Mercury,
September/October 2002 Table of Contents
by
Fred A. Ringwald
It's
cloudy and cold. Your astro-buddies all are out of town, observing.
You've already read all your astronomy magazines, twice. What are
you going to do tonight?
The
World Wide Web has many excellent resources for professional astronomers.
As a professional astronomer, it pains me when my amateur friends
tell me they're never heard of them. Many should prove extremely
useful for amateurs, and perhaps in ways not originally intended
by their creators.
Unfortunately,
it is impossible to list all of them, but one web page that specifically
helps you find other astronomical web pages is:
AstroWeb:
Astronomy/Astrophysics on the Internet http://www.cv.nrao.edu/fits/www/astronomy.html
In
other words, AstroWeb is an Internet search engine specifically
for astronomy. Just type in the name of the person, object, instrument,
observatory, spacecraft, or whatever else you want, and AstroWeb
will give links to astronomical web pages that mention it.
The
web page I use most in my day-to-day research is:
The
NASA Astrophysics Data System
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/
and
specifically,
ADS
Astronomy Abstract Service
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abstract_service.html
Type
in the name of an astronomical object, an author name, or words
in the title or text of a paper, in the appropriate boxes. ADS will
list the scientific papers on the specified object, or by the specified
author. These papers are in a wide range of popular magazines and
learned journals, refereed and unrefereed. The referees are other
professional astronomers, asked by the journals to read the manuscripts
carefully, check for errors, and report on whether the papers should
be published. The refereeing process isn't infallible, referees
being human, but it does help the quality of many papers —
at least, it has for several of mine!
ADS
can also search with keywords. These can yield long lists of papers,
but ADS has logical functions for narrowing searches. ADS lists
go surprisingly far back in time. A search of unrefereed or refereed
papers using the name "Struve" listed some 440 items.
Most of these were by Otto Struve, including 167 popular articles
he published between 1942 and 1963, as well as 146 refereed papers
in the Astrophysical Journal. However, the oldest reference turned
up in the general search on "Struve" was an 1845 book
by his great-grandfather, Friedrich Struve. ADS also has page images
of many refereed journals, since 1980.
Another
web resource I use nearly every day is the SIMBAD astronomical database.
SIMBAD stands for Set of Identifications, Measurements, and Bibliography
for Astronomical Data. It's run by the Centre de Données
astronomiques de Strasbourg (CDS, Strasbourg), in France. SIMBAD
contains information for about one million objects, including 3.3
million identifiers, over 1.5 million observational measurements,
and 1.4 million bibliographical references. It's great for cross-references,
for example if you know an object's Messier number, but want to
know its NGC number, or if you know a star's SAO or HD number, but
want to know its HR number — or name. SIMBAD also lists nearly
all papers in refereed and other journals, as far back as 1950.
It can search on an object's name you type in, or by coordinates:
the default search radius is 10 arcminutes. It used to be one had
to get a user account to use SIMBAD interactively, but now it's
available on the web:
SIMBAD
on the web
http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/Simbad
SIMBAD
can also be used in batch mode, for complex or long searches.
In
the 1960s, a good finding chart of an important object was almost
enough to justify a publication by itself. Things have improved
since, with:
SkyView
The Internet's Virtual Telescope
http://skys.gsfc.nasa.gov/
SkyView
makes finding charts. All you need to do is to type in an object's
name. SkyView is connected to SIMBAD, and if SIMBAD can match this
name, it finds the object's coordinates and returns this to SkyView.
You may also type coordinates directly into SkyView.
SkyView
then returns a square image, of default size 8.5 arcminutes on a
side. Skyview includes sky maps in many wavelengths of light, from
radio to gamma rays: selecting "Digitized Sky Survey"
will show images in visible light. These reach fainter than 20th
magnitude in the red (E) or green (J) bands. (The limiting magnitude
varies from field to field, but detailed calibrations are available).
These images were scanned from wide-field photographs, taken during
the Palomar Observatory Sky Survey, and by the Southern Sky Survey,
carried out by the Royal Observatory, Edinburgh and Anglo-Australian
Observatory. This means no more fumbling through the library for
finding charts!
Try
it yourself. Bring up SkyView, select the Basic Interface, and then
select "Digitized Sky Survey," to get you optical images.
Then, in the "Sky Coordinates or Object" box, type in
the Messier or NGC number of one of your favorite deep-sky objects,
such as NGC 891 or M13 . You can download the images in gif, a well-known
image format that doesn't take up much space, or more detailed images
in FITS format, the standard image format in professional astronomy,
or even in compressed FITS. To fit large objects, such as M42 or
M31, into the frame, you need to reset the image size, and such
frames can take a while to load, regardless of image format. Still,
SkyView's potential is clear, especially for owners of CCDs.
Space
Telescope Science Institute runs a similar page, at:
The
STScI Digitized Sky Survey
http://stdatu.stsci.edu/dss/
They
also distribute CD-ROMs of the sky images, although there is a charge
for them.
Hubble
Space Telescope of course has a web page, of interest to users and
general public alike, at:
Space
Telescope Science Institute Home Page (formerly STEIS)
http://www.stsci.edu/
They
of course have a splendid image archive, press releases to go with
it, and many pages of educational activities.
Most
other space missions run their own pages, too. There is insufficient
space here to list them all, but you can generally find them by
typing the mission name or abbreviation into AstroWeb, two examples
being Mars Pathfinder and Chandra.
An
astonishingly large list of current, planned, and past missions,
maintained by the Office of Space Science at NASA Headquarters,
is:
Space
Science Missions
http://spacescience.nasa.gov/missions/index.htm
If
you like building models of spacecraft, for example, this is where
you can easily get pictures of scads of them.
Since
NASA is a government agency, the data from its spacecraft normally
go into the public domain. Anyone can access these data, often consisting
of quite tasty images that were glanced at once, when taken, but
were since forgotten. Even now, years after many of the missions,
these space datasets could stand serious look-throughs. Patient
amateurs, unbothered by imminent grant proposal deadlines, could
really excel at this.
For
searching through the databases from spacecraft, there is:
Multimission
Archive at STScI (MAST) (formerly WISARD) http://archive.stsci.edu/mast.html/wisard.html
There
are whole astronomical data centers that do this, too. One is run
at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, NASA's center for space science:
The
National Space Science Data Center
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/
NSSDC
acts as a clearinghouse for data from astrophysics, space physics,
solar physics, and planetary missions. Of greatest interest to the
general public user is:
NSSDC's
General Public Page
http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/nssdc/gen_public.html
Another
NASA Goddard page that I use is the archive of astronomical catalogs,
at:
The
Astronomical Data Center (ADC)
http://adc.gsfc.nasa.gov/
This
provides catalogs of all manner of astronomical objects, whether
stars, galaxies, or whatever else.
ADC
pages that you, gentle reader, may particularly enjoy include:
ADC
for Amateur Astronomers
http://adc.gsfc.nasa.gov/adc/adc_amateurs.html
and
ADC for Students & Educators
http://adc.gsfc.nasa.gov/adc/adc_education.html
You
can also find resources for different parts of the spectrum:
High
Energy Astrophysics Science Archive Research Center (HEASARC)
http://heasarc.gsfc.nasa.gov/
National
Optical Astronomy Observatories (NOAO)
http://www.noao.edu/noao.html
Infrared
Processing and Analysis Center (IPAC)
http://www.ipac.caltech.edu/
National
Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO)
http://www.nrao.edu/
Radio
astronomy, after all, was pioneered by an amateur, Grote Reber.
Like him, many amateur radio astronomers build their own instruments,
both simple and complex. Many could make fine use of the wide-field
FIRST survey, being done with the Very Large Array. FIRST is available
with SkyView; they has also been making their maps available as
soon as they get them, at:
The
VLA FIRST Survey
http://sundog.stsci.edu/top.html
Most
amateurs observe in the optical, though. NOAO therefore deserves
mention, partly because of IRAF, its free software for CCD imaging.
IRAF has been ported to a wide variety of platforms, including personal
computers:
Image
Reduction and Analysis Facility (IRAF)
http://iraf.noao.edu/
NOAO
also runs a superb image archive, at:
NOAO
Image Gallery
http://www.noao.edu/noaosci.html
They
have other public outreach activities, too, including tours and
observing programs for novice and advanced amateurs at Kitt Peak,
Arizona:
NOAO
Outreach Programs Page
http://www.noao.edu/outreach/
A
solar resource, by Lockheed, has links to many other solar pages:
Solar
physics on the web
http://www.lmsal.com/SXT/html2/list.html
Another
fine solar resource, with links to others, is the Solar Data Analysis
Center (SDAC), run by NASA:
SDAC
Home Page
http://umbra.gsfc.nasa.gov/sdac.html
This
includes current solar images from the SOHO and Yokoh spacecraft,
as well as several ground-based solar observatories, and links to
many others, at:
Current
solar images
http://umbra.nascom.nasa.gov/images/latest.html
This
is one of my favorite pages. It's fascinating to watch sunspots
march, prominences leap, and coronal streamers dance, from day to
day. It's quite safe, too, since all you need do is look at your
computer screen!
SDAC
also has archives from the Solar Max and other space missions. The
Solar max images are another example of a dataset that could stand
good, patient, unhurried look-throughs by serious amateurs: there's
no telling what they could turn up. Solar max was especially good
at observing solar flares.
Solar
flares and sunspots are only two small parts of space weather. For
current conditions in the solar wind, coronal holes, geomagnetic
storms and aurorae, as well as meteor rates and asteroids, see:
SpaceWeather.com
http://www.spaceweather.com/
An
outstanding eclipse page, by Fred Espenak, is:
Espenak's
Eclipse Home Page
http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse/eclipse.html
Professional
astronomers publish in refereed journals. As soon as their papers
are accepted, they send advance copies ("preprints") to:
The
astro-ph preprint server
http://xxx.lanl.gov/archive/astro-ph
Nearly
all the professional journals have their own web pages, with which
one can find subscription information, instructions for authors,
costs for publishing in these journals, etc. Rather than listing
all their pages separately, the following page has links to many
journals:
PAM
(physics astronomy math) of the Special Libraries Association
http://pantheon.yale.edu/~dstern/pamtop.html#astro.top
A
list of astronomy meetings is compiled by Liz Bryson of the Canada-France-Hawaii
Telescope, at:
International
Astronomy Meetings http://cadcwww.dao.nrc.ca/meetings/meetings.html
A
famous source of fast-breaking news, of anything in the sky that
varies or moves (including, but not limited to, novae, supernovae,
gamma ray bursts, comets, asteroids), and much else, is:
The
Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams
http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/cfa/ps/cbat.html
However,
before sending them reports of any comets you discover, be sure
first to check whether your object has any motion.
Also, run their:
(Super)Nova-Suspect
Minor-Planet Checker http://cfaps8.harvard.edu/~cgi/CheckSN.COM
Participation
by serious, careful amateurs has always been welcome, and is increasing.
Unfortunately, since anyone can send e-mail these days, so is the
number of false alarms. The directors of CBAT do not take kindly
to these — nor do the thousands of professional and amateur
observers who subscribe to the International Astronomical Union
(IAU) Circulars that CBAT issues by e-mail. False alarms almost
never get past the directors of CBAT, but their jobs are hard enough:
be sure to do both those checks before reporting!
Two
resources specifically for variable stars, run by professional astronomers
but largely composed of amateur observations, are:
VSNET:
An International Mailing List on Variable Stars
http://www.kusastro.kyoto-u.ac.jp/vsnet/
and
Center for Backyard Astrophysics
http://cba.phys.columbia.edu/
In
both, professional observers organize amateur observing campaigns.
These often produce useful science if done carefully, even with
modest equipment. So do the following:
Association
of Lunar & Planetary Observers (ALPO) http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/alpo/
The
International Occultation Timing Association (IOTA) http://www.occultations.org/
The
following page, by NASA's Office of Space Science, lists resources
useful for amateurs:
Amateur
Astronomy
http://spacekids.hq.nasa.gov/osskids/orgs/index.htm
A
more extensive listing is run by Space Telescope Science Institute:
Amateur
Astronomer's Kiosk at STScI http://www.stsci.edu/~mutchler/kiosk.html
The
web has many utilities for observing. Accurate time is kept at:
U.S.
Naval Observatory Master Clock
http://tycho.usno.navy.mil/what.html
This
includes Local Standard or Daylight Time for U.S. time zones, Universal
Time, and Local Apparent Sidereal Time.
The
U.S. Naval Observatory has a number of other resources for timekeeping,
including:
World
Time Zones (with a map)
http://tycho.usno.navy.mil/tzones.html
Several
handy observing tools have been developed by the Far Ultraviolet
Spectroscopic Explorer (FUSE) mission. These include:
Convert
Equatorial to Galactic Coordinates http://violet.pha.jhu.edu/support/tools/eqtogal.html
Precession
Routine
http://violet.pha.jhu.edu/support/tools/precess.html
Julian
Date, Sun Coordinates, Moon Coordinates http://violet.pha.jhu.edu/support/tools/solar.html
Phases
of the Moon can be found with John Walker's:
Earth
and Moon Viewer
http://www.fourmilab.ch/earthview/vplanet.html
There
are many fine weather pages. One, with forecasts and current satellite
and radar images immediately displayed, is:
EarthWatch
Weather on Demand http://www.earthwatch.com/SKYWATCH/skywatch.html
Another,
with all manner of satellite images, is:
SSEC
Realtime Data
http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/data/
Yet
another, by the National Center for Atmospheric Research, is:
Real-Time
Weather Data
http://www.rap.ucar.edu/weather/
One
I particularly like, from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
(NOAA), is the:
Geostationary
Satellite Server:
http://www.goes.noaa.gov/
A
weather page that can be customized to your site, and also contains
astronomical data, is:
The
Weather Underground
http://www.wunderground.com/
Another
great weather website that also gives reports on seeing and transparency
is:
The
Clear Sky Clock
http://cleardarksky.com/csk/
For
sheer beautiful pictures, try:
Astronomy
Picture of the Day
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/
To
find out predictions of passes by the International Space Station,
Iridium flares, the Hubble Space Telescope, and other satellites,
visit:
Heavens
Above
http://www.heavens-above.com/
And
of course, there are countless other pages by organizations and
individual astronomers, many of them frighteningly useful. There's
a whole Universe of information out there. Happy exploring!
Fred
Ringwald (fringwal@csufresno.edu)
is on the faculty at California State University, Fresno. Check
out his Hubble Space Telescope results at http://zimmer.csufresno.edu/~fringwal/.
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