Transcript:
7:05 p.m..Dr. David Levy: Welcome and Poetry
foreign
7:15 p.m..Dr. Seth Shostak Senior Astronomer at SETI
Aarons one with it with video one with without
video yes I'm everywhere and nowhere [Laughter]
7:35 p.m..Dr. Bethany Ehlmann Planetary Scientist at Caltech
I'm everywhere and nowhere sounds like the beginning of like uh
what was that it wasn't the Twilight Zone it was when not One Step Beyond what was the other one uh
7:45 p.m..Astronomical League Door Prizes with Maynard Pittendreigh
50s Sci-Fi show outer limits what's that
Outer Limits yes attempt to adjust your generally Outer
8:05 p.m..Gavin Tolometti Planetary Scientist
Limits but they could have
laughs outer limits
okay so which out of all three Twilight Zone outer limits or One Step Beyond which one freaked you out the most
there's Lost in Space too no it's lost in space anybody out though no
8:35 p.m..Prof. Karim Jaffer – Apollo Missions
yeah the great vegetable Rebellion frightened me as a potential writer
the story behind that is the writer said he was under contract had to deliver X
number of scripts he had to come up with something so he wrote something so ridiculous they would never film it and
buy another script from someone else he didn't know the series had already been canceled they weren't going to buy
another script they took his as absurd as it was and filmed it wow humiliated
9:05 p.m..Ten Minute Break
the actors who were on there I bet yeah but I will tell you Outer Limits probably freaked me out did it yeah yeah
9:15 p.m..Dr. Caitlin Ahrens Planetary Scientist GSFC
you know because it seemed like something you know because they always had weird
9:25 p.m..Cesar Brollo – Astrophotography
things you know like ghosts showing up on the side of the freeway or you know these kinds of things and they always
9:35 p.m..Cameron Gillis _ Camstronomy
said it was true it was real right so based on a true story well that's the
way you tell campfire stories and that's true and it happened right around here yeah that's right
9:45 p.m..Adrian Bradley Moon Images
just so happens to be on this night yes right 27 years ago yeah on a night just
9:55 p.m..Chuck Allen - The Astronomical League Lunar Observers Program
like this like who has not heard the claw oh yeah
and it happened in everybody's Hometown hey we had we had Mothman so oh yeah I'm
10:05 p.m..Ten Minute Break
from West Virginia so yeah that was what that was why the War of the Worlds was so shocking right yeah
10:15 p.m..Pekka Hautala - Connections with the Universe
I have that radio play on CD and it's really fun oh I love radio plays that's
a dying art yeah I I enjoy radio dramas as well and
uh but in the 1950s my dad and I used to
watch one of the earliest sci-fi shows men into space half an hour show
and and pretty well done for its time and it went to the Mercury program the
predicted Gemini and Apollo and moon landing and everything else and that's so cool you know I was just captivated
by that I'd love to see an old episode but they just lost I don't know if
they exist anywhere they'll be good to see you gonna bring us some good poetry tonight
I know hello it's good to be here today hey David that's a cool song
good to see you it's great to see you thanks well I'm all set
thank you Cameron is in witness projection again he's hiding behind messier objects
Yes actually I'm uh yeah I'm just preparing some vegetables for dinner
oh like Lost in Space episode
very on theme yes
actually the scariest Twilight uh Zone episode I remember was that one with that uh
or is that that little Monster uh tearing at those engines remember or that was uh I forgot the name of the
episode but that was the one that freaked me out it was like a lightning storm and and it was like working on the
engines and taking him out and I was like oh my gosh yeah oh right yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah
into the movie and he played a great scene on that that
was really good gotta love the internet door a lot of this stuff is still preserved and uh and
accessible now right well there's also a comeback now to a
lot of these older ones I've been I've been re-watching stuff lately Tremors was on today I was enjoying that oh I
love that yes every geologist loves trimmers
I'm working on the original Star Trek series and I'm in season three right now
and I actually never watched all of them because they would never play in the right sequence I'd always miss an
episode or so yeah actually I'm actually getting a chance to see every episode
and see how bad season three is well my wife is doing a re-watch of TNG of the
next gen yeah the uh I grew up with Star Trek I saw the premiere on TV
and so I recently did what you did Cameron I re-watched them all including
ones that I had avoided like the plague ever watching again like uh and a little
uh the children will lead them or something like that and Spock's brain and and they are every bit as bad as I
remembered but people were yeah even season three had some great gems within
it yes and um but yeah when you mentioned that I was like oh my gosh I
couldn't believe it I was like already you know you can give some forgiveness of some you know Nostalgia there's some
like uh period um stereotypes or whatever there's certain things that are kind of funny
you can Overlook those in the first series but boy boy when you see this the bad acting and the bad script of Spock
spring it was like oh my gosh I forgot that they've made this yeah but it's you know you go through it
and it's uh it's fun it's it's a it's a piece of History it is it is and I I enjoy anything Star Trek
with the possible exception of the first animated series the first animators I didn't even know
they had an animated series yeah they had the original series then they had an animated series hmm not long after that
and the music is terrible if you could just in fact I'll be turning down the sound
and just read the closed caption because I can hear the voices of the actors the
music goes on and on it's over it'll be hard to watch nuts
laughs [Music] can you hear my life outside
thanks oh yeah here as well yeah and talk about the Twilight Zone and stuff
like that you just gotta have lightning it's rainy season here so we're used to
it shows up at your doorstep yeah
overlapping with hurricane season which um we put up with two
Barry Allen says thanks now I'm in need of a Battle Star Galactica binge
the original or the reboot I don't know that's the question that's the question
that's a good question it'll tell us a lot about them look Davey says if you like old radio shows
look up the you look up YouTube channel The Late Late horror show it's got all
kinds of old radio shows on there all right okay
Harold locks does Orson Welles was one of the best creative minds of the 20th century
yes yes Mike Wiesner says oh wow someone who
loves old time radio shows I love them all
there's an old series uh Dragnet which was on the radio before television and
in one episode they spent about five minutes making a long distance call and
uh you had to go through the operator and it was fascinating to me because
they would say uh do you want me to call you back or would you hang on uh stay on
the line and the Dragnet Sergeant uh Friday would say well I'll stay on the line and you can hear operator after
operator going from uh California to Nevada to Salt Lake
City to Nebraska and hooking up to the operator in New York City and I was
fascinated by that now we call one 404 whatever it is and we just call
directly there's a little bit of history in some of those old shows yes that is really
cool yeah I mean when you when you see those I thought I mean look at our children
right I mean they they don't know what a rotary dial is right I mean they're right stuff like that I mean there's
there's a lot of that and you look at it it's like wow uh they were actually my daughter is uh she's 16 and she's really
fascinated actually by this some of that historical technology so you can't believe that we we it was only like you
know 30 years ago or whatever and so it was like so it's it's really interesting to see it through her her eyes
I don't know what story I was telling my son but his response was life must have
been hard without cell phones
no comprehension of it oh no like I started grad school before the internet
oh wow I remember glad I did my doctorate with the computer
so much easier right well we had uh what when I was
starting grad school our our internet access was through Pico it was all the text-based stuff where you would surf
the other schools Library catalogs and just order stuff searching with VI right
using VI editor yeah
and stuff is on hey Seth hi Caitlin oh hold on good to see you sir does this does this actually work
are you getting any audio no it sounds great it's amazing
it's also the smell of vision unit here laughs
I don't have that adapter on my Apple computer yet yeah the real problem is they tried it in the theaters but they
they couldn't get the old smell out in time to put the new smell in
it would be so funny though if like this thing just like sprayed out like a skunk or something you know
yeah I know yeah well maybe not no repeat business [Laughter]
yeah so we've got Goddard working on cloning and we've got seti working on smell-o-vision this is this is already a
very informative uh and brought together the greatest Minds to figure out how to it's something new
in the air it's something new in here that's right that's right Gavin welcome and uh
welcome to the madness and Chaos of the before party you've got here just in time to redeem
this group redeem it's too much Beyond Redemption
we were just talking about the pre-internet days if you wanna if you want to pipe it
yeah I will say one thing in favor pre-internet and pre-cell phone days a
day off was a day off yes there's no such thing now oh yeah if you
didn't want anybody to bother you you just walked outside yeah
I guess we can still do that I can still turn these things off right
so which switch is that Scott sorry uh well yeah
I don't know yeah it's an interesting social adjustment I guess it's kind of
similar to the cell phone uh you know when when everyone was
thinking about the etiquette for you know answering a cell phone in a in a public uh dinner setting for example
going out you know you'd ring and pick up the phone you see some of the old period pieces of course the phone is
ringing and you want to answer it but now I think you know people are learning how to just mute let it go to voicemail
stuff like that I think it's the same with the internet not with covid you know everyone's been
ironically uh without travel you don't really have a break because travel gave you a natural biological transition to
be able to kind of uh you know take a break mental break from from the day you
know the the hourly or minute by minute stuff that's going on the internet so so I think that um you know there's a
big adjustment right now and and uh yeah we'll find a way to filter through it
[Music]
we have been given the scientific knowledge the technical ability and the
materials to pursue the exploration of the universe to ignore these great resources would be
a Corruption of a god-given ability and nine ignition sequence star
six five four three two one
zero all engine running foreign
foreign
foreign
[Music]
[Music] foreign
[Music]
[Music] foreign
[Music]
[Music]
this is Scott Roberts from explore scientific and the explore Alliance and it's my very special privilege to
introduce um uh Dr Caitlin Ahrens from Goddard
space flight center she is a specialist in planetary
volatiles and icy surfaces and uh she's amazing to work with and just kind of be
around because she's just she's just someone is so alive and so friendly and
uh uh it definitely has a happy soul so
um and uh and she's extremely uh gifted and smart as well so it's it's amazing
and so it's a real privilege Caitlyn to be with you today um obviously today is uh you know the
anniversary of the landing on the moon but it's also the anniversary of the first landing ever on Mars with Viking
one and um turned out to be the anniversary as well for blue origin where Jeff Bezos flew the youngest and
the oldest people in this space ever so for for a space tourism ride which is
totally cool um we have a great lineup of speakers uh
Caitlyn I'm going to turn it over to you um but I really want to thank you for doing this as our special guest speaker
well thank you so much for having me co-host and guest host for this evening
uh when uh when Scott and I uh were uh you know we kind of do some fun behind
the scenes uh work uh for the actually the entire summer thus far uh and uh so
when the Apollo anniversary was coming up it's like we should totally do something we should have fun with this I
and then it got kind of down to the wire we're like oh yeah okay uh what are we
gonna do so we hope that you enjoyed this uh this evening's program tonight
uh we have some fantastic uh uh lunar lunar loonies with us tonight as well so
uh get ready for that um some of us lunar folks are also a little crazy and and loony as uh as you
might expect this particular week because it is actually the uh NASA lunar Symposium uh compared uh or bridged
apart with the European lunar Symposium this week as well so all of us lunar people are just kind of
focusing on that for the entire week getting a lot of really cool lunar updates uh that I hope to share with you
later this evening too I have a Scott you want to start us off then
okay all right so we will uh first off start with um a great friend to all of
us uh a personal best friend to me um and that would be Dr David Levy and
David is uh someone that has kicked off every Global Star Party we've done uh he
and you know he encapsulates the uh spirit and the uh the fun of uh and and
the and the knowledge of uh what we do on every Global star party uh and he
does that at every Star Party he goes to so you know if you're at a star party and you hear David's voice out there in
the background you should go and hang out with them uh because the stories uh
you know not only of of his friends but his discoveries and all that stuff just kind of makes you you know if you don't
have David Levy at your star party um there's a little thing missing and uh
so I'm so glad he's here with us tonight um David I'm going to turn it over to you in
well thank you Scotty and thank you Caitlin and it's really going to be fun tonight
to um go over where we are and I'm wondering those of us who are alive on
July the 20th 1969 wondering where would we be Now 52 years later
52 years ago the United States government showed that
it doesn't happen often but when when the U.S government decides to do
something right and fast and bring all of their resources to Bear
to do it it is absolutely breathtaking to imagine what can be
accomplished I know a lot of us don't agree with that sentiment right now but it happened 52
years ago one of the exciting things about the moon landing and Armstrong standing on
the moon saying that's one small step for a man one giant leap for mankind
was that it was only 11 years after NASA was officially formed
and that's uh that's probably as exciting a thing as the moon landing
itself NASA was formed in 1958 11 years
later Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the surface of the Moon
what was I doing that night I was at Camp Meadowbrook a summer camp in Lake
Placid New York and I remember we went to watch the launching just as all of us just did a
few minutes ago and then we came back again and watched The Landing which was a lot scarier in
retrospect than it seemed to be at the time and then that evening things were
getting all exciting for the moonwalk and I knew that it was it was on
and uh the character the cab counselor was um
announcing that after dinner we're gonna have free play and then after that we'll be other in the activities
and just before he was just after he made that announcement I left the table and went up to him and I said
don't you think we should have the camp gather after dinner in the social hall to watch the
Moonlight the moonwalk and the headcastle looked at me and said lady get back to your table and do your
job and I said to myself I thought I was doing my job but it looked as though I wasn't the
only one who heard that conversation the camp director sitting at his table was
overhearing it as well and went back to my table feeling we're gonna miss a moonwalk
and then the camp director lothar Epstein stood up and he called for everyone's attention and he said
evening program is canceled after dinner tonight we are all going
directly to the auditorium we're going to have a television on and we are all going to watch the Moon the
Moon Walk he went on and said this is truly a night where history is going to
be made in every sense of the word and we have to be part of it and that's exactly what we did
so what was I doing 11 years earlier when NASA was founded I was like little
kid in another town and I was I was very homesick
but I also had a chance to look at this poem an old Welsh
uh poem an old Wells prayer and I'm thinking that night
at Camp when I sang it to the camp tonight earlier camp and then 11 years
later when I actually watched them anymore and then tonight 52 years after that I'm
sharing it with you please leave my child and peace attend
the all through the night guards and Angels God will send the all
through the night soft The Drowsy hours are cheap and hell
and veil in Slumber sleeping by my
loving individual keeping all through the night
her watch is keeping all through the
night and wild weary world is sleeping all
through the night or their Spirit gently
stealing versions of the light revealing
Breeze occur and holy feeling all
through the night back to you Scotty and thank you thank you thank you
um I am going to turn this back over to Caitlyn and she will introduce introduce
shostak uh one of the things I want to um uh let everyone know uh Seth is just
an incredible guy I don't know if you've seen any of his videos or or any of that but uh just uh an amazing speaker an
incredible sense of humor uh and it is also his birthday today so what a great
birthday how auspicious is that you know so Caitlin I'll turn it back over to you
all right well it is my great pleasure to introduce I he has written a number of books uh
he's currently at the senior astronomer for The seti Institute he also hosts a
weekly radio show slash podcast called Big Picture science if you haven't listened to it yet I highly recommend it
it is fantastic fantastic guests and really goes behind the science and the
scenes of a lot of very big uh Universe Mysteries uh so Seth take the way thank
you Caitlin well listen uh I I didn't expect that Scott was going to reveal the fact that this is my birthday uh but
that means I'm going to have to bomb out after my talk as you know anybody with good sense would uh simply because I'm
being taken to Burger King tonight for my birthday I you know in 1969 I was having a party
at my my apartment there in Pasadena and uh you know it was sort of an Institute
party I thought that maybe even not an Institute a school party and I thought that the uh the people would like to
socialize but they didn't want to socialize they all sat in front of the TV all night long all through the night
actually okay I prepared about 427 slides but given the limited time that I
have for this presentation I'm not going to show you those I mean who would want to see the aliens anyhow right they're
on their way to Los Angeles they're going to be flattening that City sometime tomorrow but I will tell you a little bit about
sorry not have to smoke the knives the Smoke Gets him first yeah well it might but you know those of us here in
Northern California are actually not against the idea uh in any case all right I'm going to say I was going to
say something about the UFO stuff only because for the last three weeks mostly I've been busy with the media because
you know they're all going non-linear because now we have final proof that the aliens are actually afoot in the land or
above the land and uh I just suggest to you that you can actually look at some
of these videos that have been uh offered by the US Navy and uh look at
them and you can figure out what's going on there even though the intelligence agencies of the United States weren't able to do that in particular remember
that those videos were made with infrared cameras and this crowd knows what an infrared camera is so it's you
know it's sensitive to heat and you see this sort of horizontally elongated thing and occasionally it twists and
whatever and uh you know nobody knows what it is it seems the pilots didn't know what it is the people on the ships
nearby uh use radar and they couldn't find it and so forth so on might think that that's very mysterious but just
imagine that there was a twin engine or even a four engine jet 50 or 100 miles
in front of the Navy jet right I mean that's possible you could see that uh
you did just some high school geometry if any of you went to high school you can figure out what how far it is to the
Horizon if you're 22 000 feet up like these Navy Jets were and the Horizon is on the order of 180 miles away so you
could see an aircraft 100 miles away at least these infrared cameras could see the jet exhaust coming out the back and
of course the resolution you know it's not much better than probably a fraction of a minute of an arc of Arc not very
many fractions I mean you know not not a second of art but you know maybe uh two
tenths of a minute of Art and that would just smeared out into an elongated thing and there it is all right there's an
explanation the alternative of course is that it's Klingons coming to visit but in fact you should consider these you
know less demanding explanations all right I'm going to just spend the rest of my uh limited time here telling you a
little bit about what's going on in seti uh only because it might interest you as
you know seti is normally done by using big radio telescopes big antennas
essentially we point them in the direction of nearby starred systems and we try and pick up any uh we try and
eavesdrop on any signals that are coming our way either deliberately transmitted or maybe not deliberately translated but
in any case if you pick up the signal and if it's a narrow band signal if it's a signal that's at one
specific frequency no matter what that frequency is then you can say dog on it that's not a quasar Pulsar anything
natural that's a transmitter our definition of intelligence when
we're looking for extraterrestrial intelligence is if you can build a transmitter you're intelligent so all
the people on the screen in front of you have been asked whether they can build transmitters and the results of that
inquiry will be uh made public later on okay so that's how seti has been done for a long time okay and we still
haven't found anything and some people think there's there's a you know that that means something that we haven't
found anything it could mean that there aren't any aliens but given that there are about a trillion planets in the
Milky Way and I think the latest estimate for the number of other galaxies in the visible universe is
about 2 trillion galaxies each with about a trillion planets if you think that Earth is the only place where
there's intelligence that you have perhaps an inflated view of your own
cleverness right it's probably not true right every time you think there's something special about you you're
proven wrong okay this is where parents go awry because they convince their kids that they really are special when it
turns out they're not okay so that's the way we've been doing City and of course
it's much different than it was even five years ago simply because of the march of Technology we have much better
antennas well the antennas haven't changed all that much but they're much better receivers and in particular or
there's much better digital Hardware behind the receivers to slice and dice the radio spectrum into you know little
one Hertz channels hundreds of millions of them right this is a man's stream no
longer do you annoy the woman in your life by you know flipping through the channels on the remote that you get to
you know watch 100 million all at once okay now we only do that because the aliens didn't do us the favor of sending
in emails suggesting where on the dial they might be so the more of the radio spectrum you can look at in one go the
faster the experiment that's the way it's been done however they point out to
you a few assumptions here assumption number one is that they're they're broadcasting something well obviously uh
but how much power would they need for us to be able to pick them up and it turns out it's not trivial right unless
they're deliberately sending a signal in our direction if they're just broadcasting in all directions here's
the Milky Way weather report for next week week whatever if it's omnidirectional then the amount of
energy or rather yes the amount of power required is on the order of 10 to the 13th at 10 to the 15th Watts now that's
a lot of power if you had to pay for that right well you wouldn't want to pay for that that's a lot that's more than
all the energy use of homo sapiens these days filling all the cars in the airplanes and everything else okay so
that's what would be demanded of the Indians you could say well okay sure but talk on it they probably built
directional antennas right a raise maybe or just giant dishes like we used to
have in Puerto Rico up to about six months ago right they may have those things and then they don't need so much
power and that's true but then they need some reason to Target Earth and why would they do that oh sure they
would know that there's oxygen in our atmosphere so you know there's biology on Earth but it could all be you know
cabbage and lettuce right all they know is that there's something that puts oxygen into the atmosphere they don't
know that there's anybody clever here unless they're very very close within say 35 light years then there's
would have been enough time for our early high frequency broadcast to get to them television FM radar that sort of
thing to get to them and leave enough time for their response to come back to us hey you know reality television
probably causes cancer of the eyeballs or something okay so that's a very small
region of space and the chances are that nobody knows that homo sapien exists
right so you can't count on a directed transmission so the bottom line of this rather soporific argument is that while
Shetty is doing a good experiment in that it can be verified right away whether you found this signal or not I
mean it is an experiment right unlike the UFO phenomena this is an experiment but on the other hand it does rely on
the signal arriving at your antenna just at the moment that you're listening and
the total amount of time spent at any given frequency in any given direction is about three minutes so three minutes
in a 13 billion year old Universe it's not a lot of time so I suggest and I'm not the first one
to suggest this many people have suggested it uh that maybe a better approach or at least a good
complementary approach is to say look it might be really hard to find other
societies that are you know leaking a certain amount of radiation into space but you know the amount of energy
required for us to pick them up at these distances is so large maybe what we ought to do is concentrate our
intentions concentrate our efforts on the top dogs of the Galaxy the societies
that are not just a hundred years more advanced than we are are a thousand years or even a million years right there's been plenty of time for them to
be billions of years more advanced so the question is what would a society
that's a billion years more advanced than we are from a technical perspective
what would they do that we could see right and the answer to that is well we
don't know right that would be like asking Julius Caesar what sort of Technologies do you think will be uh you
know kind of De rigor if you will in the 21st century he would have no idea
so I don't know that we have any idea of what truly Advanced societies could do but they could do something that is
distinguishable from nature maybe they build Dyson spheres or Dyson sports or
maybe they you know a Flash starts or maybe they line up stars or maybe they Corral Stars maybe they do any of these
things and in order to find these things it's a little difficult because you don't know what you're looking for but it does
require that astronomers pay attention to things that are unusual prime example of that is Avi lobe I
think everybody must know about Avi Loki was the chair of the Harvard astronomy department for many years and he has
says that is not you know this this thing that looks like a cigar in space but that's a
that's an artist's impression right was a one pixel dot somewhere
it could be that it's part of an alien spacecraft or is an alien spacecraft or
or is a solar sail from some used spacecraft of the aliens his Arguments
for this are you know some of them are actually fairly interesting others are maybe less interesting I'm not saying
that um was artificial but what I am saying is that Avi lobe is doing the
right thing and saying look you should pay attention to the possibility that what you're observing
is not some freak of nature right but is actually evidence that we have Cosmic
company all right I'm going to stop there thank you wonderful
and happy birthday to you happy birthday yeah stop them at 30.
wonderful well thank you so much that was wonderful um uh Seth I'm I'm glad to have you on
this program it was a real honor and uh I I always love to hear your take on uh
you know alien detection and um uh you know and life in the universe for that
matter so um so I think that uh uh you know it was
it was great and uh we hope you have a great uh uh party tonight wherever
you're going so wonderful wonderful thank you Seth yes thank you so much for joining us tonight
right um uh we had moved up the schedule just
a little bit uh but we are waiting for um uh Bethany Elman from Caltech who
should be coming on here in I guess a few more minutes but I'm going to turn this back over to Caitlin and um uh
Caitlin uh what what is your um what was your go-to uh inspiration
um uh for learning about the moon oh goodness oh it sounds uh kind of like
how every kid gets started in the sense like you look through a telescope you you but it's the the sense of wonder
where I I didn't grow up with video games so it was just like oh this is like something
real this is something so beautiful it's in nature and it's it's kind of sad that
I've taught undergrads that they'll look through a telescope and there's like a barely a sense of wonder
anymore because their brains are so used to seeing video game Renditions and beautiful 3D uh art
and everything and that that's okay to the video game world but in a natural
sense I I legitimately had undergrads tell me like oh
well okay I'm sure that would look better in a video game but look because the video games
[Music] here's my point there's a point of why you're looking through a telescope and
so it it was just so inspiring to see I in this case I I wasn't looking at a
at a full moon full moons are pretty but I like it when you have the Crescent so you see the Shadows you see the the
Terminus there you see all the really cool mountains and how deep some of these craters are you see the the
geology of it full moon is pretty and you can very much blind your eyes it's
like really bright uh but it almost seems a little a little bit 2D
um but when you really get to see the beautiful shadows and the geometry of the Moon then you realize that this uh
was am still is a dynamic world of its own
hmm very true very true well uh I see that Bethany has logged in
um and um it's our it's my first time to actually get to uh meet you Bethany
um uh although it's it's just here on Zoom but I've met a lot of people here on Zoom through the pandemic and I I
have to say it's been really amazing so um uh Caitlyn I'm going to let you
introduce Bethany uh but I I did read up about you and uh you know I think that
you're an amazing uh scientist and uh and the leader in inspiring others to
follow science so that's great Galen you want to take it from here sure so Hi Bethany thank you so much for
joining us a really quick summary
and I explain who Bethany is here I so she is currently at uh Caltech in the
division of the geological and planetary Sciences uh so I've actually known
Bethany more through her Mars research but it's really exciting about what all
she's uh getting into with the lunar uh research side of things so I you do more
uh remote compositional analysis of planetary surfaces uh you like to know how uh the
chemical and physical weathering uh of these kinds of surfaces uh certain kind
of biomarker preservations if I can recall correctly in that as well and certainly applications uh remote sensing
so I'm so excited that you can join us here this evening and uh floor is all
yours okay great uh thanks so just uh how how long do you want me to so I was
going to talk about lunar Trailblazer and our in our small satellite mission to the Moon that seemed the most
appropriate given the Apollo Associated celebration so how long do you do you
want me to to speak for honestly we are really ahead of schedule so okay
I'm going 30 minutes earlier than I anticipated on the line 30 minutes
before speaking Yeah no no worries uh so so you take your time and then I and
then Gavin is gonna go right after you and then we'll probably take a little a little short break and uh probably get
back on schedule uh so no worries no worries on on timing or anything
okay sure well let me share my screen here because I'll I'll tell folks uh
about the the mission let's see
so can I confirm that you can see my screen and as well as hear me and all of
that yes through all of the above okay all the above great all right well um
I'm thrilled to uh sort of share one of the most you know
exciting things that's certainly going on for me uh professionally as well as my team which is uh the lunar
Trailblazer a small satellite Mission To The Moon uh to study lunar water and
lunar geology you can learn more about our mission at the website here uh follow us at lunar
Trailblazer and and I'll just say that you know um thinking about Apollo Apollo was
certainly one of the things most inspiring to me and that uh I I think just the perspective that we get of our
own Earth and our place in the universe when we are off Earth looking back is perhaps the the best
perspective uh in the universe and that that's What exploration provides us so just a little bit about me um as Caitlyn
mentioned the a explore many planets of which the Moon is only one and it's not even a planet it's a moon right but but
uh any planetary bodies so the Moon being one Mars Venus uh series and
Enceladus are some of the bodies that I have projects on right now
uh and the other and that's scientifically so I'm a professor of planetary science at Caltech and I have
a full research group the other thing that I I do though and I'm super into is is Outreach for planetary Sciences so if
you have a favorite 8 to 12 year old in your in your life um there's a kids book I've written Dr E's super Stellar solar
system with with National Geographic um that Prof that has a comic book superhero that explores the solar
systems and then it intersperses with um with like actual information from actual
missions uh in the book and then I'm also president of the planetary Society
uh which which some of you may know as the one the principal non-profit uh in
support and advocacy of space exploration defense of Earth and the search for life so I I really enjoy um
doing talks like this to to share the excitement of what we're doing which for me at the moment one of the excitements
is lunar Trailblazer and so I'll go through three things kind of quickly
um but you know people can jump in if they're questions and I want to leave some time at the end for questions uh
lunar Trailblazer is focused on water on the moon but why is there even water on the moon that was a surprising discovery
in in uh kind of the 2008-2009 um we'll talk about small sets and then
we'll talk about lunar Trailblazer itself so you know just by way of background I know there's you know
amateur astronomers on the line right right so this is how the Moon looks uh
in different phases from Earth it kind of wobbles a little bit on its axis but not much and because one of its faces is
tidally locked toward Earth um the Moon is takes 28 days for for one
rotation same as around its axis same as to go around the earth uh so these these
kind of slow lunar days and you know when we look at the Moon we're seeing the ancient volcanic lavas
or Mare and then the bright toned uh feldspar mineral Rich ancient crust rich
in silicate minerals now this uh lunar day in it being 28
days long uh has some and it's an airless body you know it has some implications I don't know how many of
you looking at the moon think about what temperature is the moon when I'm looking at it
uh well this graphic if you've never wondered the answer to this question this graphic will let you find out the answer to this question so this are
these are actual a compilation of data from the diviner Mission and what you're looking at is just um the a like line of
longitude on the on the moon so you can imagine you're standing at the dot in the center here like so just above the
equator you know at uh you know about 45 degree line of longitude and what you're
seeing is the temperature over the course of the 28 uh 28-day lunar day and you know so from
the temperature scale here on an airless body against the vacuum of space you actually get uh you go really cold you
know on the order of 150 or so at the equator uh Kelvin
but then um at noon you know it's up to 400 Kelvin so that's 260 Fahrenheit and
that's well above boiling so the surface of the Moon is incredibly hot uh in in the equatorial regions it's the
surface of extremes now on the other hand if you're at the pole uh you may
notice that it's quite a bit cooler it doesn't you know Notch uh much over you
know 300K or so and uh one of the things that is the the poles of the Moon
actually can really be quite cold why is this well so now that we're you know
thinking of the surface temperatures and temperatures of extremes let's think about it now in cross-section views so
the arrows are you know imagine the light coming in from the Sun uh from the screen here Illuminating the surface of
the Moon so on Earth over the course of a year in a lunar day and and
it the poles of earth right sometimes are in complete darkness and sometimes
see Sun but for us here if we are you
know standing on the pole of the Moon the Moon does not have tilt on its axis or at least it's not an appreciable tilt
so consequently if you're standing at the poles of the Moon There Are Places on the moon that
are in permanent shadow that never see the sun because of topography so this is
a topographic map red is high purple is low and filled in in Black are areas at
the South Pole of the Moon where because they're at the bottom of a crater there's a ridge there that keeps
sunlight from ever reaching the surface these are the psrs the permanently
shadowed regions and they're very very cold
why does this matter well lunar Trailblazer is about the search for uh
water on the moon why would there be water on the moon it gets like five but it gets 400k it boils it's in the vacuum
of space it would be lost to sublimation anyway well not necessarily and I love these kind of like old but good papers
and this one's from 1961 and from some colleagues of mine at Caltech I was not
even born at the time of course but you know nonetheless my Caltech colleagues um so Yuri you know big name in
geochemistry 1952 recognized that there may be depressions on the moon where the
Sun never shines uh but he at the time concluded that no solid or liquid water
could exist except for more than short periods on the other hand Watson Murray
and brown here argue with their calculations that water is actually far more stable on the lunar surface because
of its extremely low temperatures uh in this shadowed region and in fact they go to calculate that water should be stable
against sublimation that is lost to space by going directly from solid to Vapor for for billions of years it
should be stable a more modern uh take on this was provided by Dave page of the diviner
Mission which mapped the temperatures of the South Pole of the Moon and uh here
you can see in these permanently shadowed regions some of these craters that are right near the pole of the Moon
indeed the temperature is you know 75 Kelvin so uh 75 down to even there's some purpley
tones here down to even sort of a 40 40 Kelvin and the prediction here is that
phases like water and even some other uh you know phases that are normally liquid
or gas methanol ammonia sulfur dioxide carbon dioxide they would be solid frozen and preserved for billions of
years in these cold trap regions these cold traps in the permanently shadowed
uh regions now what does this mean well
so here's the example of dry ice they are slowly being lost via sublimation
just as dry ice sublimes but because the temperature is just so cold the rate of
loss is low so to test this uh whether there's any ice or volatiles and at all
some of you might remember the L cross impactor uh in 2008 where uh L cross uh
was a spacecraft with a um a intentional
impactor into the surface so there is like a an impactor and then a Chase vehicle uh and then the uh the uh plume
was also observed from Earth and so it was intentionally impacted
into one of the oldest coldest permanently shadowed regions and in that plume spectroscopically from the
spacecraft and also in telescopic data was the signature uh that you see uh
here in the in the black the signature of uh H2O of H2O gas where the arrows
here are pointing out the the lines of the of H2O solid H2O the absorption
features due to actual water ice and not just water gas
so there's at least water one place on the moon where else is it well so since then you
know we got great temperature data of the Moon with diviner and could make temperature Maps where water was
predicted to be stable and basically everywhere that you see white on this map on the left was somewhere that based
on the temperature and based on the modeling uh that it was anticipated that water ice would be stable uh and then
also uh Neutron detectors were sent to the moon and and uh water is a good
hydrogen is a good absorber of neutrons so where there exists hydrogen neutrons
are low so anywhere that there's a blue or purple color on this map there should
be elevated h is it h and H2O but so these are interpreted as zones of
elevated hydrogen up to about 0.5 weight percent hydrogen which isn't all that
much but maybe there's water ice here that's the most logical explanation but interestingly you see it's not really a
one-to-one map yeah there are places where the maps match uh like like some of the larger craters
like Shoemaker um but and the at the L cross impact site in Cabela's crater but there are
other places where there does not appear to be a match like like over over here just to the uh kind of North uh of the L
cross site you know there's no sign of an elevated hydrogen there so what's going on what controls where there is
water on the moon that is kind of the state of the science we know there's ice in some craters but
why some are full and some don't appear to be is a little uncertain meanwhile
elsewhere in the solar system uh the messenger Mission coupled with Earth
radar found that mercury warm Mercury warmest like closest to the
Sun Mercury boiling hot surface actually also has ice uh in its in its polar
regions north and south for the exact same reason it doesn't have any tilt so it gets these permanently shadowed
regions so Mercury it was discovered also has ice and in fact also just atop these ices are a layer of dark Organics
maybe delivered from comets over time maybe from Mercury itself no one quite knows but Organics and Ice sit in the
polar Craters of mercury so are maybe there's Organics and ice on the moon this was this is this deepens the uh the
the question of volatiles on airless bodies of the solar system so stepping into this what was then very
surprising and was actually unexpected the um the moon mineralogy mapper or M cubed
uh instrument moon mineralogy mapper was a NASA instrument that flew on India's
first planetary science Mission their mission to the Moon and M cubed was designed to map like
lavas and igneous rocks and do all kinds of things associated with lunar geology
but then in their data they noticed this peculiar uh downturn toward three
micrometers in their data and it was especially pronounced as they got um here you're seeing the three
micrometer absorption it was it's mapped it was especially pronounced at the higher latitudes closer to the poles
where the temperatures are cold and um what is the cause of this well the
cause of this is o h or h2o that's what creates absorptions at three micrometers
so it's either um so it's this particular feature here
now M cubed was not expecting to find water or oh or whatever on the moon and
so their instrument cut off at three micrometers which if you were actually going to look for water you would not do
that because the to characterize the entire shape of the water feature would
require going to longer wavelengths and to also differentiate ice from for example just bound water molecules but
they weren't expecting to find water on the moon why should they have it was you know 400k in the sunlit side of the moon
right they also went on to discover that certain rock formations in this case I'm
showing a central peak of gliata's crater uh were enriched in oh or h2o so
certain rocks appear to have more water so what is this water I'm using water kind of loosely I'm talking about oh
well so by water sometimes we mean like straight up Water Ice
you know crystalline solid H2O sometimes though we probably mean something that's
a little bit more geological geochemical and so I've drawn the little molecules here in my stick diagrams
um you know here's your here's your water molecule on an astronaut footprint and so something that water does on
Earth is water is sticky it binds to surfaces it binds to like chemically to
surfaces so here I'm showing how water can hydrogen bond uh to for example any
silicate in any Rock anywhere and so maybe what's happening when we see this water maybe sometimes it's ice but maybe
sometimes it's also these you know bouncing kind of loosely bound water molecules uh alternatively water can
also get Incorporated in minerals um in the Earth's mantle and coming out of volcanoes there's actually water
vapor and so maybe it just get it's Incorporated to Rock It Gets bound as as oh so no H2O molecules maybe it's just
you know oh so we don't know because we can't tell from M cubed data because M Cube data cuts off here and you need to
go to at least you know 3 500 or so to be able to distinguish well where is the
minimum of this band which form of water is it how did the water get there
so you know just to say uh our understanding of the water cycle on the
moon is just beginning I think all of us are familiar with some version of the chart on the left you know this is like
the third grade version of the water cycle on earth right you know sun heats the water it evaporates forms clouds it
rains the water flows back into the sea and you know that's the cycle we
I think think that there must be some sort of cycle on the moon to explain why there's ice in craters why there is
water on like the polar latitudes something I didn't talk about but certain people have suggested based on
the data is it seems to change a little bit as a function of time of day as it gets warmer and colder so so what is
what is going on is it comets coming in that are delivering the water is it uh
volcanoes degassing and releasing water that then makes its way down to the poles and gets trapped as ice
something else involving the solar wind hydrogen what what is really going on
so that's sort of the state of the science right now I would say about the water cycle on the moon
um and enter into this picture that a technology piece and um you know something I've gotten more and more into
is the technology that enables our space exploration and all these Innovations so something that that's happened is uh
small satellites have have come to the fore so so what is this what am I talking about the small satellite
Revolution well some of you might recognize this picture uh it is not the moon uh it is
not the Earth uh this is a picture of Mars and this is a picture of Mars that
was taken by the Marco uh small satellites which launched with the Insight mission
uh they got to the Moon in 2018 so you see the solar panel of this uh little
cereal box size guy there were two of them that were launched at the same time uh uh uh that the two Marco spacecraft
uh traveled uh all the way on their own power from launch to Mars and they
served as ins as the relay for insight there were communication relays to bring back the data in real time and they you
know snapped this picture along the way because when you're doing a planetary science Mission you've got to bring a camera along right it's just too cool
not to but so we can send cereal box size spacecraft to Mars to take images
that is cool and it's all part of the the revolution that's kind of going on
um those were I should say that these Marcos were what were called cubesats
um cubesats are measured in units of U where U is a 10 by 10 by 10 centimeter
Cube uh so this is 6u uh something that's going on also is
that there are the there are small satellites here and you can see some of them uh attached to what's called an
espa ring basically what's going on is that um we've we've you know the the market has figured out that most Rockets
launch with excess Mass capacity because you have to at the very beginning of your mission buy a rocket that you are
absolutely sure is going to have enough capacity to launch your your spacecraft
and you don't yet know from an engineering perspective how big your spacecraft is going to be so you have to you know put margin on it and then you
have to put margin on how big of a rocket to to launch the whole thing and you know Rockets only come in certain
capability sizes so and you always have to go up you can't ever go down and try to squish into a too small rocket so
most Rockets launch with the excess capacity to bring uh spacecraft into
space and that's how these cubesats and small sets have come to be by by the record mission that if you develop
standard interfaces either a box that you slot into or a ring that is a
very fixed size and the ring is the same no matter what on any launch vehicle
uh then all of a sudden you can like do an Uber pool or a lift pool to space you can be like well I have a ride going in
this direction well I need a ride too can I you know be your carpool um and so that's effectively what small
sets are is you're getting Rideshare to space By by being able to fit on these
standardized interfaces to take advantage of the extra the extra mass and this this brings down costs a lot
because you don't have to buy your own rocket you can hitch a ride on someone else's rocket and just pay them a little
bit of gas money so this is really kind of um catching on as a market so you can see the the
growth kind of really kicking in in kind of 20 2017 2018 and Beyond you're
probably familiar with uh starlink and the SpaceX constellations they are of
this flavor um they they launch on these espa Rings they just populate stacks of them and
then deploy off uh all of the Star links and we're taking advantage of this now for planetary science like by sending
small spacecraft to Mars and by NASA holding calls uh to the scientific
Community saying hey send us your best ideas for a ride-along mission uh Mass
capped at a certain kilo of size cost capped at a cost 55 million dollars is a
lot of money but in planetary Mission spacecraft terms it's actually not a lot of money uh the the perseverance Rover
on Mars cost about 2.5 billion dollars uh so 55 million in comparison
you could do a lot of small satellites for the cost of a Rover let's put it that way uh in a normal kind of Orbiter
Mission uh for example the lunar reconnaissance Orbiter is something on the order of 600 million so it's a
factor of 10 less than even like a normal just lunar orbiting um Mission anyway so there are certain science
topics in the solar system that are immunable to investigation by small
spacecraft uh Rovers on Mars are not yet one of them it takes it takes more than
enough mass and more than 55 million dollars to get yourself to Mars get yourself landed and get yourself exploring but for orbiters and for flyby
missions um there's starting to be more and more of these opportunities and that's where lunar Trailblazer came in because we
proposed to one of these opportunities it was a competition there are 12 entrants and NASA ended up picking three
uh three small satellite missions of which lunar Trailblazer uh was was one
of them and we were confirmed as a mission in November 2022 of November 2020 and have been on our development
path ever since so in the final I don't know five ten minutes or so I guess I'll tell you about lunar Trailblazer and
what we're gonna do and how we're going to solve some of the questions about the lunar water uh cycle and as a fun fact
if you want to think about it and and not you know while you're listening to me think about something else too in our
logo the water actually appears in at least three different ways maybe four see if you can identify in our mission
patch here all of the different uh ways that water is is represented
um I'll come back to that at the end and if I don't someone needs to ask me a question okay so lunar Trailblazer our
mission this is a rendering of our spacecraft by uh by a beautiful rendering of our
spacecraft by Lockheed Martin when the solar panels are extended uh they're about three and a half meters uh in uh
so you know about uh 12 feet or so uh in extent uh lunar Trailblazer is one of
these Simplex missions it is a higher risk posture which is otherwise known as plasma and we launch on one of those
Rings we get bolted onto the side of of one of those rings and launched where chemical propulsion system and we enter
into a hundred kilometer polar orbit of the moon for at least a site for a
science mission of over a year and our flight system is we're on the
path to development now and we're going to be delivering in uh the fall of 2022. I'm the principal investigator in charge
of the mission my Deputy is Rachel clima at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics laboratory our project is managed out of
JPL uh Lockheed Martin is is building our our spacecraft that you see
beautifully uh over here and the instruments are from JPL and then the University of Oxford over in the in in
England one of the fun things about the mission is that you know as a professor at Caltech we're going to have students
do working uh our operations along with um experienced uh Personnel from caltex
operation of space telescopes so all right what does this look like in it so here's how we pack on one of those
Rings we we have the solar panels like Fold It folded in uh they don't deploy until we're released uh from The Ring we
uh the key engineering challenges for a small satellite are fitting in your volume box we don't have a problem with
that fitting in your mass box we're now okay with that there are some challenges in the early part of the mission but
we're now good with mass we fit in the box and just it just getting all your packaging and components uh right so um
we have two science instruments the hvm cubed instrument here and the lunar
thermal mapper here and they they there's two apertures here from which though they look down to the moon and
I'll give more info on them shortly how we acquire data though is that we push
these apertures uh over over the surface so you know in contrast with the
telescope your telescope is fixed and the objects are all moving relative to you uh here I mean it's lunar
Trailblazers motion actually sweeping out that creates the images so we do
what's called push broom across the surface and we build up images line by line using the motion of the spacecraft
to create the image while that line of data is read back onto a
detector and split spectrally so we get Spectra uh from each from each pixel
using this technique and we target select uh areas of the Moon in a perfect
world we would have enough communication where we would just you know sweep over the whole Moon and blank at the moon and
image the whole moon but uh our budget does not permit the kind of communication system that would let us
do that so uh where we must select we must Choose Wisely our Target locations
what is what does each of our targets look like well the footprint is here uh
so we have two instruments they acquired data effectively simultaneously within
milliseconds of each other and so this is a what's called a hyperspectral image
Cube for each uh pixel in the scene there's an Associated Spectrum that's
what the rainbow colors indicate so that and we go out to 3.6 micrometers so we
will be able to tell the form of water whether it's oh H2O or ice right which
is a big uh a big thing simultaneously because we're getting lunar thermal mapper data at the same time we we get
the temperature so we know we will be able to tell exactly the relationship between the temperature on the surface
and whether there's ice or not and all of that gets the process of why is it there in the first place and how long
does it last we'll be able to do this also for multiple times a day to understand for a
given Target whether the amount of water is actually changing uh for those of you who might be
instrument oops instrument o files uh just a few more details uh so this hvm
Cube the high resolution volatiles and minerals moon mapper is very much like the moon mineralogy mapper M cubed that
just that discovered water on the news but but we were higher resolution hvm cubed uh we are higher spatial
resolution in terms of less than 70 meters per pixel and then in terms of spectral resolution to be able to
resolve those those water water signatures but you can see the similarity between our instrument and
the one that flew to the moon a key difference is something that's inside the Box though there's a there's a cryo
cooler there that will keep the detector temperature down to 140 Kelvin uh
meaning that will get very high signal to noise ratio even at the long wavelengths which will let us be very
sensitive in the shadowed regions where we're having to use reflected light indirect
reflected light to to do our sensing the second instrument from the University of Oxford is the lunar thermal mapper and
um so it reads on to uh oops reads onto a detector through a set of 15 Butcher
Block filters uh so light comes in the telescope passes through the filter
assembly uh and then into the electronics and there are four bands for
temperature and 11 for composition of silicates and the Heritage for this
instrument is actually a cubesat mission so those small satellites are added again this was the compact modular
Sounder that flew on a as a demonstration mission for atmospheric science of Earth actually this flu in
Earth orbit um on a cubesat so uh what will we do well we will be
able to nail this water question what is the water why do we get this signature from the sunlit part of the moon is it
could it really be like maybe small amounts of ice maybe in little micro cold trap shadowed regions is it ice
that's creating the signature or is it probably more likely um water molecules bouncing on the
surface or Bound in rocks so we'll be able to do that on the sunlit side of the moon and figure out you know is it
more common in certain types of rocks more common in certain latitudes why is the signature there uh and then the
polar Side of the Moon the polar the shadowed regions of the Moon we will be able to answer this question of which of
these uh hydrogen and Rich regions which of these cold traps which of them
actually host ice and which of them don't which of them have ice you know right at the surface versus which ones
have buried ice and is the ice pure or is it like Mercury where they're
actually you know Organics or maybe you know sulfurous compounds or other things that are in the ice too so it's
important scientifically but it's also important for for exploration you know water is one of the
most precious resources in the solar system not just because you can drink it but because you can make rocket fuel from it by by splitting um into hydrogen
and oxygen and so um you know any nation's plans the U.S
Nation the U.S plans and any nation National plans for them for the moon all involve the polar regions where these
signatures of water ice have been detected so the question that lunar Trailblazer will do more than is more
than just a science Mission we really also help pave the way to go from you know Apollo on the left to maybe a
future uh that's something like that on the right so where are we in our uh process well
we just got out of our critical design review a big milestone happened last week actually so we're so we're fresh
out of passing the critical design review which is great because that means we get on to fabrication and then the
integration uh of our spacecraft our flight system is delivered in the fall
of 2022. at the moment uh NASA has told us our ride is in 2025 which is an awful
long time to wait for your Uber uh so NASA is contemplating uh earlier earlier
launch earlier launch options which I hope is the case because it would be great to have this data of water ice on
the Moon from orbit before for example sending the Viper Rover which is supposed to find water ice in situ it
would be great to send it to a location where we actually knew a hundred percent for sure that there was Water Ice uh on
the surface so we'll see what happens we'll be ready to go in the fall of 2022
and our site and ready to embark on our uh our our 12-month science Mission so
I'll close there uh lunar Trailblazers driven by the questions all of these questions and Mysteries that we have
about the lunar water cycle we're really pioneering the use of small satellites and showing how they can do big
planetary science uh we're doing important Recon for exploration for land
Admissions and involving students along the way so it's an exciting Journey thanks for listening to it and uh happy
to take any questions that you might have uh thank you so much Bethany this is so
exciting and congratulations again on completing the CDR I'm sure that was uh that was just a huge relief I remember
seeing um at lunar Trailblazer on uh on Twitter just going yay
favorite so sure such a relief uh for sure
um let's see so so while Scott gets uh some questions at the radio I'll ask a small
question here I so folks may not be aware of uh just the different calibers
of of NASA missions in this case this is considered a Simplex uh Mission you want
to give a short little Spiel as to what what Simplex was all about yeah so that's what we competed
for it was one of the first small satellite calls for planetary science small satellite Simplex is small
Innovative missions for Planetary Exploration everything has to have an acronym so Simplex uh because it's NASA
uh so uh Simplex is one of the smallest category and as I mentioned it's a it's
a approximately 55 million dollar Mission um the next that you can compete for as
an investigator the next class of mission that investigators can compete
is our Discovery class missions which are usually between about uh 500 to 800
million so that's a factor of 10 uh more so examples of Discovery missions
include the Insight Mission at Mars include uh psyche uh on the way uh to
the asteroids include Lucy on the way to the Jupiter Trojans um so those are some uh the the dawn
that went to Vesta and then series those are just a handful of examples of
Discovery missions and then there's another class in between called New Frontiers and then there's the flagship class that are like you know Mars sample
return type type missions that are on the order of you know low mult billions
of dollars so small satellites are the the
the the the the it's uh lar big science at relatively modest
cost is the goal sounds fantastic and it's so amazing how
how small all of our uh our technology can be nowadays you know some of the
technology that would have been back in the 50s and 60s like how tiny that we can make our technology now and it's so
fantastic that's right that's the other Trend in addition to taking advantage of earlier launch uh uh more available
launch masks small satellites take advantage of the fact that everything is driving toward miniaturization right think about the size of the camera and
your cell phone right versus you know the the big camera that you used to Lug around the vacation you know even 15
years ago right so the the drive to miniaturization is is letting us do
more in smaller packages fantastic
Scott do you have right yeah um a question from book Davies is I
think a lot of us have kind of this question you know any any idea how much water ice might be below the surface of
the Moon or Mercury you know where it's trapped in these uh Eternal uh you know shadowed areas
yeah that's really the question uh how much and how deep what we've sensed so far actually
directly sensed is not actually that much water on the moon like in in the sense of of Purity
um the estimates are in kind of the the max estimates are low tens of weight percents which means that if you were to
to scoop up or chisel out uh you'd get a mixture of mostly Moon dirt
with you know a bit of water ice in it so you'd have to do some sort of purification now the question and we
don't know the answer to this question is if we just go a little bit deeper does the story change right maybe maybe
there's actually like slabs of ice there um
there are reasons that people think that this is not the case uh for example the Moon is continually pummeled by impact
craters the surface is gardened how would the slabs stay intact uh there are people that propose it could be the case
because actually if you calculate how much water was released from volcanoes it's actually quite a lot of water I
don't have I don't know Caitlyn do you know off the top of your head a good volumetric comparison
um I I'm not sure Lake I don't think anybody from even the
lunar conference this week has has great numbers but you know think like a Lakes a Lakes worth of of water
can be distributed um in in a slab so this is really the open question is how much water is there
so that's why I don't have an easy answer because we don't know that's why we're trying to figure out
great um I've got a question Scott
Bethany I was wondering what do you think the source of the water is is it from volcanism or is it from comets
yeah it's probably the most of it yeah I mean this is also one of the big questions and the only way to know is to
get there and take some samples of it so we get like things like isotope ratios that will let us let us tell for sure
but um I suspect it's probably a mix I I think that when lunar volcanoes go off
we know that the the we know from examination of Apollo samples that the moon's mantle actually does have a
little bit of water and some of that outgassed water is not just going to be lost to space some of it's probably
going to get on the surface like bounce its way down to those cold traps in the craters so I think that volcanism plays
a role I personally think that a lot of it is probably delivered by comets and asteroids and impactors right like
comets are are mostly ice they're a fair number of asteroids that you know even as they're making their way into the
inner solar system are also uh still you know large fractions of ice or hydrous
minerals so I think it's probably a mix of these things for what's in the uh cold traps and the permanently shadowed
regions for the the water signature on the sunlit side I think it's going to be
more complicated than that I think some of it's going to be minerals formed from volcanism and I think that the solar
wind and the hydrogen coming in is is it plays a role as well in creating oh sort
of signatures but we'll see we really don't know
is there a uh a study going on as far as comments go what direction they would
need to come in to hit the moon and where they would be I mean from the Kuiper belt probably but again it's got
to be coming from a certain direction to be able to set water at that location right yeah although once there's water
in the uh under the influence of the moon's gravity uh
what is generally going to happen is it's going to tend to migrate to the coldest places over time like because
the The Vapor might go remember the moon you know has these day night temperature
Cycles so during the day maybe it's sublimed off the surface but it doesn't
escape fully in the space and then it condenses back at night but it goes to the coldest spot the coldest spot
locally so over time what that does is it creates kind of a migration or a Hopping to the coldest places over time
which are those permanently shadowed regions at the poles so kind of regardless of where the comet smacks on
the moon originally there'd be at least some portion of the volatiles that would migrate their way to the coldest
locations and and that's that lunar water cycle you're talking about right yeah that we
don't really understand or know what it looks it looks cycling
wounds as they as they you know Sublime and condense and Sublime and condensed
but they tend to go colder whenever they you know they pick the coldest spot locally
right there's questions um and comments about the uh you know
getting uh lunar Trailblazer out there and um uh you know and also the
planetary society's involvement with uh uh the solar sail project and maybe you
can give us a little bit of background about solar sail uh propulsion or or
travel and um uh you know and
there was a question um somebody thought didn't catch it all but they said uh that
you know is this particular spacecraft hitching a ride on a on another spacecraft
yeah well okay if I'm going to talk about solar sale I should at least like show you a picture right uh
so you can you can look at this on the planetary Society website because we have a continuous feed but some of you
may have already seen the pictures of of light sail too um so Scott asked well how do you get
Place how do you get to space and how do you get places in space so lunar Trailblazer adopts a conventional
approach as I mentioned we we hitch a ride on a rocket and then we're a chemical propulsion system we use
hydrazine so chem prop to get uh to the Moon from our from where our ride
releases us we then uh actually before I show light sail I should uh maybe show
one of my backup slides because I have lunar Trailblazers trajectory somewhere here yeah so this is what actually
happens we launch from Earth out on um you know we're currently on IMAP that
2025 ride we launch out from Earth and then we're released though and so what we have to
do is we have to loop back and come to the moon and then uh catch up and insert into orbit so that's what we do and it's
a chemical propulsion system uh what I was just uh showing you is a light sail
from the planetary Society because you know one idea is that uh
you can travel off of the pressure the solar wind pressure from the sun it's
very analogous to you know uh the wind on earth right capturing the the force
of that wind on your sails well the idea behind a light sail is it's very thin
material that captures the uh solar wind and the solar wind pressure
and the idea is that actually over time you can use this to accelerate to fairly High velocities and in fact sail from
destination to destination without having to bring all this fuel along
that's the beauty of it um is that you just keep going you're in you're in space there's nothing to
interfere with your emotion once you start going so people have even talked about using light sales to go all the way to like Alpha Century for example
but um exciting about the planetary society and this is you know with my other hat on now as not Mission
principal investigator but president of the planetary Society is that we
um you know it's all about getting people involved in space exploration and light sail 2 was a crowdsourced funded
project it was funded fully by donors fully by people there's it was not NASA that we we decided that we wanted to
create a space mission to demonstrate solar sailing and we did it and light sail is still in orbit um you can see
the camera is deployed kind of under the one set of of sales and so you can you
know check out on the website where it is now um but we're getting these beautiful images of Earth and showing how we can
trim the sails to change the altitude of the orbit and we'll we'll still going to be going for a few more months and then
eventually uh we're we're in an orbit such that we will not become space junk permanently we'll burn up safely in the
in the Earth's atmosphere eventually at end of mission that's good well as someone who
contributes to the planetary Society every month I give my little donation so it's very nice to meet you made it
happen to you yeah I um it's not much but I'm sure me and along with all the
rest of us that are donating um yeah we're and we're proud to see some of the uh results you're making it
happen well then I haven't turned off the auto donate button yet
um you had a uh you had your logo back onto your um
yeah I'm here to remind you that um I only have two possible of the four
references to water but what have you got I've got the Earth um yeah Earth and the water that's on
the earth I've got the teardrop shape yeah which is the shape of water I'm not
sure if those are clouds in space those little Puffs that are there oh yeah it has something to do with water but um
does it help if I zoom in yeah
okay that's the third yeah what's what's the fork you can't anyone get the fourth
the fourth is kind of artsy so it's a little tricky the wave there yeah anyone yeah see the the wave thing
does that remind you of anything that I showed during the talk um
we're good it's a Spectra or something yeah that's sad oh
absorption the absorption feature yeah it's the artsy
so the three micrometer spectral absorption feature of water so that's the fourth nerdy one is the the Spectra
in the rainbow you got it good group you're the first group actually that has three-year
Collective efforts gotten all four congratulations I feel like I should give you a prize of some sort
well well I'll be sure to listen to the next podcast and listen to Matt Kaplan who does a great job with who's been
doing how long has Matt been working for decades yeah and Bill Nye his role planetary
societies he's like the overlord CEO we don't call him Overlord
the word the right word wasn't coming to mind so I I'm sorry everyone watches
yeah okay well the overlord that saves us all Bill Nye saves us all so
so yeah again pleasure meeting you great presentation and looking forward
um you know I look at the Moon a lot it's we're I think we're all looking forward to knowing that there's something new up there that um you know
we can imagine um flying around and Gathering more data doing more science getting back to
understanding what it's there and how we can live with it and expand where we
live um not just confined to Earth so we start there and we move on for sure
thank you okay well thank you so much again Bethany for all of you uh watching and
listening out there be sure to just keep your ear to the ground for more updates
on the planetary Society uh from lunar Trailblazer through what NASA websites
and also follow lunar Trailblazer on Twitter they have fantastic updates
um almost on a weekly basis too so thank you so much again Bethany for being here
and uh and updating us on this fantastic mission that we are also excited about okay thank you all thank you for your
support and your enthusiasm about space it's great to talk to you thank you all
right be well okay okay so up next is
um is Maynard uh pit and dry and Maynard is uh one of the executives of the
astronomical league and um he is here to read off uh questions and answers uh and
to make uh you know for the people who are trying to get the door prizes of the
global star party so we're going to turn this over to you um Maynard okay Scott thank you very
much and I would like oh excellent where I got the screen uh share open up now
and uh let me share mine at this point
um you know it's always a pleasure to be here and uh we're excited what uh with
what you're doing and just very pleased to be a part of it and
um we can't uh be here without uh plugging
in the annual astronomical League convention well almost annual we didn't
have it last year not quite sure why there was something in the news last year and it's still in the news the
pandemic so this year we're having it but it's a virtual uh convention and
it's August 9th through the 21st and you probably want to take a screen capture
of this uh slide right here because it is chock full of information that you're
not going to be able to read it is showing but we've got a lot of
just outstanding speakers and um we've got door prizes door prizes
valued at more than seven thousand five hundred dollars the grand prize is
explore scientific first light uh it's a great telescope valued at 750 and uh we
always appreciate appreciative of uh explore scientific so you can go to uh
astronomical League's main web page very easy to find and you'll find the um uh
registration information I encourage you to do that oh and the price is just
right it's free free what could be better than that it doesn't get any
better than that it doesn't get any better who in the world would turn that down that's right uh and among the great
speakers we've got we've got an additional speaker that's just joined the team going to be talking about the
perseverance Mission and the inspiration uh helicopter and
um so we've got a slew of great speakers we're adding to them uh even as late as
or recently as this week and oh here's a slide I've already
um predicted this uh the grand prize from explore scientific some more
information about that grand prize you know the the bad thing about my role in the astronomical League I'm
the executive secretary and the officers are not allowed to win the door prize
yes that's awful but hey at least it's still free to register that's right and
we do not do anything with the astronomical League without giving you this warning and again if you if you
have not been a solar Observer and you're thinking about doing it make
another screenshot of this a lot of good information here you do not want to look
at the sun without the proper uh instruments and you need to be very very
careful we hear about this every time there's a solar eclipse be careful with
it but we need to drive it home all the time because the astronomical league is nurturing brand new astronomers and so
we always take this opportunity to uh say a word of caution now the answers
from Global Star Party number 54 from July 13th uh 2021
um question number one was
the 50th uh uh anniversary of Apollo 15 Landing will be
July 30th 2021 which of these Mission highlights was not part of Apollo 15.
and the answer is a Tranquility base
B and C were correct answers the first lunar rover and the feather and Hammer
drop physics demonstration what a great I still use that when I visit schools
today especially elementary school kids but establishing Tranquility base was
not part of Apollo 15. it was drum roll
I knew somebody was going to do it Apollo 11.
and question number two which of these major bodies of the solar system is the closest to the earth tonight
and the answer is the sun much to my grandson's dismay who last night he and
I were looking at Venus and he said ah it's just a star because it's so far away but the sun is the closest of these
objects right now and question number three on the evening
of July 18th the moon hangs to the left of what wide double star it will make an
interesting sight in binoculars uh or rather it did make an interesting sight in
binoculars on the 18th uh the star is a member uh of the astronomical leagues
double star observing program where it's great program uh if you're interested in double stars and the answer is not
Antares or spica it is in in the South we pronounce this word
B Choice B Zuma now janubi and that's an
Arabic phrase meaning scorpions Southern claw and so the correct answer is uh B
and the correct answers from uh Global Star Party number 54 are are these names
here and these names are going to be added to the door prize list congratulations to each and every one
and what you want to do is to send your uh uh answers to the following questions
tonight to secretary at astrowleague.org so get ready to send
some emails very quickly to answer these following questions
question number one uh which of the dwarf planets
oops sorry about that uh which of the dwarf planets is the
largest in our solar system in terms of diameter uh and is the answer uh I'm sorry I keep
messing up that slide uh is the answer Pluto Aries gong gong and I can't see
the bottom uh word on my screen I'm getting some other
information here it's seriously I should have remembered that yes so which is the
largest in our solar system in terms of diameter and the constellation camera
like many uh constellation depicts an animal and all of these animals when you
look at constellation you can well they're not quite that clear but is is
it the camel the lizard the giraffe and I can't see the last one but I think it's the Unicorn yep the Unicorn the
Unicorn thank you and question number three what organization has the final word on
what names to give the lunar craters Martian mountains stars and asteroids is it a NASA B the international
astronomical Union C the astronomical League or I believe D is the United
Nations and so those are your questions for tonight
send in your answers to the Secretary of the astronomic league and uh secretary
astrowleague.org and don't forget the astronomic league will be live on
September 17th uh 2021 uh at 7 00 pm and
thank you again Scott for giving us the opportunity to join with you as the astronomical League oh well thank you
our honor yeah it's always a pleasure to be with you it's our honor well that's
great um okay uh so Caitlin I'm going to turn this back over to you
um up next is Gavin talamati um he's a planetary scientist
um and uh uh I guess a PhD candidate is that correct
foreign
whoever wants to answer first no but I'll turn this over to you Caitlyn
okay well it
friend uh gal Ty student at Western University uh in
Canada um so he is actually uh doing some really cool stuff between Earth and planetary science I'm mainly using the
synthesis synthesis oh my goodness Gavin I am so sorry you're gonna have to explain this way better than I am right
now synthetic aperture radar so I but you mainly study uh how like
Moon and Mars uh lava flows are formed and then it's some uh really cool terrestrial analogs as well so the floor
is yours Gavin yes uh well thank you Caitlin I'm just gonna quickly share my
screen make sure everything thank you as working well so I'm hoping everyone
can see it yes we can all right awesome so um yes Caitlyn yeah thank you very
much for the introduction and thank you everyone for allowing me to speak to you tonight um so yes uh part of my work as a PhD
candidate is using a technique called synthetic aperture radar to look to use Earth to try and understand Bruno Mars
but I'm actually going to take this on a slight tangent on a different Journey which is also still part of what I do
and involves more of using Earth to understand the moon but we're going to be using looking at completely different
technique that does still use analog sites um here on Earth but before that I kind
of just want to bring us like this whole um this whole event is really pretty much just reminding us about what is it
that birthed the start of lunar exploration and a lot of planetary science was when the Apollo missions
began and something that we always need to remember when we think about what lunar exploration and science that we're
seeing today and we'll continue to see in the future and this all becomes very important
because if we're wanting to understand more about our natural satellites we need to really understand what we've
where we've visited what we've brought back what data we have and what data we still need because if we can't really
answer those questions right now we're never really gonna know how to answer the questions that were actually left behind after the Apollo era was over
so like after Apollo 11 when it was just to show that we humans are capable of landing on a natural satellite and
returning safely to Earth we then move to more of the technological demonstrations putting on these uh
ground penetrating Radars and seismometers to try and understand what's the structure of the moon like
beneath the surface and then we started to move more after Apollo 13 which was deemed a Successful
Failure Mission so still a huge unfortunate instant but still a relief
that we were able to return the astronauts back home but then we moved towards 14 and Apollo 6 15 where we
started to focus more on the sciences and trying to bring back more and more samples to try and understand not only
how our moon had evolved and formed but also try to understand at least geological processes that we can see
definitely happened on the moon such as the very dark patches that all the the
Seas of Mari lava trying to understand like what is it that really initiated all this volcanism and covered the
surface and try to understand all of these other features such as impact craters and as Bethany showed in her
previous presentation how is it that volatile such as water and ice can stay trapped in these cold
regions for so long when we used to believe that the moon was once a dry arid dead place
and all of these really come to my questions start to come to mind when we start to think look at the road map of
what we see lunar exploration what it is now what it has been in the past 10 years and what it's going to be like in
the next uh in the next decade so when we start to think of the technological advances we also have to
think of the science subjectives and goals that we're still trying to answer that were left over since the 70s for
the 80s 90s and throughout the early 2000s a lot of these questions were still trying to be asked such as how how
old is the moon when did the moon form how did the moon form when did a lot when did volcanism start in the moon
when did it end how much did it impact Korea's actually affect the moon and our
own Planet these are questions that they were able to answer some of these
questions or tackle at least tackle to try and understand some of these questions by using samples brought back
from the Apollo missions but the problem is that did limit what we were able to
figure out so moving into some of the work that I've been working on is that if we
really want to try and understand the moon we also need to try and look towards Earth and what our own planet is
able to tell us about our natural satellite and to do that to try and answer one of the big questions for the Moon is if you
want to understand its formation Evolution where there's one geologic process which I have mentioned that we need to look at
impact craters now you don't even need to look at use binoculars or telescopes if you look at the Moon you could just
see it covered with all these many bowl shaped uh holes which are all these different craters that form when a
meteorite or a comet strikes the surface of plant moon or any planetary body now if you look at it it just looks like a
very giant ball-shaped swiss cheese when you look at all of these um different Craters of different sizes and I will
guarantee that it's all not made of cheese if unless anyone's seen the pat Sports and grammar episode which
probably must let a lot of children especially my generation to believe that it was maybe once made of cheese
but if we do think about trying to understand the formation and the evolution of the Moon it has been
highlighted numerous times not only by NASA but a lot of scientific uh councils
and panels and a lot of institutional research groups saying that this geologic process is one of the key
targets for trying to understand how a moon formed and how it was created but to do that we really need to
understand what exactly happens during an impact creating event now it's not like when we look at Volcan volcanic
events in Hawaii where we can actually send helicopters drones even people to go witness what exactly is happening at
this geologic process so the problems of an impact event is very unpredictable even if we could predict it happening we
don't want to be anywhere near it when it does occur because it's depending on the size it can dwarf the amount of
power that one nuclear bomb is actually able to produce and even if we did get close to it after
the event occurred there's no way for us to really witness a lot of the uh there's not a way for us to really
witness a lot of the damage and modifications it actually does because it's an instantaneous process it happens
snapping your fingers usually or even up to a few minutes but by then you're not going to be able to see much there to be
able to learn a lot about what actually happened when it formed so when we think about this we want to
understand two types of Key conditions of impact craters what was the pressure condition like and what were the
temperatures like to look at temperature we look at this type of material which is called impact melts which is what
forms when a meteorite or a comet strikes the surface proprietary body the amount of energy that's released is so
intense it's able to instantly melt surrounding rocks within certain regions like this little image on the left side
there's just like a small little sliver red sliver here that's labeled melt that's the material that will instantly
melt as soon as the meteorite strikes also some people material will vaporize
but that's only if it's right next to the impactor itself when you think about pressure we want to
this usually happens when the impact destracts the surface a shock wave is released into
into the ground think about when you throw a pebble into the water and you see the ripple effect those ripples are
those shock waves that are passing through the rocks and eventually those ripples dissipate which is the same thing that happens during an impact
event but trying to record these can trying to record these conditions
they're using Luna craters is actually a little bit challenging because as I mentioned before we are limited to what
science we can conduct based on what samples were returned from the Apollo missions a lot of them weren't able to
be collected at particular outcrops this is where we know a rock actually formed or was moved to geologically a lot of
them were either picked off of the ground because it was easier to it's easy for the astronauts to collect using the materials and Equipment they had or
there was badly rare occasion they were able to go up to a boulder so they could presume roll down a hill which may have
come from the top of a mountain or a massive so they could think like this they happen to had to come from here so
the sample could tell us a lot about this large area which is really good but still limits what we could actually know
and even remote sensing data with global coverage at the Moon remote sensing has its limitations it can't tell us as much
as being on the ground to study all this material uh the best way to overcome this we need
to look towards our own Planet at the same time it for it was formed only just before the moon did so as a lot of the
uh events that happened on the moon how it Formed can probably also be one preserved on Earth and two we can use
Earth as a natural laboratory to try and understand some of the processes that happened on the moon
and one of the best ones as we said with impact cratering the Earth does not have as many as as the moon unfortunately because since we we are on the dynamic
Planet it's constantly being modified eroded covered and just wiped away uh
geologically so right now we only have just over 200 confirmed craters on earth
when on the moon right now I think the numbers gone somewhere above 30 000 and the number just keeps growing every
single a day but we're going to focus in particular where this arrow is pointing on which is
where we start to move towards the work I've been doing which was looking at particular impact structure called the mustasten leak
impact structure which is based in Newton laboratory or Canada now the reason this impact structure out
of every other one on earth is very unique is because it targeted crystalline rocks that are the most
chemically analogous to the lunar crust so if you really want to understand lunar craters this is probably the best
crater on Earth we have to try to understand how it probably modified Crystal material melted it shocked it
and then distributed it around now to do that we need to look at types
of minerals within these rocks that can actually withstand the intense pressures and temperatures that impact events can
form and this is why I look at a particular mineral that's called Zircon it's a mineral that's formed of zirconia
silica and oxygen and it's an accessory mineral because it's usually one of the first minerals to form in a magnetic
system and it's one of the most stubborn minerals to ever adjust to ever witness because you could probably crush this
under a building throw it in a volcano or and to have a tsunami wipe it away nothing will happen to that mineral at
least physically what you can see it's able to retain a lot of information which is why it's one of the gemstones
in geology because it is the key to understanding a lot of processes and for us in particular what we're
interested in is what's pressure and temperature conditions can this mineral actually record for us during impact
events so I use a technique that's called electron back scare diffraction now essentially what this does is it
fires a very focused instant beam of electrons to this mineral at it at an
instant once it's been tilted in a slab which is called a thin section which is just a very thinly sliced piece of the
rock imagine if you're going to a deli and you ask them for a slice of pastrami or salami that little slice is a piece
of rock and it's then called a thin section and we're wanting to do is these extreme pressure and temperatures can be
recorded in the orientations of this mineral and the minerals that have formed prior to the vulnerable that
we've been able to witness which is why we use like long back scratch fraction because it's one of the few analytical
techniques we can use to actually get this information now for me I had to like dive in around
these types of samples going from mastastin and look for as many type of silicon grains as I could find from many
different types of samples because if we want to really understand all these conditions we have to find as many as
possible but to quickly jump forward and I want to quickly um bear ever bear with me
here when it comes to this figure on the left it looks a little bit intimidating but the main thing I want you to all
take away from it is that all the different colors that you can see that looks almost look like this wormy
texture that's surrounding this bigger grain these minerals these are the crystals that we're very interested in
that these are called zirconia which is what forms when Zircon dissociates or
breaks apart when it comes to Coney and silica these minerals have been already been proven by previous research group that
they can actually record the highest rock formation temperature on Earth and the young where the only other location
I'm going to get temperatures that high would be in the Earth's core so we know that geologically it had to have been an
impact crate is the only other geological process capable of producing these conditions now what I really want you to take away
from this is these two little features up here called pole figures this
particular pattern that I've circled here tells us that these crystals actually
transforms from a parent mineral phase that formed at temperatures greater than
2370 degrees Celsius and any other geologic process that's not no other process can produce
temperatures that high unless this mineral was plucked from the Earth's core and thrown to the surface which is impossible so we know that impact
craving can actually produce extremely high temperature conditions which are already was proven too but usually they
would assume around 2000 degrees and then call it a day but this actually proves it could actually be higher but
what my work mainly has confirmed the work from previous authors that it is possible
and but that's for temperature though so temperature we know it's like ridiculously high which is also
nicknamed to be superheated because it means all rocks around it are going to melt below above their liquidus
now again bear with me with this figure here but the main thing I want you to take away is just this little pattern
that you can see here which is aligned with this pattern here and these two dots here
that what we were able to find in our samples is this rare high pressure mineral that's called readite which is
what happens when a Zircon grain as I showed you before is severely impacted at pressures greater than 30 gigapascals
now to give you some kind of reference about what a gigapascal would be like the deepest material that is crushed and
compressed by two tectonic plates you'd be really lucky to get maybe one to two Giga pascals of pressure
and that's from two tectonic plates slowly crushing rock beneath the surface
and then uplifting it in a mountain range so an impact crater just says dwarf side effects immediately with one
swift impact and that's that's why this mineral is a great mineral for telling us this is an impact crater because
again it's no other geologic process that can produce conditions this High maybe in the Earth's core right in the
center but again impossible for it to get to the surface so what we're able to show is that not
only can these can we actually find creators with these ridiculously high temperatures we can actually record
these really high pressures now a lot of this isn't new to the literature they've been studying these types of high
pressures for decades since the uh even since the 60s and 70s but mainly what we
were able to show that you don't have to have a impact created with no melt or an imperial full melt to get either or this
of this information you can find all this information within a single impact crater you just have to know where to
look and that's the beauty of these zircons now all comes down to finding the right zircons but that's when you
have to keep counting as many as you can find because the more as we know scientists the more data you have the better your results will probably end up
fingers crossed in the end and then one of the questions I actually start to ask bring this back to the Moon
is that can we even find these types of circle and zirconia minerals in lunar samples
uh they're very likely because there's already been a couple of papers that have been released that have shown they
have they can be found one by using at all 2020 was able to find that redight mineral I mentioned before in a Ludo
media right it's not been found in Apollo samples yet but that's mainly just because no one's actively looked
tried to search for them which is something I'm actually planning to do past my PhD at a time
and another paper by white adult 2020 was able to confirm that from the Apollo
17 sample 72535 this was a truck Delight actually
had may have been formed may have actually crystallized from a giant impact Mill pool because of this
medelier Crystal that recorded that same pattern that we found and other and previous authors in 2017 found showing
the temperatures exceeded 2 307 degrees Celsius so they knew it could not be magmatic because normally those
temperatures at best would maybe exceed 1500 but won't exceed values as high
so it does show that we can find these samples in Apollo samples it's just we need the time to actively look for them
and if we can find even more we can learn so much more about how impact craters on the moon in particular have
modified its surface and probably impacted its geology and evolution now the whole presentation I've I've
constantly mentioned terrestrial analogs terrestrial analogs and you're thinking like well threshold analog's a huge help
for us to learn about natural satellite because we have to remember of the Apollo error it's what they were used to
train the astronauts they we they were going to be sent to the Moon to look for samples but they had did no idea what to
look for and the best way to do that was to bring them to sites on Earth which are not perfect examples or matches but
the closest relation to what they might find on the moon testing equipment testing how to sample them identify them
catalog samples pick them up identify them store them and document them and bring them back to Earth
it's the same thing for science if we want to understand a planetary body we can use remote sensing data if we have
samples amazing we can learn a lot but terrestrial analogs are always going to give us that extra help until we can
actually send a human back onto the surface of the Moon to do what a lot of Rovers and remote sensing satellites
cannot do confirm what's actually going on there or what's actually there
and this is why we use mustasten it's the best thing we have right now to try and understand lunar craters and if we
complement it with numerical modeling polish samples and remote sensing data that's actually studied Luna creators we
could probably gain a lot more about what's actually happened and this is just a quick will summary slide but
the main two things I want you to really look think about is not really the underlying what these underlying questions actually
Point towards like number one I do say that can we find more of these congruent zirconia crystals throughout the entire
impact structure I studied this could tell us a lot about do these extreme temperature conditions
only happen in certain locations or is it homogeneous throughout the entire crater again there's a lot of
speculation it's probably going to be heterogeneous but no one's really looked to actually confirm this to be true and can we find high pressure and
temperature salt indicators in other terrestrial craters and learn impact types it's very likely that we can it's
there's a lot of work that been done in terrestrial impact structures but lunar impact types still need a lot more work
we have all the samples at the creation laboratory we just need to get cracking and look for these particular grains and
other minerals that could also provide a lot more information so I just want to thank you all for
listening and I'm happy to take any questions
fantastic Gavin we're all clapping our hands in the world so so I yes fantastic
presentation um someone just had their hand up
or a question someone want to start us off I don't see anything from the audience
here um uh but uh that doesn't mean that their
brains aren't working to uh figure out a good question to ask so
um I have a quick question for Gavin um we're showing some of the uh some of the
Astronaut training areas have you visited the one in Sudbury or seen any of the ones where the astronauts did go
through I have been to Sudbury but I don't think I went to the
I may have been to one of the sites but I can't remember which one it was I don't think they they I don't think they
made it into manakugan but they did they go to the one in Newfoundland where you've been studying the Zircon samples
oh I don't think the Apollo Astronauts did I know a lot they're having a couple of
NASA and a lot of the Canadian space agency astronauts are taken there by my supervisor Dr gonzinski to do a lot of
net analog training because it's just one of the best um locations we can do lunar analog work if at least a study
like compositionally and how could actually have impacted Luna crust that's fantastic thanks this was great
yeah uh Beatrice um Heinz mentions uh just a comment thank you Gavin beautiful
presentation she's uh she follows many of these programs and she's an avid
amateur uh astrophotographer so
I have a quick question then uh for Gavin so
when you first saw uh these minerals I as far as like a thin section goes I I
know how beautiful uh they can look through uh like petrology microscopes
and whatnot what was your first like feeling of that you were looking as something so
so old and uh and whether it's from Earth or from space
um well we know that they all came from Earth but the really fascinating one I think it's um where I showed the image
of a readout grain we did not know that grain was in that sample until we were running electron backscat to fraction
analysis at the Johnson Space Center I had no idea it was for me it was just a good sample but at first I didn't find
anything that interesting until we started looking deeper and realized hold on a second this I don't think we've
seen this mineral there before so that was probably one of the best um discoveries that we did find because I
don't really mention in my presentation but for this particular crater that mineral has never been found before so
it was a it's not the first to be found on Earth but to be finding another crater like Miss Aston was actually a huge um deal
because it did show that this mineral which a lot of a lot of literature says does not like high temperature
conditions because it breaks down to Zircon at 1200 degrees we can actually find it in areas where the Melt was so
hot so it was an interesting find fantastic absolutely fantastic
okay well um uh up next would be Professor Kareem
Jafar uh Kareem is involved heavily involved in the
Outreach activities of the Royal Astronomical Society Montreal Center
he is at John Abbott College he is a an educator of astronomy that I
wish I had when I was when I was younger I think his uh his talks are inspiring
his uh even the pitch and sound of his voice makes me pay attention so it's a
real gift Kareem and we're happy to have you on global stock party yet again
oh thank you Scott that's really kind and uh I'm happy to be here I'm I'm this is an
exciting day for many reasons but uh the Apollo missions hold a special place and I think a lot of our hearts and so I
wanted to do a little walk through of not just the Apollo missions but also the context of where these Apollo
missions came into play um before I do I just want to point out that we have all of these beautiful
Mission patches here and I I own one just the Apollo 11 myself but uh if you
take a look at our host's dress today she's she's modeling all of them which
is just I color me jealous I have a tie that has uh the Apollo 11 landing and I
have uh what a Moon crater tie that I use when I do Moon crater sketching workshops but uh
there there's a fascination with these missions because it's the one time that
we've actually stepped foot on the moon and I know the last couple of days a lot of us have seen especially in the east
coast and in the northeast of the U.S of Canada we've seen the moon covered with
the Smoky haze from BC and last year it was covered with the Smoky haze from California and the moon just holds a
special place for a lot of us it also as an observing Target for most of us so what I'm going to talk to you about
today is the Apollo missions and it's going to be based on a few things it's going to be based on some of the interviews done of Jim Lovell by David
eicher and Richard Talcott an astronomy magazine the autobiographies and
biographies of some of the astronauts including first men by uh James Hansen who I had the opportunity to meet two
years ago during the 50th with David he was at the Rask General Assembly that
year and we had a chance to chat and he told us a lot of really amazing Stories
not just of Neil Armstrong but also of the entire Apollo Mission and program
and so I want to share some of those with you but before I do I do want to take a moment because this is a global
star party and we have members joining us from all over the world I do want to
wish an evil bark to anyone who is celebrating um it is the Eid of sacrifice of generosity of of
just that entire Spirit of improvement of uh just it's it's a family time and
for me today is also special because just like Seth my son has his birthday today and so two years ago on the 50th
we spent my son's birthday celebrating the moon landing at a festival at the agriculture Museum and
so we were there right from early morning we were being interviewed by Breakfast Television and he was showing them the sun through a Coronado we've
done uh crater sketching workshops and so we taught people how to Crater sketch and so two years ago we got to really
Embrace this astronomy Outreach and the celebration of Apollo as a family for my
son's 16th birthday now you'll see these are pre-covered times right there's no masks on anyone
we're all pretty close together and enjoying each other's company uh this year it's a little bit more subdued
we're at home but he seems to still be enjoying himself with his Dairy Queen treats a pizza and so we've had a good
time just celebrating his birthday and now I get to share the Apollo missions with the world
I also want to mention that the rasc and the RAC Montreal Center in specific has been continuing a lot of programming and
the global Star Party audience is invited to come to any of our public events we have one coming up on Saturday
July 31st at 4 PM with a member a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society in
England uh Mary McIntyre is going to teach us how to do stunning star trails and she's actually a co-panelist with me
with Astro radio and if you want to tune in on Thursday we have our our monthly
radio quiz and I have not done very well in these uh these radio quizzes because
it's astronomy and music and my music knowledge just isn't quite up to par yet
and then at our national rasc we have a couple of things going on we have the Creation Station which I've shared with
you before the deadline is extended to July 31st end of this month and so kids
ages 5 to 12 if you have stories drawings please do submit them we'd love to share them with the world on your
behalf and we have The Insider's Guide to the Galaxy a YouTube program that's
restarted now towards the end of the summer to share with people just the the way in which you can observe the night
sky no matter what your level is whether you're a beginner whether you are consider yourself an amateur or even a
professional astronomer there's something in there for everyone now when we talk about this exploration
of the solar system and specifically the exploration of the moon this has been in
our pop culture from the very start and we know that there are books and there are stories and there are legends in all
of our myths from no matter what culture you're in of the Moon and why it has such a place in the sky why we only see
one face of the Moon why we see it go through the phases which were shared really well earlier on in this evening's
program in our own pop culture here in North America we've seen a Resurgence after
Apollo 13 things had kind of died down a little bit and then we had the from the Earth to the Moon series and Tom Hanks
who was the fictional character in Apollo 13 based on real life then gave
us our actual narration for from the Earth to the Moon which really kind of shed light on some of the stories behind
the scenes of the space exploration programs and then two years ago with the 50th anniversary of man landing on the
moon and stepping foot we had first man come out as a movie after the book came
out by James Hansen and then we had the movie Apollo 11 which gave us a little bit more of a documentary style view of
that mission so I think a good place for us to start is the actual Apollo 11 Mission let's
take a look quickly at the launch and then the landing and those first steps
two one zero
[Music] three feet down two and a half picked up
take that out fall forward drifting to the right level
okay engine stop listen uh
we copy on the ground you got a bunch of guys about to turn blue we're freezing again thanks a lot
okay there we can see you coming down the ladder now uh
uh it's left in the surface about the one or two inches
so we have the landing and Tranquility base the eagle has landed and we have the view from Tranquility base and this
is the view looking back at the eagle from the first excursions out from that
area now this picture of that first boot print and that first boot print that was
captured by Neil Armstrong even before Buzz came down it's actually an interesting story here because it's not
the first boot print that Neil made on the moon when Neil was coming down off
of the runs and he stepped onto the moon's surface the first thing he did was give a report of what that surface
was like because they weren't sure if he would break through the crust or if he would be supported and so he talked about how fine it was in the fact that
it seemed to be hard underneath and that it was leaving a print and then he looked around a bit and then he was
going to set up the camera to be able to take more pictures and the first picture he was supposed to
take was of the boot print and when he turned around he realized he had walked through the initial boot print so he had
to find another spawn to take a fresh boot print so that we have that pristine image of the astronaut's boot on the
moon it's also important to note that first step onto the foot pad he actually
jumped back up to make sure that he would be able to get back into the Lander and the reason was and this is
really interesting The Landing system was actually designed here in Quebec and
that Landing system was designed in such a way that it could collapse a little bit when Eagle landed on the surface but
Neil was such an incredible pilot that when he actually found the location to land he landed too softly and so you can
even see that there's an extended part there that was supposed to move back up into the leg area and compress by almost
a foot and it didn't happen so their Bottom Rung was too high above the
surface so they actually had to hop onto the pad and then onto the surface and so
they had to make sure that they would be able to get back into the Lander itself now
after Neil landed it was actually a full 18 minutes before Buzz made his way down
onto the surface of the Moon and one of the first things that he said was what a magnificent view it was and then he
talked about the magnificent desolation the idea that there was just there was nothing it was absolutely Barren and
that was one of the big takeaways for them but they found that they could move around very easily on the moon's surface
now they had been testing out the whole movement in the suits in one-sixth
gravity on those types of vomit Comet style aircraft they found it easier to move even though
their rate with all of that material had dropped by almost 50 down to 15 percent
what they were used to carrying around there was a plaque on Apollo 11 on the
Lander that's still there on the surface of the Moon we came in peace For All Mankind now the
lead early on when he gave the quote from Neil he said one small step for a
man and Neil is adamant that that's what he meant to say he just doesn't know if
he actually missed the uh or if it was caught up in static because when you hear it when you heard it on the video
it's very hard to make out that uh in front of man
now this image is similar to the one Gavin showed us recently of those Apollo Landing sites and if we overlay them
with some of the other Landing sites of the surveyor missions as well as the Russian Luna missions what we can see is
that the vast majority of these Landing sites are all very clustered close to the equator and that makes sense based
on simple trajectory and what's feasible in terms of actually being able to Target and land safely on the moon's
surface you'll also notice that the Apollo 12 mission is very close to the
surveyor 3 and it was actually able to visit the surveyor 3 site and actually
you get the camera back for study since those original Apollo missions
there have been many more explorations of the movie we could talk long and hard about the different countries that have
visited the moon the missions that they've done I know We've joked previously in the gsps about Israel
having the tardigrades on the moon there's a lot to be said about the strategies being used right now to
explore the moon but what I want to do is I want to kind of talk a little bit about the context in which we really
first reached the Moon so in 1942 a German V2 rocket was the
first one to really reach space now that boundary of space the Carmen line is a
hundred kilometers from Earth's surface the rocket was designed by Werner Von Brown who later worked with NASA but
one of the things that's come up in the news recently of course is Richard Branson with Virgin not quite reaching
that Carmen line versus Jeff Bezos today who a lot of us watched blue origin reached that carbon line and go past it
and so successfully actually reach the boundary of space in 1947 we had the first animals Enter
space and they were fruit flies uh anybody who has done
grad like even undergrad labs in biology would remember that you study fruit
flies because the DNA of fruit flies is actually very similar to the DNA of humans there's a lot of similarities in
the DNA structure my sister gives me I used to used to explain this to me and I
tried my best to understand it I did have some difficulty with it but what I found really interesting with the fruit
flies was that they were given a supply of corn to eat because at that time in 1947 we had no idea what space would do
to life life being subjected outside of the atmosphere to the Rays from the Sun
without the shielding that the atmosphere gives us the ozone layer what how it protects us from the UV from the
x-rays and the gamma rays a few weeks back we had talked about spectroscopy and we had seen the curves
of the fact that the radio waves very very very little bit of optical gets
through radio waves get through some microwaves get through but the vast majority of EM spectrum is actually
shielded from us by our atmosphere so when you move past the atmosphere what's
the effect on human life on any type of life so after the fruit flies the next
thing to send up was a rhesus monkey and so Albert II was the first monkey in space and he went up in a specially
adopted V2 rocket that went past the Carmen line and then came back down and they studied
them and you seem to have no ill effects and then in 1957 Russia launched a
satellite into space a satellite that could orbit the earth transmit back and forth and the Space Age had really
properly begun November 1957 the Russian space dog Leica becomes the first animal to orbit
the earth and go around an orbit in Sputnik too the USA was very very close behind the
first USA satellite the U.S Explorer went up in January 31st 1958 and that
success launched the idea behind NASA and so NASA was established on July 29
1958 in 1959 the USSR was ready and sending
satellites towards the Moon Luna One Missed The Moon surface in a flyby lunatu crashed onto the moon's surface
because they hadn't even bothered to try to devise a way to land they just wanted to see if they could get there and what
would happen Luna 3 actually went around the Moon took pictures of the far side and then
returned in 1961 the first human in space
Yuri Gagarin and a lot of us celebrated Yuri's night back in the spring
Yuri made it for one complete orbit of the earth and landed about two hours
after lunch again they hadn't actually designed busdoc 1 to be able to land so he had to
bail out and land with his parachute because vostok one was designed to crash back into Earth
one year later 1962 John Glenn becomes the first American to orbit the earth and he did so three times
he was the fifth person and third American in space joining Alan Shepard and Gus Grissom
and you'll notice that those three were all part of the first Mercury Mission the
first astronauts chosen by NASA in its inaugural call for astronauts
1962 was also the year Canada joined space with Alouette one Canada's first
satellite and as seems to be the case with a lot of the Canadian satellites it was built for scientific and
communication purposes for Alouette one it was actually built to study the Earth's ionosphere
even though we were the Third Country to get a satellite into space we were the fourth country to operate a satellite in
space because the British had actually could had a satellite constructed by NASA for them that proceeded out of what
one by five months now John F Kennedy became president just
before these first couple of Milestones of reaching a man from the U.S to orbit
the earth and getting those real hooks into being able to successfully
and safely launch multiple satellites into orbit around the Earth
but his perception was that the U.S was losing the Space Race because by then Luna missions had already gone towards
the moon so he was convinced that there needed to be some decisive achievement and he came up with three possibilities
we put a laboratory in space which Linley Johnson and James Webb and Dr Von
Braun all said that they were very certain that the Russians would do that first
orbiting a man around the Moon again they felt that that might not be the easiest thing to get to but if we were
going to aim for that then why not actually attempt to land a man on the moon it was the most expensive option
but it was the one that was chosen and the budget the cost estimate was 22 billion to achieve it within a few years
the moon speech that he gave he planned by the end of the decade to put a man on
the moon but within a year the cost estimates had doubled they had reached 40 billion and
the military withdrew their support of the idea and so Kennedy ordered a review of the program
and he tried to propose joint ventures with the USSR but the USSR was hesitant
they announced that they didn't want to send cosmonauts to the moon and then Russian AIDS actually were trying to
convince Khrushchev to accept the deal but in order to steal U.S technology
all of this was for moot because the report on the Apollo program finished after the JFK assassination and so the
whole Apollo program actually became a memorial to JFK and he gained momentum not lost it after that
so in 1969 on July 20th Neil Armstrong and then 18 minutes later Buzz Aldrin
took that one small step and became the first men on the moon the first words that were said was the
eagle had landed from Tranquility base and Apollo 11 worked perfectly getting
them there and bring them all the way back because all of those Apollo flights
leading up to Apollo 11. had built a system
that was able to safely land a man on the moon and then bring them back and
then soon after we were able to explore the moon even further and as was alluded to by Gavin we had the lunar Rovers come
down in Apollo 15 and then the 16 and 17 missions which actually allowed them to do more scientific achievements and more
scientific studies and surveys of the surface of the Moon
that was designed and developed in 17 months by Boeing so I want to shortly go
through these different Apollo missions and just highlight a few things for you I've got a lot of text on here I'm not
going to go through all the text you can feel free to come back to this if you are interested in any of these but the
first Apollo mission was the tragedy it was Apollo 1. Gil Grissom Ted white
Roger Shafi they died during the pre-flight test malfunction
all the efforts of the ground crew were for not and the three astronauts all perished in the fire
as a result the next five test missions were all then changed to unmanned
systems to ensure that this type of a tragedy would not occur again in the Apollo program
Apollo 7 was the next crude Mission and this one was simply to orbit the earth
and test out all the various systems including the Saturn Rockets itself now
the Saturn rocket the the ones that were created to take the Apollo pods all the
way to the moon and give them enough of a speed that they would get to the moon those ones were actually having
difficulty so this other type of Saturn rocket was used for the Apollo 7 and they had the crude Mission happen safely
it was a three-person crew and it was the first live TV downlink to ensure
that not only communication but also video could go back and forth between the Apollo Astronauts and the actual
Mission Control Apollo 8 was the first manned flight
around the Moon now for this one it's really interesting to note that James Lavelle who was the pilot was not
actually scheduled to do Apollo 8. he was scheduled to be on Apollo 11 and
Michael Collins was scheduled to be on Apollo 8. James Lavelle was supposed to be the one on Apollo 11 who never would
go down to the moon but would actually stay in orbit the role Michael Collins ended up having but Michael Collins had
emergency neck surgery so he wasn't able to do Apollo 8. so James Lavelle was moved up to Apollo 8 and he was back up
for Apollo 11. we'll talk about that momentarily the Saturn rocket performed admirably
even though the previous two versions of the Saturn V had actually had problems
this this Saturn V went beautifully the flight to the moon the duration was
six days three hours 42 seconds to obtain 10 orbits around the Moon including they did a reading of Genesis
on Christmas Eve and that reading of Genesis was chosen because Genesis was considered to be the excerpt from The
Testament that would actually be closest for most major religions around the world so that everyone watching and
everybody listening would feel a connection to the mission itself
one of the things from Apollo 8 is actually Bill Anders convinced James Lavelle to let him bring along his
camera with a telephoto lens so that he could take pictures because James Lavelle was simply
adamant about going through and marking territory and using the maps and really
just observing as much as he could and he didn't see the use initially of taking pictures but that iconic picture
that was shared earlier of the first earthrise is one of the ones that we actually remember from the Apollo 8
mission now I have some schematics here for Apollo 8 but I'm going to move past those the first view of earthrise was
actually taken by the lunar orbiter one but then this one was taken by Apollo 8 it was the first humans to witness the
rising of the earth now I just want to mention to you something James Lavelle said in his interview with David eicher
and uh and Richard Trotter in astronomy magazine he said you know how when we go
out at night and we see the moon we can block the moon with our thumb
and we can do this during an eclipse or we can block the sun with our thumb if we're wearing the safe eclipse glasses
because we're not learning the eclipse glasses don't look directly at the Sun well James Lavelle said that at one
point he reached out with his thumb to block the Earth and it occurred to him that every single human in every
achievement was behind his thumb everything anybody knew was all hidden
by his thumb and everything behind him was unknown and that moment to him kind of captured
that real perspective of how small we are in the entire scope of the solar
system let alone the universe these days we get amazing resolution
earthrise and anybody who hasn't seen it I encourage you to watch the Youtube
from the Japanese Cayuga spacecraft this is now 14 years old but it's still
breathtaking to see the Earth rise with this zero atmospheric Distortion over a
high-res shot of the Moon surface now as the Apollo 8 went around they
were trying to identify markers to use for navigating that first landing which
they knew was coming up they weren't ready for the first landing yet but it was coming up Apollo 8 was actually
originally considered to be the mission to test out the lunar module in Earth
orbit but the lunar module wasn't ready yet so instead they ended up being the first to go all the way out to the moon
so Jim Jim Lavelle and Bill Anders they didn't want to lose this opportunity so they were taking pictures of as much of
the terrain as much of the surface as they could and they saw this little triangular region which was a
mountainous region on the edge of the Sea of Tranquility which they felt would be useful for navigation and when they
looked at all their charts it had no name so then Jim Lavelle named it after his wife and he started calling it Mount
Maryland and it that name stuck throughout the Apollo program and all of the NASA
documentation but the iau refused to give that name until 2017.
when they finally named that structure Mount Maryland now this is important because only 30
Craters of the 1600 craters on the moon are named after women
so to name a mountain after a woman was actually an incredibly rare event for
our moon this is the side view of Mount Maryland
which was used by Neil Armstrong to navigate the eagle as he landed it in on
Apollo the Apollo 11 mission Apollo 9 was the first testing of the lunar module piloting in low earth orbit
and they tested out coming in and out of the lunar module and ensuring that all of the systems were a go
Apollo 10 was a mission to test out Landing without actually Landing so they
went all the way to the Moon the lunar module was released that's called Snoopy and it went all the way
down towards the surface then came back and reattached but it didn't actually
land Snoopy was then released and very
recently in starting in about 2007 there was an effort made in the UK by uh Tom
Haas I believe to try to identify Snoopy in its solar orbit and they believe
they've identified if we have to wait now another 13 years before it passes
close enough to Earth for us to see if that object that they see is actually
Snoopy the Apollo 10 lunar module the Apollo 10 debrief you can see many many
famous people in here you can see Jim Lavelle you can see Neil Armstrong you can see Buzz Aldrin I mean this is this
is a capture shot of really walking through exactly what was going to happen when they get to the moon
Apollo 11 we have the crew and then we have the backup crew Michael Collins was happy to
be the Command Module pilot even though it meant that he would never actually land on the moon because he
thought at some point he would get a chance to go back but he never did one of the sides of the Apollo 11
Mission which Gavin referred to was the actual scientific setups that were begun there was a solar powered size
seismograph that was plugged in there was a reflector dish that was plugged in so that we can actually at any point
accurately determine the distance between the Earth and the Moon and then the ascent of the lunar module
coming up was actually captured by Michael Collins Apollo 12 was a mission that was able to
go and not only um explore the ocean of storms but also
be able to to examine some of the previous
orbit or some of the previous Landers that the U.S had sent including the surveyor missions
now Apollo 13 was meant to be the first full scientific mission
but as we know Apollo 13 just after it had started moving towards
the Moon there was a loud sound and that loud sound was an explosion that happened 200
000 miles away from Earth and that explosion was absolutely
terrifying to everyone on Earth finding out and realizing that there was a
ruptured oxygen tank and that they would no longer be able to potentially even
return but much to the credit of the crew of Apollo 13 they kept their calm the the
they went over time the scientists here on Earth trying to determine a way in which they would be able to come back
and what they were able to do is speed up the Apollo 13 module to have it go
around the moon faster so they would be able to get back with a small course correction and return to Earth but in
order to do so they had to spend four days for three individuals in their
actual Command Module now that Command Module was not meant to have more than
two people for a couple of days maximum the the lunar module area
sorry not the Command Module the lunar module and so they didn't have enough oxygen so they had to work out a way to
bring oxygen in from another part of the actual Apollo 13 unit
but what was really devastating was they had no way to filter out the carbon
dioxide so they were going to be poisoned if nothing could be figured out so with duct tape cardboard and an Old
Sock they worked out a filtering unit that was able to keep them from being
poisoned by their own carbon dioxide to allow them to make their way all the way back now once they released the actual
module you could see the ruptured oxygen tank in the pictures that they took so
you can see that tank and it is incredible that this didn't actually
cause the entire mission to be a disaster that they actually made it back and even here on Earth amateur
astronomers were able to see the oxygen Cloud coming out of the Apollo 13
spacecraft it's just incredible that they made it
back that they were able to survive and that they were able to actually live to tell the tale
Apollo 14 took over the actual plan that Apollo 13 had had and they did the
scientific mission on the moon including regolith and lunar Rock sampling that
brought us up to a much higher degree of variety in the types of rock that were
being sampled so 382 kilograms of Basalt ratio Rock samples were all brought back
but not all of them are even open now some of them are still toad locked away under vacuum sealed
canisters because as technology advances these samples can be actually
investigated with better tools to learn more about them and so there's specific
sets of samples that are at a time being open and being analyzed in Labs across
the U.S Apollo 15 16 and 17 were the ones that
had the Rovers that allowed them to really enhance their range and what they
were able to investigate on the moon there's a lot to be said about all of
these but I just actually want to come back to Apollo 16 briefly to tell you one last story before I wrap up
some of you have heard the story of the wedding ring for Ken Mattingly Ken Mattingly got married just before the
Apollo 16 Mission and as they were heading out towards the Moon he lost his ring now you might think how
does he lose his ring well back then they hadn't worked out a way for astronauts to safely go to the bathroom
and so they actually had to strip off their entire space suit in order to go to the
bathroom and then put it all back on and because he was newly married his ring fit wasn't very good and it came off and
they they search they searched the module and they could not find it and then on their way back just before
they re-entered Earth's atmosphere they did a spacewalk and Ken Mattingly was the one who did the spacewalk and so as
he was out doing the spacewalk Charles Duke was going out to be the
second and then to bring him back in and they were going to get one of the devices off of the Command Module before
they actually separate off the two units as he's walking towards the door and the
opening into space he sees the ring floating around so he reaches out for it
but he can't quite get it and the ring is floating out into space and it bounces off the back of
Mattingly's helmet right back into the actual Apollo 16 module and Duke catches
it and is able to give it back to Mattingly so he's able to actually come back with his ring safe and sound
that's one of those stories that makes you just realize that there there's there's just there's a level of
unknown that just leaves you in wonder Apollo 17 ended with a plaque placed on
the moon here man completed his first explorations of the Moon December 1972
made the spirit of peace in which we came be reflected in the lives of all mankind
in crude missions to space exploration we've had the Mercury the Gemini and the
Apollo missions since then we had Sky lab we had a joint one with the U with the Soviet Union we
used our space shuttles throughout the atmosphere and to low earth orbit
we set up the International Space Station which is still ongoing we now have private Enterprise entering into
space and we are currently working on a program to bring humans back to the Moon
again and with that I thank you for your attention and uh
let's chat wonderful wonderful um there were uh just as uh Gavin
transitioned to you uh Kareem there were some questions uh directly to Gavin
um and um is he here still I'm not sure there he is oh there he is
Evan how are you man so there was um one of the questions was is what's
what's new on your horizon oh what's new uh
on top of Defending I would say from the from our presentation I'm actually planning to look at quite a few
Apollo samples that believed to have formed from impact craters that we
actually obtained before the pandemic started and originally we're planning to analyze them in 2020 but since that all
fell through we've now had to delay it to the coming fall term so that's the
next step for me mm-hmm um great
uh I'm kind of scrolling through here as uh we've had a lot of comments you
see another one there yeah there was uh there was one for um are those Moon pictures yours
uh no no I got all those from the lunar and planetary Institute some higher
education uh data database and then another one was uh reminds me
of the oh dear how do you pronounce that Astro bleed
Astro plant Astro Glam okay and the trans pekko set region of
Southwest Texas um that did you examine the shocked minerals in that area before
I've been to that region uh in Texas before but anywhere this shock minerals to be honest I would definitely will
um
Gavin I think we lost you there for for a moment uh we were able to hear that at
least you have done field work field work before oh hello you're back
um no I hmm he's being attacked by the bandwidth
monster that's right
The Goonies of the internet are out there to get us laughs
well okay let me look for um any kind of questions for Kareem that
was by the way Kareem that was a great overview of the Apollo program thanks Scott yes I'm so excited for the
Artemis program too it's I all of us here at Nasa Goddard are just so crazy
busy with uh with planning for Artemis and getting all all that all planned and
figured out so we hosted a talk back in October about the lunar Gateway and the
role of the hopeful Canada arm 3 that's going to be able to move around oh it's
just gorgeous I can't wait to see this yes it's gonna be great
well I don't I don't have all of the landing spots for the Artemis project
been picked out yet or are we still figuring those out we are still figuring
those out uh so so it's interesting is that there's also a lot of robotic uh Rover
lunar rover missions starting at the end of this year um well into 2023 and so obviously we
would already have our Landing sites for the ones launching in November 2021 uh
but there are a few that have at least narrowed down their Landing sites most
of them are to the lunar South Pole because that's where we would want our uh our Artemis 2 is going to be our next
crude Mission um Artemis one is going to be kind of like our our test
um our dress rehearsal if you will it'll be uncrewed I'm kind of hoping that the changi4 data
is eventually shared with us so that we can learn a little bit more about the far side and what China is discovering
there with their Rover absolutely absolutely I so far within
just honestly the past two weeks uh the Journal of geophysical research uh has
published like a a boom of Chinese foreign Chinese five uh papers
so fantastic those those are interesting to read
here's a question what is the criteria for a landing spot what do you look for to make a decision
so one of the things to note is that the Apollo missions it was very much human controlled Landing so it was
joystick Landing trying to find the safest spots to land and so the pilots had been trained and they worked through
all the commit most of them were fighter test pilots but the lunar module was a different type of a beast
right now with the Artemis program we now have proof with perseverance that guided
Landing with feedback and AI to actually explore and
analyze the surface before the landing is committed to is all feasible now
right even the sky cranes everything that we used in Mars if we can find a
way to slow them down enough it's feasible and since the moon isn't quite as far away we can slow them down even
with propulsion whereas with Mars you want to limit the amount of mass that you take with you so
you wanted to use the atmosphere of Mars as best as you could to try to to slow down and catch as much drag as you could
so I think the answer to what determines a safe landing spot has changed now in
this age compared to what was what it was in the 60s and 70s well I'd still imagine that there'd be
some sort of uh emergency human override possible if you've got a crude Mission you use the Best of Both Worlds you can
nail it down but I could see in the if there's a glitch or an emergency I could see
you know Neil Armstrong like kind of taking over and saying okay this we're gonna we're gonna go in manually
kind of like we do with um I think airplanes today everything's just about automated the
plane can land itself but there are cases where of course there's wind where
the you know there's no wind on the moon so that sort of thing isn't going to happen but um I could still see a manual
override switch just in case are you worried about a howl type of uh
no no the um I guess we'll see how it goes when we're
when we're actually there being able to pinpoint Landing sites and making sure they're not ginormous rocks as they're
coming down I remember part of what Armstrong and some of the the other
Landers did was make sure they didn't land on a bed of rocks and so my my
guess is that sites would be safer sites with all the data that we're getting with the moon I would imagine safer
sites are being picked where there would be much less need of you know an
emergency change in order to um land you know not
land on a bunch of rocks I have a 3D Moon just like that exactly and with the
lunar reconnaissance Orbiter we now have a 3D map of almost every spot on the
moon and so it's not just a case of what we can see with our telescope on the near Side of the Moon to try to
determine the best locations which is what they did with the Apollo missions we now have the linear reconnaissance
Orbiter there still analyzing and mapping everything constantly right so
we have so it's it's down it's down to seeing where all of those rocks are now
and not having any surprises when we get when we get to the lunar surface I was
reading the story of uh when Neil went so when Buzz was putting out one of the pieces of scientific equipment Neil
actually had a moment to himself and so he went over to a nearby crater that he had bypassed when he was Landing Eagle
that had looked to him to be too treacherous to go anywhere near so he had moved away from it and that was the
original planned landing spot so he went back to it and he saw that the sides looked like the side of like one of
those dirt Hills back where he was with his family and where he had been with his daughter who had passed away and so
according to the story that Hanson shared Neil sat there and said you know
I I felt like just sliding down like a kid just because I know my daughter
would have wanted me to but then I thought what if I can't get back up without Buzz's help and what if
it sacrifices some of the outcomes of the mission he was very practical like everything he did was this needs to be
done let's do this this and this was the first moment that he just kind of stopped and just thought and so now was
this really what he thought was that because he was such a quiet man and when you read his interviews and when you see
how much he actually shared it's hard to believe that he shared that much more
with a couple of individuals who are telling the stories but uh one of our local members Pete or actually one of
our last mondrell members Pete who's in the UK he knew Neil and his brother and
he said that a lot of it really was Neil he just didn't see a reason to open up to the media so
he'd open up to individuals he got to know but he wouldn't open up to the media with answers so according to James
that was what went through his mind hear the story of him sliding down a
crater yeah uh of course rupturing anything on that suit might have been a
bit of an issue as well so that I imagine if you know he would have to
consider you know so if I break something on the way down as well although that it probably looked soft
enough to safely slide down you know um I saw some of the
footage um they had they had on YouTube I think it was uh it may have been Aldrin
tripping and falling and with all the dust that was kind of clinging to his uh spacesuit
um I think Neil you all right I'm fine I'm fine and he gets back up so yeah
there's videos from the Rover where they're getting out of the Rover and they slip and fall and then they yeah yeah they make Tick-Tock and Vines out
of it it's awful yeah yeah never mind what happens to the but the actual the
actual footage of its uh itself is uh you know definite was definitely worth
watching I remember in fact I remember watching falling asleep to that first
the first landing footage and I remember them going out Gathering rocks they had
data on the vitals of the astronauts um I remember seeing the astronauts
returning to the lunar lander and um and finishing their day and I think
Aldrin was like the first to go up and then Armstrong came along um and they reported everybody had great
vitals everyone was in good health and um it was uh quite an accomplishment just
the not only the landing but the entire first day that I remember seeing
um I obviously have a lot more footage to go through if I want to watch it all but um
but still just uh inspiring for myself to be able to finish just in time for
the Artemis program to start sending us some some videos as well well that would
be end of year so I have till the end of the year that it Caitlyn or even sooner
oh boy I
yeah unintentionally I love the chat about Artemis and lunar arcana's
interpreter is such a gorgeous gorgeous Mission um really give us a lot of data we're
still going through the data I the exciting part was uh that
um the lunar reconnaissance Orbiter was able to make a slight maneuver change
um just so then they can I get the lunar eclipse that happened not too long ago
um and get data off of that so that was that's been really exciting we haven't uh gone through the data yet uh but uh
I'm on the diviner science team and we were all excited about it so so does
this mean my Gene my dream of a picture of what the eclipse looks like from the
vantage point of the Moon with the uh sun with the Earth blocking the sun
might soon be realized that's a picture I would love to take if I could but I've
heard that there are reasons the lunar orbiter couldn't take that picture due to the I don't know what all the reasons
were but my dream picture I would love to see is from the moon's Vantage Point
what that looks like oh for complete
Eclipse moment though but just to get the thermal uh variations though but I
don't know what the camera team did either so okay so we're still just kind of
going through the motions of hey look there's data we'll be doing yeah I had heard that during the during
one of the eclipses I think 2017 I had heard that the lunar orbiter shut down
because of the temperature um once the shadow I guess or Shadow
hits the uh Moon and it's you know the red all the red uh
the red from all the sunsets all over the Earth that I've heard of um supposedly is hitting the moon but the
temperature at that point is so low that the um the lunar reconnaissance Orbiter
wouldn't be able to operate properly at least that's what I remember reading or
hearing so my question is what's the truth in all of that and for
now are they having to shut down that Orbiter Whenever there is a total lunar eclipse
oh I think it depends upon their what part of the orbit are they going to be in it's all in the geometry too though
so if it misses the eclipse and it misses the eclipse this one was just
at a great angle where it was grazing and so it wouldn't have affected any
like burning the eyes of the of the Orbiter hey and before uh we get too far in into
our program uh you know I promised uh uh uh that uh we had tried to show some
live views uh through a telescope and um so Jerry Hubble right now has the moon
and his telescope that he can share with us for a couple of minutes before we go to a 10 minute break and then we're
going to come back to Caitlyn Aaron's uh where she can give a little bit more of her presentation and uh we can ask her
some more questions so um we're gonna Jerry are you ready
yep I'm ready okay let me uh I'm gonna bring you to the observatory desktop and
to see the live image of the uh of the Moon and I'll I'll quickly share another picture I have
do you see that yes we can that's a live image and
I've got the virtual Moon Atlas up also to show you the different craters that
we're showing on the image uh there's the bright one there of course is Tycho
and then we have some interesting craters down here uh
I guess it's pronounced Hansel is right here I don't know if you can see my arrow there it is right there
and then the crater on the map is here Hansel and then you've got Schiller which is
this really long crater here it's really an interesting crater to look at
but this uh the telescope is is set up for deep Sky Imaging and I like to do
full full lunar images uh and stack them
and get really high pretty high resolution images uh with full disc
uh the focal length is not you know suitable for getting really close up but
you can see how steady the sky is right now from this single frame this is just a
single frame so the sky in my location is really if there's some high Haze that's what helps
to make it steady and also this time of year is is the greatest time for the best time for
doing uh this type of Imaging any time of any kind of uh deep Sky Imaging too although
the transparency isn't good uh the seeing is very good so
I want to also show real quick um
this other image that I did this is a stack actually of
the images that I did last year
uh let's see that just went away on me
I think I'm gonna have to skip that because it just failed on me for some reason it's not good and by the way you
notice my virtual background I felt left out everyone else had moons in their virtual background so I threw one in
mine so I had to change it is all about the moon and Mars
but you know this this program is about great leaps and there's uh you know I
think some of the greatest leaps are you know uh Humanity's will to get things
done you know I mean some of the things not too long ago would have been
considered absolutely impossible you know so um it is uh I'm I'm always stunned when
I think of um of of what has happened over the decades just in my own Lifetime
and uh you know certainly remembering my grandmother talking about people you
know seeing her grandmother and grandfather in uh you know horse and buggy days so
um it is uh our technology and rate of discovery is really stunning so and uh
you know it's been said many times by a lot of different people but we are in the Golden Age of space exploration and
and astronomy right now so great time to be alive
um I will segue into an intermission uh we got a five minute countdown then we
got about a five minute little video about Apollo 14 and we will be back with uh Caitlyn here in about 10 minutes
Jerry thank you very much sure thank you
and for you and the audience thanks for all your participation so far I asked
the audience which of them would go on a one-way trip to Mars and actually
several people answered that they would do it so um
the uh the desire of people to explore is very strong
the answer to that question of Artemis one having cameras and instruments I yes
absolutely
right
hey Maxie you doing well hey what's up Kareem excellent
presentation I had a question for you what's your latitude
my latitude is um 34 degrees 34 okay 34 yes and in
longshidul is 60. but my city is in
602 okay no we are we're looking at uh we're
hoping to do an event in September with a club in New Zealand and they're at 45
degrees latitude South and our club is 45 latitude North and so we're looking
at uh showing some of the circumpolar in our region that the others could never
see yes right so for you you have
other than the Southern Cross and a couple of what what's your favorite
circumpolar in the South that that you love looking at yes obviously the region of Karina yeah
but uh also the the magogenic magazine
magellanic clouds if I if I had to say in Spanish it's
very easy to me how do you say it in Spanish
so the closest
I need to learn that man it's perfect you don't you don't have to change the name for us we're happy with it right
okay it's similar enough to how it's pronounced in English magellanic
Spanish from Spain he pronounces like um you with a how to say it
um the rain you via okay here in Argentina we say sure yeah
like a ace and an H uh okay yeah but it's very
language the differences my wife and my son both speak some
Spanish and so I love every now and then when they just decide to chat in Spanish I just sit back and listen I I don't get
any of it but I just enjoy [Laughter] I think it's very easy about uh
we have some words similar so basically
I think everyone can can learn it
and I have to in a couple years when I come to visit I'm going to learn as much
as I can you're going to be an Argentinian that has become that has become my most
important life's goal lunar surface you have the ability to gather samples that
can tell us so much about the origins of our solar system and the samples returned gave us that information that
was what Apollo 14 did that was so trailblazing [Music]
looks good here [Music]
[Music] we better back off here and uh think
about this one Houston Elijah they continue to believe that this
Mission might never get started and Mission Control was pretty convinced it wouldn't either first attempt
doc couldn't get a hard Dot second attempt third attempt fourth attempt
Fifth and a sixth attempt two hours but it's that spirit in Mission Control in
the crew the faith and the confidence in their training and they're able to work together as a team to really to get that
mission going that's great super Joshua
[Applause] really our place up here
in the aftermath of Apollo 13 nothing was taken for granted it took a lot of
work back home to really reprogram that software to really understand what had happened there
was a beautiful one
looks like you're about on the bottom step and on the surface
oh man now is on the surface and it's been a long way but we're here
[Music]
Apollo 14 was an incredibly ambitious scientific mission one of the things they had with them that was incredibly
important was something called The Met or the Rickshaw basically a cart a cart intended to carry both those scientific
experiments those payloads but also to return those lunar samples and so that
allowed that crew to travel further from the from the Lander than any crew had previously
here we got a way to go yet
like any good Navigator the astronauts brought with them the maps that they needed but there was a problem with
these Maps these Maps had been shot from the air and on the ground that lunar landscape looked quite a bit different
[Applause] they found themselves in valleys that
were deeper than they thought they found themselves working up hills that were higher this was an exploration at its
finest and looked like a place to be out
here we go [Applause]
[Music]
the samples returned from Apollo 14 were incredibly important they told us so
much about the formation of the solar system so much about the material that makes up the Moon
yeah hello okay make it smooth and around we go
return trip to Earth was a time to rest a time to reflect but also a time to
continue science a major portion of that journey home was conducting microgravity
science something that today we do on the International Space Station every day that was a really a new way to think
about what would the value of space be [Music]
Apollo 14 achieved all the signs that it had hoped to achieve and impressed the
boundaries of space exploration in ways that future Crews would build upon and
as we prepare to go back to the Moon we've definitely follow in the footsteps of these Brave Crews that went before us
and build upon the scientific information that they returned [Music]
[Music] thank you
[Music]
well we're back I hope that uh that little break was uh you were able to get refreshed there a little bit uh we have
much more to come here uh starting with Caitlin Aaron's uh Caitlyn uh received
her Bachelor of Science uh degree in physics and astrophysics and geology from West Virginia University in 2015
and she got a PhD um in planetary science at the
University of Arkansas in 2020 she's currently at Goddard space flight center uh doing a postdoc there and
um she is working on applying the lro diviner data with a myriad of other
remote sensing data to investigate the volatiles of the lunar surface so
Caitlin I'm going to turn it back over to you you know you are
it seems that you are also neck deep in lunar dust as well so
yeah for sure I and it's not just the lunar uh either though so I do all sorts
of stuff all across the solar system uh just last week I was doing some Mars work uh
um Gavin and I are actually going to be doing some IO uh the uh Jovian Moon
um data in a couple months which is exciting uh I have a fabulous intern
this summer who's doing some series uh asteroid work so uh I'm all over the
place uh and uh it's still dabble on Pluto for those of you who knew me before I I used to do a lot of New
Horizons uh data on Pluto so now my main job though is
certainly on the moon uh so I don't have much of a a giant presentation for you
fine folks tonight or this morning whatever time zone that you may be listening in behind right now uh hey why
not um but there are ways for
uh you find folks of this planet Earth to actually uh have fun with lunar data
and lunar Maps as well and just some really fun uh lunar images as well so
I'm going to uh share that screen so we're gonna
start with this one uh so this is the obviously the astronomical League I so
there are several observing programs I on their website I like to particularly
go through the alphabetical um and they have numerous programs here
so many programs and they keep adding them uh nearly every year it seems like
I can barely keep track of them anymore but if you want to what really hone in
on your observing skills uh for the moon I I personally have done the lunar uh
observing program part one there's also a part two I haven't done that one yet
and then fairly recently is the lunar Evolution um observing program so if you're not
familiar with these observing programs with the astronomical League they would give you a set of challenges
and I can use this one's as an example uh but you would be given a set of challenges whether some of them are
through binoculars or some of them through your naked eye or a telescope but you would essentially have uh some
sort of list yeah observing list uh to go through and
check off uh like date and time what was your transparency uh seeing and so on
and so forth some of these observing programs I you do need a camera of some
sort some of them I have sketching I'm currently finishing up the meteor
observing program here it's a really fun program I for any youngsters out there
there's Sky puppy that's also a really good one as well so definitely encourage
uh all of you fine folks out there to just kind of have fun with all these observing programs onward to the next
one hi so I'm actually uh helping uh our
main editor Brian on this uh fantastic little Adventure here the Encyclopedia
of lunar science I who'd have thought uh that I'd be involved with an
encyclopedia but it is uh it is a huge undertaking to say the least but it will
be updated fairly soon um but there are some stuff uh already
freely available to read um on the site here so this is through Springer the Encyclopedia of lunar
science hopefully we're going to get done by the end of this year uh 2020 unfortunately
delayed us uh quite a bit so at least early 2022 should be okay
now the next one the lunarim planetary Institute uh fantastic website I you get
all the Artemis reports going on different kinds of workshops this is a workshop uh that they're sponsoring
right now called brains across the solar system all sorts of news all the uh
updates with the Venus Mission going on fantastic but what's neat I they have educational
resources and whatnot but going through their lunar science and exploration you
can actually go through a lot of the original Apollo image atlases all the really pretty panoramas my favorite
though is the lunar sample Atlas so all the different kinds of meteorite
samples uh that have been collected through Apollo it just goes on
for pages and pages and pages and Page oh to the point where my computer can't even
keep up with the download I let's see so I'm just gonna pick a
random one so let's just say Apollo 15 and I just pick a random sample so here's the the site of which it was
collected maybe uh some some up close uh pictures that one wasn't really that
pretty though there's some really pretty ones here and there some of them are like microscopic
uh thin sections uh with some of their images but you can
truly just spend hours and hours and hours uh through that website
so really pretty next one I L rock is the lunar reconnaissance Orbiter camera
l-rock um this is called quick map all one word quick map L Rock that's all
you have to Google the first High website that's going to bring you should be this this is a really fun way to just
explore uh the moon and I with data that's been
collected now not all lunar data has been uploaded to this it's a still fairly new program though but if I
wanted to do certain overlays like nomenclature there we go let's get out
of that I want to go to the South Pole because that's where my main domain is
this is where I currently reside is the lunar South Pole
so if I wanted to look at um apps if I say if we wanted to you
know look at we got plagio glaze there it's probably well it's not it's not polar I should have remembered that
[Music] uh Clementine though would work there we go you could change the coloring
let's make it rainbow make it pretty there we go so so all of the I the fu uh f e o uh
abundance weight percentage there so yep all of this is entirely fun and free to
use uh you could do different kinds of geologic uh Maps instead if you wanted to see
like where all the cool swirls are we would need to go back to cylindrical view though
uh swirls well they're really pretty lunar swirls are yeah basically over there
get rid of the little pink stuff there there is a swirl isn't that pretty
you could really go in in deep with that and uh at the bottom here it gives your
latitude and longitude your meters per pixel um data from there as well it's a really
really I meet an interesting uh website
that a lot of us learner scientists also use uh for a quick reference too uh when
we're like ah there was a really cool Creator where is that located and we use
Quick map as truly a quick reference on some really cool stuff
um this is also another region I'm working on um currently as well so
I the last thing I want to show you fine folks is the Apollo 11 in real time uh
the website here is Apollo in realtime.org eleven
and what this does is that I you can truly experience the entire Apollo 11
uh Mission uh from T minus one minute to launch I you could go to like what is it
currently doing it now where you just follow it through the rest of its time
uh it is a fantastic uh almost interactive documentary uh with the
Apollo 11. now are they are is the team trying to do other uh Apollo missions
yes in a sense uh but this was a huge undertaking
um uh by a by a fantastic team uh from many different uh NASA centers
as well so and mostly by Ben Feist as well uh so highly recommend uh checking
that out it's really fun yeah all right and and that's it so so
some really fine ways to still play with lunar data don't think that like all the
lunar data is just for a scientist now like you guys could join in the fun too you know who knows
um so uh so have fun have fun with that I unfortunately I'm I'm getting to uh a
point where the pumpkin right I'm gonna be turning into an Apollo pumpkin here pretty soon so
um because we have a lunar conference uh this week which means time zones I have to wake up really early uh unfortunately
so but it was fantastic co-hosting uh guest hosting it with you uh tonight I
hope I get to see everybody again very soon also for those of you uh still
listening be sure to check back in tomorrow as well tomorrow is the seven
months of science uh where Scott and I also host yet again uh but this time at
8pm Eastern um we will have Dr Abel Mendes of Arecibo Puerto Rico and he's
going to give us a fantastic talk on astrobiology and the search for life in
the universe wonderful wonderful they'll be a very very interesting
yeah awesome presentation I remember I talked with you Caitlin and Kareem
um you were talking about what we know about the lunar surface and I'm seeing
that as a prime example just the website you just shared pretty much know everything about the lunar surface
um and that where we were talking about directing Landings well I can see how you can do that with all the data that
you've gathered so that's um that's definitely something worth looking at
um so yeah we have I appreciate the uh the hosting I need one of those shirts
for outreach that I think that would be awesome I'm gonna have to get one but it'll probably be a full shirt I don't
know if I can do that address right and um yeah you see you see I'm wearing a
Michigan themed shirt of all the Apollo missions that I like you could probably guess which one would be my favorite
that I would really need to do some more research on because I I don't want it to just be a favorite I'd like to know a
lot more about you know it's things that it achieved but Apollo 15.
the all University of Michigan crew that uh went to
um that was on Apollo 15 and uh and Hadley real and I even try and point it
out whenever I do just take my pictures of the Moon and look for that landing
spot in particular so it's I've taken it on as a project to learn more about that
particular Landing since my alma mater has a huge part in that so
so again thank you I think you'll need to build a Rover model the first first lunar rover you've got
to build one all right all right lunar buggy not even a Rover a buggy a buggy as a member of
Rask I have to accept the challenge because I just joined I didn't realize what I was walking into here but now I
got so I I tried to do I don't know if you can see it a drawing of what I saw
out of the plane Comet hail Bop that's my initial sketch of what I saw because
I wasn't taking pictures back then now I have to design a buggy so I've got my work cut out for me you're gonna be busy
yeah wonderful wonderful well thank you very
much so much it was great seeing all of you and hope to what I have you tuned in
tomorrow Scott I'll see you tomorrow as well all right have a good morning good
night good afternoon thank you very much bye great well Maxie
um we're gonna have you uh take over Cesar Brillo was supposed to be with us but uh perhaps he's having
um internet issues or something so uh but uh we're always excited to see uh
Maxi's images and also I I know that you've been like staying up late uh
because you've been taking images of planets and yes
thank you for coming on for this little bit here to share
hello everybody first of all and now we're out of 12 a o'clock here in
Argentina it's maybe a little late but yesterday I
I went to bed maybe four I have a am and wake up to work a 7 30.
so I only slept three hours oh you know basically I because we are in
a parental decision I will try to to do some pictures of a Saturn and obviously
a Jupiter but I couldn't
do too much because the the results and the scene it was very pretty and and
what I'm using right now A
I'm not using the cell phone because I I give it to my brother because he brought
him and so I try to to do some pictures
with that I'm still working on but let me show you
if I'm by I can find the the files that I did with
wait a minute no I oh I think I deleted today
but because I I don't like it so gone yeah no no but
I'm sharing with some friends here what
I mean and download it and
download this okay I found some
practice images [Music] um
well let me show you my screen uh
okay do you see it yes well basically what I do is try to do
some pictures in light red green and blue filters
and with the videos I stacked them and
pass it by a outer stacker a racist attacks and
other programs to get some info but it's very it's very blur the image
this is the the rotation and I I don't like this so
and the only image that maybe can work is this you can see some Two Moons I
think it's a IO and Europa but uh
when you do the oh sorry
when you do the the process
you can see that the rotation of Jupiter nice
maybe the it is this is only two minutes
uh in every video that I recall but it
was well he's in UTC and there was a 3
40 AM this was almost a 350 and then 10
minutes later because I was taking videos in every channel
and I was well I was practicing practicing with with the processing but
uh this was last night I I also did some Saturn I only stuck some images so I can
get this this was earlier this was taking only the the frames a RGB
and this was the monogram a monochromatic camera this is a i o I
think uh but then more later it comes this two
moons but this is was getting summoned with
some a two Barlow lens 3x and 2x
so basically this is what I did last night I I was fighting with the cold
weather but um the the weekend
I I try to do some deep Sky Images but also I did some pictures of a obviously
the moon because it was a a present Moon here but obviously in every part of the
world but I want to I wanted to do some a
realistic a moment when you see it through a telescope
a single images so I took some pictures with a single
well you can see the shadow is it you don't see it but you see the
details and everything this was taken in a one well one over one
thousand to fifty seconds but then I started to increase the speed
this is a a a ones about a
125 seconds then a one about 10 seconds
sorry I if you don't if I I don't express very well in the numbers
yeah one tenth of a second on a camera yeah exactly so uh
trying to this in this time I get well this green layer was the comma reductor
because the the shiny the shine of the Moon it reflects
it so but but when I started this it goes out but in this case you you
started to see some [Music] Stars
in the image if you have there is another one there
is another one uh then I started manually in Photoshop
so let me get this is the ti FF image
trying to get a now a dark um a background
but uh give try to give some info
or the or details in the process and
also try to see there the dark part yeah that's the Earth
shine on the moon
yes but well this is how you see it with
a telescope a reflector a
this is this is how you see it so sometimes you take some pictures and you
only see this part and you see over I want to see all the ball you know and or try to to capture all
that this is more a more a more
um without some Thin details you know it's it it doesn't
very uh with a big structure but it's more delicated
it's more like a first Square to put it
on the wall but when I started to do some deep Sky objects I was pointing what no I was
obviously fighting with the collimation in the F4 like all the nights that I
put it so I tried to do some pictures of a M8
this time I this is a three minutes pictures see
hmm this is a well the Lego nebula obviously
but in three minutes I it is is in the not the same like I did
in five minutes because you can see some Stars you can see the the structure of
the nebula obviously it's very Bingo but not like the five minutes pictures
because the sky was very a polluted
so basically when I I stuck there I tried to do a very
very detailed in the process so I can get this
wow nice in this time
the the clouds of the gas and the dust is really a pop-up of the image
and you know in this case the background I I leave it like this in this orange
color because I think this is the the the real color
of the Milky Way in some parts when you see very yellow
uh or a brown I think it's all of this
so maybe obviously I have the the the light pollution that get asked me all of
a lot of information so when I process I I lost lost everything
but for doing this in my backyard I think okay obviously I want pretty good yeah
I I want to have a lot of information to work in but also I have a singular
singular camera and my Nikon d80
uh so then I take some almost three
hours pictures and then I I how I put all the
the equipment outside I wondering what part of the sky I want to to capture
so I was in stellarium searching some places and then I found this this it was
a NGC and [Music]
he was in Corona Australis it's more in my region like in yours in Northern
Skies uh and I I found it I I bought it with
the the telescope uh well this this is when I started to to capture
you can see the stars in this case but there is here is a a globular
cluster
this a region honestly I didn't know that exist because
you see only the Stars these a few stars are shining but there is
some places there is no stars they are like a behind the Stars so when you
process the image has obviously stuck where did you say you pointed
um a Corona Australis okay now I'm going to
let me to show you what is what it is and this is the region
this this is not the smoke this is a gas and
a dust very dust a very dark place
hey this is a reflective nebula
and in this place it's like uh the the the Hubble nebula the the variants
nebula is something like this because they this
is the I read it that it has the
the most uh
nebula and near from us from the solar system is in here in this place
uh these stars are surrounded by this clouds that they are forming some new
systems and this is the this place is almost a
if I 500 years like years from us
and this is this a global cluster a
really contrast with the old of the rest of the
place you know this is a beautiful place yes
I love that that's awesome Maxi yeah and it's been a really I love that little
nebula that it's almost like a Hubble's variable nebula down there um really yes
yes I think yeah yeah really neat I love the variety
well this is you know there is the north let me
put some what uh I think we have to because like we can't see your stellarium it's online
full screen you have to exit full screen for whatever reason ah okay now we can
see it you can see it yes okay well this is a signals the
constellations this is my North yeah
about signals I have a tire now now you know why we get lost when we
go down to the southern hemisphere so yeah we expect to differ in that spot
instead you've got bigger we expect that to be the Little Dipper but it's
Vega it's Lyra the harp instead so yeah I mean it's above and
here if and so interesting you can see him 13 on the horizon but then somewhere
in wherever Centaurus is you see that
cluster and you can compare just how diminutive M13 is compared to
Omega Centauri all we did is in 13 so it's it's our largest
well this is the the my Southern sky and
obviously yes here's the octante the octans the constellation of the octans
and in this place is the my where I got
to get my polar aligned with some I think this is no uh
well some kind of these stars and everything is passing by through this
you can see what the the geographical South
is not the same like the a polar a Celestial polar is not the
same so everything is going around this like
this and obviously here's uh the malaysianic
cloud the big one and up here is the small
with the the global cluster 47 into Ghana but the place that I took in Corona
Australis to you can to get more uh We've we we're
still frozen on the other on the North oh sorry so I think uh now yeah
no um where are we yeah it shows no we don't see the moon
here yeah I think if you escape the full screen for stellarium yeah there's the
moon now we see the moon we see lupus M23
Herschel 36 okay yeah you're gonna see a Hercules we
see the uh we don't see Hercules being upside down to what we're used to seeing ah yes
right there not what um
you are saying I'm moving the the the the sky you know I think it's because it's full screen if
you go into windowed mode then it'll then we'll be able to follow along I had
the problem presenting with stellarium where it wouldn't move um but then I got I exited full screen
and then everything caught up let me see if I can fix it because it's
a interesting part I think yeah
rather than I'd have to change my latitude and longitude and my stellarium to match what you're seeing
um and see all the southern all of the things from the south that I wish I could see but would have to look through
the Earth in order to see you because we you think explore scientific could
design something that allows us to just look straight straight through the Earth
yeah and put that on the developer right now you know the beta test version I'll
send you one and you'll be happy to I'll be happy to beta test that for you yeah
if I don't see Crux then I'll I'll report that there are some problems there's a problem a couple of uh
issues okay now I think what I mean
this is the background again I think yeah so we
what I maybe if I only share stellarium now
okay so we can see the entire um let's say yeah the
South we're seeing the uh we're seeing the moon we're seeing the South the
South what we call South uh West yep oh yes
yes you see the moon and now Scorpius
yes we see yep we see it's it's in widescreen mode for us it's uh it's
showing uh field of view it's showing a wide field of view for us right now oh no so I think yeah
if you have to give Maxi some some black he's only had three hours of sleep
that's true yeah it no we and I have still I have stellarium but you know
mine of course is based in the north so all the constellations are all different I've got all the northern ones and the
uh the northern the summer triangle for us
is so low On Your Horizon but it's you know through where the Milky Way goes
through so it's uh yeah the winter triangle for uh for you all
um but it's always a joy to see just knowing that the sky there's so much in
the sky and it's a little different from the hemispheres we only get to share a couple of the constellations that are
hovering around the ecliptic and um we sometimes like I said I hopefully
explore scientific will get those uh goggles you can just see right through the Earth to uh the Southern Hemisphere
and we can um we'd get to see it a beautiful photo beautiful image
um it gives me um you know you basically it's passing by
all night long above my head you know yeah because
is very near from Scorpios and Sagittarius is a celebration very near
in the Milky Way and passing my through passing by through my health all night
and that's why I want a more leader of a M8 because I had in 40 degrees but in
this case was in 60. so the light pollution it
doesn't affect me too much yeah altitude yeah it's probably a very tough Target
for us yes it may be a very easy atmosphere because it's not a low to our
Horizon exactly very trying to think of what that globular cluster name is it's
what let me M22 no no no no no no
okay so it's nowhere near I'm sure I'm searching in my mobile
uh here's the Moon Aga
and no this is worsens probably an NGC object if it's so low
all the messier objects were Northern Hemisphere named and NGC 6723 okay
I think that's when we can see up here but it has to be at the right exact
right time like most objects that are
only four hours yeah yeah we have Andromeda for
seven months since it's uh it's near Cassiopeia which
is near it's circumpolar for us so Andromeda only disappears when uh
Cassiopeia rakes very low to the ground and is on the horizon and that's
probably that probably uh it coincides with when you see it in the
southern hemisphere is when it drops out of sight for us yeah
but we but we wait a few hours and it just rolls back up again so we
we image it a lot up here [Laughter] what basically I think this is my
presentation um well obviously today's well not now
in Argentina but because we are in the 21st of July but today obviously is the
the University of the the moonlander of the Apollo 11. but also is in
Argentina for this date this historical date
we celebrate the Friendship Day you know uh the this night with uh well because
obviously the pandemic situation weekend meet together with our friends to
celebrate this day like friends uh this uh is some in this region maybe
in some another another countries maybe not but here in Argentina it's very
a to have a friend is like a brother may obviously in other in every part of the
world but we have this day to celebrate because um
the uh it was in the yes in the same year of the of the Apollo arriving on
the moon and odontologists proposed
to celebrate the Friendship Day in the
same day like the men landed on the moon
to celebrate the humanistic and the friendship of everyone in this
particular day very nice so basically maybe you don't celebrate but I have to
say it because I want to have have a Happy Friendship Day or a
friend's Day to everyone
so thank you again obviously to invite me and to be part of the GSP I tried to
to watch it very early but I have some things to do so when I was dinner I was
a hurrying hearing everyone so Excellence everyone and well I'm I'm
staying here for a little while okay thank you Maxi thank you very much Caesar uh when we uh I know that you got
the Moon live in your telescope why don't you give us a couple of minutes on your live movement image and then we
will transition directly over to Cameron uh Adrian Bradley and then we have Chuck
Allen who's uh waiting in the background there to give a presentation for the astronomical League
so um are you there Caesar perhaps yes yes
Hi how are you good well just tonight was a nightmare with the
connection with all the connections because but I'm happy because uh all
work in a in a way as
um Sherry have a love that is all for for uh the system of
um the connection for for the new the new one
um who is the name the new part of of the software the new firmware that resolve
everything but I you know when you start to connect everything again and make to
to uh things work again yes come out I
and I made everything I I made with mistakes but me not the firmware and
when it started to connect again but this one now works like a small Observatory and well tonight we have a
little of win in in Buenos Aires uh not a little
that is that says yes Cameron said that I am 100 miles per
hour because it's yes the wind came with me everything every time and I I try to
share my screen because it's the screen of the computer outside and
um if you if you agree it's because I don't know but the only few seconds of of moon in my my experience okay or do
you prefer that that I show you this this later no no okay I have it okay
let's show a little bit and then we'll transfer okay okay Cameron that's right yes I tried yeah
you can see I think so we see it coming up there we go there's the moon all right
nice yeah very shocking Moon yes you see
the wind yes yes but the problem is that it's a it's a long refractor F10
oh and in the balcony
suffer a little the the wind but
but the the mount is working very nice with uh it's the first time that I don't
use any more the the Explorer starts with the table if not is always com
connected with the with them carducial
and synchronizing with cardo CL and tracking and it's very easy now I'm I'm
using the the tracking of of the camera but I can use I can show you because I
love this it's
um is an all refractor um Celestial refractor
you know it the study actually the seeing is pretty steady it's just you know obviously With the Wind yes
unfortunately the only the witnesses but the the scene is not is it's not
horrible it's okay yeah plus you have the advantage the moon must be almost overhead right I
mean for you yes yes and this time uh it's it's over over our our head yes yes
absolutely that's a big Advantage yeah so you you won't have the yeah it's not
a focus or seeing if not is the movement of the Wind yeah look that okay yes yeah but this is
you have ascom you know set up so you control it through this this interface
absolutely absolutely it's it's uh it's um I spend uh three hours because
anything that I I change and when when I I'm when I understood the things about
computer not about the amount that I made the things in the right way
uh uh when when the film were connected
and all the all the all problems of of
the modes disappears The connecting the facet the all became easy to connect
um and you felt like uh come on no no fortunately I don't fell
anymore a hacker because now it's easy absolutely easy it's the
the last film were changing the things to resolve everything and make a more
easy way to connect it's it's a it's a my report to Sherry to say that that me
um few customers that that um this this was fun because they
um they um install the the firmware
um before me and tell me scissor this worked perfectly oh excellent but I I
don't try myself and I don't try it I'll try well tonight uh
um I I could I could install the new firmware um
resolve a lot a lot of different things small things that
um that before was more complicated for me or
more or more users that that wasn't not uh family side
with a natural and of you know of computer or connections
um now it's more automatic the the system I I think that for me was when I
connected all the game with the firmware installed was what is is great it's
working yeah
because my my connection my uh polar alignment is not
so good um despite the what the wind the quality of
of the tracking synchronizing is very good
oh yeah yeah it it just bounces back you know the wind throws it off a little bit because of a long tube right and then uh
and then it comes back very nice yes absolutely yeah
well this is all for from me sorry that I couldn't be a connector uh connector
tonight but it's a pleasure uh show something of the Moon with a small
telescope with a small Mount that were very frequently now
um it's for aggression for for people that uh that thing that only need a big Mount or
a big telescope um despite the wind uh this this image and the quality of
tracking is sexual look this oh yeah if the wheel is stop
yeah yes you know you're doing this all remote uh
inside yes yes in my comfort of the living room yes yeah that's nice that's
really good and you can project it to uh to a TV or something and you say oh look
at that Moon no yes you're warm absolutely yes yes nothing will replace
uh going in the field of course when you're out there 100 mile an hour Caesar right yeah
sure absolutely nice to have the option to be able to go inside or out that's that's really cool
no yes absolutely um Buenos Aires a winter is humid and windy because we
have the River Plate every the river is is so wide like like a sea
um I I live only at 10 blocks from the right from the river it's like a sea
it's open it's like a Lake Michigan in in Chicago in winter but not so cold but
it's windy um when this the the wind came from the
south or especially Southeast is really humid and cold
is a mix of Southeast uh and South and
we have humid here humid and uh that fill the chili the chill wind
it's it's very low now it's a it's of course that is not so so
like in the north of United States of the or the Patagonia but really feel very very bad
[Laughter]
um I phrase it and return um come out now I'm happy because everything work
great that's good well thank you to to everyone Peter thank you
man uh it's a pleasure yes God every time it's a pleasure to to share
with with this team yeah and thank you to Maxi that he he
fill in my time
Maxi's only slept three hours so he's oh my God almost in a coma right now so no
yes yeah I recovered from the from my vaccine last week
it was good that you're able to get it Maxi resolved everything with mate no
problem every time the matter is always always
okay all right guys well next up is uh Cameron Gillis Cameron uh appears weekly
at least weekly on our programs uh sometimes uh two or three times a week
he is uh he has a program called Gastronomy where he's taking us on his
uh personal journey of his personal Sky survey and um he's observed thousands of objects
and recorded and logged in that data and he has taught others how to do effective
uh logging of astronomical observations both visually and photographically so
um there are people who are learning the cam astronomy method now and I know he's been an inspiration to many of you out
there in the audience and uh and he's uh he's here with us now
Cameron oh thanks a lot Scott you bet you bet thanks a lot so um yeah
I mean well first of all before I uh share my screen and go through I mean you know a wonderful show it's it's so
fantastic to celebrate with you guys this uh Milestone of uh a lot of historical things happening today
besides obviously the Moon not you know that that moon landing Apollo Apollo 11. uh it's it's just
absolutely incredible and to think that it happened you know 50 years ago more
than 50 years ago it's just it's just amazing um and and then now to be able to have
people like you know billionaires like Jeff Bezos and you know you know mosque
and you know not just one there's three you know uh and these are private company companies right I mean not even
uh governments uh and then you have the Chinese involved uh you have Indian uh
you have a lot of uh probes out there uh this is this is definitely like Scott
said the Golden Age of astronomy and uh yeah it's it's fantastic all the things that are happening it's uh it's just an
abundance of uh excitement so it's it's really great to be here with you all and uh fantastic presenters and uh I always
get a chill down my spine whenever I see that that rocket launch of Saturn V
and those boosters that it was it's almost a surreal image where you see the
the uh the jet the fuel coming out at I don't know how many miles per hour right just so much thrust yeah and it just
goes by that camera angle and it's it's almost like unreal yeah
it just that is just amazing to me and of course uh the the moon the sun sorry the uh the
Earth rise coming around the the orbit uh just some really uh wonderful uh
things and I really like karim's uh statement you know a presentation about all the history and all the pieces uh
you know putting it all together in a nice uh well well done uh presentation so
just kudos to everyone and uh yeah so uh with that being said uh on the theme of
moon um I wanted to start off obviously uh I'll give an update on my
Camp astronomy uh survey but um the main thing I wanted to since we're talking about Moon theme
right now um I just wanted to show you these were some pictures of uh the moon
I took with my uh my four inch Mac um a year ago it was 2020 April uh and I
was just thrilled to be able I got my smartphone um and then look at the detail look at
the detail if I zoom right in you know this is a this is a pretty darn good you
know image uh just just to be able to um take with my I was just really happy
with what you can do with it with a smartphone and uh with a small telescope
you know with a long focal length uh so you know obviously there's some there's some issues on the edge of the field
some atmospheric uh disturbance and some uh field Edge curvature but but in the
in the center really nice uh quality and uh and then I was kind of hooked I was like
hey there's a lot of things we can do so I zoomed in here's here's another zoomed
in of the Southern creators a little bit of uh a little bit of uh vibration there
and then I love this area where you have these uh these ridges
um along the uh the Marana floors uh so and then basically um you know for the
achromatic aberration uh when you use a a 25 Kelner eyepiece
The Singularity and and some mac a a one
a O2 uh you don't you don't have it you know but when you you use a 15 plus or
super plus um IPS that you see the the like the
moon has an atmosphere but with the 20 25 calendar
you will not have it and I think that's the better configuration to get very
good details and without a chromatic aberration
exactly no I I'm really impressed with the Mac uh uh it's a great and I know uh
start you you have one for Alcon uh in 2021 here that five inch matches is
whoever wins that is going to be very happy with it I can tell you that I think um I think Cameron you're in a
good running Ford you've answered All Those Questions successfully for a while that might be yours
I I was eyeing on a five inch versus a four inch I like I like I like both obviously with five inch every inch of
aperture with a Mac actually I would really like the uh you know there's a larger Mac a six or seven inch Mac is it
would be Beauty as well uh those have super focal length and uh but anyhow yeah it's uh just love I love the
variety of telescopes too you the the nice beautiful wide field refractor you can't beat that for you know all sorts
of observing um you know scanning the Milky Way um you know even framing the moon with
Pleiades or whatever it's there's there's this all the instruments these are all tools that will really help
maximize your enjoyment so I I rediscovered the Mac uh you know about a year ago and uh very happy with with it
um and so here here I love this uh you know where you see these Peaks at just getting the sunrise you know or the
sunset uh in in the shadow I love that and you can actually see if you watch this over over time uh you'll actually
see them change um you know over the period of hours um you can actually see some changes
there um okay and then if we go here's a here's a zoomed in this is an
interesting area this this Ridge here very uh very right a little bit out of focus but uh but you know if I visually
you can imagine what it was like uh to be able to um take care of that poor seeing uh vibrations so I'm going to
keep it going okay then I have this one here let me uh let me switch over to another view so this was uh last uh
September um um when there was the uh Harvest Moon I guess it was
um and uh we have this mountain range uh this is Mount Psy if you if you're
familiar with uh uh the Seattle area uh just uh just uh east of Issaquah
um and there's a nice area where I can view the uh The Moon Rises and it just so happened that this particular uh
moonrise was going over Mount Sai and uh and you know I got my Mac uh 102 I was
practicing with it and threw it together and put him in not a very good image you know you can see the edge you can see
the reflections of the infrared but to be able to this was just one of those
moments where you just take a shot and I I got it all set up and and I was
looking at the sky super I didn't know exactly where the moon would rise but it just happened and I know Adrian you'll
appreciate these types of uh situations uh it just so happened that it happened
to go right over um uh Mount Si so if I just look at this is cup I just took lots of pictures and over as it
progresses uh as it was rising and it just got centered right here um so I got this is probably the the
best shot you could see the tree lines if I zoom right in you can see uh you can see actually the tree
so it was uh that was really fun I actually focused on as you can see I didn't I defocused the moon a little bit
and I focused more on Mount size so that was kind of a uh so that was that's my
that is what I call as a real super moon for me yeah so the perspective you get
because you're using the telescope um yeah I've often missed a quite a few
shots because I thought the moon would rise in one spot and it's clear over
there and and then I'd run and scramble and go and get it so I I appreciate this shot just
because it it Rose in such a great place for you to be able to get these images it's that's that's how
I'd like to frame the moon one of these days it's uh yeah yeah it's a beautiful
that's a beautiful and you've left enough of the Moon in focus to see the Seas which you know it's unmistakable
yeah yeah thanks thanks uh no it was it was tricky
and I could imagine you know somebody more professional uh you know with all the right here
yeah you do a composite where you focus the moon then you focus the mountain and
you splice the two together but um yeah that's
all right this is a good shot I don't mind the uh you know the moon can be a little out of
it's definitely the moon it's not gonna yeah you don't look at it and go what's the purple streaks what's this all that
yeah you have a great shot I I'm not 100 picking any good any shot that gets it
mostly right well the other thing you know a big thing Adrian to me is also
I'm glad to hear thanks uh is is the appreciation of the moment right you you capture yeah
even if it's fuzzy or whatever it's like okay you know it's like oh you I
remember that now and it kind of in your memory and it's nice to be able to share that yeah yeah yeah
each shot you're sharing what you saw we're we're there we're there with you looking through your telescope at the
Moon we can always imagine a little more detail here and there but the experience
becomes so important so yeah you absolutely right and that that's what makes that such a great shot
oh thanks thanks that's cool so uh yeah now now we're switching to uh
um Moon uh in in the sky uh Moon observation so if I look at the sky
somebody this is uh the situation right now in in my latitude I unlike Caesar I
don't have the moon overhead I have the moon about uh let's see here 17 degrees
okay 17 degrees up all right so oh 15 degrees at 16 degrees off the Horizon so
it's really low however uh I'm happy to say it's clear so
um in the after party I'm gonna set up my uh my smartphone and my uh my my rig
I've retooled it for a smartphone and we're gonna do cruise the moon um in in I'll probably be able to set up
in about half an hour or so so um I'm just gonna get it uh Sky lined and uh
let's see if if I can get it to uh to share but the the other reason why I show this is uh going to castronomy
um tomorrow's episode we're continuing in Sagittarius so um if I look at uh where we're at uh right
here uh we we had done um the northern part of Sagittarius with 15 objects down
to the Lagoon nebula and tomorrow we're going to finish up Sagittarius again
from what I can see of these objects including some of the globular clusters mostly glabio clusters uh in this Rich
part of the sky and it's really neat to see the different variants on the different collaborator clusters so what
I have is I have 16 new images and I'll just preview them we'll look at them more tomorrow but uh these are all the
uh the images we'll be exploring together tomorrow uh but one thing I have I want to share from last week and
again this is this is my previous technology before I took Flats with the Lagoon
nebula at the end of last week then I uh added flat technology and look at this
this is my new Lagoon nebula uh image so you know
to quote the immortal words of uh scissor you know come on right I mean
this to be able to do this now this is only 30 30 second Stacks right and this
is this was before the moon okay now I want to show you another image
um let's actually I'm gonna have to sorry I'm gonna skip through a bunch here
and yeah so these images these images here I took
there's uh there's some lines uh that I have to figure out how to get rid of those with bias frames but uh somehow um
there was some noise but you can see uh all these all these pictures between
um the Lagoon nebula the triffid nebula uh the Omega nebula and um the the Eagle
Nebula these were all taken you guys yesterday uh with with the moon at three quarters
full
and with 10 second with 10 second Stacks only 10 second exposures but but with a
UHC filter and you can see they're all within you know 20 degrees up and this
is a very light polluted part of the sky for me right I'm looking South at Tacoma and uh and basically uh it's it's
probably bortal eight you know at the minimum uh down down in this part so
this gives everyone hope you know uh for if you I've never visually seen anything
like uh like like these pictures uh with any telescope
um and to be able to do this yourself with a modest you know this is just a
non-cooled you know that's why there's noise in it so cool camera will get rid of all these lines and stuff but uh but
but a non-cooled camera light pollution the moon low to the
altitude I was never able to explore these objects in Sagittarius before uh I
I got all this technology so you know everyone out there you know uh it's time
to uh to to increase your game uh get get on get on board get on board with uh
with uh with imaging and uh in you know little small telescopes uh you know
Imaging and uh we we I'm I'm walking through this journey with you uh you
know we're gonna we're gonna all have fun and uh and uh you're gonna all be able to do this yourself so it's uh it's
really really enjoyable so yeah so now that's that's basically my uh my story
so like I said uh tomorrow I'll go through the actual uh Sky survey but oh yeah I did want to show you a couple
more pictures since we're we're here um
yeah here's the bubble nebula um in Cassiopeia uh so we've got that
one uh here's the because I have it's an eight inch screen this is this is the
Eastern Veil the lower part which uh you'll recognize this Fork structure down here
um this is the upper part of the Eastern Veil I had to do it like I have to do a uh tile
um this is a beautiful the witch's broom and you can see a good old photo bomb so nice little reminder you know what that
when you started stocking um and I thought about it too you know initially I thought oh yeah you know it will be
nice I I don't worry about like uh you know the um all the all the
constellations of satellites that are being launched um however uh I think that for casual
astronomy you're going to see a lot more of these you know as a lot of these photobombs especially when you're
stacking uh live stacking especially and you can't get rid of them in livestocking so I think it's going to
take a number of years before the software is going to be able to dynamically do that on the Fly for sure
with post-processing if you if you if you want to you can you can remove these no problem
um if you do it offline but I want to be able to and I think more people will want to be able to do this Pro uh as a
pre-processing so that you can filter out these lines uh it's not bad right now but you can imagine in a short order
in a couple of years there's going to be a lot of these types of lines but in the meantime I'm look at how beautiful this
the filaments are I mean I'm just you know this is wonderful it's only a 30 second stacking and um and it's you know
it's it's there's lots of noise in it but it's uh I love the the color uh you know and the multi-colors of the red and
the green filaments all there and this is a nice high contrast part of the uh the veil uh on the Eastern Veil or the
Western Vale I should say and then it's amazing the the structure of the of the
the gas structures is they are very very clear very very sharp they are excellent
yeah you know I'm pretty it's not that definitely can be better but this is
this is keep in mind this is a um uh an altazimus go to right it's not uh yes
yeah limited to 30 30 second exposures and then the other thing I found out is
I'm limited to 60 degrees uh elevation otherwise it starts to uh crash
um so so basically I I there's all these interesting limitations but I've worked
around them and uh you know uh then you also appreciate when you get new gear uh
in Equatorial amounts uh it's for example very basic um you're gonna really be able to
leverage and get the maximum for longer no yes of course and you need a guider system
but but this the ultimate system is easy
for many people and it's very very educated educational
system because it's CC you don't need a polar alignment and
uh I I I enjoy it a lot of time many many
artists amounts like for example the the same one that they use the the same
model um of uh the Revolution series
um well I'll tell you that last week I I had the the 9th quarter nine quarter
model and uh when I put the the wedge
the quarter wedge I work very bad I I
I I quit the the the wedge I'm I'm still
using the the ultimate mode mode but when I turned to a quarter amount I know
that this more work for Polar alignment but it's great
it's great um thinking in use a filter with one
minute single exposures um yeah something that with the the Alta
simu they never couldn't uh you can make
exactly and all for different things like for example uh for planetary or
lunar or visual uh or smartphone uh this alcoholism it is perfect right I mean uh
no problem I mean uh you can you can track uh and it's it's very short exposures so if I go uh you know so and
then you don't mind the the slight movements but if you're doing longer exposures yeah you pretty much uh you
you'll want to to get a better signal for noise and to to make a cleaner image
you pretty much have to go with uh without uh with the equatorial the other thing is when you go smaller aperture I
I I'm using eight inches so I'm taking advantage of the light Gathering Power of that right now but uh when I go to my
80 uh Eda I'm going to want to have it equatorial because I'm going to do wider
field of view I'm sure it's going to be shorter focal length but I'm going to have to take longer exposures probably
uh three to four times so I'm gonna probably go to two minute uh subs for
example um for for for those images um but but but last picture just just to
uh finish up and then I'm gonna actually start to set up if you don't mind um I'm going to um this is the Cocoon
nebula actually a very difficult nebula take take a picture of uh out of all the ones I took this one's a very tough one
and the other thing I ran into is that you know how you it's easier you're having the wind issue yeah
what's interesting is with the Dew Shield uh on on my uh C8 on the altaz
um around midnight here in in Seattle uh the winds uh change uh and they get kind
of Gusty um uh so so what what was happening is I was not getting a steady night I was
trying to take pictures and it was constantly uh like shifting like it would always have double stars or it
would be streaks and it was like so this one but the kahoon nebula really needs to have a good solid set of stocks yeah
to be able to get it because it's pretty uh very faint and um and uh sorry oh
yeah and and so I was able to get it uh one night it was actually really clear and calm so I was pretty happy with this
uh this is 30 second uh Subs but um to be able to get a little bit of the structure here and the surrounding dark
nebula city was uh was was good and there actually there is one more
uh no no I think I'll stop right now yeah I'm gonna now if it's okay
there's always one more
I'm gonna get set up for the Moon it looks like if I take a look if I take a look at uh
where we are at okay so if I look at now 921 yeah so just to give you an idea of
my my window it's pretty much my I have trees here's where the trees are and then I
have my house here so I have a very small window but I can I can get this for about two one to two hours uh in
here so moon is here so I'm gonna be able to color a line with Antares and uh
and uh and Arcturus and where is it uh and Altair those are the three stars I'm
gonna align and then once I get set up I'll be back online so thanks everyone great thank you Cameron
thank you thank you thank you okay excellent uh excellent Discovery right
as you're moving through this uh and the flats I I'll be the last person
in our group to finally get good flats and figure that whole thing out
um but it's obvious cam just showed you Flats help really take your image you're
doing a DSLR image or you're doing um yeah you've got
lots of uh you know there's a white out signal there it really takes
care of that so oh yeah you know what it does it's either one thing is the immediate effect
that you you pointed out Adrian where it's like okay it flattens image what do you do okay that's that's good you take
out the corners the beginning yeah but the big dynamic range you've changed
your noise floor and and what you've done is when you do the stretch you're
stretching now from a better common point for Darkness okay yeah so you can stretch out the nebulosity so you really
it makes things pop uh because otherwise you're stretching uh you're you're you're limited by the corners of the
vignetting which causes the the brightness or the darkness I've run into
that yep I've run into that yeah all right Scott all right so uh we're
we're to you at this point Adrian so yep I will go ahead share my screen now
just right here you're seeing a lot of Moon pictures that I've taken
um and what this shows you is that for those of
us um those of us like myself that enjoy
hearing all of the things that are being done
um the exploration going to the moon the study the science there's so much that
[Music] um you know there's so much about the moon to learn
and the only other aspect that
um for those those of us that come from a humble background and are still
learn you know trying to learn what we can about it but there's one thing that you can always do and that's you can see
the moon for yourself no matter where you are and no matter
um what you know about the moon it's there from a photography standpoint
um a lot of photographers will just try and frame the Moon
um this composite image was an attempt where I basically took a shot of the
Moon I was able to get detail and then a shot of the branch that was in front of me and I tried laying overlaying the
InFocus Branch with the in Focus moon now it's because of the way Optics
worked it's impossible to get that in one shot
but um let's see
at the moment this is really cool wow yeah so so let me show you actually let
me stop share for a moment and I'll show you what I got most of these images with
I do Wildlife photography and sometimes you know your Wildlife shooter
your your full-frame camera and a big 150 to 600 lens you can take that same
camera and just point it at the moon and
you can actually end up with a lot of decent shots of the moon or you can do
wide angle shots as well so this is one of those shots where I just took the camera picked it up and
fired it right at the Moon so we just kind of go through these here's my attempt to do that's my
attempt to do what Maxie was doing I stacked a couple few I stacked fewer images I tried doing an HDR stack with
this and uh I'm going to use Maxi's uh method
um and take more frames to see what kind of detail I can get down here
but um yeah there's the the moon as you see it through telescope or even your
own eyes that's the uh you know the detailed Moon I have a lot of those where
crescents or a wonderful chance to view these moons I'm gonna go let's see go
out of here I'm gonna cherry pick a few moons this
one is um it's a first quarter and I'll see if I can highlight a couple
things here um there's the lunar X
now I missed it so that where it's highlighted a little more this is a feature known as the lunar x that you
get when these four craters and the way the Sun hits them is highlight it
highlights this region makes it into an X shape and there's also
a v-shape and it's up here
that four I could see it oh there it goes the lunar V so these are two these
are just two features that um when you're going to shoot for first
quarter and you try and shoot for the Terminator line to be just a little bit uh more to
the right these this V and this x stick out a
whole lot more but it's it's one of the targets a photography Target for those
of us who um that like to shoot certain things on the
moon um from a photography standpoint there are a lot of different things you can do
this one I've heard it called a toenail Moon where there's just a sliver of it
available and so you know you get this beautiful Crescent
now if you combine it with some higher exposure shots
then you of course can get um you know you get the Earth shine to go
along with it um you've heard the term mineral Moon
where I think uh the reddish Parts actually indicate iron oxide and
titanium oxide where the bluish areas on the moon
are and I think a shot like this maybe with a little more detail made an a pod
a few years ago I honestly believe it was just bored
Astra photographers saying okay it's just the moon what can I do to Jazz this
up and they went and just shot the saturation all the way up and
they got the colorful moon and then I think we found out that um
that those colors actually did correspond to elements in that region of
the Moon so it turned out to be what I and this is just according to me
I if there may be a a real truth behind these the color
um or what these colors um how they were figured out but my
understanding is the master photographers decided to just Jack the saturation up on their moonshot and it
turns out these colors really meant something so so those the elements are there but of
course when we look at the Moon with our eyes that that was the that's the
picture I just showed looking at the moon with your eyes you generally see Gray
that's that's the binocular View and um
yeah you this is what you see through binoculars so using the Moonlight uh well a couple
other shots I'll take using the Moonlight this is the other side and I
learned how hard it is to hand hold a shot like this is why it's so grainy the
reason I learned is that recently the moon has been mired in
um let's see no this isn't this is just a uh it rises at three this Moon Rises
somewhere between two and three o'clock in the morning in the northern hemisphere you see this Moon after
you've done a night of Imaging and then the Moon Rises and you capture it's the other side with uh crater Copernicus air
Stark is over here and all of the uh things there's a shining Mountain that
is supposedly a real tough Target that's visible during third quarter that I've been told
about I haven't been able to get um
uh let's see some special interest shots using Moonlight to get beautiful
nightscapes um here's a I think I've shown this
the password if you've got clouds you can use the light of the Moon to create a beautiful nightscape
um so you don't have to start it just because you can't shoot um deep Sky objects you can use the Moon
to your advantage this is through smoke here's the uh this is a shot I took very
recently with the haze and the smoke in our atmosphere this is how the moon
appears and that is what taught me to what to do
next time I shoot at a rising um third quarter moon
which has a SIM it's lit very similarly as it's rising and
I'll need I'll have to use a tripod and use similar settings to what I use to
get the detail in this mode um so that that's one thing I've learned you learn
as you go better ways to use your camera equipment to pick the moon off and then there's
some there's transits if you get lucky enough you'll get a bird crossing the Rising Moon
at a park so that Transit worked out pretty well and these couple of pictures
here there's a Transit of the Moon over a um a corridor of the Lake Erie
Metro Park where the Detroit River meets Lake Erie and birds fly over it a lot
and you see there's more birds there's this tree and I got a Transit right there so
you know being Artful with the Moon is something photographers do a lot here's a here's an oversized Moon
and I used it to make this scene with the beach now the real moon would
be maybe if half this size maybe a quarter of the
size of the moon is what you really see here um there's scorpion right here
um but it's a it made for a pretty fantastic shot it sometimes we do
fantasy shots we blew out the uh we blew out the focus here but this is like here on this is by itself was a uh
nice shot with just the glow of the Moon I plot the uh plop a big full moon in front of it so there's a number of
things you can do this Eclipse picture well the moon's visible sort of there it
is blocking out a part of the Sun as the sun is rising so this is in a subtle way
you're still looking at the moon it's rising at the same time as the sun um moon set
one of the first few pictures I took where I was able to get Earth shine and
the moon setting the sun has already gone down I tried to revisit this shot and I ended
up with this where you have the sun's rays and then you have the Moon
in the distance this is when I I upgraded my equipment but I didn't quite get the uh moonshine the way I wanted it
to and uh let's see we'll if you have dust on your lens you can
get this really cool effect with the Moon um with this uh line
is like a pillar coming off of it and finally Milky Way shooting
you don't have to give up your Milky Way shooting you can get this is the moon as
it's setting and the Milky Way becomes visible and what I like about this image is it's
sort of uh it's a proof of concept image I took that's Jupiter right here and I
think Saturn is right here so this is 2019 I believe or
um yeah 2019 when Jupiter was ahead of that or the head of the Milky Way you
can still do Milky Way shots even if the moon is in the sky as long as the Moon
is low enough in the sky that the Milky Way isn't washed out
so it's still possible to do some Milky Way Photography now of course once this set
the Milky Way gets a lot brighter but I found this a really interesting kind of
concept that you can you can still do you know night photography
with the moon so you can probably see a few of the other shots on here blue hour moon
you can do these tricks with your aperture and get you know these sort of these Beach shots are I absolutely love
doing them because they end up turning out beautiful sometimes The Moon Rises you can't get
much detail depends on the settings that you use and
you know how you that this was done with a big lens as well so you had choppy
water and you had moon rising out of clouds so framing the Moon is
is a challenge in and of itself and something that um
you know that it's something that you can when the moon is out you can challenge
yourself to see what kind of shots you can get and last two images here's a shot using
the moonlight behind me it's that same Beach but
facing uh more to the north and at darker places you'll still pull the
stars out of the sky there may not be as many but it makes for an interesting image because you have this bright light
here um it almost you're not sure if you're looking at day or night
um depending on how you finish the image up but it makes for some beautiful images and then this image I have not been able
to repeat this where I've had clouds I've got some detail in the moon and I've got the
reflection over the lake um I've tried to do this again
numerous times I've looked at the settings in the lens and everything I have not yet really been able to
duplicate it quite the way that this turned out makes for a great oil painting
um an oil painting look so so these are these are all the ways that
I play around with um lunar Imaging using there's a couple of I didn't show
here but um this is um this is a park where
where I take the pictures there's that uh Pavilion there's that panorama
um so there's just a lot of different ways that you can make the moon whether it's
big or small you make it a feature in your Landscapes and your dusk escapes or
nightscapes or you shoot the Moon by itself and you you know you just try and
get in as much detail this is a moonshot uh a um
full moon using the light of the full moon to get this photo here
so whether you're using the moon's light or you're shooting at the Moon itself it's always a uh
it's always fun to see what you can do to frame it image it just looking up the
common everyone on the planet sees something like this whether they
know or whether they even believe that we made it to the moon there's still people that are struggling with the
concept that yes we as humans landed on the moon but the moon's beauty is
undeniable nonetheless and part of whenever it's that part of what
I do is try and capture it in uh as many ways as I can
um and those were some of the pictures that I've taken so hopefully you like them
um and that will be it for my presentation thank you very much Adrian
thank you all right uh we are going to move on to
Chuck Allen who's been patiently waiting here from the astronomical League uh and
um uh Chuck are you still there yes I am great great thank you okay
thank you all right hi everyone uh I'm sorry I had to be uh kind of idle for a
while I had to get 32 emails out tonight our conventions coming up and uh a lot of communications going on so forgive me
if I missed a few of the early programs I hated doing that um what I want to talk about tonight uh
are some of the leagues the astronomical leagues ways of encouraging people to engage in both Visual and photographic
observation of the moon so I'm going to share a screen now and go to
first of all a lunar reconnaissance Orbiter image of the Apollo 11 Landing
site since it is that anniversary time there were some comments made earlier
and I think Adrian made some comments about the fact that with the lunar reconnaissance Orbiter we can now see
strewn Fields Rock fields and so forth and make perhaps more
a safer Landing sites for future astronauts to land this winter
reconnaissance Orbiter Shop shows both the lamb base The Landing portion of the
lamb and also a line of footprints that led to the crater they had to fly over just before the landing and also some
equipment the rocky area that they didn't want to land in was over here on the right you can't see the Rocks really
they could from the lamb and that's when Neil Armstrong took over manually and
moved further across its crater to this side here
I did have the opportunity by the way to observe three Apollo launches Apollo 14
15 and 17. wow um fortunately a family friend of ours was
Senator John Sherman Cooper and he got us VIP tickets for Apollo 17. it was
just an incredible experience seeing that launch at night it was kind of
moist and damp and we got delayed with a two-hour holes I think it went up at
about 1am or so but it was worth the wait it was incredible uh did kick a bus
on the way out because as we were trying to get away from the cape there was a field full of about
300 buses and they all had their engines running and I was being asphyxiated and lost my cool for a second
um so what we're going to talk about now are the League's observing programs for this the closest of all natural uh
astronomical objects to us we have three programs one's a basic lunar program with 100 observations required
the second one is called lunar two it involves 100 observations as well and
lunar Evolution which requires 57. um I'm hearing some static Scott from
someone he's pretty loud
okay I don't hear it now okay thank you okay so the lunar the lunar one program is basically one that directs people to
observe major features on the moon's surface does not require sketching it does not require Imaging and it can be
done uh with a very small telescope we're looking here at Mari we're looking
at mountain ranges we're looking at principal craters on the moon that are visiting sadly's real Hadley real yeah
um 18 of the objects are naked eye targets 46 are binocular targets 36 are
telescope targets although people are entitled if they wish to use a telescope for all 100 of the required observations
there are also uh however there's a binocular program as you know we have a
binocular a master binocular Observer uh progression and to get the binocular
certificate you have to complete all 46 of these binocular targets using binoculars but you don't need to do that
to complete the lunar program among the 10 optional programs is actually measuring the height of a
mountain on the moon which is done using of course that's Shadow at a certain a sun angle the two primary targets that
we recommend to people are monts Pico uh which cuts a very long Shadow near the
Terminator when it's that time of the lunar day it's close to a major crater which
allows for measurement of the length of the Shadow versus the width of the crater you take some angles from the
mountain to the Terminator and you're able to determine the Mountain's height I think I when I did it I got it within
500 feet to the actual height so it can be done fairly easily with a little minor trig really
mons piton is also another Mountain that casts a very nice shadow and can be used
for this purpose these are not required observations the measurement of the mountain counts as two observations and
it's an optional that people can do in lieu of some of the others if they choose to I think it's pretty
interesting to do the requirement basically is a two inch telescope so a 50 or basically a 60
millimeter telescope which is a normal small size telescope could be used to do it you'd be better off with four or five
inch I think on some of these especially when you get into the lunar 2 program
lunar two is a little more demanding or two gets into the observation of
lunar domes which simply will not show up unless you have the proper Sun angle
and the lists that are provided in the program lifts the sun angle or the time
of the lunar cycle that you should use in terms of how many days old the Moon is to observe these optimally
some of the rills on the moon are also very difficult unless the sun angle is just so and uh this one is particularly
difficult it doesn't look like it would be but they took this picture from a little closer than you'll be doing that
uh the lunar two program requires 67 descriptions in addition to that 27
sketches and some of the sketches have to be repeated for certain objects down
here like proquis near lunar midday proquest near lunar sunset for example to show the difference that different
age of the Moon makes in terms of the visibility of the object
once again though a small telescope can be used personally I don't think it's going to be very easy to do with
anything less than a five inch or a real good three or four inch refractor unless
when you get into the reels the rails can be very difficult lunar evolution is a new program it
started off as a certificate only program but it's now a pin program and basically what we're asking people to do
here is actually learn something about lunar geology and its evolutionary
history here we have three craters that are very different one with Broken Walls
intrusions on the walls inclusions of other smaller craters inside here we
have one with terraced walls but a very flat lava filled plain with very few inclusions here we have a nearly
perfectly walled crater that has no Lava fill in the floor so what's the difference between these why are they
different what different eras do they represent there are six primary epics in
lunar geology that come with particular descriptions so what we ask people to do
is to observe 57 Targets on the moon and estimate using verbal justification what
geology magical epic they think that particular feature represents
here is a USGS map of the Moon that shows different geological epics at different locations
on the surface of the Moon for example this is one of the resources that can be
used in doing this program the program is executed using a
spreadsheet in which you simply make your estimated lunar epic here and
describe your reasoning for believing that it's whatever you put here and then you look up the actual epic and see how
you did nobody grades this you can be wrong on half of them if you want you won't be but it's just a learning tool
to help you assess targets versus the particular geological ethics involved
six epic sketches are required one from each of the epics and here is one of
David whalen's incredible sketches I'll show you he went way above the Call of Duty on this and sketched all 57 targets
and it didn't just sketch them he did this incredible job of sketching just to
give you an idea of what some people do in executing this program
wonderful very good shadowing yeah the pro program also asks you to observe all
six of the Apollo Landing sites and to sketch them as well and the in addition
to this uh The Observer is asked to discuss the site and why it was chosen
uh for that particular landing and what epic each of those particular sites represents so here you're looking into
basically the justification for the landing selections and that's a very educational process too
the league has a master Observer progression as you know that goes all the way up to platinum and the master
Observer requirement here involves 10 programs including five cores the lunar program is one of these so it's a very
important program to knock out enroute to higher progressions later on
those who are interested in imaging and there are lots of people especially on
these gsps who do this master imager award requires that a
person image all of the Targets in one of the lunar programs either the lunar lunar tube or lunar Evolution program
so that is one of the basic requirements for the master Imaging award some of the
resources used for this Pro these programs I should say are sky and telescope's field map of the Moon they
make one for mirror image for those using scts which is very helpful in fact
it's critically helpful trust me and it gives a lot of the tail and helps
you find a lot of the objects it's a very nice laminated four-part fold-out map falls out to about two feet by two
feet it's really good uh the virtual Moon Atlas which can still be downloaded from online is also
a tremendous resource because you'll notice up here when you cite like in
this case kepler-c it shows you the geological epic represented by that particular feature so it helps you look
up the actual epic after you've estimated what you think it is during
the course of the program another tool that's helpful in in determining when
best to observe things is the 29 days of the Moon site where you can click on the moon at a
given number of days of age and see whether a feature is prominent or not this is especially helpful if you're
looking for reals or dogs uh I would like to conclude just with a
another pitch for the Alcon 20 Alcon 21 virtual convention coming up we have
over 400 registrants we have an incredible number of speakers and awards
to give out uh and just to give you an idea of the people who will be speaking Dr Jocelyn Bell Bernell of Oxford
University the discoverer of pulsars Dr Richard Gott at Princeton and of course wrote the book Cosmic web and five other
books uh Dr Caitlin Aarons who spoke earlier Dr David Levy Dr Larry Crumpler
of the perseverance team Kelly Beatty from s t Dr Chris Gainer Dr Brian Hayden
I don't know if any of you have ever looked at any of alpha Phoenix's physics videos on YouTube but they're incredible
he's uh just one of the most enthusiastic people I've seen on YouTube since Carl Sagan uh Alan Dyer will be
speaking as well uh we have a slew presentation for Paul Cox we have a vla
virtual tour we have the library telescope program and drawings we give away 11 every year and we now have eight
thousand dollars into our prices for this convention wow registration folks is free and you don't need to be a
league member anyone can just just sign up give us your email address so we know
where to contact you for mailing the prizes if you should win we do not disclose the email addresses to anyone
and uh the international star party at the end that comes courtesy of our host
for this entire convention who is none other than Scott Roberts who's
invaluable to the astronomical league and has been for decades and Scott again thank you for everything you do for us
and for making this convention possible yeah you guys made it so painful it was wonderful what am I saying
um I would like I would like to close by showing you one other person's effort
Mark G in New Zealand maybe some of you have seen this maybe not but I'd like to
play this and hope the music plays can I give it a try it's four minutes long yeah try okay
this was filmed in New Zealand Wellington New Zealand
from a mountain two miles away from an Overlook over the city
even if we don't get Sam will get visual here so
can you hear it no but that's okay no well we can we see
the visual visuals we got music playing in our head
let's check this out
all right
I hate that you can't see the music hear the music no it's not detracting anything from
what we're seeing no plus it's uh sometimes when the music plays
um social media uh knocks it out anyways because of copyright issues
well I have permission to use this from Mark
it's beautiful
really sharp uh on the silhouette there
I can hear a little bit it's very faint Chuck but I can hear some music
can you
is the loss will just encourage just to go on YouTube and uh we can play the presentation full
with music and see it again
this is cool
foreign
cool yeah I'm sorry you couldn't hear it it's got beautiful uh
free freeware music to it you can find it on YouTube by the way it's called
Full Moon Silhouettes full moon Silhouettes uh and I think we'll do that
and then we'll be able to hear the music yeah I'm sorry about the music I don't
know why maybe maybe I should present it I wonder if muting my own microphone would help the sound
appear yeah when you share it Chuck look at the
little box on the left hand before you say commit to sharing it and there'll be
an audio box you can check okay see if that helps you
you mean now yeah yeah everybody should try
by the way Chuck I recently became the Alcor for one of my uh astronomy clubs
fantastic yes I mean it's great to have good people doing
that it really helps us you know when the all course care every now and then we have some alcores that don't do much
and that hurts our communication with clubs and so thank you for doing that okay where is this now
all right um before you commit to sharing so you unshare
and share your screen okay click on the green button it says share screen okay
and before you hit the Share Bear computer sound there you try that
see what you get there you go now we can success
[Music] wish I'd done that the first time
[Music]
thank you foreign
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music]
thank you [Music]
foreign [Music]
[Applause] [Music]
foreign [Music]
thanks for listening to it again I'm sorry sorry I didn't know that anyway I
I spent something like four hours on Google Earth one night trying to guess where he took the picture from the the
video and I got it within like 20 yards wow that's pretty good two miles away
basically on a sloping Hill leading down to the city and then
there's a mountain on the other side where this Overlook is and and he uh he lined it up perfectly
took some planning yes anything that good always does yeah yeah
there are so many you take test shots for a concept and then you go back and
get the real thing yeah right plus plus he had to catch it when that Moon rose right behind that Overlook yeah and uh
two days either way yeah not gonna work
and you can position you position yourself and there's got to be some room for you to be able to position yourself
too if there's a cliff where you need to go you're you're done so well good night all it's been a
wonderful Friday Adrian thank you very much man the moon you made me change
yeah it's uh 104 a.m eastern time I'm gonna have to get up and go to my boring
other job but uh I uh forward to next week and um
hopefully the smoke I think the smoke is beginning to recede in our area so we so
we will have um a bit clearer Skies to be able to uh enjoy here soon yeah I hope oh look at
that there's a live view of the moon right now good night I need to run I've got a
phone call Take Care thank you very much sorry about that okay take care everyone bye-bye all right good night bye good
night good night all right uh guys we're gonna take another 10
minute break I think uh Pekka halt a lot had mentioned that he would be on so
that would be great to have back on for a little while uh and then we can do a
wrap up with our after party so um uh you know get yourself another cup of
coffee or stretch your legs and we'll be back in about 10 minutes okay
make that five minutes
so I just got set up uh Scott yeah and so we can Cruise the Moon
all right let me just uh well have have have uh
once you give them you know five or ten minutes of that and uh yep
and we'll uh come back Hollywood Square style here so
sounds great okay all right and I'll be coming back you bet yep
okay so uh I don't know if you can see my screen it looks like it's in the corner here
let's see here excellent
okay let me uh do some adjustments I just was uh
getting set up here
yeah here we go us like a trying to to take some pictures of near to the moon
Area uh I started to to try with M4 in
Scorpius but of course that they have a lot of light you're this is your your uh live moon
image yeah this is a live uh Moon image just
like what you were showing earlier yeah except yes yes I can see now if I just do some adjustments here
so yeah I I returned to the Moon too to compare with you
we go to ISO 100 I'm just putting it in promo that will that will help a lot
Okay so now I'm doing some adjustment there we go okay
by changing the shutter speed whoops that's a let's make it
[Music] um
a little bit slower here let me move this out of the way can I move this out of the way
oh yeah good let me get this out of the way let's go view optimize feed for now
okay good that will go move this out of the way
I wish I could get rid of this thing I know okay so then we got
so let's change the speed here we're gonna go
do Sonic let's make it one two fifty one two fifty that's pretty good and then ISO
100 now I'm going to change the quality optimize for quality
there we go so basically I'm using uh Team Viewer there this is pretty good let me and now
I can zoom in so let's move to the right here and let's let's look at some of the craters over there
this is without telescope Cameron this is with my 8-inch my castle eight
inches okay okay I'm using a uh
13 millimeter naggler with my smartphone and just using beautiful an S8
oops let me just yes I I'm in in my setup my new setup
with using is donation because I returned to the moon in the center with
my go-to I am happy with my mom and my my new system all made it all
connected with a carducia carducial
ah yes no that's a good setup you got going yeah man
wow oops that's too hard now I have I have a win the wind again come out but I
took a lot of pictures tonight and I have many many
and I'm going to change the quality so this is uh this is to make it respond
fast and then if I go View uh go to optimize quality
there we go so you can start to see the scene right
yeah seeing conditions where you can see actually the uh The Ridge of this crater
right here pretty pretty good detail
yes beautiful details beautiful
but I'm doing this over Wi-Fi um so I'm using TeamViewer which is this
thing here so if I go optimize feed that that like low lowers the quality
but it goes pretty fast so if I zoom back out kind of experimenting here
and I zoom back out let's go to another part of the Moon
let's go to uh
zoom in in Taiko yeah
the Taiko or Tico no I don't know because in Latin maybe we say Thai
let me see tight no we say taicho
okay because his taiku is okay because it's hello Pekka how are you hello
Cameron hey Becca how you doing I'm fine all
right thank you good to see you man yeah sir also yes Becca how are you Maxi uh
maybe half hour okay
[Music] The Gangs for from the last uh Time Of
The Party The yeah the after party only we need to Maxi yes Adrian too
Adrian what go go go to bed yeah
how are you I'm fine how are you Scott great I'm good I'm good
thanks good did you enjoy the uh program so far yeah absolutely
as far as the best one
kind of show I have watched TV 50 years yeah and this is the best show ever
thank you because the topic is just it touches everybody's heart
to to realize that the topic is is uh
it's just great it was wonderful yeah but you wanted to
talk you did want to talk um some more about this kind of the experience of uh yeah I I thought that
um because I have a lot to thank Scott and explore scientific of lot of things
and as we talk you talked for a couple of months ago about how astronomy saves
people's lives did mine
for 15 months ago and that's because I will devote his
speech to es members
followers and customers and
my topic is giantly from this episode's
topic because I am not talking about the gears and
photographs and so on because this is about totally of sun and universe I have
made a memory links for me because I I can't
hold it in my mind everything I want to talk about but
I just want to say that the sun is not only the source of light we have
it provides opportunity to get some tan yes it provides some sound travels yes
and it's vital for our life in Earth
so we should see some as a ordinance Style
it is an ordinance star if we just travel far away and look at the sky we
will see our sun as a Northern Star
so that's why I'm got an um solo solar scope and begin to
to look at our star and how beautiful it is and what life it is on that star
so when I was eight or nine I was on the library and read a book
where there was an article of photo parenthesis today we
call them prominences I don't know why if there is difference on of
protobarances and prominences but that was so difficult word to remember
so I I just thought about it
all the time and after 46 years
later I took my first picture of it really I can show it
46 years I have thought about this
you're gonna try to share this greenbacker no it's
Cameron sharing ah now
this is not very good but it my all my first image of the prominences yes
I I tell you by Facebook that I I can't believe when I say Wow first light of
Pekka with your yeah solar telescope actually assassination with your picture
Pekka yeah actually it is my first year and now let's see how that
hard to do how did you do that Becca because because the uh the prominences
are pretty faint you need usually a special filter so how do you get that one only to learn
friends and and Telescope because you have four first call you have the focus yourself then you have the pressure tuning you
have to fix so you have to tune with two settings to get
the prominences you can see those and then you of course you overexposes
the the surface yeah but it's a I really appreciate that
that looks better that's a hard one but very very good to capture good work I have that
the first surface picture
and oh wow yeah oh yeah it's too dark but it's my
first H Alpha picture so nice it will be
better by it by the ears but um starts with the first
okay and um when I started astronomy my biggest
dream was to find that unknown star because my dad always talked about the
unknown island in the Pacific Ocean no man has never seen that island but there
is a small island and I was so targeted to find that star so I I keep looking at
that store today but um um okay I I do have rough time and days
um those times I make I told myself in my room
and totally silence and I begin to mediate meditate
so I kept the point that there is no tomorrow there is no yesterday
just right now with no sound nothing in my mind and
just leave um um seeing the Earth and the moon 3D
and they are just levitating and floating on that emptiness and that
feeling is like you get mine is G-Force in your stomach you know when
you go down in the roller coaster right you feel that it's going around in your
stomach and that is the feeling I hope everyone
can feel someday and one day when you are doing visual astronomy without no gears
you just look at the one point in the sky and let your mind
just go and make the travel you can see those Stars
just like car window nothing boy you can stop everywhere you want and just look
around downwards upwards keep on wherever you want
and you have to be in that stage in your mind that you can't just leave
everything and that feeling is like nothing else
so that is you have to work with I have worked on that and I can do it and when
I go to Pelican Airlines let me see my month I got this call rushes and it
turns in Mobile in my stomach but this Mount gives me the experiences I need to
have and that's kind of love and I just want to have that you need you need it yeah I
need it yes yes it's giving me the something I don't know I I got developed
when I see my mouth I need I I am sorry that that gives me what I need
so it's it's a weird feeling but um
that's the connection I had it's a man you know athletes call it being in the
zone uh you know uh it is a the you know psychiatrist or call it being in the
flow um but it is being in the present moment you know yes and and uh you know
maybe uh some people have an experience of kind of almost losing uh any kind of
sense of self-identity you know yes yes right just exactly because I leave my
literally my body on the ground hmm and I float and I can see the blue planet we
call Blue Planet which we are destroying right now and we know it we are destroying it but
it's we if you see the Earth and the Moon
3D and there is no wires there are no sticks and
you kind of see the contrast and because space is 2D as long we got something
behind so we can relate to distance and we can't do it when we just look at
the sky it's totally 2D but if you get something behind the Moon
some wall or or something you can relate it it's directly 3D but you have to do
it with your in your mind to get that 3D feeling
right but book Davies is commenting on this he says uh
it's similar to the feeling of flying when you're playing an instrument and it's all going exactly right perfect
timing and pitch and it's all right on you know the musicians also experience
this um this flow you know so it's uh I think so you know so it's I I think you
can come at it many ways uh astronomers definitely do it and um astronomers have
a few other tools too because they they understand that there are even things like when they're looking through the
telescope they're looking back into time yes uh you know we are seeing things as
they were uh you know we understand our our limited ability to
see a certain range of things but uh
through our understanding of also of science we we know that we can infer that that there is other you know
there's a greater range of energy than what we can perceive but we know it's there uh we know that we're Stardust you
know we're made yeah except there's a wall or there's something separating us from the rest of
the universe yeah and so that uh for me that flow is also the feeling of of um
connected connectedness you know and interdependence yeah feeling you know so
I I understand that so so when you first time get that negative gravity uh the
g-force in your stomach then you realize what the what was that
and you know that that feeling is like a roller coaster down downhill
it turns your stomach up and down really and it's uh I can do that kind of
astronomy all the time that no gears nothing just in my mind
make a trick there and there but I do have some pictures to show you
I got some very nice
today let's see where I can share there
wow beautiful they were very strong today Illinois
tonight is there are these called noctolescent clowns yes yes yes
oh beautiful so they were really Symphony on the sky thank you
once oh that's really nice and that's my contribute to tonight's topic
beautiful yeah so thank you Scott give me this time yeah yeah the book makes
one more comment he says we live to feel that feeling as much as possible astronomy does that for me too
especially just getting uh in awe at Jupiter and Saturn yeah yeah
thank you for bringing that up Becca beautiful thank you thank you for having me on
well she's all right how are things uh I have a few few seconds of of uh okay a
live mom second little with the wind but we can but it's so real it's so real
when you when you uh I think let me check if you can see okay
yes
why With the Wind yes but sometimes when when the winds stop a
little it's a night it's a night because it seems no so it is is
um no so strongly seeing tonight but you know and in a windy night you
have a bad seeing of course but but at the same time too we know it's a live
image you know yeah it's a live image it's a live image yeah yes it's how how
how the people that never watch it and then telescope
um is it the the the idea that how they can they can see the the Moon
I don't know if you if you see the controls of the
carduciel yes see
yeah yeah we can see yeah it's beautiful really so it's it's great
um dried the telescope from my living room but especially but especially when
return to to the Sky Map is great to Center while we was talking
in in the zoom I I take a trip in the
area of the Moon to take some pictures on M4 M22 of course that are not
pictures the because with the moon so near in the sky
um was full of lag you know um but was interested uh Center the
telescope choose the image very very interesting for for a next uh
the next trip or or besides in visiting a lot of
different uh difference
objects in the night um really really is is easy to enjoy I'm
I'm really well is the moon ever ever is is a great object this and I I never
feel tired to to enjoy the moon release
it is one of the best subjects in in the in the sky
really I I would agree with that yeah I recall a trip to Palomar Observatory you
know of course they had the big Palomar 200 inch but they also have a telescope which is a 60 inch it's the Oscar Meyer
60 inch you know the I guess from the Oscar Meyer family
um they donated the money for this Observatory anyways uh the San Diego astronomy Association had a night on
this telescope and they had it aimed at the Moon um and there was uh the eyepiece was
sticking straight out the back of this massive 60-inch mirror and the light looked like
a spotlight hitting the The Observatory floor you know and
almost all of the amateur astronomers of the the group would not look through the
the eyepiece because they thought oh this will ruin my night vision or maybe
I can't see anything else with this telescope except for this latent image of the Moon I said get out of my way I'm
gonna see this and it was beautiful we had a night
polymer can get very very good seeing conditions it's one one of the things it's famous for is how steady the air
can be there and um looking at the moon with a 60 inch
telescope the surface of the Moon looked like gentle Rolling Hills with craters I
was just amazing amazing you know so I'll never forget that view
I have assistant to you sure what what date are you planning this Mount
Wilson trip well I I already did a trip uh uh last
weekend we went to we flew down to San Antonio Texas and we took a drive out to
the Hill Country of uh Texas which was about we drove about 90 miles
outside of San Antonio and to look for a suitable site where we could see both
the 2023 annular eclipses the 20 2014 yeah so we um we took with us one of our
one of our uh one of our friends that uh and their her family owns uh Ranch Land
out there and they they took us out to an old um uh private airplane landing
strip which is not used as a landing strip anymore but it's it's it's been cleared off it's flat you know and it
goes um something like maybe half a mile in okay
and it's about 80 feet wide so this would be a great place for us to have a
um uh some Eclipse uh parties there and um so we're currently in the planning
stage to do this um yeah we would have to rent the property and all the rest of it and
bring in some facilities but uh it is very close to a town called leiki Texas
which has come in Old Texas west and Old West Texas well Hill Country Texas town
which is pretty cool actually and uh people there are very nice and um uh we
went out and even though we had a the first quarter moon last weekend I I had
one of those light meters that you can read how dark the sky is I aim the light
meter at you know away from the Moon I mean the moon was so bright right that you could you could read a book I mean
You Could See Your Shadow very clearly yeah you didn't need a flashlight at all
but I aimed it at the at the dark part of the sky away from the Moon and I was still getting a reading of 20. okay the
flight meter only goes shows Darkness up to 22. okay so it is pretty dark it is
pretty hot and when we get to dark of course during the eclipses we'll be doing uh uh dark dark phase in the moon
it'll be very dark out there so uh you know these events will not only be to
see the eclipse but to do deep Sky observing and uh to have a good time in
the Hill Country of Texas which is beautiful and um and you know for those that want to
go into San Antonio you know San Antonio has a great old Marketplace you know a
Mexican uh Marketplace that's been there for something like a hundred years you
know so it's it's very cool and then there's the Riverwalk and so there's things to do and uh all kinds of
experiences I just need a guide so I will as as soon as we get everything all rained and everything
yeah to make this available we do not plan to uh you know during a Cliffs
Expeditions a lot of times people um charge exorbitant fees I think you know
I got to experience that in the 2017 eclipse eclipse when we went to Casper
Wyoming and hotels that were I mean not hotels motels okay motels that were
normally like uh maybe 60 or 70 dollars a night
were 600 700 and 800 a night okay so the
the you know charging like that is really crazy we heard of places where they were charging
150 to 200 a night just to put your tent on the ground okay
um so by the way it's called we're not going to do that
yeah by the way yeah like meat for that
for your iPhone no I did not know okay you can get the
name from me right away yeah okay we'll share it with the audience here
yes because it's a part of either
let's see there there is two there is a dark sky meter
oh wow and then loss of the night
what is it called loss l-o-s-s of the night okay that is for the light
pollution okay I think potatoes two ups you can meet their their Darkness well I won't
compare I will actually try it yeah and those are iPhone apps
the dark sky meter apps very cool very cool
yep so yeah correct so yeah we're we're excited about uh
putting together these events uh uh we also have planned for next year
um uh the Mount Wilson 60-inch star party so we will use a 60-inch telescope
um and that would be combined with the tour of the jet propulsed laboratory so
that'll be a nice weekend and then we are planning a the Arizona dark sky star
party with uh David Levy and um so you know we'll try to get as many people
that come on to Global Star Party actually be there that would be a lot of fun I will try to yeah to be there
you'll love that uh that is not a place called Karchner caverns and Krishner
Caverns is a one of the most spectacular um Caverns you know caves uh and it's uh
absolutely pristine and beautiful um so you get to do that you'll go
experience beautiful dark skies and um you know in a you know five-star
facility it's just very nice and then um uh we are planning also uh to have a
tour of the mirror making Lab at the University of Arizona as part of that
trip so yeah yeah
90 days so I have plenty of time okay all right but then I only get back to
Sweden one day I'm back again I don't think you have to go all the way
to see Sweden you can just go down to Mexico and spend a day yeah exactly yeah easy
yeah wonderful yeah both the Texas event and um of course the Arizona dark sky
star party and and uh you know uh you know Pasadena those are all close to the
Mexican border so and uh if you're staying for an extended
period of time I know you just have to be out for a few days you know and come back in so
wonderful yes anything else that uh cameras or anything else you'd like to share
you sharing it yeah yeah I'm sharing and it looks like I lost the connection here and let's see
what's happening here um this was uh the the last view of the
Moon I got before I lost my connection it's I guess I don't know what happened there but um basically you can see the clouds are
coming in um let's see here this is with TeamViewer is that what
you're using yeah yeah let me just I was just using using TeamViewer so let me just try to
uh yeah what if what a faster tool these things yes you or are you know yeah is
that what you use Caesar or steam viewer a no no I choose I choose a Chrome
desktop work very well between computers
um I use a different different um for example the uh a few weeks ago
when I used to touching my my cell phone but watching outside the
screen computer is a great way but I
used the table with the Explorer Stars application um without a connection uh direct
connection with the sky and the on a Skype map but the difference is that
tonight I use cardo CL directly connecting
my my computer outside [Music]
with a Serial port and the camera to the serial Port two
I don't I don't see now the my computer is is closer
notebook and it's very very you know I can I can change this using
um RCR Pro or this type of system that that
um are for Wi-Fi for camera too but uh
many many people and especially in Argentina where the people don't like to to spend a lot of money in gears and
gears and gears um everybody many many people have an all
notebook that were very very good only for managing or driving the telescope
and you have it in all not good to to to
be outside uh the option of of uh of
having a driving for for uh image um driving the amount and this is very
easy this tool like a used camera or me are
are free you don't need more that your own Wi-Fi
connection um only putting uh all notebook
with Windows 10 outside or in in your in your
Observatory but me or Pekka that we have
a balcony observatories uh
we uh it's a it's a gray or well a camera I I don't know what Cameron have
a very back there do you have a a backyard Cameron
uh oh yeah yes sorry yeah I do have a backyard it's just a small backyard it's
kind of like a corridor yeah yes and the the resource of to having uh all
PC outside with our PC or notebook that support window Windows 10 and only with
a two or three programs for example the program of if I use Canon D3 uh or that
is the same that the 600D is an old camera that's the best
one is the best one absolutely absolutely and and
um I think that is coming a time of not and and good not cooler cameras that
that the thing that use Cameron or Maxi um reflex camera anytime cheaper where
the people is coming up or on the cell phones every time much better are more
able to to take much further pictures like a Cameron show now in the screen
um wow I can see the clouds say sorry if you have a possibility
do your 600D full modified
ah yes my camera is modified yes it's full modified or Astro modified
is it full or a stroke modified it it's
um my all camera Canon 600 D600 it's a
have removed is modified because have removed the IR filter yeah
and work it's it's it's easy to have red
colors yes you know just that if you have a full
modified then you take everything off you have a chest
plane sensor you get everything in but then if you
have an astro modified then you put an an ACF filter yes in front of and then you can get
focus with your ordinal lens but with full modified it's hard to get focus
with the uh yeah my my autofocus don't work anymore yes but no no no no no no
not even sensor cleaning works anymore no yes anymore too yes because I am a
patient and for me
modified and I have Astro modified and then ordinary 600D
yes and I won't change if I change it will be Canon r
yes but you have a treasure because it's it's very easy to to get especially
something that People Like Us that we are fighting with
light pollution but we have um any any each time we have more problems with
light pollution um something that I advise to the people but of course that is only uh advice to
I'm at the restaurant number so after photographers is that don't
um don't uh is continuing still fighting with against the light pollution but
um the the all the spectrum of the LEDs is are more in the blue that is very bad
really for for the health of the people but it's great for for raster
photography because it's easy to to in in the histogram it's easy to clean the
the blue colors or the blue channels um work more easy with the red colors
from from the nebulas but of course that don't say to the old people this because people start maybe is start starting to
think that the liposition is good for restaurant but really not is really bad
and and it's um it's this is something of the color
but in the quantity of light for example in the south of uh of uh Buenos Aires a
city that that the name is they make sure don't have much better
idea that that put doubly line of lights over
the the way the the road and really you
feel you feel that you you feel pain in your eyes when you drive at night yeah
you have so quantity of light in necessary and necessary because it's you
know in in in Argentina we have a problem especially in Buenos Aires on
the in the metropolitan area of unsafe and safety you know
robbers still we really is a big problem in all that
South America but but um outside
especially do you have a a problem about criminality you know and
and the problem is that that you don't resolve only with light
no no people say it's the measures don't think yes because you help the criminals
to see to do secretly they are more happy to yes to see to have mercy yes to
see you and rubber you yeah absolutely and but and my recommendation for you
Canon Canon 600D install magic lantern uh yes
yes you can you can take a movie for about 60 frames per second
yes yes but it's better than it's cameras sometimes it's real it's real my
son in in style um actually will remove the the magic
letter Lantern my daughter actually is studying something about this sign of
like um image and sounds in the university
and he used a lot of different cameras and sometimes she used to make some
shirts movie shirts of for for his uh yeah studies and
she normally use Magic Lantern in in her
own cameras good yeah because you you just have it in your in your card not in
the phone in the camera so you can always you don't do anything about the camera
yes yes yes I'm turning to use start to use more CCD
cameras that that that uh uh still using my reflex camera because it's this
camera is is near to the end of their own existing because
I have we have maybe is from the 2014 it's really all for a camera and
you know that amateur astronomers use we use a lot of cameras
um the people know actually that they don't like to to buy uh uh
pre-owned camera from Amazon
how many how many shots have one million I don't know
in each night you say yes okay 100 shoots for for you know Orion Nebula 300
shots for an egg or you know or our galaxies
nothing yeah yes how many exposure have three millions yeah the age of the
universe in years I don't know exactly yeah right the people go away when I say
okay can you see can you sell you my camera no no but the between amateur
astronomers don't don't don't feel worried worried about about about the
camera that work properly my camera when I I post a great pictures uh or would
make pictures many people tell me hey man
[Music] can you solve your camera can you sell me your camera uh no because we're
verbally is is easy to to found that the people
isn't I'm astronomers are interested in Buy cameras that are very useful but
they know that work properly without for example in my camera comparing with the
same the same cameras of this in the same models
my camera ever had a very low dark a very low noise I don't know why
comparing with the same model in the from the same year
pictures that I used less darks uh darks
that friends that have the same camera in my camera I don't know why maybe uh
you know the Japanese men that working in this making a better work this year
this day I don't know what but it's it's fun because they are not so and
this camera will be it'd be die with me because I say yes you know it's still
working you know you know your camera after six months
you know how it works it takes some time to know yes because I have four Canon
600 and I only know how one works and then I crap to other
yes yes maybe one is better than another ones yeah they are exactly the same yes
I don't know why because it's something that you say come on it's Electronics or Optics but especially we are talking
about the electronic of the camera yeah and don't two cameras don't work in the
same way it's incredible you you have to learn every each of them separate yes
this one functions like make more noise than another was exactly totally real
totally real you you never listen this Scott that you vote or you compare the
same camera from from this the same model from the same year okay and not
all cameras work in the same way that's true even before attorneys you
know in before digital that was true as well so one of the things that we would do uh in the days when we were
calibrating film and our chemistry and you do all the darker work we were doing
zone system calibrations yes uh we would uh go and characterize our cameras and
and look for uh places inside the camera where you know the light would enter But
we would we would take flat black paint and and make areas inside so there was
no shiny spots inside of there that would improve contrast and then we would
actually measure the shutter speeds you know it says it's you know 1 500th of a second for example but that wasn't
always true sometimes it's like one three yes of a second or one 600th of a second you know so you had to know what
these real shutter speeds were and then uh and then you could make other calibrations as as well even to the F
ratio which was of course better um uh and most of most of the time the
lenses were the focal length printed on the lens but not always you know so the
you know once you start really working with the camera and now with digital I am sure that there is variation in the
sensors and um maybe some electronic noise differences I don't know but uh yeah but
I I would say that um you know but once you know what your equipment's doing
then then you can control some things yeah yes it's it's incredible because a
little difference while it was manufactured they they make
difference big difference in in the results of the camera each again that's
right that's right it's like paint you can't get to
uh to uh while we talk I I share the the moon because yeah if you if you agree
yeah Pekka we used to buy uh you know after we had done our calibration work
uh you can see now the equipment we would also buy bulk films
manufacturing number so it's like wallpaper you have to have the
batch number you have to have today exactly exactly exactly the same yeah
even then digital okay okay you're working with the same sensor all the
time so yeah but the shadow time you know just one
small fraction of the chicken because I have a mirror flicked and the
mechanic can be if I have a one camera that's gone three thousand exposure and
next one 33 6 000. and there could be a some slice of
differences on the actors every time anyway
yeah it's it's fun yeah it's not science and uh like that so I
keep it in in fun level in an enjoyable level yes
uh there's um there's a lady down in Chile who's watching right now her name is uh Chia and she knows Rodrigo is the
leader uh very well um explore scientific one time donated a
telescope uh through uh North Optics and
the the uh and Chio uh class got the benefit of that which was really cool
and um so she says she has some photos of the
Moon uh of Chile to share so uh all
right Geo let's see let's have you
I will give you the login if you want to join us and share your
images you can do that yeah let's see
if Lego is still sharing the screen it's called tall man to to keep the the
comes on okay and
today [Music] the the director of the
San Miguel Observatory here here we see here we say received
four students four kids because actually the observatory is not still open to the
public but but um he received four kids with emotional
problems you know that that are for a special they are
special kids that you know maybe something like autism or uh you know and
they they the kids that they bring the helmex like astronauts
um made by their self and they was really happy and so happy my my friend
Santiago my yesi mayese tell me that there was really really uh
he had an emotion about about this because the kids was assassination only
to see a telescope you know that we don't have really the things but uh it's
so so important this uh that to see when when you when you can make something for
for the people for uh especially this kind of kids that they they prepare
their own you know cardboard helmets uh like astronauts
the telescopes and
next week I I'll prepare a small presentation for the things about the
The Observatory that that how the things are now
um and I'll show you in this picture because it's amazing it's amazing
uh release something that touch your hair yeah Jeff wise is hard sorry yeah
Jeff wise is saying in the audience he says I'm doing an Outreach tomorrow morning with third graders solar
observation through several telescopes that's totally cool Yeah well yeah
I want to like to do that to the kids and I I will
to do everything in my power to to be able to see winter to get
kids with parents to my home and parents can take a cup of
coffee or tea or something and we could
take look at through the telescope or I stream it and then my 55 inch LED TV
from the camera from the scope and um
maybe two three kids at the time and
talk about the solar system first and so on
but that's my my [Music]
call to do that to get that to the kids because school here don't have time with
that kind of education they are trying to hold them from drugs and and crimes
so the topic is or that kind of in school so
one cannot do everything but everybody everyone can do something
absolutely that's right yeah so I will try with the kids that keep them from the streets
somehow maybe I get one catch one that will be interesting
that's right but you know it just takes a spark sometimes yes just one just one
small spark yeah yes that's right and the globe can be there
for 20 30 40 years and changes poof like
this does for me it was there for 46 years and I did yeah
and I did astronomy I read all the time read and looked for the documentaries
and so on so I kept going on but for 15 months ago it was like a
supernova that's fine yeah absolutely now it's everywhere it's
uh in my mind all the time and I just
not do that and that I spread it out like either and everywhere I can be
um give a helping hand to tell them in the easy way how
everything works and absolutely yes the thing what is
very difficult to to educate and tell how do they alleviate
in the space the planets they are so heavy they are they are massive so how
are they just floating their levitating in nothing and to explain the kids
nothing it's like
it's quite dancing nothing is everything yeah so it's fun it's because you see those
smiling faces and they are so uh pleased to to get more and I have seen that when
they are begin to ask some simple questions then you have got their interest
yeah those who those who makes questions those are interesting in the topic
yeah they are just quiet and look at their
phones and so on but there are a few who asks why why don't they how come
can you show okay very good very good I think it's uh I
think a lot of uh amateur astronomers and professional astronomers feel a responsibility to
um uh you know educate uh uh everyone
you know uh that that is willing to pay attention but especially the young people you know because I think makes
such a huge difference I think it's got the the biggest problem we have is the parents because they are afraid because
they they don't have the knowledge about space and astronomy they don't know
about nothing and if somebody gets to learn their kids astronomy
they will be afraid what is this because they don't because they don't even know
they don't even know what they are teaching to my kids so we are we are kind of we have to
balance it with the the parents and and all the ones knowledge as well at the
same time so so they don't how what is Sun okay it's a chest ordinary
star what you can see in the night sky but it's very close to us right
as if any Star is ordinary you know so yeah right but it's you have to find a
way how to put the cars on the table
yes but that's fun that's really fun to make some like my my first
this is the you can see yes I remember I remember
so they are in scale yeah but if I how far they have to be yes yes
you need a soccer field or something yes I
have I had yeah but the Sun this this Earth scale will be 6.6 meter
height yes it's incredible and to get an yellow ball
which is 6.6 meter high a balloon where do I get that one yeah
yeah yeah bring this
to something small but then you know the kids must have
something to to see and understand so yeah this is uh it's not so simple
that many things that learn kids yes I I
like frame of reference absolutely um any time that that I can see the the
special program of Daniel how is the last name of Daniel
um the lecturer the professor of the physics is called how do you know
um how do you know how do you know it's amazing for me you're talking about it yes Daniel is a genius and I remember
the first time that um we uh in in a program that I talk about the eclipse
from from Patagonia and I was a donation with Daniel with idea the ideas that he had
for teach to the kids about the the
uh moon faces um it's it's a great thing too
to um to to to to
see how you can have a lot of resources to to teach something
this is something I have to buy yeah
and also in the live chat here um yes this is a giant inflatable six
meter size inflatable Sun that's exactly what I need I know yes yes Becca
is in China yes AliExpress is from China yes yes
then it will be cheaper that I take a flight ticket to China and then maybe
yeah bring an extra big suitcase you need a container because I need
inflators it's going to be a problem I think if the Sun is going first so
yeah sure right okay that's very cool
little gentlemen um I we have a big day tomorrow
um it was wonderful to have you all on tonight and uh thank you thank you for
being in our uh you know our after party packet was great to have you back on again uh thank you I think everybody
here missed you so yeah good to see you again yeah and uh tomorrow Cameron we have
um we have your program on Gastronomy uh so we'll we'll be on uh with with
Cameron tomorrow afternoon they'll start at 4 P.M Central and um
uh uh you know until that time keep looking up thanks for sharing all these
uh experiences and knowledge about the moon um you know is very appropriate for July
20th I think we're going to do this every um every July 20th because it is such a
special day um you know for planetary you know solar system exploration
and um I'm going to I have I found a uh
video uh from Goddard space flight center about the Apollo 11 experience
which I'll play um uh you know as as we close out here it's about a 20 minute long video so for
those of you that might want to sit back and watch that uh maybe it'll help Lolly you to sleep with uh dreams of uh the
moon in your head but um that uh it was really wonderful and I uh
I don't know if any of the other presenters might be still watching but I do want to thank Caitlin Ahrens and uh
Miss ellman and um uh Gavin and you know David Levy and Seth shostak and you know
all the other great speakers that we had on tonight it was really wonderful and
we'll be back on next Tuesday of course with the 56th Global Star Party
um so you know uh I'll be thinking of a basic theme but uh
and until that time uh we'll see you we'll see you uh next time okay
yeah that's always something there's always something new going in the world of astronomy every second that's right
every second yeah yeah that's right and whatever an amazing time right now too
with this uh you know ushering in the era of space tourism as as as we've
watched over the last uh month you know so it's been it really is a the youngest
and oldest humans in space too yeah that's right solar uh spots are going to
uh is going to be oh yeah solar activities going up yeah yes going
backwards we know that you pick I have your your new lunch uh sort of telescope we are
awaiting your image that's right let's see what's today
okay it seems to be quite cute let's see I
will share this for you there
so this is for today so there are oh wow how many sunspots many many there is
four groups four groups yeah yes so this is the new one that's okay
yesterday if you agree
and Scott I can't talk with um physics uh solar physics specialist
in solar physics that his name is Manila uson that he is working with us in the
observatory of San Miguel directing all things about about how
um about why is important recover and
restoring an all solar Observatory because the old data we are recovering
from the all films and comparing with the new image I'm making the history of
the maybe we can recover the last 50 years of or more of solar sunspots
prominence and still making with the same instruments no that's cool it's
really good if I I'll talk with with him if he can be able to to make us a
presentation um from his vision uh why is very important recover and
restoring this this kind of observatories like Observatory of Samia
and of course the the work of of uh amateur astronomers over solar image
wonderful yeah I I'm really I I talk about you often Cesar with uh you know
the work that you're doing and restoring this historical Observatory complex and really I can't wait to see it one day so
yeah yeah yes we are yes really I'm I'm really a white
team to to start to work strongly because we are waiting the position from
the Mastery from the government of Samuel to have the uh because Air Force
you know it's all about bureaucracy um uh uh
Samuel government need to receive the keys really for for to start to work uh
strongly in their in their recovering restoration you know yeah because it's
about the legal issues where you need we don't start to make something that's
safe small things but really we are writing awaiting
to to that the government of San Miguel we need to that they need to have the
keys to to to read The Possession to the of the observatory yeah
but hopefully that all comes together very soon so yes because uh you and your
team are the right guys to be in there uh getting that ready so
we don't want to see any more vandalism you know yes yes we we remove the
objective to save the the the curve size telescope uh because if somebody broke
the lenses you lost everything sure
um well you have the objective you you have the more the most important part
the focus in the back focusing system is in bronze you know but it's today is
possible to remake again or we can receive the donation of the part that
maybe in one part of the world can exist Maybe
right yes it'd be a shame for it to disappear so
or to be still damaged that you couldn't fix it so yeah yeah we couldn't we
couldn't have a better person uh leading that eczer uh yeah thank you that's what I think thank you thank you
all right gentlemen well thank you very much uh Chio sorry that you weren't able to log in but uh uh next time and
um Pekka Cameron and Caesar you guys have a great night
bye everyone good night
I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal
before this decade is out of Landing a man on the moon and returning him safely
to the Earth all is in Readiness for the launch of
Apollo 11 from Cape Kennedy Mission Control at the cape reports to countdown is proceeding on schedule
astronauts Armstrong Alden and Collins have suited up and Ingress The Command Module aboard this 363 foot high Saturn
Apollo configuration weather is satisfactory at the cape it is estimated that about 1 million tourists are now
converging toward the beaches for the launch 12 11 10 9 ignition sequence stars six
five three two one zero all engine running
liftoff we have a liftoff 32 minutes past the hour liftoff on Apollo 11.
Tower cleared Neil Armstrong reporting their row and
Pitch program which puts Apollo 11 on a proper heading
plus 30 seconds programs
altitudes two miles
downrange one mile altitude three four miles now
in velocity 2195 feet per second
two four two zero eight seven one six seven four side Stars
zero two five zero zero one one two two Niners
[Music]
in Vegas
[Music]
Madrid AOS [Music]
early Communications was noisy but readable Mission Control was able to hear the voices of the crew shortly
after the tracking station at Madrid Spain acquired the Telemetry signals
the landing approach is the Apollo 11 lunar module has begun to decide for the
service of the Moon and then stage engine of the eagle was fired at about nine minutes
the engine burn time was less than 29 seconds the engine firing places the
lunar module into a slowly descending orbit meanwhile astronaut Collins In The
Command Module Columbia maintains a constant vigil on the descending lunar module Communications have remained good
with both eagle and Colombia the plan touched on is for 3 17 PM in an area
called Landing site number two three feet down two and a half picking
up some dust three feet two and a half down straight Shadow
Fall forward four forward drifting to the right little hey
I'm back right okay engine stop ACA at a defense
mode control both Auto decent engine command over right off engine arm off
or 13 is in we've got to get down
[Applause] Pandora
[Applause] Tranquility Wisconsin
reason again thanks a lot [Applause]
[Applause]
[Music] [Applause]
the winter module has been on the moon since 3 18 PM Central Daylight Time following a near letter perfect descent
and Landing lunar module while on the surface of the Moon is being referred to now as Tranquility base
astronaut Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin are preparing to step onto the lunar surface this evening preparation for the
extra vehicular activities are running a little behind schedule [Applause]
[Music]
a special display has been set up in the auditorium of building 8 of The Goddard space flight center during the flight of
Apollo 11. a wide variety of displays includes models of the Apollo 11 Command
Module and lunar module and animated Apollo 11 Mission profile and information on the manned space Flight
Network the vital Communications link required for the Apollo missions
Goddard employees are invited to bring their family and friends to see the display hours of the open house are from
10 AM until 8 PM daily throughout the Apollo 11 mission
in addition visitors may watch operations of the real-time computer center nascom and scamma through the
viewing windows in building 14. listen brings together the scholars and
scientists of our universities the research and technological skills
[Music] the will for peace
of whatever job needs to be done period
[Music]
his right hand is on the attitude control of regulating pitch in your role
after Lion Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin are preparing to step onto the lunar surface Armstrong will lead the
cabin first TV viewers around the world will be able to see Armstrong be the first human to set foot on another
Celestial body you may be on that one for voice check
please all right all right okay I just checked uh
get back up gradually copy a pretty good little jump
the buzz this is Houston F2 1160 a second for Shadow Photography on the
sequence camera out back at the foot of the ladder
that's our only uh uh get back in the surface about uh one
or two inches although the surface appears to be uh
very very fine-grained as you get close to it it's almost like a powder
sound mask is Grapevine
that's one small step for man
one triathletes that's one small step for man one giant
leap for mankind
pick it up Loosely with my toe depends adhered in fine layers
very cool to the um [Music]
how's your TV looking now I only go here um
I am standing vertical white house got her voice
Roger White House got her voice how do you hear me you're loud and clears their homemade oh you're loud and clear also we'll be extending this circuit now into
the Apollo netic Goddard for the presidential call to Tranquility base Roger thank you thank you get a voice
out here
uh Neil and Buzz uh the president of the United States is in his office now and
would like to say a few words until you're over
thank you that would be an honor all right go
ahead Mr President this is Houston out
[Music] and this certainly has to be the most historic telephone calls
I just can't tell you how proud we all are of what for every American this has to be the
proudest day of our lives and for people all over the world I am sure they too join with
this is because of what you have done the heavens have become a part of math
world and as you talk to us from the Sea of Tranquility
it inspires us to redouble our efforts to bring peace and Tranquility to Earth
for one Priceless moment in the whole history of man
all the people on this Earth are truly one one in their pride in which you have
done and one in our prayers that you will return safely to Earth
thank you Mr President it's a great honor and privilege for us to be here
presenting not only the United States but and of Peace of all Nations
and with interest and that Curiosity and the division for the future
honor for us to be able to participate here today and thank you very much and I look
forward all of us look forward to seeing you on the harder on Thursday
look forward to that very much sir
Colombia Colombia this is Houston over
like it's a little difficult to dig through the uh very interesting it's a very soft
surface but uh here and there where I plug with the the contingency sample two groups of The
Goddard space flight center are waiting for cycles of the moon rocks that we brought back by astronauts Armstrong and
Aldrin scientists headed up by Dr isider Adler of the theoretical studies branch
and Dr John philpotts of the planetology branch will be among some 140
experimenters from the United States and foreign countries to receive the samples after they have gone through quarantine
and prepared for distribution by the lunar receiving laboratory of the Houston manned spacecraft
what appeared to be ethical than the surface also I'm looking at one now that appears
to have some for the Phoenix they nailed it and I say we might see
some purple rocks find a purple rock yep and approximately 11 53 p.m central
daylight time tonight astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin began preparations to re-enter the lunar
module the eagle lifted off the surface of the Moon at 12 54 PM central daylight time
today Apollo 11 is on the way home
Apollo 11 is streaking toward a Splashdown in the Pacific Ocean this speed will rapidly increase to a maximum
of about 24 800 miles per hour 400 000 feet above the Earth the spacecraft
will begin to encounter the atmosphere at that point the heat shield will begin to heat up
good morning ladies and gentlemen Captain Brian's theme from the flight deck of Qantas 596
does seem that we're going to get a very good view of Apollo 11. I think got hit a cup on
the left side turn them one object Canada see the term one above the other
brightest one lowest one's a Command Module one for service module the each
way six tons they're just picking up heat now the bottom one's leaving an incandescent
Trail you see it flashing that's a trail of epoxy ablative resin
coating see you brightening up honest practical
it's passing a Bemis now at nearly 300 miles very good Apollo 11 with astronauts and
Neil Armstrong Edwin Aldrin and Michael Collins has flashed down in the Pacific Ocean a historic Voyage to the moon and
back ended at 11 50 a.m central daylight time the landing took place at a point about 900 miles Southwest of Hawaii as
the spacecraft re-entered the atmosphere one of the recovery planes sighted the spacecraft glowing in the early morning
Sky shortly before splash down another of the instrumented aircraft spotted Apollo 11. then the spacecraft was
spotted briefly behind the clouds by those on the recovery ship Hornet at 11 45 the Apollo 11 crew reported that the
shoots had deployed at 11 48 The Hornet reported visual sighting then the Apollo
11 itself reported [Applause]
[Music] helicopters immediately began to hover
over the Apollo 11 and then the swimmers dropped into the water for the recovery on it gutted voiced by ATS The Hornet go
ahead all right you're loud and clear how do you read me copy you loud and clear all right you we're going to be monitoring
this circuit or for the recovery uh sequence uh we'll also be extending this circuit
onto the White House understand White House got her voice a White House
all right Roger how do you hear me you're loud and clear all right Roger you're loud and clear also we'll be
extending this circuit into the Apollo headed gutter thank you very much [Music]
rather than Nixon waving to the astronauts the curtains have been drawn there they are in the rear window
signaling for Applause from the crowd that's the most Gathering the window
buzz and Mike I want you to know that I think I'm the luckiest man in the world
and I say this not only because I had the honor to be president of the United
States but particularly because I have the privilege of speaking for so many
and welcoming you back to Earth can tell you about all the messages
we've received in Washington over 100 foreign governments Emperors and
presidents and prime ministers and Kings have sent the most War messages that
we've ever received they represent over 2 billion people on this Earth all of them
who have had the opportunity through television to see what you have done all this we pray as our Thanksgiving
rings out to thee in the name of our Lord okay oh man
thank you
[Applause]
foreign
[Music] [Applause]
[Music]
[Music]
okay
[Music]
don't worry
[Music] so Scott who puts all these together for
you all these uh [Music] these are awesome well edited
great I'm gonna have something that's that was awesome yeah
totally awesome well