And so it was, what a great day.
Hundreds of people visited Siding Spring. 13,000 watched it around the world. Despite some backend technical hitches - All were happy.
We got all 4 contacts despite having a bit of a close call with weather and having to move the telescope 20 mins before contact 3.
The highlight for me was a 12 year old at the eyepiece of the main scope calling contact 4 at 2:43:50 pm Local time - another generation of astronomers is born!
On Wednesday 6th June (Australian time....5th Elsewhere), it is the last chance to observe a transit of Venus in front of the Sun till the year 2117.
Due to the tilt of the orbit of Venus relative to earth of 3.2 degrees, Transits of Venus come in pairs 8 years apart separated by 105 years and 121 years in a 234 year cycle.
Captain James Cook was dispatched by the Royal Society for the transit in 1769 which was observed from Tahiti. Next stop was Terra Australis Incognita where upon he fulfilled the rest of his journey's goals.
The transit of Venus has been a traditional way of measuring the size of the solar system with a number of useful calculations performed by early astronomers. Today thousands of astronomers, amateurs and citizen scientists, will measure the four contact points and report the timings from their location through social media, smart phone apps, and tweets, giving us perhaps the most accurate measurements recorded.
Elsewhere other astronomers will be looking at the spectroscopic analysis of the atmosphere of Venus as it passes in front of the sun and others will use the near full moon as a mirror and measure the changes in the specra of light reflected off the moon.
Many people will be observing and streaming the transit live online, so there is no need to go to far to get your view of the transit.
I should give the standard safety disclaimer: DON'T LOOK DIRECTLY AT THE SUN - unless you have the specialist equipment required to do this.
You can safely enjoy the transit by following the above embedded broadcast of the Transit brought to you live from Siding Spring, thanks to the ANU, AAO and iTelescope.net. You might even see a few familiar faces!
So in the time honored tradition of Aussie rhyming slang - Have a "Captain Cook" at this - he did, so should you!
Hi, and welcome to this week's Carnival of Space – Edition 128, making a rare stopover in the Southern Hemisphere. Although I am based in Melbourne, Australia, I decided to demonstrate extra-ordinary tolerance and inclusion by actually featuring the historic Sydney Observatory in the banner, which is a bit of a collage today. The Sydney Observatory is at the southern end of the harbour bridge and Luna Park is at the northern end. A great Astronomy/Carnival link. There is a long local history of Melbourne/Sydney jokes and rivalry, so we are putting all that aside today to bring you a truly Australian edition of Carnival of Space.
If you are new here, a “Blog Carnival” is a whistle stop tour of Blogs around a particular community of interest – in this case Astronomy/Space. It features the best and most interesting highlights of this week’s articles from the contributors to the community. The purpose is to share, develop, encourage and network with those of a similar interest. (Its also traditional to blend the themes of Carnival and Space in the banner).
Before we get started, 2009 is the international year of astronomy, and sadly it has gone so quickly and there is only 53 days to go. How have you celebrated? What have you done differently to make the most of “Our Year”? Feel free to complete the following test and score your involvement in this - the international year of astronomy. (If you feel bold enough you could post your score in the comments section of the blog.
I shared my telescope & night sky with children (20 Pts) [ ] I participated in a cornerstone IYA 2009 project(20 Pts) [ ] I did a presentation on Astronomy to a group (20 Pts) [ ] I donated Galileo Scopes to a school/friends/org(20 Pts) [ ] I went to a star party (20 Pts) [ ] I logged better than 30 hours on my/a telescope (20 Pts) [ ] I participated in a research project (20 Pts) [ ] I reported Astrometric data to IAU/MPC/other (20 Pts) [ ] I reported Photometric data to AAVSO/other (20 Pts) [ ] I subscribed to a PodCast/VodCast/RSS/other (20 Pts) [ ] I wrote an article, blog, podcast or e-learning (20 Pts) [ ]
Ratings >180 – Thought Leader, >140 – Activist, >100 Enthusiast, >60 Participant, <20When’s it on again? Fear not….. there is still time for you to make it memorable!
So now I’ll get off my soap box…… its Carnival Time!!!! Enjoy! Disclaimer: If there are any real Sheldon's out there, I appologise in advance for my Big Bang Theory jokes.
In the money! Who has "lifted" the prize money in the various competitions in the race to build, or at least provide proof of concept, for a space ladder? A number of our Bloggers cover this issue off this week with exciting reports from the various competitions. This a very hot topic at the moment and I'll leave our presenters to provide commentary.
e-Astronomy pioneer Phil Plait from Bad Astronomy reviews and comments on the first Hubble image after it's recent "makeover". The stunning image of M83 stellar nursery is worth a look.
The Chandra Blog features a bio on Chandra researcher Leisa Townsley. The Chandra Mission also posted details of research on a Neutron Star that has a carbon atmosphere.
Steinn Sigurðsson from Dynamics of Cats also follows up the Chandra article and explores the implications with an interesting article - Diamond encrusted dragon's egg, perhaps Dr Who's [BBC] diamond planet Midnight is not so far fetched.
Paul from Centauri-Dreams writes about a paper by Claudio Maccone that analyzes the Sun's gravitational lens not only in terms of imaging distant planets but as a huge amplifier of radio signals.
A very relevant current topic is addressed by Cheap Astronomy beginning an epic two part podcast on Greenhouse Earth.
Steve's Astro Corner has some great suggestions for some maintenance tasks on your favorite glassware and eyepieces.
Regular contributor Stuart Atkinson from Cumbrian Sky has a great article about the naming of martian meteorites found by the Opportunity and Spirit rovers....its all a bit of a mash-up. I was also struck by the most amazing job title I have ever heard of - "Payload Uplink Lead for the Miniature Thermal Emission Spectrometer" I wonder how you fit that on a business card ;-).
Fun Stuff! So we begin the fun stuff with Beyond Apollo blog by David Portree and a rather interesting article about calculations for the perfect three planet manned fly-by.
Ryan Anderson departs from his usual blog at Martian Chronicles to share an article he wrote for a Science writing competition. Ryan becomes Q for a day and investigates "James Bond" like qualities of future Martian Probes. Ryan invites us to vote for his entry if we feel so inclined. [Why, wouldn't that tamper with the statistical validity of the sample voter pool? I have one thing to say - Sheldon.....its halo night!!.....now where was I?]
Robert Pearlman at the Collect Space blog "roadtests" the Space Station CRV emergency Crew return vehicle in a test with some great photos and a fascinating article.
If you're looking for a Lagrange Point to escape the pull on your space and time, Louise Riofrio, from A Babe in the Universe, does an entertainment review on Max Q a Band playing in a cafe across the road from the Johnson Space centre. Louise also explains the significance of the band's name - we love a blend of Art and Science here at AARTScope.
This past week was Halloween, and I can report that an increasing number of Australians now participate in this annual ritual. Tracy from Tiny Mantras has been having some fun with Solar System costumes in Being Jupiter for a week.
On a more serious note..... The first moving object that comes anywhere near the Hill Sphere in 2012 is going to send the conspiracy whackos looking for Google Ad revenue into a frenzy on their suddenly authoritative conspiracy sites (Someone hold up the sarcasm sign for Sheldon) ;-). Alice from AstroInfo has some great info about how to talk to your friends about 2012. With the release of the recent "action/disaster" movie, it is a good time to have that conversation with your kids and friends.
Finally returning to the Observatory theme with which I began, my own blog AARTScope features a tour of the worlds most quirky, amazing and bizarre private observatories - the roll on/off roof edition. Some of these have to be seen to be believed.
Thanks for stopping by........look out for the next episode in about a week. For the "back issues" and future info goto Universe Today - Carnival of Space.
Welcome. This week has been characterised by some fairly average weather. Those of you tuning into Australia's premier football event around the world this afternoon will see plenty of our famous Melbourne weather on show.
Weather can have an impact on an observing campaign, so there have been some challenges in obtaining some of the data I have been chasing this week. I am getting great positive feedback on the blog - largely because I am blogging on my observations.
So this week, given the weather, I thought it would be good to talk about observation campaigns. This week I have barely jagged a couple of short sessions on V4743 SGR and some of the surrounding variables in the same field. V4743 Sgr is also referred to as Nova Sgr 2002c making it an object of some interest, given its nova outburst in 2002. Over 200 observers have contributed to the AAVSOs lightcurve.
So what is it that makes an object "interesting"? Clearly a Nova outburst is something that is interesting, as professional astronomers are quick to follow up with highly accurate spectroscopy. The advantage of having amateurs "on their toes" and participating in regular campaigns is that professional astronomers can't afford to have billion dollar telescopes pointed at stars, waiting for years, for something to happen. (The hubble deep field shot is a noteable exception...but a deliberate experiment to look at nothing to see if something WAS there)
A good example of leveraging the skills of amateur astronomers is my data here on QU Sgr. This is a Mira variable star of little or no interest to anyone.....but who knows one day it may be significant or do something. If that ever happened, what would we have to compare it with? So whilst gathering some data on V4743 with my set up which has a fairly large field of view, it is important to grab a couple of readings on any other Variables in the field, as other observers are unlikely to ever go specifically to QU Sgr to collect data.
There are a plethora of variable stars requiring regular observations and a limited number of observers. Today we have the fantastic use of social networking, blogs, forums and membership of organisations such as AAVSO. In this environment connected communities of dedicated amateurs have organised campaigns based on a prioritised list of "interesting objects".
Rod Stubbing who discovered this months outburst of VX For was working through a carefully targeted list of variables that were "in season" ie at an optimal position in the sky for observing. Rod indicated to me it was his first observing session on VX For for the year. So you never know what you will find, and how many other people who are observing.
So I leave you this week with the completely insignificant Mira Variable QU Sgr that noone else has reported on for over 4000 days.
The variable Star community is alive with excitement after Rod Stubbing an amateur astromomer from Victoria Australia discovered VX For in outburst for the first time since 1990.
After a 19 year spell the Dwarf Nova has moved into outburst. Importantly Rod appears to have caught it before its previous peak of 12.5 in 1990.
I was able to get some photometery on VX For and reported confirming data on Rod's exciting find to the AAVSO.
Mike Simonsen has written an excellent blog on this star with some of the history and the significance of the event. I imagine professional astronomers will be keen to get some spectroscopy on this interesting star in over the next month.
My observations were just a short run last night as the window is fairly tight from about 11:30Pm local time through to about 4:30am. The co-ordinates also restrict viewing to southern observers: RA 03:26:46.9 Dec -34:26:37.0 so our northern friends will have to leverage any access they can get to southern hemiphere scope......its called teamwork! Also Joe at the Center for Backyard Astrophysics is following the story with interest and rallying the troops!
Anyway it promises to be an exciting time as VX For entertains us for the coming weeks. My first light curve showed it right on the 13.0 magnitude observed the previous night by Rod Stubbing. Amateur Observers can post their results to the AAVSO.
