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  • A Runaway Star and the Flaming Star Nebula

    IC 405 and AE Aurigae
    IC 405 and AE Aurigae

    Stardate: Saturday November 14, 2009.
    Place: Chuckwalla Bench Observing Site
    Equipment: 12.5-inch Litebox Reflector, f/5.75 Pierrre Schwaar mirror
    Sky conditions: Better than expected (clear, steady, good transparancy, but cold)

    Mojo and I try to head out to our favorite dark sky observing spot every new moon Saturday night. Usually several of our Old Town Sidewalk Astronomer friends join us, and usually there are half a dozen telescopes. But this month we were the lone astronomers.

    Mojo has been infected by the Astrophotography virus for the past 2 years. Lucky me! I plunder his images and have included many in my monthly What’s Up podcasts. It’s not easy to find good wide field images of the constellations and low/zero power images of celestial objects, and his are really gorgeous. I love Mojo’s images of the galactic “smudges” because they show what deep sky objects really look like through a modest telescope. But he also wants to image the “eye candy” objects up close and personal, and luckily he welcomes an imaging suggestion from me every now and then.

    The constellation Auriga as it appears in the November sky - center left is bright Capella
    Mojo’s Auriga – center left is bright Capella
    Rotated & annotated Auriga
    I rotated Mojo’s Auriga 120 degrees clockwise & annotated it because this is how I see it in my mind’s eye – like a house with a door

    So on this particular night, I wanted to observe one really interesting star and one really interesting deep sky object in several of the winter constellations. In Perseus, I observed Eta Persei, a spectacular gold and blue double star, and NGC 1491, a fan shaped emission nebula.

    The constellation Auriga is right next to Perseus, so I opened the good book, and by that I mean the Night Sky Observer’s Guide (NSOG) volume 1 (Autumn and Winter) to Chapter 5, Auriga the Charioteer. Under the “Interesting Stars” chapter, variable star AE Aurigae caught my attention, even thought it only garnered a rating of 3 out of 5 stars — meaning it was an “average” viewing object.

    AE Aurigae is one of the runaway stars whose proper motion can be traced back to the Orion Nebula. It is about 1500 light-years away and is an unusual O-type star with irregular light variations. It shines with the luminosity of 10,000 suns, but because of its distance is just on the edge of naked eye visability at varying magnitudes from 5.78 to 6.08. The NSOG goes on to say the star illuminates IC 405, the Flaming Star Nebula. Wow! That sounded like a very interesting object to view, despite the so-so rating. I called Mojo over to show him my project and mentioned how difficult the nearby nebula was to see visually. I could just barely see it, after trying with and without my O-lll, H-Beta and UHC filters. Only the UHC filter helped a little, and not very much. He thought it would be a challenging imaging project, and the constellation was in a great spot for astrophotography. I showed him where the object was, just next to a line of 4 stars that make up part of the front door of the “house of Auriga”, sort of where the doorbell should be. An hour of imaging later, we were both blown away the rippling waves, curling tendrils and the red color in the nebula.

    Back home the next day I did some more research on the two objects. The Spitzer Space Telescope observed the Flaming Star Nebula, an emission/reflection nebula in infrared wavelengths. Their observations show evidence of a bow shock created by the interaction between the runaway star and the nebular material. The runaway star, AE Aurigae is from the Orion association of O and B type stars. AE Aurigae and Mu Columbae were hurled out of the Orion nebula’s famous Trapezium area before the Trapezium stars were even born! Did one of the stars’ binaries go supernova and did the explosion send these stars hurtling through space in different directions? According to Jim Kaler’s Stars website the collision sent two stars out of the cluster, and the beautiful double star Iota Orionis — the brightest star in Orion’s belt — remained.

    AE Aurigae is moving north at 128k/s (80 miles per second) and is now 40 degrees north of Orion in Auriga. Mu Columbae is now 28 degrees to the south, in the constellation Columba, the Dove. That’s the constellation south of Canis Major and Lepus. Standing out under a dark sky and tracing the path from Orion to the runaway star’s location in Auriga was just mind boggling. Then I eyeballed the the path of Mu Columbae from the Orion nebula past bright Sirius down to the dog’s butt of Canis Major, and on down to Columba. Next month I’ll have to try and see the Columba runaway star.

    That was a great project for both of us! I really enjoyed observing a wild stellar object which had been studied and imaged by one of our great orbiting observatories. And Mojo enjoyed imaging an object that was practically invisible at the telescope eyepiece, but waiting for its closeup in front of his camera.

    Mojo blogs about Pinwheels, Horseheads and Flaming Stars – his projects on the same night.

  • Flying through the Leonid Storm of 1999

    s-houstonimage2

    ARIA Advanced Range Instrumentation Aircraft
    ARIA Advanced Radar Instrument Aircraft
    Jane boarding the ARIA
    Jane boarding the ARIA
    4 of the 6 IMCU team members in front of the ARIA nose
    4 of the 6 IMCU team members in front of ARIA

    November 1999: 10 days, 40 flying hours, 65 researchers and Air Force personnel, five members of the press, seven Air Force bases (four US, two UK, one Azores), 6 amateur astronomers, three aircraft, 15,251 meteors, one amazing memory. I’d like to thank Dr. Peter Jenniskens, the Leonid MAC principal investigator for inviting me to participate on this (and other) meteor missions over the past 11 years.

    I was part of a six-person team of experienced amateur astronomers/meteor observers who were invited to fly around the world for 10 days, preparing for and then counting the Leonid Meteor Storm of 1999. We traveled from Moffat Field AFB near San Francisco over the San Andreas Fault to Edwards Air Force Base in Southern California for debriefing, badging, flight practice and setting our internal clocks a week of Leonid night flights. Then we flew across the United States and the Atlantic Ocean to England. Next, over Europe and Africa to Israel, back through the great Leonid storm to the island of Terceria in the Azores on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. After a press conference, interviews and a celebratory dinner at Lajes Air Field we flew back to Patrick AFB in Florida for an end-of-mission party in Cocoa Beach, FL. Finally we crossed the US once again and flew right over Meteor Crater Arizona and back to Edwards AFB.

    The entire crew flew on three aircraft, the ARIA, a Boeing 707, Advanced Range Instrumentation Aircraft. It has a telemetry antenna dish in the nose of the aircraft and four INMARSAT communication channels for internet and voice mail uplink, plus lots of windows, some installed for this mission. The second aircraft was the FISTA, a modified NKC-135E tanker called the Flying Infrared Signature Technology Aircraft, with 20 upward-looking window ports. The third aircraft, a C-130 provided airlift support for parts and emergency repair capability for the FISTA and ARIA aircraft. They also provided a global command and control platform for mission coordination.

    Once the wheels were in the well, we headed for McGuire AFB in New Jersey to refuel for the trans-Atlantic flight. We took off at midnight from McGuire, and had a practice setup and observing run as we crossed the Atlantic. Seven hours later we landed at Mildenhall AFB near Cambridge. We counted 10 Leonids and 10 sporadics per hour during the practice run. We observed the Aurora Borealis and sprites, upward lightening strikes, thought to be induced by meteors.

    On the second night flight we flew from England to Israel. We tested and calibrated our instruments, then observed and recorded 15 – 20 Leonids per hour, after making comets and giving talks at an elementary school near Lakenheath RAF Base.

    On the third flight night we flew from Ben Gurion Airport in Israel to Lajes Air Field on Terceria Island in the Azores. This was the night we chased the Leonids and raced the sunrise. We observed the peak of the Leonid Storm of 1999 from 40,000 feet!

    My team, the IMCU (Intensified Meteor Counting Unit) used intensified CCD cameras aimed out the windows of the ARIA. Some cameras covered the horizon to 30 degrees above, and some from 30-60 degrees. The cameras were connected to video headsets. As we viewed the intensified images we captured Leonids and sporadic meteors by mouse clicks reported to counting software. We observed and counted a ZHR (Zenithal Hourly Rate) of 2300 Leonids per hour. I personally observed 2700 Leonids on storm night alone. Our total was over 15,000!

    On the fourth night from the Azores to Florida, we observed all night long again to collect data and measure the sporadic meteor count. Sprites and elves were captured by the airglow measuring camera on this night.

    The final flight took us from Florida back to Edwards Air Force Base. We all looked out the windows in the bright daylight and saw the remnant of an earlier cosmic collision – Arizona’s Meteor Crater!

    From the press:

    Astrobiologists on a NASA mission to study the Leonid meteors were in the right place at the right time to study a rare natural phenomenon — a meteor storm.

    At the peak of the storm, which occurred at 02:10 GMT, Nov. 18, 1999, the Leonid meteors were falling from the sky at a rate of 2,200 per hour. A meteor shower is classified as a storm when the rate exceeds 1,000 meteors per hour.

    Sixty researchers aboard the $1 million joint NASA-Air Force mission hollered and hugged as the Leonids barrage intensified, and the jets traced slow circular routes over the Mediterranean between North Africa and Cyprus. Individual meteors soon multiplied to a half-dozen white streaks screaming over the horizon at 40 miles per second.

    ”I’m not on Cloud 9 – I’m above it!” quipped Jane Houston of the California Meteor Society, one of several amateur astronomers on the meteor-counting team. A total of 15,251 meteors were counted during the six-hour observation period on the overnight flight from Israel to the Azores.

    Near real-time data on the number of meteors falling per hour was provided to NASA and the U.S. Air Force by a team of amateur astronomers who counted the meteors using virtual reality goggles and laptop computers. The meteor counting team was aboard the ARIA (Advanced Range Instrumentation Aircraft), one of two aircraft provided by the United States Air Force to support this mission. The data was sent from the ARIA, an EC-18 aircraft, to the ground via the TDRS satellite system. NASA and the Air Force are joint sponsors of the 1999 Leonid Multi-instrument Airborne Campaign.

    Leonid Multi-Instrument Aircraft Campaign team, 1998-2002 (I’m bottom row, third from left)

    Leonid memories 1998-2002

    Jane Houston’s Leonid 1999 diary

  • Dorothea Klumpke, airborne Leonid pioneer

    Dorothea Klumpke
    Dorothea Klumpke

    As I prepare a blog down memory lane, recalling my own airborne observations of the 1999 Leonid Storm, I wanted to share the adventures of the first woman airborne Leonid pioneer, Dorothea Klumpke.

    Over one hundred years ago, American born astronomer Dorothea Klumpke flew through the Leonids in a balloon. She was the first women to observe a Leonid meteor shower from above the earth. Below are excerpts from published reports about her adventure. I hope her deeds inspire you to step outside in the mornings of November 17th and 18th and observe the Leonid meteor shower this year.

    Exactly a century before the Leonid Storm of 1999, European scientists made plans to launch balloons to observe the Leonid meteor show of mid-November 1899. “I do not know what good fairy overheard my wish to take a trip in the blue sky.” Dorothea Klumpke wrote of her voyage in the balloon, La Centaure. “My surprise was great when I learned the French Society of Aerial Navigation had chosen me for the astronomical expedition of the Leonids. After reflection I accepted the unexpected invitation. I had the great mysterious and alluring anticipation of an ascent in a balloon.”

    The Leonids of 1799, 1833, and 1866 were magnificent and were confidently predicted to fill the skies with shooting stars once again in 1899. But these predictions fell far short of reality. By 1:00 a.m. on November 16th, as Klumpke waited to go aloft in La Centaure, she already knew of the disappointing reports from a flight on the previous night. Undaunted that the Leonids had failed to appear, she resolved to go ahead with her planned program.

    The balloon La Centaure, bathed in the light of the full Moon, rose over Paris into a bitter wind a few minutes before 1:00 a.m. on November 16, 1899.

    They tossed off the ballast sacks and soon the pilot, a secretary and Klumpke ascended to a height of more than 1600 feet and drifted westward over Normandy towards the English Channel. The sky was clear and pure, and despite the light of a nearly full Moon, fifth magnitude stars were visible. They saw 30 meteors during five hours of observing, of which half were Leonids. Seven hours after launch La Centaure made a dawn landing near a small coastal village. Dorothea wrote that all three occupants were “inwardly enriched a thousandfold by the wonderful experiences of the past night.”

    The seven hour flight was a scientific disappointment: only 15 Leonids were observed. But it was a great milestone for women in science. At age 38 Klumpke had become the first woman to make astronomical observations above the earth’s surface, augmenting an illustrious career that would continue well into the 20th century.

    In the late 1930’s Dorothea Klumpke Roberts endowed the Astronomical Society of the Pacific with a gift of $2,000 in honor of her parents and husband. The interest from this endowment was used to sponsor a variety of educational programs, including a series of Klumpke-Roberts lectures. In 1974 this program was renamed the Klumpke-Roberts Award. This international annual award honors an individual or group making significant contributions to the public understanding of astronomy.

    This article was compiled by Jane Houston Jones and Don Stone, past President and and Treasurer of AANC, the
    Astronomical Association of Northern California    .

    Leonids 1998-2002, part 1. Flying through the Leonid Storm of 1999

  • Halloween Sidewalk Astronomy – Tradition!

    Hauling a telescope across the streets of San Francisco about 10 years ago
    Hauling a telescope across the streets of San Francisco
    Jane-Orion plus Canis Major and Canis Minor
    Jane-Orion plus Canis Major and Canis Minor
    Mojo demonstrating where to find Jupiter's moons
    Mojo demonstrating where to find Jupiter’s moons
    Getting some eye candy
    Getting some eye candy

    Sidewalk Astronomers have been setting up telescopes on Halloween as long as there have been sidewalk astronomers!

    When we lived in the San Francisco Bay Area, we’d cross the Golden Gate Bridge from home and head to the Castro District of San Francisco on Halloween. It was crazy! Tens or maybe hundreds of thousands of revelers flock to the Castro on Halloween but I think we were the only ones with telescopes!

    That Halloween sidewalk astronomy tradition continues in San Francisco to this day. And now that we live in southern California we’re carrying on the tradition in our new home town.

    On Halloween, everyone with a telescope becomes a sidewalk astronomer. If there is a clear sky and a moon or planet to see, telescopes appear in front yards around the world. Astronomers love sharing the views, and a captive audience makes front yard astronomy a lot of fun for everyone.

    The magic of sidewalk astronomy took over Library Park in Monrovia,CA minutes after we arrived. On this Halloween night, our club had 5 telescopes set up. Soon, princesses, superheroes and zombies alike said wow at our eyepieces! People stayed and looked through the telescopes for a long time. Even groups of teens, on their way to some event stopped for a look at Jupiter and the moon. They said wow too!

    When I told one group of teenage girls that I didn’t have candy, but had bookmarks instead, one girl said “I love reading”. Every girl wanted their own bookmark. Later, a young boy, when he received a picture of Jupiter said “I am putting this picture on the wall in my room”.

    Sharing views of the moon and planets on Halloween is a great tradition. Pass it on!

    our club, the Old Town Sidewalk Astronomers

    Photo Album from our Sidewalk Astronomy Halloween weekend October 30-31, 2009

    A spooky list of telescope targets. Look if you dare!

  • Spooky Halloween Observing, 2014 edition

    The ghoul on the moon
    The ghoul on the moon
    NGC 246 the Skull Nebula
    NGC 246 the Skull Nebula
    IC 2118 Witch Head Nebula
    IC 2118 Witch Head Nebula

    It’s time to get out the Milky Way and Mars candy bars, the Moon Pies and the Starburst chews. It’s Halloween! The moon — just past first quarter — will greet your trick or treaters this year. A first quarter moon rises at noon and is high overhead at sunset. It sets around midnight. It’s the perfect Halloween moon, no trick for the astronomers to show and a real treat for their visitors to see.

    Halloween falls on the 8th day of the lunar month in October 2014, and the rugged Appenine mountains, and the oval walled plain Plato are both visible. With binoculars or telescopes, find the
    Straight Wall    , a lunar fault line best visible on this night. Tycho and Copernicus are on the terminator the next day, and so is Clavius, the large walled plain south of Tycho. My astronomy group, the Old Town Sidewalk Astronomers shows the moon every first quarter moon Saturday night on our town square. Check your own local astronomers, museum, planetarium or college science department. I bet they do too!

    Here are my favorite spooky named objects. Some are tricks and all are treats! The galaxies and nebulae will require a dark sky, but the lunar features and double stars are city observing targets. Have fun observing and let me know your favorites and I’ll add them to the list next year!

    Mirach’s Ghost NGC 404 in Andromeda, magnitude 11,
    size 4.3′ x 3.9′ This galaxy is hard to see. Move Mirach (Beta Andromedae) out of the way for a ghostly view.

    The Phantom Streak NGC 6741 in Aquila, magnitude
    10.8, size 6″. A fast evolving planetary nebula.

    The Ghost of the Moon Nebula NGC 6781 in Aquila,
    magnitude 11.8, size 1.8′. A nice round ghostly planetary nebula.

    The Spider Galaxy NGC 5829 (Arp 42) in Bootes, magnitude
    13.8, 1.7′ x 1.5′. Pretty face-on spiral galaxy in BOOtes. Scary!

    The Skull Nebula NGC 246 in Cetus, magnitude 8,
    size 3.8′. William Herschel discovered this large planetary nebula. It’s easy to find, and a real treat! I looked at this planetary nebula through my telescope just last Saturday night, October 25th, 2014! It’s one of my favorites.

    The Witch Head Nebula. IC 2118 in Eridanis, magnitude 13, size 160′ by 80′. (About the same size as the Andromeda Galaxy which is 189′ by 61′). This very large and very faint reflection nebula is associated with the star Rigel but is almost 3 degrees west of the star. The blue color of the nebula is caused not only by blue color of Rigel, but also because the dust grains reflect blue light more efficiently than red. Earth’s daytime sky appears blue for the same reason.

    The Ghost Ring Nebula IC 5148 in Grus, magnitude 13, size 2′. A pretty little planetary nebula in the neck of Grus the crane. If you can see Fomalhaut in Piscis Austrinus, look a little more south to find Grus. I tracked this one down and captured it in my eyepiece 2 weekends ago October 18, from my favorite dark sky site, Amboy Crater, in California’s Mojave Desert.

    The Little Ghost Nebula NGC 6369 in Ophiuchus, magnitude
    12.9, size 30″. A pretty planetary nebula, also discovered by William Herschel. Look for the mag 15.9 central star in this planetary nebula.

    The Red Spider Nebula NGC 6537 in Sagittarius, magnitude
    12.5, size 9″. A bipolar planetary nebula with a hot white dwarf star.

    Phobos and Deimos (Fear and Terror) – the moons of Mars. It’s possible to see these small moons as you can see from my sketch, but easier to see when Mars is closer to Earth than it is now. Mars opposition in 2016 will be the best time to try! There’s nothing to fear!

    Any lunar map will help you find your way to all of these lunar features, and they are all visible this year on Halloween. Here is my favorite lunar website Hitchhikers Guide to the Moon. You can get the general location of each Rukl lunar chart listed in the text below, then find the chart on the Rukl Map (most lunar observers favorite book of charts). This map shows where to find all the Lunar landing sites . Drop me a note if you would like a hard copy of this map, I have a whole box of them on my desk at work.

    Hell, Rukl’s Atlas of the Moon, chart 64. 33 km crater near Deslandres, which is an amazing and very large and complex crater. The small crater Hell (actually named for 18th century Hungarian astronomer Maximilian Hell – who observed the 1769 Transit of Venus) is also near (north of) Tycho, one of the most prominent craters on the moon. Its’ bright rays will be easily visible a week after Halloween 2014 during the full moon phase. You’ll need a telescope to see Hell.

    Lacus Doloris (Lake of Suffering), Rukl chart 23, 110 km mare. This Mare is just over the Montes Haemus from Mare Serenitatis (Sea of Serenity). If you’ve spotted the bright white (tiny) crater Linne, you’re close to the Lake of Suffering. This small lake is visible visible South of the bright crater Linne.

    Lacus Mortis (Lake of Death), Rukl chart 14, 150 km diameter flooded crater. You’ll find it North of the great crater Posidonius, and North of easy-to-spot Mare Crisium, well placed for Halloween viewing this year. Through your telescope, find some great rilles (long, narrow depressions in the lunar surface that resemble channels) on the Western side of Lacus Mortis.

    Lacus Timoris (Lake of Fear) and Palus Epidemiarum (Marsh of Epidemics), Rulk chart 63. In the Southwestern section of the moon. This section of the moon deserves a careful look through the telescopes. You’ll also find lunar domes and rilles in this region of the moon. Rima Hesiodus bisects the Eastern part of the Marsh of Epidemics. Lacus Timoris is an elongated region surrounded by mountains. Best seen near full moon, 6 days after Halloween 2014.

    Palus Putrendis (Marsh of Rot), Rukl chart 22, 180 km small plain on the
    prime meridian, near Hadley Rille and the Apollo 15 site. How can you not like the name Palus Putrendis? It’s easy to find between the crater Archimedes and Montes Apenninus. Well worth a look! Here’s a nice Lunar Map showing all the Apollo landing sites and more.

    Boo Epsilon (36) (Bootes), double star, mag 2.5
    and 4.9, yellow/orange and blue/green double

    Boo Mu (51) Bootes, triple star, mag 4.3 and 7 and
    7.6 triple, yellow primary, yellow/orange pair

    Boo Xi (37) Bootes, quadruple star, mag 4.7
    and 7.0, with a 9.6 and 12.6 companion, yellow and reddish/orange

    Happy Halloween from PK 164+31.1 (Jones 1)

    Jones 1, planetary nebula in Pegasus, dim but fun to find in a big 'scope
    Jones 1, planetary nebula, faint but well worth the hunt

     

  • Another perfect stargazing night

    Observing report, dark sky weekend, October, 2009, Chuckwalla Bench

    A perfect night begins with Earth's shadow climbing in the east
    A perfect night begins with Earth's shadow climbing in the east
    One one side of the Green Van is the imaging zone
    One one side of the green van is the Imaging zone
    On the other side of the Green Van is the visual observing zone
    On the other side of the green van is the visual observing zone

    When the clear sky chart reads perfect, we can’t wait to get out to our favorite dark sky observing site, Chuckwalla Bench. I wondered what would happen when Mojo started dabbling in the dark art of imaging. I’m the old fashioned alt-az dob girl, and now my hubby would be keeping warm at the star party with the heat from electonic power supplies and batteries. Poor me! I pouted (for only about a year or so) before I learned to love the dark arts, and we now happily observe and image with only our 1998 green Dodge Caravan separating “his” imaging zone and “her” visual observing zone.

    New moon Saturday night in October 2009 was another perfect observing night in the Colorado desert of Southern California. Temperatures were in the 90’s before the sunset, and cooled to about 65 by 2 a.m. when we took a pre-dawn snooze. Humidity remained in the teens.

    Last month we had a great time combining visual observing and imaging. On the “visual” side of the observing field Gary and I were struggling to confirm our main project for the night, the asteroid Juno. Mojo was imaging the same target, and a quick look at his Juno image confirmed the star fields we were looking at visually. It was a lot of fun!

    This month Gary and I were hunting down NGC 7640, a pretty elongated barred spiral galaxy just 4 degrees to the south of the popular Blue Snowball planetary nebula. This mag 12 galaxy should have been easy to find but its low surface brightness made it a challenge. It took my 17.5-incher to provide a great view, and then Gary was able to see it in his 12.5 incher too. In my scope the long and narrow galaxy’s core seemed bright, long and twisted, and the spiral arms were visible as wisps off both edges. We called Mojo over for a look and he thought it would make a nice imaging project, which it did!

    Next it was Mojo who suggested a target he had imaged would make a nice project for us push-to observers. NGC 7541 is called a “showpiece” galaxy group in the Night Sky Observers Guide in Pisces. Soon I had a gorgeous visual view of this pretty pair of galaxies in my telescope, and called Mojo over for a view.

    The other benefit of Mojo’s new hobby is that I can “suggest” targets for him to image. Then I can use them in my What’s Up podcast series. I used 4 of his lovely images in October’s Podcast about the Andromeda Galaxy. See if you can spot them. Two are views of the Andromeda galaxy. One shows the whole galaxy, and the other shows the galaxy as a smudge — exactly as it looks in a modest visual telescope. The other two are Milky Way images, one showing a washed out Milky Way (what most people actually see) with Jupiter and the other is his very pretty image of M52 and the Bubble Nebula, some of our own Milky Way’s jewels.

    So it is possible to combine imaging and visual observing, and I look forward to our next outing! I’m preparing my “Honey Do” list of imaging targets to “suggest” to Mojo already. 🙂

  • First Nations Astronomy – seeing the Ininewuk (Cree) and Ojibway Sky

    Wilfred Buck at NYAA Starfest 2009
    Wilfred Buck at NYAA Starfest 2009
    Ochek Atchakosuk - The Fisher
    Ochek Atchakosuk – The Fisher Stars
    Atima Atchakosuk - the dog stars with Polaris, Mihkun Atchakos, the wolf star
    Atima Atchakosuk – the dog stars with Polaris, Mihkun Atchakos, the wolf star
    Matootisan - The Sweat Lodge
    Matootisan – The Sweat Lodge
    Matootisan Assiniuk - Sweat Lodge Rocks
    Matootisan Assiniuk – Sweat Lodge Rocks
    Niska flying in the Summer Bird's Path (Milky Way)
    Niska flying in the Summer Bird's Path (Milky Way)

    Atchakosuk are the spirit lights up above. “All people of the Earth have stories of the stars. The First People of North America are no different” — Wilfred Buck, Cree Science Educator.

    The late storyteller Murdo Scribe told this story of the big dipper: Ochek Atchakosuk are the fisher stars in Cree legends from Northern Manitoba. (The fisher is a small fierce relative of the wolverine.) This legend tells us how summer was brought to the north country. Long ago there was no summer in northern Manitoba. (This may be a living memory of ice ages.) Certain animals were selected to bring summer to the northern hemisphere. The Ochek, the fisher, was given this task and in honor of this, the Creator placed the fisher in the sky to remind the people of what “was”, what “is” and what “could be again if we do not respect what is loaned to us.”

    In The Dog Star story, Atima Atchakosuk, Polaris is called Mahkan Atchakos, the wolf star. Long ago the people had no dogs to protect them. Their relatives the wolf, coyote, and fox saw this. The wolves held a council and decided that two of them would go to live with the people, as did the coyote’s and foxes’ councils. Two pups from each council were also sent to all the four directions of humankind. They adapted and were domesticated. From these four came all the dogs in the world, and now they guard our homes and camps. To honor this sacrifice by the natootim-uk (our relatives) the Creator placed a reminder in the heavens. Polaris anchors the leash as the dogs run around their sky camp. The three stars of the little dipper handle represent the wolf (Polaris), coyote, and fox. The four bowl stars represent the pups sent to the four directions of humankind.

    In the Ininew language, Polaris is called Keewatin Atchakos, the going home star. If First Nation people kept Keewatin on their right shoulder while traveling at night, they knew they were traveling west. The Plains Cree called Polaris the standing still star, Ekakatchet Atchakos.

    Corona Borealis, the Northern Crown, is significant in many First Nation sky stories. Some First Nation legends see the half circle as Matootisan, the Sweat Lodge. The legend tells the tale of Assini Awasis, Stonechild and how he brought the Sweat Lodge to the people. He was instructed to build a domed lodge over the rocks which hold the spirit of the night. When heated, the spirits in the rocks are released. The Pleiades are Matootisan Assiniuk, the sweat lodge rocks and Polaris is the Altar. Sometimes all three can be seen in the sky at once and this reminds us where to go for comfort, hope, and healing.

    In Cree, the Milky Way is called Neepin Pinesisuk Meskinaw, the summer birds path. Niska the goose or Wahpasiw the swan (the constellation Cygnus) and other birds follow this path when they migrate south and back north. In Ojibway this is Pinesi Miikana, the Thunder Bird’s Path. Other stories call it the Wolves Road and others call it “maskinaw atchakuk,” the path of souls.

    I learned these stories from Wilfred Buck, a science educator with the Manitoba First Nations Education Resource Centre. Wilfred was a speaker at the North York Astronomical Association’s 2009 Starfest in Ontario Canada in August. He told these and many other First Nation astronomy stories to a captivated audience, including me. Wilfred is from the Opaskwayak Cree Nation of Northern Manitoba. He has a bachelors and post-baccalaureate degree from the University of Manitoba and has 15 years experience as an educator.

    At dusk, we all stepped outside and Wilfred conducted a First Nation Sky Tour. He talked about his life and told stories of his own past. When the first stars came out he conducted a Cree sky tour with a green laser pointer to a large circle of listeners.

    Now, when I look up to see the constellations in the northern sky, I imagine the views of untold storytellers long gone. I wish they could have passed their stories on. There are many more First Nation stories about the stars, and they will reveal themselves to special people who seek these stories, like Wilfred Buck.

    As one elder stated, “We are blessed to live under a blanket of stars.”

    Special acknowledgement to artist Edwin Bighetty from Mathias
    Colomb First Nation for the painted pictures of
    1. Ochek Atchakosuk (Big Dipper)
    2. Atima Atchakosuk (Little Dipper)
    3. Matootisan (Corona Borealis)
    4. Matootisan Asiniuk (Pleiades)
    5. Niska (Cygnus)

  • LCROSS impact in crater Cabeus October 09 2009

    Rough sketch of LCROSS impact area
    Rough sketch of LCROSS impact area
    finished sketch of Cabeus and environs
    finished sketch of Cabeus and environs
    E. A. Whitaker 1954 sketch
    E. A. Whitaker 1954 sketch

    Mojo and I started to setup his 14.5-inch f/4.8 Litebox reflector at 3:30 a.m. on LCROSS impact morning. There were marine layer clouds at that hour, but by the time we were set up it was clear overhead. Friends deeper in the LA basin were fogged out completely!

    I thought the seeing was not too bad — I was expecting a lot worse. I was able to use pretty high magnification — a 6mm Televue Radian which magnified the view 276 times. I increased the power to 446X using a 4mm Televue Radian, but that was a little too much magnification for the seeing conditions. My first “signpost” to Cabeus was the beautiful walled plain Clavius, with its semi-circle of craterlets on the floor. Two big craters called Rutherford and Porter, named for famous American astronomers, are on the wall of Clavius. There was no shadow relief, making the whole crater nearly invisible.

    Then I crater hopped to Moretus, Short, Newton and finally Cabeus. Little bumps on the limb made the crater ID easy, plus I’ve been studying those images for days. Those bumps are mountain peaks on the huge South Pole-Aitken basin, obscured from our view, except for a few peaks on the south limb.

    A slick white smear on the sunlit Cabeus crater wall bisected the elongated crater. You can see it on the – APOD lunar chart just above the red ellipse identifying Cabeus. It was really fun to watch the approach from the LCROSS camera on NASA TV, then scoot out the front door for views of the crater itself through our own telescope. I was looking at Cabeus at impact time and didn’t see (and didn’t expect to see) a plume. I recalled the night in 1999 when Mojo and I spent a night waiting and watching the South pole of the moon for the Lunar Prospector impact.

    Some final thoughts a few days after LCROSS impact. The GAVRT radio telescope in the Mojave desert of California was abuzz with school kids around the world tracking LCROSS. The students locked onto the LCROSS signal and passed the information on to mission control. They will never forget this exciting mission and their important contribution to it! I was really impressed with the LCROSS mission E/PO and citizen science program which encouraged thousands of amateur astronomers like me to follow the mission, prepare an observing program and report observations.

    Although sketches are not the same as video and images, I like thinking that I was sketching an area of the moon in the 400+ year old tradition of citizen scientists. The LCROSS mission follows in the tradition of trailblazing lunar missions. In fact, the mountain peak called M5 on Ewan Whitaker’s 1954 lunar map (on the limb south of Cabeus) is now named Mount Clementine!

  • Shuttle Discovery lands at Edwards AFB 9/11/09

    Look for shuttle right of the contrail in my photo.
    Look for the shuttle to the right of the contrail in my photo (click on the image for full res version)
    Shuttle and ground in one image
    Shuttle and ground in one image. This photo and the rest of these photos courtesy of Gary Spiers
    Space shuttle Discovery
    Space shuttle Discovery
    Touchdown - twin dustplumes from gear touching down
    Touchdown – twin dustplumes from gear touching down
    Parachute deploys
    Parachute deploys

    NASADryden tweeted at 9:58 a.m. “We’ve been called up to support a potential shuttle landing today, see web for details http://www.nasa.gov/centers”

    1:35 p.m. “Shuttle will land at Edwards today, deorbit burn scheduled for 4:47 PDT, landing at 5:53 PDT”

    With landing scheduled at 5:53 p.m. PDT September 11, 2009 fellow astronomer Gary Spiers and I sped from Pasadena to Edwards Air Force Base to see one of if not possibly the last California landing of a space shuttle. We left Pasadena at 3:15 p.m. for the 2 plus hour drive.

    Navigator Gary scoped out the viewing choices while I drove. We passed Palmdale and headed for Rogers Dry Lake. Soon we saw groups of cars off California State Highway 58, and we headed further down the highway for a higher vantage point at the Northeast side of the lake bed. We turned off at the historic 20 Mule Team Road.

    I was receiving the Twitter updates from NASA Dryden on my cell phone. We arrived about a half hour before touchdown and setup camera gear in the 102 degree late-afternoon heat.

    We picked a perfect viewing spot. The shuttle would pass directly overhead on its loop from the West to runway 22 at Edwards Air Force Base. You can see the ground track, including the close range track of orbit 219 here.

    Here are the exciting tweets from NASADryden, which I passed along to the folks nearby:

    “15 minutes until touchdown, less than 1,000 miles away 5:38 PM Sep 11th

    Discovery is less than 700 miles away

    Right on ground track, 11 minutes until touchdown. Everything looking good

    Less than 277 to go, traveling at 7 times the speed of sound

    Approaching the CA coastline

    7.5 minutes till touchdown

    Discovery is 78 miles from Edwards

    Just heard the sonic boom here at Dryden! Discovery will be here soon!

    3 minutes till touchdown

    All eyes at Dryden are on the runway!

    Shuttle Discovery has landed at Edwards AFB, welcome back!

    Wheels stopped on Discovery with the National Anthem playing in the background. I love this country and NASA! ”

    Gary and I were snapping photos and recording video as honking, applause, whistles and cheers erupted from people inside, and alongside over 125 cars parked on the overpass, offramp shoulder, on and off 20 Mule Team Road.

    Soon the big rig drivers and other space enthusiasts were pulling off the shoulder and driving back to their daily life. Next to us Brad and Judy from Visalia lamented the dead battery in their camera as they planned to drive three hours back home. We exchanged email addresses and I’ll be sending them this report, photos and video of our first, and maybe last real-time up-close view of a shuttle landing.

    These photos courtesy of Gary Spiers whose images were shot using a Nikon D90 body with a Nikon 300mm F2.8 lens. My video and a few pre-landing snapshots were shot using a Pentax Optio M60 compact camera. Taken from 20 Mule Train Road on the Northeast side of the Rogers Dry Lake at the intersection of California Highway 58 and 20 Mule Team Road on September 11, 2009. We were over 5 miles away from the landing strip, but you can just barely see the dustplumes and parachute deployment at 1 min 42 seconds into my video.

    My video of Discovery Landing

    My video of Discovery Landing