Global Star Party 130

Transcript:

foreign
about our shared Cosmos which is the theme
um this is a short little poem it says beneath the night's Celestial canopy we
stand in awe United by the vastness of this land borders divisions they fade
away as we gaze upon the Stars at the end of the day astronomies Embrace a universal song
Through Time and Space we all belong stargazings magic a bridge it lays
connecting hearts in the starry maze our shared cosmos A Joyful decree a
celebration of unity for you and me in the nights Embrace we find our heart
together we journey with our own Celestial chart let's keep exploring as one we Face to
unravel the secrets hidden in space as individuals and the collective so Grand
in our shared Cosmos together we stand so welcome to the 130th Global Star
Party everybody and we're going to get started here
and liftoff of the Space Shuttle Discovery with the Hubble Space Telescope
a window on the universe [Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
[Applause] [Music]
thank you foreign
[Music]
[Music] hello everyone this is Scott Roberts
from the explore Alliance and from explore scientific and I'm proud to announce the 130th Global Star Party
we've been on for about three years and we've been trying to bring together
astronomers from around the world whether they're presenters or they are
part of the audience it's been an amazing ride and we have a great lineup
tonight of course we start with David Levy with poetry and commentary
David eicher with his uh exotic deep Sky objects I believe he's going to talk
about the owl star cluster tonight John Goss uh with his program what is
one to do it's about the Flat Earth or dilemma and so for me and you so
Maxi filaries joins us from Argentina with his astrophotography to the max
Caesar brawl also from Argentina will be on with his astronomy from the balcony
Adrian Bradley who's actually online with us right now behind the you know
backstage actually live from the Okie Tech star party so
um be interesting to hear from him with a live calling like that Kelly Rix who's
new with us she is a musician artist naturalist and astronomer
I discovered her on a beautiful uh tribute to the Dark Skies over Bryce
Canyon and so that was very nice to find her and for her to give some time to us
on the global Star Party Marcelo Souza from Brazil will be on with it with us as well Robert Reeves joins us once
again to talk about his postcards from the Moon Ronald breacher with a very special
presentation Called Love In The Stars so I'm not going to elaborate on that more
but it is it's a special tribute which is wonderful and then Daniel Dr D mounsi
Daniel has been through a some lie trials and stuff like that that he is
back with us he's healthy and I'm very proud to say he's going to be on his
first time on global star parties so we'll get started uh right away here
with David Levy David I'm going to turn it over to you man thanks well thank you
thank you Scott and it's it is really it is really an honor to be here tonight
to celebrate our shared Cosmos and uh really the way I see it it is not
defined from science it is defined rather through the Arts through life
and through the simple thought that uh that well there may be
more Mega clusters of galaxies around and
there are grains of sand on all the beaches of the Earth there is ultimately only one of each of
us we are unique and when we die there will never again be another exactly like us
and I think that's an interesting thing to think about as we try to take care of ourselves
to eat and drink enough and to cherish the moments that we have
my poem tonight is not a poem it is it is a prose thing from Starlight
Nights by Leslie Belcher and uh you know the entire book is by far the
best book I have ever read in in my life and uh
it is really
and it is really very interesting uh to be able to notice him
but I think these particular paragraphs should be inscribed in stone and placed
in a government building somewhere they are that good and it is my honor to to dedicate these
words to all of you who have been able to see comment nishimura in the last couple of
weeks as I have or who plan to see it in the next few weeks as I do
and um and we just think about the idea and the con our shared Cosmos our shared
love our shared feeling and uh and and it is just really so interesting
to be able to look at the feeling of our shared cause most time has not lessened the age-old
alert of the comments in some ways their mystery is only deepened with the years
but he's returning a comet brings with it the questions which were asked when it was here before
and as it rounds the Sun and backs away toward the long slow night of its
appelian it leaves behind with us those questions still unanswered
to undispect of moving hands they seem a strange Pursuit
but even though we fail the search is still rewarding we're in no better way can we come face
to face night after night with such a wealth of riches as old
crosses never dreamed of Squad back to you and thank you
wonderful David thank you so much man yeah uh it's um
it's uh great that we have such a wonderful comment out there I have we
have been uh clouded out a lot here in Arkansas but I've seen some beautiful
images of the Comet with an extremely long tail and so I hope I can get out
there and and see it as well I love seeing them even from a you know light polluted Sky you know
just knowing that it's out there uh careening through our solar system so David thanks again thank you for
granting us okay all right so um uh we are uh up next with um
uh David eicher David eicher is uh the editor-in-chief of astronomy magazine
and if you didn't know okay they are in their 50th Anniversary uh and uh so I it
it makes it makes my head spin a little bit to think about all the work and the effort that has gone into that magazine
in trying to explain the universe you know to spoon feed it to us that don't
quite understand all the complexities uh you know and they are they've been an
incredible Bridge uh between uh the scientific Community uh and things that
amateur astronomers hold near and dear and so um you know congratulations uh Mr eicher
I think that uh the magazine is fantastic and uh it seems to be more
vibrant than ever at this point so thank you Scott we're still having fun
with it and and I hope that people are enjoying it it's going to be a big special year for us with some surprises
and special issues coming so we hope that you'll continue to enjoy it and thanks for uh having me back again I
wanted to talk about yet another uh strange and unusual astronomical
object this one is is really familiar to me because you know in my mind back in
the day when I was young this was a long time ago okay granted but you know
practically back to the Roman Empire but they were relatively few deep Sky objects that had popular names most of
them you know had a few of them had Messier numbers and many of them NGC and
I see catalog designations and so on other interesting catalogs but the last
10 or 20 years things have really exploded in terms of popular names
because people have been out there making things you know I think soon we're we're going to see you know the
ring-tailed lemur with one broken foot that's currently sick to its stomach nebula you know where where this stuff
comes from I don't know and I don't want to know the substances that some of these people are apparently on you know
coming up with this stuff either but back in the day many many years ago I actually came up with one just one a
common name of my own that stuck because I looked at this cluster and I'll share it with you in a moment here if I'll
share screen and share the right screen here and start a slideshow
and can you see Centaurus a yes good we have a good start there but that's not
what this is about back in the day I looked at you know Cassiopeia was a very uh favorite
um region of the sky for me in the north and there's so many good clusters in nebulae they're in some really good
double stars as well you know in this area of the sky and I looked at this one cluster in my relatively new Celestron 8
and wrote about it in astronomy magazine and and also in deep Sky magazine back
in the day and to me it just immediately jumped out in the form of the Stars looked like an owl so I'll show you that
um in a moment and you can see whether you think that I'm also you know uh crazy here but but to me it really
looked like you know the shape of of eyes and a body and wings of of bright stars going out so immediately I called
it the owl cluster foolishly and it caught on other people have called it the ET cluster and other things like
debited whatever you call it it's a really nice open cluster of Fairly
bright and colorful stars that didn't make the Messier list even though it's far up north so it was easily visible
from Paris but it's mgc 457 in Cassiopeia and it's always been a
favorite uh open cluster of mine since it was discovered by William Herschel in
in 1780 and it has you know as I mentioned you'll see it's two brightest
stars which there's still some uh lack of clarity about their cluster membership actually
um as as the eyes and then the shape of a of an owl to me it lies about 8 000
light years away it's a moderately young cluster about 21 million years old and
they're at least 150 stars in the membership in this so it's a reasonably
Rich cluster and as I mentioned these two Bright Stars the brightest one is Phi Cassiopeia which is a fifth
magnitude star there's another seventh magnitude star uh adjacent to it that
really kind of look like the eyes of this group and there are some really you
know it's a it's a relatively young cluster so of course there are a lot of blue and white stars but there are also
some nice reddish stars in this group that makes it a nice colorful field including a red supergiant that's a
variable star um as well there so it has an overall magnitude of just a little fainter than
sixth magnitude and it's about a third the diameter of the Moon so it's a
bright and fairly large cluster and this is the uh Atlas chart again from Ron
stoyan's great uh um interstellarum at Atlas that is fantastic as far as a
compromise and being really detailed and fairly compact as well and you can see
it over on the left hand side there there's a several smaller open clusters or near it and most notably NGC 436
which you'll see in in a wide field shot here in a second and of course some of
you are very familiar with the Pac-Man nebula down there on the lower right as well and and it's right sort of in the
in the center of the either depending on what time of night and year you're talking about either the M or the W of
the brightest stars in Cassiopeia so this is it and and I don't know you
know if if you think I'm any crazier than you already did you know before tonight but to me the two bright stars
there in the upper you know just left of Saturn look look like the eyes and then the body of the owl goes down uh to the
feet if you will um down at the lower right and then in the middle of the uh body of that owl
there are two fairly bright wings that go out of stars on either side that to
me looked very owl like back in the day so you can see what you think with your
own observations this wide field shot you mentioned Ron breacher Scott this was taken by Ron and
and here you can see how rich an area of Milky Way this is there are a lot of stars in in these fields uh surrounding
and that's NGC 436 at bottom right there that's a nice little not not nearly so
rich but a nice open cluster in its own right as well but but again you can kind
of see the the orientation of the owl more or less upright there
um and see what you think you know go out and take a peek at it and see what you think it it looks like it may be an
Al or E.T or something completely different so thanks again Scott that's my quick
mention of another interesting object and and it is an anniversary year we're having a lot of fun with the magazine
this year there are some fun things that are coming up uh in the next couple of issues that we'll get to soon I'll
mention the book that Michael and I wrote about uh trying to get more kids Juiced up about space exploration that
we're in a new era as you're all aware of right now with some new Ventures
going on both governmental and public and I'll mention uh starmus and in fact
in October there's going to be a trip I'm going to be over there in Armenia and Slovakia with Garrick and with some
others and we're going to announce starmus formally and have some surprises and things and special speakers and
guests and some rock and roll guitarists who like to turn it to 11 some of them
um who will announce uh over there for next spring and we hope that you'll be able to join us you know brata Slava
Slovakia it sounds very exotic but it's very very close uh actually to Vienna in
terms of getting there and so we think this is going to be a very special starmus again and I think we'll have a
an astrophoto school and a star party will we knock Scott among other things
as well to talk about great great yeah um some of the people that came with me
to Armenia for the last starmus where
uh talking about you know just how magical the experience was
um uh you know the independently two of these people Gary Goebel and uh Norman Fulham uh uh and
and also Christopher go kind of chimed in and stuff and I think that for all of
these people if in fact I think for everyone that went to starmus it is something that they will not forget you
know you might have gone to some really nice star parties you might have attended some great conferences and
stuff like that and obviously there's going to be things that will leave such an impression upon you that that uh you
know you can't forget it but starmus ranks right up amongst the best of them
and uh um so I I'm gonna highly recommend that you go it uh they are making it
affordable to attend and you are going to be exposed to some of the most
brilliant people in the world and so um you know and the way that they do star parties and uh they you know we in
the experience of starmus through the music through the talks through the Hands-On experiences and stuff it's like
nothing else and so you definitely have to go thanks guys it's going to be special again we're going to have a lot of Nobel
Prize winners laureates again there as well as astronauts and some rock and roll and other surprises that will be uh
mentioning in in a couple of press conferences actually one in in yerevonne and one in Bratislava in October and
we'll also be doing a special talk um that I'll be moderating um with Garrick Israeli and and with
Michelle moyore who is the discoverer who won the Nobel Prize in fact he's a discoverer of the first exoplanet you
may remember back in ancient history in the 1990s that's that's orbiting a
sun-like star so uh we'll be talking about life in the universe and what we think about uh how
how much uh life and sophisticated chemistry could be out there in a very
very large Cosmos that we have tantalizing subject so that's awesome
thank you so much David thanks Scott thank you okay and look if you don't already have
a subscription to astronomy magazine I'm not gonna go crazy on this but you should get one so
just go to astronomy.com uh up next is uh John Goss now John is
uh going to approach a uh subject that is something that many of us who do
astronomy Outreach astronomy education have to uh uh deal with experience and
um so you know I can't emphasize enough that if you are into Astronomy Today
uh you have your own telescope that you need to get out there and share the experience you need to share your
knowledge but you need to do it in a gentle way a way that inspires and gets
people really you know once you've got them a little bit you can't stop them from from going further and uh so I
think that that is the really cool thing to experience in astronomy Outreach but
John is going to touch on a subject that um well I'll just say that he's a brave
man so wow
I guess see um John thanks and and I also want to
mention we you know we're John is from the astronomical league and uh uh you
know I I I I always want to toot their horn because they are the world's largest Federation of astronomy clubs uh
they have a huge membership but the older work is done on a volunteer basis
you know this is these guys aren't on some big big payroll okay uh they do
this from the love of their hearts they have incredible observing programs incredible recognition Awards
um they put on an amazing event called Alcon every year they do Regional uh
League conventions as well and uh they are the glue of the uh of the amateur
astronomy World um so thanks for thanks for coming on uh
John you've been on many times and it's great to have you on again well um
you keep having me back so I I guess I haven't done anything too too bad here
um my first rule for tonight's talk is the phrase
always play nice you'll see what I'm meaning a couple weeks ago a friend of mine
um asked me a question since since I'm I'm the astronomer and he is a musician
as it turns out but he asked me a question that um what do people who believe in the
Flat Earth how did they describe the emotions of satellites
now my friend is not a flat Earth believer at all but he knows someone who is so he was just relaying the the
concern to me about this dilemma and of course I don't know uh you know
when you know I make some flippant comment like uh Chemtrails you know maybe maybe that has something to do
with it I'm not going to go into what Chemtrails are but I started thinking about the whole
issue of the Flat Earth movement um because for one thing I I remember less
than about five or six years ago uh the astronomical League had his annual convention at about the same time
that the Flat Earth Society had theirs we weren't associated in any way with each other
but I found out later that the Flat Earth convention had
three times as many attendees as we had at Alcon
what's going on here so I started thinking uh a couple weeks ago about this whole talk
and how to approach it um I'd like to say a few things how I started out in amateur astronomy when I
was 13 years old I became I'd been interested in it before but when I was 13 I had my first
real telescope and I got to look at the stars and I learned learned more more about the Stars
so um one of the things I I looked for was you
know reading about how to determine that the Earth is round so I was going to determine how it was for myself and I'd
like to share some of that with you right now Maybe
one moment please
okay um so this whole talks maybe a little
bit it's going to start out more of a personal experience things that I have encountered myself as you all I'll give
another little short plug for the astronomical League we're going to have our Alcon the National Convention in
2004 in Kansas City July 17th to the 20th so you could put that on your
calendar now so um one of the things that I I started looking for when I was 13 years old is
oh I happen to live uh Washington state right on Puget Sound it took me
less than 10 minutes to walk from my house to the beach in Puget Sound and the width of the sound uh uh at our
town was about five miles we had a ferry that that went across
so I'd be down there at the beach messing around with my friends and we'd see the ferry go across by the
time it got five miles away that's pretty far away it was difficult to see but since I was now interested in
astronomy I'd often bring a pair of binoculars down to the beach so I'd see these uh see the ferry
through binoculars and let me explain what I saw
Maybe there we go
um this is all a simulated image now occasionally Puget Sound is pretty calm
there are no White Caps there's not that much when I not very often but it but it does happen but I did notice that when you're
standing up with a pair of binoculars looking across the Puget Sound to to the fairy which is four or five miles away
that would be the simulated image on the left hand side you can pretty much see the whole fairy these fairies are huge
um but if you knelt down so that you're a foot or so above the water maybe even just six inches above the water line and
looked again you'd notice that you could not see the bottom of the fairy it might be like the
the first 10 feet up from the water was now disappeared it was hidden behind the with the waters that Puget Sound
and that's an illustration under the Earth is round because it is curving away from you so of course the ferry as
it chugs away it's going to look like it's to be disappearing in water
this is an interesting effect um I've heard some Flat Earth peoples they all know
about this but I've heard some of them talk about how this is due to a mirage now you're all familiar with with
mirages on the highway driving down the road on on a pretty pretty warm day you look down half a mile a mile away and
you see what looks like a a huge puddle of water glistening and Reflections off
of it of course it's not really there that this is what they attribute that to but keep in mind
uh she just sounds about 55 degrees always and many times the air is 55 degrees so
there's no heat difference to cause any weird light refraction and cause Mirage
um it's strictly due to the curvature of the earth and a lot of people don't don't really know this in fact when I
was in high school a few years later we had a field trip down to the beach to study
sea life and such and of course I always had my trusty pair of binoculars so I was showing
people how to about this effect and they showed the teacher and he was All Amazed
by it he got everyone together and said look at this look this you can see this and I thought it was pretty cool stand up you can see the ferry you kneel down
uh you're missing a good chunk of it because of the curvature of the earth okay that was one proof to me that the Earth
was round another one was same year
um all my relatives live in Louisiana and I lived in Washington state where
our family lived in Washington state we we were the black sheep I guess we moved away
so when I was in 13 we went to visit Louisiana and again as I said I was really now
interested in amateur stormy and I was fully aware of what um constellation
Scorpius in ontarius looked like in the in the sky from around the Seattle area
um how high it was above the Horizon go down to Louisiana which is like a 17
degree latitude difference they're a Scorpius begin but it is much higher in
the sky so I had to explain this you know I I I thought oh well you know that's another
illustration that the Earth is round from Seattle you really can't see the bottom part of the Scorpion
you can see that the top part the claws and Antares and you can also see the Stinger on the tail but the actual most
southerly dip of the tail you really can't see it but from the New Orleans area you sure could uh you can see quite
a bit of it and that's another proof another illustration that the Earth is round because as you can see on my
diagram that from this Horizon in Seattle that the uh this Scorpius
scorpion doesn't uh rise completely about the Horizon but from the New
Orleans horizon line it's quite a bit above you see that then turn around and look
at the North Star you see the North Stars is quite a bit higher when you're viewing from a Seattle location than you
are than it does from a New Orleans location so these are two examples of what got me
going in amateurs Army confirming that the nature of the universe and how things were put together
proof right here okay it's no no real issue now another one which we've all done
and I know everybody on this call tonight you all have your own photos just just like this of some lunar
eclipse but you can see the curvature of the earth Shadow as it's projected onto
the spherical surface of the Moon so it gives kind of a funny looking curve it's not quite a round circle like
that but you get the idea and that again is another illustration
of what causes the um are the effect of the Earth Earth being round not flat
so we got other evidence I'm not going to go through a whole bunch of these just a few of them
the one I really like uh was about the idea of center of gravity
um everything's standing on the earth everything that is on the Earth's surface including people standing on it
we're all attracted to the Earth's center of gravity now if we had a flat Earth a disc for muscles
a person who's standing right in the center of that disc would be standing upright because they'd be standing right above
the center of gravity of that disc now people go off to the either Edge they're quite far from the center and
they'd be tilted quite a bit because they'd be pulling towards the center of the disc and that is something we just don't see
that doesn't happen ever no one has ever seen that we've always seen on the right
hand side with a spherical Earth and how everybody is attracted towards the center of the earth so you're
standing straight up on this Center wherever you are on the disc or excuse
me on the sphere of the earth that's what's observed see if I've got any more here okay let's
talk a little bit about the classical Flat Earth example
um you have a disc thickness of it's unknown so I drew it kind of like the shape of a recorder
here but the the idea is that the North Pole the Earth is in the center of the disk
and there is really there isn't really a South Pole the Antarctica is pressed all
the way around the disk you know for us our strongest now this is silly how can this be there's so much
wrong with this it's hard to find a good starting point uh one thing since looking at the sun if
you're on a flat disc the sun would be visible to everybody at the same time
and all you have to do is call up your friend either North or east or south or
west or any direction and ask them if they can see it if it's at uh
if it's 3 P.M your time and you're calling somebody in
India they aren't going to see it but it's going to be in your sky but according to the Flat Earth people
it has to be in the sky
I'm not going to go on and on about that because you all know about this so why are people drawn to believe in a
flat Earth to begin with you know throughout our entire life from when we were in kindergarten all the way
up through middle school high school college so on we were always told we
were always given plenty of evidence that the Earth was a sphere so why does someone turn around and just
say oh I believe in Flat Earth well you know we like to think that
everybody around us they all engage in following in critical
thinking skills you know they all believe in facts and evidence in logic and it's just some
examples there um we think that's the way people would believe because it's presented rights
too and you can see it right in front of your eyes but instead some people hear this
listen up folks I'm going to tell you what they don't want want you to hear
ah it must be pretty important if they don't want me to hear this it must be pretty important you know who are they
well you know it's think about it what you hear in the news about medical authorities
these Highly Educated scientists thinking they know everything uh see secret government officials but
you know no names are ever really given it's just they here
and they are repeatedly exposed to strange types of reasoning and not just
exposed once but over and over and over again sir I'm not going to go into all these things are you know what mumbo
jumbo is you see that a lot people start spouting off all this technical jargon
and mixing it all up and sounding authoritative and having a a strong voice it must be true
of obfuscation is the popular one that that is uh making uh taking something
that that's not not very clear and and making it more so uh just by waving your
hands and mumbo jumbo and generally there's always a bad guy an adversary and all this and US versus
stem relationship I'm not a social psychologist if I was this talk would probably be
about two hours long so it's not so think about that this is what they
hear over and over so a lot of people really what they're looking for is a form of acceptance
a form of a longing uh controlling their lives or environment affirmation they
want to be told with what they're doing is is right and they're on the right track and it's a value and it empowers
them for all this stuff so they're kind of I won't say lost
souls because remember I'm playing nice here so I'm not going to say anything bad but they don't private have it all
together they finally find a group that recognizes their needs and this is the sum of stuff they they
come up with but really all this really um comes back to that that flat earthers
do not respond to logic facts or any credible evidence now I was if when we started out here I was
teasing uh Dave eicher about a movie called spinal tap
this is uh 30 years 40 years ago 30 30 years ago so
but there is a scene in which um it's about a band a a pop band who's
uh having a documentary made of themselves the director of the documentary is being
shown the band's amplifier the volume control in the amp goes from zero
to 11. now if you know anything about these volume controls they only go from zero to ten
but yet the band kept saying hey it's 11 it's that much more powerful the
director turns around says no it's not they just put 11 on there it really goes from 0 to 10. but he tried to explain it
to him over and over and they wouldn't believe it it went up to 11. see it says it right there it's 11.
okay so people believe what they want to believe and it is tough uh changing that
um so back what four or five 500 years ago Leonardo da Vinci no he was an
all-around smart guy he ran into the same problem you know there are three classes of
people and this is one of the quotes I like saying to different people about things but there are three classes of
people those who see okay that must be us those who see when they are shown okay
they could be taught how to see and those who do not see
well the guy on spinal tap did not see and a lot of these Flat Earth people oh
I don't know where they fall because I'm playing nice so think about this
so what is one to do about this I don't know always play nice though because you're
talking to people who have their own feelings even though it's some strange Viewpoint and if they are exposed
repeatedly by people they know and people they don't know they might come
around and start saying yeah you know maybe maybe I was wrong there but I think you should all Focus your efforts
on on showing other people how we know that the Earth is round
spherical how how science operates showing the wonders of the universe you
know we have that shared experience getting out there uh educating as well as reaching down inside people to stir
something up in them with by by looking at the stars and such
so that's kind of how I'd like to end it always plain eyes it's don't don't be offended don't don't
don't be stalked if you can't convince some of these people of something that you think is so obvious everyone should
know now if we have a a minute or two left if anybody has any thoughts on this I could
have missed something as I said I'm not a social psychologist and I think David Levy has his hand
raised but I I don't know right he's he's gonna oh and Adrian Bradley has to think well David since you raised your
hand first could we go to you and then we'll go to uh Adrian okay thank you thanks John I too I completely enjoyed
that presentation but being as naive as I am I mean I'm certainly not
deaf to the idea that especially in these political days
people have ideas that are not based in logic or science
and uh but but I like to be naive about the Flat Earth and uh the idea is
what you said is that there are three three to four times the numbers of people with the Flat Earth Convention as
there were at the astronomically meaning that we had at the same time
um I would like to suggest that some of those three to four people uh who were at the meeting might have
been there not so much out of a belief that this planet is flat
but out of a belief that they want to go back into the history over today
to a time when most people did believe that being birth was flat we also know that Copernicus in today's
if Copernicus were alive today and he wanted to come out with his heliocentric
theory he probably would not get funded by NASA so uh we have a lot we can say about
that but um I like to be I would prefer to be a
little bit naive about the flatters and hope that most of the people are just interested to know
what the life and beliefs were like in a Time long gone thank you John but it and
you do run across some people who just like being Wise Guys you know they they may not believe it or
not but they like saying they do just to get a rise out of you now Adrian you had a question would you like to say something I had a question well not much
so a question in a comment um I've looked at
um a couple of angles on Flat Earth and yeah like you John and you know it
really puzzles me to hear you know the Earth is flat and I remember that
movement started bringing in celebrities uh Shaquille O'Neal Kyrie Irving and you
know folk well you have two basketball players and there were others um one other thing that may have been
missed is get enough celebrities um especially here in the United States get enough celebrities to start
endorsing your beliefs or even if they just say it to you know on cue and it's
more believable for some celebrities to it's like oh Shaquille O'Neal said it
I'm more willing to believe them than if David Levy says it or if John Goss says
it because you know David you discovered the comment that everybody saw this will
lead into my next thought you discovered along with your great and
dear friends who have now passed the shoemakers you discovered Shoemaker Levy nine among a lot of other Shoemaker Levy
comments and uh everyone got to see in media and in various angles that Comet
fragment into pieces and go after Jupiter and if you ask a flat earther did that event happen
wait for an answer I would suspect the answer might be yes
um the James Webb Space Telescope we saw the first five pictures and they took the World by storm
um does the James Webb Space Telescope really exist yeah
um so one possible way and it it may not work
because a strong belief you know it just no matter how much evidence
you're gonna believe it's your way and it's you know it's tough to
um convince but James Webb Space Telescope takes pictures of Earth proving that it's
really round may or may not get more people who are jumping into Flat Earth because
it's a fun thing to you know Rage Against the system you know be a rebel
oh but the James Webb Space Telescope proved it was round because it took pictures
um of the planet and North America was here and then the next thing you know
it's Africa um in Europe and how do you explain something flat
that's showing a different face um so there may be some other
opportunities to look at something that's common between the two
and then use the commonality to prove a point that's something that you know the Dr Paul Sutter whose
podcast I listen to just to finish up so we can you know stay on time um his response was you know like David
he doesn't um he doesn't engage the Earth is flat and it's round if you're looking off to
the Horizon it sure appears flat to you if you're using the proofs that you
showed us it sure appears round to you know to you but in the grand
scheme of things there are people that are interested in astronomy and after having been
frustrated with the arbitrary nature of things like you know
the slatter theory real and you know what's going on um we stand a chance to be a you know a
source of Truth eventually people may be won over and so that's
kind of that's why I say always play nice because you're not in the other person's
shoes and they could be dead wrong they are dead wrong but um you know they have
their own audience from the audience here Mike Wiesner uh uh said I saw a flat Earth Society ad on
Facebook that said join our members from all around the globe [Laughter]
[Music] um I think that I think that explains I don't know okay yeah I'm just gonna let
that one go right there so yeah yeah David did you have your hand up again
okay I I want to say something John and you know I have some friends that always
when we met together we start to say tell jokes and everything and someone
always say hey Maxie hey why do you really know that the Earth is
rounded or is Flats how do you know it uh because I I didn't went to the space
so I don't know if the pictures are real or not and everything and they argue with that so
I explained that the iratostanus a procedure so basically if you have the
shadow in the equator that you will not have a shadow when you go to the pose you're going to
see the distance of the Shadow at the same time so basically you are in a
circle or in this on his fair also in the when you saw when you see the the
moon for example let me give you the example I have this
so for example if uh suppose that is this is the Earth so you are here where
I am I'm here you know in my position but for me you
you are here but for you me I'm right
here but you are here so so depends on the perspection the the the perspective
from where you are going to see you the the the the Moon
that for example if I look when it's a crescent moon you you're going to see it
like if I see from here like um the opposite I don't know how to say
it in English um um
yeah yeah we call your Moon upside down Maxi yeah
that's because of our experience here in the Northern and we know exactly what you're saying
um right side up versus uh well and for example if the moon is here so and you watch it right there
when you still go into the the another part you have to turn around and you're
going to see upside down so basically that's it's a principle of a sphere well
I I think you bring up another point it's a nice thing to have props you know
you have your moon you have your globe with you but we don't carry around flat discs to show what the Flat Earth would
would show with your hand you can do it yeah okay
basically exactly so that's now of
course okay Scott I'll turn it back to you because I know you're under some time constraints here all right thank you so
much uh John I appreciate everybody's comments by the way yeah uh
uh we will uh talk more about uh um the astronomical league and the 2024
Alcon which will be in Kansas City on the next Global star party so
all right thank you very much John take care okay all right so our next speaker is uh
none other than Maxi filares and he is um he's coming in live from Argentina
and Maxie thank you for coming on to Global star party uh when I first met
Maxie I met him online uh he was showing me he was showing all of us images that
he had made uh with uh his uh mobile phone camera and a relatively
inexpensive telescope and the images were mind-blowing okay um so you know Maxie is among some of
the astronomers that does not let the tools stop him from exploring the
universe and so um he has improved his uh his uh his
rigs for making astrophotographs but he pushes them to the very limits and um so
I'm glad to have you back on Maxie and what do you have for us tonight
yes well thank you Scott for the presentation and for inviting me it's a
it's an honor to be here with with you like every Tuesday well the last one I I
couldn't make it but anyway I was watching live uh what I'm going to show you uh for
tonight is what I'll be doing this in exactly last night yesterday because
we're starting to have rainy seasons and you know
um a lot of nice uh with clouds and storms
or like a spring season for example but yesterday I I want to to do some
practice uh with my equipment and also you know the the temperature was okay it
was cold but not too much so I start again to to receive these photons Across
the Universe uh to get it on my scope and then to my eyes
um let me share my screen sorry here we are
okay do you see it yes great well
first of all I I was um preparing myself
to get more smooth movements with the a
altitude and asymwood a movements and I grabbed this I I could buy this
um plates of Steel but they have a bearings inside of that so when I turn
up to the left on the right of the movements and the mount it's more smooth
than the teflon's pieces that they have so I
this is the inside of these bearings and you know it's I have to a little
adapt it because the the central hole it was the doesn't fit with this a
particular plastic piece so I have to use a lime to handle mine lime to make
the the whole more a little more bigger one millimeter almost so I could then I present this in Grace
the the bearings all the places and put all over there so yesterday last night I
prepare my equipment outside in a different place for to be careful of the
Wind so when everything goes okay to start to taking the pictures I put myself Sonia
and and start to enjoy and talking with Nico and Alan about a what I'm watching
right now for example M22 I I could see a 25
principal stars and the background of the of that a global cluster uh I also a
Nico recommended another Global cluster but I don't remember the name right now
is in the peacock constellation uh I couldn't find a very easily
doing star starting starting with a finder
and you know the I that was the the the
the the test of fire you know to see how the movements went with this uh
modifications and they were for me they were for a very very fine very smooth
uh with with not too many adjustments and you know I'm really really happy for
that a modification and and in this case I was trying to use my
F4 telescope to capture some another objects from my city Skies a word from
six and seven and of course I have my left slide from my neighbors and everything but then
they went to sleep so I could continue and this is the the field of view that I
have on my backyard for example here's the North and you can see Vega
Altair and like jungus said today about the the
circumferences of the of the earth IEC it in a different way like you do so
basically here's my Southern pole a Celestial poll and what you see above your case I see
it through almost The Horizon you can see there's a lot of
places that I want to capture someday but for me they are too low in the sky this is the North American
but I have it almost uh 10 degrees or
less so and then the object that I have for
almost three hours of the sky to to capture it it was there and 27 the
dumbbell nebula and I pointed my sculptor the the the the
guiding was fine it was only taking pictures of one minute
a only with a filter a UV rir
a cut a only and for example the the soups was like
this of the last night
this is a single shot of one minute and you you can see the
even in one minute at that altitude it was I was impressed I was very
impressive of the details and the colors that I get and also the field of view of
the Stars so when I see this any in only one
single shot I say I have to give you a chance you know I I leave it get a
dinner and everything so more later see what what I get and when I stack this
I uh when you you see the the single sub but the final detail well the final this
is the only my first uh processing of these images
but this is the result of last night
beautiful you still you can still see the the the
white dwarf in in the middle that's United all this ER I think it's
oxidation three and almost a h i Alpha but this is a with a color camera
and anyway if you have a smartphone and you have the scope with motors on your
mouth uh either this this same object a couple years ago when I started to do this
I you know I could have this detail with a smartphone and my scope so amazing
basically you know it's more like a fine details a a field of view more a
flattering and everything but when you start and I could capture this
uh I was amazing for me and if I could
do it you can do it and everyone can do it if you propose to do that so uh this is of
course the differences of the the aperture the camera The Guiding
everything are more info to stack and you know here I don't know if I put the
the settings no I didn't put it but
I think maybe it was a half an hour only he only was a two hours of tagging only
but the the the size of the pixel the the
the full well that has the the sense of the camera every everything that it will
help you to give you more sharpness and fine details and colors
and of course the aperture gives you more a more speed to get more lights in
in less time so my next object that I was
straight to to find what's another what I was see seeing in galaxies and
everything but I went to another planetary name in nebula that calls and you see two four six
but I think in this a stack images was a
some class that I stuck also because the background is really rough
with the difference of M27 you know this was about about
of my hair of my hair sorry and M27 is
almost there in the in the Horizon above the Horizon the other the another object
was Rye up so the class gives me some
difficulties but anyway I could get this a details of this planetary nebula I
think they they call this call I don't know I couldn't find the the face of
this of this call but anyway I also want to wanted to to
capture on the same field of view there are two more galaxies here and this bright star
and you can see that the stars are really Globe because I think the the
scene wasn't okay but anyway it was a testing a objects
field of view and everything to to continue maybe this uh Sunday I will
going to Alberti I think so I will see of what I could get maybe a some I will
dedicate a night of one Galaxy if you want to
to let me know if you want to capture some object that you want to to
see or something you can tell me or ask me of course I will be glad and and well
I I think this is for today and thank you Scott for limitation
all right well Maxi thank you so much um we are about time to take a break yes
okay um we're going to take a few minutes and come back
um with uh Cesar brolo down in Argentina as well so uh I guess the weather's
starting to get to cooler uh is that right it's so so we started to increase
the temperature right now it started in the spring season in a couple days but
anyway we're starting a lot of cloudy days even not rainy but cloudy so
we can't do too much right so to start gazing
well that's great so um anyways if uh if you guys are uh
uh ready to stretch your legs a little bit and maybe grab a sandwich
um something nice to drink um we're going to be back in maybe about 10 minutes so I've got a couple of the
videos for you to watch and uh enjoy these
[Music]
from Voyager Titan was so unusual all we could see from voyagers this hazy world
we couldn't see through to the surface and that's why we had to go back with
Cassini carrying the Huygens probe try and see what does the surface of Titan
look like so the Huygens probe parachuted through in 2005.
and we landed on the surface and we saw an amazing world it was incredible how
Earth-like Titan appeared it had River channels it had Lakes it had sand dunes
the only difference is it's very cold on Titan and the liquid that flows through
Titan's Rivers is methane instead of water the Cassini Huygens Mission has
been one of the greatest Voyages of Discovery in the history of science we have learned and discovered more things
about a previously unknown dynamic system a system that's a billion miles
from us the Saturn system than we ever could have imagined one of the Pinnacles of that has been the discoveries on
Titan Titan has turned out to be a very complex World it has geology it has
methane rain it has lakes and seas it has Dunes of organic molecules and it
has a lot more secrets that it's still hiding from us I think that really
makes people so excited about Titan is is this
combination of familiarity and alieness we've had
126 close flybys with a spacecraft with a dozen instruments that in each of
those flybys are all taking data about different aspects of Titan Not only was Titan fascinating in its own right a
moon the size of the planet Mercury it was also cassini's gas tank it allowed
us to change the shape and orientation of the orbit to explore the poles of Saturn in the Rings and all of the icy
Moons by carrying a lot less fuel though we would have to have carried otherwise it gave us the energy to go all the way
across the Rings and fly between the gap between the Rings and the planet
because of these flybys of Titan using Titan as a gravitational slingshot and
so many of the other remarkable discoveries that have been made by Cassini for example mapping the
composition of the plume of Enceladus would not have been possible without
Titan there we could not have gotten to these places without using Titan
and so I think Titan has really been a particularly special place to explore just because of all of the complexity in
the system and the the puzzles that it has given us foreign
[Music]
ERS spotted a black hole repeatedly munching on a sunlight star thanks to
NASA's Swift satellite when a star gets too close to a black
hole gravitational forces cause it to bulge and break apart into a stream of
gas this is a tidal disruption event
some cases scientists see what they call repeating tidal disruptions that's
what's happening here with an outburst called Swift jo230 the sunlight star
orbits a monster black hole every few weeks the star gets so close
that the black hole pulls off about three Earth masses of material but the Stars survives
astronomers saw in a distant Galaxy thanks to a new way to analyze data from
Swift's x-ray telescope they developed a new way of scanning the instrument's observations so that they
can quickly identify and study events like these after nearly two decades in space
wift is still learning new tricks and teaching us new things about our Cosmos
okay a few more minutes and we'll be back
foreign
thank you
foreign
well I hope you enjoyed that little break there um we are back with our second half of
the global Star Party the 130th uh Global star party our shared Cosmos uh
you know there are uh many organizations devoted to astronomy and
um the idea of uh you know how astronomy can bring them together I think one of
the best ones that's out there uh that uh with their message of one sky is
astronomers Without Borders um we've been around for a few decades
at this point and they have held star parties around the world I remember the
international year of astronomy that they held the global event we call
this the global star party but they held an event that started it was like 24 hours of astronomy where all these big
star parties took off and as the sky got dark around the world they were
you know celebrating the sky and the stars and doing Outreach and I think
that the numbers of people that were actually hit or exposed to astronomy on
that 24-hour period was nearly a million so that was really amazing
our next speaker is Cesar brolo Caesar is uh all the way down in Buenos Aires
and he works for a place that sells telescopes optico Sirocco and but Cesar
is a an optician himself he is involved in renovating a an Antiquated
Observatory complex that's down in Argentina and but he loves to show
people what they can do not only with these amazing large telescopes but with
very small telescopes from their own backyard or maybe their balcony Cesar
thank you for coming on to Global Star Party
so thank you for coming on again and sharing your your Universe with us
hello it's God hello everyone um hi Maxie hi Kelly
how are you guys well tonight I am inside I am
yes yes maybe too too many many nights in in in the in the balcony oh
um no no but tonight is cloud meat no no I'm I can't sacrifice when when I have a
clear sky you know Scott that I I put my I go to the balcony when it is clear but
yes like is is really really cloudy yes and sometimes all we have I have a
weather report where the the the night starter
um sorry about my voice is sound like uh to to sing a Tango or something very
very long uh yes it's difficult to explain the the
name okay well okay and and uh sorry
um the the presentation that I have tonight is uh is about the
about the my setups um what what is the um this guide that I
can share from my back let me share a screen
let me see let me know if you are watching the presentation yeah it is
okay presentation mode okay okay well about sharing uh we are
talking about about sharing the the cosmos that I have from my balcony in
the in middle of the city um you know uh something that that
I need to show to the people which is my my field of view is only at the South
here the this is the point of the the South Pole the southern pole the southern
um uh where I appoint my my quadrant mode
uh 35 34 minutes and 35
um sorry 30 34 degrees and 35 minutes here is
the area over uh the stars are around of course in the night
here I have the southeast here at the Southwest this picture is from tonight
from tonight maybe 30 minutes ago because I say I
figured that and I I don't have a picture like this of the area of the sky
the entire area of the sky when I present a in life I have this area
normally but I can I can appoint to this area and the first thing that I have in this
in my sky in this area in the southeast
sorry I I can show you something that I I show I show this picture in in all the
presentations uh here to to give you an idea of scale
here in this area is where I have the in
the picture that I'll show you uh where is the Southern Cross in this area
here it's nice it's easy to figure it yes
it's to have an idea of a scale in my in my sky
between the buildings even from the city like that it's amazing yes yes I I took many many pictures to have this full of
a star area of Southern Cross you can and I put a mask of course in in
the image of of the welding because if if not they
have a very wide very ex too much wide image and to regulate of
course that I you can put a mask in in the area to read too bright
here is the same another scale what do you have a 30 35 32 cluster and
ETA Karina nebula wow I I remember the showing this in because
this is new it's not new it's for the last way last year uh but the idea to mix
um a window that I had in this moment uh
to have a uh to put a window of the welding in the same picture and you know
it's something like the scale is totally uh mind-blowing is something when the
people just I I listen how Maxi uh talking
about um I'm talking about about the the
things when the people start to talk about flat a flat Earth and when when
they don't stop to know something like this is this scale or these things that
happens in our skies and of course that a this is something that maybe
uh sometimes when the people ask me by telescope the idea of the
scale of um you know of magnifications or is
something that the people have totally lost in their mind um because in the school or in many many
situations you never learn they never teach you about the scale of
the sky when you talk about the nebula is maybe so big in the sky
talking about about angles and is
something like where do you have something of the the size of two or
three moons or Sons talking about angles of course this is
something that is is incredible how how um
um people that that have start to have an idea of course that they stop to to
think that something is is possible to have a herb Flat Earth uh because uh
this scale a lot of things about the moon or you know or something like at
the sea we have a river a river estuario from Buenos Aires of 60 kilometers wide
and do you have all time to to to have
um to have views of ships in the auditons you know
um is something that is incredible how you can see the magnificence of
something like a of something like we talked last week between like years of
merely a a million part of second for example in
this the time that the line take uh to delay of of the the welding and maybe
here do you have I I don't remember maybe 15 000 years like years from from a
takarina I don't remember now exactly there how how many like years is it
takarina 25 000 like years I don't remember
well this is how today the the tools that you can get from from
astronomical applications like plate solve or another ones that can name the
the I'm sorry
and uh nebulas and clusters in your Sky
areas if is in the city no problem they can they can do it
this cluster I took a picture
with the the the actual setup uh Scott that I had the the small 80 millimeter
telescope um with a with the
small one uh um a quarter amount
ex is 100 this is a takarina with the exos 100
using my my um zoom 100 300 millimeters very single
picture very nice and it's from the city in the in the same night that I took the
pictures to to get the scale of attackarina
beside the building yeah this this kind of image when I started uh
doing uh astrophotography back in the 80s and the 90s that would have been
impossible absolutely impossible to do yes absolutely you would have had to go
into a dark sky site you would have had to have special film you were in many things you know so
um the Advent of digital imaging and what you can do with it um it's just it's really amazing
yes it's good and maybe do you remember that we we was lucky if we had one
picture by film maybe we spend a 36 complete film I remember that I was
happy to have I remember Orion Nebula from Pilar and and the the pictures
totally green I explained to the laboratory that that do you need and maybe first of
all you can go to the you know typical you couldn't uh
yeah go gone sorry to the typical standard laboratory for you know one
hour developing or if not we need to choose um a special laboratory that attend you
more for professionals and he looks like crazy me I remember that I
I start to talk this is special for Maxi that this younger than me and especially
to talk with the laboratory man okay don't
please don't take care with my my film because it's something like don't have
sense for you but right but I did that I
need that you uh please take care with my my this film
um um and well this is uh the the southeast if in the same scale where you have here
um the Southern Cross you uh can get the the the idea that
here here is the wielding
here is the large magellanic cloud and here is the the smaller magellanic Cloud
here here is the the quality cluster that uh two weeks ago I started
to show you uh together with uh with you and and John swarmon that we had a great
great final of star party going uh with the go-to of the month uh starting to go
from quarantic City to Ghana I uh I I could
um have some picture of quarante City to Canada that I I took some pictures when
when we was talking I have um this picture because I assembly I I
um well assembly you know the same pictures that I I took well
while we was talking about um how hold a this increase the bright
of the cluster and this is this is a cluster that is very near to the small
magellanic Cloud but it's not a part of this cloud is is sorry of of the is totally different in
another totally different system and this is another another uh picture
that I took uh weeks ago with the um was a a little a little
um cloudy you know but is another southern uh Southern
um nebula that is very interesting this is in the large magellanic clone if we go
this is in this area inside the large magnetic cloud and it's
a real accentury galaxy of the Milky Way and the the tarantula nebula is really
inside inside the magnetic cloud
well here we change to the West here is the wielding
my astronomy is is to the east of the willing or to the west of the building
and this is a as this year this time of
the year you can see the Southern Cross here is
it's in that side of the welding in this time of the year
and here is the the best constellation that I have in the south in this time of
the year to find some objects
something very interesting and Centaurus is that I have the the Omega cluster
a that is the the biggest the biggest um
globular cluster that we know here we have Santa Rosa the Galaxy and
here you can say a very near to Yota Centauri a Galaxy
and I took this three different pictures but the third one of course that is not
from Buenos Aires I never tried from Buenos Aires the third pictures that
I'll show you but I show you the first one that is Omega Centauri
sorry that this picture don't have the right color calibration but it's very
interesting uh the quantity of stars that you can you can uh
you can sorry you can find um we talk many times I I show I shown
this globular cluster in life but I never took a a
great picture I is a work in progress that maybe in with a small telescope I
can get for for next week but especially for from here from from Buenos Aires
well here I I take uh back where in the map sorry
here the Galaxy that I I told you is
is this one I took this uh last week
[Music] yes two weeks ago with the same in the same night that I'll show you the
different objects in the sky and this is from from
San Juan with the same telescope where do you have Yota Centauri and the Galaxy
that I told
well this is a a picture that was very surprised surprisingly for me but I
yes I remember that it's a bright Galaxy and I took this this galaxy uh very very
near to uh to a welding uh maybe I remember that was two months
ago um well I was really lucky to to to get
this picture of uh Sombrero Galaxy and this is the the swan nebula that I I
took the pictures were where we was talking about drops of strong hair shell
and Charles Messier you know and this was a very very interesting uh picture
that that comparing with the live image of two weeks ago where we was talking
about and finding some information uh was really really uh a great night
oh um maybe going like a like a spaceship by
the Universe um watching in a live image while we was talking about uh the the
the gray sketch of John and you are
finding information about um well this is the was this was the the
last result that I had in in this picture uh well this is what my my
presentation I I was uh I I'm really happy to to be here and thank you Scott
for for inviting me thank you very much that's great
all right you know so uh you know many of us uh just dream of uh of seeing uh
the Milky Way the way that you do um and uh to be able to just aim your
telescope up from your balcony and get things like uh at a Carina and the Omega
Centauri is just uh is a fabulous um experience and you've shown that live
to us many times so that's very cool um uh do you have uh I know that you
have advice for people getting started what what is your basic advice if you're a beginner and you you want to get
started with uh astronomy uh what what's your best path
uh today a today
um the best telescope is the telescope that you can carry
the first the first thing that you need to know yeah um
the examples for for um for people is
if don't they um for example if you if you make a gift
a present for for a kid I I think that I I don't know at this time I saw by 30
years telescope and I never I never get an idea from how many years you can
um give a telescope for a kid to a kid because you know it's something that
that maybe I remember perfectly that seven years old and worked perfectly
maybe the best age is 12 years old and if you are a kid or you are
um you know a young adult and
um really today the best the best way is if you are if you are
um maybe maybe when you have the idea that you are loved the astronomy you can
start if you don't like starting uh you
know starting uh spending too much money you can are for only the two with a
single mode to to start to know how applying to the
moon to the some planets using an application of of the cell phone and in
the Second Step you can afford the equatorial amount to put your two
and I don't know at once uh who is the velocity to make this maybe six months
maybe one year but it's the best way if if you are totally sure that you love astronomy you
buy completely the equipment with the go-to and and the two
um camera but if you are searching something to learn uh choose a gray a
small one no no not not only a big one or or
uh well ask of for us to a specialist maybe for you
is great add-ons adoption telescope maybe it's um you know and a small one
because you live in the city you can use in the balcony but if you can go sometimes to the to the farm area rural
areas Mountain areas you can get dark areas where the telescope is like a
Ferrari I told every every time yes you buy a Ferrari
you can use in the city or maybe you use in the city you are happy driving the
girls are watching you or the people and by use oh this is a great car but you
never try that is a real Ferrari when you go to the road
you feel the power yes it's the same with your telescope
yes the same picture that I I showed you with it with a or this picture
in San Juan or the picture of Yota Centaurus and the Galaxy
taken in in San Juanes guys and darkest guys show the possibilities of your telescope
your Ferrari thank you Scott thank you very much
all right Caesar okay so um uh we will go from Argentina out to
Oklahoma where Adrian Bradley is out at the Oaky Tech site at Camp Billy Joe uh
under like some of the darkest skies in North America Adrian thanks for coming on to Global
star party thank you for having me and a quick thank you to Cesar Coco brolo uh
Maxi you sound like yeah I did I I can just play I can explain you but outside the
yeah outside
don't worry yeah it's really it's really fun really yes
so that was the modified intro the real intro which of course I do a lot of
these off the uh top of my head is um it's just to looking at the sharing our
Cosmos theme and that is essentially the explanation
for why I do my pictures now uh my images and I'm gonna share what it's
like out here at uh the Oaky Tech star party now right now I'm actually at uh
black Mesa there will be some pictures from the black Mesa State Park which is maybe 10 minutes from the fields yeah
yeah but I've got pictures of the field and what I'll do is I'll start sharing a screen
um I usually just share the desktop but I'll share the edge app I think that'll
work all right do you all see a uh picture of the winter Milky Way Rising
early in the morning with some cacti and other yes desert you know this desert
feel this is um this is essentially to me this is part
of the Okie text experience there's some Sky glow um there's you know you've got if you've
got the right equipment and you take a picture like this you see so many clusters nebula
this isn't even the galactic center this is a faint part of the uh of the Galaxy
and I do believe it's around the Orion spur and it's a beautiful part that only
in places like the you know Kenton Oklahoma is the town where the Okie Tech
star party is held and it's called Okie text because we're not far from the
border of Texas there's a we're in the panhandle of Oklahoma and there's actually a few States close by New
Mexico is close by um I forget what's uh to the north I you
know my geography evades me um but Texas down to the South
um Colorado is not far Amarillo's down there no yeah
yes and uh Colorado too so yeah that's right Colorado where so
earlier in Star party I uh I had one of my uh buddies I'm wearing a uh you know
the university lobra astronomers hat I'm in a couple of different clubs Warren Astronomical Society the
Royal Astronomical Society of Canada among the many and I am a member of uh
the uh astronomical league so I started out doing images like this
um I would over you know I consider this a bit of over process today but just to
sheer fact that you can get all of this data um this was still an impressive enough image it made it to sky's up magazine
and I am always forever grateful for the opportunity this is the part of the
Milky Way that everyone comes to see and in a dark sky like this this is this is
taken with a non-modified camera two years ago um there will be a quiz later about this
dark nebula but uh just keep that in mind um you see some of these dark nebula
with your own eyes you see this shape here this triangular shape bodies window
even this part of the Milky Way this they call the Crazy Horse and these
streamers these dark lanes that are heading down to Antares from the
Scorpion so this is the camp and you know there are plenty of maces around
when you dig into the Milky Way you get a lot of good detail and one thing
you know that John Goss talked about you know is the earth round well
here a couple of nebula that I had captured The Lobster Claw and you can kind of see it looks like the lobster a
little bit and the cat's paw these two nebula don't at this time of year do not
appear in higher Northern latitudes you can only see those nebulae when you are
down here it's we're only three degrees latitude 42 is where I
live 37 is um actually no that's more than three I
live in 42. 41 43 1937 5 degrees latitude on the earth and suddenly when
the Milky Way stands up you can see these nebulae or stars that are
associated with them and um so you get more you know the further south you move
in the United States and all over the globe different than you're able to see
different things that are in the night sky uh going right back to
this image magellanic clouds are down here way down the Horizon and never go above Horizon
um you have to go much further south in order for the magellanic clouds to
appear but this was during my first trip and I did the star Trails thing this is
facing north and you can still see the we call Ursa Major the Big Dipper only
in Chile in the southern hemisphere might you see the Big Dipper on the
horizon it is uh it is not far from the equator and it's well positioned to see
some of the famous Northern targets as well as the uh Southern targets that um
we were just you know Cesar was uh and Maxie show us
um so this when you walk past the um
actual Star Party area you can you can use the vegetation in the mesas
to create images you know using the Milky Way now
note these clouds are dark we're going to get into some dark clouds soon
um but it's a different experience being out there a lot of what you're seeing in
my images is made to be a little more prominent but when you look at the sky
you see these objects they appear and it's it isn't a matter of do you know
where the Milky Way is okay Point your camera to it no you look up and you see the Milky Way and go oh that's the Milky
Way so those that are you know looking to do Milky Way Photography you start with a place as dark as this
place in kitten Oklahoma you it's made easy because so much light comes in where there's less light
pollution on the horizon this is 50 miles from you know a a town with you
know more amenities that would cast enough light to create a light Dome
um it is a beautiful place and what you'll notice is that not only do you
does the galactic core you know draw your attention this is the cygnus region and to me there was
nothing more Grand than the setting of the cygnus region um as you know the Milky Way rolls
around as well as the rise of the Orion region you know you can see this faint this
part of the Galaxy naked eye this is this is pretty much a naked eye shot maybe a little more few
more stars than you would see with your own eyes but this is this is essentially a you know
it's a little more than a naked eye shot and it's you know the stars are beautiful out there
and even try to image the heart and the soul and so it here's a this is a dark sky
Park back in Michigan look at the Stark difference between there's a cygnus region here
let's go back um here's the sickness region in another
part of Michigan but in Kenton Oklahoma
the sickness region looks like this yeah so there's a there's a stark
difference so I loved it so much even though you see you see me scrolling through all these images
um including a stacked image which is something I'd like to try when you stack if you stack your Landscapes and you get
enough and you use a stacking program I am told that your detail
becomes pretty amazing this was a stacked image now and you notice there's this nebulosity this nebulosity here is
real um this is in opioukas um there's
all of the things you see here this was stacking was the only way to get the
asaba river in a Northern lower part of Michigan for the Milky Way to show up
the way it does with a single exposure at a place like Kenton Oklahoma here's
this nebula again just notice notice uh this dark Lane it hasn't it
has a name and I believe it is actually considered a part of Hercules
um this is this is going to be important later on um
the only time to see the cat's paw in The Lobster Claw in the northern hemisphere which is when this was taken
and I can't say that if this Pops in it should it's rather faint but when the Milky Way
is rising in the at 42 degrees north latitude where I took this image and um
notice how much painter it is it's when the Milky Way rolls
it's gonna this is gonna drip below Horizon and with light polluted areas
most of this part Milky Way gets cut off but when you are
down so we'll so this is the Upper Peninsula really quick
there's that dark nebula again um it's not LDN 90. I think I looked it
up um it is it's an LDN object the the crisper the skies the more
um Sky glow shows up and um if I were to reprocess reprocess that today I think I
would still see some of that Sky glow and then here's without a modified camera
you know the the sky Globe can sometimes be intense mm-hmm so moving along
to the second trip to Oaky texts and that starts here
actually starts back here so this was last year as the the nautical twilight you're in
nautical twilight and you can see the Milky Way as it starts to appear that is
and you know I'll I'll highlight that later that is a sign
that you know your skies are really dark a lot of the coloring
um which I made to be accurate you're seeing a lot of Sky glow which is
um it's a function of you know the sky and the you know we have satellites
reflecting um solar radiation to the atmosphere it's not quite Aurora that's um that's
different it's just it's light uh reflected from the Sun
um into it sits in our upper atmosphere and you've got oxygen green there's red
which uh different element that's being excited Aurora
you know has to do with excited ions you know the coming through the magnetic field through the poles and you see the
curtains dancing along um if you're close enough to the North or the South
so once again this is these are features of Oaky text
I'm gonna that's beautiful yep and see why people are drawn to this place yes
because the skies are dark a lot of visual astronomy takes place here at Oak
at the Oaky Tech Star Party you've got this red because there's so many red lights
um it is a rule you must use red lighting do not use bright white lighting
um a lot of visual astronomers that want to have their dark vision
able to look through telescopes and see very faint things and when I yep and
when I do my Imaging you know I get nebulosity if it'll show
up I could yeah here it comes if you if you get a sharp enough photo you know with a wide angle you'll still
pick up some of these uh you know especially especially with the
camera that has you know I call it the ha filter I do believe it's also called an IR filter you remove it and then you
can pull in more hydrogen Alpha data the spectrums
that you can't see it'll be a sign that pinkish color so it's you know the Milky Way is
beautiful in all size lots of planes you know we we do have the issue we share
the cosmos with people and they look up you know when they see satellites they can they may respond at all when they
see meteors it's even more awesome when they see planes they may not respond you know it's awesome but truth
is you can see planes much higher up in the sky they're they're at their cruising altitude you can still see them
um when you've got something you know when you're placed that dark and planes can interrupt your images as well as
meteors satellites you know the starlink trains may come early in the night and
um you know there's a lot of traffic up there and yes there's techniques to get
um you know to get rid of those Trails if you do techniques like stacking but if
you're like me and you just like to get a single image you sometimes just have to yeah yeah
you're putting up with that sort of thing here I tried to re you know re-image the cygnus setting scene
and here I re-imaged Orion rise this quick story about this this is what
drew me to Okie text see I've shown some pictures of the core and uh that's nice but when I walked
outside and saw this Orion the winter Milky Way easily visible the magellanic
clouds by the way if you take where Ryan is go through the Verizon and then go the same distance that's about where the
magellanic clouds would be they never rise high enough in this you know Locale to actually see him
um so you've got the zodiacal light you know the edge on view of dust in our you
know in our solar system um it's it was it used to be said it's
Comet asteroid dust um other planetary bodies and they now
think Mars fueled the dust storms on Mars fuels the dust that we see this is
plainly visible this even has kind of that yellowish color that the um
zodiacal light appears you know meteors show up you don't need a designated
meteor shower to catch meteors when you're Imaging in dark places like this and this was
again this may this appears to have been taken with a camera that was not modified and yet the
you know the hydrogen Alpha light still came through this is beautiful when you
see it by yourself it this alone if you can get up at three in the morning
um to watch Orion rise and watch the zodiacal light make this X right near Orion
it is that makes the trip so well worth it so here this is kind of a
a foreshadowing of how I'm gonna end the presentation you see a lot of dark
clouds which with no light pollution the underside of clouds is dark in the Milky Way yet shines through well
look at that that's so dramatic yes it it I you know they're there you can see
this is M5 the Lagoon M8 the Lagoon sorry M5 is a globular cluster
um you can probably see that globular cluster if you know where to look but uh M8 the Lagoon
and in some cases M20 the TripIt
yeah look at that and that's with the I think with a wide angle lens 30 second image
um over over processed here so we worked on correcting that another view of cygnus
there's the cygnus region North American nebula this is the part the cygnus rift
that's going down into the part of the Milky Way that's disappeared I haven't updated version of that image
that you will see and as Okie text ends the Moon is waxing so I figured why not
try it do that so here's another bit of foreshadowing uh we're gonna move into
the third and final part that is this year's Okie text which uh in 2018
there they dubbed it silky text because all but one day
was rain and it disappointed so many people that came there for the dark
skies and uh one night was clear enough and they tried to do some observing that
one night but it was disappointing so
we're going through all these pictures and I finally get back
to here we go the this is
this is this year's Okie text let's rifle through these once again
you can you can capture the Milky Way there's Scorpius they're Sagittarius
all of these stars are showing up and you see the sun has set
um it's set maybe 30 minutes ago so you
still have an hour before you get to astronomical Darkness you're in nautical twilight Milky Way appears
try that in your light polluted city and I bet if you aim towards the Milky Way I
don't know that you'll get it there is one very small light dome which you're gonna see everything else
very much flat here's what happens in astronomical darkness and the things that you can get the full scorpion wow
which uh drops down here to NGC
6231 is one of these dots this is actually the dot right here the prawn
nebula it curves up into the Stingers which
I'm looking for them and do not see them but I know that they're here
um but uh there's your cat's paw there's your Lobster Claw let's zoom in
Fuki is starting here this is a single four minute no it's a two minute exposure a composite with the Rope this
is black Mesa State Park very close to the uh where the star party is held the
campsite which is Camp Billy Joe there's the small light Dome maybe Boise City
Oklahoma maybe that's the only light Dome here everything else is flat and there's a belt of Venus that's fading
over here and you can get this much detail in a two-minute single image of
the Milky Way composite it with an image because you're you're just if you're going more
than 30 seconds this begins to blur and so I like to do
those images this is another little crisper cleaner image yeah but
I got it I finally got it when the Scorpion dipped a little too low so it the sky is
moving scorpion dips a little too low and then we lose NGC 62-31
turn around and of course there's there's this dark I think this is the northern coal sack if I'm not mistaken
Andromeda in 33. this is NGC I'm gonna say 762 and feel
free to correct me a large open cluster in this region there's Andromeda
triangulum it's right here and there's the triangulum Galaxy aka the pinwheel
um there's other galaxies here Jack tried to see but with a small four inch refractor you just can't but um this is
what the state park that I'm sitting in right now I'm right over here where this uh where I'm pointing
broadcasting to you live from right over here and um so more pictures
of the Milky Way as I went with a wider angle
now interesting enough we've got this we're gonna we're gonna end with this
but you got Sky glow you got a whole lot of stars here Milky Way is dipping we've got such
a low Horizon here's this glow that I can still see Crazy Horse
this part there's M8 I can still see this part of the Milky Way as it rolls
toward the northwest and for me
um this was this was worth it because most of the time when it's getting like this the Horizon
is way up here where my and it you you don't see you may see the
small Sagittarius Cloud but you lose this but here
you don't so I didn't leave Oaky text we didn't leave Oaky text uh you know bear
here's a smaller fracture and my water bottle and we said and once again
nautical twilight sunset 30 minutes ago maybe
and you can still you can see the Scorpion the entire part of the Scorpion
the part of Milky Way we're starting all over again this is
typical Okie text this is before the rains came Milky Way is bright you just see it
there you see all of the this is the this is an accurate Sky color
um I didn't highlight the maces in this image because this is when you're night
adapted this is exactly what you see and if you've never seen the Milky Way
you know with this much there's a little extra detail here the reddish colors of some of the
nebula but other than that this is essentially what you even see this part of the Milky
Way so dark sites thank you oh you're welcome
let me let me just skip through to this
when the storms came oh wow look at this we but the Milky Way shows up
and that it was a joy shooting beef really
dramatic clouds all came in so now that's that is our reality
and here's that dark nebula this is yeah it's for right yeah this is
my parting shot now that you've seen this dark nebula you now know what part of the Milky Way is shining through
these thick clouds and so it it helps to know some of these things in the sky
this is what I am sharing with the crowd um
you know when you can see things like this naked eye you learn more about it and you can't help but want to share
with others um things that you've seen in my
you know my goal is always to present it as best I can so sorry I ran over time I
see uh Kelly Daniel Robert you all are here so they're back there I am going to
say farewell hopefully Friday we should be getting more uh clear skies so I'm
gonna try some new techniques to see what kind of detail I can get and
continue to try and enjoy myself all right go to a dark go to a dark site enjoy it and then tell others about it
great advice all right um uh up next is uh Kelly Ricks Kelly is
someone I'm just getting to know uh she um from her website uh uh I can tell
that she was a uh or she is a musician she's an artist I've looked at her art
on her website uh very talented artist um and uh you know I'd love to see some
of her Works in person uh she is also a great presenter you don't have to go
very far on the on YouTube to find her talking about her love of the night sky
I would recommend that you pick the one where she's uh describing this guy from
Bryce Canyon uh Kelly thank you for coming on to Global star party tonight and um
um I'm going to give you the stage but it's it's wonderful to have you on and uh
um I'm looking forward to this presentation yes thank you so much Scott it's a pleasure to be here with you I
just want to give a quick shout out to Adrian uh right now we are next door neighbors I um currently live in the
little town of Des Moines New Mexico population of 130.
um we're right next door to capulin Volcano National Monument which is you know kitty corner to the Okie Tech star
party and I was ready for him to start talking about how this year is kind of turning into another soaking text
because we are getting a lot of rain right now yes we are we may come out we may come out to that
star party at capulin so um yeah yeah we've got our astronomy we've got our dark sky Festival coming up this weekend
Friday and Saturday at the volcano we would love to see you there another really really dark sky I can attest to
the truth of everything he was describing about the kind of texture and depth and sometimes even color that you
do see in the Milky Way out here it's you you don't believe it until you see it with your own eyes truly
absolutely all right well I guess
um my presentation will start with a little bit about me um how I got started in in astronomy
back in 2007 I was living in Salt Lake City I was driving home from work one day and
I passed this grocery store and noticed a bunch of telescopes set up in the parking lot and I thought that's
interesting maybe there's an eclipse maybe there's a comment something interesting going on so I pulled over
started walking around a little bit I'm pretty shy so I didn't say anything to anyone finally somebody called me over
and said hey do you like to take a look at Jupiter I thought Jupiter don't you have to be on top of a
mountain with a huge telescope or up in space to see Jupiter I I didn't have a
clue um but I sure looked through his telescope and my jaw just about hit the
pavement because not only was this Jupiter with the stripes and everything you could see moons around this planet I
this was a life-changing moment for me in every sense of the word uh at that point I didn't know anything
about astronomy but that night I joined this club it was the Salt Lake
Astronomical Society a couple weeks later they had me set up with a little eight inch dobsonian to take home and I
could practice on my own learn start learning some stuff about the sky and after a short time they actually trained
me how to on how to use some of their larger telescopes at the observatory that they have just south of the Great
Salt Lake um and at first you know this was all
very very exciting but I'll be honest I did feel a little bit out of place because well I was 28 years old the
amateur astronomy Community is largely older older men
um but you know one thing I loved about this group about this whole hobby the
sun goes down you're in the darkness everybody's looking up into the sky it
doesn't matter how old you are anymore doesn't matter if you're fat or thin or how stylish your clothes are doesn't
matter what your religion or political party is you are all there together to
enjoy the dark sky the natural light and sharing all of that with others
um so when Scott told me that the theme of this star party was well that time it was our Celestial Bond I think
um that was really the first thing that came to mind the way that being in the darkness
um being in the face of such Wonder builds Bridges it tears down barriers
um through this dark sky Heritage we connect with
others in the present we make new friends people we never would have met otherwise we also connect with our past
people long Dead who wandered at these same stars that are above us told
stories about them did some science and eventually figured out that hey we have
a real tangible connection to these stars as well um
we also you know are we look up into the sky and and get all sci-fi and our imaginations Propel us into the future
we connect with what we hope that future will be what we might be
able to build for the generations that are coming um after we're gone
so I'm going to start a little presentation here hopefully I set up correctly
share your screen this is the first time I've done this so
so we're going to play the slideshow Okay so
is it is it showing in a presenter view right now yes okay all right so seven years into my little
hobby um I got the opportunity to spend two months over the summer volunteering at
Bryce Canyon National Monument um Bryce Canyon was one of those places
that got in on the ground floor of really looking at the night sky as a resource to be preserved and to be
part of that team was a dream come true um they had I think at that time there
was four astronomy programs per week and there would be times we'd have 300 plus
people on the telescope field there was a lot of demand for this and so of
course telescopes and operators were also in high demand um
halfway through the summer there was a ranger there who left due to health reasons and they needed somebody to fill
the spot I guess they liked what I did enough they they asked if I would like
to be a ranger for a couple months and I said absolutely stay here for another couple months I'd be very very cool so
they let me put on the green and gray the flat hat and I set to work not only
did I have to know about astronomy now I had to know something about the geology the history the biology it was a steep
learning curve but loved loved all of it um I did
return to Bryce as a seasonal Ranger for the following two summers and in the
meantime also volunteered at bandolier National Monument
and also Canyonlands island in the sky I was also fortunate to work a couple of
months at choco culture National Historical Park for those of you who
have not heard about this place it is um a stunning representation of
archaeoastronomy as well as geology and uh ecology
um it's extremely remote this is me and my little car driving in on that 10 Mile
unmaintained Entrance Road this is the main entrance to the park not for the
faint of heart but in any case the place that this
preserves is is incredible um
it's the the uh it preserves the the excuse me I'm a little nervous
the Monumental remains of an ancient culture of skywatchers the Chuck Owens
constructed into the buildings themselves Solstice and Equinox markers
and these are not trivial these are alignments with the buildings with the walls with the windows and the landscape
and in some cases the way that the light moves across those features many of you
may have heard of the sun dagger which was featured in Carl Sagan's original Cosmos series on fajada Butte this
lovely geological feature here there is a very intentionally placed set of
stones that on the solstice and equinoxes reflects directs light in such
a way that that light passes through in some cases the center of this spiral
Petroglyph and in other cases the sides of the Spiral
um this is not trivial this would have taken generations of observing this guy
to understand its mechanics it would have taken engineering to place these
stones in just such a way so that this what would have appeared to be magic
would take place it's very clear that the sky for these people was much more
than a way to keep time there was probably a deeply felt spiritual bond
between the landscape and the sky and the people who lived between we don't
know a lot about them but these indicators can tell us can tell us a bit
maybe some of you have also know about the Supernova pictograph
there was in 1054 A.D there was a supernova variety enough to be seen
during the daytime and it is believed that this Starburst right here was a
chuck Cohen observation of that Supernova one reason that is hypothesized is because on the day that
this Supernova was at its brightest there was a small crescent moon in the
sky right next to it the hand print is it's we don't really know what that
means but it's hypothesized again that that might have been sort of the signature of the Observer somebody
saying I was here or we saw this we were witness to this
um and you probably know we are still watching this Supernova unfold today
this is the Crab Nebula M1 is the REM is the remnant is the is the
continuing to expand remnant of that Supernova that the Chuck Owens observed
1 000 years ago so talk about a Cosmic connection a stellar connection a
a bond over the generations something that a thousand years ago we are still
watching today an explosion started and we are still watching that explosion
continue today yes there have been a there was a gap in between where where
the where one observation stopped and and the new ones continued but still it
is it's the same movie so to speak I uh I think that's pretty pretty outstanding
um that's incredible I'm curious you know when I when I see that I am the outstretched like that
it makes me wonder I mean the first thing that initially hit me was is that this might have been a
um you know a measurement of degrees in the sky it you know that's a very interesting
thought yes separation between the Moon and the Crab Nebula now I'd have to run a planetarium program to see if the moon
would ever come that close to the Crab Nebula but that would be something that
our audience might be able to do right now so you guys that have planetarium programs maybe you can try it out
very interesting thought um
so yes um when we're when we start to talk about um
events and connections that are as vast as immense and meaningful as these are I
find that sometimes words really don't cut it um and Scott mentioned that in addition
to being an amateur astronomer an interpreter I'm also an artist
this is an example of sort of what I would call a self-portrait I guess this
is me and my little 12-inch skywatcher dobsonian you can see the hotel Red
trained in the direction of coma baronisi's constellation and trying to
find NGC 4565 the needle which is a wonderful Springtime object that Galaxy
is so thin it's like a razor slash through the sky um so I guess you could kind of look at
this like a little bit like a time lapse where you know I'm I'm moving the scope into position looking in the eyepiece
going back and forth and just feeling
immersed in the view I guess where the stars are wrapping around
you know I'm I'm transported there as much as I am just looking at the view
gives an impression of how I feel when I'm out observing
um but it's not just about what we see through a telescope now this is a
drawing that I had exhibited at this Santa Fe Community Gallery a few years ago uh there they had an exhibit called
happy little clouds a reference to Bob Ross I think you know he would be on PBS
like oh happy little tree happy little this well this was happy little clouds and
um I took the The Stance of you know New Mexico has beautiful clouds of course
beautiful sunsets Georgia O'Keeffe painted some wonderful cloudscapes but we have to remember about the clouds of
stars that we have in such abundance so this is a highly stylized Milky Way
clouds of stars um and clouds of gas and dust making
Stars this is supposed to be a little Glimpse inside to Lagoon nebula the trifid nebula
um and of course clouds of dust that block the light behind them and windows
through those clouds the Sagittarius star cloud makes an appearance right here and there's a tiny tiny tiny little
Observer who's taking a school up at that Big Sky
sort of reminding us that how it's it's an impression on how tiny we can feel in
the face of all of this but at the same time feel very much a part of it
and of course it's not always an individual experience um this is a little Doodle that I did
while I was at Bryce Canyon it's just on a three by five card with Sharpie we would lead full moon hikes down into the
hoodoos the hoodoos are those crazy rock formations that that are this the
trademark of Bryce Canyon and
it was it was one of the most popular things people I mean we had we turned
away droves of people we've filled up so quickly um
and I know that a lot of a lot of us as as deep Sky observers we
hate the Moonlight in some situations Moonlight is even referred to as another type of light pollution but if you think
about it moonlight is also a dark sky treasure
when was the last time that you got to walk in the Moonlight and see what the world looks under that type of
Illumination the world changes I mean it's really easy being at a place like Bryce to see it that way all of a sudden
you feel like you're on another planet and you can feel that you're part of a solar system orbiting a star in the in
the universe it's a very easy sensation to have um but even
in our in our regular neighborhoods if we get a chance to see those settings under a different
light it changes our view of them it reminds us of where we are of how we are
and people are always using the word otherworldly I think that does US
disservice to Earth a bit because Earth is a world
it's orbiting a star among billions of other stars orbiting a black hole at the center of the Galaxy Earth is every bit
as exotic and exciting as any of the uh fantastic worlds that you may watch on
Star Trek or Star Wars um and we have a very important
connection with our world with the future of our world with the other people that we share our world with
um there was a woman from Nepal who who said on a previous Global Star Party her
name was dipti Gautam I believe and she she reminded us that the cosmos is
everything it's everything from a blade of grass casting
its shadow onto the snow um and it's all of us standing together at
the edge of a canyon watching a moonrise and watching our shadows stretch behind us
um we share those Celestial bonds with each other um so that's
yeah I'll end with that I'll put a period I love that that was a great presentation Kelly
so wonderful I I like I love seeing your artwork
your descriptions of let the dark sky experiences like and and why it's
important to us you know so um I imagine that all that time you
spent out at national parks and soaking in all that Milky Way light uh probably
uh was continuing to kind of transform your thinking of of where you are and
who you are and how you interact with the world so this is very cool yeah it's very very
true those places and the skies above those places I mean
it's the same sky but it it really does set your mind in a
different place um yes I think that's important too especially in this day and age where people can get
uh word prone to anxiety and you know because of the fast uh pace of how
things are thrown at us and uh and you need to find moments where you can find
that space of peace and uh you know the nice guy offers it to all of us even if
you're in a light polluted Sky you know I will look up and see the stars and you
know my mind's transported to the depths of space and I think that's so cool
you can do it anywhere Kelly thank you so much um I I have
um if you go to the global Star Party 130th Global Star Party page that would
be at explorerscientific.com GSP for Global Star Party one three zero 130 and
you'll see our speakers there and there are links to uh their uh biographical
pages and links also to some of their websites including Kelly Riggs so Kelly
thank you so much again thank you yeah okay all right so
um uh next up is uh Marcelo Souza we are back down to South America to Brazil and
uh wow Marcelo is um uh
the editor of Skies Up Magazine the global astronomy magazine the free astral Global astronomy magazine and uh
um uh Marcelo not only is the editor of that he does so much for the
astronomical Community uh with uh youth with the community in general he when he
puts on stargazing events he attracts hundreds sometimes thousands of people
and uh you know it's it's amazing all the stuff he does he also was very
instrumental in creating South America's First International dark sky Park in Brazil so
um Marcelo thank you very much for coming on to Global Star Party
thank you very much for the invitation subscribe to the great pledge to be here nice to meet you I love you
and today I I will talk about uh Chinese Legends let's see
some we show these in some of our presentations
I share my screen here I don't know because they have a one of the most
famous celebrations in China in Japan is associated with the moon
and let me change here and they'll begin with the
history of Changi Changi Changi I I don't know how to say in Chinese that's
right you're saying you're saying it correctly
ah thank you and this is a very famous history and they have a big celebration
in China that's what happened this year the media Autumn Festival that's what
happened this year in September 29 and the the history is a I have here a
short version of the Houston yeah when the Earth was too young there were 10
songs in the sky it's extremely hot
we raised his bow to the sky and shut down nine of the tensions
of immortality these ones right but what happened
his wife having many different histories about this shangi uh
stole the elixir of immortality and the
what happened that he he after he drank the the elixir on Memorial stand he
begins to fly in the direction of to the Moon and when he arrived back home the hero
the Hui he his wife was flying to the Moon with her
gravity if you have and it he didn't
know what happened and as she was on the moon she begins to
it in the day that she begin to fly to the moon and the foods
that she likes then there is a tradition in China to do
this this day all of them eat this and celebrate this
day and she is the goddess of the moon and here is the Reds that rise with her
hair helping her to work on the moon the name of the rabbit is in Chinese is
YouTube and the
spaceships that were sent to the Moon by the Chinese has the name of uh and the
first hover on the moon by the Chinese the name wise YouTube
here in celebration that they have in the media Autumn Festival now they have
Disney they call the moon cake yes
participating in the celebrations yes yes
maybe it is probability is fantastic one to be there in the celebration this moon
cake Everybody Eats and have a lot of lights in in the streets and every place
and this year they will celebrate on September 29th here is a video
the first time after I think that the last one a rubber on the moon was the
Soviet Union and Luna I don't know the name in
1975 after this the next however was
this day is the YouTube and he is AVID that showed this this is the spaceship
Shanghai tree Refugee YouTube
now
this is a video showing the lens
and then in a few minutes we are going to see the Jehovah
and until today the spaceships that he applied to the Moon from the Shine from
China the name is Changi [Music]
on the moon and a and now they we have a shot I do Jehovah
YouTube well I think this these videos from is
December 2013.
00 is the first one after 1975.
if I'm not wrong that's cool I have another two videos
fantastic about the Monday TV show for the students here this is a fantastic image whether that
we can see the Moon and the Earth take a bias uh North American and spaceship
let's talk this picture and I have this video that I think that
oh sorry I hope it works here
that we can see the high resolution images of the moon
and you have a simulation a a trip near surface of the Moon using these
image 3D images and you can see this is something fantastic technology allows others to do
right and we can make a trip [Music]
you can see I see in summary and
places on the moon and what is much fantastic and this in
the other video is we see the Earth rising when you look
Verizon this is fantastic you can make it yeah
a trip near surface of the Moon based on your real images right Banner
cam make a simulation how that should be if you will be walking on the moon so
this is uh some software that you can do this right it's fantastic video
and I have it I will show next after this a video from uh uh space Japanese
spaceship okay that he was flying over the South
Pole of the Moon and shows the Earth rising
there's something ever that I showed this video for the students
they begin to be asking a lot of questions about the moon
about the Earth and motivate them now we will see the first image
of the geography when you look from the Moon that's why
stick by the Apollo and if I'm not wrong then I don't know
it is a historical picture [Music]
now I will show one of the most fantastic videos
in 2008. by the name of the spaceship is
kaguya a Japanese spaceship that are flying over the South
Pole of the Moon foreign
that's incredible yeah this is fantastic yeah you would never
get tired of watching this wow
you can't imagine yeah the Apollo Astronauts saw this and
um you know they look at that blue planet and know it's alive
yeah weird is that cool
yeah where are the borders in the the fence lines and you know
I think that is one of the most compact it is
and now I will show another thing that another fantastic video that he will
have here they reproduce later a few years ago the same thing that the
astronauts of Apollo 13 saw when he was in the cruise Crossing the
the side of the moon that you can't see from Earth then they produce this video
here is real video giraffe here and the Sun a a white you see white in the space I
just saw here how you see in space you see the sunlight
these are a real video oh look at this and this is what salt the astronauts
have a pulsating when they were waiting to see again you have to to hit energy
communication with your then they saw these images here
that's the great uh lunar good morning I can't see from left
this is a other image that's fantastic
um it's reduced by NASA
yes look at some of the impacts that are in a row and these students when they they
see this video they ask a lot of questions about the
moon and then we use this video presentations here in schools
is that right and if you mean it's very short yeah the
the total time wise 80 minutes the time that the astronauts didn't connect with
the earth now the office appearing again for them wow this is a real video that
was required a few years ago reproducing what nationality well
yeah after the end I think that you have the courage to hear and it's available online
it's a fantastic reason
right oh we'll be here until appear the credits ah it's not here spreads I'm
sorry oh yes experimental Mars
wonderful and if I have time I'll show two things
very quickly here here is what we show to by the students were in the also
because now What's Happening Here we are saying to them that they don't they can't move to the sun because it as
everybody is talking about the eclipse now
without protection there is only to compare the size of the
sun with the planets but what I would like to show is this one during the
prince presentation is what's happening with the cycle 25
the prediction was that Massimo is will
will happen in 2025 but now do you have emotional spots
then we had in the maximum of the last Cycle 24 that's Rising
2014 2015 then ah we are now in the
maximum of the cycle or maybe it will be stronger than we imagined this cycle
when it's five here is the culture of the Spotless days
and days here we had out days we didn't see if I see a sunspots every day since
the beginning of the year I have a zero days with which parts less yeah then
maybe we already are in the maximum of the cycle 25
I don't know then this is either I prepared for today
thank you very much for Education thank you that was uh thank you mesmerized
everyone with the uh videos of the Moon and
you know just imagining what that would have been like uh to be in a spacecraft
but this is this is pretty darn close to be able to see it like that so that's
wonderful Marcelo thanks very much and thank you very much a great pleasure to be here
pleasure always to have you on take care Marcello okay
um up next is uh Mr Robert Reeves uh Robert Reeves is
an author uh he's written books on astrophotography he is an expert on the
moon and lunar terrain to make some of the finest uh uh lunar
images I've ever seen and so um it's great to have you back on it's
been a little while um you know welcome back to Global Star Party I'm glad to be back can you hear me okay
hear you just fine great okay well that's uh one step down uh the next step
is will my screen share work this time uh now I did a presentation to uh
England the other day and it worked perfectly so this is all a little bit of an experiment but I've been a little bit
busy while uh we've been in Hiatus here when I've been away uh my uh book uh exploring the moon
all right is now in print and available from Amazon and
I went a little uh pretentious for the title and called it exploring the moon with Robert Reeves to
differentiate it from all the other books out there titled exploring the moon so
you can nail it down specifically and if you go to Robert Reese's page
from the global Star Party page there's a link there's also a link straight to
that Amazon book so oh wonderful thank you thank you for putting that there well let's uh try a little screen share
and see if this works and okay first up are we seeing my little uh
little ad grounds yes thumbnails oh here we go again it's not supposed to be
thumbnails it's supposed to be you are screen sharing yes
this worked the other day
are you still seeing thumbnails uh yeah but give it a minute here
it should be a graphic uh advertising my book
and I think for some reason we're back in the same situation we were last time
I was here where screen share would not work but like I said uh the other day it
worked great what am I doing wrong you are screen sharing yes
uh there are many different um uh you know windows that you could share
when you go to screen share and so if you go back out stop sharing and then
come back in um maybe you can grab another window that would have like the full
presentation View sure and uh what do you see now
no no you're still sharing so you have to stop sharing oh I did I did and I uh
okay stop share okay yeah we're back to the basic uh screen
where Marcelo is saying good night to his little okay go ahead and click the green share
screen button on the bottom and here we are and it comes up and at the bottom of
that screen it says share so I hit that and there you go you're in finally oh
yeah this has been like a three-month Affair trying to get this to work okay
let's what'd I do wrong I made it go away
there you go okay it's back on those thumbnails though okay uh I was trying to make it Go full screen but let's not
tempt fate anyway I'm Gonna Leave This here for a second so anybody wants to uh whip out their cell phone take a picture
of the screen with the uh Amazon link or
um by email if you want to get a uh autograph copy a lot of people are doing
that which means I've got many trips to the post office coming up but uh notice
that the alphanumeric uh uh conglomeration at the end of the Amazon link the second character is a zero not
a an O so uh anyway that's uh where you can get this
puppy and uh like I said it's been up for about two weeks now um it's been a long process I started it
about 10 years ago it was originally done for uh the publishing firm of Willman Bell but as we know about the
time covid started but not related to covid Lumen bell went out of business so
I had a book ready to go with no publisher uh early this summer I finally got up
the boat finished everything else I've been doing since well let's just get this published so uh it's turned out
rather nicely the paper the hardbacks look really good the paperbacks look good I am really happy with it and I've
gotten lots of good comments about it so I hope you all enjoy it too so moving on
Let's uh press the key and hopefully the slide changed to my title slide
postcards from the Moon and uh this is the presentation I was going to
give the last time a couple of months ago when the screen share totally collapsed on me so uh I can't remember
the exact theme of what I was going to talk about but judging from the stream
of slides I'm apparently concentrating on geology along the Eastern limb of the
moon now in my previous postcards from the Moon segments and
I've got a little cat here trying to uh hog the screen come on Kitty can get
down I remind people that there are only two landscape forming processes on the moon
it's either the uh feature is either created by the result of an impact an
asteroid or a meteor strike in a bone or it was subsequently Modified by volcanism
and uh so we've got two types of landscape on the moon craters
and basins and those features Modified by subsequent volcanism
um now the um along the Eastern limb of the Moon one
of the first major craters that appear as the lunar phases progress throughout
the month uh languorous and batavius they look very similar they're
what we call complex craters they have collapsed terraced walls that go in a
series of stair steps down toward the center of the crater they have a very pronounced Central Peak
looking here at langerness at Sunset we see if the
crater has virtually disappeared only the only the Western rim of it is
still illuminated by the sunset backing up a little bit uh now we get a better look at it see it's a very very classic
uh complex uh crater the uh the very distinctly Central Peak which is the
rebound of subsurface rock that uh sprang back up after the the terrific
shock of the uh of the impact and the subsequent blast that created the crater
now the craters don't initially have the stair stepping feature around them around the rim uh
initially they're they're more bowl shaped but the uh
crust of the moon is it strong enough to support Cliffs like that so they collapse and flow down into the crater
and form a series of stair steps uh moving on we see uh batavius down on
the south uh languages on top potavius on the bottom uh in the previous shot
this is both uh batavia's crater uh notice a very distinct difference in the
shape uh more elliptical on the bottom more rounded on the top here we see the
uh pronounced effects of what's called a lunar vibration how the moon seems to
wiggle and wobble a little bit throughout the monthly cycle because it's in an elliptical orbit an inclined
elliptical orbit so we never look at the Moon Square on in the same uh
orientation Night by night it is slowly shifting back and forth slightly and uh
presenting us with a little bit of a different angle uh one curious thing about batavius is
that very pronounced radial linear Ridge protruding out not only from uh toward
the Western Rim but another one sneaking up toward the northern Rim gives spatavius the very distinct appearance
of a clock marking about 20 minutes to noon time
south of batavius we see these linear gouges uh ripped into the surface
created by blocks of material that were thrown out from batavius by the uh the
impact that created it and backing up a little bit more uh well
let's reverse and here we see uh batavius Rima patavius that linear real
as a dark line feature that's heavily flitted with Shadow and a different
lunar phase now the sun strikes it from a different direction we see it as a white line feature
not as much Shadow or the uh one Ridge of it regular Ridge is more
fully illuminated by sunlight uh
another close-up of it a slightly different phase right after sunrise
notice the long linear um Ridge to the lower left of it uh of
Davis this borders a valley next to uh batavius and for the life of me I cannot
pronounce the German name that uh that is that Valley I I can probably spell it
but it wouldn't make any sense for me to even try to uh to pronounce it but the
one of the one of the many recognized valleys on the moon uh moving up toward the northern uh limb
um the two lunar strongmen uh Hercules and Atlas craters in the foreground side
by side uh Hercules uh still in a little bit of a sunrise Shadow uh Atlas we can
see its floor is is cracked and has rules crisscrossing it uh this uh is
another one of the uh very well known farfacture craters on the moon uh so named because of the the series of reels
crisscrossing him uh all part of a volcanic modification up above it the circular dark lord
crater and the Beyond um also volcanically modified the interior flooded by lavas that welled up
from underneath through cracks in the crater floor they didn't spill over the
rim into it they weld Up From Below filled up the interior of the crater paved it over as smooth as a grocery
store parking lot and a little bit beyond that closer to the uh to the lunar limb we we see a
similar flat floored region uh this is uh one of the limb hugging lunar Seas
Mari humbolkianum uh or Humboldt sea uh what's the first lunar sea that uh
received a name not in the classic uh naming scheme used by resili back in the
17th century where all of the major seas are named after either weather phenomena
or states of Mind instead oh this lunar sea was named after the
German Explorer Humboldt who extensively explored South America and
he was honored by um having uh this particular Ludacris named after him Humboldt C
and a little bit of a close-up on Hercules and Atlas and here we can
clearly see the the real structures uh on the floor of uh uh of of Hercules or
rattles where the volcanic uplift is uh grazed the floor almost completely
hidden the central Peak and resulted in this rather extensive network of reels
within the crater wow um Hercules and Atlas again but almost
indistinguishable at sundown because you can't see their Interiors
um the Hercules has a very distinctly flat floor with a a crater within the
floor uh whereas uh Atlas has the pronounced real system but those are now
in Shadow so uh uh if if you weren't really familiar with lunar territory you
might not recognized where this uh or what these features are
uh backing up a little bit more I like I really like this picture because it's
easy to imagine that you're looking out a spaceship window in orbit around the Moon looking off toward the Horizon and
again we see uh um Atlas and Hercules in front of us uh Indy me on uh in the
middle um out toward the Horizon a little bit less of Mari humboltian this time the
effects of lunar libration uh how the moon Wiggles and shifts slightly uh is
is taking some of him Bolton away from us uh when when the humboldtian is
tipped toward us at maximum Liberation we can see the far side of it the shorela far Shoreline but in this case
that's ruled along around Beyond the Horizon um
looking down at Atlas and Hercules again uh just off to the right of them notice the extremely bright small very small
but bright splash of rays this is a very young fresh uh crater
um you know only in terms of hundreds of millions of years old versus the
billions of years for the other features in this picture crater Rays fade within about a billion
years so when they're very fresh very bright this is a fairly new crater
and moving on another shot of Endymion toward Sunset up on the Northwestern
limb of the Moon very distinctive crater I call it a Plato wannabe because everybody knows
the very dark floored plate Plato crater up uh near the moons uh Northern regions
it's one of the sentimental lunar favorites that everybody falls in love with but there's a lot of Plato wannabes
on the moon these dark floored Basalt flooded craters that have been
modified but the same type of volcanic action uh still orbiting around the same area
it's just a another goodbye view of of Atlas Hercules indymion
and uh oh jumping down south um
the uh Raider Valley um south of uh
okay one of those senior moments were a name that I know just vanishes
um it'll come to me anyway just south of one of the lunar Seas down there Mario nectarus there it is just popped back
into my head uh just south of Mario Taurus we see this gouge almost 600
kilometers long it's like it's gigantic blob of material
thrown out by the nectarus impact just crashed South and tore this big gouge
however we call it the the Raider Valley but it has a very distinct dog leg
right around the crater mallet uh they call it the Raider Valley because the northern part it begins near the crater
Raven which is just out of the field of view but uh I believe this is actually a
feature that was created by two different events the northern part created by one event the Raider Valley
the bottom part a second event which uh in my thinking this half of it the
bottom half of it should be called the Mallet Valley instead but I do not name
the moon I am not part of the iau lunar gnomenclature committee so uh just my
thoughts on that and down near the Raider Valley uh one
of the really the huge craters on the moon one of the 10 largest craters on the moon is Jansen
a little over 200 kilometers in diameter um it is so wide and so shallow that at
higher Sun angles at greater phases of the moon rather than sunset or Sunrise like we see here it virtually disappears
people will find fabricious crater which lays within it they may even see the uh
the the Rhema Janssen rule the Scimitar shaped real extending uh through the
middle of it but Jansen as we shall see in the next slide are the very same area
disappears at high sun because it is so shallow it does not have any uh relief
to cast a shadow now on the extreme right hand of the image we do see that rate of Valley
again kind of a fingering its way down toward the South but you'd be really
hard-pressed to find um Jansen crater even though it is right Square in the middle of the field of
view so uh some of these features uh they rely heavily on the on the uh some
sunrise sunset Shadows uh like here well here we are again it pops right back
into view it's sun sunrise and we see the the rate of La next to it just like it was in the picture before but now we
see Jansen whereas before at high Sun it was invisible
and another look at the Raider Valley and uh the the crater reader right at
the top of it the Curious Keyhole shape Creator rated E just to the upper right
of it uh it's about three times wider than it is long but it is not a solid
single uh uh crater it's actually several merged craters so uh even though
it gives the appearance of a very unusual Keyhole shaped crater it was actually formed by multiple impacts
so uh I thought I was a couple of more slides then looking across the neck Mari
nectarus itself um the uh one of the lunar Seas down in the
lower right hand portion of the Moon that comes in The View Early in the in the first quarter
um we see the spray of secondary craters on the upper left-hand side they're thrown
out from Theophilus grader we'll get a better look at Theophilus here shortly but uh I think this shows the secondary
craters created by the debris heaved out from the Theophilus impact and splashed
out across the uh the fairly smooth planes of Mario nectarus now scooting a
little bit to the left or toward the west now we see uh Theophilus greater at
the top uh cyrilist crater just below it overlap it with the office overlapping
it and uh down below still completely shadowed uh katharina crater
uh with a little bit of a higher orbit now we can see their perspective uh
Mario nectarus with uh cyrillus uh uh
Theophilus Cyrus and katharina on its western shore and then no notice
the uh the Arc of the um the rupus altai the altai scarp uh
kind of working around the left and lower left this is the only surviving segment of the outer nectarus impact
ring at one time this completely encircled uh Mario nectarus but over the
past billions of years it's been slowly eradicated by other impacts and uh
hopefully we're getting close to the end here if I remember yep uh two more slides to go uh here we get a a good
close look at Theophilus and katharina and this is a very good
study in how craters appear to age on the moon now uh
these all three of these large craters are basically the same age they're they're more than three billion years
old but Theophilus at the top looks extremely
fresh like it was made yesterday the others although they were at a similar age looked progressively ruined to the
point where you you barely recognize katharina as a Creator at all at one point Catherine it looked very much like
serverless did live a long then Along Came uh Sarah
Let's uh showered katharina with debris degraded it and then Theophilus formed
on the on the rim butt up next to the rim of cyrillus a degraded uh Sarah list
with its uh shower of debris and further degraded catharina so uh they look
terribly different ages but they're all basically the same age and uh
again you get this effect very fresh looking ruined more ruined but they're all basically the same age billions of
years old uh just uh the old uh Realtors adage location location
location Last Man Down is the freshest one there uh last one down is fresh ruins the
other ones so uh uh we can get a good idea of the age of craters by
how they're layered who was the last one there which one was the first one there so uh it's a science that uh
isn't precise because we don't have exactly a lot of geologic ages but we
can tell which crater is the older one which one is the newer one and I will
conclude by saying that again there is much to love on the moon and I enjoy I
uh invite you to come out and join me on my playground so thank you Robert wonderful
images um yeah in the book I'm sure it has uh
you know what we see on on our screens here Compares nothing to you know a
finely printed book page so um and I'm very proud of the book and I hope that some of you find it uh
enjoyable and useful yeah yeah so I've posted your the link to that book on
Amazon into the chat okay thank you very much thank you you're very welcome thank you so much okay so
um up next is uh Ron breacher Ron is going
to give a very um uh special presentation yeah
are you there I am great okay all right I've given you the stage at first I
gotta say hi to Mike I gotta say hi to my friend Robert how are you Robert doing great good to see
you yeah good to see you too my friend um thanks again for having me uh speak
today to the group uh let me just share my screen with you I've got kind of a
off the beaten path sort of talk today but all Paul will be explained
so um Scott maybe you could just confirm that you see my screen
um you know presentation mode so um the theme of the 130 30th Global star party
is our shared Cosmos and uh today
of all days I've been thinking a lot about who I share the cosmos with
uh because I've been sharing the cosmos with one person for a long long time
we've known each other for 40 years and been living together
almost all that time and married 37 years today so this is my wife Gail and so that is
what inspired the title of my talk love in the stars and
um we're both really interested in astronomy you see her at the bottom right here with the 20 inch Obsession
getting ready for a night of observing um but really it is my anniversary and
so you must be asking yourself am I crazy like am I a dumbbell because
doing astronomy on the night of your anniversary could land you in the
doghouse right but this is the name the name Story
the name of my Observatory is the doghouse and so when I get sent to the doghouse it's not really a bad thing
right uh so hopefully Gail's not going to send me to the doghouse in fact she
helped me with a lot of the ideas in this talk and I know she's upstairs watching uh the presentation on the big
TV so happy anniversary Gail so you know I'm not crazy
um before we get too far we kind of need to set the mood a little bit and um boy I sure love seeing Robert's
postcards from the Moon regularly I see them on Facebook
um and it's inspired me to go and take a couple of lunar shots here and there this one is from uh July 1st 2020 and it
really sets the mood Gail and I spend a lot of time together walking under the moon and looking at that sliver crescent
moon and seeing the old moon in the new Moon's arms in the spring sometimes early in the morning in the
fall but we need to move on to the goddess of
love of course who is Venus Venus is the goddess of love and here's my photograph
of Venus so uh this is the Venus Transit it
happened on June the 5th 2012 June the 5th is my birthday this was a really nice birthday present
and it was actually the first solar shot that I did with a new solar H Alpha
telescope and Venus just came out of the clouds for me for a few minutes
for me to get get this shot so that was kind of fun
um whenever you think about loving the Stars you have to think about the heart right you have to think about the heart
the heart is the center of love and this is the heart nebula and what is heart without soul
so it's not just matters of the heart but matters of the Soul too the heart and soul nebula are really
well placed right now for Imaging in the northern hemisphere and they're both predominantly H Alpha
regions although there's lots of oxygen and sulfur and you can get some really nice narrow band images of these areas
to here they are together in a single wide field
and um I when I was thinking about loving the stars that got me thinking about what what are some of the things
you might want to bring into a wedding right so flowers first of all this is uh
Carolyn's Rose and Gail loves roses so flowers
for the last 40 years flowers have been very important to Gale
and mostly not that important to me and so I wasn't really good at buying
flowers but what I did is I wrote down 12 random days in my calendar
and every time one of those days came up I would go out and buy flowers and I
trained myself to buy flowers and now we have flowers in the house all the time there's a
beautiful bunch of roses upstairs right now the flashing star there is a
variable star w-y Cassiopeia that I thought I had discovered I
actually sent a message to the Central Bureau for astronomical telegrams at
Harvard which of course they didn't answer because it had been discovered a couple of hundred years before I saw
it but never mind other flowers the rosette nebula of
course how could we leave that out so that's another example of a flower and a course at a wedding you're going to want
to have a veil for the bride so this is a a two-frame
mosaic of the veil nebula a shot with a One-Shot color camera but using uh two
different filters uvir for sort of the natural color and then a dual band
narrow band filter from which I took the red and the green
channels to enhance the hydrogen in the oxygen
if you wanted then you better put a ring on it right this is one of the first photographs
that I took with the new c14 telescope that I'm using Celestron was kind enough
to low me on edge HD 14 inch Casa Grande and this was one of my first test shots
the Ring Nebula like I've never captured it before showing that beautiful
outer hydrogen shell really beautiful great image
and uh Gail Gail's a real fan of diamonds and when we I know she feels the same
way as I do in fact today I gave her a diamond for her for an anniversary gift
um when we look at open clusters like this N35 is the big one kind of
occupying most of the top center of the field NGC 2158 much further away to its lower
left when we look at things like this through a telescope through like that big 20
inch that that I showed you a while ago they look like diamonds sparkling on a
black velvet tablecloth they're my favorite objects to look at
star clusters yeah I love looking at galaxies but most of them in the eyepiece are barely there
there's nothing for me like a really nice bright star cluster and and they
look way better through the eyepiece than they look even in images like this
so that takes me to the end of the presentation I just want to say happy anniversary to
Gail thank you for supporting me so much in this Hobby and Scott thanks for having
me on today so that I could especially wish my wife happy anniversary to her
and to you that's great thank you very much very happy and uh it's wonderful
I'm glad you celebrate it with us thank you yeah that was kind of fun thank you thanks a lot
okay all right so um well that's a first uh here on global
star party so you can tell any kind of story out of
nice star pictures yeah yeah it's great it's great our next speaker is Daniel
mounsi uh Daniel is someone I've known for actually quite a while
um I meant I met him uh through my
association with Woodland Hills Camera and Telescope uh he uh is someone that is very
involved in the uh community of astronomy with um
amateurs you know through his presentations through his
um is Dr D uh reviews
um and he's a revered expert in uh you know astronomical Optics and um you know
and if you have a question uh that that's bugging you about astronomy you
look no further than going to Dr D so but uh Daniel thank you for coming on to
Global star party it's your first time and I'm so happy to have you here man yeah am I visible on your screen you are
yep and you've got the stage it's funny I don't see it like that on mine but I I see myself in a different
window but no worries yeah so you're you're looking at the zoom client and
you probably see all of us but uh yeah I do the audience sees just you right now
good well it's first off it's a pleasure to be here I really honored to be invited uh it was kind of a last minute
thing and everybody's got images and stuff which I don't have or any anything to show but uh you know but uh yeah
first off I just want to say it was really fascinating listening to uh Kelly and uh martello and and uh Robert
Reese because I know about this work and um it was kind of fascinating because I
think it was Kelly that mentioned something about being in the supermarket and and I I went through that same
experience because and it's too bad I saw David Levy was here briefly and uh I wanted to thank him because I
think it was I don't know when when when Comet Shoemaker leaving nine was just uh
discovered there was a newsstand I was bagging groceries at a grocery market back in the 90s and I think they had I
was just went to walk for a break I was telling this to Scott earlier and I just
saw the the this Photograph on the front of a magazine about these comments gonna hit Jupiter and that was what really put
the bug in me and and really it never stopped ever since that so it was really burned into my soul and that's how this
endeavor started and then I went over to a little bit about myself so people know but
I went over to uh work with uh Jeff Wood over at scope City in Sherman Oaks California and I I'm a
Southern California resident born and raised so um I ended up working with uh Farah plan
over at Woodland Hills telescopes and then ventured off to Celestron as a
sales manager from around 2012 to 2014 worked with skywatcher USA in sales and
um I worked with fixin for a while and then back with uh Farah and then got cancer
and the rest is history you know but uh it's been fascinating
working in retail and I I spent a lot of time on cloudy nights when dollars for Sinclair first started before uh
astronomics it acquired it from Alistair and I've been on cloudy nights uh it's
uh Ed zoransky and Tom trusdek you know who passed away unfortunately yeah I
think the only two people that were there longer than me and I started in June of uh 2000 and
one or two I don't know it's been about 20 years it's been a long time so I've been there for a long time but I I got
fascinated because I was uh with Optics and telescopes and observation of deep Sky it acquired some copies of Burnham
sluster handbook uh I didn't bring a photo of them for you to see but um they're very well used and and uh I
was really enjoyed the way Robert Burnham Jr wrote I know anybody in Estrada amateur astronomy is very
familiar with the three volume set right right and uh that it was so
um inspiring to me to watch the way he wrote those books and uh I've been reading them ever since even to this day
in fact earlier this afternoon I was reading some some of the books themselves
um I'm planning some mom serving so I use them as guys even to this day because I don't look just at Deep sky
but I love to look at variable stars and double stars and the solar system and so listening to Robert discuss the Moon is
just so fascinating to me because I would have loved to have somebody like Robert Reeves at Charlton flats near
Mount Wilson where we observed our second scene just to discuss the you
know the the surface details and stuff so fascinating watching that
presentation um and so much heart and soul I can see Robert puts into that it's beautiful I
want to get a copy of that book um I'll check out that link and that's really nice to know but
um in Southern California one of the fascinating things that I would just share for those who might be interested
is seeing conditions and of course some of you know Mount Wilson is here is about 5500 feet and what's really nice
about here is you know originally when Mount Wilson was erected they you know obviously it would not have predicted
the amount of light pollution they would have received um but one of the things that is good about Mount Wilson is that we get an
onshore flow here with the prevailing uh air
um that moves uh to the Northeast from the ocean here and they get uh very good
scene conditions up there and when I first started observing I was observing at Mount Pinos and malpinos is a very
famous place in Southern California for observers due to the transparency but the scene conditions mean uh the
stability of the air is really not that great and so when uh my mentor one of my
mentors Vernon Kifer he had invited me to visit uh with these planetary
observers at a place called Charlton flats and that really hit home for me
because for every 10 nights I went there I would probably only get one night out
of ten at paying us with good seeing whereas at Trump's last it was just it was rarely a night when the scene wasn't
good um and it also it depends on the seasons of course but
uh such great seeing and one of the things I have been as a visual Observer
I did gobbled into astrophotography around 2011 and 12. but viewing the solar system through binocular viewers
and various telescopes um uh you know dobsonians or refractors we
have beautiful refractors and and uh optimized newtonians to study the moon and the planets and being that the scene
conditions were sub-arctic and you know like 0.5.6 our second scene uh the
amount of detail it's very hard to get convinced people to No it's it's it's
they're capable of seeing it and even in forage refractors you can see numerous
straight you know banding on Jupiter and and uh with larger apertures on Saturn
you could see striations and the ring systems and this is just mind-blowing to me and
it just became addictive and so I spent many years observing here uh Charlton
Flats now uh across the street from Charlton philos because to get the Trump's last you have to go another 10
miles past Mount Wilson and it's kind of tucked away behind Mount Wilson about 10 more miles but uh my understanding was
that the 200 inch was going to be put uh just across the street from the Trump Flats originally
yeah and the decision was made to take to Palomar but uh I can see why because
the scene conditioners are so incredibly good and uh I just I want to encourage
people that if you know if you do have good seeing you know oh you know you can
see so many beautiful things uh in the sky and I my Observatory
you know is in Los Angeles I have a roll-off Observatory and people are like you have but you're
in Los Angeles you're border border skills like nine it's terrible you know right
but the truth is is that I later learned and uh for those who might be interested
that the light pollution actually works to my benefit for observing the moon in
the solar system in fact some of the greatest views of this planets occur just at Suns just out shortly after
Sunset when the first stars become visible and there's all these reasons for it but
um you know a lot of dobsonian owners that are familiar with this if you're in Dark
Skies one of the things you see with with planets are diffraction spikes and
that's caused due to the overwhelming contrast between the planets and the background
and when you're in light pollution You Don't See diffractions Five Cities easily and nor do you get that
irradiation where you get that that bleeding effect that you see on planet so light pollution actually helps
I know as hard as this is for some to believe it actually enhances the views of the solar system and it makes it uh
easier on the human eye and uh as well as the moon it's not as
blaring and into your eye now you can you can work with filters but I've always found that
um the natural light pollution is to work so well and so in Burnham Celestial handbook I I
have a couple of telescopes that I use I have a muleon uh Takashi mule on 250
that I use in a Takashi fs152 which is the fluoride doublet refractor and I
primary I've looked through many Scopes throughout my uh time my career and everything but
um I've used those two Scopes primarily in the city and have seen probably every double star within the light grasp
and uh resolving power and Burnham's duster handbook so a lot of people go through Burnham
Celestial Handbook look at the Double you know the Deep sky but I've studied
every double star in that book from every constellation uh in the past 30 years
and the variable stars as well I haven't accomplished like uh you know all the
variable stars but I've looked at thousands of of them throughout the years and um I
think that that you know reading deeply into Burnham Celestial handbook even though a lot of
the astrophysical stuff some of it has changed the fundamental things haven't
changed there's a few things that have with regard to the agent of globular clusters and things but
the the the timing and and the uh you know uh the uh astrophysics you know the
spectroscopy and stuff um the timing of the the orbits the orbits of the stars and stuff that
hasn't really changed you know they've made some new discoveries but um I can always research what's current
you know if there's something with that's that's in question but the first goal is like how do you know what you
don't know and that book those books helped me to find that out you know and I knew what questions to ask you know so
I could always if I studied a particular star system or variable star I could
always research it today to see what's changed and it's kind of fascinating sometimes to see what's changed you know
uh over the eons but uh I had a very visual perspective
rating Burnham's work in those books um and they're very special to me and I
I'm really I love different books you know I I have binocular astronomy by Craig Crossen and and I love his work uh
as well and I'd love to do uh deep Sky sweeping you know the with binoculars
and stuff so I'd love to observe as much as I've enjoyed Optics and
um I don't know what it is I never got an astrophotography but I I commend those who do it and do such beautiful
work with it my favorite astrophotographer one of my favorites of all time was Edward Emerson Barnard for
then the Barnard Atlas is is a team set and is quite expensive but uh I have a
couple of great friends Derek Wong from cloudy nights as as well as Dan Schechter uh they both have the original
copies of those books oh wow yeah yeah and I just I was just looking at a
coffee bit the other day so I've looked through them several times and they've never I never grow tired of looking
through those books they're incredible the work that was accomplished in that that uh you know in that that era was uh
just remarkable in the late 19th century and um you know I I think my
a lot of the enthusiasts you know in retail I learned a lot about you know working in retail and I think Imaging
really started to to Blossom and me really go strong in the mid-2000s I
think and you know when I worked with Celestron I I suggested hey guys I think
it'd be good to to even though I don't do astrophotography to try to focus on uh helping to provide products for
astrophotography and I I think overall it's worked you know and helped with people who who might have trouble seeing
uh uh faint objects and and stuff like that but I still enjoy observing and uh
I've looked through your comment Hunter Scott thank you I love the comment Hunters I think
they're wonderful scope and and the explore scientific refractors that are been a good uh value and and uh We've
sold many of those with pharah you know yeah it's been a pleasure but yeah that
kind of sums up my whole thing uh what I I did and uh
yeah that's pretty much it that's cool that's cool well yeah thank you so much
uh Daniel um it would love to have you back on uh
we have a few people here in the behind the uh curtains so to speak
um that are still with us but I wanted to uh Kelly I wanted to show you something uh or show the audience
something this was I started wondering about that uh separation of a hand okay
between oh yeah so-called Supernova and the Crescent Moon and
um so let me let me share my screen okay so let's see we got
yeah I'd like to see that yeah yeah
let's see if I can I can do what um now this is uh
what I did is I took like can you guys see that yep okay so
what I did is I I just copied the hand itself and made a layer in Photoshop and I just
moved it in between the star and the Crescent Moon you can see that the thumb
kind of just touches the moon and the edge of the hand touches the star but
then I moved it down again um and uh
let's see and you can see that the thumb hits the
end of the crescent and the pinky is right on the edge of that star right
there we're just seeing your menu your yeah oh so you're not seeing it okay all
right let me we're seeing it but it's a it's a menu like yeah no no no no no no okay let me see if I can
pull it back up here we go this will get it how about that I got you oh yeah now now
you can see the hand so I made a Photoshop layer of just the hand itself and moved it down and
um reduce the opacity so you could see through it and uh I think it's really
remarkable how close that is and Daniel uh looked on I don't know which software
program you use sorry
the moon does indeed come close to very close to the Crab Nebula so yeah
and the Scott I don't know if you saw the the screenshot from stellarium that I posted
in the comments um I think the the date that this was supposed to have occurred
um was July 4th 1054 and if you go to Solarium on that date
um I guess I can maybe do a screen share my screen too yeah
let's see that's pretty sure my screenshot yep so
here is here's the stellarium uh screenshot that
shows the location of the Crab Nebula with the Moon look at that the uh I'm
not I don't know off the top of my head how many you know degrees you can cover with your hand
um but I wonder how close I'm sure others of you know how close is that
um to one of the hand measurements come to your pinky it's 25 degrees roughly
so let's okay yeah it's about the size or it's a major
well the diameter of the Moon is half degree so you can start to extrapolate out from the visual diameter of the Moon
yeah maybe a holding hand not fully extended but maybe more like it appears
in the so I I just wonder if the direction of the hand
and these positions and stuff were very carefully placed
yeah that was kind of like the uh you know the key to understanding uh how
you know it's positioned in the sky and what date that was because they didn't maybe they didn't
have a calendar I don't know well I and I don't remember the reference that I got this one from and I
apologize but I I do believe that um Chinese and Japanese astronomers also
recorded the event and made a specific notes of when I know the date the systems are very different
um but that's how I um you know got the 1054ad July 20 July 4th
on stellarium my stellarium and it's okay so that is very uh interesting
that's very interesting it's funny I I don't think the hand I don't think these things are random I think no not at all
very carefully placed and I'll bet that uh you know they probably saw it in the
daytime uh and yeah they did right yeah absolutely no right they did
it and Kelly's right it was July 4th so
it's very nice July 4th at the same time as the Fourth of July
would have been quite a Fourth of July for them that fascinated me you know yeah I think
it's great I think yeah I was like wow man right yeah hello
maybe it's all just a coincidence I have no idea but that's coincidence yeah
pretty pretty interesting coincidence yeah it was good okay all right well
um I want to thank all of you presenters that are still here with me and the presenters that are like hanging out
with the audience right now and um I want to thank the audience for tuning in
to Global star party our 130th event uh we'll be back
um we'll be back next week on the 19th uh uh July or excuse me July this guy
get I had July stuck in my head right now uh uh September 19th to come back with the
131st Global star party and the theme is the Voyager effect and we will have the
principal scientists of Voyage of the Voyager missions uh Dr Linda spilker on
with us uh to give a special presentation on global
Star Party um she's done a few things with us in
the past and I'm really pleased that she's doing it now so
um so you guys uh keep uh keep looking up as my my old friend Jack horchimer used
to say and we'll be back next week thank you guys thank you see you then
nice to meet you all
come on come all to the Southern Cross astronomical societies 2024 winter start
party celebrating 40 Years of stargazing happening from February 5 through the
11th 2024 on Scout key in the beautiful Florida Keys get away from the cold and
adjust your latitude underneath the pristine Skies of Southern Florida with breathtaking views of Anna Karina the
jewel box the Southern Cross Centaurus a and of course the
Magnificent Omega Centauri tickets will go on sale under about October 1 2023 at
scaz.org see you there [Music]
sunny day and we have uh you know a refractor out and
I've got my close glasses on and I've got my safe solar filter of course the eclipse is not here yet but
um I wanted to take a few minutes just to show you some things about solar filter safety uh the filters that we use
is the highest ISO standards and actually independently tested by us as
well so just to make sure that those standards are met so if you're going to
use a telescope to look at the partial phases and part the let me underline partial phases to you you use eclipse
glasses to observe the sun in partial phases when it's uh in total if you're going to
be on the path of totality you can take the glasses off and only during that time can you directly look up at where
the sun is because it's completely blocked out you'll see the corona you'll see you know lots of really cool effects
that will leave you speechless but during all the partial phases you have to have safe solar filtration so
how do you do it properly let me show you first off let's show you what you shouldn't do what you shouldn't do is
put on eclipse glasses and look through the telescope that's unfiltered and I'll
show you exactly why here we're going to point the telescope directly at the Sun
and right now we have sunlight coming right through the eyepiece
I can turn that up a little bit if you use solar glasses and look right at the filter material you see it's already
burning burning a hole right through the solar filter material that is how powerful a
telescope is you can now see it there is a hole through there and that could be your eye so this is what can happen if
you think that you can use eclipse glasses to look through unfiltered telescopes or binoculars if you do that
the sun's energy is going to burn right through the filter and burn right into your eye
so if you're going to use a telescope or a pair of binoculars to watch the partial phases of a total eclipse or
just to observe the sun to look for sun spots or something like that make sure that you are using an over the lens
solar filter that has the proper ISO safety rating and all of that and so
what I'm going to do is I'm going to put this filter on it's uh you can see how snugly it's fitting here this is not
about to come off but you know if you have a loose fitting
filter use tape do anything that you can to make sure that the filter is not going to come off
and then the the other thing is too is that finder Scopes Optical finder Scopes are like little
telescopes and they need to be filtered as well in this case I just have a red dot finder there is no
magnifying power to it so I'm not going to use it to sight the sun in the way I'm going to sight in the sun is
literally as I'm going to look down at the shadow and align the scope up so I'm getting
the smallest Shadow possible of the telescope as it's hitting the ground
and now I can safely look at the Sun comfort
and look at sunspots and if we have partial phases going on in the eclipse I'll see them all
are your eclipse glasses safe for looking at the sun let's check to see if your eclipse glasses can handle the heat
or if they need to stay inside first off never check your eclipse
glasses with the sun that's a good way to injure your eyes take your eclipse glasses and find a bright light like a
lamp or a flashlight hold your eclipse glasses up to the light and look through them the light will appear extremely dim or
not appear at all when looking through the glasses for example you should only be able to see the filament of a light
bulb but not the glow surrounding the bulb also if your eclipse glasses have any marks or scratches on them don't use
them if you have older eclipse glasses from a previous Eclipse give them the check to make sure they haven't been
damaged or scratched all safe eclipse glasses will meet the iso 12312-2 standard
it's best to store eclipse glasses in a safe place where they won't become scratched or punctured remember never
look at the sun without eclipse glasses or a solar filter be safe and happy sound viewing everyone
foreign [Music]
[Music]
thank you [Music]
thank you [Music]
[Music]
foreign