Moon images

These images were taken last night, a nearly first quarter Moon. I scrapped afocal imaging with my standard digital camera and opted for a nifty and affordable little CCD camera designed for astronomical imaging. I'm amazed at how much the cost of astronomical CCDs has dropped in the past 10 years. These images are stacked (several dozen individual images averaged together to produce a sharper composite image) and were taken at 1/8 second exposure. The top image shows one of the heavily cratered landscapes near Mare Nectaris. The three larger craters on the right of the image are the same craters I posted an old photographic image of a month or so ago. The bottom image is Mare Serenatatis and the Apollo 17 landing site is toward the top right of the image. Note the mountains toward the lower left and the long shadows cast toward the terminator.

getting better...

I still have a long way to go, but my pictures of Jupiter are improving. Using the afocal method (manually holding the digital camera up to the telescope eyepiece) is far from ideal, but as you can see, it can capture some of the larger details of a planet. This image was a 1/25 second exposure with some minor post-processing brightening. I managed to escape any vignetting on this image, which is an optical effect similar to looking through a straw that results from using afocal imaging. At this point I'm more looking forward to imaging the moon because of the orders of magnitude more detail that can be captured. Right now the moon is 2 days past full so it's very bright and lacking in contrast, but I'll probably take a shot at it later tonight.

Dr. Van Allen

A fond farewell to Dr. James Van Allen, who died today at the age of 91. Van Allen just about single-handedly gave birth to the field of magnetospheric physics, the field in which I pursued my graduate studies. He discovered the Earth's radiation belts, regions near the Earth where energetic ions and electrons are trapped in the Earth's magnetic field. The discovery was made with a simple Geiger counter placed on the first United States satellite in 1958, Explorer I. While the United States was trying to respond to the Soviet success of Sputnik, the discovery of the radiation belts ushered in an entirely new field of geophysics.

James Van Allen also distinguished himself for being a vocal critic of manned space exploration. He believed that space exploration was more cost effective and scientifically rewarding when done robotically. While there is some legitimacy to this stance, I think a recent example shows how valuable human presence is in space exploration. I attended a symposium for work last year and one of the key note speakers was a staff scientist on the Mars Exploration Rover program. He showed how the rovers Spirit and Opportunity have provided an enormous amount of robotically acquired data that will keep scientists busy for years to come. However, he made sure to point out that all the science performed robotically by the rovers in 1 year on Mars could have been done in about an hour by a human. That's a sobering number, and it illuminates the incredible power of the human eye, human mobility in uneven terrain, and of course the human brain. Certainly robotics is making leaps and bounds in the approximation of human capabilities, but in the end the only way we can truly know a new environment is by going there and letting it engage our senses, our logic, and our wonder. We are currently heading into a period of more aggressive human space exploration that will require unprecedented financial and time commitments. Time will tell if Van Allen's approach to space exploration wins out in the end.

ultimate time capsule

The Alliance to Rescue Civilization, an advocacy group with the long term survival of humanity as their top concern, recently proposed the construction of a modern day Ark on the moon to preserve DNA of all life on Earth as well as a compendium of human knowledge. A modern day Ark is not a new idea of course. Numerous companies and organizations are springing up around the world that are collecting DNA from a broad spectrum of organisms (especially endangered ones) in the interests of preservation for a more environmentally friendly future. Libraries and museums are actively converting anything and everything into digital formats for long term storage. The Alliance to Rescue Civilization argues that an Earthbound storage facility is too risky because of the potential for large asteroid impacts that could destroy not only civilization as we know it, but any sort of DNA storage facility. The ARC therefore proposes putting such a facility on the moon, where it would supposedly be safer. I think this is a perfectly fine idea, the moon is a stark and sterile body well away from the prying hand of man. However, I do see some problems with the ARC proposal. First and foremost, such an effort is prohibitively expensive at this point in human history, regardless of the supreme importance of such an effort. Secondly, the moon is just as likely to be devastated by an asteroid impact as the Earth.

I would argue for a simpler approach. Put the DNA samples and a few terabytes of human knowledge (texts, artwork, photographs, music, etc.) onboard a spacecraft and place it in orbit around the sun. This could pretty much be done with current technology, making it affordable. As long as the DNA samples were kept in a part of the spacecraft shaded from direct sunlight, the cold of space offers the best possible refrigeration. Of course, fully sequenced genomes could be digitally stored, it's really not necessary to include the amino acid raw materials in that case. How about likelihood of being destroyed? A tiny spacecraft in orbit around the sun has an effectively zero chance of ever encountering another object large enough to destroy it. We've already sent a very scaled down version of this approach on a journey out of the solar system altogether with the Voyager 1 and 2 spacecraft. They carry audio, photographic, and symbolic information about humans, but nothing more.

Regardless of the approach, I think the ARC proposal has merit. Perhaps it is time to start thinking about putting a few of our eggs in other baskets.

alignment success

Fired up the new telescope tonight to see if I could get the initial setup and tracking working. One of the advantages of this telescope is that I can be on the patio, powered up, and aligned in 5 minutes, if everything works. I started by getting a quick manual look at the moon before it headed into the trees. Stunning. I then powered up and went through the alignment procedure. I suspected my problem from a few nights ago was that the scope was not aligned to geographic north accurately enough. I got a better idea of north using a map and tested the idea tonight. After alignment I programmed the computer to slew the telescope to Jupiter. After about 20 seconds of slewing, I looked through the finder scope (the wide field of view scope used to get a large scale sense of where in the sky you are looking) and Jupiter was in the upper right quadrant. Disco. It was not in the main scope field of view, but that will come with some fine-tuning. Bottom line, the telescope and the computer performed beautifully, and now the sky is the limit.

telescope update

I picked up the new telescope this morning and so far, all is well. Fearing another lemon, I started by simply doing a fake alignment on the dining room table (this scope is compact enough that it can actually be used on a tabletop) and the scope performed flawlessly. Having worked with the new scope, I can now confidently conclude that something was very wrong with the first one I received last week. The first one produced a gritty, mechanical sound when the gearbox was engaged. The new scope is silent by comparison and slews smoothly. After examining the packing of the new scope, I suspect the first one I received was a reconditioned unit that had already been sent back to Meade for repairs. Clearly the repairs failed. In any event, I used the new telescope for a few hours tonight, saw Jupiter again, and confirmed that the sky tracking is near perfect. Tomorrow night's challenge will be working on the initial alignment of the telescope.

telescope woes

The acquisition of my new telescope is proving more difficult by the day. I originally bought said telescope this past Saturday, July 22. Smooth transaction, liked the salesman at the camera shop, all was well. I got the telescope home and finally found time Monday night to pop it out of the box and go to work. It did not go well. The telescope I bought, a Meade ETX-125AT, has superb Maksutov-Cassegrain optics that rival more expensive telescopes with larger apertures. However, the unfortunate tradeoff with this scope is the inferior construction of the gearbox that provides sky tracking-it is contructed of several gears made of hardened plastic rather than metal. This is the only way to have great optics and sky tracking in an affordable package. Very well, I'm willing to accept delicate mechanics for great optics. Well, upon powering up my telescope and attempting to align it I quickly discovered that my gearbox was suffering from a "drive motor fault". This problem seems to be the most common and dreaded problem discussed on Meade telescope sites. So, I was dead in the water, and from my research I knew there was no troubleshoot, this scope was DOA. I repacked it and proceeded to call my guy at the local camera shop on Wednesday. When I told him about the drive motor fault over the phone, I got an "uh-oh" in response. He immediately told me to repack the scope and bring it in for an exchange. I will do so tomorrow. I'll give this particular telescope one more try. I did manage to look at Jupiter through the broken one and it was spectacular. If the second scope fails me, I'll seek another model or cash out of the endeavor altogether with a refund. Stay tuned.

the hunter and the warrior

NASA has chosen the name for the next generation manned space vehicle and it is Project Orion. In the spirit of Apollo, the first spacecraft to take men to the moon, NASA chose the name that will apply to the vehicle itself (previously named the CEV, the Crew Exploration Vehicle) and to the overall program. So, get ready to hear about the Orion capsule and Project Orion in the coming years.

A name has also been chosen for the launch vehicle that will loft Project Orion vehicles and astronauts into earth orbit and beyond. The CLV (Crew Launch Vehicle) is now Ares I and the heavier lift launcher that will place equipment into earth orbit is Ares V. These names are also in the spirit of Apollo, which launched missions with the Saturn V.

The latest word on initial awarding of contracts for these vehicles is mid-September 2006.

Saturn

I took this modest photo of Saturn in the summer of 1996 from Boston. It's not bad considering I was using an old 6" refractor with sluggish tracking and an ancient camera. Thankfully, Saturn gives up it's major detail with even the most limited magnification. The rings are easily visible as the protrusions on either side of the disk. While you could never claim to see the Cassini division (a gap in the rings) in this photo, you can still get a sense of the delicate structure of the rings. This image is probably along the lines of what Galileo saw through his early telescope in 1610. He described Saturn's "ears", which were of course the rings.

Shuttle update

All is well with STS-121, the second shuttle flight since the loss of Columbia. The shuttle has been docked with the International Space Station for several days now and the astronauts have transferred new equipment onto the station and have performed a series of spacewalks and re-entry safety checks on the shuttle orbiter itself. NASA has officially green lighted a return to Earth on monday, as planned. However, the orbiter will be examined again before re-entry for any damage inflicted by micrometeoroids or space junk (tiny man-made debris orbiting Earth and not so tiny decommissioned satellites). Obviously the astronauts would sense any impact with something as large as a satellite, but the small stuff is very worrisome because it can create nearly undetectable damage to the orbiter. However, it would appear that the shuttle is in perfect health for a monday return to Earth.

To see some unbelievable video of the separation of a solid rocket booster from the shuttle during launch, head to the NASA homepage. The video is 12 minutes long, but stick with it, the separation is fantastic and the subsequent descent of the SRB back to Earth and finally into the ocean is a unique look into the operational lifetime of a shuttle launch component.

China moon

We learned last week that China intends to put a man on the moon in 2024. I posted a few months back about American intentions for sending men back to the moon by 2018. Assuming all schedules hold, we will easily beat China to the moon. Of course, this isn't a race, at least not like the one we were in with the Soviet Union in the 1960s.

The Chinese space program has a fairly long history and had various points of contact with the Soviet space program. While Chinese launch vehicles and crew capsules are largely homegrown, the Chinese space program is rooted in the communist camaraderie of China and the former Soviet Union. So, what can we expect from China? The Soviets never put a man on the moon, but they came closer than most of the American public realizes. If not for the death of their foremost rocket engineer, Sergei Korolev, in 1966, the Soviets might have beaten us. Imagine how the American space program might have fared if Wernher von Braun had died in 1966. The Soviet space program also managed to kill a few hundred engineers, launch site mechanics, and a few cosmonauts during the push for the moon with catastrophic rocket failures that were covered up for decades. China of course subscribes to state secrecy and has a recent history of success at all costs. Thankfully the 24 hour news cycle and availability of satellite reconnaissance should blunt any attempts at hiding launch failures and any associated loss of life. Regardless, the Chinese space program is robust and if their recent economic aspirations offer any clue, their space program is being pursued with equal or greater vigor.

China and the United States have wary relations, but at the moment there is no reason for either nation to feel threatened by the other. I hope that relationship holds for the foreseeable future such that our mutual efforts to reach the moon can be accomplished in each nation's own time. Mankind's first exploration of the moon was largely driven by political posturing and ideological conflict. I would like to think that in the 50 years that will pass between the last time we were on the moon and the next, we can all go there simply because we want to.

the battle

The article below was featured in National Geographic in May 2006.


When Science and Politics Clash

by Joel Achenbach

Last fall, many people asked a simple question: Did global warming cause Hurricane Katrina?

Here's a complicated answer: Global warming hasn't caused any specific storm. There is no evidence that it has changed the number of hurricanes. But there is new data showing that, as seas have warmed in recent decades, tropical cyclones, such as hurricanes, have become more intense. So no, but yes.

But before anyone fires off an angry email , we need to remember that global warming is both a scientific and political topic, and science and politics don't mix well. Science deals with tentative conclusions, and politics in absolutes. Science is invariably an enterprise built on uncertainty, and people who make policy decisions see uncertainty as a reason to do nothing at all (or to demand more studies).

Journalist Bill McKibben, writing recently in the New York Review of Books, laments the "overhedged" scientific reports about global warming and argues that journalists in general have "proved unequal to the task of separating scientific consensus from minor or trivial dissent." In almost any debate that incorporates science, they tend to give equal time to both sides of every argument (which is like giving five minutes to those who say the Earth is round and five to those who say it's flat). It happens with the whole issue of global warming. Almost all scientists are persuaded that human activity is altering climate in a perceptible way. But there's always a maverick voice demanding airtime and ink.

Now consider hurricanes again. In the fall of 2004, after four hurricanes had struck Florida, Kerry Emanuel, an MIT climatologist, said that there was no evidence that hurricanes were either more numerous or more intense. But there was evidence-buried in unexamined data. Emanuel found it himself over the next year. "I hadn't looked at the data carefully enough," Emanuel says. "We believed that if there was a global warming signal, it wouldn't be detectable yet in the data."

In August 2005, just before Katrina, Emanuel published a paper showing that since the 1970s there has been a marked increase in the intensity and duration of tropical storms, including North Atlantic hurricanes. Then in September, right after Katrina, a different group of scientists published similar findings.

Theories are always being tested. This is just how science works. All the more reason for citizens to become as scientifically literate as possible-to figure out where the center of gravity is in any given debate. Because at some point, a scientific civilization has to take action, uncertainties notwithstanding.

"At what point in the evolution of uncertainty does one choose to act?", Emanuel asks. Good question. How about now.

Boston moon

I took the picture on the left in August 1996 from the rooftop observatory at Boston University. I got into astrophotography late in my undergraduate studies and thankfully had great teachers in the observatory curator and a fellow student. This photo was taken the old fashioned way, with chemical film that actually had to be developed. I used an old shutter camera mounted on an even older refractor telescope with a 6.5 inch primary lens (see the telescope above). Most photography of the moon requires only a 1/35 second exposure, the same as typical everyday photography. There are some great lunar features captured in this photo that are worth pointing out. The well defined crater at the top right with the central peak is Crater Theophilus, about 60 miles across. The central peak was formed when the lunar crust, punched in by the impactor, "rebounded". Theophilus has taken a bite out of Crater Cyrillus, just to the left. The crater down and to the left of Cyrillus is Catharina, which has two smaller craters inside it. The relatively smooth area to the right of the 3 main craters is Mare Nectaris, a large impact region that filled with magma following a violent impact. The mare regions are some of the youngest regions on the moon (a couple billion years old) and this is why they show fewer craters. Notice Crater Fracastorius just beneath Nectaris that is filled with mare material. The mare poured over the crater rim and filled it in. I could go on for pages describing things in this image, but I'll stop here. Whenever I get a telescope I fully intend to get back into astrophotography, and I particularly look forward to using digital cameras.

summer solstice

Summer solstice 2006 occurred at 12:26 UTC time today, June 21. To an observer at the intersection of the Prime Meridian and the Tropic of Cancer (23.5 degrees north latitude) the sun was directly overhead at 12:26 local time. Every other location along the Tropic of Cancer will find the sun directly over head at their local noon. Regardless, today is the longest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. Summer is officially here.

STS-121

The second space shuttle flight since the loss of Columbia is scheduled for July 1. Shuttle missions have been delayed nearly a year to allow for design changes to the shuttle's external fuel tank insulation system. Falling foam debris from the external fuel tank damaged the Columbia orbiter and resulted in the breakup of the vehicle during re-entry in 2003. Following initial design changes, foam debris was still a persistent problem during the first launch of the shuttle since Columbia in July 2005. Additional design changes bring us up to date, with the launch of shuttle Discovery on mission STS-121 July 1. During this mission, the shuttle will dock with the International Space Station and test some of the new safety measures that have been put in place since the Columbia accident. For one, the exterior of the shuttle will be inspected for launch damage using a new laser detection system shortly before re-entry.

From left to right are Michael Fossum, Thomas Reiter, Mark Kelley, Steven Lindsey, Lisa Nowak, Stephanie Wilson, and Piers Sellers.

Hawking on space

The most visible physicist in the world has voiced his opinion on the future of mankind. Stephen Hawking, the British astrophysicist who made a name for himself with theoretical studies of black holes and the nature of space and time, believes that mankind's long term survival will require travel to space and other worlds. As has become somewhat customary in these days of terrorism and global warming, Hawking is concerned about the present state of man on Earth and our future here. He argues that the human race is more and more likely to annihilate itself or be annihilated by natural disasters. As a result, we must strike out into space to ensure our survival. I think Professor Hawking is being a little pessimistic about our future here on Earth, but I am certainly happy to hear one of mankind's intellectual elite casting a vote for furthering space exploration.

the Flammarion woodcut

The above woodcut was commissioned sometime in the 1870s by Camille Flammarion, a French astronomer. The image first appeared in a Flammarion publication in 1888 and through some historical confusion was eventually mistaken as an image of Medieval origin, depicting the flat Earth and heaven. In all likelihood, the intent was to show man's emerging knowledge of celestial mechanics.

Antikythera Mechanism

The following article is not greatly informative, after all we really don't know what the Antikythera Mechanism really did, but it is interesting and reminds us to appreciate the considerable astronomical understanding of ancient peoples.





Ancient Astronomy Artifact Bears Hidden Text

Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News

June 8, 2006— A shoebox-sized bronze device scooped out of a Roman-era shipwreck at the dawn of the 20th century has baffled scientists for years. Now a British researcher has stunningly established it as the world's oldest surviving astronomy computer.

A team of Greek and British scientists probing the secrets of the artifact, known as the Antikythera Mechanism, has managed to decipher ancient Greek inscriptions unseen for over 2,000 years, members of the project say.

"Part of the text on the machine, over 1,000 characters, had already been deciphered, but we have succeeded in doubling this total," said physician Yiannis Bitsakis.

Bitsakis is part of a multi-disciplinary team of researchers from universities in Athens, Salonika and Cardiff, the Athens National Archaeological Museum and the Hewlett-Packard company.

"We have now deciphered 95 percent of the text," he told AFP.

Scooped out of a Roman shipwreck in 1900 by sponge divers near the southern Greek island of Antikythera, and kept at the Athens National Archaeological Museum, the Mechanism contains over 30 bronze wheels and dials, and is covered in astronomical inscriptions.

Probably once operated by crank, it survives in three main pieces and some smaller fragments.

"(The device) could calculate the position of certain stars, at least the Sun and Moon, and perhaps predict astronomical phenomena," said astrophysicist Xenophon Moussas of Athens University.

"It was probably rare, if not unique," he added.

The rarity of the Antikythera Mechanism precluded its removal from the museum, so an eight-ton "body scanner" had to be assembled onsite for the privately-funded project, which used three-dimensional tomography to expose the unseen inscriptions.

The first appraisal of the artifact's purpose was put forward in the 1960s by British science historian Derek Price, but the latest discovery raises more questions.

"It is a puzzle concerning astronomical and mathematical knowledge in antiquity," said Moussas. "The Mechanism could actually rewrite certain chapters in this area."

"The challenge is to place this device into a scientific context, as it comes almost out of nowhere... and flies in the face of established theory that considers the ancient Greeks were lacking in applied technical knowledge," added Bitsakis, also of Athens University.

The researchers are also looking at the broader remains of the Roman ship for clues to the Mechanism's origin.

One theory is that the device was created in an academy founded by the ancient Stoic philosopher Poseidonios on the Greek island of Rhodes.

The writings of first century AD Roman orator and philosopher Cicero, himself a former student of Poseidonios, cite a device with similarities to the Mechanism.

"Like Alexandria, Rhodes was a great centre of astronomy at the time," said Moussas. "The boat where the device was discovered could have been part of a convoy to Rome, bearing treasure looted from the island for the purpose of a triumph parade staged by Julius Caesar."

The new findings are to be discussed at an international congress scheduled to be held in Athens in November.

the next space telescope

Have a look at the James Webb Space Telescope, JWST for short. This is the telescope that is going to replace the Hubble Space Telescope in a few short years. Hubble isn't done yet, and if NASA manages to find enough money for one more shuttle servicing mission before the fleet is retired, Hubble should last us another 3 or 4 years. Of course, that is provided the aging components hold out (Hubble has been orbiting the Earth for 16 years). If component failure doesn't finish Hubble, a decaying orbit eventually will. The Earth's atmosphere slowly drags Hubble into a steadily lower orbit with each passing year. Without shuttle servicing to bump the orbit higher, the telescope will eventually burn up in the atmosphere. The JWST is the next generation space telescope that will carry on where Hubble leaves off. As you might expect, the JWST will be a substantially more advanced telescope than Hubble. JWST will boast a primary mirror about 6 times the size of the mirror on Hubble. The mirror itself is a honeycomb design made of light weight beryllium hexagons as opposed to the single mirror of Hubble. Unlike Hubble, JWST will be looking so deep into space that it is no longer advantageous to work in the visible portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. The light from such vast distances has lost energy such that the photons now reside in the infrared portion of the spectrum. As a result, JWST will be particularly sensitive to infrared wavelengths. The telescope will orbit beyond the moon in a special gravitational "well" formed from the interaction of the sun, moon, and Earth that will allow it to collect images continuously. Finally, JWST will have a sunshade the size of a tennis court that will protect the sensitive detectors from the sun and assist in cooling the detectors as well. You might wonder how a mirror 6 times the size of Hubble and a sunshade the size of a tennis court can possibly be launched from Earth? JWST will effectively construct itself upon reaching orbit, aligning the hexagonal mirror components and unfurling the sunshade. Truly amazing stuff. JWST is currently slated for a 2013 launch. In case you are wondering who James Webb is, he was the second administrator of NASA and in many ways his stewardship ensured the success of the Apollo program.

golf update

On April 14 I posted about the possibility of a Russian cosmonaut on the International Space Station hitting a golf ball during a space walk. I came out against such a stunt because I don't want to see space activities completely undermined for corporate advertising opportunities. The space walk during which the golf ball was to be hit is happening later tonight. However, as I expected, the golf ball stunt has been scratched from the space walk and postponed to a later date. We don't know why, but my guess is that the schedule of actual mission activities has eaten up the entire 6 hours allotted for the space walk. However, we learned this week that NASA was close to approving the golf ball hit from a safety standpoint but perhaps lingering concerns led to the postponement. Regardless, I'm happy to hear that the repair of an oxygen system, the replacement of a camera, and the retrieval of a contamination monitoring system were given higher priority than a golf ball.