oas astronomy ezine sept 2013
TRANSCRIPT
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EDITORIAL
The OASCast is launching for the first time this month,
produced by Pete Ainsworth andwritten and presentedby Alastair Leith FRAS. The OASCast was sug-gested by Pete who wanted to try a new project.Alastair, always amenable to new ideas thought,lets gives it a go.
Even though its a bit of a two man band justnow with Alastair recording on his cellphone and
Pete editing out his (Alastairs Umsand Rrrs etc)it seems to be working well.
The aim is to produce them monthly to
coincide with the release of the OAS Ezine. Topicsare short and to the point at the
moment aiming to introduce some key
articles into the mag, for people then to pop across and read all about it.
As always people are invited to contribute (just download the app on your phoneor
Audacity from the internet.
You can find us in iTunes just search OASCast and there we are
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CONTENTS
6Not Always Wishing for Clear Skies!
OAS Story
10
17The Shape Of Things
The Mars Society Part 2
2126 Perseid Meteor Shower
Petition for OU
3334 Brown Dwarfs
Sky Chart
35
Image by David Bood
taken at Dalby Forest
North Yorkshire in 2012
during a solar gazingevent.
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Welcome to the September edition of OAS EZine. Well we havehad some nice clear nights and hot weather throughout August. And the
amazing Perseid meteor shower amazed both amateur and professional
alike. This month we have some featured articles on viewing experiences
on observing the shower and detecting the meteor shower using radio
waves.
Enjoy!
Co-Editor
THE TEAM AT OAS
April Harper
Jasmin EvansMike Woodland FRAS
Pete Gow
Alastair Leith FRAS
Pete Ainsworth
Next month a Bio on each of us!!!!
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http://www.onlineas
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tronomysociety.com/
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Not always wishing for clear skies just so long asthey are interesting skies by Aprill Harper
An astronomer (amateur or professional) is always looking up and the
time of day doesnt really matter. You
find yourself having the persistent
urge to check on the by hour
weather forecast, specific for the very
location you have selected for your
dark sky site. And sure, you get
excited when you have set up ready
for the times when you can look at thestars and bask in their splendour. And
then you see the clouds roll in and your heart sinks a little.
Disappointing as this maybe initially, what you actually may get is some-
thing interesting.
I find myself now looking at clouds with an altogether different view-
point. Whereas I started to look at cloudy skies as an inconvenience,
now I find cloud formations remarkable and I came to realise no matterabout the starsI am still looking up.
So what can we look forward to?
Well, there are breath-taking dawns and fire-breathing sunsets.
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Sighing Cirrus and lonely wanderers.
There are silly monkey moons.and peek-a-boo suns.
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And dramatic storms!!!
And if you are really luck some NLCs (Noctilucent Clouds) I
have never captured those (ggrrrrrrrr) but luckily Jasmin
Evans did J.
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Online Astronomy Society
Story
The Online Astronomy Society (or OAS as its affectionately called) was
formed some 5 years ago. Founded by Alastair Leith, who saw a niche
for an organisation to take advantage of online facilities and network-ing. While the OAS is by no means the first online astronomy organisa-
tion to have formed in this way (HantsAstro has that flag), the OAS we
believe has pushed back the boundaries of how the internet can be
used to network with astronomers from all over the world.
The beginnings
The society itself began life in 2009, the idea conceived from a council
bedsit in Northampton, where I had no safe backyard to observe from
and could not guarantee the safety of the kit if it were used in public.
Politics meant I left other organisations I was member of and physicallyattended. However it did get me to think about what was there for peo-
ple who were stuck in high rise blocks of flats, or indeed disabled.
The actual name, The Online Astronomy Society came from a discus-
sion with a friend, Matthew Lane, who was fellow member of Nene Val-
ley Astronomy Society. Not able to think of a more appropriate one thename stuck.
It began its life as a single group on Facebook, Called simply the Online
Astronomy Society Group, from which relationships were forged and
projects began.
Robotic Astronomy
One of the first projects we looked at was networking with a Robotic
Telescope project as a means of permitting members to carry out ob-
servational astronomy via their desktop computer. Something which
even I could not argue beats actually getting out there, but its better
than nothing. We had some success with various organisations however
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Streaming Oberservational Astronomy
One of the things which has to a degree replaced Robotic Astronomy is
the activities on the Online Astronomy Society group itself. The forum
provides a fantastic means about which amateur astronomers can sub-
mit their work for perusal live as they are doing it. Indeed its nice to seeas people from all across the nation, sometimes even including Europe
submit their observations and work live as they are doing it. Almost kind
of like a virtual start party. Personally as director of OAS, I have always
found this to be one of the most rewarding aspects of the group.
I try to compliment and encourage people to stream their live images as
they are recording, live for others to see. I have achieved this for Sat-
urn, the Sun, along with a few other objects. Even using the opportunityto record for OASA, thats another story!
Online Forums
We have built these, however as much of the recruitment for the society
has been on Facebook, there has been less interest in the Forums as
such. In fact trying to migrate across on more than one occasion nearly
broke the group as a whole, a lot of members were hence lost.
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Subgroups
I dont think its possible to write an articleon the OAS without mentioning the pleth-
ora of affiliate groups we now have, last
count, ten in total. The main reason for
these is that the OAS main group hasgrown too large to host the astronomy that
it hosts. Members posts getting lost easily
bumped down and lost. So for the online
Astronomy Society to progress it becamenecessary to start sub-groups of which we
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Now have.
Online Astronomy Society Group (main one, numbering some 3600members and growing!)
OAS Visual Astronomers Group (moderated and run by Michael
Nicholls)
This largely deals with sketches as opposed to imaging.
OAS- Solar Observational and Imaging Group (Run again by Michael
Nicholls)
Pretty much as it says on the tin any-thing to do with solar work in
general Solar telescopes have become very affordable in recent years
and the quality of the work has increased ex-potentially with it. OAS LunarGroup
Our newest group, started at the request of Robert Pickard. I was scepti-
cal at first regarding this group, but have been pleased by its progress,
finding I am learning more about the Moon than I thought possible!
OAS Asteroid Hunters Group (Run by Pete Gow)
This group was begun at the suggestion of Ryan Laird (UKSEDS) who
notified me that it was possible to be included in a project searching forasteroids. This has only been going in the past year but has now 5 provi-
sional asteroids discovered, not bad. We should add here that the aster-
oids are found using images sent from Panstarrs.
OAS Spectroscopy Group
This group was setup to cater for the growing interest in spectroscopy, a
favourite of my own as well when I get back into it (hopefully this win-ter). Spectroscopy has become a major player in recent years for ama-
teur astronomy, with the availability of cheaper equipment.
OAS Beginners group
As the name suggests, setup to aid and assist beginners.
Its a sign of the times that I now need to refer back to Facebook to be
reminded of other groups we have which include
OAS Radio Astronomy Group (run by Pete Gow)
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This is getting a steady following going and a few projects in the making
for looking at Radio Astronomy. Something I think still remains with thetruly nerdy and needs to be bought into laymans realms a little. This is
something we are working on. We have a mixture of professional andamateur astronomers who contribute to this.
OAS Astronomy Shed
This is where the DIY enthusiasts come to discuss their recent projects.
There are other groups and various pages which I wont mention here as
They are for other ventures and staff discussion (this article is not in-
tended to be a plug for our other ventures)
The OAS Word
In recent years this mag has had a start stop history. It used to be
edited by Andrew Dumbleton who did a fantastic job, until he stepped
down late last year (after 2.5 years writing it). Due to politics (I wont go
into here) the magazine needed to be stopped. But I am happy to say
the magazine is now back up and running with its third release being
compiled (at the time of writing at least).
The magazine has a modest global circulation which we look to expand.
So with all the above where is the Online Astronomy Society now?
The Online Astronomy Society continues to grow at an astonishing rate.
We only celebrated accepting our 3000 member just earlier in August
2013, but now astonishingly its heading (at the time of writing) rapidly
towards its 4000th member, making it possibly one of the largest and
most proactive organisations of its type at least on Facebook.
I have to say, I have no idea to this day where these are coming from,but its nice to see.
Getting into the OAS Group is easy enough, provided we see some
evidence of astronomy on the profile page of the applicant.
We welcome people from all over the world (main influx seems to befrom the Far East and Asia). However we are bettered and improved by
those who join. I think this is part of what makes OAS special, we are a
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global organisation with a reputation for nurturing the wider community
of astronomers.
There are many organisations like OAS, but I think what separates us
apart from the masses are
The way in which we use the internet to market, educate and spread theword. For which Facebook has played an integral part with to a lesser
extend Twitter (we dont use Google+ much).
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The Mars Society: Humans to Mars in a Decade Part 2
By: Nicole
Willett
[Image:
The MarsSociety]
A long time ago in the Milky Way Galaxy, Chris McKay, Penelope Boston,
and Carol Stoker were on Planet Earth contemplating all things Mars.
These three scientists, graduate students at the University of Colorado,
decided to form a group called the Mars Underground and hold annual
meetings to explore the science behind putting humans on Mars. One
day, Robert Zubrin, an aerospace engineer, attended a meeting of the
Mars Underground and was inspired to start the Mars Society. In 1998the Mars Society was officially formed as a non-profit organization whose
goals include the human exploration and settlement of Mars.
The thought of one day standing on the Red Planet and looking out over
the landscape may be beyond the imagination of some, but not to the
members and friends of the Mars Society. We at the Mars Society believe
that it takes a village, and we are utilizing that concept to send hu-
mans to the Red Planet. As an entirely volunteer organization, we have
accomplished many great things since our inception.
The goal is simple explore and send humans to Mars.
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The Journey to Mars
The planet Mars has been studied and portrayed in artistic endeavors forhundreds, if not thousands of years. The road to the Red Planet has
been long and interesting. It has taken many people collaborating over
the past 100 years or so to collect enough data to design and accomplish
Mars missions.
The first real steps toward Mars began in 1903. On December 17th, Or-
ville and Wilbur Wright took a biplane made of muslin and spruce out to
a field in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. The brothers accomplished the firsthuman airplane flight, changing life on Earth as we knew it. Since that
time, technology has moved at an exponential pace. For instance, by the
time World War I broke out in 1914, there was already aerial warfare,
and by World War II, Germany had built the Me-262 jets, which first saw
combat in 1944. Quickly thereafter Sputnik 1, the first artificial satellite,
was successfully launched in 1957. This was soon followed by Luna 1 in
1959, which was the first spacecraft to fly by the Moon.
Next on the spaceflight agenda was Mars. In 1964, the spacecraft Mari-
ner 4 was the first to fly-by and photograph the surface of Mars. Al-
though the pictures were black and white and not impressive to the un-trained eye, they were a major accomplishment for the United States.
Mariner 4 was followed by Mariner 6 and 7, both flybys in 1969. This co-
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incided with and was clearly overshadowed by the Apollo 11 Moon land-
ing that same year. Mariner 9 was the first orbiter to successfully arriveat Mars in 1971. Since the 1970s, there have been many successes
and many failures with spacecraft seeking to explore Mars.
Some of the most notable missions were the Viking 1 and 2 landers
(1975-6), the Mars Pathfinder-Sojourner Rover (1997), the Mars
Exploration Rovers Spirit
(2004-2010) and Opportunity (2004-still operational), the Phoenix Lander (2008),and most recently and most impressivelythe Curiosity Rover (Aug 5, 2012).
Image: NASA
The spacecraft listed above have carriedmany scientific instruments includingspectrometers, rock abrasion tools,
cameras, chemistry labs, a drill and evena laser. Together the orbiters, landers,and rovers have made many wonderfuland exciting discoveries that have addedto our understanding of the solar systemby sampling the soil, the atmosphere, andthe mineral content of Martian rocks. Theyhave discovered the first meteorite on an-other planet that water existed on thesurface of Mars and in the soil, that theinside of the rocks on Mars are grey (notred!), and that there are simple organic
molecules inside the rocks on Mars. Otherfindings include carbon dioxide (CO2)snow, mysterious globules that shrink andgrow near the legs of the Phoenix Lander,interesting geological outcroppings, sea-sonal fluctuations of methane (due to
biological or geological activity),
unequivocal evidence of past (and possi-bly current) water on the Martian surface,as well as many other discoveries. This isjust a tiny sample of what has been dis-covered on the Red Planet in recentyears. With the Curiosity Rover, armedwith more scientific instruments than anyrover or lander that has visited Mars todate, we hope to discover much more.
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Basic Mars Facts
The planet Mars was named after theGod of War from Roman mythol-ogy.
It is the 4th planet from the Sun, alsoknown as the Red Planet.]
Mars has what is known as a superiororbit, meaning that it orbits theSun outside of the orbit of Earth.
Orbit Order: SunMercuryVenusEarthMarsJupiter SaturnUranusNeptune.
Mars orbits the Sun at an average dis-tance of 1.5 Astronomical Units (1 AU is
the distance from the Sun to the Earth).Mars is regarded as the 2nd most hos-
pitable planet for the appearance oflife, after Earth.
Mars is about half the size of Earth,but if you add up the land mass onEarth it is roughly equivalent to thelandmass on Mars.
A year on Mars is 687 Earth days.
A day on Mars is 24 hours and 37minutes, compared to a day onEarth, which is 24 hours.
The axial tilt on Mars is 24o, whichgives Mars seasons similar to thoseon Earth, whose axial tilt is 23.5o.
Mars surface gravity is 1/3 of Earths.
The temperatures on the Martian sur-face range from -87oC to 20oC. On
the warmest summer day at theequator, it is room temperature.
The Moons of Mars
Mars has two satellites (moons)
named Phobos and Deimos.
The moons are oddly shaped and
look like potatoes!
They are much smaller than
Earths moon.
Phobos and Deimos orbit Mars
very quickly and are much closer
to
MaMajor Geographical Fea-tures of Mars
Valles Marineris A 3,000 mile
long Grand Canyon that looks
like a giant crack on the surface
of Mars.
Olympus Mons The largest vol-
cano on Mars and in the solar
system, three times as high asMt. Everest and covering an area
the size of Texas!
Mars has thousands of craters
covering its surface, ranging inage from billions of years old to
others that are much more re-
cent.
Water and weather on MarsTelescopic observations fromEarth have seen what appear to
be channels on Mars for many years.
Many orbiting spacecraft have confirmed these sightings with imagestaken of dry river channels on the Martian surface.
The landers and rovers on Mars have taken measurements, soil sam-ples and images that have led to an overwhelming amount of data
that suggests water existed on the surface of Mars, is there now in
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frozen form, and occasionally briefly
runs across the surface when the con-ditions are just right.
Mars has North and South Poles that
are covered in ice caps. The ice caps,
which grow and recede through theseasons, are made of H2O and CO2.
Mars has Earth-like weather systems,
including clouds, wind, dust stormsand even snow!
rs than the Moon is to the Earth.
The satellites are visible through some
larger telescopes on Earth.
Moon is to the Earth.
The satellites are visible through some
larger telescopes on Earth.
All of these wonderful facts implore us
to learn even more about Mars. That
glowing red beacon in the sky
calls us to her. Mars, beautiful and
majestic, lures us in. For those whoare more Martian than Earthling, we
understand -- that is one of the rea-sons why The Mars Society was
formed.
Mars's atmosphere is only 1
percent as thick as Earth's.Image credit: NASA
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Perseid Me20
Last month, August was the annual Perseid meteor sho
month we are going to share with you some personally
of observing this wonderful cosmic show.
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eor Shower13
er. This
xperiences
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The 2013 Perseid Meteor Shower
By: Robert Pickard
Meteor showers. They encourage people of all ages to look up and
watch shooting stars streak across the sky. The notable showers of the
year are the Quatranids, Perseids, Leonids, Orionids, and Geminids. The
Perseids and Geminids in particular are the best of the year by far, pro-
ducing 70-100 (or more) per hour!!!! This year the Perseids put on alovely show, with a waxing crescent moon that sets hours before the
peak. The shower more than doubled my count from last years shower
astonishingly..
I planned the meteor count in advance, and expecting a lot of meteors, I
used the tally method to quickly log any meteor as a line (tally). The
weather wasnt looking good days before the 11
th
, partly cloudy with a40% chance of showers. And I was expecting clouds and a turbulent at-mosphere. Sunset arrived, and it was cloudy, but I managed to catch
Iridium 72 (magnitude -1.5) in the clouds, I took a break and waited till
moonset at 10:30 to start the daring all night meteor count, (It was
crystal clear, and a stable atmosphere all night) The count started at
10:38, and stayed steady with about 2 meteors every 10 minutes, withmore or less. 50 minutes in, 20 Perseids were seen. After a 45 minute
drought of 0 meteors, at 11:54PM, 5 meteors flew by in less than 20
seconds apart!!!! At 12:05-12:10AM, the average was three per min-ute!!! The count reached 50 at 12:20AM, as the meteors came visible
closer to the radiant.
At 1:28, my record of 86 Perseids from last year, was tied, ten seconds
later, the record was broken. The number reached 100 at 1:49AM, therate picked up significantly after!!
At 3:10 it reached 145, after that, I lost count as the rate picked up to a
climax. Around 3:20 to 3:30AM, was the peak of the 2013 Perseids,
starting with 5 bright meteors in 10 seconds, then 45 more just started
flying everywhere, one here, one there, Perseids are everywhere!! Therate slowed to a crawl, and I recorded the last perseid at 5:13.. as I
looked through images from 4:00-5:00, I didnt get a single perseidthis will be a memory ill remember forever.. as my total perseid count
was 192 on the 11/12th!!
My grand total was 231 Perseids over a three day span!! Now lets get
ready for the Geminids!!!
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Perseid Meteor Radio Detection.
The Sherwood observatory is known
for its reflecting 24inch optical tele-
scope built by dedicated members atthe observatory. Radio astronomy isalso evolving.
I joined this astronomical societysoon after the hale bob comet encoun-
ter.
I under took several Radio astronomi-
cal courses at Jodrell Bank ManchesterUniversity soon after joining. This was
to broaden my knowledge in the astro-
nomical field.
I learnt that radio meteor detections
could be possible given the correctsetup using a radio receiver, antenna
and dedicated computer software to
record the meteoroids events as theypass through our Earth atmosphere. A
compressed explanation follows.
A suitable radio transmitter has to be
chosen that is located below the radio
receiving observers horizon and is
emitting within 40MHz and 110MHz
frequency. The transmitters signal is
reflected 90Km above the Earth where
(RF) energy off ionised layers is pro-
duced by the meteor trails. Distance
between the meteor receiver station
and transmitter is a factor where
approx 800 to 1600km is acceptable.
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A lot of analogue transmitters have
been phased out due to going digital.
After meticulous research I found the
Brams transmitter an ideal
candidate located in Belgium,
Left: M.Knowles below installed
antenna
.
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After thorough research I chose a 5 element yagi antenna to attain the
desired radio beam width and gain capabilities. An AOR 5000 receiver isused to enable capture of the radio meteor reflections using FM, USB,
LSB, and CW. The receiver cable leads are connected to a computer orlap top running dedicated software (spectrum lab) that decodes and
displays radio meteor images giving Meteor counts, Doppler shift,
Disintegration traces, Velocity, and Directional data. Given a good
received signal the reflected ionisation of a meteor trail the computer
sound card emits a varying pitched Doppler ping. This depends on the
meteors direction of travel in relation to the radio antenna. The PC
sound card takes audio output from the receiver.
Laptop, Speakersystem and AOR
5000 radio receiver
setup.
Below Captured radio meteor images
14/08/2013.
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The meteor radio signature traces are influenced by:
1. Velocity differences of high altitude atmospheric winds.
2. Mass composition of the meteoroid.The position of the receiver and transmitter affects the illumination angle
change of the plasma trail formed by the meteoroid. This governs the
received transmitter meteor radio signal.All these factors result in the radio shape trace and duration of
plasma trails.
Thanks to Andy Smith-G7IZU. for meteor setup config
support.
Sherwood Observatory members.
Roger Banks-GW4WND. PowaBeam Anttena DX shop.
Michael Knowles-2E0EVA.
Sherwood Observatory, Nottinghamshire.
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Petition for the Open University to offer MSc in
Astronomy/Astrophysics
With all the recent changes to higher education funding, times are pretty tough with
some very uncertain futures for most upcoming science graduates, there is cur-
rently a massive Postgraduate Gap; the number of postgraduates, especially in the
sciences, is dwindling with a quickly increasing average age of academics in the UK.The value of higher education is something that can be clearly visualised and seen;
every science and engineering graduate brings back ~1 million in their lifetime.
The demand for such graduates is bound to increase with every decade thanks to
advancements in technology, and this is where the postgraduate gap slots into the
giant puzzle, there is no funding for postgraduate Masters degree programmes
unless you were enrolled on one as an undergraduate or received a bursary/
scholarship. Not only is it expensive, but if you have work commitments/family
commitments/health problems, then doing one full-time becomes essentially an
impossible task, thats not even taking into account commuting/living costs if the
University is not nearby.
The Open University however with its years of experience in part-time distance
learning might be a solution, hence why Im petitioning the OU to construct a
Masters of Science degree scheme in Astronomy/Astrophysics, a subject that the
OU also has had many years of experience lecturing and teaching. Not only that,
but it has quite a few excellent tools in order to perform observations remotely from
your own home!
The OUs robotic telescope, known as PIRATE (Physics Innovations Robotic Astro-
nomical Telescope Explorer), is based in Majorca, Spain and presents an excellent
remote interface for communicating with the dome, instruments and telescope it-
self. There is a planned robotic radio telescope being calibrated and fitted at the
moment with the OU, there will even be eventual access to the public thanks to the
new Open Science programme.
The OU is therefore a perfect and ideal remedy for helping to broaden access to
physics and astronomy whilst solving the gap in postgraduates; the courses arecheaper, there are no additional living costs/hassle of moving away (again), latest
technology, can do it in your own time (earn while you learn) and you receive
plentiful amounts of support as an OU student.
So if you value education and giving prosperity to the future minds of Astronomy
and Physics, please support the petition for the Open University to Construct an
MSc in Astronomy/Astrophysics.
Lawrence Bilton
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Brown Dwarfs The Forgotten Stars of the Show
By Mark Woodland FRAS
Brown dwarfs are quite often overshadowed by their much more luminous co-stars
in the astronomical world. They lie quietly in the darkness of space, mostly unseen
and nearly always forgotten about..until now.
It was not until I read a recent article in a well-known popular science magazine,
that I truly started to appreciate the wonder of brown dwarfs. They are a potential
missing link as I will explain later.
Brown dwarfs are normally thought of as the corpses of low mass stars. They have
sluffed off their outer layers and have all but exhausted their fusible material. They
burn so dimly that they were not discovered from Earth until Gliese 229b was dis-
covered.
Brown dwarfs have an amazing array of morphologies, they are generally 13 to 75times Jupiters size, and still maintain fusion of hydrogen as their power source.
They range in temperature from 2100oc all the way down to a very surprising 27oc.
The temperature of a Mediterranean holiday resort, in summer. You could theoreti-
cally therefore walk (reasonably comfortably) on its surface, if you ignored all the
other factors such as Iron rain and clouds made of silicon. Yes thats right, brown
dwarfs have weather. This links back to my comment about the missing link. Brown
dwarfs are stars (as they are still fusing material) but have weather, like gas giant
planets. In the very lowest temperature examples, there could be water vapour in
the atmosphere. Scientists who have been studying these odd objects have found
elements including methane in the atmospheres.
Are brown dwarfs really brown? The answer is a resounding no. If you could observe
one close up, it would appear a very dark orange. They were named brown to distin-
guish them from all other stellar objects (they actually started out as black stars, but
this was changed some years later).
So, when you hear talk of brown dwarfs,
spare a moment to think about how oddthese lesser known objects are, and that,
there could be very strange forms of life
originating in their dim orange glow.
Follow me on Twitter @mw5868 for more
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www.solarviews.com/raw/ds/gliese229.jpg
http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://www.solarviews.com/raw/ds/gliese229.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.solarviews.com/cap/ds/gliese229.htm&h=225&w=225&sz=1&tbnid=jcZJrJVE-POo3M:&tbnh=160&tbnw=160&zoom=1&usg=__HW8YUY90sgP-oMoAnXXzbk69oH4=&docid=cBJ-dOpYfI6Zhttp://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://www.solarviews.com/raw/ds/gliese229.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.solarviews.com/cap/ds/gliese229.htm&h=225&w=225&sz=1&tbnid=jcZJrJVE-POo3M:&tbnh=160&tbnw=160&zoom=1&usg=__HW8YUY90sgP-oMoAnXXzbk69oH4=&docid=cBJ-dOpYfI6Zhttp://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://www.solarviews.com/raw/ds/gliese229.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.solarviews.com/cap/ds/gliese229.htm&h=225&w=225&sz=1&tbnid=jcZJrJVE-POo3M:&tbnh=160&tbnw=160&zoom=1&usg=__HW8YUY90sgP-oMoAnXXzbk69oH4=&docid=cBJ-dOpYfI6Zhttp://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://www.solarviews.com/raw/ds/gliese229.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.solarviews.com/cap/ds/gliese229.htm&h=225&w=225&sz=1&tbnid=jcZJrJVE-POo3M:&tbnh=160&tbnw=160&zoom=1&usg=__HW8YUY90sgP-oMoAnXXzbk69oH4=&docid=cBJ-dOpYfI6Z -
7/30/2019 OAS Astronomy Ezine Sept 2013
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OAS EZINE
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7/30/2019 OAS Astronomy Ezine Sept 2013
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36This month, keep an eye out for a wonderful conjunction between the Moon and Venus in
the constellation of Virgo on the 8th. Saturn will be just above, and Spica just below. During
early September, Venus will be approximately 10 degrees above the horizon just after sun-
set.
Keep an eye out for the Aurigid meteors between August 28th and September 5th, at an ex-
pected rate of 6meteors/hr.
Mars will be passing through the Beehive Cluster (M44) on September 8th & 9th, making forgreat photo opportunities.
On the 28th the Moon will pass around 5 degrees south of Jupiter, so another possible photo
opportunity.
Clear skies, and happy viewing!