Old Friends

I finally got around to cleaning out my office this week. This is a semi annual ritual where I attempt to clean out the accumulation of the previous six months of clutter. My office has a tendency to collect articles that my family can't otherwise determine a better home for. Never-the-less, it is a task that I often look forward to as the thought of having a clean space to work in once again is in itself a welcomed reward. One of the tasks involved this time was to go through my overloaded bookshelf and purge some of my collection to make room for my more recent acquisitions that are lying around the house. So while going through the bookshelf, I started to reminisce a bit about some of the volumes on the shelf and how they influenced my passion for astronomy.

One of the very earliest astronomy books that I had was A FIELD GUIDE TO THE STARS AND PLANETS (1964), by Donald H. Menzel. I received this, now well worn, field guide from my parents one Christmas. I was probably twelve or thirteen at the time and was observing with a Tasco 60mm refractor. This book was to become my primary source of study and reference. The book contained a sky map for each month along with a complete set of atlas style charts and accompanied by a photographic plate. Under the chart was a description of some of the most significant deep sky objects. There were lunar and martian maps, discussion of how telescopes worked and several tables of astronomical data. It was truly an amazing reference for a young observer. I remember toting it with me on family vacations to cottage country in Central Ontario and on trips to Florida with my grandparents. Although many of the objects in the charts were beyond the capabilities of my 60mm refractor, the book whetted my appetite for the hobby.

Fast forward about 25 years and I am now thirty-something and living on the Texas Gulf Coast. I did not become the professional astronomer that I thought I would become. No, I was far more practical and became an engineer, however, I did not lose my enthusiasm for the night sky. In 1997, I purchased a 4.5 inch reflector. The views through it were incredible compared to those I remember of the little 60mm.  So with this new scope, I also upgraded my library and purchased Terrance Dickinson's beautifully illustrated NIGHTWATCH, A PRACTICAL GUIDE TO VIEWING THE UNIVERSE. Now the meat of this book was its star maps. In some ways they were simpler than those of the previous guide. The charts only covered what the author thought were the most interesting parts of the sky and only listed the objects that were easily seen from a suburban location with a modest scope or binoculars. So, like its title, it was very practical for those like myself. The new scope and this book opened up a whole new universe for me.

Well, it did not take someone with a new scope long to go through the list of objects in Terrance's book. I was fortunate to come across another influential guide and this time it was Robert Garfinkle's, STAR-HOPPING - YOUR VISTA TO VIEWING THE UNIVERSE. In this book, Robert teaches the reader the art of star hopping to locate some of the sky's elusive treasures. There is a chapter for each month which takes the reader through a star hopping journey which stops at multiple and variable stars, nebula, clusters and galaxies. Robert interweaves into the journey visual descriptions, historical and scientifically significant data. It is a fascinating read whether you are at the scope following his simple directions, or in the easy chair on a cloudy night. It has been a few years since I have actually used this book now, but as I leaf through its chapters I get the urge to take one of the author's star hopping journey's again.

Well, these three volumes will always have a place on my over-crowded bookshelf. Even if they do not contribute to my current observational work, there is simply too many memories to part with these gems. They're like old friends that you like to spend time with on occasion and perhaps one day they will be passed on to an interested youngster to inspire them as they have me.

clear skies;
rw

Going over to the Dark Side, or maybe not...

You can tell by reading my blog that I am an avid visual observer. I have resisted the urge to enter into the "dark world" of imaging. I am not really sure why I have resisted, perhaps the initial cost of the equipment, or perhaps the time spent observing would be spent with a lot fewer objects. For what ever the reason, I have not entered the imaging world many of my peers, well, until now, sort of....

In recent years, several for-hire robotic telescopes have been popping up on the Web. These are scopes with sophisticated automation, usually residing in a dark site, that amateurs like myself can utilize for imaging. Some of these sites are supported by membership fees, or time rental. Well, I was not really interested in spending part of my hobby budget on something that was not as tangible as a new eyepiece or software. However, I found a site that was a free service. The University of Bradford has a robotic scope in the Canary Islands which they have set up as a public outreach program. Anyone can submit a job request to image an object. The user has the ability to select exposure times, dark frames, and different filters. The jobs go into a que and are run on some type of priority basis. I have had jobs completed in as little as 48 hours. 

I recently submitted a couple of requests . This first one is of M51 that was taken on July 24th.  This is one of the Arp Galaxies which is interacting with a neighbor. You can clearly see the spiral arm that wraps from the larger to the smaller galaxy. In the arm at the place indicated by the cross is a super nova. This is SN2011dh discovered earlier this year. 

This was a 2 minute exposure done with a dark frame applied and no filters. It was amazingly simple and provided such a nice image. It is surprising to see how much detail is present in the spiral arms. Adjusting the contrast of the image will bring out different aspects of the galaxy.    

The image below is NGC 4631, or the Whale Galaxy. This was another 2 minute exposure taken on July 24th. Above the galaxy you can see the companion, NGC 4627.  Again, there is surprising detail in the structure of the galaxy. There are nodules along the galactic plain indicating possible concentrations of stars or star forming regions. 

So, am I about to go out and purchase a bunch of imaging equipment? Probably not. I see this as more of a cloudy night activity where I can check out interesting subjects, or perhaps perform my own  supernova search. For those of you who are more the armchair observer, then this site was tailor-made  for you. Log on and give it a try, or just look at some of their images in their gallery.

Clear skies;

rw

Arp's Universe - A New Perspective

 Last November, I spent a few days at the Eldorado Star Party in West Texas. While there I had the pleasure to meet Dennis Webb. Dennis had recently co-authored a book chronicling Halton Arp and his peculiar galaxies. I recently received this book as a gift and I have been thoroughly enjoying it. It is a fascinating read into the life and work of Halton Arp. Now for those that do not know Arp, he is an American professional astronomer who worked with Hubble in the 50 and 60's.

Arp's started out by gathering photographs of "strange" galaxies. These were galaxies that just did not seem to fit our idea of a well organized, symmetrical design. He eventually published an atlas of 338 of these peculiar galaxies.   While a beautiful collection in itself, this alone was not Arp's claim to fame.

You see, Arp made a discovery that showed quasars had a nasty habit of showing up in close proximity to these peculiar galaxies and further more in some cases, like NGC 7603, there seemed to be a structural relationship between the galaxy and the quasar. The problem here is that the galaxy and the quasar are are vastly different distances from us. The quasar here, Object 1, is twice as far away as the galaxy, so, how can they be connected?  The distances here are measured by "red shift." This is the phenomenon that causes spectral lines to shift wave length in proportion to the velocity at which the object is receding from us. This is the same phenomenon that makes a train whistle change pitch as it passes by. The higher the red shift, z, then the faster the object is moving away from us, and in an expanding universe, the further away the object is.  So, what Arp was now suggesting, is that red shift has an intrinsic component that changes over time and thus red shift alone cannot determine distance. And here is where Arp really puts the screws to modern cosmology. If red shift cannot be used to measure distance, then there is no proof that the universe is indeed accelerating  and thus no Big Bang!
Opponents of  Arp's suggest that the quasar and NGC7603 is just a chance alignment. However, after closer examination, 2 more quasars were found, Object 2, and 3,  both of which lie along the same galactic structure connecting the galaxy to the first quasar! So if this was now a chance alignment of 4 objects then the statistical probability of that happening are "astronomically" small and Arp would argue virtually impossible.

Halton Arp has paid a professional price for his work. Because the work flew in the face of popular theory, Arp was branded an astronomical heretic by many of his peers. Tolerance for his alternate theories was non existent here in the US. Arp lost his telescope time at Palomar and became an outcast of popular astronomy. Eventually, Arp resigned from the Carnegie foundation and relocated to Europe where his alternate theories were tolerated more and he was given more freedom to pursue his research.

Well, I did not intend to give a lesson on cosmology here because I am woefully under qualified for that. What I did intend to do is to point out that our understanding of our universe may not be as complete as we had thought. Astronomers, like Arp, are utilizing observational data to refute the current theory of an expanding universe. This is not unlike what Copernicus and Galileo did many centuries ago. Arp may eventually be proven correct and his name may one day be held in the same regard as Copernicus and Galileo. Only time will tell.

Clear skies

rw