Spring 2012 Astronomy CourseMississippi Valley NightSky ConservationThe Sky Around Us

Program developed by•Mississippi Valley Conservation Authority•Royal Astronomical Society of Canada•Ottawa Astronomy Friends

Instructors:Pat BrowneStephen CollieRick Scholes

Earth Centered Universe software for illustrations – courtesy David Lane

Lectures combined with Observing

Course runs each Friday during the month of April and the beginning of MayCourse time: 19:30 – 22:00 formally with priority given to observing when clear

5 lectures covering observing the night sky:I Celestial Sphere and our place in itII Stars within our galaxy,

binary systems, variable stars, dying stars (‘planetary nebula’)

III Star clusters Open Clusters within the disk of the Milky Way, Globular clusters , in a halo around the Milky way

IV GalaxiesV Observing stellar and non-stellar objects,

galaxies, clusters of Galaxies, • and always … Observing Techniques:• star charts• astronomy applications• logbooks and handbooks

• Postings for the course, and discussion group are at the Mill of Kintail Night Sky Conservation Yahoo Group. You can join here:

• http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/MoK_NSC

Course Notes availableatwww.millstonenews.com/the-night-sky

Activities

Activities will include …

Moonlit walk to Fred Lossing Observatory

Dark sky observing

Guest speakers *Sanjeev Sivarulrasa astro-photographer

Videos

Night Sky Conservation ByLaw 03-62 in partnership with MVC NightSky

Conservation, and the RASC

NOW WHEREAS, properly designed light fixtures do not emit undesirable illuminating light rays up into the night sky and thus protect the nighttime environment

NOW THEREFORE the Council of the Corporation of the Town of Mississippi Mills ENACTS AS FOLLOWS: The Outdoor Illumination By-Law for

Mississippi Mills for the regulation and standards for responsible lighting, light pollution abatement, and the conservation of the night sky environment.

CONSIDER THIS...

Our Dark Sky Site – Long History of Looking up

Mississippi Mills is the home of the Fred Lossing Observatory (FLO) maintained and operated by the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada (RASC).

Located at the Mill of Kintail Conservation Area, it was built by the scientific community with high-quality optics from the National Research Council of Canada.

Thanks to the continued preservation of the night sky at the Mill of Kintail, the local dark skies have permitted the visual discovery of 5 comets, making FLO the only observatory in Canada to do this

Comet Garadd click on this link to download movie (19 MB): http://millstone.typepad.com/files/garad2-2.avi

Lecture 1 The earth in space

StartShip Earth within its Celestial Sphere

• The sky in different seasons

• Planetary and comet observations (those objects which grace our skies only temporarily)

• Navigating around the sky – knowing when to observe objects and where to look

The closest objects to us...The solar System … planets Mars (right) and Saturn (left)

Celestial Sphere

The celestial sphere is an imaginary sphere The concept of the celestial sphere provides a simple way of thinking about the appearance of the stars, and other celestial objects from our location on Earth without the complication of a realistic model of the universe.

The position of a celestial object is given by its Right Ascension (RA) and Declination (Dec) in the same way as our position on earth is given by our Longitude and Latitude. We can locate the celestial object, like the star Regulus in Leo by specifying its RA and Dec. It is visible in the springtime along with the galaxies in Leo, such as M65 and M66

M65, M65 Galaxies

Earth Rotation – Night and Day

Earth Orbit - SeasonsDay and Night around the yearAs we stand on the earth looking up ½ of the hemisphere is obscured by

the earth itself.As the earth orbits around the sun in

the year, the night-sky will contain

different objects, different constellations.

What we see in the sky depends on

1. Time of Year (and what is our night-time view when our Time of Day is after sunset)

2. Our latitude on earth: This sets our horizon, and what is above or below it when we look up at night.

Objects below the horizon cannotbe viewed. Certain celestial objects remain permanently below our

horizon.

Earth orbit and Tilt – Seasons and star fields…

We do not see the same objects in the sky day after day due to our orbit and tilt. To understand this better watch this video that explains the sky at different points in its elliptical orbit … and at different times of year in its cyclical , tilting traversal around the sky…. see A Year on Earth…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhqzW97_47w&feature=relmfu

double click or if that fails, copy and paste this link into your browser

-minor errata They point to the cross-over point of the analemma as the the equinox. This is not the case. The

equinox occurs halfway between the most northern, and south excursion of the Sun

So we can see that our orbit takes us around the sidereal year where we see different constellations and different objects like stars, star clusters and galaxies within these constellations as we travel around our orbit

What we can see in April …

The celestial sphere presented in this lecture is set for April 13 2012 at 10 pm

• Mars and Jupiter are visible

• Bright stars can be identified such as Regulus in Leo

• Open clusters such as M44, the magnificent Beehive cluster – visible naked eye!

• Globular clusters are less abundant due to where we are looking in our orbit . We have to wait till the summer to view such knots of stars as seen in the summer portion of the Milky way

• Next time we will see the celestial sphere has turned a bit. We will notice this as we look up!

constellation Leo

The Observers Handbook of the RASC (Royal Astronomical

Society of Canada) has tables of objects visible for our

location for different times of the year.

The Observer’s Handbook Edition includes data from 17 of the

astronomical object catalogs printed in the Observer’s Handbook. The catalogs included are:

1. Brightest Stars2. Nearest Stars3. Double and Multiple Stars4. Colored Double Stars5. Carbon Stars6. Open Clusters7. Globular Clusters8. Galactic Nebulae9. Messier Catalogue10. Finest NGC Catalogue11. David Levy’s Deep Sky Gems12. Deep Sky Challenge Objects13. Southern Hemisphere Splendours14. Dark Nebulae15. Nearest Galaxies16. Brightest Galaxies17. Radio Sources

Astronomical Cataloguing … (A historical note)

What’s the M in M1, 2, … 109?A contemporary comet hunter, David Levy writes…

Fuzzy objects that are not comets lurk all over the

sky . They are beautiful to watch, but for people

who search for comets they can be viewed as an

inconvenience; comet discoverer Leslie Peltier called them “comet masqueraders.”. At the end of 1758, Charles Messier found a fuzzy patch around Zeta Tauri. As he studied it from hour to hour and from

night to night, he found that the faint fuzzy object stayed plastered to the sky; even though it

looked like a comet, it never moved like a cometDeep Sky Objects, David Levy, p. 24

There are other catalogues,but the Messier catalogue is the best one to start with!

M1

Nomencalture for Earth Centered Universe (ECU)

Double and Multiple StarsExample: Porrima (Gamma

Virginis)

Open ClustersExample: M44, Beehive Cluster

Globular ClustersExample: M53, Coma Berenices

Brightest GalaxiesExample: Leo Galaxies,M65, M66

As the Earth Turns –Tour of the Night SkyApril 13 2012, 9pm EDT

When planning your are observing session , start with the things that aregoing to set first – Westward HO!Here is the ECU view of the celestialsphere showing the western sky,You can see this on your planisphere. But your planisphere does not record the planets because they change from year to year. ECU can program the planets in… Jupiter, nearly set…Venus (the brightest object)We shall see a phase on VenusConstellation Object---------------- ---------Taurus M1 Crab Nebula – Supernova

remnant

Taurus M45 – the Pleaides – setting…

Gemini M35 – Open Cluster Auriga M37,M36,M38 OCsOrion M42 Orion Nebula Emission, M78

Reflection Nebula

Monoceros M46, M47 OCsCancer M44 Beehive Cluster , M67 We finish the Western tour with ruddy

Mars which is culminating on our meridian.

horizon (west)

line of the planets (ecliptic)

N/S line - Meridian

M1

M45

M37M36

M38

M42

M78

M46,M47

M35

Mars

M67

Jupiter

VenusVenus

M44

As in 2004, 8 years ago, this season we can see 4 naked eye planets…

View - Southern horizon

venus

jupiter (set)

mars

saturn

Turning to the South…

Constellation Object---------------- ---------Leo M65,M66 Galaxy pair

Canis Venatici M51 Whirlpool Galaxy M3 Globular cluster

Ursa Major M81,M82 peculiar galaxies

oh, and planets Mars(again) and Saturn …

PostScript: Many people are imaging Mars as we observe. If you seea feature like the South Polar Cap,you might be able to see it at:http://www.christone.net/astro/mars/index.html M65,M66

M81,M82

M51

M3