Global Star Party 110

Transcript:

6:00 p.m..Scott Roberts- Introduces David Levy
you guys hear me okay yes okay
7:05 p.m..Byron Labadie - “Astronomy in Chile”
okay guys I think we're about ready to get started here
no there we go
7:25 p.m..Ed Siemenn - “NEAF 2023”
[Music] people have been hunting for sun grazing
comics for hundreds of years but as of 1979 we only knew of less than a dozen
today we have seen about 2 500 why did the number increase
7:40 p.m..Ten Minute Break
understanding this starts with the kreutzpath in the late 1800s higher
Christ observed that many recent Comics traveling near the sun appear to follow the same orbit on this Cruise path as
7:50 p.m..Conal Richards - “The Great Eclipse Party”
we've come to call it it takes a comment about 800 years to complete one loop around the Sun
while there are other orbits of sun grazers craze comets are the most common all of the comments in this orbit came
8:05 p.m..Marcelo Souza - “Defending Space Science Education in Brazil with Astronomy”
from a single Comet observed thousands of years ago as the comet moved closer
to the Sun the ice binding it together evaporated breaking it into smaller pieces that the Sun's gravity pulled
apart every time the comet comes around the courts path this can happen again resulting in a new generation of comets
8:25 p.m..Russ Brick - “The 2023 Winter Star Party”
might sound like this would clutter the solar system full of comets but that is not the case some of the new Comics are
small enough that they become completely vaporized as they approach the sun there are more comets observed not because
8:40 p.m..Adrian Bradley - "Chasing Dark Skies"
there are more in the solar system but because we have better ways to see them spotting a sun Grazer from the ground is
difficult because of the blinding sunlight now spacecraft designed to observe the Sun make the job a lot
easier since the joint Issa NASA Mission Soho launched in 1995 it has shown us
thousands more comments than any tool before to date it has found 2 387 comets
with Soho we can now see the smaller fainter comets close to the Sun just
long enough to add them to our list of sun raisers before they vaporize the spacecraft's data is available
online so now anyone can discover a comment roughly 75 percent of these
comments have been found by amateur astronomers other solar observatories such as NASA's sdo weren't expected to
provide good comment observations but they captured some beautiful images creating more possibilities for Comet
research using unexpected tools now that we can observe comments better than ever who knows maybe you will spot the next
sungrazer
[Music] Republic
ANS [Applause]
[Music]
thank you
hello everybody this is Scott Roberts from the explore Alliance and and
explore scientific and it's been a while since we've been on the air but really
happy to come back with our 110th Global star party here on January 10th we've
got a great comment up there see 2002 E3 which makes it kind of timely for our
theme of celestial visitors and there's something like at least 10 meteor
showers going on this month so uh you know there's always something going on in the sky and we're visited by many
things out there so within our solar system
um I wanted to um you know thank everyone I I hope you all had a great holiday season and uh
um you know I want to thank you all for the messages and emails and stuff that you sent to us uh and to me personally
so that was really that was great um and uh we're looking forward to a
whole new year of global star parties and other events that we'll be doing as well so but uh let's um let's get
started uh with our group uh I had uh juggled our normal schedule around just
a little bit and so our first okay
um will be Chuck Allen from uh the astronomical League Chuck thanks for
coming on uh for those of you who do not know about the astronomical League uh
then that means you probably haven't seen any Global star parties the astronomical league is the world's
largest Federation of astronomy clubs with over 20 000 members growing more
and more each day and they have amazing observing programs amazing Awards
ceremonies and they have a fantastic event called Alcon that's held each year this time it's going to be held in
Louisiana Charles will talk about that more but or Chuck as we as his friends call him
but Chuck thanks for coming on to Global Star Party well thank you Scott and uh that plaque
on the back wall that you see there is the astronomical League's highest honor and it couldn't go to a more deserving
person who has supported our youth award programs for I think close to 30 years and Scott that we're deeply indebted to
you for that and I'll get started with the questions for tonight and if I may share a screen here
thank you and okay
first of all let me can you see that okay yes okay uh this is what I've been doing
for the last three and a half months uh all driving about 18 000 miles of it and
it started with this trip to our convention in Albuquerque which was really very exciting and I didn't get
sick once coming back from these trips I got sick three times and that way tonight and I apologize if
I seemed congested that's because I am um at the convention we had the
opportunity to meet Harrison Schmidt of course the geologists who walked on the moon in Apollo 17
um we uh I took a Scott Harrington and two of his brothers
Scott writes for smt as you know remain now and actually took a little Western
tour I spent about three weeks up in South Dakota helping a young friend who
paramotored into 72 000 volt lines and lost both hands a very difficult
situation of which he's overcoming beautifully I had a book tour to do with
the person I wrote a biography about a surfer from South Africa it was written by two great whites are attacked by
paper eight whites out in San Diego so lots of hotels lots of kids lots of
restaurants and a cold or RSV or something three times I think it's from
being cooped up for too long due to covered you lose some of your immunity anyway
before we get to the questions tonight we always like to give a solar warning to people starting out in astronomy
those of you who are beginners or who are buying a telescope for the first time or even binoculars to use for
astronomical purposes there's some things you need to know about observing the sun it can be done safely but it can
also be a horrendous experience that can result in permanent blindness if you do
it incorrectly you never want to observe the sun without professionally made solar filters that include energy
rejection filters that are securely mounted at the front end of the telescope or the binoculars and I meet
securely and I mean the front end not the IP sound uh never use a solar filter
a welder's glass that attaches to the eyepiece that can overheat and crack
don't leave a telescope or binoculars unattended at an astronomy event especially in daytime less kids may
attempt to acquire the sun with it and I've seen that almost happen um eclipse glasses are meant for use
with just your eyes do not use them with a telescope or binoculars I think Scott once did a little experiment to show
people what happens if you put welder's glass excuse me eclipse glasses in front of eyepiece and aimed at the sun they
melt very quickly and other little warnings here if you
need help learning how to do it safely you have astronomy clubs nearby who are experienced in this and please take
advantage of that like first to start with the answers from December 13th these were rather
humorous Christmas questions uh one was uh I think oriented toward what is which
is the correct scene for Christmas of 2022 and it was that the moon was not
full but a Wayne and Crescent instead actually I think it was a one day old waxing crescent but close enough
uh the second question had to do with what really good eyepiece you would
choose of these three if you wanted the best possible choice and the most likely
focal point and the best eyepiece would be a 25 millimeter nitrogen curves waterproof fully coated eyepiece I think
the obvious answer was just in the adjectives there and finally there was a quote from
William hersl there was a giveaway to which astronomical league program was Santa working on that was either the
Herschel 400 or possibly rehearsal II each of those programs involves
observing 400 objects most of which are galaxies well the correct answers that were added
to the door prize list for December were anthroporkel John knabb and Adrian Bradley
and the winners for December were Adrian brable and Bradley dos kovats and John Williams
and now the questions for tonight and again send your answers to by email to
secretary at astraleague.org that's Terry Mann but the email address
is secretary at asteroid.org first of all Kelly's comment was
famously captured in this 230 foot long cloth artwork produced shortly after the
Battle of Hastings in 1066. in what city can you go to see it
see the tapestry not how it's come
okay question number two what person uh who did not own a telescope
co-discovered this comment while observing M70 through a friend's telescope in 1995.
okay and a comet C 2014 un271 is famous
for what cometary record is it the largest nucleus the longest orbital
period the speed at Sun passage or the longest observed gas tail
hmm that's a tough one again sent your answers the secretary at
asterleague.org and uh sorry I had the answer slide
there the astronomical Eve live event will return on Friday January 27th at 7
pm ESP and we invite you to join us then we'll have speakers um these are also hosted of course by
Scott Roberts for which we're greatly indebted and uh hope to see you on Friday January 27th and that's it for
tonight Scott great okay okay um that's wonderful I I hear you know
one of the people that we have uh on our program tonight is Ed Seaman and he's
going to talk a little bit about uh Northeast astronomy Forum I hear a rumor that the league might be there yes uh uh
Carol Lords president of the league uh I will be there Terry Mann will be there we'll be uh sponsoring a booth there oh
that's great so that's April the weekend of April 15th and 16th yes yeah
yeah so we've got uh you know we have a a a an unusual lineup this time in that
we have uh um uh people from uh the telescope
retail industry that's going to be here with us so we'll get to hear their uh perspective on astronomy Outreach as
being a retailer you know that's kind of my background that's how I get started um but uh it doesn't matter which door
you go through uh you know it's a it's an amazing journey once you start and
for me I I just never ever get tired of it so um
so anyhow but thanks again Chuck and we will uh we'll see you guys next week
that's great thank you all right thank you all right so our next speaker uh is
normally first on base is uh David Levy David is at uh a good friend's house at
this point and uh so we're going to add him in David uh you were on mute let me uh there we go
so there we are hello there Scotty hi everybody
great so David um uh you are our our theme this this
month or event this month that this week was Celestial visitors and anytime I
think of celestial visitors I think of comets and anytime I think about comments I think about David Levy so uh
David I'm going to let you take it away but thanks for coming on well thank you Scott and it's good to be
here and uh I'm going to talk a little bit about comets
um I just got interested in comments a few minutes ago uh or a few weeks ago or a few months
ago or a few months ago and you discovered how many comments
I like comments and um I remember
when I was in the sixth grade in 19 March of 1960 our teacher wanted us to
give a lecture give speeches and so I thought what am I going to talk
about and back then in March 1960 was before I really had an interest in
astronomy so I did not to give a lecture about comments and I was very nervous because I didn't
really know if the kids would laugh at me anyway so I was so nervous I had a piece
of blank paper that I would look at given my lecture and uh so that if
anybody wanted to ask any questions about climates and I didn't know the answer because I just looked at this
piece of blank paper and say something so that day I talked about comets in the
night sky I talked about uh the first major Karma which was Halley's Comet
and uh I said that Halley's Como will next become a great Comet and visible in 1986
which is so far off in the future we don't have to worry about it I even said that on that day that if you
looked hard enough you could actually discover a Karma and it would be very interesting
and uh anyway so I finished the lecture and the
teacher looked at me and said well good speech leafy can I take a look at your notes and I just had this blank sheet of paper
and the kids knew there was a blank sheet of paper because I told them so they told the teacher teacher has them a
blank sheet of paper in case I blow their lecture and so the teacher started laughing and I started laughing and the
other kid started to laugh anyway that summer I became interested in
astronomy seriously interested the idea of um discovery on Karma was not
something that really appealed to me yet that didn't happen until I was going to
my I was going to my uh lecture uh French oral examination
I was living in Montreal at the time and you had to be
you had to know have a speaking knowledge of French in order to graduate
from college and uh anyway I remember walking to school to
the Laura oil examination and uh hello
we have a a comet dog here tonight
lecture and this is the official Commodore of
the David Rossiter household anyway so going back to my lecture I was
I was going to uh I was going to the
to the French Royal examination I got to school I went to the boardroom and sat
and there was a long table you know one of the table with Mr Hutchison who was going to do the oral
exam at the other end of the table was me and Mr Hutchinson asked me some
questions which I answered and then he said yeah I'm the question that I expected what do you want to do as a
career and I looked up at him and I was very
proud of myself because I was all prepared I sat down and I opened my mouth and I said Monsieur
day career when coming out Mr Hutchison I would like to discover a
comment and he looked at me and he looked at the others and he he said how the hell do
you expect to make any money doing something like that and I laughed and he laughed very hard
and the others in the room left and he said okay Mr Levy I'm going to give you
credit for your uh choice of careers if only because that is the craziest most
original idea for a career I have ever heard in all the years I've done the
French orals here but I'm gonna warn you you'd better find a comment before 20 years because if you
don't find a comment within 20 years I'm going to come back and I'm going to lower your mark oh
and uh anyway so I that follow
on the 17th of December 1965 I decided to start my search for comets
I was walking the dog and not the comet dog it was our beagle that we had named
Clipper and uh I know that um
the speaker before me had just announced that there would be a meeting of the
astronomical league in Louisiana this summer and I intend to be there
and I will bring my latest book which is a book about a magic Beagle named
clipper who takes a group of children on a tour through the cosmos the book is called
clipper the cosmos and children finding the
Eureka moment and I don't have a copy of it with me right now but next week I promise I will
have one to show you you can get the book right this minute on Amazon it is available on Amazon the
way to do it is to go to Amazon go to books and then type in Clipper Cosmos
and that book should come up and you can get it right this minute on amazon.com
and I'd be happy to autograph it next time I see you anyway I'm going to do the quote I'm
going to do the quote uh right now the court of the week the quote of the week will be
from hopkins's Gerard Manley hopkins's poem that he wrote he was a very
difficult poem to go to read I mean he was his rhyme scheming was you know
sperm Rhythm was very difficult to follow and he as a poet he was very hard
to read but he did write a poem when he was an undergraduate of college at Valley Hill
College in Oxford and the poem that he wrote was I am like
a slip of calm and that's what I'm going to read to you I am like a slip of comet scarce worth
Discovery in some Corners scene Bridging the slander difference of two stars
but when she cites to the sun she grows and sizes and Spins her skirts out while
her Central Star shakes his cocooning Mists and so she comes to fields of
light millions of traveling raised piercer she hangs upon the playingcased
Sun and such the light as full as Gideon's fleece but then her tether
calls her she falls off and as she dwindles sheds this Mark of gold and
miss the sistering planets and then goes out into the tavernous dark so I go out
my little sweet is done I have John heat from this contagious son two not on
gentle death now fourth I run and so on that note I'm going to
wish you all the best on uh this lovely evening and comments I will be back next
week and now back to you Scott Roberts thank you very much David thank you uh
is it clear where you are tonight will you be doing what is clear but there are
clouds coming in it's supposed to be a mainly clear night but like we're going to have some clouds
for the first part of the night and uh uh but at the moment it's sort of partly
cloudy and partly clear well okay I know you'll be out there that's great well
thanks again our next speaker uh is a senior associate editor of astronomy
magazine uh Allison klassman uh Allison has been on global Star Party once
before I think only once before if I'm correct with that and um is that right
yeah just once okay well it's great uh we had a little conversation uh before we uh uh
you know got everything arranged here but I'm really happy to have Allison on uh to talk about uh you know what goes
on inside astronomy magazine and um so I'm going to turn it over to you Allison
but thank you for honoring our 110th Global Star Party of course thanks for having me
um I have a few slides I don't really know that I need them they're mostly just my talking point so I don't know if you guys would rather stare at my face
or Miss slides but um all right well we'll go with this um if
I look off to the sides because my notes are over here but yeah so I'm actually I just recently got promoted to senior
editors now I am one of two senior editors that we have okay at astronomy I
have to change the poster okay yeah it's okay I shouldn't even even notice um
yeah so I've been with a magazine uh six years pretty much I think I'm six years out of December so just about exactly
six years now um but I and I kind of wanted to talk about um both my background a little bit so
kind of where where I where I'm coming from and then also uh what we do in the
magazine kind of what what I do as an editor um and then I'll give you a tiny tiny sneak peek
um at maybe some issues coming up I can't say too much but a little bit um so my background actually is in
science not in writing uh so I have a PhD in astronomy so I was originally going the science track so I started out
as an undergraduate working on physics and planetary science I did several different projects I
actually mostly started out as a planetary scientists so even though my undergraduate degrees in physics I kind
of switched to physics because it sounded more impressive or at least more broad but I was really doing planetary
science which is interesting because when I started out I I wanted to be an astronomer and planetary science wasn't
a word I knew it was kind of a a thing I had to learn was part of astronomy and I
feel like there's still almost sometimes treated a little bit separately but they're really they're really essentially the same thing
um one's a little clearly a little more specialized but um just because your planetary scientist doesn't mean you're
not a real astronomer I guess um so I worked right you know that's
what I originally thought I was like oh it's not astronomy it's not real nostranderer but uh but no no I fell in love with
planetary it's planetary science really um I've done a couple of different projects um I worked on uh making maps of
ganymede's surface uh the oxygen on Ganymede surface specifically uh with Hubble data
um in the early 2000s um and also in the early 2000s there
were several um Pluto occultations Pluto went in front of several different stars um and so I was on a team that worked to
uh I went out every single night and imaged the stars that it was going to occult uh and then came back every
single day in the lab and did did astronom astrometry to get very precise positions of those Stars so we could
tell where the Shadows were going to fall and where you wanted to you know drive your truck or your boat with your telescope on it or fly your plane if
you're lucky enough um and then I also worked on um what I
kind of call Comet asteroid differentiation or Comet colors uh so I looked at essentially the spectroscopic
colors of several different comets and several different asteroids to to kind of better understand you know if you've
got something sitting in the asteroid belt for example uh is it an asteroid because it's an asteroid and it has no
ice on it or is it an asteroid because it's sitting in the belt and if you you know smush straight closer to the Sun
would it develop a tail is it really kind of like this hidden Comet so can you tell you know that kind of
information by looking at colors or service features or Surface information
um I went on to do a masters in what's called geosystems which is really just kind of a marriage of geology and
planetary science and I worked on light curves and rotational information on asteroid katasi so again went out every
single night took images of the asteroid came back during the day and and looked at light curves all day
um and then eventually when I went on to my PhD at University of Florida no one there were like two professors doing
planetary science and they didn't need any students so then I had to do real astronomy so I I skipped over uh
everything in between planets and went right to supermassive black holes and galaxies that was my PhD thesis was
working on kind of doing a giant survey of active supermassive black holes so kind of eating actively feeding
supermassive black holes in galaxies so don't ask me much about stars because I know next nothing about stars but I can
do planets and I can do galaxies and black holes that's enough yes exactly how many stars
um and then after that by that point I kind of had discovered that a lot of the
work that I had been doing um I don't want to turn anybody off of astronomy maybe this is what you love but a lot of it was coding a lot of it
was kind of sitting behind a computer and making you know making the computer give you all the information you needed from these you know beautiful images
um but I really liked the beautiful images and I really liked writing so I liked writing my thesis like actually writing it was the most fun part you
know of the thesis for me um so I was like maybe I maybe I shouldn't do this maybe I should do something else so I wanted to get into
science writing um so I worked as as a writer I started out just as a web writer I actually
didn't do science writing I just worked you know as a writer kind of doing all sorts of articles but that really taught
me how to do how to write short articles if you read anything I write in the magazine I'm really bad at writing short
stuff clearly every word I've written is very important I can't get any of it um so
it's always my my biggest challenge is writing something short uh so I'm working on that still but that was kind
of where I at least learned to start doing that um so as soon after I worked as a web writer for several years
um I I kind of lucked into this job honestly at astronomy um and I've been there like I said for six years
um and I would say they left into getting me so I I'd like to think that too
um so just to give you a Peep Behind the Scenes you know what does an editor at astronomy do for example um while we
edit that is that is Step One is we definitely edit um but before you can edit you need you
need a story to edit so we will work together um to either you know look at pitches
that we've gotten or develop stories that we want to tell um either ourselves
or or commission someone else to do but um at least the kind of the luxury that I think we have is we get to take you
know something that's interesting to us and say I want to write about this I want to you know do a story on you know XYZ um one of my favorite stories that I
recently did comes back to planetary science um and it's looking as at Earth as a planet
um because I feel like Earth often gets ignored when you think about planetary science and you think about the solar system but we know so much about Earth
um and so you know looking at it kind of as how do we study it as a planet as a whole and how how can we compare it to
you know the rest of the solar system so I got to do that kind of fun story which was was again a lot of fun to kind of
dive back into that field after some time so we developed stories we write stories we do edit stories
but there's a lot more to it as well um not only do we have to edit the stories and work with the authors or you
know work on it ourselves we have to you know sit down and say okay what what images do I want to show with this story
um so we're largely responsible not always sometimes the authors you know will send in images but we have to pick what pictures you're going to see that
go with the story and then we hand everything over to our art director and she says well you can only fit you know five of these 20 pictures that you've
chosen so which ones are most important which is always hard um the limitation of print is space and
we always run into that so we do that and then a lot of our images are made in-house so a lot of the diagrams that
you'll see we have an illustrator who works with us and we'll kind of you know I'll show her my little like stick
figure drawing and she'll turn it into something beautiful um but so you know we'll actually work
with someone to develop those images or we can find something maybe that NASA has done and say this is a good idea can we kind of you know adapt to this for
our own so we can tell you know the story showing showing this image or you know if there's a process or a chart or
something we want to show we want to make that you know accessible to everybody we don't want it to look
boring we want it to look you know interesting and engaging so she she helps us with that quite a bit
um and then the last part is kind of making everything fit like I mentioned you know you have to pick how many pictures you can have
um and then you have to kind of put it all together our you know art director you know plays the Tetris puzzle of
putting it together on the page but then if there's text running over we have to decide what goes what stays or or add
something if it needs adding or ask the author for more so that's kind of the story side of it um specifically I tend
to I work on right now I'm working on ask Astro so if you read the ask Astro
section I I get to pick the questions that go in there the ones that seem to be the most popular the ones that people
you know really are wondering about it's interesting because a lot of times we'll get similar questions from several
different people and that kind of says okay A lot of people are wondering about this we want to ask this question I also
work on the top 10 I write the top 10 every year I've done that for I think the past three years now
um which is actually very challenging because we have to write the top 10 stories of the previous year while we're still in the previous year
um so for example I was writing the top 10 stories in 2022 in October wow okay
so so if you read the February issue which I believe is out now so I'm not giving too much away here
um Artemis doesn't feature as prominently as I would like it to in the top 10 and that's because they kept
pushing the launch back and I didn't know if it was going to launch or not and I think it literally launched the
day before we had to send it to the printer so I was like all right let me tweak something and throw it in here but you know we couldn't you know feature it
as heavily so it will it will appear in 2023 there's an extra sneak peek for you but um so that's a challenge too and I also
work on the sky this month um this the kind of the middle of the book we call it so you know the star charts that appear in the middle of the
book um I edit that column I'm not writing it but I'm editing it and then I pick kind of what events seem to be
worth showing um and I work on the star charts we have a star mapping program and then I'll how
to take those images and give them again to our illustrator who will make them pretty and make them you know all match our style and make it all very
accessible so we do that and then we also work on web so you know
we're working on basically the magazine and the website at the same time and it's kind of the same thing we get to pick stories that we think are
interesting you know obviously there are new stories that we want to feature that we kind of have to whether they interest
or not but it's astronomy it's all interesting so it's never never really that hard um but I have to admit them the favorite
story I've done for Webb was again out of left field it was something I came up with after watching a YouTube channel
that I enjoy but I wanted to know how humans would decompose on Mars for example okay you know you know how
people you know decompose on Earth but it's it's it has a lot to do with the biosphere it's a lot of you know carrion
sort of insects and birds and things coming in and handling that for us um there's that doesn't exist on Mars so
what would happen so I got to call up a bunch of you know forensic anthropologists and ask them questions about how bodies decompose and very cold
oxygen poor conditions um so that was kind of fun because it's not not something I would think that you would just be like freeze-dried or some
things basically that's what would happen is you would actually essentially become kind of this desiccated mummy so if you want to know what happens on Mars
that's that's the exciting thing that happens on Mars wow okay but it's a problem because bodies don't go away on
Mars um you know from everybody in the ground on Earth after a long enough time it's going to go away that that isn't going to happen on Mars so maybe that's
something we need to consider at some point sure um yeah so that's that's kind of what we
do so we're doing simultaneously a lot of different things I also write um this guy this week column for for the website
as well so I simultaneously know what's going on in the next week and then five months from now but probably now what's
happening in the sky today because I've already forgotten wow so I'm just going to call you and find out what's
happening in the sky from now on yeah there we go um but I mean it's it's but again I I
kind of like okay well I'm working on May right now but I also have to work on January you know 20th right now so it's
it's hard to figure out what's what day it is and I never know but I know what's coming up at least so that's what's
exciting how does comet E3 since this is about Celestial visitors and and you're
you're in the know uh how does comet E3 Loom as far as uh excitement by you know
the community and also um are you getting better data than you
would say the general Public's getting a little bit of both I mean so it is very interesting I think a lot of people
are interested and I actually just published an article today because we're like oh everybody's really excited about this we should you know it appeared in
our sky this month I threw it in sky this week but then you know people want to look specifically for E3
um if you did want to have an article on that so yes I think it's getting very popular because you know as we all hope it will become naked eye
um it's looking good you know we never know what's going to happen but um if it and I think if it becomes even remotely naked eye then yeah well it
will be very big so people are really hoping that will happen um as for data you know maybe not
necessarily I mean sometimes we do sometimes we'll we can kind of get that inside information for this one particular no
um I think it's more just a matter of knowing where to look say how to use you know the JPL Horizons ephemeris system
for example which I'm very familiar with but a lot of people may not be um there are tools online or like the
minor minor planet center the comet observers uh it's
come to your database I think is what it's called I cannot remember off the top of my head right um but there's there's several different
resources and it's just about maybe yeah right yeah there's uh there's also another
excellent website that's out there uh I think it's uh um
Yoshida oh yes yes right you know which one I'm talking about Japanese
paris.net is the what is the address yeah yeah yeah but an amazing website
that's not there for a long time I've been looking at the for instance the curve the plotted and predicted curve
and it looks like the actual observations are matching the curve pretty well which if it does it's going
to hit like fifth magnitude so that's that's pretty cool yeah yeah well it's matching very well yeah I know his
website is yeah an accident resource and I'd never heard of it before I started working at astronomy so again it's kind of just just knowing the resources maybe
more than than anything Insider information um and then the last thing I wanted to talk
about real quick um is that uh this August is our 50th Anniversary so it will be our 50th Anniversary issue in
August so we're going to get some some extra pages it'll be a nice long issue um we've got some really good stories um
including a letter from David Walther who is the brother of our founder Steve Walther who unfortunately passed away
very shortly after the magazine kind of you know came into existence but his brother has been very active um I
believe he financed it for quite some time and you know is responsible for it you know getting off the ground in the first place so getting him to kind of
contribute was really really cool um so we've got we've got a special issue we also have out the January issue
is a special issue on comets as well David Levy wrote wrote an introduction for us um so that's also a really cool issue to
check out it's it's all comments so it's really cool that's great that's great be in all
comets all the time Channel exactly right yeah yeah and there could be there could be because all the time you know
so that's right well Allison thank you so much for coming on um and um uh if um if you are not a
subscriber to astronomy magazine it's easy enough just go to astronomy.com and
sign up you can get digital copies or print or both you know and um it's great
to have uh senior editors like Allison come on to the program so thanks very much Allison yeah of course great okay
so we are going to uh we're going to move to talk to a couple of different
um um people that are actually involved in the industry of retailing telescopes and
this is my background I I got involved in uh selling cameras first I love
Optics of course uh um but I was introduced to kind of more
serious hobby lifestyle level uh telescopes about 1980 and uh that was enough time
for me to get really into Halley's Comet at that time and get into
starting an astronomy club and all of that stuff and it's just been from that
day forward has just been this amazing journey for me uh the people that I've
been able to meet and the the things that I've seen in the sky and you know
it just never I never think it's going to get stale or old it can't okay because you know we
live in this changing living Universe you know and if you're if you're awake
to that uh you know it changes you and um so uh the person we're going to uh
right now is Mackenzie Hughes uh at Fort Worth Camera uh I want to I want to talk
about this a little bit because uh Texas used to have many uh telescope retailers
and now uh there are just a few a couple maybe uh that actually where you can
walk in and you can see telescopes on the showroom floor and um you know there's a lot of places that
especially during the Heyday of Halley's Comet for example a lot of people that had camera shops or
different kinds of shops they put telescopes in there just to see if they would sell okay but getting involved
with the astronomical Community is a different uh it's a different deal you
know and that's uh that's something that McKenzie and his team are about to do and they've already done with our team
and so Mackenzie thanks for coming onto the program can you tell us a little bit
about your role at Fort Worth Camera and maybe a little bit about the camera shop
itself and and then what you guys are going to be doing with your outreach program
uh outreach program sounds way too official for what we're trying to accomplish but I will say that uh thank
you for having me I feel very out of my element speaking
in the company of such experts and um I I claim to have you know okay so I was I was exactly I
was exactly where you're at right now okay when I started you know okay I was
surrounded by it Observatory directors and we had JPL
scientists coming in and very expert amateur astronomers and what I had was passion I I just loved the idea of
people looking up you know and I loved Optics so that that's kind of where I started with all this and I knew quite a
bit about photography so that was my door to coming into all of this stuff for me it seemed way
too obvious to uh the camera store that's already sells Optics should be selling another type of optic as well
telescopes and um I don't know what it was but I I have
something I tell people it's like adult onset space Fascination I don't
know what it is but I've only I've I've gotten more interested as I've gotten
just a little bit older and as such I wanted to start looking up
and uh in our case we could not actually access a dealership
for you know the traditional Outlets of mead or whatever the the names that Joe
consumer knew about um and then I started looking a little closer and it turns out there was a
great outlet for distribution just really kind of down the road in Arkansas
and we made friends with a good group of guys at explore scientific and Tyler
Bowman and Kent Martz and Scott uh have helped us grow
access for consumers to just um have another Hobby and in this case
it dovetails well because we can put cameras on these things and guess what we sell cameras so
um if it's okay I don't know quite how to share my screen but I have a video there's a green button at the bottom of
your Zoom uh yes it is share screen found it am I
sharing not yet you need to find the little square that's got your if you
have a PowerPoint or pictures I don't absolutely I guess I can't hear my desktop
uh you can um sure
well it's gonna make me open system preferences and all this stuff so let's see if this actually works but
yeah if you have an uh a Mac it's going to make you do that ah quit and reopen let's do that later maybe okay
um is this working by the way we see you oh that's nice
well we can have you on again I mean to share but let's kind of talk through it
yeah I can I can absolutely continue to talk about this sure there's a lot to
cover now you guys as far as I know uh McKenzie you guys started just last year
okay I was going to just mention that we haven't been doing this for even a year uh April or early May was the first time
we actually saw a product in our store uh I know I knew very very little and
the first thing I did was even before we got the gear was set my entire staff down
and started watching videos from explore scientific's website it was Tyler Bowman
and we learned the terms of the different mounts in eyepieces and the
types of Scopes so that was step one step two is to get a very small order and start exposing our public to it
right and it worked and but that wasn't enough so we just started to put together events based on
astronomy slash astrophotography which is something that is kind of what we do
we do a lot of events that's awesome so you do it in photography too right we combine the two
we talk about I mean how to take pictures of this you know star Trails or or whatever it's it's pretty basic
for what we're all talking about today it's it's pretty um pedestrian
uh if that's the right word yeah all right it's um it's exciting for us though
because we're just starting and we're dealing with a with a a customer base which is which is also just starting
right um so we've done a couple of events um
Tyler's come down put together a class and then one class in particular with the video is going to show
um we did a two-part thing we had a new luckily we have a classroom in our store okay that holds about 30 people it's
great and he did kind of the little uh primer of what we would see the
following night and we went out to I live kind of out in sort of the country just west of Fort Worth and it
gets pretty dark and uh we were bussing people to this undisclosed
location and it's very very beautiful and we people got a charge
out of looking at just what you'd expect from this guy yeah it was great and
um you know we moved some units from it I don't think that was really the point is is some sort of right right
it sounds like a replay of what happened with me when I'm working in a camera
shop in Oceanside California and it was called Oceanside photographic Center we
eventually changed the name because the the prominence of telescopes in the store became really huge we still sold
cameras but by the time from 1980 to 1985 I had maybe two or three telescopes
on the floor this grew to be in a very small camera shop 100 telescopes on the floor yeah I literally had to scoot
around the telescopes to get up to the counter to pay for something so
um but it was so much fun and it was so gosh it was so gratifying to see people
see the moon or see see Saturn for the first time in their lives you know and I
realized how simple it was you know to to introduce people to the sky yeah now
what we're we're finding well because I was in the same boat well we found out that there just wasn't a lot of places
to find telescopes there were no stores to go see one right they were they might
be a a sporting goods store and they were always in a box and I don't I don't like that
um we wanted a showroom of source we certainly don't have 100 Scopes but we have we have six or eight and I said
impressive and it's right in front when you walk in because it's the most unique thing we sell and
um yeah I got tired of people people were calling what you know just tell you to
sell telescopes no but try try something online mate right cry
somewhere else and uh I didn't want to do that and furthermore you know we as a camera store we belong
to a lot of different membership groups and organizations that are just like just like us and so
anything that resembling um astronomy gear so it makes us look
unique it helps us to make you unique that's for sure what's that I said it
does make you unique yeah it does and it makes us look a little more educated
although we're still getting there it definitely makes us look that comes with time you know yeah it makes us look that
we just uh we we care about doing more things and then as a result we are
having more uh events and one in particular which um I don't know the reach of this uh
this meeting or YouTube um presentation but please come down
please visit us in Fort Worth um we've got some eclipses coming up
right in our path of uh Texas right yeah you're going to have a worldwide audience coming down yeah and uh one in
particular in 2024 where we're doing a pretty big event with another store actually out in California they're
coming to us and we're going to host them but in the meantime May and actually it's May May 19th
um we have a really fantastic Museum of Science and History the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History hi uh as
it turns out and um they have they have a planetarium there
so that is where our the fourth photo Fest
yay yeah yeah plug um it's a collection of like 40 events
and this is our 10th Annual and uh they're all across the city of Fort Worth and we try to team up with some
cool institutions and so this uh Museum fantastic place they have a planetarium
you know state of the art we'll be doing our astronomy presentation there that's sponsored what a wonderful stage
yeah sponsored in part by explore scientific and um Tyler Bowman will be
presenting there and um and then there's the presentation of
their own planetarium show okay so um how lucky to have something like that in
your own backyard and uh smart that you guys are taking advantage of it
um you know I know that um many people will turn on to the sky you
know because you're going to meet a lot of people that doesn't as Allison was talking about earlier she was talking
about you know Earth is a planet a lot of us a lot of humans don't think that they're flying on at unbelievable speeds
through space on this planet you know they just think oh okay I wake up in the morning this light outside that's called
the sun all right it's up uh you know and then they think about their job and
whatever problems that they have all day long you know so uh you know waking up
to the fact that um you know we are flying through space at unbelievable speeds and just and actually connected
to the universe is something that you know this gateway called astronomy does and so I I'm I'm really happy that
you're that you're a part of that how do people find out more about this event uh they go to your website or of course
um yeah naturally Fort Worth camera.com you can also visit fortworthphotofest.com that event is
live right now for May Fort Worth just like it is okay spelled
like that yep um yeah to follow up on something you
mentioned earlier I was actually not aware that we are one of the few if not only
astronomy uh telescope retailers where you can actually see stuff in person in
Texas I don't think that's right uh that's not okay for we don't think it's right
either but yeah I'll spread the word um but but it's unusual in in a com age
you know to be able to definitely be something like that I I feel what's good for the goose is good for
the gander and the more we can kind of connect and the more we can share with one another the more
knowledge grows and the more enthusiasm grows and that's for me the name of the game
that's awesome that's awesome well I'm I'm glad that you uh uh you know uh
you know came onto the program uh to talk with us and to let us know for
having me what's going on you know we're going to uh
uh you know we're we're going to follow up with Fort Worth Camera and kind of see what that Journey's like because I
know it's going to be amazing um and uh you know at any time Mackenzie
you went to brainstorm about about ideas on you know how to grow that and to
affect more people in the community because I think there's a few people that live in the Dallas Fort Worth area
um that could really benefit from this and people will be driving from all over all over the country to come to Dallas
during the 2024 total eclipse of the sun uh you're going to experience something
that is more Grand than than the Alice Comet era that I experienced at uh what
became Ocean State Photo and Telescope or opt so um I have one one final question because
apparently Randy is going to be taking over Randy are you a retailer as well because you're in
front of a lot of telescopes perhaps is that a real place behind you that's a
real place behind me yes it is I am a brick and mortar store and
when I you can hear me fine can't you yeah yeah I can when when I retired from
work my lovely wife let me open this shop and
it has grown for the last six years wow and you can just see part of what's
behind me where are you I am brick and mortar I do not ship maybe some little
things that people talk me into it but they come to me I am in rural Illinois
middle of Illinois in Vandalia Illinois and uh I love what you're doing that's
fantastic people really appreciate the fact that see what they're buying
feel what they're buying and experience what they're buying before they buy you
know and and I always tell everybody buy the telescope you're going to use the
most and yeah good advice
it's great well thank you Mackenzie I'm gonna I'm gonna turn that Spotlight over to uh
Randy here so uh thanks for giving us your experience uh so far and we're
gonna check back in on you uh probably after you give that event at the Fort
Worth Science Center so all right okay well Randy uh you and I
kind of bounced back and forth uh uh throughout the day and uh uh it was it
was uh you know uh great to hear about your story but uh
so you run a shop that's obviously successful okay
and you're not doing you're not a web you don't have a website uh for for this
so how do you make it work you're but I I also know we talked a little bit about
uh people waking up uh to the sky and all of that and uh you know you've been
involved in in astronomy since you were a teenager um that was just a couple of years ago
but uh you know but what what what what do you
tell us more about looking up Optics well okay first I'm going to tell you a
little bit about myself okay um I am have been an amateur Stockman since
I was 14. that first look at Orion hooked me and ever since astronomy
Journey has been with me um I am a master naturalist and a Master
Gardener through the U of I extension um here in Illinois and I just love
nature I am president of the Riverbend astronomy club so I do a lot of Outreach with them and
they also have a library telescope program I'm on the board of directors of the St Louis Astronomical Society so I
do a lot of Outreach with them and um they're also heavily involved in the
library telescope program so you know other than that I started
this business six years ago with the purpose of uh you know people being able
to come and experience like I said what they're buying I do do star parties here
at the shop my shop is located on my property I have a separate
building on my property that I was able to put my shop in so that makes it to
where people can call for an appointment anytime night or day and I can go out and share astronomy
with them and let them try out a piece of equipment that they may want to buy me that's awesome
so that that helps a lot too in that respect in fact that's kind of the way I
work my shop since I do do a lot of other things I a lot of people call for an appointment because they're driving
two or three hours to get here and you know they'll spend two or three
hours here just looking at different things I've got a bunch of eyepieces and
you know they can try out different things before they buy and that way they know what route they want to go so that is
awesome yeah really online you know you can't you can't get them like you can't get an
expert like yourself right and no one's going to you can't duplicate someone
going out with you letting you try a piece of equipment you know so I mean
it's it's uh you know I imagine at one point or another we'll be buying our
cars and our houses and everything just online you know maybe you know but uh or
trying you can you can buy clothes and stuff like that online shoes online but
and I know people who do that but they're constantly returning stuff you know they go oh yeah that didn't really
fit doesn't really look good on me whatever you know um so I think it's uh very valuable
um to have this uh really tactile approach and then through the shop like I said
I'll have star parties out here people want to learn astrophotography I have friends who really do a wonderful job
with Astro photography so they'll come out here because I do have dark skies I live kind of out in the country and uh
they they do a lot of astrophotography and people can go around and learn from them because there may be eight nine
guys out here shooting different objects in the night sky and then I do sky
orienteering at some nature centers for master naturalists and anybody to come
to and learn the constellations different times of the years so it's really been a journey and
experience and I I don't regret it I just got to thank my lovely wife
for letting me do this crazy stuff that's great that's great
I would ask you I mean you're retired now all right what was your background
before you got into this I was a retail store manager and then at one time I was
VP of sales or some warehouses and then I did sales and routes for a guy back here in town
and I retired once earlier and I decided
I was gonna go back to work and I did landscaping for 10 years because I always did that on the side and uh that
was going to be just Mowing and taking care of 10 people's things that Lots at the lake I ended up
having five employees and you know how that goes so
and then my health went South on me so I had to retire from that so well you look
healthy to us so you know and uh yeah I I I'm one of those guys that personally
thinks that astronomy is good for you you know health-wise mentally wise everything would you agree with that I
mean is that a is that a wild statement to make no it's it's super relaxing it's
just I don't know it's almost like a religious experience experience I mean
it's you know it is it's really a relaxing hobby it's an enjoyable Hobby and like I said the journey just keeps
it never gets old things change so much that's right with technology and everything else so right
yeah that's great that's great now the community of people that come and see you now I said you didn't have a website
but that was I now find out that was a lie okay and I just posted your website up there so it is looking up
dot uh info I think is what it is that's right it's just a basic website that
it's playing oh it's a it's a nice website shows where you are says what you carry that's great you know so
very good yeah yeah and I am located at 1261 U.S Highway 40 in Vandalia Illinois
I'm 62471 um you know my email address is looking
l-o-o-k-i-n actually is happening right yeah it's looking with an apostrophe up
Optics and my website is looking up looking up
gmail.com is my business website so okay
if you're ever in the area call me stop by
we're having a little Freeze Frame going on here but um this is great uh and I'm gonna
recommend uh if if you are making you know you get out and uh you are able to
um uh stop by a place like this it's just unusual you know and so uh highly
recommend it and I can tell that uh Randy Harrison is uh the kind of guy
that you'd want to learn more from so Randy if you're watching this on YouTube thanks for for coming on
um our our next speaker is uh Byron Labadie now Byron has been involved in astronomy
Outreach for a long time uh he loves it uh he is he was actually on live with us
on the last Global star party uh standing there with an audience with Don Davies as they were inside the big
telescope in Chile and I think that is the topic of his talk today he's going
to share his experience there Byron thank you for coming on to Global Star Party
well it's really a pleasure for you to invite me and to see you in a heartfelt
hello to all the people that are attending and participating it's truly
an honor and I'm very humbled to be here we're honored to have you thank you
well I started out uh 10 years old got the astronomy bug I got interested not
only an amateur astronomy but uh just very very inquisitive person
from the get-go so I also wanted to explore professional astronomy and I've made uh been fortunate to make trips to
several observatories globally uh in my youth High School ever since I got a
driver's license I spent days weeks even months at uh Kitt Peak National
Observatory and a big solar observatory in New Mexico and was in the Army in El
Paso so I befriended Clyde Tombaugh and spent quite a few days at his house visiting with his family and wow
teaching me a lot of stuff so I've been fortunate uh having said that bendo so many of
these observatories I was uh finally selected for the astronomy and Chile
educator ambassadors program or acap and now anybody globally can participate by
filling out an application form you don't have to be a genius or a professor just to have a passion and they can be
found the the applications can be found through searching acap or Astra
ambassadors.com but my discussion uh is will be astronomy in Chile which
was probably of all the experiences I've Had The Pinnacle of them all it was just
absolutely unbelievable so I'm going to bring up my PowerPoint we'll get started
okay well on day one our team met at the National Science
Foundation associate University zinc and the national radio astronomy
offices in Santiago Chile and uh from there all of us uh were told
about the telescopes the observatories the staff and the great deal of time and amount of
money that these entities spend on public Outreach
they really do want to get the message out they'd like to get the youth to pursue careers in stem Sciences
mm-hmm after our introduction we all boarded an airplane and flew North 250 miles to the
city of La Serena Chile stayed overnight the next day the team of us boarded
trucks and drove about 60 miles to the astronomers housing at Sarah
talolu and your American Observatory and our first our our first visit we
left from there and went over to Sarah Patron which is home to the Gemini
telescope uh the the soar or south southern astrophysical research
Observatory and the under construction hey um something I I wanted to uh you
might be are you sharing a or you think you're sharing a presentation at this point yes yes okay it's not sharing so
oh oh yeah let's correct that can you see it
not yet okay oh boy all right the second
is I've done this myself many times so okay all right uh let me uh and show we
have lots of other embarrassing things I can tell you about too if you'd like so okay
um so on on the zoom uh uh application that
you have you'll see a share screen button it's in green okay for that guy then you go and you click on your
presentation okay I'll make sure you get it
there we go that looks like it's starting to work there we go okay we're seeing your documents you see I'm um
excited that's what it is yeah yeah that's that for sure okay I got so
excited one time giving a presentation to the Rotary Club this is the 1980s
when we used uh uh you know slide projectors with the carousel and I'm holding on to the remote control
in my hand now this remote control probably has a length of about with a quarter length of about three feet and I
throw up my hands to express how big the universe is and the projector comes crashing the
floor it breaks the the light okay and all of the slides fly out all over
all these businessmen well I can get in that conclusive
presentation that that will work I say I'm picking up my favorites
so now that I made a a fool of myself and shown my true intelligence no that's cool well resume and I get yeah
yeah the passion already came through so here we go um the cohorts and this is a picture
actually taken uh yeah so you went out of sharing yeah
yeah you got to go back in okay uh
we uh share
okay now you're back in there you go and bring that into uh presentation mode
that's the little screen here yes sir
Perfect all right okay all right back in the saddle yes well
I've already described this we met at the main offices uh we were all given
presentations the nine of us that were selected uh we got on the plane and we
went to La Serena which is kind of near the about a third up from the bottom
left it shows Sarah tololo and Sarah pachang uh we then we went first to the
telescopes there um the first telescope we went to was uh
Gemini telescope and here's the home to the at present world's largest single
mirror it's a 8.1 inch meter or 319 inch diameter objective lens is a
Richie Christian cassegrin the mirror is made of Corning looks bench and glass
and it has a suite of four Optical infrared imagers spectrographs
guidance instruments located on the back they're all there together which will
quickly and easily allow for switching of the instruments without pulling them
off and putting them back on you really need a accurate mirror
surface so they were able to get this one down to
0.6 millionths of an inch in smoothness
Gemini South as I said has a 319 inch telescope and they also have a
mirror refinished Sheen or recoating facility there
it's optimized for observations in the mid infrared by use of laser guide Adaptive
Optics and they use a silver mirror there's several layers of Mirror Mirror
Coatings and all of them there's a silica based final layer that slows down
the oxidizing process that tarnishes the
mirrors and uh allows them to recoat the mirror
two to three years now for a telescope this size and a rich accretion F 1.0 at
made of a concave hyperboloid is blows my mind I wish I had an extremely fast
mirror yeah I'd like to have one of my cameras attached to that I didn't capture something in a pretty short exposure absolutely yeah so from there
we went to nearby on the same Mountain the soar Southern astrophy goes research
telescope with within which there's a 4.1 meters 161 inch F 6.6 rich accretion
with two nasmuth and three folded caskran Foci if those for you not
familiar with nasmith it's simply that instead of the uh focal point being
reflected back through a central hole in the primary mirror which it can be there
is a um opening in the side of the telescope
similar to that of a Newtonian near the center and this design allows heavy
equipment to be positioned uh on the telescope and as the telescope moves the
mirrors can be adjusted by a whole bunch of attenuators to move the mirrors
so that it doesn't the mirrors move instead of the the
instruments soda doesn't throw the balance off on
the uh the telescope uh the it is made of uh Corning low expansion glasses out
out asthma design and it is designed to work from uh the atmosphere cut off in
the blue end of the spectrum at 320 nanometers to near infrared wow and this
telescope is among the foremost research facilities and produces the best image
quality and Optical infrared and spectroscopic capabilities of pretty
much all of the telescopes in the world and that is a fiberglass Dome Believe It
or Not wow here's uh interior view of
the soar telescope and the equipment operating room
uh then the Vera C Rubin which you can see is under construction
in a very design yeah it looks more like a cruise ship to me yeah
look at that a telescope and uh it's um maintained by
National Science Foundation and uh it's called the Simoni survey telescope as
simonian family donated a vast amount of money towards the uh expenses to build
this telescope veruben Observatory was previously referred to as the synoptic survey
telescope and the word synoptics derived from Greek meaning View and gives a very
uh broad view of a subject 3.5 degrees uh in a view
Reuben was a woman astronomer who pioneered the discovery of Galaxy rotations and their rates uh The
observed Observatory will house a 8.4 meter 331 inch telescope which will then
be the largest in the world but will soon be beat by other telescope Center
constructions it's able to photograph the entire available Sky every few nights wow it uh it uses 15 terabytes of
data a night and it's a variant of a three-year
and a stigmat which simply means that it eliminates blurring which allows a
compact telescope to deliver a very sharp image over the very wide field of
view that I told you about earlier uh the camera is has the largest digital
camera ever constructed uh it's operated under management of Aura and the full
survey operations are scheduled to begin in October 2024 and this telescope is going to
catalog 90 of near-earth objects larger than 300 meters and assess the threats
they pose to life on Earth and it will find some 10 000 primitive
objects within the Kuiper belt uh
wow is that the camera that is the sensor yes that's the camera that is
huge yeah it will be observing thousands of supernova both nearby and at large
red shift and by measuring the distribution of Dark Matter throughout gravitational
lensing or by gravitational lensing and uh if you're not familiar with it you
can look it up on the internet because my time frame doesn't allow me to get into these specific details uh this
telescope makes no attempt to compensate for atmospheric dispersion because such
correction would require Readjustment of additional elements in the optical train and uh this telescope moves in five
second increments between pointings uh so it'll take a 10 second exposure
or a 15 second exposure and allows five seconds to move and settle
down before it starts another uh set of two
um images and shorter leggings will have the shorter wavelengths will have reduced
image quality because it doesn't have a compensator for the dispersion but still
nonetheless with an imager that size it's going to be good
now the LST lsst project numbers uh 8.4
meter primary three thousand two hundred megapixels you know my camera's got 36.
it has a focal ratio of f 1.23 wow 800
times the number uh same objects will be captured and uh
you can see the information there uh 15 terabytes as I said collected every
night each exposure is 20 seconds with a five second interval in between
uh there are 189 CCD CCD uh charge
couple device detectors each with 16 megapixels and alerts are produced
within 60 seconds of observation on objects that have changed brightness or
position relative to archived images of the same star position
10 million alerts will be generated per night so we're talking serious business about
identifying objects in the Kuiper belt that could pose a threat to human human
life uh Reuben has a program for Education public Outreach
and serves four main categories the general public formal Educators
citizen science and principal investigators and uh continent
developers at informal Science Education facilities
now back we went to saratog's located in the guimbo region
of Northern Chile the principal telescope with the silver Dome is the four meter victim Bronco
Blanco telescope named after the Puerto Rican astronomer Victor Blanco who
discovered Blanco one a galactic cluster 1951 he and his wife also pioneered
Research into Stellar populations within the center of our galaxy and our uh
nearby imaginately Cloud uh parent galaxies he was also the second director
of this Observatory complex Victor Blanco is an exact twin of the
one at kid Peak and the reason it's exactly the same was to save time and
money all of the engineering design parts
stencils everything was known uh the the Miracast was available so they could
quickly uh construct this telescope and get to Sarah to low with uh saving a lot
of money at the same time and if any of you are asked her photographers and familiar about taking flat frames most
of these telescope don'ts now if you'll see have behind the telescope to the left a flat frame uh
green that white circle thing that's okay yeah then the telescope is pointing
at that it's same size as the objective mirror and they take their Flats with that before doing optical Imaging
this telescope is used primarily for Dark Energy surveys
the dark camera on the blanco telescope is currently the main research
instrument it's called the dcam has a CCD imager mounted at Prime Focus
the major components in it look at that engineering that guy's standing in there
it's just these wow he's just who whoever designs and
fabricates and puts see astronomy in just the astronomers it's this team that puts all of this incredible equipment
together but there are 62 science ccds eight-way
front ccds and four guide ccds with an amplifier uh this camera's found 12 more
Jovian moons a giant comet in the outer solar system the fastest orbiting
asteroid and extreme dwarf planet and new Stellar streams confirming the
Melting Pot history of the Galaxy oh wow there are four different smart telescopes which means uh small to
moderate um uh small to moderate aperture research
telescopes there's a 1.5 meter or 1.3 meter a one
meter and a 0.9 meter it's a Consortium this one this one this one and one not
seen tenet telescopes they're everywhere I had no idea there were so many
telescopes a lot of them have the clam shell domes you see the left others have
Ash domes they range in size between 0.4 and 1.6
meters including the Korean micro lensing telescope which is the larger one and
all of the remaining telescopes are shared by universities lucky students at public schools in
North Carolina I don't know why that state got the long straw but that's great and some of
them are actually for rental from the general public for Imaging
uh now we're gonna go to the radio telescopes uh we went to Alma
Largemouth which is the large millimeter seven millimeter array further north in the Atacama Desert it's
at sixteen thousand four hundred feet and the reason being is radio telescopes hate moisture and at that altitude
altitude you're above a lot of the atmosphere you're going to have low humidity and you're going to get better
Imaging than if you had a lot of vapor in the air there's a lower side at 10
000 feet where the Transporters computers maintenance Fields facilities
and everything are located and the computer they use to analyze the data is
the equivalent to 3 million a laptop or desktop computers that
people use it gets hot see so they have to keep this in a enclosed room at 35 degrees
Fahrenheit so it doesn't burn itself up uh the there are telescopes operated
um by USA Europe and Japan and these dishes range in size from 12 meters to 7
meters across there's 66 total antenna and they can be spread around with those
specialized trucks to far away as 16 kilometers apart
that spread would makes them the equivalent to one very very large radio
antenna uh this is a photograph of one of the Transporters 28 Wheels hauling uh to
tell us one of the radio telescopes from the low site to the high site I don't
know how the engineers do it but these things move instantly and quickly they're very heavy and I don't know how
they designed the gear trains and the parts that moved where they can just snap move and stop on a dime but the
engineering's incredible um as I said the great distance between the
dishes bring more more detail and act as one large dish
the difference and you see we all had to wear a supplemental oxygen even though
we were tested uh physiologically at the lower site but the difference between a
radio telescope and an optical telescope is the wavelength of the radiation collected
optical telescopes only capture a very small part of the electromatic spectrum
roughly the cut off in the blue of 340 nanometers up to visible red at 750
nanometers almond contrast probes the sky at longer wavelengths from a few
hundred microns to about one millimeter which is about 1 000 times longer than
visible light in the Spectrum it operates primarily in the lower end of
the radio waves these mirrors are made out of a unique
material they're not metallic so they don't they're not metal so they don't undergo expansion and contraction
they're not malleable they're not distortable because they because they
have to have a circus surface accuracy within 25 microns thick far less less
than a single sheet of paper across the entire dish be it seven or twelve meters
all these telescopes use radio telescope interferometry and it's kind of interesting because when two antenna
dishes look at the sky that there's positioned
apart from each other so there's a tiny fraction of the second that the uh waves
coming in or the signals is a bit off and when you combine them with a
computer they overlap or interfere with each other which is where where the word
interferometry is derived by precisely timing of the signal from each of these
antenna astronomers can correct them so they don't interfere and this is known
as interferometry within a ferrometry radio astronomers can combine all of
these signals from the antennas and and telescopes and
first you take an image then you distort it and make it all fuzzy but when you reassemble it it's sharper and brighter
than ever so it's a an amazing thing uh optical telescopes use uh
mirrors and lasers to make interference pattern and form a speckle and the
telescope and the computers analyze different portions of the spread out
pattern pattern to get all the details and then when they put it back together all those little details become clear
that's awesome and so that is thank you not all the telescopes but
mostly I yeah there's so much to talk about I I was uh I was at the ctio uh
for that Eclipse that happened a couple years ago and it was just uh an amazing
facility uh I also visited the uh Victor Blanco telescope as well it's massive
it's beautiful um but the thing I thought was um really I mean what I was left with
and I think that you were left with this too Byron is um that uh you know was the
the entire Team all the way down to the people that Supply food to the astronomers in the cafeteria which by
the way is great you know the place is awesome yeah yeah uh we stayed up there
uh at the at the summit uh during the entire time getting ready for the eclipse I'm curious Byron did you what
did you what was your take on observing the southern hemisphere Sky I don't think it was your first time but
um no what do you think about the Milky Way down there I've been to the southern
hemisphere many times and uh the first thing I noticed and everybody says look
at Orion it's upside down that's that's the first thing they notice it's very disorienting the first time that's true
the magellanic clouds can't see it from here so every time you see them you're you look at them in amazement uh one of
the greatest uh um cluster of stars is Omega Centauri or a
toucan of two can of 47 visible from there and the beauty about being in the
southern hemisphere is from there you're looking into the Milky Way directly into the center of our galaxy that you're not
able to do so much from the Northern Hemisphere it's very low so I can't go
south enough times to ever be fully satisfied right yeah so yeah I have a
question at that elevation how far North are you able to see because I've heard
there are some spots where you can you can go all the way down to our Dipper in
the north from Chile now I don't know if you're quite that high but I'm pretty
sure you can at that elevation you're seeing a few Northern targets still too well let me explain that to you
um being in elevation even on Mount Everest uh as compared to the entirety of the
earth the earth is as smooth as any man-made circular object you can make so
being on a Mountaintop makes no difference whatsoever the true divining
factor of what you're going to see above the horizon or at the Horizon is your
latitude how far south of the Equator how far north you are due to the
curvature of the earth that's the only thing that this allows you to change what you're able to see at any given
time any portion of the night sky okay with that said I've had someone mention
actually on global Star Party catching a glimpse of the Dipper from some places
in Chile so or Chile that may be possible that may be possible from the
United States you can also see things like Omega Centauri for example okay true
stand out here down in Florida right that's right so there are there is a little bit of overlap yeah I don't know
70 of the sky something like that so uh you know if you got good clear Horizon
you can see pretty far down so um but uh Byron I want to thank you for
coming on to Global star party and uh sharing your experience in Chile with us
and uh looking forward to having you on again so thank you and I apologize for the hiccup this was the first time I did
a PowerPoint oh it's absolutely fine excellent job trial by fire I'm humbled
thank you very much thanks Byron thank you well our next speaker uh is Ed
Seaman now Ed uh is one of the main organizers of the Northeast astronomy
Forum this is the world's largest um astronomy show totally dedicated to
uh telescopes and observatories and tours that you can go to and all the
rest of it uh I've been going for a number of years I'm happy to say I'm
coming back to Northeast astronomy forum and we brought it to the global Star
Party to talk about it and in the hopes too that you will make that trip to suffering New York Ed it's all yours man
well thank you Scott it's a pleasure to be here with all of you
um and uh thank you for that early plug would Chuck Allen that was great
um so we are extremely pleased to announce
that neef is back live for 2023 after three years of the pandemic uh April
15th and 16th in Suffern New York um we have a fantastic show that we're
putting together for the event and um as
um Scott had said uh neef is uh the world's largest astronomy and space Expo
and it's features over a hundred manufacturers and vendors from all over
the world um all at our 90 000 square foot Exhibit
Hall so it's a truly huge event as far as um I don't want to uh refer to it as
a telescope show but boy we got lots of telescopes yeah lots of telescope Fair that's right that's right Scott's going
to be providing a good portion of them for sure for sure that's been a great
supporter um over the years and appreciate his uh participation but um uh would like to
see Randy and Mackenzie there as well it's an open invitation for you guys to
come and visit or exhibit at the show uh for certain
um in addition to um the major exhibit floor
um we also have a fantastic lineup of speakers uh for the event
um this year we have uh to mention a few Eileen Collins who's first female
shuttle Commander um we have yeah we have uh very proud to have Jerry
Griffin uh Apollo flight director uh from the golden years
um very very happy to have him um we also have Nadine Cox who Scott was
uh very instrumental in helping us get she's the um JPL systems engineer for the Mars rover
missions um if you see me looking around I'm looking at my various screens that's
okay there's a lot going on at neife I got stuff everywhere that's right
um we have uh also Jenny ranba who is
um working on the uh the new um
the new uh dragonfly Mission uh Saturn's moon Titan
it's a uh a copter type device and she's gonna be here to talk all about that a
very interesting project um and um I'm also happy to say that we just
added Holly writings uh who is NASA's first woman flight
director and has just taken the role of lead for NASA's Gateway project
awesome which is um as you all know the first manned
space station to orbit the Moon so that's going to be an amazing talk and we also just added Don Thomas who's
a more flight space shuttle veteran uh so we're excited to have him
and now I'm looking up at my board and I've got some additional people that I
can't mention just yet because they're not confirmed but we're very close to confirming them and some very very
exciting guests uh names and Shalom um recognized so it's going to be a
fantastic show this year and we're so glad to be bringing it back to you live
um in addition to those things that I've mentioned we have a Pro-Am conference which goes on within the
uh the convention um we have stem workshops for students as well as Educators uh beginners
classes we got a little bit of um everything for everybody
um it's it's a great event and if you have pointing at astrophotography conference too correct and the
astrophotography conference which uh takes place the two days prior to me so
that would be um uh the 13th and 14th
um and uh you could read more about that we have a lot of
um uh astrophotographers that have been doing fantastic work for many many years
that are going to be presenting um at the conference and uh
um telling us all their secrets to their fantastic photographs that they take all
right that's an amazing event um in itself and um
you can see all this information and much more detail at our website uh which is
neefexpo.com that's right yeah I posted that uh website there and I want to ask
you something um uh you've been doing this for many years uh and um you know so I think you
kind of have a somewhat unique perspective on kind of our whole
Community what are you left with I mean after you know when someone asks you gosh Ed what what do you you know what
is this neat thing that you do you know someone that's not into astronomy what do you tell them
um well I I usually I usually take one of my program books here and say refer to page uh or
with all these pictures right everything is there but I mean basically what it is
is it's it's it's a gathering of astronomy and space enthusiasts
that come to to to shop that come to listen to world-class lectures
um and just uh come to uh to to meet and and network
I mean it's a fantastic event for for all of those things and
I mean nobody really comes away from neef disappointed if you have the
slightest bit of interest in in um astronomy Space and Science in
general you're just going to be um astounded by by what you see in in
here at the event absolutely you know it's the only event that I've seen for a
astronomy and amateur astronomers where you're driving to the event and you see Billboards okay on the side of the road
okay about me and you see um you know you guys do uh live
streaming from neef and you do you do everything you guys have been such innovators uh in the presentation of
astronomy for the space enthusiasts for the amateur astronomers for kids you
know they're just kind of getting you know interested just getting started you
have recognition Awards door prize all kinds of stuff it's hard hard it's it is
the Burning Man Okay of of astronomy or certainly one of the main
things yeah right except I don't think you guys catch anything on fire yet so
no no I feel very cool yeah thank you so much for coming on
um I think at this point yeah yeah thank you everybody cancels are open
awesome expo.com uh check it out uh and get your tickets for uh April 15th and
16th we hope to see you there yeah I got mine so we'll see you then all right so thanks so much uh we are
going to take a 10 minute break and then we'll be coming back with Connell Richards uh who's been away for a little
while but is a great speaker and he'll be talking about the great Eclipse party so
is so real
thank you
there's a question on chat about trust tube dabs versus a rigid tube
[Music] um and you mentioned outside of portability
um I think there are some there are some other differences the portability is the
one that I'm uh most aware of as well as
um well your mirror the mirrors all eventually get to the
temperature of the outside but with that trust tube especially if you if you
leave your truss tube open and with a without a shawl on it then that mirror
gets cooler sooner um you know it settles down to whatever the temperature is
where you're observing so um yeah book Davies just cool Factor
literally cool factor it's you're if your mirror comes in and it's too hot
you know cooling it open truss helps it cool down some but then but then if you have your open trusses
and you're somewhere where there's light it may interfere with your views of the sky so more often than not you uh cover
your truss scope with a shawl and you then you have less reflected extra light
coming from the outside so
um I see more trust tubes just simply the the portability Factor makes a
difference and you got an 18 inch scope uh being able to carry it in a cell and
take the trusses off as huge um book you're saying from here is 12
inches or less temperatures in a big issue I'd go down to about eight
um I have an 11 inch in a Schmidt cast of green and
it struggles to get to ambient temperature My Views
start off rather slow and they start to lock in over time
um 18-inch scope um I've seen the horse head nebula
directly and Thor's helmet directly there were some filters to filters put
on but um it was amazing seeing both the horse head you normally see it as an
image in the you know an image but when you see it with your eyes it does something
to you you're on uh yep you're on mute Byron but uh yeah you
you've seen that horse head with your with your eyes too
no and that's why I'm mind blown yeah see it uh see it uh naked eye and
you're like I'm looking directly at something that uh yeah you don't
and from what I understand sky is a portal 2 or higher
where you are where you were in Chile I think those skies are dark enough you
stick that you you stick a visual uh tube 18 inches or more out there you'll
see it um I think there is a filter you have to put on there I forget what the I don't
know if it's UHC or you know but hey Adrian I've seen what
you really need is dark transparent skies and low real low power and I've
seen the horse had seen which way the nose is pointing okay through an eight
inch telescope it's possible and I know people have seen it with the six inch
so it is absolutely possible to do is very I mean it's almost like a ghostly
kind of look thing to look at you know yeah uh it is it is absolutely possible I agree I saw it this past uh okey text
trip that I took um gentleman had an 18-inch Obsession and uh
for the life of me I can't remember the filter he used but we looked in there I
saw it like you said you see the direction that the nose is pointing in the horse head and yeah you may not make
out a lot of details but it sticks up it sticks out there and you're looking directly at it so it's uh
you know it for those of you in the comment you know the big
for visual observation the bigger aperture mirrors are still King Dark
Skies oh nothing replaces aperture but nothing replaces aperture and nothing
nothing replaces a really truly dark sky yeah those transparent dark skies like you've seen Byron in uh Chile
um it's it's part of the reason that many they're going going into
astrophotography um just because well it gives them
access to more deep Sky objects and lesser skies I can't go to Kenton I
can't drive you know out west or I can't go down south to a place like Chile
um but I want to see it so so I take my camera and hook it to a Tracker go for
uh 60 seconds and boom there it is that little horse head sitting right there
underneath all the attack and the flame over here right um
yeah West uh Wes is talking about the uh big mirrors
and the uh the Omega yeah the Omega looks good in almost any aperture oh yeah but the
bigger it is the more you know like any anything else the more detail you can uh
see Norm you've seen the veil nebula through a large dive I've seen it through my 11 inch I saw the Eastern
Veil no filter also saw the uh NGC 7293
the Helix nebula saw it without a filter we had a pretty good night I think the
sqm reading was 21.99 at one point going straight up we were close to a true
portal one but uh they reserved border one for 22-0 and on up
well Adrian you'll be happy to know that recently there's a new maker of some
Dobbs and for the
two horrible price of a half a million dollars you can now buy a 60 inch dob
that's right someone is selling a 60-inch dab that's it
is it so is it a truss tube or is it it's available at Adrian through explore
scientific ah okay so I'm coming to the guy that sells yeah come on down we'll
hook you up here so I'll bring you a cashier's check okay yeah I'll bring the
truck I don't know if a pickup truck is enough to carry it home what's what's remarkable what's remarkable is that
um that the uh telescope can be built in just a little over a year and uh you
know it's robotic uh but uh and it doesn't require a giant ladder to get up
to the eyepiece so that's even better that's another that's another thing that uh you could actually do the world of
amateur astronomy and the gear they can have today uh is just simply stunning and um uh you know we're gonna have a
show uh uh Global star party is just going to talk about the whole theme is going to be about astronomy and the
technology behind it you know for you know probably mostly focused on the amateur world because it's amateurs have
now at their disposal amazing equipment that you know multi-million dollar
technology that they can buy for a few hundred dollars or a few thousand dollars you want to get big uh it's out
there for you but that used to be only available to professionals I mean and now it's you know if you got the dough
okay you can do it so so Randy what's your take on that that question we had in the chat the uh tube versus a trust
and if there's other advantages besides portability is a big advantage in my
book but they were asking if there were any other advantages um
um tube is a lot bigger a lot bulkier I
think portability is is probably you know I have a explore scientific
that I demo a lot that is a trust and with those fans running
I go to the Illinois dark sky party I never put a shroud on it those fans keep
the dew off it's amazing so you know you have to put a shroud on
your trust if you're in doing public Outreach in a lighted area yeah so I
would say the trust is just so much more lightweight I got a guy who just bought
a 16 inch explore scientific and he puts it in a little Honda and goes everywhere to dark sides with
it you know it just doesn't sound like it it should be possible so yeah so you
can take big aperture you know a lot of places and guys I'm sorry I dropped out my internet drop me
oh that's okay the internet Gremlins they happen we need to bring on we need to bring on
our next speaker here so we could we were we could absolutely go down the rabbit hole on on gear and technology
and we will okay big time uh in our in a future uh Global Star Party we've
already got it planned but I do want to introduce uh uh Colonel Richards Connell
has been on global star party for a couple of years now uh and uh he had to
drop out for a little while due to commitments to his education but uh
Connell thank you for coming back on to Global star party again of course I'm I'm very happy to be back
and I have to say with Ed just talking about neef I remember going to my first
niece in 2017 and I don't know if you remember but that's where we first met I remember shopping around and seeing
everybody there and I had to be 13 or 14 at that time and it's been such a
journey since then so I'm always very happy to be here I appreciate the invitation great thank you well
tonight I have for you uh an interesting story about the last total lunar eclipse
we had that was back in November of last year so I'm going to set up
um a PowerPoint presentation with some images I wanted you to let me know if my audio
and visuals are okay sure I'm gonna grab this share it
thank you sharing all right it's perfect wonderful
so to set the stage here um we had that uh first lunar eclipse of
the year in May of last year and that that turned out to be quite satisfying
it was beautiful where I was I remember we had a webcast here everybody sharing images and this and that we were
fortunate enough to get another one so I was kind of playing around with different ideas for what I could do my
plan was I thought I would find some parks in the area Penn State has a beautiful Arboretum that that
unfortunately was closed at the time uh so it was it was really hard to get a good spot to take a picture of this and
I thought I'll go out with my camera get a couple of shots and see what I can use around campus as a prop to get some good
images and it was Sunday night the eclipse was on Tuesday and I was coming back from a
camping trip with a couple of friends and we're all exhausted from you know being covered in mud and squeezing
through all these cracks under the ground and all that kind of stuff which is a fun thing to do if you ever get the
chance to try but we're talking in the car and I said hey I'm going out um very early Tuesday morning about 3 30
in the morning and I knew a lot of my friends enjoyed the outdoors like I did in various aspects of nature so I said
you're more than welcome to join me I'll be grabbing some pictures might bring some binoculars we'll look around we'll
have a good time and to my surprise a lot of them said yeah that's great I'd love to see you
there because I thought how how am I going to get college kids out of bed at 3 30 in the morning
um but somehow I guess an eclipse is is the way to do that and I I talked to a couple of friends in
the car there they said they would join I sent out a message to our larger group and as we're planning this uh I think we
had something like 30 or 35 people who were going to show up and did show up and we all got together to observe this
Eclipse you can see in the title slide there we're standing on uh the lawn of Old Main it's a building any Penn Stater
would recognize uh anybody from PA a lot of football fans uh it's quite in that
kind of building around here and that ended up being the best place to go uh to photograph this Eclipse which was not
an easy decision to make I'll Advance here
um the site selection was a little bit difficult for where I would observe from because here we are looking at the
eclipse just about as totality's beginning it was about 10 past four in the morning and you can see up in the
upper left hand corner this comes from Sky Safari uh the altitude of the Moon would be about 15 degrees we're looking
almost Due West and it's sinking quite rapidly um because you're getting to the morning
it's kind of in the winter time and I wanted to get some good shots of this and not have it blocked by a tree or a
building or something and I know if I picked the wrong spot where I couldn't see this I'd have to hike across you
know campus or across town and that might mean half an hour of me not getting pictures and risking clouds and
all that kind of thing so somebody suggested Old Main and we went and scouted it out and it looked
like a pretty good option so you can see here North is straight up on this picture and we're standing on the lawn
um kind of over to the right here in the middle of that big lawn um you can look West and see the moon
moving over those buildings so it would go kind of from the bottom to the top as it's setting in the West
and if we positioned ourselves just right it would set right behind Old Main and right next to that Bell Tower there
and make for some really beautiful photography so here's what here's what that building looks like uh kind of during the day I
got this picture during a snowstorm sometime after but we ended up seeing the moon kind of
come behind that flagpole you see there and just over those trees and over the smokestack and then drove the chimney
excuse me and then behind the building so we measured it as best we could with the methods we had and it turned out
that we had a good shot all we needed to cooperate was the weather so everybody goes there we get there at
3 30 in the morning uh one of my friends brought a camp stove he's making some coffee we had a couple of small snacks
and it turned into a mini star party at that early time in the morning and so that turned out to be a pretty rewarding
opportunity to do some Outreach there a lot of my friends a lot of people who love nature I figured they would enjoy
something like this and it turned out to be a great event so here we are looking at the beginning
of the eclipse and throughout the process managing the exposure time was a little bit tricky because I wanted to
get the lights Illuminating uh from the back those clock hands and the
time numbers on the clock and then you also have the moon as it's changing in brightness so trying to get those to
even out and get a decent shot with detail on both was tricky and a little
bit before totality I kind of managed that but for the time being with the images before and after I think they
worked out okay for the circumstances I I had there so you can see there's just a little bit of a dent kind of cutting
out of the Moon there as that partial eclipse Begins the partial umbral specifically
and then we advance it a little further here's a closer shot I just zoomed in on one of my other pictures and you can see
it's a little farther along um kind of a fuzzy Edge on there which is a little bit due to the camera and
the lens I was using but we also had a little bit of cloud cover a little bit of moisture in the air
um I was worried at the time about my camera getting um kind of moistened up and you know
covered in a dew but I I kind of lucked out because outside of Old Main there's
two flags you have the US flag and the state flag and the lights Illuminating them get very hot so I was able to kind
of put the camera next to the light and let that light radiate and kind of eliminate the Dew which worked out
pretty well to get a nice picture of this and here we go we're abdensing a little
bit more and you can kind of see some of that color starting to come in in the earth's Shadow you can still see the old
main Bell Tower illuminated pretty well um you could probably even read the time on there it looks like it's about ten to
four right there um or ten to five I guess all right and we're we're moving in there and it
was getting just a little bit early in the morning but that was just beautiful right there trying to get a good shot of
that eclipse no later on um the moon's just barely a sliver right
there as we're about to enter totality and you can see there's a little bit of a crater there I think that might be one
of the smaller seas and the Moon is almost completely obscured by Earth's shadow
and here I have some pictures uh where I'm just about at totality um you have all the street lights there
which which ended up kind of working in my favor because they gave a little bit of Illumination to the foreground and
made it a little more artistic I didn't have to worry about you know lights getting in the way of my camera
or anything and I ended up getting some beautiful shots with you can see the moon right there that's cool that is cool I was I
was thrilled with how this shot came out because you know I I was kind of stressed at the end as I was planning
out where I should go and where I should plan my images but I had this Vision in my mind of what this shot would look
like unfortunately um the circumstances allowed me to execute it you can see some color in
there a little bit of light just at that limb of the moon and the clock tower pretty well illuminated
advancing a little further we have another shot a little bit more orange in there uh This was later in the eclipse
actually during totality and I I was trying to play around with different spots on the lawn where I could get a
good shot and this worked out pretty well yeah there's a nice oh yeah thank you
I see there's a nice rich color in the moon there it looked a little bit darker than the one earlier that year I thought
um it seemed like a couple of other people noticed that as well just a bit hair a hair darker than the one in May I
would agree I tried getting here too
yeah yeah that's beautiful you ought to turn that into pin to someone at Penn
State's campus see if they'll post it I'd sure love to because uh I think my
next shot at something like this would be around 2025 and um if all goes to plan I'm graduated by
then so I'll have to keep this for a while um certainly a very special picture you know I love Penn State I
love the school I go to in astronomy and it all kind of comes together in this image and it worked out very nicely
especially with these tree branches in the foreground just adding a little bit of character to that image
here's another image from totality uh this one worked out to be a little bit sharper I had an intervalometer with me
for some reason these images weren't coming out as sharp as I liked all the time so I try to get as many as I could
and it's right above a chimney there you can see the bell tower over to the right that tree in the foreground just
illuminated a little bit and it kind of looks like that moon is rising out of the chimney there which I thought was really cool
and here you can see I thought I got a I thought I'd get a foreground um you can see over to the left there's
a little bit of a blur of people hanging out over there and they're making coffee and making snacks and kind of camping on
the lawn there there's some other people in the foreground um a couple others brought cameras and
tripods and that kind of thing some people had binoculars so we were pretty well equipped to observe something fun
like this and it worked out pretty well um it wasn't too chilly I think it was about 40 or 45 degrees so just warm
enough to be comfortable if you're moving around and we got a nice shot of that Moon getting darker as it's coming down
towards the horizon and anyone who's been to Penn State or seen the campus there's this famous
Obelisk kind of uh to the left of Old Main if you're looking North and
essentially what they've done for that uh sculpture is they've taken pieces of marble and pieces of limestone from I
think it's every County in Pennsylvania and stack them into this Obelisk shape to show different parts to the state
so with this shot I was really fortunate to get that engraving on the right there and then a little bit of a sharper image
of the moon on the Left Right during totality you can see some of the Seas there and we're starting this is a real
shot this is not like a montage or something right yeah that's a single shot this is a real shot
that's amazing I'd like to point out that you caught Uranus in that shot
did I there's a star above the Moon not there go up to the first star but that's
Uranus wow wow there you go I didn't even notice that that might be a first you
have yep you have Uranus Uranus popped out because of that darkness of that Moon Uranus popped out pretty easily and
you know in shots um but yeah you got it that's Uranus
um if you were to zoom in you might even see it has a little bit of a greenish blue hue on it so that's that you gotta
move your bargain for in that shot that's another shot for the University to put in their guide to yeah why you
want to go to the school that's amazing thank you I didn't notice I caught that
before um yeah the moon was setting here I think it would have been seven or eight
degrees at that point it was behind a lot of the buildings and this was the only clear shot I got and the
opportunity presented itself um but this is this is a single shot
um I took that and I I went into Photoshop I adjusted some of the
brightness and some of the contrast a little bit on some of the colors um but it's pretty authentic to what the
raw image was there's no moving parts around or anything like that and then there's Uranus in there so
how about that it's quite lucky to have caught that I didn't know that thank you Adrian
oh and this was a nice shot uh kind of towards the end as the moon was starting to set and the
sun was coming up um you know people had classes people had things they wanted to do that day so we thought let's go for a sunrise hike
we've already been up and you know we'll make the most of the morning we have now now that the moon's already set
so this is a shot overlooking State College this is looking almost due east so you have the sun rising a little bit
farther south of that and then at that time if you could look through the trees and I couldn't really get a shot of this
you could see the moon just on the horizon and it was kind of a pink color because it was still coming out of
totality but it was changed in color a little bit by the sunrise and it's one of those things that I think even if I
got a picture of I couldn't have done Justice because that was a really beautiful thing with the moon exactly
opposite the Sun in the sky and them setting and rising at opposite times if
you can visualize that it's one of those things that really makes you feel like you're in a very active Universe with a
a very alive night sky if that makes sense right because oftentimes we think
of it as static but we're in a very Dynamic solar system and seeing all of that happening at once uh was a very
cool and Unforgettable experience and finally to close out the slideshow we have a picture here the sunrise so of
course the moon's just about set by that point and we're overlooking an ice forest and we got to have some coffee
and a sunrise and some great pictures and memories from an eclipse and the reason I I tell this story today
is because I do like planning Outreach events quite a lot I've done them with the library I've done them with both my
high school and my college but having something a little spontaneous like this where everyone gets together and enjoys
an event in the night sky is a very special memory to me and I'm sure many other people have memories like it so
there's always an opportunity to do Outreach there's always an opportunity to share some aspect of the night sky with other people because it's always up
there and many of us enjoy it it's a very captivating thing for everyone I think so if you ever have something
coming up like this maybe it's that lunar eclipse in October of 2025 I think
if it's the solar eclipses we have coming up if it's the comet and meteor shower or something like that definitely
take advantage of that wherever possible because you'll definitely find an audience who's fascinated to learn more
about it so thank you very much for having me today Scott thank you always happy to share these stories with people thanks Connell okay that's wonderful
uh that's great and what do you think that will be your next uh astronomy
Adventure Connell um it's a little hard to tell um I found that from school it's a
little bit harder to observe it's hard to find a good location and you know without light pollution and things like that
uh we were talking about neef earlier and of course I live a lot closer to that than Alcon was uh back in summer so
I'll do my best to make it up to that so hopefully I'll see some of you around yeah please come to our booth we'll be
there I'd love to um maybe during the summer I'll get some observing and we'll see what happens but
I'd sure love to come back on and share something else interesting whatever comes my way wonderful well thank you so
much again thank you again all right so we're gonna go down to Brazil uh to uh
Marcelo Souza who runs an amazing outreach program uh primarily centered
on youth um uh you know he I have been to
um one of his events down south I've done some of this also virtually but he
gets an incredible crowd super enthusiastic crowd interested in space
space exploration astronomy his teams have built cubesats they've done all
kinds of stuff they've also helped establish uh Brazil's first and I think
the southern uh South America's first dark sky Park Okay
um down in Brazil so Marcelo thank you for coming on to Global star party and
uh and for presenting with us again thank you it's a great pleasure to be
here today
in the beginning of the year is the happy holidays here in Brazil
[Music] December until the beginning of February to have part of it part of this ends we
are also having February 2011 that's a big celebrations
[Music] here in Brazil
and the we have here something about it everybody knows about
this guy now they they probably don't know the name of the constellations but
they find these three stars in the sky because during the summer
they have the opportunity to see your eye up to
their heads and in the beginning of the night and we had we just please start
that he responds to the belt of the door all right he is very famous here in
Brazil they call the three medics Chris is the smell and it's very famous
everybody knows about this when you organize it in the spirit or any period
of New Year and they ask you if they know uh questions the name of the
crystallization everybody say the three marriage the image and also like to use the question
it's so famous here because people have the opportunity to look to
the sky and that's easy because it is raining a lot here in Brazil
almost every day you're having clouds here in Paradise in here there's an
early state of Louisiana and in many parts of Brazil but it's very famous and the we use these three
stars and three men as a difference to help them to recognize the installation
and to arrive and you have alignment foreign
[Music]
next week uh summary school here about the Southern University
even without products that everybody knows that's happening in Brazil but we
are going ahead then we have planned for next year to be
and some of the schools are going to talk about the Express delays outside
this and I have here a small history about the
Brazilian ninjas and uh a private that's called Kaya points we have many tribes
here in Brazil very fast maybe yet should they you have tribes in Amazon
any parts of Brazil and you have a famous history about how the life began
on Earth I mean that vision and it's important because they also have an idea
about the stars that they see at night it's association with the past
I would like to to tell the history and many years I have here I speak a
short script I follow this trip many years ago in Indians
and limited on clouds and clouds and there they don't have the rivers
forest and one day a whole appeared in plants
and from that place they heard different noise from those they knew in their daily
lives despite the great fear they gradually approached the whole
out of curiosity full of the English space down to look through the hole
foreign
oh wait to check these accounts I also observing through the world several
meters were held between the wise men of depriving in attempted to understand
what they observed they decided that's it to be necessary
to exploit this new region there were several of volunteers each time passed
the momentum of the volunteers weight only two men and two women women
day of the beginning of the exploration the brave Expo said goodbye to the
families and friends and they didn't know that they might fight a great ceremony was held then he said
the order of similarity equipments ball air or surprise
a large group led had been produced from
the clouds and to the Amazon they feel
the ladder through the hole downwards to brief Corpus they send it
they had the taken to return within a certain period of time to bring the news
when they reach its grounds they were amazed at what they saw beautiful and
lived trees Birds Behavior animals they didn't know they began to follow a
tattoo they followed the boat to fly they walked along the river they are
impressed by the beauty of the place time best then they forgot to head down
to the crowds where they lived they will start to get rewards they had
made an emissions plan afraid that led you would be used by if it was
experience after that line they would greatly hope but
explorers lost to correct of time with so much new stuff they ride smoothly
finally run out and in the clouds to try to decide to catch the land
despite the protest of Health achieves and frames of brave adventures
nights began to arrive in Amazon rain the beginning of the darkness of the
environment the brave explores remember the commitment they run towards the
place where the ladder was when they got stairs ladder was lying on the ground they could not happen to the
clouds they started to cry the night has come at one point one of
them looked up to the sky he stopped crying he watched the page of
the others who also looked at the sky and stop the time what did they see
they saw the star of the sky tonight and with the beautiful stars they
imagined each of the stars as a representation of the bonfires that were
lifting clowns where they live so every time they look
at the sky they would be remembered their family and friends who had stayed in the clouds
these two couples gave rise to life or not
and the California Indians Brazilian women see signs of their ancestors every
time they look at the beautiful diary time this is a very much many
people here in Brazil knows about this yeah I just certainly didn't know about this story this is very cool
these are very [Music] beautiful history yes every time they
look to this at night they imagine the people that live
in they made that continue to live on the clouds and they put fire at night
and the fire that they could in other stars that they see
I think that is fantastic and for this moments it's important that
all the importance of Science and I wait that even without problems we are going
to solve everything and we continue to develop science to
produce new models implements that see that's allow us to be here you know this
system that we are using yeah and they have a famous right that is
that some he wrote many books in one of the books I have has a hip watch not
about what they saw in a wall being for London and it was written
let's leave the person is for better times this is what we are trying to do
now
and by the way um uh you know uh Marcellus is the
editor of Skies Up Magazine we'll have a new issue coming out here pretty soon and uh really appreciate you for all
that you do Marcelo thank you for you know being that that defender of Science
and astronomy uh in your country and and an inspiration to people all over the
world so thank you so much thank you very much
great that's wonderful okay so our next speaker uh you know we have
one of the things you learn about global star party is that there are all these kind of different traditions and stuff
but we all love the sky and we all feel that that unites us uh and um you know
what better way to celebrate that than you know during uh you know here in the northern hemisphere when you might be
freezing your your toes off uh than to go down to the Florida keys to the
winter star party and Russ brick is one of the leaders of uh the winter star
party it's put together by a a great group of people uh the Southern Cross
Astronomical Society uh is is that the helm there but uh it wouldn't happen
without all those people that do this and we've been uh fortunate enough to
participate in many of these winter star part parties and we will be down there
as well but I'm going to turn this over to Russ brick Russ thanks for coming on
to Global Star Party thanks Scott thanks for having me how are you guys doing tonight Adrian how are you doing good
looking at your beautiful weather behind you and oh yeah once again I'm reminded
it's always daytime I know where I can go well it kind of looks like an arpegelo
down there it's not that's not really our keys no okay all right yeah but I'm
sure the weather is sort of similar I ain't warmer that's that's what I took away it was 81 today uh wow I think it
was 31 today here so yeah you got it in a lot of places yeah yep
so and cloudy we're moving along we're about 30 days out now
uh everything's coming together the site is going to have some challenges this year
at the Girl Scout camp but nothing we can't handle I've got about
250 people so far okay and we probably
are on Pace to end up with about 300. and that's probably 240
you know paid uh attendees sure the rest would be
staff speakers vendors manufacturers
um so yeah we're expecting good weather uh yeah we've already made our payment to
uh certain astronomy gods sacrifice the lamb here or there right
right let's talk a little bit let's talk a little bit about how
uh winter star party got started I know you know the history well but let's go a little bit further back to some of the
history of the Southern Cross Astronomical Society and how that got started I mean something scas is an old
astronomy club oh 1922. right
um I apologize I should be more versed in
all of that um our Founders they started with just a simple telescope
and the times at a park in Miami right it blossomed into a couple of
other locations and in the 20s you know the late 20s there
were several parks in Miami that had telescopes but mainly Southern Cross was
you know handling all the bulk of it right right and back then they were like
a true Society um now I'm not quite sure what that
means that word means because in all reality I view us as an astronomy club
um but back then it had the Southern Cross Astronomical Society it had a lot of clap in this area
I see I see and the club's Founders um Tippy dioria
dates had a lot of clout in the astronomy community in the later years
uh the winner of the founder of the winter Star Party which started in uh this would be the
39th consecutive year but we got inter you know we got interrupted by covid we'll
always say it's our 39th year it's really actually only the 37th Star Party I see and they first started at I at
mahogany Hammond and they actually had to break their stuff down every day because they
couldn't stay in the park oh wow that would have been a major inconvenience yeah people set up they
pull our line they you know the it was kind of weird yeah so they lasted there
for three years and then they actually went to Camp Sawyer I believe for two years and then
moved into camp with sumpty so Sawyer's right next door right right
next door okay the boy scout camp and right now we use Camp Jackson Sawyer as
our um sister facility in the Star Party
we have all our RVs and our motorhomes and little pop-ups and everything over
on the Girl Scout camp okay and there's only tent camping and these what the Boy Scouts call Glam
tents on their side okay they also have all the facilities
and if you're coming to the winter star party and you're staying on Camp Sawyer you'll have access to Electric as well
like the showers girls flush toilets you got every showers and 10 toilets yeah
excellent over on the Girl Scout camp of course it's rustic camping the only
thing will be there would be Porta bodies right unless you have your own RV unless
of course you have your own RV right or your Camp next to a guy who has an RV
that's right you make friends with him real quick that's right that's right well it's easy
to make friends at winter star party in general I would say and it is at most star parties but something special
there's something special about the winter star party you know you get there there's there's a saying I don't know if
you would agree with this or not but there's something about this what they call a keezy feeling okay but you kind
of you get down there you slow down you know and you you start to decompress as
you're out of the strip of land and uh and then to watch the stars come up from
you know you're seeing southern hemisphere objects there the Southern Cross Astronomical Society is called
that because they can see okay exactly right and so it is that's
exactly it's a it's a beautiful experience um the skies there are dark okay uh yeah
you can see a dome of marathon or these kinds of things and you can kind of see
actually sort of a dumb even going all the way down I think sometimes down to Cuba okay because you're not far away
but but uh you know I have seen some amazing deep Sky objects from uh from
the winter star party and uh it is um it is uh not only Spectacular from his
site not only Spectacular from what you can see but the people that run it you
included Russ uh are just amazing and you make it a very memorable uh
experience that you want to go back and do again and again well that's what we
host the star party for we want to make our attendees welcome and we want to do
our best to make sure that everybody has a good time and as long as the weather cooperates
you will have a good time yes you will and even if it doesn't cooperate you're
still going to have a good time it's still going to be warmer if you think about it for the price of the ticket
and the camping fee and whatever else you have to spend yeah it's no greater
than one or two nights and you can stay down there for seven nights that's right
yeah that's right yeah and actually to clarify that it's it is expensive to
stay in the Florida Keys if you're just going to go down and rent a hotel room uh there are no hotel rooms that are
much less than a couple of hundred bucks a night okay uh yeah there are no hotel
rooms that are under like four or five hundred dollars that's that's also true yeah but I'm talking about motel rooms
you know it's so crazy this is crazy expensive but to stay there on the site
watch the sunrise watch it set you know it is beautiful and the gentle breaking
of the tiny little waves lapping on the shore right it's not the way it's like
what's behind you here it's it's what nobody really knows is over on Camp Sawyer yeah there's a dock that extends
out into a deep water pool you can dive and swim out there what yep
I didn't know this I didn't either but I do now you do now so there's actually
great things to do during the day oh yeah there's plenty to do
um you know you can go into Key West you can go into Marathon there are some amazing restaurants oh my God yes Keys
Fisheries if yes you know if I had to give a Shameless plug to any place it would be them the lobster mac and cheese
is just off the hook one of the most amazing dishes
oh yeah yeah and of course she got the famous key lime pie uh but not only not
only the restaurants it's the entertainment that's down there uh the shopping list
right that's right Gallery square at Sunset with all of the street acts yeah
it's fine of course your best chance to see the Green Flash uh yes yeah and to stand at the
southernmost point in the United States the United States that's right that's right
yeah that's right the Southern Cross alone that may that may make it easier
for me to uh get that taken care of I'd still have to travel further south for
the magellanic clouds and you know 47 to Kane I'm not sure if that shows up
um but Southern Cross I'm I'm all for that you know that that would be another
section of the Milky Way that would go into the presentation where I right now
I only have four sections two of them are missing the part with the Southern Cross and the part with the magellanic
clouds oh wow so I'd get one section I'd be able to take care of one section going down there and then the other one
um Argentina I'll probably have to go further but it sounds it sounds amazing
I I put the in my schedule and it's very affordable Adrian it is very affordable
you get yourself down there uh fly you know fly into Miami that's usually from
almost anywhere in the United States an inexpensive trip I don't know why but it is and then uh Rent A Car you're gonna
love the drive down there as you go over those what is it that seven mile bridge
or whatever it is I mean it's just a seven mile bridge yeah yeah exactly right in the middle of the key you're
out in the middle of the keys water yeah yeah you can go to the no-name pub uh
you can uh there's so many cool things to do down there and if you love snorkeling and Diving you know go go to
Sombrero uh
one of the best things is when you wake up at three o'clock in the morning and
you walk outside your tent and Omega Centauri is looking at you like a Searchlight that's right
and the sky the sky can be so steady it can be so steady out there you'll see
people pushing their telescopes upwards of a hundred power per inch okay which
is almost unheard of almost anywhere else yeah you know because
airflow that comes in so you're going to see detail on planets that's going to blow your mind yeah I saw the sqm meter
21.76 is no slouch that's that's uh if that's your average now is
that that's the average pointing it up in the sky or an average that you took
over like the Horizon and the sky oh when I shoot mine I shoot mine right
in the middle of the property so it's at the sky yeah so that's the Horizon yeah that for my for my shots I'll do Horizon
just uh in the South yeah and then it's uh yep and then going up to the sky yeah
21.76 is top portal three and since getting a uh sqm meter I pretty much
learned that you know here in Michigan we kind of overestimate what a portal 3
sky is it's really bortal four but it still looks dark to us
um so Portal 3 is gonna be fan just as fantastic well I can see stars down to a
degree on the horizon that's right that's absolutely fantastic pretty clear that's true that's clear and and uh a
funny story at one winter star party I was at because you can see stars right down to the Horizon there okay was uh we
had a guy set up it was his first time to use an auto guider on his telescope and he wanted to photograph
part of what what he could see right along the horizon there he wanted to get down as far as South as he could and
he noticed that his telescope kept moving kept moving kept moving kept moving and there was a sailboat out there with
a light on it and he was Auto guiding on on a light out there and the reason why
he was is because it was Stars around the sailboat at the Horizon so you know
he got fooled by I think it was just picked up yeah he picked up sailboat star and boy
his guiding was off so if you want an experience at Adrian
even if you went to the Southern Hemisphere and you got to ex see all of that and it is amazing
you would still be in awe of what you would experience at winter star party so
no I believe the bucket list thing yeah I believe it I um
I would just have to get down there make sure that I could afford the amenities because I'd want to go to some
of these places I have been known to sort of rough it grab the uh grab the
snacks it's warm enough to keep this guy up and you'll save big bucks by doing
that and yeah yeah winter Starfire makes it super affordable this is my favorite
store party food is Chef Boyardee spaghetti in a can so
that that works for me I'm here for the night I'm not there for you know if I
want Gourmet I can do that anytime in Michigan oh yeah all you gotta do is just drive off yeah
no make sure that you make it down there explore scientific is going to be giving a door prize uh so you might be the
lucky winner of a door price down there there'll be other people other companies I'm sure giving to our prizes down there
as well and uh and you're gonna make some new friends you can't go to Winter star party and not make good new friends
you know that's just impossible so and uh I guarantee you that once you
experience it once you can't wait to get back again yeah and there'll be a couple of 30 inch Scopes down there and when
you look at the planets through a 30-inch telescope oh it's kind of like mindfulness oh my God yes you're right
yeah and you need that seeing quality to actually look at a planet with a big scope like that so you know and they
have it so Russ thanks for thanks for coming on and uh sharing with us I have
posted uh in the chats for everybody where they can go and sign up for winter star party if you haven't gone you guys
are thinking oh you know it might be a little far away or whatever forget that
go just do it okay you're in February 13th you've been cooped up long enough
okay even just come down to the sunny Florida
come down that's right and have some fun that's right
eat some exactly thank you so much thanks for coming
thanks for having me on Adrian good seeing you again good seeing you again Russ all right my friends take care you
too all right bye-bye all right so we're now at the end of uh Global
star party and our final speaker is Adrian Bradley Adrian's nightscapes have
been amazing uh his sense of of composition that is is his uh he's
been taking us on this Voyage of what he's been learning about the sky and I'll say from the from the first Global
Star Party to where he is now his knowledge of the sky has increased a lot okay because he's really dug into his
images of the Milky Way um uh he makes beauty in in the images
that that he presents to us but uh uh at the same time we're going on this Voyage
with him as he's learning more about our galaxy I'm going to turn it over to you
Adrian thanks man all right thank you and uh happy 110th if I got the number
right that's right yep we uh learned about the uh Star
Party in the keys it's something that I'm going to have to talk about the
finances with because now I want to go but um especially
based on how um our skies have been in Michigan I'm
going to share my screen and get right into the presentation
is uh I should probably drink this I'm going to drink this water in front of
everybody and share my screen
now Scott told you chasing dark skies and that's the theme that I'm using but to talk about my
Chase in December I had to replace the word with cloudy because uh we had an
unprecedented or maybe it was precedented um because here in Michigan a lot of the astronomers talk about the
clouds but literally we had maybe two days
and the picture I'm showing you is one of the two days where stars were visible
now lately we've had a couple of clearings that I've missed just simply
because um I just wanted the time to
um recover because I tried and traveled anyways um in chasing these uh Cloudy Skies
starting with the Moon Mars occultation it was cloudy but you're seeing the pictures that I took anyways I can't
zoom in here but now this is essentially this part of the Moon where Mars is
coming right out from behind the Moon everything's a little fuzzy because you
can kind of tell in this image there were clouds and the moon the full moon
was uh shining just bright enough through the clouds for me to take an exposure option look at that and there's
that's beautiful hiding behind there so the clouds didn't stop me from seeing
the Moon Mars occultation I didn't know if I was gonna get it I decided to pull when I got home I decided to aim up at
the sky and give it a shot and it worked out but yeah so here you're seeing
clouds um you know I I practice my
landscape Imaging all the time my nightscape I call it and so you're seeing a couple of images
from a dark sky Park where there were clouds but there was going to
be a clearing so I went anyway and I took those images
and then I went to another favorite spot in the thumb lots and lots of clouds at that site
this is a site that I wish to before it's over with the cygnus region
is going to set right over here and it's going to make this particular shot going
to make for a beautiful night's game with the cygnus region of the Milky Way setting and you'll see some other
examples where I took pictures like that at other sites this site should turn out
really nice if only it wouldn't be cloudy I took an sqml reading of 20.97
this happened this 95 percent cloud coverage swooped in on me
um right as I was setting up um I noticed the sky started to get hazy I could see the Dipper in the distance
and then I couldn't see the Dipper anymore I couldn't see the North Star anymore then I looked this is to the
east because you can barely see the stars of Orion rising over the lighthouse light over here and uh what
was going to be a shot of Orion rising and the winter Milky Way coming here
was a shot of really thick clouds and they came in really fast it's a
beautiful composition though and to see the tapestry of stars Down Below in between the Horizon the clouds is still
cool yeah this is this area I think this bright area comes from a location in
Canada off to the distance um there is a city there I I could
figure that out and that's a plane I thought it might be a meteor but that is
a plane um I've been working again it was an opportunity to work on compositions
because I I want my images to look seamless here I kind of missed I'm gonna
have to work a little tougher um or work a little harder on my uh
compositions and figure out how to get the two you know the sky image and the
ground image to meld in a little bit better so still working on that that I I
also love this my seas are starting to look more and more like just calm seas
with a little less of the uh modeling from the the noise reduction and this was an
evening shot that I took um I said it it'll be a really nice uh
nightscape this is the Ausable River the northern lower Peninsula of Michigan for those that are familiar with the state
of Michigan here in the U.S and so I take these shots with the clouds
just because I wanna know where the site is if it's a
new site like this one and I want to get an idea can I get a
good part of the sky you know we're facing Northwest here and
um so the cygnus region will fall the Orion region is going to rise I'm
going to find out which one will I be able to see in that window
um you know when the when it's finally stops being cloudy
so this was um this was interesting I was back at a this is a restaurant site
um where things were looking promising I actually saw this region of the Milky Way
this was uh it was I would say nautical twilight
and so I thought well you know what I'll go behind here there's a trail I'll go
back out to the uh where that river is and I'll get a really good shot
20 minutes later oh and that's what that's what happened
I got there and all I had full coverage though
yeah I all I had was this motivational picture
so that's uh this was this has been our life so what
do we do well there was one clear night in Alcona County and uh this was a
picture that David eicher was kind enough to share on his social media feed not this picture this was before the
picture this is the image and there's the Ausable River again it's why I love
being on that River yeah because it's a beautiful image this was
essentially me celebrating the fact that I had a clear night and it was on the
winter solstice um December 21st which also happened to be my mother's birthday so I sent her
this picture um and a happy birthday you can see some
of the winter Milky Way Rising here um I think this star's name is scythe
and um there's rigel and there's the
the Orion complex you can barely see I use modified cameras for my images of
course and just correct the uh white balance and so
this I took this shot I thought about coming over here where this part of the bridge
is and taking another shot you know the Ausable River is uh flowing even though
it was wintry but it's not the first time I've taken pictures on this bridge
so this was the year before and when life throws you clouds go back and reprocess old images and that's what I
ended up doing is just taking more ideas and things that I was learning and going
back and reprocessing the images here's the cygnus region
um of the Milky Way setting to the Northwest and that's the region that I want to try
and capture and some of those other the other um sites where I'm facing Northwest
I want to see this region now most Milky Way shooters that you talk to may say
that Milky Way season is a certain time in the North
well for me Milky Way season is year round I'm gonna face the camera until
Milky Way season is actually year round you go to a dark enough spot like this
and you'll see the Milky Way it'll be fainer it'll take a little more exposure
and a little more careful processing to bring out other regions of the Milky Way
that are faint in at our latitude North and most and it's cold most people will
say I'll wait till the summer and I'll just image you know the region around
the core I tried an image all of it especially the Orion region and you'll
see some of these re reprocessed images I had a golden opportunity to have this
Aurora show up at one of the sites in the Milky Way streaming from it that's the North
American nebula here I've got a couple of other images this one
yeah this one made the Aurora stand out a little more
um the Milky Way I may have diffused it a little too much but all of this color
is real that's how bright the Aurora was and I'm at about 40
42 42nd and a half north latitude um the lower peninsula of of Michigan
and we could see all that this was in 2021 it was there was a pretty good storm
um geomagnetic storm on that night and so here
this was taken with an iPhone sometimes you just see something you take the shot
and if you you know if you take it at the right time with the right light you
know your DSLR camera doesn't have to be out any any smartphone will do
I came here to spectacular pictures yeah I came here to take pictures this
is next to the Niagara next to Niagara Falls this is a small Falls but you can hear the roar it's the
largest it's the largest uh falls close to us in Michigan
um without going over to Canada I think it's actually a little further a little further to get to these falls in the
upper peninsula it's a beautiful area with hiking trails this is in the winter
and um I stayed here to try and take images clouds came of course at night so you
know this dark sky I was hoping to see never did happen it was it got too cloudy at night as if
all those clouds you see here they all grabbed their buddies and they came over this region it was very hard to see
around me because the clouds ended up making it super dark and um but it's a beautiful it's a
beautiful region of beautiful Falls this is overlooking the Falls there are a couple of Lookouts and then there's on
the brink you can go over here and see us those of you that are in Michigan you may have you may know of this area but
there are some hidden treasures and this there's another reason there are hidden treasures to take your images you can
have the night sky and you can have some beautiful places um we love the rock formations of Utah
and we love some of the um the mountainous regions where Milky Way
photos are taken they're absolutely beautiful but when you don't live by those areas you have to make do with
what you've got and um so you have to look around look for some beautiful areas to do your
photography and if you're like me and you can you'll do visual astronomy
you'll try and find a good wide open spot where you can set up a telescope as
well so you can take on both aspects of astronomy and not just looking for a
place to image so this was another one David eicher shared it's a Christmas card look this
is the star Vega at the time that I took this image wow um
I actually believe it was as far from Christmas as you could get I think it was June and I do believe that was an
actual meteor looks like it may have been a plane but there were a lot of meteors the perseids were around so one
of them was shooting between the trees another Celestial visitor yeah but it but because we were around pine
trees and I took the picture and set the star where I or yeah the composed Vega
to sit right here so I use this as a Christmas card
this is the one that uh this is a reprocess of our good friend David Levy
saw a version of this picture that I took said that he loved it he loved the way the trees
were basically surrounding and pointing upwards to the night sky I went back to
try and image it so that it looked a little more natural and I was able to
pull out some color in the trees and the road now you get to stand you get the sense
that you're looking up in the middle of the road which is not safe but you're too busy paying
attention to what's up here so I don't recommend stopping in a
forest like I did and taking these shots I don't I hardly do this much but
sometimes you see something and you decide I'm going to try and get that because it looks beautiful to me so
that's how that's how some of the shots come about I just noticed something and
I'll take the photo every once in a while I'd say a couple
years ago I tried my hand at just using what I had to do some classic astrophotography when
we think astrophotography you know taking pictures of deep space objects and um
you know getting them getting those images and all I wanted
here was to be able to say that I imaged The Running Man nebula along with the
Orion Nebula this is what I would consider if you're
moving from beginning to intermediate in your astrophotography this was a rather
dark location it was high portal 4. I didn't have an sqm meter
um based on what I've taken meter readings the skies were similarly dark
that night and um with only two frames you could get this much detail
out of the Orion Nebula and the Running Man and Orion's sword so imagine if I did this the way that
most of us do and um you know take 200 of these you can
end up with a really really nice image and a lot more all of this Haze right
here becomes more gas that you know looks
more like this and you end up with a lot of nebulosity in this region this barely
scratches the surface and you can barely see a couple of different colors like the the oxygen here the hydrogen Alpha
which kind of dominates there's m73 and this whole thing is a sharpless
object in NGC 1977 is one of the clusters of stars
included here so that's a very popular way to shoot the
Orion Nebula when it's sitting straight up and if you look for uh the Astro backyard
um first name is Trevor Trevor Jones has an image he's proud of of this
region it's this but with all of that nebulosity and his you know his
rendering of it basically takes this to a different level it's
this shot exactly but taken at a way different level a lot of after imagers
cut their teeth on the Orion Nebula but me I went back to
shooting these nightscapes now here's here's the Ausable River
in the winter again this was actually opposite the first image that I showed
and now reason that people like to shoot the summer Milky Way is because it's the
brightest part now the southern part is just as bright down here through the ground
this is the northern part and this was my first attempt at actually stacking a
few frames of this and then processing it and then lining it up based on where
I saw the where the Milky Way was sitting you know over this River and
it didn't work out too bad there were I would say somewhere between seven and ten of those frames
each of them somewhere around a minute the Milky Way moves
quite quickly as the whole sky does we rotate pretty quickly you can
you can do a two minute you can do a five minute exposure if you wanted to if your tracking is that good
but with landscape shooting or nightscapes
getting a hundred of these isn't very practical because you have an
entire sky and you have your compositions so most will if they want
to Stack they'll go between like four or seven or maybe even ten
they'll stack shorter frames so that the Milky Way hasn't moved as much when you
put these images together in a layer it has to make sense there are imagers that'll just stack the
sky maybe go to a different location and stack the sky and then shoot this
location when there's more light and you end up with an image that looks
beautiful but if not done Curt you know if not done carefully you can tell that the images
weren't weren't taken at the same time and and that may not rub a lot of
imagers you know the right way um I tend to prefer capturing what I see
because all of the light that's in this image yeah is the light that was there
when I took those images and it it makes it look more I'm not necessary I'm not
necessarily looking for an image that's going to you know below the left side of
your mind out but I do want my images to encourage you to go out there and see
just how beautiful the night sky is especially when paired against I'll take
shots in some places like this is standing right in the middle of the bridge and I think it was four in the
morning or something um you may not want to stand in the middle of a bridge in the middle or the
middle of a road but you'll want to come to this area and see you know this part
of the night sky for yourself and that's that's the goal that I typically have when I um
you know when I'm doing my night sky photography and so that is my presentation and
hopefully the image is more so than being even when it's cloudy you can
still go out and you can take some images you can go to places that you think will look good at night go there
at night and get a feel for the land because some of those some of the places off of the beaten path are you want to
know where you should go where you should you know how to be safe while you're out there how close are you to
the road where can you park not all the places are easily accessible and you
want to find that out during the daytime then when you go back during night you
know where to go where to park right where to park safely how to operate safely
and there's no shame in aborting Mission if you go out there and you realize that
okay this just feels too dangerous I just don't want to do it yeah of course of course so you you know you you
you balance all of that in and then you go out there and you take your pictures and if the if it's like it was here in
Michigan where almost the entire month was um you know was completely cloudy
you can still do some things and you pay attention to Cloud forecasts
because the moment that you notice ahead of time that it may clear up your you'll think
to yourself okay this is an opportunity to get out and try and get a shot and if you just can't then you're always
growing and learning in techniques and um so you just try and apply your uh
you're trying to apply techniques that maybe you thought of doing like I've thought of doing stacking for a while
um I'm always working on getting my composite images clean
um similar to if you've ever heard of Alan Dyer he uh he got really good at his process to where he puts together
His Image everything was taken at the same time he believes that you take everything at the same time but you may
use a different exposure for each part of your image so that when everything comes together you know everything works
out really well pressing expressing Beauty there there are no rules okay yeah you know so there are the
astrophotographer purists I'll call them um but one of the things I will say you
know in my in my experience in photography as soon as light comes through that lens okay
something has changed okay and you don't you don't have the you don't have the
authentic thing anymore it's now it's now changing back when it was filmed it
was striking you know black and white films striking a a silver halide Crystal
okay uh that could only capture a certain range so now all of a sudden
even this action okay uh it's not the real thing anymore you know but
you'll have guys that will argue these points I think the most important thing is unless unless this is a science image
okay unless this is a science image that your interpretation of what you're
experiencing how it makes you feel uh you know are all also part you know
there's something called the universe and the universe means everything not just um captured
compartmentalized uh part of what you think a scientist thinks that the Universe might be or whatever but you
know it is everything including your your your interaction with with the
universe any artist can tell you this okay um so that's uh I would say that what
you're doing Adrian is wonderful I think that you're inspiring people to look up
and to explore the universe they live in and I love it so
yeah I so after a while I think everyone who does this starts to put their own
their own um footprint on images that they take and you know you start you look at some
images and you go that looks like an image that was you know processed by
so and so photographer astrophotographer it may be some subtle thing that they
like to do yeah and I know with mine I do try and recreate to some extent
an image that reflects this is how beautiful I think this area is yeah and
you know to be able to if it's nothing but a Cold Steel Bridge overlooking the
river and if I'm able to make the image it starts with me saying
yep that's exactly where I was it did something to me that's what I
captured and then if you post it online and you go you know what do you all think and uh different people different
people get different things out of images so you you go in there with an open heart and you say
this is what you know this is what I took tonight and then you try not to get discouraged if uh the skies don't
cooperate because the universe is under no obligation to help you especially if
you live in Michigan so you just you take it as it comes and uh there are
times the universe will take care of you plenty there are locations that you go
to where the universe is a little more cordial in that it's just a better
climate but when you can get some beautiful Skies where you live you try
and take advantage of it and I always tell folks don't forget to look up the the stars of these these dsos these
objects in space even the sky itself and the surrounding area
without all of that you don't have an image so you know it's okay to be proud
of the way that you can take an image um you know it's okay to be proud if you
win an award with your image but you know I just I don't want us to
forget that without without the Orion Nebula you don't have a beautiful Orion Nebula photo to
you know send off to see if you win an award you don't have the horse head
um and if you if you can see the horse head directly with your eyes it gives you a different perspective on you know
it's not just something to take a picture of and try and win an apod with it's in you know I'll mention in Jason
close took a very beautiful picture and won an apod very recently so you know
Applause those that win a pods um definitely you know you you have to keep
submitting photos um but we don't want that to be to end all and
be all of why you take your photos you know we if there's a passion for the night sky then that's right that's why
that's why you're out there doing it and when this guy you know and the sky doesn't show up you're still taking
pictures of clouds because you know that that extends into love of nature at that point so
so again thank you Scott for having me on thank you as always and now I get to
I get another week to try and come up with uh more chasing hopefully is
chasing dark skies and not cloudy skies in the next time nice accolades from uh
Paul burgard uh who's watching um he's uh just uh complimenting you on
a great collection of beautiful images uh also fire and Labadee who's on with
us right now is yeah he said he often takes a single image of the foreground then uh he takes a series of nightscape
exposures to stack then I use Photoshop to add in the foreground but you do lose
the True Light and reflections of the images it all depends
remarks that he's used a drone to scout out nightscape shot areas which is yeah and see Byron that's a smart way to do
it I have not flown a drone I've often wondered now you may be able to answer
that Byron is is it possible to hold a drone absolutely still for 30 seconds
and do an exposure um there
the two thousand to three thousand dollar range drones
uh a lot of them have Hasselblad cameras and it depends on the weather you've got
a calm night and you don't go too high uh you can capture
uh some good star images I'd say up to 10 seconds okay
so you can you can just get it started if you're somewhere really dark you can
still sounds like you can still end up with something to work with yeah uh they're
not they're not designed to do astrophotography though but yeah that's what I I wondered because that wouldn't
you know the the next great shot for astrophotography is a drone that can sit
still enough to go at least 30 seconds that's that's long enough to start
getting some of that detail that you see in some of those Milky Way shots if you you imagine
the type of you've got the sky and then you've got you know the ground below it
so that's uh it's something you can get from a Mountaintop but uh I imagine at some
point I know if physics might prevent this from being able to really do it like that where you just take the uh you
take a shot like that with a drone now you uh you uh here's to you Scott you um invent
a gimbal for the camera to stabilize it right and uh you uh equip it with a lens
it's ha sensitive you get on that Scott and you'll be you'll really be riking in
the Box I I think the military probably already has these kinds of drones all
right so yeah what they spend on them I don't know but uh I imagine they're a pretty penny so
yeah well it'll just be a matter of time some I'm sure there's technology we're
using that you know military comes down from military the the night
vision goggles that I've heard about I've used a crude form of one
um in soupy cloudy weather and all of a sudden all the stars pop out I've heard
of these things that you you basically an image
in a binocular instead of taking an image of it just put these things up to your eyes and look and all of this stuff
just appears um you know you see the horse you see things live as if you're looking at a
picture before you but you're not you're you're this is a live image so I've heard those things are pretty
expensive but I hear stories of those uh you know special military-grade night
vision or you know something all right that they've got that some of the
Snappers have gotten a hold of so they are they are expensive and they
they emit a green cast and they use Photo multipliers that really amplify
the darkness so through those the night sky lights up as well as
everything else yeah yeah somebody brought a unit to one
of our um astronomy at the beach which I'm gonna have to start uh I'll start advertising but it's a you
know there are some major star parties with some Dark Skies astronomy at the beach isn't quite one of them but it's a
big gathering for Southeast Michigan um and people come through we mainly
look at the planets and bright objects but it's still it's still an introduction to astronomy for those in
southeast Michigan that may not want to travel they may not want to travel two
or three hours North to another star party right around where I take my
images at the Great Lakes stargaze where the you know the Skies start to get dark
there um so there are a couple of star parties that happen around September so quite a
ways away um we've got uh this the winter star party which I have to Cobble together
some money and go figure that out and um the images at uh okey text always show
me you see Sky color differences when you take the images there and you try and
preserve Sky color everything's grayer the the skies are
gray and it doesn't take as long an exposure to get absolute detail in any
part of the Milky Way that you can see there and then you come back home and you make
do with what you've got but uh Chile Environ I imagine another good spot for
did you take any night sky photos while you were there um two reasons I didn't one they ran me
ragged and two when we went the phasing of the Moon wasn't conducive to setting
up my portable Sky tracker uh moonrise was about 45 minutes after Sunset
and uh I just wasn't gonna go to the trouble I was just gonna soak in the view and look
at the shadow of the Milky Way on the ground you can see it yeah
visually on the ground anyways I uh really admire your Imaging
your drive is to to go these places is over the top your passion is there
and uh your desire to share is Extreme you have it all and I'm I truly am in
awe of you man well I appreciate that Byron it's uh my car is in the shop with
brakes being fixed right now because of that passion so you know it's
unfortunate but navigating Michigan's navigating Michigan sky sometimes the
hole opens up in a certain part and that's where I want to go
and it the passion may not be for everybody but you know whenever I do get some nice images
I I try and share them it's uh if this is if this is a sort of gift it's it's a
gift for everybody that I can share with so and we're just images thank you
gorgeous thank you and just and Randy the thing is I have not forgotten the
night sky is the star I will still do visual um I recommend any astrophotographer
do some visual astronomy see it with your eyes you know it may not you may
not see all of the outgassing that you'll produce with your images but have some of those photons hit you directly
and see how that feels when then when you go and capture it it's like capturing an old friend it's
not like capturing a a distant object that you know I hope somebody buys it so that they can
hang it on the wall put it in your heart first then go you go after it and um it makes a difference
in it makes a difference when you're out there capturing it it's like see seeing
Orion rise is like seeing an old friend absolutely so so with that yeah I want
to thank all of you guys uh uh for you know participating on uh 110th Global
star party and uh I want to thank the audience who tuned in and chatted with
us and um uh we'll be back next Tuesday with 111th Global star party so uh
thanks again for participating and any of you out there that want to approach
us and uh give give a presentation of your own to express your passion for
astronomy um you know it's important because it is the Gateway towards scientific literacy
and uh the world needs it now more than ever so uh thanks again and um we'll see you uh
next time and as my good friend Jack quarkheimer used to say uh keep looking
up night everybody good night
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