Global Star Party 100 Part 2

Transcript:

7:05 PM.David Levy Commentary/Poetry
Karim, do you have your keyboard near your microphone?
I do that to me doing it.
7:20 PM.David Eicher Planet Earth: Water Soluable Minerals
trying to piece together all sorts of things for the. I understand. Yeah.
To read what's that? Well, this is a new little astronomical
device I'm going to display today. I did its first light last night. It is a Jacob
7:45 PM.Molly Wakeling Astronomolly's Universe
staff. Oh. And I'm going to talk about it a little bit
today. Fantastic. Jacob's staff, huh? Yeah, I saw the
picture. but I don't usually do that.
8:10 PM.Daniel Higgins & Simon Lewis Astroworld TV
at the historic parties.
8:35 PM.Jason Guenzel The Vast Reaches
I'm just going to test something here. Let's see.
9:40 PM.John Briggs
I think it's been hot everywhere. today.
9:45 PM.Cesar Brollo
Europe and especially England have just had it ridiculous. We
were talking about it yesterday on Space Oddities. Uh few of them were just barely holding
together for the hour and then they had to go find somewhere cool. Yeah.
10:05 PM.Navin Senthil Kumar
It's fought everywhere except here in Arizona. It's pretty cool today. It's the ninety. Is
it? 96 or so. So far. And it's not that not as hot as it
10:20 PM.Carina Letelier Under Chile Skies
usually is. Wow. Is it dry? there's some
humidity but certainly not as much as you guys have.
And this is what we call as Wendy says monsoon season. So
10:40 PM.Deepti Gautam Astronomy in Nepal
it's not dry but it's still right now the humidity isn't as nearly as much as it is in
Montreal.
10:55 PM.Adrian Bradley Night Scapes
you'd be hard pressed to get it to this level. We had a we had
a bit of a downpour yesterday and a bit the night before and right now it's just sticky
outside. which of course means the mosquitoes are having fun
with us. Well, that's the other thing. We do not have very many
11:15 PM.Micheal Carroll JWST
mosquitoes here. If you want some, you're happy to take some back with you. Well, yeah, maybe. We might. I might talk
to them this week. Bach flies, mosquitoes, tick mole. Tickle. Black fly season should be
coming to an end. Yes. Hopefully, by next week when
you have the retreat. Yeah, that's I hope so.
This is extraordinarily exciting. A hundred Global Star parties we've had.
Hey, Irma. Hi. How are you? Good, you? No, I'm not. Thank
you. Good to see you. So, am I right to assume you'll be at Stellafane in two weeks? Uh no,
I won't be. Not this year? Overload with work and I'm
already planning to go with the group with Scott Roberts at in
Armenia for the Starmas. Yes. Planning to go. So, my time is limited. How I I understand.
And I have to choose we're about to go this year and I would love to go to Stellafane. It's my favorite place to go
every year but this year I will have to skip it. I was talking to Ray in Toronto at Con and he
was saying that Constantine must be you know he's he's having a tough time but
whenever he thinks about the fact that he'll miss Stella Fang it must be just that much worse for him at this time.
Well that's because he's been going for the last 50 years I think or more. Oh close to over
from 65. Yeah. Oh wow. Oh wow. Yeah. Amazing. Yeah. What a
number. Yeah. Yes. He he's he's stable though which is which is
what's important. His. Oh yeah. Okay. His health is what's important right now. Yes. Well
and especially in these times. Oh we've been have we had gentlemen I logged on briefly to wish you all good luck.
That's Adrian. Very first yes. This is the Mega Global Star Party 100. Just 100. Yes it is.
Yep And my my good friends, all of you, Karim, I heard you
talking about Stella Fane. One day, maybe I'll get out there. You have to go. You have to go
to Stella for I don't know. Well, I that's, that's what decided me, that's what decided
me to really pursue my, my career, career and as a telescope makers going there.
Yeah. And be inspired by all the other people around, and just to divide there. It's
unreal, it's a Yeah. No, I think. Well, you. Stay with me. Well, you'll be happy to know.
I just did some solar outreach and astronomy outreach for a Girl Scout troop and one of our
metro parks here in Michigan. Um five different groups, girls, aged, probably 5 to
14, 13, 14. That's great. And then their scout leaders all got a chance to see the sun recomended eyepiece telescope
through a solar scope. Awesome. And have it questions answered about astronomy, weather,
solar, or otherwise. I shared with them some pictures on my phone. Yeah. Of some of the
images I'd taken. Milky Way, Moon, Night Shots. So it was a
hot day but it was a wonderful day for outreach. It's a great experience. Yeah. Fantastic. It
was. I was The kids loved it. I was Montreal, Planet arium, at
the Astronomy Day. Yep. And they had asked me to to over there to do a talk, and, and brings a telescope over there.
They were about 3000 people all day long. Uh, starting mid afternoon because the moon was
already up mid afternoon. So we could observe the moon in daytime. People were amazing. How come we can see the moon in
bedtime? Well, it, it's, it happened. It's there in daytime, half the month. So, I,
and then later at night to observe a, in there was at least 3000 people that came
through the telescope. It was just mesmerizing. You had like 1 hundredfifty in line at your scope constantly. All day. Yes.
Long file. Because the telescope I had brought was quite very special. I built
that telescope for a friend of mine about I don't know. 15, 20, almost 20 years ago. It's
one of my most beautiful one made of rosewood and it's very and I borrowed it for him from
him for that day and it's it's it's I mean I mean it's a crowd-pleaser just to look at
the telescope itself. and to look through it, it's my, it's a double take, I mean. So, a used telelscope eyepiece
yeah, that was fun. It was a great day. It's always great to to to share with people that
never looked through a telescope or just to see their face, their reaction they have when they they see the moon so
close by and then detailed creators as wow. I don't know who could see that through a
telescope like this. It's like it's like a the thing only satellites or NASA can do that,
you know? Yeah. Yeah. The Nets. Yep. We had a few girls who
hadn't looked through the telescope before so we had to teach them how. Yeah. And all of them saw something whether
they saw a bright red orb or they were able to see some of the prominences that were on the sun while we were looking.
We had the telescope out the HA telescope. Yeah. Uh Coronado.
So it was it was great. And my tracking worked. So I didn't have to move it much to get it
in to the next group. Yeah. So it was a wonderful time. It is
always. Alright. Well, good luck gentlemen. Thanks very much, Adrian. Yeah. Yup. I will
go on mute and let you all kick this thing off. Okay, sounds good, Adrian. We will see you
later tonight. Alright. Yes, we will. Well, we will go ahead
and Hey, Michael. You showed up.
Hello. Showed up anyways. I did.
That's good. That's good, Michael. Yeah. Hello, good to see all you guys. Oh, thank you. So, you said, I I thought
that you wouldn't be able to come on at all because of your, you have a family thing but
yeah, it was we have we have like 25 speakers or something
like that today. So. It's an awesome lineup. It really is. So, I wish I could stay for the a telescope zoom eyepiece
whole thing. Yeah. Well, that's good So I will, I think I will
go ahead and, and kick this off, and
but, so here we go.
This year, the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter celebrates 13 years of orbit around our moon and in that
time, it is collected over a petabyte of data, the largest volume ever collected by a
planetary science mission at NASA. Due to its success and continued operational abilities, NASA has awarded the
spacecraft an additional extended mission phase so that it can continue gathering critical information on the
moon and help pave the way for future lunar missions. Going forward, the LRO mission will
have four main areas of focus. first is the study of volatiles. Which are chemicals
that easily evaporate or vaporise. Such as water. In terms of lunar exploration will
be useful for things like creating rocket fuel and making oxygen debris. So they are a
primary resource that feature astronauts will depend on having. LRO will continue to 1.25 telescope eyepiece set
provide new data for identifying which areas are rich in volatiles. And for cluing us in to how they may
move around the lunar surface. Current LRO data suggest they may be frozen and permanently
shadowed craters. In areas that receive some sunlight. And maybe chemically locked in
minerals on the moon. This is helping pave the way for future missions like Viper. Which will
send a robotic rover to explore an area near the lunar south pole. And ultimately the
astronaut led Artemis missions. The secondary focus is on the moon's interior, volcanic
features, and the tectonics of the moon's surface. Because understanding the lunar surface
requires knowledge of what's been going on underneath. Scientists want to figure out when the moon was last
volcanically active. And how current geologic processes like moonquakes could affect the safety of future exploration.
They'll do these things by studying low bait scarps as well as deep crustal and mental composition that are exposed at
the surface. the moon's history of volcanism and tectonics will also inform us about other
planetary bodies in our solar system and beyond. The third
area of focus is on the moon's surface. It's regulate and impact craters. We want to know 2-inch zoom telescope eyepiece
how impact craters break down and if different objective materials might degrade at different rates. These studies
will give us a better understanding of the mineral and chemical makeup of the lunar surface and sub surface.
This information can tell us how the moon has changed over hundreds of millions or
billions of years. Studying the moon's regulate and impact craters also informs scientists
about space weathering which can help similar studies looking at the Earth as well as on places like Mars, Mercury,
or even The last focus area for LRO
going forward is support for future missions. NASA has plans
for numerous missions to go to the lunar surface during Ella Rose extended phase. Sending
missions to the lunar surface requires planning, not only to build the mission, but to find safe and interesting landing
sites. LRO is in a unique position to directly assist with some of those operations 30mm telescope eyepiece
and science objectives. LRO can help identify landing sites by making maps that tell us what
the surface is like. Where there may be hazards to landers and where there are interesting features to explore. Elro is
also capable of helping land and missions get simultaneous measurements from orbit while
they gather data from the surface. After studying the
moon for 13 years, LRO has proven to be one of NASA's most valuable tools for advancing
lunar science. As it continues collecting data, the spacecraft helps lead the way for future
exploration of our moon.
This visualization doesn't have audio but it's it's the Benu
mission and it's just incredible. Um the visualization of the you know
the spacecraft coming down you know gathering a sample and
coming back up. I just really needed to share that with you guys. Yeah it's nice. I think
it's beautiful. What really strikes me with this one is that the surface was so different than what we expected
and you can see the burner marks. You can see everything when it rises up. But if had
not given that little bit of pushback. We could have actually had Osiris Rex fall amazon telescope eyepieces
straight into Benu's surface. Oh.
Yeah. It's amazing. We're getting already a nice
global audience at this point. Okay. Hi, everyone. Hello.
Chatting in. Yup.
Need to find my mouse. Forgot my mouse.
Well, hello everybody. This is Scott Roberts and welcome to the 100th Global Star Party.
This event will happen in two parts. Um first part, of course, starting now. The
second part will start at 7 PM Central Time Uh where we will
you know, for all of you that can't watch us earlier part of this program, you'll be at least able to capture the the
second part live. Uh we had tremendous turnout for speakers
and I just wanted to kind of talk about each one of them just a little bit before we get started. Um David Levy is here
here doing this double star party with me. Uh he is he's
agreed to do the commentary and poetry that he that he always does to kick off these programs. I'm very very
indebted to him for his friendship and his mentorship and all the inspiration he's
given me all all through these years. Uh after David, we will have Doctor Seth Shostak. Uh
Seth is the the lead astronomer for the search for
extraterrestrial intelligence, study program, and I've really
enjoyed following him over the decades listening to him give
lectures, enjoying his humor, he is just such an
approachable, incredible guy, and we're really really happy to have him on the 100th Global
Star Party. Following Seth will be Bob gate. Um you'll you'll
find him on the internet as Robert Q Fugate. Uh he is
someone that has given astronomy and I mean he put astronomy on steroids with his 965 to 1.25 telescope eyepiece adapter
work on Adaptive Optics and you know, but he puts us amateur
astronomy on steroids too with his incredible personal work he does in astrophotography. So,
he'll be talk about. You know, seeing Beyond with ELTs and
Adaptive Optics today. The Astronomical League joins us in this first section as well with
Terry Mann. She'll be doing the door prizes. We're going to have some special door prizes. Instead, the regular door
prizes that we that we have. Um we will be upgrading them to
some of them to the IXOS 100 mount, a a computerized go-to
equatorial mount that you can put your camera on or a small
telescope. It'll be perfect for the upcoming eclipses happening in 2023 and 20 twenty4. Um
Terry Mann will also have her own program with us as well. So, you'll want to stick around
for that. Uh Karim Jaffer and Lou Mayo are also joining us.
Uh Kareem is from he's a professor of astronomy. John Abbott College, and Lou Mayo is
at Goddard Space Flight Center. So, it's Wonderful to have them both on tonight. Um and they'll
be talking about their own perspectives on Seeing Beyond. Uh Charles Ennis the president
of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada will also be turning in you know and letting
us all know about about the RASC which which we all love.
Uh Marcelo Souza joins us from Brazil. Uh Nicolas Arias you
know the astrophotography who literally pushes his Dobsonian
by hand, okay, and makes deep sky images that will blow your mind. So, Norman Fullum
finishes up, wraps up the first segment with us on Reflections on Music Stars, and the
Telescopes that he builds. So, but I'm going to turn this over to my dear friend David Levy. best 2 telescope eyepieces
David, thank you so much for helping us put together the
100th Global Star Party. So thank you. Thank you so much.
Scotty. This is This is a let me try to unmute
here. I'm we can hear you just fine. Yeah, so I can hear you
there. No beat. No, no, I'm really unmuted. Okay. Um I
remember over a hundred star parties ago, getting a phone call late one evening from
Scott. And he said that he was planning to do what is called the Global Star Party. And
would I be interested in coming to the very beginning of each one, and doing a little bit of
a poetical reading. And I've done that for every one of them, except for one that I
forgot about. But I think I'm going to make up for it today.
Today. That's right. One will be now and I will do a second one. At the second part of the
start party later on today. I wanted to show you something new. I have as you know my
telescope Minerva right next to me. Minerva is one of my
favorite telescope and I use it a lot. I really love it. But yesterday I built one of these.
And this is not a telescope. And I'd be very surprised if it
was a telescope because it was invented in the 14th century.
By the famous Rabbi Levi Ben Gerson. Ursanities. And it
consists. It is simplicity itself. This is a Jacob's staff. And in the 14th century.
Uh there's a metre long piece of wood here. And then a
crossbow on the top. And you hold it this way. And you have
a you have you sort of pointed the horizon. And then you move
this. Until you get to the object you're looking for. And it will measure the donation best 1.25 telescope eyepiece
the distance in in elevation
above the horizon. And I had its first light last
night as all my telescope s do. On Jupiter. And it was about
at the at the six meter six point6 meter part of the thing
and I had it like this. this long-ended part went to the
horizon and Jupiter sitting right on top of this this crossbar. Anyway, I just wanted
to share this with you a little bit. And what was the final thing? Is that this the long
piece is a solid piece of wood. I was wondering if personities would have thought to hollow
out the solemn peace, a hollow piece of wood. And put a lens
that went in. If he would've invented the telescope in the 14th century. But that was not
to be. He left that for man's liberty and Galileo, who first
looked at a telescope and boy, did Galileo rewrite astronomy? And Galileo's Global Star Party
would have been something else to see. And maybe Scotty will be able to get Gallowayo and
Garsonities at one of our future start parties. Anyway, for my quotation for today,
Wendy and I are going to do one together. It's by Ralph Hudson And it's the song of honour.
And it it begin it it is a very long poem but we are only
going to quote the final stanza of it. Are you ready, Wendy?
I'm ready. Here we go. I stood and stared. The sky was lit.
The sky was stars all over it. I stood. I didn't know why.
Without a wish. Without a will. I stood upon that silent hill. And stared into the sky. Until
my eyes were blind with stars. And still I stared. Into the
sky. Thank you and back to you Scott. Wow. Thank you so much.
David that was good. Hey David. Beautiful. Beautiful. I'm
going to show just I'm going to show the audience everybody that's logged in right now. Uh we have of course David Levy,
Bob Fugate with us, Karim Jaffer, Norman Fullum, Adrian
Bradley. They're driving. I I don't know how he does this. Okay. Michael, a space artist are telescope zoom eyepieces any good
and an author, Michael Carroll, Seth Shostaks with us, and Lou Mayo, I see him back there. So,
and I see Bob's monitor, whoever that is. Maybe that's a lizard or some, I don't know but that that's the deal but we
you know, we we we love being together. Um and it's it's
something that gosh and I look back on all these star parties and all the
information that has come out of it and all the friendship and everything. It's just really been amazing to me. I
one of the people that I very much admire for his ability to
you know, talk about, I think, a really tough subject which is, you know, the search for
extraterrestrials, the search for life throughout the universe. I've attempted it
myself. I I went on television back in nineteen 8-8, I think,
on a local television show called Stanley Tonight and
Stanley was kind of a I think sort of a nearing the the
twilight of his career. He was he was a great talk show host in New York City but he ends up
little local television station in San Diego and he would put together some I think pretty
controversial shows. This one that he put together was I was supposed to be on a panel of of
UFO skeptics, okay? Um and the
the opposite side was another goat group called the Unarian
Society and the Unarians were by this lady who is dressed up
like a princess. She drove up with a Cadillac that had a UFO with lights on top of it and best eyepieces for fast telescope
all the rest of it and I get to find I find out that I am in a
room of mostly what claimed to be abductees, okay? Alien
abductees. It was like 30 of them in the room with me and and I think Stanley wants to
see a fight or something, you know, and so, But you know, I I
had to tell these people that you know, they claim to be scientists and I said, well,
you know, what you're practicing after they sang some song, they sang some songs to
Space Brother and they had they had a book and they had all these kind of ritualistic kind
of things. Uh you know, it's not that I don't believe that there's life teeming in the
universe. I do believe this, okay? I think there's life throughout the universe. Like, you know, like cockroaches. I
think they're everywhere, okay? Uh but I not yet seemed
irrefutable proof, okay, of, of alien life, or alien
spacecraft, or those kinds of things, and so, you know, I was there as a, you know, amateur
astronomer, you know, an amateur, UFO, debunker, and it
was just a very, very strange day for me, and so I do really
respect what Seth probably goes through day and day out, day in, day out, with his his work
with Saddy. That's a fascinating story, Scott. I
wish you all could have been there with me. It would have been a lot of fun. We we want details eventually. I did I did
get out with that with my hide intact. So but you know I I always I respect people and and
what they believe and and all the rest of it. I do. Um so I have friends that are very kind
of rough and tough when they get in kind of a situation like that. But you know I have to
you know keep my mind open that you know, if life happened here, it's probably happened
all over the universe and So, anyways, but Seth Shostak is
the person that I I am bringing up next and Seth has been very
very kind to be at several events that I've been able to
put together. Um and I know that Seth Seth recognizes that I'm an amateur astronomer. I'm
not even a very polished presenter but you know, I I
describe myself as kind of a cheerleader for for astronomers
and astronomy and space exploration and I think it's important that we get the word
out and when I when I ran into Seth and he told me, yeah, I
mean, this goes back decades now. Uh yeah, I'll come and do a lecture. I was absolutely
blown away. Uh I felt like I'd walked up to Carl Sagan and asked him to do a lecture for me. I still feel that way and
so Seth is here with us today. I think he's in his office at Sutty and Seth, thank you for
coming on to the 100th Global Star Party. Thanks very much, Scott. Now, how's the audio?
Can anybody understand this? Nope, nobody. Alright. Exactly.
We've we've moved into new digs and I still haven't set up my office yet as you can see. But
Scott, it was very kind of Scott to give me three and a half hours here. Uh I I am going to he doesn't have a
topic down for what I'm going to talk about. Uh I was going to talk about the Unarians Unfortunate Experience
with a car wash that they tried to get their car with the you know, the Saturn on top through and it didn't work So, they're
kind of out of business. I I I want to say one thing to it's Duffy Levy. I I'm not a person
of these but that is my first name. Gerson, believe it or not. Relatives. Anyhow, alright. Enough of all that.
What I'm going to talk about today is something, well, Scott asked me to talk about the
effect of Inverse Compton scattering on the forbidden transitions of in the atmospheres of peculiar eight
dot stars. He figured all of you would be interested in that but I'm not. So, I'm not going to talk about that. I'm going to talk about a little
more straightforward. Namely, why haven't we found the aliens? Alright. So, let me see
if I can share this screen. Maybe I can, maybe I can.
Alright. Anybody say? It's working. Yup. Oh, well, well, that's too bad for you. And
you're in presentation mode. It looks very nice. Well, I'm but I'm not very presentable. Okay,
why haven't we found the aliens? I mean, I don't have to remind many of you the fact that we've been looking for a long time. From you know, that
Frank Drake did his first experiment in city in the spring of nineteen sixty. Now,
to me, 1960 seems like only yesterday. I, I was already past middle age in
nineteensixty. But for a lot of people, that's a long time ago, and they may not you know, they
may remember it or not but in any case, that means it's been 60 years, 62 years since that
first experiment and we still haven't turned up a single little green guy and what's the reason for that? Well, I'm just
going to talk to you a little bit about that. To begin with, there are a lot of people, namely one third of all
Americans, who think we already have found the aliens. Uh, to begin with those, the wow signal. And this is just some
print out from the the, the telescope at Ohio State University, known as the big
ear and this thing gets sort of out outlived it's it's
usefulness to astronomy so they just sort of parked it at a given declamation and they let the the sky rotate above it and
you know they would just make observations looking for a signal hoping to find ET that
way every couple of days a resident astronomer Jerry Aman would come into the shack where the line printer was and look
through it and see if there was anything interesting and on this particular day tonight 7seven, he saw a signal that
was so strong, he wrote wow next to it. Now, this is the triumph of marketing over,
well, I I guess you could call it, say science. There were hundreds of signals that were
found in these these times. But this one had, wow, written next to it. And so, there you go. I
mean, you know, if they called it Bob or something like that, I mean, maybe nobody would have noticed but calling it now, wow
is really good. Now, you see on the right hand side of the screen here, sort of a blow up
of that signal, CF, sorry, six F, Q, U A five. That's just the
encoding of the level, the strength of the signal, right? Otherwise, they they would be
limited from zero to nine but then they could go to ten that they call A and eleven was B
and you know, and so forth. So, they could get more levels encoded in here. Now, I can't
tell you. I think it's on the order of 50 or 100 Emails I've received over the years by people who spend their weekends
and evenings trying to decode six FQUJ five. And they all
succeed at some level. So they say and you know they're they're interesting things in
there such as the cure for death or the next lotto numbers or stuff like that. The the facts are it's just a method of
encoding the strength of the signal. But when I write them back, they never say, oh, thanks for explaining that. They just get mad at me.
Anyhow, there's the wow signal. Some people think it was ET. We don't know what it was. It was never seen again, never. And
many people have looked. Okay, so so much for that. Uh this is another bit of if you consider
it that that we found the aliens namely they're here in our airspace teasing our top
guns. Uh this is of course done site video camera footage,
infrared camera actually from an F-18 Hornet that was being
flown by the US Navy off the coast of San Diego and you see that blob in the middle. Now, that could be Klingon's come to
visit. Not quite clear why they come to Earth. Maybe it's the fast food. Nobody knows but you can see that darkness and that
means that's something hot and it's been point by many people and in particular Mick West's
has pointed this out several times. That that could just be an airplane, you know, 50 or 1 00 miles in front of the
Hornet, right? This this hornet was in I think like 22000 feet. So, the horizon is like 100
miles away even more. So, you could see maybe a twin engine jet, you know, just sort of
going away from you at that distance and of course, you're looking up the tailpipe of the Jets so it makes a nice black
infrared blob. it could be that or it could be the alien. So, you take your choice. But the
facts are that from the science, the point of view of the scientist, we haven't found the aliens. How do you explain
that? Uh you guys probably don't ever have to answer that question but you know, if I'm
sitting next to somebody on a 12-hour flight to Europe and they find out what I do, I try
and keep that secret but sometimes, you know, the captain comes on with a public announcement. If they find out
what I do, they say, well, wait a minute, why haven't you found the aliens yet? What the heck You know, it's costing me all
these tax dollars. Well, to begin with, it's not costing them any tax dollars because it's all privately funded but beyond that, that means I don't
get to sleep or read a cheap novel on the flight. We haven't found them but here are some suggestions about why we have
this awkward silence at this point. You probably would welcome silence. Alright, how
do we explain that? Well, one possibility is that we just haven't looked at enough of the sky, right? And if I go out
tonight looking for comets, something that David Levi would know out, you know, and I don't find it. I I might come to the
conclusion. There are no comments but on the other hand, I just haven't looked at the right time at the right spot on the sky. Personally, I think
that this is the answer but not everybody would. In the background, this is a photo I made of our own Allen telescope
array. There are 42 of these antennas located about three hundred miles north of San Francisco. So, if you happen to
be in that area, the Cascades and you want to go visit, I wouldn't, I would commend this to you and go there and you know, kick the pillars and make
selfies and you out of well, anyhow, just go take a look but that's one possibility. It's
simple. We haven't found them because we haven't looked enough, alright? The total number of SARS systems that
we've actually looked at, all of Sedi, all of Setti since 1960 is only about
fivethousand. That isn't a huge number, right? Uh I I note that Breakthrough Left Listen which
has actual money. Uh they've looked at about three thousand. They're going to look at more and in the next 10 or 15 years,
the total will get close to a million. But at the moment only been 5000. So, doesn't surprise me we haven't found the Aliens.
Uh you know, I've already just said that. So, there you go. It could be that we're just
looking at all the wrong places like a leisure suit, Larry. We're looking for love in all the wrong places. And that may
be We tend to look at star system in the old days. We would look at star systems that
for one reason or another, we thought how to planet sort of like the Earth. Maybe the same mass, right? At the in the
inhabitable zone, the Goldilocks zone, right? And you know, where you could expect liquid water on the surface.
Now, we don't really bothered with that anymore, right? When planets were first discovered
around other stars in nineteen ninety-five, you know, the city scientist got really excited. Oh, finally. We can point our
antennas at a star system that we know has planets but since then, you know, the the the I
don't know, the bloom is off the rose in a way because it turns out that essentially all
stars have planets, right? It's like 80% at least and in astronomy, 80% is the same as
all. You should have an astronomy fill in your tax forms because if they get it
right within a factor too, that's good enough but the the the bottom line here is that, okay, all stars have planets
and more than that, we now know that maybe half of all stars
that are, you know, G type stars, similar to the sun, having their sized planet, their habitable zone. This is a
bit of an an extrapolation from Kepler data but you know, maybe it's wrong by 30% or 50% but I
mean, you can't argue with the result. Essentially, half of stars might have a planet like
the Earth, a cousin of the Earth. There are lots and lots of cousins of the Earth. On the order of 100 billion or more.
That's a lot. Of course, they could all be sterile. That could be, but that would make
you very very special, and I know you like the Vinkard
special, because your parents told you that for the first 20 years of your life. But, you know, anybody who studied science knows that if you think
you're special, you're not going to get your paper pass to referees. So, you know, with all that, with all, with all
that real estate, it would be astounding if we're the only kids on this block. Alright.
Now, everything I've said up to this point makes an assumption about ET. If you ask
astronomers, well, what does ET look like? You know, they probably don't even have an answer for you, right? Now, I
get asked that question fairly frequently because consulting for movies, right? They always want to know what ET looks like
as if I know. I don't know but there is this. I mean, they
always assume in the movie that ET is some sort of creature. Member of a a species that, you
know, cranks out lots of little gray guys with, you know, no eyes, whites in their eyes, no
hair, and no clothes, and no sense of humor. I mean, you know, that's your standard alien and it's great for
Hollywood because if if you have an alien like that, you don't need any backstory to explain to the audience. This
is an alien. Everybody recognize it. But we assume that even city because we're
looking in places where we think there might be an earth-like planet. But what if the the ETs are not actually
biological that they've gone beyond that? Here's what the the the plot I like to show in
all such talks. This was made a long time ago actually before 2000 by a fellow at Carnegie
Mellon Institute in in Pittsburgh. And he just he was a roboticist. And he just
plotted up the fastest computers as a function of time. So all those red dot are the fastest computers with the
data on the bottom there and the three of you who are still conscious will note that this is a semi-log plot. So, in
fact, this is that this particular set of data, it's the the number of or sorry, the
speed of computers is going up exponentially. It's a heavily overused and incorrectly used
word in the media these days but it is really exponential. It, you know, you double the
speed of the fastest computer approximately every two years okay? Now, if you look at about
20 twenty2 where we are now, it depends on a little bit on how you extrapolate that line but either, you know, for $1, 000,
you can buy a computer that has the IQ of a monkey or has the IQ of the guy sitting next to
you. That's an astounding thing, right? And if there's a little doubt that by twenty
fifty, we'll have computers with maybe as much compute powers, all human brains put
together. Now, that doesn't mean we have generalized artificial intelligence but it does suggest that it's coming
down the pipe. So, if we're going invent our successors. Hey, I think it's only
reasonable to assume that the aliens have already done this. So, looking for biological
aliens is, you know, it that's so old school, right? Because once you have artificial
intelligence, then, you don't have to stay on a planet with a lot of water that'll only rust rust out your innards, right?
You can be anywhere. You can even be in in interstellar space. Sure, Starlight is pretty weak but if you have
enough space to put out tremendous, you know, solar panels or whatever you're using, you can get the energy
you need to survive. There's no reason why want to stick on a planet which has plate tectonics and weather and other
things that are detrimental to your synthetic lifestyle. There are sources of energy everywhere. I just point that
out. I mean, they could be hanging around black holes. They could be hanging around the black hole in the center of the galaxies. You can get a lot
of energy out of those things and you know, you kind of centrally located which is always good idea so you don't
have to commute. Now, the the third possibility is that we haven't found the aliens
because we don't have enough sensitivity. This guy is a very sensitive guy. Now, let me just tell you what the sensitivity
is. If you just considered your average study experiment, they
need to have a lot of power on the order of a00 trillion watts. Uh assuming they're 200
light years away. I I only picked 200 light years because only the order of a million star systems within that
distance. But that takes a lot of power if they're just, you know, trying to light up the whole galaxy or they're part of
the galaxy. At a level that we could have picked up. In other words, unless deliberately
beaming to us, they've gotta spend a lot of money on their electric bills in order to be
able to make a signal that we find and maybe that's why we haven't found them because they say, hey, look, you know, those
humans, they've only had radio for for you know, 100 years. We're going to only talk to the
people that have had it for a hundred million years or something like that. So, they could be just as sensitivity
problem. I I I'm going to skip through this if you don't care about that. These are big telescopes or you have this
possibility that there really are no aliens And you know that's anathema for anybody
working here at the institute. But you know you might consider it a good idea because it makes
you the smartest things in the universe. Or it could be that
there's some sort of great filter that applies to all intelligence species. They get
to some point their development where they get wiped out. Right? And I talked to
millennials occasionally and and they're very big on this idea because they think we're going to wipe ourselves out.
You know whether it's going to be climate change or pandemics or nuclear war any of these things. Uh eventually when
anybody gets to our level of technological development, we disappear. Now, I've done some back of the envelope
calculations and I hate to disappoint the young folk but the facts are that this is isn't going to happen, right?
You can't get rid of everybody. The worst thing you can do in terms of getting rid of a lot
of people is to let loose all the nuclear weapons, right? Just aim them all at big cities, the biggest city.
They're like 14000 nuclear weapons I believe and it just aimed them at the 14, 000 biggest cities and worked out
how many people die. It's a lot. be a bad day, right? But it doesn't get rid of
everybody. It only gets rid of about one third of the population. So, there's just no way. I I I don't think that
this can work. Alright, it could be that the reason we haven't heard from BT is that
intelligence is not something that's particularly favored by nature. These guys here, now
this was a bad day for them but these guys were around for 150 million years. That's a long
time. Homo sapiens has been around for 300, 000 years. So, these guys were here for far longer than we are and they
never got smart. Go to your local library. Look up the Dino literature and you won't find
much. So, it could be that intelligence, you know, as
attractive as you may find it in a mate or or somebody sitting across from you at Denny's is not, in fact,
favored by nature and we just happen to lock out. So, the bottom line of all those arguments is indeed that you
are the smartest things in the galaxy that you're some sort of miracle. There you go. The
smartest thing in the universe is just your Ridge Show. The final thing is that, indeed, as
I've said before, maybe we're just looking for the wrong kind of alien. This is again, a similar plot as what you saw
before, although, this one's five, you know, Ray Kurtzweil but in any case, it's the same
thing. The fastest computers are now incredibly fast and they're, they're, their computer is big enough that
they have more compute power, you know, operations per second, then your brain does. So, I, I think that that, that
kind of argument leads to this inevitably. The conclusion is that, ET is not a little grey
guy with big eyeballs ET is some sort of machine. Sure, there, you know, little guys
with big eyeballs but they eventually lead to the machines and the machines have most of
the intelligence in the universe and we maybe just looking for the wrong kind of thing. So, what do we do? Well,
I don't know. We could just keep on trucking. Another suggestion is to look for
artifacts, something big that a really smart machine might build. Maybe it has tremendous energy requirements and build
something like a Dyson Swarm Dyson sphere if you will. Uh and and we we might find that
by just doing astronomy. So it's it's a little unclear but the bottom line is the fact
that we haven't found them maybe simply due to the fact that we've been looking for the wrong things. Okay, I'm
going to shut this down. and if any of you are conscious and
have a question, I think we have a few minutes so. Well, the people wanted to say
congratulations to you from Colombia. Uh that's Carlos
Gagliano on Facebook. Um and there's a question here. Uh and
this is coming from Connor Bradley. Uh he says, is it possible a war of the world's
scenario could happen. If extraterrestri developed interstellar travel to reach
the earth. Well, I I I don't know the war of the world scenario is that they come to
Earth and flatten Los Angeles. Now, honestly, I live in Northern California and if they want a flat in Los Angeles,
okay, by me but sure, I I think the real question is, would there be aggression? Right?
Could they, in fact, take, you know, just decide to wipe us out. Man, I I don't know what
the motivations of the aliens are but it's hard to think of a reason why they go to the expense and it would be quite expensive to wipe us out.
What's in it for them? Uh you know and I was on a panel many years ago, a British royal
society actually, panel, where we were trying to discuss, why would the aliens even come to Earth? Why are they here? As so
many people faint, right? What brings them to Earth? You know, in the movies, it's often things like water. But there's water all over the universe.
You don't need to come to Earth. There's a lot twice as much water and one of the moons at Jupiter's and you'll find here. So, go there, you know,
don't, don't, don't bother us here. Uh, it's very unclear why they would come here. There's nothing here that they don't have, except for our culture. I
mean, they might come for the rock role but I don't know that they've flattened Los Angeles in order to get it. Right?
Right? Um. can I have a Go ahead. Well, go ahead. No, I, I
I agree with, with Seth on on
the aspect of in that if we
have extraterrestrials that they're machines, you know, they could, I, I personally think, you know, we also, we
have artificial intelligence but we also have nanotechnology. Things are
getting very, very small that can do some pretty amazing things. You know, I think it would be a fairly inexpensive
to send out stuff the size of a dust moat, okay? That may have like super intelligence out to
gather information. Um I and I think that that would be very interesting. You know, you put
on on solar sail, send it out, you know, and and see what what comes back eventually, you
know. Uh but you know, to send a fleshy to go on that trip in
a in a you know, something the size of a camper van. Uh you know, is is going to be tough,
you know, on anyone that that wants to have generations of you know, lifestyle to get get
to some place like Earth, you know. So, that you know I I do
hope that that study is successful and you know receiving a signal that you
know far exceeds the wow signal and that it's it's repeatable and I think it would be
amazing. You know you know just just to know that there is
someone else is out there. You know. So I I think it it would be a cognitive shift moment for
us. You know for sure. To know this else is a talented. Did Norman yes I have a question.
What about the relics that we already have on earth here that we just can't explain like the
pyramids like the Easter Island. All these relics that we don't know how it was made
by these people for 5000 years ago. Would it be something kind of a sign that someone already
been there and just left. Well Norman I hate to disagree with you here in a public form but I
think we do know how. East I've been to Eastern Island. I've been to the pyramid several times. Yeah. And somebody asked
me actually I was a talk in Australia years ago And at the end of the talk, this guy
raises his hand and he says, alright, my question is, who do you think built the pyramids?
you know, I said, well, I personally, I think it was Egyptians, right? But he didn't like that idea. As if the
Egyptians were too stupid to have built pointy structures but there's all sorts of
evidence and about how they built these things, right? And in fact, you can find other
pyramids they built before the the famous ones at Giza, where they didn't get the angle right
and they had to start over, right? If they were, if they, if they were using alien help, don't you think they would get
it right? It turns out if you just take a bunch of limestone and stack it up, right? And there are plenty of limestone
berries. I I it's just a question. Yeah, don't don't underestimate the Egyptians.
They were not stupid. Okay. Thank you. So, so what I heard
was that it's more likely that the Transformers from Michael Bay would be a more realistic
scenario than ET. Given that they are robots. They're not
necessarily robots. Yeah, they're not necessarily robots. There's a difference between
robots and AI, right? AI could be a machine that just sits in the corner of your office. It can't serve you coffee or make
the bed. I mean, robots would have AI, I suppose, you know, very sophisticated robots but
the aliens, minor might not require, you know, being able to walk across the living room.
Unlike the Dallas. Right? Or transform into cars. Yes. Makes
great entertainment though. Seth thank you so much for coming on to Global Star Party and I'll look forward to the
next time we can do program together. It's wonderful. Thanks. Thank you so much. Man, excellent, excellent
presentation. I loved it. And I did not go comatose. No. It was
a great presentation, Seth. Thanks. Speaker went comatose.
Okay. So, our next speaker is none other than Bob Fugate. Uh
Bob has been on several Global Star Parties so far and he has
progressed to talk about not only his amazing experiences in
astrophotography but you know, I think the last time he was on, we were, he had imaged a
galaxy that was several billion light years away and and and that was from extremely dark
skies and then he gets into closer to the city where he lives, shooting through light
pollution and still able to record it. So, it's just, you know, the ingenuity of the amateur astronomers and the
process of of amateur astronomy are are incredible to me. They're they're just as amazing
to me as some of the most advanced science and technical abilities of the professional
world and I I think that Bob might agree with at. Um as
well. So, Bob, thanks for coming on to the 100th Global Star Party. It's it's awesome
to have you. Okay, thanks, Scott. The first thing I think
is, I'd really like to congratulate you on 100 Global
Star Parties. That's just an incredible achievement and it's
also a testament to all the people that have participated
in all those star parties. So, I'm I'm a late comer but I've
I've learned so much. Um in the ending that I've that I've done
so far and so I'm very appreciative of everybody's efforts in doing this. So
today, let me try to share my screen here.
Today, I want to talk about extremely large telescopes and
their potential and their synergy with the web telescope
but first, I want to I want to get started with a little story. Let's see if I can get
this full screen here.
Every other year, SPIE sponsors a very large conference on telescope s and
instrumentation. And about a decade ago, they had the the
meet and and every other year they have the meeting in North America or in Europe. This year
it's actually going on this week. In Montreal. Yes it is.
Yes. And it's it's a you know I wish I were at it. It's it's just become an incredible
meeting for Adaptive Optics and large telescope s. But one I was at the meeting in Orlando
and about a decade ago, they had a full-scale mockup of JWST
in the parking lot. And there were two fellows out there from
Esau who were working on at the time a 100meter telescope. They
called the owl. Overwhelmingly large telescope. So they were
walking around. I I didn't want to get them in the picture and in hindsight, it would have
been a great thing because it would show the scale better. But I waited till they were
gone before I took my picture. The one I'm showing here. But they were walking around
looking at the placards and reading it and looking up at it
and finally one of them said to the other one but it's so small. I mean okay, folks.
That's supposed to be a joke. you know, they were working on a telescope that's a hundred
meters in diameter and here is the six and a half meter one that they consider to be a
really small telescope. So, the question arises, why why are astronomers wanting bigger and
bigger telescope s? s? s? And the answer is sensitivity. When we're looking back to the edge
of the universe, things are very dim because they're far away And getting further away
as we speak. So, if we look at
sensitivity and by sensitivity, I mean, sort of the inverse of the time it takes to reach a
certain signal to noise in your image or in your spectra. So,
as you, as you build a bigger telescope of course, there are two, there are two conditions.
Seeing limited Difraction Limited And if we look at an
unresolved source, like a star, foreseeing limited conditions,
limited by the atmosphere, the sensitivity increases is the square of the aperture diameter
because it goes as the area. But if we have a defraction limited telescope, it increases
as the fourth power, because the image gets also smaller, as the square of the diameter, as
the diameter priests So, if I compare the sensitivity of a
10-meter telescope with the six and a half meter telescope, you can see, you can see it's, you
know, better but not significant. But as I build bigger and bigger telescopes,
especially if I can maintain the fraction limited, it's, it's an enormous gate. So, what
this means is, I have less integration time to get to the same same level of quality in
my image. And as it turns out, if we didn't have Adaptive Optics and in particular, Laser
Guide Stars, it would not be worthwhile to build larger and
larger telescopes. s. So, I think Adaptive Optics is the key enabler for, you know,
what, what's going on now, with extremely large telescope s. s.
So, there are four on the horizon. I know, I've included Kech here because they're revamping their adaptive
optics. They have ten-meter telescope s so that's nothing to sneeze at. But coming online
soon will be a twenty-four or 25meter telescope the
giant Magellan telescope in Northern Chile and then probably the next will be the
European extremely large telescope also in Chile. It's 39 meters. And eventually we
hope to see the 30-meter telescope and hopefully on the island of Hawaii. And we're not
sure what the schedule is there. So I'd like to say a few words first about those and
then I'd like to say something about some advanced adaptive
optics methods that are being used to make these telescope s near the fraction limited. So,
the giant Magellan telescope uses a technique where they're
building seven 4 meter apertures. These are the ones
on the outside are all off axis. Very difficult to make. These are being made at the
University of Arizona. Spuncast originally invented by Roger
Angel. And all of the instruments are below the
mirrors. This is kind of of a cross section of the observatory. They're they're
making good progress on the construction. This photograph is a few years old. and you
know they're hoping to see first flight. Um in a few years. Bob I think that you're
still on the J West model. What's that? Yeah I think the image that you're showing is
still the J West model. oh, really? Oh my gosh. Why is
it not changing? Yeah. I'm seeing all of us. I'm seeing it too. Yeah. Cowboy. Okay. Why is
this so hard? Uh do I need to stop sharing maybe? Yeah, stop sharing and then go back in and
Okay, let's see. I have to find Zoom. Okay. Maybe I'm sharing
the wrong screen but I don't. I have definitely done that before. Okay, let's try. There
we go. That's it. That's it. Okay, I'm sorry. I. No problem. The reason I put, the reason I
put the monitor up was to make sure I was working properly and then didn't I failed to look at
it. Okay, so here is the giant Magellan telescope. As I said, it has seven, 8. 4 meter
mirrors. These are being made at the University of Arizona. It will, of course, use laser guide stars and all of the
instruments are located below the mirrors in the base of the telescope.
This is a Okay, now why didn't it change?
I don't know what's going on
Oh dear. Maybe I can show it this way.
Uh. If all else fails that you can can't like the ELT right
there. Okay, so this is this is the European ELT. This is the
39 meter telescope in in Northern Chile And let's see if
I can just I'll try to minimize this by slide only here and see
if this works. And here is a
rendering Primary, primary parts, the primary consists of
700, almost 800, 1. 4 meter segments. And the secondary is
up here, it's four meters in diameter. and the tertiary is
down near the primary and the fourth mirror is actually a deformable mirror. And then
there's the relay that gets light into the instrument packages on the platforms on
either side. So this is a different configuration than GMT in that the instruments are
up on Naismith type platforms. Now, what I found interesting
was this is a rendition of the secondary, I'm sorry, of the
deformable mirror. The deformable mirror on this telescope is two point four
meters in diameter. So, if you have a person standing next to it, this is sort of what it's
going to look like. Um the face sheet of the mirror is in six segments. I don't know if you
can see the lines between these segments. And it has 5, 000
actuators that are voice coils. Each one able to move the surface 50 microns. And it
operates at one kilohertz. So this will this is what will be used along with the Laser Guide
stars to correct for atmospheric turbulence.
This is the Keck. This is an old drawing but you see it's very similar to the European
ELT and that it has two very large Naismith platforms and
its primary is a measly four hundred and ninety-two one point four meter segments. I
thought it was interesting that the 30-meter telescope and the
EELT both used the same size segments. Maybe they're
planning to interchange them. Although all these segments are not the same because this is
not a sphere. This is a paraboloid. So they they have different shapes and different
figures. And here's a drawing of the structure of the
30-meter telescope This is the laser guide star
facility for the 30-meter telescope. It has nine lasers and they mount on the structure
down below here and they're plumbed up to the center of the telescope. Um where they come
out of a central aperture to form asterisms in the sky. The
instrument on the side is called nefarious. A fellow that
used to work with me, Brent Ellerbrook, is the one that came up with the name. He he was the principal for the
Adaptive Optics for TMT until he retired. Um but TMT uses two
deformable mirrors in what's called multi multi conjugate adaptive optics. One of these
mirrors is imaged at 11 kilometers above the telescope. The other one at the ground. And all of these optics are in
a 30degrees C container. In a
nearer vacuum. And there's a a mirror over here on the side that feeds instruments that are
attached below the Adaptive Optics component. So they use
for the different instruments. They use different asterisms in the sky from the laser guide stars.
and I thought this chart was very interesting. This this was put together by Brent actually
and it shows how the 30 meter telescope has a strong synergistic effect with Space
Telescopes, JWST here, and Alma over here. So, you'll see in
general, if things work as they are planned,
the 30 meter telescope will have additional capability in terms of angular resolution and
a lot more capability in terms of spectral resolution. but
they're complimentary and that they kind of fill out these charts for for the science
cases. So, what I wanted to do briefly then was describe some
of the techniques that astronomers have invented with laser guide start adaptive
optics to cover various situations. Um at the heart of
most of what they're going to do with these extremely large telescope s is tomography. The idea is to put up an array of
laser guide stars and view the turbulence through different directions. So, it's just like
MRI or CT scan. when you, when you collect data with from different directions, you can
reconstruct a three-dimensional model of the turbulence. and
this is this will be done at like a thousand times a second.
So, you need multiple sensors and a very strong computer to do this but we have the
computing power. That's generally the thing that is the
least limiting is our is our ability to do the computations. So, this is already been shown
to work back in 2013 at the
large binocular telescope in Arizona where they use six rally laser guide stars. They
were only trying to correct the ground turbulence layer because the railway has a limited
altitude but all the simulations and so forth for
the EL ELTs show that sodium laser guide stars are going to
do the job when they're employed for narrow of use
systems that are trying to achieve a high strail.
the next concept that's being worked is multi conjugate Adaptive Optics and this is as
I mentioned for the case of the 30-meter telescope. This is already also been demonstrated
on Gemini South in Chile on the eight meter telescope there. Where they have three
deformable mirrors. Each of which is reimaged at a different altitude because the
turbulence over paranole or or the turbulence in Chile is typically this is not a
paranormal. The but the turbu in Chile is typically been been
known to work in three layers. And so they've picked those layers and the optics to image
the DEMs there. And that produces a wider field of view. And in fact they've they're
getting really good correction over two arc minutes. And here's an image that I think is
point nine Arc Minute s of a globular cluster. And it's essentially the fraction
limited. It high strail throughout the field. this is this is complicated. All of
this stuff is complicated but people are willing to sign up for it because they want large
aperture, defraction, and limited telescopes. So, another
aspect of AO on big telescope s is extreme adaptive optics and
the the primary targets tier are looking at exoplanets and
in fact, doing specter of their atmospheres. And the typical arrangement is to have two
deformable mirrors that act like a woofer and a tweeter. So, the course mirror corrects
all of the large spatial frequency aberrations caused by turbulence and the fine
deformable mirror which in the case of of the GPI or the Gemini planet imager has 4, 096
actuators. It's a Mims type device.
It operates on, you know, very small throw of the actuators
because the course mirror has taken most of the big aberrations out and so they're
achieving straws of 95 to 97 percent over a very small field
of view, you know, big enough to see the AXO planet and in this case, for instance, here
is HR 8seven ninety-nine, a very famous star that has many
planets, they've looked at the atmospheres of two of those shown here, and even more, more
exciting is, they've looked at this star, showing. This this
is a Kech image here. It has lower strell. You'll notice the
higher quality of the of the GPI image and they basically
are seeing methane and water vapor. And this is in H and J
bands. So, in the near IR, in the mid IR and you know, what
I'd like to point out is, this was done in twenty15. Actually, it was done before that, and
you don't hear a lot about some of this stuff, but it's, it's going on.
So, another aspect that the next generation AO at CAC is working on is multi object AO
and the idea is to put up an array of guide stars in different formats and in one of
them, this one where these blue dots are targets they want to
do simultaneous measurements on these, like Spectra and so forth, and so their plan is to
get the light from each of these onto a deformable mirror, and so here they show, you
know, a another target, that has multiple objects in it,
they picked the light off, with an arm, send it to a Mims device, but in order to do
that, they they have an array of guide stars that does the tomography. So, they know in
any given direction to this, to this target, to this galaxy, for instance, what the
distortion is, every millisecond and so they can open loop command, the
deformable mirror, looking at that target. And that allows
them to do simultaneous corrections on a half a dozen or a dozen targets at one time.
And so this, this whole system that will allow them to do
that, is, in the works and under construction now. This
just shows how they pick off the Guide Stars, the Sodium Guidestar images. They have
these articulated arms that move about in the pupil and
sample the guide stars. So, again, all very complicated.
But worthy effort. So, finally, I'd like to talk about a new
project at NASA. I don't know how many of you have heard about this. This is at and the
principles are Eliad Paretz and John Mather. John Mather and I
worked way back. Uh I was actually on some of the early review committees for the web
telescope and John Mather and I are long time friends. But the
idea here is to put a a low powered laser in a very high elliptical orbit. And use it as
a guide star for Kec. What this does is, it enables CAC to
operate more toward the visible at very high strail. So, for
instance, oh this, this just shows angular resolution.
Here's the web telescope. You know, this was a sales chart, right? This was a chart John Mather put together. He's
trying to sell his program. So, he's making it look really good. Um Here's Keck with Orca.
Orca is Adaptive Optics. This is $10 billion dollars. This is 35 million. Now if you put a 15
-meter space telescope up he says it would be 15 billion. Who knows? But If you use orcas
with TMT, GMT, and ELT it's off
the chart down toward the bottom. And this is the improvement they expect using
this laser-borne satellite. Uh with the AO at at Kec which
only requires some minor modifications. Okay. So, the
other the other point here is if you can get working in the visible, you can actually get
better sensitivity than you might get in space. This is a very interesting chart because it shows the great advantage of
Webb being out at L two in terms of background. You know, if you're on the ground, you
have all this to deal with. Mm hmm. In the near IR. But in the visible, they're more
comparable and the argument goes that you can actually beat
the space telescope in terms of sensitivity if with a 10 meter telescope on the ground if you
have this orbiting blazer. Now it's it's at about it's way
beyond geo. It's in like a two day orbit. And you get about
3000 seconds of observing time while it's in the isoplanatic
patch of the turbulence And it really acts like a you know an
a natural guide star in terms of the AO performance. It gets rid of all the issues
associated with laser guide stars from the atmosphere from the mesosphere. Okay. So that's
how I see us seeing beyond with ELTs and AO in the coming
years, in the, in this coming decade, I think it's going to be an exciting ride. I think so. I think so. That's amazing.
You know, these giant telescopes I I wonder what what
the field of view will be like with with the Adaptive Optics
as compare to like the field of view of Jay West. Could you comment on that? Yeah, I don't
know. I don't know the exact field of view with all the instruments of the web but it's
got to be larger than what, you know, an AO corrected telescope on the ground is, the AO
telescope s, I think 30 meter telescope is like 10 arc minutes. Oh, wow. Very small
field. Excellent. Uh you know, every time that we dive into
Adaptive Optics, it makes me want to put one on my telescope. So, well, we should
we should talk about that sometime and what you know, what would make sense for amateur-sized telescope s.
Right. Yeah. Fantastic. Alright. Well, thank you so much, Bob. That's that's that's
fascinating. I love this stuff. Okay. Okay, thank you for having me and again, congratulations to everybody.
Thank you so much. for coming on again. That's great. Well, we are going to go to Terry
Mann who is here from the Astronomical League. Uh she you
know, she helps me organize so much of the or helps keep everybody I think in the league
on the same page. Uh she's a former two-term president of the Astronomical League. Uh
she's devoted so much to outreach and astronomy and you
know, helping the league reach new heights and membership and
and and you know, they are the world's largest federation of
astronomy clubs but she doesn't she doesn't exclude other
organizations or you know, she's not she's not competing with them but but she is I
think as she adopts a philosophy of inclusiveness which I think is wonderful and
you know, I think that that is the the secret to the success of the league which is largely
a volunteer effort And so but
Terry's passion also is Aurora and she'll talk about that in
some of our future presentations that we do. Um but for now she's going to do
the door prizes and I mentioned that we will be upping the the
you know upgrading the the prizes themselves we're not changing it the way that we do
the the door prizes but for this particular hundredth anniversary we're going to
include a IXOS 100 this is a
this is a computer controlled equatorial mount. It's wonderful. Uh in its precision
and also it's it's compactness will be I think one of the the
most desired pieces of equipment for those of you that aren't don't already have a
portable equatorial mount but want to have something to prepare for these eclipses that
are coming up And for also for those of you who want to do nightscape photography and that
type of thing. Or if you have what are called grab and go telescopes. Uh everything from
about a four inch refractor on down works on these mounts. And so we're happy to offer that in
this go around. We will also be offering a couple of hundred
degree you know explore scientific waterproof eyepieces
that will be part of this deal. So if you have not participated
in answering the questions from the Astronomical League, you're going to want to do it this time, okay? Um Terry Nan will
explain how it all works but she is she's with us and you
know, I'm really happy to have Terry on with me here on the 00th Global Star Party. Terry,
thank you for coming on. Well, thank you, Scott. It's always a pleasure to be here and congratulations. I can't
believe it's been a hundred. It's been a hundred. That's right. It's hard to believe. Yeah. Maybe that technically
this would actually be 1 01 but being that's happening on the same day, we're having it.
We're calling it part one and part two. We have so many people that wanted to talk on the 100th Global Star Party.
I'm very grateful to all of them and so it's it's it's been
a huge honor for me to interact with all the people that have been on Global Star Party from
our meager beginnings. Uh you know and and the forgiving audience. I mean, we have, oh
my goodness. The mistakes I made in learning how to broadcast for for numerous and
huge and including one that where I just had to like throw the towel in and say, okay,
guys, we're not doing it tonight but but we didn't even
count that one. So, it was called virtual Star Party when it started. Uh I quickly
changed its name to Global Star Party as I realized that we can have amateur astronomers and
professional astronomers. Some of them logging in from anywhere in the world. And and
the audience also was watching from around the world. So that's that's how it got the
name Global Star Party. But we will have lots of great talks
to come today and you know the least not the least of which
will be Terry Mann after she gives this door prize segment. So, I'm going to turn it over
to you, Terry. Thank you. Thank you, Scott. Yeah, you know, going global though, there's been so much, so many people
that we have met around the world, and it has really been amazing. Just to kind of see what it's like somewhere else,
or when it's dark there, we can look at their views. So, it has all been amazing.
I was going to email Karim and tell him how much I enjoyed his talk the last time on the last Global Star Party. I just sit
there in amazement. In amazement. So, you're too kind, Terry. Oh, you are great. I
really enjoyed that. So, thank you very much for that. Alright, let's go ahead. As we
always start, we have the warning about, if you just bought a telescope, be aware, never look at the sun without a
filter. That is so, so important because damage can happen so quick. Please go to
your local astronomy club, or to somebody that is familiar
with viewing the sun before you ever try to look at the sun. So, what I want to start with
are the answers from July 12th. The answers were, we were
talking were all about James Webb's space telescope. So, the first question on the twelfth,
was in what constellation? In tonight's sky is a James Web
space telescope. And the answer is Sagittarius. It's always
opposite the sun in the sky.
Second question, what is the true field of view for the James Webb space telescope
primary instrument, the near infrared spectrograph and that
is three arc minutes by three arc minutes.
Last questi on, the JWST has eighteen 4. 3 foot diameter
hexagon shaped mirrors. How much does each mirror weigh on
earth? And the answer was about 20 pounds. Wow. So what we do
is we award prizes once a month. And so we put
everybody's name on a list that has answered that question and that is what this is. Uh the
next would be the next Global Star Party. We will all be at
Alcon. So for July, this this will be the last star party in July. So, it will be, I
believe, August 2nd, will be the first Tuesday. So, that will be when we will award all
of these prizes plus the ones that Scott has mentioned today.
So, here's the questions for July 19th for today for the 100th Global Star Party.
Asteroid Vesta is going to be at opposition on what date and
time in August. So, I'm going to slow down for this one because there's some good door
prizes and people say we go too fast with the questions. They want time to look at it. So,
what asked, I mean, asteroid Vesta is going to be at opposition on what, date, and
time in August. Second
question, what's important about M31 dash V 1? So, what is
so important about that? And please send your answers to
Secretary at Astro League. org. Secretary at Astro League. org.
Third question, what supernova is the oldest recorded
supernova? And how long was it visible? So watch Supernova is
the oldest recorded supernova and how long was it visible? Please send your answers to
secretary at Astro League. org. and as I just mentioned, we're
all going to be at Alcon in Albuquerque, New Mexico for
Alcon, July 28th through the 30th. Please come and join us if you can. You're going to
find a lot of the people from the league there and hopefully, we'll meet some new friends too. So, for that, Scott, I'm
going to stop that session. Okay. Alright. And if it's okay
with you, I will just kind of continue right on to my next session. Perfect. as I can.
There we go. Now, you'll have to bear with me because for me,
when I read what what the theme was tonight, it was Seeing Beyond and you know, for me,
when I think of seeing Beyond, so many things came to my mind. I mean, we had heard some about
the James Webb's face telescope and that is so incredible. I really loved it. Um and then, I
thought back, you know, seeing Beyond means a whole lot of things to me and it mean, to me, when we see beyond, we
reach for possibilities. You know, everything that I think is amateur astronomers we do,
we all understand this but so many people in the general public when you're talking to
them, don't understand what astronomy can really be all about. What we can learn, how
it changes, and how exciting it gets, and how much there is an astronomical community, and we
all sit together, and we watch what NASA does, we watched the
Bounce on Mars or we've waited until we heard everything was okay. Think of the first time
you ever one of the Polo astronauts landed on the moon. Think of a space shuttle
launch. I mean there's so many things that are so incredible that happen in astronomy and in
amateur astronomy that we all enjoy so much. And every time we watch that we're reaching
for a new height. You know we're reaching for something new or something to explore
because I really do believe we are made as adventurers. You know we want to go on that
adventure. want to explore what's going on but we want to learn. It's a real learning
hobby. and so, you know, something kind of catches our
eyes sometimes and once it oops, sorry. Once it does, it kind of stays in your mind.
Walking up on a view like this. This was in the UP up in the
boundary waters. Yeah, Minnesota boundary waters. There was something so special about that sunset and it kind
of, it makes you begin to wonder. You know, I saw the reflection, the canoe sitting
there. I don't know. It just you in the mood for a night or discovery. You know, excitement
of what is ahead. Maybe I'll have a roar that night which I did. You know, it it catches
your eye and it really makes you think and then in that moment, I don't know about you but for me, it freezes time. I
look at that and I think about, wow, you know, why is this happening or or what can I see
here that normally people don't see? A lot of times, I think we as astronomers or amateur
astronomers we see that elusive light that so many people really don't understand. I love
elusive light and to me, that means, I see something because I take the time to take an
image or I take the time to really look deeply at something. I'm an observer. So,
I look and for that moment, I can freeze it in my mind and then, I'm going to go back and
I'm going to want to know the science. What made this happen? Why is this? Uh how did that
Aurora happen? Even better, how did that moving rock happen? Now, how can this be that this rock has moved? And there's a
path here. You know, or the Milky Way and some of the old ruins. To me, knowing the
science and learning about it is so much a part of our astronomy. Then, I want to
share it. You know, I've seen something incredible and it is fantastic. If one of you,
maybe, on a bucket list or you ever wondered about this, maybe you can go to some of these
places and look at the possibilities. So, I just came back from StarQuest where I was
a speaker at Greenbank and we had a great time there sharing stories and think that's what
Alcon will be like. We're going to be talking to so many people and sharing so many things that we have done and I
think that's one of the most incredible things about our astronomical community. I would not have known all of you guys
and so many more that I have that I do feel like I know without Global Star Party and
that's what's so important about Scott doing this. He is really built up the
astronomical community. And then we all reach for, you know, those possibilities.
Every time I go to Alaska, it's like, okay. Now, I need to be here. I don't care if it's 30
below. I gotta go out and I've got to see if that Aurora is
going to happen. And when you get a view that starts in like this, you're sitting behind a
camera. In this case, a video camera. I literally, once I adjusted things around, fell to
the ground, and watched this Aurora fire up. And just, just
to watch the motion, then all the questions come to mind, then all the science comes to mind. I like to understand, as
much as I can, of what is happening here, look at the speed it moves. Watch how fast
it fades out. Look at the detail, look at the structure. All of this goes in my mind, and I think that's is so great
about everything we do with astronomy because we get into so many fields, so many
different ways of looking at things. In our community understands this. But when you're doing public outreach,
it's a little bit tougher sometimes. Um, I get a lot of questions, you know, about why
and how's, and I'm sure you guys do too. So, it's something that, it just exercises the
mind. or like this, you know, we are explorers and it makes
you wonder. I was, this was in May when I was up at Carolyn's
Gathering for Carolyn Shoemaker. I had went to Canyon Lands and I could not believe
what I saw in Canyon Lands. I had never seen the air glow
like this and I was shooting the Milky Way. That's what I went after. I wanted, this is 16 segments that I have
stitched together and I wanted to get the Milky Way and I took the first shot and this green
cave up in here and I said, oh my gosh and as I stood there, can really see a white haze
kind of with this shot. But then all this air glow came out
and it was just you you stand there in awe. I did. I mean to me I've never seen anything
like this. And and yeah I've never seen it like that. I've
seen it in the sky and around. But I've never seen an arch like that just like the Milky
Way. Um so I I immediately just I stood I bet I was there for two hours just watching this
because it was so incredible. But again I think as observers,
we learn to see beyond. I, granted now, I did not see, I saw the Milky Way, but when I
took this image, I knew something else was there and then, your eyes begin to adjust
and you can see what is going on and it was amazing and again, that's what is so
amazing about this hobby. You never have time to be bored unless that's your choice, I
think. and then when I, this one, I
was giving a talk and I had used one of these slides as a background And at a kind of in
between, you know, some of the slides, somebody yelled out, where did you take that? And how did you do that? I had
never seen a zodiacal light before. This was an incredible again a night for me. I never
seen it and I remember looking at the person next to me and say, do you know what that is?
I was just blown away and you've got the northern Milky Way and the Northern Arch. So, it there is so much that we can
learn and so many questions. The times that I've worked with the scouts, they really,
they've not seen stuff like this. So, to see something like this, it makes them want want to learn. They're excited about
it. Why is that? And they like to go see it theirself. They're probably telling their parents where they want to go on vacation by now. But it's an
incredible thing to see. And I I'm sure everyone of you can stop and think about this. Now,
this is a Hubbleshop, granted, but I was eight years old. When my dad took me to a college
observatory. They had a nice refractor in that observatory. And I looked at Saturn. And I
remember looking at my dad saying it's hanging on velvet. And I was hooked. That's what
it took. You know a I took my first astrophoto shortly after that when I stole my dad's
camera. And went out and took a picture of the moon and he caught me. But this to me was
what it was all about. In my mind this is how I saw this as a child because it was so inky black behind it. And the rings
just glowed. And it got me wondering and wanting everything I did in school and
science fairs was always astronomy. And how about the
total eclipse? I don't know about you guys but wow, last year was stars twenty 17 was
great. I mean, and I'm, I love the diamond ring. That is something that always intrigue
me. Uh, but the questions, when people see this image or any image about, you know, a total
solar eclipse. The questions, the kids excitement, we're
gearing up around Ohio because the center line's going to go right over my house, but I'm not going to be here. I'm
going to be in Texas. I do believe. Um, and So, so many questions and that's great
because I think it really encourages the science and the science programs and the teachers and the kids and what
can be seen and I'm sure you guys can all all remember back to what you first saw that got
you excited about astronomy. Because it's it's a big thing. Or it was to me. But then I
started the adventure. I started seeing every Thursday night. I was at that
observatory that that college would had opened. Every Thursday night my dad would take me to learn the constellations to learn that I
could in that short time about astronomy. And it is a great adventure. And it doesn't
matter if you've got a telescope, microscope, camera, whatever it is. You use
whatever has drawn you to your hobby or your career. And you
learn so much and you share. And I think that's a big part of it. Learning to share. And
learning so much. Because my dad was a rock hound. So when Dave Eicher does his talks about the rocks, you know, I'm
sitting there because my dad made beautiful jewelry and he would go out right he'd go rock
handling and bring back tons of rocks. And I mean he would saw him up. Everything he did just
amazed me. So I think you know the adventure or the curiosity
that you feel. Or the passion that you feel. For what it is you do really reflects. Uh how
about the Mercury Transit? Can you find Mercury? Can you tell I had clouds? This was a Mercury transit from ah I don't
remember. The one before last. Here's Little Mercury right here behind the clouds. Um yeah
at least I got it a little bit. Or you know the belt of Venus. I mean all of this just the
first time I saw it. I like the clouds on it though. I think it it gives some drama to it. You know. It and it filters. It
helps filter a little bit. And you know and look at we have a sun spot at least. We had one
and I'm hoping we have a whole lot of sun spots for our twenty twenty-three annular and 2024
total. Uh I think that makes it a little bit more exciting. But I don't know the eclipse itself
is pretty exciting. Yeah. or whatever you do. Whether it's during the daytime, nighttime, or in between. If you're like
me, you're always searching the skies. And I gotta tell you, this year in Alaska was
incredible. I have never seen purples and blues like this. I
know the purples and blues will come out in around sunset, sunrise. That's when they're
more prevalent. But this is beautiful and this is light polluted Fairbanks right here
underneath it. But the I just fell in love with the purples and the blues. I got so excited
shooting the stills. I had to video camera but I didn't even start it up because I was running everywhere with my
camera trying to get different shots. And you know, the more
you see, the more you want to know. Or at least that's the way it is with me. And the deeper you go into the sky, the
more you learn. Um, I remember, yeah, I was standing here taking this shot. And a dad and
his daughter walked up beside me. And they're both looking at me and I just smiled and said,
hi. And she pointed for her dad's coat and says, what's she doing? And he said, she's
taking a picture. And she said, doesn't she know? It does, it sleeps at night. He had no idea
that it would still do its eruption during the night. And I I just laughed. You know he
looked at me and shook his head. And he explained how that geyser worked. And it was just
amazing. Just you know out of the mouth of babes. And you'll hear that so many times. Kids
come up with the most amazing questions. And you know hey. It
keeps going. Every day. We learn more. We reach farther. We see beyond. Every day. And
this in December, I went to Death Valley National Park. Never been there before. It was
kind of on my bucket list. I love the desert and that was one of the most incredible
places I'd ever been to. Just as you saw the race track, the moving rocks on the racetrack.
Scott, remember the Global Star Party I was on when I said, Scott, I spent Saturday night at the racetrack. Yeah, yeah,
yeah. You better join that. Gosh. Hopefully, not gambling,
right? Yeah, not gambling, watching the rocks. Yeah. So, yeah. I spent a night out at the racetrack energy but it was
beautiful and the first time I saw the green flesh. Um that's where I I was lucky enough to
catch it. Just the little green flash of it. But people that have never seen that are
amazed. That you can see something like that. Mm. You know they didn't even know it
would exist. And you never know what you're going to get. I took this picture. To me I see
the Indian. I see the headdress. I see the eyes, the nose, the mouth. And I call him
the north wind because it's like he's blowing the north wind to the north. and what you
see down here is huge. So, you get an idea of scale. This is ski land. If you're ever familiar with Flary Summit and
Ski Land. This is Ski Land and you know, when you take the picture of the Aurora is moving so fast, you have no idea what
shape you might see in it and this was one of the shapes that just jumped out at me. And I
gotta admit, I love a good storm. I I you know, I've got respect for mother nature. But
again, I think it's, maybe it's just the sky, maybe it's nature in general. Something draws me
to all of this. And so, you know, you never know what interest you will find but when
you find it, you're going to know it and this, Stephen's
Quintet. I remember the first time I saw it but Kareem, when you brought this up and started
talking about it, you know, you just feel your insides going, holy cow, we have, we have
reached another, another hurdle, and we're going farther, and we're seeing so much beyond, and it is just so
incredible. So, I would just like to say thank you for letting me be part of this, and
thank you for bringing the league into this, Scott. that we see all of you every week,
different ones of us are here. But this adventure is amazing. And I think we're all enjoying
being on it. And I would just like to say thank you for allowing me to be part. We are
very very thankful that you are participating in the way that
you do. I'm really I'm pumped right now. I'm I'm ready to go. I want to Forget this. I'm
going to go outside and look at the sun or something. Actually, so. That was just incredible. It was like, it was, it was
breathtaking. Well, the the story and the way woke together all of those images. Ah. I
gotta go. I gotta go at roar hunting with you. This is now my bucket list. Hey, yeah. Yes,
definitely. I'd love to. You guys have got some good aurora up there. I need to come up your way. Well, Lou just
brought to my attention that the KP number is really nice and high tonight and I'm looking out and I'm seeing
clouds. I'm like, no. I Yeah, that's the one thing I think all of us have set around a
campfire or set outside looking at clouds waiting to observe going, oh man, you know, bring on the s'mores, get order a
pizza, do something. Yeah, but yeah, I, the Aurora is something that's always attracted me, but I really, I
think like a lot of the sciences, that, yeah, I definitely want to head to
Canada sometime. Anytime, you're welcome. Thank you. I'll take time off for work, we'll
go out. Yeah and I'll probably be with you both. Terry. That's
on my bucket list too. Um I love the way, I
someone who does that sort of imaging myself. Um I think the one thing when you said point it, point the camera north and
take a picture because you never know what you're going to get. Yeah. The I have an Aurora
picture from that. I pointed it, didn't see anything, was getting bit by mosquitoes. I
was there to shoot the Milky Way and I said, why not? And the Aurora showed up. So, you
know, thank you. That presentation reminds me why I love to do it and when you're
out there immersed in the sky, you're just bringing some of it home with you to to remember it and and you want to go out and
do it again. Always. Always ready to go do this again. Yeah. It's great. Yeah. Thank
you Terry. Thank you. Okay. Well, so we are going to
transition here. Our next speaker, Terry, again, thanks so much for getting us so
pumped up here. Sure It was awesome. Uh our next speaker is
Lou Mayo. He is a professor of astronomy at Marymount University Uh I have met Lou at
various events. I think maybe the first time I met Lou was at
an astronomical league convention. Uh and and I think it was in possibly Saint Louis,
Missouri. Seems seems to. That's right. Yeah. Is that right so. Yeah. Yeah. And so
but I I had a question for you Lou. I I saw someone, I mean,
of course, I can only see in the back but you know, when Joe Biden was presenting the first
image of the James West space telescope, I saw someone taking pictures and I go, is that Lou
Mayo? In the corner taking pictures? Uh. Not you. Uh no.
No. You have a doppelganger. Okay. So, anyways, but being a
yeah, I think that some of that was shot from live from Goddard. Um not still not sure
of even that but but wow, what an amazing time and it it
definitely I was thinking of about I was thinking that you were there. So, maybe you were
in spirit. Oh, in spirit, yes. Yes. Definitely in spirit. Great. Well, that's a beautiful image that you have behind you.
Uh Lou and thanks for coming on to the 100th Global Star Party.
Uh it's really wonderful. So, thanks so much. You bet Scott. Yup. Well, let's see. Um let me
share my screen here
Okay and Terry, I wanted to tell you those pictures of Aurora were stunning,
absolutely stunning. Yeah. And reminded me of my trip, I think, gosh, 10 years ago,
Tibero, Alaska for first Polar Sunrise. We got a van. It was
30 degrees degrees below. Just like you quoted, Terry. And we went out looking for polar
bears at night. Where you scan the Arctic Ocean, the frozen Arctic Ocean with a search
light for the reflectivity in their eyes. We didn't see any polar bears but we saw the most
incredible Aurora. So, I got to check that off my bucket list.
today, I'm going to talk to you all about our favorite topic of mine and that is Titan,
Saturn's Moon Titan. I've spent a good portion of my life studying Titan from spacecraft
observations and I found it to be the most interesting place in this solar system. Uh
perhaps beyond Earth. Titan doesn't get much attention. Uh
as some of the other planets do. Saturn has its rings. Jupiter is the largest. Venus
is the closest. In fact, Venus is often called our sister planet, right? It comes the
closest to Earth. It's 95% the size of Earth. It has a an
atmosphere like Earth does. But I I'm going to try to make a case today. That Titans should
be our sister planet and that the potential for finding life can to kind of tie all this
together on Titan is is is significant. Uh which is we have some new missions planned
to go there. So Uh here's a beautiful image from Cassini
from the the imager of Titan. They caught it just on the edge
on view of Saturn's rings. You can see the shadow of the rings on the cloudtops of Saturn. And
you can see Titan and even kind of get a sense of its little bit of its orangeish hue. Which
is due to the photochemistry. Uh it's kind of long chain polymers, smog, that in that
envelops the entire moon.
with a sense of you know size. Uh Titan is actually bigger than than mercury. If it wasn't
orbiting Saturn, it would definitely be a planet. Uh it has an atmosphere. a nitrogen
atmosphere, primarily nitrogen. It has a tropical pause where the temperature turns over just
like on earth. It has seasons. It has rain. It has clouds. It has lakes. It has rivers. It
even has what we will call today prebiotic chemistry. So,
it is an incredible place. Um
little over a billion kilometers from the sun but you know, who's counting that? Um
and I think it would be widely acknowledged as Earth's sister
Planet for all the reasons I just gave. Except that The surface temperature is about 94
Kelvin. Day in day out. Not much variability between the
equator and pole because it's atmosphere is so thick and extensive that surface pressure
is 50%. Larger than Earth's. It is the only moon in the solar system with substantial
atmosphere. So it's really quite an amazing place.
So amazing that we've set a number of spacecraft and have some planned. Um to go to
Titan. Uh it's been known since I think the 1940s. Uh Gerard
Kuiper discovered methane in the Spectra of Titans. So we knew that there was methane in
the atmosphere which can often be a biomarker. Uh
And so Pioneer 11 to Saturn took some initial images of of
Titan. Uh the two Voyager Spacecraft took images of Titan
and in fact Titan was such a high priority item for the Voyager Mission. That Voyager
One was redirected to fly as close as it could to Titan to get very high spatial
resolution images. Uh which which meant that it couldn't go onto your innocent Neptune. But
it got some of the most incredible high resolution images that were only
superseded. Uh 20 years later by Cassini. And of course Cassini with its Hogan's probe.
Uh Bill the Europeans that parachuted down onto the
surface of Titan which I can't even fathom how you would how you would thread that needle
over a billion kilometers away and they pinpointed the landing. So, from those
missions, here's a little bit of an idea of what we got. A Pioneer 11 had a fairly fuzzy
image of Titan. Remember, we're not seeing the surface here. The surface is clouded
invisible wavelengths. Uh from us, by an atmosphereic haze
that is built up through the photochemistry, the photo disassociation of nitrogen and
methane in the upper atmosphere and so we don't see the surface
there. HST, if you're the wide field planetary camera, took images
of Titan. I remember the, I remember the age before we, before Cassini, where nobody
had seen a very good image of the surface of Titan. Um, but
we figured out that in the one to two micron range, in the
infrared, there are four methane windows. Where the methane absorption is, is
minimal, and you can actually C to the surface of Titan and
that is the case with the Cassini Vims instrument, visual and infrared mapping
spectrometer in down below in the middle and there we are seeing through one of those
methane windows to the surface and what we're seeing are lakes, in the dark dark
regions, probably a methane cloud in the lower left there.
I remember when we didn't know if there were metting clouds and we were having a debate at Cornell University. When Bob
Samuelson and I were making our presentation and Carl Sagan and
his team are making their presentation and a group from Canada who his name escaped me now and we were kind of arguing
over methane clouds, methane super saturation, and of course, now we know the answers
to all of this. Um in the lower we see a Hoygan's image from their downward pointing imager
as it parachuted to the surface of Titan. In this image we see, well, we call the we we used to
call them fluvial channels. I think we can call them rivers now. Um clear evidence of that.
Uh the the darkish area on the bottom of the image. Um covers about half of the three images
that are stitched together there. That's that's a hydrocarbon lake. We now know that's hydrocarbons and the
whitish we see over the lake are in fact methane clouds. Um
going right up from there back to Voyager, you notice that the top portion of that image is
different than the bottom portion. The top portion is darker than the bottom portion, right? Northern Hemisphere is
darker in that image than the Southern Hemisphere. That is
not a sun angle effect. That is real. Um on on Jupiter, we see
Hadley Hadley sells circulation centers from equator to pole which result in the beautiful
banded structure of Jupiter. On Earth we have three badly cells from equator to pole because
our rotation rate is some of it's lower than Jupiter's. Titan's rotation rate is very slow and so depending on the
season you have half of the Titan here. You have simple
transport of material from the Southern Hemisphere to the north and back again. So it's a
fascinating object.
Well, here is the closest up image we have of Titan at this
point. This was taken by the Hoygans Outlander as it
parachuted to the ground. You saw an image from above the surface just a few moments ago.
This is now on the ground looking at the surface of Titan and we anticipated that because
we understood the we we had been able to model the atmosphere before Cassini and
we understood that it was raining on Titan at the hydrocarbons and the nitrials
were precipi out and probably making it to the ground. And so
the Hoygans probe was designed so that it could float. If it
landed in a hydrocarbon lake. Or it could survive on the ground. On the bottom of the
probe, there was a spring and as the probe landed, that
spring compressed. And if it hadn't compressed any, we would say, okay, it's in liquid. If
it had compressed hard and complete, and rapidly, we'd say, okay, it landed on a very
solid surface. Turns out it had it landed in something a lot of marshy surface. And what you're
seeing in this image here, you can see some of the flatter areas, that Our liquid on the
surface and some of these rocks here which we believe are a water ice frozen solid.
Remember the surface. 95 Kelvin. Uh so water is not flowing on the surface. Covered
with folens. Covered with with prebiotic material. Nitrials and hydrocarbons that have the
potential as the building blocks of life.
So, I think the thing that makes Titan most interesting is its atmosphere. It is a soup.
It is a soup of prebiotic chemicals. Some of them that,
in fact we know, are building blocks of life such as hydrogen, cyanide. But we and
we have a nitrogen chemistry. Remember, this is ultraviolet
light, striking nitrogen, and striking methane and forming new chemicals that are that
form new chemicals that form new chemicals and so on. So, we have methane. We have
acetylene. We have hydrogen cyanide. We have diceyano acetylene. I mean, the most incredible soup of chemicals
and that is one of the things that you need to form life, right? You need heat. You we we
believe you need water and you need chemistry. So, Titan certainly fits the bill with
the chemistry. Here's a model of the
atmosphere of Titan that we had made H new coming in on the top
there. That's just ultraviolet light. providing the energy for
auto disassociation of nitrogen and methane. You see methane
and ethane, C two H 6, ethane being formed, methane clouds in
the troposphere, and then rain and some sort of of acquisition
of the of this hydrocarbon rain on the surface. The methane then, by the way, evaporates
back up to create clouds and so there's a methane cycle on Titan as opposed to a water
cycle that we have on earth. So, I mentioned water Uh when
we fly by Titan, we can watch how our spacecraft trajectory
is changed and that tells us about the bulk density of Titan
of anybody that that that you fly by. And so it turns out that the bulk density of Titan
is less than two grams per cubic centimeter. And what that means is that there's an awful
lot of water either water, ice, or liquid water on that planet. Earth's earth way. This is a
fairly rocky planet. Has a mean density of about five and a
half grams per cubic centimeter. So, Titan is less rocky with more water and the
models that we have suggest that somewhere below the surface, it is quite likely that there's a liquid ocean.
Perhaps, it is liquid water mixed with hydrocarbons. Perhaps at some point is is
just liquid water but there is a possibility. There is a possibility that life exists
below the surface in in aquifers on Titan. Which I
think just adds to the you know the interest in this amazing
body. Absolutely. Well why am I talking about Voyager and
Cassini? My goodness the the entire world is a buzz with James Webb's face telescope. Um
and what we generally think of James Webb as is a an instrument that's going to show
us the beginning of the universe. A very very soon after beginning of the universe. The first galaxies
that have formed and how galaxy evolution happened and what is dark matter and all of these
big big questions. But in fact there are scientific objectives
for James Webb in our own solar system. Uh we recently saw I think it was an engineering
instrument that took a picture of Jupiter in the what was it? Maybe two to three micron
range. So what about Titan? And it turns out that here are the
four instruments that James Webb will use. Uh near cam
camera which also has a spectroscopy capabilities. The near spec, near near infrared
spectrometer and a mid infrared spectrometer and then the and the engineering or or or
navigation camera. And if you looked at the graph down below
here, you can see each one of these little squares is a pixel
on the on James Webb and so we can get at least eight depending upon how you define
the surface, maybe 10 or so pixels across the disc of Titan. Which means we are going
to have spatient resolution. Uh Titan moves less than six milliarc seconds per second
across the sky. Webkin slew at 30 milliarc seconds per second.
So, no problem there. With a pointing stability of point 05
arc seconds and Titan's diameter is point seven arc seconds. And so we can get some
very nice data from James Webb. Looking at Titan and I'm so
excited to see some of the first images and Spectra. Uh to see what James Webb can do. I I
don't know when that's going to occur. I haven't heard about tart Titan being targeted yet but I I know that that will be
in the in the solar system package.
Well, looking a little further into the future, Dragonfly, the Johns Hopkins University
Applied Physics Laboratory, won the contract to send Dragonfly to Titan. This is a drone that
they're going to land on the surface of Titan. That's cool. They'll use parachutes here.
Remember, the atmosphere of Titan is very thick. It's not only denser at the surface, it's much more extended than
Earth's atmosphere. So, parachutes make a lot of sense and once you get to the surface there, this drone will actually
fly around and sample the atmosphere, fly to different places, sample the surface, be
able to sample some of the liquid hydrocarbons on the surface, give us a lot more information about that.
Dragonfly is going to launch in 2007 and it's going to take
about seven years, cruise, cruise phase until it reaches
Titan in twenty thirty-four. So, we have to be patient but that's going to be an exciting
time.
And finally, I just want to make the point that even though Titan is very cold right now with with an atmospheric haze that obscures the surface and
obscures a lot of the sunlight. It does a little bit of sunlight that does reach the surface. Um at some point, in
the not too distant future, well, 6 billion years from now. Uh our son will become a red
giant after it uses up all of its hydrogen fuel and and has started helium to carbon in its
core. and as it does that, it will expand. You, I'm sure many of you all know this and engulf
the the orbits of Mercury, Venus, Earth, and possibly
Mars. So, it's going to be a bad day for us but the ultraviolet flux from the sun
will will drop significantly which means the atmosphere of
Titan will will clear up. The sun will be much larger pumping out photons a much larger
surface area. Hm. Means that it's going to be much warmer in the outer solar system. And I'm
thinking and here's a this is a paper by Ralph Lorenz Jonathan
Lunin, and Chris McKay back in 1997. Titan under a red giant son perhaps. All of that frozen
water on Titan will become liquid water. At that time, the
hydrocarbons and nitrials which exist can exist in liquid form
on under the cold temperatures we have now. They will go back into the atmosphere and maybe oceanfront property is where
you want to be on Titan in 6 billion years. If you're interested in seeing after the
talk, So in summary, I thought
I had a here we go. Okay. Earth
has poles and polar processes, right? Seasons, lakes, rivers, lots of water, clouds and
precipitation, smog, and biotic chemistry.
Titan has polls and polar processes. Uh in fact, you can see on this image here, it's
slightly darker at about the about about the one o'clock position. That's called the
North Polar Hood on Titan. Um it has seasons, lakes, rivers, lots of water, clouds of
precipitation, smog, biotic and parenthesis, perhaps prebiotic chemistry. So, I think I can I
think I hope I've made the case that Titan is not only a fascinating world with
real opportunities to find life, at least, microbial life,
and as, and as a better sister planet for Earth, then, Venus, then I'll stop there.
Absolutely. Yeah, it sounds like it's the logical next next
great leap, you know, for us. Titan, Ropa, Mars, very
high-ticket items which is why we're NASA is spending millions
of your tax dollars to go there. Right. I'm trying to figure out how I can't I can't
plan a vacation in two weeks and Lou is planning a vacation in several billion years.
Trying to think ahead. You know, that's right. Lou, thank, thank goodness, there's people
like you who are thinking ahead, and you know, I think that, a a life search mission
to tighten is is certainly where I would spend some of my tax dollars if I could just choose where it goes. So,
Scott, I, Scott, I forgot to say I'm very much looking forward. I've I've got a a an
observer to a backyard observatory. It's going to be delivered in a month or so. Oh, great. I'm very much looking
forward to putting my five-inch Explore Scientific EDL preload account. Thank you. Well, look
at the sky. That's awesome. That's awesome. Well, thank you. I hope to see a photo of
it soon. So, that that's great. I think that every telescope deserves its own home. It's a
little observatory whether it's your, you know, your balcony or if you are lucky enough to have
a backyard where you can build something you know, definitely makes all astronomers much more
productive because the scopes are ready to go. You know, so, right? That's that's the whole idea. Go out, push a button,
and observe the universe and away it goes. Lou, thanks again. Thanks for coming on once again to Global our party.
My pleasure, Scott. Alright. Okay. So, we are going to
transition to professor Karim Jaffer from John Abbott College
and the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada Montreal Center. Um I do not know how
many Global Star Parties you've been on. I should probably start keeping track. I'm over 40 now. Over 40. Wow. Okay.
That's that's great. That's great. So, that's that's quite I would say that you're definitely more than a regular
at this point. So, but I am turning it over to you and
thanks for coming on to the 100th Global Star Party. Thanks, Scott. It's a pleasure
to be here and as usual, I'm going to try to stick to something close to the theme
but I'm going to start off with a few little bits that I wanted to chat about. Uh I'm really happy to be here to celebrate
the 100th Uh wow. It it's been it's been quite the journey and I'm going to talk a little bit
about the journey and a little bit about few of the activities going on but I do want to start with a
land and sky acknowledgement. Uh we haven't had one yet today so I wanted to take a few moments to mention that here from Montreal I'm on unseated
lands from the traditional territories of the Mohawk and the Algonquin peoples. And most of the GSP audience has heard
me in the past talk about some of these two I'd seen stories from indigenous peoples. And
right now we are in the waning part of the Thunder Moon. And I know in a lot of parts of the
Northern Hemisphere here in the Western world. We are craving that thunder. We need it right
now to give us some respite from the heatwave that we've got in. But we are at the waning gibbous. This is a
picture from Roger Hyman from Space Oddities from yesterday in the UK. And we are at the
third quarter moon tomorrow. And so it's a wonderful moon to watch but it also gives us the
dark skies early in the evening. The other thing for us to keep an eye out for of course is the sun. And Roger
the sun yesterday and the reason why I want to share this with you is to share with you some awesome news that I've
been putting on Facebook which is that my son Ilyas, is currently at Mount Wilson Observatory. He was one of the
nine students chosen for the SOR program, the Summer Observational Astrophysics
Retreat and yesterday, he sent me his first observation which was from the Snow Solar
telescope of the SunSpot and they match so well with a slightly rotated version of what Roger had posted earlier
in the day. So I was just really happy to see that that he was starting to do that type of observational note taking
and he wrote to me last night saying that he finally understands RA index. I asked him to explain it to me when he
gets back. Um but it's a lot of fun to hear these experiences
that youth get to have. And we got to do a lot of that over these last couple of days. Uh Adrian gave us a talk this past
Saturday and several of my students actually watched the YouTube afterwards. sent me questions about wide field
astrophotography and one of them has already gone into the college today and borrowed a DSLR camera for a week so that
they can go out and try a few exposures in a few different time settings without a tracker
but just to see what they can get when they go out to dark skies and that's the type of thing we really love to see and
these last few days, one of the big things that we've been doing here in Canada is we've been supporting Shad Canada
with outreach from the RASC. So, the McGill campus of Shad
Canada opened up in 2018 and our Montreal Centre has been supporting them since day one
with one type of an observational outing with some informational presentations at the start of the evening. Now,
we got out on the field and we set up telescopes and unfortunately, the clouds won
but towards the end of the night, just as they were heading back to the bus, they got to see the ISS pass over
top. They got to see the summer triangle they got to see a little bit of the big dipper and then the waning oh almost
full moon rose just as their bus was leaving the campus. And last night I was reached out by
Shad New Brunswick where they had a speaker cancel and they asked if I could do a talk on
indigenous astronomy. So I did a two eyed scene talk for them. And it was a lot of fun to hear
a little bit of the perspective from the students. But one of the things that we talked about was the role of light pollution
in limiting what we can see of the night sky. And I was I I was enjoying to day. I got an
email from the organizer there, Ian, that on their walk back to the campus, a lot of the students were looking at the
lights on campus and analyzing which ones were friendly to the observing of the night sky and
to the migration of birds and which ones were not. And so it really does start to show you
the impact that our outreach can have. And a lot of that outreach that we've been able to do has come from these
global star parties. Now my own history with the Global Star Party started in December 2020
when I helped my daughter put together her presentation. Thought I gave a presentation on observing the conjunction
from home and she talked a little bit about using her telescope in the driveway, what she would see, and Jenna had
recruited her as a youth speaker and since then, I've kind of been really enamored
with this this venue of reaching out to a global audience and when I pitched the
International Astronomy Day for GSP 4-five, Scott was absolutely gung ho and even
kind of gave the reins to myself and Russell to just go with it and we ended up with this amazing eight-hour
program. Wow. That was just wonderful. It it really just, I mean, it it let us showcase a
little bit of what makes the Montreal Centre special but it also led us bring in people
from all over the world and even meet so many new friends in the GSP regulars. We
followed that up. I stayed online from then and I've I've stayed a regular participant but as a center, we also hosted
the 45degree Star Party with Eden in New Zealand And we had such a wonderful time sharing
the 45 degree north and the 45degree south. Uh skies. But
at the same time the youth movement was really taking off in the GSP s as well. We had so
many youth presenters coming in. Tara came back on to do the creation station presentation.
And then herself along with Nico lina along with Bella and Nathan. They started the cosmic
generation. Which now has the support of the RASC of the Astronomical and especially of
Explore Scientific and the Explore Alliance and so when the next Skies Up Issue comes out, you're going to see an
entire section by the cosmic generation and so, I love seeing that type of a connection with the Global Star
Parties and as Terry mentioned, last week in the Global Star Parties, I talked about these
first five images from the James Webb and we talked a little bit about the science of them and I know in the second
section tonight, there's going to be a little bit more on a couple of these target and I'm looking forward as an
observer, as a viewer to watching those. But the thing that really struck me is what
came out the next day. Tuesday, they presented these five pictures. On Wednesday morning,
they shared infrared images of Jupiter. And when they shared the infrared images of Jupiter,
there were a couple things that really stuck out to me. The first was, how bright Europa was with its reflection of the
heat, of the light, using that ice surface. And not greatness
is really kind of counterimposed by the shadow of Europa being visible there
beside the great red spot. And then you can see those rings and those really thin rings around Jupiter are really
visible in this mid and in this mid infrared. Mid to low infrared. But this brought back
a memory. And it's a memory that's rather timely. And I'm a little bit sad that David had to log off right now but I know
he'll be on later. So I'm hoping we can talk to him about this in the next section because it remind in me that
we've seen Jupiter in the infrared before including the rings from the infrared
telescope facility from Mauna Kea. But we also saw Jupiter in
infrared when Shoemaker Levi 9 hit. And we saw the infrared heat signatures of those
collisions of the many pieces of Shoemaker Levy nine hitting Jupiter. And that reminded me
that we are at the 28th anniversary of Shoemaker Levy nine. It struck starting on
July 16th, all the way through to the 22nd. So, right now, we
are right in the window of that anniversary. We're not going to have another Global Star Party until afterwards. So, I just
wanted to remind people that not only did we get to watch from the Comet Discovery to the
understanding that the Comet had broken up during its previous pass by Jupiter and
then the realization that the trajectory of the comet was going to bring it back to collide with Jupiter the
following but we were able to then watch the impacts from
Earth even on the night side of Jupiter and using Hubble we could identify the plumes as
they happen and then follow them over months as the actual motion of the clouds and the
storms on Jupiter caused those plumes to dissipate and stretch out This was incredible. This
was one of the first examples to me of just how incredibly it was to look at dynamic behavior
with these space telescope s. So, what I want to talk to you a little bit about today is
this idea, oh sorry, I also wanted to remind everyone that we did we'd lost Jean Shoemaker
before but we lost Carolyn Shoemaker this year and I was remembered because I'm going to
Stellophane this year that up until the early 2thousands, the three of them were staples at
Stellafane sharing their love of astronomy with all of the not just the telescope makers
but also the families and the enthusiasts that would come out there. Uh so what I wanted to mention to you is realizing
what Hubble allows us to do in real time. And now with James Webb up there and all the
attention that it's been getting. I wanted to talk about seeing Beyond but look at it in
terms of seeing beyond what we can see here on earth. But then also the importance of using
your own instrumentation and your own naked eyes here on earth. So I thought I'd start with what my devices are, how I
do astronomy here at John Abbott College and in my driveway. And I have a couple
of dobs that I use, both a tabletop as well as a base stop, a nice truss one, that's a 10 inch mirror, and then at
home I have an eight inch and a 6 inch. I have a Nexstar that I can use including for solar
photography like we did for the 2017 partial eclipse. And then I have access to a Coronado. I have a DSLR camera, and I have
binoculars. And bringing all of those things together, I just get out there and enjoy a
little bit of what makes the night sky special. And one of the things I love sharing with students is just watching. The
moons of Jupiter and Jupiter itself over the span of a few minutes or a few hours. Or an
entire night. And watch that orientation of the different moons and see it change over
time. and then, when you start to access larger and better
devices and the institutional knowledge of some of the amateur astronomers who've been
doing this for a long period of time, you get better and better at it. When Mars was in opposition using our telescope
there, we were able to actually get this view of Mars where you can see structure on the
surface of Mars over a long period of time and we can do that for Saturn and we can pull
out the actual gaps in the rings. We can pull out stripes on the surface and we can watch
it and stabilize it, learn image processing techniques to get a nice picture out of this. And this is one of the things
that I love being able to share with the students. That even though it's a small target. And
even when you're tracking that small target just because of the wind, the vibrations on the ground. It will move around in
your field of view. There's processing software that can pick out the best frames to use
to try to get an image out of this. But it's also just fun to watch and to look at them.
Whether it's to the eyepiece or whether it's through electron assisted astronomy
So you teach them image processing and you learn a little bit of the techniques you can use and the different
instrumentation you can use and then if you want to go one step further you start to use robotic telescopes. And the
RASC has for us in a robotic telescope that our classrooms can use that's based out of
California. And I've shared with the GSP audience before the wonder and the students
when they take that single image and they process the photons and they pull out all the nebulosity. All the even if
they blow out the trapezium, they still see such a spread for the Orion Nebula and other
targets and seeing their wonder when they start to realize that you can process these same
photons in different ways to pull out different features And then they get access to some of
the wonderful data that's available. And you can see these students start to shine and pull out just what they're
looking for. And that's one of the things we were able to do this year with astrophotography technique in our posters that
the students presented at the RASC General Assembly. And then you can start to do science.
You can take images of stars and measure the the photo metric data. And determine the
transit of exoplanets. You can also reach out into Solar System probes and using those
solar system probes you can identify not just the cloud structures on Jupiter but also
zoom in on single storms. You can use other probes and start to examine other objects like
Mars or Saturn or even Pluto using the new horizons mission data. So you can really start to see beyond the limitations
of what you couldn't otherwise capture with a small telescope in your driveway. And then this
year I've been able to go into the National Schools Observatory as well as the LCO
and I've been able to reach out to telescopes all across the world which enables my students
to even look at Southern Hemisphere targets which Otherwise, you know, we only get to see on the GSPs when
Cesar comes on or when Nico shares or Maxi shares or Machalo shares and we get to see their processing of this
data. Now, my students get to access those files and image them and process them themselves and finally, this
year, I got to do a project to use satellite data and really look down at the Earth and see
the Earth in a whole other light. So, this is the Gaspey Peninsula where my family and I actually vacation last year for
a couple of nights. And we made it all the way out to the coast out here. This is per se rock and it's just incredibly
gorgeous to go out and look. But then you get to see the topography and you get to see soil or moisture levels. You
get to see vegetation and all of that. And you get to see all of that through the lens of
these different satellites orbiting the Earth. That is so cool. Now bring all of that together to seeing beyond. And
you Ask the students, what's your takeaway? And for a lot of them, it's still those moments.
Showing the equipment and talking about the moon and sharing it with people. Setting up a single telescope yourself,
just borrowing it, taking it to a community center, setting it up, and you have people coming out in suits after a wedding
and showing them the moon, showing them Jupiter and Saturn, and seeing the kids
line up, jaws dropped, ignoring the ice cream in their hands because getting to see
something wonderful. And then setting up in the parks with other astronomers and sharing
with an entire community. Or even just setting up on your own driveway. And looking at
the moon yourself. And just taking a moment to enjoy astronomy and seeing. Beyond
what your naked eye can see. Mm. And that's what really for me the GSP s is sharing this
type of feeling. This type of experience and this type of of images that we get to see with
the world when you can't be with them in a park together. We do it virtually online. And
this is what the students walk away with. That moment under the sky with a telescope
knowing that there's so much out there to see and experience. So from behalf of the Montreal Centre I want to
thank you for 100 awesome Global Star Parties and I hope we'll have more than 100 more
Scott. Yeah. Well thank you. So, I'm looking forward to getting to our 200th Global
Star Party as well. So, we will
transition to Charles Ennis,
Charles, do I have this right? He is the current president of the RASC. Yes, he's a long-time
board member. He was vice president for the last couple of years and this year at the just after the General
Assembly, he was voted in his president of our board. Oh, wonderful he is apparently an
author of like over twenty books. Is that correct? I'll let Charles speak to that, Charles. Okay. Alright.
Charles, we're going to let you come on and but thank you for
coming on board and talking to us. Um here on the 100th Global
Star Party. And Charles, I just briefly want to say I've enjoyed being a part of the
Rask since I joined maybe a few seconds ago I think. You know, it was a boss or two and
already hitting the ground running, giving talks. So, Awesome. It's it's been
enjoyable just to be a part of the Rask and I recommend it for anyone who can join whether
you're from the States or Canada. Glad that you're with us to to share that with everybody and I'd like to thank
everybody for the opportunity to be here tonight and I also
want to congratulate you all on the hundred TSP. What an amazing accomplishment. Uh. Thank you. Along with all the members RASC, we wish you the
best a fortune with the next 100. It's it's very exciting.
Thank you very much. I have been asked tonight to speak specifically by by Karima about
something that we are doing at the RASC NL. I want to share this. With you.
Come on. trying to get this thing to
cooperate. Here we go. Okay. So, it's a project of the
inclusivity and diversity committee and it's the World Asterisms Project which we started just a little over a year ago and I want to start
first by gratefully acknowledging that I observed and live on the Unseated Lands
of the Seashell First Nation. So, what we've done is we've gone out there to look at all
this guy cultures of the world. How many so far, 400? And how many asterisks have we
collected in the last year with the help of Ethno astronomers all over the world and various other astronomers out there?
9thousand 39, including 311 of the Milky Way. And this is about whatever is down here is
mirrored in the sky. This is a great picture by enigma artist Gerald Glode. And it's about
perspectives. It's about showing people that there's ancient science out there and it's about inspiration. And
we're using the concept of two eyed seeing that was created by Mi'kmaq elder Albert Marshall back in two thousand four.
Which is all about sharing the perspectives of the two cultures. It's a reconciliation
progress. process that Halifax that are used with enigma and we're using it in our project.
This isn't just about stick figures in the sky, some early civilizations did create these
kinds of asterisms. But it isn't just stick figures. It's about single star asterisms in
Africa. That's a very common thing where you have each star as a character and a group of stars as an asterism. You've
got you know characters all over the sky who are involved in the story. It's about dark
asterisms which is very common for cultures in the southern hemisphere. you have them
looking into the Milky Way and looking towards the middle of the galaxy instead of out of it like we are in the Northern
Hemisphere and you see all of these dust clouds which become various different things in the sky. And so basically now it's
live on the World Astraisms page of the World Astronomical Society is a handbook with all
of those asterisms in it with descriptions of the cultures and the stars involved. It is lists including a PDF and an
Excel spreadsheet which gives you the precise location and notes for finding it yourself. Along with that wisdom names in
a lovely way. And it is a culture's resource list that lists all of the cultures,
tells you where they are from and then list all of the written and online and other
resources you can use to learn more about those cultures. That's the link or you can just go to the RASC website, search
box for the World Asterisms Project Enter And it'll take you to list free download. If
you're a researcher, get a hold of me because we have a Google
Drive where we share this stuff live, where we can work on this project Together. And this is a
living project because we are constantly making partnerships with First Nations and other
groups to help them recover their skies. And the the process of naming Skies is is
ongoing. People are still naming stuff up there. This is what my inbox looks like just about now. And if you haven't
asked person you like to share it. So since I started this project I've had a number of people get a hold of me. Say well you know I was I found
disastrous and would you be interested? Absolutely yes. Because it's all this whole big
list of telescopic asterisks. It's about 5% of the project.
From organizations like the Astronomical League, we're we're grateful for them sharing their stuff but people all over
the world sharing their views of this guy and if you'd like to be on that list, we'd like
to put you there. So, if you want to contact us, World Aster Business Project at RASC and
that's my Email there and I'm just going to stop there.
This has been a very exciting year for for a whole lot of reasons for the RASC. I I like to you know think that we're
we're doing everything that we can to try to get as many people out there involved no
matter what their their situation is. And this is this project that is mentioned is about celebrating the cultures of the world. And inviting
people to to be part of it. And this year's board the RASC is
the most diverse in all ways that we've ever had. And so we're we're very excited about the direction that we're going
and we're looking forward to to working with any of you out there that would like to work with us on projects like this.
Wonderful. Fantastic. Fantastic. How many members does the RASC have at this
time? We have about 5430 centers right now spreading across Canada. And
we're all very active with our with our outreach. Many of our centres have observatories. My
centre is the Sunshine Coast which is on the west coast of British Columbia. But we're
we're we're spread from coast to coast and Karim mentioned our robotic telescope earlier
which we have down in California which allows people all over to view the skies work
actively working on getting some more as well because you know we've got a lot of people
lining up for the ISU camera. But we're we're very, very excited about the direction
we're going. We have a new donor telescope museum that's going to be opening in the next year which features optics from
Canadian observers. Alright. And we've got all kinds of
publications that that will make it easy for amateur
astronomers to view this guy like our observer's handbook which which sells thousands of
copies. So, if if you're interested in in becoming a member or you're interested in
our project, do give us a shout. We'd be happy to help you. Absolutely, absolutely.
Alright, I guess that they would have to know. Look, look no further than the RASC website which I think is. Oh
RASCA. I'll just put that. There we go. Thank you very
much. Thank you so much, Charles. Thank you very much, Scott, for letting me come here today. Yeah, please. Come back
on sometime. Anytime. Alright, so we're going to go from
Canada all the way down to Brazil to Marcelo Souza. Marcelo is the editor of Skies
Up Magazine. He's a powerhouse of astronomy education, and
astronomy awareness in, in the Americas he's based in Brazil
and he's a very creative guy. I mean, he's he's done everything from help create Brazil's first
dark skypark to putting on astronomy events at malls that
look like you're driving into like an astronomy drive-in. You know, so I think that is so
cool. Um but he inspires people young and old and very very
pleased, very honored to have Marcellus's on the 100th Global Star Party. Marcel, it's to
you. Thank you very much for the invitations card. Thank you for the kind words. And eh eh I
received to next ah last week
information that is fantastic for us because the experience we have with the driving of
astronomy in a shopping center here in Brazil was specifically a price as the second best
experience in shopping centers in country. Then something fantastic you know that science
can win a price. Well eh a a outreach activities in shopping
centres 'no? The other prizes where the with shoppings and
the activities that help to to sell more things and we received the prize to because
we developed a a project. We not. The shopping center that is in. That's so awesome. We
find this project. That is something fantastic for us. Yes. I I as it is and
congratulations Scott for the 100. Yeah, Marcelo, everybody
keeps congratulating me but it's, it's really all the people that pulled together to make Global Star Party happen.
You know, so, I'm just the guy that connects the wires together. So. Let's let's do
add to his possible father. Thank you so much. Thank you. And I I have today I wrote a
script. To not to be a long presentation And I have a
script here. Okay. To help me and I okay wanted to illustrate
what I'm saying. This is the links for our astronomy group
here in Brazil. and the times
humans being have been trying to develop a way of enemies that accurately. He viewed
their observations of the sky. In maze of the sky of job seven phenomenon stars. He quadded
for hostility. ELCN, Greece, better already parts of knowledge Of the technique for
produce producing mazes by directing the process of lights through a small hole.
Camera obscured. However, they were amazed on to grab 707 the
landscape. He is the only illustration that I have for this Arabic. That is Al Hazan,
and his full name is Abu Alia Al Hassan. Even in our item. Eh
he lived in the 10th century. And presented their way of
observing eclipse is using a camera of scooter. In this case, the camera obscured
consist of a home with a small hole in the window. The amazing farm in the room to all. This
method allowed the magnification of the image of the sun and a comfortable and
safe observation of the solar eclipse. The headquarter of
Jobs have demise, however, were still made to throw downs and paintings. here is Galileone
and Galeo Galilee he lives the maze of his observation through
drawings. That way it was possible to get an idea of his
observations. In the drought he made he showed the position of the moons. The face of Venus,
the days of the moon and Saturn. He couldn't get enough resolution to observe Saturn's
rings. And something that's fantastic for me were the unscent maps, the sky maps, the
sky map with representation. how different civilizations
sold constellations. A quads that were left by many people. In the US, during a long
period, great artists were responsible for representing representing the constellation,
beautiful maps of the sky, by producers, walks of arts. With
creative and beautiful designs for each of the constellations. These are some of these ancient
sky maps that were made by fantastic artists. I can see
here, Some of them.
and the dream persistence of one day being able to accurately equality observant
celestial image. In 1826, the French Josephine Musepher,
Mepis, Obtained the first photography that is this one that I'm showing here. It was an image from his window. The
beginning of a revolution. It was supposed to make a great record of the moments lived.
Amazed for posterity without depending on the precision,
technically, and talent of drawing of a human being. In 18, 40, the American chemistry
and photographer, John Whelan Rape, obtaining rights considered the first as photography. That is this one
here. Here, quite for the first time in a photography gym Ace of the Moon. In 1880. His son,
Angela, first of Damien as photography of Joe Ryan Ebler.
Since that time, the quadraph image of the sky has been profited to obtain measures
with details that you cannot you can't perceive with the direct observation of the
universe. Technique is with well developed that allowed
recording of images of a very tenure stars. You also became
good images of the stars. It was necessary to have a photograph well photography film of excellent and with a
special characteristics. I, I am the time that we use this kind of cameras. I use many
times this cameras to take pictures and I lost many
pictures because of the lights when I opened the camera. Then it was for many people, young
people, they don't know what was the beginning of the photography. Yeah, a long
exposure. Time was necessary photography film to be sensitized by the faint light
captures. Due to the rotation of the earth choice necessary at all times to move the telescope so that it continued
to face disturbing observe. Those matters were developed to be copied to telescope s in
order to allow tracking of the staff for a long period. Compensated for the office
rotation movement. Nowadays it is used digital cameras to
obtain major of the universe. This is what you have in our daily life and digital arts
photography is a new way of attaining beautiful images of the sky. And the this is
something fantastic for that's the the making egg a fantastic
contribution in design. Now everything that I said until now is because I have a
Brazilian poet here. That's I I I translate to English and I will try read. Then nowadays
Jesus eh everyday we are surprised with new wonderful images of the universe obtained with the use of lives and
modern telescopes. We now have a newer and more powerful
powerful device for observing sky. The James Webb, Space
Telescope We now observe the sky a little magnetic spectrum.
Where we even heard G Stars And the Brazilian poet will have a
black who wrote one of the most beautiful and famous poems in
the Portuguese language. The name of the poem is that means
milky way. I I translated to to English. And as it is a a
special. program I will try to read because eh it's fantastic.
Then this is poem. Now you say,
here are the stars. Right. You have lost your sense. And I
will tell you, however, that to hear them, I often wake up. Mm.
And I open to windows. Beyond with a tarnishment. And we talk
all night crying. The milkweed. Like a open canopy. Twinkles.
And when the sun came, longing and weeping, I still look for
them in the desert sky. You will now say, foolish friends,
watch conversations with them. What sense? Do you have what
they say? When they are with you. And I will say to you,
love to understand them. Only those live You can have here
able to hear and understand the stars. This something that I
don't know if in English sounds like in Portuguese but it's a
fantastic poem. And now we hear the the stars. And the last bit
accurate to this. Before the age of someone. By something fantastic. And the other day we
have several more distant stars. Located hundreds, thousands, and millions of
light years from us. Photos driving on a long journey to reach us. The famous Brazilian
poet, Mario Quintana, who wrote in one of his poem. And wins,
passes outside. With your memory blank. What he saw? He
does not even remember. And I saw nothing. I can only guess.
we just guess what's happening to the universe and it formulates theories to unravel
its mysteries. I hope one day you have more
information about the university And each day we know more about the universe and we
have models. More accurate models. That's help us to
understand what you see, what's happening. Thank you Scott.
Alright, thank you. Thank you for sharing all the poetry with us. It was wonderful. Very
nice. Thank you. Very nice. And congratulations for the yeah.
Congratulations to all the presenters here. This is really wonderful. So and thank you so much for all that you do,
Marcelo. You're a real, real inspiration. Thank you so much.
Okay. It's my pleasure to be here. Yeah. Always a pleasure to have you. Alright. So, we
are going to keep moving right along here Marcello
is you know, you need to watch watch Marcelo's websites and
also his Facebook page which is you know, the club astronomy
and or excuse me, the club remind me, Marcelo, which one
it is? It's the astronomy Lou ie Cruz. Right. Okay. That is
Lewis Cruz. Yeah a Belgium astronomy that he came to
Brazil and he was one of the first director of the National
Observatore in Brazil. Lewis Cruz C R U Z. Yes. Okay.
So, anyways, thank you so much again. Um we are moving on from
Brazil over down to Argentina. Uh we have Nicolas Arias with
us. Uh he is a musician, a drummer, and so we like to call
it show Hammertime with Nico but because he is known as Nico the Hammer. But he is an amazing amazing astro
photographer and astronomer and it's great to have you on
Global Star Party our hundredth edition. Thanks Nico. Thanks, Scott. Thank you so much. Uh
happy 100 GSP for for everyone. It's a it's a really nice to be
here with you and this were the from the beginning to now, I
really nice GSP and I think that all the presentations
conversion that they they they the main thing that bring us
here that is to share the experience to to show about our
equipments eh or the humanity equipments and and and share
this patient and show how we do the the photograph, the
observations, and the studies, everything and and this is really really nice. Uh let me
share my screen. Okay. Here we go. Can you see
it? Yes, we can. Okay, okay.
Well, I think that was a lot of things to, to share in this
past weeks, I, I wasn't in the GSP, but the same way,
telescope less eh, move on guys, here I am, so I, I, I, I
will try to, to share some personal things and and to talk about the, the same world. at
first I I want to share with you that eh my patio still at
the eh finally gets the observatory call from the minor planet center I am really happy
with this eh a few weeks ago I get the the confirmation eh so
we have a new observatory here in Argentina eh so this is eh
really a really nice eh thing for me And eh as I say I eh
with with the James web telescope images eh one in
particular is about Italian star that is the prioritarian with the NGC three one three
two eh that it's a a beautiful burger in Nebula that here in
the Southern Hemisphere eh we we we have this particular
nebula really high in the sky eh eh for the I think the, from
beginning from the winter here, and eh, this is an observation that I made from my house, eh,
I have a borderline guy here, but with the adoption and using
a filter, eh the oxygen 3 filter, you can see this neighborhood ice is stunning to
watch this nebula, because as you see, this is a sketch and
observe observational sketch I made, you can see that you can watch eh not only the the main
star and the, the ring, but you can see some
behind like, another nebula behind is, is really, it's
really nice to, to spend time observing this kind of objects, and this Nebula, in particular,
and eh, this is a picture that I take eh with my loved one, eh, with my hand, I can option,
and making LRGV composition, eh, I, I mean, I make the, the
four eh moving my dub the, the light
with no filter and the filters with the mono camera. And you
can see that you can watch something like the sketch,
obviously, with a better eh definition and, and the colors,
and this, we, with the option,
and eh, this is a comparison about the same level, eh with I
mean this is the image is stunning where I watch the Nebula I I I always remember
this this habel image eh but now
we we reach a new glasses and and we can watch and observe
this amazing image from the James Webb telescope and it's
eh when I when I saw this picture the other day in the live transmission of NASA I was
shocking because it's it's amazing not only the the
details on the nebula the the galaxies around the image is is
stunning and it's really nice that eh they pick eh objects
that you can observe and you can capture from your house with your small telescope and
and the comparison I I love to to do a comparison as if okay this is the stunning image of
the shapes of the scope the telescope and this is our image
at the same object it's really there it's it's 18. And of
course eh the the Saturday night, I, I get my, my tattoo
on strike for the GSP and I, I want to show, this is a, a
video that I captured from that, you can watch the hand packet eh movement and eh for
every play that I captured, I need to do eh these videos that one and a half minutes, four
times, because I have a mono monochromatic camera, so I eh
this shot with no filter and then I make the full extra videos with the LG and B filter
to get these four images with a
a a nice name that it wasn't the better name but was really nice. You can see some details
in every channel. and eh this
is the result. When I join every channel, you can see even the a few months there and we
are about 20 days about the Saturn's opposition. So is
Saturday night eh from here. So
well God this was my, my little presentation, I know. Nico, thank you so much. Thank you. A
lot of people knew. Yeah it's great to have you on And get
your perspective on astronomy. Wonderful. Okay. Thank you so
much. Alright. So, our next speaker is we go from Argentina
backup to Canada to Quebec to Mister Norman Fullum who makes
the world's largest telescopes for amateur astronomy. Um with
the the famous Fulham folded Newtonian Reflector Telescopes
and but I think what's more amazing is just Norman's own life journey and the way that
he found his path through music and then by gazing at the stars and finally through making his
own incredible instruments. Norman is you know, honored it
was an honor for me to work with him in establishing Explore Scientific as the
distributor for the Optic Fullum product line here in in
the Americas and with the exception in Canada of course but but really I I admire
Norman. I think that he is one of the most amazing telescope
builders in the world today and he's a great friend, very friendly, and extremely
talented both with the skills at making Telescopes making
optics and solving problems but he does beautiful music too.
So, Carman, thanks for coming on Global Star Party. Well, thank you very much Scott for inviting me for the hundred and
GSP Uh I've been part of the GSP a few times in the past and
I always enjoyed the presentation that all the great
speakers are coming and sharing their experience and they're sharing their their passion about astronomy. Uh it's at a
very large family around the world. That's share that the
love of the universe and the passion of whatever is out there. So the the theme of
today's GSB is seeing beyond And this is kind of an open
open subject for that can include any anything in life.
Uh seeing beyond yourself. Seeing beyond your possibility, your capability. Seeing a past
the the view that we have and we saw James Webb's telescope
possibility seeing beyond what we we thought was possible but I would like to come back to
myself. Uh seeing beyond myself. That's what brought me
to what I'm doing right now today. Um before I will start my it's not a presentation.
It's just a talk that I will do about me and what got me to where I am right now. Um I have
to think about my father. Uh hm. Taught me to see beyond
what I what I can do. What what's possible to do with my two hands. Uh you was a very Abraham, the man doing all
kinds of stuff by himself. Uh he's he was not a mechanic. He
was not a woodworker but he was able to do all those things though. We've just looked at him and said, how did he know
what to do in that situation or this part of the of mechanical
part of a of a car or whatever. So, he always amazed me when I
and he passed away many many years ago. I was still in my twenties, very early 20s but when I was very young, like
from 10 years old up to That's the part that we was
building a new house and I really got to to see intense
can be, it could be how his
imagination got him to do crazy things and very amazing thing that you wouldn't think that
was possible at those days. So when I think about that, I think my inspiration the way I
see beyond when I first started to make telescope s was I was
thinking about my father. Uh he said nothing is impossible. He got to him. Like everybody
else. And if someone makes something, he's got two hands too. So he can't do the same thing. Uh before I will I will
go any further, I would like to well you everybody knows pretty much that I'm a I'm a music maker. I I play guitar and I
sing. I would like to sing a song. Uh for my father for that. Wow. Pretty nice.
Everybody knows that song. It's a Kat Stevens song. Called
Father and Son. So I brought my old twelve strings here today.
And just to know if the sound is good, it's not too loud.
sound is okay. Yeah, okay. So, may it goes.
it's not time to make a change just relax take it easy you're
still young that's how much you have to go
through find a girl settle down if you want you can marry but
look at me I am old but I'm happy
I was once like you are now and I know that it's not easy to
stay calm
going on think of everything you've got for you will still be here tomorrow
but your dreams
how could I try to explain because when I do it turns away again it's always been the same same old story
from the moment I could talk I was ordered to listen now there's a way and I know but I have to go away I know
it's not time to make a change just relax take it slow you're
still young
Find a girl settle down
you can marry but look at me I am old but I'm happy
all the time that I've cried
if they were right at a dream but it's them they know not me there's no way and I know but I have to go away I know
Cowboy.
yeah, so Scott since I've started everything I have made so far in making in my business here.
I had to do it myself. Yes. The machine can build my my fucal tester, build my tunnel, but everything. Your coating
machine, your polishing machines, polishing, everything. Done and
people come here and said, man, you're crazy. How do you think about those thing, how to do this? I mean, it's, it's just,
I think, seeing beyond our possibility. Okay, it's, I see
myself doing stuff that, right now, that 10 years ago, I
wouldn't even dream about, do, do it. Yeah. What? Yeah. Everything is possible and
astronomy, the same thing. The the universe is so immense. there's so many possibility in the up there And down here on
earth we have everything that we can work with. To to make it
to make it happen. Also. So when we just look at the at the the advancement in the
technology that in the last 1020 years, 30 years. It's amazing. And what if you think
in 1 00 years from now, 200 years from now, where we'll be, where we, we will be. Oh, where will we be? What's kind of a,
what kind of a science would, we will
what kind of of rocket or satellite we will be able to build in 200, 300 years from now. So, seeing Beyond, it's not just seeing Beyond what's there, it's seeing beyond in
the future.
my approach on like Scott Noah and my approach on astronomy, I'm a visual observer. I have the most respect for the astrophotography for the people that do all the astrophoto at
bow my head to them. It's unbelievable what they can do now. But my thing, it always
been visual observing. Uh to see it with my eyes, what's out there, through an eyepiece, and
and the more, the more that I want to see, the bigger the telescope has to be. So that's,
that's going up to, to so large, code that I built and those large telescope are mainly built for visual
observing. They're full of newtonium was meant to be an instrument for larger but to be
safe first to to do the observer instead of being attorney twenty twenty-five
feet off the ground to observe at the eye piece. Uh the folded system makes it much safer to
be about eight feet from the ground and you still have the same aperture telescope. Okay, you you you're not doing
astrophoto You're not stacking image to get all the colors and deep texture that you will have
in the picture. But your imagination when you look at the IP that you look at M forty-five, M 42 in a 42 in a
50 inch telescope by I, okay? Oh. I bought it Uh, and it's
like, I still have the image here. Uh, close my eyes that I can see it. Because I was so
mesmerized by the depth of the image that I was seeing. The detail that I could if I kept
looking and looking, looking area of the, of the image. I could go see details and
details and the 3D effect and it's amazing what the eyes and the the brain can do not just
looking to it and then next object next I know. If you take time to look at an object visually and you can detect
details that you you wouldn't think that would be would be visible by the naked eye of it is. So my vision my experience
at telescope is visual. Uh I wish I was able to share my
experience more but lately in the last five, 10 years, I've been so busy developing those
telescope s that I, my, my presence in Star Buddies and
gathering or even outreach, was was little less because I have
that line, there's only 24 hours in a day, and but I wish I could eventually slow down a
bit, and then take more time and observe more, and then, and I'm doing right now. Uh
and I would like to thank Scott to make it to make my telescope
more visible to present my my work through his website,
through his company, to make people know that it's it's feasible, it's there, it's available on the market. Yes.
In the past 10 years ago, looking for 40 or 50 inches
telescope for. That was really. It's not possible. Well, impossible but you know, not
not very easily attainable. That's right. So, now there and
being I know Scott that you are passionate about astronomy as much as I am. Yes. Love to
observe visually also. Yes. Uh it's very heartwarming for me
to know that you accepted to be my representative. It's I don't
I don't have to explain it but it's very. Yeah. Yeah. But thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Very much. You could have
chosen anyone. So, thank you very much. Thank you. He's an Yeah. I don't have any
presentation of of Facebook or anything to show you guys. Only
I want to explain that music and astronomy for me are just like this. They're both
together. Uh music is vibe is sound waves. Uh light wave and
sound waves are similar. Uh I think every where I go in
Starbucks I always bring my guitar and I try I make music because it's part of me I think
people enjoy it because it's so soothing and. Oh yeah. Goes well with observing the the
universe. So I I will like to play a second song. Okay. Uh
before I go because I have a meeting with Zoom meeting with Australia right after. so. Oh.
And that's stayed very long. Uh Australia it's noon o'clock tomorrow morning. That's right. That's right. Oh wow.
Wonderful. I had to postpone for about an hour the meeting but to be able to be here. Uh thank so much. Thank you for
inviting me for the hundred winter star at another winter so for the Global Star Party.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thank you so much, Norman. That's a song. Wonderful. I think Starmas
would like to hear, you know, she month, in a month and a half, I think. Yeah, that's right.
you back my back last night free fly
zero hour 9 AM,
be her as a guide by them
reminisce the urge so much I miss my wife.
it's lonely out of space
on such a dime this platform.
I think it's going to be too long a drunk ring here and not
the man they think I am now I'm a rocket man rocket man burning
all the fuse out there alone
our thing the kind of place to raise your kids
In fact, it's cold as hell.
noone there to whom raise them if you did
and all that science I don't understand
five days a week rocket man
I think it's going to be a long long night don't come bring me around, get you fine, not the
man they think I am now. I'm rocking rocket man burning all
the fuse out there and won't I think it's going to be a long
long time and I think it's going to be a
long and I think it's going to be a
So with that to thank you. I'm observing and hopefully we'll
see each other live eventually. Yes. Yes we will. Irving together. Thank you very much
for having me. Thank you so much. Thank you. No I mean that was great. What a wonderful way
to end the first part one of the Global Star Party. Um we
are going to stay on the air here with you. Uh we you'll see
an extended intermission period about 45 minutes and then we
come back on. At 7 o'clock and we have come back on with David
Levy. Uh David Eicher from Astronomy Magazine will be on with us. Molly Wakeling Daniel
Higgins, Jason Genzel, the Vast Reaches, Daniel Barth from How
Do You Know will be on with us and Young Connell Richards will be on. John Briggs the with the
Alliance of Historic Observatories will be with us. Cesar Brollo from Argentina
young Navin Senthil Kumar, Karina, Letelier from from
Chile will be with us. Deep T from Nepal, Adrian Bradley, and
we may have some surprises at the very end but do we want to
Maxi, how are we with with
images you want to show an image before we go?
Hi everyone. Well, first of all, good night and well, it's
a pleasure to be here in the 100 events and I really enjoy that kind of music, Norman. It
was very, very singing with him, right? At the very end there. Yeah, you know, I I
played the guitar too but not like you. Eh I I it's more like a a like I do astrophotography
too but I think in the after it's going me well but eh you know I I really love that sound
of that guitar particularly and of course those songs, those,
yeah, songs that you played eh eh, I know eh, and I also,
when you you play the the first one eh I and what? Eh well,
what I, I actually It's a deep song. Yes, it's a really deep song. Yeah. Eh, here in
Argentina, we have another two, eh the last month we had the, the parents day, and I, I don't
think, I played the guitar, but I asked to my father that I eh
sing with me Eh a particular song is a is a particular song here in Argentina. Eh because
it's dedicated to your old man, your to Viejo, for example, but well, it was like eh, I, I, I
always wanted to do that, and well, eh, it was very emotional. Right on. So, well,
I'm struggling with my network connection. I have my Wi-Fi going on, then go is off, and
Well, I was pointing to let me share my screen for a moment. I
think now the connection stabilizes. So let me Okay, Do
you see it?
Hello? Hello? Ah, okay, no, I think because I was sharing the
screen, the connection goes off. Well, eh, here in this
case, I was pointing to the, the, the southern ring, eh,
Nebula, and I think I have, the, the, the, the focus because, well, it's going down
right now, but let me see if I can go focus right now because
I I have my my motor and I can do here inside. So let me show
you how I do it. You can see here is the is very bubbled.
The star. So here in the option of the focuser I do some taps.
And then it will go into to get more pointless I think. And
let's put it more fast. Let's See There you go.
and a little bit more. I think now Yeah, I was configuring, I
I set up, and then the connection goes really bad, but
that's seen there I think now it's okay, At 5 seconds, It's
okay. So let's stop this, and now we're going to take eh, a,
a one-minute picture of the Southern Ring, Nebula? Before it goes off in the horizon
here, so, well, basically, eh, now I have my setup eh in, in
my backyard, in Argentina, eh, but I'm in this software plus
tax eh to to do everything eh except
the alignment because I had to be outside but then to the the the go to the guiding, the
focus and the the the here. So
eh well like I told you more early, Scots, it's a pleasure
to be here, you know? Thank you. It's a long, very long
Tuesdays that we passed and it's like it was the last month
and seeing that, you know, 100 events, of course, I I think I
started in the 30 event, I, I, I don't remember as well, but
Oh, sorry. Well, here we have, but I think the no, the, I
don't know what happened, let's go to another picture, but I
think this was the the
Yes, the mothers, maybe my dog passed through the one leg or the tripod. I have three
outsides so maybe that happened. And well, like I said, it was, it's a, it's really an honor to, to be here
for a couple of minutes. Eh, I want to do some eh live views
of eh some objects that the James Ward telescope take. Or
took, sorry, and to compare of
that pictures and what we see here eh in the natural and eh
normal level of eh astrophotography eh particularly but anyway you
know I did this particularly Nebula with eh with myself and
I remember and my my Maxuto it was I don't remember the date I
don't know what's happening than me.
or maybe the the, the guiding is not working very well.
Now you know, it's the the guidance system, something is
wrong. Could be when? The Oh,
maybe, yeah. It was, it wasn't really too windy. I, I didn't want, you know, half an hour,
but maybe it's the one. Here's the, the guiding system, eh, is
eh based in PhD two of course it does the multiple stars
following and the principal star that select from them here
we have the the graph, you know, maybe the, maybe it's too low, and now the, the telescope
is pushing down, maybe that's also two, that's, it is, a 30 seconds picture, here in, in
the 5 seconds, you know, it's a lot of you, for that single
star and the shape of the ring, but do you remember the picture of the and also the picture
that Nico show you? Yes, a a millions ago, so. Yes. It's really stunning to even watch
that picture that has that particular galaxy that
remembers the needle galaxy but it's maybe in there I think in,
and I, and I couldn't even see it. So, here we go, now, now,
that's not, now it's getting very good. So, well, eh,
another, also, if the the audience is watching, I want to
see some southern objects right now, let me know it, and let's
see if I can find it, and let's what we can do, okay? So Scott,
I, I come back to you again. Okay, okay, well we will take a break, so for those of you who
are watching, please you know, get some some dinner. Uh, we've
got a whole night ahead of us of of Global Star Party, our 00th event. Uh, you know, as I
mentioned earlier, we're coming up on part two. So, we've got about a little over half an
hour and we'll be back at 7 PM Central but we will still be on
the air here with this intermission. So, hang in there.
Max C, did you already look at 47 Tukane?
and sorry I open the eh do you
hear me Adrian? Yes, I just unmute it. Yes, I
can hear. Okay. Now, I have the this issue in in the internet.
If I can point to 47 to Canada, let me see but I don't think so
because it's really low at the east. right now. But let me
show, let me see if I, if I can find it. Eh, no problem.
So, what's up, man? How, how are you going? How you doing? I am hanging in there. Uh did a
little outreach today. It was fun. We had a young Girl Scout troop. Um we had five different
groups. And we pointed the solar scope at the sun. They all got to see it. Some of them
were able to see the prominences in the the sun spots that were on there. So it
was a really good day. Oh
That's that's really cool because you know also, eh, the sun right now is having eh, the
activity that two years ago, there was nothing, Of course,
if you have this eh H alpha telescope, it's great, but
Yeah. Yeah. It doesn't it doesn't seem much if you're using a butter filter only. I'm
searching 57 to Canada but I think it's really low. Now it's
it's pointing to the south and maybe it's almost
50 degrees above the horizon. So maybe let's see more more
later And That's okay. We can't see
it. It'll. I I mean at midnight maybe. Okay. Um and and I can't
even point to the this particular galaxy cluster. I I
cannot eh point to that area but. Okay. Because it's also
it's very low. Um maybe I can go to the Carina and and you will see this region of the ehm
that also show and the the
scope. But that sounds good. Yeah, maybe I I think I'm going
to there to to see or maybe some galaxies, you know, I have
omegas and also two, to to points right now
the M eighty-three I have this NGC fifty-three sixty-seven. I
don't know. I I couldn't open the the YouTube. I don't know if the audience has so for some
objects too. Mm What's up? Uh let's check it
out. Oh there he is. The man. Ah. Daniel. The legend. Uh
what's going on fellas? Coming from New York City. How you doing? Astronomy
coming from Arizona. Just as important. We have the return of the noble David. There he
is. Hola Luis. Chat this. Adrian, hi everybody. What's
going on? Happy anniversary of the the the comment that was
the a couple of days ago for Jupiter. You know, I I remember that and I I say oh I had to to
say eh my greetings to Doveil in the next GSP. Yeah.
And it's yesterday was the 25th anniversary of Jean's tragic death. Gene Shoemaker in a car accident in Australia. So it's 27 twenty8 years. Since SM nine since the major impact took place On July 18th 1994dummy.
Wow. Okay. So so. I remember that. That's two of them. Yeah.
So, a little little bit of tragedy but also fond memories
I'm sure of discovering the comet and realizing what it was
going to do before the rest of us would see it covered and if
I'm not mistaken, was Hubble, the telescope that covered or
that was used to see the impact site sites. Hubble was one of
the first telescope s to see the impacts. And it was certainly as the best telescope
we had at the time. The fact that it was concentrating on Jupiter during that entire week
was really really something. And we all I know a debt of
gratitude to NASA. For collecting all of this wonderful information. About
what a karma can do when it hits a planet. Awesome. So we
we should say to Wade Prunte who chatted in from Facebook. How are you doing Wade? We see
we see you out there. Yeah looks like only the Facebook is getting the the messages
tonight. We'll probably get more later
on. I'm actually going to step away for a bit because my my
presentation is much much later in the night. So, I'll be joining in. I'll be joining in
remote watching all the presentations, enjoying the poetry, and eating something. I
hear you. Caring for preparing for the evening, finding a few images to share for the 1
hundredth this 100 Double winged Global Star Party. Got
it. Giving it to him in two shifts.
Daniel. Que pasa.
You know, I listen, I, I uploads the a
picture in in the Astro TV website. Yeah, I saw it. Uh, 25-three. Yeah, but I didn't
see it in the, the last week. I, I, I didn't enter right now,
but really? Yeah, I, you know, I, I, I, I was going to write
but I think you know that maybe he's really busy so. No, not really. I I I know I put it up
there. Let me see. I'll go in there right now and look. Mm
hmm. Cuz if we switch them today to the to the other ones,
we had so many we had 22 submissions. Oh. For for the
last. That's great. I mean, it was it was crazy. My my website's going to explode because it it just takes like
an hour for the, let me see. Um let me see Astroworld. Uh, let's see live site.
pictures of the week. Hey, WV, do you want to see the the comment pass? Sorry. It's up there now, Maxie. Do I put it on for this? Okay, so you were in the second group? Oh, okay. So, you're up there now? Great. So yeah, because it was so, it
was so many pictures. I I couldn't do 'em all once or else. The white paper never
load. So, in this round, we have, so we're pitching, we're
we're picking two pictures of the, of the week in this set, because there were just so many
entries. So, so you got one, two, three, four, five, six, 7,
eight. Oh, yeah. I see it. 11, 12, 13. I got 13 in this round.
So, right now we have nine votes in and for this round you
can have people vote until Friday. So get as many votes as you can. So. So everybody enter
now to Astroworld Web. com and go to the picture of the week and vote for and vote vote for
me. Any picture that you like but of course. Yeah. But for me. Uh there's a lot of good
photos. It's yours 253, which is by the way is is I voted for it. So it's freaking awesome.
So thank thank you Dan. Um and
the we have a we have a witch's head nebula. We have a spaghetti nebula. We have a veil complex. We have a a couple a couple of terrestrial.
I don't know if one of these is yours, Adrian. Um but because there was there were a couple
of pictures in there without descriptions. And let's see. There's one with a a tree and
and the the the Milky Way going into the tree with the there's there's a bunch of good
pictures so. Yeah that that's a lot tough. I I'm watching right now. As a matter of fact I
think I have a double in there. Mm-hmm. I think I do have a
double with the beach. Yeah, the beach is a double. I gotta take that down. Which, does one of 'em have no boats? Yeah, good. Okay. So, one of them has
no votes so I can take that one down without hurting anything. but but yeah, so we had a we
had a lot of pictures. So, it was nice to see. Great. Great.
Now, we just gotta get a lot of people to vote. So, Yeah, it's
it's eh, for, that, well, we are publishing right now, so
the audience that come to vote, for any picture that they like,
you know? Yeah, absolutely. I gotta figure out one way to
make it just one vote. I gotta figure out how to way to do that because some people are voting twice for that picture.
Yeah, I was going to ask how many times Maxi has voted for his. Yay. I I I so what I've
been doing is I've been going through the IPA addresses. So, if there's any doubles, I kick em out.
Eh. What about, what about family members that share the same IP address? Uh well, use
your phone. So, Daniel, I want to I want to get a little
bit more into this tag team wrestling that you're doing with the with you and Sean. Are
you guys taking on all takers? Because I hear there's a really good tag team there in the
Michigan Low Brows. Adrian Adrian's got got it covered
there. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, me and Sean Sean's a good friend of mine. Um and you
know, we we've actually come on the show together as a kind of
him promoting his visible dark and me promoting Astroworld.
It's been it's been it's been fun. So you know I keep on inviting him. It's a good dynamic between you guys. It's
it's a lot of fun to see. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Me and him have, you know, it's it's nice when you have kind of two people
with the same kind of sense of humor, I guess, is is what you call, especially from from two different parts of the
continent, you know, and so. Yeah. So, it's kind of odd that that works out but it works out pretty well and as a matter of fact, in October over or maybe
not in October. The fourth quarter, I'm putting together something called Astropalooza.
Ooh. And so far, I have slated
Shawn Nielsen. Molly Wakeling
Amy Astro, Amy Little. Yup. And Nico Carver from Nebula Photos.
Great. Very nice. I got I got one more person I'm waiting on to answer to before I start getting together on how to
kind of put everything together for a date. But those are the those are the four I have so far. So far nobody has said no
that I've asked. So that's a good thing. So you're going to have to bring them all on to
the GSP s for like the weeks leading up to it to showcase each of them in turn. Absolutely. Absolutely. So hey,
David. Hey, guys. How are you? Hey, David. How's it going? Good to see you. Yeah. We ran
just a little bit overtime in the first part. I'm not totally
shocked. I've always, I've always had last week. I think it was like an hour, I think,
something like that over or something. I was, I was, I looked at it and I was like, oh my god. One, two, three weeks
ago, I think we were like 40 minutes early and then and then last week, we're an hour late.
So, I guess, guess what make it up for it? So. I was giving the over under for today's total program at eight and a half
hours. Wow. Yeah. Half hours. We're already almost at four. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And we've got
the largest part of the segment coming up. Yup. Yes, sir.
It's going to be fun. Dovey, you missed you missed the part of my presentation I dedicated
to you and the shoemakers because it's the 20th anniversary of SL9 Impact. So,
I wanted to I wanted to mention that and I showed a few pictures. Thank you, Karima.
I'm really sorry that I had another obligation to go to for a while. Completely
understandable. But I'm I'm back. I even showed a picture of of you with Jeannie Caroline
at Stellafane two thousand two.
I I thought I I you know I've just, the whole seeing Jupiter
in IR, just brought back the memories right away.
Yeah. I know these latest pictures are really stunning.
Hi, David. It's good to see you. How you doing, David?
Pretty good. Good. Pretty good. 100th anniversary, 1 00th Global Star Party. Excellent.
Excellent. How's Wendy? Wendy's doing okay. She's holding her
own. Good. Some days are worse than others and but Wendy's doing holding her own. I love
her very very much. Yeah. Yeah. Well, give her our best obviously as as always. Yeah,
thank you. I will. Yeah. Yeah.
So, Karim, what you're saying is, don't feel compelled to cut
things short with each talk here, huh? That's not for me to say, that's for Scott. And I
think he's happily having some dinner at the moment. He's woofing down a slice of pizza
or something. But it was really beautiful. The so the last segment ended with Maxi showing
some images and before him Normal played a couple of songs and talked a little bit about
Starmus as well. Just to mention that he's going to be there. Nice. That's awesome. I
can tell you there will be some announcements of more musicians being there soon as well.
Great. Any word on Brian May yet? Uh now that he's had his birthday celebration. He is the
musician and he did turn 75 yesterday and and a little bird
tells me that we're going to hear some rock and roll in Armenia. Oh. You're going to
rock. Literally. Yeah. Yes. He's on tour right now, right?
He is, yeah. Yeah. So, things are crazy at the moment but and then there's a Taylor Hawkins
tribute concert they need to do as well, Brian and Roger and friends. So, but I think we'll
have a good time in Armenia. That's very good. You know, I actually I actually sent it. I I attempted to send an Email to
Brian May just to see if he would come on the show on my show and I message back from
from I guess his soapbox, I guess, that. Yeah. That's it. Oh, he's on tour. Try fourth
quarter. Yeah, this is I, it is, it's, it's a rolling, you know, multi-million dollar,
insane asylum with hundreds of people involved. This is a rough time to get him. Yeah. No, I, I, I didn't even expect
a response. I don't know what he was. You know, I think, I mean, I know who he is, but he doesn't know who I am, you
know, you know, but but Uh, you might be surprise. From what I hear, he actually does watch
some of the some of the content for outreach that comes on the web and he watches some of the shows and I don't know if he
watches the GSP s but I know he watches some shows and tries out some new ones and they were
saying in the UK that he's reached out to a few of them individually to say that he's liked some of the things that
they've done. The the thing that he's closest to is Instagram. Oh. Yeah. If he
likes there's a there's a hint. He like a you want to try to get his eye. Yeah. No, there
you go. Thank you. You know, and I'll try, I'll try very much not to bring up
queens. So, I mean, as a pediatric photography. So, he's not one of the, you know, you know, many many years ago, Neil
Young came to our company and and he's our company publishes
a bunch of trains magazines, believe it or not, as well, for real trains and model trains
and Neil Young is a huge model trained guy. Oh wow. And there
there was sort of a there was a seminar beforehand of his people who came in and said
don't say anything at all about his music at all. He'll walk out. Brian is not that way at
all. Brian loves talking about music. Um you know and and stories and Freddie and
everything. It's just that it's an overwhelming time right now for I am sure. I am sure. So I
looked at his schedule. I was like oh my god. Yeah. You're in the mid 70s too. I'm like oh my
goodness. Uh and to go out I mean they're like almost almost every night. They've got a and
that that's you know two and a half hours of running around. It's I hope I'm doing that when
I'm seventy-five. You with me as well. Yeah. You know. But if
you got the energy, keep on going. Yeah, yeah. You know. I don't know. By seventy-five,
you you missed it earlier but Lou was talking about what Titan will be like in a few billion years and I think a
property like that if I could find it, you know, just sit and enjoy the sky and. Yeah. Come
on to a GSP every Tuesday to share a little bit. Donald still be doing those, right?
Yup. Yes, you will
As as long as my man can talk, he's going to be on in front of his camera. So, you know. Excellent. So, right now, I'm pointing to the K2 comets, Pawn Stars. So. Nice. I I don't
know. How close is it to Mten right now? If I Actually, I how
close is it to Messi A ten? It's it was it just had its conjunction couple of days ago,
right? Yeah. Two days ago, yeah? Yeah. And 10 years. I I missed that. I. Yeah. It's a
little away now. Clean Skies that the one that says you know? Yeah, It's really far. Uh
with my two of you, I couldn't I couldn't take it but. Well, you know, maybe next time to
another one. Let's see. if it's
centered. What do you mean? Let's see if it's centered. Plates off, man. Come on, let's go.
Okay, that there it is. Let me turn my screen.
I don't know if I can yeah. Oh there you go. And there it is.
5 seconds and let's do, oh, I was taking one minute picture
because it doesn't move really fast. But the the live position
here is really bad. I have my lead, left, slides from my neighborhoods and you know,
it's really tough. I hear you, man. And anyway, to do some animations and and do some
stacking only with the stars, it's good. But this kind of eh
object is, you have to do it in really clear skies. Let's see
in 30 seconds, maybe he's going to see the tail. Well, the,
here's the coma. And the, the tail is almost there. Yeah.
Just stretch. Oh, I, I went to, too rough. Let's do some 60
seconds. The last time I saw that comment was couple of
months ago was a lot fainter and it was travelling through a field of sky next to NGC six
seven zero nine. And that is the field in which I discovered my first comet in nineteen
eighty-four. I said oh man. Wow. I think this company was
eh particularly really it has an orbital eh more periodic but
I think it doesn't it's now and then it's goes really far away.
I I didn't find some too much info for this. Let's see. 10
seconds.
Here we go. Slow down.
I can see the tail. Yeah it's there. Zoom in. Maybe 3 3 minutes picture. Is this live? This is live. This is right now. And I'm taking a 3 minutes picture. Uh let's see what we
can see it. Uh you know, last week, I captured the also the
comment but it was those tiny little galaxies. Yeah. Really far away, you know, and but
this is K two. This is the K two. Yeah.
What constellation are we in right now? Sophie Yucas probably. Of Fucus, I think it will maybe pass away from Lafucus. Um let's figure it out. Well, here in the in the map, I can not, oh sorry, it
doesn't show, this is show me another place that wasn't.
because here I have this app in the in the software of the CWO
and you can search the object or maybe if you want to see it
here in the in the, the, the map, you can tap in there, and then put go, go to, but I can
go, I can not zoom out. Here in the computer, in the, in the,
in the cellphone, yes, is. Sure. Let's go. Okay, that's. That's alright. So. General
idea. That's good. I prefer to see it. Look at the the you can see the tail going down. It
looks like actually it looks like a kind of a wide tail, doesn't it? yeah and and also I
it's so some picture that has two kind of tails. Yeah yeah. One I got a little tail and
then then another one to maybe on the other one's a dust tail
I suppose. Mhm. Excellent. Yeah. So, for all of you that
did not see Ktwo here you are with a nice live view. And it
is enough for you because you're right. Enough you can. Yeah. I I find it too. Alright
guys. I am going to get a cup of coffee and I'll be right back and we'll get started with part two of the 100th Global
Star Party. Of course. Let's let's wait to see in 30 seconds
to see how it's going to become it. And also the audience can
tell me what's that I can go if
you want to see it right now, my telescope is yours And also
everyone here in the in the Zoom eh meeting eh can ask me
anything. Awesome.
Okay, let's see in 3 minutes. And there you go. There you go.
Now the tail is is laid there But you know it's it doesn't it
has this coma more decisive than this place. It's really
really different from from another ones, I think, And that's good. So what? Let's
start sharing.
There you go.
I, from my work, and came to my home, and I started to grab my equipment outside. I hear.
Brilliantly.
Okay, so,
I do a quick audio check. Can you guys hear me? Oh, yeah. Yes. Alright, good. Nice to see
you. Hello, everyone. How you doing? Howdy.
Hey, Daniel. We want to see Santaros. Hey. Always.
And here I am just trying to take a picture of the veil nebula. Again. And again. And
again. Too many, too many telescope s, too many cameras.
Too many webcast, too many star parkings. Oh my god. Over and over again. Too much space.
It's crazy. You know, I've I've been taking pictures of Vail Nebula for 20 years and. Oh.
I've yet to be happy. So, you know. But I was I I was able to
borrow a a 2600 from a friend of mine from the show. And and right now it's sitting on the
back of my esprit. And just waiting for the sun to go down. You know? Mhm. right? But I was
just, I was able to procure a
a astrophysics starfire one thirty EDF Grand Turismo.
Santa Rismo. It sounds like a sports car. Uh that's what they call. The earlier version was a
Grand Turismo and the newer version is the GTX, the Grand Turismo X. Uh huh. Uh but this
scope was sitting literally in its original box, original case, everything. For the past
three or 4 years. Wow. And been used twice. And. Yeah.
Unfortunately, there's too many telescopes like that. You know, so. It's Brad. Well, well, the well there's a reason why it's
only been used twice. The gentleman had two of So so he
had the original EDF version of the 130 and then he bought and then he went on the he went on
the list. He's a personal friend of mine. He went on the list to go on the waiting list before they stopped taking names. Yeah. Um he went on the
waiting list for the next one and totally forgot. They called him up about three three years
ago or so I said by the way your scope's ready. Maybe four years ago. And he said your scope's ready. And and he's
like you want it? He's like yeah I want it. And so he put it and he took it and he just loved using the other one he
never used the second one. Hm. Couple years later, I said, what do you do with that scope,
man? What do you, it's literally just sitting there. What do you do? He's like, well, I'm thinking about offloading. I said, good. You
can offload it to me And so, so, I can't get out of waiting list. I can't do anything. I can't get into the National
Physics Cope to save your life because then it does not take any more names anymore and so, he said, sure. Awesome. He
sold, he sold it to me. So, I didn't have to wait on a list and I got it within two weeks. Right? So, awesome. Better than
waiting four years for sure. Four, almost nine or 8. It was
it was a long, long time. Yeah. And you know, you know, I so I called up, I called up George
over in astrophysics. I was like, George, how long for the flattener for the 130 GT? I'm
scared to ask. He's like, he's like, he's like, the flattener? He's like. Oh, it's on the shelf? Yeah. Like, oh, oh, man.
It's going to be a long time. I said, how how long, George? He's like, like September. I
said really? He's like, yeah. He's like, we're working on now. He said, good. Put me on the list. Sure. Cheryl. So, so
once the flattener comes. Good things come to those who wait. Yeah, I'm telling you. So, September will have the flattener and then I just
picked up what it the scope comes with the 2. 7 inch
feather touch. Mm hmm. And so I'm not going to change that out. It's an awesome focuser. So, I I picked up I called
Optec and they they're sending me the motor for the focuser.
So. Great. Okay. I think we're
going to play some short video clips here. Oh, we only got 2 minutes. Woo hoo. Yeah, I know.
Here we go. Here's Pat Guy here.
The Explore scientific Explore Alliance s. This is from Sweden
reporting and want to give a big congratulations. Gratis on
Nexiolocon for the 100 episode of Global Stock Party. It has
been really instructive, fun, and I hope you will continue
forever. This is a that's awesome. No ending story. Okay.
Bye. Thanks Becca. Hello everyone. It's Bob Fugate from Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Congratulations to the Global Star Party on achieving 100 exciting episodes. Please keep
up the great work. Thank you.
Howdy, Scott, Explore Alliance, Astronomical League, and esteemed Global Star Party
Friends. This is Cameron from Camp Astronomy. Wishing you all a hearty congratulations on our
hundredth Global Star Party. Keep looking up and enjoy the journey. Cheers.
Hi, everyone. Dan Higgins here from Master World TV and as one of the newest presenters of
GSP, I'd like to send a congratulations to Scott, Explore Alliance, and all the
presenters of Global Star Party for 100 episodes of the show.
So, outstanding job. Thank you so much for having me. Perseverance and doing this and relaying all the information
that everybody does every week. So, thank you so much. Thank you for allowing me to be a part and as always, remember to
keep imaging, keep educating, and clear skies. We'll see you soon. I love the fire Thanks.
I'm glad you got, I'm glad you guys joined the picture in there. I was wondering if Simon
was going to pop up.
of Uh hey, everybody. Scott Roberts is back with part two of the Global Star Party, our 100th episode. Uh I really want to thank all of you who have been watching. Uh you know, we've been burning up the the wires here since about
three o'clock in Central in the afternoon. So, we're now four hours in broadcasting and we have a whole second show for you. Uh and like all of our programs, we have David Levy
who starts our programs with you know, the inspiring commentary, beautiful poetry,
and but I want to take a couple of minutes to thank all the people that were on the part
one program including David. Uh so that he he gets he's in here twice which is great. Uh we had
Doctor Seth Shostak from study on who gave us the latest
updates on their search for ET. Um it's very interesting. The guy's hilarious and you know, I
love his take on on life in the universe. Robert Fugate was on
with us. Of course, the guy is pretty what I would say is
modest. Uh because this guy is the father of Laser Guided
Adaptive Optics and that technology has really revolutionized professional
observatories and he showed us why you know, that there's a
reason to continue to build ever larger telescope s. It's not because you know, they're all limited by our atmosphere
but the techniques and the equipment that's now used on them allow them to get, you
know, high straw ratios and you know, defraction limited performance over incredibly
large apertures and so, we are going to see some amazing stuff through the new ELT and other
large scale, you know, hyper scale type of telescope s that
are out there. So, it's really, it's really neat to listen to someone like Bob kind of the
you know the back the backstage process here. Uh we had Terry Mann on from the Astronomical
League who did door prizes for us. We did that at the beginning of the program. We're not doing it in part two Cuz
we've already done it. Uh but Terry gave us a really inspiring talk. Uh I hope she
repeats that. Um or carries that on as we get closer to Alcon. Which I'm leaving for
next Tuesday. Uh we're going to Albuquerque in we'll be there at Alcon and so, I will be
broadcasting live from there too and so you you'll want to still tune in We had Lou Mayo
on who gave us a fairly technical talk but I think that
you know, it's certainly worth a second watch. Uh Karim Jaffer from John Abbott College was on
and I think he's still in the background here somewhere. Uh but any ways, Corinne you know,
gave us kind of an overview of what his experiences with the Global Star Party. Uh he's been
on I think almost 40 times, something like that. So, Charles Ennis, who is the new
president of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada joined us tonight Um he's a you
know, incredible astronomy author in his own right, is devoted much of his life to
educational outreach and astronomy and it is a force in the Royal Astronomical Society
of Canada. Uh Doctor Marcelo Souza was on. He doesn't like to me to tell people that he's
a doctor but he is a he has a doctorate in cosmology and Arcello's you know, mission in
life is to inspire youth through astronomical education
and Space Exploration Education. Uh the things he has done in in Brazil and
throughout South America is really remarkable and you know, he's he's just and he's just a
wonderful friend. So, Nico the Hammer, Nicolas Arias, was on
earlier as well. Uh showing us you know, the things that J
West is doing for us and talking about how he is inspired from the James Webb
space telescope as we all are. We finished the first part with
Norman Fullum who shared a couple of songs with us, shared
his some aspect of his life and why he is so inspired to build
the telescope s that he does. You know, he that guy builds telescope s with equipment that he made because, you know,
there was no place that made the kind of equipment that he made that he needs for to make
his master telescopes s which go up to in production up to 65 inches. The guy can make 72
inch Newtonians. So, if you're looking for a giant telescope, you know where to look. Uh come to Explore Scientific. We'll
you out for sure. In this program, we're going to have David, as I mentioned, David
Levy joins us once again. Uh David Eicher from Astronomy Magazine will be with us
talking about Water soluble, that's a mouthful. That's I got like marbles in my mouth trying
to say it. Water soluble minerals, okay? Which is really cool. Molly Wakeling, astronomy
will be joining us. Uh we've got Dan Higgins on. Uh Jason Gonz the Vast Reaches Daniel
Barth from How Do You Know. Young Connell Richards will be with us. John Briggs will be
sharing an image. I think he did of Steven's Quintet. So, everybody's like comparing that
image at J West did, you know? So, Young Navin Centel Kumar is
joining us around 10 o'clock tonight. Uh I'm not sure if
he's coming in from India or not. He I know that his family was vacationing there. Uh
Karina Letelier from Chile should be joining us. Deepti Gautam from Nepal. Adrian
Bradley from Michigan and I had
Michael Carroll on there. He did he was backstage with us earlier but had another
commitment tonight. So, so let's go ahead and get started. Um David, thank
my friend for coming on. I think that you are officially at really 100 Global Star Parties now. Yeah. Thank you so much. Thanks so much Scott. It is an honor to be here and as I look over my screen, I'm seeing
friends that I've known for years and I have interesting
and maybe not so interesting stories from almost all of you.
And I remember for example, David, the night that I saw him that night in nineteen eighty-four And we watched them
blow up an expressway. Which was something I will never ever
forget David. And Karim that I know from Montreal and I'm going to be seeing a lot of my
friends from Montreal in a couple of days. And There's
Molly and there's Adrian and Adrian when I, thanks, hi, Molly and Adrian, when I look
at his pictures, only one word comes to mind and it keeps on coming to mind. That word is
Mozart. They're that good is photographs. They are special.
They are unique. Adrian, thank you for enriching our lives with your beautiful images.
I have here my telescope Minerva that is with me and also a new thing that I introduced at the first part of the Star Party. This is my Jacob staff. That I built just yesterday. And last night I took it outside. And you know
you hold it. Let's see. You hold it like this. And you put the you hold it with the horizon. And you bring this
back. And till you get to hear. And right up here last night was where Jupiter was. And then
use the meter markings on the side to give us an idea of how
far above the horizon Jupiter was when I did that. That was very special. The Jacob staff
was invented by her sonities in the 14th century. And I think
most of you are asking is he still living and could we get him to come to the the the Star
Party? Oh we could try. But if we got then we'd have to get
Galileo. Galileo is definitely here. Shakespeare is here. And Versanities is here. In our
hearts. And in our minds. And we're looking at them. And now for the quotation. I've been
agonizing for weeks as to what quotation I was going to use. The 00th collab you know the
100th Global Star Party. And the one that I chose is from none other than Alfred Noyes.
Uh that wrote this poem specifically for the opening of
the hundred inch on Mount Wilson. And George Hillary Hale
when he was arranging the first light for the 00 inch. He was
hoping that he'd get a poet. And he had to get the best of the time. And so we wrote to Alfred Noyes. And Noyes said
it's interesting you asked me because I'm working on a poem now. Watchers of the
and I'd be honoured to come and read and read that poem. And
here it is On the hundred inch telescope's opening night. Tomorrow night. So wrote their
chief. We try our great new telescope. The 00 inch. Your
Milton's Optic Tube. Has grown in power. Since Galileo.
Famous, wined, and old. Talked with him. In that prison of a sky. We creep to power by
inches. Europe trusts a giant 40 still. Even tonight our own
old 60 has his work to do. And now our 100 inch. I hardly dare
to think what this new muzzle of ours may find. And what that
muzzle of ours has found is now a part of history. Thank you Scott and back to you. Ah thank
you so much David. That was very I don't know. I, I, having
just gone to the George Hillary Hale family reunion, of course,
George wasn't there, but he was in spirit, and it was wonderful
to see so much of his extended family, and to make friends
with some of them, and to hear some of the inspiring talks of their own. Uh, Sam Hale had
really fired the family through by taking them to CalTech which
was of course built by or helped founded by George Hillary Hale and in the city of
Pasadena which was partially built by George Ellery Hale and and then and then he took him
up to Mount Wilson you know which was of course two of the amazing telescope s up there and so by George Hillary Hale.
So just the the accomplishments of that guy in his short
lifespan is just mind blowing to me. Um but always seem to be able to find the most talented
and driven people of his time to get to get things done and
so I'm not surprised that he got the world's best poet to be
there during the first light of the 00 inch. Um I I also think
about how nervous the man must have been before they actually looked at a star. Uh and for
1hundred Under stand it. At first, it didn't seem to be going so well. Do you, can you
tell us that story, David? Yeah, it's, they started in the
early evening, and they got a
dreadful picture of a bright star that really was all over the place. It was horrible.
And, Hale was thinking, well, how could this mirror be so
awful? We put everything we add into it. George Ritchie is in a
loony bin now because of this mirror. And you know how could how could it be awful? But then
he remembered that the telescope the dome had been opened during the day and that
sunlight had hit the mirror. And he thought why don't we let it cool off for a few hours? So
they went back to it around three o'clock in the morning. They turned the telescope towards Viga. And boy was that
image heavenly. It was Wonderful. Absolutely pristine.
And then they knew that the 00 inch was going to have a long and as illustrious career. One
of the best parts of the hundred inch was during the was during the Second World War.
When Buddha got to use it. And to help him get better sky. The
city of Los Angeles turned off all their lights. Phone call and just said could you shut up
shut it down? They shut down the city hallways in the city. And they actually didn that for
the sake of the 100 inch. They did that. So that the Japanese wouldn't know where to boom if
they tried to bomb it. But it sure helped the 00 inch. And
the other thing is if any of you go to Mount Wilson you'll see this beautiful side as
Scotty has seen and that I have seen. And that I hope to see again the site where hail built
is 60 inch is 00 inch and of course the Solar Telescopes. But of the Motopolymar which is
nearby And take a look at the 200 inch. And as you go in the
lobby of the 200 inch you will see a magnificent not that large while relief sculpture.
And it says underneath the four letters hail. Under neath it. That they named the 200 inch
after him. That is really such a wonderful thing. And such a
wonderful way to celebrate our hundredth Global Star Party at. Yes. Thank you so much, David.
That's great. Okay. Well, coming up here in the not too
distant future, I'll be heading around the world with one of my great friends, David Eicher.
David is you know, I've I've every time that he comes on, I
want to say something different about him but he is, I mean,
he's absolutely extremely knowledgeable. Uh he is Absolutely inspiring. Um you
know, he is everything that you would hope that an editor of the leading astronomy magazine
the world would be. But you know, he doesn't make it a
secret that he's extremely friendly, extremely down to
earth, and has an incredible sense of humor and so I love
that. I love that and you know, when you hear that and and you know, you get past all the you
know, amazing accomplishments of many of these people that are here but you just learn
about who they really are, you know, you'll find it, you'll find them in their humor, in
their insights in the Things, personal things that they share with you, that kind of stuff,
you know, and so, I have, you know, I'm really looking
forward to the trip to Yeravan where I'll go to my first Starmus event. Uh David has
been, I think, to all of them and he will will be in Yeravan,
Armenia, and we are going to be at this first century AD pagan
temple where we will set up and do a star party with live music under the stars. It's going to
be amazing and the best part of this is that you can go to and it's not it's not so expensive.
So, but I'm going to turn this over to David Eicher. He has been showing us amazing stuff
that comes from our own planet. Planet Earth. Uh it with the minerals and crystals in its
private collection. Here we go. Thanks, Scott. You know,
somehow doing our first star party together in a long, long time at a first century pagan
temple seems really appropriate, doesn't it? I I'm not going to say anything more. But they look they scoured the
planet. You know just if there are stories afterward we'll
report on them and maybe we it just needs to all be forgotten. I don't know but anyway we'll see how it turns out. That's
right. So so thank you though Scott for having me again and we're working our way through.
Right. The mineral world and we have not run out of species quite yet. We're in there but I
will see if I can share my screen and start a slideshow And can you see a mineral? Yes.
Okay, that is Smithsonite from the famous Sea green variety.
Uh Socorro County, New Mexico, the famous Kelly Mine, which is
very, very close to the very large array. One of our favorite radio telescope s left
on this planet now. So, tonight, we're going to talk
about an unusual category but first, I'll start off by quoting one of the founders of
this country, Thomas Jefferson. I believe in a divinely ordered universe. Even before that
time, talking about structure and analysis and understanding, empirically, how the universe
works. Uh Isaac Newton said truth is ever to be found in the simplicity and not in the
not in the multiplicity and confusion of things The universe is ordered and
minerals show us this really well, not by supernatural design, but by the principles
of physics. They demonstrate this because their atoms are assembled in precise ways by
the electrochemical attractions that are inherent in them. Uh that make them come together
and guide them into assembling into what mineralologists call a crystal lattice. So we don't
need magic as Richard Dawkins like to say, even likes to say, even when we talk about life Uh
speaking of Starmas speakers, by the way, Scott. Yeah. Um but he will talk about how we
simply need to understand the principles of science which astonishingly enough explain
the universe and thankfully, we're getting a better and better, you know, by a factor of seven resolution and just
spectacular quality. Uh we've, as you all know, entered a new era this last week of how we
will see the universe. Uh we hope for at least about 30 years to come. So, this is, you know, we've talked about this
is an exciting time to be interested in science and in astronomy specifically and the
game has just gotten even more exciting. So, this is the the best time we can remember. So,
tonight, I'm going to talk a little bit about for a brief time about water Soluble Minerals. Um many types of
water soluble minerals exist which you need to be careful with in a place like Wisconsin.
If you're like my friend David in and you can be a little more
rigorous with them. They tend to dissolve if you're not careful. A typical and very
well-known example of this is haylite which is a mineral just term for the crystals that
naturally occur of sodium chloride. You're very familiar with it every day. You ingest it every day as table salt, of
course. It comes from the Greek word for C which comes from the origin as an evaporate from
seawater So often colorless white, yellow, red, purple, or even blue with some impurities
that color it in various ways. And it's one of the most familiar minerals to us on the
dining room table. So we'll look at a few examples of of
haylight and and some other waters soluble minerals tonight. And and we still are a
few rounds away from the end here Scott. Believe it or not. But we're gelling. Okay. So
Haylight is an isometric which is a fancy word for cubic crystal system and it consists
of course of sodium and chlorine Adams. Uh of course, some elements are really,
really dangerous in certain forms and not others. So, we eat chlorine you know, every
day as as solid but chlorine, gas, of course, can be very
dangerous. So, here's an example of haylight, sodium chloride. This is from a very
well-known mine in Poland and it's a pretty big piece. It's about eight inches across or so
rough So, you can see that it crystallizes most ordinarily as
a clear cubic crystallization.
However, it comes in other varieties too and there's a very well-known French site
where very striking blue haylight forms and is of sort
of a fibrous crystallization of imperfect cubes. Um which is an
interesting diversionary thing there and this is a fairly
similar mineral to haylight in the same group but it's potassium, magnesium, chloride,
hydrate called carnelite and this is also from that same French deposit in the Alsace
region there and you can see it gets a very orangey color here
from magnesium particularly.
These are lots of similar, they're not the best looking minerals in the world. A lot of
the hay, a lot of the water soluble evaporates but they are what they are. A lot of them
are sort of clear or whitish color. This is sulfite which is potassium chloride and it's
from a famous potash mine in New Mexico. Um and you can see
again, it sort of looks at a first approximation fairly similar to to Haylight. Not the
most incredible looking specim but you know, if you want to have a tight collection of
stuff, you gotta have some of these. So, this is Trona Sodium Bicarbonate Hydrate and it's
from another very well-known very dry region where lots of
these kinds of minerals come from and that is in Yo County, California. and you can see
it's sort of bladed crystals here. Yeah. Epsomide, you've heard of Epsom salts, you know, to in the, you know, 17th
century, you put your feet in a soaking bath. Maybe you still do. I don't know. Um, to make
your feet feel better. Well, this is Epsomite here and and this is the origin of that.
Magnesium sulfate hydrate and and it's from a very well-known potash mine in Germany. This
piece as well which is a reasonably large crystallized plate. This is a fake. It's
really there. It really exists. But it's sympathetic. It's lab grown just as you know now.
Many diamonds as well as being recycled from people's diamonds
who are no longer around and remounted and sold. Many diamonds now can be grown
synthetically very well. So there are lots of synthetic minerals and gems out there. This is a pretty easy one to
grow in a lab. It's calculified which is copper sulfate hydrate. Uh and this is from a
lab in Poland. It's pretty fragile, brittle, and and just
delicate stuff, but, but it's, lots and lots of this stuff has grown, and, and sold, you know,
is kind of, you know, magical, you know, amazing crystals that will do all sorts of incredible
things for you, you know, at rock shows. Um, you know, the,
it's pretty, you know, just, you know, sit there and understand, but it ain't going to do any magic, you
know, sorry to be a bummer, but this is a very old time specimen now that was recycled,
there was a great collection of minerals in the United States, for many, many years. It's from
parts of it are from the early nineteenth, very early 19th century at the Academy of Natural Sciences in
Philadelphia and they sold a lot of the no-good specimens many years ago. Now, about a
generation ago. So, there are lots of these old time specimens that come from a very famous mineralist his
collection in Philadelphia. This is one of them. It's a pretty ordinary mineral and
hydrate. Um it's from famous town, infamous town in Germany,
Berkdesgarden. Does that ring a bell with anyone? See how many World War two historians are here? Okay. There was a really
hand that and no I don't remember. A really bad guy lived in this town. Well in all
days. Associates as well you know. But that's okay. They they the Wolves. We we we
bombed and then blew up the rest of his house. Yeah. But but this from the same town as
as that guy who, you know, tried to overthrow the the world 75 years ago. Um but it's
an interesting but fairly ordinary specimen here. Villamite is sodium fluoride
and again, fluorine is you know, very dangerous as a gas
but it's inert in essence as a solid here. Um and this is from an interesting locality in
Namibia and this is kind of interesting because you can see it's a little bit gemmy here which for a water soluble
mineral is is a little bit unusual here. This sometimes called although it's really
just plain old This is super super fragile and almost
crumbly. Oh. This piece and it gets its peacock blue color from from copper atoms. Uh but
it's iron, copper, sulfate, hydrate, and it comes from a very well-known region for this stuff in Spain. So again, this
is the kind of stuff that's very fragile and ideally with these kinds of minerals, you're
kind of ranting them. Um because you know, about after a generation or so, unless it's
really in an airtight compartment that is molecularly sealed, this stuff will
essentially degenerate. Wow. You know, and decompose over some years. Um but David, I I
was reminded when you mentioned Floreen in the before. I'd read an article about the that team
of astronomers had obser of that chlorine comes from the
explosions from Wolf Ray at Stars and it's actually kind of rare. Wolf Ray Stars, yeah, you
know, one of the things when I ran out of minerals, that's one of the things that is high on my list of 300 astronomical
things to talk about again. Mm hmm. Because we know a lot more now, you know, in the last 10
to 15 years about the origins of the elements. That's a very good topic, Scott. and many
many elements, aside from hydrogen and helium, big and big bang nucleosynthesis early on, the majority of the heavier
elements, you know, owe them cells to the deaths either low mass stars or in many cases,
Supernova and and the end of stars or the collisions of high
mass stars like neutron stars as well. So, that's a really, you're right about that and that's an interesting thing to
talk about that I'll horrify you with in some detail later,
I hope. Sure. You know, when when I get back to astronomy, but that it's amazing, you know, this era again that we're
in, you know, 35 years ago, we really didn't understand the origins of the elements, except
in a very crude way. So, we, we're sort of spoiled these days, you know, in the, in
being a wash and knowledge that's relatively new, and that's a good one, the origins
of the elements. This is Cronkite which is
sodium copper sulfate hydrate. Again, getting this you know,
sky blue color if you will from copper atoms that are spread liberally throughout the
crystals. This is from a very famous mine and as you know and can imagine, several regions,
you know, including the Attakama as well, of course, are really good for really dry
minerals in Chile. Um that's a really rich region for this kind of stuff as well. This
super fragile and very, very, almost hair like, needle-like
crystals here of calcite, which is the same mineral that I showed you, the synthetic
Polish, crystallized version of, and this is a naturally occurring version of this
mineral, very, very fragile stuff from a famous mine called the Planet Mine of All Things,
in Arizona, and, and so this stuff is really fragile, and very, very sensitive to water
molecules decomposing it. But it's, it's pretty though, from, thanks to copper. this stuff
and that is the Carlas. Uh you can see there is some sort of modified dodecahedrons here.
It's a little hard to see the way this is photographed but of this transparent or or crystal
clear almost looks like rock crystal quartz here. Um but
that's salamoniac which is an unusual mineral. It's ammonium chloride. Relatively rare and
one of the better places to find it is this place in in area of Bohemia and and the
Czech Republic. So this is a very unusual mineral and very sensitive again to hydration.
Here's another one that is extremely sensitive and quite rare and as a recent discovery
of only about a decade ago, there's a fairly fairly well-known German mineral dealer, Gunner Ferber, and he's
the discoverer of this mineral and the mineral is not the hunk of stuff which is haylite, the the clear stuff but it's this
little coppery blue contamination on the haylight
is amino night and that's copper chloride amine. So, that's a very unusual chemical
here and and is a mineral that's only about a decade old. You know, there are about 5
thousand mineral species as I've mentioned. Believe it or not, you're going to be stunned that we haven't looked at every
one of them. This has been going on so long. But but there is still quite a number and
several dozens typically at least of new mineral species that are discovered each year
which is pretty incredible. So, the the number is slowly growing.
Here's another one. These are these little bluish and greenish bladed crystals. You crowite which is a Slovakian
specimen here. This is a quite an unusual mineral. Uh and
here's boothite, another California very dry region. Uh
San Bernardino County, Copper Sulfate Hydrate. Fairly, you know, not not very complex but
it forms these fairly fragile, little, bluish balls, if you
will, that are little puffy, you know, that are quite fragile here, that stuff, and
this is what happens to water soluble minerals when they're not stored in an airtight
container. Oh. This is from Dave's collection. And this is, oh, this is now called an X
mineral specimen. Okay. So, this is what I meant about
renting these water soluble minerals because this is about five years in after having it
in what I thought was a fairly tight plastic seal but obviously wasn't. So this this
is now powdered dust of Epsomite. So, you know, it goes
to show you, you know, you you kind of live and you learn. Um. What did it look like before?
Was it like crystals? It was nice sort of squareish, modified, squareish crystals. Yeah. So, now it's a it's a
pile of, you know, dust. So, you know, these things, we all
have them for a time. Many mineral specimens, you know, are are and this is another
thing that we're on the early, not to be labor this forever, but we're in the early days of
understanding the crystallization ages of minerals. So, we now know that some localities and some kinds
of minerals crystallize say about 8 million years ago.
Let's say. So, here's one that didn't make it that far. You know, this this is probably
only decades old at crystals because it's an easy thing to make quickly when the when the
evaporation happens and it was killed in my study, you know.
So, that that didn't make it that far. But some minerals, of course, are, are, millions, or
many millions, or even, you know, a billion years old. Um,
so, so this is a contrast. And again, Scott, we're on the cusp now of going, and I can't say
anything super specifically, but I can tell you that there will be music now, and we will be in the company of some rock
and roll, and some famous guitarists. I know will be there now. Oh really? Um so we'll have a star party and we
will have astronaut speakers and Nobel Prize winning
physicists and chemists and so far. And Seth's boss Jill
Tarter will be there. Um so it's a good thing Seth behaved himself today. Um and we're
going to have some rock and roll as well. So we're going to have a time and we will we hope we'll report maybe a little bit Scott. I don't know
how much we'll be able to do this. Maybe we'll be able to do a little bit of live reporting from Armenia. We'll see. Yeah.
We'll certainly try. Yeah. But yeah. will have a lot to report on when we get back in
September. Sure. Sure. Wonderful. Okay. Well, thanks so much, David. I'm super
excited about all this as you all know. So. Yeah. Yup. Great. It's going to be fun. We're
going to have a blast. Oh, Daniel wanted to ask you a
question. Uh go ahead, Daniel. you here. Uh David,
fascinating. I've got a a really cool big haylight that a student brought me from Death Valley. But I wanted to know
have the rovers discovered? You say six to ten new minerals a year? Have the rovers discovered Mars Unique Minerals
yet? No. Well no. They're they're on Earth. The on Earth.
Oh yeah. Some some dozens of minerals you know are being discovered. The rovers have
discovered some unusual and I think new minerals few species that are being investigated. Um
but they've they've also discovered, you know, and years ago, some earlier rovers, some
sulfates that that had that are part of the evidence that there was a, you know, plentiful liquid flowing water on the
surface of Mars, which of course, now, we know is in aqua subsurface aquifers but there
are plentiful sulfates that are analogs to earth sulfates that
had to be, you know, no intended swimming in in flowing water. Um so, you know, what
that that, you know, story of why did Mars go dry, you know,
and why did the atmosphere globally change still has to be fully answered even though we
basically know the story and and maybe the carbon-rich
atmosphere and the slow drying over billions of years and then the the isolation volcanic
tubes. I think there's gotta be new prizes and new wonderful stuff waiting for us. There's
no doubt about it. Absolutely and and Mars is was for a long
time in the same boat that that we're in. Uh unlike Mercury and the Moon. you know, without
plentiful water, the the if you go back 2. 6 billion years on Earth, the great oxygenation
event took place when there was suddenly enough free oxygen
from an abundance of microbes that oxygen was freely available in Earth's atmosphere
and what is oxygen like to do, of course, but to with everything. So that from from about 1500 mineral species
which dry worlds have probably like the moon. Uh that tripled
or quadrupled the number of mineral species on Earth when they were oxygenated minerals.
To the 5000 or so that we know that. So for a long long time Mars had that same problem. So
there must be many many minerals we don't know about yet on Mars that are earth
analogs. And maybe that we don't know of on Earth as well.
Mm-hmm. So, that's going to be exciting in the future as we also put our dipsticks down
into the, you know, very, very, very clean dipsticks down into the aquifers to see if there
are any microbes there. Right. Wonderful. Exciting stuff. Oh, yeah. The question as well.
Just a quick one. So, I'm wondering, how is, how is it that certain elements produced
in Supernova go from being in in what I assume to be this kind of uniform concentration to much larger concentrations
on the earth where we can mine down and say this is where you find gold or zinc or something like that. Well, abundance of
of atoms is the the the quick answer and lots of time. You
know, if you have 13. 8 billion years, that's a lot of Supernova production and a lot
of collisions of neutron stars and it takes a long time, you
know, to successively see the lifespan of a new star dying
and blowing stuff out into the interstellar medium which then gets accredited to a planet and
ends up in Colorado and gets pushed up into the mountains where it's accessible. Um and
somebody, you know, finds it in the 1870s, you know, by chance. So, you know, a tremendous
amount of material being produced by stars over an enormously long time. Um
produces that and remember, some things we think of as rare are not really that rare.
Diamonds, if we could find things, Kimberlite pipes below ground which we can't easily
would be plentiful. They were one of the dozen species to exist in the solar system. Uh
you know, elemental carbon and if we could extract gold that's
dissolved in seawater, it would be worthless. There's so much of it that is blind in the
oceans, you know. But we can't, you know, so, so we have to find it by sheer dumb luck in
mountains that, you know, that get pushed up and make western movies, you know, after 100
years, you know. Right. Um so, so, you know, but a a tremendous amount of material.
Remember how many stars are in the universe now? We think at least $10, 000 billion. And and
enormously long time gets enough of that heavy stuff into a planet like Earth that's four
point six billion years old. Yeah. Thank you. Nice. Great.
Okay so we are going to transition to Molly Wakeling
but before we do Maxi's got his telesco aimed at a beautiful
nebula. Maxi, you want to give us a peek? Hey, guys again. How are you? And yes, I pointed to
the Liberty Statue in Nebula but the light pollution is really really tough. So, I
pointed now to the Swan Nebula. Let me share my screen.
Okay, this is eh a single picture of eh 2 minutes and
this is eh the how it looks like, you can see here is the shape but when I do auto
stretching, you have the information. Wow. So here. It's
only yeah, it's, it's a really good, I only use him 100 gain
at eh minus 10 degrees Celsius
And you can see even because I went outside eh a couple minutes ago and I barely could
see almost a scorpion, the southern cross and maybe Artudas. That's all the stuff
that I can see. I think we have eh wind in the up skeleton of
the sky so we have a lot of dust and this is this is not a
really clear night but anyway I can see eh all this objects so
eh again if you want to see something eh from the southern
skies, well, this is from the middle, you can see also in the northern but eh let me know it,
and I will point my scope for the, for the next eh break,
okay? I guess it's worth mentioning that, in our view, if we were to shoot it here in
the Northern Hemisphere, that would, the swan sort of shape would look upside down. So,
it's still. Yeah. things. Remember you you can
change the field of view of the cameras or you can rotate and
here the spikes are not practically ehm ehm horizontal
and vertical. They are more intimidated but yeah. Anyway eh
I am using eh the Newtonian and maybe also the the image is eh
different like when you see it. So. Yeah, you're using Antonio
and so they're made. So, something is flipped. So. Mm hmm. Exactly. Well, thank you,
Maxie. Thanks for showing us the live view here. That's wonderful. No. Nice to see you. Okay. Okay. So, now, we're
going to go to Molly Wakeling. Molly has been on Manny Global Star Parties. Uh she
is I think might have been called an amateur scientist
before but I think that she is getting her PHD and will be a
professional scientist here in the not too distant future. Maybe she's now working for
money now. I don't know. I passed my candidacy exam today
so. Wow. Wow. Congratulations. Congratulations. Yeah. That's
perfect. You're on your way. That's perfect Wow. Very well deserved. But I really want to
get this top so. Excellent. Molly, thanks for
coming on to the 100th Global Star Party. Yeah, thanks for having me, Jack Holliggan, Scott. It's been a while since
I've been on here. And Harry goes Exams. So, glad to finally
be back on here for a little bit before I dive into writing my practice. Um but yeah, I
really wanted 100 show and I also want to come on because of course of the tremble release
of the Kingsland Space Boss packages and I want to talk about in particular and about
what it like how how is a good example of the kinds of things that we'll be able to learn
from the Ace Lab and Science Right. Molly, your your voice
sounds a little thin right now. I don't know if there's any thing you can change on your
microphone. Microphone selected. Oh I had the wrong
mic selected. How's that? Way better. Alright, apologies. Any better. Okay, gotcha. Thank
you. The the cooler on my on my the CPU cooler on my desktop died yesterday. Uh oh. Um so,
I've got my laptop hooked up temporarily and I so I'm trying to get all my stuff rewired
and. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. Now, got it back on my good microphone. I'm actually Macy
picked it up at all because the microphone on that computer is about five feet away underneath my desk. It sort of sounded
like that. It was just kind of it sounded like you were in a so. Yeah, apologies. Alright,
thanks for, thanks for letting me know. I will share my
screen. Yeah, I'll just do that and
then that. Yeah, so I also don't have my normal second screen today. So, hopefully,
yeah. Um. How's that look? Does that look okay? It's great. Looks good. Cool. Um yeah. So,
I I want to talk about that incredible deep field image. The first one that was released
of the few first few images released from the space telescope that focuses as
pointed at the Galaxy Cluster Smacks oh seven two three. Uh Shauna Merc good at coming up
with really funny short-hand names for things and we really like to name things like, oh, I
should've had some examples handy, but like, like, assassin, for example, is the
name of a survey that looks for things like comets, assassins, right? Yeah. Great. So, and
sometimes, the acronyms are stretched quite thin. Um, but probably good at that, so.
Nice. Um, alright. So,
The image. I can't look at it enough. It's one of those ones that you really have to go
download the original uncompressed TIF file. Just the biggest size one that you can
go download from the NASA website and just like zoom in really far and just start
kind of looking around because there's so much detail in here. And so many incredible things to look at. So, let me point
out some of kind of the main features of the things going on in this image. Um so, first, we
foreground stars. Very much like we were used to seeing in Hubble images. Uh they're
obvious by their defraction spikes And in the case of the James Web telescope it has six
defaction spikes instead of the normal four that we're used to because of the hexagonal shape of the mirror. And then the
horizontal interfaction spike in the middle is the one that's actually from the strats. I
thought it was the other way around but I went and looked that up and yeah so that horizontal one is is from the strut that the secondary and
then the hexagonal spikes are from the hexagonal shape of the primary mirror. So, expect to
expect that to be a an identifying feature of James seven images from here on out.
Uh so, in addition to the foreground stars, we have lots of background galaxies. Everything from ones that are
easy to spot with really cool spiral shapes when the image is
zoomed out all the way to really tiny dot and really a
lot like just like the Hubble Deep Field that that really kind of moved me to get into physics in the first place.
Every single. of light in this image that's not one of the foreground stars is a galaxy.
When you zoom in really far and you see a little fuzzy. that's a galaxy that is really far
away and so it's really incredible to see just the depth that that James Webb was
able to go to in this one image Um now, the target of the image
is Smacks. Uh it's her hand smacks seven zero 7 two three
but the full long name is J zero seven two three point three dash seven three two seven. Uh ways of of cataloging
all these things that there's too many to name. Uh so, the light travel time is the number
is the number that you've been hearing a lot for the distance for this Galaxy cluster, a 4. 6 billion and like yours, it's
proper distance is 5. 12 billion light years. And that has to do with the way that
space between us and that galaxy cluster has stretched since the light has left. So
it's proper distance actually farther away than the light travel time. And I'm going to dig a little more into that
when I talk about cosmological red shift later on. Uh in addition to that, we have if
you looked around the Galaxy, you might notice that some have very odd shapes. These really stretched out looking galaxies.
Those are actually gravitationally lensed galaxies that are being lensed by this
heavy galactic cluster in the middle, the Smax cluster. I'm going to talk about what that is and actually what that can
do for us scientifically as well. So, first, to the
nightscape imager put up this really great video on his Instagram showing where exactly this deep field image is taken.
So, we have a shot of the Southern Sky. We can see large magulana cloud and briefly to
the left of the vaginal cloud it showed two arrows. Um so, look to the left and zoom in on
that little box. That is the area of this deep field. It's it's equivalent of holding a
grain of sand out at arms length and that's the area on the sky that this beet field
covers and in that deep field, we can see thousands of of
galaxies in just that extremely tiny area of sky. So, the really kind of chilling
reminder just how unimaginably enormous the universe is. Yeah.
Um so let's talk about how it compares to the Hubble Space telescope and how it's a
successor to Hubble as opposed to a replacement. So first of
all as we all know it has a much larger mirror than the Hubble which has a 2. four meter mirror with James Webb
having six and a half meters. And this larger size allows it to be 270% sharper because that
that larger size allows us to have a higher spacer resolution. And seven hundred and percent more light
gathering power. And we actually end up being able to get even more light gathering
power than that because of the instruments that are on it and and the quality of those instruments. That's kind of the
value from from the mirror alone. Uh in terms of that deep field it would take Hubble
weeks to capture that same deep field that James Webb was able
to catch in 12 and a half hours of exposure time. If you all remember the the Hubble Deep
Fields that came out in the 90s and 2000s that got progressively longer exposure times. Those were exposure
times of weeks. and we were able to probe deeper already with just twelve and a half
hours of exposure time on the James Webb telescope. So, it's just just a glimpse of what
we're going to be able to do with it and it's truly incredible.
Um so here's actually a comparison image of Hubble
imaging the same field that James Webb imaged and the Hubble image is a shorter
exposure time. It's about three and a half hours total exposure time compared to James Webb's 12. But you can see already the
difference not only in a coursing on a light gathered but the quality of the image.
We have newer cameras on James Webb with lower noise and we have a lot higher space
resolution. So, if you were to zoom in on the Hubble image, a lot of the galaxies get kind of fuzzy. Right. Where they become
sharp in the James Webb image.
Um so, in addition to to those things, it the JSL space telescope is in a totally
different orbit than than Hubble. So, Hubble, Hubble is in an earth orbit and that
actually limits its exposure time on any particular target because it can only image one spot on the sky 50% of the time
because then it goes around behind the Earth and it's blocked from view and then it has to reorient when it comes
back around to look at that target again but with James Webb we can sit on the same target for an arbitrary amount
of time and we can see any target in the sky at any time with the exception of things
that are right behind the sun and the earth. Due to the fact that it's in the Slick Ranch two point orbit out behind the
Earth at a further out orbit that grab it because of some
nulls and the gravitational field ends up moving at the same speed as Earth. Um so
we'll always be roughly that position from us. So allows us to see a lot more things for
longer periods of time without having to go behind the earth. Uh the other important key
difference and why James Dub is really a successor as opposed to replacement for Hubble is James Hubb is focused on the
infrared spectrum. So, Hubble was really focused on the optical and the near ultraviolet and the near
infrared. Whereas James Webb covers a very tiny amount of red but really kind of starts
right in the infrared and goes down into into the mid infrared and a part of the reason for
that is one of James Webb's main missions is to look at at the first galaxies, galaxies
that are over 13 billion light years away in light travel time and because of cosmological red
shift which again I'm going to talk about in a second. Um that light from those galaxies has actually shifted into the
infrared. So we need to be able to use an infrared telescope to be able to see those distant galaxies. Now having that
infrared capability allows us to do some other things. such as seeing through dust that includes both dust in our
galaxy to see to the core of our galaxy as well as dust and other galaxies. So the image I
have here at the bottom is a comparison between the Hubble image of Stephen's Quintet is
on the left and the James Webb infrared image is on the right. And you can see that that it's
the same that kind of have the same shapes of the galaxies. But you can see much different kinds of detail in the James
not only because it's a sharper instrument because it's looking at a different frequency of light. And it's able to to peer
in past that yellow glowing and dark glowing dust and see what's all the star forming
activity that's going on inside of it. Alright, so let's talk about gravitational lensing.
So, the thing that causes this lensing is when you have a large distribution of matter, in this case, a galaxy cluster
between a distant light source such as a galaxy and an observer, which is us, which
bends the light from that light source around that, that source
of mass, that galaxy cluster as it travels towards us. This effect was actually predicted
by general relativity before we were able to observe it. Um, principally with with with
Einstein really cementing in that theory of general relativity And one of the
outcomes of that light bending around the gravitational field of the of the galaxy cluster is
that it can stretch the image of the galaxy. And it can also make multiple images. So I
think the the one shown here the one on the right side of the Galaxy cluster that I'm not
showing is definitely the same Galaxy showed twice. I think this one is also where it's a
very stretched out image of the galaxy but I might be wrong about this but this might be
the same galaxy that we're seeing two images of because of the way the light bends around it. Crazy. So, there's a neat
little video from ESO that the European Southern Observatory that shows this effect. So, we
have a foreground galaxy and and the blue, the background galaxy, and the red, and the image of back is what it looks
like to us. So, the light rays coming from that background galaxy get bent around the
foreground galaxy and it makes the image appear to be this
ring or a sometimes a ring, sometimes multiple images around the the the galaxy in
the center. So, it's similar to Optics but with some different
characteristics of how the the light is bent because the fact that there's no focal length this kind of quote unquote
optic system. Um but yes that's the effect that a foreground if
you will still billion light years away. Uh Galaxy cluster with a lot of mass can bend the
light from the galaxies behind it. So, what what can, so
besides looking really cool, what can we learn from gravitational lensing from from that effect? So, for one thing,
we can learn about how the matter is distributed in the lensing object. So, in that Smacks Galaxy cluster because
that will affect how the light is bent around it and whether
you get a ring or multiple images or whether those how those multiple images are distorted, this is the example
I was talking about where this, I don't know if you can see my mouse but the the kind of
stretched out galaxy and the upper one are really the same galaxy with the images
distorted and and doubled. It's very cool. Um we can actually learn about the distribution of
dark matter from this as well because we understand the effects of gravity and we can
look at the amount of light coming from that that that cluster of galaxies and if the
way that the light is bent doesn't match up with the amount of mass, then, we can surmise that the mass that
there's the additional mass that is there is from dark matter. We can probe the the distribution the dark matter as
well. Lensing also amplifies the light from the distant galaxies that are being lensed which allows us to see more
distant galaxies than we would be able to see without that gravitational lens there. Um
and there's actually an example of an image from Hubble where
we were able to see a supernova. So a single star from a galaxy some billions of
light years away that you wouldn't otherwise have been able to see because it it was it's too dim to have been spotted by Hubble. But because
it was gravitationally lens the lights actually been amplified. We were able to see the light from that Supernova. Uh which
gave us some really cool science on on those on those kind of earlier star supernova.
Um and some of the galaxies that are lens in this image are $13 billion light years away.
Which is just an incredible number and getting back really toward the first galaxies which
is one of the main missions of James Webb. So, on the topic of
looking back to the first galaxy, let's talk a little bit about the timeline of the expansion of the universe. So,
Hubble or James Webb is looking is hoping to be able to look back to these first galaxies.
If you look in the right image, they're hoping to look all the way back to a period of time known as as hydrogen
reionization. Um so, so kind of the the order of events here is so after the big bang, after
inflation, there was a soup of hydrogen and helium and a
little bit of lithium And but the universe was was still
quite hot. And light was not actually able to really move around it. It was just constantly getting absorbed and
re omitted by the by the ionized hydrogen and helium.
But as the universe expanded it also cooled in the same way that expanding gas in the in
the same volume of a of a bottle will make the bottle colder. Um so about 3 79000
years after the Big Bang. We have a a period called recombination. Which the
universe had cooled to about 3000 degrees. Kelvin which is about the surface temperature
of the sun. Which is cool enough where the light's no longer getting absorbed
constantly. Um and the it was cool enough for those hydrogen
and helium atoms to be able to capture electrons. Cuz before it was so the electrons, any
electrons that got captured were immediately released because they had too much energy to stay bound. but at this point, you're able to
capture the electrons which what finally allowed the light to start passing through. The universe became transparent and
that is the cosmic microwave background. That's the kind of the moment in time when it was
produced. This was the last light before the universe became transparent And so at
that time, that light, the 3000 Kelvin is approximately like
like a like a red section of of kind of a red area of light but as the universe has expanded,
that red light has dropped has been stretched now to be microwave wavelength. So, hence
the cosmic microwave background. Now, there was a a period some there's period
later on. We don't know exactly how much later on. That's one thing that we're hoping to discover where some in the
first hundreds of millions of years when the gas clouds of
now the the neutral hydrogen and helium because they all had their electrons became hot
enough that that they reionized. So there was enough energy in these in these
condensing hot clouds of gas to once again release electrons
from them to liberate those electrons and start to light
again. So, just like how in, when we look at at hydrogen
alpha clouds like, like the Lagoon Nebula and the Rosette Nebula, we see that red glowing
light that is is is the light from hydrogen. Um so, that's
the period of realization that James and I was hoping to be able to see back to because that's the period of the first
of the formation of the first stars. The early stars were about 30 to 300 times more
massive than the sun. There was only hydrogen and helium around. There weren't any of the of any anything that was
heavier than that like the oxygen and the carbon, the nitrogen that makes our red giants these days And because
of that these stars only lasted a few a few million years and
they were also millions of times more luminous than the sun. And then they exploded in massive supernova which became
black holes. And then those black holes began to start merging with each other over
time. And the creating more material to make eventually make supermassive black holes around which the first galaxies
would have formed. So, we're hoping to see some of that
process with James Webb.
So looking at, looking at the, the most distant galaxies in
this image, the, I've zoomed in on another portion of, of that deep field, where, and again, I
want to emphasize, these little dots of light here, and here,
and here, those are a whole galaxy. Yeah. I mean Galaxy's
like, like the size. God has billions of stars and trillions of planets. Yeah, yeah, exactly
and and they just appears barely discernible dots of light because they're so far away and they're as old as as
some as some 13 billion years when we were far enough in past the Big Bang for the Stars and
the Black Holes to start to form. Um now, the as I mentioned earlier, the light
from those earliest, most distant galaxies has been red shifted by the expansion of the universe. moving it into the
infrared. So, what is, what is that red shift? So, there's two types of red shift that that we
talk about and the two are often confused. There is a red shift due to the doppler effect
and there's cosmological red shift. So, red shifts due to to
the doppler effect is caused by the motion of the object. So, for example, we use, we use
Doppler Red Shift as a way to look at like like a binary star
system for instance and be able to and see how those two stars are moving around each other,
how much they pull on each other so we can estimate their masses and we also use this technique for observing
exoplanets, especially the larger ones that that have larger poles on their stars. So, in a very similar way that
a when a train goes by, you the sound is, is kind of a higher
and as it goes away, it goes One drops of pitch. Just like a like a train or like an
ambulance. It's it's the same effect but for light. So if the object is moving toward us that
the the peaks and troughs of the of the light are going to be bunched closer together and
will appear slightly shifted blue word. Whereas when the star is moving away from us
then that light gets stretched out when it's emitted because of that motion. It becomes a little bit shifted toward the
red and what I, in particular, I mean, the emission lines and absorption lines of that star,
which are characteristic of particular elements. So, for example, hydrogen has an emission line of 626
nanometers, which is at hydrogen alpha light that we see in all these gorgeous astronomy images. So, those,
that will, that exact wavelength of light will get shifted a bit around that point, depending on whether the
emitting it is moving closer further away from us. So, that's Doppler Shift
Now, cosmological red shift is due to the actual expansion of
space time. The expansion of the universe, and the light that was originally emitted at
a particular wavelength gets stretched by that expansion and I was trying to find a good gif
for this and I couldn't really find one that was satisfactory but then, I came across this one here where somebody's
stretching some elastic and it's really just perfect. Yeah. That's right. Cuz like, as as
when you're stretching the elastic, your, the, the actual
space that that that that elastic is taking up lengthwise, in this case, gets
stretched out, which causes the wavelength of the light to stretch out. So, cosmological
red shift is due to the expansion of the universe. I mean, there are picture here that kind of using the balloon
metaphor where if you drew some galaxies on the surface of a balloon and then inflated it, they're all moving away from
each other. Um, there's no center that this expansion is happening from. It appears the
same from any point in the universe. So to a to a galaxy 13 billion light years away, if
they had a James Webb space telescope that was looking in our direction, the Milky Way Galaxy would appear to be
shifted into the infrared. So, this this happens the the same, this looks the same from any
point in the universe. And the the equation that I put here
that I think it's the only equation I have in this in this slideshow is we measure we we
kind of categorize Red Shift in terms of this number Z that that you might see occasionally
listed with Galaxy's distance we'll assist red shift instead and that's because the it has
to do with a couple of things. So the so the H not the H zero value there is the Hubble
Constant which is the measure of the expansion rate of the universe. Which is
approximately 70 kilometres per se per mega parsec. So so mega
so parsec being what is it? It's like I'm going to get this
backwards. I think it's four like three point seven per secs in a light year. I I think the
parsec is the smaller one. Um anyway so it's a measure of
distance. Like a light year is. And so the further out you look the faster that expansion rate
appears. Cuz for every mega purse like you for further out you look you have an additional
seventy kilometres per second of of apparent expansion speed away from us. Uh D the
co-moving distance which is the distance that that that the object we're looking at is away from us factoring out the
expansion of the universe. Um which is equivalent to the
proper distance at the present moment in time. It things get a little weird. Uh and so that as
you look further out, that expansion rate can appear to be faster than the speed of light,
but of course, those galaxies aren't actually moving at the speed of light. So, we're not
violating any, any laws of physics here, but, because things appear to be moving
faster, the further away they are, they can appear to moving away faster than the speed of light, even though they're not
physically moving that fast. So
that kind of brings us to what, what is the size of the observable universe? How far
back can we see? And because of the expansion of the universe, there is actually a limit to how far back it is possible to
see. Even if we had a telescope the size of the sun, we would only be able to see so far out
from here because of because of like because light has a finite travel speed. So, if light was
emitted from a galaxy in the early universe and it was much smaller and it maybe on the
other side of this smaller universe than than than we are.
It's now moving away faster than its light can can kind of
keep up with. So the light from that distant galaxy will actually never reach us.
Because where that light is located in the universe as it makes its way toward us is
continually being moved back and expanded by the expansion rate of the universe. So that light will literally never make it to us.
the the cosmic microwave background is 45 billion light years away. Which if you know
that the universe is 13. 8 billion years old might not really make sense. Uh but you
have to remember that because it's expanding at an accelerating rate. Um it will
it the actual point of recombination when that light was emitted is now 45 billion
light years away because the Galaxy Universe was so much smaller when it was emitted. Hm. Um but it's still only
occurred 13. 4 billion years ago. There you go. Yeah. So,
with all that, all that taken into account, the diameter of, the diameter of the observable universe estimated to be about
93 billion light years. Um so, that's the picture that's shown here. The diameter is ninety-three, meaning the
radius is 46 and but based on characteristics of the cosmic
microwave background and what we know about the big bang and
we can estimate the size, the actual size of the universe, which is unknown and may be
infinite but some estimates based on what we know about the
early universe put it at 2-three trillion. Wow. White years. It might as well be
infinite. It might as well be infinite, yeah. There's actually, there's some really interesting theories that are
not, they're not fringe theories even. They're they're depending on the geometry of
the universe. It's possible that we're kind of in this in this hyper hyper what's it
called? This this hyperbola where if we were able to look back to look far enough out, we
would actually see ourselves again because it wraps around
sort of like like if you walk around on the twoD surface. Mm hmm. Imagine you were an ant.
Uh living on the surface of a sphere. And you're imagining your two dimensional ant. And so you don't about up and down.
You only know about left and right And you are walking
around and you you think you're walking in a straight line. And then after you walk a really long time, you end up back at
the point where you started. Because it, the, the space that you live in is a dimension
higher than the space that you experience. Um, so it's kind of this 4D hyperbola idea where we
might actually be able to see our own Milky Way Galaxy, billions years ago, if we can
look far enough back, which is, the, the geometry of the universe is something that is under active research, but it's
a cool, kind of, it's a cool theory.
Um yes. So, getting toward the end here. Um what are some questions that the JSS base telescope will be able to
answer for us? So, we'll be able to see the first galaxies and stars and be able to
actually measure the conditions of those first galaxies of
those first stars but we've only been able to conjuncture with models before. We'll be
able to understand Galaxy Evolution because we'll be able to see those early galaxies and then closer to us, galaxies at
a later point evolution and then closer to us, Galaxy, and even later point of evolution, we can actually watch the timeline of formation of
galaxies from our singular point in time because we can look back in time by looking
further out in space. because of its infrared capability, we can peer through clouds and
watch stars form where we can't look through those clouds with our optical telescopes. So, to
learn more about star formation, and something that I'm really excited about, we'll be able to probe the
composition of exoplanet atmospheres. Mm. So, we can do infrared spectroscopy on these
exoplanet atmospheres where we can look at basically, it's like taking a picture but with
every different wavelength of light being its own image. Instead of red, green, and
blue, we have For every, let's say, every nanometer of wavelength of light, we get a
different image. So, you can and you can see where the emission lines and the
absorption lines are that are characteristic of elements and gases and compounds. So, we can actually look and see what's in
the atmospheres of these exoplanets. So, one of the one of the first images produced
was actually this plot here of Wasp I should write down the number. Wasp 69 B, I think or
something like that. where we were able to observe there's water in the atmosphere. So
where there's water, there's chemistry of the biological type and so there could be
interesting things happening on that world. And lots of others that we'll be able to probe.
So yeah. It's going to be an incredible capability. Uh
scientists are already crying about how amazing it is and how it succeeded. Every expectation that it was designed for and
giving us even better reviews than than we could have hoped. And we're we're we went wrong
with Hubble in the Optics the first time it was put up. Everything just went right with
James Webb. The launch was textbook. The overall insertion was textbook. The unfolding. Had a few glitches we got those
worked out and everybody's just like crying happy tears of amazingness. So, are there any
questions? I've got one but if there's
someone from the stream, they read that one first. Let's see.
And I'll go, I'll go hop on the chat after this and and go answer some questions and chat
too. On the YouTube chat.
not seeing it. Uh you want to read it off, Adrian? Well, no, I, I just had my own question.
I wasn't looking. Yeah. I wasn't looking at the chat. I remember that James Webb did
get hit with like a microscopic. Yes. Bass rock. Um do you recall how they
corrected for that? Cuz I thought that was really interesting that they they were able to account for the you
know the very slight bombardment that it might get being out there in space and still be able to produce the
beautiful images. Um I'm trying to remember what I read about it. Um I think instead of I
think it's something that that they kind of assessed and realized wasn't going to be a problem as in the corrected for
but I might be wrong. Um yeah, I have to go read about that
again because I can't remember what the what it ended up being. My brain's been flooded
with with this exams. That's understandable, Eve. You've got something important but this is
a great, this is a wonderful presentation and. Yeah, thank you. We were very, we were all excited about James Webb when
it when it especially when those images came up. I was happy just hearing that the
every target that it reached, it got into its point. It made it here. There, everything was,
you know, everything went well and it didn't unfold inside of a rocket that didn't let it go
or something tragic. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. You know, that's really quick. Yeah. That's
right. Yeah and I think these so like even though these are infrared images which I was kind of afraid we're going to
look a bit like the Spitzer images that have really weird palettes that just don't look
good. Like I they've it looks like that they're actually choosing colour palettes that
make it look more like the optical images we're used to seeing out of Hubble even though these are infrared
images. And I'm really glad that they're doing that. Uh at least for the for the images that that we all get to look
at. Um because Hubble Hubble did for my generation what the
Apollo 11 launch did for for the generation before me. That's right. And James Webb is going to do for the current
generation what Hubble did for me. Which inspire me to get into physics in the first place. So those images, like, I
mean, there's a lot of science that's going on in the unpredictified version of those images but the release of those
in a kind of a pretified, false-colored format is so important and for that public
outreach bit and. Right. For inspiring both people who might eventually become scientists
and just the general public to think about what's out there outside of our little, our little home universes. So yeah,
it's, we're just, it's all just, we're at the beginning. It's all just getting started. Yeah, I think, I agree and I
think what you just said helps me to realize kind of the outreach of what JWST is doing.
You do have folks that, that are content that are content
producers who see the images and then, sort of liking it to JWST, a big, fat camera in the
sky, as if someone's Shout out to Sony, Alpha One on steroids
and took pictures of space. But then again the outreach far I
guess exceeds the maybe the thought that it's just a camera and it really isn't. It's a
science instrument. But that's still reaching a group of
people who otherwise may not care about the science that James Webb would do. So thank
you. Thank you. On about that. Yeah NASA and ES understand
that really well and in fact, the the Juno mission to Jupiter, one of its cameras,
one of its instruments, is solely for public outreach. It has no scientific purpose,
although science has been, has been done with it, because the images that come from that are,
are so incredible, but all those images that you see from, from Juno of Jupiter with its highly detailed clouds and.
Yeah. Um, that's from a camera that was designed for outreach
explicitly. Yeah. And so so NASA and ESA deeply understand how important having public
facing pretty images is to having people stay interested
in in science to to grow the next generation of scientists but also to get money so they can keep making. Yeah, that's
right. That's right. It's all inspired at work. So, that's right. Yeah. Yeah. Yup. I I
there was lots of controversy arguments about the billions of
dollars that it took to keep Hubble and good working order and produce the kind of images
that it did but when you you know, you you spread that out over the 300 million people
that live in the United States. It ended up being something like the cost of a movie ticket
or something. Oh, you know. You couldn't even get popcorn and a coke, you know? Yeah. Yeah and
and highly worth it even just for for keeping the public inspired and inspiring future
scientists. Absolutely. Um But we got so much science out of
Hubble. And there's a there's a lot of things that that we want to learn for the sake of understanding them. There's
also a lot of things that when we look out to these other galaxies and these other and these exoplanets and even
within our own our own galaxy and our own solar system then we can learn about the formation of our own planet.
And I think that that's really important for us to to understand and also to look at
the evolution of planets that are like hours and kind of get a glimpse of what different
possible futures are Um and and maybe start to clue in a little
bit about how life was able to take root on this planet. Which I think is a question that everybody is interested in in
in one way or another. Um so it's not all just kind of pie in the sky. Like we wanted we
want to see that galaxy because it's there. Which is part of it. But the things that we
learn will teach us ourselves and in addition, the technology
that is used not only for things like James Webb but for the whole space program,
Percolate down to everyday life. Lots of NASA technology used in the in the Apollo
program and all the subsequent programs are now everyday parts of our existence that we take for granted. NASA actually
publishes a report every couple years about how their technology has has percolated out to the masses. Um.
Absolutely. So, it it really it really dividends even if it
feels like a big expense for having a big camera in the sky sometimes. Right. Be on the lookout. I I've heard or read
from an astrophysicist from the UK. Um Doctor Becky Smithers.
She shared the next targets that JWST. are coming out.
Messi A 74 will be one of those targets. But we're getting an open face Galaxy as a part of
our next science target. So looking forward to that.
Excellent. Yeah. Um and we're just going to be seeing these images for the next 30 years.
It's it's it's it's fantastic. Um. So, yeah, you can't say
enough about Jane Swift. There is a question you were talking about an expanding universe,
Um, and Seoul Prairie is watching on Facebook. He says, is the universe always
expanding like cookie dough in the oven?
That is an interesting analogy. Um well, so the cookie dough in the oven, it expands but it
actually like it it gets faster and then it starts to slow down as you get toward as it starts
to solidify and there are some models of of the universe that
that kind of where it's a closed universe where we expand for a time but then eventually,
we reach a size where gravity and dark energy start to be balanced and the start
collapsing back in. This is actually been largely not
discounted but it's looking less and less likely. Uh the more we we probe what dark
energy is and look at how the universe has expanded over the past, how it's expanding now.
Um so sort of if it's it's a good model of a closed universe
where like we would expand and then kind of sort of stop and start to come back a little
bit. Um but as it stands, it looks like we're going to Continue to expand. The
prevailing ideas that were kind of a flat universe where we kind of expand and at some
point they continue to expand but at at a less increasing rate. It's also possible that
we live in an open universe where we continue to expand at an increasing rate of expansion
and eventually that expansion becomes so fast and so large that it starts to dissociate
atoms and nuclei and then we just have a a big dark empty universe.
Uh I don't know if we can have that. Anyway, Molly, thank you.
But with that happy thought, I'll let you go. Yeah, that's right. That's right. Okay.
Alright. So, up next is Daniel Higgins. Thanks again, Molly. That was awesome. You're welcome. Yeah, Daniel Higgins,
Astroworld TV, let's find him here. Where are you, Daniel?
There you are. Great. I'm Micah. Good to be on the same stream as you. Oh, we'll be on
the same stream real soon again. Yup. Yeah, we're we're arch competitors here. We got
the Astro Imaging Channel. We got Astroworld TV. You know. Uh oh oh we have visible dog too.
There he is. How you doing guys? Excellent stuff. All I'm
going to say is we have 13, 000 subscribers on the Astra Imaging channel. So, just. Wow. Out there. Great. Hey, I'm I'm
I'm the new guy on the block. I just broke a thousand. you know
Oh man. What a day. Wonderful. Yep. Glad to have you guys on today. Thank you for joining
the 100th Global Star Party. Thanks a lot. Thank you. Thank you. Congratulations on the
100th Global Star Party. That's fantastic. Thank you. Yeah. It's it's it's a milestone but
it seemed to actually happen so quickly. So. When did the the first Global Star Party happen?
When when did you actually get this idea? What was the what's the background to it? Yeah, I think we're going back about 2
years. I think it was August 4th as when we did the first event and called Virtual Star
Party Mm hmm. Uh back then Uh didn't really know quite what to call it at that point. Um
you know, people say, well, is it going to be a real star party or is it a virtual one? I said, okay. Virtual because we
can't get together because of COVID, right? So, right. Um and
I really I, I kept hearing amateur astronomers lamenting about how they couldn't go out,
they couldn't do anything, you know, and I said, well, good we have all the technology right
here, you know. Amateur astronomers, and astronomers in general have been the early
adopters of I think all the, you know, technologies, I mean, certainly in technical
drawings, photography, you know, innovators there,
innovators of digital, imaging, image processing, you know, the
refined precision in mechanics and electronics. You know, so it all went through the
crucible of astronomy and trying to you know, as Molly said, you know, it it it's a
way for us to know ourselves better, you know? So, So, or as Carl Sagan said, we're, we're a
way to to for the universe to know itself. So, you know,
being that we're all made out of star star stuff as David Eicher is pointing out with all of his minerals and everything.
Uh you know, it's it's amazing just to have eyes and senses
and the ability to make the equipment that we do so that we can go and look out through our
amazing windows and experience the ride, you know, so. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, you're doing a fantastic job with this
and everybody involved with the Global Star Party is just fantastic. It's amazing and congratulations to you. Yeah.
Yeah, it's all about, it's all about the presenters though and all about our audience too that that watches Global Star Part
I've helped. Absolutely. The support you have out there is is is amazing. So, I mean, keep
up the great work and and this is just that. You said before, you just put, you know, you put the spokes in the wheel cut.
Yeah, I just like assembled this and you know, tighten up the nuts and you know. You
know, I I plugged it all in. Bam. You know, then it happens. So. Yeah, but it's there was a learning curve for sure but you
know, but I was I'm very thankful to you know, the the
guy the makers of all the software that I use, you know, to to make it happen. So. Absolutely. Uh and very
thankful to all of my audience. It's it's that said, hey Scott,
your audio's **** You know, why don't you do this or do that? And so, I got a lot of tips and
a lot of help along the way. So, really appreciate it from all of you. Awesome. That's great. Yeah. Well, Dan and I
don't really have much of a presentation following Molly. So, we're just going to do our
comedy book. Yes, right? So, Scott, you know, I gotta say, you know, when I said, hey,
just remember where on the East and you know, put us at a decent hour. Yes, I didn't
really think you're going to, you know, make us trying to hit a home run after that grand slam by Molly because I mean, I
mean, I'm sitting there looking at me and being texting each other saying. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Dan and I are texting and we're going, oh my god, we ought to follow. What do we say now?
sweating bullets. I was going to say that. I started pounding back a couple drinks. I don't even know how to think to say that. So. No, it's
great. It's it's Aunt Molly. I don't know if you can feel the love but you know, we really we
really do you know, everyone's honored to be on programs with
you and Absolutely. I think that a lot of your time to you
know, the community at large, you know, through all the programs that you do. I'm I'm really impressed and I know
it's a lot of work and I know how hard you are studying for your PHD and and you know, the
little bit I know about professional researchers and professional astronomers and
physicists. It's kind of a a sausage factory. I mean, the scientists are really tough on
each other, you know, and you know, you really have to work hard to get the little bit of
funds and stuff from you know, the grants and stuff that are out there and really are
expected to produce, you know, in in this way. So, it's it's
my hat's off to you and but again, we're in the golden age of astronomy and discovery and
exploration. We have this incredible, beautiful J West
telescope, you know, without and and still have, you know, the amazing Hubble Space telescope that's still
generating incredible data and you know, all the all the
productive telescopes including some telescopes somebody told me once about 15 years ago that
the 200 inch Palomar was like an antique. You know, it was
you know, the and there was somebody at when I was on Mauna Kea told me that and I go, I
don't think so, you know, because like, you know, amateur astronomers, you know, we're always putting better
instrumentation on our little telescopes, okay? So, you know,
those Super aeroban filters and and line filters and stuff like
that. I mean, my goodness, you know, I would have never expected to see the kind of images that we see coming from
the hearts of downtown cities, you know, tons of light pollution and all the rest of it, you know, and and Yes. You
know, all three of you know this very well because you you've all been faced with this
and and you're you're living the cutting edge of amateur or
photography and you know, if you take, I think if they, if professional astronomers take
the ideas, the creative ideas that amateurs have and apply it, you know, can you imagine if they had like giant narrow
band filters for the 200-inch telescope and and you know, do
all the the techniques that amateurs do, you know, like hundred-hour exposures with the
200-inch telescope. Amateurs. I wonder what you would get. Participate in a lot of a lot
of science that is being done even with our pretty modest instruments. Yeah, absolutely.
I've I've I know I've talked on here before about and on the Ash Imaging Channel and some other places about a variable
star observations and also a lot of supernovi and a lot of
comets are discovered by amateurs and then reported and then there's follow up observations on the big telescope because we have our
eyes on the sky on a much larger portion of the sky on our own time schedules whenever
we want as opposed to the big telescope s that have you know the every every minute of time
is is is called is claimed. Right. Uh as by people trying to do research on those. So,
yeah, we're still discovering things all the time. I was reading a paper recently about these hydrogen kind of jets
that are coming off of the of
the centaurus the hamburger galaxy. I think it's in Taurus A. Yeah. Um that were I think
first actually noticed or at least like photographed and narrow band by an amateur
astronomer and there was observations done in in the paper was mostly about the radio observations done but
actually included his image in the paper. That's so cool. Uh I can't remember who who it was.
Um I I can't remember but yeah and then one of one of my other
friends, Terry Robison, actually also imaged those and they've been imaged by very few people but it is possible with
amateur gear to observe these really dim features it was a
talk at the 2019 Advanced Imaging Conference about an amateur astronomy who was
imaging the title streams coming off of galaxies because he had a nice dark spot and a
nice big telescope and actually was in a lot of papers contributing to to that research. So, yeah, astronomy
is one of those incredible places where amateurs can contribute a huge amount to the
science alongside the professionals and actually somebody who's a professional
astronomer can also be an amateur astronomer. So, yeah. It makes it really unique. Yes. Yeah, absolutely. And you know,
that that that's something that I talk about quite a bit on the with my other co-hosts that,
you know, you don't have to have a 200 inch telescope to do
science and to do legitimate stuff with your, with your, with the stuff that you have.
Um, you know, you can sit there and you can you could go buy a, you know, a a 80 millimeter
scope and start doing some valuable star observations, or, or, get, get, spend a little
extra money and start doing like, occultation imaging, and all that kind of stuff. You know, all this stuff that we
can do, because the technology has gotten so much better and
the learning curve isn't as frightening, I guess, is the,
you know, you know, it used to be frightening that, oh my god, I can't do this. It takes forever. I can't do it. You
know, you know, it takes 30 years to learn. But, you know, people are starting to do real science with less time invested
now than ever before. And. Right. That's right. It's really. Yeah, and there's more
and more Pro Am projects going on too. Absolutely. Never before. So, you know, we've got
you know, not only seasoned amateur astronomers can get started but young people like
Nico lina, nine years old, you know, who's got all these you
know, asteroid candidates from her work, you know, in in research science. So, it's it's
awesome. You know, yeah, it's fantastic. Yeah. We're just
really in, it, it, no matter what level you want to get started, no matter how far you
want to take it, there's really no bar ears, you know, so. Yup. And I think that's always
existed in astronomy, you know, someone gave a little prodding
to David about the fact that he was an amateur astronomer working at Palomar, you know?
Uh but I see David is kind of like you know, his his you
know, his his distant cousin being you know, not literally
but Hummison, you know, Milton Hummison up in at Mount Wilson, you know, I he only had four
you know, 14 years of age. I think he stopped going to
school, okay? And became one of the world's greatest astronomers, you know, so Yup.
You know, working with. Yeah, I know. I I I remember, you know, when I was young and how I got
started in astronomy and it's just fascinating to me how things have progressed and like we were talking about the the
technology Um I got started my dad had a little pirate scope. It was I think it was like a 30
millimeter Tasco or something like that. Yeah, it was. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And I I would actually look at the moon from
the kitchen through the window. I would look at the moon and it just fascinated me and I I I started reading about the
planets and the moon and they bought me my first real telescope which was a four and
a half inch reflector. Wow. And I started building my own telescopes at that point. An
eight inch and a 14 inch reflector. Um I actually imported for the 14 inch mount.
I imported for the the 14 inch reflector amount from Tucson,
Arizona. Um which I when I was calling, I don't know if anyone
remembers, dude. Do you remember the Bigfoot mounts? They were wooden? Yes, I remember. They were wooden. Remember those? I imported one
of those from from pillar bearings and. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I had one of those. Two
or three-inch steel shaft or something. Yeah. It was it was an amazing mount and it carried the it carried the 14-inch
reflector really nicely. Um I remember calling down the to the states though. I was, you know, gotta remember I was a
young, you know, teenager and I didn't know Tucson was pronounced Tucson. I was trying
to get through to someone in Tuxon.
Right. You know and and they had books. I remember I still have a book actually from way back in the eighties. Um that
is about micro computer control of telescope s. And it it gave you little bits of code that
you could you know I I can't remember what code it was using. It was a book about. Yeah there was a whole book on
how to do it. There's a whole book about how to do it and stuff and now. Now maybe published it. Something like that. Yeah I can't remember who
published it. I'd have to pull it and and have a look. But I fascinated thinking back to
where I started and where we are today and the technology. I've now I've got a telescope in the backyard that I control
through a computer inside the house. Yeah. And I can pre-program the imaging run for all the targets I want to image
for the night, go to bed, wake up, and just you know, there's a a treasure trove of of data
there waiting for me and it's it's fantastic and I think amateur astronomy is almost becoming, you know, a a thing
of the past in terms of a phrase because we're we're so advanced. We're we're rivaling.
you know some of the you know Yeah. That's the difference. Yeah. We all know exactly.
That's true. That's true. So it's amazing. It's one of the only you know I I constantly
remind people. It's one of the only sciences that you can actually be working and interacting with professional
researchers. You know none of us could be amateur. They just won't let us be amateur brain
scientists or you know we can't be brain. You know. Um you know we can't if you are really into
gems, you could never touch or direct, you know, you're you're you couldn't find the hope
diamond. You know, there's no hope of hope holding the hope diamond, you know? Um but we get to look at the same
galaxies, do the same research if we want, okay? And really interact with with a
professional community. Um and have our name actually appear on science papers. Yep. Yeah.
Yeah. Absolutely. And and and interact with the general public too. with the outreach like a show like this does
Which is fantastic. Uh to get people interested in astronomy and astrophotography and and
you know the space that's out there. The cosmos and you know it puts a different perspective on life I think. Uh if you take
the time to look up at the stars and and think about what you're looking at. You know the past and that's just
fascinating stuff and I like to convey that to people. I like to talk about it. Um don't ever get me drunk. I'll never shut
up about it. You know. I'll just keep going. Get your tribes in there. You can do one of the lectures with me because
that's all I talk about is. Is that right? Uh astronomy reframes your whole view of. It
does. Absolutely. And and if if if you're worried about some crazy, stupid, little problem
that you got like, okay, maybe you got a a tax issue or somebody said something that
embarrassed you or you know, you feel. Or they got your coffee wrong. Honey, come on. Yeah. That is. Don't mess with
the coffee. Nothing. Yeah, don't mess up the coffee because that's just it. That's the end of the world. That's not so. Universe is over. Yeah.
Even Molly can't save it How do you think of surviving grad school? It's astrophotography.
If The snap thing and Alright. So, anyways, the show has to
keep moving on. We have Jason Gonzel waiting in the wings for us, Ella. Awesome. Is there anything else that you guys
went to I just wanted to be a part of this. I I think it's a fantastic momentous occasion
and I wanted to be a part of it and congratulate everyone that's involved and and you know, the the viewership as well. Thanks very much.
Absolutely Yeah, thank you so much for inviting the both of us. Thank you so much. Oh,
thanks so much, guys. Take care. Yeah, thanks. Bye. Okay. So, let's go ahead and bring on
Jason Gonzel. Add you to the spotlight here and then we are
going to say goodbye to Molly. Goodbye, Molly. He's taking my hair off. Goodbye. Get some
sleep, Molly. Um. Yeah, I think I'm actually going to get off the court. Try to get Shawn off that. Can't get rid of me.
here. I am very tired. It's the shirt. It just draws you in. It
is a new shirt. Have a kid. And there's Jason with a beautiful, I know you did that image. So
it's a. Yes. Hi, Jason. Thank you. Nope. Broadway. There we go. Yep. Yeah, there you go.
That is the view from the summit of in Maui. Wow. Yeah,
it's beautiful. Talking about that earlier. Were you on Mauna Kea? You can see Mauna Kea in the distance. Mm hmm. Alright.
Yeah. So, I was over there for the 1991 eclipse on at Oh, it's
beautiful. Oh, it's good. The thing that was amazing was just how transparent the sky is up there. It's incredible. You
know, the full moon can be out and you can still see the Milky Way. Yeah, this image, you can
see it was shot at dawn and you can see the Don's really like
coming up over over the big island in Hawaii but you could still see the Milky Way pretty clearly. I'm trying to get out
of the way here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, we can see it. My my jealousy grows each time I see David Yeah, it's a
beautiful image. That's I've tried to do stuff like that in Michigan and the Milky Way
washes out The moon will get up, you know, couple degrees above the horizon in the Milky
Way just watches completely out. So, maybe at Oakey Text this year, I might be able to
see something where because it gets dark enough for the Milky Way to stay in the sky a little longer. So, I'll have to play
around with that when I go this year but no, that What I like about the image is where you're
at, you see both sides of the bulge. You've got crooks down
there near the corner. And that's one of the constellations that's on my bucket list image for myself.
Sure. Yeah. Unfortunately every astrophotography has
embarrassing moments. And mine my one of my crowning achievements was going up here in the middle of the night and
my first hour of images when it was really dark out were all out of focus because I bumped
the camera at some point. Didn't notice it. So. Yeah. Finally recognized it by the
time the sun was coming up. Happens to all of us. That's right. Maybe next time. Well,
the view that you got, I'm sure that's buried in your mind
forever. The view that you got there. Yeah, I stayed up there
for the sunrise. This was just past February. So, not that long ago. but yeah, it's hard
to follow. I I thought Molly did an excellent presentation on the James Woods space telescope. I was going to talk
a bit about it too. Um I haven't been here in a while so I was just going to show some
my most recent images and for those that don't know me, I'm deeps deep sky astrophotography
mostly but I do get into like night skate and planetary stuff. So, I have some of that stuff to show you here and
We'll flip through that stuff and then I wanted to talk a little bit about Jameswood space telescope also. So, we'll
hop into that. So, let me share my screen.
screen One.
share. Let me know if this comes through. Yes. Wow. Yes.
Alright. So, this is I'm going to show some James Webb
stuff later but this is this is an homage to what you can do with the backyard telescope and
going on a decade of experience now with shooting deep sky objects from my back patio.
This is the Cocoon Galaxy. Um which is just sitting in the
west these days but it's a beautiful galaxy and what really drew me to it is I had
the moon up one night and I decided to shoot some hydrogen alpha subs on a galaxy and this
one kind of popped in my head because I'd seen it before and it's got quite a bit as you can
see. But the interesting thing with this image is I shot it separately with LRGB which is
you know, vision natural light image, the true color image
here that you see and then I also shot it with the narrow band filter in hydrogen alpha.
and that that right here is the hydrogen alpha data for the galaxy isolated. So, these are
indications of all the star forming regions within the the galaxy itself and you can see
that there's almost a bridge forming between these two and if I turn on now, the natural
light image with that hydrogen overlaid. You can really see. Wow. Yeah. The gas clusters
just basically clinging on to the outside of these these two galaxies which are just pass
through each other in recent history by cosmological standards. But the nice thing
about isolating these wavelengths like this is you can kind of turn them on and
off and will to really visualize their contribution of the the Oh yeah. Hydrogen alpha
light to the really the beauty of the galaxy. I think it looks it adds so much to
aesthetically to to the image just to add those pops of color in there. Right.
You know, and there's lots of galaxies in the background I can also see. Yeah, it's it's
pretty well littered with galaxies. None, none very huge in this field but there is a
big cluster. And where is it here? maybe I'm thinking of a
different image but yeah, most of these fuzzy dots are are a background galaxies and smudges
and things like that. This is shot from the backyard throughout an inch SCT
telescope. Amazing. Really? And
then also working on getting back into planetary imaging for the summer and this was my best
shot at Jupiter this season so far. Wow. And this is through a
12 inch Newtonian telescope. Worlds. I was pretty pleased with the clarity. Yeah. Planet
ary is tough especially for northern latitudes and with
smaller telescopes. So this was shot in near infrared which
helps calm down some of the atmospheric turbulence for the luminance layer and then
colored in in RGB shot with the monochrome camera. You can just see the gray red spot here
peeking around the corner. That's what I was going to say. It's a it's a unique view of a great red spot just appearing.
Oh yeah. Right on the edge. That's cool. And it's it's on it's way rotating into Butte.
The interesting thing about viewing Jupiter during this season. Is we don't see, ever
see Jupiter in phases but we do see the shadows creep in, when we view it from an angle, it's
what we're seeing here on the, on the right-hand side, you get the, the darkening because of the, the sun is illuminating it
from the left in this image. I
got a couple other views. Um I shot on different nights and
these are animations And this
was shot with a one-shot color camera. So, the clarity is not as good and you can see as I I
shot it as the dawn was was brightening. So, this is
rotation to Jupiter over the span of just over an hour. Uh gives you an idea how fast Jupiter rotates and that's a
challenge when you image it because you're trying to to take a lot of frames and the
longer you expose for, the more frames you take, the more the rotation becomes a factor. but
there's software for everything so you can you can correct for this rotation effect. Um if you
so choose but sometimes it's fun just to play the. Cool to see it. Back like moving. Rotation. That's right. I got
another one here that I shot into the dawn.
This one was set up as a social media post so it's got some verbiage on it. But here I time
lapsed the the image of Jupiter as I shot it and the telescope. So you can see us shooting this
in the middle of broad daylight. Wow and the interesting thing here is you
can really see the quality drop off as the video progresses and that's happens just as the
sunlight lands on the telescope tube and starts to expand the tube. Pushes the focus out and
messes with the collination. That's an issue. Uh during the
night time. Yeah. That's the moon. IO transiting in front of
the planet. Alright. So, I promised we talk
a little bit about James Wand space telescope and Molly, I can't really compete with that
presentation. She gave regarding the telescope but I've got a little bit of a different angle on it. Um
because a lot of people in this room are astronomy enthusiasts and or astrophotography. I
wanted to talk a little bit about how to get a good look at
this data. Um outside of the main streaming releases that they make to the public because
this telescope data as far as I can tell is I had thought that
there was going to be science embargos on a lot of the state of it. They're they've released 40 terabytes of raw data now to
the general public and anybody can go on and access this stuff and I just poked around just a
little bit and there's some amazing targets and data out there and it really seen the
light today. I know Adrian you mentioned Mseventy-four. That data's out there right now for anybody to grab. They've
already shot it then. Okay. Yeah. It's it hasn't been there's not been a mainstream
release that I saw of the of the images but yet you can go in there and and take apart the
data. So I wanted to show people just how you can go in, look at this stuff. Um really
the home base for everything JWST is the space telescope Science Institute. And this website manages data from
pretty much the the telescope s we have in space but mainly the
Hubble data and the James Webb space telescope data is all searchable here. So, if you go
over on the right-hand side, and you click on James Webb's
space telescope We'll take you to this landing page. It's got
all kinds of information about the James Oil Space Telescope Uh press releases Um user
documentation which I'll show that's pretty interesting and the
data here is mostly stored in
Let me see if I can find it now.
Where did she go?
Alright. Well, It was a bust.
I swear I just looked at it and it was here but so the the
images are all stored on a a platform called The Mast Portal
and I'll I know that there's a link in this this this But here
it is. Okay. Short for the archive for Space Telescopes
Mask. So if you click on mast you can see here it's got the
submission highlights and you can click on
each one of these and see a little bit. It's got some high-level science projects,
products which are more polished material. You can look at. What I'm going to show here
is the mast portal. Okay. Now, if I click on this, if you don't have an account, it will
ask you to it won't show you all the information. So, you gotta go in and create an account and if you don't
already have an account, it'll be over here where my mouse hovering. Um to create a count.
Mm-hmm. Well, there's a number of different ways to search through here. And the
significant cost for that, For what? The account. Or is it free? No, no, it's not free.
It's all free. I mean, you pay, if you pay taxes. I actually, if you don't pay US taxes, you
can still get it. Yeah, it's less, it's less than free. Yeah. Um, so there's a number
of different ways to go in here and search, okay? And, and it can get pretty overwhelming,
because there's probably millions of database files in here. Um but one one quick way
to go in here and look is the the JWST instrument keywords.
That allows you to pick an instrument. The main imaging cameras on at least for pretty
pictures on JWST are this near infrared cam, the near cam, and
then the Miri which is the mid infrared instrument. Near cam though is
is what most of the most of the published images come out of. So, if you click on search
there, you can you get this splash page that pulls up
and I don't want this to get too complicated. But down here in this target name thing,
there's there's a bunch of ways to search for targets but this just shows a list of 105
targets that JWST has imaged. Um so, I'll just click on one of these and and I know from
already searching through this, the NGC 7320 is part of Stephen's Quintet. So, if we go
on there, we'll see this Stefan's quintet. Data. So, to
click on search, it pulls up. These are basically all the files available for that
target. Shows over here on the right. It shows a graphical
overlay of each one of the frames that the JWST took and where it sits over top of
Stephen's quintet. You can see the Galaxy cluster in the background. So, you can see they pretty much carpet on this
entire area with pictures. but what you really want to see
here are the fully calibrated images and those are images you can take and open up in a in an
image viewer and they're already fully calibrated. They're already basically ready
to go, ready to process And those are product level three. Two B is not a fully calibrated
image. So, you can sort this column here to see the level three images. So, that took the
list down from whatever or whatever I said. 105 down to
just three a handful of level three images. and
These all these images are shot through different filters, okay? So, the number here after
F is the filter number. So, you can look at each filter that
these images were shot through. when I was on the southern page
and I pointed out that JWST user documentation, I'm going to go in here and show
everybody a little bit about that camera. So, we can get an understanding of what files you
may want to pull down.
okay? So, now, I drilled down into near infrared camera and I'm going to look at filters
here and this is going to show us all the filters that are installed on the JWST near
infrared camera and it's really all shown in this chart here. So, the the the sensors are
divided into two. separate detectors. There's a short
wavelength channel and a long wavelength channel. And you can see all these filter names. Um their name naming convention is
based on the weight, the center wavelength of the filter. So this these are infrared filters
and microns. The visual spectrum ends. Right about seven 7 microns. So right about
here. So all these filters to select from are all infrared. As you can see the way color
coded them from the right end of the spectrum. The further infrared end of the spectrum to
the closer infrared end of the spectrum and it shows you basically how they colorize
these images essentially is when they select from these filters they map the colors to
RGB for a visual presentation. It's in the same order as they
appear in the visual spectrum. That's pretty common. Unless there's some narrow band images where they do false colors but.
I'm going to hop back now to this and show you and I've
already looked into this as far as what these two files mean. You can ignore this SEGM file.
The one that has this tail that's I 2D is what you want. So this right here is a four 4
micron image. That's what the F44 means. Now, download,
download It's a Fitz file. Um if you do ask for photography, you have no problem opening fits. If you don't, there's
NASA sells nut cells. NASA provides some freedoms. Um for
converters to go from fits to like a TIF file or something you can open. And that's called
Fitz Liberator. For anybody who's interested in downloading that. Fitz Liberator's been
around for a long time. Yeah yeah. It still still works. Mhm.
Alright. So, for some reason, my download's going real slow. I've got things open here and
inside It's insight that we can look at. Since I was just
downloading that stuff. I have. Uh is it better to use a a PC
running Windows? To get out of the bunch of this stuff and to use a lot of the I don't think it matters. I mean, it's all
web based. So, I think. Mm hmm. As long as you've got a a viewer capable of looking at
fits files. Right. You should be good.
So anyway, I've already done the the slow downward work, download work, and these are
the files I pulled down from Stephen's Quintet. So, this is with the near cam, this image
here. This is a three point five six micron. Near infrared
image. So this gives you a sense of the data that these images were constructed from.
and you can see in this large galaxies, if we zoom in, it's resolved individual stars
within this galaxy. It's just remarkable.
and this is a near infrared camera picture You can also do
the same type of searches for the mid infrared and these are the mid infrared images. This is a smaller detector. So, you
can see that if you assemble these kind of images, you have to mosaic them together.
but they kind of fit right here if I overlay them. So, you can see that Stephen Squintat and
this is 7. 7 microns. So, this is deep into the mid infrared
now and you can see all the dust within this galaxy. These are kind of oriented the same.
I see. Wow. You can just see all the all the dust lanes that pop out in the mid infrared. So
now the images were released and I'm noticing I think the, the whole thing was flipped
around, was that to was that, so that the view that they
presented to the public, matched a direct face-on view
if you were to if you were to use your Superman eyes and go look at it yourself, the
galaxies would appear at a certain place and not, not where they appear in these, in
this data. Well, I mean, there's a couple things that happen here. I mean, once, one,
one aspect is it is the JWST like like a lot of reflective
telescope s presents an image or like a lot of telescope s with complicated optic optics
presents an image that's not upright or image correct. So, I think the JWST raw data needs
to be flipped. Looks like it just needs to be flipped horizontally to. Yeah, I think
it's. Kinda match. I'll flip flip vertically.
Like this. Yeah, it was probably presented like this and then rotated one one
eighty. But anyway. Something made. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it
was a set of transforms you need to go through to get it correct to the appearance in the sky. Yeah. And that and
that makes sense. But I can show you here then this is this is the M 76 data I just pulled
down while we were talking actually. Um. Nice. And this is
three color channels overlaid and infrared. Hm. So you can
see, again, individual stars resolved in the galaxy and some
nice, I think these are hydrogen regions here. Up towards the wings. Oh, yeah.
Look like you can almost see dust lanes in some of those regions. Yep. So, this is just
a quick combine on that. Um
I recognized there was like one six pointed star somewhere in the middle and the rest of that
was The rest of that was what we're going to so so we're basically we're getting a sneak
preview of if they release this image to the public. There's
the star that I would I would suspect is in the Milky Way. That six point at one. Yeah
right. These these guys here. Background galaxies too. Is
released to the public. They're they're releasing the data as soon as they get it. True. Yeah. Yeah. The You know. Or
the the finished processed image like the five that have been
yeah I wonder if we're, you know, we'll see something similar but just looking at the
raw data and seeing you put it together for yourself Jason
it's you know, it's just really cool to kind of see, we're seeing even more of what JWST
is already imaged. So, I think one thing that surprised me and
I I think anybody who goes in and pokes around at this data, it's not for the faint of
heart. Uh if you look at how actually messy is from a from an imaging standpoint With this
banding and you know patchwork quilt of assembling frames.
It's it's a challenge to work with. And I have to give a lot of credit. A lot of credit to
that science team. Um for putting out images as beautiful as they did because it is a ton
of work to get this data into shape that that's presentable
in that format. I don't know if that's because this, you know, they're, these are more
designed to be science and instruments and you know, these little defects don't matter as
much but I was a little bit surprised at that how rough the calibration looked at on some
of this data. Yeah, I, I, I think that might be it, and
just coming from an amateur myself, who shoots way wide field, but I imagine that the
data is being poured over you know, for scientific reasons,
but you still have that science team, like you talked about, that cleans that data up for
public consumption. Yeah. So it's like, there's two different, two different things
that NASA wants to as JWST gets more images is
continue to drive the public interest in it even if the
public thinks that it's just a one shot color Sony cam on steroids it still gets them
interested in objects in space and you know it's it it's a
it's an exciting time and I think someone mentioned it also drives up the willingness to
spend money for even more missions like this by seeing the, beautiful pictures alone
can sometimes do things like that. Yeah, so this is one of
those images I pulled down and did a just a quick edit on, I
added, I mean, take the files, combine the color bands, and
present a, you know, full-color image kind of like the, the
Smax Galaxy cluster that the initial release. This one is Aval two seven four four. It's
one that Hubble has imaged before also. Um but it's just a, just basically a deep field.
It's, there's not many gravitational lensing instances here. It's just galaxies and
galaxies on top of galaxies as far as you can see. Uh, some real beautiful spirals and you
know like this one with a nice hydrogen alpha regions
highlighted. just some twisted messes of galaxies. Nah. But I
I didn't see that this one was even released to the public as a as a finished image. So I
just kind of grabbed it and did a quick edit on it. But I was pretty pleased with the outcome here. Uh looks good. You know,
I was looking at the the the mast website and it's it is the
Barbara A. Milkolski archive and she was a politician and
apparently really championed the Hubble Space telescope as a
politician. So that's the background there. So, one more cool thing with James One Space
Telescope is they can do planets too and the image that they released in Jupiter. I
thought was stunning. Not I don't know. It just wasn't
wasn't balanced as far as the exposure like the the center band and the plane that was blown out and when I when I
went in there and looked at the data, I was pretty happy to see that the original image from
the telescope was properly exposed and so I went in there and I grabbed a few of these
and not all of them were properly exposed but these two narrow band channels were and
this is two. 12 microns and 3. 23 microns. So, I grab both of
these. Um they look dramatically different. These two channels. Mhm. Um the 212
is super sharp and this other one is It's kind of funny
looking but the cool thing about this is you can see the ring of Jupiter within these
images and I believe this is going to made here in front and
it's got a mask over it so you can't see the the face of it itself But you can't see a shadow here which is landing
next to the great red spot. I think that other that other one
showed a roar. Yeah. I don't know if that is that showing Aurora at the polls on Jupiter or is it? I know there's
definitely a glow. I don't I don't know if it's Aurora or not. but I took these two
colored channels and combined them you know, just using those
two channels into in the color information So, it's kind of a
colorized look at you can see now both channels at once and you get a a better sense of how
they interplay And I pulled down this other channel which was a a wide band channel and
this. Oh there are the rings. Yeah this exposure really showed the rings nicely. Oh it
sure does. But it was taken at a different time. I think even on a different day. So this is
a different moon in a different orientation. So, I kind of
hacked my way through this and I lifted the ring out of that picture and inserted it on this
one. So, now, it's kind of a composite but now, you can see that the color mix and then the
And then the ring. The ring also. So I haven't seen the
public release of the Jupiter data but I imagine the if the
image of Jupiter with those channels is released they will
probably do something similar having showing Jupiter with its
ring. Is it going to have that would have pretty big impact on
seeing Jupiter kind of in a different light. Yeah. I wouldn't be surprised if what
you've already done with the data isn't something that's going to be publicly released
if NASA scientists get on it and kind of do their version of what you're doing and then
colorize it. It's very well the image very well. It looks something like this. Yeah, I
mean, it's completely false color image but the the point of doing this is to kind of get that color contrast so your
eyes can see those different features. I I you know, honestly, I mean, whether you
look at it like this or you look at it like this, I mean, the black and white is a really nice view of it. Yeah.
Yeah. Beautiful. I really like the I like seeing it with the ring. They. I do too. Has the
rings but I think it's been a while since we've looked at it and you know, with its little
thin ring around it. Yup. Yeah, I thought it's cool. You know, the the exposure is such with
this you know, you can see how much
just to extract that ring out of the glare of the planet is pretty tough because the James
Holden space telescope has got some crazy defraction spikes and then you throw an extended object like Jupiter in the
middle and it's just lines go in every direction. Yeah. Really hard to get back to to
something clean but amateur astrophotographers deal
with a lot of bad data. So, we've got tricks Yeah, it's it almost, it almost begs the
question of being hired by NASA dudes for money, because you, you already know the tricks to
get that little ring out of all of that data and then recombine
it with other data. Really? Yeah. Uh I wonder if
you're watching TV. Play the Star Party 100. Well, Scott,
thanks for having me on. I really appreciate it. Congratulations on making it to a hundred and Yeah, thank you
so much. Thanks for opening the door for a lot of for our audience who did not know that
you could get at this data and shown them out. Yeah, I mean, I I hope it wasn't a mind numbing
you know, look at the the bowels of the the archive but really my main point is you
can, yeah, anybody who makes an account right now has access to this and yeah, it's really
phenomenal to look at and to have such immediate access on it. I mean, the dates on that M74 data I think was just was
observations were very recent. So, pretty much in and right off to the public which is pretty cool. That is very cool.
Yeah, there's going to be some other reason I have. I have a question for Jason. Yeah, go
ahead. Hi, this is Bob Fugate. Um. Hi. How dark is your backyard? You showed that first picture from your back yard.
So, I'm just wondering how bright your sky is. Uh yeah, Mine's five, six. Depends on
the season really. but yeah. I I generally pack a ton of
exposure on images like that. The. Okay. Alright. Thanks. Yeah, that cocoon galaxy is
probably probably got 20 out more than 20 hours of exposure on it. Okay. That's how I deal
with the noise. Excellent. Thank you, Jason. That's great.
That's great. Okay, so we are going to bring
on Daniel Barth. Daniel is a science educator, has been for
decades. Uh Daniel and I met each other decades ago at at
the at Scope City which was a retailer. Um I had several
shops in in California. One of them in in Nevada but Daniel lived in California at that
time. Uh and and then went off to become a educator, teacher,
and low and behold, he moved out here to Arkansas and walked into our shop here at Explore
Scientific and we meet again. So, it was so cool. Um but
Daniel has been doing a great program called How Do You Know
and his his programs teach
science to to anyone that wants to learn it, you know, and you
know, I I think that the premise of the show, you know, we conceptually know a lot of
things like the Earth is round instead of flat and you know, that the moon is round instead
of flat but he gives us kind of the tools and the staffs to
actually prove it, okay? So, which is really cool. Uh he's
written some books. Uh one of them is called Star Mentor which is a Springer book that
you can get right now. It's it's brand new and has many of the hands-on projects which
really just a few dollars to you know, in expense to
demonstrate many of the the concepts of science and astronomy. Um so, I think
that's a wonderful thing and it's great that you're here, Daniel, to celebrate our
hundredth Global Star Party. Thanks. Thanks, Scott. So, your
00th star party, our 30 years or so as as astronomy bounce
which is really astonishing. You know, I I just want to say as as an educator. I love
seeing the glee on everyone's face tonight. Everyone showing
images from the web, from their backyard, from their their own
telescope s and everyone else just the smiles light up. This is what we do as people who
reach out. It's part of the nature of discovery. We all want to participate in it.
People who weren't there kind of wonder how in the world did they get a billion people to
watch Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin step out of the capsule
on the limb and walk on the moon. How did they do that? Everybody wants to participate in the discovery. We think of
discovery, scientific discovery is one person somewhere in a laboratory out in the jungle or
out in the dark with a telescope going. Aha, Eureka. But it's a much more social
process than that. And I see this, I see this with all the people tonight. I heard it when
Molly was talking about and Hubble excited me so much. It
it changed my life. It's changed the path of my life. I decided to study science and
astronomy. This kind of things got is true of all of us And
whether we had mechanical mentor like Hubble or we had an
actual person who mentored us who said, yeah, sure, come have a go at our telescope. What
they were doing is they were giving us an opportunity to discover for ourselves. an
educator as someone who does outreach and that's really my
life. It's what I do. Really what we want to do. I I use a phishing metaphor. We want to
set the hook hard. Like we just snagged a trout in the stream with a fly rod. We want to set
the hook. It was it was done for me. The title of my book Star Mentor. Uh I got that from
my very first star mentor. Who's a local village priest. And he had he had a six by 900
millimeter Tasco telescope on an equatorial mountain in his office and I bugged him
relentlessly. Can we please father? Can we please? Can we please? Can we look at the moon? Can we try the telescope please please? I I was I'm I
don't know why he didn't reach for a mallet. I'm sure he was horribly annoying. But when he said sure and he called all the
parents and I said bring the kids over. We're going to take the telescope out in the back of the rectory. And we saw the
moon and we saw some different colored stars. And and After a while, a lot of people drifted
away but he and I were out there and I said, oh, what's the yellow one? And he said, okay, go ahead and move it. You
know how. And it was Saturn. And the rings. Yeah. And it was
glorious. And for me, that hour, that that man took out of
his life, with his telescope to say, sure, come on up. Here's the eye piece. Here's the
focuser, have a go. Discover for yourself. That event changed the course of my life
entire. Web is that right now for millions of people. That's
right. And I have to I have to agree, disagree slightly with one of the things Molly said.
She said, oh, there's an instrument on the Juno spacecraft. That has no
scientific value. It's just there for outreach. God bless you, ma'am. But you're wrong.
camera that's only for outreach, that is maybe not discovering anything new about
Jupiter but that's not what it's for. It's discovering new scientists and astronomers here
on Earth, from a billion miles away. Mm hmm. That's pretty awesome. And that's always been
my point in astronomy and we talk about I, I, my hat's off and I really, I bow and I just,
I'm astonished by some of the imagery, some people some of the folks here bring to it just
stuns me. Uh some of you may remember the movie 2010. The
year we made contact with Roy Scheider was released in 19 eighty-4 five and it was about going to Jupiter. And they had
images of Jupiter. If you go look at the movie and you look at the these images of Jupiter
and you go jeez. Why do they use such crappy imagery? I could do better than that with my telescope in my backyard and
my Sony. My Sony Alpha camera. And yes we can. The technology you have to realize, Scott,
that the methodology for gathering and focusing light really hasn't changed since
Galileo and Newton's Day. Well, we've gotten bigger, you know, Newton's reflector was, oh,
about a two and a half or three inch mirror, Galileo's first refractor, the first
astronomical telescope, and had a diameter of less than 30 millimeters. It was tiny
compared to even the basic toy stuff we have today for kids.
Right. But the fact is tremendous discoveries. Tremendous discoveries have
been made with people at the Eyepeace pen and pencil. No camera. Modest telescope.
Tremendous number of discoveries have been made. And for me as an educator I've seen
my job. Take students out in the dark. Introduce them to a
telescope. And start anew in them. Set their hearts afire
for astronomy. For the process of discovery. There's nothing
like the feeling that you get the first time you look through the telescope and for me it was
Saturn for many people. It's the moon. I've had students out. Oh have you ever used a
telescope before? No this is my first time. Okay we're looking at the first quarter moon tonight. And there we go. It's focused for you. Just have a
look. I've had I've had burst into tears It's just like, you
see some of these videos on the web where some little kid gets a puppy and just burst into tears with happiness. Seen the
same thing at the eyepiece of a telescope. Yes, that's right. As marvelous as the discovery
process is with Web, for me, I'm not out in the dark with a
magnificent instrument looking for new things out in space. I'm here out in the dark with
modest instruments. setting hard of fire searching for new astronomers, making new
enthusiasts, and you know, casting the flyer, setting the hook. That's, that's what we're
doing here. And some of the most marvelous things and we're starting to see it come out.
Somebody talked about I'm looking for my share button now. Here we go. Somebody was
talking about There we go. Somebody was talking about M74
and here's the web image. Here's the web image of M seventy-four. Oh my god. I
know. It's unrecognizable. It is. It is. And we take a look
and we go, oh, well, that's M seventy-four. Well, I'm kind of used to. This hobble image of M
seventy-four. And it's going to be up for us late September and through October and early November. We'll be able to see
Pisces and look up with our small telescope s. And we'll be able to see as men see I did M seventy-four. not going to get
this view. But it's going to be photons from that galaxy into my eye. And it's going to be
setting me just a light with giggles and smiles. And people
look in. And we've talked about this. Scott. They come up to the IPs. It's a party in a box.
You said if you telescope unless you're somewhere really remote. People will find you. They come up and they go ooh. Is that a telescope? Yes. Why?
What are you looking at? Uh it's M seventy-four. What's that? It's a Galaxy. And this
guy discovered it. And it's not a comet. But it kind of looks like one Can I have a go? Sure.
They step up to the eyepiece and the first question is, now, what am I looking at? Explain this to me and now, they have
their eye on the eyepiece. You can't see what they're seeing
but they're asking you the experienced astronomer, what am I seeing? Help me interpret
this. Help me understand the knowledge we give them makes
the experience richer. Yup. Deeper, more delightful, more intriguing, and if we do job
right or they're not happy. They're not happy because they want more. Here's a crouton.
Would you like a turkey dinner? You know, we we we give them a taste and we go, oh, well, of
course, there's more. Wow. Can I operate a telescope link to this? Where can I get one? Can I do it with binoculars? I have
some at home. In the garage and you you start them off and
everyone here tonight, this one, this marvelous adventure, the 100th Global Star Party.
And I just, that, that makes me smile every time I say it everyone here had someone take
them out in the dark and say, here, have a go. Have a go at the eye piece. Here's the focuser. Turn it this way. Tell
me what you see. Now, here's what you're looking at and it's it's like standing on top of a
big hill and throwing rocks and hoping to start an avalanche and we do. And we do And Webb
is a huge rock rolling downhill and it's going to start its own avalanche.
Apollo Moon Landings Had an avalanche effect. They brought
millions of people into amateur astronomy. The Hubble telescope, Comet Hail Bob. All
of these momentous things that we've seen in the sky. The Jupiter, Saturn conjunction we
had a couple of years ago. Uh I was trying to go out and watch Transit Saturn. It was cloudy
here. I couldn't get it. But every time I bring people out and I say, oh, this guy you
won't see this again in your lifetime. Here are some things. Here's what makes it interesting. Here's why this is
a snapshot now. If we come out again over the weeks, over the months, people are with me for
a semester class or a year class and the sky changes and they're like, wow, I never knew. I never knew this guy
changed. I thought it was eternal and in a sense it is, but we view the sky from this
lovely, rapidly spinning platform called Earth That's winning a dwarf star. And the
view we have every night is a bit different. And the planets are moving. And comets and
asteroids pass across our field of view. Was out looking for K
two. I won't see that again in my lifetime either. And people say but you you can only see it
once or twice and then it's gone. Something new is always coming along. This thirst I
have. I understand how people like Edmund Hillary to the top
of Mount Everest like Scott looking for the pole. Like
Balboa. Seeing the Pacific for the first time. I understand their joy and delight because I
share in their experience every time I go out at night. And
look up. And when I have a pair of binoculars or a telescope my experience is deeper and
richer. And every time I get to participate as Galileo did. As
Copernicus did. As can you imagine how Newton felt the first time he put his eye to his little reflector? And found
that it works. I mean, for him, that probably wasn't that unusual. Everything, he's made
it. It was like the Midas Touch. As a scientist, Newton was golden. Everything he touched kind of boom came out
right and but all of us going out and seeing these things and
discovering for ourselves and realizing that we participate in a science that is easily
100000 years old. We've talked on my show. I've talked with Scott many times how we have these odd terms in like moon
and planet. He did a show one time and had a stack of astronomy and physics textbooks
about two feet high and I said, hey, Scott, you know what these all have in common? These go back to like the 1960s. They
said, none of them have a definition for the words moon or planet. And Scott was like, what? Wait? Is gullible in the
dictionary? That can't be true. Some of these terms we have. Are so ancient that what we
understand about these objects has gone through revolutionary
transformations. Hm. We about the moon and we thought, oh, we knew the moon in the 50s and
sixties. When Scott and I were boys, we were taught, oh well, the moon was created when one
big blob of material that was forming the earth and it spun too fast on a piece of it, ripped away the fishing theory
and all those craters are volcanic. Continent strip, that's nonsense. What could
move a continent? Oh, and all the volcanic craters on the moon. And then like people like
James Shoemaker come along and they go, they're not. Their
impacts. What rocks from space? How silly. You realize you realize it was the mid
nineties? When the idea that a comic or an asteroid impact might have killed off the
dinosaurs became commonly accepted? That is our lifetime
sort of stuff. That's crazy. The people growing up now. The kids growing up now are not
going to remember a time before Webb Before Hubble. For them,
well, of course, you can photograph the rings around Jupiter and I've talked for
decades. Oh, if you want to see the rings around Jupiter, you gotta fly there. No. The
process collecting, focusing, refracting, reflecting, light, gathering it, bringing it to a
point. That hasn't changed. What's changed is our ability to interpret that light that we
gather. The imag technology. My eye and a sketching pen. Oh, my
eye and a cheap camera just held at the eyepiece. Oh, my
eye and wow, a digital camera, really? I don't have to use film and hyper it with
chemicals. So, it's more sensitive. Now, I can, well, yeah, sure. I can turn my digital camera up to 16, 000
IOSO. Why not? Um these things that we take for granted. The
the camera technology that I have in my my new Galaxy smartphone. Oh my god. You couldn't that for Lovener Money
10 years ago. And the things we put into the hands of people.
How many people really understand how powerful an imaging instrument they have in their pocket that they use to
call their friends and family. They know this is a cool
camera. Wow. Look, I can get a great picture of my dog but to say, oh, here. Hold it up to
the eyepiece of a telescope and take a picture of the moon. Really, I can do that? Oh, yes.
There's so many things we can do with instruments that are not grand. That are not
expensive, that are not uncommon, that are not rare, in
my last Program, Scott, we talked about the discovery of Neptune. The two principle guys
in our story, John Adams, who later became astronomy and the
French fellow who headed up the Paris Observatory and became their equivalent of an
astronomy royal. These two guys, when they figured out where Neptune was, they had no telescope s available. They
didn't have anyone where they could say, excuse me, the way Thomas Bob did, and Oak, can I
borrow your telescope? These guys back in that day in the
eighteen, mid 18 hundreds, they didn't have access to a telescope. And they asked people, they worked in
observatories. Can you look at this? I think there's a new planet there. Go away, kid. You bother me. This telescope time
is rare and expensive. These instruments are rare and expensive. You don't know how much these cost? Are we going to point this at your
crazy idea? Go away, kid. And they were right and in the
variation. Okay, He got his revenge. He became director of the observatory and fired all his detractors. But today, if
somebody has an idea, oh I'd like to look at, you know, I have to go very far to find a telescope or a nice pair of
binoculars. They're astronomy clubs all over and we're reinvigorating and meeting in person again for the first time
in a couple years post-covid and people can come out and you can go, oh, can I try this? Can
I see the moon? I've heard about this thing called rays and craters. Can we see that? Oh, are there really mountain
in craters? Can you see the sunrise? Can you see the sun light up one side of like a
range of mountains and it's really the rim of a crater and the other side's in darkness and I heard Galileo found the
height of a mountain looking at you. Can I do that? And my answer is, sure you can. Step
up to the eye piece. Ready, set, and it's kind of like putting somebody on the very top of one of those crazy
Olympic ski jumps. Right. If that was me, you'd have to handcuff me and give me a shove. But these these guys.
They get a And off they go down the hill. And that's what we do
Scott. Yeah. We bring people up to the edge of the hill. Come on. Here's the eyepiece. And we
give him a shove. And we unleash a torrent of emotions
and delight and joy. And by helping teach them and train them and helping them to
understand what they're seeing. You know how many people saw Neptune Scott and didn't know
what they saw. Right. So it didn't get credit right back to Galileo. Right. And before
that, it's naked eye visible if you got really good skies. We know that people had been
seeing Neptune for centuries before it was discovered but it's understanding the classic
question we get from beginner s all the time. Now, what am I looking at? And when we light
that fire, when we say, sure, first one's free. Telescopes,
they're not that expensive. Don't worry about that now. Here's the eyepiece. Have a look. It's amazing and then we
see someone go wow. I did a couple of wilds tonight with some of the images. When, when
someone burst into tears, it's so beautiful. Yes, it is. Yes, it is. Yeah. It's a grand,
glorious adventure and we give people a shove. We send them
off down this accelerating adventure of discovery and
delight. We light hearts of fire And actually, That's the subtitle I wanted for my book.
I said, I said, oh, I want to call it Star Mentor. Setting hearts a fire for astronomy. They said, no, no, no, that's
too obscure. I'm like, you don't know me yet. Uh they won. They got a different more prosaic after title. Hands on
projects and lessons and observational astronomy for beginner s. Uh which I suppose is more descriptive but a lot
less fun. I'm an instigator. I'm an instigator. I'm a
subversive. I'm somebody who Oh, you don't know what excites
you, you don't know what delights you, you're not sure what you want to do with your life. have I got a show for
you? No, no. It's right in there. Go ahead and look. Tell me what you see And this is
what we do And for my money. As an educator who's someone who
is concerned for how the public views our place in space. For someone who's concerned about
helping people to understand how science is interpreted. How we know what we know. This will
be there Dan. A legacy of Hubble and Webb. Beyond my lifetime, I'm sure. Beyond my
lifetime, I'm certain And the wonderful thing we're starting to see now, people are starting
to combine the images. Oh, here's an X-ray image from the Chandra Observatory. Here's a
visible light image from Hubble. Here's an infrared image from Web. Oh, let's mush
them all together. And you get this amazing view that has so
much more information in detail. It is seen with new
eyes. We've all seen these memes where they show side by side Uh here's what the Hubble
sees. Here's what the web sees. Wow. How much better Jeep that old thing? It's an antique now.
Well, maybe. Still pretty **** if you ask me. But we are
literally looking anew at the Universe and creating day by
day. A new understanding and we're bringing to the public an
amazing appreciation for how we know what we know When we do
that, we help we help develop interest in science. Somebody
said, are you trying to get people to trust the science? I said, no. Science isn't about
trust or belief. It's about data. But people have to understand if somebody says,
how do you know the real scientist will give you an answer and the limitations of
it. Uh I know within these parameters, here's what we're seeing. Here's what we don't know. Here's the uncertain part
and some people are, you mean, you're not sure? And so, we need to help people understand.
Science isn't sure. Science isn't done. The science isn't settled. That that's that's a
boundary. That's a fraud. That's that's a Nigerian nobleman trying to get you to help him with a financial
transaction. The science is settled? No. Webb should tell us all the science has never
settled. We could always look a little deeper, find a little more, and we say, oh, what we
know all these things so well. Uh there have been a number of times when people have come out and said, physics is finished.
All we're going to do is being adding a few decimal places and you young people in physics,
that's, I think it was Hemholtz who said that. Oh, man. Was he wrong? That was right on the the dawn of the quantum
revolution. Science is always going to be revolutionized because our understand is and
our understanding is imperfect. Web can be a tool not just for the scientists but for the
everyday man and woman in the street to come, to delight, and to understand how we know what
we know, what the limitations are, and to learn what real
science looks and feels like. Somebody sure they're not a
scientist. Somebody's certain they're not really playing fair
with the data. If somebody says, oh, absolutely correct. This is a true fact and you
know, that I'm contrapositive that. Here's the secret stuff. They don't want you to know.
Well, you know what? We armor people against that kind of flim flam. So to us, pseudo
science and you know, phony astronomy. We armor them by
delighting them, by engaging them, by helping them improve their understanding, all of us
can become better astronomers. All of us can look into the eye
piece and fall in as into a well and we can dive a little
deeper. I'm sorry if I'm mixing my my metaphors here. Excuse my joy, glee, and delight. But I
am so excited. And you know what? This fall I my 4-6th year
in the classroom. I still love my job And events like this with people like these remind
me every time of what kind of experience and delight and joy
I'm trying to bring to my students And I I think it's
just as much of a special talent to be able to take stuff from Webb and Hubble and take
it to a brand new astronomy a brand new citizen scientist and
say, here's what you, here's the essentials. To be able to give them an honest and fair
introduction without watering down, without distorting, without phonying up what we're
absolutely sure of to help wet the appetite. This is what I do
as an educator and it's my joy and delight and I'm not done yet. Our I'm not yet. So, I, I
just, my hats off to everyone here, and by golly, I, I love
coming to these things, because for me, it's a chance for me to be a student again, and wow,
you all rev me up. So, I'm going to turn it back over to you, Scott. Thank you, Daniel.
Thank you. Congratulations on the hundred Starbucks. Thank you so much. Well, Daniel, I
want to rev you up even further because you're going to love to know. You're going to love No Couple of things and I'm
going to go into it more when I finally close this down. But
you reminded me of just today the five year old Girl Scouts
that were among a group of girls between age five and maybe 15. And then all the Girl
Scout mentors as well. That all got to see a all got to see the
sun today from a solar telescope. Um the Coronado and
I saw some of that excitement on their faces. Even better is the excitement on the faces
when we the moon was out for a brief period. Some of them got to see it through a spotting
scope. And still others got to ask questions And I was able to
use images that I had taken to explain some of the answers. This is what we know. This is
what this image is showing. And I was thinking to myself how many of take these beautiful
images of the Milky Way or landscape and we post them on social media and we look to see
how many likes and things that we get. So, how grand does it
feel that I'm actually using my images to share astronomy with
young girls and trying to get them excited about taking the next step and it was a profound
moment to realize, okay, now I'm extend an image beyond
just, is it a pretty image that I can post online? So, a lot of
what you were saying reminded me of that and, and the final
part was, we have a new older astronomy or a new older member
of our astronomy group, that instantly wanted to come out and help, and so I invited her
out, so she was there, basically, newly minted astronomy member, older woman
who was there with the Girl Scouts, very first Time out doing outreach. So, it was it
was a good day for me even though my foot, my left foot hurts but it was all worth it. Uh huh. Bring the equipment out
and share it with those with those Girl Scouts on a on a really beautiful day and all of
them got a chance to see the sun through that telescope. So, so your your words resonate
with what I was able to do today and then jump right on
Global Start. That's where I was, Scott. I jumped on Global Star Party. On the way home from that event. Yeah, yeah.
So, It's great. So, thank for for reinforcing in me and perhaps all of us. The real
reason for our enjoyment of astronomy. Passing it forward.
And I told those little five year those five year olds the the young daisies. I said you
all are going to be the next scientists in line. That's true. To help figure things
out. And you know they of course they looked around,
looked at each other but I said don't worry you'll get it as you get older. So. Yeah. Um So
yeah, thank you for for that inspiring straight from the heart. No, there was no script.
No filter. You just came from, you came from how you felt. So, thank you for that. Great.
That's great. Thank you, Daniel. Thanks again. Thanks for your comments there, Adrian. Okay, our next speaker
is Connell Richards. Uh Connell has been, how many Global Star
Parties has it been now, Connell? Do you remember? Uh it's been quite a few. I want to say we're up to maybe
17 or 18 that I've been on. I remember the first one I was on was the fifty-first. Okay Here
we are quite a bit later on and I have to thank you for putting together not just today's
program but the several dozen star parties that have come before this. It's really been a
wonderful program. Yeah, it's it's been a lot of fun and and I I I really enjoy the the
communication that goes on between the the people that participate in Global Star
Party. A lot of you have become friends and foreign bonds and stuff like that. Shared a lot
of great information with each other. Um You know, just just here on this side of the the
broadcast. So, but everybody is excited that you contribute to
Global Star Party Connell. You have a very polished demeanor and you know your stuff and you
are inspired. Uh so, we all get that and so thanks thanks again
for making Global Star Party what it is. Thank you very much. It's been a great
pleasure doing these programs. I hope to do many more. Yeah, we'll be air. Alright. Alright.
It's all yours. I'll get started here. Um can you see everything okay? Is my audio
good? Yep. Audio's good. Ready to go. Alright. When you're in presentation mode. Looks really
nice. Yep. Good. I still have the Zoom window here and let me minimize that. Uh alright.
Well, I think it's interesting that Doctor Barth brought up just a moment ago how so many discoveries have been made
through small telescopes and people just scanning the skies in their backyards. Some of those discoveries have been
personal milestones. They've changed one person's view of things. Uh some of those have changed the face of astronomy
and cosmology. There's really quite a big spectrum there of how influential these these
instruments can be. And when I of these outreach events and I I usually reflect on how I felt
about astronomy and what my experience was and probably the first year or two, I was engaged in the hobby and I had
a lot of questions, of course, as many beginner s do, all kinds of things I wanted to know, and I, I tried to think
about what some of my, my biggest questions were, and what some of the, biggest
resources, I would have wanted to know about there and, and, hopefully, some answers to some of those questions. Now, as a a
lot of that relates to smaller apertures, binoculars, and small telescope s that so many
of us use. Uh there's a picture of me there observing the total solar eclipse of two thousand
seventeen with a solar filter on my six-inch newtonian and that's when the telescope I've
used for over six years now for just about everything I've done and it's been quite a great instrument and along with using
that, my skills have grown. Vance here
Oops, here we go. So, I'll bring you back to my first
Night Under the Stars which was April 16th of 2016 and I remember all these things very
well. Uh I was so pumped up for it. I just taken my telescope out of the box a couple of days earlier and I was ready to get
it out under the sky and and see some some new targets and and kind of expand my own
horizons. So, the picture on the right here, you can just barely see a first quarter moon maybe about 30 or 40 degrees
off the horizon there and the telescope ready to go and look at that. Cool. And the night
before, I remember, I thought I had this black cover on the back and I I don't remember why
but I thought I needed to take that off. So, these three screws here, I turned all of those as much as I could and
pulled them in and out and when I got my telescope under the stars to start using it, I look
at the moon and it was impossible to see anything and of course, I didn't know this then. I know this now. I'd
messed up the collination completely and had wondered how I would get that back into order. So, I I I something out
for the next night and the the show went on and I was able to see the moon and some of the
planets well enough and a couple targets as well but I really had to set my expectations. That was
important. Um at that time, there were so many beautiful Hubble images out. Of course, they still are and now they're
being joined by the great infrared images from James Webb, its successor. It's very
hard to see those images and anticipate what you're going to see in the telescope and there are a couple of books and
resources that do that well but I didn't really understand what I would be seeing at the time. I just knew that I could see
some things in the telescope and I kind of left the details of that to whatever I might
find. I I kind of made it a discovery you might say And after that I wrote some of my
first observing lists. I have one of them on the next slide. And it's it's kind of interesting to see. What I
wanted to see. What I was really excited to see. Uh what I thought was the limit of what I could observe. Um there were
some things I was right about. Some things I was wrong about. And I think that might be a common theme with many beginner
s. Kinda setting your expectations and knowing what you can look at. And after I at this for some time. Of course,
I remember the date. It was April 16th. I started keeping a journal and it was really, I
think it's been a very valuable tool for me to journal and sketch and photograph so many of the objects and phenomena
that I've seen. They serve as a wonderful record of my observations and I'm sure everyone else in this program
and many of the audience members would attest to this. Keeping notes of your
observations, whatever that might mean. Maybe it's details of the structure you saw, who you were with, what equipment
you used, all of those can be very valuable tools in, not
only documenting your observations, but it's also simply fun to just go back and see what you were doing at the
time, and in making this presentation, I was able to do that, and it's, it was certainly a fun exercise. And
with keeping my own documentation, I really wanted to share it with others, and asked her photography is, of
course, a great way to do that, but it's very challenging to get into, when you're new to astronomy Um in fact, you can
see in the image here, I didn't even have binoculars at that point. Here I was using an equatorial Newtonian telescope
which I now love and of course, use very frequently but it it kind of steepens the learning
curve for new observers and I would encourage those who were in my position at that time to go back and start with
binoculars and work their way up to telescope s and then, once they've mastered the visual side of things, they can work more with cameras and
sharing it with others and that can happen through either photography or outreach events. I'll talk about some of the
events I've been working on later. Uh both with high school outreach and younger people as well. I'm working on our
program right now for kids seven to 11. That's been a really fun program to do. And
it's kind of fun to really see this the scope of people's
interest in astronomy, what they want to see, what they want to do, and being able to guide them into this hobby and
helping them enjoy the night sky a little bit more. There was a great tool I came across
when I was first starting out. Uh there's a Wonderful book called The Backyard Astronomy's
Guide by Terrence Dickinson and Alan Dyer. I think they just came out with a new edition but for for so many years, that's
been a great introductory book for this hobby and I remember I
had, it was a nineteen ninety-two edition I think and I read it cover to cover and it talks a little bit about film
cameras in the astrophotography section but just about everything else was pretty relevant to what I was doing
and in the first chapter, this is the thing I remember the most. They had something called the awe factor that they outlined and the essentially
said when you're going out, doing any kind of observing, you might look at the things
you see on a scale of 1 to 10. One being, I suppose, the the simple pleasures in ten being
the biggest events with the wow factor. So, you see one here is a faint meteor. That's an
example they gave with 10 being a total solar eclipse and something in the middle would be something like seeing
surface detail on Mars and I've now had all three of those experiences and many more and
Regardless of where they fall on that scale, they are very pleasant experiences and I finally remember them. But
going back to my first night, this is what I saw. I remember the first object I pointed at
in the sky was Jupiter. And that was actually the first thing I'd seen through a telescope a few years ago. I
was on this Cub Scouts trip to a local observatory that had a 10 inch Clark refractor. And
I'm sure I'd love to look through that instrument now. It has to be a wonderful instrument on the planets. But
I remember the view on the left is is pretty much what I saw. I remember the moons the most. Poor little dots, two on each
side and the the big disc the middle of Jupiter. And of course I had to go back to that
and see the bands and and kind of work in some filters and spend some more time with it and develop my skill and
equipment to see how much I could pull out of Jupiter. But I think that makes a great first target for many telescope
s. Oh yeah. Uh as well as the moon here on the right. Uh you can see Copernicus. That's just
fallen on the right side of the Terminator. Uh still a little bit in shadow. There's Klavius down at the bottom. Tyko. A
bunch of the really fa miscreators and the moon is a really fun tool to to start to
learn. One very tiny piece of the sky and get more acquainted with this hobby. Now, I talked
a little bit earlier about my observing list. If you remember, April 16th was my
first light for that telescope and about a week later, I was already working up things that
I wanted to see and here is word for word, a list that I had written down of what I
thought were some of the best and brightest targets in the night sky. Many of them are. It's it's a it's a great list
of highlights but I thought of many of these as challenging objects whereas now, I see them
as more routine objects. Some of the ones in the Messier catalog, maybe like the Ring nebula. I remember that, the
Ring Nebula 13. I I had the hardest time finding them. I didn't know this guy very well.
I was still trying to learn that and tracking those objects down proved very satisfying the
first time. And now I can go back to them in in just a matter of minutes and enjoy them all over again. On the
left here you see I I wanted to see the Eagle Nebula. And I actually saw that in my
telescope for the first time. Uh I want to say it was two or three weeks ago. Though I'd seen it in binoculars much
earlier than that. And I I wrote on side there that I wanted to see the pillars of creation which in a six-inch
newtonian telescope from Suburban Skies visually is a very very challenging feat. I'm
not sure if anyone's done that and I don't know if anyone will. So, that was kind of out
of balance for my expectations but at the same time, I thought it'd be really cool to see Jupiter and its moons in Saturn
Springs and those, of course, delivered very well and I always go back to them as favorites and in the middle
there, you see a couple deep sky objects is a visual double star, the Andromeda Galaxy. Uh
little did I know I'd also be able to see the two dwarf galaxies there. Uh which are quite bright. Other things like
the Pleiades, Mthirteen. They were all some fantastic objects that were challenging for me at
first. But I think they made some great targets. Uh in the end as I was starting out. And
on the right there is a picture of a project I've been working on recently for the Astronomical League. It's one
of their observing programs for globular clusters. And the the observing list looks completely
different. On the left, I have a couple of targets highlighted and scratched out as I'd
selected and observed them according to what my telescope could could handle. Uh some
some clusters in the eighth and ninth and maybe even 10th magnitude. Those were pretty dim I recall. But on the left
here, I have Messier objects and then I'm getting into the NGC catalog a little bit more. Some of the Herschel objects.
And I think it's kind of fun to notice that I was using the same telescope all along. But my skills and we're developing
alongside that. I'll go to the next slide here and like I
said, it's really important to keep a record of your observations, not just for a
very practical aspects of seeing what you observed and looking at times and dates and what equipment you use for
future reference but it is really fun to go back and just,
read documents about what you saw. And on the left, this picture of a description I
wrote about Saturn was the first written description of of any object in the night sky I ever created and on the right
in that picture, there's a little sketch of Saturn. No Cassini division in there at all. Just the rings and the the
ball of Saturn. I had a couple reference stars nearby that I must have seen on some astronomy program and Titan as
well. That was quite exciting and unexpected And just a brief note that I saw things were
getting a little bit dimmer in the night sky as the moon was rising at that time. And on the
right I have a sketch of Mars. It was the first dedicated sketch of any object in the
night sky I made. A couple of years during one of its oppositions and it's a little
bit rough around the edges. It looks kind of like a pen sketch. I was using some pencil kind of scribbling things in to
see what surface features I could reference later. Uh but this sketch I think falls in a really nice metaphor for how my
experience in amateur astronomy has progressed because I remember in two thousand sixteen, I set up my telescope
on on the deck of the house and I was waiting to see that opposition of Mars in in May of
sixteen. I was really excited for it but I didn't know what to expect or what I was doing.
And I thought, I know. Magnification is the key and it didn't quite work out that way
because I got this four-millimeter plaza, four millimeters and the experience
of looking at the night sky through that eyepiece is kind of like trying to study the Grand Canyon through a soda straw. It really didn't work
out too well. I remember straining my eye and all I could see was this red ball that was floating back and forth in the atmosphere. It
wasn't steady. It wasn't very crisp. And later on I upgraded a couple of eyepieces. I was
also a much more skilled observer. And I saw the sketch you see on the right. And then later on in twenty twenty,
another two years later, 26 months, I was able to make a series of other sketches, which I shared other talks on this
program of Mars in much more detail.
And here is one of my favorite highlights. I finally hit ten on that scale that I referenced
from the book earlier. There you go. Here was a really nice side by side of the 2017
eclipse. Uh you can see on the left here, the horizon's all dark. I'm looking at the sun and I don't seem to be
complaining too much. So, it must have been during totality. Or at least near it before I
took that solar filter off. And on the right was a picture, I got just through my phone, held it up to the eye piece, and
there it was, and I could finally that experience with people. Uh I live in
Pennsylvania and we took this road trip down to rural part of Georgia. The band of totality
passed right in that northeast part of the part of the state.
And it was oh I want to say twenty-one, 22 hours in the car, each way. The traffic was
ridiculous with that event. I'm sure we all have our own little stories from that eclipse but
it's a memory I'll cherish for a long time. Uh certainly one of my favorite moments in my
developing experience in astronomy and the reason I share these is I want other people to understand what they
can expect going into things. Uh there is a certain progression from looking at that first view of Jupiter or
the moon and then going to see an eclipse then learning how to use a telescope instead of binoculars. There's a nice
progression that that you can lay out for yourself to kind of make that learning curve less frightening and and really get
into the hobby without much trouble and and enjoy it a lot more I think. Uh now, we were
talking earlier about how much the the Cosmos is changing, especially our solar system. We
see it as a very eternal and static thing but that's not always the case and I have a series of images here that
certainly represent that. Uh the top one at the center is is the most recent lunar eclipse
in the clouds and I remember taking that image, I guess you could say live on a Global Star
Party when we did the eclipse special. I was running in and out of the house and sticking my card and out of the computer
and pulling those images off and that was the final processed image of the shadows
starting to leave the moon as some clouds were coming in and it adds a lot of drama to that image I think, and there it is,
framed by some images of sun spots, a partial solar eclipse, comet EOIs, on the bottom here
is the conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter and then a meteor I was fortunate enough to catch
on the right. So, they all highlight how our Cosmos and our solar system are changing
places and you can observe these with very modest equipment. Uh pretty much here. You can see in binoculars, of
course, I should note with the solar observations. Uh you should use the proper protection and solar filters in
those cases but they're all very visible and and readily apparent to those who are
looking to get out and and see what the night sky or even daytime sky has to offer. After
some experience with my own telescope, I wanted to push those boundaries a little bit. I remember my first trip to a
dark sky site which was Cherry Spring State Park and it's in North Central PA which is one
of the darkest parts of of the country for sure but they say it's the darkest place East of
the Mississippi, Bortle 2 Skies. It's about 2000 feet of elevation and that night, we
had some clouds rolling away just in time for a night sky to clear up. It was during the
Pearson meteor shower in two thousand eighteen. And that was a very memorable night. And it's a long story but I wasn't
able to bring my telescope that night. So I had some binoculars with me. And I thought oh you
know I'm kind of complaining. I can't bring my telescope out to this dark sky site. And it turned out to be one of the
best things to ever happen to me. Because it was one of the best nights of observing I ever had. I saw the Eagle Nebula for
the first time. Trifid. Uh the Lagoon Nebula was stunning. I saw all these meteors from the
Pearsons flying overhead. Uh even though it was August. I was even able to see the zodiacal light with the naked
eye. It was just incredible observing with very modest equipment and it's certainly something I'd suggest to any
new observer looking to get into the hobby. And I think it was also fun to look at some of
the history of of astronomy. On the left is a picture of a telescope called the Leviathan
of Parsontown. And I was fortunate enough to to visit that telescope. It's in the middle of Ireland. And as many
of us know it was built by the third Earl of Ross who was to figure out the structure of
what, at that time, they called the spiral nebula in the sky. They were face on spiral
galaxies and he made some very famous sketches of M 51 and M 101 with the telescope you see
there. It looks like this giant barrel cannon kind of thing and he was able to move it in terms
of Azimuth about 10° and then of course, he had the full span of altitude and all these works
and scaffolding on the sides of those stone walls to up to it. So, it kind of shows how far
people are willing to go to extend their own experiences of discovery but all you need like
the the picture on the right suggests is some good dark skies and your naked eye or maybe even a pair of
binoculars. You can see quite a lot with that and have a wonderful night of observing.
And what would observing be without sharing with others? A couple of years ago, I started
this high school astronomy club at my at my school and it was one of the only junior
societies within the Astronomical League as as an astronomy club. So, I think high school students are a
really important group to reach right now as they're going off to college. They're looking at their futures. They're learning
new hobbies. They have this time. It's it's a great opportunity to share astronomy with people and get them
involved and you can see there's a sky chart in the middle of the projector there and some of the students who
are with me who are interested in it. Uh we really had a great time doing that program. And on the right here is a program for
a much younger audience. This is when I started recently at the local library. And there's a chart of what phases of the
moon look like and you can see it looks a little unconventional for what those charts look like. You might
just see a half lit moon orbiting around the Earth in different positions. Uh but the reason I made the chart like
this is I first instructed the kids, okay, here's where the new moon happens. Here's where first quarter happens. Here's
where waxing gibbous happens and so on. And when I shut off the lights I held up a
flashlight next to that orange cutout for the sun. And I had this rubber model of the moon.
moved it around the earth while shining the flashlight on it. And they were able to see that the moon remained half lit no
matter where it was. But it matched the paper cutouts you see on the poster. And that really helped them to
understand what the lunar phases look like. And after that program this girl came up
to me and she had a shoebox that she made. This little craft. And inside was a a a
hanging styrofoam ball of the moon. And there were holes cut into the of this shoebox and
you could look in and shine a light in one end and see what the phases look like depending on where in the shoebox you
were looking. She was like, I made this moon box and she had all these decorations and stars on it and she was really
excited to share that. So, I think kids really find an interest in this stuff. They like the solar system, the
moon, they want to know everything about it and there's a lot of joy in bringing it not just to adults and high school
students but also younger audiences as well. And there are number of ways you can do this. On the left here is an
article I wrote for the League's Reflector. And That was meant for a lot of people
in the amateur astronomy community who were kind of wondering how they could reach high school students and use
the new technologies that we have now and use that to their advantage for outreach. And on
the right is an Instagram page. It's one of many social media platforms I utilized especially
throughout the pandemic for sharing my outreach in astronomy. I talked about the images from Pluto that came back from New Horizons.
Anniversaries of certain events like Yuri Gagarin becoming the first person in space. And it also worked out as a good
avenue for communicating club information. And finally, I
come to a project I'm very excited to share right now, which is a star party at the local library. Uh, they
recently acquired a telescope that you see on the left, and I'll be using that for some lunar observing, showing kids
craters, and rays on the moon, and mountains for the first time. And I've actually never been to a star party. I'm
looking forward to getting around to some very soon. Uh, but I'm looking forward even
more to running this and seeing the books on people's faces, especially the kids as they see
the moon through the telescope for the first time. that will be a really special experience that they'll remember and I
certainly hope to inspire more of that younger audience and people new to the hobby to continue and keep pushing the
boundaries and discovering even more. And as much as I want to encourage the new people in the
hobby, I would suggest to the more experienced amateur astronomers that they take these lessons of sharing
outreach and sharing that passion for discovery with new people and being able to create
a lot of communication in the hobby and a lot of openness that hopefully brings even more
of the public into some some scientific interest and and
that really we're able to capture their curiosity for what the world has to offer and
with James Webb going up so recently and coming online, I think that will provide a lot of that inspiration with the
efforts we have here in Global Star Party. I think that'll help a lot as well but I'd encourage everyone to to get out under the stars as much as
they can whether that be with outreach events or far on their own. Uh there's certainly to be
discovered. So, thank you for letting me share that tonight. Thank you. Thank you very much. I wish you all the best in your discovery. Thank you very much.
Thank you so much. That's great. That's great. Well, okay. So, another great
presentation from Connell Richards. Uh we are now up to
the point where we can bring on John Briggs. John Briggs is currently the acting secretary
of the Alliance of Historic Observatories. Um but if you've been to any of the the
beautiful old observatories or been in the antique telescope society or just hung around
amateur astronomers when you bring up the name of John Briggs, usually a big smile goes across people's faces
because you know, John is definitely someone that is
he his passion for astronomy and instrumentation and what it
does and the people behind it and the history of all that. Just you know, it comes across
so forceful and but in a way that just really inspires you
and wants you to learn more. You know, anybody that's hung around John Briggs could easily
occupy hours of his time just asking a question after question and of you know, how
and why it happened and you know, the virtually the story
of the unfolding of the universe itself to humanity. So, John, it's great to have
you on Global Star Party. Um. My my pleasure. Thank you for joining us. I I hope you, can
you hear me okay? I can hear you just fine. Great. Yeah. Well, what you're saying is
another way of whoops, that's not what I want cancel. Uh the I'm getting long in the tooth
and this and that is true and I'm proud of it. I'm not the
only one And and I have a lot of fun like everybody else.
Sue. It's a great pleasure to be a part of your 100th. And
thank you so much. It's a lot of fun. Now I just have something very quick to share here. And because let's see the
theme was Seeing Beyond. Yes. And that and combined with the
fact that we are all celebrating the web images Um
then the theme made me think of something. I wanted to share it very briefly. Um an experience
with my backyard observatory but it was a collaboration with
friends. Um but it really was a representation of seeing beyond
just from one's own backyard. Now let's see if I'm going to do a share screen. And let's
see if I do this right. That's this I think is the way I
wanted to do it. And I'm going to try to make this
small. So can you see the picture there Scott? Yes sir.
Good. Um I I actually wanted to
bring up the the web wide field
of the Galaxy cluster with the gravitational lens images and
we were fortunate that Molly and Jason both spoke so much
about the web and including that particular image. But the way it's pulled up I I I'm not
going to I get out of this mode to return to it. But what a spectacular image that was.
Wasn't it? And and as Molly pointed out it represented seeing an angular part of the sky. that the car responded to
not much bigger than a grain of sand at arms length, okay? Uh
but yet so many galaxies in that field of view. Well, Bob
Fugate and I are lucky to live here in New Mexico and where
there's a lot of space, there's still a fair bit of dark sky and as I've shown once or twice
before on these events, proudly, this is my backyard. I have a hilltop in the backyard
and I call fool on a hill observatory. Foa Observatory Um
but it's just a picture. I'm just trying to lead up to a picture that I want to show you that we secured with
instrumentation here. All the health and facilities up here are on wheels. It's government
surplus stuff. Both of the domes were surplus missile tracking domes of nearby White
sands, missile range here in New Mexico, and it's see see the wheels and their 10-foot
domes. They're awesome. With very wide slits. They house
originally and that's me on the left and a friend of mine who's passed away I fear, now, named
Rick Thurman and he was a fellow member of the Albuquerque Astronomical Society. But Rick was an avid
astrophotographer and he had purchased this instrument. It's an Italian wide field
Astrograph and he Had more or
less exhausted his his evident possibilities for using this
portable astrograph on the tripod up around Albuquerque in the brighter skies and his
health was was fading. He didn't have the strength to move it around but I when I
heard about this, I said, Rick, I've got a spare dome. Even has this white pillar built into it
if you want. Move it down here to Magdalena. We could do some stuff together and the people in the back round are mainly of
of mutual friends from Albuquerque, Astronomical Society who helped Rick move
this equipment down to this dome in my backyard and it's
it's as I said it's a it's about an F three very wide
field Astrograph and on an astrophysics mounting. This was Rick's equipment. Uh but it's
still here in Magdalene in New Mexico. And it's very good for
taking beautiful pictures of the Milky Way. And this is the sort of thing I want be able to
show off because showing the pictures live, I can zoom in on them and I'm and it's great
because you can see how sharp the the the stars are and as
I've I'm lucky to be so so closely acquainted with Bob
Fugate. One of the things he says, he says, John, you know, I like a photo with a lot of
stars and that's what he gets with many of his lenses but this astrograph is capable of
that too. This is M46 and M47. By the way, then the the
Mforty6 open star clusters in the winter sky. There's this beautiful little planet of
planetary nebula lined up with that cluster but isn't that cool? The field corresponds to
about three and a half degrees. In other words, let's see seven times the diameter of the full
moon in width and height. But anyway, keep moving on now because this is not really even
the picture I want to share. Now, let's see. Why? Where's my arrows. There should be an arrow to make me. Oh there it
is. Yeah. And so that this here is the picture that Rick really
wanted to get with this equipment in Dark Skies. And so it was the first thing that we
worked on together. Um the spaghetti nebula. And I think
there were maybe five nights of exposure time with different
filters. But many many exposures spread out over at least four and possibly five
nights. And Rick who is expert with the processing assembled this image whereas and and he
was operating telescope remotely and I was the technician on site because I'm
an an instrument guy and come on, let's see, how do you advance? How do you advance?
There should be an error. Oh, there it is. There it is. But in any case, the picture that I really wanted to show you with
that setup was one like this.
It the first one-eyed gut of this particular field. I took
all by myself and you know, it looks just like a star cluster, doesn't it? Sort of a boring
star cluster. This particular view of it though was recorded by Bob Fugate using the
equipment over the internet with my assistance here in Magdalena but it it it it
matches one that I had done myself but when I was telling
Bob what I wanted to do tonight, he said, John, don't you remember? We we worked on that same field together. And
maybe the shots I've got in the can here are better to illustrate what you want to
show. And so everybody in the audience maybe is thinking well gee what is it? Just another star cluster. But if you really
go in closely you could see wait there's a galaxy there. And that's a little too fuzzy
to be a star. That's too fuzzy to be a star. These are not stars. Oh those may be to
Galaxy cluster. It's the coma okay? But what really takes the
cake as far as I'm concerned is that there is a function in a
picks insight that Rick Thurman demonstrated to me on my first
version of this image and Bob was quite familiar with it too. So, he took his image here
which he just Emailed me tonight so we could show you the best. We've got and with simple press of one button on
that same frame, the software will identify every galaxy in
the field of view. But the the kick is, is this. I think being
able to zoom in because only when you zoom in and you see
what's going on, that for example, let's see, PGC 4,
four, five, three, three. Is that little galaxy right there? And that stands for, what is it? A principal galaxy catalog.
The larger brighter galaxies have NGC numbers or index
catalog numbers but the fainter ones going down to something like magnitude eighteen are the
million or so galaxies that are in the principal galaxy catalog
but man, when you automatically turn on these these annotation
for galaxies, with the magic of modern software that will operate upon your own
relatively simply recorded backyard image, recorded with an eight inch tall scope and
you grammatize how the coma cluster is so detectable from
your own backyard. Now, this isn't the web telescope. But when we looked at that
spectacular web image course with gravitational lensing and everything else and all the little faint galaxies in the
background. The field of view. That's pretty good. But expect a lot for $10 billion dollars or whatever it costs. This rig
did not cost 10 billion dollars. After all, it was only an eight-inch aperture but for
heaven's sake, look what you could do if you tune into it from your own backyard. We do
have the advantage of New Mexico and all that but but
it's one heck of a lot of fun. I think Bob Fugate is online as
well. Bob, do you care to add anything since you actually process this particular image.
Uh John, you've done an incredible job and there's absolutely nothing I can add to
your brilliance. There you go. Everybody knows Bob that I'm
I'm I'm nothing but a reflection Nebula. In your company man. A hundred. Oh
geez. You know oh let me let me okay folks. Maybe some people are actually still listening. This is here's a Bob Fugate
story. So Bob Bob you know we were on the phone earlier tonight when I told him what I
wanted to share. You know the annotated shot of the of the coma cluster. And Bob said
well, wait a second. You know, I think I've got an even better one because he sent me one
first about via Email while other people were talking and
then suddenly, he he texted me again. He said, it was actually
a phone call. He said, you know, I think it's I've got an even better one. I'll Email it
to you and you tell me what you think. Folks, when Bob Fugate
tells me he's got an even better image. I don't I don't have to look at it. Know what
he said is true. Anyway, the sun is setting in this shot on
Foa Observatory and so friends like Bob say that you shouldn't
call it fool on a hill now. You should call it Friends on a Hill. Yeah. Whatever acronym you want to use, I don't care.
But we have a lot of fun with this equipment. We miss the late Rick Thurman. Uh he has
made some so much of this possible for me and pop and
other folks. Uh so thank you for your attention folks. I
wanted just to share something short and sweet. Thanks very
much, John. That's great. I love it. Thank you very much. Okay. You bet, man. Let me, oh,
there. Stop, share. There's something real quick. The John
and Bob, I am instantly envious of where you all live. Just want to just come jerk out
there. Yeah, come and visit. I'm that it's on the list along
with five other places. Thanks to Global Star Party that I now have to visit. So, so yeah,
that, that location looks beautiful. Great. Bob does fantastic. Mind-blowing things
from his backyard but as often as he can, he has escapes down in our direction here in
Magdalena including into the heel and national forest and we sure have enjoyed seeing his
results everywhere. Excellent. Wonderful. Okay, we're going to
transition over to Cesar Brollo down in Buenos Aires but before
we do, Maxie's got an image that he'd like to share with us. Maxi, you want to show what
you got in the scope? Okay, let's let's share my screen.
So, but I got here. the forty-seven Tukana Wow. The
Global the Global Star is beautiful. Yeah. It's in the
entire full of you practically. let me stretch reset the, yeah.
the Instagram, you can see on digital stars but when you have
to stretch, there's a lot of work. Wow. So this is only four
single stars. A single shot of 60 seconds.
Well, I I was, I, I want to point to this place because
Adrian asked me more earlier because now eh do you see the
Yeah, I see it and it's it's finally risen high enough for
you to be able to image at it. Definitely a beautiful globular
cluster. It's a really good one. And now I think I'm going
to some galaxies. They are here in Sculpture to to find out.
But eh I think that's will be all for tonight because it's eh
it's a rough night. I have some kind of wind and some pictures there struggling with the
stars. So wow. Thank you for for Jean. Thank you. And yeah.
I I will be online but eh you're calling it a night. No,
I, I think I will be saved but. Okay. Let's see. Maybe more later, I will, if I find
something, some, some, another place, eh, I, I will show you.
So, this is 47 Tucane is a, a
globular star cluster for those of you who don't you know, who are just watching and don't
know what this kind of object is. This is one of the most massive global globular star clusters in the sky. You have
to be in the Southern Hemisphere to see it. Uh, where Maxi is. And it, you know, has
millions of stars. Again, about 15, 000 light years away. So,
thanks very much, Maxie, for showing that. No, you're, you're welcome. I think you all of you. Okay, so, Cesar Brollo,
you are up next. Thank you for coming on to Global Star Party.
It's cold. Argentina, right? Uh, yes, actually, not so cold,
not so horrible. Okay. It's 12, 12 degrees
Cent Okay. Eh 12 ° is for this night is okay but all time that
we talk about ehm about astronomy we are sometimes
quiet or stay without movement and when we remember that we we
can when we can remember that it's it's late. Is it? Yeah. I
froze. Yes, it is. Yes. It's a typical thing. Yes. Um tonight
I have in my balcony an entry-level optical to
assembly, very, very entry-level optical to have assembly is the national
horaphic sport scientific graphic eh one 00 eh 14 centi
eh millimeters ah telescope the
focal racer yes the focal racer is only 500 millimetres, sorry,
the fog and lens, the fogger racer is four point thirty
thirty-eight, the number of local racer, is very light,
it's very, really, very light, very fast and actually I using with a planetary camera,
planetary camera, with a big size, big size, is it an
excellent and is over the 00 EXS, 100 month this is eh
working really nice and it's a it's a telescope that a kid can
afford and use and the camera is cheap, the telescope is cheap, the mount is of the
cheapest in the in the market eh because it's it's a mount that actually, well, you know,
I talking about the mom that you create, eh but eh yes and
eh one of the amounts that we're living always in the door prize ah for this ah Global Star Part So, yeah. Yes. Uh
well, maybe you can, you can, see that the mom with the the
the telescope, the telescope normally is is over you know,
over a a very amount that is only for hand,
panel and use in in right left and up and down if it's very
easy to use and the same objective assembly can be
assembly over a quarter moon in in this in this opportunity is
go to Mall. Go to Mall is that can can go to the follow the
stars and can reach the stars and reach planet everything
that find planets, fine galaxies, find nebulas but here
I can show you the live image now
first of all I'm sure you now and that is with a single
exposure of I think that is a
for, for, here, you can see the exposure, four point eh, 69
seconds, in this moment, and ehm, and I, I, I, I don't have
any, any cluster, I have a MM M four but eh, but, but, stop the
let me
Subject here. but here was Antares now. Appointed with the
telescope. But I can show you the picture that I took just a
minute ago. While Maxi pointed to
I'm point to the eh Omega Centauni cluster. Let me show
you. He just had the one up here man. It says our
get the biggest one. Yes, I choose the bigger, the biggest one. Here, this is the picture.
50 pictures with the telescope that yeah. full of stars.
That's certainly massive. Yes.
here you can see the the the you can see, you can watch
differstars. Yes, wasn't really magic, magical with this
telescope. Make this. I use it, I use it 50 takes of 5 seconds
each, and the 20 darts, and all with this telescope and the the
planetarian capital. Nothing more. That's it. Nothing more. The the Yes. Nothing more. Yes.
It's something that that is is a very starting 11 equipment. Um I have a really really a lot
of of fun this night. I can show of you
maybe contribute the the text
Sorry that I I can't I can't show you now the the a live image of, of, Omega Santori,
because it's behind the, the weldings, but. Yeah. In the entire night, I had, I had the,
you had the live one Yes, I heard it but I took the pictures. Let me show you
another one. Okay.
Well, here is I,
I, I took a a very, very fast process without, you know,
without the typical things that, that, of, very, very,
very entry-level programs. All, all completely easy to make.
and of course that, that, that, despite the, the limitation of
the keeper man and camera. Oh. He's a great he's a, he's a great experience, and I think
that the, the idea that we, we talk every time is eh, in, in
corruption to the people, and especially with very, very ehm
starting level entry level telescope, looked at, this, this telescope, you can see
something, eh, I, I don't know the name of this one, you have something eh Well, this this
optical team of assembly and had an accident in the, in the
shipping, with the shipping carrier. I can see it. Yeah, I can see it. Yes. Absolutely,
yes, it's done. Yes, yes. So. Impact damage. Despite this,
work properly and I you know, we, of course, that, normally,
the people that solve that a scope, sometimes it's not a, an amateur servers but I I am say
okay don't worry this this optical tour of assembly is for for home. and work really very
very good. I I learned that I only made a little did it arrive. Did a did it arrive
damage to you like this? it was the the only one, yes, yes, was
we founded in the, in the, in the box,
you know quantity that we import yes I will send you a
replacement tube. I can get you. No problem. I can repair
this but but it's sometimes it's yeah. So no the problem is
sometimes when when with the customer say why? Why they send
you one free? No it's no more it's more broader than say okay can I can repair? No bro no
worry, don't worry Scott. Now yes, yes, it's it's for, for years and maybe, maybe later
we, we donate this for a school, no problem. I, I can
repair this, it's, it's very easy. It's a really, very easy, because it's, it's a 5r, carbon
fiber, and with a little of, of hot air, and eh, it will be a
pressure, okay? It's something to show is, the people some, sometimes, to increase it with
these kind of things, and say worry,