Seattle amateur astronomer has spectroscopy article in S&T

Seattle Astronomical Society member
Tom Field, creator of RSpec software
for spectroscopy, has an article on the
topic in the August 2011 issue of Sky
 & Telescope. Photo: Greg Scheiderer. 

Local amateur astronomer Tom Field is rapidly becoming the face of spectroscopy for the backyard stargazer. An article by Field, a member of the Seattle Astronomical Society and creator of RSpec spectroscopy software, has been published in the August 2011 issue of Sky & Telescope magazine. The article, titled “Spectroscopy for Everyone”, begins on page 68 of the print edition. Subscribers can view it online as well.

Field spoke about RSpec at a Seattle Astronomical Society meeting a year ago, and I wrote about that talk in my old Seattle Astronomy Examiner column. When he got interested in spectroscopy, Field found existing software difficult to use, prone to crash, not particularly user-friendly, and often in a foreign language. So, as a professional software developer, he set out to create something that worked better for the backyard astronomer, and RSpec was the result.

“It is a big thrill,” Field said of seeing the article in print. He got involved with S&T back in April, when magazine editor Dennis di Cicco interviewed him for the video below about RSpec and spectroscopy. The piece was shot at the Northeast Astronomy Forum (NEAF) in Suffern, New York, and published by Sky & Telescope in May. The current issue of the magazine also features an article and many photos from NEAF, one of the biggest amateur astronomy events in the country.



The lure of spectroscopy for Field is that you can do solid science and analyze the spectral signatures of celestial objects even from light-polluted back yards, and you can do it at pretty low cost. He says that doing spectroscopy also improves his understanding of astronomy; he finds he now reads the literature much more closely.

Authors vote 2-1 against Pluto

Authors of what I call the “Pluto Trilogy” vote 2-1 against planethood for the distant icy world. I just completed reading three recent books about Pluto: How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming by Mike Brown, Caltech astronomer and discoverer of Eris; The Pluto Files: The Rise and Fall of America’s Favorite Planet by Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York; and The Case for Pluto: How a Little Planet Made a Big Difference by Alan Boyle, science editor for MSNBC.com and author of Cosmic Log.

Research scientists sometimes turn out prose that isn’t accessible for the non-Ph.D. In How I Killed Pluto Brown, however, weaves an entertaining, witty, and sometimes poetic tale about the years of work that went into the discovery of Eris, a Kuiper Belt object thought to be just a little bigger than Pluto. One need not be an astronomer to appreciate the detailed account of the search for the “tenth planet”, nor a detective to appreciate Brown’s story of the controversy surrounding credit for the discovery of Haumea, now the fourth-largest known dwarf planet in our solar system. The interweaving of stories about Brown’s personal life during the hunt are endearing.

One could not have faulted Brown for holding out for full planet status for Pluto. That would have given him status as discoverer of the tenth planet. As a scientist, though, he believes Eris and Pluto have more in common with the thousands of Kuiper Belt objects than they do with the big eight, and is happy to have them thought of and categorized differently.

While Brown’s discoveries forced the hand of the International Astronomical Union on establishing its controversial definition of planet, it was Tyson and the Hayden Planetarium that inadvertently ignited the Pluto debate when Eris was not even yet a dim, slow-moving glint on Brown’s computer screen.

“I keep getting blamed for Pluto,” Tyson said at a speaking engagement in Seattle last month. “Eleven years ago we opened an exhibit in New York City where we grouped Pluto with other icy brethren in the outer solar system, and the nation’s population of elementary school children got pissed off.”

The Pluto Files is full of letters from those children and cartoons from various points of view in the debate. While the actual IAU debate and vote is almost an afterthought in Brown’s book, Tyson gives it fairly detailed treatment.

Tyson said that the planetarium didn’t set out to cause trouble, but simply considered, in the design of their exhibits, the recent discoveries of thousands of Kuiper Belt objects.

“Some of them have orbital properties that greatly resemble that of Pluto,” he said during his Seattle talk. “So Pluto has brethren out there. Pluto and they look more alike, than either they or Pluto look like any of the other eight planets, and we figured it was time for Pluto to own up to its actual identity.”

Oddly enough, the exhibit was up and running for almost a year without a peep before the New York Times finally took notice and ran a front-page article lamenting that Pluto wasn’t a planet, at least in New York. The mail barrage was on.

Boyle is the most sympathetic to Pluto. In my coverage of his talk here last year, I wrote, “Alan Boyle thinks Pluto should be considered a planet, but ultimately believes a lot of people are taking the question way too seriously.”

The Case for Pluto delves deepest into the IAU deliberations, and includes text of all of the various resolutions about the definition of planet. It’s a great read, full of humorous observations about the personalities involved and the gyrations people go to in order to come to grips with their Pluto issues.

All three books are engaging reads and highly recommended for those interested in Pluto and the solar system. They’re not likely to be the last words, either. Bloggers know that Pluto generates a lot of hits, and publishers are surely watching to see how many books the dwarf planet will sell.

UW observatory celebrates 10 years of outreach programs

For more than 100 years observers used the Theodor Jacobsen Observatory at the University of Washington to view planets and stars and other celestial orbs, but a decade ago the sphere most on astronomers’ minds was the wrecking ball, as the vintage telescope and building, now of no use for serious astronomical research, faced demolition. A spirited letter-writing campaign by alumni and friends of the observatory saved it. Wednesday, in celebration of 10 years back in use for public outreach, TJO held an open house with lectures, solar system tours, telescope making, and stories about the historic instruments housed there.

As is par for Seattle, it was a cloudy evening and there was little to see through the 1892 refracting telescope, which has a 6-inch Brashear objective lens and sits on a Warner & Swasey equatorial mount, save for the flashing red lights atop a couple of nearby construction cranes or the leaves of the trees that now block much of the scope’s potential field of view. Yet a modest but steady stream of visitors dropped by to check it out, and promised to return some night soon when the sky is clear. (Open houses are held at the Jacobsen Observatory on the first and third Wednesdays of the month, March through November.)

The Bamberg Transit Telescope is in the transit room of the
Theodor Jacobsen Observatory at the University of Washington.
Photo: Greg Scheiderer.

On this particular visit to the observatory I took interest in a piece of equipment I had never really had a look at before: The UW’s Bamberg Transit Telescope, which dates back to about 1904. Fortunately Alan Whiting, an astronomy Ph.D. and member of the Seattle Astronomical Society, was on hand to explain what the scope is all about. (Had Whiting not been on hand this paper by Katherine Blair gives a good account of the history and operation of the scope.) The German-made instrument sits in the observatory’s transit room, where doors can open on the ceiling and north and south walls. The setup was used to make precise measurements of the transits of stars across the meridian, which was how we kept our clocks set on the exact time until atomic clocks came about with their incredible precision.

The scope still looks cool, as you can see by the photo above at right, but closer examination and a peek through it reveal it is badly in need of a little TLC. In fact, all of the gear, and the building, and the Theodor Jacobsen Observatory, could use a little attention.

The facility is worthy. The second-oldest building on campus, it’s on the register of historic buildings, and the outreach is effective, drawing thousands of visitors each year. UW students provide lectures at the open houses, and volunteers from the Seattle Astronomical Society tell about the history of the telescope and treat visitors to a look through it when the skies are clear. The latest evidence that the effort is useful is the birth of the Protostars group, a mentorship program at the UW run by female astronomy undergraduate volunteers and geared toward 12-16 year old girls enamored with astronomy. Protostars will learn the basics of telescope operation, data reduction and gain public speaking skills.

An effort is under way to restore Dr. Jacobsen’s original office at the observatory, which scandalously is in use as a janitorial office. While certainly the custodians need an office, restoring this particular one to astronomy would be a fitting nod to the history, add 300 square feet of badly needed exhibit space, and contribute mightily to the outreach mission of the department. Supporters of the idea can write in here to make their opinions heard, or donate to the Friends of the Observatory or Friends of Astronomy funds to back these efforts.

A new place to look for habitable planets

While the Kepler mission continues to grab the headlines for finding planets orbiting stars outside our solar system, a University of Washington professor is suggesting we start to look around stars Kepler can’t see very well: White dwarfs.

Eric Agol, assistant professor of astronomy at the UW, wrote a paper published March 29 in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, pointing out that planets in orbit around white dwarfs would be easy to detect, if they exist, and that those planets might well be hospitable to life.

Eric Agol, assistant professor of astronomy
at the University of Washington, suggests that
white dwarf stars would be worth checking
for habitable planets. Photo: UW.

Agol said an interesting coincidence piqued his interest in looking for planets around white dwarfs.

“The closest we typically see planets around stars is something like twice the Roche limit,” Agol explained. “It turns out that that distance for a white dwarf is .01 AU, and it’s right in the center of the white dwarf habitable zone.”

Stars like our Sun eventually become white dwarfs after going through their red giant phases and then shedding their outer atmospheres, leaving a hot, glowing core that has about 60 percent of the Sun’s mass but is about the size of Earth. Agol said if we look at white dwarfs any possibly habitable planets would be relatively easy to find.

“If an Earth were to pass in front of a white dwarf you would see a very deep dip due to the blockage of the light of the white dwarf by the planet, and that would be a signal that would be easy to detect from the ground,” he said. “You wouldn’t need to build an expensive space telescope.”

Agol describes his paper as “fairly speculative.”

“You need some mechanism of creating these planets after [a star’s] red-giant phase, or migrating them inwards from further out, and it’s not clear how often that should occur,” he said. He also allows that he may have been a bit on the generous side when penciling out the habitable zone around a white dwarf. The planets would likely be tidally locked to the stars, adding another complicating factor for life.

Agol figures that we might have to look at 20,000 white dwarfs to have a good chance to find a habitable planet. Since such planets would be so close to their stars, we wouldn’t have to look long, about 32 hours at most, to see a transit. Still, with that many observations, time adds up in a hurry.

Fortunately, Agol says there is a network of telescopes that may be up to the task. The Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network is a group about 20 one-meter robotic telescopes around the world, at sites in the northern and southern hemispheres. The key is that some of them are always in the dark, necessary to observe the same white dwarf for 32 hours. Even with this network, a white dwarf planet hunt would be an ambitious project.

“Even if you devoted those 20 telescopes to this sort of survey it would still take something like 15 calendar years,” Agol said. A wide-field scope could look at multiple stars at once, cutting down that time, and Agol says scopes such as the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, in which the UW is involved, could help speed up observations of candidate stars.

Kepler grabs the fame, but Agol says that mission really isn’t much use for such a project. For one, it’s only looking at a small patch of sky. And it’s only able to see stars down to about 16th magnitude.

“White dwarfs out to 100 parsecs are going to be more down to like 19th magnitude,” Agol said of the collection of stars the survey would require. “[Kepler] doesn’t really have the sensitivity to look at stars faint enough to survey white dwarfs.”

No space shuttle for Seattle

Retired orbiters headed for Smithsonian, Florida, NY, and LA

Seattle’s Museum of Flight will not be the home to one of NASA’s retiring space shuttles.
Instead, the museum will receive the full fuselage trainer, used by every shuttle astronaut, including Dr. Bonnie Dunbar, the former Museum of Flight chief who led the effort to bring a shuttle to Seattle.

Astronaut Charles Hobaugh occupies his station on the flight deck
during in a Full Fuselage Trainer session in 2009. Visitors will
 get to sit in the same seat when the trainer arrives at the
Museum of Flight in Seattle. Photo: NASA.

“While we are happy for the cities which have been awarded one the retiring space shuttles, we are thrilled to receive the full-fuselage shuttle trainer,” said Doug King, Museum of Flight president and CEO. “Not only is it a unique and exciting educational artifact to have as a centerpiece of our Space Gallery, but, unlike the actual shuttles, we will be able to allow the public to walk inside it and actually see where the shuttle astronauts trained.”

Governor Chris Gregoire expressed disappointment with the decision, but likes the trainer.

“Visitors will not be allowed in the other shuttles and this trainer is a true win for our dynamic museum,” Gregoire said. “It will help inspire young people to the adventure of space and to the excitement of a career in science, technology, engineering and math."

NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden made the “orbiter disposition announcement” this morning at the Kennedy Space Center during a ceremony marking the 30th anniversary of the first shuttle launch. It wasn’t a big surprise that Bolden delighted the home-town crowd.

“First, here at the Kennedy Space Center, where every shuttle mission and so many other historic human space flights have originated, we’ll showcase my old friend, Atlantis,” Bolden announced to wild applause. “Not only will the workers who sent it into space so many times have a chance to still see it, the millions of visitors who come here every year to learn more about space and to be a part of the excitement of exploration will be able to see what is still a great rarity: an actual, flown space vehicle.”

The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum will receive the shuttle Discovery, also not a surprise as this has been widely assumed. The suspense came with the other two shuttles. Endeavor, now on the launch pad awaiting its final mission, will go to the California Science Center in Los Angeles, “only a few miles from the site of the old Rockwell plant where the shuttle was developed and from where its construction was managed,” Bolden said. Finally Enterprise, now at the Smithsonian, was awarded to the Intrepid Sea, Air, and Space Museum in New York.

Bolden was emotional at times during his talk, in part because of his own close involvement with the shuttle program; he flew on four missions, twice as commander. He’s also had to give out lots of bad news to the runners up. “It’s been a rough day,” he said.

“There were many, many worthy institutions that requested an orbiter and only four to go around,” Bolden acknowledged. “Many of the applicant institutions who did not receive an orbiter will receive significant shuttle hardware and artifacts to help bring to life this dynamic chapter of our nation’s space exploration history for their many visitors. People from across our nation and around the world will continue to learn from these amazing vehicles and the stories of their crews and their missions.”

The trainer will go into the Museum of Flight’s Space Gallery, which is currently under construction.