Transcript:
for for
we have beatric Hines from Belgium already logged in hope you're having some good weather
out there beatric maybe seeing the comet I don't
know is there audio on this I can turn some audio up oh no I
was just yeah we can guess what it's about and be
the uh the stars and what are they like the
Roman Space Telescope is similar to Hubble but benefits from 30 years of technological development it's pretty
cool okay so I think we're ready to get started
here uh if you're tuning in right now you are watching the 159th Global Star
Party with the theme of distant Messengers and we'll get
[Music]
started my name is Mike Callan I'm a research physical scientist in the astrobiology analytical laboratory at
NASA goded space flight center we've discovered a variety of nuclear bases and nuclear based analogs and meteorites
and when a nuclear based is is it's a small molecule that's found in DNA and RNA and these molecules are essential
for all of life so our results show that these molecules are extraterrestrial in origin and the products of a chemical
reaction occurring on the meteorite we believe that these nuclear bases and meteorites are extraterrestial based on
three reasons and the first is is that uh we find nucle based analoges in meteorites what a nuclear-based analog
is is that it is a molecule that is structurally similar to the nucle bases you find in biology but it's different
and that these structures are actually either rare or even absent on Earth the second reason is is that uh in addition
to looking at meteorite samples uh we also study terrestrial samples so uh these meteorites are collected mostly in
Antarctica and one that's very famous called meren was collected in Australia
so we have soil samples from that meren area in Australia and we've also had uh
we were lucky enough to get an ice sample from Antarctica where some of these meteorites were collected and so when we look at these soil and
Ice samples in the laboratory we don't see the same distribution of nucle bases
and with these nuclear base analogs we don't see them at all in these uh terrestrial samples the third reason why
we think these nuclear Bas was extraterrestrial and meteorites is that in the laboratory we study reactions of
hydrogen cyanide and when we extract these uh the products from these hydrogen cyanide reactions we also get
nucleases and we actually get a similar Suite of nucleases to what's found in the medium
and so when we saw that we were really excited because we were thinking well hydrogen cyanide is dispersed everywhere
in the interstellar medium and it's likely to have some sort of chemical reaction on the meteorite and so when we
saw that uh that really convinced us a lot that we're seeing something from a chemical reaction rather than some sort
of biological contamination coming into the meteorite so this has implications for the origin of life on Earth uh we
know that meteorites contain amino acids which are the building blocks of your proteins and now from our research uh we
can show that uh nucle bases which are the building blocks of genetic material like DNA and RNA are also found in
meteorites and so these things together could have seated in early Earth with these really important molecules that
could have built up to the larger molecules you see today that are essential for biology
[Music]
well hello everybody this is Scott Roberts and David Levy and we are your
co-hosts for the 159th Global Star Party um I'm excited uh that we have some uh
uh some people that haven't been on with us in a long time um Mike Simmons he is
bringing on a new speaker uh Cassandra Holmes uh and they are both with
astronomy for equity and so they'll be talking about that we also have Dale gent and Dale has been working with the
Mount Wilson 100in telescope to use amateur like offthe shelf amateur
equipment to do speckle interferometry you know bringing science back to that historic
instrument and um so I think it's going to be really a a fascinating and great
uh presentation and so um and uh all of
us are maybe I'm a little tired from coming back from Europe still I'm still a bit jetlagged but also a little
fatigued from trying to see the comet uh night after night so David and I tried
to do a a global star party with Christopher go in the Philippines we didn't have much
luck but we were up uh very ear or David was up very late at night I was waking
up very early in the morning and uh uh but that's that's part of it you know so
sometimes sometimes you get great views sometimes you don't but uh still we're doing U the activity of astronomy so so
have you had some good views of it recently David I think I've seen some nice from you yes I did and I want to
apologize for being late um and I was actually in the middle of something
email address so I was in the middle of something extremely important um and uh and then I got your
call and I dropped what I was doing that was extremely important and here I
am and thank you for reminding me and uh getting that L for my fault it is my
fault everything's my fault I will say take the blame you're everybody Chuck
yes David Dale everybody and Scotty and all our listeners today and let me get
right to the quotation I think there's only one choice for a quotation today and that is okay Gerard Manley Hopkins
poem about comets and and uh when I was at queens
getting my trying to get my Master's Degree uh Dr mckeny my
um my thesis supervisor suggested Hopkins and it was
really a very interesting suggestion uh I read the poem I was
immediately entranced by it and first I went up to Dr McKenzie and I said it has
to be the great Comet of 1861 and he said I don't think so because the second line Bridging the
Slender difference of two stars doesn't really apply and uh he was kind of right he was
right on that then I tried the comet of 1862 Swift Tuttle which as we know is
famous for the origin of the the parent Comet of the persy of meteors
and uh but that I didn't like very much but
then came come a temple temples Comet of
1864 and I studied that one and uh the interesting thing about it is it was
just weeks before Hopkins wrote that poem it was part of a he wrote it as
part of a of a of a play he was writing called Flores in
Italy and he was very he was he was it was very
thoughtful and I think a lot of you listening will have the same experience
that a lot of people that I know did and that is that Hopkins is probably the
most difficult poet to read of any English poet outside of
jip and and it was really really tough and until you get to this little thing
he wrote while he was at Cambridge University as an
undergraduate and uh so I um found an
article uh in The Illustrated London news and it talked about this Comet
Comet Temple R Piggy and it said that the comment
was on Monday next going to be pretty bright in the morning sky and that it
would be between the two stars Iota origy and beta
Tori and uh I thought well that's got to be the two BR Bridging the Slender difference of two
stars it had to be that so I went into Dr McKenzie's office and I said I got it
and I told him what it was and he said no and I said what do you mean no this
is like the third Comet I've come with you with and tell me he said because I
know the Greek what the Greek letters for stars mean and an Iota star is much
too faint to be compared to a beta star don't you agree with that and I
said normally Dr McKenzie yes but this time
no you're wrong on that he said I'm wrong I don't think any student has ever
said that to me before and I said well always the first time and he said how am I
wrong and I said I know or Ora or
Ora and because of that lovely um pentagonal shape of the stars there are
a lot of bright stars in Oregon and it turns out that Iota origi is less than a
magnitude fainter than beta Tori and he looked at me and he said are you
sure sure and I said sure I'm sure I just looked at it last
night and he looked at me and he his face broke into a big smile and he said
David you've got it and uh so that turned out to be the
main part major part of my ma thesis done in 1979 at
queens and now I would like to quote to you that poem in honor of comet T tuin
Shan Atlas and here it is I am like a slip of
comet scarce worth Discovery in some Corners seen Bridging the Slender
difference of two stars come out of space or Suddenly engendered by hey
elements for no man knows but when she cites the Sun she
grows and sizes and Spins her skirts out
while her Central Star shakes its cocooning Mists and so she comes to fields of
light millions of traveling Rays Pierce her she hangs upon the flame cased sun
and sucks the light as full as Gideon's fleas but then her tether calls her she
falls off and as she DS indles sheds her smoke of gold amidst the sistering
planets and then goes out into the cavernous dark pass single Saturn last and
solitary and then goes out into the cavernous dark so I go out my little sweet is done
I have drawn heat from this contagious son to not ungentle death now forth I
run thank you for letting me give you this little thing about KET Temple and back
to you Scotty great thank you very much David who knew there were so many poems
about comets you know so uh and how how often they inspired uh
you know great uh uh authors so with David Levy being one of them you know so
all right uh we are um uh switching to
the astronomical League uh David are you I imagine that you will be at the next
Alcon event that is um I will I will be there it's gonna be in Bryce Canyon and
guys it is so dark it is so dark and beautiful there
and I'm looking forward to it counting the months almost years counting the months so and for what I understand
hotel rooms are already starting to get sold out you know and uh ticket sales
have been very aggressive so we got our tickets and we got our rooms and so
we're happy about that but um if you want to stay at the Ruby Inn which is uh
an old Historic Hotel there uh get your reservation in right now and so but
Chuck will come on now and tell us all about it yes good evening thank you
Scott uh the convention uh at Ruby's in if you've never been to Bryce Canyon
it's right next to Zion National Park and not far from the Grand Canyon so you can make a uh you can make a national
park trip out of it but it is dark there and we have reserve space for observing
there Ruby in is an incredible Hotel fantastic pool they've got a general store they've got a uh just a very
Western Ambiance a country in West show every evening it's a lot of fun it's a real fun place to be so I would
encourage you to go it's the last weekend in June uh we're pressing 200 registrations already for this and there
are only 275 rooms available total in the room block so uh you can register
online by going to astr league.org and uh uh we hope you'll take advantage of
this um at this point uh our subject tonight is distant Messengers I'm going
to share screen screen for a moment
and okay let's try this I took a few these are taken with just a 200 mm lens
from uh a light polluted area west of Louisville and uh caught it on the first
couple of nights when it was especially bright and uh got this close up of it
and you see this little smudge up here that's a globular cluster in serpents called mess5
and you can see it in this image a little bit better the antale the anti-il
for the comet um and uh I hope you got a chance to see it uh it it certainly was
at its brightest when it uh first appeared in the evening Sky the moon didn't help much it was almost full at
the time these pictures were taken uh since the topic tonight is distant Messengers um I'm going to talk about
something that comes from a distant messenger called Voyager 2 tonight and
Voyager 2 is currently 13 almost 13 billion miles from Earth it's the second
furthest uh human-made object uh from the earth second only to Voyager one
which is added at about 15 billion miles now and it is the only mission that ever
visited this planet Neptune uh Neptune of course is now the furthest planet in
our Solar System since Pluto became a dwarf planet um it resides at about 30
astronomical units from the Sun about 30 times further than the earth does from the Sun or close to 2.8 billion miles
out and Neptune is the fourth largest planet in the solar
system but it's the third most massive something people don't realize it has a mass equivalent of about 17 Earth uh
whereas Uranus the third largest planet has a mass of only 15 Earths so
substantially more massive than Uranus and that's why it's smaller uh because
the gravity is greater and pulling it in with a little greater density it's the most dense of all of the gas giant
worlds in our solar system so what if we were flying around in the vicinity of Neptune you'd find
that orbiting Neptune or escaping from Neptune would not be substantially harder than orbiting the Earth or
escaping from the earth it's rather remarkable to escape the Earth completely you need a speed of about
25,000 mph to get away from this near the surface of Neptune's Cloud tops uh
you'd have to achieve slightly greater speed of a little over 30,000 miles per hour and the orbital speed is around
Neptune would be 2,245 miles at say 300 miles above the cloud tops and that's not substantially
greater than the 17,500 mph orbital speed going around the uh Earth now the reason for this
you'd think it would be much higher the orbital speed and the escape Velocity but it's not um while the mass is 17
times greater than the earth uh there's a big difference in the radius of the
two planets the radius of uh Neptune is about 15,500 miles the radius of the
Earth about 4,000 miles so you'reif you're 154s roughly times further away
from the average location the center of all the particles in the planet and that
gets squared because of the inverse Square law so gravity if you could imagine the Earth puffed out to the size
of Neptune uh gravity would be 14 times weaker and so the result of that is that
the acceleration away from Neptune is only about 1.2 times greater than from
the earth the discovery of Neptune is one of the most fascinating and
controversial stories in astronomy and all started with Galileo who of course
was famous for his observations and discovery of the Galilean moons of Jupiter and the rings of Saturn and so
forth and he made a lot of charts of Jupiter and what you see here are some
charts he made of plotting the positions of the moons of Jupiter on January 27th
28th and 29th 1613 um the horizontal line that you see
up here at the top and in the middle uh and down here those are the lines along
which the moons of Jupiter appeared to move and he would plot the location of the moons along that line like he did
here and occasionally he would notice something else and in this particular
case he noted that two stars that appeared here uh appeared to change
position with regard to one another they appeared closer together on one night than they did the previous night and he
even made a notation of this and I'll show it to you here in a little bit more
obvious situation here you have a star and a star he was plotting the position
of NEP of Jupiter's moons Jupiter of course moved by the next night but he
noticed that these two stars were closer together on the next night than they were the previous night and again he
made a note of that uh what he was actually seeing of course was Neptune
here and if you go to stellarium and plug in January 27th 1613 you will find
lo and behold Jupiter and its moons which are going to be moving up in this direction over the next night and you
see a star here in Neptune this is that line that he drew at a an angle down
from Jupiter on these charts and if you just go one day forward I want you to
ignore Jupiter because it's it's going to fly off up here but look at this triangle of stars here pay attention to
this triangle and watch what happens to Neptune the next night moves closer to
the bottom of that triangle and that's what he noticed unfortunately he didn't follow up on it uh and missed the
discovery of Neptune it would have been discovered before Uranus was discovered and an opportunity
missed later after the discovery of Uranus uh
people began studying the orbit and the orbital velocity of Uranus and noted
that it would speed up and then on another occasion it began to slow down
as if it were being pulled forward by a planet Beyond and then later pulled backward and slowed down by a planet
Beyond and so the search in the early 1800s began for a planet Beyond
Uranus and two people in England and France
began this search and tried to predict the location of this outer planet by
observing these perturbations in Uranus's orbit and one of them was John
couch Adams seen on the right here he was in England and he plotted or calculated locations that covered a span
of about 35 degrees of the sky these blue plots that you see here meanwhile
in France Orban larier uh plotted a location that was much more limited in
scope right here uh these are ecliptical longitudes here so he narrowed it down
to a much narrower scale as far as where he thought this outer planet would be
found now John couch Adams uh his
estimates as I say covered about 35 degrees of sky and these were given to James chalice at Cambridge observatory
in September of 184 and chalice began trying to find Neptune but failed find this outer
planet uh meanwhile larier published in June of 1846 this location right here
that you see with the little pink Square George AR who was the astronomer
Royal in England uh noted this publication and gave larier gave laria's results to James
chalice again and chalice began observing in August of 1846 and actually
recorded on his charts Neptune but he had bad charts so he was unable to
notice any movement and missed the discovery of Neptune just like Galileo
did meanwhile larier sends his calculations to Johan Godfrey golly at
the Berlin Observatory and on the evening of September 23rd 1846 gy turned his 9in
F-18 refractor on the sky at the location where you saw that little pink Square
and within 60 Minutes found Neptune uh so accurate was that
prediction and here is actually the chart showing the uh larier predicted
location and one degree away uh the actual location where Neptune was
found well uh the War Began now uh
because George uh Ary wanted uh his man
James couch Adams to be credited with the discovery as well since he had predicted a range of locations that were
around where Neptune was discovered so he began pressing for equal credit for
the discovery for James couch Adams this infuriated the French and so in a French
uh newspaper this cartoon appeared it shows the Frenchman larier looking at
Neptune and recording its location and it shows John couch Adams with a telescope looking at laria's prediction
um and uh larier was also uh quite confident that he was the
discoverer John couch Adams is very magnanimous he said there's no doubt that laria's researchers were the first
published to the world and led to the Discovery by Dr golly uh but again
larier was not equally magnanimous and offered no co-edit to John couch Adams
although history has recorded both as the discoverer of the planet largely because at the time of the discovery the
British Empire was quite strong and history gets written by winners as you know so they're both listed quite often
even recently a Scientific American article uh appeared which uh uh
proclaimed that the Brits stole Neptune and concluded that laria's Discovery uh
was the sole achievement here well Voyager 2 was destined to visit the
outer planets Voyager 2 of course uh was launched before Voyager 1 because it was
going to arrive at Jupiter after Voyager One did and so Voyager 2 was destined to
go to the outer planets of Uranus and Neptune Voyer 1 did not and so the
trajectory for Voyer 2 was going to be a fly by of Jupiter a gravity assist there
another one at Saturn another one at Uranus and another when at Neptune and here is the trajectory that it was going
to take first Jupiter then Saturn then Uranus here and then it's
going to go over the North Pole of Neptune and then because of that fly
over the North Pole begin dipping into the southern Skies which is exactly what it did and here you see the trajectory
from a side view of the solar system of Voyager 2 staying in the plane of the solar system until it arrived at Neptune
then it dived over the North Pole and headed deep into the southern sky and if you looked at a sky map of where Voyager
2 is you see that uh it took a rather straight trajectory across the sky until
it passed Neptune and then began its dive into Pavo in the southern
hemisphere these squiggles of course are because of the Earth's rotation around the Sun as far as its
location so there's Neptune this is an enhanced view that was taken with the green and orange filters when Voyager 2
was about 4 million miles uh from the the planet and of course it discovered
this Great Dark Spot uh on the planet uh we'll talk more about it in a few
moments and down here a white cloudlike object uh moving at a different easterly
speed than the Great Dark Spot called scooter and then Great Dark Spot two
down here uh also in an eastwardly trajectory across the Planet that's not
the true color image of Neptune though if you were looking out of a spacecraft window at Neptune from this distance
this is what you would see it's a much paler uh blue color uh a bit brighter
and uh with a lot less resolution this was taken with clear filters with some
green filters attached and represents a more accurate color for it for many
years astronomers felt that Neptune had Rings uh they kept kept observing
Neptune to see if there was anything near Neptune that would occult stars that might be a ring around the planet
they did observe some occultations but they were inconsistent so they never could confirm it until of course a long
exposure image was taken by Voyer 2 at which point they discovered that yes indeed it does have a a ring system this
was taken from 175,000 Mi out when Voyager 2 was very close to the planet um and what you see
here are multiple Rings first of all the right outer ring here is the atoms ring
um and it's about 60 miles wide and 1300 feet thick uh you see a wide ring here
that's a little fainter this is called the LEL ring which is 2400 miles wide
and about 1300 feet deep uh you see a very bright inner ring called The larier
Ring again 60 miles wide like the atams ring and it's about 2,300 ft uh from top
to bottom thickness and then you see a faint ring in here which is called the golly ring which is about 12200 miles
wide and 500 feet deep now these are much thicker rings than you find around Saturn which might be as thin as 30
meters thick and the reason for that is Saturn's rings are mostly ice particles whereas the rings of Neptune are mostly
dust and so they're harder to see they're fainter and they're thicker
and one of the Rings the atams ring proved to have three arcs and these arcs explain why sometimes the ring would
seem to occult a star and at other times it wouldn't when the thick arcs covered a star it occulted the star completely
and this was this contributed to the inability of people to confirm from Earth the existence of the Rings and
these uh particular arcs are called liberte agalite and fraternity after
French uh French terms so the narrow angle camera on
Voyager 2 took this image which is a better image of the Great Dark Spot and its methane cirrus clouds um it's about
8,000 miles wide 4,000 miles from top to bottom down here scooter and the great
excuse me dark spot two down here now this uh Great Dark Spot uh is the
location of the fastest winds observed in the solar system 1,300 miles hour so
if you imagine that you're let's say dabbling in the upper atmosphere of
Neptune at about this location here uh you would be exposed to minus 360
degrees fahrenheit temperatures winds equivalent to a category 62 hurricane
and uh quite an ugly methane odor that you might liken to someone who's had
perhaps too much of a certain food so not a hospitable environment at all it's
rotating counterclockwise just as Jupiter's Great Red Spot does as seen
here uh the difference between the Great Red Spot on Jupiter and the Great Dark Spot is that the great red spot's been
around for 400 years at least and the Great Dark Spot has not because in 1995
just six years after uh Voyager 2 visited the planet the Great Dark Spot
had disappeared uh but it was back in uh in 2017 it started
reappearing uh and in 2018 had fully formed with another smaller dark spot
here uh and then by 2020 uh it had disappeared again and so
the question is what's going on and it turns out that these storms appear to follow solar maximum by about two years
so you have solar maximum and then within a year or two afterwards storms appeared on Neptune there there appears
to be a correlation there so after maybe solar maximum next year we should be looking a year or two beyond that for
new storms on the planet Neptune you've seen these images undoubtedly of cloud streaks these
streaks are 30 to 124 miles wide they rise 31 miles above the uh surface of
the of the planet and again they're indicative of incredible wind speeds uh on Neptune we know from spectroscopy and
from infrared studies we've been able to do computer modeling of the Interior
what we suspect the interior of Neptune is like the upper atmosphere hydrogen helium and methane and then below that a
mantle of water ammonia and methane ises you get down to the core you find a
rocky core equivalent to about 1.2 Earth masses and uh the pressure down there is
about 6,000 times greater than the pressure at the bottom of the Mariana's Trench uh rather crushing 7 million
atmospheres and the temperature roughly equal to the temperature of the surface of the
Sun um because Neptune is so massive and is in the vicinity of so many trans
neptunian objects that lie Beyond uh it has forced a number of these trans
neptunian objects into highly elliptical orbits where they come closer to the Sun at one point in their orbit and much
further in another and it achieves a resonance with these objects and the reason is is that these trans neptunian
objects want to steer clear of Neptune and do very effectively and down here you see a chart that shows the distance
from the Sun Neptune is 30 astronomical units away and you'll notice among the
many TNS trans neptunian objects that have fallen into resonance with Neptune
that The Closer they are to 30 astronomical units away the more eccentric their orbits are to avoid
Neptune and here you see a chart that shows Neptune's location and the yellow dots represent the resonant tnos
look how they avoid it because they spend more time further from the Sun over here when they're going slowly so
they spend more time away from Neptune when they achieve these resonant orbits of course Neptune has many Moons
16 of them uh not nearly as many as the more massive Saturn and Jupiter of course but one of those moons is a very
very significant one Triton Triton is the seventh largest moon in the solar
system it's 1691 miles in diameter it's ice covered
70% reflective so it's very bright it resides a little bit closer to Neptune
than our moon is to Earth but it's a bit smaller than our um Moon and is
undoubtedly captured um a captured tno and the reason astronomers believe that
it's a captured tno or transun an object is that it's going in the opposite
direction of Neptune's rotation which uh which suggests that it did not form with
Neptune by any means and here you see that if Triton had not been captured it would be the
largest transp tunan object and probably a dwarf planet but it did get captured leaving Pluto in that
position if you were at the surface of Neptune looking up a Triton it would look like a very bright moon and just
about the same size as our moon looks from Earth turned out that Voyager saw horns uh uh
down here and here suggestive of an atmosphere on Triton and indeed uh it
even image clouds that you can see here uh at the very limb of Triton as it pass
by so there's definitely an atmosphere uh although it's about one2
200,000 uh of the pressure that we have here at sea level on Earth it's a nitrogen and methane and carbon dioxide
atmosphere but a very very thin one to say the least we've also seen these dark
smears which appear to be hydrocarbons that have been ejected through the ice from something below
cryogenic uh or cryo volcanic eruptions that come through the ice uh distribute
these streaks of hydrocarbons on the surface they also cause a resurfacing uh
of the surface of Triton as you see here it's seemingly a lake that resulted from
this activity the Cryer volcanic venting that occurs through the ice it's thought
that what's happening is that there may be a an ocean underneath the icy shell of Triton that's heated from within this
causes um IES to be fired up through the ice and to erupt on the surface spewing
ice on the surface causing these lake likee effects of solid ice and
depositing the hydrocarbons on the surface so it's an interesting place place and we actually have a proposal to
go there so winding up here if you ever observed Triton it's magnitude 13.2 but
it's pretty close to Neptune it usually resides somewhere between 12 and 17
seconds of Arc from the planet which has a an angular diameter of about two seconds of Arc so you'd find it close by
and the best way is to go to stellarium or to a Triton tracker on uh service and
find out where to look for it When You observe Neptune and use some pretty good power uh when you do so and you might be
able to Glimpse the other moons are pretty small these are the second and third largest
moons of Neptune they're under 252 miles in size they're both magnitude 19
everything else is even smaller and much fainter so if you have access to a 30inch telescope you might be able to
bag at least NAD uh the third largest moon there's a poor picture on the right
here so that's it and the question is when will we ever go back and there are
plans China wants to visit Neptune in 2038 with two vehicles one that will
drop down to 620 miles and drop an atmospheric probe into the upper Cloud decks there's the odinis mission the esa
wants to launch in 2034 that will send a vehicle to Neptune and another to Uranus
there's the OSS Mission Esa and NASA are planning to have a flyby of Neptune the
Triton Hopper NASA has proposed would be especially interesting because it would land on Triton and then leap to
different locations on the surface to study those hydrocarbons and Ice lakes
that uh have been deposited there from the cryo volcanic Vents and then there's
Neptune Odyssey that uh NASA uh is proposing to arrive at Neptune in 2049
that will orbit Neptune and deposit an atmospheric probe in the planet as well
so that's your planet and uh with that I
will stop sharing thank you thank you I learned a lot that's great me too I have even a
comment yeah um Chuck I really did enjoy your story of the discovery of Neptune
and I agree that it is one of the most emotional and telling stories
of all and astronomy but especially what got to me was the idea about the
discovery of the Rings of Saturn and I wanted to add something a little bit to the story you's telling us and sharing
with us Christian hyans in 1656 made the first
observations of of a uh ring uh all Galileo was able to see with
Saturn was that there were like three Saturns right next to each other he thought something was wrong with his
telescope when hyans found the ring he was a little bit afraid or either that
or he followed custom and he announced his Discovery as a as an anagram so he had he divided all
the letters of the Latin phrase if alphabetically and he just put
them in as an anagram when someone figured it out it came out with the following Latin
phrase an anulo singor tenu Plano add
cpum and clado it is surrounded by a thin flat
ring nowhere touching inclined to the ecliptic and uh so I I think the way he
did that it's almost too bad that we don't discover and Report comments this way but I think if we did most of them
would go un unreported at this time but anyway Chuck
I wanted to share that with you it was a beautiful lovely emotion-packed
presentation thank you well thank you I appreciate that de very
much very good that's great well um uh
we are we're running a little bit behind but that's okay sorry that's okay I mean
it's like the most amazing Neptune talk I've ever heard so uh and and we're all
here to learn um I did want to give a shout out to some of the people are
watching uh we've got Barbara Harris out there in Florida you know we hope
Barbara's uh weather has been okay beatric Hines watching from Belgium
we've got um uh Caesar brolo uh tuning in he'll be on a little bit later on uh
he's from Argentina um Mike weasner in Arizona out there where David is John
Ray um Lori stargazing A Okay Lori was
at the eclipse event that we went to out in Texas um and uh don NAB from the
astronomical League Jim mosy uh Andrew corkill um and I think I'm missing one
or two and all the people that are out there just watching thank you for tuning in to our 159th but right now is time to turn this
all over to um uh David AER from
astronomy magazine David thank you for coming on and um I'll remove all these spotlights
right now including the spotlight on me and give the stage to you thank you Scott and if I can do that
here we go [Music] thanks for having me back on and I've been away a little bit as well with a
lot of things going on one of which was to take a trip to see an annular Eclipse
you know and some of our Eclipse friends say well an annular Eclipse isn't really an eclipse but it was kind of fun and it
was uh to a very exotic place so I just wanted to share a few images from that
tonight and then in a week I hope I will get back to more deep Sky observe the
the norm we still have you know 500 objects to go through there but uh I was
interested uh this at the very start of this month I'll start a slideshow here if I can if I can remember how to do it
oh I have to do it here sorry um it's been so long I will share my screen and
I will share the right thing on my screen and I will start a slideshow
perhaps uh and this is a place I thought I would never
get to probably in my life a colleague of mine Michael Bach was there in 2005
for an eclipse it was a brief one there when I was down uh on on the at the
Galapagos this was really an exotic location though to get to Easter Island of course Very celebrated for these moai
the statues uh that date from the Islanders there generally believed to be
from about 12 1250 to about 1500 ad now you know and this place is really out in
the middle of nowhere um in the South Pacific it's a small island and it is a
long way from anywhere as they say we went down to Santiago and spent a couple
of days there to begin with on this trip and then had a 5 and a half hour flight on a 787 to get to Easter Island and it
was an adventure because this island is small it's not very large and on a 787 we landed at the
airport there and it took the entire length of the Airport runway to stop the plane so thankfully we did we got there
um and it was quite an adventure a long way from home uh and uh I will talk a little bit
now about the eclipse and what happened it was a fairly long eclipse this was on October 2nd you might have heard about
it uh just about a little less than a month go now we had a very small group uh this time of people who were crazy
enough to go all the way to Easter Island with our travel partner called Eclipse traveler composed of astronomy
readers it it was a great adventure it was fun I never as I mentioned I thought I'd never get to this place in my life
really cool to see it the moon was relatively distant for this Eclipse so the disc was small and uh we had a
relatively large ring or annulus of sunlight left um in a pretty long
duration of the eclipse so the duration of annularity was 5 minutes and 48 seconds on Easter Island uh which was a
nice long Eclipse not as long as the total that we'll have in 2027 I know
some of you are planning to go to Egypt to see the August 2nd 2027 Eclipse that
will be the greatest eclipse for the rest of our lives having been to Egypt
before I think I can say that so more on that to come but for the moment we were here uh the eclipse began just after
noon annularity just after 2m local time there on Easter Island and uh it it
was a lot of fun we were on the island for four days and in Chile for about three three and a half days there so it
was about a week- long trip Al together and uh loads of fun a very interesting
and very strange place to see as I mentioned they have nearly 900 of
these moai statues uh that now have been found a fairly small percentage of those
however have been restored and are upright most of them are not and interestingly just as you can see some
obelisks in Egypt that they really decided they didn't have the energy to
finish and they're still in C2 horizontally in the ground not cut out even entirely there are also some of
these statues on Easter Island that were unfinished and are horizontal um in the ground in this Basalt of course the
whole island is volcanic basalt and an interesting place to see in the middle
of nowhere this was shot sequenced by one
of our Travelers which just kind of shows you roughly what the eclipse looked like on the
second and uh here we are after two days with essentially No Sleep planning the
adventure it was uh you know yeah sleepwalking through international travel not the best thing to do but
sleeping on an airplane isn't always easy at least for me and then we had an adventure because
we had an early morning Comet and it was really bright and very visible uh suchin
Shan Atlas in the morning sky before it flipped over to the evening and we saw it in last wow up here in the so we saw
the Comet first the first view of the Comet uh it was about second magnitude at this time maybe a smidge brighter
than that and we saw it at this observing site that we had literally behind some of the statues so it was a
pretty cool thing to see and of course David I hope will
appreciate me seeing this but our good pal of many years ago now Bart Bach uh
told us one of the truest things that ever was said by an astronomer all the
good stuff is in the southern Sky that's not much of an exaggeration so we were
there for about an hour before we had uh morning Twilight Dawn U commence and saw
the comet and of course the melanic clouds and other amazing treats of the
Southern Sky basically make the north look a little poultry in terms of
distant objects as well it's always amazing to me I've done it in a variety of places but to see the Orion Nebula
and large and bright and and cool you know looking very nice in a very dark
sky naked eye and looking over at the same time in the same sky and seeing the
Karina nebula four times brighter and three times larger and you think wow
that's an emission nebula you know so the the Karina nebula is really where
it's at in terms of the uh largest and brightest star Factories near us in the
Milky Way it's uh this shows you kind of what
the island looked like it's it's all volcanic almost entirely Basalt uh as I said it's small it's about 14 by7 miles
the extent of the island and they're about 7750 people there now uh you
cannot move to Easter Island or rapanui as it's known uh in uh uh um South
Pacific culture if you will or the original culture um because the you know
except for tourists temporarily being there the Island would essentially be destroyed if there were more people
there so the Islanders are very happy they have lots of fun there this is an extinct volcano called ranu cow that is
there and you can see it's large um and sort of right on the coast there so there's lots of cool stuff to see there
aside from the statuary it was no exaggeration to me to
encounter a lot of these guys erected and restored and think these guys look
kind of grumpy you know and maybe when you're out in the middle of nowhere near any other Islands at all you know 5 to
750 years or more ago you know you've got you can fish and
you can make statues and maybe this would make you kind of grumpy over your lifetime so so it was interesting to see
the faces on all of these figures which are very large many of
them this is our Eclipse group uh during annularity we had a nice uh location
where there was a a fairly Fancy Farm and they they had all sorts of uh food
and drink there and and it's all local of course um they have their own enormous uh collections of Critters and
and enormous Gardens and they make everything right there for you so that was very nice and very fancy uh for
Eclipse day that we had there uh so I would recommend going to Easter Island
if you get the chance it was really interesting you can see pretty much the whole island in four days though so it
really doesn't have to be an extensive trip um there but it's very beautiful with uh some great beaches and other
areas as well and that does it for me I just wanted to Simply share that very quickly
and and I can tell you uh the December issue of astronomy has a story by Mara
bartusiak and collaborators about perhaps why the Hubble constant should
be renamed and there was a guy of course we're about to next month celebrate the
opening of the astronomy Discovery Center this new $50 million renovation of LOL
Observatory and the new museums there and there was a fellow in 1912 who was
uh more than a decade ahead of our friend uh Edwin Hubble VM slier vesto M
slier who really uh first with his famous spectrograph at LOL uh discovered
that the Universe was expanding and as they were known then spiral nebuli were all essentially moving away from each
other with some exceptions like Andromeda that will eventually do a dance with the Milky Way so that story
is coming up in astronomy and next spring it seems like time is flying
because I'm in Tucson now and painting walls and building bookshelves bookcases
and before before you know it the next staris is going to be here in LMA in the spring and the canaries are
very much if you haven't been there very much a an analog of Hawaii and so we'll have a lot of uh amazing talks and a lot
of rock and roll there and some great observing and of course the largest telescope is there which still edges out
the CeX uh and so it is quite an incredible place to see if you get the chance to go to the Canary Islands so
that's all I have tonight Scott okay all right stop sharing thank
you thank you very much um maybe we should talk just a little
bit about the magazine and what's coming up for the next issue and there's why
people should subscribe to astronomy magazine well they should subscribe to astronomy magazine if they want to be a
good person frankly but but uh actually you know a a great friend of mine you know Dian has just become the editor and
chief of Sky Andel as well so you know uh and I appeared I think in she said in
an ad uh this month for a book of Bob Reeves uh in sky and telescope and so
I'm vowing that we will get Diana into astronomy magazine conversely here but
uh both magazines are doing well we were as as I think I've talked about a month or two ago uh we were acquired by a very
large um publishing uh house called fir Crown that's based in Tennessee uh now
and so we have a lot of big plans coming down the road which we'll get to in a few months here and uh we're sort of
stabilizing the ship and making all sorts of plans for expansion and all sorts of things but uh you know it's
been a fantastic time of course with a bright Comet and with a great uh auroral
storms and oh yeah Sky viewing and all kinds of things going on so there's way
too much to talk about now and in terms of research astronomical research now we're in a golden age of course as we've
talked about many times before as well so it there's never been a better time
to be alive interested in astronomy and reading astronomy magazine and our
friends at Sky and tell I will say as well yeah now we are going to meet you
and a bunch of other friends David Levy is going to be there I'm going to be there uh we are all headed to LEL
Observatory on November 16th yes for the grand opening the ribbon cutting
ceremony of the astronomy Discovery Center that's there uh what can you tell
us about that this is a big deal you know because uh you know there really isn't an observatory anywhere in the
world that combines you know the kind of current research there with the four
meter telescope and the history of astronomy of course we know about pers ofal and Mars the first you know I
should go grab something I can't do it quickly enough probably now I think I've shown it before maybe but I found from a
dealer you know P ofal LOL in my collection eventually it'll go to the observatory of course but P ofal lol's
childhood spelling book I have in my collection of astronomy books oh wow uh which was the first presumably the first
book in which he learned about astronomy because there's an astronomy section in it but L has the great collection of of
uncle Percy as we say his materials uh including the first book that he was
given by his mother uh as a child about Mars which presumably set off his
Fascination and maybe led to him imagining maybe there are canals on the no they're not you know pery but uh we
know about the other great things that happened at Lil including slier discoveries and the expansion of the
universe and obviously our old friend David Clyde and the discovery of Pluto
as well with Pluto camera there so this is going to be a reopening of the observatory to the public it's not just
the museum there now but the everything that's there on Mars Hill has been really
retooled I was involved with this because I'm on the board at LOL but uh everything from the access the roads the
parking lot the museum as I said is a major thing here a more than $50 million
project here to reopen The Observatory to much greater numbers of visitors
because the numbers of visitors going to Mars Hill has really erupted over the
last decade and this kind of had to be done so Jeff Hall and others were Geniuses in going and getting the money
to do this on November 16th it's just three weeks or so from now we're all
going to be there to party and to reopen The Observatory and I'm sure we we will report from there about all the fun and
there big surprises with the museum in the opening there that we'll share as well
great okay all right well thanks very much David yep thanks okay all right so
um up next uh I I had talked about Mike Simmons not being on for a while U uh he
and um a group of people have started up a uh program called uh astronomy for
equity and uh uh this has Mike Simmons hopping around the world um spreading uh as only
he can uh you know the inspiration of astronomy and its transformative effects
uh that bring the world together and uh this has been the uh you know the life
mission of of Mike Simmons and um he's got a special guest uh uh Cassandra
Holmes who is also working with him and she'll be on as well so let me bring you
on Mike um and uh it's great to see you again well it's great seeing you Scott
and you're right it has been a while and we've done a lot together through the years going way back it's been fun yes
it's all been great stuff and and you're still at it as well even more so you
you've done this program how many times year now it's this is 159
episode um and uh yeah we'll have to do something special for the 160th so
trying to think of uh a great theme for that but that'll come probably from uh
uh you know other people that are involved with this program so probably for Mr Levy himself so well you're gonna
end up being un longer than Mash or or Seinfeld
here that's when I stop watching tell is when mash went off the air so oh yeah
yeah well so yeah well thanks for for having me on and it's great to be back
with you again and uh you know I want to say first of all astronomy for Equity
the name let's you know let's get that straight in fact I have a should have brought up a little a little thing that
shows what equ Equity means and the difference between that and equality and
Equity just means giving everybody the same chance and you know because you've
been a part of the things that I've done for a long time around the world and and helped out that and and I'm always more
concerned about the people that don't have anything at all and I found uh when
I started doing International astronomy I felt like I was making a much bigger difference doing Outreach to uh in
places that just didn't have anything than I was back here you know at Griffith Observatory and at Mount Wilson
Observatory and doing all these science is so accessible here in the United States yeah it's it's you know they
don't need me so you know we they've got others but it was my first trip to Iran
and connecting American astronomers with those in Iran who are very very active
mostly young women almost entirely young women and uh other places in the Middle
East in ick and in in some other places so now I've just I've learned so much
about how to use astronomy to improve people's lives around the world that I
just decided I'm just going to focus on that and Equity means giving everyone a
chance and there are amazing people that I meet everywhere it doesn't matter how
undeveloped the country is how few resources people are born with the same
brains I mean there there is one supporter put it you know we don't know where the next Steven Hawking is coming
from but we know that most of them are not getting any schooling and you I I talk about I've
changed from saying underserved places because we're used to that and we have
people who you know plenty of fantastic programs for people that don't have
enough opportunity but most of the world that
we in America don't see has nothing they don't have an opportunity zero of any kind whatsoever
and it's at least 80% of the world so living uh without a chance and and I've
had the opportunity to help some people in developing countries who really had
what it takes to do something with their lives and with for their country and for
the world uh and it takes very very little so that I'm just that's all I'm doing now and one of those people that
is truly amazing but happen to have had a chance to get be born here in the United
States uh but not under the best of circumstances but had the opportunity
you know underserved uh to to to reach out and find other things is Cassandra
who will be on here with with us as well and she is uh she's been
volunteering and just absolutely essential to what's going on and she's
she's you know one of the things you know we're doing is we've helped out uh
students in Ukraine a colleagues out and said you know the astronomy I'm very excited
about that so yeah yeah and it's um in fact you know I can share here
right sure of course okay so let me let me share something here and I'll show
you why they reached
out so this is showing uh January
2022 the lights as taken from the International Space Station now I'm on
the board of dark sky International was called uh International dark sky
Association so this is not something we'd like but it's just the way it is uh
so K Deno and keev and a year later this is what they looked like and this is
what happened with the war well everybody knows the hardship that's there but these astronomy students
reached out through a colleague who is helping them uh you know again very Advanced very educated students looking
forward to studying in Europe or the us or any place in the world uh and had
their lives disrupted but these astronomy students said you know she was getting them laptops and other things
they need for Education she said you know our skies go dark we need
telescopes so we got them telescopes and uh they can take
advantage of that dark now and and and uh Cassandra has a great way of putting
these things to she's very poetic so we'll I'll let her talk about it as well but you know
bringing light in the darkness really that darkness is an
opportunity so and this is you know I've gotten telescopes for others
uh uh Middle School astronomy clubs and in Libya where they've gone through war
and Isis and Revolution and everything else and again it's mostly young women
um and Nigeria refugee camps and places where people doing amazing things with
astronomy we have some other plans too to highlight those people but uh so that's
what that's what it's all about and and um so Cassandra for her volunteering
efforts has won in all expenses paid trip to a war zone which is not a
vacation it's not it's it's a it's a kind of vacation that some of us take
and you know I I do things like that it's kind of drk so you guys are
actually going into Ukraine to to a war zone I I had had
communication with a uh a husband and wife over there and they described what
it's really like on a daytoday basis of watching aerial
combat uh events happen above their house seeing missiles fly over um this
kind of stuff and it's absolutely horrific I mean uh you know to to chat
with someone like that uh and to know that this isn't you know it's one thing
to hear about stuff on the news but is quite another thing when you are getting the real emotions and expressions from
someone that is having to experience that experiencing that and it makes you
feel helpless it makes you feel helpless and and um um I I thank God that they
were able to get out of the country um uh and but they're now refugees you know
and so they're going through the whole Refugee scene you know uh and these were
these were people that were middle class had normal lives you know um and
um so it's uh you know I think that the people that
have chosen to stay or have to stay okay not everybody can leave um I think to um
to be inspired by something okay is going to be very important you and I
both know Prim ver hini she's from covo Another War torn country she helped heal
that country through astronomy you know and she she's still doing a lot of that work again that's being done by young
people very very inspiring but I think the same thing's going to happen in the Ukraine at least I hope so yeah well
things have changed a lot and it depends on where you are there so in keib for example there are constant missiles and
drones yeah um but their defense system is so good they shoot them all
down and so when we were deciding on a uh a hotel to St somebody suggested one
that's close to where we're going to meet with astronomy students there and somebody else said well that's out
in the outskirts of the the city so it's very noisy I said what's why is it noisy
well because they're always blowing up things in the sky and then they fall to the ground and so you know can't get a
good night sleep so you we're staying more in the in downtown which came
recommended because it it has a very good bomb shelter which is not something I've seen on the uh filters when
choosing hotels before you know swimming pool observation deck bomb shelter you
don't see that kind of thing but I feel quite comfortable going there now mik
down almost down to the Black Sea is a place that we're going which is a little
dicer but people go on with their lives like normal I know people in car right
on the front lines uh one reporter there and asop photographer is really good so
if it's just like anything else it depends on where you go and you know I was in Iraq before and after the
invasion but I didn't returned back to Baghdad after the invasion because it was really bad I was doing a story up in
the north in a New York Times photographer came up to shoot uh some things for it and um he told me what it
was like there and just I'm not going there you know or wasn't done but I know
people that have actually moved out and then moved back because things have gotten better even though they have this
all the time but they've learned to live with it it's become part of the routine it's what you have to do and I can show
some pictures too of classes uh being held in uh in bomb shelters you know
it's just a regular thing so everything is a calculated risk
you know I tell my wife that I sure it's more dangerous I feel I feel more scared
driving the San Diego Freeway down to LA International Airport than I do being in some of these places because people get
killed there every day that's true but the main thing for these
students is their lives are disruptive they don't know what it's going to be like in the
future they had everything planned out and uh as you imagine here if you're
a high school student say and you're a science student and these are some of the best brightest in a place that does
a lot of software development and other services for Western
countries um and all of a sudden it's like you don't know what you what your
your future is going to be like and they're competing in international astronomy olympiads and
things like this so it's it's really tough on them
and a psychologist I know know in Ukraine
um said that when you hope you dream and they've stopped
hoping they just they don't have dreams anymore but the things that they shared
with us when they they I said well we're going to do crowdfunding we need some things from you saying what uh you know
why you want to telescope what it means it's just heart-wrenching it's just it's a chance
for them to dream just as we all do but they need it
more than we do to escape to the cosmos be a part of the
universe it's true that's true
um you know I've been studying the uh um
the science of awe and uh there are psychologists today
that say that we need a major you double dose of of uh of awe
just to maintain our sanity about every two weeks okay so I can't
imagine running through life without dreams without hope you know uh without
thinking that there's a future you know um
and uh you know that's got to be um that's got to be the norm in a in
a war zone I would think yeah and I'll tell you honestly it's the norm in most
of the world because you talk to to young people in central Africa or in South
Asia or something like that and they don't they they see they everything's
fine at first and then they grow up and see what the rest of world is like and they see what others can
do and I've gotten letters from them so many times over the years I want to be an astronomer but I don't see any way to
do that here and you encourage them and Inspire them and and sometimes they have
the ability to get out of there sometimes it takes that's true yeah yeah but you that I know that that's the
reason why you keep at it because you see that it is possible uh that it does
happen you know um it does and you know for anyone that's listening to this they
they uh that might be stuck right now thinking that uh uh that that their
lives are are pointless okay um uh they're not and there are so many
possibilities I mean of course all the possibilities exist for negative things to happen but guess what all the
possibilities for positive things also exist at the same time and so you know
and it really depends on which way you want to push the needle as a person you know so you might have difficulty it
might be really really tough okay but you can get there and um you know so
it's it's wonderful that uh you I mean Mike this is not just a a general
interest of yours this is not just a hobby or a Pastime or some lunacy this
is is something where you've made a difference you know and you continue to make a difference and um all of us that
have done astronomy Outreach on almost any level we know it and we see it okay
and so uh you know congratulations on doing that you've been doing it
since the 70s I guess is that well I've been doing Outreach since the 70s and
the international stuff for the last 25 years um
and yeah it's just now I might disagree with you about it's not lunacy because
um yeah yeah not so sure about that well you know thank God that we have some
lunacy then yeah I agree I agree lunatics we we do need that and uh there
are so many places and astronomy is used oh we have
I we're not going to have time to talk about it all but we have a new podcast that's coming it's on our website okay
and it shows uh I could even share that if if you wanted if time allows but
people don't know why we want to do astronomy the people you have on here we love it and there are people who love to
watch and so on but then when it comes time people say what good is that why do you want to study that why do you want
to do that why do you want to spend money on these things well I know and
you know a lot you spent a lot of your personal money doing this I know and we've been friends for a long time and I
know for a fact you know this is something that uh uh Mike has put his
money where his mouth is many many times so um yeah that's well this is this is
don't tell my wife she already knows she knows yeah and I I'm doing my
best not to and uh there are other things that that has to go to but yeah it's it's been it's been worth
it I mean it's so there are people asking right now uh in chat uh where if
if they were to donate money where would they donate it to oh boy that's my favorite question thanks for asking so
our website is astronomy uh well it's astronomy for Equity the website is Astro the number
four equity. G and uh I'll just say we have so many
other things in I and come back and talk about him but this podcast is talking about people you know like Y mait in
Pakistan and others who are using things around the world I I I know
hundreds of these people and they all do it on their own dime on their own time
and you know these are in places where they've got nothing and so we're sharing
those stories with everybody there is a is a page on the website big impact astronomy showing why we use it how we
use astronomy to introduce science and stem education in developing countries
uh astronomy for the blind uh astronomy in refugee camps in other ways to
inspire encourage to get women in places that they don't ordinarily get a chance
to get into science and say oh yeah I can be a scientist if I want to I know
people are all around the world doing this so what what we're doing you know that's good but they're
the ones out there doing it just like the the amateur astronomers you and I have worked with for years Scott they're
out there doing it yeah and we're going to tell their stories that's that I think is going to be one of the most
important things that I've ever done so do we want to bring Cassandra on now yes
we do okay let's do that Sandra here we go and and I think that
's very involved in um uh astronomy for the site challenge that's one of the
things I read about her Cassandra thank you for coming on to Global Star Party
um and uh I realize I mean both Mike and yourself have told me that uh you you've
been into this for about a year but you've made some tremendous Headway you have a mobile is that right you have a
mobile observatory most first year am astronomers do not have a mobile
observatory in fact well I've taken stuff around
but but nothing as cool as what you've got okay um uh you've got a beautiful
website uh and those of you who are watching if you go to the U schedule
page that I put up uh which is explor scientific.com [Music]
gps1 15 9 you can go down and see the uh the bios for both Mike and Cassandra um
but uh uh you you are doing some impressive stuff um uh what how long ago
did you get interested in astronomy and what made you do this well it's it's a pleasure to be on
here speaking with you guys today and um you know it was fairly I am fairly new
about a year in two months into astronomy uh I always had a I think
everybody always has a Natural Curiosity um for space but it's whether
it's fostered or not um or nurtured that's a whole different question and so
um I went to Los Angeles or I'm right outside of Los Angeles in Riverside
right now but I went to griffi Observatory for their Monthly Star party last year and day that my life changed
forever um I've worn several hats in my life I've done a little bit of everything from private investigating to
a travel agent to certified nursing assistant and I didn't I never quite
found what I was looking for until I walked into Griffith Observatory and met
Los Angeles Astronomical Society um my life changed forever I looked through a
telescope and saw Saturn's ring and I knew from that moment forward that
I wanted to share this with everybody that I possibly could and um
offer them a chance to an opportunity to see these things for themselves
firsthand Saturn's rings or a distant Galaxy 2.5 million light years away you
know that we don't we don't think about and you said it so beautifully earlier
um you know when it comes to living the everyday life our jobs our
our stress stresses it's not paying attention to we the Sun that comes up in the morning
that's nurturing everything that that we can possibly think of you know is is is
connected there you know it's it's uh I sometimes and my audience knows this
sometimes I go off on the deep end talking about this stuff
but uh it is absolutely true uh that um uh you know we are uh as Carl Sean put
it you know uh you know we're we're made of of star stuff Stardust and um uh we
are connected in ways we we can't even imagine all the ways you know you start
looking at the way that Quantum physicists start to describe the universe and how that's connected and
what is entang and what is all this stuff you know but it's all part of the universe you know
including your own imagination your wildest thoughts your every
intention AB of the universe you know so absolutely and it's it's incredible you
know that you you mention all of that because I for one I was never into science or math or any of that but
something about this astronomy life I've been living for this last year I have
dove into quantum mechanics and I feel like I understand it to a certain extent
to a degree yeah exactly very small degree but it's um it's opening up my
eyes to just how much we are all connected under one sky and that's that
you know I'm a been Mike Simmons's um uh
you know philosophy um and his Mantra you know for decades
so it has United people around the world so and I I've seen it happen firsthand
um with him so that's uh we're very lucky to have a Mike Simmons loose in
the world you know so we absolutely are and that that's what um you know
originally brought Mike and I together not only it was the the solar eclips glasses
sales that he was doing last year that that I helped out with but the moment
that he sent me all the information on all the other projects that he was working on um I I just immediately fell
in love with his passions and and with his ideas and I wanted more than
anything to be a part of it um and it didn't matter if I had to volunteer for
it um you know in in some way I just wanted to be a part of the Imp
that he was going to make around the world and and I think that's exactly what you know uh what we're we're
working on right now is to leave that lasting impact and just introduce astronomy to as many people as we
possibly can and and you know also remind people that we are all connected
under one sky and you that in that on that front um so I'm extremely grateful
for the opportunity to just be a part of um this Unity project is is what at
least I'm calling it the unity project uh you know to remind as many people as
possible just just how connected we truly are now Cassandra you you're going
with Mike to uh the Ukraine is that right yes yeah and uh I mean are you are
you fearful are you nervous are you uh you know Mike has Mike has gone
into uh places that um you know where it's it's
been uh how do I put it a little dangerous okay uh he's he's taken
chances to do things he's brought and and and doing things like bringing in a
solar telescope past immigration in some places where they don't know it's a a
solar telescope I mean it looks like you know looks like a weapon right oh yeah
that that was that was Algeria where I snuck it in they wanted H Alpha telescope and they didn't allow
telescopes to be imported because they had Al-Qaeda and they were afraid they would get it I don't know that Al-Qaeda
was interested in doing H Alpha observing of the Sun but you know but right I got it
by yes I uh well I am volun arily going
with him my arm has not been Twisted it is going to be a big adventure I can tell you that right now so that's great
that's great I'm um it's I'm I'm kind of I'm pulled in in two D in two different
directions here you know it's it's both heartbreaking um and yet deeply
meaningful at the same time you know on the one hand I really feel the weight of
the conflict and the challenges that these students are facing every day um
you know but on the other hand I am so incredibly hopeful and inspired by the
chance to bring something positive to students and and I like to think of it
as a window to the Stars that's exactly what these telescopes are going to to
you know um to bring to them is a window to the Stars a Windows a window to Hope
and to dream as as Mike earlier you know and that's what they so desperately need
right now to to keep holding on and to to keep um I know I don't come from the
the best of backgrounds myself but I had a lot more opportunity than they do and I kept as positive and hopeful as
possible and so that's that's just what I want to pass on to others and I'm I'm
so grateful for the opportunity to bring light to the darkness over there yeah
that's great when do you guys leave when does when when are you on your way uh November 2nd is November okay so Mike's
been telling me this we are participating we're going to give some telescopes uh that they're going to take
over um and we're excited about that we hope that uh they get uh a lot of use um
and um bring bring some joy to people uh to to look up and and dream and to Hope
and to uh you know and to realize there's something Beyond uh the
devastation that's going on you know so and I've been in contact with the the
classes advanced classes I've seen some of the work that they do and it's
familiar to me but I didn't get it until I was in college as an astronomy major so it's it's pretty good they're they're
they're really excited as our um well that's great all those who get this chance yeah that's great so cassandre
why don't you tell us a little bit about your your um uh program I think it's
called Stargazer events is that right yes that is all right we'll give you the
stage here and you can talk about it a little bit and just uh give us kind of
the origin story of it and and and what you do now with it
so well um I after I joined Los Angeles Astronomical Society
and I started doing Outreach I would bring my telescope to a Sunset Boulevard
in the middle of the city and and post up for anybody to to look through so uh
you know if you were coming out of the bar or coming out of the restaurants um
you know I was there with my telescope to to inspire people to look up I'd said
you know from that moment that I looked through a telescope for the first time and saw sn's rings I just wanted to
share it with as many people as possible and that's exactly what I I set out to
do with Outreach um I wanted to experience that wow moment with with
everybody children adults it it didn't matter who and so uh the idea came
between my my partner and I to um set up a mobile observatory uh that brings
telescopes to all sorts of events uh whether it's wedding party wineries um
Resorts corporate events country clubs we we've been going all the way from
Pasa robl to Palm Springs Luna Beach um bringing a mobile
observatory with a so traditional telescope to look at um the moon or or
planets and then also the the deep space telescopes I've got a um a vonis Vesper
that I bring around with me and and just oh it changes everything for people
because even the ones who do know that okay we have planets above us we have
stars we have the moon we don't think about the galaxies and the nebulas and
just what that and how far it is away and being in laas I you know am around
astrophysicist and all the using all these scientific terms that I just don't
know and if I don't know them these people on the sidewalk that I'm trying to inspire I know they don't know and I
try to make it as palatable as possible and and but you're the Gateway you know
you're the Gateway for them to learn more you know and so uh some of us that
are amateur astronomers will never learn the physics we'll never do that because we're we we organically love the sky you
know you and and uh you know once you're under that uh Temple of stars whether
there's a Milky Way there or not okay because you can still see the stars um
even from La uh uh it's it's still very inspiring and um uh so you know uh again
it's it's wonderful that you're doing what you're doing out there and uh you're going to have uh you're going to
come back I think a change person uh you know and really uh solidified in your
mission moving forward when you come back from the Ukraine so be careful out there you know and um I hope to have you
back on the program so that you can report what it was like so absolutely
thank you much for the opportunity I've shared your I've shared your website
and um uh so if you want to learn more about her and you know go to the uh uh
Stargazer Stargazer events la.com website right yeah all right good
good all right well thank you very much all right and Mike thank you thanks for
for um uh being in here with us so thanks for so right now we are going to
bring on uh Marell Souza marello is uh uh of course from Brazil and um uh he is
the editor of our magazine uh and um he
does a tremendous amount of work uh in doing educational Outreach in uh South
America especially in Brazil he has uh established I think the first dark sky
Park in uh in Brazil as well and um so
uh how are things going marello hi nice to meet you s and is a
great pleasure and honor to be with you and to meet Mike Sim here Dr he was down in Brazil before I know
yes I I ever have to thank Mike Simons
for all support he gave to me to our group here in Brazil we began
International contacts with his help he in 2008 first time and as a he was he is
founder of the astronom Without Borders and our International contacts began
with his support thank you very much Mike Sim it's a great honor to meet
you a for me ever is a pleasure to and M simos developed a
fantastic work has fantastic projects and for me it it's fantastic right and
to meet him again here and the our group me and the our group had the all
International contact from his support thank you very much Mike for all your
help it's a great to see you here and H uh October two we tried we
had Eclipse here a partial eclipse it's was not a total eclipse solar eclipse
but had the opportunity to see part of the sun eclipse I will share here the
amaz of our it was a short event because it was
raining before then H as our astronomist
I think that everybody in World H has the hope that the weather
will be fine in the moment of the the event then we organized an observation
in a bridge near us that was the first the best place to see the eclipse I try
to share here if my computer allow me here yeah sorry let me change here I
think that is working can you see my screen it's for me now everything it's froing
yeah it's it's starting just it's in it says started screen
sharing see because everything is frozen here sorry double click to enter full
screen mode okay it looks like something's coming up yes but it's not what I shared I let me check here what's
happening okay let me close here sorry SP but no problem this
computer bring me problems every time okay I'll share again let's try
again it's I'll try again I think that now it will
work let me try and now can you see not
yet oh what's happening it's my power punch that's it
no it's like a gray box with a with an orange stripe at the
bottom something is wrong here I do everything again so I I will be talking
and try share then okay see it was not was a partial solar
eclipse only a few part less than 10% of the surface that we receive from the Sun
that to see from Earth that was possible to see the moon in front of this but
we even that with this partial solar eclipse we organize an an event in our
bridges near us here in our city I don't know what's happening but
it's not [Music] work
sorry and the
can you see it something no it looks like it's trying to show part of a
presentation is is any part of your presentation like orange color yes yeah it's getting just maybe
the top of it at the very bottom of the screen well for me it's blinking here
it's blinking yes I don't know what's happening here okay it's blinking I I'll
be speaking well you can describe it just describe it's
okay I don't know what why it's blinking but we have four breeds crossing the
river here in our seats and organize the event in one of the bridge because we
have two levels and one of the level of the bridge people can walk then we
organize everything that and then we invited many people and the people that
cross the bridge and we had many people participating in the
observation not was not like the big event that you organized but we had
people that was crossing the bridge and look ref us and had the opportunity to
see this partial eclipse of the Sun
and I'd like to to show something but I think that today something is not
working and H during the event we found a new
place to organize observation here and we tried to make the observation also of
the comment here but it didn't work in our city we
have many days with rain and when it clean it not possible to see the the
comments I don't know why but it's for us here it wasn't possible I don't know
what happened because I saw many people that saw the the comet but we tried many
times here and it wasn't possible to see the comments here I know that in North
North hemisphere everybody saw and but here for us it wasn't
possible to see the the eclipse I don't know
why but I think that this South hemisphere this time why isn't a good
place to to observe the the eclipse I'm trying to make something
different here that I think that maybe it
will and I'm change something here because I would like to to show
uh images okay about
the the topic of this that you ask us to talk that was about the distance objects
in universe and we I think that in the beginning of
October we're having new informations about objects that in the Deep sky that was
observed by James telescope and one of these was galaxies
that was already formed in the early
universe and in a period that we didn't imagine that we will find the Galaxy
they found the galaxies the first detection was made in 202
right and the detection ER through it a
Galaxy a very small Galaxy ER the MU galaxy has
approximately 100,000 light years of diameter this
galaxy has 1,600 H light TI very small Galaxy
but it format they measure man and they know
that the distance wi for
probably near 2,000 million years after the big
bang and in the F that you have now that you use now we consider that the
Galax uh can our estimate that the period from 400
million years after big one to 600 Millions after the Big Bun 400 Millions
after the Big B the perod that you imagine that was for the first stars and then is a peri that you can have the
first Galaxy and they found this galaxy H uh did watch in the mes that
they they take they to was form at the
me the measurement was 29 million years after the big bang and
did something that he need for us to explain how that is possible to have for
the spirit we need to analyze again the
prediction made when we use the big event model that you use nowadays that
it's not a prediction that we expect from the model that use nowadays then is
something that we are discussing now and I think that as I know we don't have
an explanation for this yet and maybe the best explanation or the best thing
to do is to change the model to have other prediction
but the Big B model have many problems and this is one of the problem that we
detect using the new technology that you have now that are this fantastic Space
Telescope that you we are using and I think
that maybe now I can share something I would like to show this
image but let me see if it
and another uh new
results was announced in the beginning of October they found the uh exoplanet
Orting BNA this B this star and the star the B
is located six years light years far from us and is the single star that is
nearest nearest our solar system and
there something that can bring hope for us to find other
kind of Life near us um let me see now if it's
you it I don't know if you it can you see
[Music] now right
sh can see I can see it yes what you I'm seeing it ah thank you
yes H now I share here because I changed from PowerPoint to a PDF file then I got
I need to know how that I can change um let's me TR to here here the
Maze of the observation I think that is changing I don't know how but I I click
something here that change image this why observ this bridge that have the
West with without buildings and now we are using to to look at the sunset that
and you want to find how to change the image yeah I like that
shot oh oh ah here it's there the people there
oh work it this is the short this small event don't have so many people to
observe the eclipse here our our astronomic CL was there
and this was how the Sun our partial solar eclipse
here and now I will show the image about what I said this is
a why announed few weeks ago they discovered a milway like
Galaxy and it only 700 million years old
7 million years after the big Bank there something
unexpected here is the Mage this is the link from the US on
page and here are the prediction that we have from The Big Bang we have the big
bang and after this we have an inflation
that universe expand very fast and you have a a moment that he was
dominated by radiation after this begin to produce
matter and after this moment we had the
this hydrogen and helium that you have you have the begin of the formation of
stars and the beginning we have the first galaxies and they estimated uh our
prediction is about 400 million years after the big bang but we have
detection then we expected this now between 460 million years after the
big and this means that the Galaxy form during the first 3 4% of the universal
lifetime that you imagine that it this lifetime of universe yeah but 30 38
billion years and in the past two years from beginning two years ago H James web
telescope identified galaxies which formed between 200
and 500 million years after the big bank and they are very small one you see that
has 100,000 light years of diameter approximately and this galaxy show one
of them that was 290 million years after the big band and
this galaxy has only 1,600 light years of diameter this a
very small one this one and was detected
2020 why the first one and is comparing with the size of
the m is a very small Galaxy and this is a recent result that's
fantastic that change many things this image that you have here we imagine that was iar in a
galaxy but what we have here now we on
our models that this means that inside the Galaxy we have a hot guys around the
stars or form the stars and this is the
light that coming from these hot guys that are the the nebula guys that there
and the first time they imag what happen you have stars with a lot of energy big
star with a lot of that transfer the energy from the guys that's around this
star and this these guys emit lights and
this what we you saw something that he can explain many thing that
we imagine from the first stars to the first
Galaxy when the form the first Galaxy these arecent
results and this is B that's located approximately 6 light
years from here and they found an Planet the gala theard star and Clos
single star from our solar
system sent result that you have this is what I prepared for today I mean I'm
sorry for the problems okay you got you you got it figured out so that that's okay that's
okay and I think that soon we have a new edition of the sky Up Magazine yes
fantastic and we have an article about
other Cults from Asia about what they doing that then something that ever is
important to know what is being done around the world thank you very much for the
invitation SC thank it's now thank you all the participants here and especially
Dr David Le yes a lot of people that I didn't see him nice to meet you again
thank you very much excellent thanks Marella thank you okay all right so
we're coming back up to the the states here uh to Maryland um and we'll be
talking with Dale gent Dale has been working with a team of people include
legendary uh telescope and automation expert Russ Jan and they have been
working at Mount Wilson to take off-the-shelf amateur astronomy
equipment putting it on the 100 inch telescope and doing some Advanced
science with it so uh uh Dale thank you for coming on to uh uh Global star party
I know that you had to rush back from work um uh to to do
this and and I was kind of badgering you to be on the show but I'm really happy that you're on uh and um you know always
really impressed by things that you do so uh if you don't know Dale gent uh and
I can talk about him a little bit while he's standing here he's brilliant okay uh and he is um he's involved with the
development team of uh Nina which is a um a program for doing night sky Imaging
and um uh you know it's um I think it does plate solving I think it does a
number of things that uh uh that you would have to pay a lot of money for
with other software platforms to do what Nina does uh I think it's all for free
um but uh Dale thanks for for being on global star party and I'm G to turn it
all over to you great thanks for having me Scott um yeah is my audio working
fine yep did a mic check okay great thanks um hi everyone um as Scott did
said in his intro I'm Dale um uh I'm an amateur astronomer I have no formal
training in astronomy um and I have to note um Cassandra's story of falling in
love with with astronomy astronomy really struck home uh uh with me because that's exactly how I got into astronomy
as well I was living in Baltimore at the time I was taking a walk up by Johns Hawkins
University and um near my house and where I lived at the at that time and uh
there was a there was a an older gentleman with a 8 inch me Cass grain
set up on um a little Hill in the park that's great and uh I walked over to him
his name was Herman Hayne and um and he had a pointed at Jupiter so uh I got I
mean uh Saturn actually and so I got my first fuse through a serious telescope at Saturn and uh that hooked me right
there my my my dad offered a telescope for Christmas got a 10-inch
dobsonian and that kind of uh set me on my path so um I'm an IT internet
infrastructure guy by uh day so um I'm inclined towards computers and so
naturally IM is what I gravitated towards because I wanted to learn how all that worked and um so I started
Imaging in 2009 um eventually became involved with the Nina project and I have a few contributions there and I
offer offer a few plugins um but along that path that started on that grassy
Hill in a uh small Baltimore Park um you meet people and um along that way and uh
uh through my work with Nina I met more people and uh one of the groups I came
uh uh to know was a group called Stellar it's an informal group and
um uh I'll uh start uh guess my slide deck right now um so my deck showing up
yep great okay um so uh but Stellar is
um and what we've been doing and not solely what we we've been doing but our our major project um has involved um
Mount Wilson and both the 60in and the 100 inch telescope uh the uh the group
um is comprised of um uh researchers uh high school and uh
undergrad college students and uh Educators and uh technical folks such as
myself and uh uh in various um that are experienced in various um um specialized
areas of astronomy so we put our we put our heads together and uh the Stellar name stands for small scci uh scientific
telescope engineering learning and astronomical research kind of a mouthful but um what we aim to do is find ways to
do meaningful publishable science with small telescopes and by small we mean a
meter or less some might say well that's let you know small is less than 2 MERS these days but um but generally we try
to keep it you know in that in that range um third of a meter to meter and
um uh as a result of that we've we've focused on uh double star speckle
interferometry which is um resolving a double star system that uh may look like
through a telescope or on a regular uh astronomy image a single blob of light
um but resolving the two or more members of that star system and measuring their
distances and plotting the the orbits uh of those stars and doing so over time so
that we come to know more about that particular star system and of course also exoplanets um if any of you uh are
Nina users and you've noticed a speckle Plugin or an exoplanet plugin those are the handywork of uh one of my colleagues
on this team uh Nick Hardy and uh leam Bru Dorf who um uh uh made those plugins to help
further and automate the um specialized image capturing of these types of U
objects in the sky and we try to involve um we we always involved um uh the
students in these in these um uh Endeavors so uh high school
undergraduate um uh many from underserved uh areas of the Southwest us um and and
so as someone who runs or helps run the Outreach Nights from my local astronomy club that really gets to my heart
because um it's helping spread knowledge and helping um uh kids get exposed to
the um uh of what's out there right it's possible to have a pursuit in this um
and this is what it's like so uh once a year the group group um makes a uh journey to P Wilson uh
outside of La up uh in the sanre Gabriel mountains if you're not familiar with that area uh I made my first trip there
this year uh ever and um and so we uh have set up in
previous years on the 60in there which um the 60in was built in um uh
1904 I'm sorry uh 1908 I believe um The Observatory itself started being
built in 1904 with the solar telescopes and uh uh the 60-in telescope it
actually served as a prototype for uh the later built 100 in ocher telescope
so um the everyone sets up on the floor of the 60-inch Observatory gets out the
laptops we put an Imaging rig on the 60 in and uh the students help drive an
obser observing plan of double Stars we capture um many many many gigabytes of
data of star data and we uh they also process it right there on the floor of
the observatory uh and uh we do further processing after we all go home after a
week there and um and um Ponder our results um so uh um we've helped clarify
some data in the Washington double star catalog we've um found some errors and
corrected them and uh stuff like that so um so
uh back a few years ago right before covid uh there was the idea well if we're doing this on the 60 why don't we
try it on the 100 inch um and that's a little more complicated obviously it's a
larger instrument um but uh it also hasn't been actively used for science
for quite some time now and so part of doing this on the 100 in is learning
it's relearning its quirks relearning how to operate it and what it's capable of and stuff like that and at first we
weren't too sure if it would work um but um after a few test runs we decided that
uh we were getting great results and we should press forward with that so a little history on the 100 inch this is
the 100 inch at uh Mount Wilson if you haven't been there before uh it's uh
quite a place to go um you know there's the Griffith Observatory then right across the valley and up the mountains
is uh Mount Wilson um so uh this was built uh completed uh around 1917 I
didn't see I don't think it saw first light until about 1920 or scientific first light of that until about 1920 um
and what's notable about the 60 and 100 in being built at the turn of the 20th century was that they're the first large
scale telescopes that were built specifically for Imaging um these telescopes were um uh uh um the first of
their kind and the Imaging back then was um I think 6x5 or 4x5 in plate glass uh
dry plate um uh uh cameras so um an
exposure was measured in uh in many hours um sometimes a single exposure in
a night so um uh that's uh but the technology that went into these
telescopes back in the 1910s and the design that went into the 1910s carried this telescope for many decades the
100in telescope 2 and a half MERS um uh is uh was the largest until about 1949
when thein Palomar hail um telescope um surpassed it and size uh and the 100in
telescope had a uh scientific career that spanned about to the early to mid
80s um and then uh after a break um it got a
few um uh uh scientific missions in the
90s um but a lot of it is still 1910s
technology so uh here's the control desk of the 100 in and this is um our friend Tom inini who graciously helps us um um
uh with with the observatory operations he's a telescope operator that we've we had uh this past June and um but you can
see the mix of the old and the new there um at the far end of the desk is the original periscopes for citing the um
setting circles on the axes of the telescope um and the push button controls uh uh right above them on the
Square blast brass plate uh closer to the camera uh is the gray um uh
illuminated push button control box which is very modern and it's how the telescope is controlled today it has
encoders it didn't have those in 1910 but we know um uh precise movements of
the axes due to the encoders that were installed in the past and um the encoder
readouts are on the screen there and even closer to the camera is still get
another artifact of of yester year and the age a testament to how long this
Observatory has been around a old um uh very old style uh
telephone and um although the Electric Board is not in use anymore in this capacity this is the
original Electric Board those are Edison Light uh light bulbs um the light bulbs
were used as ballast for the 115v DC power system and uh because they had a
generator up there and no power lines coming from down below so they they had DC power on the mountain um from the
beginning and uh and then there's the phone booth if you had a call down to uh
call home so about I don't know four generations of telephony there if you're
a if you're a a telefony offici auto um of course the 100 in is best known uh
historically for Edwin Hubble's use and his uh pursuit of the uh um Hubble
constant and just uh the realization of of spiral galaxies I noted at the
beginning of the uh the stream that a article is about the come out in astronomy magazine that that may offer a
Counterpoint to this uh be very interesting to see that um but for right now um that's Mr Hubble at the uh
Newtonian um uh viewport there which you see on the right hand side and I
mentioned the technology that went into the 100 in at the time the 100 inch telescope was also a very modular
telescope um if you go there today it's in its Crain F16 configuration um
um the uh but it it's it it has multiple tops to it and those there's a big
Gantry crane that goes up inside the Dome and you can well not so easily
pluck the the one top off and put on the Newtonian top and uh turn it into a
Newtonian telescope um there's a couet uh spectrograph top as well so there's
three tops in total this nutonian top was actually um uh kept by the Smithsonian for a number of years they
just recently returned it to Mount Wilson where you can view it in person um and that's Edwin Hubble looking
through the guiding scope um that you see here above uh on top of the camera
plate holder um other famous scientists also use this telescope um and uh and so
um uh by the 1980s uh research had started dying down
um more and larger telescopes started coming online um and um in the 1990s though it
had uh I guess I would call it personally it's one big last haran and contribution to science was um a
prototype laser guide star system was installed on it so the um laser guide
stars that modern observatories um use as a matter of course today the 100 in um uh help
develop um as part as the as part of the uh unisus project so as I said the LA Basin right
below um uh kind of help bring uh an an
end to regular scientific observations at the at the uh the uh Observatory uh
with its encroaching light Dome and um if you walk out of the if you walk out
of the observatory and walk a few hundred feet South you can see the um
uh Sky glow and the LA Basin and this is Pasadena here um laying before you so
but it's really interesting it's having never been to La before I looked up at a
very beautiful dark sky with naked ey uh deep Sky objects plainly visible and
then I look down and there's La so um very picturesque to see it right um
despite that and if you're not familiar with where Mount Wilson is in relation
to all that here it is here um so yes if you find yourself in the LA area try to
make a visit up there it's uh truly a great trip so um what have we been doing
there so um at Mount Wilson um we've been doing speckle
interferometry and uh the question was asked well if we can do it on the 60 in
why not we try it why not try it out on the 100 and so back in 19 um uh 2019
July 2019 there was a engineering test on the 100 inch um and uh the uh a a 43s
format zwo um camera was was uh mounted
onto the uh telescope and some initial results were gotten and those results
were summarized in this paper here published in the Journal of double star observations um so this this
fermented some excitement and um uh but unfortunately Co put a a wet blanket on
that uh for a number of years and uh it wasn't until this past uh May or
actually uh in late two uh 2023 that we um started talking seriously about it
again so uh we started making plans and arrangements with uh Mount Wilson Staff
um and volunteers um we started planning out what kind of camera configuration we
would need because technology had progressed since 2019 um and uh there are some new and
compelling equipment that we could use off the shelf and um and so uh uh we wanted again to make
sure that it would work so I went in May and hooked up a um a abbreviated version
of what we ended up using in June to see if it worked and it did so um we were uh
um delighted at that Prospect so in our yearly um visit to Mount Wilson with the
Stellar group uh with the students and uh teachers and researchers um and
people such as myself uh one group stayed at the 60 inch and did the normal
program there and then uh we did our engineering run on the one a full
engineering run on on the 100 in and some of you may be wondering well what
is speckle interferometry um it's a it's a way to um uh separate out light from
um in this case of double stars um one good thing about it is that it's fairly
resilient to light pollution so the light pollution of the LA Basin looming up into the sky around us not so bad um
it has a high Target Cadence so um it we you're not spending hours on a single
Target uh you're hitting one target um a couple thousand frames and then a
reference star for it a couple thousand frames and then the next Target so you're moving around quite quickly uh so
you have uh uh lots of chances to make mistakes but you also have lots of chances to uh get uh useful data um uh
it can be done with commodity Coss sensors uh which is great because um uh
well they're commodity so they're affordable relatively speaking and um they also have the performance ass ects
that we desire we're doing High frame rate um Imaging of stars so
um uh and uh and then we take that data we we
um we reconstruct the light that's been perturbed by our atmosphere into two
different objects and then uh we measure the distance between those Stars those objects that we find um and um and if
and add them to the uh Corpus of data that we have on that um existing pre-existing data that we have on that
star system sometimes though we we make we we find a new double star system or a triple star system and um and so what we
what the astronomy uh Corpus of knowledge thought was a single star is now a double star
or was a double star is now a triple star system or something like that so how does it work um uh so Astron
as astronomers you've probably looked at the sky and maybe nashed your teeth the amount of star twinkling going on
knowing that the seeing is bad well that's because light from those stars are entering our atmosphere it's going
through different density um pockets of air that's turbulent if you live under the jet stream you know it's especially
worse um or you know in compared to if you live somewhere where it's a hot
muggy summer night and the air that that high air high pressure air mass is just sitting on top of you um and the stars
are barely moving um uh so uh we we all call that seeing
and the the the the problem is though with in the in the with a high frequency
turbulence we we need to rewind that basically and try to separate those
stars because if you were in space all those would be pristine points of light not
twinkling um so speckle interferometry accomplish this this by iming a star at
very high magnification and I'll tell you the magnification we got to on on the 100 inch um the fast exposur 20 to
100 milliseconds these freeze the seeing so we're looking at a star it's it's
it's very highly magnified and then 20 second 20 millisecond exposure freezes
that that atmospheric Distortion in in in a single frame and then we take a
couple thousand frames of that um and that's the body of data um and uh as you
as if you're an astronomy imager you know the more data you get um the more
quality the results you can derive out of that data so same thing here so 5,000 frames 2,000 frames 3,000 frames
depending on the target um is is enough for that um and then through uh
processes called a autocorrelation or deconvolution and bispectral Analysis uh to get the phase
differentials of the two stars um we can separate those into um separate Blobs of
light and then begin to measure them so um the speckle part comes from the
literal Speckles that we see at this high manificent and fast frame rate so here's an image here's a video actually
of uh of Nina running the speckle program uh plugin and US Imaging a very
early in the evening a very easy double star obviously it's you can you can visually see that there's a gap between
them but you notice the Speckles um and uh as we capture frame by frame by frame
you see these two stars the light from those two stars is being affected in the
same way because the light is passing through the same turbulent air pockets in our atmosphere on the way to the
telescope so um these are the Speckles that we're going after sharp and focus
and if we capture enough of these um we can uh start uh easing the light apart
and so um that's where that's the basis of speckle
interferometry uh and uh I forget which double star pair this is but uh it made
for a good and photogenic Target to start out with for the night
um and after processing on the left we get um are two blobs of light obviously
it's really down to the pixel scale um and we can measure the centroid of those
stars and then um uh also the uh uh
angular U SE uh separation between them and begin to plot them on a um a plot of
the orbit um make a plot of the orbit of this of the um uh star around its uh
parent body so that's basically it in a nutshell um
and uh the students learn a whole lot about um image processing Imaging and
other things aspects um uh from this exercise uh the
um uh the 100 inch has a uh what we call a periscope on it right now it's this
was added in uh uh 2015 I believe to um make we uh turn the 100 in into a
visually visual friendly um uh instrument uh Mount Wilson does outreach events every um uh every so often and
private events where uh you can pay to have a view through it that helps fund The Institute um but this is what we had
to hook our Imaging uh system up to that refractor at the bottom um I must give a
shout out to uh Scott here for helping us uh uh with supplying some equipment to help us Mount our equipment on there
um and just to give you a a a um idea of the light path through the telescope um
this is the 100 in here the Observer is the eye there down there at the bottom of it uh at the at the refractor so the
light comes in through the top bounces off the 100 in primary mirror at the bottom up to a secondary mirror at the
top and then back down to a tertiary mirror which then bounces it at a 90
degree angle out the side and down the Periscope and to The Observer and in
this case to our um to our Imaging equipment so it's a convoluted path um
and uh in order to improve this even more we want to um remove the the extra
Optics and the refractor from the equation and image at the native F16 um
uh uh focal ratio of the telescope um and we have plans for for
that here's a picture of our rig here a Mini PC mounted underneath the uh refractor there a qhy 600 full-frame
camera and uh and a motorized focuser uh from optech and uh Starlight instrument
so uh this formed the basis of our Imaging rig there um oh and I must say
uh the IM the photo there in the background is Henrietta levit Swan who
uh is uh the discover of the seid variable star type
um which Hubble and others uh used uh throughout their research to uh arrive
at their own uh breakthroughs so she really was instrumental in discovering those stars that helped launch uh modern
astronomy um here's a block diagram of our our setup here um uh one thing to
note about the the Mount Wilson telescope if you're an Imager you might be used to your go-to Mount the Mount
Wilson 100 in and the 60in for that matter are not go-to telescopes they are electronic push to the hand controlled
axes uh with the push button box um uh is the way to move the telescope and so
uh our Imaging um process had to account for that so we uh made some specialized
software so that the telescope operator can easily see where the coordinates of the Target star um uh what the
coordinates of the target star is and then um Drive the telescope by hand to
match those coordinates so um uh and here's some basic stats um our
operating focal length was 62 m at f
24.4 um and with an image scale of uh 1 Millar second uh per pixel and and um we
generally did our exposures 20 to 80 milliseconds couple thousand frames and
when we took all that data home um and processed it the smallest star separation we got was 56 Millar seconds
wow um of known double star system um well there's the identifier right there
and uh we also made some discoveries and so we're writing a paper about this experience the equipment discoveries
findings stuff like that and um we hope to publish that uh before
long um and then uh ongoing and future work
with this is we're really jazzed about these results obviously and uh we want
to make the 100 in normal part of the repertoire up there um and um since it
hasn't been used for science this is an for many decades now basically um
regular science at least um we want to develop an instrument package that um is
semi at least semi-permanently uh available on the telescope uh by recommissioning the Southport of the
telescope for um use so uh we're working with Tom and the crew at Mount Wilson
for that um we're refining our software integration uh we want to um help find U
get some a little bit of software control the telescope so we can fine-tune the pointing automatically um
and then of course develop procedures so that eventually um we can stop playing
with the telescope and the students can move in and do um do the work themselves
uh so planning observation execution and of course data processing um and then um
and use and and do run both telescopes at the same time so we have a um
centralized data processing um system that needs to be designed and um
uh that will take data in in real time from both telescopes and the students can manipulate that and uh find results
there on the floor um the idea for the the the follow on instrument is uh to go
on the Southport here here's a zoomed in picture on the right of the Southport um it is unoccupied and has been for a long
time um and uh in the uh you also see the the tertiary mirror there that
tertiary mirror can be flipped around and and um instead of shooting light out
the north side and down that Periscope it can shoot it out the South Side um
and uh so we aim to put an Imaging rig there and the Imaging rig will be multi camera eventually a spectrograph uh so
that we can get radio velocity information and um and uh and see what additional
discoveries uh we can make on that of course that also means a higher degree of software integration which is you
know uh mine and Nick and Leon's wheelhouse so um that's it so uh these a
the the Stellar group is a is a con a a a combination of of of individuals and
and organizations here and um they're great to work with and uh I have
personally learned so much and I'm very thankful to be part of that group wonderful wonderful yeah it's so
exciting Dale that they are doing research with the instrument again and I
know I know that U you know from Tom and Sam and all the rest of the people up
there that uh Run Mount Wilson uh that they've got to be proud of the fact that the 100 inch is back in in the game of
doing some research this is also something I'll talk about it a little bit later but uh the alliance of
historic observatories of which Mount Wilson is a member of uh you know is um one of the
one of the questions that comes up in our group meetings our General Sessions is um uh not only how do we do Outreach
with these telescopes for the general public but how do we get um citizen scientists to start doing science with
these instruments again because the Optics are still great you know so yeah
the the 100 in um it originally came with a silvered mirror actually silver
on the mirror and um it's um that stopped in the mid 1930s I believe uh
when they developed finally developed a special um a a successful um uh vacuum
chamber aluminizing um methodology so every four years I'm told four or five
years or so that mirror is taken out of the telescope lowered down by
crane three floors three very large floors of theator to the bottom and yeah
they gri the mirror from its sides you know with this yeah I
watched I would would die the anxiety it's a it's a little nail biting
okay yeah yeah and uh but uh but they they they stripped the old aluminum off put it in the put it in it looks like a
very big pizza oven yeah um and uh uh and and Flash aluminum back onto it and
send it back up and they do that for all three mirrors so that's great that's making history with the instrument Dale
so that's fantastic um you know and hats off uh to everyone that's involved with
that um it is a team effort and every everyone has been contributing um
discussing Target strategy uh software um insights into how best to
handle the instrument um stuff like that um everyone's bringing their their collective experience and wisdom to to
bear on this awesome that's great well thank you so
much Dale we uh we hope to have you back on the uh program again when you have uh
more results maybe after your uh paper gets published it would be a a good time
to come on and and um talk about some of the discoveries that were made of double
Stars great I'd be happy to awesome awesome thank you all
right um well well uh now we're going to go back down to talk to Caesar brolo uh
who was in Patagonia for the annular eclipse and Cesar thank you for coming
on to Global Star Party you are muted
sir thank you C by beautiful beautiful rainbow behind you yeah yes yes is a
part of of the of the journey uh because uh we had a
beautiful beautiful a trip from bues
to to uh Puerto San julan uh around
2,500 kilometers in three different days uh driving I return in in PL by
plane but uh we went uh driving from
buenosaires um to meet uh part of our
group er um well I I'll present I'll present the I share the
screen okay I think that this the complete
screen is the best way okay
and the first thing that I can show to the audience is the map can you see
it yes I I I I couldn't hear you
Scott uh yes can you hear me
yes okay I hear you uh well we we start the first day
from woes and
um we went here is CH Koy the the town of
Maxi and we
go at at noon to eat an Asado
maybe I don't know if I have some problem because I I can hear
you yeah I I hear you I hear you
fine yeah I can hear you I don't know why H
okay I can tell my microphone is working does the audience hear me okay and um
well we we stop in trenen in this
city to to it's not good idea in some uh long
trip but H you know Asado is is more strong like as
uh the the all the organization of a trip and uh we h of course that as as a
meat and Wine Bar and wine is not good idea but I was the designed driver for
this and we continuing driving to the night
here and we stop in this
area M around ah now now I can hear you now
okay [Music] good well this is all La Pampa
province in this in this small town down we
stop and continue to the second day in the second day we
draw here here here very long tree yeah we cross the
black rro and we finished the second day tree
the second day driving MH where where
where well this is Peninsula the Valdez this is where later I show you
it's a place where I go sometimes in jary in my vacations it's very nice
place B Place mixed with desert very nice is where the whales go to
to to uh have their
own the own sons of the
Wales and we finished here in TR and we meet with ped
C my my friend astronomer and we divide in two different
CS the third day we went I went with Pedro driving with Pedro in one car in
another another grow we went the complete
complete Journey that was a really a a Long Tree going to this part of the
country here in PTO s julan
and here is where we watch the
clip in exactly in this
area well I show you the same but in a in a in a
presentation to show pictures and some videos
now
okay I en Clos the the this and this and I show
you the presentation this is the
best the best title that I found
yeah looks good yes really really we The Fellowship
of the fire ring the fire ring
yeah was was a surprise really because uh yeah I like it thank you um today I
imagine this I think ah was was that really was a community
fellowship with my friends yeah our audience likes it too yeah
good well first day uh we when we arrive to
theado to Thea Serio Valente Serio
have an incredible Dome and Telescope weekend house his um
his traumatologist is a is a doctor and he's a strong
strong um amateur astronomer um he have
um I think have 12 12 in uh telescope
and we are working now with Sergio in a
conver to go to the all entire system with a new newer system with a separate
motor and I thought in uh change to the PMC system well in next week I'll talk
with the you know the your your um um your technical team that is
excellent if we can uh prepare a system
for especially for this telescope great thing that is p it's possible it's
possible yes it's possible this is something that audience can can know that the PMC system is really flexible
and uh you can use the the system in
different telescope and the technical team the engineering team of of explor
ific know how uh to comat and it's possible yes we we need to think in next
weeks to talk with uh with the engineering team if if we can do it of
course that yes but only we need to think in the in the size of you know
worm and and the Ste Motors
M yes the the Dos um yes I have all things about this um uh well we we going
to work in this in that's in the next weeks well this is the first part of the
Asado and but I choose um take a n a n a n a nap take a
nap because uh of course that I eat a sad without a call no me but this guy
this astronomer Kime Garcia have their own their own Winery Scot you you know
that this it's tremendo tremendo and they they T the wi
and say okay me not and I continue drive it to another location that is Peru but
it's is fun because the name of Peru anybody is Peruvian or nothing it's only
the name of a small town and here you can see the beautiful hotel in middle of
the napping it's a town of only 60 people very nice people and they
they they give us a comfortable rooms and with excellent experience the Asado
in the Pedro Val in the Pedro sorry in the Serio Valente house
and later uh we we went to the to the hotel in the RO well this is the first
step in the morning uh in the we have the our typical ipf um gas station is
the same one when we talk with you I told with you uh from the from another
eclipse or the Patagonia and I remember that we
we went by the same gas
station um here is a he's the the karcia
song He's astronomer too is specialist in xray
astronomy um and Alejandro marelli friend and
customer of of of from many many years and work with us in organ organizing and
he have a lot of energy and his his uh
his brother-in-law that work a lot with him and Bri say all people all people they say can
you can you do you like to to came to thec yes people yeah all time yes going
to to the adventor this is the the in in
the Patagonia near to the Pedro house the Pedro Saar house is in the this
beach side and with a lot of strings and well a lot of seafood incredible place
of course that now it's it's not winter but near and it's
not um well it's springtime but in the Patagonia we found a snow in snow spots
in in the road because uh one year ago one year
earlier was they had snow well this is our first stop in
commodo commodo ravia we found a beautiful
beautiful place to it uh of course that we couldn't bring nothing but I took
this picture because it's very rare that you are going by the Patagonia and like
in pagonia you you have a lot of Welsh people and they you uh it's easy to to
found uh some kind of pubs with the wsh
style yes yeah because the name for TR or a lot of of the last name are
from many many people in Patagonia are Welsh people you know
Irish but especially Welsh people um this is some stops in the road and near
to the Sea Atlantic Sea H sorry I took
um the the name of this city is calet
Olivia that I show in the map yeah I show the map this is the the picture
between uh Olivia and going to Puerto San julan of the rainbow beautiful could
see yes the golden pot here is not is it's a it's a fake
it's a legend but yes it's fake I couldn't see the the golden the
Golden and here well we we arrive to PTO kulan working for people that they need
filters um and assembling filters uh we we carry uh solar P solar
filter paper and a lot of different things cutting gluing you know
uh preparing all in the morning this was the the morning of the day uh I took
this picture of of a of a sign in the in the street very nice
they prepare forto prepare everything for the clips it was a very nice work
that they made I I we wasn't um not not
prepar I I prepare a lot of different equipments but I
not I'm am a was um with the idea to
make a public observation me but of course that when because the people from
the University of laata of astronomia they was assigned officially to work but
we we when we um
go we when we went sorry to visit
them this is part of the team this is K Garcia our team um this is the guys from
from the planetario university the La Plata University astronomy University
and they told us say okay maybe we are having some problems with the tracking
and blah blah okay no problem I prepare because I have a lot of different equipments I they they told me because
we we know each each other and uh we
uh I had the honor to work with the this this team of the LA PL University
and we um in this moment we ER was
prepared to work together earlier in the in the clip um surprisingly I work again in a
in E clipse because I was not officially prep assigned to show the the the live
image of the clips but you know me Scott I was prepared because if somebody had a
problem I I we went with a solution [Laughter]
and here well this is inside inside the the area of the hotel for
students uh this kind of of uh Construction in pagonia or it's in in
the south of Chile it's the the typical uh all kind of of
construction they had a beautiful replica of the the first ship that
arrived in the area this is in the morning the morning earlier that the the
event this is the real shap that is in in the coast is beautiful because the
shape is is is uh is something that that
is beautiful in the area yeah another view of of the replica this is
the coast is it isn't like auralic point
the this replica in this city well this is how the people
arriving to the clip the national TV was in the same
plane in this they had in the same place the a point of for MIT the the transmit
the CLI this is another view of the the B
area it's a beautiful beautiful
Patagonian side Atlantic
town this is a h this is not a replica this is a real Mir because they
they was the like uh the for
point near to the fland in the the fand war and they have this Mirage this this
plane war plane for like a remember of the
war this is a beautiful beautiful uh big Saloon like a West
Saloon from the end of the 80s a beautiful place to eat for for really
for me I showed it because for me it was a surprise beautiful place um and I
remember that I went in commission 20 35 years ago in my
military service but I never I never went to this place and today it's
totally re re wielded and it's a wielding from from
the end of the 80 19 century it's it's beautiful place it's a
p excellent to to drink a beer and this is the the the the starting of the of
the CP maybe 1,000
people look there quite a yeah because a lot we use yeah Pedro helped me a lot
showing uh visual with Filter uh through the telescope
from his telescope um we use a lot the telescope for watching um this one of
course I choose the refractor with this camera to helping if they own me this
the first picture that I took but later I couldn't take more pictures H because
was cloudly and I started to work with the people of the University because the
they they all me 8 Ines stop to track
the Sun and I say okay we made the masching we change in the moment
focusing the camera from their own telescope this another picture with some
sunspots yeah and this is something that was Beau Beau beautiful that you can see
using a regular sunglasses because by moment we all people using the the
typical solar shes for Eclipse but we have the amount of of uh of cloths to
watching to The Naked Eyes not naked with sunglasses all people having that
uh and changing the Sul passes from from the solar Shades all time and I we talk
to the people use if you if you feel
when you don't see by the solar Shades the the anular the the ring you can
try you can try with your not without sunglasses with sunglasses to see of
course that was perfect because the the amount of plows was wasn't perfect
filter and Scott the remember the this
anular Eclipse remember me more the last vet Eclipse was a total because the was
like a total eclipse because the the picture the the first picture maybe too
small but this one you can see the first part of the contact I see
look this oh yeah now you can see yes we can see the colors this one
have some like a relig thing about religion because you
have this one you have the church you know and was but we start to take
pictures with the cell phone because you we are watching Something Real without f
in the moment Yeah by moment and really we enjoyed a lot a lot
really this look look that beautiful yeah the church yeah
God over the church that's right yeah over the church yeah yeah we we about
this we we had a lot a lot of fun never never suspect that we enjoy more
that we uh really we uh we never suspect that we
enjoy so much this anular Eclipse here another composition with
another but all with cell phone was much better see and take pictures with the
cell phone and enjoy than take pictures with uh with the the filter
sure and well this is the same the people the
people saying wow the second thing first and another another vision of of the the
ring another part this is a picture of K Garcia this is a picture of K Garcia or
maybe okay you got it there yes yes the problem is that maybe in the in the best
part we have more clouds here this is Happ because you have adds something to
it though it's interesting yeah yes yes another
one um well really we enjoy lot of people music the people uh watching and
enjoying uh well this is the team the girls and Pedro um Pedro is is P
studying in in that these gift are astronomers too from from the University
um this is the the the actually is one of the telescopes of Pedro the 90 mm and
maybe he have a a he have maybe 100 people awaiting to watch in this
telescope and oh wow okay yeah I I us this to to in another Point uh my camera
that I I took two pictures no more um really we enjoy this this is the m very
important in our our meetings in our life and really really we enjoy it a lot
uh um because in in the time that that well this is our the team in another
part taking pictures F Garcia
Enrique the fellowship aleandro
Mari Serio Valente La
wife and I don't remember the name of his wife but they she tell me no
everybody call me La color that is the like the red I don't know well but she
made the in the first day she she cooked thead where where Sergio and his wife
reside in as in his weekend home was it fedo and his father
K really we can talk about with the bear of Kime we can talk about the Fellowship
of the of the Fire Ring of course because remember us to to g uhhuh
i part of the equipment and the hero of the on this this is after Eclipse we was
we are we was drinking M talking well you know
um well this a this was the hero of the of the
eclipse and we we couldn't make a live live image thanks to the
exus 100 and the the 80 mm uh refractor
oh that's great that's great yes we're here another picture of the
te me and Pedro um having fun after
after the eclipse yes bring be to to ah
you know to to uh how do you say in English I know leave the
problems to relax celebrate relax yes relax yes relaxing absolutely this is
very beautiful place because the road three Road National three Road have
maybe more than 200 kilometers in the seaside to the watching the Atlantic a
landscape that is beautiful very nice another gas station in
ravia the end the the pictures of the of the ending of the as of the the
fellowship because to another day I was I I returned to to wo and the rest
of of of the people they came to to visit the Porto
madin very good ped ped it's not only an doctor astronomer
because you know to Pedro because actually he's an actor and comedian and he it's a very good actor really yes he
he um work in the local town of TR with
full full theaters and he's he's a very good really yeah and that in the picture
yes maybe some acting with a knife maybe yeah
yeah yes this is the pictures of the of the another people in in
the the Alejandro the guys that they went to to
visit the Wales in yes in Porto madin so another day this is the whale that
picture was by by aleandro you can see the Wales from from the
beach with with a medium with a medium medium Tel photo maybe 100 mimet you can
take this picture because it's very near no more than 30 years 30 years because yes it's
deep the the and they are very close to the
beach the the and the the whale saying hello and me at the same time yes
earlier me in this this is the same place where the the Wes are is Peninsula
this is a where the peninsula is I took this picture from from the plane and I
show you as so fast as possible two
videos I I I could I cut the music because maybe we had the music this is
it's full of people really
yeah well it's cool because it you know it's nice to have a window on what
what's happening down there you know it's great thank you yes yes it's
something that you know here the brand because these are the work the good work
that make the keep and this is the the the screen very very good screen with
our image and this is beautiful really it's it's something that that is is
great and another video
yeah this
I don't know if the I maybe I show you the same video it's possible me well
sorry it looks different or is different no no no I
have I have another one here okay now okay this one okay because in
this moment yeah you know yes yeah because we receive from
another points but of course no no we are thinking to have our own image and
was was a successful Journey
really thank you thank you very much thank you Cesar thank you so much it's a
it's a pleasure it's a pleasure share with the audience this um well
and this is the the history of The Fellowship of the fire ring the fire ring yeah the
Fire Ring cool thank you so much thanks for sharing that it looks like you guys had
a great time looks like you had a wonderful time that's great thank
you yep okay um so Adrian all right well I'm
here Scott adri Adrian are you you said you might be
bowling are you bowling no I got done um I ended up uh
averaging about 217 per game which was not bad I think we won most of the
points and so I'm not far from home but um I am
going to pull over in a couple of minutes so that
uh let's see I'll start my video okay oh there's
my video right there yeah as always and I have a history of doing this of doing
my present go because I don't uh there he is the uh
yeah the my uh I need to go to
play with Adrian when you can hear Adrian we need to go to you guys can do
some is not so professional like in United States I know that people United
States it's a really a really serious business here
maybe don't play good but but I love the the serious thing that that the people
how they how the people feel uh they play really yeah yeah it I'm looking
forward to the barbecues that uh will happen forward to the bar uh when I go
eating drinking and enjoying the night sky just sounds right and I think we
should change our Outreach you know once we get to a certain point yeah I honestly think
adult beverages should be a part of it now is that okay you're used to the it
is a part of it it's fun but if you're not used to the night I could see the problem with it and part of the
presentation I want to do I know I'm going to share a couple of images that I
was able to get of the comment I got a a few Widefield images that I'll share
near the end but um I I'm not sure I think I was on briefly but uh I think
it's been OK since uh the okite tech star party that I've made a presentation
and so what I want to do is see if I can
share um one of my apps I guess I will share
the screen okay and start broadcasting and then look for because I
opened let's see I opened an app let's see if you guys can see yeah we can see
oh we see the Milky Way there okay that's where we're gonna start and I am
going to um pull over to do this because
driving and pres don't do that while you're driving is not driving and presenting is not a skill I wish to show
off at this time it can be done but it is not you don't want to hear me yell
some sort of expletive and then you know ruin the whole right star party so so
you I don't know if my picture shows up up it probably doesn't because I'm not
aiming the camera the right way but uh here we'll do you know what
we'll do this and let's just focus on sharing the screen so you can see the Milky Way and so what we'll do is we'll
go through um this was the first campsite that we went to in Iowa on our
way to Oklahom we actually going to make we
going to make a stop in Colorado to meet up with a friend and so as you can see it was a transparent night with a lot of
light getting a Milky Way in this situation can be difficult but with a tracking device I was able to do it and
eventually make the composite with the bright ground
so if you aspire to do Milky Way Photography you kind of have to know where you
are and you'll see the difference in the type of images you can get depending on
all the surrounding light here we have uh ratton the light Dome
underneath the Milky Way and this is nautical twilight I love capturing the
detail in the Milky Way nautical twilight in some dark areas because it just really shows a difference in some
of the dark sights um we do a lot of Milky Way processing will change colors
of the sky they'll they'll take an image and try and conform it to look a certain
way because we think that's how how Milky Way shots are supposed to look if you get your process down you get Milky
Way shots in all kinds of situations and it gives you an idea of one how dark the
sky is and two the real color of the sky as you were taking the photos so I
always recommend coming up with a method and just applying the method to every
photo and not you know try and normalize everything so then you've got shoot the other side
you've got uh Andromeda m33 NGC
752 you know all our favorites from this side of the Milky
Way's a question there's a question Adrian um uh Adrian nowick uh says how
are you able to capture landscape and Milky Way in the same image
you can do a single image or you can be careful about it and do a composite
don't move your camera the camera the composite don't move the camera take
your tract image to pull in all of this detail from the Milky Way then take a
track a non-tracked image pull in the detail from the
ground now Adobe products which which I use and I do pay for the subscription
and know there are a lot of images that want to use free tools good luck and go for it but once you invest in pay for
tools then updates such as you're able to mask the sky in the ground separately
you're able to bring up shadows in the ground you're able to edit the sky to
you know you can drop some of the highlights so that some of the brighter areas the bright Sky glow doesn't um you
you can you can manage it without taking it out entirely um I like leaving
anything in that happens to be there including this little glowing light from a car down there um and then what you do
is you you combine the two you select it'll have you select the sky you'll inverse it so that you've got the ground
you then lay the ground as a layer over the Blurred ground from your capture of
the Milky Way and you produce with the composite an image that um
looks what you it looks like what you saw but you've produced more detail by taking longer images of each side and
then putting them together a good composite will look like this you can still do it in a single image and I'll
show you this was my attempt to get as much detail as I could Milky Way
wise to get colors to pop here for uh
sh27 and Ruki you have to image a lot more than I did this is about half an hour maybe I think maybe a half an
hour's worth of work maybe an hour the skies are really dark this is from black Mesa and things like the catspaw and The
Lobster Claw there really come out getting good detail all those little
specks there are stars it's just this tells you how bright the core is and why
you do it now I wanted to combine this with ground which I think I still have some shots I would have taken a shot of
the ground and then combine the two for um you know for a final
image but you it and it also depends if you're like this shot here I wanted some
of the ground as a background but obviously I'm trying to capture how this Sky looked this is uh this place called
soda pocket while I was on my way we got the black Mesa
and here's what the camp of okex looks like any given night that you're Imaging
this Mesa here and the sky is um is
great so let's move on notice how much Sky glow is in here we have an active
sun and it's not just Aurora that um get affected the sky glow really starts to
yeah this isn't a bad color um color balance thing at all every all the
colors here um if anything maybe a Touch Too Much Green in the tint but that Sky
glow is there and it was really bubbling up here so the sky quality meter was not
giving a lot of Darkness it was saying 21.3 when we expect
21.8 Sky glow could have been a reason it actually once we normalize to a dark
sky we actually realized that um you know what we're seeing differences even
in this guy this guy isn't as good as it was last night it's not Crystal Clear it's still dark and you still see so
much more Milky Way in areas like this don't worry I will get to the comment
sometimes you make mistakes you try too hard to show what things look like and
you don't do things right we had a rising moon zodiacal light the ins side of the
Milky Way this would have been great if I had done a better job with this
glow that glow is there because the Moon is coming up and it cast light in my
effort to diminish the glow I just kept screwing up so there you go without that
I think I this would be one of my favorite pictures and of course Jupiter is a part of the uh Winter Circle and so
is Mars right there in the center that is Mars so another closeup of the
core I did it so that this region in the center is the sweeps region this is a
region where exoplanet study was taking place right there in the middle um a lot
of times when you image you just sort of dropped the Highlight it's bright like
that uh in nature and it's because there's all of this dust that you see
elsewhere here is not here it's part of uh body's window so so there you go that
part is in the Milky Way um this was a deep this was
another deep shot with an 85 millimeter lens All You portrait
photographers that um your portrait photographers that love doing uh
portrait photography your 85 mm lens is also an astrophoto lens capturing all
sorts of detail even the Lagoon starts to take shape and so does the trifid at
85 so now Comet hunting here we go we we we decided to
get up at 6:30 to view the comet early from this location and there it is oh
there it is this is one of the earlier images of the comet
that uh that were taken uh the clouds this is the one time we saw clouds and
they threatened to uh knock us out but we ended up getting that Comet image
this was an image that was sought after we barely got it you have
uh the waning crescent with earthshine and then over here you have Comet Comet
this was it was not only did we
um did I get that image I uh we sat and observed we had a portable telescope
there Porta ball and we looked at it through the port ball for an hour once
it got bright enough um and then here's that closeup of that image the comet and
the moon it's beautiful it is that I that's one of my favorite
shots this is what the winter Milky Way looks like at black Mesa bright that's what the zedal light
looks like when you go around fall equinox um and you get this beautiful
now there was that question about a single shot this was a single
shot this was I I started doing some stacking um let's see what image okay
okay this must have been yeah I'm surprised I do not have the processing
information here I was looking for that um for for this it would have been a
higher ISO um let's see those are those look more like
satellites I would say than meteors but a higher ISO we've got
um somewhere between 10 and 15 seconds because I want it nice round star so I
went 10 to 15 seconds and um with an astrom modified camera so I was able to
get more in you know the rosette here and so that's that's what you get
when you shooting Dark Skies a single image you can use I was able to mask the
sky in the ground and give a little more light to the ground on that single shot
so the processing tools you use to try and create you take your data and then
you bring out the parts you want to see and you try not to overdo it and like in
this case this is just you know there's the little popup camper that we slept in
right there couple more campers next to us yep that's nice and so it's just a D
in the life this campsite is using this image um I gave it to them and said this is you know this is what campsite looks
like so let's uh speed on through this was another part of trying to discover
the comet now it's actually in here but it's so faint it's it's I've got it in
the center just above a couple toughs of cloud you would have to look long and
hard to see but you you can tell it's a comet because it's fuzzy there's a little bitty tail there it has the look
of a comet but good luck telling people that you you know that you see
it this that's nice there you go the last vestages of
the waxing that was the reason I put it in beautiful the thinnest Crescent you
can get I love that kind of Sky you know and look at the reflection in the water it's beautiful very
nice yep so let's Carry On from capulin volcano
meteor our fight for light pollution happens even in Dark Skies where there's
other volcano Peaks you've got capulin and they've got this this isn't
a dust mite on the camera that light does glow and blast its
way high in the uh high in the sky
so um Kelly Ricks if you remember her she was with me we hyped up we hyped up we finally got a
chance to get me out the capulin and so she showed me some places oh good and uh
yep and this is one of the shots this was a stacked shot because at the time I hadn't figured out a way what is that um
is that a little town or something like that or that is the town of capulin this is the town of capul okay yeah they got
light shining straight up look at that yes we are standing on the side of the
volcano itself when we're taking this photo I see and we are looking out at uh
to the south of course because you got that's a crime I mean they're really yeah disturbing the darkness there
because it is very in this area and to do that is for no reason you know so
yeah and that yeah Kelly Kelly had the exact same comment that the reason they
observe from you know the uh Visitor Center yeah is because it Shields them
from the light um this was kind of a revelation for her too she didn't realize that uh there was that much
light we should we should help Kelly and start uh a um letter writing or or a
signature U campaign to get them to turn those things down or to Shield them you
know because that's uh that is light trespass for sure yes and it's only going to get
worse um you're seeing some dome light I mean there's lighting Behind These
volcanic areas um and you know up here you see all the way to retone in uh in a
couple other shots that will you know that it was pretty dark towards the
north this glow I'm not sure if that was glow from
a different town um Norther part this is Amphitheater facing the top of the volcano we are actually on the volcano
still it's a huge this is like a lava plane it's a huge volcano and that is
just the top of it when you leave and you aim back at capulin you see the
entire thing here I am shooting at the Milky Way I took one of my cameras to
document myself getting the photo and this is me shooting back at
yeah where capulin is this is you know kind of the road to it and then that's
the Y this is the image I was taking two shots back yeah but this is yeah you can
see all of this Sky glow you when when the light pollution doesn't get you the
sky glow can get you as well so there's you know there's just so much you can
do and there's here Grande there were some wires so I turned
this into a panorama to show Sierra Grande stopped on the side of the road
look at that signis region this is back in Kenton near black Mesa yeah and next
to this light behind a Mesa is where Camp Billy Joe is look at that bright
light the AT&T light just there's nothing else here but that bright at
light dinosaur tracks and they may I found the dinosaur tracks yeah
this is my favorite that is a great image look at this that is nice this is my I don't
know magn poster right here that's nice and there's nothing else out there
I think I heard the snort of a deer I turned around face towards the sound and
then I heard the snorting retreating going that way and I said okay yeah you
go that way while I get my uh image this was a stacked image of about
46 um it's very very nice 15 seconds images with um with my Canon 6D and yeah
this is this is the image I love now there's a couple more here I got the rock formation shot right here off of
one of the the Maes and I played around with compositions with
that just so you know standing under way I just sent Kelly Rick an email asking
her uh who we start a signature program to get the local governing oh my
goodness that's great shot too another that was a really great this was I had
to overcome my fears of climbing up the mountain at night and being there um
there were of course you could hear humans all around you could hear some other animals but it was worth getting
over fears to be able to take that shot the dinosaur track shot those were very
much worth it so now we're back in Camp oh this little house on the side of the
road off the road to capulin and this is the Mesa as you can see from Camp
another version of it I don't know which one is stacked and which one is tracked
but I am going to look that up again the Stacked images tend to be uh the track
images tend to be a little brighter because you're looking at the spot longer the Stacked images tend to be
accurate because you use stacking you can go mean um if you want to see how many
planes and things go through your images at any time um you do Max the uh nice
thing about stacking is if you don't want planes in your shot you can just toss those out stack yeah you can toss
those out um but if you want more detail in your shot you just got to hope
there's no planes or you got to stack longer images and do a composite this
image is an eye T an eye level what you see with your eyes that's how you you
see some of these dark Lanes including this um dark Lane there um which I think
is LDN 666 this little dark Lane which I can't seem to make grow okay there we go
tap this tap it again LDN 666 is near the top one of my
favorite dark Lanes so I believe I did Stack this image and treated it so we get back home
and we're going to start now we get we're getting closer to the comet we're going to keep moving looking up I think
the Aurora above my camera oversaturated it with the Reds they were so prominent
in this display yeah look at that above the head yeah this is to the South
that's the moon between shining through the trees here getting ready to set and
there's the giant color this was about a 30 second outburst and it it was
beautiful yeah then oh yeah there we we're still going um then I went to a Countryside
and it the curtains came back so I got beautiful a nice yep with these trees in
here yeah turn that over how rare I mean that's just it's strange to see the the Aurora
over the desert you know right it looks like a desert this is actually a
Midwestern Farm that's been stripped there's the trees those are Cactus
aren't they are those trees no they're not these are just trees in the midwest we jumped into the Midwest yeah we look
like troyo Cactus okay yeah and people did see him in the desert by the way
this was another they did all the way Florida yep I think
Molly caught him from her home in Arizona yeah they were seeing him in Florida here you've got a Milky Way
peeking through all of this light um yeah so we so we jump back to
the Midwest and back home but this was taken while I was uh at black Mesa this
was very nice another attempt yep and
the Witch's head you can barely see it but it's just there near rigel is just
starting to come in so I had I did just get the witch's head what I think a lot
of people do is they up the exposure so that the witch's head shows up more um I
try to naturally exposed for it this wasn't I'm trying to dabble into
Widefield Astro so here you have NGC
752 so finally the of my talk comets we had a full
moon so Comet nighttime Comet you saw it during the day you saw us catch it um
when it was an early morning Comet now it's time to see it as a nighttime Comet the color in the sky and the ability to
get these Reflections in the lake in fact this is probably where I should crop the image right here and that would
make that would be the image we would have the comet there and you'd have this
Lake that'll I'll probably crop that later this is the whole image right here yeah because the tail of this comet is
so long yeah it is so then we started to
get the this part of the Milky Way you've seen me shoot at it the whole
time um it's starting to get into the ACT but the moon washed it
out so still got some detail oh yeah but but you'd love to see this without a
moon well nearing the end of this presentation there you go there you now
we see the Milky Way I went to a darker area a picturesque spot with this River
and Sagen Bay is over here and there's our Comet from here you could see the
comet naked eye you looked up and you went oh there it is so this was a
beautiful place nice said why don't I get in a little bit closer and image see
if I can do this I'll use 35 millimeter because that's what I brought with me and I came with this image I a lot of
Sky glows still in the sky yeah um and but you've got Comet details there's the
Annie tail that everyone oh yeah and this was with a four four minutes for
the sky and you got the anti tail and
four minutes for the or two minutes I think for the
ground composite laid on top of the um other image or yeah you laid on top of
the other the image with this Milky Way detail so you're seeing a lot of these
type of shots on the internet um now because the comet as it recedes is
receding towards the southwest and that puts it in line with
what's left of the Milky Way now compared to the shots I got in in
Oklahoma you're not seeing nearly as
much um Milky Way but it was still there it was actually a pretty good night this
was a panorama clouds came in sweeping clouds um and they covered they covered
the Milky Way almost exactly you can barely see any part there's a small Sagittarius star star Cloud yeah
this I was fan of this yeah there it's a it's a
combination the comet of course is in the middle it's kind of a combo it's a it's
a panorama of three short frames yeah and we put them together so you have a little more it was a little windy out
there so you have some Rippling on the uh River here and you can sort of see the Rippling and the waves too yeah so
had the clouds not decided to completely intermingle themselves with
the Milky Way and I just I didn't I couldn't stay because at this point you see this little band here the um
moonrise was starting was getting ready to start so I was running I was running out of time and by the time these clouds
moved off of the Milky Way you could hardly see it or the comet the moon had risen and the time was up and with that
my time is up that was the uh final shot
that I was able to get and um well thank you that yeah yeah I will go ahead and
stop sharing if I can I had figure out how to do that uh stop share okay all
right and I don't think I'm very visible here but here I'll bring my that's it Adrien
thank you so much thank you you are welcome all right I and we'll see you I
can't illuminate myself very well yep you will I'll be uh we'll see at the
next prob be more illuminated all right and of course you know the night that
all these nights there was either no star party or I wasn't able to make it and I
didn't Bowl I ended up doing things where I was traveling I was on the trip
so the first night I'm back of course it's bowling night so we just had to make the two happen that's all right and
that yep and that is how I spent the last what month and a half I
think uh in between Global star parties so more images to get um we're coming
into November um going to be doing some winter Winter Circle stuff um the comet
will still be in the sky but but it it will be small kind of like it was um
those first shots that I took so I may still do a few more when new moon gets
here but uh we'll see and um I do believe I'll have an article about
Treasures of the Milky Way in February in astronomy magazine so be on the lookout for that one great so all right
so that's it for me conratulations thank you for thank you thank you for having me on am my think I'm am I the only one
left nope Cesar no I I'm giving my presentation next so and Caesar's with
me so yeah so we're gonna talk about the alliance of historic observatories and
my trip to Castell gondo uh uh in uh just south of Rome so
so I will be listening in okay I will thank you okay all right okay all right
well thanks very much everyone so um yes so uh this during this month uh I did
make a trip to uh Europe and was able to spend um uh a couple of days at uh the
historic Vatican Observatory and so I thought it was a good opportunity to uh
share with you um uh you know the organization called the Alliance of
historic observatories and how that got started and all the rest of it so I will
um I will share my screen so let's do
that and bring that into presentation
mode here we go okay so um you can see
uh the logo of the alliance of historic observatories and I grabbed the uh logo
the beautiful logo of the Vatican Observatory uh I wanted to get a jacket
that had that that logo on it but um you know going to the Vatican observatory in
itself was extremely special and meeting the um the uh uh you know the friar and
the uh the people that run those telescopes was was uh you know really
just a a dream come true so um so let's take this next image let's talk about
the um the beginning of the alliance of the historic observatories I I have long I
have never kept it a secret I am a fanboy of George Ellery hail uh George
Ellery hail built in succession four of the world's largest telescopes he built the uh yur's 40in refractor which still
stands today as the world's largest operation ational refractor 40 in of
aperture then he went to Mount Wilson and erected the 60 in which we heard
Dale gent talk about and the 100 inch both at Mount Wilson um and then uh and
then we went to uh then then he went to set asight some Palomar to help build
the 200 inch sadly uh George allery halil passed away before it was
completed um but it did get completed and uh is still doing research today um
so uh but during this time uh that I met
uh Sam hail you see a picture of me with him uh he is the uh uh one of the living
grandsons of George Ellery hail and uh that particular picture was taken during
a family reunion of the hail family uh at Caltech and
so um I had been visiting the Y's
Observatory um I had been called by a guy named Dan Kaylor who was an old
friend he was running the observatory and doing their outreach program and he
told me that uh he had something special to show me at at yeres I had never been
before and uh what he showed me was is that they were using all of our explore
scientific eyepieces on this telescope uh so I couldn't wait to see
what you know how um our eyepieces performed on a 40inch refractor um but while I was there uh he
showed me the grounds of the observatory and on the grounds Still Standing was
George yery Hills residence um and uh but sadly by the
time that I get to see it uh it had been quite run down and um it has since been
torn down but uh we held a an event at
yis uh called The Starlight festival and um uh during that Festival we uh um
invited Sam hail uh who invited his Grand his his grandson down and um uh
you can see the observatory grounds and all the rest of it it's just quite beautiful uh over at Lake Williams but
um shortly after in fact we had heard news during the Starlight Festival that
the University of chaga was going to pull the plug on the observatory and stop funding uh which
meant that it would be shut down and so this was uh that's a headline grabbed
from the local uh um what uh uh newspaper uh about the observatory
closing and to me you know I've known that Mount Wilson uh nearly was nearly
closed down a couple of times there have been other historic observatories have been uh shut down or nearly shut down uh
because they don't receive the types of funding that they received before and um
you know I mean let's face it as Dale gent said the 100 inch telescope
had not been used for research in decades okay um so uh to a university or
a Science Foundation like the NSF or whatever uh that's not you know if
there's no science going on there's nothing to fund okay so um but uh it
gave me the idea of aligning uh the hail observatories with
and so I mentioned to Sam that maybe we could start an organization to get yys Mount Wilson and
palar together uh and by creating that Alliance uh we could
keep the uh uh the facilities going uh much longer and uh uh you know that
Synergy could help to fuel um funds and
apply for educational grants and that kind of thing because these observatories are inspirational they are
historic um they at these places this is where uh you know astrophysics was born
and so um um you know they're they're worth
saving uh so Sam had mentioned to me that he would
get back to me um and I kind of half thought that well maybe this will go
nowhere but uh Sam did call me and said you know my famous grandfather would say
make no small plans and so Sam had had me uh arrang the first meeting of what
we were going to call the alliance of historical observatories um and uh he
volunteered he is the he's the chairperson there at Mount Wilson uh he
volunteered to have the first meeting under the 100 in Dome uh you see us all
gathered around this uh this coffee table here this is the same uh home at
Mount Wilson where Hubble lived and um uh actually the books and the furniture
and everything is original um so uh you know you you just
feel like you're steeped in history there there and in fact you are uh that's Sam uh standing at the controls
of the 100 inch telescope and that's the 100 inch that um uh Hubble used with
humson to discover a seid variable in the Andromeda galaxy which proved that
the Andromeda uh wasn't a nebula or spiral nebula it was indeed another
Island Universe of stars and um you know that's where uh we start
the whole idea that the universes um are proving not not not starting the idea
because as many people had already had the idea that the Universe might be expanding uh but there it was proved and
so uh this is our group underneath the uh 100 inch Dome and uh you know I'm I'm
happy to say that this idea didn't just fizzle out um this was in
2019 uh in June so we had our first general assembly and we concluded we
since have had General Assembly meetings at U Palmar Observatory and LEL
Observatory uh and yy's Observatory and then finally um we uh we
had the U General uh assembly meeting at the Vatican which I
attended um you can see that these are some of the other venerable
observatories that have joined so far it started off with like I think six or
eight um observatories to begin with we're now up to 14 and um so you know we got Detroit
Observatory the Dominion astrophysical Observatory you can see when these things were established uh you know
around the turn of the last century um and uh you know so it's just it's
fantastic to see that it's growing uh and that all of these observatories are doing educational
Outreach this is uh four more so that makes 14 there there are more
observatories um asking to join and I'm I was currently uh I was elected to the
board as a special delegate um and so I'll be uh helping to uh vet
um some more observatories I'm not going to say who they are right now but um um
but I would say uh deserving observatories uh to join the
alliance um so uh this this gives you an idea of
where we uh came into there's Rome uh and you will see there's a little small
Lake right in the middle there I don't know if I can run my mouse over there maybe you can see this there's a small
Lake there uh this is Castell gondal and that is where the uh the papal Summer
Palace is and where the Vatican observatories are okay that are that are
in Italy there's also an a the vat in Arizona
um that is has a much more modern instrument but uh originally the uh
originally the uh telescopes were actually at the Vatican and they moved
them down here to Castel gondala because of light pollution and uh and that
worked for a while but uh they they do indeed have uh uh a lot of light
pollution still and so um the telescopes are beautiful they're
being used for outreach um but they did use them for uh
mapping out the universe at one point so um it was very interesting to see the uh
women who uh were the uh the computers
of of the observatory and they have just recently uh been given credit for their
phenomenal work on um measuring out these plates that were taken with these
telescopes this is a great shot of C Castell gondolo um and uh you can see
the uh observatories there on top the uh
the popes uh there's an apartment there that uh where the the pope does stay
from time to time uh and uh incredible Gardens and grounds and stuff we were we were
um uh we had tours inside of both of these domes and uh in the we walked up a
beautiful circular staircase that uh led up to the top of the uh roof of this
facility and it was just uh steeped in history and just just so beautiful all
the way around uh you can see the members that
joined us this is just some of them uh because this attracted Observatory
directors from all over Europe um to learn more about the alliance of
historic observatories and um um you know with
the wish to uh to join because the uh the advantage of joining is learning
from from the other observatories how to solve problems uh and to
survive uh the the problem of being shut down um you know and where do you find
people that uh know how to work on these uh old telescopes you know and uh uh so
restoration of these telescopes is important uh learning how to serve the community in in uh for some of them in a
new way uh is very very important but so many of them have been involved in
educational Outreach for quite a long time uh some are some do uh generate you
know millions of dollars a year in uh Outreach funds uh it's not you know and
this comes from the private sector uh um you know because they they really know
how to excite the uh the public and the communities that they're serving um uh
some of them are just getting kind of started I think one of the one of the poorest ones was a uh observatory in
Colorado and they're only receiving like $3,000 a year which is hardly enough to
keep the instrument uh you know uh and the observatory running uh but they're doing
it and so uh we're hoping to make a difference in showing them how to Market
themselves how to put together effective uh educational astronomy Outreach
programs uh this is a tour uh uh that
you can see the double one of the double asaphs that they have this telescope was
completely restored uh and is available today if you uh contact the Vatican if you're in
Rome uh I believe you can get um a group tour uh to see this
instrument that really beautiful and um uh you know I love uh my background is
photography and to see this um this instrument still with its GLA uh it's
plate glass holder and all the rest of it was really cool in the glass case off
to the left uh where you know documents and stuff like that from from the the
the day when these observatories were opened this is a group showing pretty
much everybody that went on that tour uh you can see the kind of boxlike tube
structure of this double astrograph it's actually two two refractors uh in one
tube so very very cool and there's me with brother Guy and
um we welcome you to nominate uh you can go on to the historic
observator.tv ories that you might know about um and that that would be good for
observatories from around the world but uh thank you for letting me uh share
this program with you and to talk talk about the alliance of historic
observatories uh you never know where an idea might go and this one is really
taken off and so we're I'm very proud to have been
involved and that's it that's the uh Global Star Party um for uh tonight and
um let me bring that down here we go and
H John thank you very much um uh and
Caesar uh you're still with me
here uh you're muted I think or your microphone's turned off well I'm still
here I'm just lurking in the back excellent that I am not Cesar Cesar
but uh it's Adrien here I listening in yep yeah for some reason I can't
hear oh there he is but yeah you're his video but we can't hear him
anyways but Cesar uh I know Argentina has um a historic Observatory facility I
know that you're involved in restoration of that so uh you might uh want to
nominate uh that Observatory for membership and currently right now the
membership's free so well uh let's see I have
uh a video from the Nancy Roman Space Telescope that I'll show you and um and
then we will uh call it a night but thank you very much I want to thank the audience for watching the 159th Global
star party and uh uh I want to thank all the presenters uh for giving their great
presentations and everything it was a lot of fun and we'll be back with 160th
Global star party soon so until that time you guys keep looking up
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good night everyone
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Tom uh it's been almost a year um since we were here last time and the uh 100in
mirror was out of the telescope we were signing on a kind of a wobbly scaffolding right it was very stable it
was just narrow but we had hards yeah we were safe yeah we were safe that's right and you were starting to
explain to me how uh you do your public observing program but you use explore
scientific equipment to make that possible so U tell me how this whole this whole system works well well it's
um it's not complicated just follow the light uh we have the 100 inch mirror
which is right above me here uh we were just inside the telescope where where we
saw the secondary mirror way at the top a tertiary mirror sending it out to to
this relay optic system and then uh following the light path down to your explor scientific D7 Ed oh great so
behind us here we've got the Ed 127 airspace triplet this is a 4in Starlight
focuser that has a custom adapter to attach to this telescope and then we've got a 3-in diagonal and a 3in 30 mm
eyepiece Tom what's the focal length of the telescope again about 30 33,000 mm
33,000 millim so with this eyepiece we're going to get over 1,000 power 11, magnifications so with 100 degree app
parent field it's about five and a half Ark minutes true Field view so that's uh
that is a great view through a very high powered
telescope and how many people do you have coming through to do your educational Outreach programs well we
have the educational Outreach as well as the public nights and our client nights
so we've probably done about um 800 people this year through this well it's I mean it's just a great honor for us to
have uh our equipment used on the 100 inch I know it's used on the 60inch telescope I've used it on the 60 myself
and the 40 inch so you know we got a sort of a trifacta with the uh with
George Eller Hal's telescope and so if someone wanted to rent this
telescope um uh what do they do they go on your what's the website that they would go to Mt wilson.edu and we have uh
Pages for both the 60 inch and 100 inch that you can make reservations and it has all the information uh for that
process on our website that's fantastic all right well that's
great by the way this is also used on the 40in refractor ues so they use a
whole slew of ey pieces but you got a ton of focal length here what's the focal length of this
scope I forget the calculation is it's way long okay we'll do this
again okay here we go a 101 one it's 101 inch it's not bigger bigger than they
advertise who knew you know yeah uh time 12.6 or you f
32,00 it's 32,300
millimeters okay long that's long is it right so 32,000 so what's the what's the
magnification gonna be 32,000 divided by 30
32,000 that is crazy it's about,
power 30 32,000 or 35,000
32,300
24 1,77 magnification so 1100 power
100 107 is
0.09 it's five and a half Arc seconds or arc minutes minutes five and a half AR
minutes that's that's impressive bad that's impressive okay so five and a half okay
all right so now we know the numbers let's hide our calculator here
so nobody knows so cheat on that's right we could do this in our head
right what's the FOC of the telescope again about 33,000 millime 33,000
millime so with this piece we're going to get over a th000 power 11 th magnifications so that would work out
with 100 degree apparent field it's about five and a half AR minutes true field of view so that's uh that is a
great view a very high powerered view through a very high powered telescope
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