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Journal of the Amateur Astrono mers Association of New York February 2011 Volume 59 Number 2, ISSN 0146-7662

EYEPIECE
onto 14-inch-square glass plates, the way Kowal had searched earlier. Covering an equivalent amount of sky with a digital camera would requir e a 500-megapixel unit, which didn't exist. Scopes outfitted with digital cameras had better clarity and reached farther out, but they covered narrow fields of view. So Brown took three pictures of the sky on thr ee successive nights and compared them--again, Kowal's methodology. Stars remained in position, but planets or bodies in motion appeared in thr ee differ ent places on the plates. The farther the distance traveled across the plates, the closer the object. He needed to cover a large portion of the sky. This process would take thr ee years to complete. But this was only the beginning. There wer e thousands of objects of various sizes and luminosity. Brown spent a year writing a computer program to compare the pla te ima ges and then refined the process until he located objects that he could point a large scope with a digital camera at to observe the characteristics. This yielded sever al potential planet killers, but reflective surfaces made the icy bodies appear larger than calculations and observations proved. On January 5, 2005, Brown revea led to close associates that he'd found an object larger than Pluto. Instead of it mea ning a new planet, its physical characteristics and orbit ha d gr eater mea ning: Pluto would no longer be consider ed a planet. The body ha d a frozen metha ne surface, a traditional elliptical orbit around the Sun with a non-ecliptic tilt and orbited from 38-97 AU. Brown lit the dome with exa mples of ima ges moving Pluto continued on page 14

,,How I Killed Pluto--and Why It Had It Coming
By Evan Schneider
Most of us have never heard of Charlie Kowal. However, most of us have heard of the Palomar Observatory. This astronomer and this facility ca me together in the 1970s to search for Planet X, a hypothetical planet beyond Pluto that was supposedly exerting gravitational influence on the outer planets. Kowal failed, but his years of diligently photographing objects in what was one day to be called the Kuiper Belt cr eated a unique opportunity. Mike Brown, professor of planetary astronomy at CalTech, addressed a packed house at the Hayden Pla netarium January 10 and shared Kowal's personal road to success. Fifty years ago, astronomers building the 200-inch Hale Telescope realized they needed a map of the sky to deter mine wher e to point their new scope. This idea gave birth to the Schmidt 48-inch telescope used to create the Palomar Observatory Sky Survey. This same scope would fall to Kowa l in the 1970s and to Br own 30 years later, in 2001. In a lecture that had the same title as his new book, How I Killed Pluto--and Why It Had It Coming (Spiegel & Grau, $25), Brown told the story of his life while folding in technical cha llenges and processes that drove his passion for planet hunting. In 1977, when Brown was a young CalTech assistant professor, his study of Jupiter turned to new discoveries in the Kuiper Belt. He booked time at Palomar and started on his path. Living in a world of digital ima ging, he discover ed the best wa y to inspect large portions of the Kuiper Belt was to utilize the 48-inch Schmidt telescope at Palomar to photograph large sections of the sky


Winter Solstice Lunar Eclipse
By Joseph A. Fedrick
The night of December 20-21 was partially clouded with a thin la yer of high ice clouds that around 10 caused a dim halo of light to surround the Moon. By 1:30, the dark inner penumbra formed a bite-like mark near the Moon's edge. I couldn't time actual contact of the full umbral shadow on the Moon. The dark inner umbra simply graded into the umbra and blended with it. The beginning of totality, at 2:41 a. m., revealed that the outer edge of the umbral shadow was tinted slightly blue, while the rest to the umbra was a dull copper redbrown. I could barely see the lunar Maria and couldn't distinguish any craters with my 10x 50 binoculars during the eclipse. The February 2008 eclipse was brighter and I could see several craters in the bright orange umbra then. Perhaps volcanic activity of the past several months contributed to the darker umbral shadow this year. Jupiter had set behind houses to my west by the time the eclipse began and Saturn was clouded out on its rising in the east. But the Moon itself was visible in at least partially clear skies until just befor e 4 a. m., when clouds began to move in and I stopped observing the eclipse. However, I observed Jupiter on other days in late December and noticed that even with my 60mm scope at 100x, I could see the souther n portion of Jupiter's South Equatorial Belt was darker and was blended in the souther n temperate belts, a pattern I hadn't seen. A so-called South Equatorial Belt revival was underwa y at last. A new white spot has been seen on Saturn since midDecember. It spread out in whitish stor ms in the North Temperate Region. I noticed a slight brightening of this region the morning of January 5, but the brightest areas of these stor ms probably faced awa y from my view. In the opening weeks of January, I continued to observe the morning skies. Mercury was under going an unfavorable mor ning elongation a nd was near the horizon, so I didn't see at all during the month. Venus continued to pull a way from us. Using my 60mm refractor at 50x and 100x, I watched its brillia nt dazzling disk as it beca me smaller while its phase passed dichotomy (half lit). Even as Saturn appeared higher in the sky each
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Whats Up
By Tony Hoffman The Sky for February 2011
Februarys Constellations. Winter's most brilliant stars are at their best in the early evening. Orion lies on the meridian to the south, with Auriga over hea d, and Taurus between them. Sirius blazes in the southeast to Orion's lower left. Gemini stands high in the east, with Procyon in Canis Minor beneath it. Well to the left of Sirius is the red giant Alphard, the brightest star in Hydra. The bowl of the Big Dipper swings up out of the northeast, while Leo rises almost due east. Jupiter, shining at magnitude ­2.1, lies near the Circlet of Pisces. The Great Square of Pegasus sinks westward, trailed by Andr omeda. Perseus swings to the northwest, with Cassiopeia to its lower right. Saturn, in Virgo, rises month, and by 9 p.m. in late brighter than Spica, which l rings will be open nearly 10 Venus rules the ing more than two the center of our bright star clusters before midnight early in the February. Saturn shines a bit ies to its lower left. Saturn's degrees to our line of sight.

predawn sky, at magnitude -4.2. Rishours befor e the Sun, Venus lies near galaxy, and passes near some of the and nebula e that lie in that dir ection.

February 1 Moon lies near Mercury. February 2 New Moon at 9:31 p.m. February 4 Mars is in conjunction with the Sun. February 7 Moon lies near Jupiter. February 11 First-quarter Moon at 2:18 a.m. February 18 Full Moon at 3:36 a.m. February 19 Moon is at perigee, 222,604 miles from Earth, 2:24 a.m. February 21 Moon lies near Saturn. February 24 Last-quarter Moon at 6:26 p.m.

dawn, Jupiter began to appear lower at dusk. The souther n half of its South Equatorial Belt darkened while the northern half rema ined nearly invisible. I thought Jupiter might set into the evening twilight in February and March, only to re-emer ge in May with a completely revived South Equatorial Belt.


A Message from AAA President Richard Rosenberg
Hello members: We'd like to encourage members to take an active role in developing new progra ms and managing existing ones. Many members have skills that would be tremendously useful to the AAA. The skills we are looking for include: -- Familiarity with a video ca mera to take ima ges of the sky, and project them onto a screen. This would allow several people to simultaneously look at an ima ge. -- Bringing astronomy to the schools. We need a liaison to the Board of Education and contacts in schools. -- Someone with fundraising and grant-proposal experience. -- Someone with lega l expertise. -- Knowledge of hotels.com or similar websites to save money booking speakers for our lectures. -- Bart Fried, restor er of telescopes, has offer ed an 8 -inch refractor if we ca n provide an observatory, possibly in Floyd Bennett Field. He's offer ed to help bring this about and will be at the Feb. 16 board meeting at headquarters. This list isn't complete. You'r e welcome to add to it. Even better, think of volunteering yourself. Another opportunity to volunteer is to join the board. If you are inter ested, the nominating committee which selects the candidates for the board will be appointed at the board meeting. Come to the board meeting if you can, or contact me. On another subject, I'd like to compliment board member Jason Kendall for the excellent job he did putting together the current AAA class, "Astrophysics for Amateurs," which started January 25 and runs through March 1. Rich Rosenberg, president@aaa.org, (718) 522-5014

AAA Lecture February 4: ,,Illuminating Dark Matter
Neal Weiner, associate professor in the Center for Cosmology and Particle Physics (CCPP) in the physics department of NYU, will address the AAA on Friday, February 4 on Illuminating Dark Matter. The fr ee public lecture beings at 6:15 p. m. in the Kaufmann Theater of the AMNH. The CCPP is a group of faculty, students and research scientists working on funda mental questions at the intersection of particle physics, astrophysics and cosmology. Weiner's abstract of the lecture is as follows: One of the central discoveries of moder n cosmology is that the universe is dominated by something other than us. More specifica lly, that the matter that makes up everything we know (protons, neutrons, electrons) is just a tiny fraction of the mass of the universe. The rema inder is dark matter and dark ener gy. While we know it's ther e, we're ignorant as to what it is. Some experiments ha ve attempted to find it, by looking for rare processes deep underground, or at cosmic rays in space, but rather than clarifying the situation, the results have been incr easingly confusing. I will describe our current attempts to understand the dark universe, both theor etically and experimentally, and what we might find out in the coming years. Lecture continued on page 13
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Best-Astronomy-Pictures Talk Focuses on Amateurs Images
By Anne Kiefer
Before Robert Nemiroff, physics professor at Michigan Technological University, co-creator of the popular Astronomy Pictur e of the Day (APOD) website, gave his AAA lecture January 7 at the AMNH on the best astronomy ima ges of 2010, he ga ve a brief over view of the best astronomy images of all time. These iconic ima ges, known even to those with no particular inter est in astronomy, illustrate how influentia l a great astronomy ima ge can be. Humanity has an inher ent inter est in space and especia lly in space travel. The Moon is a manifest destiny of huma nity, Nemiroff explained. Nemir off opened the Best Astronomy Ima ges of All Time list with the image of Earthrise from the Apollo 8 mission in 1968. He also included the ima ge of Neil Ar mstrong on the Moon. Other images wer e an image of the Sun captured by the SOHO satellite, an image of Saturn's rings by Cassini and the fa med photo of the Ea gle Nebula taken by the Hubble. One ima ge Nemiroff placed in the best-of-all-time category was the Andromeda Galaxy taken by an a mateur. He expla ined that as telescopes and such programs as Adobe Photoshop beca me r elatively cheap and accessible to a broad range of consumers, amateur photography has exploded, and has had an important effect on the field. Nemiroffs list of the best images of 2010 was very diverse, and included ima ges with unique compositions, such as an image of the lunar eclipse of December 2010 with the Temple of Poseidon in Greece in the foreground. Also on the list was the International Space Station at the moment it passed in front of the Sun. Another photo was a rare exa mple of an ima ge of a person making it onto APOD. It was a photo of an astronaut on the ISS gazing out the window, looking at Earth. Nemir off featured the work of amateurs a number of times. Amateurs tend to produce mor e wide-a ngle shots, with a focus on the aesthetics of the ima ge, as opposed to simply focusing on scientific importance. That idea spea ks to APOD's original goals. The website was created in 1995 to provide accessible a nd accu4

rate infor mation about astronomical ima ges. Nemiroff and his co-founder, NASA's Jerry Bonnell, noticed that ma ny astronomy ima ges wer e circulating on the Inter net with incorrect infor mation, if ther e was any infor mation at all. They decided to create APOD to promote scientific understanding of astronomy ima ges that fascinated so many people. "The pictures are the hook," Nemiroff explained. The beautiful image is what draws people in, encouraging them to read the brief expla nation on the site, and then click to related links to further their understanding of the astronomical phenomena. But Nemir off and Bonnell sometimes choose ima ges that aren't particularly scientifica lly important, but simply very beautiful. This is wher e the work of amateurs plays an important role. Scientists often look to take images for the sole purpose of furthering scientific understanding. Amateurs, on the other hand, are often more focused on the aesthetics of the ima ge. Their wide-a ngle shots are ver y beautiful, and wor k well on the site. Amateur photography isnt all about pretty pictures, though. The differ ent approach amateurs use to take images of the sky has often opened up new questions for scientists. Occasionally, APOD even runs ima ges of Earth; it's a planet, too, Nemir off observed. One instance stands out. In April 2010, APOD ran an image of the eruption of EyjafjallajЖkull, the Icelandic volcano that cover ed much of Western Europe in a blanket of ash, interrupting air travel for days. This ima ge is especially notable for the bolts of volcanic lightning, an unexpla ined phenomenon that's the subject of much research. APOD images often highlight elements of astronomy scientists don't totally understand. Nemiroff said that's what makes astronomy so exciting. Nemir off's presentation included ety of non-a mateur sources. Ther e from Hubble, as well as images fr and Cassini. Amateurs were from all ima ges from a variwer e ma ny images om the Mars rovers over the world.


Impressions of the Lunar Eclipse by 3 AAA Members
By Jason Kendall
While on a weeklong, Christmastime cruise in the Caribbean with my wife and parents, I had the wonderful opportunity to see the December 21 total lunar eclipse. I worked with the cruise staff to publicize the event. The captain ma de mention of it in his noon addr ess over the loudspea kers, and the cruise dir ector talked about it after the big show in the ma in theater. That night, I organized a short discussion in the ship's library at 11:30. I discussed the history of eclipses, and the methods by which the ancient Greek astronomer Eratosthenes deter mined the dia meter of the Earth to within 15%. Unfortunately, when we went up to the 11th deck to get outside, the ship's external lights had to be lit, so the deck was quite bright. And worse, we had passed under a cloudbank, and the Moon was only just peeking out at odd moments. But that wasn't daunting to the bunch down in the hot tubs. They wer e partying it up, hooting about the eclipse from their steamy vantage point. Then we noticed it: the big hole in the clouds to the south, right in the ship's path. The clouds wer e fascinatingly low and thick, only about 1,000-2,000 feet up, with nothing beyond. The winds picked up, and about 70 people ca me fr om below to look at the eclipse. With all the people up ther e, the suspense was building, and people wer e getting excited. The snea ky Moon was toying with the clouds, and it was now a race to see whether we would see the first contact. Suddenly, we sailed into incredibly clear skies. The Moon emer ged from its clumpy veil just after first umbral contact. Fifth-ma gnitude stars started coming into view as the Moon dimmed slowly with the encroaching eclipse. With this, the crowd chatted and clapped. A number of kids wer e on deck, away from their parents, and they corner ed me with a lot of questions. One boy in particular was very inter ested; I hope he stays interested. When totality occurred, the stars leapt out. The Moon had a gor geous faint red glow to it. A distinct gradient across the Moon showed the depth of the umbra to the south side of the Moon. The color was not a fire-engine red, but rather a deep r ed, almost rust -color ed. It seemed to be an L2 on the Danjon scale during the entir e eclipse. The slowly changing ship's direction, combined with the near zenithal location, made judging its position from a prone position a bit difficult. Stars simply exploded during the eclipse, with magnitude-5 stars easily visible, even under the ship's deck lights. Simply covering them with your hand was enough to ma ke the night sky truly dark. The Hyades wer e easily visible, as was the fuzziness of the Orion Nebula. M35 was clearly visible as a little swar m right next to the Moon. Numerous doubles were visible, and the band of the Milky Way was the only thing lost by the ship's lights, as it was at the zenith. Of the 70 or so people on the top deck, most stayed only until full eclipse occurred. The dra matic waxing umbral eclipse produced a loud cheer as the last penumbral brightness winked out, exposing the full eclipse. It was striking to see the sky visibly darken during this event. The high-school kids who met each other onboard wer e under-dressed for the unexpectedly cool night. My wife bundled herself up in a Russian mink hat, and my mother was wrapped completely from hea d to toe. My father and I braved the 50-degr ee evening with light jackets. Most startling of all was a young Bolivian girl, not even out of high school, who talked about what she was learning in class. She spoke perfect English, and asked me to continually pronounce the na mes of various constellations and stars, because her teachers hadn't given her the English pronunciations. Then she casually mentioned that in her 10th grade science class, they learned about the HR Diagram. I would love to meet her teacher, who clearly inspired her to learn. Near the end of totality, we wer e down to fewer than 10 people on the topmost deck, lying on lounge chairs in silent vigil. We basked in the nighttime glory quietly unfolding above us. As the ship approached Cozumel, Mexico, and we could see its lights in the distance, and Eclipse continued on page 6
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even though da wn was two hours away, the first rays of the Sun seemed to burst as the Moon began its trek into the penumbra. The end of totality was brighter than I'd expected, and heralded the end of the evening. Ther e wer e only four of us on the upper deck by that time, my parents having long since trundled off to bed, coddled to sleep with the wondrous sights and the slow rolling of the vessel. I took my wife's hand and we descended to our stateroom, lea ving the end of the eclipse to finish its work.

referring to the binoculars' small size compared to the telescopes.

By Evan Schneider
This is a story about curiosity, about fascination, about dedication. It all took place on a frozen evening, December 20, when a total lunar eclipse occurred at the time of the winter solstice. The AMNH arranged for its winter -solstice star party. While 200 museum members attended a lunar -eclipse presentation, an intrepid gr oup of AAA members gather ed on the terrace, telescopes and binoculars in hand, to set up for 200 pairs of eyes waiting to view the night sky. The event was too early for eclipse viewing, but Jupiter and its four most prominent moons wer e out and our Moon was in full splendor, so bright that my scope needed a filter to see surface details. We adjusted our scopes, sipped hot chocolate and waited to show the attendees why we're AAA obser vers. They ca me in droves, lined up to see and marveled at what was in the sky. Some looked at Jupiter and the Moon for the first time. Others told stories of observing in New Jersey and under a dark sky in Arizona. But all this was but a preamble to what would happen at 2:41 a. m. Many planned to stay up for the event. No one was alive for the last winter -solstice total lunar eclipse in 1638. The next one is in 2094. So this night was important for onlookers and astronomers alike. Several AAA members continued their evening at the Columbia ca mpus, observing from the plaza, but I went to bed. At 2:15 a. m., I awoke, realizing that the eclipse was almost her e. I raced to my 24th floor window and looked westward. Hanging ghostly in the sky was the Moon, copper-red and almost completely in shadow. The constellation Orion was bright, twinkling to the south. All was quiet. I stood in awe, feeling like a part of something magical and spiritual. In the distance, onlookers cheer ed as the Moon reached total eclipse. I stood transfixed at the window and wonder ed how many others like me wer e having the same experience that we will remember for ma ny years.

By George Hripcsak
The December 21 total lunar eclipse was incredible fun. The Columbia University astronomy department and the AAA sponsored an eclipse star party on the steps of Columbia's Low Library. I arrived around 2 a. m. with a pair of 10x70 binoculars on a tripod a nd a 10-inch Newtonia n. The eclipse was beautiful, with orange-red in the shadow long befor e totality, and an impressive orange-red once totality began. Some haze and thin clouds in mid-totality cleared before it ended. Nearby stars framed the eclipse nicely. The highlight of the event, though, was the 250 students who watched the eclipse at its peak. They looked through several telescopes set up for viewing, watched totality approach and asked gr eat questions. The start of totality led to a cheer. One commented, just before totality, that it looked like Mars with its orange-red body and a polar cap made of the last vestiges of sunlight. The students loved the view through the binoculars. The two-eyed view and the field of view optimized the color and set it in the few background stars. Ther e was also a full-exit pupil, mea ning that light coming out of binocular eyepieces fills the pupils of your eyes, implying you'r e receiving maximum light and are most likely to see vivid color. Telescopes are used at higher powers, which reduces the exit pupil, lowers the light and makes things look grayer. Ther e wer e ample squeals and check-it-outs. The best quote ca me fr om a young woma n fr om abroad. On seeing the binoculars, she said, Let's look at the baby,
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Tyson Advocates Deflection to Avoid an Asteroid Disaster
By Dan Harrison
Although the odds of an asteroid hit in April 2036 are very remote--several in a million--it would be foolish for the global scientific community not to investiga te deflection technology, says Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson. The Hayden director, speaking in September at the AMNH's SciCafe series, noted that asteroid Apophis will ma ke a close (18,000-mile) appearance in 2029, with no chance of hitting Earth. But if it thr eads a narrow so-called gravitational keyhole--unlikely but possible--it will hit us seven years later. We know how to blow things up, but are less sure wher e the pieces go, Tyson said, discussing the 900foot-dia meter asteroid. That's why he advocates deflection to make certain Apophis avoids the keyhole. To guarantee this, it would need just a 300-mile nudge, but if we don't mobilize in time, a 4,000-mile deflection would be required, half Earth's dia meter. "I want to know that we ha ve the power to deflect asteroids so we don't suffer the same fate as our reptilian ancestors 65 million years ago, who didn't have engineers among them, Tyson told an audience so large the event had to be moved from its original venue. I don't want others to say we wer e smart enough to have a space program but too dumb to put it into effect and save ourselves from our own extinction. Tyson called for adequate math, engineering and scientific skills to avoid an asteroid hit--and more. There aren't enough engineers, and too many investment bankers and la wyers, he said. With an asteroid coming, people will say to run and to stockpile food. I want people who will ask how we deflect this. I want people to view this as a problem to be solved, not as a disaster to run away from. Agreeing with a questioner who noted we know more about deep space than the deep sea, Tyson said her statement about solving problems on Earth misses some context. He noted global climate change wasn't understood until the effects of the dinosaur wipeout led to clima te models. The planet-wide greenhouse effect ca me from studying Venus, with a temperature of 900 degr ees. "No science can claim an understanding of its subject if it's only looking at one thing. Sometimes you have to look up, at multiple phenomena. To only spend money her e is suicide. Tyson noted that NASA gets only half a penny of the tax dollar. So how much is the universe worth to you? He also contended that science could be crippled by undue religious influence. He said that 1,000 years ago, the Middle East was the center of scientific progress because it was open to all lines of thought. It then slid backwards due to a n influential religious figure who said math was the work of the devil. The fact that scientifically diluted Texas textbooks are overtaking ma instr ea m science worries me greatly, Tyson said. Amer ica could fade into insignificance due to attacks on learning. Asked when we will see interplanetary travel, Tyson called Mars the only sensible pla net we can visit. NAS A's pla ns for a hea vy-lift vehicle to go beyond Earth orbit will perhaps materia lize by mid-century. But if the mission isn't clearly defined, it ma y never happen. You can't rally just around a simple quest to explore. Tyson observed that parts of the universe ha ve been blocked from our view because we live in a pancake. Our galaxy is like the pancake and we are like the blueberry because we're wider. If you want to see the rest of the universe, you have to look above and below the pancake. Otherwise, the pancake is in the way. So all the data we have on the universe comes from looking above and below our flattened galaxy. "Eighty percent of the universe has been observed. Ther e's no reason to believe that the rest, which is blocked by dense clouds of dust and gas, is funda mentally differ ent from what we've seen. Tyson also delved into what he called one of the gr eat mysteries of the early universe: the cr eation of asymmetry between matter and antimatter. One out of 100 million particle-antiparticle pairs was just a particle of matter. This was obviously rare, but accounted for all the matter we know and see a nd love in the universe.
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Review: How Did the First Stars and Galaxies Form?
By Edward J. Fox
In his own words, Abraham (Avi) Loeb equates the research described in his book, How Did the First Stars and Galaxies Form? (Princeton University Press, $24.95, paper), to researching missing pictures in a family photo album. Pictures of childr en are frequently taken when they're newly born. Much later, many pictures are taken when the childr en are older. Loeb says he's trying to fill in that time between: the early childhood years of the universe. Loeb, professor of astronomy and dir ector of the Institute for Theory and Computation at Harvard University, is investigating the time between the cosmic microwave background (CMB) and our present knowledge of the universe. In principle, we can image the Universe only as long as it was transparent... after the CMB. Loeb starts with the ver y early history of the universe and doesn't shy away from using many for mula e and graphs in describing the process. His work is aimed at a serious student of cosmology, but he writes so a person who isn't proficient with the for mula e can still understand what he's trying to convey. The theories that Loeb and his colleagues have developed for m much of the framework for research into the for mation of the earliest stars and galaxies. He delves into gravitationa l growth of perturbations in the expanding universe. "The early epoch of inflation is important not just for producing the global properties of the Universe, but also in generating the homogeneities that seeded the for mation of galaxies within it." Without dark matter, we wouldn't ha ve come into existence, Loeb asserts. This is because or dinary matter, which is coupled to the CMB radiation that filled the universe early on, had a tendency to smooth out. Dark matter is responsible for maintaining the sma ll seed perturbations that led to for mation of stars and galaxies. Loeb believes there are two dir ections for researchers in cosmology. One considers the global properties of the Universe and the physical principles that gover n it. He believes that as more data come in, knowledge of the initial conditions and the underlying cosmological pa8

rameters get refined with greater precision. The other branch focuses on the for mation of observable objects from the original gases, including stars and black holes in galaxies. In this case, as more data come in, the models become mor e complex, demonstrating that prior analyses wer e oversimplified. Loeb believes the first group may come to a point wher e ther e's no longer any point in further refining the models, thus ending its work. In the case of the second group, he believes they run the risk of spending their careers on a problem that may never get r esolved. You can hear first hand from Loeb in a nine-minute video he posted on YouTube: . http://www. youtube.com/ watch?v=jNB8KuVM6KcIn it, he states, The universe is the biggest environment surrounding us. And we had better get an infor med view of it.

AAA Class Sells Out
AAA board member Jason Kendall's class in astrophysics, which started in late January and runs through early March, quickly sold out. The AAA is tentatively planning another course, on an undeter mined subject, in the spring. Kendall's members-only class covers the basics of astrophysics. Sessions are built around a textbook, and are supplemented by Web-based material. The class covers the nature of stars: how they're classified, their power sources, their births, their lives and their deaths. The class is also covering nucleosynthesis in the Sun, and how it will change as it becomes a red gia nt. It's learning about degenerate matter in discussing white dwarfs and neutron stars. Other subjects include relativity, black holes, and the tenuous interstellar medium a nd how stars form from it and change it. The class text is Astrophysics is Easy!: An Introduction for the Amateur Astronomer by Mike Inglis.


Highlights from Annual AAS Meeting in Seattle
Scientists have released the largest digital color image of the sky. Sloa n Digital Sky Survey-III (SDSS-III) researchers assembled the picture over the last decade from millions of 2.8-megapixel ima ges, creating a color ima ge of mor e than 1 trillion pixels. SDSS observations previously discover ed nearly 500 million astronomical objects. The latest, most precise positions, colors and shapes for these objects wer e also released. Over the last decade, SDSS scanned one-third of the sky. The enormous new ima ge is for ming the basis for new surveys of the universe. These rely on spectra, which can be used to find properties, such as temperature and chemical composition, of stars and galaxies, and how far away they are. Astronomers use SDSS instruments to measure distances to mor e than 1 million galaxies. The process provides a three-dimensional map of the galaxies' distribution in space. In 2014, the largest 3-D map of galaxies will be produced. The goal is to measure how dark ener gy has changed over the universe's recent history. SDSS-III has also been studying properties and motions of hundr eds of thousands of stars in outer parts of the Milky Way. In conjunction with the huge ima ge of the sky, astronomers are releasing the largest-ever map of the outer galaxy. They've found many strea ms of stars that belonged to galaxies torn apart by the Milky Way. SDSS-III will undertake other surveys of our galaxy. One will measure spectra for some 8,500 nearby stars, looking for wobbles caused by Jupiter -like planets. The other survey will use an infrared spectrograph for the first systematic study of stars throughout the Milky Way, even stars on the far side of the galaxy. The Kepler observatory has discover ed the smallest planet ever seen beyond our solar system, a rocky world just 1.4 times larger than Earth. Kepler-10b is the first rocky alien planet to be confir med by Kepler using da ta collected between May 2009 and early January 2010. But while Kepler-10b is a rocky world, it's not in the habitable zone, a region in a planetary system wher e liquid water can potentially exist on the surface. Kepler -10b is the first rocky planet outside our solar system. It orbits ever y 0.84 days. An estimated 8 billion years old, it's some 560 light-years away. Mass is 4.6 times Earth's and surface gravity is thought more tha n twice Earth's. Kepler has also stumbled upon triplet stars circling a
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massive star. The stars orbit each other. It's the first system of its kind that eclipses all three members. The discover y could help scientists understand what ma kes little stars tick, as two of the triplets are small by stellar standards, with about 0.2% the mass of the Sun. Most stars this small are too dim to be seen from Earth unless they'r e nearby, but triple star systems aren't a rarity. Powerful thunderstor ms on Earth can fling beams of antimatter into space. Scientists picked up on the never befor e-seen phenomenon by peering at thunderstorms with the F er mi Ga mma-ray Space Telescope. Antimatter particles wer e likely created by a terrestrial ga mma -ray flash, a burst of gamma rays inside thunderstor ms and associated with lightning. These signals are the first evidence thunderstor ms ma ke antimatter particle bea ms. Earth is likely not the only planet that boasts antimatter generating stor ms. There's reason to think the processes are on other planets, such as Jupiter and Saturn. But storms ther e generally occur deeper in their atmospher es, so antimatter bea ms may be unable to escape into space. A Jupiter-like alien planet that feeds momentum to its host star may help astronomers understand how a class of solar systems for ms and evolves. As it orbits, the planet appears to transfer orbital momentum that speeds the star's rotation. The planet orbits a dwarf K type star in Vulpecula about 63 light-years away. The planet orbits in just 2.2 days. The star's mass and dia meter are about 80% the mass and dia meter of our Sun. The star, invigorated by its hot Jupiter planet, appears to have been spun up to a rotation speed twice as fast as our Sun. The star also gains angular momentum from ma gnetic and tidal interactions with the pla net. But as the star's spin speeds up, the planet loses orbital angular ener gy and slows. Loss of momentum in the past may explain why it--and similar planetary systems--orbits so close to its star. While the planet is spiraling toward the star, and is most likely doomed, interacting magnetic fields of star and planet could cr eate a tida l-ma gnetically locked orbit that might allow the pla net to survive. The most likely scenario, however, is that the planet will draw closer to the star, leading to erosion of its atmospher e by the star's intense radiation and strong winds. The pla net will ultimately be ripped apart by the star's gravity if it survives the star's radiation and winds.


Briefs: Voyager 1 Reaches Key Point at Solar Systems Edge
The 33-year odyssey of NASAs Voyager 1 spacecraft has reached a point at the edge of our solar system where ther e's no outward motion of solar wind. Now hurtling toward interstellar space some 10.8 billion miles from the Sun, Voyager has crossed into an area wher e the velocity of the hot ionized gas, or plasma, emanating from the Sun has slowed to zero. Scientists suspect the solar wind has been turned sidewa ys by pressure from the interstellar wind in the region between stars. The event is a ma jor milestone in Voyager's passage through the heliosheath, the turbulent outer shell of the Sun's sphere of influence, and the spacecraft's upcoming departure from our solar system. Voyager 1 crossed the ter mination shock in December 2004 into the heliosheath. Velocity of the solar wind has steadily slowed at about 45,000 mph each year since August 2007, when the solar wind was speeding outward at about 130,000 mph. The outward speed has remained at zero since June. Researchers estimate Voyager will reach interstellar space in about four years. One of the solar syste m's great mysteries, the origin of Saturn's rings, may be a case of cosmic murder. The victim: an unna med moon of Saturn that disappeared 4.5 billion years ago. The suspect: a disk of hydrogen gas that surrounded Saturn when its dozens of moons were for ming, but has now fled the scene. The cause of death: a forced plunge into Saturn. The rings are the only evidence left. As the doomed moon ma de its death spiral, Saturn robbed its outer layer of ice, which then for med rings, according to a new theory. A computer model indicates Saturn stripped ice from a huge moon while it was far enough from the planet that the ice would be trapped in a ring. The original rings wer e 10-100 times larger than now, but over time ice in the outer rings has coalesced into some of Saturn's tiny inner moons. So what bega n as moons beca me rings and then new moons. This helps explain Tethys, an inner moon that didn't quite fit other moon-for mation theories. The theory explains heavy ice components of rings better than other possibilities. Gigantic collisions on Earth, the Moon and Mars 4.5 billion years ago injected precious elements such as gold and platinum into the developing worlds, a new study suggests. In the last days of planet for mation, a body as big as Pluto likely sla mmed into Earth after a Mars-size
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object hit the planet. Mars and the Moon absorbed sma ller but still devastating blows. These crashes may have knocked Earth off its axis by 10 degr ees. But they also deliver ed the elements into the bodies' upper reaches, and possibly brought huge a mounts of water to the Moon. Gold, platinum and other elements have a strong affinity for ir on. So they should have followed iron down into the cores of Earth, the Moon and Mars as the bodies wer e for ming, leaving a near void in their ma ntles and crusts. To account for present abundances of gold, platinum certain other elements, researchers said, the impacts would need to deliver about 0.5% of Earth's mass to our mantle, 10 times less mass than that to Mars and about 1,200 times less to our Moon. Using models, the tea m deter mined that this could happen if the impactors wer e dominated by a small number of huge space rocks. A massive ridge nearly encircling Saturn's moon Iapetus is likely the rema ins of a mini-moon destroyed by Iapetus' gravity long ago, a new study suggests. This sub-moon probably for med after a giant object smashed into Iapetus and the blasted-off pieces coa lesced. Over time--anywher e between 100,000 and 1 billion yea rs, depending on how close the sub-moon initially was to Iapetus--the ring sla mmed into the moon along its equator, for ming a ridge mor e than twice as tall as Mount Ever est. Iapetus' ridge is 62 miles wide and 12 miles high in places. It tracks the moon's equator and covers nearly 75% of Iapetus' surface. A second look at a group of massive young galaxies 11 billion light-years away has revealed them in the throes of a celestial baby boom, birthing stars at an astonishing scale and rate. The new glimpse, showing the early universe 3 billion years after the Big Bang, may cha nge how scientists think about star formation. Herschel Space Observatory data revea led the new population of galaxies to be hotter than expected, due to stars for ming much mor e rapidly than previously believed. Previous observations ha d revea led the young galaxies, but their light in the visible spectrum was ver y faint, obscured by clouds of gas and dust within which new stars wer e being born. Herschel focused on 70 galaxies in Ursa Major. Data reveal star -formation rates far higher Continued on page 11


Briefs: Huge Asteroid Might be a Dormant Comet
Continued from page 10 than seen in the pr esent universe, and indicate the young galaxies possess large r eservoirs of gas that will power star formation for hundreds of millions of years. With the discovery, astronomers have provided a much mor e accurate census of some of the universe's most extr eme galaxies at the peak of their activity. A huge asteroid discovered more than 100 years ago might actually be a dor mant comet that's just now coming back to life. The object's about 70 miles wide and has a faint, wispy tail. The object would be only the sixth known comet to reside in the ma in asteroid belt. On the night of December 11, an astronomer was searching for potentially hazardous asteroids when he ca me across an object with a bright cor e and a faint tail. The object orbits slightly out of the ecliptic plane in which most planets and asteroids travel. Previous studies of its color suggested it's composed of primitive carbonaceous material left over from the for mation of the solar system and might be an extinct or dor ma nt comet. With spring on Mars in full swing, NASA is taking advantage of the season's ever-longer periods of da ylight to try to rea waken its stuck rover, Spirit, after months of silence. The rover has been dor mant since March 22, but mission controllers hope it survived the harsh winter and will wake up. The a mount of solar ener gy available for Spirit is increasing every da y. NASA had anticipated Spirit would enter a hibernation-like low-power mode during Mars' long winter. A patch of land near the huge Martian volcano Olympus Mons may bear evidence of recent plate tectonic activity, new research suggests. The ma ny ridges and scarps on the rumpled apron of land north and west of Olympus Mons are likely signs of tectonic thrusting. This activity could be ver y recent, within the last 250,000 years or so. If the study's conclusions are confir med, they would overturn conventional wisdom, which says plate-tectonic forces are unlikely to have played a major role in shaping the surface of Mars, particularly in the recent past. If this is true, Mars would be a better candidate for extraterrestrial life than scientists have thought. Plate tectonics could help replenish nutrients needed to foster life, bringing carbon and other substances from the interior to the surface. Some of the photos depict deflected, mea ndering drainage features, which provide further evidence of plate tectonics. One scientist thinks Martian plates wer e moving a nd grinding perhaps within the last 250,000 years, and even ma y be at it today. Other r esearchers have pointed out Mars has several long, relatively straight chains of volcanoes. These features could be explained by plate tectonics. Another piece of evidence is Mars' Valles Marineris, the biggest known canyon complex in the solar system. A few years ago, NAS A's Mars Global Surveyor detected striped patterns of magnetic fields on the surface. One possible explanation is ancient tectonic activity. Red dwarfs might be far mor e common than thought, enough to triple the number of known stars and possibly boost the number of planets that could harbor life. Astronomers previously couldn't detect them in galaxies other than the Milky Way and close neighbors. They've now detected the faint signature of red dwarfs in eight massive elliptical galaxies 50 million-300 million lightyears away. The largest are thought to hold mor e than 1 trillion stars, vs. 400 billion in the Milky Way. Red dwarfs could ma ke up at least 80% of stars and at least 60% of stars' mass. Galaxies might contain less dark matter than thought. Instead, red dwarfs could contribute mor e mass than thought. The first analysis of the atmospher e of an alien planet classified as a super-Earth revealed a world likely cover ed with water vapor or a thick haze. A super -Earth is larger than Earth but smaller than gas giants. The planet's radius is 2.5 times Earth's and its mass is 6.5 times. The water vapor or haze of clouds likely blocks chemicals underneath. Although the prospect of water vapor may sound promising, the planet isn't a candida te for hosting life because it's probably wa y too warm for liquid water in large quantities. A nearby small galaxy for ming stars at a huge rate seems to ha ve an enor mous black hole in its center. This is surprising, because dwarf galaxies usually don't host super massive black holes. This galaxy could help solve a conundrum: Which comes first, the black hole or the galaxy? The new discover y, of a black hole containing the Continued on page 12
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Briefs: Astronomers See Most Distant Galaxy Cluster Ever
Continued from page 11 mass of mor e than 1 million suns inside Henize 2-10, hints at an answer. Henize 2-10 lacks a bulge--a dense collection of stars at the center of most spiral galaxies. Usually, the mass of a galaxy's bulge correlates with the mass of its central black hole. Some r esearchers thought a galaxy had to have a bulge before a black hole could for m. But this galaxy suggests the black hole comes fir st, because Henize 2-10 is a very low-mass dwarf galaxy without a detectable bulge, yet it already has a supermassive black hole. Astronomers have glimpsed a protocluster of galaxies as they appeared only 1 billion years after the Big Bang, ma king it the most distant galaxy cluster seen. But finding and studying the birthplace of these regions is difficult. Early protoclusters are rare, and challenging to locate. To detect them, astronomers searched for brighter, easier-to-find objects such as quasars, starbursts, and massive galaxies. They searched in the sa me area of the sky studied by the Cosmic Evolution Survey (COSMOS). Within the field, they found a galaxy called AzTEC-3 that was rapidly for ming stars. Around this system astronomers found 11 times mor e galaxies than one would expect in a random area of the sky. The dense galactic population indicated the presence of a protocluster. More than 40 million light-years across, the protocluster lies nearly 13 billion light-years away. Moon water most likely came from comets that pelted the surface, a new study suggests. This water, samples of which wer e found in lunar -rock samples collected during Apollo missions, is differ ent from water on Earth. Instead, it has the same properties as three comets. If comets deliver ed most water to the Moon, Earth also received a large cometary input to its ocea ns. Researchers found the geochemical signals of water in lunar minerals had a ratio of deuterium a nd hydrogen compounds unique from those in water typically found on Earth. In rock sa mples studied, scientists discovered that the chemical properties of lunar water wer e similar to those in comets Hya kutake, Hale-Bopp and Halley. A dwarf galaxy thats too dim to see but is suspected to orbit the Milky Way may soon be r evea led using a new mathematical technique that analyzes the ripples of
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gas in spiral galaxies. The mass of Galaxy X is predicted at one-hundredth the Milky Wa y's. The galaxy sits across the Milky Way somewher e in Nor ma or Circinus, just west of the galactic center in Sagittarius when viewed from Earth. Galaxy X or a satellite galaxy onethousandth the mass of the Milky Way would still exert a large enough gravitational effect to cause ripples in the Milky Way's disk. Some calculate the galaxy is in a parabolic orbit around the Milky Wa y, about 300,000 light-years from the galactic center. The galactic radius is about 50,000 light-years. Many large galaxies are thought to ha ve satellite galaxies too dim to see. The Milky Way is surrounded by about 80 known or suspected dwarf galaxies. However, some may just be passing through. Theor etical models of rotating spiral galaxies predict ther e should be ma ny mor e satellite galaxies, perhaps thousands, with small ones most prevalent. Dwarf galaxies, however, are faint, and some ma y be primarily invisible dark matter. A dark dwarf galaxy is said to sit on the opposite side of the Milky Way from Earth, and has been unseen because it's obscur ed by gas and dust in the galaxy's disk. A NASA spacecraft is providing gr eat looks at parts of the Sun's atmospher e that had evaded detailed study. The Sun's corona is hotter than the surface, but the much brighter solar disk swa mps its tenuous light. Historically, researchers have studied the cor ona during eclipses, when the Moon blocks out the disk and reveals the corona, or by using a coronagraph, which blocks out the Sun's disk. However, eclipses are relatively rare and don't last long, and coronagraphs occlude the inner parts of the corona. NASA's Solar Dyna mics Observatory is helping scientists overcome these problems, yielding unprecedented views of the inner most cor ona 24/7. The instrument that makes this possible is the Atmospher ic Imaging Assembly. AIA's ima ges highlight the evercha nging connections between gas captured by the Sun's ma gnetic field and gas escaping into space. The Sun's ma gnetic field molds and shapes the corona. Hot solar plasma streams outward in vast loops larger than Earth, then plunges back onto the surface. A computer program has been developed for processing AIA ima ges above the Sun's edge. These processed ima ges imitate the blocking out of the Sun that occurs during a total solar eclipse, revealing the nature of the inner corona.


Events on the Horizon February 2011
M: me mbers; P: open to the public; T: bring your telescopes, binoculars, etc.; C: cancelled if cloudy; HQ: at AAA headquarters, Downtown Community Center, 120 Warren St. For directions to AAA observing events, check the club's website, www.aaa.org. Friday, February 4, 6:15 p. m. AAA lecture, P, FREE Nea l Weiner, associate professor in the Center for Cosmology and Particle Physics at NYU, will speak on "Illuminating Dark Matter." The free public lectur e is at 6:15 p. m. at the Kaufmann Theater of the AMNH. Monday, February 7, 7:30 p. m. Hayden Planetarium lecture, P, AMNH "The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos" with Brian Gr eene. In recent years, a growing body of wor k has been converging around a proposal that our universe is only one of ma ny. Theoretical physicist and Columbia University professor Brian Greene will discuss a number of different models of parallel universes. His latest book has the same title as the lecture. Thursday, February 10, 6:30-8:30 p. m., Lecture continued from page 3 Weiner has broad interests in particle physics and cosmology. His focus is on physics beyond the standa rd model. In this broad field, his work has included studies of extra dimensional theories (large, small, warped and flat), supersymmetry, grand unification, flavor, neutrino mass, dark matter, inflation and dark energy, as well as relationships between the differ ent subjects. Weiner was a post doc at the University of Washington prior to joining the CCPP in 2004. He is a graduate of Carleton College and received his Ph.D. in physics at UC Ber keley. He is currently on sabbatical lea ve at the Institute for Adva nced Study in Princeton, N. J. Other upcoming AAA lectures are: March 4, Andrea 726Broadway, sixth floor conference room Recent Advances in Astronomy Seminar, M The seminar now incorporates the Observers' Group. Next date: March 3. Wednesday, February 16, 7 p. m. Quarterly AAA board meeting, M, HQ All club members are invited to attend. Thursday, February 24, 6 p. m. Observing, Prospect Park, M The Prospect Park Alliance will have an event thanking their members at the Picnic House in the Long Meadow. They would like AAA members with telescopes or binoculars to show off the sky. Saturday, February 26, 10 a. m. -noon Solar Observing at Central Park, P, T, C At the Conservator y Water. Next date: March 26. Dupree, Harvard-S mithsonia n Center for Astrophysics, Searching for Extrasolar Planets with Kepler. April 1, Greg Matloff, New York City College of Technology, Regr eening the Earth Using Space Resources. May 6, David J. Thompson, NAS A, Exploring the Extr eme Universe with the F er mi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. Dupree's talk will be the club's annual John Marshall Memor ial Lecture, which honors a past president and executive dir ector of the AAA who was instrumental in its growth. Marshall died in 1997.

If you havent renewed your membership, next month will be your last issue of Eyepiece!
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Pluto continued from page 1 across the sky as photographed by the 48-inch Schmidt telescope. It was easy to see the logic of the process. The meta morphosis of that process was fascinating. By cha nce, Brown ha d called upon old technology to identify his objects and then blended in new technology to confir m his findings. Fate and timing also played to his favor. Before confirming his discovery, Brown needed time on the Hubble. Scheduling requires a lengthy proposal and approval process. Not wanting to be scooped by another astronomer, he contacted an associate at Hubble and got time on the telescope. This was the final piece of documentation that was requir ed to complete his analysis. The evening turned lighter as Brown described the process for na ming bodies discover ed by the astronomical community. Some of his earlier discover ies were given pet na mes like Santa, Easter Bunny and Xena. Xena, his Pluto-killing discovery, ultimately beca me Eris, the largest dwarf planet known in the Kuiper Belt. Befor e for mal submission, it's the astronomer 's choice what to call his object. Once released, the International Astronomical Union takes control, not only to classify the body as a planet, dwarf planet, etc., but to deter mine

the correct descriptive na me to assign to the discover y. (For en. wikiAstr how this mor e basic naming infor mation, visit http:// wikipedia.org/ onomical_na ming_conventions to read about is structured.)

Tyson brought a young girl to the center of the dome with a tee shirt saying, I (heart image) Pluto. He introduced Kenneth Cha ng, the New York Times reporter who was in contact with Brown at the point of discovery and who's responsible for the article bla ming Tyson for demoting Pluto. Tyson showed the lead story for the next da y's New York Times science section. The hea dline r ead: The War of the Worlds, Round 2. Eris' size is being challenged, and newer models ma y prove it smaller than Pluto.

Contacting the AAA
General club matters: president@aaa.org. Membership business, such as dues and change of addr ess: members@aaa.org. Eyepiece: editor@aaa.org. Lectures: lectures@aaa.org. Classes: classes@aaa.org. Seminar: seminar@aaa.org. Observing: president@aaa.org. Please visit us on the web at www.aaa.org.

Amateur Astronomers Association Gracie Station P. O. Box 383 New York, NY 10028

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