On Pluto's Demotion

"Pluto" is a planet for a simple reason; 6.5 billion people think it is. The opinions of a few hundred professional astronomers do not trump those of everyone else on the planet, so give Pluto a grandfather clause and move on."

"Pluto has been assassinated by a bunch of eggheads who are so far up in the clouds their brains have been oxygen deprived and have lost all contact with the astronomical culture in which they were raised. In honor of the "IAU" , I propose that the next discovered "Kuiper Belt" object of significant size be called "Goofy" ."

"The demotion of Pluto as a planet is so in keeping with our times, In a irreverent world in which professional astronomers no longer look through a telescope, a group of people in a closed-door, bureaucratic fashion have decided to rewrite history. Please, Pluto was born during the classic "Golden Era" of Astronomy. It was one of the original nine planets, leave it alone."

It is coming up to the 1St. anniversary of the historical date in which little Pluto lost its planet status, and the above statements are just a few of the comments and feelings of the people who think Pluto's demotion should not have happened. August 24th. 2006 is when 424 members of the IAU decided that Pluto didn't meet their new requirements to remain a planet. Pluto is now listed in the "Minor Planet Catalog"as number "134340".

Pluto was discovered in 1930 by "Clyde Tombaugh" . Clyde and other Astronomers noticed small discrepancies in the motions of "Uranus" and "Neptune" orbits and thought there must be another planet out there, causing them to look and find Pluto. It was later discovered that Pluto was too small to have any influence on Uranus or Neptune and we now know there are a large number of small objects in the Kuiper Belt beyond the orbit of Neptune that caused these discrepancies, Pluto was a "fortunate accident".

So what is the big deal you say? I say leave Pluto alone, so it doesn't meet the new planet definition, big deal. Stripping Pluto of its planet status and then to give it a number "134340"
is impersonalizing an already user unfriendly Universe. Carey and Ross both commented on one of my posts saying "we must personalize our universe". So where do we go from here? you head over to the "Pluto Petition" . Let your voice be heard, there is still hope, even Scientists and Astronomers had their own petition stating there needs to be a better definition for a planet then the one the IAU came up with. The buzz is, at the next General Assembly of the IAU in 2009, Pluto will probably regain its planet status and all will be well again in the Universe.

Updates, Updates, Read All About Em.

30 days from today there will be a "Total Lunar Eclipse" , August 28th. starting at 4:20am EDT. I hate to have you miss it because I didn't nag you enough.

Saturn's new moon "Frank" has been given an official name "S/2007 S4" , boy those wacky scientists and their names. He'll always be Frank to me.

Two weeks from today the "Perseid's Meteor Shower" begins at dusk, don't forget Mars will be in the North/East part of the sky as well.

NASA reported on Friday that the "Rover Twins" will most likely survive the recent "Mars dust storms". Opportunity is the most vulnerable because one of it's 8 radioactive heater switches has been stuck in the "on" position since landing day January, 2004. I"ll leave you with a "Rover Video", which shows the dedication of the rover team.

Buying a Telescope

Bob I'm thinking of getting into Astrology, what should I be looking for in a telescope? Well first of all I explain the difference between the 2, "Astronomy not Astrology" , then if I haven't bored them to tears and they are still with me, I try to explain what to look for in a scope.

When I first decided to buy a scope I was overwhelmed at the amount of information on the internet, not only about what to look for when purchasing one but the amount of variations of telescopes that are out there. Buying a telescope can be a bit confusing, I hope to be able to make it a little easier by passing on some of the knowledge and experience I have gained through buying and selling as well as using many different types of telescopes.

Before taking the big plunge get to know the night sky, a good book to get is "The Backyard Astronomer's Guide" . If you have binoculars, use them, with them you can see dozens of lunar craters, dozens of star clusters. several nebulae and 7 planets. Get yourself a sky atlas and learn the constellations and where some of the brighter galaxies and nebulae are. An excellent sky atlas is "Sky Atlas" . Once your familiar with the night sky your ready to go.

Where to start? There are a lot of different types of telescopes out there, but they generally fall into 1 of 3 types.

1. Refractor type; The light goes through a lense and is refracted to the eyepiece to form an image. This is the type of scope you see in all your tv programs and movies, usually in the corner of somebodies apt. since they are ideal for city apt dwellers. It is the most expensive of the 3 types per inch of aperture, ( diameter of mirror/lense of the telescope). This type of scope is excellent for viewing the planets and lunar surface. An example is the "Celestron First Scope", I have used this scope before and was very satisfied with its performance. The main disadvantage of the refractor is the high cost for the larger apertures which is what you need if you want to view deep sky items such as nebulae and galaxies.



2. Reflector type; this type uses mirrors to gather light and form images, It is the best value for your money. an excellent telescope is Celestron 6" Starhopper . Notice The 3.5 inch refractor above costs the same as the 6" starhopper reflector. Also note the 2 different types of mounts. The refractor has an alt-az mount, simple up/down(altitude) left/right(azimuth), the Starhopper has a dobsonian mount, which is a type of alt-az mount with a low center of gravity which glides very easily just using your fingers. The dobsonian mount is used a lot on your bigger aperture amateur telescopes. I owned a Celestron 10" Starhopper for many years and highly recommend either the 6" or 10" for deep sky and planet/lunar viewing.



3. Catadioptric/Compound type; this type of scope uses a combination of mirrors and lenses to gather and form images. A very popular type of this category of scope is the Schmidt-Cassegrain, the 8" aperture model has been the top selling serious recreational telescope. Its combination of generous aperture, portability, astrophotography adaptability and overall good performance has made it the telescope of choice for the serious Backyard astronomer. I have the Meade LX 200r and highly recommend it.

You know the 3 basic types of telescopes, now you have to make a decision on how much you want to spend and what you want to get out of the hobby. For $299.00 you can get a 3.5 inch refractor or a 6" reflector, the 6" reflector will allow you to see more deepsky objects but at the cost of portability, what is more important to you? Bigger is not neccessarily better especially if you live on the 5th. floor of an apartment, chances are on the 5th. floor of apartment there is so much light pollution that no matter how big your scope is it wouldnt be able to gather enough light to view deepsky objects, but the refractor would be portable and be perfect for lunar and planetary viewing, since light pollution does not hinder their viewing. If you are looking for a telescope primarily to view deepsky objects then you want a minimum of 6" aperture. The Celestron Starhopper above would be a good pick.

Changing magnification of your scope is as easy as changing eyepieces, which brings us to another point, what is your scopes maximum magnification? A simple rule of thumb is 50x per inch of aperture, so if you bought the 6" starhopper your maximum magnification would be 300x and thats on a good night. It may intrest you to know that the magnification I use the most is only 120x I have a 12" scope and can go up to 600x, but I rarely do, I have gone to 450x on Saturn and Mars, but on the deepsky objects it is anywhere from 40-120x.

How do you calculate magnfication? Well every scope has a focal length, the distance from the primary mirror/lense to the point at which it forms an image (eyepiece), it will be in your manual or on your scope near the eyepiece. Every eyepiece also has a focal length, a 25mm comes with the above Starhopper, The Starhopper's focal length is 48 inches or 1200mm, to determine the magnification, simply divide the focal length of the scope (1200mm) by that of the eyepiece, so the (25mm) will produce 48x. You'll notice that this is one of the few hobbies that uses both inches and mm, which confuses everything even more.

I have just lightly touched on some of the basic things to look for when considering a scope primarily for visual use. My pick would be a 6"-10" reflector on a dobsonian mount. Celestron, Meade or Orion are all very good companies to deal with. For astrophotography you get into more expensive computerized telescopes, equatorial mounts and the more expensive apo refractors which I will get into in later posts. Another guide to follow is Sky and Telescope . I'll leave you with a youtube video on what to look for when buying your first scope. Purchasing your first scope

Move on Rover

My plan for total world domination by making tons of money buying and selling rare items on Ebay is off to a shaky start. Above is my mattel rover which I paid $24.95 for in 2002, is now selling for $14.90, I guess it wasn't quite as rare as I thought.

On July 4th. 1997 NASA'S little rover Sojourner landed on Mars with It's main mission to find out if water ever existed on Mars. Its last successful data transmission was September 27, 1997. The Sojourner operated 12 times its designed lifetime of 7 days. During the mission more than 16,000 images were taken, 15 chemical analysis of rocks were completed and extensive data on winds and other weather factors were gathered. It was the first time engineers were able to deliver a semi-autonomous vehicle(a vehicle that has artificial intelligence, but can also be controlled by a human user if needed) to the surface of another planet. Its main mission was accomplished, findings suggested a warmer past in which water may have existed.

Fast Forward to January 4/25 2004 rover's Spirit/Opportunity land on the Martian surface. The rovers have been exploring Mars surface for more than 1,200 martian days, they were only designed to last for 3 months. The rovers have discovered the best evidence for water to date, that being soil rich in silica so much so that only water could have produced such a concentration. The little rovers are in trouble, widespread dust storms are blocking out 99.9% of the Sun's energy threatening to end their mission. Opportunity is about to make a major entrance into Victoria Crater. Conspiracy theorists are already saying whats down in the crater that NASA doesn't want us to see, oh my! There has been many Mars conspiracy theories from The Face to Blue Mars Conspiracy . I'll leave you with this video, what do you think? You Tube Mars faked photos.

"I'm into Astronomy, not Astrology"

So Bob how long have you been into Astrology, hmm let me think, ah, never. It's a question I've been asked many times before. It's like your talking to someone about the latest Star Wars movie and they say, oh, your a trekkie, for one it's trekker, and another, Star Wars and Star Trek are 2 different everythings, once and for all people, Darth Vader and Captain Kirk never fought together in any movie or tv series, Vader fought Jedi knights, Kirk, hung around with a lot of women, and fought Klingons, ..........anyhoo, I digress.

Back on topic, somewhere between 4,000 and 2,000 B.C. barbarism gave way to communal living and the development of agriculture became a priority, with recognition and prediction of the movement of the heavenly bodies,(seasons), man could plan when and where to plant and build dikes and canals to store water, in short, the heavenly bodies and their goings on in space, directly effected events on Earth (birth of Astronomy), It was only a small leap of faith to then assume that the events and movements of the heavenly bodies effected Earths people,(birth of Astrology). Astrology and Astronomy were basically indistinguishable for thousands of years up and until the time of, Sir Issac Newton. With his "Newton's Principia" Newton was first to explain the movements of the heavenly bodies in precise mathematical form which started the modern era of Astronomy. Even though I'm not into it I can appreciate the fact that Astrology influenced the birth of many sciences such as, mathematics, chemistry and biology. Ancients called anything falling from or seen in the sky, with the exception of the stars, moon, sun and five planets, "meteors" , first there was "aerial meteors," consisting mainly of winds and clouds, then there was "aqueous meteors" consisting of rain, fog, dew and snow, finally there was the "luminous meteors", consisting of , rainbows, sundogs and moondogs, they eventually grouped everything together to become what we know today as meteorology. I still read my horoscope every once and awhile to see if it even remotely resembles my situation. Statements such as "you will come into some money this week", well I am always finding pennies that my boss throws away in the trash, actually ever since he caught me going through the garbage he has started putting them in my mailbox. To sum it up, Astronomy is discovering and understanding our universe, Astrology is using the universe to predict the future so as to control our own destiny.

Ashes into Space

My wife told me the other night that she was thinking of sending my ashes into space, I said , "what?", she then proceeded to tell me about "Memorial Space Flights . A company that for a fee, sends your cremains into space. They have 4 basic plans.

1. "Earth Rise Service". A service which sends a portion of your remains into space, or as they put it "and after experiencing the zero gravity environment", who's experiencing what now? your dead. The cost ranges from $495.00 for 1 gram, and increases the more of you you send, (fuel costs I guess) up to $1495.00.
2. "Earth Orbit Service". A service that sends a portion of your remains into Earth's orbit, or as they say "your loved one will venture into space as part of a real mission". What exactly your part in this mission would be is unknown since you are dead. The cost varies from $1,295 to $7,495, depending on how much of your remains you send and whether or not you go with a loved one.
3. "Luna Service". This is where it starts getting pricey. Costs range from $12,500-$67,495 again depending how much of you you send and whether or not your loved one comes as well.( he/she will have to be dead ). When you consider, that NASA'S estimated cost to send 4 people back to the Moon is 104 billion, this is actually a pretty good price, but of course, they will be alive, you will be dead.
4. "Voyager Service". This is the ultimate trip, as they put it " Leaving the Earth-Moon system on a permanent celestial journey". Costs range from $12,500-$67,495.

Apparently during one launch in front of the deceased's loved ones, the rocket malfunctioned and turned around and crash landed killing all the dead people aboard, again. (see my post "If You Could, Would You?").

I think this is a great idea and I thank my wife for thinking of this for me. I choose the "Earth Orbit Service". I get to be part of a real mission and ride along with a commercial or scientific satellite, unfortunatlely I will be dead.

Meet Frank the Moon

Short and sweet post, I just had to fill you in on a new Saturn moon, so far they have named it "Frank" . This is Saturn's 60th. moon, Jupiter is leading at the moment with 62. The 2 gas giants have been battling it out for the most moons for years, its been a back and forth thing for as long as I can remember. Just a little tidbit of info, if you could build a pool big enough for Saturn to fit in, it would float. Saturn's density is less than that of water since it is made up mostly of the light gases hydrogen and helium.

Wild Duck Star Cluster

A couple of nights ago I was outside and took a picture of my favorite open star cluster, the "Wild Duck Cluster". It is located in the constellation Scutum. Scutum is located right above the constellation Sagittarius. Both of these constellation are low in the south sky this time of year, (in the northern hemispere). I posted 2 pictures of the cluster, one with the outline around the duck, the duck's beak is in the middle and the wing tips are on each side of the beak, and one without the lines, since thats how you see it in the night sky. The cluster when viewed live is magnificent, It is a cluster I view every time out. Scutum is located in our Milky Way Galaxy, and when viewed through a good telescope there are thousands of pinpoint stars along with the brighter stars in the duck. The Duck was discovered by Gottfried Kirch of the Berlin Observatory in 1681. Back then he described it as a "small, obscure spot with a star shining through and rendering it more luminous". If you live in the city you need a good scope to spot it, out of town it is just visible to the naked eye if you know where to look. The cluster is about 250 million years old, consists of serveral dozen stars and takes about 6,200 years for its light to reach us! "Sky View Cafe" is a good tool to find constellations and various deep sky objects, just input your location and and it will give you a star chart for that date and time.

Mysterious Bodies

It may surprise you to know I watch a lot of shows about astronomy and space, especially if they are on a high definition channel. One show I watch a lot of is, Naked Science . The other night there was a show "Moon Mysteries" which brought up the fact that the Earth has 10 mysterious bodies orbiting the Earth (not including spy satellites and various weapons of mass destruction), 5 asteriods caught in the Earths gravitational field, 4 pieces of the Apollo 12 rocket, and the Moon. The Apollo 12 item caught my attention, I could see a piece of Apollo 13's service module up there but Apollo 12? Apparently a bolt of lightning struck the rocket in the upper atmosphere and while they were trying to figure out what happened and correct the problem they expended more fuel then they had planned on, therefore they didnt have enough fuel to send the 3rd. stage into solar orbit and it got stuck in earths orbit. More information on the Apollo 12 mission can be found at, JFK Space Center . How was the Moon created? Is the Moon moving away from us? Did the moon have something to do with the way life evolved on Earth? all interesting topics that are brought up in this program. If your looking for more Moon oddities visit, Moon Mysteries. A couple of my favs are about alien bases on the far side, or the idea that the Germans landed on the moon in 1942. We are soooo lucky to have the moon as our partner in the solar system. It is such a beauty to behold. I have spent many hours at the eyepiece looking at mountain ranges and craters and belong to the "Lunar Transient Phenomena Research Program" A program where fellow observers report any unusual events that may transpire on the Moon. The Image above was taken from my backyard September 24th. 2004, The orange spot is not an alien base, (hello, far side) it is the Apollo 12 landing site.

Passion For Astronomy

Passion is defined in the Oxford dictionary as "Strong emotion; outburst of anger (flew into a passion); sexual love; strong enthusiam (for thing, for doing), object arousing this". My passion for the cosmos has driven me to start this blog and try to relate feelings about astronomy I don't even understand. I'm an enigma, an introvert whose not a writer or an intellect but has his own blog, go figure. For an introvert clicking that publish button is like speaking or even dancing in public, its a huge deal, your laying it on the line for everyone to read. But when I'm by myself under the stars nothing else seems to matter, for that moment in time it's my universe, no one elses. When I look at a star cluster, I'm not thinking, how far away it is, how many stars it has or even how old it is, I'm thinking, wow, thank you God for putting it there for me to find. Through the internet I have found many friends with passionate feelings towards all kinds of things and they too have found a way to share how they feel through their blogs and websites. Friends like Rose sharing her time and effort and answering all my questions.
Unique sites such as Aura's Encounters With The Unexplained, or my favorite tv show next to Battlestar Galactica , Jericho, all have their own individual passions and are trying to share a piece of what makes them tic.

m57Lyra

Check out m57Lyra. I was just surfing the net for blogs and come across m57Lyra's profile, I thought wow m57 is in the constellation Lyra, this person's got to be into astronomy. The person was still in the process of being approved so I kept on checking back until she was finally approved. Once approved I ventured over to take a peak and she has a couple of sites well worth your visit and comments. Being new everybody needs a little help so I thought I would throw a little traffic her way (very little, seen my blogroll, but what a blogroll Jerhico rules!). I asked her why she chose m57Lyra as a name, she said it was her first target she found on her own. M57 (m stands for messier, Charles Messier cataloged 110 various deep sky objects back in the 1700's). M57 holds fond memories for me as well, as it is my 2nd deep sky object I found by myself beside the great Hercules m13 globular star cluster. The light from m57 takes about 2,300 years to reach us, so you are looking back in time 2,300 years when you are viewing it. The central star, a white dwarf star is in its later stages of life and is releasing its atmosphere into space, making up the beautiful colors of the nebula. You can see the white dwarf in my pic I posted, this image was taken from my backyard last year.

If You Could, Would You?

Well pop star Moby is, rock guitarist Dave Navarro is and singer Robbie Williams is considering it. What am I talking about you may ask, flying into space. For only $207,000 your wishes could come true. The very thought of flying sends shivers down my back, yet I would be the first in line for space travel if I had the resources and opportunity. I figure with flying there is a good chance your comming back, so I spend my entire time on the plane worrying if we're going to crash and burn. With Space travel, your butt strapped to a rocket which was probably developed and built by the lowest bidder, I know I'm gonna die, just accept it and hang on for the wildest ride of your life. To be in orbit around the earth would be the ultimate experience, talk about bragging rights. Check it out Space Flight.

"The sky is falling, the sky is falling"

Mark your calenders again, August 12,2007 is when we will be visited by the Perseids Meteor Shower. A couple of very important pluses this year. 1. There is a new moon this year which means you won't have the glare of the moon to interfere with your viewing, the sky will be darker therefore greater contrast and the meteors will show up better. 2. Mars will be in the sky as well, yeh! Mars will be in the NE part of the sky and will appear as a bright red object. If you dont have em, beg borrow or steal a pair of binocs for Mars (not for the meteors). You'll be able to see the shower from your backyard in the city, but to see the fainter meteors you'll have to venture a little ways out of town. As soon as it starts to get dark the show begins. To start with you should see a couple every minute, the frequency increases up to 20 or more a minute at its peak just before dawn. The Perseids get their name from the constellation Perseus, which is the radiant of the shower (where the shower appears to start from). Low in the north east to start, Perseus rises high in the sky just before dawn. When viewing showers focus your eyes between the radiant (NE sky) and the Zenith (sky directly above you) and get your fav lawn chair and relax. The shower itself is actually the debris trail of a comet discovered way back in 1862 named Swift-Tutle and every year the Earth in its orbit around the sun passes through it. The comets most recent visit was back in 1992. The debris field is made up cosmic dust cast off by the comet as it gets close to the sun. FYI, the cosmic dust is called a meteroid, once it hits the atmosphere it is called a meteor, once it hits the ground it becomes a meteorite.

The picture I have posted came from Slooh with permission. It is the comet lovejoy. I booked a 5 minute time slot with the robotic scope and took an image, get Slooh! its too cool for school.

"Martians and Venusians and Lunarians, Oh My!

I have a lot of books on astronomy in my book collection. One I think is just the cats meow (I have a cat) was given to me by my Mother-In -Law called "Astronomy For Amateurs", published in 1903 by Camille Flammarion. In it you find some wild and crazy ideas about what we thought to be fact in astronomy at the time; for example with respect to life forms on Mars, and I quote: "Its astral life is more advanced and its humanity should be superior to our own."
With respect to life on the moon, "thanks to us, the inhabitants of the lunar hemisphere turned towards us are gratified by the sight of a splended nocturnal tourch." Wow what a classic read. Due to the advent of larger more powerful telescopes our knowledge of the cosmos has increased dramatically and we have put to rest a lot of the old theories and assumptions we once held as true. Some of my more current books such as Brian Greene's Elegant Universe or Stephen Hawking's Universe In A Nutshell show us the universe is an even more mysterious place than we could ever imagine. Dark Energy, Dark Matter and String Theory are exciting new frontiers to be explored and conquered in the years to come. I wonder what some blogger will say about our latest assumptions 100 years from now.

Lunar Eclipse

Mark your calenders boys and girls, Commencing at 4:20 a.m. EDT August 28/07 there will be a total eclipse of the moon for most of the Americas. I will post little reminders here and there to keep you up to date. Two buzz words that get any amateur astronomer's pulse going are "Eclipse" and "Transit". Eclipse is defined as , "when one celestial object moves into the shadow of another", during a Solar eclipse the Earth moves into the shadow created by the Moon comming between the Earth and Sun. In a lunar eclipse the Moon moves into the shadow created by the Earth comming between the Sun and Moon. I have posted an image I took of the Oct 28/04 eclipse. The beautiful reds and sometimes brown colors on the Moon during an eclipse are the result of sunlight being refracted through the Earths narrow, troposphere, which tends to only allow the longer wavelengths, reds through to the lunar surface, the blues are absorbed and scattered by our troposphere. A transit is defined as an astronomical event that occurs when one celestial body appears to move across the face of another celestial body, as seen by an observer at some particular vantage point. Transits can be as simple and frequent as one of Jupiter's moons moving across Jupiter's surface to Venus transiting the Sun which happens very infrequently, in 234 years only 4 Venus transits of the sun occured! the last one in 2004 I missed due to clouds, doh! Oh and the Mercury transit last year in Nov I missed due to snow storm.

Weather button

I have just added a weather feature to my blog! the top 4 people that post their locations in my comment area will be added so they can check their local weather when visiting in the drop down box. Now when you say to yourself, hmm I feel the need to learn more about astrostuff but where can I go to check the weather as well?..... oh I know blackholes and astrostuff has a weather feature, I'll go there.

New Observatory

Wayne Parker of Glass Tiger fame (bass player), has his own company called "Skyshed Observatories". After many years in the planning stage he has just rolled out POD "Personal Observatory Dome". I have just received mine today. It is extremely affordable and of the highest quality. Observatories are the ultimate accessory for any amateur astronomer, as it keeps away stray light, keeps the dew down and off your lenses and mirrors of your scopes, and allows you to leave your scope and equipment set up which saves hours of labor and time which can be better put towards viewing time. I have posted a few pics of the observatory.

Robotic Telescope

One of my favorite sites on the web is "Slooh". Based in the Canary Islands, for a nominal fee you can log in and sit back and watch 100's of celestial wonders from the comfort of your easy chair, or actually take command of one of the robotic scopes and search for any targets you so choose. Using the scopes camera you are able to take good quality images and store them on your computer, but thats not all, comming in a few months Slooh will add another site based in Chile which will give you access to the southern constellations, woo hoo!

E.T. phone home

Do your part, use your pc for the search for aliens. http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/

Nasa TV

Always a good site to get the latest goings on in the space industry. "NASA TV"

Cool Link

"powersof10"

More Pics

Here are a few of my favorite astrophototography pics I have taken with my computerized scope and Deep Sky Imager from my backyard in the city. The top image is a globular star cluster in the Hercules Constellation containing several hundred thousand stars, the next image down is the Sun showing a huge plasma ejection, the next images are the Dumbbell and Ring Nebulas.

Me and a Scope

First post.

Well I am finally taking the plunge into blogging. The main purpose is to post my thoughts mostly on things to do with my passion of astronomy.