Association of Bangalore Amateur Astronomers

Galileo's discovery that changed our views

2012-01-07T08:00:00.004+05:30

On January 7^th 1610, Galileo Galilei made an observation through his small telescope that changed our understanding of the universe. Using his self made refractor telescope with an aperture just one inch in diameter with a magnification of 15X, Galileo pointed his telescope to the bright planet Jupiter. The planet Jupiter showed up in the narrow of 15minutes of arc field of the telescope, accompanied by three satellites, Io was observed on 8^th January as his crude instrument was unable to separate Io and Europa the previous night.

There was no previous records of observations made of Jupiter through telescope and Galileo was in uncharted territory. Galileo first took these 4 objects as stars and continued his observations. The movement of Jupiter with respect to these “stars” made Galileo to think that maybe Jupiter has a retrograde loop. As he continued to track Jupiter, he observed that Jupiter did not move much with respect to other stars apart from the 4 “stars” that were close to Jupiter. One more puzzling observation was that these 4 “stars” always stayed close to the planet.

After several nights of observations Galileo came to the conclusion that these 4 objects were carried along by Jupiter and they are moons of Jupiter. This had a profound impact on our way of looking at the universe. This observation gave the Copernican theory more ground.

Galileo gave the moons of Jupiter roman numbers I,II,III and IV. The names suggested by Simon Marius is what we use now. Io (I), Europa (II), Ganymede (III) and Callisto (IV). The moons are called Galilean moons in honour of Galileo.

Here is a copy of Galileo notes translated

Credit: NASA

Centuries later we sent spacecraft to Jupiter and also took pictures of the Jovian moons. Here are close up photos of the moons and also few facts about them.

Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

Io is the closest of the Galilean moons which orbits the planet at a distance of 421000km. Io is little bigger than our earth's moon. Io has a radius of 1821km, earth's moon has a radius of 1738km. Io goes around Jupiter in 1.7days. Io is the most volcanically active moon in our solar system. One of the reason for this high activity is that Io is affected by gravitation of Jupiter and high tidal forces make molten interior escape through the gaps created from the distortions caused by the tidal forces.

Europa

Credit: NASA/JPL/Ted Stryk

Europa is the second moon from Jupiter and is little smaller than our moon. The radius of Europa is around 1560km. It orbits the planet at a distance of 670000km and completes one rotation in 3.5days. The surface is covered with frozen salt water and scientists think that with the eccentric orbit of Europa there may be places where it may be possible for water to exist.

Ganymede

Credit: NASA/JPL/Ted Stryk

Ganymede is the largest moon in the solar system, larger than the planet Mercury. The radius of Ganymede is 2631km and that of Mercury is 2439km. Ganymede orbits the planet Jupiter 1070000km and completes on orbit every 7.15days. This is the only moon to be known to have magnetosphere and also its been thought the moon may have a salt water ocean that is trapped under the ice surface.

Callisto

Credit: NASA/JPL/Ted Stryk

Callisto is the last of Galilean moons and also the farthest from the planet Jupiter. Callisto orbits the planet at a distance of 1882000km and completes on rotation around the planet in 16.6days. The moon Callisto is also the third largest moon in the solar system with a radius of 2410km almost the size of Mercury. Callisto is among the most cratered objects in solar system. Scientists think that the core could have frozen as it formed and no geological activity has taken place from the past 4 billion years.

Jupiter is easy to spot these days. Just after sunset if we look you, Jupiter will be shining bright in the Zenith. No star in the region is as bright as Jupiter. The moons of Jupiter can easily be seen even with a pair of binoculars. If you don't have any optical instruments please contact any astronomy clubs near you and they will surely help you. If you are in Bangalore you can visit us at ABAA on Sunday evening and use our telescopes to observe Jupiter.

Sun closest to Earth on January 5th

2012-01-05T09:00:00.000+05:30

On January 5^th the earth will be closest to the Sun. During its orbit around the Sun, the earth does not follow a circular path, it deviates a little with an eccentricity 0.0167. This deviation is very small making the distance of earth-sun during the perihelion and aphelion very small. The difference will be close to 3 percent. Perihelion is when a celestial body is closest to the Sun and Aphelion is when the celestial body is farthest from Sun.

On January 5^th earth will be at a perihelion distance of 147 million (Km) and at this distance the Sun's angular diameter will be 32.5 minutes of arc. The orbital velocity of earth during the perihelion will be close to 109044 km/hr.

We can compare this with Aphelion distance of earth, the maximum distance 152 million (Km). The angular diameter at this maximum distance will be 31.45 minutes of arc. The orbital velocity at this distance will be 105444 km/hr.

Earth will be at Aphelion on 5^th July this year.

Watching Lunar Eclipse under Dark Skies

2011-12-12T10:10:00.006+05:30

We had missed the June 15^th total lunar eclipse this year due to cloud cover and during few days before the December 10^th total lunar eclipse the skies were not at all promising. Few of us thought that it would be good idea to take a chance and observe the eclipse in a dark sky area away from the light polluted city skies. Even during our journey to the observing site we saw horizon covered with clouds and with our hopes dwindling we continued. As we reached our regular observing site the eastern skies had cleared which seemed to be too good to be true.

The first task was to find a clear horizon as the first contact of umbra was to happen at 6:15pm and the moon’s altitude at that time would be close to 6 degrees. We found the clear horizon much earlier and the full moon was shining gloriously.

We started setting up the equipments and also started observing the moon waiting for umbral contact. As minutes passed from 6:15pm the shadow slowly started growing from the Oceanus Procellarum region and just over half an hour of start of umbral eclipse the shadow had reached near Copernicus crater which is close to 95km in diameter.

The moon was a spectacular view towards 7pm in binoculars with Mare Imbrium, Mare Humorum, Mare Nubium all turning red. Few minutes before totality began, the almost red moon with just little bright area left made moon to appear as a red planet with ice caps, reminding us of Mars. We had a wonderful view of the totality though there were little clouds at the time of totality, it all cleared soon.

We now can tell with experience that if anyone wants to enjoy the total lunar eclipse fully, they should go to a dark sky area. The appearance of the red moon in the sky with all the stars in the background is an amazing sight.

Planet Jupiter outshined everything in the sky, as the moon faded during totality, the bright -2.5magnitute Jupiter became the brightest object in the sky. The moon shines at a magnitude of -12 during full moon and only during eclipse that Jupiter or Venus can hope to outshine the full moon and this time it was Jupiter’s turn. We had a chance to spot many messier objects that are usually difficult to spot during full moon. The red giant aldebaran shining close to red moon made the region really special.

We spent some time explaining the eclipse to the curious villagers and Madhava who had joined us for the trip was giving live commentary on radio explaining to the listeners about our observations.

We ate food during totality, something we always do to remove the superstition among people. As totality ended the moon started to brighten up and we continued observe the eclipse till the moon was totally out of umbra. As moon brightened we saw the faint stars disappear and slowly most of the stars disappeared as moon fully came out of umbra shadow.

It was a sad feeling after the eclipse thinking that we will have to wait till 2018 to enjoy such wonderful event of total lunar eclipse, but on looking back at the wonderful experience we had during eclipse, I think you all will agree that it’s worth the wait.

Total Lunar Eclipse - 2011: a poor show at Bangalore

2011-12-11T17:07:00.000+05:30

The eclipse that was awaited for long, an eclipse for which many budding amateur astrophotographs were waiting for turned out to be a poor show. The clouds that have been haunting us throughout this observing season turned out in full force and ensured that we only got a partial show of the total eclipse. There was a sizeable crowd that waited patiently - some even beyond 10 pm - but it was a largely disappointing show.

Some of our members who had traveled outside Bangalore seemed to have a better story to tell. We await their report and/or pictures. Here are some pictures taken during the public show at JNP grounds, Bangalore.

Chandrainsky

Total Lunar Eclipse December 10th 2011

2011-12-08T13:55:00.000+05:30

The last full Moon of the year will put up an amazing show this Saturday. We will witness Total Lunar eclipse on 10^th December 2011.

The umbral eclipse starts at 6:15pm, at this time Moon will be low in the eastern horizon at an altitude of about 6 degrees. Better to get to a place where we have clear view of the horizon with no obstructions from buildings or trees. The shadow will start from NE of the Moon.

The shadow slowly covers the Moon's surface and the Moon will enter the totality phase at 7:35pm, with the Moon's altitude at 23degrees.

The totality ends at 8:27pm with the moon's altitude at 36 degrees, the Moon will emerge from totality shadow slowly brightening from the SE. The umbral eclipse of the Moon ends at 9:48pm with the Moon fully coming out of earth's shadow.

Here are a few sky maps of the eclipse at different stages.

Beginning of eclipse 6:15pm

Start of Totality 7:35pm

End of Totality 8:27pm

End of Lunar Eclipse of December 10th 2011

ABAA outreach program

2011-11-14T11:41:00.009+05:30

ABAA conducted an outreach program at Nellorepura Kannada School on 12th Nov. This is one of the schools adapted by company Broadcom India and it is called Project Lotus, as part of Corporate Social Responsibility effort of the company. Amrutha invited ABAA to give a talk on basic astronomy to the school kids.

ABAA thanks Project Lotus volunteers Naga Chandra, Sajith, Sundar and Amrutha for their effort and help in arranging the talk to introduce astronomy to kids. All of Project Lotus volunteers work for Broadcom India.

The talk was given by Mr. Madhava T S, Treasurer/Jt Secretary of ABAA. Madhava took the kids on a trip to all the planets through slides explaining the wonders of the planets and their moons.

Here are some Photos from the session

Jupiter in Opposition

2011-10-29T08:00:00.002+05:30

Jupiter will be in Opposition today, 29^th October 2011. This means that the Sun, Earth and the planet Jupiter will be in a straight line, as the Sun sets in the west, the giant planet rises in the east. This gives us full night to observe the planet. From small aperture telescope to large telescopes Jupiter offers so much to observe. Jupiter will rise at 5:40pm in the beginning of the month of November and toward the middle of November, Jupiter will rise at 4:40pm and set at 5am. Towards end of November, Jupiter will rise at 3:30pm and set at 4am.

Jupiter spends all month in the border of constellation Aries and Pisces.

Here are times for observing Great Red Spot(GRS) on Jupiter. The timing is for GRS meridian transit, that is when the GRS is the middle of Jupiter's disc, the GRS can also be observed one hour before and after the transit times. All times are in IST.

Date				Time of GRS Meridian
Oct 29th				7:30pm
31st				01:10am
31st				09:00pm
Nov 02nd				2:50am
02nd				10:30pm
3rd				4:30am
3rd				6:30pm
5th				00:30am
5th				8pm
7th				2am
7th				9:40pm
9th				3:30am
9th				11:30pm
10th				7:20pm
12th				1am
12th				9pm
14th				2:40am
14th				10:30pm
16th				4:30am
17th				00:30am
17th				8pm
19th				2am
19th				9:40pm
21st				3:30am
21st				11:10pm
22nd				7pm
24th				1am
24th				8:45pm
26th				2:30am
26th				10:30pm
27th				6pm
28th				4am
29th				00:10am
29th				8pm

Few photos from Dr. Suresh Mohan's Talk on Principles of Astrophotography

2011-10-12T13:47:00.000+05:30

Dr Suresh Mohan gave an wonderful insight into the field of Astrophotography. The talk was truly inspiring. The talk made people who want to enter astrophotography field, understand the preparation and effort that is needed for a good Astrophotography session and also the talk helped in understanding many processes that goes on during an astrophotography session. Dr Suresh Mohan explained complex concepts in simple terms that was very easy to understand.

Here are few pictures of the session

Dr. Suresh Mohan getting ready for the Talk, Jayanth, President ABAA looks on.

Mr Prakash Subbanna, Vice President of ABAA introducing Dr. Suresh Mohan to audience

Dr. Suresh Mohan delivering the talk.

Dr. Suresh Mohan explaining star drift.

Prakash Subbanna delivering vote of thanks to Dr. Suresh Mohan.

Jayanth presenting a memento to Dr. Suresh Mohan

From left to right: Jayanth, Dr. Suresh Mohan, Madhusudan, Pramod Galagali Assistant Director JNP, Dr. B S Shylaja having a discussion.

From left to Right: Jayanth, Dr. Suresh Mohan, Anil, Dilip Kumar, Chandrashekar Gen. Secretary ABAA, having discussion.

Talk on Principles of Astrophotography

2011-10-05T10:22:00.000+05:30

ABAA invites you for the talk on Principles of Astrophotography by well known astrophotographer Dr. Suresh Mohan. Astrophotography is both challenging and rewarding field. Lot of hours go into making a good celestial photograph, from polar alignment of the telescope to imaging and dark room methods. Dr Suresh Mohan will cover these topics in his talk which are very important in making good and quality astrophotos.

Topic: Principles of Astrophotography

Speaker: Dr. Suresh Mohan.

Date: 09/10/2011

Time: 12:30pm to 2:30pm.

Venue: Basement, Jawaharlal Nehru Planetarium.

All are cordially invited for the talk.

Mars in Beehive cluster

2011-09-30T17:30:00.000+05:30

On 1st and 2nd October morning the red planet Mars will be in Beehive cluster in the constellation of Cancer. Mars rises at 2am and by 3:30am will be in good position to observe and photograph. Grab the binoculars and enjoy the Mars stay in Beehive cluster. Beehive cluster or M44 as its known, is 3rd magnitude open cluster visible easily as hazy patch to unaided eye. Binoculars and telescope will help in resolving the cluster.

Sunspots viewing at ABAA

2011-09-26T14:28:00.000+05:30

On Sunday afternoon the sky was clear and this prompted ABAA members T S Madhava, Naveen and Natraj to take out the association's 6inch telescope to show general public the Sunspots and also safe methods of observing the Sunspots. Members also explained the reasons for Sun spots to the curious public. The response was really good with a question and answer session which continued till the sun set.

Here are few photos of the session:

Naveen, Natraj and Madhava setting up the telescope and focusing Sunspots.

Madhava, Naveen and Natraj making final adjustments.

Madhava happy with public response

Public viewing the Sunspot and discussing

Naveen showing Sunspots to Students

ABAA members enjoy Sunspots before Sun disappears behind the tall buildings.

Uranus in Opposition

2011-09-26T10:12:00.016+05:30

Uranus will be in opposition today in the constellation of Pisces. When a planet, Earth and the Sun make a straight line with the Earth at the centre, the planet is said to be in opposition. As the planet rises when the Sun sets, it gives full night for observing the planet. The mean distance of the planet Uranus at opposition is 2.72 billion kilometres with a magnitude of 5.5 which is an easy target for even small pair of binoculars.

Here are carts that will be helpful in locating the planet. The sky charts are made for 8pm local time, by this time the great square will be in good altitude in the eastern horizon. First get the bright 2.8 magnitude gamma pegasi in the binocular field, then move south around 9degrees to get Omicron Piscim a 4th magnitude star. Move the binocular 7 degrees south east of Omicron Piscium to get the planet Uranus in the field.

Rising time for Uranus for coming days:

September 26th Uranus will rise at 18:12

September 28th Uranus will rise at 18:04

October 1st Uranus will rise at 17:52

October 4th Uranus will rise at 17:40

October 10th Uranus will rise at 17:15

October 16th Uranus will rise at 16:50

AstroNews: NASA's Webb Telescope Completes Mirror-Coating Milestone

2011-09-14T15:39:00.000+05:30

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has reached a major milestone in its development. The mirrors that will fly aboard the telescope have completed the coating process at Quantum Coating Inc. in Moorestown, N.J.

The telescope's mirrors have been coated with a microscopically thin layer of gold, selected for its ability to properly reflect infrared light from the mirrors into the observatory’s science instruments. The coating allows the Webb telescope's "infrared eyes" to observe extremely faint objects in infrared light. Webb’s mission is to observe the most distant objects in the universe.

"Finishing all mirror coatings on schedule is another major success story for the Webb telescope mirrors," said Lee Feinberg, NASA Optical Telescope Element manager for the Webb telescope at the agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "These coatings easily meet their specifications, ensuring even more scientific discovery potential for the Webb telescope."

The Webb telescope has 21 mirrors, with 18 mirror segments working together as one large 21.3-foot (6.5-meter) primary mirror. The mirror segments are made of beryllium, which was selected for its stiffness, light weight and stability at cryogenic temperatures. Bare beryllium is not very reflective of near-infrared light, so each mirror is coated with about 0.12 ounce of gold.

The last full size (4.9-foot /1.5-meter) hexagonal beryllium primary mirror segment that will fly aboard the observatory recently was coated, completing this stage of mirror production.

The Webb telescope is the world’s next-generation space observatory and successor to the Hubble Space Telescope. The most powerful space telescope ever built, the Webb telescope will provide images of the first galaxies ever formed, and explore planets around distant stars. It is a joint project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency.

Mirror manufacturing began eight years ago with blanks made out of beryllium, an extremely hard metal that holds its shape in the extreme cold of space where the telescope will orbit. Mirror coating began in June 2010. Several of the smaller mirrors in the telescope, the tertiary mirror and the fine steering mirror, were coated in 2010. The secondary mirror was finished earlier this year.

Quantum Coating Inc. (QCI) is under contract to Ball Aerospace and Northrop Grumman. QCI constructed a new coating facility and clean room to coat the large mirror segments. QCI developed the gold coating for performance in certain areas, such as uniformity, cryogenic cycling, durability, stress and reflectance, in a two-year effort prior to coating the first flight mirror.

In the process, gold is heated to its liquid point, more than 2,500 Fahrenheit (1,371 degrees Celsius), and evaporates onto the mirror's optical surface. The coatings are 120 nanometers, a thickness of about a millionth of an inch or 200 times thinner than a human hair.

"We faced many technical challenges on the Webb mirror coating program,” said Ian Stevenson, director of coating at Quantum Coating. “One of the most daunting was that all flight hardware runs had to be executed without a single failure."

The mirror segments recently were shipped to Ball Aerospace in Boulder, Colo., where actuators are attached that help move the mirror. From there, the segments travel to the X-ray and Calibration Facility at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., to undergo a final test when they will be chilled to -400 Fahrenheit (-240 degrees Celsius). The last batch of six flight mirrors should complete the test by the end of this year.

The Webb telescope is a partnership between NASA, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency.

Planet Neptune at Opposition

2011-08-22T01:21:00.000+05:30

Today, August 22^nd 2011 planet Neptune will be at opposition. This means that the Sun, the Earth and the planet Neptune all lie in the same line. At opposition the planet Neptune will have a mean distance of 4357.31 million kilometres. The planet can be picked up easily through a pair of binoculars as the magnitude of the planet will be around 7.8. Now the planet is in the border of constellations Capricorn and Aquarius. The planet Neptune will rise around 6:30pm and will set in early morning well placed for night long observations.

Here are star maps that will be helpful in finding the planet. The map time is 9:30 when the planet’s altitude will be 40 degrees from the eastern horizon.

Neptune detailed star map

Clear skies

AstroNews: Hubble Discovers Another Moon Around Pluto

2011-07-20T23:01:00.000+05:30

Astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope discovered a fourth moon orbiting the icy dwarf planet Pluto. The tiny, new satellite — temporarily designated P4 — was uncovered in a Hubble survey searching for rings around the dwarf planet.

The new moon is the smallest discovered around Pluto. It has an estimated diameter of 8 to 21 miles (13 to 34 km). By comparison, Charon, Pluto's largest moon, is 648 miles (1,043 km) across, and the other moons, Nix and Hydra, are in the range of 20 to 70 miles in diameter (32 to 113 km).

"I find it remarkable that Hubble's cameras enabled us to see such a tiny object so clearly from a distance of more than 3 billion miles (5 billion km)," said Mark Showalter of the SETI Institute in Mountain View, Calif., who led this observing program with Hubble.

The finding is a result of ongoing work to support NASA's New Horizons mission, scheduled to fly through the Pluto system in 2015. The mission is designed to provide new insights about worlds at the edge of our solar system. Hubble's mapping of Pluto's surface and discovery of its satellites have been invaluable to planning for New Horizons' close encounter.

"This is a fantastic discovery," said New Horizons' principal investigator Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colo. "Now that we know there's another moon in the Pluto system, we can plan close-up observations of it during our flyby."

The new moon is located between the orbits of Nix and Hydra, which Hubble discovered in 2005. Charon was discovered in 1978 at the U.S. Naval Observatory and first resolved using Hubble in 1990 as a separate body from Pluto.

The dwarf planet's entire moon system is believed to have formed by a collision between Pluto and another planet-sized body early in the history of the solar system. The smashup flung material that coalesced into the family of satellites observed around Pluto.

Lunar rocks returned to Earth from the Apollo missions led to the theory that our moon was the result of a similar collision between Earth and a Mars-sized body 4.4 billion years ago. Scientists believe material blasted off Pluto's moons by micrometeoroid impacts may form rings around the dwarf planet, but the Hubble photographs have not detected any so far.

"This surprising observation is a powerful reminder of Hubble's ability as a general purpose astronomical observatory to make astounding, unintended discoveries," said Jon Morse, astrophysics division director at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

P4 was first seen in a photo taken with Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 on June 28. It was confirmed in subsequent Hubble pictures taken on July 3 and July 18. The moon was not seen in earlier Hubble images because the exposure times were shorter. There is a chance it appeared as a very faint smudge in 2006 images, but was overlooked because it was obscured.

Hubble is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore conducts Hubble science operations. STScI is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy Inc. in Washington.

Courtesy: NASA PRESS RELEASE

Astro News: NASA Dawn Spacecraft Returns Close-Up Image of Asteroid Vesta

2011-07-19T02:58:00.000+05:30

NASA's Dawn spacecraft has returned the first close-up image after beginning its orbit around the giant asteroid Vesta. On Friday, July 15, Dawn became the first probe to enter orbit around an object in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

The image taken for navigation purposes shows Vesta in greater detail than ever before. When Vesta captured Dawn into its orbit, there were approximately 9,900 miles (16,000 kilometers) between the spacecraft and asteroid. Engineers estimate the orbit capture took place at 10 p.m. PDT Friday, July 15 (1 a.m. EDT Saturday, July 16).

Vesta is 330 miles (530 kilometers) in diameter and the second most massive object in the asteroid belt. Ground- and space-based telescopes have obtained images of Vesta for about two centuries, but they have not been able to see much detail on its surface. "We are beginning the study of arguably the oldest extant primordial surface in the solar system," said Dawn principal investigator Christopher Russell from the University of California, Los Angeles. "This region of space has been ignored for far too long. So far, the images received to date reveal a complex surface that seems to have preserved some of the earliest events in Vesta's history, as well as logging the onslaught that Vesta has suffered in the intervening eons."

Vesta is thought to be the source of a large number of meteorites that fall to Earth. Vesta and its new NASA neighbor, Dawn, are currently approximately 117 million miles (188 million kilometers) away from Earth. The Dawn team will begin gathering science data in August. Observations will provide unprecedented data to help scientists understand the earliest chapter of our solar system. The data also will help pave the way for future human space missions.

After traveling nearly four years and 1.7 billion miles (2.8 billion kilometers), Dawn also accomplished the largest propulsive acceleration of any spacecraft, with a change in velocity of more than 4.2 miles per second (6.7 kilometers per second), due to its ion engines. The engines expel ions to create thrust and provide higher spacecraft speeds than any other technology currently available. "Dawn slipped gently into orbit with the same grace it has displayed during its years of ion thrusting through interplanetary space," said Marc Rayman, Dawn chief engineer and mission manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "It is fantastically exciting that we will begin providing humankind its first detailed views of one of the last unexplored worlds in the inner solar system."

Although orbit capture is complete, the approach phase will continue for about three weeks. During approach, the Dawn team will continue a search for possible moons around the asteroid; obtain more images for navigation; observe Vesta's physical properties; and obtain calibration data.

In addition, navigators will measure the strength of Vesta's gravitational tug on the spacecraft to compute the asteroid's mass with much greater accuracy than has been previously available. That will allow them to refine the time of orbit insertion.

Dawn will spend one year orbiting Vesta, then travel to a second destination, the dwarf planet Ceres, arriving in February 2015. The mission to Vesta and Ceres is managed by JPL for the agency's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Dawn is a project of the directorate's Discovery Program, which is managed by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala.

UCLA is responsible for Dawn mission science. Orbital Sciences Corp. of Dulles, Va., designed and built the spacecraft. The German Aerospace Center, the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, the Italian Space Agency and the Italian National Astrophysical Institute are part of the mission's team.

To view the image and obtain more information about the Dawn mission, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/dawn and http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov .

Astro News: THE MOST DISTANT QUASAR: BOTH HEADACHE AND OPPORTUNITY

2011-07-01T15:57:00.000+05:30

An international team of astronomers announced today the discovery of the most distant known supermassive black hole, seen as a luminous quasar caused by gas falling into the black hole.

Artist's conception of how the quasar would appear close up. The very hot extremely luminous quasar at the center of the image is very bright at ultraviolet wavelengths, and light from the quasar ionizes the surrounding gas, producing the red color that is characteristic of ionized hydrogen. Faint compact galaxies that have just been born appear in the background. The galaxies' hot stars also ionize their surroundings, but only in the immediate vicinity as they are far less luminous than the quasar which can ionize over a much larger volume.
Gemini Observatory/AURA by Lynette Cook

The discovery came to light using data from an ongoing infrared sky survey being conducted at the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope (UKIRT) and critical follow-up confirmation observations with the Gemini North telescope, both on Mauna Kea in Hawai'i. The results are presented in the June 30, 2011 issue of the Journal Nature. The light from the quasar started its journey toward us when the universe was only 6% of its present age, a mere 770 million years after the Big Bang, at a redshift of about 7.1. "This gives astronomers a headache," says lead author Daniel Mortlock, from Imperial College London. "It's difficult to understand how a black hole a billion times more massive than the Sun can have grown so early in the history of the universe. It's like rolling a snowball down the hill and suddenly you find that it's 20 feet across!"

However, as well as being a headache, the new quasar is a great opportunity, because it allows scientists to measure the conditions in the gas that the quasar's light passes through on its way to us. "What is particularly important about this source is how bright it is," says Mortlock. "It's hundreds of times brighter than anything else yet discovered at such a great distance. This means that we can use it to tell us for the first time what conditions were like in the early universe."

Cosmologists are extremely keen to measure the state of gas in the early universe, to understand the process of how stars and galaxies formed. Most of the gas in the universe is hydrogen, and most of it is ionized at the present time, meaning that the electrons have been stripped off the protons. As one looks further away and thus further back in time, one should eventually reach the time when the gas was neutral, with the electrons and protons combined as atoms, before most of the stars in the universe have formed, over 12 billion years ago. The transition between these periods is the epoch of reionization, a milestone in cosmic history. The light from the new quasar displays the characteristic signature of neutral gas. This signature, showing the quasar is beyond the epoch of reionization, was predicted in 1998 but has never been observed before. "Being able to analyze matter at this critical juncture in the history of the universe is something we've been long striving for but never quite achieved. Now it looks like we have crossed the barrier with this observation," said Prof. Steve Warren, leader of the quasar team. "It's like discovering a new continent which we can now explore."

The quasar, named ULAS J1120+0641, was discovered in the UKIRT Infrared Deep Sky Survey (UKIDSS) a new map of the sky at infrared wavelengths. Such very distant, highly redshifted objects are much more easily found in infrared light. "It was for just this sort of discovery that we began this ambitious survey in 2005," said Prof. Gary Davis, Director of UKIRT. To find the quasar the team sifted through images of over 10 million sources. "We'd been searching for five years, and hadn't found anything, and were beginning to lose heart," said Warren. "It gave us a terrific jolt when we found it as we hadn't really expected to discover anything quite so far away."

To confirm that the object was really a distant quasar and measure its distance, in December 2010 the team made further observations with the 8-meter Gemini North telescope, UKIRT's neighbor on Mauna Kea, using the Gemini Near-Infrared Spectrograph (GNIRS). "The timing was perfect..." recalled Kathy Roth, an astronomer at Gemini Observatory, "...as we got the observation request just days after the spectrograph had been made available for science use at Gemini North. Once the measurements were made it became immediately obvious they had found what they were looking for." The team then quickly collected an additional set of detailed observations, with telescopes at the European Southern Observatory (ESO), and in the Canary Islands. Collectively, these observations from many facilities allowed a detailed study of the properties of the quasar itself, and of the surrounding gas.

The team plans further detailed observations of ULAS J1120+0641, but also hope to find more such distant but bright quasars. "There may be 100 such objects spread around the whole sky," says Mortlock, "but finding them amongst the billions of other objects in astronomical images is a serious challenge!"

News credit: Gemini/Joint Astronomy Centre

Astro News: Clocking Neptune's Spin

2011-07-01T10:29:00.000+05:30

Clocking Neptune's Spin
By By Daniel Stolte, University Communications, University of Arizona

Neptune: Image credit NASA

By tracking atmospheric features on Neptune, a UA planetary scientist has accurately determined the planet's rotation, a feat that had not been previously achieved for any of the gas planets in our solar system except Jupiter.

A day on Neptune lasts precisely 15 hours, 57 minutes and 59 seconds, according to the first accurate measurement of its rotational period made by University of Arizona planetary scientist Erich Karkoschka.

His result is one of the largest improvements in determining the rotational period of a gas planet in almost 350 years since Italian astronomer Giovanni Cassini made the first observations of Jupiter's Red Spot.

"The rotational period of a planet is one of its fundamental properties," said Karkoschka, a senior staff scientist at the UA's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory. "Neptune has two features observable with the Hubble Space Telescope that seem to track the interior rotation of the planet. Nothing similar has been seen before on any of the four giant planets."

The discovery is published in Icarus, the official scientific publication of the Division for Planetary Sciences of the American Astronomical Society.

Unlike the rocky planets – Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars – which behave like solid balls spinning in a rather straightforward manner, the giant gas planets – Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune – rotate more like giant blobs of liquid. Since they are believed to consist of mainly ice and gas around a relatively small solid core, their rotation involves a lot of sloshing, swirling and roiling, which has made it difficult for astronomers to get an accurate grip on exactly how fast they spin around.

In this image, the colors and contrasts were modified to emphasize the planet’s atmospheric features. The winds in Neptune’s atmosphere can reach the speed of sound or more. Neptune’s Great Dark Spot stands out as the most prominent feature on the left. Several features, including the fainter Dark Spot 2 and the South Polar Feature, are locked to the planet’s rotation, which allowed Karkoschka to precisely determine how long a day lasts on Neptune. (Image: Erich Karkoschka)

"If you looked at Earth from space, you'd see mountains and other features on the ground rotating with great regularity, but if you looked at the clouds, they wouldn't because the winds change all the time," Karkoschka explained. "If you look at the giant planets, you don't see a surface, just a thick cloudy atmosphere."

"On Neptune, all you see is moving clouds and features in the planet's atmosphere. Some move faster, some move slower, some accelerate, but you really don't know what the rotational period is, if there even is some solid inner core that is rotating."

In the 1950s, when astronomers built the first radio telescopes, they discovered that Jupiter sends out pulsating radio beams, like a lighthouse in space. Those signals originate from a magnetic field generated by the rotation of the planet's inner core.

No clues about the rotation of the other gas giants, however, were available because any radio signals they may emit are being swept out into space by the solar wind and never reach Earth.

"The only way to measure radio waves is to send spacecraft to those planets," Karkoschka said. "When Voyager 1 and 2 flew past Saturn, they found radio signals and clocked them at exactly 10.66 hours, and they found radio signals for Uranus and Neptune as well. So based on those radio signals, we thought we knew the rotation periods of those planets."

But when the Cassini probe arrived at Saturn 15 years later, its sensors detected its radio period had changed by about 1 percent. Karkoschka explained that because of its large mass, it was impossible for Saturn to incur that much change in its rotation over such a short time.

"Because the gas planets are so big, they have enough angular momentum to keep them spinning at pretty much the same rate for billions of years," he said. "So something strange was going on."

Even more puzzling was Cassini's later discovery that Saturn's northern and southern hemispheres appear to be rotating at different speeds.

"That's when we realized the magnetic field is not like clockwork but slipping," Karkoschka said. "The interior is rotating and drags the magnetic field along, but because of the solar wind or other, unknown influences, the magnetic field cannot keep up with respect to the planet's core and lags behind."

Instead of spacecraft powered by billions of dollars, Karkoschka took advantage of what one might call the scraps of space science: publicly available images of Neptune from the Hubble Space Telescope archive. With unwavering determination and unmatched patience, he then pored over hundreds of images, recording every detail and tracking distinctive features over long periods of time.

Other scientists before him had observed Neptune and analyzed images, but nobody had sleuthed through 500 of them.

"When I looked at the images, I found Neptune's rotation to be faster than what Voyager observed," Karkoschka said. "I think the accuracy of my data is about 1,000 times better than what we had based on the Voyager measurements – a huge improvement in determining the exact rotational period of Neptune, which hasn't happened for any of the giant planets for the last three centuries."

Two features in Neptune's atmosphere, Karkoschka discovered, stand out in that they rotate about five times more steadily than even Saturn's hexagon, the most regularly rotating feature known on any of the gas giants.

Named the South Polar Feature and the South Polar Wave, the features are likely vortices swirling in the atmosphere, similar to Jupiter's famous Red Spot, which can last for a long time due to negligible friction. Karkoschka was able to track them over the course of more than 20 years.

An observer watching the massive planet turn from a fixed spot in space would see both features appear exactly every 15.9663 hours, with less than a few seconds of variation.

"The regularity suggests those features are connected to Neptune's interior in some way," Karkoschka said. "How they are connected is up to speculation."

One possible scenario involves convection driven by warmer and cooler areas within the planet's thick atmosphere, analogous to hot spots within the Earth's mantle, giant circular flows of molten material that stay in the same location over millions of years.

"I thought the extraordinary regularity of Neptune's rotation indicated by the two features was something really special," Karkoschka said.

"So I dug up the images of Neptune that Voyager took in 1989, which have better resolution than the Hubble images, to see whether I could find anything else in the vicinity of those two features. I discovered six more features that rotate with the same speed, but they were too faint to be visible with the Hubble Space Telescope, and visible to Voyager only for a few months, so we wouldn't know if the rotational period was accurate to the six digits. But they were really connected. So now we have eight features that are locked together on one planet, and that is really exciting."

In addition to getting a better grip on Neptune's rotational period, the study could lead to a better understanding of the giant gas planets in general.

"We know Neptune's total mass but we don't know how it is distributed," Karkoschka explained. "If the planet rotates faster than we thought, it means the mass has to be closer to the center than we thought. These results might change the models of the planets' interior and could have many other implications."

Astro News: Spitzer finds distant galaxies grazed on gas

2011-07-01T10:11:00.000+05:30

Galaxies once thought of as voracious tigers are more like grazing cows, according to a new study using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope.

Astronomers have discovered that galaxies in the distant, early universe continuously ingested their star-making fuel over long periods of time. This goes against previous theories that the galaxies devoured their fuel in quick bursts after run-ins with other galaxies.

"Our study shows the merging of massive galaxies was not the dominant method of galaxy growth in the distant universe," said Ranga-Ram Chary of NASA's Spitzer Science Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif. "We're finding this type of galactic cannibalism was rare. Instead, we are seeing evidence for a mechanism of galaxy growth in which a typical galaxy fed itself through a steady stream of gas, making stars at a much faster rate than previously thought."

Chary is the principal investigator of the research, appearing in the Aug. 1 issue of the Astrophysical Journal. According to his findings, these grazing galaxies fed steadily over periods of hundreds of millions of years and created an unusual amount of plump stars, up to 100 times the mass of our sun.

"This is the first time that we have identified galaxies that supersized themselves by grazing," said Hyunjin Shim, also of the Spitzer Science Center and lead author of the paper. "They have many more massive stars than our Milky Way galaxy."

Galaxies like our Milky Way are giant collections of stars, gas and dust. They grow in size by feeding off gas and converting it to new stars. A long-standing question in astronomy is: Where did distant galaxies that formed billions of years ago acquire this stellar fuel? The most favored theory was that galaxies grew by merging with other galaxies, feeding off gas stirred up in the collisions.

Chary and his team addressed this question by using Spitzer to survey more than 70 remote galaxies that existed 1 to 2 billion years after the Big Bang (our universe is approximately 13.7 billion years old). To their surprise, these galaxies were blazing with what is called H alpha, which is radiation from hydrogen gas that has been hit with ultraviolet light from stars. High levels of H alpha indicate stars are forming vigorously. Seventy percent of the surveyed galaxies show strong signs of H alpha. By contrast, only 0.1 percent of galaxies in our local universe possess this signature.

Previous studies using ultraviolet-light telescopes found about six times less star formation than Spitzer, which sees infrared light. Scientists think this may be due to large amounts of obscuring dust, through which infrared light can sneak. Spitzer opened a new window onto the galaxies by taking very long-exposure infrared images of a patch of sky called the GOODS fields, for Great Observatories Origins Deep Survey.

Further analyses showed that these galaxies furiously formed stars up to 100 times faster than the current star-formation rate of our Milky Way. What's more, the star formation took place over a long period of time, hundreds of millions of years. This tells astronomers that the galaxies did not grow due to mergers, or collisions, which happen on shorter timescales. While such smash-ups are common in the universe -- for example, our Milky Way will merge with the Andromeda galaxy in about 5 billion years -- the new study shows that large mergers were not the main cause of galaxy growth. Instead, the results show that distant, giant galaxies bulked up by feeding off a steady supply of gas that probably streamed in from filaments of dark matter.

Chary said, "If you could visit a planet in one of these galaxies, the sky would be a crazy place, with tons of bright stars, and fairly frequent supernova explosions."

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., manages the Spitzer Space Telescope mission for the agency's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. Science operations are conducted at the Spitzer Science Center at Caltech. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.

Credit: Caltech/NASA/JPL

Total Lunar Eclipse June 15th 2011

2011-06-06T14:27:00.001+05:30

It's been a while since the last total lunar eclipse we witnessed in this part of the world. Way back in 2008 August 17^th morning at around 2am we had partial eclipse. The last total lunar eclipse we had the opportunity to observe was in 2007 March. This year we have two total lunar eclipses coming up. First one is on June 15^th and the second is on December 10^th 2011.

June 15^th Lunar eclipse details:

The penumbral eclipse begins at 10:54pm IST, this is hard to detect as the difference in the brightness of the Moon is very less. The umbral eclipse will start at 11:52 IST and we will start to see the moon entering the shadow. The moon will be in total eclipse from 12:52am IST to 02:32am IST. The moon will start coming out the umbral shadow after 02:32am and will be completely out of the umbral shadow cone at 3:32am IST. This will mark the end of noticeable change in the moon's brightness and color, the moon will emerge from the penumbral shadow at 4:30am IST.

Altitude of Moon during Eclipse:

Moon will be at an altitude of 56 degrees above the horizon at the beginning of the penumbral eclipse, well placed above trees and buildings if we are observing from city. Maximum eclipse is when the Moon is at the center of the umbral shadow, this happens at approximately 1:42am IST the moon's altitude will be 46degrees from the horizon. At the time when the Moon completely comes out of the umbral shadow the altitude will be 31 degrees.

Color of Moon during Total Lunar eclipse:

Due to the atmospheric refraction moon may appear dark brown and red to bright orange and yellow depending on the amount and type of dust present in the atmosphere.

French astronomer André-Louis Danjon (6 April 1890 – 21 April 1967) developed a scale depending on the brightness and color of the moon during total eclipse.

L=0 Very dark eclipse, Moon is almost invisible, especially at mid-totality.

L=1 Dark eclipse, gray or brownish in coloration, Details are distinguishable only with difficulty.

L=2 Deep red or rust-colored eclipse, Very dark central shadow, while outer umbra is relatively bright.

L=3 Brick-red eclipse, Umbral shadow usually has a bright or yellow rim.

L=4 Very bright copper-red or orange eclipse umbral shadow has a bluish, very bright rim.

The readings can be taken from observing through naked eye, binoculars and small telescopes. Hope we all get chance to observe, enjoy and photograph the event.

Total Lunar Eclipse on December 10^th 2011:

The Umbral eclipse begins at 6:15pm on the 12^th of December 2011. Moon will be at an altitude of 18degrees from the eastern horizon. Total eclipse will begin at 7:37pm IST and will be in totality till 8:26pm IST. The moon will be at an altitude of 41degrees from the eastern horizon during maximum eclipse which will occur at 8:00pm IST. Moon will emerge completely out of umbral shadow at 9:48pm IST.

Finding Neptune and Uranus

2011-05-20T10:00:00.025+05:30

In the early morning hours these days we can spot Mercury, Venus, Mars and Jupiter without any optical aid. But there are two giants who rise early but require little optical help, these giants are, planets Neptune and Uranus.

If we look at the eastern sky at around 3am the planet Neptune will be at an altitude of 40degree from the eastern horizon in the constellation of Aquarius. One advantage of spotting the planet at this time of 3am is that we have bright 1^st magnitude star Fomalhaut as a reference starting point. Looking at south-east the star Fomalhaut can be easily found as there are no bright 1^st magnitude stars other than Fomalhaut in that region.

We will start by locating the star Fomalhaut, the sky charts below will be of good help.

The sky is for 3:30am.

Once we have Fomalhaut in the field of binocular or telescope, we move up 21 degrees and locate delta Capricorni, follow the dotted yellow line.

Delta Capricorni is an 2.8 magnitude star and can be easily found. Now from Delta Capricorni we move to Iota Aquarii.

Iota Aquarii is little dimmer at 4.2magnitude and it is around 5degrees NE from Delta Capricorni. From Iota Aquarri we move 2.3degrees North and find the star 38 Aquarii at magnitude 5.4.

Neptune lies just 21 minutes east of 38 Aquarii (below 38 Aquarii) and is easy to spot. At opposition the distance from Earth 4347.31 million(km). The Apparent Magnitude of the planet is 7.8 magnitude.

Rising times of Neptune:

Date	Rise
28 May 2011	00:20
05 Jun 2011	23:45
13 Jun 2011	23:13
21 Jun 2011	22:42
29 Jun 2011	22:10
07 Jul 2011	21:38
15 Jul 2011	21:05
23 Jul 2011	20:34
31 Jul 2011	20:02
08 Aug 2011	19:30

Uranus:

Uranus is easy to find as the planet is bright at 5.9 magnitude. These charts will help in locating the planet. We all are very familiar with the Great Square, using the two stars Alpheratz and Algenib and moving towards south, its easy to find the planet Uranus. At opposition the distance 2719 million (km) and shines at a 5.5magnitude.

The sky at 3:30am

Rising Times of Uranus:

Date	Rise
28 May 2011	02:11:00 AM
05 Jun 2011	01:40:00 AM
13 Jun 2011	01:10:00 AM
21 Jun 2011	12:39:00 AM
29 Jun 2011	12:08:00 AM
07 Jul 2011	11:32:00 PM
15 Jul 2011	11:01:00 PM
23 Jul 2011	10:29:00 PM
31 Jul 2011	09:57:00 PM
08 Aug 2011	09:25:00 PM

Happy spotting the planets and clear skies.

Star chart prepared with Stellarium

Free-Floating Planets May Be More Common Than Stars

2011-05-19T12:02:00.000+05:30

Astronomers have discovered a new class of Jupiter-sized planets floating alone in the dark of space, away from the light of a star. The team believes these lone worlds are probably outcasts from developing planetary systems and, moreover, they could be twice as numerous as the stars themselves.

Artist's conception illustrates a Jupiter-like planet Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

"Although free-floating planets have been predicted, they finally have been detected," said Mario Perez, exoplanet program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "[This has] major implications for models of planetary formation and evolution."

The discovery is based on a joint Japan-New Zealand survey that scanned the center of the Milky Way galaxy during 2006 and 2007, revealing evidence for up to 10 free-floating planets roughly the mass of Jupiter. The isolated orbs, also known as orphan planets, are difficult to spot, and had gone undetected until now. The planets are located at an average approximate distance of 10,000 to 20,000 light years from Earth.

This could be just the tip of the iceberg. The team estimates there are about twice as many free-floating Jupiter-mass planets as stars. In addition, these worlds are thought to be at least as common as planets that orbit stars. This adds up to hundreds of billions of lone planets in our Milky Way galaxy alone.

"Our survey is like a population census," said David Bennett, a NASA and National Science Foundation-funded co-author of the study from the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Ind. "We sampled a portion of the galaxy, and based on these data, can estimate overall numbers in the galaxy."

The study, led by Takahiro Sumi from Osaka University in Japan, appears in the May 19 issue of the journal Nature. The survey is not sensitive to planets smaller than Jupiter and Saturn, but theories suggest lower-mass planets like Earth should be ejected from their stars more often. As a result, they are thought to be more common than free-floating Jupiters.

Previous observations spotted a handful of free-floating planet-like objects within star-forming clusters, with masses three times that of Jupiter. But scientists suspect the gaseous bodies form more like stars than planets. These small, dim orbs, called brown dwarfs, grow from collapsing balls of gas and dust, but lack the mass to ignite their nuclear fuel and shine with starlight. It is thought the smallest brown dwarfs are approximately the size of large planets.

On the other hand, it is likely that some planets are ejected from their early, turbulent solar systems, due to close gravitational encounters with other planets or stars. Without a star to circle, these planets would move through the galaxy as our sun and others stars do, in stable orbits around the galaxy's center. The discovery of 10 free-floating Jupiters supports the ejection scenario, though it's possible both mechanisms are at play.

"If free-floating planets formed like stars, then we would have expected to see only one or two of them in our survey instead of 10," Bennett said. "Our results suggest that planetary systems often become unstable, with planets being kicked out from their places of birth."

The observations cannot rule out the possibility that some of these planets may be in orbit around distant stars, but other research indicates Jupiter-mass planets in such distant orbits are rare.

The survey, the Microlensing Observations in Astrophysics (MOA), is named in part after a giant wingless, extinct bird family from New Zealand called the moa. A 5.9-foot (1.8-meter) telescope at Mount John University Observatory in New Zealand is used to regularly scan the copious stars at the center of our galaxy for gravitational microlensing events. These occur when something, such as a star or planet, passes in front of another more distant star. The passing body's gravity warps the light of the background star, causing it to magnify and brighten. Heftier passing bodies, like massive stars, will warp the light of the background star to a greater extent,resulting in brightening events that can last weeks. Small planet-size bodies will cause less of a distortion, and brighten a star for only a few days or less.

A second microlensing survey group, the Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment (OGLE), contributed to this discovery using a 4.2-foot (1.3 meter) telescope in Chile. The OGLE group also observed many of the same events, and their observations independently confirmed the analysis of the MOA group.

Source and Credit: Science@NASA

At the Heart of Hartley-2, a New Breed of Comet?

2011-05-18T12:06:00.000+05:30

At the heart of every comet lies a remnant of the dawn of the solar system. Or is that remnants? Astronomers don't know, but the answer would give them a clearer picture of exactly how comets were born eons ago at the birth of the Solar System. Did thin tendrils of dust and ice get drawn slowly inward and pack themselves into a single, uniform mass? Or did a hodge-podge of mini-comets come together to form the core for a comet of substance?

This close-up view of comet Hartley 2 was taken by NASA's EPOXI mission during its flyby of the comet. It was captured by the spacecraft's Medium-Resolution instrument. Last Update: 28 Mar 2011 (AMB)
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UMD

For Hartley-2, the answer so far is neither. "We haven't seen a comet like this before," says Michael Mumma of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "Hartley-2 could be the first of a new breed."

Both data collected by Mumma's team and detailed images of the comet taken by NASA's EPOXI mission reveal that the comet's core is not uniform. "We have evidence of two different kinds of ice in the core, possibly three," says Mumma. "But we can also see that the comet's overall composition is very consistent. So, something subtle is happening. We're not sure what that is."

The researchers observed Hartley-2 six times during the summer, fall and winter of 2010, both before and after the EPOXI mission's Deep Impact spacecraft had its November rendezvous with the comet. Using telescopes perched high in the mountains of Hawaii and Chile, Mumma's team studied the comet's coma-the aura of gas, dust and ice particles that surround the core. The findings of Mumma and his colleagues at Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., the University of Missouri in St. Louis, the University of Hawaii in Honolulu, the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Katlenburg-Lindau, Germany, and Rowan University in Glassboro, N.J., are being reported in a special issue of Astrophysical Journal Letters on May 16, 2011

Jets spew out ice and carbon dioxide from one end of comet Hartley-2 in this EPOXI image, while water vapor gets released from the middle region. The differences suggest that the comet's core is made of at least two different ices. Ground-based measurements suggest the presence of a third ice. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UMD.

The gases and rocky particles that make up the coma are the clues that astronomers use to deduce what the core is made of, and thus its origin. To see which types of molecules are there, researchers check for telltale signatures in the near-infrared region of light, at wavelengths from 2.9 to 3.8 micrometers. In this way, it's also possible to tell how plentiful each type of molecule is.

Ices in Hartley-2 are mostly made of water, along with traces of many other types of molecules, the team learned. This is in addition to the plentiful carbon dioxide detected in the comet in 1997 by the European Space Agency's Infrared Space Observatory. Mumma and colleagues paid close attention to the levels of water and seven other molecules that evaporate easily. The molecules remain frozen either on or below the core's surface until the warming rays of the sun vaporize them; then, they are swept into the coma.

The release of the molecules depends a great deal on exposure to the sun. The researchers knew that in 2009 ground-based observers had detected telltale signs that the core was rotating quickly. So the team was interested in what would happen to the production levels of these molecules as the comet rotated every 18 hours, giving each of its faces a turn to bathe in sunlight. Turns out, they saw something that nobody has seen before.

First of all, they saw the comet's wild side. "The amount of water changed dramatically night by night and even within a single night-in some cases, doubling in that time," says Mumma. But, in truth, Hartley-2 isn't the only comet to get caught being fickle.

What surprised the researchers was this: as the amount of water went up, so did the amounts of the other gases. And as the amount of water went down, the others did, too. "This is the first time anyone has seen an entire suite of these gases change in the same way at the same time," says Mumma.

This result is important for astronomers, he notes, because they often study the gases in a comet's coma one at a time. "But this suggests that if you look at one gas on one night and another the next night, the production rates might change quite a bit. The findings could be different than if you measured the two gases together," he says. "And in the worst case, you could get the wrong idea about the composition of the comet."

Beyond that, Mumma says, "this tells us that the overall composition of the gas in the coma did not change." Taken by itself, this might seem to imply that the core of the comet is uniform. But when the findings of the EPOXI science team are considered, the picture gets more complicated.

"The fact that the gases all vary together is somewhat puzzling, because EPOXI found a large variation in the release of carbon dioxide relative to water," says the head of the EPOXI science team, Michael A'Hearn of the University of Maryland. "At this point the interpretation is pretty speculative."

EPOXI's Deep Impact spacecraft had a rendezvous with the comet in November 2010. The rich images taken then of the comet's surface revealed small, volcano-like "jets" spewing out carbon dioxide gas and water ice at one end. The jets activate when sunlight warms that end of the comet, turning the frozen carbon dioxide (aka dry ice) below the surface into gas that escapes through open holes.

The researchers think that chunks of water ice are glued together in the comet's core by the frozen carbon dioxide, which evaporates before the water ice. "The carbon dioxide gas drags with it chunks of ice, which later evaporate to provide much of the water vapor in the coma," A'Hearn explains.

Researchers had never seen this before. "In other comets that have been visited, most of the water appears to be converted into gas below or at the surface," says A'Hearn. "We have not seen icy grains, or at least, very few, being dragged into the coma."

But the whole core is not made the same way. EPOXI revealed that the carbon dioxide jets are not found at the large end of the comet, and in the middle region, water vapor is released without any carbon dioxide. "So clearly, when we look at the comet up close, the composition of the core changes from one region to another," Mumma says.

Mumma's team found more evidence that Hartley-2's core is not uniform. They did so by looking carefully at four types of gas to see in which directions their molecules traveled after release. They saw that water and another gas, methanol, came off the comet in all directions. "Because they are found together, we infer that they come from the same chunks of ice," he explains.

"So, we have water ice with methanol in it, and we have carbon dioxide ice. Both are in the comet's core," Mumma says. "We may also have a third type of ice, made from ethane."

That possibility is based on the fact that ethane, unlike water and methanol, was released strongly in one direction. "This is actually rather profound," says Mumma. "It suggests that some molecules, such as methanol, may be mixed with water, while others, such as ethane, are not. This isn't the way we've thought of comets, before now."

More research needs to be done, and whether all comets behave like Hartley-2 isn't known, Mumma adds. "But now that we know what this one does, we have a baseline to compare other comets against."

Elizabeth Zubritsky
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md

Astro News: Andromeda’s coat of many colours

2011-04-28T11:27:00.000+05:30

ESA’s fleet of space telescopes has captured the nearby Andromeda Galaxy, also known as M31, in different wavelengths. Most of these wavelengths are invisible to the eye and each shows a different aspect of the galaxy’s nature.

Visible light, as seen by optical ground-based telescopes and our eyes, reveals the various stars that shine in the Andromeda Galaxy, yet it is just one small part of the full spectrum of electromagnetic radiation. There are many different wavelengths that are invisible to us but which are revealed by ESA’s orbiting telescopes.

Starting at the long wavelength end, the Planck spacecraft collects microwaves. These show up particles of incredibly cold dust, at just a few tens of degrees above absolute zero. Slightly higher temperature dust is revealed by the shorter, infrared wavelengths observed by the Herschel space telescope. This dust traces locations in the spiral arms of the Andromeda Galaxy where new stars are being born today.

The XMM-Newton telescope detects wavelengths shorter than visible light, collecting ultraviolet and X-rays. These show older stars, many nearing the end of their lives and others that have already exploded, sending shockwaves rolling through space. By monitoring the core of Andromeda since 2002, XMM-Newton has revealed many variable stars, some of which have undergone large stellar detonations known as novae.

Ultraviolet wavelengths also display the light from extremely massive stars. These are young stars that will not live long. They exhaust their nuclear fuel and explode as supernovae typically within a few tens of millions of years after they are born. The ultraviolet light is usually absorbed by dust and re-emitted as infrared, so the areas where ultraviolet light is seen directly correspond to relatively clear, dust-free parts of Andromeda.

By putting all of these observations together, and seeing Andromeda in its many different colours, astronomers are able to follow the life cycle of the stars.

Video and News credit: ESA

Astro News: A galactic rose highlights Hubble's 21st anniversary

2011-04-21T15:35:00.000+05:30

In celebration of the 21st anniversary of the Hubble Space Telescope’s deployment into space, astronomers pointed Hubble at an especially photogenic group of interacting galaxies called Arp 273.

This image, taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, shows a group of interacting galaxies called Arp 273. The larger of the spiral galaxies, known as UGC 1810, has a disc that is tidally distorted into a rose-like shape by the gravitational pull of the companion galaxy below it, known as UGC 1813. The swathe of blue jewels across the top is the combined light from clusters of intensely bright and hot young blue stars. These massive stars glow fiercely in ultraviolet light.

The smaller, nearly edge-on companion shows distinct signs of intense star formation at its nucleus, perhaps triggered by the encounter with the companion galaxy.

A series of uncommon spiral patterns in the large galaxy are a telltale sign of interaction. The large, outer arm appears partially as a ring, a feature that is seen when interacting galaxies actually pass through one another. This suggests that the smaller companion actually dived deeply, but off-centre, through UGC 1810. The inner set of spiral arms is highly warped out of the plane, with one of the arms going behind the bulge and coming back out the other side. How these two spiral patterns connect is still not precisely known.

A possible mini-spiral may be visible in the spiral arms of UGC 1810 to the upper right. It is noticeable how the outermost spiral arm changes character as it passes this third galaxy, from smooth with lots of old stars (reddish in colour) on one side, to clumpy and extremely blue on the other. The fairly regular spacing of the blue star-forming knots fits with what is seen in the spiral arms of other galaxies and can be predicted from the known instabilities in the gas contained within the arm.

The larger galaxy in the UGC 1810–UGC 1813 pair has a mass that is about five times that of the smaller galaxy. In unequal pairs such as this, the relatively rapid passage of a companion galaxy produces the lopsided or asymmetric structure in the main spiral. Also in such encounters, the starburst activity typically begins earlier in the minor galaxy than in the major galaxy. These effects could be due to the fact that the smaller galaxies have consumed less of the gas present in their nucleus, from which new stars are born.

Arp 273 lies in the constellation Andromeda and is roughly 300 million light-years away from Earth. The image shows a tenuous tidal bridge of material between the two galaxies that are separated by tens of thousands of light-years from each other.

The interaction was imaged on 17 December 2010, with Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3).

Sunspot photos

2011-03-07T15:28:00.005+05:30

Dilip Kumar shares these photos that he took of the Sun

He writes

" The photos 336 and 37d, were taken in the evening directly without filter, since its safe to shoot when the Sun is close to horizon with Red disc, without the glare.

Its better to take many shots in Manual mode with different exposures since, its difficult to judge the correct exposure. On the other hand if Programme or Auto modes are used, the correct exposures may not be possible, since if the disc of the Sun is small the camera will try to take reading from the larger outer area and resulting in Sun getting over or under exposed.

When longer focal length lens is used, the Sun's disc will be larger and better exposures can be achieved, but, its still better to bracket the exposures to get best photo. Its always better to use lower ISO to take advantage of getting finer grains ( 200 to 400 ) since Sun is bright, a fairly good shutter speed can be achieved with larger openings of the aperture, as the Sun is a far object, Depth of field is negligible.

In case of longer focal length lens or with compact cameras with 12X or higher zoom, its better to use a tripod, stand or place the camera on some support like wall or take support of a tree to avoid shake.

The photos, 124d & 135 were taken with a flter in place (Baader), it was taken in midday with manual exposurre. The filter sheet is cut to the size of the lens diameter and it is mounted between two KG Card sheets, which is attached to the front of the lens with scotch tape.

All pic.s were taken with 300mm lens with 1.7x teleconverter, which works out to 500mm. Even with small compact camera with fairly good zoom like 12X and above, fairly good photos can be taken."

IISER Kolkata researchers Crack the Mystery of the Missing Sunspots

2011-03-03T13:39:00.004+05:30

In 2008-2009, sunspots almost completely disappeared for two years. Solar activity dropped to hundred-year lows; Earth's upper atmosphere cooled and collapsed; the sun’s magnetic field weakened, allowing cosmic rays to penetrate the Solar System in record numbers. It was a big event, and solar physicists openly wondered, where have all the sunspots gone?

Now they know. An answer is being published in the March 3rd edition of Nature.

"Plasma currents deep inside the sun interfered with the formation of sunspots and prolonged solar minimum," says lead author Dibyendu Nandi of the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research in Kolkata. "Our conclusions are based on a new computer model of the sun's interior."

For years, solar physicists have recognized the importance of the sun's "Great Conveyor Belt." A vast system of plasma currents called ‘meridional flows’ (akin to ocean currents on Earth) travel along the sun's surface, plunge inward around the poles, and pop up again near the sun's equator. These looping currents play a key role in the 11-year solar cycle. When sunspots begin to decay, surface currents sweep up their magnetic remains and pull them down inside the star; 300,000 km below the surface, the sun’s magnetic dynamo amplifies the decaying magnetic fields. Re-animated sunspots become buoyant and bob up to the surface like a cork in water—voila! A new solar cycle is born.

For the first time, Nandi’s team believes they have developed a computer model that gets the physics right for all three aspects of this process--the magnetic dynamo, the conveyor belt, and the buoyant evolution of sunspot magnetic fields.

"According to our model, the trouble with sunspots actually began in back in the late 1990s during the upswing of Solar Cycle 23," says co-author Andrés Muñoz-Jaramillo of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. "At that time, the conveyor belt sped up."

The fast-moving belt rapidly dragged sunspot corpses down to sun's inner dynamo for amplification. At first glance, this might seem to boost sunspot production, but no. When the remains of old sunspots reached the dynamo, they rode the belt through the amplification zone too hastily for full re-animation. Sunspot production was stunted.

Later, in the 2000s, according to the model, the Conveyor Belt slowed down again, allowing magnetic fields to spend more time in the amplification zone, but the damage was already done. New sunspots were in short supply. Adding insult to injury, the slow moving belt did little to assist re-animated sunspots on their journey back to the surface, delaying the onset of Solar Cycle 24.

"The stage was set for the deepest solar minimum in a century," says co-author Petrus Martens of the Montana State University Department of Physics.

Colleagues and supporters of the team are calling the new model a significant advance.

"Understanding and predicting solar minimum is something we’ve never been able to do before---and it turns out to be very important," says Lika Guhathakurta of NASA’s Heliophysics Division in Washington, DC.

While Solar Max is relatively brief, lasting a few years punctuated by episodes of violent flaring, over and done in days, Solar Minimum can grind on for many years. The famous Maunder Minimum of the 17th century lasted 70 years and coincided with the deepest part of Europe's Little Ice Age. Researchers are still struggling to understand the connection.

One thing is clear: During long minima, strange things happen. In 2008-2009, the sun’s global magnetic field weakened and the solar wind subsided. Cosmic rays normally held at bay by the sun’s windy magnetism surged into the inner solar system. During the deepest solar minimum in a century, ironically, space became a more dangerous place to travel. At the same time, the heating action of UV rays normally provided by sunspots was absent, so Earth’s upper atmosphere began to cool and collapse. Space junk stopped decaying as rapidly as usual and started accumulating in Earth orbit. And so on….

Nandi notes that their new computer model explained not only the absence of sunspots but also the sun’s weakened magnetic field in 08-09. "It's confirmation that we’re on the right track."

Next step: NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) can measure the motions of the sun’s conveyor belt—not just on the surface but deep inside, too. The technique is called helioseismology; it reveals the sun’s interior in much the same way that an ultrasound works on a pregnant woman. By plugging SDO’s high-quality data into the computer model, the researchers might be able to predict how future solar minima will unfold. SDO is just getting started, however, so forecasts will have to wait.

Indeed, much work remains to be done, but, says Guhathakurta, "finally, we may be cracking the mystery of the spotless sun."

This research was funded by NASA’s Living With a Star Program and the Department of Science and Technology of the Government of India.

Scoure and Image credit NASA.

ABAA in News

2011-03-01T21:58:00.005+05:30

ABAA and JNP's effort of creating awareness in astronomy and telescopes during the National Science Day exhibition that was held on Feb 28th was covered by print and television media. Here is a photo from Times of India news paper dated 1/03/2011, in which ABAA member Priya S Srivatsa is explaining telescope to public. The writeup can be found on page 18 titled

A DAY TO EXPLORE TELESCOPE.

ABAA again thanks all the volunteers who have helped in spreading awareness among students and public and hopes for continued support.

Eclipse photos on Annual report of JNP

2011-03-01T21:20:00.003+05:30

Mr Prakash Subbanna, Vice-president of ABAA, shared this info with ABAA that his eclipse photos have been printed on the Cover pages of JNP's Annual report. One is a collage of Annular Solar Eclipse which occured on 15th Jan 2010, the picture was taken from Dhanushkodi, Kanyakumari and the other is of the Total Solar Eclipse which occurred on July 26th 2009. The photo was taken from Bodh Gaya, Bihar. Mr Prakash Subbanna has sent his thanks to ABAA for all its support.

Original Images of the eclipses.

2011-03-01T20:48:00.000+05:30

Moon and Venus - the second and third brightest objects in the sky have always evoked interest among people. When they come close together it gets all the more interesting. Just like the eclipses which are rare events thanks to the orbital properties, Moon and Venus appearing together - at least at a convenient time for us to observe - are somewhat rare. Though not as wonderful or celebrated, they nevertheless attract attention. That's what happened today morning. The two celestial bodies were separated by less than a degree and it was indeed a great sight. Managed to take a few pictures of the event. The pictures were taken from Lalbagh.

The pictures of course, don't do any justice to the real thing as it happens quite often.

National Science Day exhibition from JNP and ABAA

2011-03-01T15:20:00.009+05:30

On the occasion of Nation Science Day, held every year on Feb 28, JNP and ABAA made an effort to popularize astronomy among people. JNP had put up exhibits of different types of telescopes and ABAA volunteers were there to explain the working of telescopes and their application in different branches of astronomy.

From morning ABAA volunteers helped students and public understand the working of telescopes in detail. They explained how the refractors and reflector telescopes work, their optics, light ray path and also covered advantages and disadvantages of refractors and reflectors.

It was great to see that even on a busy week day ABAA members took time out and came to help people understand telescope and create awareness on Astronomy. ABAA thanks all its volunteers for making time and helping the cause. ABAA thanks JNP for their support during the event and hopes of more such activities.

ABAA Volunteers:

Namratha S

Priya S Srivatsa

Bharath A J

T S Madhava

Here are few Photos of the event

Priya S Srivatsa explaining refractor telescope

Namratha S explaining telescope to students

Exhibits

Namratha explaining optics to public

Bharath A J explaining refractor

Kamalesh explaining Newtonian telescope

Madhava T S, long time member and active member of ABAA.

Bharath giving details to media

Namratha explaining telescope to media

Students looking through telescope.

Sunspot pictures taken today

2011-02-19T18:39:00.000+05:30

Sunspot activity is back! The recent intense activity made headlines. I took a few pictures today (19th Feb 2011). Here is a picture taken at 4.36 pm.

Exposure Details: Canon 400D, 300mm lens + 1.4TC @ f/4, 1/160 sec, ISO200.

Astro News: Giant Ring of Black Holes

2011-02-14T13:10:00.001+05:30

Just in time for Valentine's Day comes a new image of a ring -- not of jewels -- but of black holes. This composite image of Arp 147, a pair of interacting galaxies located about 430 million light years from Earth, shows X-rays from the NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory (pink) and optical data from the Hubble Space Telescope (red, green, blue) produced by the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore, Md.

Arp 147 contains the remnant of a spiral galaxy (right) that collided with the elliptical galaxy on the left. This collision has produced an expanding wave of star formation that shows up as a blue ring containing in abundance of massive young stars. These stars race through their evolution in a few million years or less and explode as supernovas, leaving behind neutron stars and black holes.

A fraction of the neutron stars and black holes will have companion stars, and may become bright X-ray sources as they pull in matter from their companions. The nine X-ray sources scattered around the ring in Arp 147 are so bright that they must be black holes, with masses that are likely ten to twenty times that of the Sun.

An X-ray source is also detected in the nucleus of the red galaxy on the left and may be powered by a poorly-fed supermassive black hole. This source is not obvious in the composite image but can easily be seen in the X-ray image. Other objects unrelated to Arp 147 are also visible: a foreground star in the lower left of the image and a background quasar as the pink source above and to the left of the red galaxy.

Infrared observations with NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope and ultraviolet observations with NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX) have allowed estimates of the rate of star formation in the ring. These estimates, combined with the use of models for the evolution of binary stars have allowed the authors to conclude that the most intense star formation may have ended some 15 million years ago, in Earth's time frame.

ABAA relocation

2011-01-06T10:57:00.002+05:30

As you are all aware that due to lack of space in the basement, JNP has provided us with a new independent place. The work on the new place was going on for some time now and its finished.

The New location is at the entrance of JNP near Ticket counter.

ABAA will move to the new place on Sunday, 9^th January.

Due to this ABAA will not have ATM and Discussion sessions on 9th and 16th of January. The activities will resume from 23rd of January.

Looking forward for your continued support and participation.

Thank you.

ABAA

Star Party at ShivanahaLLi

2011-01-04T23:36:00.006+05:30

Hi,

Wish you all a very happy new year.

As planned last week, ABAA conducted a star party for its members on Jan 1st night. There were about 20 participants. The crowd was a mix of first timers to very experienced amateur astronomers.

The venue was ShivanahaLLi, a village near Bhannerghatta national park. ShivanahaLLi has been one of the primary observing sites for ABAA members since 25 years and it promises excellent southern skies.

The highlight of the night were Akarsh's 17.5" reflector telescope and Anil's 4" refractor telescope. The participants enjoyed beautiful sights of planets, nebulae, galaxies and star clusters through the telescopes.

There were two astrophotography setups. One prime focus and another piggy back setup. Participants were given a demo as to how to photograph the celestial wonders.

Unfortunately the clouds moved in by midnight and dint clear up till early morning.

From Association of Bangalore Amateur Astronomers

The objects observed:

Planets: Jupiter, Saturn, Venus

Nebulae: M42, M43, M78

Open Clusters: M41, M35, M45, M36, M37, M38

Glalaxies: Andromeda Galaxy, M32

and so on.

We like to thank Akarsh Simha for his telescope, Ramakrishna Mission for letting us use their premises and Leela madam for food.

We request the participants to give their feedback on this observation session.

Planets for the Month

2010-12-13T15:01:00.001+05:30

Mercury: After reaching greatest elongation on December 1, Mercury will be visible in the western sky after sunset. Planet Mercury will be around 15degrees above western horizon just after sunset. If seen through a telescope, Mercury's crescent phase can be seen. Towards the middle of the month Mercury will be close to Sun and will be very difficult to observe. On 20^th of December, Mercury will be in inferiour conjunction with Sun. Mercury will be visible in the morning sky towards the end of the month.

Date	Set/Rise
07/12/10	07:15:00 PM
14/12/10	06:46:00 PM
27/12/10	05:34AM (Rise)

Venus: Venus is well placed for observations in the morning sky. Venus will be dominating morning sky with brightness of -4.5magnitude. Venus will be in the constellation of Virgo till middle of December and move to Libra and stay there till the end of the month.

Date	Rise
07/12/10	03:32:39 AM
14/12/10	03:24:35 AM
27/12/10	03:18:39 AM

Mars: Mars will be visible in the western just after sunset. As the planet is close to the Sun, it will be difficult to make any detailed observation of the planet.

Date	Set
07/12/10	06:52:05 PM
14/12/10	06:47:51 PM
27/12/10	06:40:49 PM

Jupiter and Uranus: These two planets are well placed for observations as they will be close to Zenith at the time of sunset. Both planets will remain in this favorable position for observations all month.

Date	Set
07/12/10	12:57:07 AM
14/12/10	12:31:36 AM
27/12/10	11:42:21 PM

Saturn: Saturn in now a morning planet. It will be well placed for observation in the later part of the month as it will rise to a comfortable altitude before twilight.

Date	Rise
07/12/10	02:17:47 AM
14/12/10	01:52:27 AM
27/12/10	01:04:39 AM

Neptune: Neptune in the constellation of Capricornus is also well placed for observations.

Date	Set
07/12/10	10:58:28 PM
14/12/10	10:31:30 PM
27/12/10	09:41:40 PM

Phases of Moon:

New moon: 05-Dec-2010

First quarter: 13-Dec-2010

Full moon: 21-Dec-2010

Last quarter: 28-Dec-2010

Sun: The Sun will reach its maximum southern declination of 23.5 degrees on 21^st December at 23:46UT that will be 5:16am IST on 22^nd. This is called winter solstice.

Geminids Meteor Shower:

Geminids Meteor shower will be good this year as Moon will set early around midnight, giving lots of dark skies to observe and photograph the showers. The radiant (the point where the meteor shower originate) lies close to start Castor, alpha Geminorum. The constellation Gemini will rise around 7:30pm and will reach zenith around 1:30am. Maximum will happen on 14^th of December, but observation a day before and after is advised for better results.

Kalpaneya Yatre 2010 Schedule

2010-11-29T08:36:00.002+05:30

Schedule

Kalpaneya Yatre 2010

2010-11-27T08:55:00.003+05:30

Kalpaneya Yatre 2010 is a first-of-its-kind ten-day astronomy festival for lay audiences, taking place on the grounds of the Jawaharlal Nehru Planetarium, Bangalore, during November 26 – December 5, 2010.

Astronomy-based exhibits and models, sky watching, interactive experiments, activity corners, face-to-face interactions with astrophysicists, lectures, films, and art activities by children are among the offerings. The exhibition is in Kannada and English. The festival is an interdisciplinary collaboration between the Bangalore

Association for Science Education, Srishti School of Art, Design and Techonolgy, Visvesvaraya Industrial and Technological Museum, Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Indian Space Research Organisation, and Raman Research Institute.

website: kalpaneyayatre.org

The lectures, theatre, film and art events are listed below.

Events at Kalpaneya Yatre:

===================== Public Lectures ========================

26 Nov Yaaminiya Yaatrikaru 3:30pm Vishwanath Palahalli (IIA)

28 Nov Cauldrons of Creation: How Stars Live and die 3:00pm Firoza Sutaria (IIA)

29 Nov Time for a Change: Astronomy & the Indian Calendar 4:00pm TV Venkateswaran (Vigyan Prasar)

30 Nov Stories of Chandrayan 4:00pm Shivakumar (ISTRAC)

1 Dec Planets Across the Universe: the Inhospitable & the Habitable? 3:30pm Rathnasree Nandivada (Delhi Planetarium)

2 Dec The Violent Universe 3:30pm Biman Nath (RRI)

3 Dec The Mysterious Universe 3:30pm G Srinivasan

4 Dec Hrithik, 8-legged Freaks from Space, and Us: The Search for Life in the Cosmos 3:30pm Jayant Murthy (IIA)

==============Art and Astronomy =====================

CHINNARA CHANDRAYANA & SATELLITE STORIES by children

AWE AND WONDER: An evening with artists and astronomers

27th November 5.30 - 7.30 pm

Artist Rohini Devasher and amateur astronomer Naveen Nanjundappa will

share their work.

Rohini is an artist from Delhi who has exhibited throughout India and internationally. Fascinated by science fiction, she has created a body of work using print media and drawing evoking the bizarre possibilities of life forms based on her research into organic growth patterns. However, about a year ago she made a brave shift in her practice. An

amateur astronomer herself, she decided to investigate her own and other people's fascination with the night sky. She will present her research adventure which took her eclipse chasing to Kerala and to the Himalaya Hanle Observatory but most significantly to the heart of many people's personal connection to the planets and stars which they become familiar with through stargazing.

Naveen is from Bangalore and is Vice-President of the Bangalore Astronomical Society. Like most people in BAS he spends his evenings on his roof observing the night sky and sharing his observations with the BAS community. Besides this, he has for many years found ways to bring huge numbers of other people some sense of where we are in the universe through skywatching activities. These include his colossal '30 Days of Astronomy' project done at virtually no cost and with very little fanfare. He will talk about his own motivations for being an astronomer

and wanting to share telescope observing with others.

City life has tended to disconnect people from astronomical events. Naveen and Rohini will present and then discuss with the audience what it is to be aware of the skies. Afterwards you are invited outside for skywatching and to experience Rohini's sound installation in the Planetarium garden.

=======================Theatre====================

Unscientific Storytelling

A multimedia performative presentation of stories from science (50 min)

27th November, 3.30 pm

28th November, 5.30 pm

Lecture Hall 1

Unscientific Storytelling is an interwoven and fragmented narrative of our personal connections to science and the ways it permeates our micro and macrospheres.

The performance broadly explores the role of imagination and inquiry in science education and the role of scientists' biographies in understanding their dialogue with science.

Developed by Gauri Sanghi, Rajasee Ray and Deepak Srinivasan

Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology

*Gauri Sanghi & Rajasee Ray *are students of design at Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology. *Deepak Srinivasan* is an artist, media practitioner, researcher, facilitator.

===================== Film Festival =========================

A Film festival curated by Experimenta Film Society

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 1, 2010

Space, The Final Frontier (65mins)

1. Jordan Belson ‘Allures’ USA 1961

2. Telenews ‘Trailblazer in Space’ USA 1961 35mm (on DVD) sound b/w 9min

3. Charles & Ray Eames ‘Powers of Ten’ USA 1977 16mm on DVD colour sound

9mins 

4.Khodataev, Komisarenko & Merkulov ‘Interplanetary Revolution’ Soviet

Russia 1924 DVD b/w silent 8mins

5. Space and India, Films Division documentary India 16mm colour sound

15mins

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2010

A Wonderful New World (65mins)

1. Ford ‘A Wonderful New World of Fords’ USA 1960

2. Pramod Pati ‘Explorer’ India 1968, 35mm, b/w, sound, 8mins

3. Superstudio ‘Supersurface’ Italy 1972 DVD colour sound 8mins

4. Neil Beloufa 'Kempinski' France 2007 miniDV colour sound 13.58mins

5. Mika Taanila ‘Futuro - a new stance for tomorrow’ Finland/Suomi 1998

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 3, 2010

‘Om Dar-B-Dar’ (101mins) **

Kamal Swaroop’s ‘Om Dar-B-Dar’ India 1988 35mm Sound Colour 101 mins Hindi

Om-Dar-Ba-Dar is a fantastical portrait of life in a mythical small town. Om is involved in science, but is also attracted to magic and religion. Above all it seems as if his only outstanding skill is his ability to hold his breath underwater for a long time.

** The filmmaker Kamal Swaroop will be present at the screening.

Antimatter trapped by LHC

2010-11-18T21:15:00.000+05:30

Scientists at LHC claim to have trapped a large number of anti-hydrogen atoms that too with a long life (read the article to know how many were trapped and how long they lived!)

The discovery has to potential to lead us to a better understanding of the world we live in . . . and just how everything we know of was created!!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11773791

Green Laser - something to know

2010-11-15T21:26:00.000+05:30

Many of us use the green laser as a very useful tool in star parties and in teaching newbies to learn the constellations. But there are certain things one should know about the dangers involved with this useful "toy". Here is an informative link:

http://www.skyandtelescope.com/community/skyblog/observingblog/99956999.html

Let us take care to use this useful instrument safely!

Updates on comet Ikeya-Mukarami

2010-11-09T12:50:00.002+05:30

All eyes are now on the newly found comet Ikeya-Mukarami (C/2010 V1).
The comet is now located in Virgo and is shining with a brightness of Mag 9 (which means it will be visible through telescopes and not be visible to the naked eye). It currently has a 3' coma (about 1/10th the size of the full moon).

The most recently available orbit indicates that the comet has already passed perihelion, and is just now emerging into the morning sky following conjunction with the sun. It spends the next several months climbing higher into the morning sky, until it reaches opposition at the end of May 2011. A "normal" brightness behavior would suggest that the comet could be visually detectable for a long time, fading only to about 11th magnitude by the time it is at opposition.

There is, however, more and more evidence that indicates the comet has recently undergone an outburst. Observer Alan Hale notes that on November 8 it appeared about half a magnitude fainter, and was distinctly less condensed, than it was on the 4th.

It is thus somewhat likely that it might fade away fairly quickly. Because the comet is traveling in a low-inclination direct orbit it is also possible that it is a short-period object, and if that turns out to be true it is conceivable that it might be found identical to some comet observed in the past.

The comet is currently located just over a degree south of Saturn. According to latest orbital elements, here are the predictions:

Its elongation will slowly increase over the coming days.
It will travel to the east-southeast through Virgo
It will pass some two degrees northeast of the bright star Spica by third week of November.
It crosses into Libra shortly after mid-December and then into northern Scorpius during the latter part of January 2011.
It will reach its stationary point in early April
It will reach Opposition by end of May.

A "normal" brightness behavior would suggest only a half-magnitude or so of fading from its present brightness by the end of 2010 and a still relatively bright 11th magnitude when the comet is near opposition, however the outburst scenario that is starting to look increasingly likely suggests a fairly rapid fading during the coming weeks, and it may well be beyond the range of visual detectability by the end of this year.

Here are some pics of this fresh comet...

The comet:
http://www.spaceobs.org/images/C2010V1-crop-web.jpg

Widefield:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Ul9CaGJK3F8/TNfDobYAafI/AAAAAAAAAM4/5pfmz7GVXA4/s1600/Ikeya-Murakami+7nov10_FBroms.jpg

A short video of the evolution of the comet over the last few days:
http://remanzacco.blogspot.com/2010/11/evolution-of-morphology-of-comet-c2010.html

More info on the comet here:
http://www.earthriseinstitute.org/coms48.html#481

Regards,
Keerthi.

Sky charts for C/2010 V1 (Ikeya-Murakami) comet

2010-11-06T14:56:00.008+05:30

Here are few approximate reference sky charts for the spotting comet C/2010 V1 (Ikeya-Murakami). As the comet is bright, just scan the area shown in the sky charts, and comet should be in the field. Hope for clear skies. The comet can be spotted with binoculars or telescope in the early morning, in the constellation of Virgo. Charts are below rise times of comet C/2010 V1 (Ikeya-Murakami)

Date: Rise(IST)

08 Nov 2010: 03:58:35

09 Nov 2010: 03:57:30

10 Nov 2010: 03:56:24

11 Nov 2010: 03:55:18

12 Nov 2010: 03:54:12

13 Nov 2010: 03:53:05

14 Nov 2010: 03:51:57

15 Nov 2010: 03:50:50

16 Nov 2010: 03:49:42

17 Nov 2010: 03:48:33

18 Nov 2010: 03:47:24

19 Nov 2010: 03:46:15

20 Nov 2010: 03:45:05

21 Nov 2010: 03:43:55

22 Nov 2010: 03:42:44

23 Nov 2010: 03:41:33

24 Nov 2010: 03:40:22

25 Nov 2010: 03:39:10

26 Nov 2010: 03:37:57

27 Nov 2010: 03:36:44

28 Nov 2010: 03:35:31

29 Nov 2010: 03:34:17

30 Nov 2010: 03:33:02

C/2010 V1 (Ikeya-Murakami) on Nov 8

C/2010 V1 (Ikeya-Murakami) on Nov 11th

C/2010 V1 (Ikeya-Murakami) on Nov 16th

C/2010 V1 (Ikeya-Murakami) on Nov 19th

C/2010 V1 (Ikeya-Murakami) Nov 23rd

C/2010 V1 (Ikeya-Murakami) Nov 27th

New comet sighted using the good old technique - for a change!

2010-11-05T17:36:00.000+05:30

This is an astroalert from Sky & Telescope. If sky is clear in the next couple of days those with binocs/small scopes should be able to spot this. Though it won't be an exciting sight, worth trying!!

regards,

Chandrainsky

Two observers in Japan have independently spotted an 8th-magnitude comet, low in the eastern sky just before before dawn. Kaoru Ikeya spotted the comet with his 25-cm (10-inch) reflector at 39x, while Shigeki Murakami used a 46-cm (18-inch) reflector at 78x, as reported in IAU Circular 9175 of November 3rd from the Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams (CBAT),.

What's truly astonishing is that both Ikeya and Murakami did it the old-fashioned way: by looking into the eyepiece of a telescope! Use of the time-honored technique has become a rarity in this age of powerful professional surveys and digital imaging techniques.

Brian G. Marsden (Minor Planet Center) has calculated a preliminary orbit for the comet, which is officially designated C/2010 V1. It is moving in a parabolic orbit and is just past perihelion, at 1.7 astronomical units from the Sun (that is, well outside the orbit of Mars). So while this comet won't be getting any brighter in the coming weeks, it should stay within reach of binoculars as it moves slowly southeastward across Virgo. On November 4th, J. J. Gonzales in Spain and Carl Hergenrother in Arizona called it roughly magnitude 7.5 in their binoculars, while Alan Hale in New Mexico put it at 9.0. To all three observers, it resembled a fuzzy round glow with no tail.

The following ephemeris gives the comet's coordinates (equinox 2000.0) at 0 hours Universal Time on selected dates and its angular elongation from the Sun.

Comet Ikeya-Murakami

Date

2010 R. A.

h m Dec.

o ' Elong.

o

Nov. 5 12 38.0 -02 26 32.6

Nov. 7 12 43.1 -03 06 33.2

Nov. 9 12 48.2 -03 47 33.8

Nov. 11 12 53.3 -04 27 34.4

Nov. 13 12 58.3 -05 06 35.0

Nov. 15 13 03.4 -05 46 35.6

Be sure to check the online version of this AstroAlert on Sky & Telescope's website for updates when the orbit is improved:

http://www.skyandtelescope.com/resources/proamcollab/astroalert/

Also stay tuned to our website's observing highlights. Good luck, and clear skies!

Roger W. Sinnott

Senior Contributing Editor

Sky & Telescope

Planets for the Month

2010-11-01T00:27:00.005+05:30

Mercury: Mercury will be close to the Sun in the western horizon and its only after 15^th of November that Mercury will be little easy to detect in the evening sky after sunset.

On 20^th Mercury will be 1degree and 40 minutes of red planet Mars. The planet Mars will be north east of Mercury.

Date	Set
01/11/10	06:25:00 PM
11/11/10	06:43:00 PM
21/11/10	07:03:00 PM

Venus: Venus will be in a good altitude to observe from second week of November. In the constellation of Virgo Venus will be in thin crescent phase and towards the end of the month, about 20 percent of the planet will be illuminated.

Date	Rise
01/11/10	05:51:00 AM
11/11/10	04:53:00 AM
21/11/10	04:10:00 AM

Mars: Mars will be visible in the western just after sunset. As the planet is close to the Sun, it will be difficult to make any detailed observation of the planet.

Date	Set
01/11/10	07:22:00 PM
11/11/10	07:12:00 PM
21/11/10	07:02:00 PM

Saturn: Saturn in now a morning planet. It will be well placed for observation in the later part of the month as it will rise to a comfortable altitude before twilight.

Date	Rise
01/11/10	04:24:00 AM
11/11/10	03:49:00 AM
21/11/10	03:14:00 AM

Neptune: Neptune in the constellation of Capricornus is also well placed for observations.

Date	Set
01/11/10	01:22:00 AM
11/11/10	12:43:00 AM
21/11/10	12:04:00 AM

Phases of Moon:

New moon: 06/11/10

First quarter: 13/11/10

Full moon: 21/11/10

Last quarter: 28/11/10

Sun: The Sun will be in the constellation of Libra most part of the month and will move to Scorpio at the end of the month.

Leonids Meteor Shower:

This year there is some good news and little bad news regarding the Leonids shower. First the good news, the Maximum of the Leonids this year will happen at 2:45am IST on 18^th November, making it a high probability of observing large number of meteors. Little bad news is that Moon will be at the western horizon, Moon will be close to Full phase and on 18^th it will be bright with 85 percent illuminated, it will set at 3:15am. For best results its best to observe on 17^th to 19^th . Leo will rise at 12am.

First light of ATM workshop telescope

2010-09-20T01:31:00.004+05:30

It was a nice evening at ABAA on Sunday 19th, as the first telescope of this year's ATM workshop saw the first light. The 6 inch telescope mirror was ground and polished by ATM workshop participant Amrutha. The skies were pretty decent, as shiva prasad described it, with very little haze. Later the haze also cleared. The First object the telescope observed was Moon, in gibbous stage. Members and ATM participants enjoyed observing moon's surface and few photos were taken, thanks to Anita and her iPhone 3GS.

Next was the giant planet Jupiter. Witnessing the transit of IO on the surface of Jupiter and wonderful sight of emergence of IO was a good experience.

Congratulations to Amrutha for completing the telescope. In coming couple of Sundays all the telescope will see the first light.

Moon taken through Amrutha's telescope with 9mm eyepiece. Camera is Anita's iPhone 3GS.

Another pic of Moon taken through Amrutha's telescope again with 25mm eyepiece. Camera is Anita's iPhone 3GS.

Vinay trying to photograph Moon with his mobile phone. Anita and Shiva waiting to see the result.

Mercury greatest Western elongation

2010-09-17T15:47:00.002+05:30

On Sunday 19th, the planet Mercury will reach Greatest Western elongation. It is called Western elongation because the planet will be west of Sun, although we will be seeing the planet in Eastern horizon. Maximum angular separation of Mercury from the Sun will be 18degrees. As Mercury will be low in the horizon, clear horizon is essential. Mercury will rise at 5am and will reach little comfortable viewing altitude of 12 degrees at 5:50am.

Sun will rise at 6:08am on Sunday.

Aluminized Mirrors

2010-09-06T14:16:00.010+05:30

First set of mirrors from the on going ATM workshop are now aluminized and was brought to ABAA on Sunday evening.

Here are few photos of the Aluminized mirrors.

Jayanth, President of ABAA checking the Aluminized surface.

Mirrors in the Box

All mirrors now waiting to be assembled.

Teachers from Namma shale, Jayanth and Viji(from right to left), Jayanth explaining the process.