get a nice look over everything there a fire lookout
there and you can see the lake in the distance so this is an old um oh yeah and then you go swimming I'll get to
that in a second so this is an old Caldera basically this was a a mountain
that rose up another mile higher so picture the kind of like the mountain
slope would have gone up to there and up to there there so this would have been something you know the size of like
Mount Hood or Mount reneer and that part just blew up and the leftover part
collapsed into the Caldera uh and then water eventually filled it up it's one of the deepest lakes in the world and
one of the most uh pristine Waters in the world too so just seeing that during
the daytime is really incredible and then going swimming uh so now here's the the good news or well okay the good news
is you can kind of swim in it now it is freezing cold uh that's not me jumping
into the water by the way I caught somebody jumping off of cliff into it ridiculous I I I could barely do that um
but um usually the water is around 58 degrees uh really really cold um but um
it is much warmer today like a lot warmer like bearable and um
that's uh that's something uh can't say exactly why but probably you probably
know so uh it is swimmable at least a little more now but um I'm not jumping into it that's crazy that's too much um
so then at night time they do uh stargaze is out there they have Rangers that lead program about once a week
where they tell you what's up in the sky they do a presentation then they take you outside to the telescopes and it's
just you know it's up by the lodge this is the lodge by Crater Lake so highly encourage you all to check that out
check that Park out as well so I want to go over a couple other Parks here oh here's the uh the telescope set up at
night with a nice big dipper in the background and so uh Rangers do these programs you about once a week or so at
a crater lake so this October and I'm sorry I'm going a little fast I had so many parks
in here I wanted to cover uh but uh hopefully you guys are hopefully this is going at a good speed for you here I
also realized that uh people's travel slides you know you might have like a
how many do I have 500 no no I'm just kidding uh but uh I'll try to go through
them here and and then if we can definitely pause if people have some questions and that type of thing about individual Parks but I just wanted to
kind of give a nice little overview and Joshua tree is another really cool star
Festival uh that they do every year usually in October sometimes September and so this year it's going to be
October 3rd and through through 5th and uh I'll be out there doing programs and presentations as well this is the
park in in California just a few hours East of Los Angeles um and uh with the of course
iconic trees and really cool rock formations um and so daytime again I get
in the thing of getting up early hiking before it gets 105 degrees and then uh nighttime where we
do the stargazing and uh so that's another really cool one to to to put on your calendar if you haven't done it
before and then Big Ben National Park in Texas also has a star party as well and
uh there's varies usually I think it's in May is where the star party is and it's outside a Big Ben so it's not right
in the park but this was I went there last fall and this is one
of you don't I I never been to it before this last fall because it's kind of a
little bit out of the way but it is one of the darkest Skies you will ever see as you're uh walking around at night in
it's just one of the clearest skies and one of the darkest Skies too so another place that you can put on your list of
places to go see and do some stargazing at just beautiful location in uh in
Texas that's a view from the stars and it's a little uh little pixelated but still a
very very dark spot so um the other thing that I wanted to
kind of look at here is um I don't know how are we doing on time are we doing
okay I don't want to keep people too long uh but uh what do you think how are we doing on time you're doing fine
you're doing fine yeah still good um because I I wanted to give you kind of like an overview of you know what
different parks are doing uh there's uh the bad lands also do uh star parties
and star gazes uh Arches National Park in Utah does at Shen andoa in Virginia
does one every year as well so the parks are really kind of embracing this um you
know seed Glacier they all kind of have this so if you do your traveling and you are going to a national park double
check their websites and double check their um schedules because chances are you might be there when they're going to
be doing some some stargazing so I thought what I do with the last part was to kind of go into a
little bit more depth about um my when I was the astronomer and residents at the Grand Canyon and living and working in
the park and so the way this this program kind of started is from the the
Grand Canyon Conservancy which is the sport Organization for the park so it's the nonprofit that kind
of helps with the some of the programming helps with some of the other things and so the program is called the
astronomer in Residence program and they are accepting
applications so for next year so um I don't know maybe I'll convince some
people to try because it's it's really was amazing to apply for this and to to get it um so I think the applications go
through July mid July so uh but check out uh astronomer residence program and
uh you can find the uh the application to to join so I was the uh the second uh
astronomer residence they have an artist in Residence program also uh but they
just started this astronomer res residence thanks to that Ranger that I showed you earlier his name is Raider Lane and Raider was kicking around this
idea of having astronomers live in the park and I said yeah me I'll do it I'll
do it and um um so it was really great honor to be able to do this and um so I
made the drive from Cincinnati to well El toovar that's pretty much I stayed in
a in a little apartment next to the hotel next to the rim and so this was my
28 20 Oh I thought it was 28 hours 27 hour journey through uh across the
country because I well of course I had to bring all my telescopes with me too you know I mean I'm going to be out
there for a month I got to bring some telescopes um and so uh I made that trip
which was uh Boy by myself a little long uh and so a little tired here in this
picture I think it's my first picture at the uh the rim of the Grand Canyon I first got there uh and this is the
apartment that I got to stay and it's the top of the visitor it's top of one of the visitor centers so up there is um
is yeah is the apartment so I had a little balcony and that the view is uh
that basically so I have the best view in the whole park of any hotel guest of
anything like that and so it's got all the Creature Comforts of a bathroom uh kitchen bed all that kind of stuff so
there there's my view from the balcony so every morning I wake up to see that and eat my breakfast at the table so uh
it just was amazing so I brought a telescope with me uh this is one of the
telescopes I brought with me this a uh just a 5 inch refractor and I did a
lot of solar viewing during the day so people would walk by they could use a telescope and look through and see
sunspots and I had a hydrogen Alpha filter on it too so you can see uh solar
prominences and eruptions on the sun and this was a really popular thing to do is people were just walking by looking at
the canyon and again this was one of the things where people looked through this saw the sun safely and just were blown
away by that while the canyon is right there next to them so uh astronomy can
be really powerful even in one of the most beautiful locations so there's the
safe solar viewing spot overlooking uh the canyon and then sunset were gorgeous
from my little perch there and seen uh just how the light and Shadow changes
from day to day so you really become kind of immersed in this this world of
things and so I did a lot of astronomy programs at night as well so constellation talks and talks inside of
the the buildings uh and then of course viewing through the telescopes at night
and so uh it just was really nice and dark and um again coming from Cincinnati
where it's cloudy half the time I was there only two of the knights were
clouded out out of 30 I mean that were completely clouded
out so um I was also there during a lunar eclipse a partial lunar eclipse in
2021 so that was um did I time that on purpose I yeah I probably did time that
on purpose I think that's the dates they gave me and I was like well I'll come for the eclipse and so I got to see that
uh from there as well which is cool to see uh got a few I need some astrophotography help I
need to talk to some of you guys to give me some tips and pointers but anyway those are some of the pictures I took uh yeah I think I took that one oh
that was just with my phone so you could see Ryan there and uh Taurus there and the Seven Sisters there as well so it
was a beautiful thing to see uh while I'm there at the Grand cany as well so
so then it came to the point where um part of my trip is to go down into the
canyon itself and so I was going to hike uh down all the way to the little
Community it's the bottom of the canyon where the lake where the river is called Phantom Ranch and so this is the trail
um I didn't take this Trail down this is the trail I took up and this is one
little zigzag of it it goes behind this rock and then comes up over here
uh but this is the kind of thing that I'm looking at thinking how in the world am I going to be able to do this um and
so I practiced I did a lot of training hikes a lot of walking around uh up and down a little bit back and forth a
little bit uh getting ready for this and so uh this is where I give you the
inside scoop if you ever want to go down to the bottom of the Grand
Canyon I um had help
uh because the plan was I was going to stay four nights down at the bottom of the Grand Canyon and so that would mean
bringing four five six days of stuff down there um I I wasn't quite too
excited about that so uh the plan ended up being was
well because I was there as a guest of the national parks and that um they said
well you know we can send your stuff down for you I was like really yeah all
right how much is stuff oh we send it all down oh all right so so don't tell
anybody um I don't know if I know actually I don't know if anybody else can do it
I they were just uh there was part of the deal and they said yeah yeah we'll send it down on mules and it'll be there
when you get there and um you can just carry a little day pack well they
actually said carry two days worth of food in case the mules are late because they can be late I mean that's the basic
way that they get anything down to the bottom of the canyon is mules a little bit of boats but and a little bit of
helicopters but it's mostly mules that that send stuff down so I was pretty going pretty late as far as things go
and then you have to well you still got to walk that uh that nine miles down uh
4,200 vertical feet um so you still got to do that but uh definitely I it was
about as easy and as nice as it was going to be for me so here's the the trail going down uh the switchbacks at
the beginning which is a little harrowing and then you get to a place called UA point where you're starting to
get uh into it a little bit and then a little bit farther and you pass some of the mules that are
coming up or down um and uh a lot of people are asking well why didn't you
just ride the mules because that's what people do as well but I have heard well no i' I've seen um when you're at the
bottom you can tell who's rode the mules and who's not because they walk pretty
funny so it took me about five hours to walk down to the bottom um and so yeah I
just was thinking boy if I was several hours on the back of a mule plus it's I think it's scary I think they're like
walking along a precipice the whole time and I just think yeah so these are some of the pictures of my as I'm walking
down and you're entering into this like new world this place you're you're very
very very isolated um because there's very very few people that are going down there um
there was this I'll go back up to this picture here is this was there's a side trail that went this way for another 40
miles before it reached anything so if you wanted to really get away from things that you went that way yeah well
we went down instead uh and so then you get your views of the Colorado River as you get closer and closer to it and you
can finally see the little Community that's the the Community down here called Phantom Ranch um so you come around the bend and
then you got to hike across this gorgeous Bridge across the Colorado
River and then into uh into Phantom Ranch there so you actually go through a tunnel first to go across the bridge and
then you're there now one of the other pluses is that I got a place to stay I
didn't have to sleep on the ground I didn't have to sleep in a a tent I got my own
cabin with with bathroom shower bed
heat air did I have air conditioning I don't
know yeah they might add air condition anyway it was it all I can say is my
camping days are over so this was perfect that I could uh you know just kind of hike down like the roughing it
is the hiking I don't want the rough in it to be the sleeping so plus I'd have
to work at too so uh this is kind of some of the views from down there at the bottom and you are like in this most
isolated place and a lot of people do ask they say well if you're in the bottom of the Grand Canyon you can't see
very many stars right well the canyon walls are very Steep and very tall but they only block a certain amount because
they're still pretty far away from you the actual walls are so you can still see quite a bit of the sky you just
can't see quite all the way down the Horizon but it is like this little Oasis in the desert it's like this this like
Eden down there of with these trees this little water scream coming through and
so this is the place where I was giving my talks out at night in their little Amphitheater and so people that were
staying down there in their U their C in cabins and Tents and so pretty much
anybody that was there came to the night sky events because uh we have a
telescope that was down there I didn't have to carry the telescope which was nice and uh so then we got to see the
stars so I gave some talks and then viewing with the
telescopes and so it was just amazing to wake up to this place this this kind of
almost alien landscape and then uh at night time get to use a telescope and
see the stars of the Milky Way arching across the canyon was just so memorable
and my pictures are not going to do it justice whatsoever but but uh the part that I really liked was um when I would
walk home at night so I give my program um up at the amphitheater and
then I had a half mile walk back to my cabin in the dark pitch black headlamp
sure but I remember the first night walking back well first being kind of scared to death that I was going to take
a wrong turn and end up somewhere but um but I remember as they get rounded one
Bend and I could just see the belt stars of Ryan come up between the canyon walls
and that's what at least shows in this picture there's a Ryan's belt right there coming through this Notch and I
just will never forget that walking back through the super dark place and seeing Aion say hi to me as it's coming
around so uh I was there for four nights and then I did this again in last
September for uh four nights as well it's just a magical place down there uh
I was there for Thanksgiving the first time so we had Thanksgiving outside it was warm enough to eat
outside so having Thanksgiving at the bottom of the Grand Canyon was pretty cool and I don't know if there's any
other cincinnatians on this but I'm a true I'm a true cincinnatian I
brought Skyline hot sauce down to the bottom of the Grand Canyon to have on
Thanksgiving no nobody else liked it I was I was passing around like here
try this on stuff but they they were all very polite and they tried it on nobody liked it sorry cincinnatians acquired
taste or something I don't know uh I don't know if that was worth the packing down there but anyway
um but then of course you got to go back up which is to me not it wasn't as bad
as I thought it was going to be the down was kind of tough for on my legs going up was a little T tougher on my wind but
um I made it back up uh no problem I hiked up the bright angel Trail which is the trail I showed you in the beginning
um and uh just saw some really amazing landscape as you're going up through uh
the bottom of can all this about halfway up and then all the way to the top and
so take a little break at the ranger st stop and then finish your way all the way up and just at the very top
there was a a ram that was silhouetted above the above the Horizon there that
was it I made it yeah so um it it was really an
incredible thing and and um as as things go I kind of uh let's see I'll stop my
share and come back in here to full screen as things go I mean this was
uh I don't know if it was in the you know one it was
definitely in one of the greatest things I've done I've experienced in my life is living down there and seeing the night
sky as it's supposed to be as as dark it is because they really are making effort
with the uh group called dark sky International which is doing a lot of efforts to make uh reduce light
pollution and I've noticed a big difference uh in the Grand Canyon over the years and it's getting darker and
darker so it's one of the few places that's like that uh and so all I can say
is uh if if you haven't gone to a national park and done stargazing there
it's something you got to put on your list because it is incredible and by and
large the visitors are also really really into it too so it's one of those
things as an educator you get to see like an easy audience it's just awesome
because they are really into it and really excited about it as well so
um but uh thanks for uh taking uh coming on the journey with me and uh reliving this because I'll be honest I love
talking about this because it takes me back it takes me back because you know
coming back into normal life I think I was telling everybody ahead of time or before the the program is like coming
back to normal life is hard man after you've been uh out to a real amazing
dark sky um and so I'm still I just got back from my trip to uh I just got back
on Wednesday so I'm still in kind of a little bit of a days as to uh wait where
am I is this Cincinnati and uh yeah oh yeah it's 90 degrees in humid okay yeah that's right that's where I am um but uh
thanks for letting me share and uh I don't know if uh folks have any questions or anything like that but if
uh if you have any uh other uh info if you want to find out a little bit more about this and the program astronom
residents um you can feel free to message me uh just find me at astro.com
and be happy to connect and and uh answer
questions you Dean that was amazing um I think one of the it sounds are they
accepting amateur astronomers or are they looking more for professionals absolutely amateur
professional doesn't matter um it's a blurred line anyway between astronomer
amateur and professional nowadays uh that's true I mean I I don't know what I consider myself anymore I I'm a I'm a
hybrid uh I I see I I take amateur astronomer as a badge of Pride so I'll
take either one but yeah it's it's open to anybody and uh really amazing I bet so the pictures were
amazing I've always thought I would love to hike down to the ranch but I cannot imagine the train I mean I'm not a
weekly hiker or anything so the training that would need to go into that would be
amazing it's it's hard I mean Cincinnati has its Hills and everything and I live on a hill that's about a 300 foot
elevation gain so I have to walk that 15 times just to get even close to what it
would be like well I bet so but no your images were amazing I think it told the
story very well it's it looks beautiful yes thanks it was it was one of those
things where it was like uh in my life I like the right amount of danger also you
know like there's a little danger but not really danger it's more of a you know that kind of thing um but one of
the other things now I'm see here I am encouraging everybody to go walk to the botom the Grand Canyon I need to tell
you the bad the other side of it is that every day literally every day I was down
at the bottom somebody was in big trouble like yeah there is there
is uh heat exhaustion um leg
injuries um people getting down there without food or water people thinking
they can go from one side to the other in one day and um yeah so I I haven't I
wasn't uh I don't want to consider myself any kind of part of any real rescue but I was a triage person to a
lot of people as they stumbled by my cab I got them help every single day there
was somebody in trouble um yeah so it's not easy um and I had it about as easy
it was gonna get so uh you know I'm not I'm not the uh I'm not as in shape as some of the other people doing it but
yeah well I tell you what oh go ahead look deid has his hand up is I don't
know if you want to say something yes I do thank you I have two comments to make
the first is when you first I loved your presentation the when I first my first
look at the Grand Canyon was with my grandparents in 1967 and I'll never forget the feeling
it was like an eye full of like I've never seen before and like you my brain
had trouble processing it and it was just so beautiful and so wonderful
the second thing goes back actually to T Corona Borealis and I wanted to share
with you the most beautiful piece of writing I've ever seen on Tona Borealis
and it comes from Starlight Nights and lesie pure wrote how he had read about
the Outburst in 1866 and he was watching it pretty religiously and then on the
morning of February the 9th 1946 he got up and he
sneezed and he he wasn't really in such a good mood and he thought well maybe I'm getting a cold I'm just going to go
back to sleep and then he says and that was when I missed the night of nights in
the in the life of T Corona B Hour full 80 years had passed since it shattered
the symmetry of the northern crowd and reading from Starlight Nights the Poetry this this person This brilliant person
was able to put into that book and the way he ended it was as a mark of
friendship he says I still watch the star every clear night but it is now
with a wearing eye weary eye there is no warmth between us anymore and just
reading that and the friendship that he had with that star was just so beautiful
and it's something that I have gone through through since then with that and
other stars and and uh I'm really so glad that you gave your
presentation tonight that you um that you were able to share this love
of Nature's I think most one of Nature's Most Beautiful sites the Grand Canyon in
Arizona W I appreciate I hope everyone at this meeting will be able to get to see what
we saw at some point Thank You de I hope so too and uh it reminds me of uh did
you write the book uh about getting to know the Stars uh to know the stars or something like that is that what it's uh
yeah um and that's that's always struck me that I there's stars that I think I
know to which is kind of weird for something trillions of miles away to feel like you know it but uh I I
appreciate that and I still think about that too and I also want to thank you for inviting me to to contact with you
on LinkedIn you just saw that I just answered that well I mean that that you
saw the slide wasn't that us at uh at g in Greece the I saw that I thought is that one of my
pictures is that one of Deans I don't know was one of Deans and then you said
it was me and I just couldn't believe it I know look how young look how young we we look so young oh the best part was
when you were on uh looking off at Crater Lake from Mount Scott which is
named in honor of our Scott Roberts isn't it oh yeah yeah I assume that's what it was I assume that's who it was
yeah well thanks guys so much I appreciate chatting with you all and uh yeah and uh it's a just a great
experience and I I hope uh folks if you if you have other questions feel free to connect with me uh on as.com happy to
hear from everybody what is the altitude at the uh at the south rim about south
rim is about 7,000 somewhere around there so North rooms a little over
8,000 um so yeah uh not not too awful
but you feel it you feel it that's for sure feel some acclamation from we folks in the midwest exactly exactly usually
takes me about a day and a half to uh to get uh acclimated to it um and I have
found the solution good shot of whiskey first night puts you all right by the morning
that would make much better I'm so glad we had this discussion is it yeah see it's a it I don't know if it really help
help one thing but help something else I don't know it makes you think it helps our images might get a little blurry or
something or I don't know maybe you just don't care anymore are you're breathing heavy who cares anymore but it seemed to
work last two times I did it all right uh the Lori um who go by
the handle of Lori V stargazing awe she's watching on Facebook she posted um
the podcast that you do the astrod dean.com podcast what can you tell us about that yeah so it's called a looking
up with Dean Ras and so yeah we have uh new episodes every two weeks um so uh a
couple of the last interviews we did was we did the one with andrean who was the
producer on Cosmos Carl s Widow U we've had astronauts on there uh
authors uh oh yeah we had Andy Weir the author of The Martian was on there and talked to him so yeah wherever you get
your podcast just look for looking up with Dean Ras apparently there's several
other looking up podcasts uh just because I don't know I guess it's a catchy thing so um but uh yeah looking
up with Dean Ruez and you can check those out that's uh yeah wherever you can get your podcast though they should be there
great great that sounds good that sounds like something good to listen to while
you're traveling or absolutely absolutely yeah thank you so much that
was really interesting I really enjoyed that I did a rafting trip through the Grand Canyon and you know how you talked
about being at the bottom and looking up and it's so dark I remember one night
where the moon had just bar barely put out it was a very small phase and it lit
up just the lights of the sides of the canyon and it it was I'll never forget that view I mean you I'm used to seeing
the Grand Canyon from above when you see it from below it really is different and
I'll just never forget the view of The Moonlight on the Rocks lighting it up and how dark the sky was with those
those stars look like diamonds yeah absolutely and um yeah I think that's a
lot of people have been talking like diamonds and velvet it was just absolutely beautiful yeah the rafting
trip is uh i' I've been invited to do one of those but I'm a little scared to
death of water more than mules even so uh I I think I'll do I'll do my own two
feet for now as as long as they can pack all my stuff down for me that's fine but
yeah yeah the mules would scare me to death yeah there is there was two things
that they warned me about they said you know there's some snakes you know but that's pretty unlikely Taran is pretty
unlikely but scorpions yes and they were like check your boots every day cuz
they'll be in your boots and I don't know if they were messing with me or not because they knew I had a little fear of scorpions but I only saw one scorpion
down there the whole time that was when somebody they they light up with a black light at night yeah which is make them
even more terrifying just yes yeah that does uh we we were at
Alcon in Bryce Canyon somebody was out there were I was standing with one of the speakers and they had their black
light shining I said I do not even want to see it you find it I don't want to find it I don't want to know about it
either no no definitely not so all right thank you Dean that was amazing thank
you so much for being here my pleasure wow it's been a really good
night I've been enjoying this a lot so uh we will see everybody in Kansas City
all of you out there viewing thank you for being there please please come to Kansas City we'd love to meet you and
talk to you and David Levy will be there and he'll be speaking and we'll be at
the library with him and Carol uh will be hanging out there'll be vendors there
it will be a good time I guarantee you and it will be nice to meet people face to face that we've only seen you know
here on Zoom but that's better than nothing so Scott I think I'm going to hand it back to you and let you close
out thank okay well thank you very much um you know I do want to uh you know something
we don't often plug on on this uh program is the reflector and I get my
copy of the reflector uh each and every time and it's it's just got beautiful illustrations in it um uh there are
wonderful articles it is uh it's a fantastic publication how long has the
reflector been out Terry wow Carol how long has probably
started about mid 40s or early 50s it's call something different back then but
it's been one one of the oldest continually published U uh astronomy
magazines and um you know certainly um you know with the the thought of serving
its members but uh you know if you're a great astrophotographer you know they publish uh beautiful works and uh um so
yeah join join the astronomical league go to astr league.org go and join uh or
join a local Club that's a league club and get your reflector magazine so um
but uh I think that's all I have to add right now except that it was a wonderful
lineup that you put together again Terry it's it's a it's you always do a high
quality job with this and I'm always impressed so thank you y it's speakers
I'm always impressed with all of them yeah wonderful okay all right well the
next time we come on uh probably should be live from the astronomical League commission itself so thank you I forgot
to mention there is no astronomical League live in July because we will all be at Kansas City and uh maybe we you'll
be doing some interviews at Kansas City too absolutely absolutely yeah we will come back with astronomical League live
I believe it's on July 14th and we'll talk more about that as that gets a
little bit closer I did forget about that thank you Scott okay all right okay
well thanks very much Terry thank you everyone uh for watching and um you know
uh if you enjoy the show make sure you tell your friends about it and uh you know do what you can to join uh the
world's greatest uh Federation of amateur astronomers and astronomy clubs so uh the astronomical League does a lot
with all of its observing programs its Awards uh you know all the encouragement
it does with a largely Vol all volunteer staff here so um you know so that's
that's a uh something that makes it uh really uh amazing as well as that uh the
amount of energy and love and uh care that goes into this whole um uh you know
uh program that makes the astronomical League all right
uh I've got just a little video uh to show before we totally close out but you
guys have a good night have a great weekend it's Father's Day on Sunday so don't forget that and um uh we got some
cool stuff going in on in the sky with the comet and uh I think there's uh also
uh U maybe a little bit of a conjunction going on with the moon if I'm correct
about that so um so have fun and keep looking
[Music] up in 2009 NASA launched the lunar
reconnaissance Orbiter a bold mission to map our moon in such detail that future crude and robotic missions could not
only land safely but also go to scientifically important locations with the start of the Artemis
missions the future is now as NASA prepares to send humans to the lunar South Pole this region is of particular
scientific interest because it features areas of extended sunlet illumination and permanent Shadow is known to contain
resources like water and sits on the rim of the oldest impact crater in the Earth Moon system over the years ELO Suite of
scientific instruments has delivered as promised giving us incredible new views and data on this terrain helping us
build a road map for exploration so follow this series as we take a look at how the L mission is laying the
groundwork for emis [Music]
science one of the instruments on loo is the lunar orbiter laser altimeter or
Lola it provides topographic data on the lunar surface revealing slopes and
surface roughness helping us create models of lunar gravity and surface brightness as well as high resolution 3D
maps of the Moon in this visualization the colors
Corr respond to different elevations found amongst the craters and mountains of the South Pole
region having accurate elevation data is essential for landing site selection surface navigation identifying areas
where resources can be found and planning the design of future lunar infrastructure in addition studying the
elevation and topography of the Moon contributes to scientific research about its geological history formation
processes and ongoing changes by analyzing elevation data scientists can learn more about the moon's past
volcanic activity impact history and tectonic
processes the global terrain mapping by Lola also makes it possible to simulate sunlight and shadow on the moon at any
date in the past or future here we see a visualization of the region in 2028
depicting the changes in shadowing in 2-hour intervals over the course of the Year this information is vital to
Artemis for planning exploration Endeavors since the Lo Sun angles and terrain of the South Pole produce a
uniquely challenging lighting environment in the years since ELO's launch there have been over 60,000
orbits of the spacecraft and 10 billion laser shots at the lunar surface making Lola's data a vital resource for both
human and robotic explorers that arrive at the South Pole in the coming years
it's one piece in how loo is helping NASA usher in a new generation of lunar science
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I also made a little video here in my echoey voice
here uh that I wanted to bring on let me see if I can do that
here I like that color of shirt Scott that is really nice looking
how's that oh nice nice huh that's right I like
it definitely [Music]
a [Music]