September 2011

Tony Martinez

Each month I will describe sights of interest in the night skies of South Carolina. These sights will be broken down into three sections; what you can see with the naked eye, with binoculars, and with a small telescope. The best time to view the night sky is at and around the times when the Moon is not visible, what is known as a New Moon; which will occur this month on September 27^th. For September, your best viewing nights will be from September 15^th through September 31^st. The Star chart below is set for Florence, SC on September 15^th at 9 pm.

Astronomy at ScienceSouth:

In the next several months, ScienceSouth is planning various astronomy programs. These programs will include the following.

Sidewalk Astronomy: ScienceSouth will bring out our telescopes to various places in the area to allow everyone to view the craters and mountains of the Moon, and any visible planets. Example, Jupiter will be visible from November through next February, Mars next spring, and Saturn next summer. The Sidewalk astronomy program has been run several times in the past few years at local businesses, libraries, churches and at Lynches River Park. Below are some photos from last year at our event next to Rita’s on Irby Street.

In addition the nighttime Sidewalk Astronomy programs, we also hold some daytime viewings of the Sun. We have two solar telescopes, and one solar image projector. This equipment allows us to view both sunspots, and the eruptions off the Sun’s surface called prominences.

Astronomy Nights at ScienceSouth: In addition to reaching out to the public with our Sidewalk Astronomy program, this year we plan to initiate astronomy nights at the ScienceSouth Center at Freedom Florence.

This program will also allow you to view various objects in the night sky. We will have two or more telescopes available. In addition, we encourage everyone to bring a pair of binoculars with them. As I have mentioned in previous columns, binoculars are a great introduction to astronomy. They are easy to use, and can also have many other daytime viewing uses. We have special lasers at ScienceSouth that we use to help you to find many astronomy targets with your own binoculars.

The Astronomy Night programs at ScienceSouth will have one major difference from our Sidewalk Astronomy program; we will be running the program even if it is a cloudy or rainy night! ScienceSouth has a new Star Lab planetarium through a NASA funded grant.

The Star Lab is an inflatable dome planetarium, which can easily hold twenty adults at a time. Unlike the other dome planetarium we have, this new Star Lab is digital, and is driven by a powerful computerized astronomy program. This Star Lab will allow us to show you astronomy events occurring from 100,000 BC to 100,000 AD! We can visit our solar system’s planets, and venture out to the stars our Milky Way, and even out beyond our galaxy. Note: I will feature our new Star Lab and discuss its many capabilities in a future column. In addition, at the astronomy night we will have some short presentations and some astronomy based activities to do. We will also have many different telescopes on display inside the pavilion for a telescope “show and tell.” So if it is a cloudy night, there will be plenty of fun things to do inside our ScienceSouth pavilion. If we do have a clear night, you can enjoy both outside viewing, and if you wish, you can spend some time checking out our Star Lab inside.

Astronomy Workshops: In addition to our planned events discussed above, we have tentative plans to run astronomy workshops at ScienceSouth. The astronomy workshops will be directed at people who enjoy amateur astronomy, or have considered a hobby in astronomy, but really don’t know how to proceed. Therefore, if you own a telescope, feel free to bring it to the workshop. If you only own binoculars, bring them along. If you have neither, you can bring yourself and family, and use ScienceSouth’s equipment. We will be available to teach you how to best use your equipment, and answer any basic astronomy viewing questions. If you are just starting out, we will discuss the purchasing of your first telescope.

We will also teach viewing techniques, and discuss useful astronomy software, books, etc. One key presentation will be on the Messier Objects. Locating all 110 Messier Objects in the night sky is not only challenging and fun, but is a surefire method to find your way around the night sky.

So, we hope to see everyone at some or all of our planned ScienceSouth astronomy events over the next several months. Keep checking out this column, but most importantly, check out our website at sciencesouth.org for the dates of upcoming events.

Our first astronomy program is planned for our first Science After Dark series on September 15^th, 7-9 pm. Note: Our Science After Dark programs will run throughout the year, and each program will feature a different science theme. Again, check our website regularly to confirm the dates and times of our programs.

Naked Eye Sights: Note our star chart above shows that the famous

Summer Triangle is directly overhead at mid-month. This triangle is formed by the three stars: Deneb, Vega, and Altair. At the end of the month you will see a bright star-like object rising in the east in the late evening; this is the return of the planet Jupiter. Jupiter will be the visible throughout late fall and through the winter months.

Binocular Sights (7 to 10 power): If you are looking in the region of the Summer Triangle, take time to use your binoculars to find the interesting binocular asterism, the Coathanger, between Altair and Albireo. The image below will help your search.

Telescope Sights (60-100mm): Staying in the Summer Triangle, revisit the Ring Nebula (M57) near Vega and the Dumbbell Nebula (M27); both were featured in July’s column.

See you next month!

August 2011

Tony Martinez

Each month I will describe sights of interest in the night skies of South Carolina. These sights will be broken down into three sections; what you can see with the naked eye, with binoculars, and with a small telescope. The best time to view the night sky is at and around the times when the Moon is not visible, what is known as a New Moon; which will occur this month on August 28^th. For August, your best viewing nights will be from August 1^st through August 5^th and August 20^th through August 31^st. The Star chart below is set for Florence, SC on August 15^th at 10 pm.

Vesta:

This month I would like to challenge everyone to try to locate the asteroid Vesta. Vesta is now in an empty region of the sky, making it difficult to locate. However, the reason that I am featuring Vesta this month is that NASA’s Dawn space probe just went into orbit around this asteroid on July 17^th. This is the first probe that has been placed in orbit around a main belt asteroid. Dawn will orbit Vesta for about one year, at which time it will leave Vesta and visit the largest asteroid, Ceres.

When we hear the term asteroids, we immediately think of a wide band of rocky objects between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Indeed the vast majority of the asteroids are located in this “Main Asteroid Belt.” However there are two other groups of asteroids that rotate around the Sun. The second group lies in the same orbit as Jupiter. These asteroids are called “Trojans” and “Greeks,” and are located 60 degrees behind and in front of Jupiter. The third group of asteroids is called “Near Earth Asteroids” (NEA’s).

The NEA’s are especially important to us because they are in orbits that may result in a collision with Earth. Even a small asteroid only a few miles across would cause devastating effect if it hit our planet. Several small NEA’s have been found that will make very close passes by our Earth in the next fifteen to thirty years.

Before I help you locate Vesta, I would like to discuss the origins of the main asteroid belt. Over the years there have been various theories about the formation of the asteroid belt. First, consider the layout of our solar system. The four planets closest to the Sun are rocky planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars). Then there is a large “gap,” filled with rocky asteroids, followed by the gaseous planets, (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune). Some theories state that a rocky planet had formed between Mars and Jupiter, and the gravitational forces of Jupiter tore the new planet apart. Another theory is that the asteroids are merely rocky solar system debris that never formed a planet. I personally like the second theory, but it is seldom explained further. So let me try to elaborate. The theory concerning the formation of the inner planets is that after our Sun formed, the rocky/metallic debris that circled near the Sun was extremely hot and was therefore in a molten state. Gravitational forces caused some of these molten pieces to collide, and form larger pieces. As these larger molten pieces grew in size, they then attracted more pieces until they became a planet like our Earth. The key here is when molten or semi-molten objects collide, they can be easily combined to make larger molten “globs.” Also, because the new planets were molten, and spinning, they easily formed into spheres instead of irregular shapes. This process of planet building can take millions of years, and during this time the molten debris could cool down and become solid. The farther away the molten rocks were from the Sun, the faster they could cool down. The farthest rocky/metallic molten rocks were in the region of the asteroid belt, and being so far from the sun, they could cool down much faster than the regions that would form the Earth or Venus, etc. So the debris in the region of the asteroid belt most likely cooled down to solid rocks before they could form into larger molten pieces. Once they cooled to solid debris, when they hit other debris they would more likely bounce off then be adsorbed as did the molten pieces nearer to the Sun. Only the largest asteroid Ceres (about 500 miles across) formed into a sphere, implying that it formed in a molten state. We hope the Dawn Probe will give us better understanding into the true origin of the asteroid belt.

Now the challenge to locate Vesta. This month Vesta is in the constellation Capricorn. Capricorn is not an easy constellation to see, but it is just to the left of the constellation Sagittarius. Sagittarius is in the south, and is an easy to spot summer constellation, known as the “Teapot Asterism.”

To locate Vesta, we will use a stepwise method called star hopping. Vesta can be seen with binoculars, so we will do the star hopping with seven power binoculars. To star hop, you start with an easy to find target that fits in you binocular’s field of view (FOV), and then move step wise to other targets that can fit into your binocular’s FOV.

We will begin Step 1with the “handle” part of the Sagittarius “teapot” asterism. This handle will fit into your FOV, see below. Now slowly scan to the left until you see the Step 2 group of stars in your FOV.

Next scan more to the left and find the Step 3 right triangle. This month, Vesta will move into and though this right triangle.

Good luck in your search.

Naked Eye Sights: The well-known Perseids meteor shower peaks on the 13^th, however, the full Moon will wash out all but very large meteors.

Binocular Sights (7 to 10 power): Vesta.

Telescope Sights (60-100mm): Once you find Vesta using binoculars, try to locate it with a telescope.