A hell of a good universe: let's go!

“This is the century of human exploration in space,” astronaut Bonnie Dunbar told the audience at a Science Luminaries event, part of the Seattle Science Festival, last night at the Museum of Flight. It was an interesting declaration as Dunbar and fellow space shuttle astronaut George “Pinky” Nelson, who also spoke at the event, are among the space pioneers of the previous century.

The Pacific Science Center has been the lead organizer of the festival. The Space Luminaries event leaned heavily toward the awe and wonder and dreams of science. It included art, too, as members of Seattle Opera performed selections from “The Little Prince”  and members of Seattle Aerial Arts performed dances called “Weightlessness” and “Space.”

Bonnie Dunbar. Photo: NASA.

Dunbar told her story of being inspired by the night sky while growing up in the tiny town of Outlook in the Yakima Valley. The stars got her reading Jules Verne and H.G. Wells and dreaming about building her own spaceship and flying in it. Her eighth-grade teacher encouraged her to take algebra, a college physics professor nudged her toward engineering, and she eventually did build spaceships and flew on five shuttle missions.

“I was lucky because along the way I had very special people who let me dream,” Dunbar said. “I was always encouraged to share my goals, not to be bashful about them. Always to try to achieve excellence and do the best I could at everything, because in the end that’s really what helps us go forward.”

Nelson’s first shuttle mission was to repair the Solar Maximum satellite, the first time NASA had tried to rendezvous with and fix something already in orbit. He said there were two main objectives for the mission.

“One, it was an expensive solar observatory and we wanted to restore it so the scientists could do their work,” Nelson said. “The other—this was in 1984, at the height of the Cold War—we wanted to show the Russians that we could pluck a satellite out of the sky and do whatever we wanted with it.”
Even with such a serious mission, Nelson said that, as he left the shuttle un-tethered and floated out toward SolarMax, the little kid in him took over.

George "Pinky" Nelson. Photo: NASA.

“One of the coolest things that an astronaut gets to do is go outside,” he said of the experience. He recalled looking around, at the shuttle and the Earth below and thinking, “I can’t believe they let me do this!”

Nelson, now director of science, mathematics, and technology education at Western Washington University, is not shedding any tears at the end of the space shuttle era.

“The space shuttle is an amazing engineering achievement,” he said, adding, “I think it’s appropriate that they retired it. The technology is pretty old. It’s time to move on and do something else.”

The something else is private industry, and various companies are working on spacecraft to get people and cargo to and from low-Earth orbit.

“They are incredibly important and valuable, and I wish them success,” Nelson said. “I hope they all get filthy rich and bring a lot more people into space than we have in the past. But it’s not an easy thing to do.”

One of those giving it a shot is Sierra Nevada Space Systems, whose head Mark Sirangelo was the evening’s final speaker. Sirangelo is another dreamer who was flying airplanes before he could drive motor vehicles.

Mark Sirangelo. Photo: Sierra
Nevada Space Systems.

“Life is really about passion and love,” Sirangelo said. “One of the wonderful things about being in this industry is that you really get the sense of passion. You get a lot of people like Pinky and Bonnie who looked up to the stars and said, ‘I want to do something.’”

Sirangelo has certainly done something, too. Sierra Nevada has been part of missions to the Sun, Moon, and seven planets. It built part of the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity that is on its way to the Red Planet, and worked on the system that we hope will land it there safely in August. Their big project is a re-usable spacecraft—the Dream Chaser.

“We called it the Dream Chaser for a reason,” Sirangelo said. “You can follow your dreams. You can go out and do things that are amazing. You can go out and push the boundaries.”

Sirangelo said they did some testing of Dream Chaser just a few weeks ago, and it seemed to excite and energize people. They tried to keep it low-key, but he drily noted that flying a spaceship over Denver was bound to attract attention, and the company received much correspondence and art inspired by the spacecraft.

“That’s what this is really about,” he said, “to be able to inspire the future of who we are and what we’re about. That’s how I was inspired as a little boy to start building things and looking to the stars.”
“Virtually everybody who is in the industry felt that way,” he added.

Dunbar, who is heading up Boeing‘s efforts on higher education and STEM strategic workforce planning, continues to dream of a Moon base or a human flight to Mars and figures it’s not “if” but “who” and “when.”

“We must not forget to explore,” Dunbar said. “We need to inspire the next generation to help us go forward. No nation has ever suffered from exploring, but those nations that have stopped exploring have disappeared into history.”

Nelson said he thinks that art and exploration are the most important things we can do to improve our quality of life and standard of living.

“I’ve been lucky as an educator and a scientist and as an astronaut to be a part of exploration in lots of ways,” he said. “Exploration of physical space, exploration of  ideas; to me there’s nothing more important than that.”

He finished his talk by quoting a line from a favorite poem by e.e. cummings:

“There’s a hell of a good universe next door. Let’s go!”

Transit of Venus

What a great day June 5 turned out to be! My three-day trek to see one of the rarest predictable astronomical events was a success, and I had a marvelous time watching Venus in transit across the face of the Sun.

Though I spent three days on the road to get to weather more
conducive to Venus transit viewing than we have in Seattle,
there were still clouds, and they made for interesting photos!
Shot near Corning, California. Photo: Greg Scheiderer.

The beginning of the day didn’t look very promising. I awoke at about 6 a.m. in Canyonville, Oregon and looked out the window to see pouring rain. I looked at several online weather forecasts, and the outlook had worsened a bit since my last check the previous evening. Still, the prediction was for mostly sunny skies in my target area of Red Bluff, California.

The rain had let up some by the time I hit I-5 southbound at 7:30, but the overcast was complete. Clouds predominated the trip through the Siskiyou and Klamath Mountains; Mt. Shasta was completely socked in, and it was raining off and on as I worked my way south. Once I cleared Shasta Lake and headed into Redding and the Sacramento Valley, the clouds parted somewhat, but there was reason to worry. There was some nasty looking rain in the hills to the west, and plenty of clouds dotted the sky in Redding.

I pushed south. I had targeted Red Bluff as my viewing site because it was the closest spot with a forecast that gave good odds for transit viewing. The National Weather Service had it at less than 20 percent cloud cover for the afternoon. I’d done some internet searching and had three candidate viewing sites in mind: an I-5 rest stop just north of Red Bluff, a city park on the river in downtown Red Bluff, and the Woodson Bridge State Recreation Area just east of Corning, the next town south of Red Bluff. If none of those worked out, or if the weather looked iffy, I could probably get at least as far as Sacramento before the transit began.

I checked out the rest stop, but it had too many trees and limited views to the west. The city park in Red Bluff was OK, but also had lots of obstructions. So I headed for Corning. I got to the state park, and it was closed, with a locked gate across the driveway! (Shouldn’t that be noted on the website?) However, Tehama County River Park was just on the other side of the highway, and it was open! It turned out to be perfect! The park is right on the Sacramento River, has a good view to the west, and hardly anyone else was there. There was still a big rain storm to the west, but it looked like it was moving north, so a little after 1 p.m. I decided that Tehama was my place. I still couldn’t stop thinking how badly it would suck if the rain moved in on my California vantage point while there were clear skies back home in West Seattle. Was Captain Cook all wigged out about the weather when he went all the way to Tahiti to view the Venus transit in 1769?

By 2 p.m. I had my telescope set up and collimated, and so had about an hour just to chill and have a little lunch before the transit began. I shortly was visited by the manager of the park, who wanted to find out what I was up to. (A Dobsonian telescope looks a little like a cannon, or a water heater, depending on the direction in which it is pointed.) When I explained that I’d driven all the way from Seattle to find the Sun in order to watch the transit of Venus, this seemed to satisfy, if not necessarily interest, him. He mentioned that, a couple of weeks ago, this same park was packed wall-to-wall with people viewing the annular eclipse of the Sun. (It was well within the path of annularity.) I found this interesting; I didn’t think much of the eclipse, but would have despaired at missing the transit of Venus.

The sky view from Tehama County River Park as I set up
to view the Venus transit June 5. Photo: Greg Scheiderer.

The weather held, the rain moved north, not east, and there were only a few clouds around Tehama Park as the start time for the transit approached. As luck would have it, one of those clouds was covering the Sun at the moment of “first contact” as the transit began. But, within a few minutes, the Sun shone through and I let out a gasp! There was the shadow of Venus, taking a little bite out of the Sun!

At right about this time another astronomy buff pulled into the parking lot of the park, well across from where I was, and set up a telescope. And four local picnickers chose a table near where I was in the park, but didn’t seem interested in what the telescope guys were up to.

There were several stretches during the 4 p.m. hour when clouds obstructed our view of the transit, but mostly the weather held and I enjoyed watching the transit and the sunspots and the activity on the Sacramento River. Then around 5 p.m. my picnic neighbors got up from their table, walked closer to the river, put on their eclipse glasses, and looked up at the Sun! Amazing! They knew what was going on, but didn’t bug the telescope guys for a look! Of course, I went over and offered to share my telescope view with them, and they were delighted by the view of the transit. This quartet, too, had been in the park for the solar eclipse on May 20. A couple of them came back repeatedly over the next couple of hours for another look at the transit.

A little before 6 p.m. my neighbor telescope user came by. To my surprise, he was wearing an old-school Seattle Mariners cap! (My own cap of the day was of the Albuquerque Isotopes, the “A” in this case standing for “Astronomy.”) It turns out Kenny, from Port Orchard, Washington, is an astronomy enthusiast, and he and his family were on vacation in California in hopes of finding a good spot to view the Venus transit. How amazing that the two astronomy buffs in an out-of-the-way park near Corning, California turned out to be from the Puget Sound area!

I watched the transit progress for about 4 1/2 hours before the Sun sank into a bank of haze and clouds that degraded the view substantially. I decided to pack it up then and head back to Redding, find a place to rest my head for the night, and then head back home on Wednesday.

Self portrait with telescope on Venus transit day.
Photo: Greg Scheiderer.

Viewing the transit of Venus is the high point of my amateur astronomy experience. Part of it is the rarity of the event. The next one won’t happen until the year 2117. That’s 105 years away, and while I’ve decided to try to make it, the odds are against me! More than this, though, it’s understanding of the scale of the universe that makes a Venus transit such an awesome experience. Earth and Venus are pretty close in size, and Venus appears as just a tiny dot on the face of the Sun. I feel so lucky to have been able to see it happen.

As it turns out, if I’d just stayed home, I would have seen the transit, however briefly. Alice Enevoldsen of Alice’s Astro Info, a friend of Seattle Astronomy, held a viewing event at Solstice Park in West Seattle. They had a few glimpses of the transit through occasional breaks in the clouds. Others saw it in the Puget Sound area, too.

• The Herald of Everett covered the Everett Astronomical Society‘s viewing at a park in the city.
• Our friend, photographer Bob Pennington, made some photos of the transit from Goldendale Observatory. This was our first choice for a viewing spot, but the weather forecast the day before was just too dismal!
• Friends from Seattle Astronomical Society went north and found clear skies at Washington Park in Anacortes, Washington where they found interested transit viewers.
• Jon Bearscove of the Galileo Astronomy Unclub was on a tour of the Hanford Nuclear Reservation Tuesday and got in some impromptu transit viewing from the side of the road.
• Battle Point Astronomical Association got just a few glimpses of the transit from their observatory on Bainbridge Island. BPAA member Gary Greaser reports getting a good weather tip from KING-5’s Rich Marriott, and enjoyed extended transit viewing from the Shelton area.

I don’t consider myself much of an astrophotographer, but on occasions like this I try to grab a few snapshots just to prove I was there. This Facebook album includes a handful of photos made by pointing my Canon Powershot A530 through the eyepiece of my telescope.

What a memorable day! I drove home from Redding Wednesday and had a wonderful dinner with my sweetie when I got back, right around 7 p.m., about 24 hours after I packed it in on viewing of the transit.

Now to start planning for the next transit of Mercury–May 9, 2016.

My quest for the Sun

Since the 1760s explorers have been traveling hither and yon for a look at a transit of Venus across the Sun. Captain Cook went to Tahiti. Mason and Dixon, before they started drawing lines, went to South Africa. So, too, I follow in that same tradition with a perilous trek from Seattle to Red Bluff, California in an attempt to view the last Venus transit until the year 2117.

The first day of my journey gave only the slightest glimpse of the Sun, which drilled through the clouds south of Salem, Oregon only for a few moments before going into hiding. There was a spectacular thunderstorm going on as I passed through Eugene, featuring the sort of overwrought clouds that are typically associated with the eye of Sauron.

I took up lodging in Canyonville, Oregon, known principally as the home of the Seven Feathers Resort and Casino. I opted for somewhat more mundane lodging at the Holiday Inn Express in town, opening up a rich possibility of Tuesday quips, “I’m not an astronomer…” The Inn has a marvelous view of the casino, and of I-5.

The life of a traveling astronomer is fraught
with peril. The top dining choice in Canyonville,
Serafino's, was closed Monday night. Best
of luck to Katie and JD.

The Inn’s guest guide listed four local restaurants, and Internet research helped me decide on Serafino’s Italian Restaurant and Pizzeria, a small, family-style joint in town. As I headed toward the restaurant on a drizzly Monday night, I passed another of the inn’s choices, a Mexican restaurant–closed. Soo, too, was Serafino’s. Normally open on Monday’s, the eatery had a sign on the door explaining they’d be closed June 3-5 for a wedding. Missed it by that much.

Thus, it was back to the Creekside, right next door to the inn, but part of a big truck stop complex connected with the casino. I’ve never before been in a restaurant that included ads for tires and motor oil on the menu. It also had phones in every booth, presumably so truckers could keep in touch with their sweeties. Trepidation aside, my ribeye steak with steamed veggies and rice pilaf was just fine. That, plus two glasses of Firesteed Pinot Noir, a slice of carrot cake as big as my head, and tip came to just $39.

There’s no sign of the Sun here on transit morning (apart from the fact that it is light outside.) Cloudy and rainy. Onward to California, where the forecast is favorable for Venus viewing.

Weather angst and the Venus transit

Venus will transit across the face of the Sun Tuesday afternoon. This rare celestial event won’t happen again until the year 2117, and Northwest astronomy hobbyists, for good reason a highly pessimistic bunch when it comes to matters of cloud cover, have been warily watching the long-range forecasts since June 5 started to show up on the weather radar.

It is not looking pretty.

The 2004 Venus transit was captured from
Germany in this image by Jan Herold. Creative
Commons, GNU free documentation license.

As of this writing, Saturday, June 2 at 4 p.m., the Seattle forecast for Tuesday afternoon was for clouds and a 30 percent chance of rain. The prediction for much of the Northwest looks similar. Our best bet as of the moment looks like Goldendale, with a forecast of merely partly cloudy and just a 10 percent chance of rain. (Really, we don’t care so much if it rains as long as it’s not cloudy!) Yesterday Moses Lake and Wenatchee looked promising, but those forecasts have flipped. We’d also been eyeballing the “rain shadow” of Sequim, but even that Olympic Peninsula town now has a wet forecast for Tuesday. The closest “sunny” forecast I am able to find is for Red Bluff, California. Do you roll the dice on an 11- or 12-hour drive, or hope for the best somewhere a little closer?

Many of us will likely be watching the weather forecasts up until Monday evening or Tuesday morning, making some last-minute decisions about where our chances look best for transit viewing, and then high-tailing it to those spots.

Of course, it’s possible, maybe even likely, that we’ll out-think ourselves on this decision. The lore of celestial event chasing is full of accounts of people who have made extreme travel efforts to get to places certain to be clear, only to find those locations socked in while the sky above their own backyards was crystal clear.

Why are we making such a big deal of this? Due to the peculiar geometry of the orbits of Earth and Venus around the Sun, we can only see a Venus transit occasionally. They come in pairs separated by eight years, and either 105.5 or 121.5 years go by before the next pair comes along. Tuesday’s transit is the second of a close pair. Unfortunately, the 2004 event wasn’t visible from the West Coast, and only the end of the transit was visible from the Eastern U.S. as the Sun rose that day. Europe, Asia, and Africa had the best views last time. So this is your last chance unless you make it to December of 2117.

There will be plenty of opportunities to enjoy the 2012 transit from Seattle if the weather cooperates. Events actually begin the evening before, Monday, June 4, at the University of Washington. Astronomy Professors Woody Sullivan and Victoria Meadows will give lectures about the significance and history of Venus transits. The talks begin at 7 p.m. in room 120 of Kane Hall on the UW’s Seattle campus. It’s free, but registration is required.

The UW will have several locations for viewing the transit when it begins at about 3 p.m. June 5. Viewing will also take place at the Pacific Science Center, Solstice Park in West Seattle hosted by Alice’s Astro Info, Battle Point Park on Bainbridge Island hosted by the Battle Point Astronomical Association, and others listed here by the Seattle Science Festival. Many of these sites will at least have online feeds, so participants can watch the transit as viewed from less weather-challenged areas. Other astronomy clubs are likely to be holding formal or informal transit viewings.

Seattle Astronomy will likely be at the Solstice Park event, unless we’re beating it to Goldendale.
Remember, don’t look at the Sun without proper protection. You’ll zap your eyeballs. Standard sunglasses are not good enough. This NASA website has some good pointers about transit viewing, eye protection, and pinhole projectors, as does transitofvenus.org.

Let’s hope we don’t miss our chance to see an astronomical rarity!