Astronomy Wise December EZine

Top Stories Radio Telescopes The Night Sky Geminid meteor Shower String Theory?

What’s New? Three Radio Astronomy Projects

Event News AW November Public Meeting Astronomy wise @ the Brownies

Notices

Image Mike Greenham

December Public Meeting

Astronomy Wise Astronomy For All

Stargazing Live

14/12/12 Sawdon, North Yorkshire

The Night Sky by John Harper

January 2013 8th,9th,10th BBC 2

Solar Explorer

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Image Mike Greenham

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MERRY CHRISTMAS & HAPPY HOLIDAYS FROM ASTRONOMY WISE Welcome to the December 2012 Astronomy Wise edition. 2012 has been an interesting year for us, from launching AW back in May which was a 12 page newsletter to the e-zine you are reading now. Each month we have brought you news, articles and our interviews. We have interviewed Astrophysics professionals, students, presenters and authors. We have featured Young Astronomers, Featured Astronomers and many guest writers.

Apologies there is no Rouges gallery this month, however it will be back in the New Year.

A big thank you to all who contributed to the EZine over the past year. A big thank you to all those who read the magazine. We would like you feedback so please let us know what we can do to improve the publication.

Email dbood@astronomy-wise.com As usual we are packed with news and articles and the winner of our book(s) competition, see inside for details.

WHO’S WHO? David Bood Editor, Co Founder Jason Ives Co Founder, Rouges Gallery John Harper, The Night Sky, Writer Edward Dutton, Graphic design Heather Dawn, Writer Paul Rumsby, Telescope Reviews Pepe Gallardo, Writer Andrew Devey, Solar Explorer, Writer Zantippy Skiphop, Writer Guest Writers Jon Wallace

Image: North Essex Astronomical Society

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Welcome to the December edition of Astronomy Wise. This month we have another interesting interview from the world of science and astronomy. So I am pleased to introduce Paul Halpern.

AW:When did you first become interest- AW: Could you tell us about your career ed in Science and astronomy? so far PH: When I was a child I enjoyed visiting the Franklin Institute Science Museum in Philadelphia, which has fabulous push-button experiments. I used to marvel at all the displays. I also visited the Worlds Fairs in New York and Montreal, which similarly sparked my interest in science. Finally, I was a great fan of the writer Isaac Asimov, and had a chance to meet him when I was 12 years old.

PH: I received my PhD from Stony Brook University in New York, where I studied chaos in the early universe. I looked at the Mixmaster Universe. It was exciting for me to visit the scientist John Barrow in 1985 at the University of Sussex in England, where he mentored me about the field of cosmology.

In autumn 1988 I began my current position at the University of the Sciences.

Edge of the Universe: A Voyage to the Cosmic Horizon and Beyond ISBN-10: 0470636246 ISBN-13: 978-0470636244 Purchase: Find this book on Amazon.com

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AW: What is theoretical physics? How does it help us understand the universe?

PH: Theoretical physics is the science of trying to understand the workings of nature at its most fundamental level. It helps us understand the basic building blocks of the universe and the interactions between them.

AW: Could you tell us about your book writing?

PH: After I received my PhD in 1987, I decided to take a short break from the mathematical aspects of science and look at explaining science through writing. I started writing my first book Time Journeys in the spring of 1988 and it was published two years later. I then kept going and have published 13 books to date.

AW: From my research I understand you have received the following awards Guggenheim Fellowship, Fulbright Scholarship, and an Athenaeum Society Literary Award. Could you tell us a little about each one?

PH: The Guggenheim Fellowship offers a chance for creative individuals to spend a year researching a topic or creating a new work. It includes writers, artists, musicians, and other creative thinkers. The Fulbright Scholarship is designed to offer Americans a chance to travel abroad and do research. I did my Fulbright work in Berlin. The Athenaeum Society Literary Award honours writers for their recent books. My award was for Time Journeys.

AW: Is it true you featured on the Simpsons in 3D on ice 20th Anniversary special?

PH: Yes I was on the Simpsons 20th Anniversary Special, 3D on Ice. The director Morgan Spurlock contacted me through his assistant and invited me to be filmed performing science segments related to the show. I filmed about four different demonstrations related to the show, each pertaining to a particular episode. It took about two hours. Then, I did something silly, holding up a preserved fish and talking about it.

That’s the bit they ended up using! Still it was amazing participating in a Simpsons special! Morgan Spurlock is a great guy! Here’s a picture of me with Morgan Spurlock:

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AW: Apart from featuring in Astronomy Wise (hehe) what would you say is the highlight of your career?

PH: Getting a chance to read Astronomy Wise, of course! Seriously, receiving the Guggenheim award was a high academic honour. Blogging for NOVA, a highly respected American science programme, has been a great recent experience. In terms of fun accomplishments, being on The Simpsons certainly ranks up there.

AW: What are your thoughts on exoplanets?

PH:I wrote a book about exoplanets back in 1995, The Quest for Alien Planets, when they were first being discovered. Then in 2004 I wrote a children’s book Faraway Worlds. By

that time, many more had been found. It is amazing how many have been found since then, some being comparable in mass to Earth. These are exciting times for learning about other planetary systems!

AW: I am very interested in the moon Titan, what possibilities are there of finding some primitive life there?

PH: If there is life on Titan it would have to be a very different form of life from which we are familiar, used to its extreme conditions.

Image: NASA (Saturn's Moon Titan)

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AW: Could you tells us about your latest book Edge of the Universe, which was up for grabs in our competition?

PH: Edge of the Universe is a look at the wonders of contemporary cosmology taking readers to the very frontiers of our knowledge. It explores cutting-edge topics such as dark energy, dark matter, dark flow, and the idea of the universe being a hologram.

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December Night Sky Welcome to The Night Sky by John Harper We have a printable sky chart A4 size.

During the first three weeks of the month, the Sun is travelling eastwards through the constellation of Ophiuchus and crosses the border into Sagittarius at around

23h on the 17th. The earliest sunset of the year is on the 12th, and the latest sunrise is on the 31st. Between them lies the Winter Solstice, which this year takes place on December 21st at 11h 12 The earth-sun distance at this time is 147,160,039 km. The earth’s north pole is tilted as far away as it can be from the sun and this day is the official start of winter, a season which lasts 88.99 days in the northern hemisphere, and of course summer, south of the equator.

The Moon

Image; Mike Greenham

The Moon is at apogee, its furthest from the earth, on the 25th at 21h21, and at perigee, its nearest to the earth on the 12th at 23h15.

The Last Quarter moon occurs at 15h32 on the 6th on the Sextans Leo border.

December’s New Moon occurs at 08h42 on the 13th, when the sun and moon are close together, the moon passing a degree or so north of the sun in Ophiuchus, the Serpent Bearer.

First Quarter Moon on the 20th at 05h20 in western Pisces, near the circlet of stars marking the ‘western fish’.

Full Moon at 10h22 on the 28th is the highest FM of the year, above Orion in the constellation of Gemini, the ‘celestial twins’.

It may be possible to see Earthshine on the waning crescent between the 7th and the 11th and on the waxing crescent moon’s dark hemisphere from the 14th to the 18th.

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The Planets During the first half of December, Mercury is favourably placed in the morning sky for observation, rising just two hours before the sun, when it becomes visible low in the SE sky, above which and to the right is the brilliant ‘Morning Star’, Venus. Further to the upper right of Venus is Saturn. From the 9th to the 11th (inc), the waning crescent moon with earthshine is in the vicinity of the three planets, and perhaps the best view is to be had on the morning of the 11th, when at 07h as twilight is beginning, the crescent moon lies 4° to the right of Venus; Mercury is 6° to the lower left of Venus and 5° above the horizon. Together Mercury, Venus, Saturn and the Moon, together with bright Jupiter setting low in the NW makes for a collection of five solar system objects visible at the same time. During the latter part of the month, Mercury sinks in towards the sun for a superior conjunction with the latter in the New Year.

Venus continues to shine very brightly during December, rising just under three hours before the sun on Dec 1st, reducing to just less that 2 hours before the sun by New Year’s Eve. Like Mercury, Venus is moving towards its superior conjunction early next year. Look for the waning crescent moon and Venus in the company of Mercury and Saturn as described above.

Because Mars is climbing northwards, throughout December the red planet sets two hours after the sun, just before 18h. Look for it low in the SW sky as twilight fades. Mars leaves the constellation of Sagittarius to enter Capricornus on Dec 25th. If you look into the SW sky on the 15th, you will see the thin waxing crescent moon with earthshine on its night hemisphere, 6° above Mars, the latter being just 5° above the horizon.

Through a pair of binoculars the fiery red colour of Mars will look beautiful against the fading dark turquoise twilight.

Jupiter is opposite the Sun in the sky on Dec 3rd and is therefore at opposition. Around this time, the largest planet in the Solar System, is at its nearest to the earth, a distance of approximately 390 million miles. It is therefore visible all night and reaches its highest in the south around midnight, when it dominates the sky at an altitude of 60°. Jupiter appears to be is moving retrograde (east to west) in the constellation of Taurus as the earth overtakes the planet. Mid month it lies above WWW.ASTRONOMY-WISE.COM

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Aldebaran, the ‘red eye’ of the Bull, the constellation’s brightest star, and on Dec 25th in the evening, lies just 3° to the left of the gibbous waxing moon. By the start of the 26th at midnight, the moon is very much closer and passes just 1° (two moon widths) below Jupiter. So throughout the whole night the two celestial objects produce a delightful pairing at this season.

Saturn is a morning object, rising 3 hours before the sun at the beginning, and 5 hours before sunrise at the end of the month and the year. The ringed planet lies within the western border of Libra, some 15° to the east (left) of Virgo’s brightest star Spica, near which it has spent most of 2012. The waning crescent moon lies 5° to the lower right of Saturn at 07h on Dec 10th, to the lower left of which may be seen brilliant Venus and Mercury which is actually brighter than Saturn. With earthshine visible on the dark hemisphere of the moon, this is the start of a beautiful apparition of the three planets with the moon over the next couple of days.

A pre-Christmas treat for astronomers!

December is a good time to look at both Jupiter and Saturn through a small telescope because the widening northern surface of Saturn’s rings look beautiful right now, and the cloud bands of Jupiter together with the Galilean moons in their ever-changing configurations can be seen. Uranus remains in central Pisces during the month, setting just before midnight on the 31st. Neptune in Aquarius sets by 20h30 at the end of December. For both of these remote planets, good star maps are necessary in order to locate them.

Of academic interest, the demoted planet Pluto is in conjunction with the sun on Dec 30th. The maximum of the Geminid meteors takes place overnight between the 13th/14th of December. At this time you should be able to see these bright fast moving shooting stars associated with asteroid 3200, Phaethon, the remains of a spent comet.

Geminids tend to be most numerous around 02h00 when Gemini, their point of origin, is almost overhead. On good nights it is possible to see up to 100 meteors an hour. The moon is new at the time of maximum so conditions are favourable.

Peaking overnight on the 22nd/ 23rd is the Ursid meteor shower (fragments of comet Tuttle), which produces about 10 meteors an hour, with occasional outbursts resulting in a greater number, but the gibbous, waxing moon will cause interference during the night until 03h when the moon is setting in the WNW. Therefore the time period from 03h till dawn is the best opportunity to look for Ursids.

Constellations visible in the south around midnight, mid-month, are as follows: Lepus the Hare, Orion, Taurus and Auriga the Charioteer.

All times are GMT 1° is one finger width at arm’s length.

By John Harper

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Calcium wavelength and white light solar photography

By Andy Devey This month I thought it appropriate to move away from H-alpha wave length and take a look at CaK and white light solar photography.

Calcium-K solar photography Calcium light at a very difficult to see because at 3933.7Å it is firmly in the blue part of the spectrum and on the limit of human vision with younger people having a better chance of seeing the solar disc and gaining a visual focus. The best chance of seeing the Sun in calcium K light is to dark adapt for about 10-minutes – not an easy task on a bright sunny day. I made a frame for my pocket digital camera from aluminium angel section and thick [2mm] black plastic card fitted to a Velcro lined 42mm waste water plumbing connector that fitted onto my zoom eyepiece and allowed the lens to travel safely out to focus. This was all glued together with araldite and PVC glue so no expensive engineering tools used and has proved excellent for showing a live calcium image on my CaK PST to the public during outreach activities.

Photo 1 here is the finished camera frame ready for the camera to be dropped in and attached with a ¼ inch Whitworth bolt. It has an umbilical to activate the camera without shaking it. It is fitted to H-alpha PST in this photo.

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Monochrome cameras are particularly suited to Calcium-K wavelength light and it is a very easy medium to master, however the shorter wavelength when compare to H-alpha light means that it is more sensitive to poor atmospheric seeing. Further I personally found the calcium light to be quite dim even through a 90mm solar telescope and as such making longer focal lengths more difficult to achieve and I have made no attempt to reduce the bandwidth down from its standard <2.2Ă&#x2026;.Calcium-K photography will permit views of the lower chromospheres clearly presenting the umbra and penumbra of the sunspots, the extensive plage areas as well as solar granulation and uniquely the large chromospheric network structure.

These plage areas can also show the beginnings of new active regions before

the local magnetic strength increases sufficient to form pores that go on to develop single or groups of sunspots.

Solar flares are also fairly easy to capture in CaK wavelength and prominences are also possible to capture photographically but they are not a pronounced as in H-alpha light. Filaments are not possible to photograph. As the prominences are much dimmer than in H-alpha to make a disc and prominence photo it is necessary to make two separate exposures [over exposing for the prominence] and then to combine the two in a mosaic.

I have only made limited attempts thus far to make calcium-K animated sequences using a SM90 CaK telescope.

The most notable moving feature is the

Photo 2: Huge detaching prominence in calcium-K this is a composite of two images one exposed for surface detail while the other is exposed to pick out the prominence. To date I have not attempted a CaK prominence movie.

Photo 3: Here is 3-frame mosaic in CaK showing a substantial portion of the Sun photo taken on 2 April 2012 at 15:35UT

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White light solar photography White light solar viewing/photography will only permit a view/capture the Suns visible surface, the photosphere and this is the much brighter layer immediately below the chromosphere. In this medium only the umbra and penumbra of sunspots, solar granulation and the very occasional X-class flare as possible targets. There are two ways of capturing high resolution images in white light wither using optical or photographic grade Mylar/Baader filter screen fitted over the objective of your telescope or using a rear mounted “Herschel wedge”. Full aperture should always be considered rather than a stopped down version taking care not to damage the filter sheet. I have made several plastic card objective filter housings for the Baader sheet and I quickly switched from the 5.1 optical grade to the 3.8 grade photographic specification sheet. Make sure the filter is held firm and cannot accidentally blow off and also ensure a photographic filter is clearly marked up “not for visual use”.

When using a refractor, a Herschel wedge is fine up to 155mm as confirmed by forum friends that use them on AP155 refractors, I personally use a Takahashi TOA130 refractor and in my own experience the Herschel wedge has delivered better results than the full aperture 3.8grade Baader filter sheet.

The best amateur white light images I have seen to date were made using a Celestron C14HD at 10.5m focal length! I personally have only been able to achieve 4m focal length with my TOA130 but this has certainly been sufficient to pull out umbral and penumbral detail and the granulation. Imaging over 20minutes will show a good representation of the granulation boiling in an animation while over an hour is required to see the penumbra flowing down into the umbra.

I have tried several filters including the Baader continuum filter and also a fairly wide band H-alpha at 7A combined with the Herschel wedge and 3.8 grade Baader filter sheet. The Hydrogen has the longer focal length and makes the image slightly less susceptible in poorer seeing conditions than the continuum filter and going to a narrower wave band makes focusing easier but the dimmer image slows camera speeds.

Photo 4 a white image of AR1569 up on 17 September 2012 at 08:53UT at 4m focal length. Note the solar granulation and the ribs running through the penumbra.

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Photo 5 a 200% increase in image scale reveals lots of detail in the penumbra.

Cameras I have already mentioned that the most suitable camera is a robust high quality monochrome video camera and the industrial camera manufacturers have produced some excellent models suitable for astronomical application. They come fitted with USB2, Firewire and USB3 connection. The newer versions at present facilitate up to 120 frames per second with the ¼” CCD chips while the larger ones give a much wider field of view but at a slower frame rate. These cameras are delivering very high data feeds and this is why the newer connections have been developed. The camera that I am using it fairly basic and it has a ¼” CCD equipped with 5.6µm pixel size where as the newer cameras are getting down to 1.55µm. Lots of scope for making progress here!

Some cameras are fitted with 8-bit grey scales while other more expensive ones have 16-bit grey scales. The leading manufacturers that produce cameras used within the solar observing community that I am aware of are: The Image Source, Luminera, Point Grey and Basler but my list is certainly not exhaustive.

The most desired option is to obtain a model with the highest frame rate and the smallest pixel size that sits within your budget!

Have fun with the Sun Andy Devey

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News Astronomy Wise Public Night November 9th 2012: Astronomy wise held its second public evening in November. From the onset the weather was against us, however the village hall in Sawdon provides excellent facilities for tea, cakes, toilets, warmth and one of John Harpers super talks and presentations. Chris Almey provide support on the laptop and taking pictures.

There were new faces in the crowd and they were given a tour of the cosmos.

Each month on the second Friday we will hold public viewing nights, so if you are In the area please pop along, full details in the magazine and website.

Dwarf Planet Makemake Lacks Atmosphere: Distant Frigid World Reveals Its Secrets for First Time ScienceDaily (Nov. 19, 2012) â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Dwarf planet Makemake [1] is about two thirds of the size of Pluto, and travels around the Sun in a distant path that lies beyond that of Pluto but closer to the Sun than Eris, the most massive known dwarf planet in the Solar System. Previous observations of chilly Makemake have shown it to be similar to its fellow dwarf planets, leading some astronomers to expect its atmosphere, if present, to be similar to that of Pluto. However, the new study now shows that, like Eris, Makemake is not surrounded by a significant atmosphere. http://www.sciencedaily.com/ WWW.ASTRONOMY-WISE.COM

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News BBC Stargazing Live Series 3 back in January 2013 STARGAZING LIVE will be returning to our screens in January 2013! Check the BBC for more details More details…… HERE

Competition Winner I am pleased to announce the Dave Walker was the winner of the 3 signed books.

Dave answered the question correctly. I hope Dave enjoys the books,. Thanks to all those who entered and look out for more competitions next year. Merry Christmas to all and a happy 2013. From the Astronomy Wise team.

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‘CATCH A FALLING STAR!’ GEMINID METEOR SHOWER 2012 In order to witness the best “Celestial Firework Show” of shooting stars, or meteors, in the year, watch the sky during the night of December 13th/14th, especially between 10 pm and 2 am. For this is the time when an excellent peak of shooting star activity is expected. Geminids, as the meteors are called, are swift moving and often fragment as they enter the atmosphere creating a spectacular display. The RADIANT, or point in the sky from where the meteors appear to radiate, lies in the eastern sky during the evening but climbs high in the southern sky as the night progresses. This radiant lies in the constellation of GEMINI, the Celestial Twins, near one of the brighter Twins’ stars, hence the name of the shower. Conditions are at their best this year because the moon is absent from the sky, as it is in its New phase, in the vicinity of the sun.

So you have the opportunity of a dark sky from early evening onwards, all through the night until dawn, weather permitting, to see many members of this rich meteor shower. Therefore it will be well worthwhile popping outside to the darkest spot in the garden, if there are few clouds, and watching the sky. The best direction to look is straight up, towards the zenith, the overhead point. Looking upwards enables you to see the entire sky, using peripheral vision. I recommend, therefore, lying flat out on a sunlounger, but make sure you have done two things: put on several layers of warm clothes, and secondly, warned your neighbours, who may believe, seeing you lying out in the garden, on a sunlounger at night, that you are a little ‘under the weather’ to say the least!

The particles of rock, for that is what these meteors are (typically the size and density of coffee granules) enter the Earth's atmosphere at velocities of many tens of kilometres a second and vaporize as they rub against air molecules, This sets up friction, and the particles in vaporising, leave trains of ionised gas.

Away from streetlights, out in the country, observers can see between 80 and 120 meteors an hour from this stream when there is no moonlight to interfere. The Geminid Meteor Shower is rivalled only by the Perseid Shower, which can be seen around August 12th each year.

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son, who drove his fatherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s chariot so erratically that Zeus had to zap him with a thunderbolt, is the nucleus of a dead comet.

Despite the importance of the Geminid shower as being one of the very best we can see form here, it is not so well known. The reason for this is that at this time of the year, the sky is often overcast during the night, and because the meteors begin to become visible when they are between 100 and 60 miles above Earthâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s surface, a height well above the dense December cloud layer, we often fail to see the display.

However if clouds do prevent you seeing the sky fireworks this year, there are two others coming up. Firstly, we have the Ursids, which peak overnight on the 22nd to 23rd December, at the rate of about 10 every hour. The Radiant is near the Pole Star. Much more interesting though, are the Quadrantid Shower due overnight on the 3rd/4th January 2013, when for a short while, some 100 shooting stars or more, per hour, is the maximum rate.

John Harper Clear Skies!

Graphics generated using Stellarium software. www.stellarium.org

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The Suns Potential Twin Soaking in a hot bubbly bath watching the foam dissolve I got to thinking about our Sun, the planets and Sednas strange orbit which lead me to contemplate the Nemesis hypothesis, which is a hypothetical twin star to our own Sun. Most stars come in pairs, a binary system, our closest known star is currently Proxima Centauri with a distance of 4.2 light years away however some scientists believe that the Sun has a twin, a Red or Brown dwarf star yet to be discovered called Nemesis, with a lower mass about 10 times smaller than that of the Sun. The reason this hypothetical star has yet to be confirmed is due to how dim it would appear as Red and Brown dwarf stars generally give off very little light, another reason may be that if it's in orbit with the solar system it would appear be in a fixed position which means we would have to know exactly where to look to pin point it in space.

The theory was originally postulated in 1984 to be orbiting the Sun at a distance of about 95,000 AU (1.5 light-years) somewhat beyond the Oort cloud, to explain a perceived cycle of mass extinctions in the geological record, which seem to occur more often at intervals of 26 million years, if such an object does exist it would cause disturbance upon approach to the Oort cloud resulting in comets being slung in towards the inner solar system causing huge catastrophes especially if even just one was to hit Earth. There is also Sedna a recently discovered dwarf planet, one of the the most distant objects in our solar system. Scientists struggle to explain its highly elliptical orbit as they have no clue what could have caused it, this could theoretically prove that nemesis exists and when it came close to the solar system it tugged at Sedna changing its original orbit to the new stranger one. On December 14th 2009 NASA launched the Wide field infrared survey explorer (WISE) into space to look for objects that are hard to detect with ordinary telescopes his will help us to detect lots of larger dim and cooler objects on the outer regions of the solar system in fact one NASA's colleagues, Amy Mainzer, recently caused some hype with this following statement at a press WWW.ASTRONOMY-WISE.COM

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conference when asked about Wise and if it had discovered a Nemesis type object that could be hazardous to Earth I quote her, "Planet X isn’t coming to get us’ and ‘we think THIS IS just a sort of” then she realizes the mistake and tries to fix it ‘if there’s something out there, could be a large body in a roughly circular orbit.” but apparently according to NASA no hazardous object has been discovered but the search is still on although lots of dim objects, comets and red dwarf stars have been observed. I for one am checking updates from WISE on a regular basis and I personally believe that In our lifetimes we will find out whether our Sun does indeed have a twin or if it is in fact a single wonder, the only star we know so far, to give life to a planet and for now that planet is Earth and that life is You and Me.

Heather Dawn Freelance Writer Hdhotwriter@yahoo.com

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Occultations By John Harper Key to the Occultation Table The columns of the table give data specific to each of the Lunar Occultation events listed.

From left to right they are: 1 Day of the Week 2 DATE in the format: dd-mm-yyyy 3 Universal Time of the event (add one hour when British Summer Time is in force for Local Time.

The predictions are for Scarborough, which lies midway between London and Edinburgh, on the North Sea coast of the UK. (N54.27 deg., W00.43 deg.)

4 Occulted star’s visual magnitude 5 P = Phase tells you whether the event is a disappearance (D) or reappearance (R) or a Graze (C).

6 L = Limb. This indicates whether the event takes place at the dark (D) or bright (B) lunar limb.

7 Al. = the Altitude of the moon at the time of the occultation event.

8 Az. = The azimuth (angular distance along the horizon, measured from the North Point, clockwise.

9 Sun Alt = the angular distance of the sun, below the horizon at the time of the event.

10, 11 & 12 the name or catalogue number of the star being occulted.

XZ Cat No. This is the star’s designation in the US Naval Observatory catalogue of over 32,000 stars that can be occulted by the moon.

Proper Name. This is the star’ more common name, if it has one!

ZC No. The Zodiacal Catalogue of 3539 stars brighter than visual magnitude +7, within 8 degrees of the ecliptic. Some fainter stars are included in this total as well.

13 PA = Position Angle. This is the angular position on the limb of the moon where the reappearance or disappearance will occur it helps you look at the right part of the moon’s limb. Position Angle is measured from Celestial North (the line of Right Ascension running through the centre of the moon’s disc. It is measured clockwise through west, south , east and back to north, a total of 360 degrees.

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Society of Amateur Radio Astronomers http://www.radio-astronomy.org/

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Three Radio Astronomy Projects Introduction I am a science teacher in CT and have long thought that too much stress is placed on visual science since much of our understanding of astronomy is due to non-visual research. As a result, I’ve always tried to expose students to non-visual experiences.

With this in mind, I started exploring radio astronomy in the early 80’s and joined SARA (the Society of Amateur Radio Astronomers). I received great deal of assistance building projects and have building them ever since (see link below).

Project 1: SuperSID The first project is a solar radio in the VLF radio frequency range (tens of KHz) which monitors the intensity of a radio signal (generally from a Navy submarine communications station) and its reaction to changes in the Ionosphere due to solar activity. Since we are monitoring changes in the Ionosphere, these monitors are known as SID (Sudden Ionospheric Disturbance) monitors.

The Ionosphere The Ionosphere is the layer in the atmosphere where atoms and molecules are ionized by solar and cosmic radiation. The layer ranges from 70-1000km (40-600 miles), and is made up of several layers labeled C, D, E, and F. The weakest layer, ‘C’, is tenuous at best. www.weather.nps.navy.mil/~psguest/ The D layer exists only during daylight hours and the strength increas- EMEO_online/module3/ionospherediagram.gif es as we rise in altitude to the F layer which actually splits into two layers during daylight hours (F1 and F2).

Most ionization is created by ultraviolet and X-ray radiation hitting the ionosphere.

The increase in strength of ionization is maintained by the higher temperatures and lower pressures at higher elevations.

Solar Flares Solar flares are incredible explosions of material and energy which occur near sunspots on the surface of the Sun. These events can last up to about an hour and can reach temperatures of millions of kelvins. Most astronomers believe flares are created when the sun’s magnetic field lines get tangled and eventually break and recombine releasing an explosive burst of energy and materials which can travel for thousands of miles off of the sun’s surface. This twisting occurs because the sun is a fluid and the magnetic field lines get twisted due to the variable rotation rates

Image: NASA Solar Flare

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Chart of a flare at 18:00. Note ‘shark fin’ shape due to the flare.

between the poles and equator (about 25 days at the equator and 36 days at the poles).

Flares are closely tied to the sunspot cycle which lasts for 22 years. Eleven years at one polarity and then the polarity of the sun flips (north for south and vice versa) and the cycle begins

again for 11 more years. We are currently entering the 24th recorded cycle. The flares we detect with this monitor are generally caused by X-rays. Flares are classified as A, B, C, M, and X, each 10 times greater in energy per area than the previous. Unfortunately, we can only detect the last three with our monitor. These last three range from C which is a weak storm to X which can cause radiation storms and blackouts throughout the planet. You can find more information at the NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center (see link below). They list events by day and time which allow you to check your monitor’s results.

SuperSID Tim Haynh of Stanford University designed this SID monitor to utilize the sound card on a desktop computer. The frequency range of the monitor is 21.4-25.2 KHz and the monitor collects data from several stations at once.

Stanford is producing units with the assistance of SARA, which are being distributed to schools all over the world.

The SuperSID monitor comes nearly completely built with only the antenna needing construction. You will need to make a frame for the antenna and then wind the wire around the frame and make a couple of simple wire connections. The software is easy to install and use and all the data is collected automatically on a daily basis. The unit is well supported with very clear directions and incredible support.

Finally, the data you collect can be reported to the AAVSO (American Association of Variable Star Observers) on a monthly basis.

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This organization is a collaboration of amateurs and professionals and the data is used to study the sun’s variability. Check out their website to see how to submit data.

Resources SARA – www.radio-astronomy.org/ AAVSO – www.aavso.org/observing/programs/ solar/sid.shtml Stanford’s SID Program – solarcenter.stanford.edu/SID/sidmonitor/ NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center – www.swpc.noaa.gov/ftpmenu/indices/ events.html

My complete SuperSID set-up at school

Project 2: Radio Jove Introduction This project monitors the shortwave emissions from Jupiter and the Sun. The emissions from Jupiter are the result of interactions between electrons in the magnetic field of Jupiter and the very active moon Io. Solar emissions are related again to active sunspot regions and solar flares.

Background Signals from space were discovered in 1955 by radio astronomers at the Carnegie Institution of Washington. It was originally thought to be interference, but further analysis showed that Jupiter was in the beam of the antenna.

Jupiter is the largest planet (over 1000 Earths could fit inside of it) with a very strong magnetic field, diffuse rings and over 60 moons. It rotates in a remarkable 10 hours compared with our 24 hour day. The largest moons were discovered by Galileo over 400 years ago with his primitive telescope and are known as the Galilean Moons.

NASA Photograph of Jupiter and Io

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These include Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto.

Signals The signals we detect are in the shortwave band in the tens of MHz range (15 -39 MHz). The signals seem to be linked to three regions named A, B, and C. When one of these regions faces Earth, there is an increased probability of receiving a signal. In addition, if Io is in the right position in its orbit the probability of receiving a signal is greatly enhanced. Remember that Io is within the tidal zone of Jupiter and these gravitational forces are literally tearing Io apart. This causes Io to release charged particles which spiral at high speed along the strong magnetic field lines generating synchrotron radiation, which is the radiation we are detecting.

The signals from Jupiter are unique in that they have distinct sounds which can last from a few minutes to hours. These signals come in two types: L-bursts, which sound like waves crashing on the beach and S-bursts, which sound like popcorn popping or gravel on a tin roof when recorded with an audio recorder.

Solar bursts often start abruptly and taper off over seconds to minutes. Thus they tend to look like shark fins on your chart recording. There are five types of signals that can be detected and these are classified as follows (from www.radiosky.com/ suncentral.html): Type I: Short, narrow band events that usually occur in great numbers together with a broader band continuum. May last for hours or days.

Type II: Slow drift from high to low frequencies. Often show fundamental and second harmonic frequency structure.

Type III: Rapid drift from high to low frequencies.

May exhibit harmonics. Often accompany the flash phase of large flares.

Type IV: Flare-related broad-band continua.

Type V: Broad-band continua which may appear with III bursts. Last 1 to 2 minutes, with duration increasing as frequency decreases.

Check out the Radio Jove site listed below for examples of all the signals you can detect.

Chart of a Jupiter S-burst storm.

Wes Greenman

Chart of a solar flare at 19:04.

Note â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;shark finâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; shape due to the flare. Wes Greenman

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Radio Jove Receiver.

Radio Jove About ten years ago, a group of University of Florida graduates working with NASA developed the Radio Jove as an educational outreach program. To date, over 1400 Radio Jove kits have been sold and built throughout the world. The kit includes the receiver kit, most antenna hardware, Skypipe and RJP software and costs under $200. One consideration is that the antenna requires an area of at least 25 feet x 25 feet on which to construct it. If you have the room, this project is really worth doing.

It allows students to hear as well as chart the data they record. For further information check out the Radio Jove website below.

Resources Radio Jove website – radiojove.gsfc.nasa.gov/ Jim Sky’s Radio Jupiter Central site – www.radiosky.com/rjcentral.html.

Jim Sky’s Radio Sun Central site – www.radiosky.com/suncentral.html SARA – www.radio-astronomy.org/ Project 3: Itty-Bitty radio Telescope (IBT) Introduction The basic IBT is built using a satellite TV dish antenna, LNB, and a satellite finder usually hooked to a meter to show signal strength. It operates in the 12 GHz range (roughly 12.2-12.7 GHz). The IBT detects the heat from objects in the field of view.

Background In 1998, SARA member Chuck Foster started investigating using a satellite dish antenna as a portable radio telescope since many were available.

Unfortunately, a back end (receiver) couldn’t be found and was difficult to design. Later that year, SARA member Kerry Smith was the first to realize that the Channel Master satellite finder could be used as a back end after helping a friend reposition his satellite dish with the meter. Since then, Kerry has designed and built WWW.ASTRONOMY-WISE.COM

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several versions of the IBT that incorporate oscillators to allow a pitch to be assigned to the signal so students can ‘hear’ the signal. The directions for building a basic unit are available from the NRAO (National Radio Astronomy Observatory) website listed below.

rise sharply. Remember that ‘dark sky’ is about 3K while the ground is about 300K! Next turn your IBT towards the Sun. Why isn’t the Sun, with all its enormous energy (temperature of 6,000K!), pinning the meter? It turns out that the IBT dish has a beam width of 3o while the Sun appears to be only 0.5 o in our sky. Thus the area of the dish occupied by the sun is small and the signal appears weaker Signals than the ground at 300K. The IBT can also detect human radio energy. Point the As you probably know, all objects give off dish upward toward ‘dark sky’ and have a electromagnetic radiation. You may have student walk in front of the dish, there seen infrared goggles that show the heat will be an immediate increase in signal from bodies, etc. Radio emissions are no related to the students’ radio different. Any object gives off radio emissions. emissions related to their temperature.

Itty-Bitty radio Telescope (IBT) This device allows students to explore this concept by associating a voltage As stated before, the IBT is built using a reading on a meter with increasing satellite TV dish antenna, LNB, and a temperature. After you build the IBT satellite finder usually hooked to a meter using the directions from the website to show signal strength. The website listed below, conduct some tests for below gives a detailed plan for building a yourself before showing students the basic model of the IBT. I chose to change device. First, turn your IBT to ‘dark the unit to use a tripod for more sky’ (anywhere nearly overhead with no flexibility. With the support arm at the strong signal source) and adjust the gain top, students can sight down the arm for to 20% of full scale on the meter. Now an approximate aiming toward the object turn your IBT towards the ground and see they wish to observe. the difference – the meter reading should

Using the IBT Remember, you must use the IBT outdoors since room temperature and body temperature are nearly the same.

Many geo-stationary satellites are in orbit above the Earth and many transmit radio signals. These satellites give off a very easy signal to detect and students may ask why the satellite looks like it has more energy than the sun. Remember though that the sun is a broadband (extremely!) transmitter whereas the satellite is a very narrow beam transmitter so all its energy it given off in a very narrow band. It might be easier to visualize if you imagine the Sun’s energy curve (extending from low frequency radio through UV and beyond) and squeezing it to just a narrow band at your observing frequency. I think you can see this would create a tremendous signal!

Most of these satellites are in the Clarke belt named after Arthur C. Clarke, author and engineer, who came up with the idea that you could create a geosynchronous orbit at a certain altitude above the Earth. For more information check the website listed below or many other sites. Most of these satellites orbit above the equator (actually, a little below this) so figure out where your celestial equator is by taking you latitude and subtracting it from 90 o. This is a rough altitude to look for WWW.ASTRONOMY-WISE.COM

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satellites. Remember that the orbit will be near the ground in the east and west and forms an arc through the altitude you calculated in the south, (remember that your fist at arm’s length is about 10o).

Other objects you might try include the Sun, Moon, and any objects that give off a lot of heat compared to the background like hot lamps on buildings in winter, bodies, trees, buildings, etc. You can have students try to map the sky with the IBT by finding the boundaries of objects such as trees and buildings.

You should also try a drift scan of the Sun. Simply point the IBT where the Sun will be in an hour or so and let the Sun drift through. You will get a nice curve of the Sun’s radiation as it drifts through the antenna.

Drift scan of the Sun on a chart recorder. Kerry Smith

Resources NRAO IBT website – www.aoc.nrao.edu/epo/teachers/ittybitty/procedure.html SARA – www.radio-astronomy.org/ Clarke Belt Information Site – www.spacetoday.org/Questions/PolarSats.html

Conclusion My goal was to have given you a taste of the kinds of projects you could do in radio astronomy and I hope you will join us at SARA and explore your universe in other ways than you do presently. If you have further questions, please feel free to contact me or SARA. Jon Wallace Twitter: @RadioAstronomy1 Web: http://www.radio-astronomy.org/ The Society of Amateur Radio Astronomers (SARA) is an international society of radio astronomy enthusiasts.

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Welcome to Scope Review - Part 1

By Paul Rumsby This is the first of three articles covering astronomical telescopes. This month we will look at scopes currently on the market for beginners. In the coming months we will move on to intermediate and more advanced equipment for the more serious amateur.

To start I need to make some assumptions, I will assume that the old adage ‘You get what you pay for’ still stands, this is definitely true when buying a telescope. I will assume also that somewhere around the £150 mark will not only buy a reasonable beginners telescope but will also be ‘affordable’ to most people. In these days of economic downturn this may not be the case, if this is true for you then I would strongly advise that you refrain from purchasing a much cheaper scope and hold out for one around the guide price, I can honestly say you will be pleased you did. So many cheap telescopes with fancy boxes end up collecting dust at the backs of cupboards and garages because of inferior materials and optics.

Before we look at the scopes on offer I will run through the different types of instruments and some of the definitions you will encounter as this may well help define the telescope you ultimately purchase.

Let’s start with focal length. All optical telescopes use an objective, a lens or mirror, to gather, bend and concentrate light from an object. The focal length of an optical system is simply the distance from the objective to where the light converges or focuses. Short focal lengths will provide less magnified, wider fields of view then systems with longer focal length. Scopes intended for planetary or lunar observing therefore, will need to be the latter. The aperture of a telescope determines how much light is able to enter the optical system, normally measured by the diameter of the objective. In nearly all cases the more light the better as larger apertures will produce brighter and more detailed images. The size of aperture will also determine the overall magnifying power of the system, a rough guide gives fifty times magnification for every inch of aperture. For astronomy, a three inch lens or a six inch mirror is the smallest you will want to purchase.

The focal ratio of a telescope is determined by dividing the focal length by its aperture size. So an instrument with a focal length of 2032mm and an aperture of 203.2mm or eight inches will have a focal ratio of f10. The focal ratio and therefore the telescope can be termed as fast, medium or slow depending on this ratio. Fast telescopes f3.5 to f6 will provide wider fields of view then medium telescopes of f7 to f11 and slow telescopes of f12 and above, will provide very narrow fields.

The most common type of telescope is the refractor. Light from an object is bent, or refracted, by a lens or lenses and brought to focus at the eyepiece. With this type of instrument the lens is fixed and covers the end of the tube assembly so benefits from easy set-up and maintenance.

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from the primary mirror, is diverted at 90 degrees out of the tube near the top by a smaller secondary mirror, to focus at the eyepiece. The ‘spider’ that holds the secondary mirror obstructs some of the light from entering the telescope so as a rule of thumb a reflector will need a larger aperture then a refractor but are cheaper to manufacturer. The open end design means the mirror may require cleaning and the two mirrors and eyepiece need to be in perfect alignment for crisp images therefore a degree of maintenance is to be expected. A version of the reflecting telescope called a Dobsonian is very similar in design but the whole assembly sits on an altazimuth mount, more on mounts in a while.

A more modern design called a Catadioptric include Schmidt-Cassegrains and Maksutov-Cassegrains, these telescopes combine a lens and mirrors to put large apertures and long focal lengths into a compact size at a reasonable cost.

Catadioptric designs incorporate an opening in the primary mirror which allows light reflected from the secondary to pass through the primary to the eyepiece.

We move on now to the two types of telescope mount available commercially, Altazimuth and Equatorial. This piece of equipment is as important as the telescope itself, the mount has to provide a stable base for the instrument to sit on. Altazimuth mounts have two axes of motion, vertical (altitude) and horizontal (azimuth).

Most altazimuth mounts will have hand operated slow motion controls for adjustments in both axes and more expensive instruments may have motorised/ computerised controls. Equatorial mounts are polar aligned and are essential if medium to long exposure astrophotography is being considered as adjustments on one axis only is required.

So after that rather lengthy introduction what is on offer for readers wishing to purchase their first telescope? If we stay with our guide price of £150 we have many to choose from, to many to discuss in any detail here so lets limit the choice to a few trusted manufacturers.

Let’s start with a great refractor from Celestron the AstroMaster 90EQ Telescope Product Description/Specification: The AstroMaster Series produce bright, clear images of the Moon and planets. The mount, a CG-3 German Equatorial, provides a solid platform being manufactured from 1.25 inch stainless tube. The set-up is quick and easy, taking around 10 minutes, with no tools required. The telescope comes with a mounted star-pointer, but many owners have replaced this with a more conventional spotting scope, an erecting prism and 2 eyepieces (10mm and 20mm) are included along with a copy of The SkyX – First Light Edition astronomy software with a 10,000 object database. The aperture of the telescope is 90mm (3.54 inches) which gives a focal length of 1000mm (39 inches) and a focal ratio of F11. The eyepieces supplied will WWW.ASTRONOMY-WISE.COM

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give magnifications of x50 (20mm) and x100 (10mm).

The AstroMaster 90EQ Telescope is a good buy at around £152 when purchased online and will serve the beginner well.

The next offering, the SkyWatcher Explorer 130m reflector telescope, is slightly over our guide price at £161 but benefits from a motor on R.A. and multi-speed hand controller.

Product Description/Specification: SkyWatcher has provided a fantastic entry level scope with the 130. The EQ2 mount is well engineered and will comfortably take the weight of additional accessories. The package includes a motor drive on the RA axis which compensates for the Earths rotation; this would normally be a £30 upgrade on instruments in this price range. The 130mm (5.1 inches) mirror is good quality providing x260 magnification with ideal seeing conditions and makes this telescope an all round performer giving crisp images of the Moon, planets as well as bright galaxies and nebulae. The 900mm (35.4 inches) focal length gives a focal ratio of F7 for wider fields of view than the AstroMaster 90EQ. The eyepieces supplied will provide x36 (25mm) and x90 (10mm) magnifications, a x2 barlow lens is included which doubles the power of each eyepiece giving x72 and x180 respectively. Additional eyepieces will be required to achieve the maximum magnification of x260 The SkyWatcher Explorer 130m provides a beginners telescope at a great price but comes with the additional maintenance as stated above.

Skywatcher also produce the Heritage 130 a flexTube dobsonian telescope which is receiving good reviews from beginners. The Telescope comes with two eyepieces giving magnifications of x26 (25mm) and x65 (10mm). The 650mm (25.6 inches) focal length gives a focal ratio of F5 for very pleasing wide field views. The advantage of the flex-tube design makes this telescope very portable and can be set up in minutes, perfect on a clear night but with limited time at your disposal.

Because of the design the eyepiece is low so a table or stool may make viewing more comfortable. At around £144 this telescope is good value for money as a part time or starter scope but lacks a lot of the sophistication the other two scopes has to offer for an extra £10-£20.

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suitable entry level instruments tend to be more expensive and may be considered a more intermediate scope. Remember, if budget is an issue resist buying a cheaper scope, a half descent pair of binoculars can be a very rewarding alternative while you save for a better quality telescope.

This concludes our look at entry level telescopes.

Sooner or later the lust for larger apertures may (will) bite so we will go on to look at intermediate scopes next time.

Paul Rumsby

Paul Rumsby Author of Astronomy Recent Discoveries And Developments Websites: http://www.paulrumsby.com/ http://www.best-astronomy-books.com/ http://www.telescopesale.co.uk/

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?

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For December I decided to ask our Facebook group for a topic for me to research and write about. The group came up with “What is string Theory”?

Often dubbed the ‘The Theory of Everything’ which is a profound strong statement to make!

A definition I found on the internet was” String theory is research into particle physics; it attempts to reconcile quantum mechanics and general relativity”.

So to understand this statement we need chemistry, chemistry enables life to to know 1) What is Quantum Mechanics exist.

2) what is General relativity and 3) what is everything made of Atoms make up elements which form the periodic table. Compounds are chemical Quantum Mechanics/Theory- the study of reactions between elements. physical phenomena at a microscopic level (very, very small) General Relativity- the study of nature Neutron on a large scale eg, planets, galaxies etc. or gravitation So gravity affects not just large bodies or the things we take for granted such as our cars, gravity also affects things at a microscopic level too.

What string theory attempts to do is pull all these theories together to form one theory.

Everything in the universe is made from something. Our bodies, cars, the Earth, Galaxy and the Universe are all made of something. This something can be broken down into atoms.

So what is an Atom?

Electron

Proton

Nucleus

Atoms consist of a nucleus which is made up of neutrons and protons.

Protons are positively charged and Neutrons are neutral in charge these are tightly packed together to form the nucleus. In orbitals or shells you have electrons these are negatively charge, an atom has equal electrons to protons.

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Most of the atoms mass are in the nucleus. Now leaving chemistry letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s get into the microscopic world of the atom. Here we enter the world of the standard model.

The standard model is truly a dynamic piece of work, driven by experiment and advances in theoretical advances. The model looks at interactions, interactions how elementary particles interact with each other. The standard model is â&#x20AC;&#x153;everything in the universe is found to be made from twelve basic building blocks called fundamental particles, governed by four #fundamental forcesâ&#x20AC;?.

(CERN) Source: particleadventure.org The standard model describes the fundamental building blocks and the four fundamental forces in the universe, gravity, electromagnetism, weak and strong forces. However gravity is proving difficult to explain,

the thing that affects everything is the less understood at a microscopic level.

Now enter string theory, the theory at this present time is the most promising theory for the theory of quantum gravity.

String theory believes that all the fundamental particles are basically different manifestations of one object, a string.

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Strings can be either open or closed, There are several different versions of string theory which may perhaps be unified under M- Theory.

String theory is a string which is a hypothetical vibrating one-dimensional sub-atomic structure. Quarks and Electrons are thought to be made up of strings. String theory is consistent with quantum mechanics and also may contain quantum gravity.

To summarise string theory is an extension of the standard model, to date there is no experimental proof that string theory is a correct description of nature itself.

However with experiments such as at CERN we could be moving closer to the understanding if the universe and possibly creation itself.

And Finally how will the Higgs Boson effect string theory?

The discovery of a potential Higgs boson particle plays a crucial role in super-symmetry - just one more of the ingredients needed to provide evidence of the M-Theory of strings, writes Dr. Henryk Frystacki.

The Large Hadron Collider is helping in the quest

Sources; Wikipedia, CERN, BBC Article D Bood Disclaimer: The article was put together using different resources on the Internet, this is one of many opinions on the understanding of the universe.

Make up you own mind! Editorâ&#x20AC;Śâ&#x20AC;Ś. Dave B

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Solar eclipse of November 13, 2012 A total solar eclipse took place on 13â&#x20AC;&#x201C;14 November 2012 (UTC). Because it crossed the International Date Line it began in local time on November 14 west of the date line over northern Australia, and ended in local time on November 13 east of the date line near the west coast of South America. (Wikipedia) Some images, screen prints from the Panasonic live web feed

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Astronomy Wise Public Meeting

ALL WELCOME FRIDAY 14th December Sawdon Village Hall Nr Scarborough North Yorkshire Sawdon, North Yorkshire YO13 9DY

COME AND SEE THE STARS WITH ASTRONOMY WISE PUBLIC VIEWING NIGHTS, FREE AND FUN FOR THE FAMILY!!

LOCATED IN THE DARK SKY AREA OF SAWDON FOR THE BEST STARGAZING! EVERY 2ND FRIDAY OF THE MONTH CONTACT 07951649024 FOR MORE DETAILS

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Rosette Nebula At about 5,000 light years in our Milky Way there is a huge cloud of dust and gas which is giving birth to new stars. It is in Monoceros constellation. The image shows a great amount of interesting data. This beautiful nebula is also called Caldwell 49 and is of emission type.

The X-Rays are pictured in red colors and this color tells us that there is hydrogen in the cloud. This colors is located mainly in the center of the image, which indicates that in the centre of the nebula there a great number of new stars which form a cluster named NGC 2244 which was discovered by Herschel in 1784.

Red is surrounded by other colors such as blue, orange, blue and purple. What is this? It is a huge cloud of gas and dust. Giant pillars also are pictured (a pillar is what remains after an intense radiation from a massive star). Brightest stars in the cluster excite electrons in the surrounding cloud. These electrons produce photons.

On the right side of the image there is an intense cluster of stars named NGC 2237. Data from Chandray Observatory have revealed that in this cluster is a continuous birth of low-mass new stars.

As you may note, in the Universe there are several formations whith particular shapes. One of these is this universal rose, which even has e red heart. The great Universe machine agains imitates the tiniest forms of our Earth.

Credit: NASA/CXC/SAO/P.Slane, et al.

Words: Pepe Gallardo (Spain) Twitter @aechmu

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China's lunar probe, Chang'e 3. Image Credit: China.org.cn.

For almost half a century, most of the countries on our planet have had a common agreement to not exploit off-Earth space for the benefit of one country, or to claim any area for a country. And even though space exploration tends to be highlighted in terms of triumphs for specific countries, most space missions are an international effort. It's really touching and a hopeful sign in our future that most people involved in space technologies really do want to honor this cooperation, even with enormous political tensions. And it's why China's space program, with a clear military subset of goals, is mostly seen as a respected part of Earthlings' ventures into space, even if it does make some people nervous. Their program is very energized and stable - it isn't seen as being at the whim of politically-motivated defunding. This coming year, they will probably be the first group to soft-land on the Moon since the 1970s.

Credit: China.org China's lunar spacecraft, Chang'e 3, will be launched the second part of 2013, and will have an orbiter, lander, and rover. The lander will make a soft landing and work for a couple of weeks testing the environment and some space-technology equipment. The rover will work for about 3 months, sending video back to Earth and examining the lunar soil, along with scooping some up for a sample return in 2017. Chang'e 1 and Chang'e 2 paved the way by mapping the lunar WWW.ASTRONOMY-WISE.COM

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surface, especially the future landing site of Chang'e 3. Chang'e 2 also tested technologies that will be used for the soft landing. Besides the lunar mission, China's space program has accomplished so much very quickly, putting space labs and humans into Earth's orbit, planning a space station, and they would probably have put a satellite into martian orbit this past year if the Russian rocket that carried it hadn't stopped working once it left Earth's atmosphere.

That was a hard loss, but the China space scientists have a lot to be proud of.

The Chang'e 3 lander and rover. Source: nasawatch.com

Like many western names for space missions and planets, missions from China carry names that touch people where only myth can. The Chang'e spacecrafts were named after Chang'e (or Chang'o), the Moon goddess. Chang'e is honored at the mid-autumn festival, which is right around the time that Chang'e 1 and Chang'e 2 were launched.

Chang'e was an immortal, who then became mortal for a time. She became the Moon goddess because of a mishap that made her immortal again. Even goddesses have rumours spread about them, especially if they're involved in some kind of questionable circumstances, so there are as many versions of her story as there are mouths to pass it on. I picked one to tell you that seems the most likely to have happened - one disclaimer, though: I think maybe in the past, the laws of the Space-Time continuum weren't really solid.

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Source: About China The Earth was being roasted by 10 Suns, who were actually the sons of an earthly king. The king was desperate to get his sons under control before they could destroy the Earth, and asked Chang'e's archer husband, Houyi, to help. Houyi did help by shooting down 9 of the sons, leaving the 10th to be the Sun. The Earth was saved! But instead of rewarding Houyi, the king was besmote with grief and anger at the loss of his 9 sons. The king punished Houyi and Chang'e by forcing them to be mortal and live on Earth.

Houyi loved Chang'e and wanted her to be happy. She was very much unhappy at having to live as a mortal, so Houyi went on a journey to find something that would give them both back their immortality. He finally was able to reach the Queen Mother of the West, who gave Houyi a pill of immortality and told him that it was meant for him and Chang'e to share, that it was too much for one person alone.

Houyi was relieved that he could give immortality back to his wife, but instead of giving it to her right away, he went home, put the pill in a box, told Chang'e to not open the box, and went back out.

No one has any idea why he went back out at that moment, but maybe it's a â&#x20AC;&#x153;fatal flawâ&#x20AC;? of legendary figures - like when you forget to let the unicorns onto the Ark before pulling up the gangplank. Houyi must have known that coming home from a long trip with a present in a box and telling his wife not to look was just unwise.

Chang'e, of course, was overwhelmingly curious and she had to peek. Then when she realized Houyi would know she'd opened the box, she popped the pill in her mouth to hide it somewhere else, and ended up swallowing the whole thing. She then jumped out the window, but the immortality effect had started, and she floated upwards into the sky. Houyi wanted to shoot an arrow to bring her back down and keep her from floating away, but he didn't want to harm her, so she floated up to the Moon, where she stayed.

Chang'e still lives on the Moon, but she isn't alone. She has a woodcutter friend who was banished to the Moon for being generally annoying, and there he has the never-ending task of cutting down an ever-growing tree. Chang'e also has a rabbit friend.

Chang'e's rabbit friend is the Moon Rabbit, who had been sent to the Moon Palace as a reward for sacrificing himself.

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decided to do a good deed when the Moon was full, and when they came upon a hungry man, they all went about gathering whatever kind of food they normally ate and gave it to the man. The rabbit knew all he could give was grass, so he threw himself on the fire to give himself. The hungry man turned out to be a fairy wise man, and he was so touched at the rabbit's selflessness that he cried, and sent the rabbit to the Moon. If you gaze at the Moon and cross your eyes, you can still see the smoke from the fire in the shape of the rabbit's body.

He lives there now pounding herbs of immortality in his mortar and pestle. It's known in Japan and Korea that the Moon Rabbit also makes rice cakes. It doesn't sound like a good immortal life to us, but he seems cheerful. Pic credit: San Diego Chinese Historical Museum.

Chang'e also gets visitors. The morning of July 20, 1969, the Apollo 11 astronauts were woken up by Houston control, and before they started their day of landing on the Moon, the command read them some news and messages from Earth.

Houston command: “Among the large headlines concerning Apollo this morning, is one asking that you watch for a lovely girl with a big rabbit. An ancient legend says a beautiful Chinese girl called Chang-o has been living there for 4000 years.

It seems she was banished to the Moon because she stole the pill of immortality from her husband. You might also look for her companion, a large Chinese rabbit, who is easy to spot since he is always standing on his hind feet in the shade of a cinnamon tree. The name of the rabbit is not reported.”

Apollo: “okay. We'll keep a close eye out for the bunny girl.”

“One giant leap for rabbitkind.” Credit: blog.sgbinky.com.

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Last month Astronomy Wise was invited

by Alison Birley to the 3rd Scarborough St. Marks Brownie pack meeting. The Brownies were about to start their Stargazing badge and they wanted our help. Alison contacted us via our Facebook group so John Harper, Jason Ives and yours truly agreed to go along and help them with their badge.

The Brownie leaders brought along a small telescope and we, after looking at the weather forecast came along with a laptop loaded up with software such as Stellarium. Due to the cloudy conditions our aim was to give the Brownies a tour of the night sky virtually. So once set up we decided the first place to tour was our Solar system.

John harper who was a former teacher at a local school gave one of his now famous presentations, I say famous because many a local knows John through his school teaching days and his astronomical talks which have included local radio and tv. Jason gave some of the leaders a small talk on their telescope, how to set it up, viewing etc.

Back to the presentation for the Brownies, John in simple terms explained speed and distances, he said to the troop imagine your in a spaceship that can go at the speed of light. This captivated the audience. Then launching his software we went in to orbit around the sun. From there we voomed off to Mercury which again we went into an orbit. For each planet we visited John gave a little talk about that planet.

However the troop were captivated by Earth, the software runs in real time, so day and night are shown as it would be in real life. And on the night side of the planet the software shows lights from our cities and towns. Everyone was in awe including Jason and myself. We then ventured out to Mars, Jupiter then Saturn. The troop was again in awe at Saturn, the software showed the planet in its splendour, gravity from one of its moons rippled the icy rings. Amazing, and this could be seen on the girls faces. Due to time we then ventured to the other planets before finally arriving at the dwarf planet Pluto.

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1. With an adult you know, go outside when it is dark and do the following. **Look at the stars. **Point out the Plough and use it to find the North Star. **Point out two other constellations. **Look at the stars through a telescope or binoculars. Know what are good conditions for stargazing.

2. Tell other Brownies the stories behind the two constellations you pointed out in clause 1.

3. Visit a planetarium, observatory, museum or website with an astronomy section.

Tell the tester four things you found out.

4. Make a mobile or draw a picture to show the phases of our moon.

5. Name the planets in our solar system. Find out some facts about four of them and use this to make a game or puzzle for other Brownies.

6. Explain why sailors in ancient times needed to know about the stars.

A good evening was had by all, and I hope the Brownie troop learnt something about our night sky.

Alisons Comments â&#x20AC;&#x153;Thanks again for coming to my brownie pack. We were working on Seasons badge & the Stargazers badge. Your group coming to our meeting has helped us so much.

We would like you to come again to let us about the stars as wellâ&#x20AC;?.

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72 Disclaimer:

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