Observing 2017-12-10 From my backyard

Last night was clear and cold here in Meadows Place Texas. It was a great night for observing. The light pollution is quite bad here. Meadows Place is within literal walking distance of both Houston and Sugar Land. So this is urban observing. I managed to get a good image of my green laser pointing at Capella. It is a Laser 303 and it very powerful indeed.

The seeing wasn’t great for my area but there was no cloud cover and it was cold! After 9 pm some lights had clearly been turned off and the light pollution was better. Some dew settled on the Telrad but other than that, the equipment did really well. No fogging up. I initially attempted to use the school’s 8″ Celestron C8 go-to scope but gave up after having alignment issues. Also the thing NEEDS a Telrad. I will work on that. The mount is also shaky and the pointing stinks too. It needs a wedge with a sturdy mount! My 10″ Orion Skyquest Dobsonian reflector worked like a champ though. I used my Orion Expanse 15mm and 9mm plus a Shorty barlow lens and my  2″ wide-field 40mm. The images were taken with the 9mm eyepiece and my iPhone 7.

The best thing of the night was finding the planet Uranus. It took many tries, but I finally found it. It’s currently located in Pisces in the middle of the “V” and not really near any bright stars. This took a LONG time. Patience and perseverance paid off though! The disk was very pale indeed but clearly visible.

I also found my favorite carbon star V* WZ Cassiopeia. It was less coppery red than the last time I saw it. I also picked out the 3 open clusters in Auriga. All were in the glow of Houston to the northeast, but I like the challenge of finding them anyway. They looked a lot better as they climbed higher in the sky.

My list:

  • Albireo
  • V* WZ Cassiopeia
  • M 36
  • M 37
  • M 38
  • M 42
  • Uranus (very hard to find and took most of the my time)
Green laser
V* WZ Cassiopeia
M 36
M 36
M38
M 42 Orion Nebula

Observing at the George Observatory 2017-11-25

Saturday, November 25, 2017, I volunteered with my 10” Dobsonian telescope at the George Observatory inside Brazos Bend State Park south of Sugar Land, Texas. The night was party cloudy, but 9 PM we had mostly clear skies. There were around 150 there from dusk to 9:30. The other volunteers help me find some first-time targets and I went through a lot of other well-loved targets. I also did a short 1-mile hike around the observatory along the Creekfield Lake trail. It’s short but usually empty. It’s a nice walk through the woods.

Here is my list:

  • Mirach’s Ghost (elliptical galaxy NGC 404)
  • Albireo (double star appearing green and white or blue and yellow)
  • The moon including Purbach’s Cross or the Lunar X (this view changed throughout the night)
  • Variable star grouping (appearing red, white, and blue) V* 695 Cygni
  • M57 – The Ring Nebula (planetary nebula)
  • M42 – Orion Nebula including the Trapezium cluster
  • NGC 663 – faint open cluster in Cassiopeia
  • M38 – Open cluster in Auriga
  • M36 – Open cluster in Auriga
  • Uranus (through 20″ Dob)
  • Neptune (through 20″ Dob)
  • Dumbbell Nebula with OIII filter (through neighbor’s 10″ Dob)
View of the observatory from the Creekfield Lake trail
Along the Creekfield Lake trail
Along the Creekfield Lake trail
Along the Creekfield Lake trail
I guess this is Creekfield Lake
I could have smiled. I promise I was happy to be there.
My 10″ Orion Dobsonian reflector
The Lunar X or Purbach’s Cross is clearly visible on the terminator.

 

Observing 2017-11-18

I spent a few hours outside tonight with my 10″ Orion Dobsonian telescope hunting for celestial objects. These were all things I’ve seen before, but it was still really cool and very rewarding. I navigated with my iPad and used my wide-field Celestron binoculars to help me along. I fiddled with my iPhone and iPad camera a bit and produced these images. The software screenshot is from Starmap 2.

Here is my observing list for the evening:

  • Tried to find planet Uranus and this was my only failed attempt of the evening.
  • WZ Cassiopeia  – Carbon star in Cassiopeia near the star Caph
  • The Owl cluster (aka E.T. cluster) in Cassiopeia
  • M103 – open cluster in Cassiopeia
  • NGC 663 – open cluster in Cassiopeia
  • M45- The Pleiades – Open cluster in Taurus
  • The Hyades – cluster in Taurus
  • M36 – Open cluster in Auriga
  • M37 – Open cluster in Auriga
  • M38 – Open cluster in Auriga
  • M42 and trapezium cluster – nebula and open cluster in Orion
  • R Leporis – carbon star in Lepus

It was a nice cool evening. The wind was brisk. This made the seeing pretty bad. But the transparency was excellent. And the lack of a bright moon helped a lot.

CAST 2017: Astronomy Labs Using Real Data

I’ll be presenting the same thing twice at CAST 2017!  Learn how actual astronomical data products from Caltech, NASA, and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey can be used for inquiry-based investigations to cover astronomy 101 topics so that students can have authentic research experiences right in the classroom. The session will focus on using web-based data tools from IPAC’s Infrared Science Archive (IRSA) and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) for doing investigations such as creating a color-magnitude diagram for star clusters and creating three-color astronomical images using actual data. Teachers will learn how to implement the demonstrated lab activities in their own classrooms and how to make their own investigations to teach topics about stars and galaxies in astronomy courses at the secondary level. The activities provided all use only a web browser with no extra software required and all resources are freely available to use for everyone.

The presentation is available here as a Google Slides Presentation: https://goo.gl/AhFVis

The lab instructions are available here as a Google Doc: https://goo.gl/K28EvC

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Great American Eclipse 2017

On August 21st, 2017 the shadow of the moon will race across a huge swatch of the U.S. Some people don’t know it is a solar eclipse. And for a small, seventy-mile wide line, people will see the sun completely disappear for a few minutes. A solar eclipse is when the sun is blocked by the moon and a lunar eclipse is when the shadow of the Earth is cast on the moon. So why so much interest?

There is a fantastic cosmic coincidence that the moon and the sun are the same size in the sky but it works to our advantage. But here’s the thing, if all the orbits were aligned perfectly, we would have eclipses every month. Instead, a total solar eclipse for your location is very rare. In fact, no one you know has likely ever experienced one. But being rare isn’t the only astounding thing. The entire lower 48 United States will experience a partial eclipse and that is a very cool astronomical event. But for people in the path of totality, the experience isn’t just scientific or photographic – it is bizarre, overwhelming, beautiful, and unforgettable.

Annie Dillard’s essay “Total Eclipse” has this to say about seeing a partial eclipse versus a total eclipse “Seeing a partial eclipse bears the same relation to seeing a total eclipse as kissing a man does to marrying him.”

But maybe you can’t get away from wherever you are. You can still expect to see a partial solar eclipse. The moon will seem to gobble up the sun. You will see a crescent sun rather than a crescent moon. People in Houston can head to either location of the Houston Museum of Natural Science where local astronomy clubs will have equipment setup to safely view the eclipse.

ISO-approved Eclipse Glasses

Remember, looking at the sun with a telescope or binoculars without the correct filter will cause eye damage and likely blindness. There is no shortage of options though. You can get eclipse glasses with ISO-approved mylar film or you can go low tech and poke a hole in a box and project the image of the eclipse onto the inside shaded surface.

In fact, projecting an image of the eclipse means you can share the view without a lot of people all at once.

But if you are in the path of totality, experienced observes all say the same thing: just watch. Don’t try to do photography. Don’t try to set up a fancy observing rig. Be prepared to be awed and silent and just experience the unmatched otherness of night erupting into an otherwise bright and sunny day. Totality is less than 3 minutes. This is a time for you to just experience something otherworldly right here on Earth.

No matter where you are, take some time on Monday August 21st and try to view the eclipse. You will be sharing in a huge cultural event and will learn some cool stuff about the solar system. And if you miss the eclipse, there will a total solar eclipse visible in Texas in 2024!

Jimmy Newland is a member of the Houston Astronomical Society and an astronomy teacher at Bellaire High School in Houston ISD.

 

Galaxies Galore Teacher Workshop 2017

View of Mt. Fowlkes and the Hobby-Eberly Telescope from the catwalk of the Harlan J Smith 2.7m telescope  on Mt. Locke.
View from catwalk of Otto Struve telescope looking towards Harlan J Smith and Hobby-Eberly telescopes.
Dr. Keely Finkelstein introduces an inquiry activity about the Coma cluster of galaxies

McDonald Observatory has a lot to offer teachers.

The Galaxies Galore teacher workshop at McDonald Observatory ran from June 19-21, 2017. I was lucky enough to be the master teacher for the event. A master teacher’s role is to help the observatory staff and astronomers run the event. I wanted to get my thoughts all in one place to share with others how extraordinary these learning opportunities can be.  Thanks to Dr. Keely Finkelstein from UT Astronomy and Marc Wetzel from McDonald Observatory for giving me this chance to be the master teacher for a workshop.

The workshop has 4 big things to offer a science teacher:

  • Behind-the-scenes tours of research telescopes
  • Observing on high-quality observatory telescopes
  • Direct access to scientists and their tools and research
  • Inquiry-based classroom activities from a variety of sources

Tours of research-grade observatories

The location in the West Texas Davis mountains is beautiful and unlike anything else in other parts of the state. The skies are dark and usually clear during the night. It’s a mountain desert environment in a very sparsely populated part of Texas.

The three big research telescopes are the Otto Struve 2.1m telescope, which was the original structure and the only one when the observatory opened, the Harlan J Smith 2.7m telescope, and the Hobby-Eberly telescope (or HET).

Otto Struve 2.1m telescope in stowed position showing photometric instrumentation at cassegrain focus.
Researcher Zach Vanderbosch describes the photometric detector attached to the 2.1m at cassegrain focus used to study pulsating white dwarfs.
Otto Struve 2.1m telescope control room during calibration.

 

Hobby-Eberly Telescope and visitor gallery
Mechanical engineer Emily Schroeder-Mrozinski gives a tour of the control room of the HET.
Harlan J Smith 2.7m telescope in stowed position.
Marc Wetzel gives a tour of the 2.7m Harlan J Smith telescope to our participants.

Hands-on observing with on-site and personal telescopes

A few participants had telescopes and binoculars, and I brought my 10-inch Dobsonian reflecting telescope as well, but the workhorse of our observing was the 0.9m (36″) reflecting telescope on Mt. Locke just down the hill from the 2.1m building. This telescope has a fantastic singing slewing system that makes it seem like the telescope is humming a tune when slewing to a target. The skies are dark out in West Texas and in just 2 hours we saw all the targets listed in the table below. Marc Wetzel also opened up the 16″ telescope he uses for classroom video conferencing so we could view Venus during the day and do some solar viewing.

Observing List for June 20 2017 (note 2 daytime targets)

Sun Visitor Center 3-inch / Hydrogen-alpha, and white light filters Solar system object
Venus (daytime) Visitor Center 16-inch / 15mm (Tuesday June 20th, 9:30am) Solar system object
Jupiter 36-inch / 42mm, 10-inch Dob / 15mm Solar system object
Saturn 36-inch / 42mm, 10-inch Dob / 15mm Solar system object
Albireo 10-inch Dob / 15mm Double star
M 6 / Butterfly Cluster Meade ETX 70 / 9mm Open star cluster
M 7 / Ptolemy Cluster 10-inch Dob / 15mm Open star cluster
M 8 / Lagoon Nebula Meade ETX 70 / 9mm, 10-inch Dob / 15mm Emission nebula
M 13 / Hercules Cluster 36-inch / 42mm Globular star cluster
M 17 / Swan Nebula 10-inch Dob / 15mm Emission nebula
M 51 / Whirlpool Galaxy 36-inch / 42mm, 10-inch Dob / 15mm Spiral galaxy
M 57 / Ring Nebula 36-inch / 27mm, 10-inch Dob / 15mm Planetary nebula
M 87 36-inch / 30mm Elliptical galaxy
M 101 / Pinwheel Galaxy 36-inch / 42mm Spiral galaxy
M 104 / Sombrero Galaxy 36-inch / 42mm Spiral galaxy
NGC 4565 / Needle Galaxy 36-inch / 42mm Spiral galaxy
NGC 6543 / Cat’s Eye Nebula 36-inch / 27mm Planetary nebula
Omega Centauri 10-inch Dob / 15mm Globular star cluster

Teachers get access to astronomers and their research

Participants in these workshops stay where the astronomers stay and eat meals with them. They get to hear from the scientists directly. We also tour the various telescopes and hear from the current researcher on site. There are also video conference sessions with scientists about topics related to the workshop. It’s an up-close view of the modern science of astronomy. This workshop was part of a program associated with galactic astronomer Dr. Steve Finkelstein at UT Astronomy and was galaxy-themed.

Dr. Steve Finkelstein gave a remote talk on galactic astronomy.
Marc Wetzel shared the work he and Bill Wren do to combat light pollution for the observatory.

Participants learn inquiry-based astronomy lessons

Teaching using inquiry-based lessons can be tough. The whole workshop models inquiry-based teaching and participants actually work through activities and lessons they can use with their students. All the material plus much, much more goes home with the teachers so they can use the material in class with their own students.

Building Galileoscopes
Participants explore inquiry-based activities about multi-wavelength astronomy.
Dr. Keely Finkelstein sets up an inquiry lesson on the Coma cluster of galaxies.