Category: Sciencey Stuff

Karen, Mare the Bare and our neighbors Chuck, Deb, Daniel and Henry came over to look at the Moon, Venus and Jupiter during the conjunction.  Through my astro binoculars we could clearly see 3 of the 4 Galilean moons even with a bright street lamp directly across the street.  We also observed the Crescent Moon.  The south pole of moon was brilliantly lit affording an incredible view of the mountain ranges and craters.  The “star” of the night was clearly seeing Boussingault Crater and the smaller crater inside as well as the central mountain peak created from the impact 3 1/2 billion years ago.

Unfortunately you couldn’t see the phase of Venus because of the city lights and haze.  Venus looked like a round fuzzy ball.  The best part of tracking the phases, just like the moon, is this helps explain how Galileo figured out that the earth was not center of the solar system, and therefore not the center of the universe.  The moon has phases because it obviously orbits the earth.  Venus has phases just the same, but it orbits the sun.  Through his telescope, Galileo could record the phases of Venus and realized the the crescents were always created by the sun being on the sunlit side.  Modeling this information on paper with the day and night of earth, he realized that the earth has phases just like any other planet in orbit around the sun if you could view the earth from space.  Although he couldn’t see phases on Mercury, too close to the sun and therefore washed out, he understood the nature of orbital rotation, now called Orbital Mechanics.  Unfortunatley for Galileo, the catholic church was not ready to admit that the earth wasn’t the center of the universe and forced him to recant, and then kept him under house arrest for the rest of his life.

bob

NASA has announced the Hubble Telescope servicing mission has been rescheduled for May 12.  Yaa.  The grand dame has pushed back the mysteries of the cosmos since 1990.  HST, (Hubble Space Telescope) was supposed to get it’s 3rd and final repair and upgrade last month from the shuttle Endeavor, but a hardware failure on Hubble caused the postponement of the flight.

Bit O’ History – Hubble was not really designed to be repaired in space, but right after it came online the photos were blurry.  The lens manufacturer, Perkin Elmer, overground the reflecting surface making the images in focus in the center point, but blurry extending outward.  After a billion dollars on the manufacture, you can imagine the disappointment.  However, engineers in Tucson built corrective optics to correct the main lens distortion.  Thus the first servicing mission and the universe opened like never before.  Astronomers were astounded at the amount of new information and science.  The cosmos was far more vast with other galaxies discovered by the millions.

The second mission replaced worn hardware, like gyroscopes, cooling devices and greater capability to see beyond visible light.  This was expensive, but relatively easy decision for NASA because the realization that no other instument was producing large amounts of discovery like Hubble.

When hardware started slowly degrading a few years back, one of the cameras hasn’t operated in years, HST was put on the chopping block to make way for a newer, bigger, better telescope – The James Webb Telescope.  However, no other scientific instrument was more famous, produced more science and created more awe in the scientific community than Hubble.  The Webb telescope is also way behind schedule.  NASA then began to consider repairing and updating HST one last time.  THEN Columbia.  The loss of the shuttle Columbia finally killed the Hubble project.  The telescope would be used until it no longer functioned and then dropped into the Pacific Ocean.  Since the new NASA requirements stated that astronauts had to be able to be rescued, shuttle missions are now limited to the space station.  Hubble is in an entirely different orbit than that of the ISS, (International Space Station) and so wasn’t capable of being serviced.

NASA was finally convinced that Hubble needed to be repaired not only by the scientists, but by private citizens interested astronomy, like me, that a 3rd and final upgrade and repair was worth the risk and money.  The retirement of the shuttle fleet was extended 1 additional launch.  You may not have known, but with the shuttle Endeavor on launch pad 39A in November, another shuttle was being readied on pad 39B as the rescue backup in case something happened during Endeavors flight.  Then the unexpected hardware failure on Hubble.  The hardware that failed has a backup on the HST, which is functioning normally allowing time to prepare an addition to the servicing mission of replacing the control board that failed.  So barring any additional setbacks, the Hubble Space Telescope will be visited one last time in May, producing new science with cutting edge upgrades for many years to come.

This may seem like ordinary news to you, but it makes me almost giddy.  Please visit the Hubble website at http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/main/index.html.  If you have any questions about the pictures, science or technology, just give me holler.

bob

I only can take a blurry image for tonight.  Tomorrow night will be the best night for viewing, weather permitting.  Venus, Jupiter and the Cresent moon will form a triangle.

That bright light is a street light across from the house.  That’s Jupiter on top, Venus lower and the fuzzy crescent moon.

bob

Tonight and over the next few nights there is a conjunction of Jupiter and Venus at Sunset.  If you look to the Southwest, the 2 brightest “stars” are actually the planets Jupiter and Venus close together in the evening sky.

Monday night December 1, the 2 planets from our vantage point will be even closer together and will have the added bonus of the crescent moon forming a triangle.

If you’re a little ambitious the next few nights take your binoculars of at least 10x, steady yourself on the side of your house or on top of your car, and look for the 4 Galilean moons of Jupiter.  The 4 largest moons of Jupiter will look like tiny, bright pin pricks around the planet.  At least 3 should be easily visible.  This way you’ll know which planet is which.  Venus will be the brighter of the 2 planets, but it’s fun to see what Galileo saw through his primitive telescope looking at Jupiter.

In conjunction from earths vantage, the actual separation of the 2 planets is somewhere around 350 million miles or 560 million kilometers.

bob

Journey to Palomar

Watch your local PBS station in November for the documentary on the Hale Telescope atop Mount Palomar in California.  This is the famous 200″, (16.7 feet) diameter telescope that I dreamed about visiting when I was a kid.  This telescope, and the incredible engineering challenge to manufacture it, is the 4th of 4 great telescopes designed by George Hale.  It dominated visible light and photo astronomy for 50 years.  Surpassed in size during the 1980’s by the 10 meter (393 inches or 32.75 feet) Keck telescope in Hawaii, this is one of the most important science and engineering feats until the moon landing.  Comparing the Hale Telescope to the moon landing is not an exaggeration.  Far more science has been done by by the Hale Telescope than all the moon landings combined.

Quote from PBS  “The story of American astronomer George Ellery Hale (1868–1938) and his efforts to build the world’s four largest telescopes — which set the stage for astronomy and space exploration throughout the 20th century, revealing the greatest discoveries since Galileo and Copernicus. Hale’s lifelong struggle to build these great instruments culminated with the million-pound telescope on Palomar Mountain.”

A current engineer who works at the Palomar Observatory asked how long the Hale Telescope could last and produce significant science, he said “forever.”  This amazing instrument has captured my imagination since I first heard about it in 3rd grade, (remember the Weekly Reader).  My grandfather even remembered being in the crowd gathered at the railroad tracks in Greencastle watching the “telescope train” pass by.  He didn’t understand the significance of the telescope, but since it made worldwide headlines the telescope train was watched at every town all the way from Pennsylvania to California.

bob