Global Star Party 154

Transcript:

now no one will say anything hello everybody half the good
jokes are off limits now how is everybody doing that's right very good
I'm in the everyone those of us in the Eastern time zone are in the future from
the rest of you and it's not really that great you know it's not really that great doesn't
feel any different it's just after Mida afterno
in the wild west out here now well let's give a nice little warm
welcome in chat here to the who whoever might be starting to tune
in and uh you are if you're watching somewhere there in the background you
are watching the 154th Global star party with the theme of new light and we've got a great
lineup of speakers which I know that you're going to enjoy Mike weasner also
in Arizona is saying howdy the official greeting of the global star party is AI
so well here we go I thought it was in late 2022 the
brightest Gamay burst ever seen shocked astronomers and even temporarily blinded
many high energy detectors in space now a study of the first few
minutes of this burst has have found an important feature not seen before Gamay bursts are the most
powerful explosions in the cosmos one that occurred October 9th 2022 was quickly dubbed the boat the
brightest of all time events like it may occur in Earth's Skies only once every
10,000 years as with most Gamay bursts the boat arose from the death of a massive star
when its core ran out of fuel it collapsed creating a black hole in the star's Center matter swirled toward the
black hole and some of it was thrown out along two Jets moving near the speed of light the Jets drilled their way out of
the star and blasted into space we see a Gamay Burst when one of these Jets
happens to point almost directly at Earth that happens somewhere in the sky almost every day the closer to headon we
view a jet the brighter it appears this along with an unusually narrow jet is
what made the boat so exceptional nessa's FY Observatory carries instruments specifically
designed for studying these explosions its Gamay burst monitor was saturated by the boat's initial flash
but was fine a few minutes later and it's in that data around 5 minutes into the event that scientists found
something new it's an emission line a narrow band of enhanced brightness in
light spread out in a spectrum it only lasted 40 seconds but it's the first one
ever seen with high confidence during a burst it gives scientists insight into
processes within parts of the jet or gamma rays the highest energy form of light come from researchers say it's
likely produced by electrons and their antimatter twins positrons colliding and annihilating within the jet each
Collision produces a pair of Gamay but it also works backwards two Gamay can
Collide to form an electron and a positron in the Jet's environment both
processes occur so there are plenty of particles to go around for this to explain what FY saw
the gamees had to have been shifted to higher energies by their motion this is similar to a siren rising in Pitch as it
races toward us to get that boost the particles emitting the gamy line must
have been moving at 99.9% the speed of light after Decades of studying grbs
scientists know little about the processes Within These incredible Jets yet there a staple of the
cosmos now fmy has given us a brief Glimpse inside
[Music]
well hello everyone it's Scott Roberts and David Levy and we are here on the 154th Global star party with um the
theme of new light and uh I'm really happy uh to be back with all of my
friends here on this side of the uh of the the meeting but also see many of our
friends here that are regulars at Global star party uh watching around the world
so we've got uh new people coming on tonight which I think you'll really enjoy and um uh and some old friends as
well so but uh right now we're going to turn it over to uh David Levy and um
he's got a quote uh that he'll share with us well thank you my friend Scotty
and this is D Ley is David Shakespeare and
um um I I just came back from the uh
Alcon uh a couple of weeks ago and then after that the Adera astronomy Retreat
so I've been away for three weeks three whole weeks for the first time since I
lost Wendy I'm feeling great that was the most wonderful retreat in the that
I've been to in a long time um I met Adrian at the
Alon uh um and uh I know I didn't see you David but you're busy setting up
shop not too far from me so I'm really looking forward to seeing you soon
anyway for my quotation today we have a theme new light or First
Light which is something that I really want to discuss with you all
briefly a fellow named ed baker has taken my wonderful 15 cm F4
Newtonian reflector and has really done a remake of it it is now manura
2.0 and uh we had one clear night which in which I did six hours of comment
searching and I really did enjoy that those six hours and then there was
another night that the sky cleared for a second here and a second there and David russer and I were having
a great old time out there will look going through the holes in the clouds until Jupiter Rose and I
was able to put minurva on Jupiter and boy that felt good it felt
so good to see Jupiter with that telescope when I got manura as a new
telescope on May the 18th 1967 I had just been almost expelled
from the Royal Astronomical Society of K enough but uh I'm still a active member
of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada and finally after 57 years I was
able to get a proper first light with manura on Jupiter and that was a
wonderful wonderful thing my poem today is the last verse of Sarah Williams
wonderful the old astronomer to his pupil the old ason armor is getting
ready to die he's giving all his stuff to his pupil and here's the last verse
you may tell that German college that their honor comes too
late but they must not waste repentance on the grizzly ofone State though my
soul may set in darkness it will rise in Perfect Light I have loved the Stars too
fondly to be fearful of the night thank you all very much and back to you Mr
Scott okay well thank you so much that's great um you know I uh I continue to
have conversations with my friends um you included David about the uh um you
know the the therapeutic side of stargazing and astronomy and um um I
think that uh you are definitely someone that uh gets rejuvenated every time you
go out under the stars oh absolutely and the best thing is I open
that Observatory or I take rura out and it's like encountering a huge
tranquilizer pill yeah this big that big no side effects no side effects it's
wonderful to do that that's that's right that's right astronomy is the drug with no side effects no downt you might a
little tired in the next day you know if you stay up all night long but yeah
maybe not you know I've done astronomy all night and gone straight into work and it was awesome so but thank you so
much David okay all right uh our next speaker
uh will be John gos from the astronomical League we are you know I'm very proud to have the regulars on
global star party that we do um uh the um uh you know we have uh I mean
just absolutely fabulous First Rate people on every time and uh uh you know
I just I just love it I look forward to it every time and um I think that um you
know when you watch a global star party all the way through and you just kind of at the end what your left with is this
uh you know I get a buzz from it I I I have to be honest and and what I do uh
at the end at the end of a global star party I turn off all the lights in this building and I go outside and I stare at
the stars for a while you know and it all sort of sinks in and um so but uh
and I love what some of you do on the audience where maybe you've got uh
Global star party going on on an iPad and you got your telescope out you know and you're doing astronomy at the same
time you're listening to us so I think that's totally cool but our next speaker
yeah is John Goss from the astronomical League uh he always gives a nice presentation and he always reminds us of
all the great things that the astronomical league has to
offer I guess that's where I jump in guess it's on Al righty well let me start out with
uh what David ended with you know I have loved the Stars too much to be fearful of the night I think that is a a line
there that just about anybody right here in that line of people above the screen there I see uh applies to to all these
people as as well as myself and as well of course as well as David um well I'd like to Jump Right In sure I
hope excellent there you go okay we just finished up with Alcon
2024 so of course we're very quickly moving right into 2025 uh this this coming June so it's
really just uh 10 and three4 months away so something like that uh we're going to
be having this one in Bryce Canyon Utah and I'm going to give a little plug
for it now and you'll see how hopefully how it fits right into my the the rest
of my presentation um Alcon as I just said
it'll be EMB brce Canyon and there are a lot of things to do in in Bryce Canyon but we're going to be focusing ha pun
intended on the uh night skies what that has to offer so I'm going bring up a a
couple things here that Bryce Canyon if you don't know much about Bryce Canyon it is very very dark and it is one of
the darkest spots in the United States so um if you really want to see Dark
Skies especially for the first time this is a place to go we'll have observing at night of course and in the day uh there
may be a couple of speakers but primarily there's going to be workshops uh hopefully interest
everybody from uh the experienced amateur to uh beginners some of the F uh
workshops well you see them right here everything asop photography to observing uh all the various aspects of of those
things including sketching so it'll keep something there was something there to keep you busy during the day uh when
you're not out hiking around enjoying the Fantastic vistas of Bryce Canyon we
were there in what year was that 2011 and my first time there it was
incredible um and I'm really looking forward to going
back I have circled there the Dark Skies Rock because that is essentially what
we're going for for the very very dark skies of Bryce Canyon area um each night
there will be plenty of observing uh weather permitting uh hopefully the it
will will cooperate it probably will there's there like four four nights of this stuff going on so there's bound to be sometime Under the
Stars so this leads me into my talk tonight really um I started thinking about what
it's really like being under Dark Skies what you can see you know what's the big deal okay you see a bunch more stars
well yes but there's a little bit more to it than that you can see a lot more stars and a lot other things in the sky
as well uh you can see this um uh image here of the Milky Way uh taken by Anne
shavur uh from Big Benin National Park not Rice Canyon but it's that's a pretty dark spot as well so sites like that are
something you can expect to see and I'm going to focus a little bit more on this
Photograph uh by an uh she happened to win uh this past Year's uh competition
uh the the William williamina Fleming Imaging competition that the league offers
with a stunning photograph it's I think she said it was from a composite of 81 panoramic pictures so she probably took
some time in spicing it all together but it came out came out pretty nice just so happens uh my wife and I were at uh Big
Ben National Park last October for the for the big U annual early clipse New
Moon and uh I remember uh this scene here particularly the the skyline pretty
pretty cool place anyway that's like little more at this
picture um one of the things I want to emphasize was when you're at a dark skysite one thing to do is just take
some time and actually look at the sky just don't jump in and start find trying to find the the dimmest Galaxy you can
look at the nice Sky look at the Milky Way see what it has to offer and you're going to see things in the Milky Way
it's just not a a a soft glowing band going across the sky it actually has
detail and that detail can be discerned pretty easily from a very dark area
um you can do this with the uned eye you can use U small pair of binoculars it it brings stuff out really
well I'd like to point out first of all let's talk about the the Great Rift
nebula it's a dark nebula dark nebula uh stretching from all the way from denb
all the way down to uh almost excuse me almost running into um
Scorpius and of course you'll be able to see that you can see that from most dark places in the United States but some of
these other things are going to be hard to see from other areas in the United States with the uned eye and sometimes
even with with Optical Aid uh some of these items here we're going to be looking at here in in just another
minute but first i'm going to bring up a point which uh hopefully will be addressed by myself if I do it
right okay question for you why aren the globular clusters NG GC
6522 and 6528 28 more a big deal why why AR they more wellknown why don't people
want to look at them all the time they're only ninth magnitude uh but they're special so why
are these two globular clusters which truthfully aren't that much to look at
through a telescope why would you want to look at them why are they special
well oh Point them out where they are first easy to find easy to find uh I'm
not going to go into how to find all the stuff in the sky but I'm assuming that most people here know how to find the
teapot in Sagittarius well right off the tip of the spout of the teapot or gamma
sagittari are these two globular clusters the 6522 and 6 528 it's only
like a degree and a half away from gamma so a low power eyepiece will put both both of these things in the
field um it just so happens that uh both of these globular clusters
are centered or located just below the center of the of the Galaxy there's somewhere around 26,000
light years away and they're like 1 to 2,000 Lighty years below the galactic center so really just by looking at
these two objects you are seeing about as close as you can get to the center of our galaxy because the know most of the
stuff in the galaxy is all blocked off from from a nebula dark nebula emission nebula and so on so you aren't going to
be able to actually see the center but you're almost there with with with these two globular clusters so and they
are something to look at uh so I just said that they're not showpieces by any mean but use your the eye your mind's
eye and you'll get a better understanding of our galaxy and what this all really
means okay so I drew a picture of it uh there's gamma sagittari just to to the
upper to the northwest of it uh the the two clusters no big deal uh the 7 4 and
85 and 82 are just the magnitudes of the of those three stars with a decimal point
omitted so a small telescope 8 in uh reflector low magnification can easily
pick out these things as you can see they aren't show pieces but looking at this keep in mind that you're seeing the
light that left these two clusters you're seeing light that scooted along the plane of our galaxy passing em
Mission nebula dark nebula kind of going between it all coming through a hole in all that P testing uh clusters like uh
um well um Miss nebula like M8 and dark nebula like b86 and so on finally to
reach your eyes on Earth and uh that's as close as we can get so that's something to look at and
the reason why I bring it up because a lot of the reason why you can't see this stuff well you can see these two items
but the other stuff around it is blocked from our view largely by dark nebula so
I'd like to say a few things about dark nebula
of course astronomic Le has an observing PR observing program for about everything including dark nebula it's a
it's it's so see underlined it's really just all a matter of contrast if you're in a an area which has high contrast
Dark Skies transparent Skies these things are not all that difficult to see
but if you're have a least bit of haze in the air um certainly Moonlight you
know it kind of sinks you right there I I live in uh Western Virginia and at times we have some really dark clear
skies and I can see see some of this stuff I'll point one out uh lim drawing online but hopefully it gives you idea
of what these things look like uh nebula B92 and B93 I hope you can see it on the
screen uh you have a a Starfield and then these Nebula look like dark areas
with either no stars or very few faint Stars embedded in them or in front of
them so it looks like holes in the sky a lot of this these things are out there between us and the center of the Galaxy
so here you have B92 and B93 uh great objects uh you can see this is a six degree binocular field you don't need a
high power telescope for a lot of these you can see with the uned eye if you know what you're looking
for what else we have here one of my favorite one of my favorite things to
see in the far south the reason why I say favorites because the first time I really saw it was at Bryce Canyon with
something called The False nebula and it's in southern Scorpius it doesn't rise very far high above the Horizon and
you have to have a a fairly dark area to see all the fascinating details of it but it is really something to look at
because it does when you first glance at it it does look like a comet in the sky of course it's not has nothing to do
with a comet so we have a handout for the for the false Comet let's zoom in on that
so what what can you see well in a way I guess what you can't see is is the dark nebula b48 which sort of
defines its eastern side um starting out at Zeta Scorpius Scorpio the star at the
bottom and it arcs up kind of you can kind of see how you might think it it was a it was a comet uh of course when
you you put it under under Optical Aid you you'll see otherwise couple of star clusters uh some emission nebula dark
nebula it's pretty cool to look at and something like that you will be able to see in a very dark sky area uh such as
Bryce Canyon I guess I shouldn't really keep plugging Bryce Kenyon all along here but
it is a pretty pretty cool place let's go on to two more uh
Bernard's e that's two dark nebula uh right next to alter again you can see it in binoculars
this is one that I actually saw from my driveway just by lying flat on my back when it was probably September evening
and clear weather you can spot it let's zoom in a little bit see what it looks like can you kind of make out the E it
takes a little bit of imagination but it's a Capal kind of but you can see it
and that is a a cloud of dust blocking many of the stars behind it a lot of
these regions well you have to have a bright area the Milky Way in the background so these nebula will obscure
it and have their silhouette right in front of it so you can see it and uh alter is in ACA well
you know that's a pretty pretty bright area in itself where am I going next false com
are these dark nebula easier to see in a very dark sky where there's lots of
stars pretty much well in a sense this is one time you want all those stars
there because they're lighting up up up the background and the nebula as I said is silhouetting itself in front of
it difficult to see if under a murky sky but a nice crisp clear transparent Sky
Bing you definitely want to get to Bryce Canyon right yeah BR again now I'll tell
you the what I have found it's just a regular pair of binoculars you look at
it you you look at the center of the Milky Way area or stretch along the Milky Way and from a dark transparent
area you see it gives sort of a three-dimensional feel to it because you see all these these lines of and uh
waves of nebula going across it and and it's different it's different and uh
anyway one more one more neb here for you M7 a lot of us have seen m17 it's great
it's uh one of the things I like about it is I believe it is the highest contrast emission nebula even more so
than the uh the Orion Nebula it's maybe not be as large but uh you can see it
fairly easily see this my lame drawing this is my lame drawing okay
so what you have uh you have a bright nebula like like you expect and if you look at m17 on the
right hand side of it on the western side of it you'll see a dark splotchy area there you go that's a dark nebula
that's uh preventing us from seeing a larger um I guess a larger oblong emission
nebula instead we kind of see a swan there some people say it's an Omega some people say it's a check mark other
people say it's a letter two other people say all types of stuff so it's really up to you and what what you think
it's like but keep keep that in mind so I like this is how I'm going to
conclude I want you all if even if you aren't at Bryce Canyon if you have under if you go under a dark sky which I I I
live in Virginia in Western Virginia and we have some pretty dark places here and
sometimes those Dark Places also have very clear skies and sometimes those dark places have very clear skies and no
moon and you can see stuff like this e even from here you don't have to go out
to uh Utah to see it but of course it's pretty nice out there so take advantage of your very dark skies wherever you are
and see if you can see some of this stuff if you can see uh starting out you know with the Great Rift and you can see
the the pipe nebula over to to the right there you can see some of the the darker regions and whip out your binoculars and
you see even more stuff in there it's very very rewarding because this stuff that you're actually actually looking at
is um the stuff that stars are are going to be made of it's the stuff that blocks
our view of the Galaxy which you can see at the lower right of this picture uh the bright area well it doesn't get any
brighter than that because all this dark nebula um blocks it so that's pretty
cool keep that in mind and on that I'll see you next time that's great John I I
have a question um all of these uh we all have questions
that's that's the problem that's right no but the illustrations that that you bring to uh this program and then the uh
the Monthly Star Charts that you make for the astronom or that you do for the astronomical League are you have you
been producing these all by yourself the entire time or what's the story behind that well yeah pretty much
I have a special chair sit in that chair and off I go off into space and yeah yeah so uh you know
I it's I think it's kind of neat trying trying to put all this stuff stuff down because it helps you describe it if if
you write stuff down draw things out it helps you mentally understand exactly what's going on in the sky because you
can see mentally what you've done and you have seen it visually so you're
trying to kind of equate the two and note note where any large differences are it's kind of a challenge but it's
fun I like it very cool very cool well thank you well uh um John thank you so much and
let's see I think I need to there we are okay you took yes you
did that's right so um but a comment I wanted to make about your illustrations
and stuff that you do you know we recently lost really a legendary uh
Celestial cartographer wil tirian and uh uh you know he had a certain style but
you do too you have a certain style that I really enjoy and uh it's um as an
astronomer it's kind of heartwarming to see the the work that you do oh thank
you I appreciate that yeah yeah you I would recognize it almost anywhere
so it's good stuff okay thank you so much John thank you all right well our
next speaker is coming all the way from Arizona okay and uh he is uh he hasn't
been with us for a little while we have really missed him uh it's none other than Dave Iker uh from astronomy
magazine uh and I was commenting to him earlier today we had another great
friend pass away who was very influential to the world of astronomy
and and to actually to everyone and everything that's on the planet and that was uh David Crawford who founded uh
co-founded the international dark sky Association and I am going to post
during your talk uh a link back to astronomy.com because they have a
fabulous article about him and you should read it so um and I do also want
to point out too that um uh you know here we have David AER online with us
live you can ask him any question you'd like to uh but they also have an incredible resource on astronomy.com and
if you don't already subscribe to the magazine you should get it they they are they reach Way Beyond the page uh you
know and doing their tours uh doing these live uh programs like this um all
the other stuff that astronomy do astronomy magazine does um it it's really spectacular and now Dave is
giving his first Global Star Party from his new home in Arizona so you're on dude thank you thank you
Scott very much thanks for having me back again and it's a big time of change
here not only am I in Arizona and it's really nice to even though it's monsoon season now here going on for a while but
it's going to be something for me to have a dark sky at home for the first time in 41 years no offense Wisconsin we
go back see my Packers at Lambo field but I'm really glad to be in a dark sky
location and with astronomy magazine we've also recently a couple of months ago same
time as my move essentially here been acquired by a much larger publisher fir
Crown media so we have all sorts of exciting things planned with the magazine brand with the website with the
print magazine that you will see coming up over the the following months here so
there will be some big things happening with astronomy magazine and I want to append the line
if I can now that I'm an Arizona resident I think I can say this with No
Malice I've loved the Stars too fondly to be fearful of the night unless
there's a coyote in my yard because you got to be careful out here observing it's not like Wisconsin
you know where there's a stray dog or something in the neighborhood the desert is an interesting and potentially
dangerous place so more Adventures on that coming in the future here but for
now I will share my screen if I can remember how to do this and uh talk
about a couple of objects once again
and oh dear [Music] um okay I've shared the screen now how
can I start the
slideshow you go to the very bottom there they yeah full screen you can see it now
thank thank you Barbara it's you know it's two hours earlier here I still
haven't adjusted seems like the morning to me you know for an astronomer that's not
good anyway um thanks though for that I think I found it can you see it okay
now can you see whaty will look like six billion years
from now okay we're off to a good start but this time I actually want to talk about
um some objects in the northern sky and we're working our way down Southward if you go to the base of the bowl of the
Big Dipper as we call it in the United States there are a couple of there are all sorts of galaxies and other objects
in the area but a couple of really good bright deep Sky objects are very close to each other only about 50 arc minutes
apart less than a degree so you can see them both of course in a low power field of view in a small telescope if you get
into a dark sky away from city lights and they are the owl nebula and the
oblique Galaxy m108 which is a Bard spiral so I thought I would talk a
little bit about these guys tonight um or today forgive me um and tell you you
may know this already because it's one of the the more well-known planetary nebuli but the owl which is really named
for its eyes is a neb that is consisting of several concentric shells three
really pieces and the asymmetry of this inner shell that's wrapped by a couple
of outer shells is really uh what causes these two dark eyes as they're called
and you can see them in a dark sky really well even in a fairly small telescope a four or a five inch scope
will show them pretty well on a moonless night there's a barrel likee structure in this inner uh uh portion of the
nebula it's tipped about 45 degrees to our line of sight and that gives us the
appearance of those two dark eyes it's pretty cool object even though the
surface brightness the sort of visibility it appears to be a fairly faint object um for its
magnitude which is just about 10th magnitude it's about three arc minutes across and it's about 2800 light years
away uh the owl as we talked about before planetary nebula last for about
50,000 years as a sunlike star Puffs off its outer layers runs out of nuclear
reactions normal nuclear reactions to make disperses back into the interstellar medium and this goes on
this is the cycle of stars it's a great recycling program that Galaxies have and
this one is a relatively young planetary nebula it's about 8,000 years old it's about two light years in diameter and it
has about a tenth of a mass of material in the nebula currently it's of course
in the process of continuing to expand m108 is sometimes in latter years
when there's a nickname for every deep Sky object that is in the sky period
sometimes called the surfboard Galaxy it's a pretty highly inclined B spiral
about 75 Dees to our line of sight it's about a little less than 29 million
light years away it's about the same magnitude roughly as the owl nebula um
and it's about almost nine arc minutes uh across its long axis it has it's a
kind of an unusual Galaxy and even visually you can see this and of course in images um you can see it really well
it has really Loosely wound arms and a kind of a petite very highly compact
nucleus which is somewhat unusual there are shells of gas inside this galaxy
that are orbiting the center that have created some bursts of star formation for a Galaxy of its age and this has
created some Supernova uh most recently in 1969 2016 and
2023 just last year um here from Ron Stan's great Atlas
is the field this is uh the base of the bowl of the Big Dipper you can see going
through the upper part of this map and 97 and m108 there the owl and and m108
the Galaxy and you can see there are all sorts of other strange galaxies in the area as
well so this is a recent image of the AL nebula and you can see those two dark
eyes even though this is kind of a long exposure and it partially kind of overexposes the inner disc there but you
can still see those two dark eyes that give it its fun nickname that has existed for a long long time it's almost
perfectly spherical which is nice and this really deep exposure shows the
first material that came off of the dine star that is that outer ring of very
very faint stuff and the higher velocity brighter stuff is beginning to run into
that older material and that creates some of the luminesence of planetary
nebula m108 this is actually an image from the Sloan digital Sky survey but it shows the Galaxy structure pretty well
little bit better than what you've seen in the amateur scope of course uh but you can see the detail and the dust
lanes and the kind of unusual bits of star formation bluish areas that are going on in this disc that is tipped
very uh highly toward us so that's it those those objects I
did together because they're so close together in the sky they're pretty well known to a lot of deep Sky observers of
course as well compared to some of the weird stuff we've been looking at uh and we're continuing to crank out astronomy
magazine and beginning to evolve things with our new fir Crown folks a bit uh
there's an article by Yours Truly coming out in October uh surveying the entire world of deep Sky objects and all the
kind of cool things that you can see as a big feature and Other Stories as well
of course and a quick word in that we have events coming up we've talked a lot
about the staris festival on this broadcast from time to time we had one of course a few months ago
here that was interesting and lots of fun in Slovakia and we're going to have a staris festival uh that will be
centered next spring in La Palma in the Canary Islands one of the darkest skies
on Earth and we will among other things in April not only be having lots of
talks from Nobel Prize winners uh a scientists in all the Sciences not just
astronomy and physics but scattered throughout all The Sciences um and a lot of rock and roll music uh with our
friends who will be there um but we also will have some events at the largest
telescope in the world there the GMT which edges out our two uh wonderful
favorite telescopes on monaa the kek telescopes this is 10.4 meters and so
it's the largest telescope in the world and let me tell you being up on La Palma
at the Summit is an amazing place to be you want to talk about a dark sky
this and Chile the Atacama Desert are going to reset what you think of as a dark sky so we hope that you'll join us
perhaps uh for the starmist festival next spring in La Palma in the Canary
Islands and Scott thank you for having me back and I hope to return regularly
now between episodes of painting and unboxing well well David I think you
missed one announcement you uh you've told me that another article of mine
might be showing up in astronomy magazine year we've got the author right
here tell us Adrian about this new story that you're writing for astronomy
magazine yeah it's about the Milky Way Photography like you've got on your screen um I wanted to discuss various
ways of getting it and the the main reason was you're in various Skies you
may not be in Bryce Canyon you may be somewhere where you've got Detroit not
far from your location and yet you want to image the Milky Way so there are a few ways you
can do that and there's pluses and minuses to both so that's what the
article's about exciting and uh we are always
happy to include your stuff in the magazine the readers love it the Astro are great great we hope that you'll keep
on cranking away on these stories for a long long time to come Adrien oh you bet
it's uh it's it's one way I'm able to take what may have started out as pretty
pictures that you post online and actually um do astronomy Outreach with
them so thanks for adding me to the big list of imagers writers everyone that
goes into astronomy magazine so so that's exactly what I plan to do so
uh good to see that you're settling there in Arizona now I got to try and come and visit because I got two good
friends out there that are under dark skies and and I got to hit the road I
yeah you'll make a lot more as you head out that way yeah you are welcome to come out here and hang with us whenever
you want we got a pretty dark sky in the backyard here and I know David does as well and if we want to get ambitious and
drive down 90 minutes or so to the southeast of the city we've got a 40in
telescope that the club has here in a really dark sky with a 40inch telescope
in a dark sky there's nothing you can think of that you can't see it
isable that almost sounds like an Einstein's cross visual yeah I've seen I
have seen quazars in that scope the TPA scope not the Einstein cross but you but
a number of quazars so yeah we'll have to take a shot at yeah yeah yeah awesome
well love the presentation as always and I'm always trying to think of different things to image besides sort of the L
familiar and that may be another article coming up on Alternate Side Milky Way
Imaging that's G to have to get me down south but uh I see Cesar is watching so
you know try and get a call in so I can uh so I can finish some of the projects
so that I can write about them so uh that's okay that's okay and always remember art Bach used to say all the
good stuff's in the southern hemisphere that was only a slight exaggeration yeah that's true gotta save
some pennies so I can fly down yeah yeah yeah well you're welcome here in Tucson anytime man thank you David I'll be I'll
be working on that there's a question there's a question by the audience here
and and you may know the answer uh but uh uh there's news out there that the
Chandra a x-ray um orbiting telescope may be retired I guess due to budget
cuts from NASA is that still that that's allegedly what the the
the news is is portending and and it's not good news and and I think you know I
I don't know that it's a done deal but but uh budgetary woses in the name of
astronomy are happening in a number of that's one of them now so it's it's a
concern definitely and I don't know that it's a done deal um but but it sounds
bad from all that I have heard um and of course it's one of the great
observatories in that original program and and uh so critically important in
understanding the high energy universe so we'll hope that we can maybe we can get you know some
you know I don't mean to be a nationalist here but maybe we can get some folks in Washington who care about
science wouldn't that be something yeah maybe a letter writing campaign or
uh you know something in support of U of our science um uh budget overall you
know so so little is actually spent on science um you know but uh you know I I
know that there's the complaint of you know the billions spent on on spacecraft
going up there but uh you know if you just took a little bit of that military budget away okay not anything that would
diminish our our strength but um you know and add that back on onto a uh you
know science budget you know science pays dividends big time you know so
sence science funding is a tiny percentage of the federal budget it's much larger in most other Western type
countries if you will um and you know you can go back to the Apollo program
and other large efforts and you know if you disapprove of the money spent there
then why don't you take your cell phone and throw it out in the backyard yeah check that you know because the
unplugged this internet thing that we have that's right I mean the the daily benefits that people get technologically
and otherwise in their lives have largely come from science funding and are not always predictable what what's
going to come out of this investment in science right not to mention the fact
that we need to in the long term take care of the planet and habitability yeah
if we unless we just don't give a damn about what happens one or five or 10,
Generations from now you're only worried about yourself which is the case with a lot of
politicians then none of this matters may I the future than maybe it does may
I chime in Dave yeah if I recall I'm G around
these numbers but I'm a big listener to Neil degrass Tyson's um podcast yeah and
I think I've heard it said that during the Apollo years the entire Space Program years excuse me uh it is it was
said that uh perhaps 5% our budget was on the entire space
program that's a lot of money that sounds High to me but it I don't remember the figure but what we're
spending now is something like 0.5 or 0.05% that's right it's a fraction of 1%
now fraction and my other my question is um as you know um you know the
competitor skytel had been on hard times and it was bought up by one company and
they failed and bought up another company and they failed now it's with the AAS they seem to be doing okay yep
and I just learned from you that comback now is comback still around what happened to astronomy comback media what
can you share is defunct what is colbach media we've been bought by fir Crown
media which has people working all over the globe frankly but is based locally
in Chattanooga yeah and is a much larger uh company in terms of Revenue and
ownings and holdings so Model Railroader is not going to go away either Model Railroader is also a fir Crown property
now yeah so it's not going to go anywhere either and and uh so there's I
I I I can't really talk about specifics yet because we have a lot of things that we're planning and getting ready to do
but there are very exciting times to come for astronomy magazine its website
and its brand and activities in the world aside from Publications coming in
the months and years to come great
great well that's great that's great we look forward to all of those things uh
David and um uh it's nice to know that you're down there in some some uh Great
Dark Skies you're near so many of your friends you're near those observatories go out Lun astronomy
playground of Arizona you know so I have a lunch coming with Dr Levy I'm so close
to some of the folks there we go yeah there we go so wait long if you wait 41
years you can get back to a dark sky I guess is the moral of the
story well I'm keeping that in mind my my wife has her years yeah my wife has a
Roots here in Michigan so I still got to figure out how to get her some teaching
opportunities or gainful employment out west oh I'm sorry Adrian go go ahead and
then I can I too can enjoy Dark Skies out of my backyard that would be my
ultimate goal there I you know I got to be a professional at enjoying really
good dark sky observing when I was traveling that works but it it gets
tiring after a lot of years you know so it's good to have a dark sky at home again yeah that sounds awesome and um
yeah much continued success um one of our schools in Scott before I wanted to
mention one of our schools just spent around had a donor for like 4 or $50
million they built a brand new um astronomy building for one of our high
schools to Detroit Catholic Central and um I reading the article there was a young man there who uh wanted to study
black holes and uh you know this that outlaying of money and they built built
the observatory has as lron C4 in it and a couple of other smaller telescopes and
you know it's a uh it's a science building that they've added to this school um I would like to hope that if
donors and money are out there to make these high schools more aware of space
that um perhaps something can get done to start
making sure that we can maybe save the uh Shandra Space Telescope or come up
with another you I'd hate to think of coming up with another option for it but
apparently some of the money is out there we have to figure out who to uh talk to or we may have to go that route
in order to to save science missions and um keep them going I am happy for
Detroit Catholic Central um also think known as Redford Catholic Central they um they have that
new building I'm hoping that uh you know more science spending can be done on a
larger scale to um to fund this and I wonder if the planetary Society might
head that up uh and you know they've got the folks on the ground around there in
at the White House and you know in um you know in in DC and so we need we need to all all
start behind whoever leads the effort and yeah so I'll I'll be looking looking
forward to seeing if any Grassroots you know fundraising or anything is done to try and save ad you
should start one yourself you know just right there all you know what it's that's probably what it take starts at
home yeah one one thing that Scott touched on
that uh we don't do enough of is letter writing if our Representatives don't
know how we feel they don't think there's an interest in science and and space out there so we have this big
astronomy and space Community that's right uh that I think should be encouraged to write letters to their
representatives and people think it doesn't make a difference but it does make a difference if they don't think
that there's a public out there that's interested in this stuff you know they're not going to push to save it
right well very good point yep just think what could happen
if we elected politicians who understood and cared about science yeah would be a
very different world a lot of other countries that are educated and Western have done it we're pulling up the rear
here as the leading economy in the world so we have have some progress to make yet yep
y well um we need to uh to Roll Along
here uh with global star party and uh really thank you for uh you know all
your insights David and um Barbara thank you for chiming in as well and uh let's
move on to Ken Pedley um Ken is uh the
uh executive director of uh the association of lunar and planetary observers and um uh he agreed to come on
to Global star party for the first time Ken uh um I think you're muted there uh
but um uh I'm curious uh you know you've been involved in astronomy for such a
long time you started uh or helped start the Peach State uh
stargaze uh where does it all start for you did it start child I got my start when I
was a kid I wanted to be an astronomer by the way I'm apologize for this crazy video but I guess the air
vent above me is blowing my screen and this is what you get oh I see looks like
in a transporter room going all Starship Enterprise or something yeah from about
the age of nine or so nine or 10 in the early 60s I wanted to be an astronomer
because I perceived them to do what I found out later on is what amateurs do
observe uh but it was when my mom and dad took me to uh a side what we now
call sidewalk astronomy event uh in a suburb of Cleveland Ohio where I'm from
so I'm a northerner through and through um in uh in Greater Cleveland I
moved to Atlanta in ' 84 for a job change to uh go into a technical writing
but I uh remember looking through a long Focus refractor at about the age of 10
and like many many people out there you see Saturn and you're hooked and uh of
course I wasn't begging for a scope but I just knew what I wanted to do I wanted to be an astronomer uh it didn't turn
out professionally because mathematics and me didn't get along I didn't flunk it but it was always very tough uh in
junior uh year of my high schooling um let's see n9th grade was
algebra 10th grade was geometry 11th grade was math 3 we were just getting into logarithms and I asked science and
math none who liked me how I was doing because I was always a c student and she
says Kenneth I'll give you a D in math if you promise not to take any more
math wow There Goes My There Goes My career goal but she did me a favor in
the long run um uh by the way I have still no idea what a logarithm is for
that's another story uh about a year later in high school a different story I
wound up discovering that I had more of a talent for journalism and I wanted to
go into Broadcast News and I got my degree at Kent State in 74 and I went into newspaper then public
relations Publications editing moved here in ' 84 to do technical writing however in late '89 I rediscovered
astronomy like an old friend I happen to see a little blurb in one of the local newspapers that the local Fernbank
science center was having astronomy classes for adults uh on Wednesday
nights and um the public was invited so my fiance now my wife uh went and it was
like meeting an old friend that I hadn't seen for 20 years or something you know when I was a kid you had refractors and
reflectors and never the twain shall meet well I was wrong since then Here Comes Schmid casses and every and maxos
and everything else so that was late 89 I got back into the albow I had joined
it around 62 and dropped out in 65 or 66 he joined
it about 1990 joined the Atlanta astronomy club uh brought with it uh brought to it
my skills in public relations and started sending notices out to the papers about uh the meetings and for
instance in 94 is when Jerry Armstrong and Tim Pucket of the Atlantic Club were
the co-discoverers of the Supernova in M51 and they rightfully got a lot of
publicity and due credit for it interesting that after they made their announcement everybody and their brother
came out and said oh I saw it too three weeks ago but Jerry and Tim reports at
first right that's right that's what counts and um it was also in 94 that I
solely founded the uh the peach state stargaze we had about 50 people the
first year about 75 the second and it grew and grew because I knew how to
promote and bring in bigname speakers um I think uh I did I did it
for 10 years and uh that's a lot of work that's a lot of work and when um after
it got its footing we were bringing in around two or 3 hundred people a year and um yes admittedly the skies are not
like Arizona but at the same time you could see the Milky Way from our site the comaraderie was great and the
speakers were good for instance uh in 2000 I brought over the late anonin
rukel and his wife wife he's the author of the The venerable the venerable U
atlas of the Moon I have a copy that he signed so you
know that's and I think both that and the revision the revised version of the
book I think they're out of print now I don't know if they're even available um
uh 2001 uh we had will Tyrion signed up to come over with his wife
Ki and I was going to pick him up on uh uh September 10th and of course the
bottom dropped out on September 11th boom no I was going to pick him up on September 12th the bottom of the
world dropped out on September 11th of that year um with the the terrible crashes in
New York City and Washington DC with that stuff but he came over in 2002 and
we also were proud to have David Levy and uh many other bigname people and
every everybody really had a good time and then I turned the event over to the Atlanta astronomy club proper at the
same time I uh got very active with the association of lunar and planetary
observers um as I tell people I'm an observer I have a few Scopes but I will
never be as good as most everybody else out there uh I know like on any hobby
you have people that live and breathe this stuff then you have people that go out once in a while look up and say oh
very nice and go back in the house I'm I'm really back in the middle I'd like
to spend a lot more time but I put so many years into the stargaze and um with
the uh the Alpo uh finally I'm on the board of directors I'm currently the executive director um as a Publications
person I've been the editor and publisher of the Alpo quarterly journal
and I've turned over the editing duties proper to a uh another person but I'm still in charge of it
overall and uh I changed the format to make it more attractive at the same time keeping the top-notch quality of the uh
material that's inside sure so in a nutshell I started off as a young kid
really loved it as a hobby got out of it got back into it and here I am
today here you are so uh well let's talk a little bit about the
association of lunar planetary observers this is uh it's an old organization I
think it's over 50 years old it was founded in 47 1947 by the lay Walter
house I for many years thought he was an astronomer professional or otherwise it
turns out uh he was a mathematician professionally I don't know that he I just know that he was a true gentleman
justest guys he was he was and uh he was very frustrated with the professional
Community uh as probably many of you know that in the 1800s astronomers were
all amateurs I think and it got to be a profession a paid profession and then
over the years the amateur Community continued people grinding their own mirrors building their own stuff and
making their own discoveries but the professional Community now that they had the 100 in and the 200 in and whatever
else is out there they didn't quote need unquote amateurs to submit their
findings and Walter knew that that just wasn't true and pushed and pushed and
pushed and finally in 1947 he founded the uh Association of lunar and
planetary observers as a means for other serious amateurs and some professionals
who wanted to share their findings uh to get together uh the first issues of the
newsletter were mimeographed I think it was one or two or three sheets of paper um it was published monthly and
then he found out after a few years can't keep it up it was uh every two months and then every three and then
every six months and finally some years ago it became a quarterly and that's the
way that's the way we do it but it's been around since 19 1947 and one thing that really got me
interested in it was um I saw it mentioned in the back of a book in the
public library so I wrote to Walter and he sent me a handwritten letter back encouraging me to join this was 1962 I
think 61 so I joined I don't know how I did it my father was a factory worker my mom was a stay-at-home
mom and um I remember and I still have the journals that I got after joining
and I fell in love with the great sketches by Clark Chapman uh lunar
sketches uh the mathematics and the equations just confused me but I loved
looking at that stuff sure and um look what we look what we now what carries on
a lot of that work uh we had a our annual conference was last
weekend and um we give two Awards out every year we give at least one that's
the Walter house observing award which went to uh Robert Lansford out in California he's our
meteor's observing section coordinator but the the Peggy hos Peggy was Walter
hass's wife the service award went to Robert Hayes he lives in Southeastern
Illinois he does not have a computer he does not do
email everything is by regular mail and type typing W and he does have an
rv6 and he consistently would submit the most neat lunar
sketches they weren't like super duper duper every little detail but you knew
what you were looking at they weren't rough sketches they were really very well and he pointed out directions and
so forth and um so there are still a lot of people out there who are turned off by
Imaging and they just like their pens and pencils and paper and they'll do sketching and so the the lpost started
off by people sh for people to share and so they did share and as it
turns out over the years we have become uh we were we've been contacted
Time and Time Again by the professional Community to solicit our
observations we work with jaxa the Japanese uh
astronomy program jaxa I think is how it's spelled and we work with I'm not
sure if it's jet propulsion lab or or NASA regarding Venus observations
and Saturn and this is like if you're wanting to get serious about observing
our solar system and do some science then Al POS the place to go now
I mean just how difficult is it what what if you're just a complete newbie to astronomy I mean how do you how do you
bring them up into the ranks of well do science what I tell people it's a good
idea to join your local Club because that's where you'll probably really quickly because you're going to go to
your monthly meetings that's where you'll probably learn quickly uh what a telescope is how to
find things in the sky and you'll probably at that point decide if you're
into deep Sky observing or lunar and planetary and solar system observing
shallow Sky we'll call it shallow sky so let's say you decide to get into
lunar and planetary observing um then you'll find the there
are organizations like the double AVS so American Association for variable star observers for those who are really into
detecting minute differences in the brightness of stars these people are up at 2 am
discovering that you got Iota International occultation timing
Association for those people who are just rabid about finding out what planet
or Star went behind another planet or star and then then you have us who are
really looking at some of the most dynamic objects out there the Moon is
different every night Jupiter what is it Jupiter is it 10 10 or 11 hours on its axis Saturn I forgot
when I was a kid Jupiter had 12 Saturn had nine moons I think one or the other has something like 60 now but when you
get into the Alpo you'll find this stuff out and you build on it so you've you've gone to
your local Club you may have a scope uh and to and to help people
really get into it we have the uh lunar imp planetary training program which is
run by uh Tim Robertson and it's for Alpo members and uh you have you'll be
getting a guide or a handbook with exercises to do at your own pace and
it'll incl it'll include sketches it could include uh Imaging if you want to do
that but basically it's going to have you do deep uh what do they call Deep
dives into studying the various solar system bodies and how to properly
observe them how to properly record data of what you saw it's gotten to where uh
wellward Walter wanted the journal to be uh as close to a professional publication as possible just like with
the regular scientific experiments in chemistry or physics you you set your
parameters uh okay this is the time this is the instrument this is the thing I studied this is
a all of the things that went into that experiment uh are noted and that was and
continues to be to a certain extent what we ask of anybody that submits data or
images to the Alo here's Saturn on this date using this instrument on this mount
with this filter using this software using whatever so that somebody else out
there can uh duplicate their can duplicate their
um their uh inst their their instrument hold on for one second hold on for one
second sure let's see if I turned the my overhead light on and
uh okay that's big deal big deal yeah oh no okay so so Ken
a question I have I mean you you're getting all these observations turned in all year long all the time what what uh
what in in 2024 this year maybe last year what was such a what was an an
amazing uh observation that uh people in in your organization still talk about I
think the biggest thing that people talk about because it's on everybody's Minds had to be we had two eclipses in a very
short amount of time yeah we had the annular eclipse from last fall and then we had again um the Great
American total solar eclipse of this past April um I was fortunate enough to
get back to my hometown in Cleveland to uh to see it uh my wife and I uh had
several locations to possibly go to I have a high school friend in Dallas but
then as it turns out the weather was forecast to be pretty bad uh we have some friends who have a home in um
Little Rock the forecast there turned out to be not so good MH uh we my wife
has a cousin in Louisville and uh the weather forecast for there was also not looking good and Cleveland I always like
to go back to because of you know the family connection plus it wasn't looking as bad and of all things I think we had
the best weather of all of the sites just beautiful beautiful weather I took
my uh Celestron U 8 in reflector with the
solar filter and just got some great visual views of it so the thing that
people the things that people talk about are the things that everybody sees it's one thing to go out and say oh my God I
saw M38 last night it was just so good it's going to look the same night after
night whereas nobody else if you unless you're in the hobby really knows what is
messi8 38 but you tell them about that solar eclipse oh yeah my uncle saw it or
I saw it you get everybody's interest in something like that sure absolutely and
that's what draws people that's what draws people well I thank you for coming on to
Global star party Ken and uh we hope to have you back there we go I like your outbow shirt there very cool and um uh
we are going to have Barbara Harris come on next she is someone that's very involved with the double Avo and she is
uh she is paying a lot close attention to T Corona Borealis and so she was
giving me a little bit of a tutorial uh just recently so can I mention one thing but she she just
absolutely loves as you were saying you know uh the
U you know the variance of stars and what's going on there and uh so there's
a lot the Stars can tell us can I say one last thing of course uh anybody out
there we just put up uh we just revised our website so it's uh everybody go to
Alpo dastony dorg and uh poke around um uh annual
dues start off at only $22 a year Super Deal welcome yeah there's very few clubs
of any kind that you could join for 20 $22 a year so that's a super deal thank
you so much okay all right so um Barbara thank
you for coming on you've been on global star party before but uh it's been a while and um uh and we've missed you
so yeah it's been a two a few years but uh I'm glad to be back um especially
talking about tore boore and most of you are astronomers out there and unless you've lived under
a rock I'm sure you've heard about t corbor uh if not I'm going to tell you a
little bit about it so uh let me go ahead and share my
screen and get my slides up you guys don't know this bar Barbara
Harris is an avid book reader and I think what we're seeing behind her is her extensive Library
so yeah I'm broadcasting from my library tonight and cool my dog hangs out in the
library and I kicked her out and she's hanging out in front of the front door and uh a little mad at me because I take
her out of her house but I I have a a window seat in the library and she likes
laying on the window seat to look out and uh I I've kicked her out for this
presentation so she's not happy with me so our our theme tonight is uh new light
and that is one of the reasons I wanted to talk about the recurrent Nova T
Corona Borealis uh a lot of astronomers have heard of T cor Corona Borealis by now
and even the mainstream media has started to talk about uh T Corona
Borealis so T Corona Borealis or t cor bore um belongs to a class of variable
Stars called recurrent noi uh it is expected to undergo an
outburst any day now so what are recurrent Novi um a
recurrent Novi a recurrent Nova is a variable star uh that brightens
significantly from its Baseline level usually thousands of times brighter than its Baseline uh because of a runaway
nuclear uh Fusion uh that's happening uh in the star now the difference between recurrent Novi
and a classical Nova is that the recurrent Nova uh will undergo repeated
Outburst recurring over a period of a few years to up up to a century and
there's a theory that a lot of the Nova out there are probably uh recurrent Nova
but we haven't seen we haven't been around long enough to witness their recurrence um so so far in our Milky Way
galaxy we've only identified 10 uh recurrent Novi and uh tore bore is is
one and it's actually uh the brightest one uh of the 10 and it's expected to go
off any day now um where is tor bore uh T Corona
Borealis is in the constellation of Corona Borealis uh also called the
northern Crown um it sits between the
constellation bootes uh to the west and Hercules to
the East and it looks like a a big u in the sky
and the U part of Corona Borealis opens up to the north the brightest star in
the constellation is the alpha star let see if I can point to it here in this
image this is the alpha star Alpha Corona Borealis uh also called ala and
it's 2.2 magnitude and uh right now the Baseline magnitude of T Corona Borealis is about
10th magnitude so it's expected to brighten to about second magnitude so
it's going to be equivalent uh to the alpha star ala uh uh and and that's how you can
tell tell when it's uh an outburst because you will see this new star
that's similar and close to uh aleka that wasn't there uh
before and I'd like to give credit for this image to one of my Twitter uh
friends uh he's a German Astron astrophotographer um named panagiotis
zip terce and uh he does great asop photography of especially wide Fields
like constellations and this is a beautiful image of Corona
Borealis so let's zoom in uh to the star
in the constellation that's nearest Corona Borealis I mean torona Borealis
and this is Epsilon and if we look at the four brightest stars in Corona Borealis those
four bottom part uh stars in the bottom of the you uh Epsilon is the fourth uh star from uh
uh Alpha and uh it's about magnitude 4.2 this is Little T Corona Borealis
shining at about 10th magnitude now and it's about one degre south of
Epsilon Corona Borealis uh so uh if you just take your
pair of binoculars look at Epsilon on uh Corona Borealis T Corona Borealis is
going to be about a degree south of that star if we can zoom into T Corona
Borealis even more T Corona Borealis isn't just a h single star it's actually
a h multi-star system and it's a star that actually consists of a red giant
star and a white dwarf and what's happening in this system is that the
white dwarf is close enough to that red uh that red giant where it's actually
pulling material away from that red dwarf and this material uh basically is
just constantly being pulled around that white dwarf and it forms a disc of gas
around that that uh white dwarf and that disc is called an accretion disc and
after a large amount of gas hydrogen gas from that red dwarf
accumulates onto that white dwarf it enough of it accumulates where it gets
hot and it gets hot enough to uh ignite and become a big thermonuclear explosion
basically a big hydrogen bomb and that's what we see uh during
the Outburst so T corbor has had two
documented uh eruptions uh since uh We've discovered it uh the
first eruption was May 12th 1866 and the second eruption was
February 9th 1946 uh and it reached uh from a baseline of 10th magnitude to Second
magnitude now the interval between these two eruptions was 80
years so if this is a recurrent Nova we suspect that 80 years from
1946 there's going to be an another tore bore eruption and 80 years from that
date is going to be in 2026 so if we expect the next eruption
to be in 2026 why are we anticipating an eruption now in
2024 uh two years early so to to figure that out uh this
is a slide of a light curve of PE cor bore uh and a light curve is basically a
graph graphing the magnitude of the star uh against the uh time and this light
curve is uh prepared by Dr Bradley schaer uh an emerus professor of
astronomy uh from Louisiana State University and uh he
basically was able to look at old observations of toreore going all the
way back to 1855 so he plotted the magnitude of tore bore uh
from that 1855 all the way to about 2023 and this first green spike is the
first Outburst uh in 1866 uh where it immediately goes to
Second magnitude doesn't stay there very long like it within a week it's probably
back to at least uh less than naked I visibility
and then it takes a few months to get back to it its Bas line and then we see
that it stays at about 10th magnitude and uh in about 18 uh late 1800s they
started to observe it in two different filters and it's important to look at stars in two different filters because
sometimes you'll see activity uh that more prominent in one filter than
another so uh the green is in uh a a green filter um or what's called The V
filter Visual and it's about the the brightness that uh the the peak
brightness that the human eye can see around 550 nanometer um
wavelength so they also started uh observing in Blue uh filter and uh blue
filter uh Peak is about 425
nanom so they he kept monitoring it and then we see the big spike in 1946 when
it um becomes bright again uh going uh through outburst and then it after about
a month it comes down and and stays that it's uh Baseline rate of about 10th
magnitude but one thing he noticed plotting these magnitudes is about a
decade May before the uh 1946 eruption
he noticed that there was a big um not a big but a spike in magnitude a a little
bit more in the blue filter uh compared to the green filter so uh it's a lot
more noticeable in blue filter this uh increase in magnitude um about a decade before it
actually goes into to out birth and one thing that curious is that
starting in about 2015 we noticed that there was an increase in brightness over its Baseline
uh of tore bore so that is uh what made us think okay so maybe we're about a
decade away from Outburst so this was about February of
2015 so if we examine that area uh a little bit closer uh we see the Baseline
here at about 10th magnitude about 2015 uh it increases in magnitude and
like I said it's a little bit more prominent in the blue filter compared to the green filter and this purple light
curve is the light curve of the 1946 eruption so if we follow that light
curve where we see uh an increase in brightness we notice that in the 1946
Outburst there's a significant drop right before the Outburst occurs so
right now we're kind of waiting for that drop again right before um the Outburst
but we noticed that about 10 years before the the eruption um that it
started to brighten so if we go uh 10 years from 2015 it would be about 2025 that we
expect to see the eruption and he thinks it's about
2025 plus or minus 1.3 uh years so that's why starting in
April of 2024 is when he thought we should start looking for the eruption of uh tore
boore so how can you follow um the magnitudes of tore bore if you go to
aao.org um go to the the middle of the uh main page and you'll see a box that
says pick a star if you type in tcrb uh for tore boore and then click on
check recent observations um you'll start to see um
you'll go to a page that will have uh the most recent uh um magnitude
estimates of T cor bore um and so the these uh are the dates of the last
observations and a lot of people are observing it now especially since Dr schaer put out the U message that 2024
might be the year so uh every day we have several estimates of magnitudes of
uh tore boore uh someone uh estimated it at 10.1 and this is the type of filter used
V is visual meaning that they estimated it through a uh telescope and ipce or
binoculars um what the uh the actual magnitude uh was um this person estim uh
gave a a magnitude of 10.3 TG means tricolor green meaning
that they used a one shot color or DSL DSLR uh to um to do photometry to uh
determine the magnitude and uh the V is the photometric V or green fil photometric
uh green filter um down here they got
9892 and then we have tricolor uh blue and we have blue observations also um
these are the name of The Observers that uh determine the magnitude um when you H when you
contribute uh an estimate of a magnitude of a star to a vso you must have uh
request an observer um uh uh initials so that uh they know
who's submitting the observations and so these are the initials of the Observer
uh that are submitting the data so if you want to start uh looking
and estimating the magnitude of Tor bore you could go to
aavso .org and that same p page uh where you type in the name of tore boore uh
instead of check recent observations below that was an option to um to uh uh
to uh print up a chart and you could make custom charts of uh Tor boore um
with the field of view like this particular chart I requested is a field of view of 7.5 degrees which is um about
the uh field of view of of my pair of 10 by 50 binoculars um and when you request a
chart the the the T in the middle is going to be the the variable star T core
bore in this um particular uh instance and it will have um uh stars that are
labeled with uh magnitudes around that uh and they label them without the
decimal points so 79 means that this star is 7.9 magnitude this bright 42 is
4.2 magnitude and this is actually uh Epsilon Corona Borealis and remember I
said that um uh it was about a degree south of Epsilon um and this uh star over here 46
is uh Delta Corona Borealis uh the um a
star that's west of Epsilon in the the bottom of the U so you can print these
stars and use uh these comparison Stars around it uh to estimate what the
magnitude of C uh Corona Borealis uh
is now if you're not uh used to estimating um magnitudes you can go to
the ao's website and you can download a manual for visually observing variable
stars um you don't need to be a member of aavso uh to to download the manual I
would encourage you to become a member it's a great organization but there's a
lot of resources on the site that uh you can use to uh help learn how to estimate
uh variable star magnitude um and you don't need to be a
member um but this manual will instruct you on how to accurately estimate the
magnitude of a star so you can get this as a PDF manual uh from the
site now I do photometry uh with my DSLR
camera and my uh monochrome seamoth camera with photometric filters and this
is a light curve of my observation starting in early
2023 of uh to Corona Borealis when I measure U my magnitudes I actually
measure in red green and blue filters and you can see what the magnitudes are
over the last uh um almost two years and
you can see that there's all almost this sine wave type of U pattern to the
magnitudes and that's because uh that there is a period to T cor bore uh where
the the white dwarf and the red uh giant uh
rotate the orbit around each other and uh this is why you're seeing that that
soral pattern uh because uh we're looking at the the red dwarf at
different angles and it's not this spherical star it's kind of like a football so when we're seeing the the
football shape of the star pointing towards us we're seeing less light from
uh the star compared to when we're looking at the oblong portion of the star which gives a a brighter uh surface
to look at um but also um we we can monitor this and and look
at at the variations in magnitude and hope that one day we're going to see
this Spike now one thing that's happened o over the last few days is that tore
boore uh for visual had been about 10th magnitude but it increased a little bit
over the the last time I measured it was August 3rd when I measured it at
9.8 and it's it's only about 02 or3 magnitudes higher than than before but
uh I I was curious to see how it it increased a little bit over it uh recent
Baseline anyway uh one of the uh reasons that I became interested in variable
stars and especially tore boore was because of this book called Starlight
Nights and uh David Levy introduced me to this book when he gave a talk to our
astronomy club and either uh 89 or 90 and talked about uh Starlight Nights and
starlight Knights is uh basically the autobiography of this amateur astronomer
named Leslie Peltier and he was a famous variable star uh Observer and famous
comment Hunter and he started observing T Corona Borealis I think in about
1920 and he would observe T Corona Borealis every clear night he he built
his own Observatory and he was an avid uh variable star Observer
and so T corbor was one of his regular stars because he suspected that it might
go off again um uh this was you know over 20 years before uh it actually uh
went into a second outb birth so on regularly he would observe tore
bore and the night that tore bore went off uh went into Outburst he was asleep
he thought he was getting a Cole and he had planned to get up at 2:30 uh on that
February morning to observe tore bore uh but he had a coal and he decided to to
sleep in and then the next day when he found out that tore bore had gone into
out birth he just wanted to kick himself and he wrote in in uh his book Starlight
Nights I alone am to blame for being remiss in my duties nevertheless I still
have the feeling that te could have shown me more consideration we had been friends for
many years on thousands of nights I had watched over it as it slept and then it
arose in my hour of weakness as I nodded at my post I still am watching it but
now it is with a wary eye there's no warmth between us anymore and I I could
just feel the pain of observing the star for 25 years and the night that it
finally goes up he misses it um but he
still contined to observe it and it was still you know one of his friends maybe not his best
friend so one thing I would encourage you to do is watch the skies everywhere
keep looking keep watching the skies very good Barbara thank you thank
you Barbara what what do what do people learn from
uh observing variable Stars you you know I I see the graphs that you made and um
uh you know you you're seeing U rhythms and patterns uh and you're looking at it
in different uh filters and different wavelengths uh what what is uh the thing
that is so intriguing to you about variable Stars well for me stars are are
basically the Laboratories for astronomy uh you know you can't go into a physical
laboratory and examine a star and learn all about a star uh so for
astrophysicist uh the sky and the stars are are the laboratory and we can't
learn about uh the lifespan of a star from just a single star and following
following it through its entire lifespan so we learned that about the evolution
of stars by learning about different stars at different points in their evolutionary period and uh studying the
Stars uh their magnitude uh their changes over time
that's that's a laboratory for astrophysics to determine what's going on in that star and how it's going to
evolve um like one of the curious things about uh tore bore and stars like tore
bore where they have this um main sequence of Red Giant star uh paired
with the white dwarf is that they think these stars are progenitors of type 1 a
supernova and type 1 a supernova are important because if you see a type one
Supernova they're used as candle uh standard candle where you could use that Supernova to
determine the distance to the Galaxy that it it erupts in uh so one of the uh
reasons they want to examine scars like tore boore is to try to find out if this
St going to become a Supernova versus just a regular Nova um that it it is now
and if it is a supernova by following it all of these years we can look at what
happens to uh a star before it becomes a supernova but I'm just fascinated when
someone shows me an astronomical image I'm not too interested in the Galaxy I'm
I I like all the around it and interested in the in the story that each of those different Stars
tell right fascinating that's great now also
with the aavso professional astronomers are obviously using this data um um and
relying upon you know the army of of variable star observers yeah one one thing I'd
like to stress in that that uh light curve that I showed you that uh Dr
Bradley had collected data from 1855 the early part of that data was
collected from the uh glass photographic plates held at the Harvard College uh
Observatory and that women astronomers would examine these plates they would
note what the variables were they would estimate what the variable magnitude was so there's a whole collection of these
glass plates um at the Harvard College Observatory where he went back and
looked at all the years of Tor bore on those glass plates to collect that data
um and and that's how he got that light curve but starting in the late 18 the
late 1800 s the majority of that data collected was from amateur
astronomers and professionals just don't have the time or or the equipment to examine on a
nightly basis these stars to measure their their magnitude over time so the
majority of the data coming from T cor bore is coming from amateur astronomers
just just like you know us and um they they use this data to determine uh you
know what their next step is going to be like when when T core bore goes into
Outburst they're going to activate all these big telescopes around the world and Space Telescope like Spitzer and and
infrared and even the bubble and so that's that's why they need us to
monitor nightly to tell us what's happening so that can be prepared to to
study when it goes off into a outb that's going to feel good I think uh for
all the amateur astronomers that have contributed magnitude estimates and actually really got rolled up their
sleeves and got into it so and also for people who are interested in uh
Leslie peltier's uh book Starlight Nights It's a Wonderful book and I I've
I have many additions of it it comes a Kindle edition and paperback and it's
still uh in print you can uh get it from Amazon um but once once you read it
you'll fall in love with him uh and and his love for variable Star astronomy and
uh I've read is one of my favorite books and I've read it a thousand times um and
his his story his section on tore bore is actually very entertaining and you
just feel so sorry for him where this was his star that he observed nightly
almost and then the one night that it goes off he had the sniffles and decided
he was getting a cold and should stay in bed and not get up in the cold at 2:30 in the morning oh boy but it's a great
book I got away people to read it yeah wonderful barbar thank you so much
thank you okay all right so our next speaker
is uh sonali desmar am I pronouncing that correct
Sali yes great okay that already makes me feel good so anyways I got to meet
sonali uh online uh uh during the Nebraska star party she's she was just
at the Nebraska star party she's been to that event I think several times uh she's been very active with her
astronomy club but I I think she had she gained a Fascination for the stars at a
pretty young age like most of us uh and um you know so I look forward to your
presentation um your um your your title
of your talk is shining a light on the night sky um you know and I think that
uh I think that amateur astronomers who just love the Stars they they have a light of their own you know that uh and
start to understand that connection you know between between us and the rest of the universe you know but I won't get
too metaphysical here and I'll let you give your talk um but sonali I'm very
very pleased very happy that you decided to join us on global star party thank you well thank you for having me um it's
really great fun to be here and an honor i' heard all these speakers speak and uh
hopefully my little talk is um just as good um you know like you said I've been
interested in astronomy since I was a young I had my own theories on Venus
which my poor teachers had to listen to and um none of them actually were they
were pretty encouraging they never laughed at me and just said well keep thinking so I thought that was a good
beginning but you know down the road we all pick different careers but um astronomy has always been
a great love I remember looking at Comet hail Bop and the first time that I saw
the Milky Way and when you talked about you know the theme being new light or I
would even say first light I remember these first moments that I still
remember all these years later and I think that's true for so many of us we remember the first time we saw the Milky
Way or a comet with our naked eyes and I think that to me is the light or the
inspiration that turns many of us into this field either as professionals or as
um just amateurs um you know and I decided to shine a light on the night
sky in a literal sense and a metaphorical sense like you said literally yes we shine a light on the
sky we shine so much light into our atmosphere that we really can't even see the night sky in some places and you
know how many people are there around the world that have never seen uh Stars
other than or even just the planets you know you can see Venus on a bright when it's bright or Jupiter there's light
pollution um and I think there are two things to shining a light on the sky we
shine too much and we don't want all this so that we can actually have the
stars shine on us so that we can look at this and so my presentation is kind of a
little Crossroads between light pollution and encouraging young minds
and I think the key to that really is making sure that people all over the
world have access to Dark Skies I think that has sort of been what I've heard
from a lot of the speakers today from John GS from you know David AER uh we've
talked about D Dark Skies Bryce Canyons but I don't think we need to go that far
we should be able to sit out in our backyard and be able to see these stars and I think that will get a lot of young
people energetic people into this community of either professionals or amateurs and when we talk about starting
grassroot camp campaigns for saving the Chandra Observatory you know these are the people that need to be interested to
be able to help to write letters and support these campaigns and contribute
to you know the budget in science I think that encouraging the community to
look up to the stars is what is needed and I agree there are events in
astronomy that draw attention the solar eclipse you know the Aurora um the universe is
crazy place I mean when the sun is violent at solar maximum we have CMEs but the flip side is you have beautiful
auroras that people can see at lower latitudes you know total solar eclipses
that's what will encourage people to look up and I think as Outreach we need to be present at these events and reach
out to people and say if you like this guess what there's a whole world out there that you can look at it's not just
one event um and that's why I like Outreach because that is the light that
lights up somebody's imagination someone's will to do this um and to
quote a poems um I I'm going to uh quote arthuro chessi from We Are The Music
Makers he says on one man's Soul it has broken the light that doth not depart
and a look or a word he had spoken rot flame in another man's heart I think we
need to kind of get into that and encourage people we've all done Outreach
where we've heard young kids say oh my God that's not really Saturn no way
that's a Hubble picture I mean now my telescope is not that great but for them you know seeing the rings of Saturn for
the first time or when you point out the four moons of Jupiter I think that inculcates an interest that cannot be
beat and these are the same children who will grow up uh when we talked about saving our planet for the younger
generation you know all this ties in look at light pollution they'll understand that hey to look at Dark
Skies we have to get a control of light pollution and when we get control of that we help you know it affects animals
Birds it affects so much more that helps save our planet it all ties in and they
call astronomy the Gateway Science in a way it is it is a Fascination it's observational it's
educational and I think getting people into astronomy opens up so much more to
them than anything else because it's something you can do on your own you don't need heavy equipment
if you don't want to you can do naked eye observing binoculars telescopes and find people who enjoy
this just as much um so for me I find an interest in Outreach a whole lot because
I believe that that introduces more people to this field and you know down
the road someone is going to do something great with that interest so
that's for sure that's really my take on uh new light in astronomy that's
wonderful and a wonderful poem to go along with it too so um sonali uh your
um your particular interest I as I recall at least currently is doing
astrophotography and I think you've done some beautiful Milky Way shots and stuff is that image behind you uh one of your
images yep that is one of my images oh that's a good one and uh yes I was listening to Adrian
talking about you know Milky Way Photography more from Urban Skies uh one of my ancillary interest related to that
is observing from the air um you know there are times I've been on uh flights
that go across the North Pole and if it's the right time of the year I've seen the Aurora from the plane um I've
seen Stars meteors planets and now even if the flight is long I look forward to
it even my travel agent knows that they need to book me a window that faces the north depending on the time of the year
or South depending on what I want to see from the air uh so you can find and
observe Skies from anywhere and in any situation and I encourage people to do
that I agree I agree I I admittedly keep my eyes on the sky even when I'm driving
uh which is might be a little scary to some you're not the only one Scott I've
stopped on the side of the road if I saw that the sky was pretty good so oh yeah I think I've seen these things happen I
saw a huge bowy going down Interstate 5 and coming from LAX and I saw the whole
freeway light up and I was like that's got to be a a meteor and I looked up and
this bide was going was following the freeway it was going due south it was
beautiful it was huge in the sky and no one I I looked around to see if anyone else is seeing this and no one else was
looking at it and I was like Wow and I've had an experience too I've seen really incredible Aurora as you fly over
the pole you know so I went from Europe and I was coming back into Chicago and
um I think we were over like Greenland and I saw just this amazing Aurora and
I'm telling people on the plane to look out their Windows to look at it and no one did and that really broke my heart
you know because I was like that is such an incredible thing that I know people travel around the world to go see you
know because yeah know you know that has been my experience I have two people sitting next to me look out the window
do you want to look out the window and they just look at me like I'm some crazy woman there sitting with the pillows you
know behind my head so that the cabin lights don't interfere and I think oh my God yeah yeah that's what they probably
think the plane with you we would start our own astronomy club right there in the airplane right astronomy in the air
there we go anyways yeah I I have a my plane
stories I got to see um which one was it not uh it was Comet hail Bop um it's me
I was around in we saw the comet naked eye we uh sure you know we enjoyed it
there was nothing like seeing Comet hail Bop when you were above you're on a plane and that high up the
tail stretched the entire night sky the entire tail stretched that you could see
you could kind of see the comet making its move this was quite some time ago before um I did any um any kind of
astrophotography I just sat there and looked at it and said I want to make it I want this to be one of those few
imprints that I have in my head where you look at the scene before before you
actually take the picture but I didn't have the camera but I still just stared out I seem to remember seeing Orion
somewhere in this field and it was uh it'd be nice if they could go grab the
neurons that recorded that picture it was a quite a beautiful site and um
another beautiful site the picture behind me which looks kind of like yours with the Milky Way that was the side of
the road shot there was a picture I wanted by a waterfall that I missed because when I saw how dark it was that
was the first time I'd seen the Milky Way the way that it looked where you saw color and structure naked eye and I
stopped to gather samples as many as I could and stayed there long enough to
start my exposure when I got to my location and at that very moment
Twilight got to a point where the sky brightened and the milk way disappeared
in about a minute so I lost that shot but I gained the one that's behind me
and and to be honest this was a better view because it was a Wide Open Sky and
uh that you know these little things have been happening throughout my life and like
what you describe uh sonali is uh it the awake it kind of Awakened at some point
and I said I'm just going to keep doing this and so it's we Sort of hope that you know with all the star parties we go
to and you know and then when the people don't want to look you you know you just
shake your head but you move on because what'll happen the media then says
brilliant Aurora and all of a sudden people want to look and people want people want to go here and there and say
I want to see the aurora so we I think we just tap into you whatever motivates people um it
takes a lot of patience sometimes to uh and a lot of times with Outreach I realize that you know there
are people with different interests when they show up at your scope or they have
a different level of knowledge of the night sky you start with where they are interested and then it's always easy to
interact uh when I talked about the Aurora that we saw in Omaha you know which I kind of explained to people you
would have to travel and spend a lot of money to see this this is on your doorstep you just have to step out I
think finding that common ground to get people interested in is a big step yeah
and uh real quick I know we have to move on but solar eclipse I was in Tennessee to see it six veterans were uh having
their usual lunch at uh Crystal I showed them a couple pictures they kned their
heads completely uninterested in anything that had happened you know the
the night before but we still had another spirited conversation about other things and so and sometimes it's
uh when you're re you're trying to reach people it takes a lot of patience
because they they just aren't as on fire for uh astronomy night sky things you
once in a once or twice in a lifetime events and just different things there's
there's so much more that are on people's minds and yeah it it's a challenge to do astronomy events but
once you get someone you get someone to look at the moon or at Saturn oh they're hooked all of a sudden there's all of a
sudden the eyes go wide and the jaws drop no matter what age they are so I
think if you have the Milky Way that's visible that's always a jawdropping conversation I've always found but you
know if we not lucky enough to have dark skies we just had a phenomenal Dark
Skies at the Nebraska star party and there are times that I have this whole catalog of things I want to see but then
I look at the Milky Way and I feel okay life is good I can sit on my chair with
a pair of binoculars or maybe not even that and just watch the Milky Way I've done that before too at a dark sky area
but uh I think Scott you're trying to get John yeah I'm trying to put on John
uh uh both uh both sonali and John were at the Nebraska Star Party John is uh
one of the uh big organizers of the event and um you know so I know that uh
uh there was some special news that the two of you had talked a little bit about to me about the U about the astrotourism
aspect of of the Nebraska Star Party um
John do you want to elaborate on that sure and uh uh yeah s feel free I see
you're M muted now but feel free to chime right in uh because um sonali uh
and I have what we've been to four five I've been to I've only missed three in
the entire 31 years we had it but but sonali has been a great
support yeah um anyway I uh just a
couple of comments for we I I always enjoy doing this and I guess I should
just jump in whether I'm supposedly be a presenter or not because the stories uh
I'll go back I see uh John has already left but I was monitoring what he was
talking about and uh funny thing is those two little globulars at the end of
the teapot I was looking at him Thursday night I found them in in my my my uh
instrument of choice now give you a little plug Scott is an 82mm binocular
telescope I purchased from explore scientific oh thank you and I was uh looking at those
it was just you know Java Serendipity there that John was
talking about those two little clusters and I found him now moving on to Ken
uh I've met Walder hos only one time and
that was at the 1983 astronomical League convention in
peori Illinois what a gentleman yeah what a gentleman and uh that was the same year
I met Clyde Tom Tomba there too and of course John Dobson but moving on uh now
moving on to Barbara's talk Barbara I have an original first edition of
Lesley's book and that was one of the things I read that inspired me to make
this a lifelong passion Hobby whatever you want to call it and you're right the the I I need in fact when you were
talking I was going to see if I could find it I in my vast Library sonali knows sonali knows I got hundreds and
hundreds of astronomy books I couldn't find it because I was going to bring in in and show you I indeed do have uh the
hardback first edition and of course a couple of the paperbacks too but but I would highly encourage you uh all of you
if you haven't at least get the paperb and and read it because it is a f
fascinating story okay moving on why I'm supposed to be here um yes we just
finished up the 30 SEC or 31st uh Nebraska star party last
Friday and uh we had a relatively successful event compared to some years
here recently uh we had basically clear nights all the way up until Friday night
which unfortunately we we weren't clear that night and that was the night we always t for all the general public to
come out but regardless we had a great week uh there was a few Smoky nights
there from the fires up in Canada and Western us that bothers a little bit but
other than that it was some glorious Skies um the the news that Scott's mentioning
uh I'm not sure oh I'm I'm never very good about doing this this
um share screen let's see if we can I got a lot of windows open here before I
yeah before I are you wanting to go to that website I will go to that website or yeah just and we'll just um kind of
U let's see here where's it
at well one of the things that I'll I'll just kind of point out is um
is that astrotourism is on the rise uh since co uh amateur astronomy clubs have
grown uh the interest in space in general has increased and um uh people
taking up Backyard astronomy has uh has grown and so that was felt by the
telescope industry that was felt by clubs uh star parties like the Nebraska
star party and uh and people that uh offer astrotourism and um in fact oh you
got it there yeah you found it perfect okay all right um and this was there
again one of these serendipitous happenings Friday night uh
at our public night there was uh folks that came out from Valentine and uh one
of the ladies I've got to know that the had worked at the library um
introduced me to her sister they both came out they were really interested her sister has really gotten into it she has
a um unisell or scope can we get rid of that one okay uh and was taking pictures
even with the Cloudy Skies we had she got a few shots well then the next you know that was Friday night and then
Saturday came back to Omaha and so uh this Janet who was the the sister of the
one with the unistellar sent me this and I like oh my goodness here's an article that came out Friday the
2nd uh based on you know is it some information that the um travel and
Leisure website that's what it is uh came up with comparing the accessibility
the quality of the Dark Skies uh and a couple other factors there and lo and behold they had ranked
number one in the US as the americ Reservoir the Nebraska star party as
their number one asterism go AST tourism go-to site uh it just blew us all away
there you can see you know light pollution rating which we are truly a bordal one site up there uh one of the
few sites uh uh that you can actually see your Shadow when your eyes are fully
dark adapted uh with the just the light from the Milky Way um so anyway that was quite a
feather in our cap so to speak and uh we obviously plan on expounding on that and
using that as a as a advertising and Scott you got pull that picture that is
one of sonali's picture right there andali yeah you if you want to
Sali yeah you feel in on that part of the S go ahead how that happened uh this was
actually last year at the Braska Star Party um this was along there's a
reservoir and this was just along the beach and I was set up to take photos of the Milky Way uh and I loved that there
was the reflection of the stars in the reservoir so that's what I was aiming for but then Along Comes this party with
boats and lights and for a moment I was kind of disappointed because I did not
want all that light and I thought this is the perfect light painting I could not have asked for or done on my own and
that's how I CAU this little boat as the people left the boat and they had their
torch lights flashing and they lit up the boat on their own and I got this picture and I was actually much happier
that they were there because it gave like a unique perspective that I couldn't have even planned
for so this is actually one of my favorite pict that picture that picture is uh
made it to several locations uh yeah unfortunately this this version of it doesn't do it justed it's very low res
but uh but it is a an amazing photograph so um also if if we I don't know I know
we're we always run behind but if um I I can indulge you with a few pictures of
the of the event there okay um okay
let's see here now let me get this share screen
okay okay are we there now you see the okay I got too many yeah
we can see see
image let me get rid of a few more windows here
what happened now I'm just not very good at this okay it what do you I okay we
still see the the emblem well I
lost I lost control of it somehow here there it is okay all right
um the uh The Trading Post is a the concessioner at the lake and
and they were selling these little posters there
um and so that I think this was the our the president of the Omaha Astronomical
Society took a picture of it so you get an idea Merit you know the rasal star party mer Reservoir light of light off
lights off eyes up that's kind of an interesting motto okay um here's the as
you approach the the lak and Dam uh this
um you see this sign but you see this up above there that has just been added
because yes this site is uh an international dark sky Park designated by the dark sky International now um
taken by a couple that come out from Chicago some of you may have run across the name Dragon nicken I'll have
pictures of him later but that's and his and his partner there um so proven that
yes we are are an international dark sky site so let's run through a few more of them okay here's here's our main uh
collection point of people we um we obviously have some tents put up and we
have catered meals on Sunday Monday Tuesday and Thursday nights and so yeah
you can see some of the crowd we had over 325 registers there was a few Nosh shows
because it was a bit warm the first few days there or I guess all week but but
what's nice about this area and it was mentioned in that article is that uh it's a very dry uh Heat usually uh we're
kind of what we call the Upland Plateau with the Sand Hills area of Nebraska so it it it cools off at night and in fact
can get you know quite chilly by by morning so we always tell people make sure you bring a jacket or
sweatshirt just a few more shots of of the area what we're there and that's truly what it looks like up there uh
very few trees and they call it the Sand Hills but it's it's covered with a a
tough layer of grass over most of the area and which our partner there the
Nebraska gaming Parks uh they mow a big chunk of it off so there's we're one
star party where you don't have to be rubbing elbows with your neighbor if you don't want to be because we got more room to spread out than I think any
other star party that I'm aware of and like I said the meals the the delicious meals catered by uh a family that comes
out of a a town that's about 30 miles Northwest of the of the park there so we
we eat Hardy and hey look at there what's that yeah uh as you um as you may know
explor scientific has been a super supporter of our party our Organization
for years your organization's very very very welcoming very kind to us and uh
and just being at the event I it what everybody says about how nice people are
and how wonderful the entire event is is is absolutely true uh and it is so
well-run you know that uh you know sometimes you go to some events and
you're really wondering you know who's running the show here and or is anybody running the show but uh um uh these guys
have kept extremely well organized and uh and know how to make an environment
that's really conducive to relaxing Under the Stars thank you Scott well and as
uh he said we we U we really enjoy and we really try to treat our vendors uh as
best we can and the representing explor s this year was was Kent Marts and his
wife Natalie that's his lovely wife Natalie's right there in the bottom of that picture but I think this must have
been one of Kent's shots there we not only treat you to beautiful Skies we
also treat you to some of the most fantastic thunderheads that build up when they build up to the east we like
that because we know they're moving on to the East and we don't have to worry about it there are times when we they build up west of us and then we have
quite a show okay just another shot of the open field okay this is another one
of sonali's pictures right Sali you did this panoramic shot here yes I took that
with my phone what what makes this area so nice yeah we got all this area where you can set up in the grassy fields we
also have quite an extensive area of asphalt uh we call it Doo for obvious
reasons because that's the only place the really big Scopes can set up uh and makes it very nice to set up and
congregate and and observe from and as I said this is probably what's almost a 90
Deere shot there with your panoramic view there I think almost uh 180 almost
180 true yeah this is looking to the Northeast and that's looking West
yeah and we've started kind of a tradition uh obviously the a lot of
people come up from the Omaha atomical society as well as the Prairie astronomy club and a an organization out around
Grand Island Hasting called the plat Valley amateur observers uh but it was
kind of a ton and Chic thing but they started what they call called uh dorandia and the reason they call it
dorandia is this gentleman right here whose name is Louie Doran he's been a
dear friend of mine for many years in fact in the 90s we resurrected the OAS U
Club it kind of fell on hard times for a few years I was the first president and Lou there was the second President of
the resurrection of the Omaha Astronomical Society but this gentleman right here now is our current President
John Larson and a few other members um this gentleman I think is yeah that's I
I'm uh with all the Outreach that sonali mentioned we do with the Omaha nomical Society uh I have to have a a a
co-chairman of Outreach and that's Mike Motors there but it it's just kind of a a fun thing uh they've set this up and
labeled it D dandia we have fun we party we don't just always just look we have a good
time too now on Wednesdays we go into the high school and here's the beautiful Auditorium in U Valentine Nebraska where
we have programs uh this particular shot I think was taken by Mike Merson uh one
of the presenters this year was a husband wife team from Omaha uh Michael cnon and his wife Kendra and they do a u
NASA high altitude balloon uh research and and incorporate they both are
teachers they incorporate their students into this and they did a big project for the solar eclipse last April so that was
what they presentation was it gives you an idea of yeah and we used to have it midweek so it's nice to come into a nice
cool Auditorium and and listen to speakers as I said we not only have dark
skies we have some incredible cloud formations and there again that was looking East that was one building up
one night and here was another one there are some of the big guys there
again this was this dragon nicken from Chicago and uh Matt bilsky of course if
those that know your big dobs that's a 25 in Obsession and I think this is an
18inch compact Obsession but um they're regulars every year come out uh this
couple here well this gentleman that's his wife there they're call he he made
this all by himself of course he has access to some uh high-end CNC wood
cutting uh equip I think that's a 22 if I remember right SN yeah 22 inch but um they're they're a
fun couple they have a an adopted Korean daughter that it's just we've watched
grow up I think this was her ninth Vis and she's really amazing young
lady and of course when it gets dark uh we wait for the sun down get a few
silouette shots uh I think sonali took this again right Mike moton getting his
uh he took old me 16inch and and tore all apart and made it into a trust tube
scope so it was easily portable yeah there's a nice night shot oh yeah I like
that one snol is that yours again she's off
okay um I think this is hers too that's a shot looking
South this was another young lady in our club uh uh Cassie Wang W she has become
quite the Astro imager uh and if this just one of her shots of the Milky
Way this is I think it was the smallies here's yeah Watermark there and we we uh were
experiencing I I think I had one of the Aurora too but we were experiencing this U greenish um Sky glow
I think we've talked about that some before but the uh interesting phenomenon up there where it's really dark I mean
it almost you see like natural light pollution but when you put a camera on it you see it that gives you that
greenish glow of who who G I think it's what um ionized oxygen molecules that
causes that yeah and because our Sun's more active we're seeing a lot of that
see a lot of even in places that are lesser dark not as dark as you've got
here interesting another shot of of it looking
yeah looking North there or looking to the Northeast there's there's the pleades you know percus double cluster
right there yeah this has Mars and Jupiter as well uh your right triang
right they were that was a early morning shot wasn't it SN yep it's like 3 in the morning um and to the right of the PES
uh if you look closely there's Uranus I didn't pan my camera enough to get
Saturn uh now I regret that but well still a very nice shot and and
we we do get some Aurora yeah there was one night especially we got some Aurora up there
yeah there was there was another version of her shot with a little more detail that she
took I used to try to dabble but I I have stayed mostly as a visual Observer
now and I I enjoy that so much especially those those big binocular telescopes uh one little technique I've
um I can't say I was the originator but I was showing Kent and everybody up there uh especially on some of the
nebula in the um in the Milky Way like uh you know like a swan m17 and the
eagle and the Lagoon what I do is I put a UHC filter in one of the eye pieces
and leave the other eyepiece natural um UHC filer courtesy of explore
scientific of course and it is an interesting phenomena to experience you first look it kind of
messes with your brain a little bit but as your brain BL brain realizes what you're doing it merges the filtered
image with the Stars you see much better in the unfiltered image quite a
phenomena and everybody I'd showed it to was just struck by how interesting that uh that was so another another thing you
can try if if you have a binocular telescope okay I
think now I don't know if we want to we we were going over this was another video I I'll just jump through just real
quick a little bit of it those that haven't seen that's the area this was a one of our me or actually on the board
or on the planning committee out of out of Lincoln uh Mark dumpy he's quite the
Drone imager too I'll just bounce through this you
can see the area is quite an amazing side up
there lots of Elbow
Room and all you got to do is walk down the lake and jump in to cool off too
okay that enough it gives you a feel that's for sure it
does yeah yeah well thank you very much um
John uh oh one go we're already planning for next year number 32 will be from
July 20th through the 25th 2025 you're all invited all
right well if you like uh dark skies and you want to go to the number one astrotourism site in the United States
look no further than the Nebraska star party so that's wonderful all right thank you so much
John and um sonali thanks again for for um helping out there that's great all
right so we are going down to Argentina and to meet with Cesar brolo
and uh Cesar uh how are things uh how are things down there in bosau
yes tonight we are I am not in the balcony because it's uh all day was was
rainy and now it's cold um mostly cloudly looks clear this is not real
this is not real yes this a picture this this is the
first uh picture that took my son atin um I I told him that I say man
maybe is impossible and he told me ah yes I I can take the the Galaxy here but
he was 19 years old or or less or or younger um he start to make he ask me by
the quantity of of explosions um you know the camera without filter was a h
uh this is was in my in my from my balcony but not from my
balcony if not from from the pool in the in the cond in the same building 10 met from from the
balcony and he took this picture that is incredible I took later another pictures
where if you make the the the the right things you can see a lot of stars and
this is the magic of after photography of course that this uh willing have a
mask to to don't appear totally White
um but but it's it's not the real thing it's it's a image that we took in a in a
clear night from the city and well um tonight I uh I um
presenting the something about the two clusters
first of all I'll share my screen
um with a stellar with the with a uh with a sky
map to show you can see the the stellarium
map yes okay well from the First ATM that you can see
the the share screen is is a mle because our tradition is share the the
screen bad but not not today uh especially me I still having problem
with uh sharing the screen well um qu
tuana is in in this area of of the sky this is the South
Pole and here do you have do you have the small megalan cloud
in this area and here you have this
cluster in this time of the year at at this time do you have it's very interesting
because sometimes I told with the people different exercise to use their
telescopes to found easily um signif significant objects um
the idea to to me to make the presentation about the characteristics
of this objects is encouragement to the people especially teenagers and kids to
make the same idea of PowerPoints or prepare something for the
themselves um to know H something to have more information using Wikipedia
using different things by Google um uh because um the idea
especially when you when you um appoint your telescope in a city where you can
see this kind of BR brilliant objects H you can get more um you can find more uh
more information about ER this kind of s significant objects and you can er er
take for you a surprise about that is
who is the the the size of the object uh how long is is the object for you um the
idea is not that I I made a presentation be to teach something if not is the
exercise to collect information like a kid um make a small presentation
and show what you can get about object that you can found in this
in the sky from the cities from the polluted areas from polluted Sky
areas and I moving I am moving while I
talking uh from the East to the west to show you the position of the another
another cluster
is I think that is here
no
okay here what now is in this time of the year I told um that people using
um uh two hours earlier H to phone at the same altitude of
25° the objects here do you
have the Omega centuri cluster
well now this one is is to to you say is
to the best the best idea is starting and and at this time around in Argentina
uh is winter and you have H from 19 from from 800 PM do you have a a
great uh altitude for this object
and this you can see in the similar uh in
this time of the years you can see you can watch ER in a similar altitude and
area of the of the sky these particular clusters and the special special how you
say the special condition that have these particular clusters is that that
is the first and the second globular cluster in br
and size in the sky especially around our Milky Way
because if not we H for example another another strong ER or or of special
um conditions cluster Global cluster is for example we need to go to form
something bigger like uh this kind of global clusters
we need to go to another galaxy um uh the galaxy of the north
so um let me show you I don't know if isn't the time of
the
year Andromeda Galaxy
have I don't know if maybe sometimes have H I I I think that the
name of the cluster in Andromeda is Maya 2 cluster maybe Barbara
or doct astronomers like more specialist tell me that is it's a big one it's a
big one inside the Galaxy but it's so big that that is possible to to watch by
Telescope yes but returning returning in time
and to the South hemisphere my position of
view well here two these two uh clusters
are very popular very popular and here do you have around this
time uh around the 10 p.m. do you have in this time of the year is very
interesting to to watch and compare or take pictures of the
both uh both uh clusters well I share I
change the share screen to the the presentation
that is very short with the characteristics that character
characteristic of this significative uh clusters
and
well you can see the presentation Scot yes okay
well talking about these two clusters the the significant the significant things that
uh show these clusters first uh we can uh found in in
qu in 47 toai that uh the distance is 15,000 L
Year from here the diameter is 120 L
years um of of diameter uh the magnitude
is 4.1 is really for a cluster is really really ER bright here in the in the farm
areas or in the mountain areas in in South emere both both uh clusters are
impressive in the night when you when you see to the to the South um in this
time of the year you can see both clusters ER
with a size really big like a full moon it's like a ghost of the moon for
example when you feel in a very dark sky of
course quar toana is is really we comparing because it's is have a a
more brilliant Center a more diffused area and FY area sorry um the another
one the it just looks looks like diamonds poured onto
Black Velvet it's beautiful yes is Naked Eyes is is a to Nik I is is really like
uh it's incredible um when you put your eyes in the high piece of a a telescope
over uh 15 cm five Ines uh you can have
uh incredible incredible details and really both clusters are
Global clusters are incredible watching or taking pictures I are both are very
easy to take pictures uh with any kind of
telescopes well the history cluster identified by Nicolas l or I don't know
the my pronunciation if it's is right in
um 17 52 512 from South Africa is a is a is a
sou emere and very near to the salt or Sor polar object
and this is the second one briest Global cluster in the
sky is one of the most massive glob clusters in the Galaxy containing millions of stars possibly of husting a
central black hole remember remember that this is something that Omega Cent
have the idea that it can be uh host into a a black hole maybe a
medium siiz black hole but in both cluster the possibilities are today um
considering that it's possible that have um Center back ho inside the core of of
the cluster uh in in 472 canai contain 100
of xray Source this is very interesting for for the X-ray astronomy I had my
friend federo Garcia that uh he he study
actually very very exerise fonts or sources uh from qu toana contains uh 35
No millisecond pulsers a kind of of Pulsar that are normal or particular in
glob clusters very with very fast uh very
fast period of of puls pulsating um contain exotic star and
this uh 21 blue strugglers type of star that is more luminous that Bluer Than
expected is all of the Box um inside a
global cluster is all of the Box the kind of stars because the the change
everything because you have the the distance between stars for example in in Omega centu you have a a decimal part uh
of uh like gear between the stars and this is another thing that is is not
common outside of course um a glob cluster uh
um and uh but today the open clusters are studied because the it's very
interesting how gravitational forces work in in open clusters it's not only
the interest to the global cluster of course that that uh is a is a focus of
very a lot of different things to to consider and in both uh kind of clusters
is very interesting but this is the Bas the one the the big one this is Omega
centuri both pictures are pictures that I took from the balcony um and here you can see the
different yes with a small telescope normal telescopes it's very easy to to
take a picture um um uh well is a the distance is is uh
similars 17 L years diameter of probably
150 L years 10 millions of stars um the the
thing is is is is interesting that too to me uh he descried I don't know maybe
he went to the another place maybe the north of Africa you know um I I need to
know more from where he can uh he
can watch but the differ is if you can say that I I can show you something that
that is is in the in the difference of qu 47 to canai Omega
centuri is higher in the sky because it's in Cent In too and uh do you have
the part of Santo that to to me he can he can see and describe it in the
150 after before Christ uh the an after
sorry the the existence of this of course the that um Edmund H discover in
in 17677 sorry my English with the
numbers um I'm starting to listen and not Stellar objects mesier of course
that that maybe make not not in it's not in the mere catalog
but is catalog like a nonell
object I the I don't know if 47 to Kanai was
considered first like a comet but of course ER fastly they they don't they
don't had any any suspect that was a a non-stellar object um freeze in the
sky um well this was in in South Atlantic island of s delin
Helen
um well is it this is the the number one is the B is larg than at four million
solar masses the most massive no Global cluster associ with the mil way the
thing that is very important that is is the the core of the Asian
Asian Galaxy uh that was uh trained by the by
the Milky Way and now is is like a
skeleton the the skeleton core of an old an accessory Galaxy of a Milky Way today
ER you can H many um some kind of stars
are suspect that came from the the this old Galaxy that today
is the core that is is the the the the
cluster and and well and the work of the
Chileans astronomers is that in ch Observatory
they they work to consider by the movements of the central Stars they
suspect the the existence of the black hole inside
um is something like uh like a well is is the core the REM of the disrupted D
darf Galaxy it's very interesting object and this is why when I told with the the
people that came to to the store and said where I can use my telescope I see
the planets I see the the moon but I interested in in go to another place to
deep sky and I ever ever I recommend because you have this one one of another one in in
many many times of the year but I give them a a a wi uh to consider to to
explore more about the the the things about the the this two particulars
clusters um it's is something like a like
um um for example it's like you can make a observation of a picture I use it for
example the NATO telescope National Geographic telescope from explore
scientific I put the maybe do you remember because what this was was alive
in a in a we make together the the the Tex
the the shots from the balcony and this one was uh using a planetary planetarian
camera using the otaa national graphic telescope of 4 Ines and
half and five uh 500 millim uh FOC length yes and we I
I I took this picture in a live maybe in 10 minutes Expo exposure uh this is this
is I teach the same ER to the kids especially uh to to
make the same um after they take the pictures see the picture look the
different colors of the stars or or the structure find find um uh some
information in Internet and do they have something a treasure because they make
they s a beautiful beautiful H treasure
that that is not only see if not know about the object that that ER print
their their own retina or they put they make the picture of of of the for the
the themselves um this is a a good example
of easy easy easy equipment to use for a polluted
area and you can make this and as tonight we are talking about first light
I found that that the first image H taken by the
telescope uh our national telescope that today is historical um was the first first lie
when the telescope was inaugurated in in hul in 1942 July yes by Enrique gaviola
Enrique Gaba was the director the of the observatory a good astrophotographer look at those Stars yeah yes of course
that this this was a professional observatory in the same time that United States they have a f h the H observatory
in Argentina well we had the one and half meter that is it was really in 1942
for South America we was really proud
because big yes yes in South America really the history of astronomy
in Argentina was uh really interesting from the end of the 18th century 19th century
sorry um and when they in observator the
Cordova started with a one and a half meter telescope and today they still
working of course for students ER but um
is is still working um this is the first light of the telescope and they choose
Omega centri cluster for for the they their own first
ER image of course that this is a glass plate ER picture um it's amazing that they choose
Omega centor cluster and this is the
The Visitor Center and the observatory of course H and we we sold amount for
the The Observatory our company Sako to put a 11 in
11 in smid C inside this small Observatory
beautiful yes yes sure well this is the all that I put is
you can found not the idea that I'm not a specialist writing about
about global cluster I'm not investigation if not the idea is encouraging the people uh to
to go watch take pictures and go to to
using the internet in the best way possible that is go to Wikipedia or Google
Google or Google or another Searcher Searcher
machine um or maybe why not ER go to the
to the library um physical Library exist exist
I told with my kids that the books exist still existing yes yes um this is
something like this is the idea this is the the idea to to make more more
emotional um rewarding the this first lights because
maybe do you do you have the first light for your telescope
um you can every night that you can
uh you can see the object that you found
that you can see another detail I listen to Barbara Harris that
say or Orel or say you can found hiter in a
night different and better that one month ago and the the idea to to watch
uh something like new um in astronomy is is real it's not
something like like is it's the magic of astronomy and the last thing that I have
to Ken poly I I I write to Ken uh because I really for me it's very
emotional that K POS is in the global St party I told you today Scott that
because many times I told that one time I went to us uh to a star party and was
a pit State stargaze and tonight share the global star party with Ken that Ken
was so kind to to receive to to me my wife and Austine Austine today have uh
27 years old and I have two kids more um maybe maybe can you remember the the kid
uh the very very impossible to stop well this is Austine today is very he really
liked process pictures and he's a great astrophotographer um support to our to
our customers every time in the in our star parties to make a better ER
photographies make a better quality uh connections and using of the
mons um maybe I'll told I let me maybe
do you remember yes you remember this H sorry here yes there we go it's going in and
out disappearing good job good
job yes my son was my son was seven and
my daughter was three she's 29 and he's 32
wow else I'm I'm I um I I've um I lost
your your your um the connection with you K I was happy to today when I read
that you was in the program I say w k i told to my wife Evangelina and this time
Evangelina was my my in my translator because I don't actually I don't speak
very well English but in when I I remember that say all in the same
present nothing talking yeah when when you yes I remember that was my my first
two years of study English I say disaster but Evangelina was the my my
interpreter um when she go she she went to sleep with with my my son Austine I was lonely
with all people at I was really really I started to to to talk in English drink a
beard and maybe you know when the the magic of the Star Party ER the star
parties start to go um make this magic uh after 2
pm um you feel that that the people in Star Party are your friends or your
brothers and this is how I felt in the in pit State stargaze I was totally
amazed by the people came make everything uh when he the first time
that we contact to Ken was my friend Carlos Gamba
Carlos live he Liv in the the '90s in Atlanta in Georgia and he was part of of
the club of he visited the I don't remember the
the the telescope that the the Atlanta sty Club ER this assembly the the mirror
maybe can you you maybe you can tell the club had a an observatory with a 20in
reflector but that's not the one that you would have you everybody brought their own scopes at the to the
site yes yes is um he contact you by
phone from venois and he tell because we found first of all in this time in 1999
started talking with the younger people H the internet was near to be small
thing and we found I I found this was going to be my vacations in kilgo in in
Miami and I needed to contact somebody to go to an star party this this year
the winter star party in in
in Miami was uh was closer
because the time of the Hurrican maybe it was two years
earlier destroy a big part of the keys and the winter star party was impossible
and we found my friend that he lived in Atlanta Georgia said no no we I know
where you can go and I took the sky and Telescope magazine something from from
this year and I I I wrote I wrote a the Beach State thir gates in Atlant
Church okay perfect to to connect and was the best the best plan that I made
in a tree really because I drove with my my wife um my kid from kilargo Florida
to um Alana Georgia especially the spring
spring spring Springfield yes uh it was
in the spring that year yes yes the year was in Spring n State Park Spring State
Park it was a it was at Indian Springs State Park Indian Springs State Park yes
makon near makon Georgia yep yep just North yeah between
at yeah yes the GU this gu this good
days Days the peach state stargaze is now at a different site at it's called
Deer Lick astronomy Village and it's very very dark and um you might look it
up and get the particulars it's going to it's now a week long and it's going to be end of September to the beginning of
October um I retired from the event after doing it for 10 years but um it
but they still make a a greatest our party yeah and it's all camping there's no indoor lodging so you have a tent or
an RV yes yes yes I remember that you um
you um give us a a a a c how you say in
English uh we call it Cav yes like a LOD a l very very um
comfortable um but but a lot of people in T A lot of people in RV and this is
something that I love from the the star Parts in in us here in in Argentina we
make and we took we invade a complete hotel but because the people maybe in
the age that go that have telescope maybe they feel a little complicated to
to go to use a tent um but I really I really am I I I
be happy to to use a 10 in Star party but here in Argentina we choose for the
people the people ask about say no I need something more comfortable and we
found we we the the all years uh that we
make this from from the 90s ER I'm one of the organizers of of the star parties
um which is a hotel and we took the com the entire hotel in the mountains or in
the in the desert area where we found a a hotel we go um nor our St parties are
of course of course smaller than in us but sometimes you we have 100 people to
200 limit um it's really
really the the kind of of the star party in us really I I recommend
I recommend to visit and and go to an star party if you like astronomy to us
it's it's really uh was Peach State Peach State starg was was an amaz
amazing amazing [Music] um an amazing experience for me thank
you sir very much thank you Ken thank you Ken Again by the way as far as the Alpo goes I want to let you know that we
have uh Albert anun uh who is very active with our
lunar observing section and he lives he lives in um Pana Entre Rios Argentina ah
yes yes yes yes yes I'll give you his contact information uh by email of
course excellent K because thank you thank you very much thank you Scott
see what you did you put Us Together Scott thank you yeah it's good it's good
thank you all right thanks again thank you uh
okay uh so we are going to um uh head
over back up to uh North America and talk with h Adrien
Bradley uh Adrian are you there yep I'm hiding I you are hiding messing around
with the video again and move the camera around move my screens around so that I
could share better screen looks like uh you be there in the in the field yeah you have
the same excellent excellent XFX of light that you you looks like I am
outside I'm outdo yeah and hopefully you're not hearing any Echo either um because I've
got the sound not right now behind good so that's so um so yeah I as usual I'm
always chasing Dark Skies when I come on global Star Party we've had a wonderful set of um presentations as
usual um I chime in all throughout the picture and then when I get my time I
try to shorten it up because um we know that we're you know we have a lot of folks that may still be
watching so um I've been doing some formal presentations this want to be kind of
back to the offthe cup way that I used to do it and I am
sharing my screen now um yeah
to basically want to share two albums um
as you can see the name of this album we're talking about first light and that got me to thinking you know there are
many firsts um happen all the time time in you know in this world of astronomy and
I went back through images many that I may have shared here before Global star
party and just said you know these were moments that made me glad I was doing
Imaging and just glad I was out there in the night sky most nights I am always glad I'm out in the night sky but
uh I um put a caption on this one and of and the I'll try and do the
uh short version of all the stories behind the image because I think they they capture sort of the spirit of when
you're out there it's not just about the images um it's about the experience of
being there in the night sky and you know how things progress so this is one
where I was Imaging the signus region a meteor shot underneath the frame I was
upset cuz I've the meteor I turned to image the core and was looking back up
at the signis region just wishing I had an opportunity you know I had an opportunity to catch a meteor in the
frame uh guy says did you see that meteor I hear my uh shutter go off and I
look to see that indeed I caught about the same size meteor that went streaking
below signis another one ended up streaking away from the uh core region
here so I ended up getting a shot you know it's an early picture I think uh
2018 or so um I ended up getting a meteor with the Milky Way after all so
if you remember Comet neowise as it was approaching Earth
after it trip around the Sun it was uh visible in the morning and I traveled
all the way to um all the way to the same park to try and catch it and when I
first saw it in binoculars it was a wild moment although I had explained earlier
about seeing Comet hail Bop uh the reason I put this photo in which was a
closeup that I took um unfortunately I don't remember
um now this is neowise again and this is back when I'm tagging my photos but this
is neowise but the curve it has as it's you know as it was passing as by um
reminded me of seeing Comet hail Bop in this looking very similar to this but um
you know but uh is it horizontal just stretching all across
the night sky I remember the dust tail I don't remember if I saw the ion tail
like we see it here but I'm sure sure it was it was something like this but it was uh seeing a comet in the plane was a
beautiful thing and um I tried to recapture that with this image of comet
Neo wise but you know hail Bop was was a very you know it was a spectacular Comet
visible much much like Neo wise was and so standing on a frozen lake and
wondering what these pill these Columns of light turns out when it's really really
cold um and you've got ice flakes or you know Ice uh there's enough uh ice
floating around the atmosphere to refract man-made light it shoots it straight up into the sky and you end up
with Light Pillars and um I could barely see the light I could
see some of the nearby Light Pillars and for whatever reason I just thought it was a natural thing being this you know
up north where it's cold and then realized oh this is this is man-made light this these
aren't scratches on my lens and so here framed with Orion Taurus and the
plees we have the one time that I've cap I've captured Light Pillars since but I
never captured them this spectacularly it was uh you know you've got a town out there and all the various lights from
all the buildings in town um are their lights are all shining in the distance looks like Aurora but it
isn't quite Aurora um I talked about this one I stopped to get an image of the Milky Way
here and um you know this LDN 666 here which I
think looks kind of like Plankton if you look close enough you've got the two eyes here um let see if that comes in
and then the aforementioned Barnard's e is right here another favorite um
asterism in the sky is a coat hanger all in this region before you actually get
to this core which if it ever shows up and this was well before I had
modified my Canon 6D so that I could get more hydrogen Alpha information out of
Milky Way shots so I went to this Lighthouse to do Milky Way Photography and an aurora
broke out so I went and got some pictures this was one of the first times
I'd seen Aurora since 2002 or 2003 one of those
where I could tell it was in the sky it I stopped my car to look at it but I
wasn't a photographer and did not capture it um I made sever veral
attempts to capture it with the pereus copia part of the Milky Way
um I've done a few different versions of this image but all you could see really you could
see the faint color and you could see the uh you know the uh I want to call
them spires but columns going you know as a part of the Aurora it was a
beautiful site you know of course we know that in this particular area you
know the region that I live in Michigan May 10th would come that'll
come later so first time I saw the zodiacal light was looking over
sagab here at Port Cresent State Park another place that I love going to image
I saw the column of light realized it was sort of emanating from where the sun
was and I took a pict picture and just said what is this what's going is that the zodiacal light it was at an angle
and there's Orion so keep in mind this is this was the springtime April zedal
light dropped my jaw and I realized that's what I was seeing naked eye and
of course I I had to take a picture yeah beautiful the other time I saw zidal light I walk out of a cabin
and this picture I did use a modified camera to take it there's a rosette and
all these other regions um Hal Alpha regions but the picture does not do the actual sight
Justice if you've ever seen the zodiacal light cross with the winter Milky Way
visible with Orion Rising your jaw should drop because it
is it's an absolute beautiful site and the first time I'd seen such detail in
the oryan spur of the Milky Way where this goes now the the melenic clouds if
you take where you know this darkened Hill is the melenic clouds are
essentially one in a half times below Horizon um it's a shame that Orion
doesn't rise in the you know high enough the Northern Hemisphere to pull the melenic clouds out but uh that's where
say are is you got to go go to Argentina for that Milky Way
Shooters um that we love to shoot the galactic core but truly dark sight like
the nebras star party that you've heard or this is in Oklahoma where the okite
tech star party is you can watch siga set in uh this is
September uh so when siga sets it's still it you could still see lots of
things like the uh there's the northern coal sack there's signis and there were
some clouds so it gave that image um you know a little bit of Dramatics you can
see some of the uh air glow you know that up until this year I thought you'd
only see something like that at a dark sight but as it turns out with our active Sun now we're seeing it uh we're
seeing in places aren quite dark um this floored me again the
picture doesn't quite do it much justice but seeing for myself Signa set and all
of that bright light from so many stars as bright as the core looks and many
other you know lesser Dark Skies it uh it dropped my jaw because it
the entire Milky Way looks beautiful in a dark sky this image if you've read the junis
astronomy magazine you're familiar with this this is me recreating the time I
decided to look at the Milky Way for myself naked eye and I didn't see all of
this detail um this view comes in this was as
close to the middle of the night as it got um outside of an arbor and I saw
steam I didn't see this detail but I did see steam coming from the teapot the
stars of Sagittarius here's nky right here stars of Sagittarius are here and
so I saw those I think the Scorpion is all bit gone and this washed away but I
could still barely make out the um Haze of the Milky Way and then when you take
a picture that's what you act that's what's actually there now comp compare that picture to this one sky looks
almost the same but we're back down we're back south and west in
Oklahoma and I'm able to take this picture of the Milky Way even though this is nautical twilight my jaw drops
when the first time I saw the Milky Way begin to appear in nautical twilight that gave me an idea that's how dark it
is down here it's just a complete it's a difference in what you can see
um sometimes to the north um this is where my priest once lived behind you
know behind this uh this is the front yard and I took a picture and I was
amazed that the the transparency the darkness of the
uh night sky to where this picture came out that let me know that sometimes your
SES that you think are dark they may not be as dark due to to atmospheric
conditions so you have to understand and shoot around those but the more
transparent and the better the seeing just like with visual astronomy visual astronomers see more things when um
you've got good transparency and great seeing steady Skies it works for uh
astroimaging too the steadier your skies it doesn't take as many
um as it does doesn't take as many seconds your exposure time doesn't have
to be as bright or as long to um get a pretty bright image where you may not
suspect that you'll get one so you have to keep going out there and you can see
how your how sites work over time and so sadly we've lost the priest so this is
no longer an area that I tend to go to but there are areas nearby where there
are public parks where the you know I could still see the sky but it was it was nice kind of having a uh a private
area to image and then this was this is towa city um a
composite with two minutes um beautiful view of Sagen Bay in Michigan when I
looked up I saw a lot of this I didn't see the you know the exact detail the
pipe here or if you take the entire Crazy Horse you know nebula if you count all
of this from a distance um I was seeing some of that detail it was fainer but it
was there and it's detail that I expected to see at darker sights so
again another transparent night another clear night over the lake sometimes you're looking at in the
sky through a darker location than it actually is where you're standing if I I
had a meter I went straight up and um the meter um showed that you know 21.2 or
something which is a good sky but the best of Skies will show 21.8
21.9 22 and um I was surprised to have the
detail that I did um at that location so some locations will work out great
sometimes they won't it just depends on the night's sky and there are other things when there's clouds in the sky
there's your moonbow this was a moon rainbow this uh the Moon is opposite of
me we're looking over Lake Hon's a freighter and I saw this I didn't see
the color naked eye but when I took the picture I realized that's a that's a
rainbow being cast by a three three4 full moon really bright moon this is one
of the areas where the night sky can get pretty good in
dark so storms in the Milky Way is appearing here I've taken different
versions of this image this one I like the most because I ended up catching
couple bright flashes of lightning here that you can see the sky emerging from
this giant storm cloud which is moving to left of
screen and you know more of the Milky Way ends up getting revealed over time
but uh this was an unusual combination and I took as many images as
I could if I had it to do over again I'd figure out how to get more lightning
flashes um maybe use something that triggers when a flash happens so it it
may be worth it but then you have to to combine with getting Milky Way in a
night sky when it's dark you can use a short exposure and you can end up with that photo but it
was y it was a it turned into a beautiful night although whoever's under that storm probably didn't think
so anytime the twice the two times I've seen a total solar eclipse it's dropped
my jaw and um you know that the moment
that totality happens is a for me a very special moment that I like to watch as
it unfolds and then the corona starts to come out I don't have any major images
of the corona like some of the other astrophotographers with the four minutes they put it they put themselves in a
good position to image for four minutes and they got a lot of good detail I had
CL high clouds and that's all I got but was still a wonderful uh thing to see totality both
times that I've seen it I have not regretted it and then when the Aurora is
right over you and it's bright enough to annoy you that's a pretty that's a wow
moment you're used to seeing the Aurora in the distance like we had in the other
image that made for very big wow moment
looking up and going oh okay that's what it's like when the Aurora above you and then so second to
last um because I'll probably end up cutting the uh presentation short this
little blob is Omega centor the first time I took a picture you it just was
unprepared noisy but there it is Omega centor is compo compared with a hill
that was maybe I don't know 400 maybe a little
less than that two to 400 yards away so you've got part of the Hill you know
with the greenery magnified and there's Omega centor that's something I could never do where I'm at M13 is the largest
globular cluster in the sky and I can barely see that in binoculars whereas if
I had had my binoculars out I'm sure i' would have seen a lot more the full moon was out so the image did not turn out as
well as I had hoped and then finally this is D's image it's not mine that's
the Southern Cross he shared this humble image um during a presentation many
years ago I want to say 2017 and it inspired me to do night sky
photography so that is all that I wanted
to wanted to share um really quickly
first light my Imaging I'm Imaging the moon with an iPhone
um there you go that's what I was doing trying to get
all of these images I think I showed this on another Global star party so
what I'm working on now this is M22 um and then this is another little
globular cluster that I caught now Omega centor goes like this this if you put it
in the same field as M22 I did try to reprocess Omega
centor with an image and actually I think this is more this is probably more
to scale you see Omega centor here and there's M22 which is similar in size
to M13 I think M13 of course is still bigger but then you can see you kind of
see the uh comparison there um let's
see Adrien where was your uh Omega centuri taken from Tombstone Arizona I
managed to be down there because there was a bowling tournament going on and as
we left we went down to Tombstone I realized I was at 31 degrees north
latitude omegas and Tor was out so was the full moon and I did not want to miss
the opportunity so I went out and I tried to image it and I I tried a couple different ways to
um there's another a similar similar to the way I imaged
M22 there's Omega centor right there doesn't look like much with my image but
I was still happy I got it yeah at Central here in Central Florida uh it
only gets to about 13 Dees at the highest but I've captured it at that 13
degrees and it looks pretty nice yeah I'm at 28.9 degrees
latitude yeah it's incredible that here here it's over our
heads yeah in the in the but you was lucky and this is why
to this toic too or I don't know who saying in English
ER see the the cluster from the north hemisphere uh because in Santo is in
Santo and is visible in North hemisphere yeah it's uh the stars of
Centaurus at Tombstone which is 31 degrees north latitude were higher you
know that this is wow yes this is maybe 10 10 degrees over the
horizon yeah and that's yeah the Horizon that's actually a hill in the distance I
would have had more Horizon if I just happened to have been located in a different place yeah but since I didn't
know the area I had I had to do what I had to do I used
a uh similar to this image over here um
well that's another reprocess similar to this image over here I used the same
lens that I would normally use for wildlife photography M22 get M22 here
amazing and I once knew what this um this cluster was I don't know if
m33 or M22 is is that's 22 I pointed at
Sagittarius so it's M22 yes yes this is 22 yes but yeah they when I started to
yeah it's in I don't think this is one of the two glob clusters
that um or it could be it I forget that 6922 and then there's another one I'd
have to look it up to see which one it is but uh yeah so you have M
M22 and then over here look at this little baby glober cluster it's just
further away and um I have to see what number it is
because it could be the globular clusters near bodies window so this
image there's some pretty dark sights in Michigan this is the last vestages of
nautical twilight heading to astronomical Twilight meteors abound the
perad got started early here and I caught a few of
them over uh basically perseus's still Rising
copia area and You' got some dark clouds wait a little bit take a 4minute
exposure and now all of this shows up Andromeda unfortunately M 33 is gone um
Andromeda double cluster heart and soul and then there's a few other and finally the big project I'm
working on is to take these close-ups we talked about the signis rift I want to
take these close-up images and tie them together so that I end up with a
uh a long image there's Barnard Z that uh if you were here earlier there was a
presentation about Barnard Z in the northern coal sack um I want to take
these closer up images Milky Way images and Stitch them all together I have to
do it from the same site as it turns out and it'll be the last
image um that's all the Aurora pictures you're just seeing it turns out I'd
already done that there's Barnard Z there's Cod hanger now if this will
come in Focus yep Barnard Z the Cod hanger and lots of other lots of other
goodies when you magnify the Milky Way you get a lot of there's a whole lot
of goodies that pop out in a lot more detail even delphinus the Dolphins shows
up here and um so you've got
scotum the uh Shield back this way and
over here you've got the northern coal sack and there is uh
signis so a lot to be shared about this uh images like this where you're a
little closer in um of course we love doing
our Galactic core Milky Way Photography and and we catch meteors there too so
with that go see the perseids ask questions of all your local astronomers enjoy the night sky share
your images and you know thank you make sure it's about the
night you know you make your images about the night sky itself and uh
you know do a little bit of Outreach with them that's the I think that's a
noble purpose and uh you know be able to be able to talk about the uh things that
you image and share it with people show them why the night sky is such an important thing thanks very much that's
it Adrian all right you have a good night and up next is
Nathan uh Cil Kumar naan are you with
us there he is a lot of people don't know this but
naan actually came he lives in uh in Texas in the Dallas area yeah and um for
a couple of weeks maybe a few more weeks than that he he was here at explore scientific doing an internship and so he
worked in many different areas here and we were real glad to have him so yeah D
thank you for coming back on global star party and uh uh I'll let you take it
from here it's all yours course yeah it was fun interning at export scientific I
enjoyed my time there up in Northwest Arkansas it was a pleasure and uh I'm
glad to be back on um Global star party so before you go nav I just want to
comment I don't think I heard your voice this low you're growing up on us man yeah he's changing yeah you're becoming
a man love it you had the squeaky voice last time I heard you give a
presentation so uh welcome welcome to manhood I'm glad you're continuing to uh
study astronomy and and do your thing that's uh very admirable to see and I
know you've got family helping you so uh of course yeah please carry on sure of course of course I'll leave my legacy
definitely uh without fur further Ado um I'm just give my presentation
let just start with my screen
share so um today my presentation is going to be about infared
astronomy uh and uh I'm just get started uh so just a brief overview of
like what the topic is basically is it in fomy like generally refers like
the area of astronomy is basically where like astronomers like observe even like
visualize and analyze different types of light from the universe technically that mostly
Falls within like the infrared spectrum and here I just have like a nice little
visual of like the different wavelengths of light coming in uh that like the like like the
different types of like light intensity and stuff like so that's that and then
just a brief overview of how like how infrared astronomy technically was like
discovered uh it was founded in um 1800 by the Great British astronomer Sir
William hersel and it's a pretty funny story on
how he um found out about like infrared light and um that's something very
interesting that um you should like um that would be like recommendable like
reading like Noel so next another part is just some
different space telescopes for infrared like observing right that like in the
past um some different types were like the Chandra xray Observatory and the spitter Space Telescope from NASA and
the latest Space Telescope which launched in 2021 is the jwst or the
James web Space Telescope uh and actually I'm going to be talking about the jwst in like
further depth so just some like some history of it it firstly started in 1989 that's like a
brief question what's next by Nas engineers and this is before the hobo
Space Telescope like ever even launched went into space and NASA had an idea that they had
to make a telescope to follow up discoveries of Hubble and
basically the idea was thought about in the mid 1990s that a um in basically an
infrared telescope with a mirror larger than four meters or like approximately 13
feet they which they named the Next Generation telescope was formally proposed and eventually
approved not too far and then U basically how it came to
life is over the next few decades uh the international
Partnerships were formed space agencies and a lot of academic and Industry Partners were selected
and to like designate parts and make parts for the telescope and the initial
construction of the telescope began in 2004 and the um 18 segment primary
mirror was uh completed by the end of 2011 and four years later um the end of
2015 all
fool what we [Music] lose there there we go all
right go back yeah uh let me go back so in um
2018 no in um 2015 all four of the scientific
components were delivered to the Godard Space Center and Green Belt Maryland and by 2018 all of the final components
were basically delivered to North dark rman which is one of the manufacturers to be put
together and finally which is like the last step in 2021 it was folded and
shipped to the French Keana where it was later launched in
2021 by the esa
um basically so how it got its name technically so web originally as we know
was known as the Next Generation Space Telescope were shortly abbreviated by ngst and it was renamed in September of
2002 after a former Nas administrator known as um James web or James E
web uh just a brief bio about James Edwin web is is James eding Webb he was
the second administrator of NASA which was NASA was originally established on
October 1st 1958 under the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958 which
I believe was by Dwight Eisenhower um so James Edwin Webb was
born on October 1st 1958 in tore North Car North
Carolina and in 1938 he married um paty
Aken Douglas and together they had two children um and just briefly about his education
he was educated in the University of North Carolina where he um graduated in 1928 and he actually served in the
Marine Corps as a second lieutenant and he also served as a pilot on active duty
from 1932 1932 and he also studied um law at
George Washington University University from 1934 to 1936 and um he was admitted
to the bar in um 1936 to the District of
Columbia and just um continued um after World War II he um returned to
Washington to serve under the Secretary of the Treasury before um being named as
director of the Bureau of budget in the um Executive Office of the President and uh at the time the president was
harus Truman who asked Webb to be the under Secretary of State and when the
Truman Administration technically ended early in 1953 web left Washington again
and a few years later Webb came back to be the NASA administrator in February of
1961 under under JFK John F keny through
19668 which he technically held the position of administrator
and um web passed away on March 27th 1992 at the tender AG of
85 just a brief overview of James E web and just some basic INF of the
telescope uh the launch date was approximately December 25th 2021 at 6:20
a.m. Central Standard Time and the telescope costed a whopping 10 billion
and some of the manufacturers were ball Aerospace and Technologies and of course North Rock
Rond and the laun site was um Guana Space Center in the French Guana which
is in South America and the types of bandwidth was the sand up um 16 kilobytes per second
and then the sand down was 40 kilobytes per second and then the KA band down was
um up to 28 megabytes per second and just some general dimensions of the
telescope was 21.1 197 M by
14162 m which is in feet 695 69.5 4 ft and then by
4646 feet which is the sunshield and the appal apsis altitude which is um 832
k000 km or 57,000 miles uh and
then just some information about like the orbit location and stuff is um the
telescope currently orbits around 1 and a half million kilometers away from the earth and hobble which was launched way
earlier than that only orbited 560 which is barely like a fraction of what the
jwst orbits and the orbit location of the telescope is called lrange point or
shortly abbreviated as L2 and basically the um web will always
exactly precisely be located at the L2 Point that's always where it be um
orbit and basically just how the jwsd change
the future in general or how we think of space uh web is basically the premier
Observatory for like the next decade which it's it's very important in
general for like space Discovery and it's a very it still is a very crucial part of how we do Astronomy Today and it
serves thousands of astronomers worldwide daily and it studies every
single active phase in like the history or the general history of the
universe and just some images um so um
uh let me I think last Saturday uh I went to um in an Outreach
event for my Astron my astronomy club Texas Astronomical Society or like Tas
uh we had like a public night just this is like some this is like our one of the
members of her Club giving like a brief night sky tour of like some to like the general public then this just like a
presentation they put up uh and there's some more pictures of
like the presentation and like the public as you see uh listening to the pet presentation and
uh the sad part is kind of like when like a lot of Dallas is like light bloed
and um we couldn't get like the best like Skies possible technically that we could
but uh yeah just some photos I took from there uh uh these are just like the um trifin
nebula that I took from my unar and uh uh I think this one was a two minute
exposure I think and then this one was 30 seconds or 40 seconds I think and then this is M10 this is a
two-minute exposure of M10 through my um Unis Equinox and this
is some more this is also M10 and then this is Alter
this is also um alter as you see twoin exposure of alter and this is M10 and this the
triffin nbol and that's it um it's just like a
short presentation thank you thank you na what what did you what did you find
uh most interesting about uh the man James
web James web um I was just fascinated about the career he had um he served in the military he
served as an under secretary to the president um and then he also worked in
like the oil industry apparently in Oklahoma for a few years like in the 50s
after he quit the Truman Administration and then after that uh he
came back to Washington to become like the NASA administrator for 7 years and uh oh yeah he very fascinating
moood I agree I agree yeah and at uh uh your Outreach event too Dallas has a big
astronomy club down there yeah t they have around we have around 500 members currently yeah it's pretty
big so you know you should stick with them and maybe go to the Texas Star
Party um uh out there in West Texas I think you'll really enjoy that so yeah
definitely definitely yeah okay all right well thank you so much thank you
uh we are moving on to um our next uh
speaker if he's here um uh and I don't see him here right now so uh we will
move on to the uh the next um program that we have but Navan thank you so much
again and we look forward to seeing you on your next uh Global star
party all right um um I wanted to uh thank you know of
course all of our presenters for the 154th Global Star Party um uh you know
it was fun to have uh new faces and to have people come back uh to Global star
party as well uh so that was um you know it's always fun for for me and for all
of us that uh uh do Global star parties together um
see if we have any questions at all uh want to just give some shout outs
to the audience here uh with who who did we start off with h Mike weasner Lori uh
Lori stargazing a okay uh don NAB was on he's he's with the astronomical League
um and gives presentations as well John Ray uh Barbara Harris jumped in there
that was very nice the astronomer cycling Ace uh John wiard uh John John Ray I
think I might have mentioned a little while ago uh Jeff wise um was in there
Andrew corkill um uh who else
here lots of repeat conversations that's
cool some new people V not very VN o
something like that um Mike overaker Tim Robertson uh nice to see all of you John
Larson Dan trani uh it's nice to see him on Dan thank you um and um who else
Steve berer uh learned some stuff about um
what the what the B curve is useful for in variable star observing Mike peoples
was on very nice thank you Mike uh John lson
David samard uh nice to see you again Austin CER uh it was my first time attending
the Nebraska star party this year and it won't be the last Merit Reservoir and
the and the Nebraska Star Party rightly deserves the accolades it received in
the travel and Leisure article so there it is Juan Carlos delota was on um
uh so you know definitely a uh wide ranging audience from all around the
planet here so thank you very much for coming on and thank you um once again to
the presenters and I'm going to end this with a video from the European Space
Agency about satellites and so I hope you enjoy this and then we will say
adios until the next Global Star Party take
care building a satellite is no small feat Decades of experience and hundreds
of missions have shown us that space is an unforgiving environment once a satellite is launched
there is no turning back every scenario must be accounted
for but what exactly does it take to design a satellite let's find out as we zoom in
on the YP sat a satellite engineered by Young professionals at the European
Space Agency the complex task of capturing footage of key moments from Arian 6's
inaugural flight calls for the need of different subsystems making up the satellite to achieve the mission
objectives these systems must work in Harmony and follow a predefined mission
sequence join us as each team delves into their own intricate subsystems that
make wiy SATs Voyage into space
possible first let's look into the wakeup system also known as
wuss running at ultr low power this circuit board was designed tested and
manufactured especially especially for this Mission it was created to meet Aran
isp's requirement that the YP sat remain operational on the Launchpad for up to
45 days its purpose is to detect the launch and turn on the rest of the
subsystems it's definitely special because it's active during the
launch usual payloads only get woken up when uh the launch vehicle is in Orbit
but but we want to record before that happens because we want to catch the
fairing separation and for this there is no offthe shelf solution because nobody
wants their satellite to be turned on on the pad for 45
days so we came up to a solution that okay a circuit board it needs to be super safe so we have one
microcontroller but all of the sensors are there three times we have three
barometric so pressure sensor we have three acometer and we make decision based on
all three of them to make sure that even if one of them fails for whatever reason we can continue so we're just sitting
there on launch pad and as soon as we uh get shaken we detect oh there is
probably a launch happening but it could also just be that the fairing is closed
and there was a shock so how we detect that we read out the pressure sensor
because when we actually launch up the pressure drops and after a bit more than half a minute the pressure will drop to
0.5 bars and then it will wake up the system so if you want to have uh footage
of the fairing separation then this board better works so yeah the first version was a proof of
concept and then we could move on to a second circuit board which then we decide to test in the balloon launch and
through networking of I understand we discovered that there was a stratospheric balloon launch experiment
launching from Budapest it did most of the things we wanted not as fast but the
concept was good so at first it's on the ground static nothing's happening and then suddenly there's an acceleration
upwards and then there is the atmosphere Getting Thinner and thinner as we go up
so it was a very good analog simulation of the launch except the values like the
exact acceleration the exact rate of change of the atmosphere was different but that is
just a parameter to change in the code we wanted to test our logic and it was a
complete success we're super happy about it I'm really proud that there will be one of my circuit boards on
rn6 after the the mission is done it will burn in a gigantic fire and that's
going to be awesome once the worst detects the launch it will signal to the battery to
turn on the rest of the satellite something the worse cannot do on its own
the challenge is for the battery to maintain enough charge to power the remainder of the mission that's why we
just left the satellite as it would be on the Launchpad and we were constantly monitoring what's the state of the
battery this way we can have a very good view over time of how does this battery behave while it is being used during the
mission the battery they have a few major
accidents I think the first time that they test the battery didn't survive the vibration the second time it was an
accident integrating the battery the third time it was something related to the voltage of the SLS were unbalance so
we were seeing behavior that are not normal and that show that the battery is
not healthy so might be dangerous
cells in series and as there is no balancing ciruits they were not all at
the same voltage for example this means that they are inbalanced at that moment it was a bit of a crisis situation for
the project because there was this high risk from this initial results that we might not have been allowed to fly we
found out that the current that was uh out of the battery was quite high so we
thought maybe that's a reason for the imbalancing or the unhealthy battery so
we had to change it and while it's being uh changed and
repaired we are making a here a test of a new circuit that we put between the
battery and the power distribution module to damp on this very high current that we get at the beginning one of the
nice things of this is that they have developed this in record time one month ago we knew that there was this problem
and then quickly they team up they split the in functions and they they came up
with a simple idea which is a sof start based on a inductor and input
capacitance and yeah I very happy now we are very happy with the the solution
it's a protecting even much more than we expected but it's just the test on one
part of the satellite so now we have to try with the battery and the rest of the
satellites so that we are sure that everything will work well and the battery will not uh lose more uh more
energy with the satellite now powered on the onboard computer takes the lead to
orchestrate the rest of the mission the OBC acts as the brain of the operation
sending commands to all the other subsystems we are responsible for making
sure that we take images at the correct time making sure that we start
collecting data with different instruments uh when it's time and we also offload the data from the
instruments to the transmitter so we can down link it to the Earth without us
functioning properly there will be no Mission really so it's
important I can show you I have the engineering model this is a tiny computer inside is
a micro controller and it has a bunch of interfaces to work with the other parts
of the spacecraft so on the sides there are a lot of different uh connectors
that you can use to connect to solar panels and you can use to connect to camera there's onboard storage in here
you also get power and and Communications buses that you can use to talk to the different systems and this
is a commercial off-the-shelf part so there's a lot of features that we are not using for example we don't have
solar panels on the YP set so we don't need those connectors but it's a it's a
very good starting point and it's a a way to quickly and cheaply put together
a space mission with the footage captured and stored the OBC will
dispatch its last order for the antenna to continuously beam the data back to
Earth the Telecommunications team then takes over in coordinating with the ground stations to capture the data so
it can be decoded into clear images so there's a big telecommunications
group we have the people really working on the decoding side of the data but we
also have the ground Station group in contact with the ground stations to actually receive that data and then we
have Mission analysis who analyze the visibility window and a down link window
of potential ground station that we want to collaborate
with so we need a a few inputs in order to know if a ground station is useful
for us so one of the inputs we have is we have a simulated trajectory of Aran 6
but we also need to know some characteristics of their antenna to make sure that the signal is actually strong
enough to retrieve the data if there is a collaboration so if we do have that
visibility window we have to provide tracking files leading up to the launch
to make sure that the ground station can actually uh point in the right direction to follow YP
sets a ground station is a combination of systems which includes also an antenna
that we need to down link the data from our satellite
we have some constraints from the launcher side on the frequency and power that we can use because we stay attached
to the launcher so we chose an antenna that is in espand and most people would
say that's amazing because we are full of espand stations on ground but the trick is we are not normal espand we are
amateur espand we're not commercial so we cannot just go to normal operators and request to use their ground station
on the other hand we have very limited power on board so we need to compensate
that with the ground system so we need to have a big infrastructure but for amateur people so it's the combination
of two very challenging things I remember Junia told telling me you have
to build your own Grand Station and I was like okay no problem but in in
inside I was like I don't know how to build the Grand Station so yeah together we were trying to figure out how to to
buy or reuse parts of ground stations that we already have at ezin but then we
saw there was a huge wave of people wanting to help that we didn't need it
at the end but that was a that those were hard weeks where I was trying to figure out how to build our ground
station mostly in Europe we have found some ground stations that can help us
but we also fly over Australia and the north of South America but having them
concentrated in Europe also means we have some overlap so maybe one station
is not able to retrieve our data then maybe we have another chance with another ground station at the same
time so as you can see on the on the ypa we have only one um we have only one
antenna uh but obviously when the launcher is always rotating this antenna isn't always pointing towards the Earth
so that's why we implemented a specific down link strategy to really make sure that we down link our data um several
times during one rotation the doing strategy is the way that we hope to
recover the data on Earth so this dink strategy taking into
icon the data from Mission analysis mainly the dink windows and the data rate which was also verified with this
equipments this machine the new tech decoders allows us to decode the signals the dvbs2 signals and the modulate of
course and then we have connected to this module our own program the IM image
and video recovery program that's allow us to quickly recover the images and
videos the recovery of these historic images would be a testament to the hard
work and dedication the YP satat team has demonstrated over the last three
years their dream hinges on every bolt screw line of code and piece of Hardware
working in harmony however there is one more Hill
to climb before the wipy SAT is launched the team will assemble the wiy
SAT for the last time and subject it to rigorous tests from vibration and
temperature extremes to vacuum conditions and electromagnetic compatibility each element must meet the
stringent standards of the European space agency and Aran ispass will YP sat accomplish its
Mission objective we'll find out in the next episode
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