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Stan Honda

Full moon at AAA Spring Starfest, 2015

Journal of the Amateur Astronomers Association of New York
June 2015
Volume 64 Number 6 ISSN 0146-7662

Goldilocks Planets
AMNH FRONTIERS LECTURE By Richard Brounstein This porridge is scorching hot. This porridge is frozen over. I want to find a planet where my porridge will be at a temperature that is just right for eating. "We've got a [bedtime] story of just the right planet," says Natalie Batalha at the Frontiers Lecture on Goldilocks Planets at the American Natural Histo-

NASA.gov

The Kepler Space Telescope: finder of worlds

ry Museum in New York. Astronomers have worked to find Earth-sized planets since we first confirmed what we always suspected: many planets exist in other solar systems. Now that we know that planets exist and we have the ability to find them, we want to find as many planets as we can that are like Earth. Named for the classic children's story involving a little girl and three bears, Goldilocks planets are not too big or small and not too hot or cold. In short, we want to find a planet that can have liquid surface water. All life that we understand needs liquid water as a medium for mixing, transporting and dissolving compounds. But we can't find these planets with direct observation. Trying to see a planet going around a distant star directly is like trying to see a gnat next to the bright light of a lighthouse. There is a difference in brightness of about 10 billion. So scientists must use indirect methods. The two main indirect methods of observation are the wobble method and the transit method. The wobble method detects planets as their host star is pulled back and forth due to the gravitational tugging of the planet on the star. Since even large gas giant planets only create a tiny, barely detectable tugging motions on their star, this method has found few exoplanets and none as small Earth. The transit method has proved much more promising. With the transit method, a telescope watches the star and measures its brightness. If a planet's orbit is lined up with

our solar system, that planet will eventually pass between its star and Earth. When it does, the star will dim very slightly, revealing its existence to us. The Kepler Space Telescope is devoted to finding planets transiting their star. The purpose of the Kepler Mission, according to Natalie Batalha, is to do a census "with a telescope and not a telephone" of the stars in a tiny part of our Milky Way Galaxy to determine how many of them have planets that have the potential for life. Kepler scans over 170,000 stars continuously for dips in their light. This change in brightness is so small that the Kepler telescope must be extremely sensitive. "Imagine an 80-story skyscraper with a light on in every room and every window shade open. Now imagine how much the light from this building would be reduced if the window shade on just one window lowered only 1 centimeter." The change in brightness is 1 part in a million. Kepler must be that sensitive to detect planets transiting their star. NASA.gov As difficult as this is, Kepler has found over 3,000 extra solar planets and many are near Earth-sized:
Kepler 10b: A world of lava

One planet, Kepler 10c has an average of 7 grams per cubic CM mass and is 7x the mass of Earth. Earth is only 5g per cubic centimeter. Kepler 138d is 1.7 times the size of Earth and has a mass approximately that of Earth. It must not have as much iron and nickel in its core as we have here on our home planet but still might make a good home to complex life forms. Kepler has found some interesting non-habitable worlds as well. Kepler 10b, for example is one hot world. Its temperature is hot enough to melt iron and it has evidence of molten oceans, as it zips around an orbit closer to its host star than planet Mercury is to our own Sun.
(AMNH Frontiers Lecture, cont'd on page 4)

World Science Festival May 30-31: O b ser v ing at Br ook ly n Br id ge Par k 30t h, Solar at W ashingt on Sq . Par k 31st


June 2015

WHAT'S UP IN THE SKY
AAA Observers' Guide
By Tony Faddoul June's Evening Planets: Venus can be found in Cancer the Crab until 11 PM. Bright Jupiter will between Cancer the Crab and Leo the Lion until midnight, setting earlier every morning until 11 PM by the end of the month. Find Saturn between Scorpius the Scorpion and Libra the Scales all night. Dwarf p planet Pluto will be in Sagittarius the Archer by 11 PM, risingearlier every night through the month. June's Evening Stars: Spot the Summer Triangle of Vega in Lyra the Harp, Deneb in Cygnus the Swan, and Altair in Aquila the Eagle all night. Spot Spica in Virgo the Virgin, Antares in Scorpius the Scorpion, Arcturus in BoЖtes the Herdsman. Also find the stars of constellations Cassiopeia, Draco, Virgo, Hercules, Ophiuchus, Leo, Pegasus, and the two Dippers during the month. June's Morning Planets: Sa t u r n is u p b et ween Scor p iu s the Scorpion and Libra the Scales until sunrise and setting earlier every night at 3 AM by the end of the month. Neptune will be in Aquarius the Water Bearer as of 2 AM, rising earlier every morning by midnight at the end of June. Uranus will be in Pisces rising one hour after Neptune. Mercury is in Taurus the Bull during the second half of June for about an hour before sunrise. Dwarf planet Pluto will be in Sagittarius the Archer until sunrise. June's Morning Stars: Spot the Summer Triangle of Vega in Lyra the Harp, Deneb in Cygnus the Swan, and Altair in Aquila the Eagle. Look for reddish Antares in Scorpius the Scorpion, Arcturus in Bootes the Herdsman, along with the stars of constellations Lyra, Hercules, Scorpius, Sagittarius, Aquarius, Capricornus, Aries, Ophiuchus, Pegasus, Cassiopeia, Draco, and the two Dippers.

AAA A2015 Annual Meeting
By Evan Schneider On Thursday, May 21, 57 AAA members gathered for the annual meeting at the Warren Street Community Center in Manhattan. This night was filled with a blend of board members, AAA members, heads of every observing team, and one of two special recipients of the Emeritus Board Member Award. President Marcelo Cabrera officially opened the meeting at 7:30PM. He then introduced this year's Emeritus recipients, Bruce Kamiat and Richard Rosenberg. Richard was not in attendTony Hoffman ance, so the honor VP Susan Andreoli, with Bruce Kamiat, fell to Bruce to rerecipient of the Emeritus certificate ceive his award and to speak to attendees. Bruce joined AAA in 1990, served on the Board of Directors, and continues to support AAA by hosting one of the observing sites. President Cabrera then took us through the paces of the meeting. Financial Secretary Joe Delfausse announced that we had 572 members as of the end of April and that nearly all new membership applications are done online through the AAA website. He mentioned the generosity of our members who donated $7,900 this year, with a donation of $3,000 coming from AMNH Rose Chair of the Hayden Planetarium, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, host of the popular TV series Cosm os. Joe then invited fellow board members Evan Schneider and Peter Tagatac to the podium as he discussed AAA's "Scopes for Schools" program. This team is working with the NYC Board of Education to distribute new telescopes to public schools and provide training, with the hope of increasing public outreach. Activity reports then followed. Eyepiece Editor in Chief Amy Wagner invited members to write for the monthly publication. David Kraft updated us on this year's lecture series. There were reports on the school outreach program. Today's annual meeting gave attending members the opportunity to see the observing team members who faithfully organize and manage the individual sites every week. Each greeted the audience and spoke about the attributes of their particular site. If you want a great personal challenge, go to our website or pick up your monthly copy of Eyepiece and find out where these dedicated amateur astronomers set up each week. Go there to experience the sky, from somewhere as familiar as Lincoln Center with Peter Tagatac or to the far away dark skies of North/South Lake with Tom Haeberle. The choice is yours ­ one of the many benefits of your AAA membership. Our 28th annual Starfest in Central Park will be held on October 17th. AAA will also be supporting the World Science Fair at the end of May, providing telescopes and observers. We are everywhere. The meeting was adjourned at 8:37PM with a motion by President Marcelo Cabrera. David Kraft then took over with a special presentation to all attendees. Our night was complete. 2

June "Skylights"
Full Moon at 12:20 PM June 9 June 10 June 11 June 12 June 14 June 16 June 19 June 21 June 23 June 24 Last Quarter Moon at 11:45 PM Moon at perigee (229,725 miles from Earth) Mercury is stationary Neptune is stationary Mercury is north of the moon 10:00 PM New Moon at 10:05 AM Jupiter is 5° north of the moon (sunset) Summer solstice 12:40 PM Moon at apogee (251,115 miles from Earth) First Quarter Moon at 7:03 AM

Follow veteran sky watcher Tony Faddoul each month, as he points our minds and our scopes toward the night sky.

Times given in EDT


June 2015

Spring Starfest AAA EVENT IN THE BRONX By Stan Honda
On a mild evening, the annual AAA Spring Starfest was held on Saturday, May 2 at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx with solar observing during the day and stargazing at night. A nearly full moon washed out some of the sky but great views of Jupiter, Venus and other objects could be seen. About 60-70 people attended the night portion of the
Stan Honda

Starfest attendees checking out the raffle prizes while waiting for darkness to descend

Stan Honda

Solar observing at Spring Starfest

Star Fest, all receiving a NASA shopping bag with space related items, an Astronomy magazine and our traditional glow sticks. AAA vice-president Susan Andreoli conducted the free raffle for the Celestron NexStar 60SLT telescope won by Heather Sutton and her sons Evan and Dylan Dublanica. A beautiful sunset and moonrise greeted people as they walked to the observing area. Many telescopes were set up on the circular drive including Jason Kendall with his 15 inch Obsession which drew a Stan Honda crowd as he moved Astrophotography with iOptron eyepiece it into position to adapter for smartphone view Mercury. Occasional clouds drifted over, never really affecting the observing. The moon, of course, was the prominent object in the sky and great views were seen through all the scopes. I had bought an iOptron eyepiece adapter for a smartphone at the recent Northeast Astronomy Forum in Rockland County so several of us tried it out. The device holds the phone in a clamp, the camera lens centered over a 12.5mm eyepiece. This goes in place of the eyepiece in a telescope and you can take photos with the phone camera. For bright things like the moon it worked great. We tried various phones on Marcelo Cabrera's Televue. The iOp3

tron held my Samsung Galaxy 4 phone, Marcelo's giant Samsung and even Sam Hahn's iPhone 6. As long as the camera lens was centered on the eyepiece, we could get a nice image. Earlier in the day I tried it out with Katherine Troche during the solar observing part of the Star Fest at Woodlawn. Through the AAA Coronado solar scope we could get hydrogen alpha images of the sun with several prominences clearly seen. Volunteers who helped graciously were Sam Hahn, Judith Levine, Alfredo and Alessandra Viegas, Sarah Gargano and Siyu Tu. The next AAA Starfest is our 20th Annual Autumn Urban Starfest in October in Central Park. Stay tuned to the website for details.

Stan Honda

Raffle Winner of Celestron NexStar 60SLT telescope

Explore more night sky photography at

www.stanhonda.com
Submit your photography questions to

stanhonda@gmail.com.

Stan Honda is a professional photographer. Formerly with Agence France-Presse, Stan covered the Space Shuttle program. In his "Focus on the Universe" column, he shares his night sky images and explores his passions for astronomy and photography.


June 2015

AMNH Frontiers Lecture (cont'd from Page 1)

A Message from the AAA President
Hello AAA Members!
On behalf of the club I would like to thank Ron McCullough, outgoing member of the Board, for his many years of service and dedication to the AAA and its activities. I would also like to welcome new Board member, Surayah White. This month we have plenty of nighttime and solar observing scheduled. We will also be part of the World Science Festival and Astronomy Nights at Intrepid. Please check our website for more information. I hope to see you there. All of our observing sites, including directions and maps can be found at http://www.aaa.org/observing Please note that our calendar updates very often and the best way to see our current full calendar is at http://www.aaa.org/ calendar We had a fun and productive annual meeting, it was great to see many of you there. We gave for the first time the Board Emeritus recognition award to Bruce Kamiat and Richard Rosenberg. Thank you Bruce and Rich for all the years of service.

Kepler 12557548 is a ct u a lly b ein g slowly d est r oyed b y it s host star. It is so close to its sun and so hot that the planet has formed a tail of evaporating material. Scientists can see a pattern in the dimming of the light during the transit that reveals this amazing feature. And a favorite of science fiction fans is Kepler 47b that orbits the two suns (nicknamed the Tatooine planet) of a binary system. Kepler even found a planet in a Globular cluster. Imagine the nighttime sky there. They must have thousands as many stars in its sky than can be seen from Earth. Unfortunately, there is no dark NASA.gov nighttime and practicing optiThe tiny part of our galaxy cal astronomy is extremely surveyed by Kepler difficult. Thanks to Kepler, we know that these small planets are more common than larger ones, just as scientists expected. The nearest Earth-sized planet found is around 10 light years away. That may seem close but if the Milky Way galaxy were reduced to the size of the continental United States, this star would be the distance from the Hayden Planetarium to Turtle pond in Central Park (about 0.25 miles). That is still about 94.6 trillion kilometers so we won't be going there anytime NASA.gov soon.
Kepler 47b a.k.a. Tatooine Planet

Marcelo Cabrera President, AAA president@aaa.org

The Amateur Astronomers' Association of New York
Info, Events, and Observing: president@aaa.org or 212-535-2922 Membership: members@aaa.org Eyepiece: editor@aaa.org

Visit us online at www.aaa.org.
CALL FOR WRITERS
The Amateur Astronomers Association of New York's journal Eyepiece is looking for dedicated writers to contribute articles covering lectures, seminars, and observing events around town, as well as current topics in astronomy and astrophysics.

AAA Events on the Horizon
TUES, June 2, 30 Solar Observin g on th e High L ine, 6p m, P TUES, June 2, 9,16, 23, 30 Evening Observing on the High Line, 7:30p m, P June 5, 6, 12,13, 19,20, 26,27 Observing at Lincoln Cen ter, 7 :30p m, P FRI, June 5 Observing at In trep id Mus eu m, 6:45p m, P Observing at Floyd Bennett Field, 8p m, P SAT, June 6 Obse rving at B rooklyn Muse u m Pla za , 9p m, P SAT, June 20 Observing at Great Kills, Sta ten Island , 8:30p m, P FRI, June 26 Observing at Carl Sch urz Park , 8:30p m, P SAT, June 27 Solar Observi n g at Poe Par k, Bronx, 11a m, P Observing at Parkchester, Bronx, 8pm

Interested? Plea se submit a short w riting sample to Amy Wagner at editor@aaa.org.

Eyepiece Staff
June Issue
Issue Editor: Rori Baldari Copy Editor: Rich a r d Br ou n stein
Editor in Chief: Amy Wa gn er Contributing Writers: R ich ar d B r ou n st ein , Tony Faddoul, Stan Honda, Evan Schneider Eyepiece Logo and Graphic Design: R or i B ald ar i Administrative Support: J oe Delf au sse
Printing by McVicker & Higginbotham

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