Current Events

March 3-16 23: Globe At Night: See the Stars in New York City
A NASA/JPL Solar System Ambasador Event
GLOBE at Night is an annual 2-week campaign in March. People all over the world record the brightness of their night sky by matching its appearance toward the constellation Orion with star maps of progressively fainter stars. They submit their measurements on-line and a few weeks later, organizers release a map of light-pollution levels worldwide. Over the last four GLOBE at Night campaigns, volunteers from over 100 nations have contributed 35,000 measurements. Our goal in New York City and thhttp://moonbeam.net/InwoodAstronomy/blog/wp-admin/post-new.phpe surrounding area is to contribute 100 measurements. Come help us do it! Come to our events and make a measurement. Just sign up for the Google Group, Facebook Group, Facebook Fan Page, or Twitter to learn when we’ll be outside. We need you to come help!

Click here to learn more about this event:

http://www.globeatnight.org/

We’ll be out every clear night in that two weeks, looking for stars.

34^TH PRECINCT

SAFETY ADVISORY

Due to recent robbery incidents in the area, the following SAFETY TIPS are provided to reduce the possibility of becoming victimized.

Several incidents have occurred in Isham Park on the pathways leading down to Broadway between the hours of 6am-7am. Perpetrators are 2 Male Hispanics 18-22 years of age, who were sitting on the railings of the paths. As the victim walked past the perpetrators, the perpetrators grabbed the victims from behind knocking them to the ground and removing the victim’s property. Residents are reminded to use caution while using the paths. If suspicious persons are seen, please call 911.

BE ALERT

1. Always BE AWARE of your surroundings especially in places you are most comfortable.

2. Be aware of who is behind you at all times. Trust your instincts. If someone makes you feel uncomfortable, go to a safe location.

3. Be on guard if you are approached by a stranger for any reason.

4. Avoid walking alone late at night. Walk in well-lit and well-populated streets.

5. If you are a victim of a crime, call 911. Try to remember as much detail such as any weapons involved, gender, ethnicity, height, weight, and direction of travel, etc.

6. Report suspicious activity or suspicious persons to the Police.

7. Reduce or eliminate opportunities that may make you a target. Prepare your daily schedule with safety in mind.

8. For more information on crime prevention programs, please contact the 34^th Precinct Crime Prevention Officer at (212) 927-9301.

34^th Precinct ? 4295 Broadway ? New York, NY ? 10033 ? 212-927-9711

Well, first thing I can say is that it was REALLY COLD.  I went out about 8:30 PM, and over the next three hours (!) I was joined by a hardy band of about 15 people, with a good smattering of newbies!  To start with, my telescope was still to warm when I went outside.  The Cadiotropics have a sealed container, and it takes a long time for the inside of the telescope to cool down.  It was about 17 degrees Fahrenheit outside, with windchill down to 1 or 2.  That is enough to build character, and enough to make you want to run inside.

Donna helped me set up, but I knew it would take too long for the scope to cool down,so I sent her off for pizza at Grandpa’s.  I stayed out there, getting acclimated to the cold.  As I waited (nearly in vain) for the seeing to improve, I was joined by Jordan and Maya and Rob and Tamora and Melvin and a host of new people.  It was great.  We were able to see Mars quite well, but my view was blurry due to the temperature difference inside and outside of the telescope.  And the wind.  That wind shook things up and made it quite difficult.

The Moon was stunning, and altogether too bright for the 8″ Celestron.  The biggest and brightest of the year, was certainly completely true.  It was amazing.  Jordan’s new ETX90 was superior at looking at the Moon.  Congrats on that purchase, Jordan.   As we stood outdoors, taking it all all in, and getting progressively colder, all of a sudden, Bruce Kamiat shows up with another scope.  Unfortunately, it was about 10pm, and the clouds were beginning to roll in.  But he got great views of the Moon and of Mars.  There was a lot of sky brightness due to the Moon, but I am sure our hilltop locationat the overlook would have offered us better wind protection and equally good views.

We didn’t wrap things up until Saturn showed his face.  Low on the horizon, the rings have started to come back after the Saturnian Equinox.

And just as my seventh layer of cold protection was being breached by the wind, my telescope cooled down.  The views of Mars at the end were steady and good, confirming the high quality of the scope.  But by then, we were a mess.

How Astronomy Changed the World
Saturday, January 23, 2010 at 10:00 AM Click Here to RSVP through FaceBook

Hosted by Your Friendly Neighborhood Astronomer: Jason Kendall The NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador for New York City

In 1609, when Galileo Galilei first looked through a telescope in 1609, what he found changed the world. We’ll talk about what he saw through his new invention, and show you a model of the type of telescope he looked through. We’ll learn about his observations of the Moon, Venus, and Jupiter and why they were so revolutionary during his time. Finally, we’ll look at modern observations using the latest most powerful telescopes, as they peer not just at the planets, but at distant stars and galaxies.

For more information, visit:
NYC Parks Events Calendar

It’s free and open to the public. Because it’s a lecture format, it’s most appropriate for people over the age of 12. The location is the Nature Center at Inwood Hill Park. Enter the Park at 218th Street and Indian Road, and walk to the Nature Center.

At the AAA seminar, we had a good bit of discussion on current topics.  I had to be late due to work, so I arrived at 7PM.  Rich Rosenberg was already set up and looking at the current night sky, talking about upcoming events.   Rich described the upcoming events of the Opposition of Mars, and also discussed the nature of precession, showing them off with Cartes du Ciel.

The new direction of the AAA Seminar is to have members bring in short presentations on topics of interest in Astronomy.  The format is 10 power-point slides, 10 minutes to present them and 5-10 minutes of discussion.  I will lead the discussion and guide it as best I can, but the drivers will be the presenters.  As chair, I feel it is important to encourage people to learn more about various areas of astronomy, and years of teaching have taught me that you learn nothing better than when you have to teach it to others.  To this end, my first “victim” was AAA Member Evan Schneider, who discussed the Kepler Mission.  Evan discussed the core elements of the mission, its science goals, and its core technology.   Evan’s presentation was an excellent example of what can be done.  There are a few more on the plate for February, but all AAA members are encouraged to contact me about areas of the field that interest them that they would like to discuss in Seminar.

After Evan, I spoke about a number of hot topics that were presented at the AAS meeting in Washington D.C.  that I attended from January 3-8.  I briefly discussed the oral paper I presented on Tuesday, about the efforts that I and the Club did in New York this year for the International year of Astronomy.  We received a large round of applause at the AAS over the accomplishment of having the lights turned out for Dyckman Fields, and I promised that we would try again this year.

On the science topics,it is clear that the hottest topics at the conference were exoplanets, the results from the new Hubble WFC3, and the findings of the gamma-ray telescopes Fermi and SWIFT.

I first discussed further extensions of the Kepler telescope early science findings.  In sum, information was released on five Jovian-scale planets around other stars.  All of them had orbital periods of a few days.  In addition, due to tidal locking, all five had striking day-night temperature variations of thousands of degrees.  These non-Earths provided good tests of the telescopes ability to find planets, and to hone techniques for weeding out false positives, and deciphering the signals due to stellar variability.  It will still take 3 years to get real Earth analogs, but these large, extreme planets confirm the telescope’s capabilities.

Next, I discussed the findings of the new WFC3 that replaced the NICMOS on the Hubble Space Telescope.   The most striking findings have been with a re-examination of the GOODS field, once again replicating the Hubble Ultra-Deep Field Survey.  This survey shows galaxies in their infancy, with a number of z~7 and z~8 galaxies in the field, with some candidates for z~10 which will take extensive follow-up observations to confirm.  These findings show us objects far fainter and more distant than any quasar, giving us pictures of the universe as it was only 300 million years after the Big Bang.  I had the fortune of attending the Oral Session on High-z Galaxies at the AAS conference, which detailed these results and further elucidated on the effects that such early galaxies had on the early universe.  One of the interesting challenges is that these early galaxies should have formed more heavy elements by 300 million years than they appear to have done.  This is causing the professional community to re-evaluate the early formation scenarios and processes of the young universe.

Next, I briefly talked about the use of millisecond pulsars found by the Fermi Gamma-Ray telescope as a galactic GPS system in the hunt for gravitational waves.  Gravitational waves are expected from galaxy mergers as the supermassive black holes in their cores collide.  They are also expected from the vibration cosmic strings, which are topological defects arising from universe-wide phase transitions shortly after the Big Bang.  General Relativity predicts these waves if these events occur, and using distant pulsars to create immense baselines for observation allows the test their existence and also the veracity of General Relitivity.

Third, I talked about the incremental release of the COROT-7b data.  This Earth-sized exoplanet orbits too close to its star to be anything other than a molten slag heap.  But the side facing away from its star is colder than Pluto.   The sounds of the rocks cracking and breaking as it librates in its tidally-locked orbit must be astonishing.

I also displayed the first-light image from the WISE spacecraft, and talked about the controversy surrounding a nearby Type 1a Supernova candidate: the recurrent nova T Pyxidis.

In sum, the 2010 AAA Seminar got off to a great start, and I hope that you will consider not only coming to the seminar, but being a presenter of some aspect of current astronomy.

Last night was a good night, even considering the bad weather that tried to stop us.  It started with an effort to go up to the hilltop, but then the clouds veered north, bringing rain up from the Gulf.  So, in the last hour, I changed the location to the baseball diamonds.  I had to ma ke a big run down te the Hilltop entrance to steer people the right way, but off I went.

I got to the diamonds at about 7:30 on the dot, and Shane and David were leading the change out to the fields.  After leaving a sign at the entrance for passersby, we went in and set up.  The skies were not really clear, and steadily getting worse, but we had a mission to observe Mars at its brightest and biggest.  So, out we went.  It quickly became clear that this was a big deal.  Over the course of the evening, we had about 30 people show up.  Most were just walking by and thought that stargazing might be a good idea.  Mars was good, and bright in the telescope, and it is becoming clear, that I need to start setting up earlier to get better views through the telescope.  The warm scope just is too jumpy.  However, we were able to see the polar ice cap, as a brightening on the northern limb, though not a prominently as last week.  M42 wowed the crowd, as well as the Double Cluster of Perseus.  We had a number of returnees, and we had a good night before theclouds rolled in at 9pm.  The hilltop owuld have been extremely disappointing, so we were glad to have had this opportunity.

I really need to bring out the two Galileoscopes for people to try out.   That would be a great thing. I’ll construct them and get them ready for next week.  People can try them out on their own for fun, and to see what it looks like as they hunt for things on their own.

It was a great night, even thought the seeing was not spectacular.   it was a brutally cold night, with me having 6 jackets on, three pairs of pants, my trusty cowboy hat, and a balaclava for good measure.  The air temperature was somewhere around 14 degrees.   When I got down to the fields, I was pleased to see Andre there already.  He had already set up and was showing off the sky to a nice family who had come out a little under-prepared for the cold.  They were in fine spirits, and Andre was showing them Mars, low over the horizon.I arrived, taking about 10 minutes to set up, and it quickly became clear that amateur observing in the cold is brutal.   My telescope needs a bit of care and feeding to get it going, and the cold added to my difficulties.  But the night paid off well.  We eventually had about 12 people show up.  Most people had been wanting to come on out, and out they came.  We had a nice father-son team who were quite knowledgeable and fun, as well as a romantic couple out to see the stars.  Melvin and his friend (help with the name Melvin!) were there, great supporters that they are.  Rob Mahoney showed up later, figuring it would be just us two, he didn’t bring the scope.The highlight of the evening was Mars.   At first, the heat from my telescope and from the buildings made the image quite blurry, but after it rose up above, we could easily see the polar ice cap, and make out the Syrtis Major region.  The color difference was distinct and easily seen by all.  This was in the baseball diamonds with lots of ambient light, with the 8″ scope.  The appearance was easily the dull red of Mars, and the darker gray near the South polar region.  The image below is similar to what we saw, except the Syrtis Major region had rotated into view.  If it were not so bloody cold, it would have been an excellent night to stay out quite late.  Perhaps next week, we’ll do the hilltop just to get a good view of Mars, even though we would not be able to stay very long.Afterwards, we went to the Piper’s Kilt for food and warming up, which was all quite necessary.  I had fun drawing the scene on the table napkin.I hope others can come join us in 2010.  We’ll be doing a LOT of this…

Well the International year of Astronomy has come to a close, but we are continuing onward! Join us this evening for excellent stargazing from 8pm to 10pm at Inwood Hill Park. We’ll be at the baseball diamonds at Seaman and Isham Street, out in the middle. Dress very warmly, because it’ll be cold, but the cold nights are always the best for stargazing! The air is clear and still, without the humidity that robs us of the starlight. Tonight, Mars will be up in the sky when we are outside, as well Orion the Hunter. We’ll see beautiful star clusters, as well as the distant Andromeda Galaxy. Go to the main website for a map of our location.Our plans for the year are great.  We plan to repeat the Inwood Star Fest where the lights were turned off in Dyckman Fields.  We also plan to hold an AstroSchool in the Summer evenings under the stars, learning introductory astronomy in a topics-based class.   The Uptown Planetarium will also continue featuring the latest on the 15 current NASA Missions.  Finally, we are working on a program called “The Galilean Knights” an astronomical social-tweetup under the stars.

It is starting to look like rain for us here, but perhaps it will hold off (really crossing our fingers here…)

If it is rainy, then I will put a message on the hotline at 2:30 AM.

No matter what, though, we’ll be at Indian Road Cafeat 6:30 AM

Looks like it is going to be too windy and cloudy tonight….