Jane Houston Jones

Jane's blog banner

Tag: Jane Houston Jones

  • Some thoughts about cancer

    I’ve been thinking about cancer a lot more than I used to. Mojo was diagnosed with a small but clinically significant prostate cancer in September 2009. And that’s when I needed to know more about cancer. His diagnosis began with a routine blood test during his annual physical which indicated an elevated PSA (prostate specific antigen). He went in for a retest, biopsy, and finally on January 19, the day after his 53rd birthday and 4 days after our 10th wedding anniversary he had a radical prostatectomy. His pathology report contained comforting words, clinically delivered. And the best news of all came three months later on April 19th when Mojo’s first post-surgery blood test came back with a PSA of zero. He is cancer free!

    Two days after Mojo’s surgery, on January 21, my sister Wendy had a lumpectomy for non invasive stage 0 ductal carcinoma. Once again I needed to know more about this cancer which was hurting my sister. A few days after her surgery, she got the good news that the surgery removed the lesion with a wide margin of healthy tissue. A few weeks later Wendy was scanned, marked and stickered for twice-a-day radiation treatments over five days. Finally, in early March, Wendy was released from what she affectionately called BAM – the Borg Assimilation Machine, when the radiation hardware was removed.

    Also in early March, while cancer was so heavy on my mind, I traveled to the Lunar and Planetary Sciences Conference (LPSC) near Houston, Texas. I met an amazing woman who I previously only knew from the social media science community. Little did I know that the very week I met Susan face to face for the first time at LPSC, as we stared at each others name badges, and exclaimed “I know you from Twitter“, she was having a recurrence of inflammatory breast cancer and had to leave the conference for tests, surgery and next steps. I didn’t have a clue at the time about her three-year battle with this deadly form of cancer. And once again I needed to know more about cancer.

    I am happy that Mojo, Wendy, Susan and millions more are cancer survivors. I am so sorry that Susan is facing a recurrence of her cancer. I want to take action to find cures and answers about cancer! Not with my checkbook, but as a volunteer for research that will stop cancer from attacking my family and friends.

    What can I do to help save Susan’s life and the lives of millions of others with cancer? What can I do for those in remission, those with a recurrence or a new cancer, or those who may get cancer in the future? I can become part of the research. One out of every three of us will get cancer, says the American Cancer Society, and right now there is no cure. But there can be. All we need is research. So my sister Wendy and I signed up for the Army of Women Breast Cancer research volunteer network. Its two goals are

    • to recruit one million healthy women of every age and ethnicity, including breast cancer survivors and women at high-risk for the disease, to partner with breast cancer researchers and directly participate in the research that will eradicate breast cancer once and for all.
    • to challenge the scientific community to expand its current focus to include breast cancer prevention research conducted on healthy women.

    So it will come as no surprise that my sister Wendy gave our mother a diamond cancer awareness pendant for her recent 80th birthday. Wendy replaced the chain with two ribbons, a pink one and a blue one. The pink ribbon represents breast cancer awareness and the blue ribbon represents prostate cancer awareness. At the birthday party, I shed a tear for the family and friends I have lost to cancer, and for those in my family who are struggling with this deadly disease right this minute. But I was gleeful too. Our family all raised their glasses, and each in his or her own way were thankful to have Mojo and Wendy at the birthday table as our mother turned 80 years old.

  • A visit to the Lunar Sample Laboratory Facility

    IMG_5703

    I'm putting my hands inside the neophrene gloves, which are now filled with nitrogen
    I’m putting my hands inside the neophrene gloves, which are now filled with nitrogen
    Jane and JPL outreach colleagues give 3 lunar samples a thumbs up.
    Jane and JPL outreach colleagues give 3 lunar samples a thumbs up.

    While attending the 41st Lunar and Planetary Sciences Conference in The Woodlands, TX (a suburb of Houston) in early March 2010, I was lucky enough to visit the Johnson Space Center’s famous Lunar Sample Processing Facility. Most of the time during my one week stay, I was setting up, staffing, and taking down an exhibit focusing on NASA/ESA missions to the Outer Planets.

    After packing the exhibit Thursday night we got a good night’s sleep and headed to Johnson Space Center, about an hour’s distance away the next morning. Every space enthusiast can visit JSC, and have a great tour. But we had a specific destination in mind — the Lunar Sample Processing Facility. How appropriate a visit, especially after a week at the Lunar and Planetary Sciences Conference!

    First, we stopped for lunch at astronaut Jose Hernandez’s family restaurant Tierra Luna Grill.

    After lunch we (we being my JPL outreach colleagues Preston Dyches, Eddie Gonzales and I) parked outside Building 31N, and walked upstairs. We donned booties to cover our shoes, and put on head-to toe white bunny suits, gloves and head covering, after removing any gold jewelry. Why? Gold and silver alloys (even 24K gold) have trace amounts of lead and lead is not allowed in the laboratory. Our cameras and cell phones were wiped down to reduce dust, and placed in an airlock. Then we entered the air shower, where any dust remaining on our bunny suits was gently filtered off, and a minute later, we walked into the Lunar Sample Laboratory Facility.

    We entered the room, filled with monochrome cabinets and tools made of steel and teflon. White clad space geeks listened intently as our tour guide, Charles Galindo, principal scientist and astrobiology lab manager (he’s very active in educational outreach) took us from cabinet to cabinet, peeling back the years of history, to reveal the why and the how behind the wow!

    Soon we were inserting our hands into the huge and awkward neophrene gloves, and touching hammers that touched real lunar samples! We walked around the room, and into the corridors, past the locked steel vault holding priceless samples collected from the surface of the moon. At one end of the room was a large case with three large lunar samples. I’ll end my little tale with a short description of these three samples.

    Lunar Sample 61016.7 was collected from Plum Crater on the Apollo 16 mission. This sample is nicknamed Big Mulie in honor of UT geologist Bill Muehlberger, and is the largest rock (11.7 kg) collected on the Apollo Missions. The sample contained 4 rock types, including anorthosite from the ancient lunar crust, age: 4.5 billlion years.

    Lunar Sample 15459 was collected from Spur Crater on the Apollo 15 mission. It is a large dense regolith breccia which contains a mineral, glass and chemical composition like that of the local soil. Here are a couple In Situ images!

    Lunar Sample 15556.0 is medium grained vesticular basalt from Apollo 15. Here are many images including thin sections. This sample was collected 60 m NE of the rim of Hadley Rille!

    When I am out with my telescopes showing the moon to my sidewalk astronomy audiences, I carry a lunar landing site map exactly like this one. The Apollo 15 landing site is easy to point out to my audiences, especially near the first quarter moon phase. It’s near the familiar lunar landmarks like the Appenines, right on the rim of the great Imbrium Impact basin.

    Hadley Rille is an observing mecca for lunatics like me. It draws me in to it, and then with a nod to space history and Apollo 15 recollections, I can’t help but try to see some of the tiny craters near the landing site. Peering through an eyepiece at the areas where men landed and walked on the moon adds a dimension to amateur astronomy which I find compelling. You will too, I’m sure!

    My complete photo album, including more site visits at JSC and the exhibit at the Lunar and Planetary Sciences Conference 2010 are here. Many thanks to Charles Galindo of JSC for taking us on this amazing adventure and to Eddie Gonzales of JPL for orchestrating the whole visit!

  • Driving a Tesla

    Unique vehicles abound at JPL
    Unique vehicles abound at JPL
    I saw this car parked in front of my building at JPL last week
    I saw this car parked in front of my building at JPL last week
    checking out the Tesla's trunk
    Checking out the Tesla’s trunk
    Back at work after my 20 minute Tesla drive
    Back at work after my 20 minute Tesla drive
    Nikola Tesla's laboratory, circa 1900
    Nikola Tesla’s laboratory, circa 1900

    My favorite sign at JPL is this Rover Xing sign.

    It is not unusual to see robotic vehicles on the roads around the laboratory, especially during the weeks surrounding our annual open house when a dozen or more rovers, robots and spacecraft are out on public display.

    One recent morning, I noticed a unique vehicle parked next to my building. It was a Tesla Roadster! I stopped and took a photo of it – it is such a gorgeous car! Then, of course, I tweeted it, and put the picture on Facebook.

    On my lunch hour I went back out and looked at it, and noticed the license plate holder said “My Other EV is on Mars!”

    Toward the end of the day, I overheard a group of colleagues talking about the Tesla, and I joined them. A minute later the Tesla’s owner walked up and asked me if I wanted a ride! When she drives the Tesla to work, she becomes an Electric Vehicle EVangelist and offers half-hour rides around Pasadena. She has a long waiting list, but had a cancellation, and offered me the 5 p.m. time-slot. It’s her way to spread the EVangelism and make more people aware of electric vehicles. 🙂

    Within a few minutes I was stowing my purse in the trunk of this gorgeous car! Then after a few rules (pay for your own tickets, don’t crash, etc.) I was handed the keys! I opened the driver’s door and stepped down in the drivers seat. Wow, this car is just my size!

    I aligned the side mirrors by rolling down the window and manually adjusting them. I familiarized myself with the blind spots, adjusted the seat and put the key in the ignition.The roadster came silently to life. I shifted from neutral to drive, checked for traffic behind me, pressed the throttle pedal and drove the Tesla down JPL’s Mariner Road, out the security gate and onto the 210 or Foothill Freeway.

    My friend encouraged me to accelerate, and I obeyed instantly! In seconds I was cruising at 60 MPH, changing lanes while caressing the three-spoke steering wheel, pedal to the metal, and watching all the ordinary cars turn green with envy.

    I couldn’t help but think of the car’s namesake, Nikola Tesla, whose inventions include the induction motor and alternating-current power transmission. The Tesla Roadster was unveiled just days after the 150th anniversary of his birth in 2006. If he were alive today, I think he’d enjoy a test drive with me in and around NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory!

    Soon, it was time to return the car so another lucky driver could share my experience, and join the cadre of Tesla EVangelists!

    I drove back through the gates, parked the car, shifted back into neutral, set the brake,and turned over the keys, but not before I got a picture of my first and maybe my last Tesla test drive.

  • Clarissa’s catblog

    Meow! I am Jane and Mojo’s cat, Clarissa. I’m a gorgeous (if I do say so myself) eight year-old Tortoiseshell Tabby cat. I asked Jane to take some pictures and video of me to share with all you cat lovers. I hope you like them!

    My favorite! Science Diet Savory Chicken 'specially made for mature kitties like me!
    I love my Science Diet Savory Chicken cat food
    The sun is so warm when I sit by the window
    The sun is so warm when I sit by the window
    In the evening I help Mojo with his laptop
    In the evening I help Mojo with his laptop
    Jane and I share the pillows. She gets the bottom corner (sometimes)
    Jane and I share the pillows. She gets the bottom corner (sometimes)
    Helping Mojo go to sleep. It's my job!
    Helping Mojo go to sleep.

    My favorite time of the day is when I wake up. The first thing I do is to see if Jane or Mojo are also awake. I meow at them to say “good morning, cat feeders”. Then I hop up on the bed and I walk all over their backs to remind them it is my breakfast time. That usually wakes one of them up.

    Pretty soon I get a delicious breakfast of Science Diet cat food especially made for “mature” cats like me. One dish is soft and juicy and made from minced birds. The other dish is crunchy and made of bird by-products, whatever those are. Right now I am having some hairball issues and so my food helps me with that problem. It is sooo embarrassing.

    I am an indoor cat, but I really like to look out the window. I have some “outdoor” friends who come round to visit me and we have so much fun together! We meow at each other, and make our tails really bushy so we look bigger than we really are. We fiercely swish our tails at each other. Then we make these wild roaring noises. I have no idea where I learned to do that. My wild cat ancestors must have passed that behavior down to me. How do I know, I’m just a cat. All I know is when I pounce on the sliding doors, my cat friends pounce back. It is sooo much fun!

    When not eating and chatting with my friends, I spend a lot of my day on this really nice mohair blanket. It’s in the library and there is a big window there to look out of. Sometimes, I see Jane going to work, when I look out the window. She waves at me, and makes silly gestures to get my attention. It is sooo embarrassing. I sit there watching, and hope none of my friends see me. Then I have the house to myself, and head straight for a sunbeam.

    In the morning, the sunbeams spread across my blanket which is on a table in the library. It is so comfy and warm on that blanket, that as soon as I stretch out, my little cat eyes get all heavy and I just can’t help it, but I take a nap right then and there.

    I don’t have a lot of cat toys, but I do like my feathers. They are not really toys, more like tools I use to scratch my face and, oh, I guess I do play with them a little bit. They come from real birds, too. I like the big sea gull or wild turkey feathers the best, so if you find one, you can give it to Jane or Mojo, and they’ll see that I get it.

    You can see me playing with my feather in this YouTube video. You can see a couple of my other feathers in the video too. One is from an owl. I wouldn’t want to be the one taking it off that owl, tho! They have really big claws, from what I see on TV. Note: the videos are all embedded at the end, so you don’t have to stop reading my blog unless you want to.

    When Jane and Mojo get home from work, it’s play time! I have a really fun game I’ve trained them to play. I walk up the stairs, and meow. I stop on every step and meow down at them. I have trained them both to stop what ever they are doing, and follow me up and down the stairs, over and over again. I let them pet me, too. Then on the way down. I flop from stair to stair, and I have trained them to give me belly rubs on the way down. Here is a video of me going down the stairs.

    After dinner we spend some quality time together. As soon as Mojo takes out his laptop to do a little work, that’s my clue to hop up on what is left of his lap. He really likes it when I do this. Then I usually head for the back of the chair or sofa and lick his head. When I do this for a long time, he gets a little rash on his head, but he lets me do it anyway. Here is video of our grooming process. It’s a little dark because we were watching TV at the same time.

    Well, after grooming, it’s bedtime. I head back upstairs and get comfortable on the pillows. I leave a little room on the pillow for Jane. Then as soon as Mojo is falling asleep, I meow at him and knead his arm for awhile, while I purr really loudly. Then I go back to my other pillow for a few hours.

    Well that pretty much sums up my day. If you have any questions, or want to know about anything else I am up to, just leave a note and I’ll try to answer it when I am not busy. But I gotta go now. It’s dinnertime!

    Here is where I stand on the inhumane practice of declawing cats. I am against it and hope you are too!

    And here are those cute videos of me:

  • 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