EYEPIECE Journal of the Amateur Astronomers Association of New York

September 2012 Volume 61 Number 9 ISSN 0146-7662

Lynn Helen Darsh, president of the

Amateur Astronomers Association from

1992 to 2002 and a guiding force in the

club’s deliberations and growth for more

than 30 years, died August 23 at St. Luke’s-

Roosevelt Hospital in Manhattan following

a valiant battle with lymphoma. She was

61.

Many years ago, while lying on her

back on a friend’s boat in Long Island Sound, Lynn saw a sky

awash in stars, and decided to learn more about astronomy. After joining the club, she was mentored by two of its giants,

John Marshall and Fred Hess, and joined the board in 1979.

She eventually succeeded Hess as president.

A native of Waterbury, CT, Lynn grew up in nearby Wa-

tertown. She graduated from Cornell University in 1973 as a

College Scholar, a prestigious honor. After four years with the

New York City Department of Social Services, Lynn joined

Chemical Bank and, after 25 years with major New York

banks, closed her career as a vice president in information

technology at JP Morgan Chase. In 1989, she juggled her work

with receiving a master’s in business administration from Co-

lumbia University.

A major AAA activity launched during Lynn’s presi-

dency, in 1995, was Urban Starfest at the Central Park Sheep

Meadow. Each fall, amateurs and professionals gather with a myriad of telescopes to show the public the night sky. Having

successfully put together four nights of observing in the Sheep

Meadow when Shoemaker-Levy whacked Jupiter in 1994,

Lynn and other AAA members spearheaded the idea of Star-

fest, originally a joint effort by four organizations, now run by

the AAA and the Urban Park Rangers. It was the first official

city large-scale star party to take place in Central Park.

As Starfest has demonstrated, if you look up, you can

indeed see stars from the heart of the city. And that was a con-

stant subtext to Lynn’s activities as president. In a 1999 inter-

view with The New York Times for an article, “Stargazing De-

spite Bright Lights, Big City,” focusing on observing at Floyd

Bennett Field in Brooklyn, she said: “When you live in the

city, you can be blinded to the stars by all the lights, which is sad because the sky is spectacularly beautiful. When you go to

places like Floyd Bennett Field where there are very few

lights, you're still in the city, but you can see the stars and get a

whole new perspective on the universe.''

Lynn Darsh, Who Led the AAA for 10 Years, Dies at 61 By Dan Harrison

Lynn was a Renaissance woman. She was a mirror-and

telescope-maker, scuba diver and four-time Himalayas trekker.

She was knowledgeable and articulate on any number of sub-

jects, from science to literature, from art and music to politics,

from history to psychology, and she enjoyed escaping into the

world of science fiction. One of her favorite people was Jane

Austen, most of whose novels she read multiple times. In gen-eral, Lynn gulped down books at an astounding rate. She loved

good food, good conversation and travel. She was devoted to

her large, tight-knit family and to her friends. In short, Lynn

was a woman of unbounded intelligence and great good cheer.

AAA members were excited May 16 when Lynn, despite

the battle she was waging, came to the annual meeting, where

she was effusively greeted by all who knew her. Katherine

Avakian’s comment was typical of many:

“It was wonderful to see her with so much energy, talk-

ing animatedly and gesturing with her hands. So it was an es-

pecially cruel twist when, a few short months later, that impla-

cable foe, with whom she had been dueling so bravely and for

so long, finally claimed victory over her.”

“What can't be vanquished, however, are her major ef-

forts over the years to disseminate knowledge about astronomy

to the public through the AAA. And what is remembered most

by those whose lives she touched are her stellar qualities: her

strong character, sense of fairness and generous spirit.”

Hayden Planetarium director Neil deGrasse Tyson said:

“People like Lynn Darsh are rare. She was the sum of so many

personal traits, any one of which the rest of us would aspire to reach. She was smart, dedicated and loyal. She was a leader.

She was courageous. And she always sought what was best for

others. Most importantly, to Lynn, the future was not some-

thing to hope for. It was something within our power to create.

I'll miss her, but the world may just miss her a bit more.”

AAA treasurer Tom Haeberle, who knew Darsh for 12

years, said that his “one big regret was not to have known her

longer. She was a good friend and my mentor regarding the

affairs of club. I was honored that she appointed me to the

board after Lee Baltin stepped down as financial secretary.

There are many things I will miss about Lynn: times shared at

observing sessions and newsletter mailings, or coffee klatsch-

ing at some nearby café. But what I will miss most is her

strength and leadership, and most of all her friendship.”

Eulogizing her sister at a funeral Mass August 28 at St. John the Evangelist Church in Watertown, Doreen Darsh noted Lynn Darsh— continued on Page 2

Neil Armstrong, Apollo 11 Commander, Dies at Age 82 Story on Page 7

2

EYEPIECE September2012

Henry Stern honored Lynn with a Nom du Parc at a ceremony

at the Central Park Arsenal a few years ago. Her name will

forever be Andromeda.

On a personal note Lynn was instrumental in helping me find work at the Food Network. She had mentioned that a per-

son across the hall from her worked there and she handed off

my resume to that person. It took a while, but I landed the job

and worked there for five plus years. All thanks to Lynn for

putting two and two together.

For the last year or so, I made soup that I would deliver

to her when I felt it might cheer her up. On the day before she

died, I dropped off some coconut-corn-ginger soup. I thought

it might be an easy palliative for her. When I returned home

that night, I had the nicest message from Lynn thanking me.

Her voice was almost chirping with delight. I was so happy to

hear her in strong, good spirits. She said she would call me

“tomorrow.”

I was a little surprised when she didn’t call. But now I

know why. And I find it very hard to accept that Lynn’s life

was taken from her, and she from us, so quickly, and too soon.

I will keep her last message in my computer so I’ll be able to

hear her voice again when this sadness fades away. And when

I look into the heavens at night, I’ll hope she’ll somehow be

connected to my eyes, so we can observe together again. ■

Eyepiece, June 2011

AAA Gets Update on Kepler Search

for Earthlike Exoplanets

By Lynn Darsh

“Is Earth unique?” The Kepler Space Telescope’s mis-

sion is to find the answer, according to Dr. Andrea K. Dupree, senior astrophysicist at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Obser-

vatory, part of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophys-

ics in Cambridge, Mass. Speaking on “Searching for Exoplan-

ets with Kepler” at the AAA’s annual John Marshall Memorial

Lecture at the AMNH March 4, Dupree said that she and her

colleagues are searching for planets that could have liquid wa-

ter. “We don’t want it to be too hot, we don’t want it to be too

cold, we want it to be just right, and with a sufficient mass …

so there would be some atmosphere.”

The .95-meter Kepler telescope, launched in March 2009,

searches a 100-square-degree field in Cygnus, between Deneb

and Vega, looking along the Orion spur and slightly above the

plane of the Milky Way for a distance of about 3,000 light-

years. This field includes older stars that are slightly metal-

poor. Some have traveled from other birthplaces, but, Dupree said, “The orientation and positioning of the satellite and the

CCDs was exquisitely designed to avoid all the very bright

stars.”

A large array of CCD detectors, with 95 megapixels,

images 156,000 target stars every 30 minutes, and collects

Lynn Darsh: AAA Gets Update - continued on Page 3

Lynn Darsh - continued from Page 1

that "Lynn shared with us the words her friend John Marshall

used to comfort her during his last hours. ’It will be harder for

you than for me. There are never enough days no matter how

many we have.' We all wish we had more days with Lynn,

too."

In addition to Doreen, of Middlebury, CT, Lynn is sur-

vived by her mother, Donna Darsh, of Watertown; three other

sisters: Deirdre McDonald of Middlebury, Holly Casperson of

Brookfield, CT, and Lisbeth Darsh of Scotts Valley, CA; and

nine nieces and nephews.

A memorial service will be held Sunday, September 23 at

2 p.m. at All Souls Unitarian Church, Lexington Avenue and

80 Street.

Contributions in Lynn’s memory can be sent to: the Lym-

phoma Research Foundation, 115 Broadway, Suite 1301, NY,

NY 10006; or Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center

at mskcc.org/giving. ■

Michael O’Gara

Remembers His Friend Lynn Darsh

Lynn wasn’t a Buddhist, but her approach to life was

informed by many ethical traditions of that discipline. Gener-

osity, patience, understanding and support are attributes that

Lynn practiced daily, in her dealings with club members and

the public.

Lynn was extremely intelligent. I could always rely on

her for the answer to any question, astronomical or otherwise.

For some reason I’ll never understand, Lynn thought I had the

stuff to be a member of the board of directors early on. She,

John Marshall and I would have executive planning meetings

at John’s apartment, and I always felt out of my league. But

Lynn encouraged me to stick with it, and encouraged me to

become vice president when she was elected president. Lynn and I were a team for 10 years, and then she convinced me to

run for president. She was extremely helpful as I delegated

responsibilities and took control over aspects of the club that

needed to be vetted. Without her help, I’m sure I would have

foundered.

Lynn was dedicated: to the public’s awareness of our

club, to her friends and family, and to simply getting it right.

She was smart, articulate, and quick, and she knew her facts

when it came to astronomy. She was a telescope maker in the

old days of the optics division at the AMNH, and later became

a telescope-making instructor in that group.

Whenever we were called on to bring out scopes, Lynn

was there. I’ll never forget standing outside the new Rose

Center when it was conducting its biggest event, a huge fund-

raiser with the absolute cream of New York society. It was a

cold and cloudy night, but Lynn, Bruce Kamiat, and I were

there with our scopes, and at one point it started to snow. Lynn

and I were howling at how ridiculous it was for us to be out

there, but we stayed. Dedication.

Lynn respected and enjoyed people who she believed

were like her: dedicated to making New York a better, exciting

place to live. Maybe that’s why then - Parks Commissioner

Lynn Darsh was an avid supporter of Eyepiece, writing

numerous articles that can be found on the club website. To

honor her memory, we reprint her last article below, written

in June, 2011. - Evan B. Schneider, Editor -

3

EYEPIECE September2012

techniques of imaging and coronagraphy, and the indirect

planet finding techniques of astrometry, pulsar timing and

gravitational microlensing. Another indirect planet-finding

technique, radial velocity, has found more than 400 extrasolar

planets by measuring changes in a star’s velocity caused by the

gravitational tug of a planet, and is being used with Earth-

based telescopes to confirm Kepler’s findings. ■

NASA Update: Kepler Space Telescope Mission

Less than a year after identifying the first circumbi-

nary planet, Kepler-16b, NASA's Kepler mission has discov-

ered multiple transiting planets orbiting two suns for the first

time in the Kepler-47 system. Known as a circumbinary plane-

tary system, it is 4,900 light-years from Earth in the constella-tion Cygnus. The discovery proves that more than one planet

can form and persist in the stressful realm of a binary star and

demonstrates the diversity of planetary systems in our galaxy.

Astronomers detected two planets, a pair of orbiting stars eclipsing each other every 7.5 days. One star is sized similar to

the Sun but only 84% as bright. The second star is only one-

third the size

of the Sun and

less than 1%

as bright.

"In con-

trast to a sin-

gle planet

orbiting a sin-

gle star, the

planet in a

circumbinary

system must

t r an s i t a 'moving tar-

get.' As a consequence, time intervals between the transits and

their durations can vary substantially, sometimes short, other

times long," said Jerome Orosz, of San Diego State University

and lead author of the paper. "The intervals were the telltale

sign these planets are in circumbinary orbits."

The inner planet, Kepler-47b, orbits the pair of stars in

under 50 days. While not directly viewed, it is thought to be a

sweltering world, where the destruction of methane in its super

-heated atmosphere might lead to a thick haze that could blan-

ket the planet. At three times the radius of Earth, Kepler-47b is

the smallest known transiting circumbinary planet.

The outer planet, Kepler-47c, orbits its host pair every

303 days, placing it in the so-called "habitable zone," where

liquid water might exist on the surface of a planet. While not a

world hospitable for life, Kepler-47c is thought to be a gaseous

giant slightly larger than Neptune, where an atmosphere of

thick bright water-vapor clouds might exist.

"Unlike our Sun, many stars are part of multiple-star sys-

tems where two or more stars orbit one another. The question

always has been - do they have planets and planetary systems?

This Kepler discovery proves that they do," said William

Borucki, Kepler mission principal investigator at NASA's Ames Research Center. "In our search for habitable planets,

we have found more opportunities for life to exist."

Lynn Darsh: AAA Gets Update - continued from Page 2

additional data on a set of 512 additional targets every minute.

Kepler’s instruments are sensitive enough to pick up variations

in the light output of a star as small as 80 parts in a million.

Kepler does its work in a heliocentric orbit so the Earth

cannot block the view. The mission, designed to last for more

than three and a half years, released the first 90 days of data

last June. On February 1 of this year, the second data release

of four months of observations included the discovery of 15

extrasolar planets and more than 1,200 “active planetary candi-

dates.”

“We have a handful in the habitable zone and this is only

from the first four months of Kepler data,” Dupree said. “Of

the dwarf stars, about 19% of them have planets, with orbital

periods less than 125 days. There are more planets around

smaller stars than larger stars and this will tell us something

about the formation of planets. This is already challenging

what we know. Theoretically nothing really works at this

point.”

“The first five planets we have found are close in but

they are very, very massive.” These are “the easy ones, the big

ones.” All are hot planets with orbits between 3.2 and 4.9 days. Four are larger than Jupiter, and the fifth is about four times

the mass of Earth.

It will take time to find a possible “Goldilocks planet.” The Kepler team estimates the geometric probability of a

planet being in the correct plane to transit its star from Ke-

pler’s vantage point is 0.5%-10%. Many stars must be ob-

served, almost continuously, for three years, to discover terres-

trial planets in habitable zones or show that terrestrial planets

are rare.

The size of this habitable zone changes. “When stars are

very hot, the habitable zone is further out. And simply observ-

ing a transit is just the beginning. When one observes a transit,

a lot more needs to be done to verify that it is not something

else. There could be another star in the field that produces the

signal mimicking a transit.” Kepler also measures radial ve-

locities of a star to confirm it’s moving in a way that agrees

with the transit.

Dupree described the “exciting” Kepler 10 system that

has at least two planets. “The transit tells us the size of the

planets. Then we measure radial velocity to determine a

planet’s mass. With this knowledge, we know the radius and

the mass, and it turns out it is a planet which is rocky, just like

Earth. It has a period of about .84 days. It has a radius about 1.4 times the radius of Earth and a mass 4.6 times Earth’s. This

rocky planet…is locked into the host star. One side is very hot-

-1,800 degrees, the temperature of molten lava--and the other

is very cold.”

Kepler 11 is a star with six planets. If the six were placed in our solar system, they’d be within Venus’ orbit. “They’re

bigger and more massive than Earth, and more massive than

Kepler 10, which is the rocky planet. So they’re probably a

mixture of things, where they have hydrogen and helium, and

maybe some are a little bit rockier than others.”

The common transiting method of finding exoplanets is

far more successful (122 planets found) than the other direct

4

September’s Evening Planets: There's not too much of

interest in the evening sky this month. Saturn, Mars and the

star Spica form a grouping low in the west early in the month. Saturn and Spica are lost by midmonth, while Mars's quick

movement to the east keeps it in view for a while longer.

September’s Evening Stars: The Summer Triangle domi-

nates the stellar sky. From a dark-sky location track the Milky

Way from Cygnus the Swan through Aquila the Eagle on to Sagittarius the Archer. Look for the autumn constellations

Pegasus, Andromeda and Perseus.

September’s Morning Planets: As the month begins Jupi-

ter rises about midnight. Look for it close to the Moon on Sept

8. By the end of the month Jupiter will rise at 10 p.m., and will

continue to appear earlier in the upcoming months. On the other hand, brilliant Venus rises earlier, from 3 a.m. on the

first of the month, but falls back towards the Sun and by the

end of September sets at 4 a.m. Late in the month Venus en-

ters the constellation Leo.

September’s Morning Stars: Orion is now well up by 2

a.m. Surrounding him are Taurus the Bull (above and right),

Auriga the Charioteer (above), Gemini the Twins (above and

left), Canis Major the Large Dog (below left) and Canis Minor

the Small Dog (left).

September 8 Jupiter is 1.5 degrees above right of the Moon Last Quarter Moon at 9:15 a.m. (EDT)

September 12 Venus is 4.7 degrees east of the Moon

September 15 New Moon at 10:11 p.m. (EDT)

September 17 Spica is 4.4 degrees north of the Moon

Saturn is 5.0 degrees north of the Moon

September 19 Mars is 1.2 degrees upper right of the Moon

September 22 Autumnal Equinox at 10:49 a.m. (EDT)

First Quarter Moon at 3:41 p.m. (EDT)

September 29 Uranus is at opposition, closest to the Earth

and up all night.

Full Moon at 11:19 p.m. (EDT)

For additional information visit: www.aaa.org/month1209

WHAT’S UP IN THE SKY

AAA Observer’s September Guide

By Richard Rosenberg

EYEPIECE September 2012

September’s “Skylights”

NASA’s Spitzer Reveals: Early Universe Burned Hot

The faint, lumpy glow from the very first objects in the

universe may have been detected with the best precision yet

using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. The objects could be

wildly massive stars or voracious black holes. They are too far

away to be seen individually, but Spitzer has captured new,

convincing evidence of what appears to be the collective pat-

tern of their infrared light. The observations help confirm the

first objects were numerous in quantity and furiously burned

cosmic fuel.

"These objects would have been tremendously bright," said Alexander "Sasha" Kashlinsky of NASA's Goddard Space

Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., lead author of a new paper

appearing in The Astrophysical Journal. "We can't yet directly

rule out mysterious sources for this light that could be coming

from our nearby universe, but it is now becoming increasingly

likely that we are catching a glimpse of an ancient epoch.

Spitzer is laying down a roadmap for NASA's upcoming

James Webb Telescope, which will tell us exactly what and

where these first objects were."

Spitzer first caught hints of this remote pattern of light,

known as the cosmic infrared background, in 2005, and again

with more precision in 2007. Now, Spitzer is in the extended

phase of its mission, during which it performs more in-depth

studies on specific patches of the sky. Kashlinsky and his col-leagues used Spitzer to look at two patches of sky for more

than 400 hours each.

The team then carefully subtracted all of the known stars

and galaxies in the images. Rather than being left with a black,

empty patch of sky, they found faint patterns of light with sev-

eral telltale characteristics of the cosmic infrared background.

The lumps in the pattern observed are consistent with the way

the very distant objects are thought to be clustered together. ■

Nebula of the Month: Dumbbell (M27)

In 1794, while compiling a list of diffuse objects not to

be confused with comets, Charles Messier inadvertently dis-

covered the first hint of what will become of our Sun. The

Dumbbell Nebula (M27) is a planetary nebula, the type our

Sun will produce when nuclear fusion stops in its core, some 4

-5 billion years from now. M27 is one of the brightest plane-

tary nebulae in the sky, and can be seen toward the constella-

tion of the Fox

(Vulpecula) with

binoculars. It takes

light about 1360

years to reach us, so

train your binoculars

and scopes skyward

to see this beautiful

hourglass shape in

the constellation

Vulpecula, the Fox.

Above Photo by Bill Snyder, Bill Snyder

5

EYEPIECE September2012

most extreme active galaxies and study the origin of cosmic

rays and extreme

physics around col-

lapsed stars.

Now fully op-

erational, NuStar is

the first focusing

hard X-ray tele-scope to orbit Earth.

It will allow as-

tronomers to study

the universe in the

high energy X-ray

(6-79 keV) region

of the electromag-

netic spectrum.

Orbiting telescopes

like the Chandra X-ray Observatory and ESA’s XMM-Newton

observe the X-ray universe at low energy levels. ESA’s satel-lite INTEGRAL does provide high energy X-ray images, but

does not employ true focusing optics. Instead, coded apertures

with intrinsically high backgrounds and limited sensitivity are

employed.

From the first relayed images, NuSTAR’s perform-

ance clearly exceeds that of other observatories operating at X-

ray and gamma-ray energies. Its first images were taken on

June 28 of Cygnus X-1, a black hole in our Milky Way galaxy,

about 6,000 light-years from Earth. Cygnus X-1 is siphoning

off gas from a giant-star companion while emitting high-

energy X-rays. This particular black hole was chosen as a first

target because its brightness in X-rays allows the mission team

to easily see where the telescope's focused X-rays fall on the

detectors. NuSTAR will help answer several fundamental

questions about the universe including: How are black holes

distributed through the cosmos? How were heavy elements forged in the explosions of massive stars? What powers the

most extreme active galaxies? Why We Explore- continued on Page 6

The U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Act of

1958 established NASA as an aerospace research and develop-

ment agency that sponsors and conducts flight missions to

obtain data in furtherance of its objectives. But what are those

objectives? NASA’s current Strategic Goals for Space Explo-

ration are stated in three directives:

Extend and sustain human activities across the solar system

Expand scientific understanding of the Earth and the uni-

verse in which we live

Create the innovative new space technologies for our explo-

ration, science, and economic future

Popular focus on NASA tends to revolve around

manned space flight. In fact, its current Agency Priority Goals

include human exploration and operations, along with the ISS,

Mars Science Laboratory, and development of space technol-

ogy. With the dismantling of NASA’s space shuttle program,

many enthusiasts feel that US space initiatives have stalled.

But a manned space program cannot exist without thriving and

productive unmanned space exploration. In his 2007 article

“Why Explore Space?” former NASA Administrator Michael

Griffin noted: “The Pilgrims were only a few thousand miles from home, and they were accomplished farmers and artisans.

And yet, when they came to an unfamiliar land, they didn’t

know how to survive in its harsh environment… If we are to

become a space-faring nation, the next generation of explorers

is going to have to learn how to survive in other forbidding,

faraway places across the vastness of space.”

We must be daring, but also be prepared. So, how do

we prepare for a frontier with mysteries as infinite as its ex-panse? We do what we have always done: we ask questions.

Beyond claims of space superiority or fulfilling a primal urge

to blaze trails and chart new lands, space exploration taps into

our more profound and essential human desire to answer ques-

tions about ourselves and our universe. NASA embraces curi-

osity and preparedness through its Science Mission Director-

ate, which oversees four main areas of scientific research in

space exploration: Earth Science, Planetary Science, Helio-

physics, and Astrophysics. The Astrophysics division focuses

on perhaps the largest questions of all: How does the universe

work, and what are its origin and destiny?

NuSTAR is a NASA mission that seeks to answer

these profound scientific questions, feeding our curiosity far

into the new frontier. Launched June 13 as part of the Astro-

physics Explorer program, NuSTAR (Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array) will conduct a census of black holes for

NASA’s Physics of the Cosmos program and study the birth of

elements for the Cosmic Origins program. Utilizing wide-field

surveys of extragalactic fields and the Milky Way’s galactic

center, it will map radioactive material in young supernova

remnants. It will also observe relativistic jets found in the

NuSTAR launched from a Pegasus XL

rocket carried by the L-1011 "Stargazer" plane. Five seconds before launch, the rocket dropped, ignited, and propelled NuS-

TAR into space. Plane-assisted launches are less expensive than ground launches, because less fuel is needed to boost cargo

away from the pull of Earth’s gravity.

NASA Mission: Our Human Desire to Explore By Amy Wagner

WHY WE EXPLORE

“To reach for new heights and reveal the unknown, so that what we do and learn will benefit all humankind.” The NASA Vision

Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array

Astrophysics Explorer Launched June 13, 2012

6

EYEPIECE September 2012

Why We Explore - continued from Page 5

Unlike visible light that easily bounces off surfaces,

X-rays tend to be absorbed. However, if an incoming X-ray

grazes a surface at a very small, glancing angle, it will be re-

flected. By nesting mirrors of different sizes and angles, more

X-rays can be reflected and focused onto the same spot. NuS-

TAR’s, mirror optics help it see high-energy X-ray light in

greater detail than ever before. The two onboard optical units

each consist of 133 fingernail-thin nested cylindrical mirror

shells. Conceived of 15 years ago by principal investigator Fiona Harrison of the California Institute of Technology, NuS-

TAR’s ability to focus higher energy X-rays is a major ad-

vance in that spectral region. “It’s like putting on a new pair

of glasses and seeing aspects of the world around us clearly for

the first time,” Harrison explained.

Knowing how the laws of physics behave at the extremes of

space and time, near a black hole or a neutron star, is an

important key to understanding how the universe is con-

structed. Although NuSTAR is a Small Explorer Mission, it

will contribute to answering large questions about the behavior

of matter, energy, space, and time in diverse conditions of the

cosmos, and about the origin and evolution of the universe to

produce the galaxies, stars, and planets we see today. ■

Apple Shares Kepler’s Journey

A new app brings thousands of alien worlds to the

fingertips of iPhone and iPad users.

The app, called Kepler Explorer, provides interactive

displays of the 2,300 alien planet candidates that NASA's Ke-

pler Space Telescope has detected thus far. It's available for

free at the iTunes App Store and runs on Apple's iPhone and

iPad. It was developed by astronomers, artists and designers at

the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Kepler Explorer starts with drop-down menus listing

the nearly 1,800 Kepler-discovered planetary systems, plus our

own solar system, researchers said. Users can select a system,

which is then displayed in a view that shows the planet or

planets in orbit around their host star.

Users can zoom in and move around the system, and

tapping on an individual planet brings it up for further explora-

tion. Another view shows the relative sizes of the planets com-

pared to their host star, researchers said.

Armchair astronomers can also manipulate the composi-

tion of the alien planets and their atmospheres, seeing which

mixtures of components fit best with Kepler’s observations.

"I have pretty good intuition for what the likely com-

position of a planet is based on its size, but the app allows

anyone to explore the properties of many different planets

very quickly," UCSC astrophysicist Jonathan Fortney, who

works on the Kepler mission and helped develop Kepler Ex-

plorer, said in a statement.

The $600 million Kepler observatory launched in

March 2009 to hunt for Earth-size alien planets in the habit-

able zone of their parent stars, where liquid water, and perhaps

even life as we know it, might be able to exist.

Kepler detects alien planets using what's called the

"transit method." It searches for tiny, telltale dips in a star's

brightness caused when a planet transits - or crosses in front of - the star from Earth's perspective, blocking a fraction of the

star's light.

So far, the Kepler mission has discovered 61 con-

firmed alien planets, along with roughly 2,300 exoplanet "candidates" that await vetting by follow-up studies. Kepler

scientists say the vast majority of these candidates - 80 percent

or more - should end up being the real deal.

Automatic updates for the Kepler Explorer app will

add new planet candidates as they are discovered, researchers

said. ■

Eyepiece Staff - September Issue

Editor

Evan B. Schneider

Writing Staff: Richard Brounstein, Joseph Fedrick,

Stan Honda, Amy Wagner

Special Sections: Marcelo Cabrera, Joshua Erich, Edward Fox,

Richard Rosenberg

Kleegor’s Universe By Joshua M. Erich, www.pixelatedparchment.com

AAA Members - Eyepiece Staff Openings Interested in joining our growing team of AAA Eyepiece

staff members? Enjoy researching, writing and editing? If so, we

would like to hear from you.

September’s issue marks the 12th edition published by our

new and innovative staff. We have expanded coverage, added

color to our online Eyepiece, and created fascinating monthly

columns to stimulate our club members’ imaginations and in-

form all on the latest astronomical news.

Come be a part of something out of this world...

Evan B. Schneider, Editor

Email me at: editor@aaa.org

7

Hello members:

We note the sad passing of one of AAA’s strongest supporters and former president, Lynn Darsh, whose dedica-

tion and intellect helped AAA to evolve into what it is today. She will truly be missed by us all.

Last month NASA landed another fully equipped robotic roving laboratory on Mars. Curiosity had the most diffi-

cult landing sequence in history and NASA engineers executed it without any problems. I expect many new discoveries to

come from Curiosity in the next few months.

Summer is not over yet; we still have two more trips to North-South Lake scheduled, and many other observing

sessions around the city. Check out our full calendar at: http://www.aaa.org/calendar

Urban Starfest, our most popular stargazing event, is scheduled for October 20, with a rain date of October 21.

The event will be held at Central Park's Sheep Meadow. It is organized in conjunction with the NYC Urban Park Rangers

and this year's honored guests include David Eicher (editor in chief) and Richard Talcott (senior editor) from Astronomy

magazine, and Tele Vue founder and chief optical designer, Al Nagler. Joining the event as well will be Michael Peoples

from Adorama Camera, a longtime friend and supporter of AAA. For more details, please visit http://www.aaa.org/

starfest.

Sincerely,

Marcelo Cabrera

President, AAA

A Message from AAA President Marcelo Cabrera

EYEPIECE

Neil Armstrong, the Apollo 11 astronaut who died

Aug 25 at 82, said he did not want to live his life as an icon,

remembered only for that electric night in 1969 when he and

Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon.

But when you have done what he did -- stepped out,

alone, onto another world while half a billion Earthlings

watched your television transmission -- the world recalls.

Armstrong's moonwalk as one of those events that brought the

world together. Most people who are old enough to have seen

it can tell you exactly where they were when it happened.

"His one small step will inspire generations to come,"

said space shuttle astronaut Nicole Stott on Twitter. She

quoted Armstrong from a 1994 speech: "There are places to go

beyond belief."

"No other act of human exploration ever laid a plaque

saying, 'We came in peace for all mankind," tweeted Neil De-

Grasse Tyson, the astrophysicist.

President Obama -- whom Armstrong criticized two

years ago for cutting NASA's exploration plans -- was never-

theless effusive: "Neil's spirit of discovery lives on in all the

men and women who have devoted their lives to exploring the

unknown -- including those who are ensuring that we reach higher and go further in space. That legacy will endure --

sparked by a man who taught us the enormous power of one

small step."

Armstrong would doubtless have been uncomfortable

with all the tributes. People who knew him said he was not a

recluse, but he was a private man who quickly deflected credit

to others. He described himself, more than once, as a "nerdy

engineer." He often protested that while he and Aldrin made

the first lunar landing, they merely piloted a mission made

possible by thousands of others.

In his later years, Armstrong publicly complained about

Washington politics. He said the space program had become a

"shuttlecock" in the budget battles between the White House

and Congress, which could not agree on its direction or how

much America

could afford to

spend on it.

" N A S A

has been one

of the most successful pub-

lic investments

in motivating

students to do

well and achieve all they can achieve," said Armstrong in an

interview in Australia this spring. "It's sad that we are turning

the program in a direction where it will reduce the amount of

motivation and stimulation it provides to young people. And

that's a major concern to me."

His family, in their statement announcing that he had

died, asked people to dispense with words:

"For those who may ask what they can do to honor Neil, we

have a simple request," they said. "Honor his example of ser-

vice, accomplishment and modesty, and the next time you

walk outside on a clear night and see the moon smiling down

at you, think of Neil Armstrong and give him a wink."

Neil Armstrong, Apollo 11 Commander, Dies at Age 82

September 2012

Contacting AAA

Membership: members@aaa.org

Eyepiece: editor@aaa.org

General Club Matters and Observing: president@aaa.org

Telephone: 212-535-2922 Website: www.aaa.org

8

tively expensive.

But there is a better way: build a mobile colony on a

near-Earth asteroid to establish a permanent presence in space. Consider private venture firm Planetary Resources, Inc. They

plan to send probes to mine nearby asteroids for rare Earth

metals. Launching equipment into space and landing on an

asteroid are not daunting tasks like landing on Mars. It’s simi-

lar to docking with another spacecraft.

What if, in addition to drilling for materials, they

carved out a sizeable human habitat? The size can be increased

just by continued excavation with solar-powered, remote con-

trolled equipment, negating the need to launch heavy modules

into space. The habitat would be protected from solar radiation

and menacing meteorites by the asteroid’s rocky exterior.

When humans arrive, they only need to bring water recycling

equipment, grow food, and maintain the habitat’s oxygen at-

mosphere. Solar panels would provide renewable energy.

Hopefully, some water ice reservoir would be discovered that

can be used to create rocket fuel. Now we’re on our way.

The next problem is creating gravity. This would be

challenging, but possible. If an asteroid is at least 3,000 ft.

long, then we need to rotate it so the centrifugal force creates gravity. This requires harnessing sufficient energy to force the

rotation. What a great day it will be when humans have

learned to leverage the materials in space, allowing us to move

forward into the cosmos.

Many scientific and engineering challenges must be

addressed before an asteroid can be occupied. We don’t know

if sufficient materials exist to be profitably mined or harnessed

- the economics of private space ventures must work to

achieve these goals. We must learn more about the availability

of water ice, and develop a design to force its rotation. We

need a methodology to put large automated drilling machines

into space, and a way to extract materials for energy consump-

tion. Hydroponic farming needs further development, and cre-

ating water and oxygen from water deposits is still a concept.

Established human colonies will one day become a

great resource, advancing scientific research and becoming the

space refueling stations needed to colonize our solar system.

Consider the advantage of launching a space probe or manned

vehicle. The first stop could be an asteroid colony where stores of fuel are waiting to send astronauts or probes further on their

journey. An added benefit to controlling an asteroid is to fi-

nally develop technology to move a future body from its de-

structive path with Earth. Our planetary defense system would

be enhanced.

There are so many benefits to exploring these un-

knowns. Once one or two colonies are established on local

asteroids, it could become common throughout the inner solar

system. Would we then start building colonies on comets in

the outer solar system or in the Kuiper Belt? This might be the

way humanity finally leaves Earth to become a great space-

faring civilization. Asteroids and comets might really be the

islands of our solar system. ■

Richard Brounstein’s monthly column, “WHAT IF,” explores what today

seems improbable or impossible. Stay tuned for more fascinating concepts.

Europeans established their first permanent col-

ony in Jamestown, Virginia. Brave explorers carved out a life

in harsh conditions, using local resources. They brought tools

and weapons to fashion the land and protect their interests.

They could not bring materials to build homes or wood to fuel

their fires. They learned to grow food in a new environment,

make clothing, and hunt in what was for them, an alien land.

In many ways, humans today have the same challenges as we

look to establish the first permanent colony away from Earth.

Building a self-sufficient space colony requires a

source of energy, fuel for space propulsion, a hydroponic farm,

potable water, sufficient gravity, and building materials for an

oxygen-filled habitat. There are other needs, but let’s focus on

these pivotal requirements first.

To date, space stations have been impressive. Without

access to raw materials, they are routinely re-supplied from

Earth. We have not yet built a space station that provides arti-ficial gravity. Without it, human muscles and bones rapidly

deteriorate in space, limiting astronauts’ tours to only a few

months.

In theory, mankind could build a rotating space sta-

tion as depicted in 2001: A Space Odyssey. However, this

large spinning wheel must be over 3,000 ft. in diameter (10

football fields or 10 times the size of the current ISS) to be

effective. Considering the enormous cost to supply materials to

the ISS, creating a permanent colony in space utilizing Earth

material is just too expensive.

Could we build colonies on the Moon or Mars? We

have a similar problem there as well. Launching large habitats

and safely landing them on a remote world is cost prohibitive.

Consider the energy and equipment required to land the 2,000

lb. Mars Curiosity rover. A human habitat would be signifi-

cantly heavier. There is no current technology other than enor-

mous amounts of rocket fuel to do the job, which again is a

logistical improbability.

We need to learn from the historic lessons of Jamestown,

to build habitats using local materials. Could humans con-

struct remote living environments underground? Possibly, but

we still have to resolve the constraints of limited gravity. Lu-nar or Martian

gravity is too

low to keep

h u m a n s

healthy. Also,

the engineering

problems still

remain. Land-

ing multiple

crafts large

enough to sup-

port humans is again prohibi-

EYEPIECE September 2012

WHAT IF??? Asteroids: Islands of the Solar System

By Richard Brounstein

DigitalSpace conceptual drawing - NEO asteroid docking

9

more than ten times wider than other comparably sensitive

amplifiers, can amplify strong signals without distortion, and

introduces nearly the lowest amount of unavoidable noise. In

principle, the researchers say, design improvements should be

able to reduce that noise to the absolute minimum. The team

recently described the new instrument in the journal Nature

Physics. One of the key features is that it incorporates super-

conductors - materials that allow an electric current to flow with zero resistance when lowered to certain temperatures. For

their amplifier, the researchers use titanium nitride and nio-

bium titanium nitride, which have just the right properties to

amplify the weak signal. The team says that the instrument can

directly amplify radio signals from faint sources like distant

galaxies, black holes, or other exotic cosmic objects. Boosting

signals in millimeter to submillimeter wavelengths (between

radio and infrared) will allow astronomers to study the cosmic

microwave background and to peer behind the dusty clouds of

galaxies to study the births of stars, or probe primeval galax-

ies. The team has already begun working to produce such de-

vices for Caltech's Owens Valley Radio Observatory (OVRO)

near Bishop, California. These amplifiers could be incorpo-

rated into telescope arrays like the Combined Array for Re-search in Millimeter-wave Astronomy at OVRO, of which

Caltech is a consortium member, and the Atacama Large Mil-

limeter/submillimeter Array in Chile. Instead of directly am-

plifying an astronomical signal, the instrument can be used to

boost the electronic signal from a light detector in an optical,

ultraviolet, or even x-ray telescope, making it easier for as-

tronomers to tease out faint objects. Because the instrument is

so sensitive and introduces minimal noise, it can also be used

to explore the quantum world. For example, Keith Schwab, a

professor of applied physics at Caltech, is planning to use the

amplifier to measure the behavior of tiny mechanical devices that operate at the boundary between classical physics and the

strange world of quantum mechanics. The amplifier could also

be used in the development quantum computers - which are

still beyond our technological reach but should be able to solve

some of science's hardest problems much more quickly than

any regular computer.

Driving Miss Curiosity NASA's Mars rover Curiosity spent its first weekend on Mars transitioning to software better suited for tasks ahead,

such as driving and using its strong robotic arm. The rover's

"brain transplant," installed a new version of software on both

of the rover's redundant main computers. This software for

Mars surface operations was uploaded to the rover's memory

during the Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft's flight from

Earth. "We designed the mission from the start to be able to

upgrade the software as needed for different phases of the mis-

sion," said Ben Cichy, NASA/JPL chief software engineer for

the Mars Science Laboratory mission. "The flight software version Curiosity originally used was really focused on land-

ing the vehicle. It included many capabilities we just don't

need any more. It gives us basic capabilities for operating the

rover on the surface, but we planned all along to switch over

after landing to a version of flight software that is really opti-

mized for surface operations." A key capability in the new

version is image processing to check for obstacles. This allows

for longer drives by giving the rover more autonomy to iden-

tify and avoid potential hazards and drive along a safe path the

rover identifies for itself. Other new capabilities facilitate use

of the tools at the end of the rover's robotic arm. Curiosity car-ries 10 science instruments with a total mass 15 times as large

as the science payloads on NASA's Mars rovers Spirit and

Opportunity. Some of the tools, such as a laser-firing instru-

ment for checking rocks' elemental composition from a dis-

tance, are the first of their kind on Mars. Curiosity will use a

drill and scoop, which are located at the end of its robotic arm,

to gather soil and powdered samples of rock interiors, then

sieve and parcel out these samples into the rover's analytical

laboratory instruments. To handle this science toolkit, Curios-

ity is twice as long and five times as heavy as Spirit or Oppor-

tunity. The Gale Crater landing site at 4.59 degrees south,

137.44 degrees east, places the rover within driving distance of layers of the crater's interior mountain. Observations from or-

bit have identified clay and sulfate minerals in the lower lay-

ers, indicating a wet history.

New Eye Sweeps the Gamma Sky

The four 12 meter-telescopes of the H.E.S.S. observa-

tory (High Energy Stereoscopic System), dedicated to investi-

gating cosmic gamma-rays in Namibia, received reinforce-

ment: The new telescope H.E.S.S. II has a 28-meter-sized mir-

EYEPIECE September 2012

AAA BRIEFS IN ASTRONOMY

Curiosity sets off on its first quarter mile trek across the surface

New H.E.S.S. II observatory poised for discoveries

10

Twinkle, Twinkle Little...Boom!

Type Ia supernovae are violent stellar explosions.

Observations of their brightness are used to determine dis-

tances in the universe and reveal that the cosmos is expanding

at an accelerating rate. But there is still too little known about

how these supernovae form. New research, led by Stella Kafka

of the Carnegie Institution for Science, has identified a star

system, prior to explosion, which will possibly become a type Ia supernova. The widely accepted theory is that type Ia super-

novae are thermonuclear explosions of a white dwarf star that's

part of a binary system. The white dwarf has mass gradually

donated to it by its companion. When the white dwarf mass

reaches 1.4 solar masses, it explodes to produce a type Ia su-

pernova. The crucial questions are: What is the nature of the

donor star and how does this white dwarf increase its mass.

Also, how would that process affect the properties of the ex-

plosion? Scientists have been searching for candidate systems

that could become type Ia supernovae. There are thousands of

possibilities, none of which have yet been observed to produce an explosion. Using data from the DuPont telescope of the Las

Campanas observatory in Chile, Kafka and her team looked at

these gas signatures and identified a binary star called QU

Carinae as a possible supernova progenitor. It contains a white

dwarf, which is accumulating mass from a giant star, and so-

dium has been detected around the system. "We are really ex-

cited to have identified such a system," Kafka said.

"Understanding these systems, the nature of the two stars, the

manner in which mass is exchanged, and their long-term evo-

lution will give us a comprehensive picture on how binaries

can create one of the most important explosions in the uni-

verse."

Slip Sliding Away - on Iapetus

Saturn's moon Iapetus frequently plays host to a huge

type of landslide or avalanche that is rare elsewhere in the so-lar system, scientists report. Sturzstroms or "long-runout land-

slides" move faster and farther than geological models predict

they should. They have been seen on Earth and Mars, but there

is debate about their causes. Now, images from the Cassini

space mission suggest that heating of icy surfaces helps the

landslides keep going. On Earth, landslides typically travel a

horizontal distance that is less than twice the distance that the

material has fallen. Long-runout landslides, by contrast, can travel as much as 30 times the vertical falling distance. Now,

Kelsi Singer of Washington University and colleagues report

that the geography of Iapetus is a unique setting to test these

theories. According to Singer, "They give us examples of giant

landslides in ice, instead of rock, with a different gravity, and

no atmosphere. So any theory of long-runout landslides on

Earth must also work for avalanches on Iapetus." The icy sat-

ellite has more giant landslides than any solar system body

other than Mars. The reason, says Prof William McKinnon,

also from Washington University, is Iapetus' spectacular to-

pography. "Not only is the moon out-of-round, but the giant

impact basins are very deep, and there's this great mountain ridge that's 12 miles high, far higher than Mount Everest," he

explained. "So there's a lot of topography and it's just sitting

around, and then, from time to time, it gives way." It appears

that this faster-moving ice seen on Iapetus has a lower friction

coefficient than that of slow-moving ice measured in Earth-

bound laboratories. The team suggests that the tiny contact

points between bits of ice debris in such a landslide may heat

up considerably, melting it and forming a more fluid - and thus

less friction-limited - mass of material.

Phoenix Cluster is Hot Stuff

Astronomers have found an extraordinary galaxy

cluster, one of the largest objects in the universe, that is break-ing cosmic records. Observations of the Phoenix cluster with

NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, the National Science

Foundation's South Pole Telescope, and eight other world-

class observatories may force astronomers to rethink how

these structures and the galaxies that inhabit them evolve.

Stars are forming in Phoenix at the highest rate ever observed

for the middle of a galaxy cluster. It is also is the most massive

and powerful producer of X-rays of any known cluster. The

data also suggest the rate of hot gas cooling in the central re-

gions is the largest ever observed. Phoenix is located about 5.7

billion light years from Earth. It is named not only for the con-stellation in which it is located, but also for its remarkable

properties. "While galaxies at the center of most clusters may

have been dormant for billions of years, the central galaxy in

this cluster seems to have come back to life with a new burst

of star formation," said Michael McDonald, a Hubble Fellow

at MIT and the lead author of an Aug 16 paper that appeared in

the journal Nature. "The mythology of the Phoenix, a bird

rising from the dead, is a great way to describe this revived

object." Astronomers think the supermassive black hole in the

central galaxy cluster pumps energy into the system, prevent-

ing cooling of gas from causing a burst of star formation. "This

spectacular star burst is a very significant discovery because it suggests we have to rethink how the massive galaxies in the

centers of clusters grow," said Martin Rees of Cambridge Uni-

versity, a world-renowned expert on cosmology who was not

involved with the study. "The cooling of hot gas might be a

much more important source of stars than previously thought."

EYEPIECE September 2012

AAA BRIEFS IN ASTRONOMY

A giant landslide reaches halfway across a 75-mile impact crater (Credit: NASA/JPL Space Science Institute)

11

NASA Straps on a Radiation Belt

NASA has just launched two Radiation Belt Storm

Probes (RBSP) designed to study the harsh environment of our

planet's Van Allen Radiation Belts. The probes will help scien-

tists understand the Sun's influence on Earth and near-Earth

space by studying radiation belts on various scales of space

and time. The instruments on the RBSP mission will provide

the measurements needed to characterize and quantify plasma

processes that produce very energetic ions and relativistic elec-

trons. The mission is part of the broader NASA's Living With

a Star (LWS) program, conceived to explore fundamental

processes that operate throughout the solar system and in par-

ticular those that generate hazardous space weather effects in

the vicinity of Earth and phenomena that could impact solar system exploration. RBSP instruments will measure the prop-

erties of charged particles that comprise the Earth's radiation

belts, the plasma waves that interact with them, the large-scale

electric fields that transport them, and the particle-guiding

magnetic field. The two RBSP spacecraft will have nearly

identical eccentric orbits. The orbits cover the entire radiation

belt region and the two spacecraft lap each other several times

over the course of the mission. The RBSP measurements dis-

criminate between spatial and temporal effects, and compare

the effects of various proposed mechanisms for charged parti-

cle acceleration and loss. The spacecraft are designed to fly

and operate in the heart of the most hazardous regions of near-

Earth space to collect crucial data. The data will help research-

ers develop an understanding of the Van Allen radiation belts,

two rings of very high energy electrons and protons that can

pose hazards to human and robotic explorers. "We will turn our attention from planet Mars to planet Earth, both immersed

in the atmosphere of our Sun," said Barbara Giles, director of

NASA's Heliophysics Division. "RBSP will further explore the

connection of solar variability and its impacts on Earth's radia-

tion belts."

Mirror, Mirror, on the Webb

One of the most challenging parts of NASA’s huge

new James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), the building of its

ultra sophisticated mirror system, is now finished, and the mir-

rors are ready for delivery. Send-off ceremonies held on Aug.

15 saluted the completion of 18 beryllium primary mirror seg-ments and billed Webb as the successor to NASA's venerable

Hubble Space Telescope. Ball Aerospace, the principal sub-

contractor to manufacturer Northrop Grumman for the JWST,

is also responsible for JWST’s secondary and tertiary mirrors,

a fine steering mirror assembly and several engineering devel-

opment units. Ball’s optical technology and lightweight mirror

system at the heart of the telescope - an astronomical project

that is now pegged to cost roughly $8.7 billion and to be lofted

in the fall of 2018.

Round, Round, Get Around

The Sun is nearly the roundest object ever measured.

If scaled to the size of a beach ball, it would be so round that

the difference between the widest and narrow diameters would

be much less than the width of a human hair. The Sun rotates

every 28 days, and because it doesn’t have a solid surface, it

should be slightly flattened. This tiny flattening has been stud-

ied with many instruments for almost 50 years to learn about

the Sun’s rotation, especially the rotation below its surface, which we can’t see directly. Now Jeff Kuhn and Isabelle

Scholl from the University of Hawaii, Rock Bush from Stan-

ford University, and Marcelo Emilio from the State University

of Ponta Grossa in Brazil have used the Helioseismic and

Magnetic Imager (HMI) aboard the Solar Dynamics Observa-

tory satellite to obtain what they believe is the definitive - and

baffling - answer. Because there is no atmosphere in space to

distort the solar image, they were able to use HMI’s exquisite

image sensitivity to measure the solar shape with unprece-

dented accuracy. The results indicate that if the Sun were

shrunk to a ball one meter in diameter, its equatorial diameter

would be only 17 millionths of a meter larger than the diame-ter through its north-south pole, which is its rotation axis. They

also found that the solar flattening is remarkably constant over

time and too small to agree with that predicted from its surface

rotation. This suggests that other subsurface forces, like solar

magnetism or turbulence, may be a more powerful influence

than expected. Kuhn, the team leader, said, “For years we’ve

believed our fluctuating measurements were telling us that the

Sun varies, but these new results say something different.

While just about everything else in the Sun changes along with

its 11-year sunspot cycle, the shape doesn’t.”

EYEPIECE September 2012

AAA BRIEFS IN ASTRONOMY

Artist's rendering shows the two Radiation Belt Storm Probes

that will study the Van Allen Radiation Belts in the Earth's magne-

tosphere and the sun's effects on Earth. Charged particles can be

hazardous to both spacecraft and astronauts. (Credit: J. Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab)

Sun image taken by the

Solar Dynamics Observatory

(Credit: NASA)

12

crossing the eastern sky. A particularly bright plane shows up

as a vertical line on the left side. I also noticed streaks that

were probably satellites, though they appear only faintly in the

final photo. The ghostly figures of people also can be seen.

I ended up combining 100 frames for a 50-minute

exposure of our session. Stars rotate around Polaris and a few

wispy clouds can be seen on the horizon. I darkened the sky

just a bit for more contrast with the stars. The sky is not the

real black you would see in a more remote place, but it wasn’t bad. With all that’s happening in the frame, the photo can be

described as psychedelic, but I’m pretty happy with the results.

Many national parks are becoming more aware of

artificial lighting and its effect on the night sky. I was at Chaco

Culture National Historical Park in May to do some night pho-tography and observe the annular eclipse. The skies there are

stunning, with incredible blackness between the stars. One

night I photographed the Milky Way over Fajada Butte, a sa-

cred site for the ancient Chacoan people. From one angle, I

could see the galaxy arch over the sky in amazing detail de-

spite the glaring visitor center lights. They pointed west,

mostly lighting up the vast desert expanse. I shot a wide-angle

photo of the visitor center with the Milky Way above, and

oddly enough, the lights didn’t have much effect on the sky.

I sent the photo to Jim Von Haden, the natural re-

sources program manager at Chaco, who helped me photo-graph over several nights. He has been on a mission to dim or

eliminate the visitor center lights, which aren’t really neces-

sary. Jim asked to use the photo in his presentations as he at-

tempts to dim work with the park administration to gain dark

sky status for Chaco. It’s a small contribution, but I think each

of us can help in the effort to preserve our night sky. ■

FOCUS ON THE UNIVERSE

Light pollution is the scourge of astronomers world-

wide. As night photos of the Earth show, city lights make it

difficult to see truly dark skies. We happen to live in one of the

brightest metropolitan areas on the planet. For photographers

shooting night landscapes, artificial light is especially chal-

lenging. Long exposures needed for night photography allow

the camera to record any and all types of light - even faint light

you can’t see.

Driving 50 miles from NYC isn’t enough to get away

from the glow of these artificial lights, so the AAA spring/

summer class headed to Ward Pound Ridge Reservation in Westchester County for a night of observing in mid-August.

The night was unusually clear, with a few high clouds in the

west dissipating after sunset. Though the Sun set at 7:55 p.m.,

it was well after 9 p.m. before light faded completely from the

sky. A distinct glow on the southwest horizon, the lights from

Westchester and NYC, could be seen. Because moisture scat-

ters light, the high humidity produced a steady brightness

above. Added to that was a glaring light at the entrance to the

park, seemingly shining directly at our location.

A faint Milky Way could be seen - a huge improve-

ment from the city view. Through the telescopes, Saturn,

looked magnificent, and members of the group were able to

find various star clusters, galaxies and nebulae.

But for night sky photography, it was still not quite

dark enough. Airplanes constantly flying overhead created yet

another distraction. But even with the interference, it’s always

worth a try to see what you can capture in different situations.

Sometimes you get unexpected results.

I decided to set up a camera with a wide-angle lens to

capture our group and the sky from north to east. I had a 14-

24mm zoom set at 14mm on my Nikon D700. The camera was

set at f 2.8, 30-second exposures at ISO 1600. I took a few test

pictures around 9 p.m. The sky seemed a little bright, but I assumed that over the course of an hour it would darken. My

goal was a long exposure showing the star trails and the activ-

ity of AAA members observing. I used a second camera to

take single shots of the sky and observers, but didn’t get very

good results because the sky was too bright.

The intervalometer trigger was set to take 120 photos

- one hour’s worth (30-second exposures X 120 frames = 60

minutes). This generally allows some leeway in assembling

the final photo. If some pictures at the beginning or end aren’t

good, I would still have 45-50 minutes worth of photos. I

cringed when a car drove into the parking lot midway through

the hour, hoping the headlights wouldn’t wash out the scene.

At home, I began to combine each frame to show the

star trails. I was amazed at how well it came out. The camera

was pointed almost directly at Cassiopeia and that part of the

rising Milky Way, so a large number of stars could be seen in

the center of the photo. The red flashlights of the club mem-

bers lit up each telescope and tripod and created wavy lines as

people walked around. Airplanes were very noticeable, mainly

EYEPIECE September 2012

Stan Honda is an accomplished professional photographer and

contributing writer. In this continuing series of articles, he shares his

extensive knowledge of photographic equipment and techniques.

Please visit www.stanhonda.com or submit your photography

questions to stanhonda@gmail.com.

Night Skies Over Ward Pound Ridge Reservation By Stan Honda

Stan’s ghostly image of the AAA observers (Westchester, 2012)

13

EYEPIECE September 2012

Hark! Hark! Sark is Dark! The Little Island that Could

By Dan Harrison

As my plane took off in early May for an 18-day

vacation to the English countryside and the Channel Islands, I

had no idea the trip would yield a story for Eyepiece. That

changed in a nanosecond near the end of the trip, when I

picked up a paperback called A Year in Sark. Covering Octo-

ber 2010 to October 2011, it had a piece for January 2011 ti-

tled called “The World’s First Dark Sky Island.”

Sark is a tiny channel island: four-and-a-half square

miles, 600 year-round residents, and no paved roads, cars

or streetlights. I bought the book on Guernsey, one of the two

main channel islands (Jersey is the other), and decided to take a day trip to Sark, which turned out to be a perfect combina-

tion of ferry, horse-drawn wagon and very friendly people.

Back in New York, I got to work. I learned that

Sark’s path to dark-sky designation began in 2010, when local stargazer Felicity Belfield heard Galloway Forest Park in Scot-

land had been singled out by the International Dark-sky Asso-

ciation (IDA) for the quality of its night sky. She and others

felt Sark deserved the same honor, so they contacted the IDA,

beginning a year of assessment and community consultation.

The award followed a long process that included as-

sessment of sky darkness and an audit of all external lights on

Sark. A comprehensive lighting-management plan was created

by Jim Patterson of the Institute of Lighting Engineers. Many

local residents and businesses altered their lighting to become

more dark-sky friendly, ensuring as little light as possible

spills upwards.

Annie Dachinger is “starfleet commander” of the

fledgling Sark Astronomical Society (SAstroS), which got off

the ground in the wake of the dark-sky designation and now

has 36 members. There were starfests in October 2011 and

March of this year, with a third planned for this month.

“It was agreed in this first celebratory year to have a

starfest in October 2011 with a guest speaker, an astronomer-

in-residence and to hire a mobile planetarium, plus music and

performers, including a belly dancer we dubbed the Heavenly

Body!” she recalled. “Our speaker was Prof. Andrew Coates

from the Mullard Space Sciences Laboratory at the University of Central London, who spoke about his work, especially ex-

ploring the solar system’s planets and moons. Steve

(darkskyman) Owens was astronomer-in-residence and took

parties on guided star walks.”

The March event was a mini starfest to close the win-

ter stargazing season, with Dr. Marek Kukula, public astrono-

mer from the Royal Observatory, Greenwich. Star walks and

talks were featured. Kukula returns for this month’s starfest

and will speak about “Black Holes: Do They Really Exist?

He’ll also talk about the exhibit Sark is hosting: winners of the

Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition co-

sponsored by BBC Sky at Night and Royal Observatory,

Greenwich.

Karen Brown, a Sark tourist official, observes that

“Since gaining dark-sky status, Sark is better able to promote

itself as a winter tourist destination. Until now, Sark has been

mainly seen as a summer destination, and our season for visi-

tors traditionally runs from Easter till October. However, we

now have hotels and guest-houses which [are staying] open

year round, and there is a small but steady increase in out-of-

season visitors who want to come and look at our amazing

skies.”

Fundraising is proceeding apace. Sark held its first

masked ball in June. Locals raise funds to cover the cost of

bringing speakers to Sark. “We hope eventually to have

enough money to invest in a small observatory, a further en-

couragement for professionals to visit and enjoy the excep-

tional quality of the clear sky here,” Dachinger said.

As for the woman who started it all, Belfield is 90 years young

and has lived on Sark for 30 years. In addition to being an

amateur astronomer, she’s an artist and an amateur geologist

who this year wrote a book about Sark rocks.

Another area in the United Kingdom that recently

received dark-sky certification is Exmoor National Park in

southwest England. Its designation was sought because the

park authority values tranquility as a key asset, and a dark sky

is part of that mission. There’s also an opportunity for Exmoor

to extend its tourist season through winter, using dark skies to

attract astrotourism, as is being done by Sark and Galloway.

Exmoor’s designation means the UK is the only

country that has the full spectrum of IDA designations. It has a

dark-sky park (Galloway), a dark-sky community (Sark) and a

dark-sky reserve (Exmoor).

Dark-sky park designation is intended for parks with

little or no population, the model being U. S. national parks.

Dark-sky community status is aimed at towns, cities, or islands

that want to preserve their night sky. Dark-sky reserve status,

while also meant for large parks, allows communities to exist

within the reserve, surrounding a dark-sky core, which is

strictly protected, while public engagement and awareness of light-pollution issues spread from that core to the surrounding

reserve.

Hark! Hark! Sark - continued on Page 14

Sark ‘s Dark Skies Abound

14

Hark! Hark! Sark - continued from Page 13

As Sark revels in its dark-sky status, there’s a potential cloud

on the horizon. Belfield told me Sark’s exceptionally dark

skies “are in danger of sabotage all the time. Almost all Sark

people are in favor of keeping [them], but sadly there’s one

multimillionaire family, based in Monaco, who want to own

Sark, purely for tax avoidance, and who long to develop it,

upgrading hotels, etc., and introducing streetlights. This fam-

ily has bought up much of the island, and although we’ve man-

aged to keep them out of our democratically elected parlia-

ment, it’s an ongoing battle.

“What’s so good about Sark, and unusual, is that you

can come and stay here in a first-rate hotel, and eat a fabulous dinner, and then simply walk outside to survey the heavens

without having to go in search of a clear view.”■

“Saturn on Steroids” Exoplanet Found

An enigmatic object detected five years ago in

space may be a ringed alien world comparable to our own gas

giant Saturn, the first such world discovered outside our solar

system, scientists now say.

The finding, announced in January at the 219th meeting

of the American Astronomical Society, came from studying an

unsteady eclipse of light from a star near the mysterious body.

"After we ruled out the eclipse being due to a spherical

star or a circumstellar disk passing in front of the star, I real-

ized that the only plausible explanation was some sort of dust

ring system orbiting a smaller companion - basically a Saturn

on steroids," said study co-author Eric Mamajek at Cerro

Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile.

The find occurred as astrophysicists investigated the

Scorpius-Centaurus association, the nearest region of recent

massive star formation to the Sun, using the international Su-

perWASP (Wide Angle Search for Planets) and All Sky Auto-

mated Survey (ASAS) projects. Specifically, the researchers

analyzed how light from sunlike stars in Scorpius-Centaurus

varied over time.

One star in particular showed dramatic changes in the

intensity of its light during a 54-day period in early 2007, sug-

gesting it was getting eclipsed by an orbiting body.

The star in question is technically known as 1SWASP

J140747.93-394542.6. It has a mass similar to the Sun but, at

about 16 million years of age, is much younger, just 1/300th as

old as the Sun. It lies about 420 light-years away.

Whatever is eclipsing it is relatively close to the star, 1.7

times or so the distance from the Earth to the Sun.

If a simple spherical object had passed in front of the

star, the intensity of the star's light would have steadily

dimmed and reached a low point before gradually increasing.

Instead, scientists saw a long, complex eclipse with significant

on-and-off dimming. At the deepest parts of the eclipse, at

least 95% of light from the star was getting blocked by dust.

The nature of these shifts in light - the "light curve" - was

very similar to that of EE Cephei, a hot, giant star occasionally

eclipsed by a companion star that is surrounded by a thick

protoplanetary disk. However, instead of just one dip in light

as one would expect of a single disk, Mamajek and University

of Rochester graduate student Mark Pecaut saw several dips.

The eclipsing body seems to be an object "with an orbit-

ing disk that has multiple rings of dust debris," Mamajek said.

This would be the first system of discrete, thin dust rings de-

tected around a very low-mass object outside our solar system,

he noted.

So far the research team has discovered one dense inner

disk and three tenuous outer disks, respectively named Roch-

ester, Sutherland, Campanas and Tololo, after the sites where

the eclipsed star was first detected and analyzed.

The outermost ring stretches up to 37 million miles from

the body it encircles. If the rings are similar to Saturn's, their

combined mass is probably as much as eight times that of

Earth's moon. "Each of these rings is probably made of thou-

sands and thousands of rings," Mamajek said. "Amateur as-tronomers can really look at this star with a backyard telescope

and help us learn more about this system through monitoring it

for more eclipses from the ring system."

Artist’s concept of the massive ring system exoplanet

Many questions remain about the nature of the ringed

body - whether it is a planet, a very low-mass star, or a brown

dwarf. If less than 13 times the mass of Jupiter, it would likely

be a planet similar to Saturn. If 13-75 times Jupiter's mass, it

would be a brown dwarf. If larger still, it would have enough

mass to sustain nuclear fusion, making it a star. Future tele-

scope observations can determine how much of a gravitational

tug this object exerts on its star, and thus reveal its mass.

Just as interesting as the rings are the gaps between the

gaps, signs that massive bodies are sculpting the ring edges. If

this object is a planet, moons could be carving the rings; if a star, newborn planets may be responsible. "One might imagine

rings around the smallest stars like rings one sees around Sat-

urn," Mamajek said. "Our inner solar system could've looked

like this long ago in its first tens of millions of years."

"I think these rings are how we're going to study moon-

forming disks around gas giants," Mamajek said. ■

EYEPIECE September 2012

15

AAA Events on the Horizon September 2012

Tuesdays, September 4,11,18,25 8:30 - 10:30 p.m., P, T, C Observing on the High Line, Manhattan/Enter at 14th Street Next dates: Tuesdays in October

Thursdays, September 6,13,20,27 7:30 - 9:30 p.m., P,T,C Observing at Brooklyn Bridge Park/Pier 1, Brooklyn Waterfront

Next dates: Thursdays in October

Wednesday, September 12 6:30 - 9 p.m., Board Only

AAA Board Meeting Cicatelli Center, 505 Eighth Avenue, 20th fl

Saturday, September 15 7:30 - 11 p.m., P, T, C

Observing at Great Kills Gateway National Park, Staten Island Next date: October 20

Saturday, Sept 15 (8 p.m.) - Sunday, Sept 15 (1:30 a.m. ), P,T,C

Observing at North-South Lake, Haines Falls, NY

Wednesday, September 19 7:30 - 11 p.m., P, T, C Observing at Brooklyn Heights Promenade/At Montague Street Next date: TBD

Friday, September 21 7:30 - 11 p.m., P, T, C Observing at Floyd Bennett Field, Brooklyn/50 Aviator Road Next date: October 19

Friday, September 28 7:00 - 11 p.m., P, T, C Observing in Carl Schurz Park, Manhattan/East End Ave & 86th

Next date: October 26

Saturday, September 29 10:00 a.m. - noon, P, T, C

Solar observing in Central Park, At the Conservatory Water Next date: October 27

Legend for Events: M: Members; T: Bring telescopes, binoculars, etc.

P: Open to the public C: Cancelled if cloudy

For the latest information about all AAA events, visit www.aaa.org

AAA 2012/2013 Lecture Series Calendar Oct 16 Michael Paul—The Google Lunar X Prize - The

Launch of Private Exploration of the Solar System

Nov 9 Timothy Creamer - NASA Astronaut Corps.

Dec 7 David Sobel - A More Perfect Heaven

Jan 4 Jerry Bonnell - NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day

Feb 1 David Hogg - The Sloan Atlas of Galaxies

Mar 1 Shane Larson - Topic TBA

Apr 5 Andrew Kessler - Author of Martian Summer

Apr 26 Special event to be announced

I pointed my 60mm f/15 achromatic refractor at the

Sun at 6PM EDT on August 2, and projected the image onto

an 8 1/2 x 11 inch piece of paper using an old 20mm eyepiece.

The projected image displayed numerous sunspots in two par-

allel bands, one band on either side of the solar equator. One

sunspot was almost as large as the disk of Venus as it transited

the Sun nearly two months earlier. This spot displayed a dark umbral center and fairly well defined penumbral zone sur-

rounding the umbra. I then used my jury-rigged solar scope

consisting of an old pair of 10x50 binoculars with one objec-

tive completely blocked off and covered, and the other objec-

tive having one lens (actually a dense filter) of an Astronomy

magazine eclipse glasses taped in front of it. A rather dim,

dusky gray- orange image of the Sun was visible through this

apparatus along with several sunspots, including the large

round spot almost as large as the disk of Venus. However, this

large sunspot was nowhere nearly as dark as the India ink, jet-

black disk of Venus I saw suspended in front of the Sun on

June 5. I noticed the observed sunspot activity was also rather intense in early July, but after a solar flare was noted by the

news media, images of the Sun on the internet showed the in-

tense source of the flare rotating away toward the solar far side

and a relatively spot-free zone was rotating into view. Perhaps

what I am seeing is persistent activity on only one side of the

Sun that rotates into view early in the month (29 days) rather

than actual spiking of solar activity at the beginning of each

month. In any case, sunspot activity is weaker than it was one

year ago. The sunspot cycle is supposed to peak next year, so

we may yet see if this cycle is weaker than the last one or just

delayed. ■

EYEPIECE September 2012

AAA ONLINE STORE IS NOW OPEN

AAA Presents: A new and exciting wide selection of

logo merchandise

for our members to

purchase online

“Shop the Stars”

www.aaa.org/store

NEXT MONTH IN EYEPIECE Our Look Ahead to October: Updates on Mars Rover

Curiosity as it blazes new trails on the Martian surface; Amy

Wagner’s continued new journey: “Why We Explore;” Stan

Honda teaches us photography in his “Focus on the Universe”

series; Richard Brounstein presents: “Robot Scientists” in his

“What If” column; Ed Fox reviews “The 4% Universe;” Alan

Rude brings us “Gravity Waves and LIGO:” “Kleegor’s Uni-

verse” explores the funny side of astronomy; Ed Fox’s AAA

Briefs in Astronomy bring the universe to us; Rich

Rosenberg’s “What’s Up in the Sky” points our scopes in the right direction, plus Nebula of the Month, Astronomical Fact

of the Month….and more!!!

Sunspot Activity Surges in Early August By Joe Fedrick

International Observe the

Moon Night Coming

September 22, 2012

Want to look at the

Moon? Go outside at night and

look up. It’s easy. You don't

need super advanced technology

to gaze up at the wonder that is

Earth's natural satellite. Watch

this month for events surround-

ing this yearly tribute to our

neighbor in the sky. The event is sponsored by NASA’s Lunar

Reconnaissance Orbiter that just returned images of the flag

planted by the Apollo missions!