san diego astronomy association - sdaa

San DiegoAstronomy AssociationCelebrating Over 40 Years of Astronomical Outreach

Observatory (619) 766-9118http://www.sdaa.org

A Non-Profit Educational AssociationP.O. Box 23215, San Diego, CA 92193-3215

December 2012

SDAA Business MeetingNext meeting will be held at:3838 Camino del Rio North

Suite 300San Diego, CA 92108

December 11th at 7pmNext Program Meeting

January 26, 2013 at 7pmAnnual Banquet

Handlery Hotel & Resort

CONTENTSDecember 2012, Vol XLX, Issue 12Published Monthly by the San Diego Astronomy Association$2.50 an issue/$30.00 yearIncorporated in California in 1963NGC 5010. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1November Minutes.........................2A n n u a l B a n q u e t . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4December Calendar............................5SDAA Contac t s. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6ASIG Galler y. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7We b O n l y - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -It Takes More Than Warm Porridge to Make a Goldilocks Zone.......................9Disk Galaxies............................................10

Newsletter DeadlineThe deadline to submit articles

for publication is the15th of each month.

The NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope has captured a beautiful galaxy that, with its reddish and yellow central area, looks rather like an explosion from a Hollywood movie. The galaxy, called NGC 5010, is in a period of transition. The aging galaxy is moving on from life as a spiral galaxy, like our Milky Way, to an older, less defined type called an elliptical galaxy. In this in-between phase, astronomers refer to NGC 5010 as a lenticular galaxy, which has features of both spirals and ellipticals.

NGC 5010 is located around 140 million light-years away in the constellation of Virgo (The Virgin). The galaxy is oriented sideways to us, allowing Hubble to peer into it and show the dark, dusty, remnant bands of spiral arms. NGC 5010 has notably started to develop a big bulge in its disk as it takes on a more rounded shape.

Most of the stars in NGC 5010 are red and elderly. The galaxy no longer contains all that many of the fast-lived blue stars common in younger galaxies that still actively produce new populations of stars.

Much of the dusty and gaseous fuel needed to create fresh stars has already been used up in NGC 5010. Over time, the galaxy will grow progressively more “red and dead,” as astronomers describe elliptical galaxies.

Hubble’s Advanced Camera for Surveys snapped this image in violet and infrared light. Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA

NGC 5010

http://www.sdaa.org

San Diego Astronomy Association

SAN DIEGO ASTRONOMY ASSOCIATION NEWS AND NOTES, DECEMBER 2012

SDAA Board of Directors Monthly Business Meeting Minutes

November 13, 2012-Unapproved and Subject to Revision

1. Call to order. The meeting was called to order at 7pm with the following board members in attendance: Bill Carlson, Vice President; Ed Rumsey, Treasurer; Jeff Herman, Corresponding Secretary; Brian McFarland, Recording Secretary; Kin Searcy, Director; Paul “Moose” Pountney, Director; David Woods, Director. Member in attendance – Bill Musbach.

2. Approval of Last Meeting Minutes. Approved.

3. Priority / Member Business. 4. Standard Reports.

Treasurer’s Report. • The report is approved.• The Bill Lucas endowment check went out.

Membership Report. • Current membership is 514 members• Dr. Paul Etzel was granted a lifetime membership to the club for his many years of support to the SDAA and to the science of astronomy.

Site Maintenance Report. Bill and Noah Quackenbush replaced the overhead light switch and repaired the light over the sink in the men’s room on BBQ day.

Observatory Report. The new mirrors are installed and closely collimated. The secondary support structure is not sufficient to achieve perfection, so some rework will be done this winter.

Private Pad Report . • We currently have 3 pads available and 1 person on the waiting list. I expect that Pad 16 will probably be returned to the club in February.• I’m working on cleaning up the records for approved structures on the Private Pads. So far I have 2 of the 3 and am working on the 3rd. Updating the Private Pad Sharer’s list will be my next task.

Program Report. Brian Hart is scheduled to speak at the February 2013 Program Meeting.

Outreach Committee Report. Kin will update the Google calendar.

AISIG Report. Mike Johnson donated a modified Canon DSLR to the AISIG Group.

Governing Documents. Bill Carlson has them and needs to turn them back into the club before his departure to Seattle.

NASA/Roboscope. Dave Wood will take over the roboscope. The following proposal was presented for Board consideration and comment:

The board would publish in the newsletter and on the AISIG and SDAA Yahoo group a request for proposal for a group of SDAA members (or a member) to take over the roboscope dome for their remote imaging use. The following provisions would apply:



1. Equipment. The existing dome, telescope, and mount can be used or replaced by the roboscope group. The existing camera and software will be kept by the club for use on the Lipp. The board will consider proposals for a larger dome. 2. Pad. The pad will be retained by the club, since it is the club’s network center. That is, the pad will not become a private pad for the roboscope group. Hence, there will be no private pad lease fees. 3. Utilities. The group will pay a reasonable amount for electricity as determined by the board. The group may use the onsite network at TDS for remote access. Transfer of image files should be done between midnight and 6am. 4. Responsibility. The roboscope group will be responsible for the dome and equipment. SDAA will not pay for the purchase or maintenance of the equipment or software. 5. There needs to be a termination date for any proposed project. 6. Other provisions (none at this time). 7. The board retains the right to add other provisions in the future.

The Board voted on and passed this proposal.

TDS Network. Dave Wood will take over as network administrator. Michael Vander Vorst will be backup administrator.

Newsletter Report. No report.

Website. • The banquet reservation form is now up on the website • Fixed a problem with the return to the SDAA site after membership renewal at Paypal. On return to the SDAA site, the user received an error message like: “HTTP Error 405 - The HTTP verb used to access this page is not allowed.” The reason for this turned out to be that Paypal is trying to post the return page on the s SDAA site and the site does not allow that with an html page, or even with a php page, which works on most sites. However changing the page extension to .aspx solved the problem. • Removed Bob Austin and Jerry Hilburn from contact pages and email forwarding. • Added Dave Decker as East County coordinator.

Note. Jeff also linked Mike Chasin’s weather station at SDAA.org web page. The SDAA weather station is currently down.

Merchandise Report. Some of the proceeds from recent merchandise sales went missing as a result of the scramble to get out of the site during the fire. The merchandise chair will personally cover.

Site Master Plan. No Report.

Safety Documents. No Report. 5. Old Business. • We have had no luck in finding a volunteer to take the Vice President position. Jerry Hilburn graciously volunteered to assist with the program meetings until a Vice President can be nominated. • Call for any other Old Business - none

6. New Business. • Pad Lease– see Priority/Member Business report. • Call for other new business – none.

7. Adjournment. 7:50 pm.



You are cordially invited to The San Diego Astronomy Association’s

Annual Banquet On

Saturday, January 26, 2013, 5:30 – 11:00 pm Handlery Hotel & Resort- 950 Hotel Circle North, San Diego, CA 92108

____________________________________________________________

Speaker: Dr. William Welsh, Associate Professor of Astronomy at San Diego State University will present on the Kepler Mission. His role is to carry out detailed modeling of the short-period planets that Kepler discovers in order to very accurately measure the physical characteristics of the planets and stars, including variations in the times of transits that would indicate the presence of an unseen second planet or moon.

Cocktail hour is from 5:30 to 6:45 and dinner 7:00.

Menu

Choice of Entrees:

Steak Chicken Vegetarian

SDAA Banquet Order Form Use this form or order online at http://sdaa.org/banquet.htm

Name______________________________________________________ Address____________________________________________________ City, State, Zip______________________________________________ Telephone__________________________________________________ Email______________________________________________________ Dinner Selections (Enter number of each)Steak____ Chicken ____ Vegetarian ____ Check here if requiring

sugar free dessert____Number Attending ____ @ $45 each Total Payment included $ _________

*Make checks payable to SDAA Orders must be received no later than 01/22/2012NO TICKETS WILL BE SOLD AT THE DOOR

Mail to:San Diego Astronomy AssociationP.O. Box 23215San Diego, CA 92193-3215



December 2012 Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday

1

2

3

4 Albert Einstein

Academies

5 Stars in the Park

6 Johnson STEM Magnet School

7

8

9

10

Doyle Elementary

11 SDAA Business

Meeting

12 Johnson STEM Magnet School Mountain view /Beckwourth Branch Library

13 New Moon

14 Stars at Mission

Trails

15

16

17

18 Rowan

Elementary

19

20

21 No Stars @

Sycamore Canyon

22

23

24

25

26

27

28 Full Moon

29

30 1

2

3 Stars in the Park

4

5

6



SDAA ContactsClub Officers and Directors

President Michael Vander Vorst [email protected] (858) 755-5846Vice-President Bill Carlson [email protected] (425) 736-8485Recording Secretary Brian McFarland [email protected] (619) 462-4483Treasurer Ed Rumsey [email protected] (858) 722-3846Corresponding Secretary Jeff Herman [email protected] (619) 846-4898Director Alpha Dave Wood [email protected] (858) 735-8808 Director Beta Paul “Moose” Pountney [email protected] (619) 201-5311Director Gamma Michael Finch [email protected] (760) 440-9650Director Delta Kin Searcy [email protected] (858) 586-0974

CommitteesSite Maintenance Bill Quackenbush [email protected] (858) 395-1007Observatory Director Jim Traweek [email protected] (619) 207-7542Private Pads Mark Smith [email protected] (858) 484-0540Outreach Kin Searcy [email protected] (858) 586-0974N. County Star Parties Doug McFarland [email protected] (760) 583-5436S. County Star Parties Benjamin Flores [email protected] (619) 885-1291E. County Star Parties Dave Decker [email protected] (619) 972-1003Central County Star Parties Kin Searcy [email protected] (858) 586-0974Camp with the Stars Doug McFarland [email protected] (760) 583-5436K.Q. Ranch Coordinator Michael Vander Vorst [email protected] (858) 755-5846Newsletter Andrea Kuhl [email protected] (858) 547-9887New Member Mentor Michael Vander Vorst [email protected] (858) 755-5846Webmaster Jeff Stevens [email protected] (858) 566-2261AISIG Kin Searcy [email protected] (858) 586-0974Site Acquisition -Vacant- [email protected] Field Trips Bill Carlson [email protected] (425) 736-8485Grants/Fund Raising -Vacant- [email protected] Merchandising Paul “Moose” Pountney [email protected] (619)-201-5311 Publicity -Vacant- [email protected] Roboscope Director -Vacant- [email protected] Governing Documents TBATDS Network Bill Carlson [email protected] (425) 736-8485Amateur Telescope Making Peter De Baan [email protected] (760) 745-0925

Have a great new piece of gear? Read an astronomy-related book that you think others should know about? How about a photograph of an SDAA Member in action? Or are you simply tired of seeing these Boxes in the Newsletter rather than something, well, interesting?

Join the campaign to rid the Newsletter of little boxes by sharing them with the membership. In return for your efforts, you will get your very own by line or pho-tograph credit in addition to the undying gratitude of the Newsletter Editor. Just send your article or picture to [email protected].

SDAA Editorial StaffEditor - Andrea [email protected]

Assistant Editor: Rick ImbraContributing Writers

Diane K. Fisher Trudy E. Bell

mailto:[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]=2


[email protected]

mailto:// [email protected]





AISIG Gallery

Jim Thommes imaged M74 from Blair Valley with an SBIG CCD STT8300M through a Celestron C8 SCT on a Losmandy GL11 mount. M74 is a face-on galaxy in Pisces in that is 40 million light years distant. It is relatively faint for visual observers but a model example of a spiral galaxy with clearly defined spiral arms.

http://aisig.sdaa.org/



MEMBERSHIP INFORMATIONSend dues and renewals to P.O. Box 23215, San Diego, CA 92193-3215. Include any renewal cards from Sky & Telescope or Astronomy magazine in which you wish to continue your subscription. The expiration date shown on your newsletter’s mailing label is the only notice that your membership in SDAA will expire. Dues are $60 for Contributing Memberships; $35 for Basic Membership; $60.00 for Private Pads; $5 for each Family membership. In addition to the club dues the annual rates for maga-zines available at the club discount are: Sky & Telescope $32.95 and Astronomy $34. Make checks payable to S.D. Astronomy Assn. PLEASE DO NOT send renewals directly to Sky Publishing. They return them to us for processing.

Greg Santos imaged the Helix Nebula, NGC 7293, in Aquarius from Tierra Del Sol with a QSI 583 CCD through a Takahashi 130 refractor on an AstroPhysics Mach 1 GTO mount. The Helix and all “planetary nebulae” are not planets, but are masses of ionized gas released in the final stages of some star’s lives.



It Takes More Than Warm Porridge to Make a Goldilocks Zone

By Diane K. Fisher

The “Goldilocks Zone” describes the region of a solar system that is just the right distance from the star to make a cozy, comfy home for a life-supporting planet. It is a region that keeps the planet warm enough to have a liquid ocean, but not so warm that the ocean boils off into space. Obviously, Earth orbits the Sun in our solar system’s “Goldilocks Zone.” But there are other conditions besides temperature that make our part of the solar system comfortable for life. Using infrared data from the Spitzer Space Telescope, along with theoretical models and archival observations, Rebecca Martin, a NASA Sagan Fellow from the University of Colorado in Boulder, and astronomer Mario Livio of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland, have published a new study suggesting that our solar system and our place in it is special in at least one other way. This fortunate “just right” condition involves Jupiter and its effect on the asteroid belt. Many other solar systems discovered in the past decade have giant gas planets in very tight orbits around their stars. Only 19 out of 520 solar systems studied have Jupiter-like planets in orbits beyond what is known as the “snow line”—the distance from the star at which it is cool enough for water (and ammonia and methane) to condense into ice. Scientists believe our Jupiter formed a bit farther away from the Sun than it is now. Although the giant planet has moved a little closer to the Sun, it is still beyond the snow line. So why do we care where Jupiter hangs out? Well, the gravity of Jupiter, with its mass of 318 Earths, has a profound effect on ev-erything in its region, including the asteroid belt. The asteroid belt is a region between Mars and Jupiter where millions of mostly rocky objects (some water-bearing) orbit. They range in size from dwarf planet Ceres at more than 600 miles in diameter to grains of dust. In the early solar system, asteroids (along with comets) could have been partly responsible for delivering water to fill the ocean of a young Earth. They could have also brought organic molecules to Earth, from which life eventually evolved. Jupiter’s gravity keeps the asteroids pretty much in their place in the asteroid belt, and doesn’t let them accrete to form another planet. If Jupiter had moved inward through the asteroid belt toward the Sun, it would have scattered the asteroids in all directions before Earth had time to form. And no asteroid belt means no impacts on Earth, no water delivery, and maybe no life-starting molecules either. Asteroids may have also delivered such useful metals as gold, platinum, and iron to Earth’s crust. But, if Jupiter had not migrated inward at all since it formed father away from the Sun, the asteroid belt would be totally undisturbed and would be a lot more dense with asteroids than it is now. In that case, Earth would have been blasted with a lot more asteroid impacts, and life may have never had a chance to take root. The infrared data from the Spitzer Space Telescope contributes in unexpected ways in revealing and supporting new ideas and theories about our universe. Read more about this study and other Spitzer contributions at spitzer.caltech.edu. Kids can learn about infrared light and enjoy solving Spitzer image puzzles at spaceplace.nasa.gov/spitzer-slyder.

This article was provided by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Cali-fornia Institute of Technology, under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

Our solar system is represented by the middle scenario, where the gas giant planet has migrated inward, but still remains beyond the asteroid belt.



Today, the majority of local galaxies forming stars

are rotating disks, such as our own Milky Way or the

Andromeda Galaxy (M31). Disk galaxies are well or-

dered: the galaxy has a defined plane and most stars

and gas revolve in one direction around its center.

Many astronomers had thought that disk galaxies

had largely finished forming about 8 billion years ago,

as indicated by the rates at which stars are formed in

the Universe. Thus, they assumed that distant, younger

disk galaxies are not very different from nearby ones.

Spectroscopic observations of distant galaxies

taken with the 10-meter telescopes at the W. M. Keck

Observatory on Hawaii, when combined with images

from the Hubble Space Telescope plus supercomputer

simulations to interpret the observations, however,

reveal a surprise. The motions of gas inside distant

galaxies have been continuously settling down over

the last 8 billion years while galaxies slowly assume

the familiar flat disk shape of nearby galaxies.

This finding is announced in an article titled “The

Epoch of Disk Settling: z ~ 1 to Now” by Susan A.

Kassin and 13 collaborators, published in the October

20, 2012 issue of The Astrophysical Journal.

From chaos to calm

“Galaxies are like human adults,” said Kassin, a

postdoctoral fellow at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight

Center in Greenbelt, MD. “Many have had exciting

youths marked by in-

tense interactions with

other galaxies, with a

lot of growth spurts in

mass, new stars, and

heavy elements. But

chaotic growth slows

down as galaxies ma-

ture, and they become

more organized and

calmer inside.”

Because looking far

out into the depths of

space is the equivalent

of looking back in

time, the redshift z is

how astronomers

measure both age and

distance in the universe. A redshift of z = 1 corre-

sponds to about 8 billion years ago, when the universe

was about 5 billion years old. “It’s almost like a man-

tra. People say that the Hubble sequence is in place by

z = 1,” Kassin said. The Hubble sequence is a dia-

gram—originally devised by Edwin Hubble in 1926—

for classifying the visible shapes of galaxies.

Kassin and her 13 coauthors—six from the Univer-

sity of California—found the observational evidence

suggests something quite different. The internal mo-

tions of clouds of gas within galaxies back in time are

far more disordered, moving every which way rather

than neatly revolving around the centers of galaxies.

Moreover, they found that the Hubble sequence of

well-ordered disk galaxies gradually evolved from

earlier more chaotic forms over the last 8 billion years.

“It is clear the Hubble sequence was not in place at a

redshift of 1,” Kassin said.

Three keys to discovery “Sample selection can be quite insidious,” ex-

plained co-author Benjamin Weiner of the University

of Arizona. In past studies of galaxy evolution, re-

searchers typically studied only those galaxies that are

recognizably disk-shaped, excluding any that are obvi-

ously disturbed. But such shape criteria can bias the

result. In contrast, Weiner said, “we included all gal-

axies bright enough to give spectra from which the

motions inside galaxies could be measured.”

Second, past studies examined only the speed at

which the stars revolve around the centers of galaxies.

“We also measured the disordered motions of clouds

of gas in galaxies,” Kassin continued.

Third, the coauthors studied more than 500 galax-

ies, yielding good statistical correlations. The collabo-

rators also performed mock observations on computer-

simulated images of merging disk galaxies in various

stages of disorder and at various distances. “We fol-

lowed exactly the same procedures of spectral meas-

urements as with observations of real galaxies,” ex-

plained collaborator Joel R. Primack of the University

of California, Santa Cruz, “to measure the extent to

which effects such as the observed sizes of galaxies

and the blurring effects of the Earth’s atmosphere play

in the observations.” –Trudy E. Bell, M.A.

For further reading: Links to the paper in The Astro-

physical Journal and to several NASA videos appear at

http://hipacc.ucsc.edu/GalaxyDiskSettling.html .

Disk Galaxies: Settling for Beauty with Age

AstroShort

Plot shows the fractions of settled disk

galaxies in four time spans, each about 3

billion years long. There is a steady shift

toward higher percentages of settled

galaxies closer to the present time. At

any given time, the most massive galaxies

are the most settled. More distant and

less massive galaxies on average exhibit

more disorganized internal motions, with

gas moving in multiple directions, and

slower rotation speeds. Credit: NASA/

Goddard Space Flight Center

The University of California High-Performance AstroComputing Center (UC-HIPACC), based at the University of California, Santa Cruz, is a consortium of nine University of California cam-puses and three Department of Energy laboratories (Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, and Los Alamos National Laboratory). UC-HiPACC fosters collabora-tions among researchers at the various sites by offering travel and other grants, co-sponsoring conferences, and drawing attention to the world-class resources for computational astronomy within the University of California system. More information appears at http://hipacc.ucsc.edu .