The New Supernovae Alphabet Soup 16 Mar 2016 6:29 AM (9 years ago)

This is an update of the Simostronomy blog “Supernovae Alphabet Soup” posted December 2011. Thanks to Brad Walter for the revised text.

SN 2011fe aka PTF11kly
Image: Wikipedia

The International Astronomical Union (IAU) is the sole body responsible for the official naming of astronomical objects. So if you have a problem with the way things in the Universe are named, you now know where to send your email and letters of protest.

Before we get into this, a quick grammar note: When we discuss more than one supernova, they are called supernovae (super- no- vee), not supernovas. The same holds true for more than one nova. They are novae (no- vee). Please don't talk or write about Novas. Those are old Chevrolets, not stars.

Prior to January 1, 2016, the naming convention used for supernovae was pretty simple and straightforward. Once a supernova was spectroscopically confirmed, the name was formed by combining the prefix SN, for supernova, the year of discovery and a one- or two-letter designation. The first 26 supernovae of the year get an upper case letter from A to Z (SN 1987A). After that, the IAU started over with pairs of lower-case letters, starting with aa, ab, and so on (SN 2005ap). Confirmed supernovae had sequential letter designations without gaps. Prior to being confirmed they were given a temporary designation on the IAU CBAT Transient Object Confirmation Page with “PSN” followed by a coordinate string similar to the following:

PSN J01560719+1738468.That process is no longer in use.
[http://wis-tns.weizmann.ac.il/search]. If it is a possible SN it gets a temporary “TA” prefix which is changed to an “SN” prefix when spectroscopically confirmed.

That all changed on January 1, 2016. Naming of transient objects was transferred to the IAU Transient Name Server. This is an automated recording and naming service of the IAU for all transient objects. When an astronomer registered with the IAU submits a transient discovery it is initially given a name automatically that has an “AT” prefix followed by the year and then one or more lower case letters in sequential permutation order, for example AT 2016edj. Now when a supernova is spectroscopically confirmed, the “AT” is changed to SN but the remainder of the designation remains the same.

The addition of several wide-field survey telescopes, some of them able to detect very faint objects, coupled with extremely fast automated processing and analysis is cranking out an enormous number of transient discoveries. Names were up to three letter suffixes by the end of January 2017 (703 discoveries). That means SN designations will usually be separated by large gaps in the letter sequences. Also many discoveries may remain unconfirmed by spectroscopic observation and may retain AT designations.

Of course there are exceptions, there are always exceptions. That's one of the things about astronomical nomenclature that is maddening, but I digress...

Four important historical supernovae are known simply by the year they occurred: SN 1006, SN 1054, SN 1572 (more commonly referred to as Tycho's Nova), and SN 1604 (also known as Kepler's Star).

One reason I'm bringing this subject up now is that the name game changed at the beginning of this year 2016 which has caused some confusion. One can no longer predict the name of the first, or any confirmed supernova in a given year. However, it is still true that the first supernova of the year will usually not occur on the first day of the year because supernova discoveries have to be officially confirmed spectroscopically before they get an official IAU designation. When someone discovers a possible supernova it gets reported to the IAU and then listed on the CBAT TNS page

As the pace of discovery increases the time lag associated with naming supernovae becomes less and less acceptable. Astronomers will want immediate notification of discoveries of all types of transient objects including supernovae. Therefore new groups searching for SNe have begun to make up their own names. The Catalina Real Time Survey [http://crts.caltech.edu/] is one such group. They are discovering dozens of possible supernovae that don't always get official IAU designations. Their discoveries are all named CSS (Catalina Sky Survey) followed by the date in yymmdd format and then the rough coordinates, like this CSS111227:104742+021815. That’s a name only a mother could love and still not remember.

ROTSE, the Robotic Optical Transient Search Experiment, also discoveries SNe and gives them their own designation in the form of ROTSE3 (the third iteration of this experiment) followed by coordinates, such as ROTSE3 J133033.0-313427.

And there is the Palomar Transient Factory which names its discoveries with the prefix PTF, of course, such as PTF11kly, the nearest supernovae in decades, visible with small telescopes in M101. This SN eventually received an IAU designation, SN 2011fe, but that just created more confusion, since now it is known variously by both names in the literature. Somehow managing to keep it all together amidst the confusion, David Bishop maintains the Latest Supernova Website [http://www.rochesterastronomy.org/supernova.html] where you can see discovery images and keep track of your favorite supernovae and related news. There is an excellent article about David

[http://www.richobservatory.com/Site/Article.htm] and how his website evolved from simple beginnings. So if want to know about the latest SNe on the WWW the URL that will lead you through the ABC's is definitely http://www.rochesterastronomy.org/supernova.html.

Got that? Good, there will be a new quiz later. The answers aren’t necessarily the same as before.

Camelopardalids, dust up to dust 25 May 2014 4:24 AM (10 years ago)

In November 2013, Quanzhi Ye and Paul A. Wiegert submitted a paper to the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society suggesting that Comet 209P/LINEAR might produce strong meteor activity on May 24, 2014. This prediction was based on numerical simulations of the Earth passing through comet's dust trails left behind from 1798-1979. Even though Comet 209P/LINEAR is relatively depleted in dust production, possibly transitioning from a typical comet to a dormant comet, the authors claimed their simulation showed that the size distribution of the arriving particles was skewed strongly to larger particles, and that the event, if detectable, may be dominated by bright meteors. The authors encouraged observers to monitor the event.

The headline read, "May 2014 - Meteor Storm of the Century"

The popular press got wind of this and there was quite a "dust up", so to speak. After all, this was going to be the first ever 'meteor storm' arriving from this radiant in Camelopardalis, and it might put on a spectacular show with bright meteors and bolides. So everyone struggled to learn how to pronounce Camelopardalis and Camelopardalids and we all anxiously awaited the predicted peak of the meteor shower Saturday morning.

Incredibly, the forecast for Michigan on the morning in question was for clear skies, so I set my alarm to get up around 1:30AM to go outside and witness the "meteor storm of the century". The alarm went off, I looked out the window and saw the sky was indeed clear, so I dragged myself out to the back yard, took a seat on a wet, dewy lawn chair and waited for the show to start.

And waited for the show to start.

And waited some more.

After forty minutes I had not seen one meteor, not even a random one. I was tired and having a hard time rationalizing staying awake in the midst of all this excitement and a wet butt, so I gave up and went back to bed.

The following afternoon the IAU released Electronic Telegram No. 3886, in which they describe results from the Canadian Meteor Orbit Radar. They said that the radiant of the shower and peak of activity were very close to those predicted, suggesting that debris from comet 209P/LINEAR encountered the earth much as expected. However, the shower radar echoes were confined to faint meteors (equivalent visual magnitude 6-7), which is consistent with a debris trail populated mainly by particles of milligram mass and smaller.

So the Camelopardalids Meteor Storm of the Century lived up to its namesake, Camelopardalis, one of the faintest constellations in the northern sky, with no stars brighter than 4th magnitude. Most people can't even point out Camelopardalis because it is invisible, even under semi-dark suburban skies. And, just like its namesake constellation, the Camelopardalids were mostly too faint to see, even from my rural dark sky sight.

Rod Stubbings – Patience, Persistence and Purpose 17 Apr 2014 5:25 AM (10 years ago)

In early February this year, Rod Stubbings wrote to me to tell me he had discovered a new Z Cam star. Since this was his independent discovery, he wanted to write a paper on it, and asked if I would be a co-author, since I was, as he put it, the “Godfather of Z Cam stars.”

He explained in an email that he had selected this star, OQ Carinae, from a list of CVs whose optical behavior was essentially unknown at the time. “I just noticed OQ Car in in one of the CV catalogs when I was adding more dwarf novae to my observing list,” Rod explained. “Being an under-studied dwarf nova is what interested me. I was searching for every dwarf nova that was basically ignored and wanted to find out how they behaved.”

No one else was paying attention to what seemed to most a garden-variety dwarf nova. Nearly all the data ever collected on this star were Rod’s visual observations. “My first observation of OQ Car was on July 16, 2000, so it’s been almost 14 years.”

So, what motivates an observer to keep observing a star that no one else thinks is interesting or worthy of his or her time? “I like detecting outbursts and I soon realized that OQ Car was very active, so it was always good for an outburst,” said Rod.

But in January OQ Car began to behave differently. Rod was the only one watching. “I knew the star very well and after a normal outburst around 14.2 it had its usual fade to around 14.6. I expected it to fade further the next night. It didn’t; it stayed at 14.7 for a few nights and I thought, ‘now this could be interesting.’ After a week at the same brightness I knew it was in standstill. Two weeks later there was no doubt.”

His patience and persistence had paid off. By the time Rod contacted me OQ Car had been in standstill for 30 days. There wasn’t any doubt in my mind he had discovered a new Z Cam star either.

Now Rod wanted to write his first paper as a primary author. He explained the motivation, “I knew no one else was observing OQ Car. Basically, 90% of the observations were mine over a 14-year study. I have always wanted to write a paper myself, so this was the perfect opportunity to present what I had found.”

Rod learned it takes some patience and persistence when it comes to getting a paper accepted by a peer-reviewed journal too. “When the first remarks came back from the referee I was a bit surprised,” said Rod. “It was so obvious to me it was a Z Cam, as I had observed this star for over 14 years. What I learned is that you can have all the observational data you think is necessary, but you still have to make your case and prove it in the paper.”

After some minor revisions were made and additional data were added, the paper was accepted to the JAAVSO and the pre-print was published on arXiv March 4, 2014. OQ Carinae: A New Southern Z Cam Type Dwarf Nova, by Rod Stubbings and Mike Simonsen, http://arxiv.org/abs/1403.0754

Rod's discovery story is a testament to the value of patience, persistence and visual observations. He has given his visual observing program purpose by learning about the potential targets that are out there to observe, and what there is to learn from them. Then by consistently, purposefully observing those objects year after year he has contributed to science and made a discovery only he can claim. It doesn’t matter that a CCD might have been more precise, or been able to measure OQ Car at fainter magnitudes. You can’t go back and measure the outbursts, quiescences and the one standstill in the history of this star with a CCD. It’s too late. It’s a good thing Rod was observing with his eye at the eyepiece night after night.

He has some advice for visual observers who might be feeling overwhelmed by the digital detector revolution. “I know we are in the era of so many robotic surveys covering the sky but there is still plenty of work for visual observers. Instead of wondering what to do, make up our own projects on variable stars. For example, ASAS3 has been around for a long time and collected data on so many stars you might ask, why observe them? I have been looking at the ASAS3 light curves and noticed a lot of stars with incomplete light curves or in some cases no observations.”

I asked him recently what other under-observed or under-appreciated stars he might be monitoring. He told me, “I started to observe SY Vol in July 2000 (also 14 years ago) which has never been monitored well. But so far it has shown typical dwarf nova behavior, although not as active as OQ Car.”

“The Wolf Rayet star WR 53 is a total mystery to me,” he added. “It's not listed in VSX because it is a constant star as observed by ASAS and other CCD data, yet I see variations as well as other visual observers. At one stage my observations were showing an RR Lyrae star, but it's a Wolf Rayet star. Then I have a stage where it was constant at 10.6 for months, and lately it’s started to vary again. I don't understand this one, but I will keep watching.”

Who knows what other interesting behavior visual observers might detect patiently and persistently observing their objects of interest night after night, year after year. One thing is certain. If you’re not looking, you won’t see it.

Book Review: The Life and Death of Stars 28 Aug 2013 5:37 AM (11 years ago)

I have to start by saying I have not finished reading this book yet, but I feel compelled to write a review because I am so thoroughly annoyed by this book. Let me explain.

I am extremely interested in stellar evolution and its relevance to my field of study, variable stars. I read great things about this book before it was released and pre-ordered a copy from Amazon dot com. The book dealer I purchased it from sent me the wrong book. I reported the error via their website and they quickly refunded my credit card, but never sent me the correct book.

A few months later I was able to finally obtain a complimentary copy of the book from the publisher, and after a protracted wait, was anxious to dive into it. What I found was almost as disappointing as getting the wrong book. This isn't the book I thought I was getting either.

This book should have been named The Complete History of Stellar Astrophysics, or something equally boring but less misleading. The first several chapters are intended to give one an extensive amount of background knowledge so that if the author ever does actually begin to write about stars you will understand what he is saying. The chapters begin with Light and the Sun, Gravity and Motion, Atomic and Subatomic Particles, Transmutation of the Elements, What Makes the Sun Shine? and The Extended Solar Atmosphere. Are you bored yet? I am.

Finally, in chapter seven we are introduced to stars. The first section of this chapter, called Comparison of the Sun to Other Stars, is 7.1- Where and When Can the Stars Be Seen? Are you kidding me?!

It is now page 129 of 311 and he is now going to explain that if we go outside at night and look up...

I don't know if I will ever finish this book. It is a ridiculous way to tell a story, and the title is entirely misleading. It's like buying a book called "NASCAR Heroes of the 1990's" and beginning chapter one with the history of the internal combustion engine.

There are only 13 chapters in this book and the author has wasted my time reading seven chapters of background material to get me to the point of 'go out at night and look up, this is where you can see stars'. Chapter eight is finally about stars, The Lives of Stars. Maybe I'll skip ahead to that and see if it's worth going any further. But not today. I'm too annoyed.

Bottom line, if you want to read a text on the history of astrophysics, this is your book. If you want to read about stellar evolution skip the first seven chapters and refer back to them only if you need to understand some concept in more depth with the full history of the discovery process included.

The third Third Charles Butterworth Award 28 Mar 2013 8:41 AM (12 years ago)

In October 2011 the American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO) held its centennial celebration in Boston at the Woburn Hilton. It was the culmination of 100 years of collecting and archiving variable star data for the scientific community, and for several staff members and me, the realization of almost two years of planning. By all accounts the centenary was a success and on the final night of the meeting I found myself sitting at a banquet table surrounded by friends and co-workers, nearly exhausted but very satisfied.

Traditionally, various awards are given out prior to the meal being served and this evening was no exception. I was very happy to have been responsible for recognizing one of the AAVSO’s most outstanding volunteers, Tom Bretl, that evening. Tom is a remarkable and conscientious worker who has become the most prolific member of the charts and sequences team. I was proud to have Tom and his wife sitting at the table with my wife and I.

Right after Tom had returned to the table from receiving his award, and the applause began to fade, AAVSO Director, Arne Henden, introduced John Toone from the British Astronomical Association. John started talking about the great strides made in the last ten years, standardizing variable star charts and sequences for observers around the world and how he and a few other key people had been largely responsible for the improvements and had set the standard for the next one hundred years. It was a story I was very familiar with. I had worked closely with John and a small group of people for years establishing guidelines for creating variable star comparison sequences and producing thousands of new charts for observers. And now as John was speaking it dawned on me that he was about to present an award for chart making and I didn’t know who the award was for. How could they do that? Why would they exclude me from a discussion about recognizing one of our team for their contributions?

As he began to rattle off the list of achievements and benchmarks I realized he was talking about me! Those dirty dogs had conspired to give me an award and managed to keep it a complete secret. I was stunned, surprised, embarrassed, proud, joyful and sad all at once. The emotions of the moment got the best of me and could feel myself beginning to cry. I asked Irene for some Kleenex and said, “Quickly, please… I can’t go up there crying in front of everyone!”

I barely remember the walk to the podium or the walk back to my seat. I do remember that I was unable to say anything when John presented me with the Third Charles Butterworth Award ever awarded by the Variable Star Section of the BAA. Arne even quipped, “in all these years I’ve never seen Mike at a loss for words,” much to the crowd’s delight.

The plaque itself is a remarkable work of art, and the thoughtfulness that went into designing it made it even more beautiful and personal. The front side is a replica of a variable star chart of my favorite variable star, IW Andromedae. It has the title, cardinal directions and border hand painted in silver on a black slate tablet. The stars are gemstones of varying sizes set in holes drilled to represent with remarkable accuracy the brightness of the stars in the field of view and the comparison stars in the sequence have been hand labeled in silver paint also. It is stunning.

The original Third Charles Butterworth Award in 2011

The back is hand engraved and reads, “This the third Charles Butterworth Award was presented to Mike Simonsen on 8^th October 2011 by the Variable Star Section of the British Astronomical Association in recognition of his outstanding contribution to the development of charts and sequences.”

Another facet of this story is my personal ties to the other two recipients of the award. Gary Poyner, one of the leading visual observers in the world and a mentor and good friend was the first recipient and a few years later, another mentor and friend of mine, Arne Henden, who is also my boss and Director of the AAVSO, received the second Charles Butterworth Award.

I was honored and deeply moved to receive it, and I will always cherish this award, which makes the next part of this story very hard to tell.

A Thanksgiving tradition in our house is for Irene to run out on Thanksgiving morning and buy a copy of all the newspapers, which on this day each year are stuffed with circulars, catalogs and advertisements for sales that will begin the next morning on the biggest shopping day in America, Black Friday. Then she usually goes through them all page by page while I watch football on television, another Thanksgiving tradition here. I had made a good-sized turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing and all the trimmings, and Irene’s father had joined us for the feast. Some time after the first game, when the dinner dishes had been put away, and before we began on round two of the feast, open-faced turkey sandwiches with gravy, I brought out the Butterworth plaque to show my father-in-law. He admired its craftsmanship and pretended to be interested as I explained all the details behind the graphics and citation, then we went back to watching football on the TV while Irene flipped though several hundred pages of advertisements.

I didn’t give the plaque another thought until a week later when I went to retrieve it from the living room coffee table where I had last seen it on Thanksgiving and it wasn’t there. I looked all over the house, even in places I knew it couldn’t be, just to know I had looked everywhere, and then a horrible sinking feeling came over me as I deduced what had most likely been the undignified end to my special hand crafted plaque. In the mass of newspapers and advertisements left on the table and strewn about the living room the Butterworth Award had gotten buried or mixed in with the mess and the week after Thanksgiving it had gone out to the curb with the trash. It was by now buried under several feet of garbage in a landfill somewhere never to be seen again. I cried out loud at the loss.

Irene felt bad, I was distraught and the Butterworth was gone. I had taken several close up detailed pictures of it, intending to put a picture of the front and back in a two-slot picture frame for my office in Cambridge, but the place of honor I had selected for the genuine article laid bare for a long time, before I covered it up with a poster and tried to forget the tragic loss. Eventually, I did hang the picture frame of the Butterworth in my office at AAVSO headquarters, but I didn’t tell anyone about the fate of the plaque. It simply hurt too much to talk about and I was too embarrassed to ask the BAA if there was any way I could have another one made. It became a sore spot for Irene and I also. I tried not to blame her for the loss, even though deep down I did hold her at least partially responsible, and she resented me blaming her for the loss when it was I who apparently threw it in the trash, not her. We went on like this for a year. When Thanksgiving came around in 2012 it dredged up all the feeling of loss all over again, and by mid-December I had gathered up enough courage and put aside my embarrassment to write John Toone and the BAAVSS Director, Roger Pickard, to ask if there was any way a replacement could be made. They replied within a day saying that a replica could be made and that it would cost approximately £75 plus postage and would take a couple months to make. I was ecstatic.

February 4, 2013 I received word the plaque was finished and ready to be shipped. I simply had to make arrangements to pay for the plaque and shipping costs, which I did that same day. It ended up costing me around $150.00 US, but it was worth every penny. I couldn’t wait for it to get here.

On February 8^th the packaged arrived. I knew it was the plaque. It was a heavy cardboard envelope from the UK. What else could it be? I rushed up to the house from the mailbox and cut open the packaging. As I pulled the plaque from inside the envelope I could feel through the bubble wrap that something was not right. My heart sank. I peeled away the packing and to my utter dismay found the plaque broken into several pieces with shards and dust and little gemstones loose inside the bubble wrap. For the third time the Charles Butterworth Award caused a lump in my throat and made my eyes tear up.

The second Third Charles Butterworth Award shattered

I immediately notified Roger, John and Alan, the artisan who had made the first two plaques. I tried to glue the pieces together but nothing I had on hand worked on the natural stone. Alan replied a day later that the shipment had been insured and said that he could make yet another plaque and would ship it in a more robust package from the UK next time. I couldn’t imagine what could go wrong the next time, but I tried not to get my hopes up, since by this time I was feeling genuinely cursed.

March 18^th I was in Cambridge for meetings and the upcoming DSLR Manual Workshop. At 5:30 PM I got a call on my cell phone, but didn’t pick it up because I was out to dinner with AAVSO Secretary, Gary Walker, and I don’t like to interrupt face-to-face conversations by answering the phone. When I got back to headquarters I saw I had a voice mail and there was an IM message from Irene saying, “I think the Butterworth plaque came in the mail!” So I called Irene. The phone rang several times before she answered, somewhat out of breath. “Is it the plaque?” I asked without even saying hello. “ I don’t know. I didn’t open it,” she said, still breathless.

“Can you open it?” I asked. “Right now?” she replied.

“Well…yea.”

“I’m on the treadmill. Can I call you back later?”

Irene has her priorities, and I suppose she figured I had waited this long, another hour wasn’t going to kill me. So I waited.

About an hour later she called me back to tell me it was indeed the third Third Charles Butterworth Award and it was intact and looked great. She also said, “I put it in your sock drawer where it will be safe and I’m not touching it ever again after this.”

A week later when I got home from Boston I got to see the new plaque and it is indeed a handsome replica of the original. It came with a note from Alan, the artist who made them all, which read, “Dear Mr. Simonsen, I hope this made it to you in one piece. I have made it from slightly thicker slate and drilled a smaller hanging hole and used much better packing, so I am keeping my fingers crossed! Best wishes and apologies, Alan.”

I wrote back to Alan, Roger and John “The third "Third Charles Butterworth Award" has arrived safe and sound and will soon occupy a place of honor on the wall in my office.
Thank you very much, to all of you.”

Leslie Peltier Award 2012, Charles Butterworth Award 2011
and the AAVSO Directors Award 2005

And so it is. The third Third Charles Butterworth Award now hangs in my office and will remain there until the stars fall from the sky.

And Black Friday will always have its own meaning to me.

My First Variable Star Observation 11 Feb 2013 12:38 PM (12 years ago)

Friday, February 15th, will be the 14th anniversary of my first variable star estimate.

R Leo, 9.6, Feb 15, 1999

Over 82,000 observations later, I can still recall a lot of things about my first variable star observation.

 I remember I was at my dad’s house in Romeo, Michigan, where the skies were much darker than at my home at the time. I was using a 10” LX50 and finding objects by dialing in the setting circles and star hopping with the finder and a low power eyepiece. I had spent a couple months learning how to polar align, set up and tear down the telescope, and how to find things on star charts and use the telescope at different magnifications. Once I thought I knew my way around the telescope and the sky, I was determined to start variable star observing.

I tried for almost a whole night on the 14th, but I couldn’t figure out how to relate what I was seeing in the eyepiece to what I was seeing on the AAVSO charts. It was very cold that year in February. There were several inches of snow on the ground. I remember because I had lost my favorite pen in the snow in the dark, and spent a half an hour looking for it before giving up for the night, frustrated by my lack of success, the bitter cold and the loss of my pen.

But I was determined, so the next night I drove out to my father’s property, set up the telescope, polar aligned it and began looking for R Leo again. I had been trying to star hop from Regulus, heading west, looking for that little triangle of stars that everyone who observes R Leo comes to know so well. But I couldn’t tell what I was doing wrong or how to fix it, so I decided to try using the setting circles and a new finder chart I had made myself from a planetarium program called Mega Star.

Something I’ve learned over the years since then is this- if you make a mistake while trying to find a new star, and then get lost a second time, move on to another target and come back to it another night, because chances are you’re going to continue making the same mistake over and over. It happens to the best of us. Next time, you’ll wonder why you thought it was so tough the previous night, when armed with a fresh perspective, you land right on it.

That is what happened to me. Once I dropped the star hopping strategy and just dialed it in, I landed almost smack dab on top of it. I had probably slewed past it a dozen times the night before, but couldn’t tell how big the triangle I was looking for was going to be in my eyepiece or finder. When I was pointing right at it, undistracted, it hit me like a ton of bricks. There it was! And I was sure that was R Leo right there, because it was obviously redder than the other stars. I’m pretty sure I laughed out loud. I was relieved. “Hey, I can do this,” I said to myself.

A lot of things in my life have changed since that fateful night. The AAVSO has had an enormous impact on my life, more than I ever could have imagined standing in the snow that night in 1999.

It was years later that I learned several of my friends and legendary observer, Leslie Peltier, started their VSO careers observing R Leo. I go back and visit her now and then, just because R Leo will always have a special place in my heart. Some night this month the clouds have to part, so I can go back and relive a special moment in my memory one more time, with my oldest variable star friend.

My personal history with R Leo. Blue crosses are my visual observations over the years.

From France to Buffalo in Seven Hours By Car 18 Oct 2012 4:54 AM (12 years ago)

Several months ago I was invited by French AAVSO member, Laurent Corp, to give a talk for CAPAS 2012, a pro-am astronomy conference on double stars and variable stars in Rodez, France. I was happy to oblige and agreed to give a talk on 'Pulsating Stars in the AAVSO Program'. Neither the organizers or I could afford to fly me to France, so we agreed to do the presentation via Skype.

I sent them an advance copy of my PowerPoint which they translated into French. They would display the slides on two screens, one in English, the other in French, and on a third screen would be the live webcam shot of my cheery face, blown up to giant talking head dimensions. The early afternoon time slot I was assigned translated to 8:30AM local time on Saturday, September 29, the same day I was leaving to drive to Boston, via Buffalo, New York.

Mike Simonsen, the giant talking head

I logged into Skype around 8AM and began my talk around 8:40, as the talks before me had begun to run long and late. I essentially covered the history of observations of pulsating stars in the AAVSO, the types of pulsating stars we observe today, and some of the current questions in astrophysics related to stellar pulsation. I was able to stay on for a while after my talk to monitor some of the other speakers as they gave their talks, but eventually it was time to load my suitcase and computer bag in the car and head east towards New York.

Buffalo is a 7 hour drive from my home in Michigan, which happens to be almost exactly half-way between home and Boston. Realizing that the Patriots were playing the Buffalo Bills on Sunday, September 30, I had decided rather last minute to see if I could get a ticket to the game. I could drive to Buffalo on Saturday, go to the game on Sunday and drive the rest of the way to AAVSO HQ Monday morning. As luck would have it, a very good single seat ticket was available in a season ticket holder section down near the 20 yard line. I snatched it up and set the plan in motion.

The drive to Buffalo was uneventful, and I was just able to score a decent hotel room west of Buffalo for the night. I drove to Ralph Wilson Stadium early Sunday morning so I could check out the tailgate partying, pick up a souvenier and shoot some pictures. Deciding not to wear my Patriots hoodie, I opted to go incognito, disguised as a Buffalo fan. I purchased a crazy, fuzzy Bills hat to complete my disguise. Peaking into a VIP tent set up in the parking lot, I got to meet a couple of the Bill's cheerleaders, who obliged me with a picture. The Patriots won the game, coming from behind in the second half so everything worked out great!

Mike, his crazy hat and two Buffalo Jills

I drove into Boston, early Monday morning and arrived shortly after noon. The next four days were filled with meetings from 8:30AM to 5:30PM and working at my desk and tallking on the phone until 11PM. We had some very productive meetings, discussing AAVSOnet, CHOICE, fundraising, grant writing, the variable star plotter, a new binocular program, and various other topics. When I left for home on Friday morning my to do list from those meetings was two pages long!

My next trip to Boston will be for the fall meeting. I'm sharing the drive with Kevin Paxson and Dan Taylor. I hope to see you there. Until next time...

Earth Sized Planet Found Orbiting Alpha Centauri B 17 Oct 2012 7:23 AM (12 years ago)

October 17, 2012

This artist’s impression shows the planet orbiting the star Alpha Centauri B, a member of the triple star system that is the closest to Earth. Credit: ESO/L. Calçada/N. Risinger (skysurvey.org)

One of the most exciting exoplanet discoveries in decades was announced yesterday in an online ESO press conference. The discovery was to be officially announced in an article in the journal Nature today, but due to the excitement surrounding this discovery ESO and Nature agreed to lift the embargo a day early. I think they realized they weren’t going to be able to keep the lid on it for another day. The fact that an Earth sized planet had been discovered orbiting one of our nearest stellar neighbors, Alpha Centauri B, was a headline dying to be exploited by the press.

The planet was detected using the HARPS instrument on the 3.6-meter telescope at ESO's La Silla Observatory in Chile. HARPS can measure the radial velocity of a star with extraordinary precision. A planet in orbit around a star causes the star to move towards and away from an observer on Earth. Due to the Doppler effect, this radial velocity change induces a redshift of the star's spectrum towards longer wavelengths as it moves away and a blueshift as it approaches. This tiny shift of the star's spectrum can be measured with a high-precision spectrograph such as HARPS and used to infer the presence of a planet. Of course it’s not quite as simple as that.

How Do They Do That?
Alpha Cen B is a spectral type K1V star only slightly less massive than our Sun and cooler. There are a lot of competing signals combined in the light from Alpha Cen B, inducing a radial-velocity “jitter”. In the process of filtering out these additional sources of noise the team of astronomers was able to learn quite a bit more about the star itself. They determined that the star has spots like our Sun. As a star rotates, spots will appear to move from one side of the stellar disk to the other, introducing a periodic signal. This will correspond to the rotational period of the star. The radial velocities of Alpha Centauri B show a clear signal at 38.7 days, the rotational period of the star. They also learned the star has a solar-like star spot cycle with activity increasing and then decreasing over the four year period of the observations.

Additionally, the team had to filter out the effects of the radial velocity changes due to the star being a member of a binary system, as well as the fact that on some occasions of poor seeing the light from Alpha Cen B was contaminated with light from the primary, Alpha Cen A. As if that weren’t enough, they also had to remove the effect of the changing velocity of the Earth in the direction of the star as it orbits the Sun before the signal of a small rocky planet orbiting the star could be detected.

“Our observations extended over more than four years using the HARPS instrument and have revealed a tiny, but real, signal from a planet orbiting Alpha Centauri B every 3.2 days,” says lead author of the paper, Xavier Dumusque (Geneva Observatory, Switzerland and Centro de Astrofisica da Universidade do Porto, Portugal). “It’s an extraordinary discovery and it has pushed our technique to the limit!”

Why is this important?
The technical achievement alone makes this an extraordinary discovery. It is the lowest mass exoplanet ever discovered, and now the closest known. This is a major step forward in detecting Earth twins. Unfortunately, the planet orbits so close to its parent star (0.04 AU) that its surface temperature is estimated to be approximately 1500 degrees Kelvin, so the chance of the planet supporting any kind of life is doubtful. But, the precision required to obtain this result would also allow astronomers to detect a planet four times the mass of Earth in the habitable zone of a Sun-like star (habitable super-Earths) with periods in the range of 200 days.

Alpha Cen Bb and the habitable zone around the host star. Credit: Greg Laughlin from EPO press conference

The fact that this planet was discovered orbiting a star in the Alpha Centauri system sparks the imagination. How many science fiction books have speculated about the existence of planets around our nearest stellar neighbor? Now it is science fact. There is at least one planet in the Alpha Centauri system, and probably more.

"This is the first planet with a mass similar to Earth ever found around a star like the Sun. Its orbit is very close to its star and it must be much too hot for life as we know it," adds Stephane Udry (Geneva Observatory), a co-author of the paper and member of the team, "but it may well be just one planet in a system of several. Our other HARPS results, and new findings from Kepler, both show clearly that the majority of low-mass planets are found in such systems."

The Kepler mission has found 2300 candidate planets by searching for exoplanet transits among the 10,000 or more stars it monitors continuously. The majority of planet candidates detected by this transit method are very distant from us. In contrast, the planets found by HARPS are around stars close to the Sun, this new discovery being the closest yet. This makes them better targets for many kinds of additional follow-up observations such as characterizing the planet's atmosphere.

What next?
Astronomers will now continue with extensive Doppler monitoring of Alpha Centauri B to try to detect additional planets, perhaps some in the habitable zone. This will become increasingly difficult as the separation between the Alpha Cen binary is decreasing over the next several years. They may also try to observe it from space to see if they can detect the transit of the star across the face of Alpha Cen B. The eclipse will be too shallow to observe from the ground. There is about a 10% chance of success, with the odds being higher if the orbital plane is in line with the binary plane, estimated at 11% inclination with respect to Earth.

How does this fit into variable star science?
The study of variable stars is really the study of the secret lives of stars. How are they formed, how they live out their lives and what changes occur internally and externally as they evolve. We learn about the environments surrounding them, including planets and other companions, and their affect on these partners; and finally, how they end their lives slowly fading away, stripped of their atmospheres or violently exploding, seeding the universe with the materials to build more stars, planets and us.

At almost every phase in a star’s life it varies in its light output. If the variation is large enough and occurs on human timescales, we, the observers of the AAVSO, can record and study these changes, and we have now for over 100 years.

In that time we have learned about all kinds of variations in stellar output and how to interpret it. Some stars vary as they pulsate, actually changing size physically, growing and then shrinking again, sometimes with a precise period, sometimes irregularly. We’ve seen stars that appear to vary because star spots are transported across the face of the star as it rotates. We’ve witnessed stars being eclipsed by unseen companions in extremely close orbits around their center of gravity, and now we can see the incredibly small changes in the light of a star as a planet crosses in front of it from our point of view.

Alpha Centauri B exhibits all of these phenomena at the same time. It rotates, it pulsates, it has spots, it’s a member of a binary system, and now we know it has a planet, perhaps several, and there is a chance we can see them transit the face of our close stellar neighbor if we turn our satellites on them. It is becoming apparent that the more we look, the more we will find planets around stars everywhere. It has also become obvious that the closer we look, the more we will find every star is a variable star to one degree or another at one time or another in its life. Alpha Centauri B is another interesting and exciting member of the variable star zoo.

Leslie Peltier: The World's Greatest Amateur Astronomer 20 Jul 2012 10:19 AM (12 years ago)

Leslie Peltier

"The world's greatest non-professional astronomer."

That is what Harlow Shapley called Leslie Peltier. If that is true, then why don't more people know about Peltier? I think the simple truth is he was a very private, soft-spoken man, who never sought the limelight and would have been embarrassed by all the attention he gets nowadays.

I've tried several times to write about Leslie Peltier, but every time before, I have begun thumbing through his classic book, Starlight Nights, for references and quotes and ended up reading the whole thing from cover to cover again instead of writing the piece that was my original intention. I'll never get tired of reading it. There are a lot of books that tell you how to observe the heavens and what you will find when you do, but this book always reminds me of why I love to be out under the stars at the eyepiece of a telescope, soaking in the sounds and smells of nature and admiring the majesty of the universe with my own eyes.

Born in January 1900, on a farm outside of Delphos, Ohio, Leslie grew up in a less complicated time, among the forests and farm fields of the area he lived his entire life. If he was famous for anything, it was his unwillingness to leave his home. He had everything he needed right there in Delphos- his family, his home, his gardens, and his observatories. Why would he want to leave any of that? So it was, that later in his life people made the pilgrimage to come visit him. Leslie was not likely to be making a public appearance anywhere near you. You had to go to the mountain.

As a boy Leslie was fascinated by the natural world around him. He read books from his family's home library and learned abut the flora and fauna that appeared on and around his home in nature guides, such as Wood's Natural History and Gray's Botany. He thoroughly enjoyed identifying each new butterfly, bird and flower. In 1977 he published The Place On Jennings Creek, a book relating the past 25 years of gardens and critters that shared the natural setting of his home with Leslie and his wife, Dorothy.

It's kind of surprising that it took Leslie until he was in high school to realize that his natural world extended upwards, over the tree tops, past the clouds and out into the Universe into the night sky. He recalls in Starlight Nights the moment it dawned in him that he could name all the butterflies on his farm but didn't know the names of any of the stars in the heavens. One evening in May-

"Something- perhaps it was a meteor- caused me to look up for a moment. Then, literally out of that clear sky, I suddenly asked myself: "Why do I not know a single one of those stars?"

Thus began an epic journey of discovery and observation that lasted the rest of his life. Peltier learned the stars on his own using only his eyes for the first year. He always felt this was the best way to learn the sky, as opposed to having someone teach the constellations or telescopic showpieces without investing the time and effort to become familiar with each one and its place in the heavens.

"Each star had cost an effort. For each there had been planning, watching and anticipation. Each one recalled to me a place, a time, a season. Each one now has a personality. The stars, in short, had become my stars."

His first telescope was purchased with earnings from picking strawberries. He had to pick 900 quarts at two cents a piece one summer to save up the $18.00 for his mail order 2" spyglass telescope. He made his own alt-azimuth mount for the telescope out of a left over fence post, an old grind stone and discarded two by fours. This telescope served him well as he learned the sky and how to use a telescope to view the heavens.

His fatal attraction to variable stars and the AAVSO began when he wrote a letter to AAVSO founder, William Tyler Olcott asking how he could contribute to science with his small telescope. Olcott wrote back explaining that observing variable stars was an exciting and scientifically useful way to spend ones time under the stars, and from the time Leslie was eighteen until his death in 1980 he never missed sending in a monthly report of variable star observations to AAVSO headquarters in Cambridge, MA. His description of how variable star observing changed his life forever is something I have quoted often to many people.

"Life was never quite the same for me after that winter walk to town. The charts that I brought home with me were potent and ensnaring and I feel it my duty to warn any others who may show signs of star susceptibility that they approach the observing of variable stars with the utmost caution. It is easy to become and addict and, as usual, the longer the indulgence is continued the more difficult it becomes to go back to a normal life."

In 1919, Peltier was given the first of several telescopes that would be loaned, or given to him outright, based on his exceptional observing skills and perseverance. The AAVSO loaned him a 4-inch refractor with which to make variable star observations, and he immediately put it to good use by observing even fainter variable stars. Two years later, after enduring hundreds of nights in the dew and cold his father suggested it was time they build a proper observatory for Leslie. This observatory soon housed an even larger telescope, the 'Comet-Catcher.'

In 1925, he discovered his first comet, using the Comet-Catcher, a 6-inch refractor on loan from Henry Norris Russell of Princeton University. He would go on to discover 11 more comets in his lifetime, the last one in 1954. He also discovered four naked eye novae and made a habit of checking up on some old novae that still varied and occasionally had recurrent outbursts.

Leslie with the 2" spyglass in front of the
dome of the 12" Clark refractor

In 1959, life took a very unexpected turn when Miami of Ohio University offered to give Leslie their 12-inch Clark refractor, complete with observatory, dome and transit room! The entire observatory was cut into sections and delivered 125 miles to the Peltier home, where it was re-assembled and served Leslie as he strove to observe the faint minima of many of the variables he followed for decades. With this telescope he could follow stars down to 15th or 16th magnitude, far fainter than his other telescopes would allow. In total, Leslie Peltier submitted over 132,000 variable star observations to the AAVSO, making him one of the all-time leading observers in history.

Peltier's life was a long, steady, calm procession of days and nights lived to the fullest and enjoyed for their blessings, punctuated by events like the appearance of a new comet or nova, or unexpected recognitions for doing what Leslie would have done even if no one noticed.

Overcoming his lack of formal education, Leslie dropped out of school after the 10th grade to work on his father's farm, he received an honorary doctorate from Bowling Green State University in 1947. In 1965, a mountain in California, home of the AAVSO's Ford Observatory, was named Mt. Peltier in his honor. In 1975, he received an honorary high school diploma from his home town's Delphos Jefferson High School.

In his obituary, written by friend and fellow AAVSOer, Carolyn Hurless, she says,

"Leslie was able to accomplish all he did because he was a private person. He lived exactly as he wanted to. He did nothing he didn't wish to do and was able to say "no" very easily. He was very uncomfortable with those who sought him out because he was famous, but to those fellow variable star observers who visited, he was a warm and welcoming individual."

Shortly after his death in 1980, the Astronomical League established The Leslie C. Peltier Award "to be presented to an amateur astronomer who contributes to astronomy observations of lasting significance," and that is where our histories finally intersect. In July 2012, I became the 30th recipient of the Leslie Peltier Award at the Astronomical League Convention in Chicago, Illinois.

Finding myself uncharacteristically speechless and unprepared, this is what I wish I would have said when asked to say a few words.

"I've known about Leslie Peltier, the great amateur astronomer and variable star observer, for years. I've heard the reverence in people's voices when he is mentioned in conversation. I've read Starlight Nights more than any other book I can think of. And when I do, I'm always struck by the similarities in our experiences.

I too learned the sky and the names of all the stars and constellations on my own, through books and star charts borrowed from the library. I earned the money to buy my first telescope by getting up early in the morning and delivering papers door to door for far longer than I ever dreamed I could endure. His story about seeing something in the sky he couldn't explain during the UFO crazed 1950's, and the fact that it turned out to be geese flying in formation, is exactly like the story I have told my friends and will share with my grandchildren one day, about a winter night in 1980. I too, have received a telescope on loan from the AAVSO, as well as a CCD with which to observe variable stars. Even the opening paragraphs of Starlight Nights, where he describes walking down the path towards the two stark-white structures as night falls reminds me of my walk to my observatories each clear night.

But when he writes about his love of variable stars, and how he gets excited each night, year after year, to go spend some time with his old friends, that is when I hear my passion and my words coming out of his mouth. I am a hopeless variable star addict like Leslie, having now submitted over 80,000 observations of my own to the AAVSO.

Awards and accolades are great, but like Leslie, I would have done it all anyway. I don't think I really had a choice.

It is because of who this award is named for that it means so very much to me. I'd like to thank my wife, Irene, for supporting me and enabling my addiction. Thank you to the Astronomical League for this very special and meaningful recognition. And thank you, Leslie Peltier, for being an inspiration and role model for amateur astronomers everywhere who want to reach for the stars and explore the Universe on their own terms, in their own time and in their own way."

The 2012 Leslie C. Peltier Award
proudly displayed on my office wall

The 12" LX200 Eyepiece Saga 17 Jul 2012 11:08 AM (12 years ago)

If you are a visual observer, the eyepieces in your arsenal are as important as the optical tube or mount. One of my goals has always been to find the perfect combination of the fewest number of eyepieces to be able to handle all my typical observing requirements. I don't like to spend time changing eyepieces and refocusing. I want to observe, not focus and fiddle around. My search for the perfect combination of eyepieces for variable star observing has had episodes of experimentation and expense followed by long periods of satisfaction and observing action.

After learning the capabilities and limitations of my first set of standard Plossl eyepieces I turned to the TeleVue brand to get superior quality eyepieces that had longer eye relief and a wider true field of view.

Eye relief is simply the distance between your eye and the lens of the EP where you can comfortably and effectively view what you are looking at. If you've ever stuck your eyeball practically on top of the lens of a inexpensive, short focal length, short eye relief EP to see into the tiny peep hole, you know this is not how you want to spend two to four hours a night 100 times a year.

True FOV is the area of sky you can view in any particular eyepiece/telescope combination. When you are making variable star estimates, the larger the true field of view the better chance your comparison stars will fall in the FOV. Generally speaking, the brighter the variable and comparison stars, the further spread out they are on the sky. So an eyepiece that can show you a larger chunk of sky is very helpful.

You may notice I haven't talked at all about magnification yet. That's mostly because when you are looking at stars they always just look like points of light, unlike planets or the Moon, which get bigger and dimmer with more magnification. The real advantage of higher magnification for star viewing is it makes the sky background darker, so you can see fainter stars. This usually comes at the cost of FOV. Generally speaking, the higher the magnification, the smaller the FOV.

There is a practical limit to how much you can magnify celestial objects in any telescope. For short focal ratio telescopes 30x per inch of aperture is about right. For longer f ratios, like the f/10 Schmidt Cassegrains, 20-25x per inch of aperture is more realistic. It is rare for any telescope to be abe to use more than 400x ever. I've only experienced a dozen nights where I thought 350x was reasonable.

That never stopped me from buying a bunch of eyepieces that would deliver more magnification! I've had everything from 5mm (600x!!) to 10mm (300x) and eventually sold or traded them all away because they never came out of the eyepiece box. My 7mm Nagler was a great eyepiece, but I only used it a few times in ten years, mostly to view Mars, Jupiter and Saturn on those exceptionally rare nights of almost perfect seeing.

As you can imagine, sorting through all these factors has taken some time. For almost a decade my two "go to" EPs have been 12mm and 17mm Nagler Type 4's. The 12mm gave me .33 degrees of sky at 250x, which was perfect for the 12" LX200 telescope. It's about as much magnification as you can really use on an average to good night, and 1/3 of a degree is a large enough piece of sky to cover a typical chart I would use to observe faint cataclysmic variables. The 17mm Nagler had an awesomely comfortable eye relief. I could observe all night long with that eyepiece- I loved it. It delivered .46 degrees of sky at a generous magnification of 176x. I could see almost as faint in the 17mm as the 12mm on average nights, but the lower magnification delivered more pleasant star images in fair to poor seeing. It also weighs 5 pounds! Think about that before you buy one. You may need to add counter weights if you use it.

Another thing I loved about these eyepieces was the adjustable click stop eyeguard. They are a handy light shield built right into the housing of the EP to position your eye and block any stray light from getting in to mar the view. Every EP should have this.

For observing Mira stars I still needed something with a much lower magnification and wider FOV. These stars can range from the very faintest I can see, 14th to 15th magnitude, all the way up to 7th magnitude. I needed something to cover the mid and top ranges of these stars. I eventually settled on mounting an 80mm short tube refractor on the LX200, but this was only useful down to about mag 10.5 or so. The real answer to this issue was the TeleVue 55mm Plossl. It gives me almost a full degree of sky (.92 degrees) at 55x. I can see down to 13th magnitude easily, and observe stars as bright as 9th magnitude while still having some useful comparison stars in the FOV. Anything brighter is perfect for the 80mm refractor and its generous FOV.

I probably could have gone on forever, blissfully, with this combination of EPs, but at the Texas Star Party in 2011, I was able to borrow a 13mm Ethos EP from a friend and using it in my telescope was a life altering experience. I couldn't believe how much larger the FOV was. It's ridiculous! You have to move your head around to take it all in. And the crisp, flat, pinpoint star images it produces are stunning, even compared to the near perfection of the Nagler type EPs I'd come to love. I had to own a set.

But I really had no desire to give up my 12mm and 17mm Naglers. There really was nothing wrong with them and after trying dozens of EPs I had stuck with these for a decade. I have to admit, they were sort of like old friends. After 50,000 variable star observations we'd grown close. So I thought I would try to get a little more oomph out of my telescope by getting the 10mm Ethos. This would give me 300x and the same 1/3 degree of sky the 12mm Nagler did. Hopefully, I could use it as my new go to EP for faint CVs because the added magnification would give me a darker sky background. And for those really good nights I bought the 8mm Ethos. A whopping 375x with still a 1/4 degree FOV. What could be better? I could have the best of both worlds.

I settled in for a few months with the new set of EPs and found myself, as before, using the 10mm once in a while and the 8mm almost never. I don't know why I thought the Ethos EPs were going to make the sky conditions better. They are just eyepieces, not atmospheric stabilization devices! I was back to using the old-faithful 12mm and 17mm Naglers in no time. It finally dawned on me what an idiot I was after the final night of the Cherry Springs Star Party when I realized I'd never even taken either of the new Ethos EPs out of the case. I had $1350.00 invested in two EPs I wasn't using.

So I took the plunge. I traded in the Naglers and the Ethos EPs and came home from Cherry Springs with just three EPs in the case. A new 13mm Ethos, a new 17mm Ethos and the trusty TeleVue 55mm Plossl. It didn't take me long to get used to the idea of using these fantastic new eyepieces as my trusty companions at the telescope. They are both simply stunning performers.

The weather has been warm and dry and unusually clear at night for summer. I have had some of the best viewing in the 12" I can recall in the last four or five years. I have been able to see as faint as 16th magnitude on several nights with the new EPs.

I've had several nights of very exceptional seeing where I thought to myself, "You know, Self, we could probably use at least one more eyepiece, maybe a 10mm to give us 300x for nights like this." I know, it's a disease. But this time I told myself I'm not going to spend $600.00 or more for an EP I will only use on special occasions. Besides, the situations I want 300x for don't generally require a large FOV. I don't need a Nagler or Ethos EP to see extremely faint cataclysmic variables, or to view Saturn or Jupiter at high power.

So I decided to try out a TeleVue Delos 10mm. It still has a generous apparent FOV of 72 degrees, which yields .24 degrees true FOV and 300x in my 3000mm focal length telescope. I've only had it long enough to use at the telescope for one night, but I think we have a winner. It still cost $370.00, but that is a little more than half what a 10mm Ethos would cost, and I just can't do that again.

The Delos has a new kind of adjustable eyeguard that slides into place and twist locks once you have determined the perfect place for it in relation to the lens. This is almost a requirement for this EP. The Delos is very sensitive to eye placement. If you position your eye pupil too far in or too far out you experience edge darkening and field loss. This is not a star party eyepiece for the general public. It takes a pretty experienced observer to get the most out of this complex combination of elements. But it is a very good quality EP with no ghosting and it delivers great definition on those really good nights at 300x. I think I'm done buying EPs for a long time...or at least until Al Nagler comes up with a new exotic glass and lens combination.

Pennsylvania Star Party Adventure 23 Jun 2012 1:06 PM (12 years ago)

I had been looking forward to this trip since last October. That is when we took a side trip on our way back from the AAVSO Centennial Celebration in Boston through the northwestern part of Pennsylvania known as the Pennsylvania Wilds. The landscape is dominated by state forests among some of the most picturesque mountains, valleys, rivers and streams in America. We stayed in Wellsboro, a quaint village with a boulevard main street dotted with antique shops, bed and breakfasts and restaurants on State Highway 6. We did some sightseeing and picture shooting at the rim of the Pennsylvania Grand Canyon, (that’s right, Pennsylvania has a Grand Canyon, and you should see it in the fall!), and then drove west on Highway 6 to find the Kinzua Skywalk which had opened just a months before we arrived.

The Kinzua Skywalk is what remains of an old railroad bridge that spanned a 400-foot deep gorge. About a decade ago they were refurbishing the bridge when it took a direct hit from a tornado, twisting and breaking most of the support columns and leaving them strewn on the floor of the canyon. You can still see the scar on the landscape where the tornado stripped all the trees from the sides of the mountains. On the south side of the gorge a few of the columns remained, so they’ve made a park out of the site and you can walk out to the end of what remains of the bridge and peer over the sides at the destruction or through the glass bottom floor at the valley 400 feet below.

In between the Grand Canyon and the Kinzua Skywalk, Highway 6 bisects the small town of Coudersport. Coudersport plays host to two annual star parties at the nearby Cherry Springs State Park. This was our destination on this trip, for the Cherry Springs Star Party.

We left Wednesday morning after 9am. It’s an 8-hour drive from Michigan to Coudersport, which after driving to the Texas, Nebraska and the Winter Star Party in Florida seemed like a jog across town. We checked into our hotel, unloaded our baggage and did a little exploring to check out the local eateries. We ended up having dinner that night and most other nights, at KayTee’s, the restaurant two doors down from our hotel.

Thursday morning we headed out to the Cherry Springs State Park, which is about 15 miles from town up a winding mountain road. The park sits on top of a mountain at 2300 feet. Unlike most places I’ve been to for star parties, this park is designed specifically for astronomical viewing. They have AC power pedestals throughout the observing field, concrete pads to sit telescopes on and permanent observatories you can rent year round. There are porta-potties conveniently located around the park, as well as a small building with running water and flush toilets near the gate. The field is large and the trees have been cut back all around to provide a good view almost to the horizon, yet there are plenty of them to block any stray light from the rare car passing in the night. There were already a couple hundred campers set up from the night before when we arrived Thursday morning, the first official day of the star party. We set up our tent, camping gear and the 12” LX200 in about an hour. We’re getting pretty good at this.

Across the road from the park is a public viewing area and astronomy trail for naked eye or binocular astronomers, with its own parking area and berms to block any stray light from the road. All in all, this is one of the darkest places I’ve ever been. Saturday morning at 4AM I could not see my car twenty feet away as I left the star party to head back to the hotel. The only clue I had I was heading in the right direction was the sound of the gravel parking lot under my boots. I had to hit the button on the key fob to flash the lights on the car to find it.

Thursday night was clear and cold. Irene took a peek at Saturn, tried a few astro-photos and then retreated to the tent and crawled under a blanket and shivered until dawn. The guy camped next to us had a 25-inch Obsession Dobsonian. He had a lot of visitors during the night anxious to see galaxies and nebulae that looked like something more than faint fuzzies in the eyepiece. I heard a lot of oohs and ahs coming from the top of the ladder as his guests would ogle deep sky treasures. I explained to him that I was usually the loneliest guy at a star party, because no one ever wanted to look at variable stars…too boring.

The sky was dark but the seeing wasn’t terrific. Still, I was able to log some pretty faint observations and see mid 15^th magnitude stars with direct vision. This was definitely my best star party observing session in the last year. I stuck to familiar targets, doing about 70 CVs in Com, Boo, CrB, Ser, Her, Lyr, Vul and Cyg before the waning crescent moon rose above the trees around 3:45AM. By then I was pretty tired, so Irene and I made our way to the car parked across the road and headed back to the hotel as dawn broke over the misty mountains of PA.

I slept most of the day until Irene came back from exploring to take me to the park. I was giving a talk on variable stars and the AAVSO and wanted to get there early to set up the presentation and box of handouts I had brought along. The crowd gathered for my talk wasn’t huge, but they were definitely interested. The question and answer session after went on almost as long as the talk and I gave away nearly all the ten-star tutorials, pamphlets and bookmarks I had brought. I showed them a map of where I was located on the astronomy field and announced that I would be doing a variable star workshop at the telescope all night long for anyone who was interested in actually trying to make variable star observations.

We drove back to town for dinner, I took a nap and Irene settled in for the night in our hotel suite. She wasn’t going to be caught dead in a tent, in the dark, in the cold, in PA again on this trip. I arrived back at camp around dusk and there were already people milling around waiting for the “variable star guy to get here.” As soon as the sky was dark enough I started showing people T CrB in a low power eyepiece on the 12-inch. I’d explain how the chart related to the view in the eyepiece, what the numbers next to the comparison stars represented and taught each one how to make an estimate of the brightness of T CrB. I also related the story of Leslie Peltier’s waiting for decades for T CrB to erupt, and how on the one night he decided to stay in because he thought he might be catching a cold, T CrB went into outburst while he lay sleeping in his bed.

I expected the crowd to thin out any time all night long, but they just kept coming, one or two at a time usually. I could hear them finding their way in the dark. “Hey, is this the way to the variable star guy’s telescope?” From about 1AM until 3AM there were five of us taking turns at each star. We would all look at the field and then when everyone had seen it we would reveal our estimates. I was glad to see everyone was in pretty fair agreement on all the targets, especially after doing a few. With just a little practice they were all quite comfortable making the call, and proud to see they were coming up with the same answers as “the variable star guy.”

As a reward for making their first estimate I was giving out some AAVSO buttons I had gotten from HQ. When those ran out I started giving away Centennial T-shirts. I ran out of steam about the same time as the last die-hard observers called it a night. I passed out t-shirts to the last four observers, and as I was packing up eyepieces and covering the telescope for the night I heard a voice in the dark say, “You’re not the loneliest guy at the star party anymore, are you?” I drove down the mountain in the pre-dawn glow feeling tired, but strangely satisfied. I slept like a stone until 11AM Saturday morning, which is later than I’ve slept in in years.

We decided that the weather was looking a little iffy and it would be better to break camp on Saturday and drive home Sunday early that to do it all on Sunday after a short rest from staying up all night. So we headed out to Cherry Springs, where I visited the vendors to make a deal for a couple Ethos eyepieces, Irene got some last pictures of the camp, we packed up the tent, gear and telescope and said goodbye to our new friends.

On the way back to the hotel, we stopped in a couple places to do some antique shopping and visited a remarkable, eclectic, funky little eatery and art gallery in Coudersport named Olga’s Gallery, Café and Bistro. Olga is this remarkable woman from the Ukraine who has decorated and painted the entire two story shop in her own style and color combinations. She’s packed it full of her own artwork in a dozen mediums, from paint to jewelry to yarn, and serves excellent food and drinks along with her husband who works behind the bar. If you ever find yourself driving through Coudersport, PA, you have to stop in to experience this place. It is literally the last thing you would ever expect to find in a small town in PA.

After studying some maps and pamphlets I’d picked up along the way, I suggested that we take the long way home on Sunday to take advantage of the nice weather and the scenic byways I’d read about in the travel brochures. This plan had the added bonus of letting us skip the Interstate 86 part of the route we’d taken to get there. I-86 is in terrible condition, and I had no desire to go thumping along on that old slab of rough concrete for 100 miles on the way to Erie, PA. Our alternate route would take us along rushing rivers and stone cliffs busting out of forest covered mountains, eventually spilling us onto I-80 where we could cruise home at light speed through PA and Ohio to get home in time to feed the cats dinner and watch the sunset from our own front porch in the Michigan countryside.

We made some wrong turns, got a little lost and discovered some unexpected treasures in the forests of Pennsylvania that Sunday. So it was worth the extra time and miles to go the scenic route. We’ve decided we really like Pennsylvania, and we’ll be going back again soon. They have another star party at Cherry Springs in the fall called the Black Forest Star Party. I think I can hear the fall colors and clear skies calling.

Koji Mukai on X-rays and Dwarf Novae 7 Jun 2012 5:34 AM (12 years ago)

This is the second time Koji Mukai has granted me
an interview. The first time we discussed magnetic CVs,
intermediate polars specifically. That interview can be
read here.

Now Koji is back to discuss RU Peg and the X-ray
behavior of dwarf novae with massive white dwarfs.

CVnet: Hi, Koji. Thank you for granting us another interview. Let's start with
where are you working now and what are your primary responsibilities?
Also, what are you current areas of research?

Mukai: I work at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, although my employer
is University of Maryland, Baltimore County. I work at the
US Guest Observer Facility for the joint Japan-US Suzaku mission,
and also work on the education and public outreach group of the
astrophysics science division here. My research has always focused
on accreting white dwarfs - it still does, but over the last few
years it has expanded from just CVs to CVs and symbiotic stars.
I'm interested both in accretion and mass ejection during nova
outbursts.

CVnet: Are you still maintaining the Intermediate Polars pages?

Mukai: Yes, although I haven't had the time to make a substantial update
for the last year or so. There are quite a few new confirmed
and candidate IPs to add to the site!

CVnet: AAVSO Alert Notice 459 states you are requesting monitoring of the dwarf nova,
RU Peg, in anticipation of the next outburst. Let's discuss why RU Peg is so interesting,
and what you hope to learn by observing it with Swift.

Mukai: RU Peg is a bright dwarf nova that has been neglected, relatively
speaking, for X-ray observations. For dwarf novae, it is very
important to conduct X-ray monitoring campaigns through an outburst.
Now that RXTE has been decomissioned, Swift is the only observatory
for this type of campaign.

CVnet: Since your observations will be in the X-ray, where do X-rays in dwarf novae originate?

Mukai: In a dwarf nova, half the available gravitational potential energy is
radiated away in the accretion disk - that's a source of infrared,
visible, and ultraviolet light. The other half of the potential
energy has been converted into the kinetic energy of the disk material,
moving at several thousand kilometers per second. Since the white
dwarf is rotating much more slowly than this, that motion must suddenly
cease in a very small region - what we call the boundary layer. That's
where the X-rays originate in dwarf novae.

CVnet: How does the amount of X-rays emitted change between the quiescent and outburst
phases of the dwarf novae?

Mukai: That actually depends on what you mean by "X-rays." But if you mean
X-rays in the traditional band (photon energies of 2-10 keV, or
wavelengths of about 1-5 Angstroms), dwarf novae become fainter during
outburst than in quiescence.

Below are the AAVSO and RXTE light curves of WW Cet from
a recent paper I was involved in. This shows what I now think of

as "typical" behavior. X-ray bright in quiescence, X-ray faint in outburst,

with sudden a transition and no intermediate states.

From 2011PASP..123.1054F Fertig, D.; Mukai, K.; Nelson, T.; Cannizzo, J. K.

The Fall and the Rise of X-Rays from Dwarf Novae in Outburst: RXTE Observations of VW Hydri and WW Ceti

CVnet: What do we think is happening as the outburst begins in the accretion disc
to cause this X-ray suppression?

Mukai: In quiescence, the boundary layer is optically thin - that is, X-ray
photons, once emitted, escape the boundary layer without interacting
with matter. In outburst, much more matter is flowing through the
boundary layer, so the density is much higher. In this case, the
boundary layer becomes optically thick - X-ray photons emitted by
the ions interact with surrounding matter several times before
they are able to escape. In this situation, the temperature of
the boundary layer drops, and only lower energy X-rays ("soft"
X-rays, as in X-rays that cannot penetrate matter that much) are
emitted - with energies below 0.5 keV. The optically thin case
is like the corona of the sun, the optically thick case is like
the photosphere of the sun. In fact, during outburst, the boundary
layer has both the photosphere-like region and the corona-like region.

If the line of sight to the dwarf nova is relatively free of
interstellar matter, then we can observe dwarf novae brighten
dramatically during outburst in soft X-rays and extreme ultraviolet.

CVnet: Isn't this the opposite of what has been observed in prior campaigns on SS Cygni?

Mukai: No, not really. During the peak of the outburst (as determined by
visible light observers), SS Cyg is fainter in hard X-rays and brighter
in soft X-rays. It's in the time of transitions that SS Cyg has
shown a behavior pattern that has not been seen in other dwarf novae.
Other systems have shown "quiescent" (hard X-ray bright) and
"outburst" (hard X-ray dim) states, and nothing else. SS Cyg,
on the other hand, initially brightens in hard X-rays (near the
time of the peak visible light) before switching to hard X-ray
faint/soft X-ray bright state. There is another hard X-ray brightening
near the end of the outburst. So, in hard X-rays, it goes from
bright-brighter-faint-brighter-bright through an outburst.

You can see this in the light curves here.

CVnet: Does this mean SS Cygni is actually the exception to the rule, and not the
prototype as most people have always assumed?

Mukai: You can still consider SS Cyg to be the prototype of the hard X-ray
bright (quiescence) - dim (outburst) behavior. It appears to be
an exception in showing the bright-brighter-faint-brighter-bright
behavior.

CVnet: How does the mass of the white dwarf come into play in the whole process?

Mukai: The accretion rate at which the boundary layer switches from the
optically thin regime to the optically thick regime is believed to
be a strong function of the white dwarf mass, according to theoretical
studies. The higher the white dwarf mass, the higher the accretion
rate at which the transition occurs. The state change of the disk,
between quiescence and outburst, is governed by the conditions in
the disk, and is far less sensitive to the white dwarf mass. When
the disk goes into outburst, the accretion rate through the boundary
layer rises, making it optically thick for an average mass white
dwarf, while making it brighter but still optically thin for a
high mass white dwarf - at least that''s a physically motivated
explanation of why SS Cyg might behave differently from the average
dwarf novae.

CVnet: Is this the main reason for selecting RU Pegasi as your target for the Swift campaign?

Mukai: Yes, we believe that the white dwarf in the RU Peg system is among the
most massive for a dwarf nova. Also, it is one of the X-ray brightest
dwarf novae for which an X-ray monitoring campaign has never been
done.

CVnet: How do you know the mass of the white dwarf in RU Peg?

Mukai: In the optical spectra of RU Peg, you can see both the mass donor and
the accretion disk, so the radial velocity motion of both stars can
be measured, with the usual caveats.

CVnet: So what if we don't see the same X-ray behavior as SS Cyg when RU Peg goes into outburst?
Will the campaign still prove useful scientifically?

Mukai: That would be a very important result, because it would have disproved
our current hypothesis. We will have to go back to square one in terms
of trying to understand why SS Cyg is different, but that's how science
is supposed to work.

CVnet: Thanks, Koji. Any final comments or advice for our observers?

Mukai: Thank you, and thanks to all the AAVSO observers out there who make
this kind of research possible!

In Praise of Paper 30 May 2012 2:14 PM (12 years ago)

I have fully embraced the digital age as much as anyone. I have a smart phone, I'm on Facebook and Twitter, I write a blog, I sit in front of a computer for hours each day, and I'm nearly always online. I don't know where print journalism is going to end up in the future, but I have to admit, I like having a book or a magazine in my hands. Admittedly, I do 95% of my reading online nowadays, but there is still something very special about the feel of paper in your hands.

I get several astronomy magazines, but one of my favorite guilty pleasures in life is the time I spend every other month with the Journal of the British Astronomical Association. It is so well done it is worth the price of BAA membership just to get this journal. It is to the JBAA I dedicate this poem.

In Praise of Paper

And there it is again
Arriving in its neat cellophane wrapper
Like a gift under the tree on Christmas morn
A flashy color picture on the cover
hinting at the ecstasy within

It seems like forever since the last time
So I eagerly peel off the wrapper
And set it in the place of honor
Top of the reading pile
Next to the seat of knowledge

When the time is nigh
I carefully peel open the cover
And savoring the contents within
Devour page after page
Losing myself and all track of time

Suddenly a familiar tingling
Like pins and needles
Creeps up my legs from my feet
I realize I have forgotten
the other purpose here, long ago

“No, no”, I cry
Realizing I have yet unread pages
Then, carefully marking my place for the next time
I set about my day
Contemplating the things I have digested

Stellar birth and destruction
Planets spinning round
Galaxies in turmoil
Hot gases, fierce winds
Primordial soup…oh my!

Once again reunited
This daily routine is a part of me
It’s biological
It has texture and smell
I love the feel of it

Some things will never change
The digital age can’t replace this!
It’s part of the daily ritual
Don’t leave me here wanting
I must have paper!

Fireflies like little variable stars 26 May 2012 8:30 AM (12 years ago)

While checking out my bedroom window for clear skies last night, I noticed the first fireflies of the season, blinking and darting in the horse pasture behind the house. And it reminded me of a Robert Frost poem I couldn't quite recall. So this morning I looked it up on the internet. Gotta love Google.

Fireflies in the Garden
BY ROBERT FROST

Here come real stars to fill the upper skies,
And here on earth come emulating flies,
That though they never equal stars in size,
(And they were never really stars at heart)
Achieve at times a very star-like start.
Only, of course, they can't sustain the part.

It reminded me that last year we had a bumper crop of fireflies. There were literally tens of thousands of them flashing, winking, diving and darting for hours each night in the field out back. Not often am I able to convince Irene that there is something worth her time and effort outdoors in the dark. She hates to get cold, and her eyesight is jacked from chemotherapy. Astronomy is not even on her list, unless its a fantastic display of aurora or an eclipse. But even she was impressed with the little buggers by the thousands as far as the eye could see.

I couldn't help but think how much they reminded me of thousands of little variable stars. Winged cataclysmic variables going into outburst at irregular intervals, but their sum in real time was like a visual music of the spheres.

And like many things in nature, it couldn't be captured in a photograph or turned into bytes. No, you have to just take in the whole with your own eyes and enjoy it for what it is. No need to record it as data. Just eat it up in the now and soak in the miracle. And when it is all over you won't be able to quantify it, or prove anything. But you know what you saw, and it is all yours, to share as you will...or not.

Reaching Across The Great Divide 11 May 2012 6:53 AM (12 years ago)

Yesterday I received an email containing pictures of an Iranian astronomy magazine cover and the article pages of an interview I gave several months ago. To be honest, I'd forgotten about the whole thing, so this was quite a surprise. The Night Sky cover and interior pages are very colorful. Unfortunately, I can't read Farsi, so I'm not sure what portions of the interview made it into print.

They asked questions about the AAVSO, variable stars and my own personal story. They were also interested in how much I knew about their science and astronomy culture and history. I hope I passed the 'Ugly American Test'!

It also dawned on me that this is probably why I've had a sudden surge in Facebook friend requests from the Middle East. It's good to know that in spite of our governments' differences, people can still communicate in the universal language of curiosity and the pursuit of scientific answers.

Assuming that most or all of the questions and answers exchanged in the interview made it into print, here is the text of the interview I returned to them.

Please tell us about yourself and AAVSO.

Founded in 1911, the AAVSO is the world’s largest variable star organization, and is the world leader in information and data on variable stars. The AAVSO coordinates, evaluates, compiles, processes, publishes, and disseminates variable star observations to the astronomical community throughout the world. We have approximately 1200 members and 2500 observers from countries all over the world. In 2011, we celebrated our 100^th year of collecting and archiving variable star data.

I am one of the world’s most active variable star observers. I observe cataclysmic variables and long period variables, like Mira, using my own telescopes and robotic telescopes that are part of the AAVSO’s robotic telescope network, AAVSOnet.

I work for the AAVSO as Membership Director and Development Officer. My primary responsibilities are to serve our current members and to grow the membership, as well as to obtain funding to support the organization's mission and programs.

However, like most people who work for a non-profit science organization, I wear many hats. I am also in charge of variable star chart production for the AAVSO, a contributing author of the AAVSO Newsletter, coordinator of the AAVSO Mentor Program, and administrator of the Cataclysmic Variable Section, LPV Section, Speakers Bureau, Writers Bureau and Facebook page.

What is the main goal of the association and who are the key member of the scientific committee in AAVSO?

The AAVSO is an international non-profit organization of variable star observers whose mission is:

to observe and analyze variable stars
to collect and archive observations for worldwide access
to forge strong collaborations between amateur and professional astronomers
to promote scientific research and education using variable star data.

The AAVSO Director, Dr. Arne Henden, is the chief operating officer and astronomical representative of the organization. Dr. Matthew Templeton is the Science Director. The other acting science committee chairs are actually the observing section leaders, who are divided among the major different types of variable stars.

Were you interested in astronomy from childhood or by chance you got into this field?

My interest was inspired by a science teacher in grade school who told us we could calculate the approximate height of mountains on the Moon using the angle of the Sun to our point of view and the shadows they cast. I thought, “Mountains on the Moon? What do those look like?” From that moment on I was completely fascinated by astronomy. I bought a small telescope with money from my newspaper route and read every book in our public library by the time I was a teenager.

Like many of us, my interest in astronomy waned as a young adult. I was busy going to university, building a career, getting married and raising a family. I did not become a professional astronomer, I was a musician, and then later a landscape designer/contractor. There was little time for hobbies or obsessions like astronomy. The desire to own a big telescope and contribute to science was buried deep in my heart; I just didn’t have the time or money to follow up on it until I got older.

In 1998, my father-in-law bought a small telescope and had astronomy magazines strewn on his coffee table when we went to visit him. Seeing them and discussing astronomy with him rekindled the fire in me. This time it could not be contained. I bought the telescope of my dreams, learned how to navigate the stars, and began observing variable stars like a man obsessed.

At the time when you joined astronomy, at what level was the science of Astronomy of the world compared to today?

Since I returned to astronomy our basic understanding of the Universe has not changed that much. But there are some things that have been discovered in the last decade that are pretty remarkable, like the acceleration of the expansion of the universe, the number and variety of planets around other stars, the nature of gamma ray bursts, and the mysteries of dark matter and dark energy.

Which one of Iranian scientist do you know? How much you know about “Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi” , “Khaje Nasir al-Din al-Tusi” and “Abu al-Rayhan al-Biruni”and... ? how about amateur astronomers?

The most famous Iranian scientists I know of is the brilliant Professor Mahmoud Hesabi, who is of course the father of physics and space science in Iran. I am not very familiar with any contemporary scientists.

I know of Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi because of his historical brightness estimates of stars, particularly, Polaris, the North Star. A colleague of mine has used them in a study of the long-term changes in Polaris’ brightness. Polaris is a Cepheid variable, but its overall brightness appears to have changed over the last several hundred years. This could not be known without accurate historical records like those of Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi.

Khaje Nasir al-Din al-Tusi was a pre-Copernican scientists and philosopher, but I do not know very much about his specific achievements or his life and career. Abu al-Rayhan al-Biruni is not a name I know. I hope I have not flunked the exam!

I do not know any Iranian amateur astronomers personally, but I am beginning to have contact with more and more Iranian students and scientists through Facebook and other social media these days. The AAVSO and I are very willing to make friends with people all over the world who are interested in variable stars, stellar evolution and research.

Recently the study of Astronomy has been increasing from universities to schools and even public places like parks, can you give me a reason for this?

I think everyone has a curiosity about the heavens and the stars and where we came from and what is the ultimate fate of the Universe. Religion and philosophy attempt to provide many of those answers, but mankind is a curious beast and his inquiries have led him to investigate the Universe with the tools and methods of science.

This is undoubtedly why so many of the famous Iranian scientists were also mathematicians, philosophers, poets, geologists, and anthropologists. All those things are woven together in our search to understand ourselves, the Earth and the Universe we live in.

Tell us briefly about variable stars.

Variable stars are stars that change brightness on timescales of minutes to hours to days to centuries. Some of them change because they are actually pulsating, swelling and shrinking in a rhythm determined by their mass and the age of the star. Some vary because they have giant star spots, like sunspots but much bigger, and as these rotate into our field of view they appear to make the star dim. Some variable stars are actually close pairs of stars, so close we can’t see them as a double star. They may be lined up in such a manner that as they rotate around each other one eclipses the other from our point of view, and this eclipse causes a dimming in the total output of light from the pair. Yet other close pairs are entangled in a death spiral, where one star is constantly stealing material from its neighbor until it becomes unstable and a nuclear eruption takes place, making the system appear hundreds of times brighter to us on earth in a matter of hours. And finally, some variable stars are the final flash signaling the destruction of a massive star or pair of stars at the end of their evolutionary path.

These variations in brightness can help us to unlock the secrets to the stars themselves. What are they made of, how far away are they, what makes them shine, how large are they, how massive, how are they born and how will they end- all these things we can better understand by learning about variable stars.

Which variable stars interest you most and why?

First of all, I like variable stars that are bright enough I can study them with the tools I have at my disposal. I don’t want to read about them. I want to observe them with my own eyes or instruments.

As far as types of variable stars, I am fascinated by cataclysmic variables, close binaries, usually consisting of a white dwarf and a red dwarf orbiting so close to each other that the white dwarf robs the red star of its outer atmosphere, causing periodic eruptions. I also like RCB type stars. These are stars that can shine steadily for months or years and then suddenly fade by up to 8 or 9 magnitudes! This is believed to be caused by the star belching a load of carbon soot into its outer atmosphere, which dims it from our point of view until the cloud of dust dissipates and we can see the underlying star again. There are not that many of these special stars and there is much we do not know about them, like-how they are formed?

Are variable stars so important that they have dedicated research center to study them?

There are not really any research institutes in the USA devoted to pure astronomical research on specific topics related to variable stars. There are not a lot of institutes for any specific astronomical pursuit. Most research institutes cover a broad range of scientific astronomical activities, like solar or planetary sciences. The AAVSO could be considered the next nearest thing to that, but it is not currently a research institute. We are more engaged in acquiring and archiving data for dissemination than performing research on or with the data.

I believe that is something we should strive to become in the 21^st century, but that is venturing into a political discussion I won’t be elaborating on here.

As of now, how much do we know about variable stars?

What we know about variable stars today will mostly stand up to testing and theories a hundred years from now, but there is a LOT we don’t know. So I would say we have just opened the door and stepped inside, but we have not even turned on the lights and walked around this house yet.

Why in Hertzsprung-Russell diagram, variable stars are in the top of diagram?

This is factually incorrect. You are referring to AGB stars, but variable stars reside in places all over the H-R diagram outside of the main sequence. Essentially, anywhere stars leave the main sequence they are evolving and most likely also varying in brightness. Even stars on the main sequence vary. Our Sun is a variable star. Variable stars are everywhere, including all over the H-R diagram.

How much the destiny of mankind depends on Astronomy and variable stars?

I don’t think astronomy or variable star research will cure cancer, stop wars or make governments smarter or more benevolent. But our destiny is out there amongst the stars, eventually, if we last long enough to make that journey. When we go, it will be good to know as much as we can about what is out there, how to get where we are going and what we are likely to find when we arrive. Like every great migration of human beings, it will be an adventure full of discovery and danger, wonder and peril. We will want to be armed with knowledge as well as courage.

Where do you think our country (Iran) stand in the field of astronomy in 21 century?

As I confessed earlier, I do not know very much at all about the current state of research or education in astronomy and physics in Iran. Hopefully, political tensions between our countries and in the Middle East in general will ease to the point I can feel comfortable enough to come visit and find out for myself one day. I would like that very much.

Name some of the variable stars that are visible with naked eyes?

Mira, when it is at maximum. Betelgeuse, eta Geminorum, Algol, eta Aquilae, delta Cephei (the prototype of Cepheid variables), mu Cephei (Herschel’s Garnet Star), gamma Cassiopeia and of course, once every 30 years or so, epsilon Aurigae, another great mystery.

How can a person join the AAVSO?

Membership in the AAVSO is open to anyone—professionals, amateurs, and educators alike—interested in variable stars and in contributing to the support of valuable research. You can apply online at our website http://www.aavso.org/aavso-membership

Annual dues are $60.00 US and $30.00 US for students, which is one of the best bargains in astronomy if you consider the benefits of membership in this prestigious organization.

I must remind you that you do not need to be a member of the AAVSO to become an AAVSO observer. We have many observers from other countries who are not paying members of the AAVSO, but their valuable observations are included in the AAVSO International Database.

A sentence about astronomy and yourself...

You mean you’re not tired of my opinions and me talking about myself yet? I don’t know what else to say!

I suppose I should warn you that you could become addicted to variable stars like me. I am a hopeless variable star junkie who must get his photon fix regularly or go mad. If you think you have any weakness in this regard, I caution you to approach observing variable stars with the utmost caution. It can be highly addicting, and the longer you do it the harder it becomes to go back to a normal life.

You have been warned…

Your last aphorism to us.

One of my favorites is from Harlow Shapley-

“Theories crumble, but good observations never fade.”

My Favorite Double Star 23 Apr 2012 7:34 AM (12 years ago)

Epsilon Lyrae, the Double Double

If you have spent any time looking through binoculars or telescopes you have undoubtedly come across a double star or two. Someone probably showed you Alberio (beta Cygni) at a star party or tried to impress you with a view of epsilon Lyrae, the famous Double Double in Lyra. One of my favorites is Rigel, the lower foot of Orion. Not many observers know Rigel is actually a double star. It has a 6.8 magnitude companion, Rigel B, 9 arc seconds away. This would be an easy double to separate in most small telescopes, but Rigel is the seventh brightest star in the sky. As such, it is some 400 times brighter than its companion, so Rigel B gets lost in the glare of its primary. Once you know where to look it's easy to find.

Double stars are interesting to people for a number of reasons. Some like the challenge of splitting close pairs with the smallest instrument possible. Others like to measure the characteristics, such as separation, position angle and magnitudes. But what really delights most people is a pair that exhibits a striking color combination. Some of the more popular pairs include Alberio (gold/sapphire), gamma Andromedae (gold/blue), xi Bootis (yellow/red) and alpha Herculis (red/green). I don't want to get into a debate about the perceived colors of these pairs. Your mileage may vary.

My favorite double has them all beat. It is a very colorful pair, with a blue-white primary and a deep red secondary. But the best part is this. It looks different every time you look at it, because the deep red secondary is a variable star! That's right, my favorite double star is also a variable.

You knew that was coming, right?

Okay, okay, I'll end the suspense. My favorite double is the Mira variable T Draconis.

T Draconis resides just north of the head of the dragon

As variable stars go, it couldn't be much better. It's easy to find, located just north of epsilon Dra in the head of the dragon. It varies quite a lot, from 6.7 to 13.2V, and has an excellent sequence. Several of the comparisons from 11th down to 13th magnitude are located very close in to the pair, making it very easy to estimate when its fainter than the blue companion. The next time you find double stars on your observing program for the night, try out T Draconis. Take the time to make an estimate of its brightness and submit it to the AAVSO. Who knows, you just might get hooked. And there are plenty of other interesting double variable stars- TU Aql, T CMi, ST Aur, Z Tau, R Cyg...

The faint stars in the comparison star sequence for T Draconis

It Was Just A Tuesday 21 Apr 2012 11:58 PM (12 years ago)

It was just a Tuesday, not unlike any other Tuesday, except I happened to be working in my office on the first floor of AAVSO headquarters in Cambridge. I opened my email and began responding to the messages that had come in since the previous night. Several members had renewed their membership, some had made donations with their renewals, some new members had signed up, TZ Per was in outburst, so I updated the CVnet page. Here was one from the sequence team telling me Tim Crawford had uploaded a sequence created by our newest team member Natalia Virnina, from Odessa, in the Ukraine.

I had witnessed Natalia’s AAVSO story right from the beginning. She had submitted a well-constructed proposal to observe several eclipsing binaries, using AAVSOnet telescopes. Unfortunately, she was not a member, and paying dues would have presented a hardship for her. No problem, Tom Krajci volunteered to sponsor her membership and within a few days he was setting up her observing plan and taking data for her.

As it turned out, almost none of her program stars had existing sequences, so she contacted Tim Crawford to request sequences for her observing targets. She was perfectly willing to do the work herself, if Tim could just show her the ins and outs of using SeqPlot and creating the proper files to upload into the comp star database. After a few basic tutorials Natalia was off and running, creating sequences for her program stars and sharing them with the sequence team. Shortly after that, Natalia became the newest member of the team and has been submitting work on a regular basis. This morning’s email was just the latest in a string of newly minted Virnina sequences uploaded to the database.

The next email was from a new member who wanted to learn how to use VPHOT. I called Ken Mogul in Georgia to see if he’d be willing to take him on as a student, and he gladly accepted. Ken is the one who made the video tutorials for VPHOT and was the person who taught me how to use it, so I knew he was qualified. I was glad we started our conversation on a positive note, because I was about to ask Ken to volunteer for another long-term project: examining all the images that are downloaded from AAVSOnet telescope K28 each night, and entering comments about them into a permanent record created by a snazzy tool called Remark-O-Matic and developed by Sara Beck. This was a new volunteer program and we had decided to ask Ken to be our test case.

Ken said he’d be happy to take on another project, even though he was already involved in several AAVSO volunteer efforts, and not only that, he asked me what I thought about the idea of him running for Council! I told him I thought he would be a great councilor. People who are willing to roll up their sleeves and work for the AAVSO as well as donate time and money to the organization are just the kind of people we need on council. I thanked him and wished him luck and moved on to the rest of the email in my folder.

Another email had arrived from a Dr. Knight in the United Kingdom, asking for some assistance in CCD photometry of exoplanet transits. I had to think about this, since I don’t have an “official” AAVSO mentor in the UK. I thought I would take a chance and write to Richard Miles, who I know is an excellent photometrist and scientist.

Richard is a past president of the British Astronomical Association, but I wasn’t even sure if he was an AAVSO member. I looked up his records in our database and was happy to discover he is a member of the AAVSO. The thing is, I hadn’t heard much from Richard lately and suspected he was rather busy. Considering his credentials, I thought it was worth a try, so I wrote to Richard to ask if he would kindly lend his expertise to help out a fellow Englishman looking to do some advanced observing.

Richard replied within ten minutes, explaining that he was and had been very busy, reviewing papers for journals and writing an extensive paper on comets for another, but that he would be glad to help out if I put him in touch with Dr. Knight.

Here was another email from a new member in Germany, responding to the “Welcome to the AAVSO” message I send to all the new people when they join. This one was from Katrin Fortak, or Katy, as she likes to be called. She’s been observing variables with a CCD for about a year now, and complimented the AAVSO on the tools and information we offer. She especially appreciated VSP, VPHOT, and the CCD Manual.

As it turns out, she knew some other Germans interested in CCD photometry who don’t know English so well, and she wanted to know if it was okay if she translated the CCD manual into German for use by her friends and others. I discussed her generous offer with Matthew Templeton, and he gave me a Word doc version for her to work with, which would be easier than trying to re-create it from scratch using the pdf she had downloaded from the website.

Katy had some questions about exoplanet transits and short period eclipsing and pulsating stars, so I referred her to the respective section leaders and gave her what information I could to help. She also indicated she would be taking the CHOICE course on Variable Star Types and Light Curves that I would be teaching in May.

Katy’s letter continued, as she also volunteered to act as mentor for the AAVSO for anyone from Germany or surrounding countries - a very generous offer from someone who was still learning advanced techniques herself. But she had been impressed with the friendly helpful advice she had been getting in the AAVSO chat room, and thought it was only fair to pay it forward, in the best tradition of the AAVSO mentor program. I have every confidence she will be an excellent mentor. She is obviously very enthusiastic and her English is very good.

It is no secret that we had been having some problems with VPHOT recently. We had fallen victim to our own success - the high volume of images being uploaded and analyzed daily were now pushing the limits of our current cloud computing configuration - and we had been discussing how to proceed with the anticipated upgrade to more cloud computing power.

VPHOT is another example of the power of volunteers and donors, and how they can push the AAVSO forward by their sheer will and generosity. The program was written by Geir Klingenberg, an AAVSO member from Norway. Geir donated it and the copyright to AAVSO almost two years ago, and has been supplying the support needed to keep it running, as well as continuous incremental improvements along the way. The initial expense of hosting it on the Amazon cloud server had been paid for by AAVSO members Ken Mogul and Donn Starkey.

Now that we were making plans to upgrade to a more powerful instance on the cloud, another AAVSO member, Ken Menzies, had contacted me to tell me he would like to pay for the increase in power and bandwidth. Ken is a power user of the program, and had been aware of the rash of problems we were now experiencing as we had outgrown our baby teeth on the cloud. Several of us had spent our entire lunch period discussing how we were going to implement the changeover and now I was back in my office when Ken stopped by headquarters to drop off a generous check to pay for the impending upgrade.

Little did we realize that, as we sat in my office discussing VPHOT, AAVSOnet, the upcoming SAS/AAVSO meeting in Big Bear, Z Cam stars, and a host of other topics, thirty feet away in the office next door Doc Kinne had just watched our Amazon server disappear before his very eyes. We were moving to Plan B right now, and Ken’s check was going to be deposited today!

Plan B meant building a whole new version of VPHOT and launching it on the cloud as soon as possible. Unfortunately, Geir had been ill with the flu for several days and the clock was closing in on midnight for him as he struggled with Doc to reconstruct VPHOT and get it back online as soon as possible. This was the spirit of AAVSO volunteerism and unselfish sacrifice demonstrated at the highest levels.

Nobody complained. They just opened up their checkbooks, rolled up their sleeves, and got about the business of doing what was needed.

After the initial shock of what had just happened wore off, I got back to my email. A new visual observer from Colorado had just joined the AAVSO and he needed a mentor. I knew just the person for him: Roger Kolman. Roger has been an AAVSO observer and member for fifty years and has over 75,000 visual observations to his credit. He also has a great enthusiasm and love for variable stars and the AAVSO. I wrote to Roger asking if he had time to take on another student. Kolman wrote back saying he would be glad to help out a newbie and added jokingly that he “wasn’t sure how often he could get to Colorado to help the new guy.”

Of course he was kidding, since most of the instruction provided by our mentors happens via email, chat, Skype, and the telephone these days. But that is another reason I knew Roger would be a good choice - he’ll make learning to observe fun and interesting.

Later that night, as I threw myself on the bed in the Feibelman guest suite at HQ, it dawned on me what a perfect example of the spirit of the AAVSO today had been. Our members and observers speak volumes about what is really special about the AAVSO through their actions every day. They walk the walk. It was only Tuesday, I was exhausted, but I couldn’t wait for Wednesday. I have one of the best jobs in the world, and it’s because of the people I work for, the AAVSO.

Orange Juice Maps 19 Feb 2012 7:04 PM (13 years ago)

Winter Star Party - Days one and two

The Florida keys are about 1600 miles away from our home in Michigan by car. No matter how you divide it up, that's a lot of driving, about 24 hours worth. Irene and I decided to leave Saturday morning around 7:30AM to try to get to the Florida keys before sunset on Sunday evening.

We pushed hard to get past Atlanta, Georgia all day Saturday, and ended up getting a room in Cordele, GA around midnight. The last five hours we fought through a driving rain until we hit the heart of the storm about 180 miles north of the Florida border. At that point we just couldn't go any further.

It was a short night. After a nap, shower and breakfast we were back on the road by 7AM. It was still raining, so I drove the first leg of the trip. When we finally made it to the Florida state line I gave out a little cheer. It was time to get a picture of Simochick at the visitor center with the "Welcome to Florida" sign in the background. I read the traffic sing out loud to Irene, "Visitor Center, 2 miles ahead, free orange juice maps."

I looked at her in all seriousness and asked, "What the heck is an orange juice map?"

She looked at me like I was an idiot and said, "That's a map of where all the orange tree groves are."

"What good is that? Why would anyone want a map like that?"

Now she seemed a little puzzled by my ignorance. "Because with one of those, you can drive all the way through Florida, getting free orange juice all along the way!"

I said, "Are you're kidding me?" She said, "Yes! Were you serious?"

Now, I was pissed off. "Why are you messing with me? You know I'm so tired I can barely think."

"I thought you were just kidding around, so I was playing along, trying to explain what an orange juice map is."

"So there really is no such thing?" I asked, totally confused.

"No. The sign meant free orange juice AND maps!" Now, Irene is laughing so hard tears are rolling down her cheeks, and she just keeps repeating, "orange juice maps, orange juice maps...really? You were serious!"

I pull into the visitor center and it all becomes clear to my sleep deprived brain. They give out free orange juice and maps at the Florida visitor center. And I am going to be hearing about "orange juice maps" every day for a long time.

Chicago Astronomy Weekend 12 Feb 2012 5:53 AM (13 years ago)

It seems like almost all the traveling I do these days is astronomy related, and this weekend was no different. I'd been invited by my friend Roger Kolman to come visit him in Glen Ellyn, Illinois.

Roger never met a telescope he didn't like

Roger has a rather large collection of telescopes filling half his garage and a shed in the back yard, and his wife Elane had asked him to start thinning out the herd, so Roger offered to give me one of his 8-inch SCTs to use as a travel scope. The timing couldn't have been better, since we are leaving for the 2012 Winter Star Party on Saturday. This would spare me from tearing down the 12-inch and hauling it to the Florida keys.

Coincidently, Roger was giving a talk on variable stars to the Northwest Suburban Astronomers in the Chicago area on Friday night, and asked if I would like to tag along. So I headed out early Friday morning for Chicago, hoping to beat the snow storm that was supposed to arrive in the area on Saturday afternoon.

It was a mild, partly sunny winter day, the roads were dry, the traffic light and I had my fuzz-buster AAVSO decals displayed proudly in the back windows, so I peeled across Michigan, the tip of Indiana and made the 330 mile trip to Chicago in record time, four hours and thirty-five minutes.

Roger and I spent the afternoon discussing the Astronomical League's Variable Star Program and how we can strengthen ties between the AAVSO and AL, the LPV Section of the AAVSO, star parties, telescopes, and all the stuff two diehard variable star junkies typically share on while the Sun is in the way of observing. We also loaded the 8-inch telescope and its tripod into my car for the trip back to Michigan the next day.

AAVSO observers Roger Kolman and Barry Beaman

After a fine dinner of parmesan chicken Roger and I headed off to the meeting. The meeting was well attended. There were over fifty people there and several of Roger's students had come for extra credit in the astronomy class he teaches at Harper College. I was impressed by the number of younger people in attendance for this meeting. We often talk about the gray haired demographic of astronomy clubs and organizations, but the NWA seem to be doing something right to attract a younger crowd. Or maybe it was just that the old folks decided to stay home to avoid the snow and ice slicked road conditions in Chicago that night.

Among the guests was Barry Beaman, another former AAVSO councilor and friend, who had come all the way from Rockford at Roger's invitation. Roger's plan was to have the three of us act as a panel for the presentation and discussion afterwards, which worked out very well. The talk was very informative and entertaining. Roger is an excellent public speaker. Barry and I were asked to interject some comments at certain points by Roger and the question and answer session went on for a good twenty minutes after, with all of us able to share our experience and knowledge with the audience.

After the meeting the three of us joined the the NWA at a local pizza joint for a late night meal, where we continued the discussion. Roger and I continued the discussion after getting back to his place around midnight. We reminisced and laughed over several rounds of drinks until the wee hours before dawn.

I needed a stiff jolt of caffeine to get me going Saturday morning. I chatted with Elaine and Roger over a couple cups of coffee before hitting the road. The weather had cleared, the roads were good and even though I was tired, things seemed to be going my way as I entered the toll way heading east to Indiana.

Soon after crossing the Indiana state line I ran into previews of coming attractions. The wind was blowing hard and I was driving through brief, but dense, snow squalls every few minutes. About a half hour later, as I headed up the western shore of Michigan, I was driving white knuckled in a full blown blizzard. Visibility was less than the distance to the car in front of me and there were cars and trucks scattered along the median and road sides pointed in all directions.

It was a long, exhausting push all the way to Kalamazoo before the roads were dry enough to get back up to highway speeds. I got back to Imlay City around 4:30PM, stopping to get a car wash (the car was trashed with salt and dirt from stem to stern) and rent a movie before finally pulling in the garage.

I'm really looking forward to the warmer climate and sunshine I hope will greet us when we arrive in the florida keys next weekend.

Carnival of Space #236 12 Feb 2012 4:26 AM (13 years ago)

This week's Carnival of Space is hosted at the AARTScope Blog by Peter Lake, aka AstroSwanny, my friend and fellow AAVSO observer from down under.

The Carnival of Space is a community of interest blog carnival bringing together the best and brightest Astronomy & Space Blogs at a single point in space and time (commonly referred to as a web address) each week. Previous episodes can be found here. If you run an astronomy or space science blog you can contact carnivalofspace @ gmail.com to be added to the editorial circulation list.

Hubble's 1923 Nova in Andromeda Erupts Again! 8 Feb 2012 6:55 AM (13 years ago)

The position of M31N-1923-12c
plotted by the AAVSO chart plotter

On December 11, 1923, Edwin Hubble discovered a nova in the Andromeda galaxy. Novae occurring in our Milky Way's sister galaxy are not that uncommon. There have been over 800 novae detected in M31 in the last 100 years. Hubble's 1923 discovery became known as M31N 1923-12c, the third nova discovered in December of 1923.

Fast forward to January 21, 2012. K. Nishiyama and F. Kabashima report the discovery of a possible nova in M31 and it is given the preliminary designation, PNV J00423804+4108417. If this proves to be a new nova in M31 it will get the permanent designation M31N 2012-01b, the second novae discovered in january 2012. A day later a spectrum is taken with the 9.2m Hobby-Eberly Telescope using the Marcario Low-Resolution Spectrograph, confirming that PNV J00423804+4108417 is a nova in M31, and that it is a member of the He/N spectroscopic class.

What’s even more interesting, however, is that the new nova likely comes from the same progenitor as Hubble’s 1923 nova!

Artist's rendition of the recurrent nova RS Oph
Credit: David Hardy/PPARC

Classical novae are a subclass of cataclysmic variable stars. They are semi-detached binary systems where an evolved, late-type star fills its Roche lobe and transfers mass to its white dwarf companion. If the mass accretion rate onto the white dwarf is sufficiently low, it allows this gas to pile up and become degenerate. Eventually, after thousands to tens of thousands of years, a thermonuclear runaway ensues in this highly pressurized layer of gas, leading to a nova eruption. These eruptions can reach an absolute magnitude as bright as MV ≈ −10, making them among the most luminous explosions in the Universe. Their high luminosities and rates, about 50 per year in a galaxy like M31, make novae very useful to astronomers exploring the properties of close binaries in extragalactic stellar populations.

Comparing its position with the approximately 900 novae in W. Pietsch's M31 nova catalog revealed that PNV J00423804+4108417 was located about six arc seconds from the cataloged position of M31N 1923-12c, the nova discovered by Edwin Hubble on December 11, 1923. Given that the positions of M31 novae from early photographic surveys were typically reported to a precision of only ten arc seconds, and that He/N spectra are often associated with recurrent novae, astronomers considered the possibility that M31N 1923-12c and PNV J00423804+4108417 represented two outbursts arising from the same nova progenitor. To explore this possibility further, F. Schweizer (Carnegie Observatories) located Hubble's original plate in the Carnegie Observatories archives and performed an eyeball comparison of the position of Hubble's nova with that of PNV J00423804+4108417, finding them to match within ~1.5". You can see the images for yourself here.

Edwin Hubble

After digitally scanning the Hubble plate and comparing the position of the nova relative to those of three nearby USNO reference stars, analysis revealed that M31N 1923-12c was located at R.A. = 00 42 38.06; Decl. = 41 08 41.0 (J2000). Hubble's M31N 1923-12c and this year's PNV J00423804+4108417 are the same object!

88 years and a handful of days later, PNV J00423804+4108417 represents the second recorded outburst of the recurrent nova M31N 1923-12c. Like the telescope named for him, Hubble's legacy to astronomy and astrophysics continues to grow to this very day. Way to go, Edwin.

This blog post adapted from Astronomer's Telegram #3914
M31N 1923-12c is a recurrent nova in M31
Authors: A. W. Shafter (SDSU), M. J. Darnley, M. F. Bode (Liverpool JMU, UK), R. Ciardullo (PSU), F. Schweizer (Carnegie Observatories)

The Kruta Telescope- A Labor of Love 7 Feb 2012 8:02 PM (13 years ago)

The Kruta Telescope on display at AAVSO

If you've ever been to AAVSO headquarters, you've probably seen a small Maksutov telescope in a clear plastic case sitting on a shelf or cabinet in the front office. Its an unassuming table top scope on a little fork mount that looks more like a curiosity than a scientific instrument. If you're like me you probably wondered for about two seconds where it came from and what the story is behind it, and then never gave it another thought.

Quite by accident, the amazing story behind this little telescope revealed itself to me over the last few months, as I did research into the life of Carolyn Hurless, the most prolific female observer in AAVSO history.

I first started to put the pieces together when I went to visit Don Hurless in Lima, Ohio, and he told me the story of Carolyn's long friendship with a Czechoslovakian observer.

Back in the 1960's, at the height of the cold war, people from behind the Iron Curtain had to be sponsored by members of the AAVSO in order to receive newsletters, journals and the other member benefits of the day. Jaroslav Kruta of Czechoslovakia was sponsored by Carolyn and they began a lifetime of correspondence. Jaroslav was a piano teacher just like Carolyn and her husband Don, so they had a lot in common. Don and Carolyn would send him letters and boxes, never knowing what would actually make it through to Jaroslav. Over the years, Carolyn made dozens of audio tapes and taught Jaroslav how to speak English.

"It was our first experience with Communism," said Don. "We never knew what the censors would let through and what they would destroy or keep for themselves. And when he sent us boxes, it was obvious they had been unwrapped and rifled through, and then re-packaged. Sometimes tapes he sent us would be erased, totally blank!"

As a token of their friendship, Jaroslav decided to make a telescope for Carolyn. He labored for months making every piece of the telescope and optics by hand. Materials were scarce and expensive in post-war Eastern Europe, but Jaroslav was an excellent craftsman and with the materials he could scrounge together he pieced together a beautiful little Maksutov.

"He knew if he shipped the telescope whole it would never make it out of the country", Don explained. "So he dis-assembled the whole thing, numbered all the pieces, and started shipping it to us in boxes, a few parts at a time. It was pretty amazing, even the screws were all different. It's not like he had a box of screws all the same size laying around."

Piece by piece the telescope parts arrived at the Hurless' house in the mail, until finally after months and months of shipments the last box of parts arrived and Don was able to assemble the whole telescope. It looks like a toy, but it has very good optics and is a real working instrument. But more than that, it is a work of art and a labor of love.

After Carolyn's tragic death in 1987, Janet Mattei went to visit Don in Lima, and collected the books, notes, and telescopes that Carolyn had willed to the AAVSO. Somehow, the Kruta Mak got left behind. A few years later, Don was preparing to go to an AAVSO meeting to give a paper called '3434 Hurless'.

"It was a great little paper written by a professional astronomer friend of Carolyn's about what it would be like on the asteroid named after Carolyn." Don continued, "I remember one part about how you could throw a baseball in one direction real hard and it would go all the way around the asteroid and come back to you from the other direction. I read it out loud, and the AAVSO people were laughing and taking notes- it was a big hit. Anyway, before I left I remembered the little telescope in the basement and I decided since I was going to the meeting I might as well take it with me. So that's how it finally made it to AAVSO headquarters years after Carolyn was gone."

Jaroslav came to Lima once in the 90's to visit Carolyn's grave and visit Don. "He was pretty old back then, so I guess he's gone now, too", said Don, when I called him on the phone the other day to fact-check this story. (Jaroslav also visited Cambridge to attend the AAVSO 75th Anniversary Meeting in 1986 and, with his daughter, the 1987 Annual Meeting, but that's another story.)

The plexiglass case covering the telescope was a labor of love, too. After the telescope arrived at the AAVSO - to be kept there, not to be loaned off-site - Paul Sventek (SVN) of Houston, TX, who was a longtime, good friend of Carolyn's, offered to have a plexiglass case made to protect the telescope from dust, etc. In due time a large carton arrived at Headquarters, unfortunately showing considerable damage. Inside was a beautiful custom-made cover, shattered. Generously, Paul had a second cover made, and fortunately this one arrived in perfect condition. It fits the telescope to a T!

The next time you visit headquarters you'll see the telescope sitting under its transparent cover on top of some file cabinets, behind the receptionist's desk. Now you know the tale of why it was made, who made it, how it was smuggled out from behind the Iron Curtain, and how it ended up "under glass" in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the 21st century.

My sincere thanks to Don Hurless, who it has been my immense pleasure to get to know and without whom this story would be missing the best parts.

Don Hurless at home in 2011

Read Carolyn Hurless biography

Carolyn Hurless 7 Feb 2012 7:21 AM (13 years ago)

Carolyn Hurless 1934-1987
From the AAVSO archives

Carolyn J. Hurless was the most active and prolific female observer in the history of the AAVSO, with a total of 78,876 observations in the International Database. But that only scratches the surface of this remarkable woman’s life and career as an AAVSO observer, councilor, officer, mentor and ambassador.

Born in Lima, Ohio, November 24, 1934, Carolyn became interested in astronomy at the age of 13 through her love of science fiction. As a young woman, she was invited to join the Lima Astronomy Club, when President Herbert Speer found her name on the borrowers cards of people who had checked out astronomy books from the public library.

Shortly after that, she decided to make her own 8-inch reflector with the guidance of fellow astronomy club members. When the initial grinding was done, Carolyn found that in her excitement she had hogged out a short focus mirror of f/4, instead of the typical f/8 or f/9 scope most were making at the time. In the end it turned out to be a fine instrument. In fact, the short tube length gave her, as she described it, a “feminine” telescope, easily transported and set up for observing. Most of her observations were made with this telescope and she never felt the need to upgrade to something else.

Legendary Gathering- Ed Oravec, Roger Kolman, Leslie Peltier, Carolyn Hurless, Tom Cragg, Curtis Andersen, Clint Ford in front of Peltier's Merry-Go-Round Observatory, Delphos, Ohio 1964. Courtesy: Roger Kolman

Carolyn learned variable star observing from legendary AAVSO observer and fellow Ohioan, Leslie Peltier. During a visit to her home in 2011, Don Hurless, Carolyn's husband, showed me how Carolyn learned the sky and location of the variables in her program. She had marked an X and circled the area around each one in her copy of Norton's Star Atlas. She memorized the star fields and eventually all the comparison star magnitudes, so that after a few years she didn't need to use variable star charts any more. In this way, she could whip the telescope around from one field to another quickly, and her annual totals climbed.

Carolyn would make the trip to Delphos, Ohio, a few miles away, to observe faint “inner sanctum” stars with Peltier’s 12-inch refractor nearly every week during their lifelong friendship. She knew she was fortunate to have Leslie as a mentor and was more than happy to pay it forward by mentoring other newcomers and sharing her enthusiasm with other variable star observers around the world.   One way she managed to do that was by publishing the monthly newsletter Variable Views in which she shared ideas about astronomy, stories of variable stars and amateur astronomers and humorous notes about her own experiences. She started the newsletter at her own expense and published it for 22 consecutive years.

Carolyn and Roger Kolman jamming
into the wee hours

Carolyn and her husband, Don, invited variable star observers to summer gatherings at their home, where she was able to share her love of the stars and observing in person. These informal star parties, or "August Orgies", as they became known in AAVSO folklore, also included trips to Leslie Peltier's observatory and frequently ended in late night jam sessions with Don and Carolyn accompanying AAVSO member musicians, like Clint Ford.

  She managed to reach out and touch people across international boundaries also, in a time when this was not easy to do. She sponsored a Czechoslovakian observer, Jaroslav Kruta, to AAVSO membership. Through persistent correspondence, mainly tape recordings, she taught Jaroslav English, and was able to introduce several other AAVSO members to him by arranging for them to meet when they visited Czechoslovakia. Kruta was so grateful for the friendship he hand made a telescope for Carolyn as a sign of his gratitude. The remarkable story of that telescope can be found here.

 Besides sharing her enthusiasm for astronomy with the public, she was a gifted musician who maintained a full-time position as a music teacher, inspiring countless young musicians through the years.

Carolyn at the Schoonover telescope Lima, OH
Courtesy: Roger Kolman

Her service to the AAVSO includes two years (1965-1967) as a councilor and six years as 2nd Vice President of the Council (1967-1973).

 Her life ended tragically in 1987, when, after years of excruciating pain from an undiagnosed disease, she died of a self-inflicted gunshot to the head. She is survived by her husband Don, who has never remarried and lives in their home in Lima, Ohio, where he still teaches piano students daily.

Discovered in 1981 by Brian Skiff, the asteroid 3434 Hurless was named after Carolyn. Carolyn's name was suggested by Paul Sventek who provided the citation.

In 2011, the AAVSO successfully ran four pilot programs as a first step towards creating an online education center. We chose to honor Carolyn Hurless by naming this program after her, The Carolyn Hurless Online Institute for Continuing Education (CHOICE). CHOICE was officially launched in February 2012, and the AAVSO is proud to carry on in the tradition of this remarkable woman.

Exploring Mars by Scott Hubbard (a book review) 31 Jan 2012 12:45 PM (13 years ago)

I looked forward to reading this book after the publisher asked me if I wanted a review copy, and eagerly tore into the package when it arrived last week. As you know, I don't usually read or write much about planets or Solar System exploration, but this seemed like a good story, told by the "Mars Czar", Scott Hubbard himself, and I couldn't wait to read it.

I was wrong.

This book should have been titled Exploring the Boring, Navigating the Administrative Guts of the Bloated Bureaucracy that is NASA. This is not the story of exploring Mars, it is the self congratulatory story of Scott Hubbard navigating the financial, political and cultural obstacles that stood in the way of Hubbard in his mission to bring the Mars Program out of the toilet and into the future.

Based on the jacket cover I expected this to be a fascinating story "filled with outsized egos, under-sized budgets and nail-biting tension". Pffft. Compelling? Not.

Yes, it is a great historical document providing insight into the whole excruciatingly painful process of launching successful missions to the Red Planet, and it needed to be told. It was just boring. If you really want to read it, you can have my copy.

Carnival of Space #234 31 Jan 2012 4:43 AM (13 years ago)

This week's Carnival of Space is hosted at the Dear Astronomer Blog. The site is run by Ray Sanders, an astronomer with nearly fifteen years of amateur astronomy experience and an education in astronomy/astrophysics. Currently working to make the transition from “backyard astronomer” to “professional astronomer”, Ray is passionate about observing, research, outreach, answering questions submitted to his site, and writing for sites like Universe Today.

If you've never been to the Carnival of Space before you're missing out. The Carnival is a weekly collection of astronomy and space writing from various blogs around the web. Once you've taken the ride you're sure to come back again and again. So, check out this weeks' Carnival of Space #234.

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