Journal of the Amateur Astronomers Association of New York

April 2016 Volume 65 Number 4; ISSN 0146-7662

AAA Brings its Starfestivities to the Bronx

By Michael David O’Gara

On Mar 19,

about 150 New

Yorkers tiptoed

through the tomb-

stones of the

Woodlawn Ceme-

tery in the Bronx

with hopes of see-

ing the splendors

of a springtime

sky at AAA’s

annual Spring

Starfest. The

evening turned out

to be cloudy and overcast, and only the Moon was visible

throughout the night, but the public had a spectacular time

talking to and observing with the AAA.

For this year’s Spring Starfest, AAA’s Surayah White

and John Benfatti coordinated all observers, volunteers, raffle

prizes, and goody bags for attendees. Club members gener-

ously brought nearly 20 telescopes for the event. AAA’s Jo-

seph Martinez presented a Solar System talk about the planet

Jupiter and entertained the crowd with his own Mars Rover

mini-car. Later in the evening, Tele Vue Optics Founder Al

Nagler gave a presentation on his personal history as an as-

tronomer and his

work with the

NASA astronaut

training team during

one of the Apollo

missions.

Mr. Nagler also

presented a new

product he designed

to enable any cell

phone to be mated to

his Delos and Delite

eyepieces. AAA’s

Sam Hahn offered

THIS MONTH: AAA’s Observing Season Begins! Plus AAA Lecture on Apr 1 and NEAF Apr 9/10.

AAA SPRING STARFEST

Untangling the Cosmic Web

By Bart Erbach

Don’t underestimate the power

of a high school science project.

One such project helped J. Richard

Gott untangle the mysteries of the

universe. Gott, a theorist and cosmol-

ogist, spoke on Mar 11 at the Ameri-

can Museum of Natural History’s

Hayden Planetarium as part of its

Frontiers Lecture Series, describing

his latest book, The Cosmic Web:

Mysterious Architecture of the Uni-

verse. A brilliant storyteller, Gott

took his audience time-travelling across the many theories

throughout history on the structure of the universe.

“He is one of the most innovative thinkers that exists,”

introduced Planetarium Director Neil DeGrasse Tyson, who

has co-authored many books with Gott and co-taught with

him at Princeton University’s Department of Astrophysics.

“There’s nothing that anybody in our field does that he

doesn't think about in some new or unusual way,” said Tyson.

“That means that sometimes it leads nowhere, but sometimes

it leads to new insights and new discoveries that no one else

could have come up with — because they didn't think to think

about it in that way.”

Gott’s lecture set out to answer one of the biggest ques-

tions of all time: “How is the stuff of the universe put togeth-

er?” With traces of his native Kentucky drawl and a disarm-

ing sense of humor, Gott began, “This is a story about a gen-

eration of astronomers who tackled that question, the Cold

War, and my high school science project.”

Holding the rapt attention of his audience, Gott used

charts, geometrical drawings, and 3-D models to explain how

various theories of the universe have developed over time. To

illustrate the notion that the universe is contracting, a far less

popular theory since the discovery of dark energy, he used a

football. He demonstrated the universe expanding from the

Big Bang at one end and then collapsing at the other, “to end

with the Big Crunch. You don't want to be there.”

Gott then took us back to visit with the pioneers of extra-

AMNH Frontiers Lecture (cont’d on Page 3) 2016 Spring Starfest (cont’d on Page 3)

AMNH FRONTIERS LECTURE

NASA

A year in space can drive you bananas! NASA’s Scott Kelly returned last month

from his historic ISS mission, but it wasn’t all work. In a Feb video, he dressed as a gorilla and chased Britain’s Tim Peake.

Michael David O’Gara

“Jupiter” Joe Martinez with his Mars Rover mini-car at AAA’s Spring Starfest at the

Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx on Mar 19.

Michael David O’Gara

Tele Vue Optics Founder Al Nagler demon-strates to AAA’s Sam Hahn a new product

for mating cell phones to eyepieces.

2

April’s Evening Planets: Jupiter will be in Leo the

Lion all night this month. Mercury is between Pisces the

Fish and Aries the Ram for an hour after sunset in the middle

of April. Mars will be in Scorpio the Scorpion. Saturn will

be between Scorpio and Ophiuchus the Serpent Bearer as of

midnight and rising earlier every night until 10 PM by the

end of the month.

April’s Evening Stars: The Winter Triangle will be up

in April until around 10 PM: Sirius, the brightest star viewed

from Earth is in Canis Major the Great Dog, Betelgeuse is in

Orion the Hunter, and Procyon is in Canis Minor the Small

Dog. Spot Capella in Auriga the Charioteer, Aldeberan in

Taurus the Bull, and bright Castor and Pollux in Gemini the

Twins. Also find the stars of constellations Cassiopeia, Her-

cules, Perseus, Draco, Virgo, Leo, Libra, and Ursa Major

and Ursa Minor (the Big and Little Dippers).

April’s Morning Planets: Venus will be in Pisces for

an hour before sunrise. Mars will be in Scorpio, and Saturn

will be between Scorpio and Ophiuchus until sunrise. Jupiter

can be seen in Leo until sunrise, setting earlier every night

until 4 AM by the end of April. Neptune is in Aquarius the

Water Bearer for about 2 hours before sunrise. Dwarf Pluto

is in Sagittarius the Archer from 3 AM until sunrise.

April’s Morning Stars: Spot the Summer Triangle of

Vega in Lyra the Harp, Deneb in Cygnus the Swan, and Al-

tair in Aquila the Eagle as of 2 AM and earlier every night.

Look for reddish Antares in Scorpius, Arcturus in Boötes the

Herdsman, and Spica in Virgo the Virgin, along with the

stars of constellations Leo, Hercules, Libra, Sagittarius, Cas-

siopeia, Draco, Ursa Major, and Ursa Minor.

Apr 6 Venus is 0.6° south of Moon dawn

Apr 7 New Moon at 7:25 AM

Moon at perigee (221,900 miles away)

Apr 13 First Quarter Moon at 11:59 PM

Apr 16 Mars stationary

Apr 18 Jupiter 2° north of Moon at midnight

Apr 22 Full Moon at 1:25 AM

Moon at apogee (252,500 miles away)

Apr 23 Lyrid meteor shower peaks dawn

Apr 24 Mars 5° south of Moon at midnight

Apr 28 Mercury stationary at midnight

Apr 29 Last Quarter Moon at 11:30 PM

Times given in EDT.

WHAT’S UP IN THE SKY

April 2016

Occultation of Aldebaran

This month, one of the brightest stars in the sky will dis-

appear from view, blotted out by the Moon. The lunar

occultation of Aldebaran has been observed for over 1,500

years, and its regularity can be predicted. The Apr 10 lunar

occultation of the bright, orange star is one of a current series

of 49 events that began in Jan 2015 and will continue until

Sep 2018. Occurring roughly every 18 years, the next series

won’t begin until 2033.

What is occultation? Occultation occurs

when one celestial

object passes in front

of another and ob-

scures it from view.

It happens more often

with faint stars, but

the bright first-

magnitude Aldebaran

will disappear behind

a crescent Moon in

the late afternoon of

Apr 10, winking out

of sight, and reappearing at nightfall as the Moon passes.

What is the history behind Aldebaran?

The regular lunar occultation of Aldebaran led to the discov-

ery of the proper motion of stars. By observing the occulta-

tion, Edmund Halley calculated in the 1700s that Aldebaran

must have changed its position in the sky over time. About

450,000 years ago, Aldebaran was actually the North Star. In

fact, it shared that honor with Capella, as those two stars

were very close together in the sky at the time. Despite our

perception that stars are fixed, they are moving through space

in orbit around the galactic center, just as the Solar System is

also in motion. Meanwhile, Earth’s pole star changes during

the 26,000-year precession of the planet’s rotation axis, so

positions are always changing over the long-term.

Where can I see the occultation? The occultation of Aldebaran is only visible in the Northern

hemisphere. It can be seen in the New York area and along

the Atlantic coast, and you can view the phenomenon with

the naked-eye under clear skies by looking west to the cres-

cent Moon. Then, look for the Pleiades and Aldebaran, the

“eye” in the constellation Taurus the Bull. The star will hide

behind the dark side of the Moon and reappear on the lit side.

What is the Ancient Greek myth behind Taurus? Europa was the beautiful daughter of the Phoenician king of

Tyre. Overwhelmed by love, the god Zeus transformed him-

self into a magnificent white bull and seduced her. With

Europa on his back, he swam to the island of Crete, where

she became a queen. The continent Europe is named for her.

Zeus recreated the bull’s shape in the stars of the constella-

tion Taurus. Sources: timeanddate.com; earthsky.org.

Follow veteran sky watcher Tony Faddoul each month, as he points our minds and our scopes toward the night sky.

AAA Observers’ Guide

By Tony Faddoul

April “Skylights”

3

April 2016

up his cell phone to

Al for a demonstra-

tion, and the set-up

took less than one

minute. So easy!

Another advance-

ment from the mind

of a true genius,

Al’s new device will

surely bring more

people into the

world of amateur

astronomy.

Al also very generously donated a 32mm Plössl eyepiece

from Tele Vue as one of the raffle prizes, which the fortunate

Sam Hahn won. Other prizes included a Meade 50mm tele-

scope, won by Richard Lawrence; a Celestron 50mm Back-

pack Scope, won by Ficlias Dupres; a Lunar 3D Model, do-

nated by Tony Hoffman and won by Jada Aroyo; and a jewel-

ry set, donated by Mary McQueen Alford and won by Hailey

Lopez.

At the observing site, many families, including inquisi-

tive children, peered through the telescopes and asked lots of

questions about how telescopes work and why our view of the

heavens changes from season to season.

AAA’s Peter

Tagatac and I offered a

telescope clinic to help

new owners become

more familiar with

their scopes. New

club member Kate

Stewart and her friend

Alison Bryan came by

with a Celestron As-

tromaster 144mm

equatorially mounted

scope. By the end of

the evening, they were observing the Moon like the rest of the

AAA crew! I hope to see Kate and Allison at a future observ-

ing event, showing off the tips they picked up.

Although the sky was less than cooperative, a good time

was had by all. And gathering at Woodlawn Cemetery, with

its impressive Romanesque and Greek-style mausoleums and

obelisks, and beauti-

fully landscaped gar-

dens, was a pleasure

in itself; the unique

site certainly made up

for the cloud cover.

A great big

THANKS goes to all

the AAA volunteers

and observers who

made this year’s

Spring Starfest so

special!

2016 Spring Starfest (cont’d from Page 1)

galactic astronomy in the 1920s and 1930s: Edwin Hubble

and Fritz Zwicky. “Hubble discovered the universe and

Zwicky discovered dark matter,” said Gott, who studied with

Zwicky as a postdoc student at Caltech. Hubble was the first

to see that the Andromeda Nebula lies outside our galaxy, and

that there was a universe of galaxies beyond the Milky Way.

Hubble’s Law of Expansion in 1929 also convinced Einstein

that the universe was expanding.

But if there was a vast network of ever-expanding galax-

ies, how was it all held together? “What is the shape of the

universe,” Gott and others wondered.

At first, astronomers

believed galaxies were

evenly distributed

throughout the universe.

But evidence showed that

galaxies cluster in some

places while voids filled

space elsewhere. Two

competing theories

emerged for how these

clusters and voids were

organized. During the

Cold War, American cosmologists favored a model where

galaxies dominated in isolated clumps. The Soviet school

proposed a honeycomb pattern of galaxies punctuated by giant

voids. These theories are often referred to with food meta-

phors: meatballs floating in a low-density soup or holes with-

in high-density Swiss cheese walls. In the early 1970s, physi-

cist Yakov Zeldovich, a father of the Soviet atomic bomb pro-

ject, further hypothesized that galaxies formed from the frag-

menting of vast, thin, high-density surfaces, referred to as

Zeldovich pancakes.

In 1986, Gott was among the first to propose a less edi-

ble and more three-dimensional structure for the universe: a

sponge. In this arrangement, both the galaxy clusters and the

voids are interconnected: “So I’ve got clusters of galaxies

connected by filaments of galaxies,” he explained, “And there

are empty voids in the centers which connect to other empty

voids through low-density tunnels. This is a sponge-like net-

work. And, it’s symmetric. The insides and outsides are iden-

tical.” This structure is also referred to as the “ cosmic web.”

The genesis of Gott’s theory was a high school science

project. Using a set of colorful 3-D polygons, Gott demon-

strated to the audience a new class of infinite regular polyhe-

drons that he created while a student, published in 1967 as

“Pseudopolyhedrons.” This type of geometric arrangement

can be seen in the structure of atoms in metallic crystals. Con-

templating them later, he developed the idea for a similar ar-

chitecture for the universe.

Gott’s high school project was selected as one of 40 win-

ners of the Westinghouse Science Talent Search (now the Intel

Science Talent Search). He later served for many years as

Chair of the Judges for the competition. Gott’s pseudopolyhe-

drons may have paid for half of his college tuition at Harvard,

but we all came out winners. One kid’s project paved the way

for a new understanding of the structure of the cosmos.

AMNH Frontiers Lecture (cont’d from page 1)

Michael David O’Gara

Local kids enjoyed observing the Moon at AAA’s Spring Starfest in the Bronx.

Michael David O’Gara

Surayah White coordinated AAA’s 2016 Spring Starfest, along with John Benfatti.

Michael David O’Gara

New AAA Member Kate Stewart (left) and Alison Bryan attended a Telescope Clinic.

NASA, ESA, E. Hallman

In Gott’s “cosmic web,” galaxy clusters and voids are both interconnected.

4

April 2016

Getting to Know Gravitational Waves

By Jason Kendall

On Mar 11, I had the pleasure of discussing the re-

cent discovery of gravitational waves by LIGO (Laser In-

terferometric Gravitational Wave Observatory) with my

fellow club members at an AAA Astro Answers session at

the American Museum of Natural History. AAA likes to

offer these special events periodically to help us take a closer

look at astronomy news items that are shaking up the field.

Although they were only just detected, gravitational

waves (“GWs”), or ripples in spacetime, are nothing new.

Einstein predicted them a hundred years ago. He postulated

they exist, because nothing can travel faster than the speed of

light. For Newton, gravity worked instantly. But when mass-

es move, collide, or break apart, they change. As they do, the

mass distribution changes, and so does the total mass sum.

Therefore, gravitational influence changes with time. Gravity

sends a message through spacetime. Einstein formalized this

idea with General Relativity in 1915.

Einstein himself went back and forth about whether or

not GWs existed before finally settling on an answer. This

was because he saw an apparent contradiction. For a GW in a

simple binary star system, looking at the orbit edge-on, the

two masses approach and recede, periodically changing the

distribution of mass. But the coordinates of the stars them-

selves don’t change, only their physical distance as spacetime

warps. This is like stretching a meter stick, where the mark-

ings remain the same, but the length of the stick changes.

However,

Einstein wasn’t

sure if gravita-

tional waves

could be meas-

ured. Is the en-

ergy carried by a

GW imparted on

what it passes

through? This is

important, be-

cause in order to detect GWs, they have to leave a trace of

some kind. Ultimately, the physics community was convinced

when Richard Feynman posed his thought experiment of

“strings on a bead.” For beads on a very long string that are

susceptible to a tiny amount of friction, a wave passing

through will move the beads. The friction causes the string to

heat, and so the heat must come from the energy of the pass-

ing GW. With that settled, the search was on for GWs.

Many methods were put forth to detect gravitational

waves. One concept was to create an enormous pure bar of

aluminum that would “ring” if a GW passed through. But the

best idea was to use an interferometer. Originally designed by

Michelson and Morley to demonstrate that there is no prefer-

ence for the speed of light in a given direction, optical inter-

ferometers split a beam of light into two arms and reflect them

back to a detector, combining their amplitudes. Sizing up the

scheme, the LIGO facilities in Louisiana and Washington

State, which were constructed over 25 years and for billions of

dollars, each have orthogonal arms 4 km long. A split laser

beam of light sent along each arm is calibrated to reflect back

toward a detector with the returning waves out of sync, cancel-

ling any signal. If a GW passes through, there will be a differ-

ential stretching of spacetime between the mirrors at the ends

of the arms, and the returning light waves will be nudged into

sync, producing a signal. That signal translates to a frequency

of sound. LIGO doesn’t

see GWs, it hears them.

GWs pass though

everything. They don’t

get absorbed or focused by

anything. They simply

spread out and get

“dimmer,” or more specif-

ically, “quieter,” with dis-

tance. They move out-

ward from a source differ-

ently than light does.

Light goes in all direc-

tions, so it spreads out in a sphere and gets fainter as the dis-

tance squared. Gravitational waves are “plane waves” and can

be thought of as travelling on the sides of a cylinder. The cyl-

inder is centered on the source. Keep the height of the cylinder

the same, but widen out the top and bottom. If you get far

enough away, then the plane wave spreads out over a “front”

that looks more and more like the circumference of a circle,

which increases like the radius of the circle. When they are

very far from their source, they are extremely weak, so weak

that they become “linear.” Therefore, they don’t back-react on

themselves or on the masses they pass through.

By adding SINE waves of sound together to create a

waveform, the same way an audio engineer can add together

pitches to mimic an oboe, you can add up waves of gravity to

imitate a known source of GWs. The waves, if heard, would

be in the human hearing range. On September 14, 2015, LIGO

received a signal that lasted a quarter-second and was well

above the regular noise of the detector. The waveform that

arrived was identical to a calculated waveform for two black

holes colliding and merging, where each was about 30 solar

masses. The waveform produced a “chirp,” which is a quick

increase in pitch and intensity at the end of the event. There

chirp was detected at both LIGO facilities. The signals arrived

about 7 milliseconds apart, which is the time it takes light to

travel between the two LIGO detectors. What’s amazing is

that we also know exactly how long ago the black hole merger

occurred, because the intensity of a GW gets “quieter” with

AAA ASTRO ANSWERS

LIGO

Schematic of a LIGO interferometer with a GW approaching.

National Science Foundation

LIGO detected gravitational waves caused by a merger of two black holes 1.3 billion years ago.

M. Pössel/Einstein Online

Gravitational waves alternately stretch and squeeze spacetime both vertically

and horizontally as they propagate.

5

distance. It happened 1.3 billion light-years away.

During my presentation, I passed over this material with

great rapidity. I also provided the derivation of how gravita-

tional waves propagate through space according to General

Relativity. The mathematics involved are not your average

high-school fare, but it is truly hard to understand relativistic

phenomena without that framework. That’s why there are so

many crackpot “theories” of gravity out there. Many well-

meaning amateur scientists think that relativity must be false,

because it is so hard to explain it exactly using simple vocabu-

lary. Just Google around, and you’ll see there’s no end to the

“woo-woo.” Often you’ll find made-up words strung together

by people without mathematical knowledge or any concept of

the logic of natural philosophy, much less a desire for their

ideas to actually work in the real world. But I digress.

The best part of an AAA AstroAnswers event is the

questions. The questions were excellent, sharing some won-

derful thoughts and ideas and showing the depth of involve-

ment and understanding by members of the club. Many came

up with comments about graphics, especially the com-

mon “warped spacetime” images that are ubiquitous on the

web. In these, an object hovers above a downward-bending

sheet that looks like a stretched fabric. One audience member

this made it seem that the objects don’t “obey” the sheet by

being stretched themselves. Such portrayals always assume

an imaginary extra dimension into which spacetime

curves. One of the trickiest ideas to reconcile is that there are

no extra dimensions of space in the mathematics of relativi-

ty. Curvature of spacetime is effectively “crumpled”

or “longer” at locations near mass. The length is provided by

the “length of time,” which refers to time’s contribution to

total spacetime distance.

Others were fascinated by the strong analogies of gravi-

tational waves to sound. However, the analogy breaks down

when thinking about the medium. The GW medium is the

distance of space and time itself, not air or ether or steel or

water. This motivates the common notion of the “fabric” of

spacetime. However, a fabric is a thing, not a space. So

again, the mathematics helps us understand spacetime by giv-

ing us the correct language to talk about it.

The language of the Aborigines of Australia uses a lim-

ited number system: none, one, two, three, many. They walk

huge distances across the outback by singing songs, and they

measure those distance by the length of the song sung to get

there. They do not have a concept for tiny increments of time,

like milliseconds or microseconds, nor do they distinguish

them from one another. Their measurements are never pre-

cise. But one’s language reflects one’s needs, and the Aborig-

ines do not need to know the exact amount of steel required to

build 10,000 cars. Likewise, our language does not exactly fit

spacetime, because it is not something we ever “use.” So, we

must teach ourselves a new language, powered by mathemat-

ics, that can clarify the relationships between space and time

and mass and energy. We must also unlearn certain ideas and

abandon some comfortable concepts to truly allow ourselves

to grasp the cosmos. The language and logic of lengths in non

-Euclidean geometries are not false, just unfamiliar and new,

and on Mar 11, AAA Members tried on some new words for

size.

April 2016

A Heroine Brings Dark Matter to Light

By Alan Rude

Dark Matter is all around, but

we can’t see it; we can only detect

its effects on a cosmic scale. It

makes up 23% of the universe. Visi-

ble ordinary (baryonic) matter – peo-

ple, stars, galaxies – is a mere 4%,

while “dark energy,” which we also

can’t see, represents 73% of the uni-

verse’s mass-energy. So how do we

know dark matter exists? How do

you measure what you cannot see?

The answer lies in the work of Vera Rubin, an astronomer

who studied at Cornell and Georgetown. Now 87, she has yet

to receive a much-deserved Nobel Prize. In the 1970s, Rubin

was working with colleague Kent Ford on orbital mechanics.

Ford had developed an extremely sensitive spectrometer that

they used make Doppler observations of the orbital speeds of

stars in spiral galaxies. They immediately discovered some-

thing unexpected. The stars in the sparsely populated outer

regions of a galaxy moved as fast as those closer to their galac-

tic center. This motion is totally different from what we see in

our Solar System: Earth, 93 million mi from the Sun, orbits

faster than Neptune, about 2.9 billion mi away.

This posed a problem, because the visible matter did not

have enough mass to hold such rapidly moving stars in their

orbits. The galaxies should fly apart. There had to be a tre-

mendous amount of unseen mass in the outer galactic regions

to generate the needed gravity, carrying the peripheral stars and

clouds along at speeds comparable to velocity of the inner ma-

terial and creating this “Rotation Effect.” Fritz Zwicky had

observed in 1933 that galaxies inside a cluster also move faster

than they should, due to what he then called “dark matter.” 40

years later, Rubin came along to prove him right. Rubin

studied hundreds of spiral galaxies, and her calculations

showed that ten times as much mass came from the dark matter

as could be accounted for by the visible matter. Nearly 90% of

galactic mass was invisible. “What you see in a spiral galaxy,”

Rubin concluded, “is not what you get.”

We know what dark matter does but not what it is. Many

believe it derives from a subatomic particle, with the leading

candidate being the WIMP (Weakly Interacting Massive Parti-

cle). A WIMP is a theoretical particle predicted by the Theory

of Supersymmetry, but it has yet to be observed. The Large

Hadron Collider at CERN hasn’t found it. Alternatively, some

propose it may be a quantum field superfluid that condensed in

puddles to “seed” galaxies and galaxy clusters. But such a

quantum field would be tied to spacetime, and would require

modifications to General Relativity.

Neither the particlists nor the superfluidists have evidence

to back up their positions. However, the current pace of scien-

tific progress suggests that may change soon. If only the

recognition of such important discoveries, like Vera Rubin’s,

could keep up. Sources: Cosmic Horizons:

Astronomy at the Cutting Edge; Back Reaction; space.com.

UNDERSTANDING THE UNIVERSE

Carnegie Institution of Washington

Vera Rubin in 1974 exam-ining photographic plates.

6

April 2016

Talking Next Gen Space Scopes at NYPL

By Pietro Sabatino

On Mar 16, the New

York Public Library

hosted a discussion of

Telescope, a new docu-

mentary about NASA’s

James Webb Space Tele-

scope (JWST). The film,

which aired on the Discov-

ery Channel in late Febru-

ary, was directed by Na-

thaniel Kahn. It features

behind-the-scenes footage

of construction of the

JWST, which is slated for

launch in 2018, as well as

interviews with the scien-

tists and engineers in-

volved. At the forefront of

the project, and featured throughout the film, is Matt Moun-

tain, the appointed telescope scientist for the JWST. Moderat-

ed by Paul Holdengräber, Kahn and Mountain spoke to the

NYPL audience about JWST’s mission, the history leading up

to its creation, and the importance of pushing the envelope in

humanity’s scientific exploration and understanding.

The first question Holdengräber asked Kahn and Moun-

tain was not about the film, but about books: “Of the books

found in the NYPL’s rare book collection, which spoke to you

the most?” Mountain replied that for him it was an original

1543 edition of Nicolaus Copernicus’s De revolutionibus orbi-

um cœlestium (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres).

The connection of that work to telescopes and our understand-

ing of the universe was as poignant as it was relevant.

Copernicus posited that the Earth revolves around the

Sun, in contrast with the prevailing belief in his time that the

Earth is fixed as the center of the universe with all other bod-

ies orbiting it. Yet Copernicus couldn’t directly observe the

motions that would prove his theory. It wasn’t until Galileo

built his own telescope in 1609, after hearing of the new

Dutch invention “for seeing things far away as if they were

nearby,” and observed Jupiter’s moons that some progress

was made. Here, for the first time, were observations that

directly contradicted the geocentric model, revealing that not

all heavenly bodies orbit the Earth. Kahn noted that even to-

day many people “are still struggling with the idea that we’re

not at the center of the universe.” This was a topic that the

panel would return to throughout the evening. How do we

respond to new knowledge that shows us just how small we

really are in the universe? Mountain had a very succinct an-

swer to this: “Just get over it.”

The JWST will serve as a successor to the Hubble Space

Telescope, which was launched over 25 years ago. Hubble

has allowed us to peer farther into space than ever before.

One of its images, known as Hubble Deep Field, aimed the

telescope at an empty patch of sky less than 3 arcminutes

wide. After taking long exposures, what they found in this not-

so-empty space were about 3,000 objects, all but 3 of which

were galaxies. Extrapolating that figure across the entire sky

provides an estimate of 100 billion (1011) galaxies in the uni-

verse. And if every galaxy contains 100 billion stars, some

quick multiplication yields 1022 stars out there. Each one of

those stars is likely to have at least one planet orbiting, which

gives us a lower bound for the total number of planets in the

universe. Thanks to Hubble, implications are mounting that we

may one day find other planets that can support life, or even

one that could sustain human life – “Earth 2.0.”

But there is a limit to what Hubble can observe. Hubble’s

instruments are mainly sensitive to visible light, and the pic-

tures it sends back represent a view that is fairly similar to

what we would be able to see with our own eyes. But due to

the red-shift of light traveling through our expanding universe,

extremely distant galaxies are entirely out of the visible range.

Their light resides in the infrared portion of the electromagnet-

ic spectrum, rendering them invisible to us and to Hubble.

Enter the James Webb Space Telescope. The JWST is

sensitive to both the near and mid-infrared wavelengths, and it

will allow us to see farther back in time to observe more distant

galaxies. Its sensitivity to infrared light will also help scientists

learn more about the formation of stars and planets within neb-

ulae, as the JWST will be able to peer through the dense gas

clouds and dust that block visible light. In addition, the

JWST’s 6.5-meter mirror, comprised of 18 small mirrors that

act together, is both larger and lighter than the one on Hubble.

In its operational form, the JWST is bigger than the

rocket that will launch it. Engineers have designed it to fold up

inside the rocket and then unfold on its way into orbit. The

JWST will orbit almost one million miles above the Earth at

what is known as the second Lagrange point (L2). This is a

gravitationally stable point between the Earth and the Sun.

Unlike Hubble, which orbits at a mere 350 miles above us

within the Earth’s magnetosphere, the JWST will be precluded

from any servicing or rescue missions; it’ll be too far away.

For 400 years, telescopes have transformed and shaped

our view of the universe and our place in it, and the James

Webb Space Telescope is the newest iteration of that tool. We

live in an exciting time of scientific exploration and innova-

tion, and the JWST will push the boundaries of what is possi-

ble, “which is the only way to advance our knowledge,” said

Mountain. While this knowledge leaves some feeling lost in

the immensity of the universe, to them I can only echo Moun-

tain: “Just get over it.” Sources: www.discovery.com; nypl.org; jwst.nasa.gov; wiki.

ASTRO TALKS

James Webb Space Telescope

A full-scale model of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope.

AAA Announcement

The Annual Meeting of the Amateur Astronomers

Association will be held on Wednesday, May 18, 2016

at the Downtown Community Center,

located at 120 Warren Street in Manhattan.

All AAA members are encouraged to attend.

Refreshments will be served beginning at 6:30 p.m.

Meeting starts at 7:30 p.m.

We look forward to seeing you there!

7

Out of This World An Astronaut’s Final Mission Makes NASA History

In March, NASA’s Scott Kelly retired from the space agency, shortly after returning

from his 340-day mission to the International Space Station, the longest ever for an Ameri-

can astronaut. “I think the only big surprise was how long a year is,” said Kelly, who cele-

brated two birthdays during the mission. “It seemed like I lived there forever.” During Kelly’s

historic mission, which was shared with Russia’s Mikhail Kornienko, nearly 400 science experi-

ments were conducted, including many to support future long-duration missions, looking at

weightlessness, isolation, radiation, and psychological stress. “Scott’s contributions to NASA are

too many to name,” said Brian Kelly, director of Flight Operations at the Johnson Space Center.

“In his year aboard the space station, he took part in experiments that will have far-reaching ef-

fects, helping us pave the way to putting humans on Mars and benefiting life on Earth.” One major research area involved fluid

shifts in the body in zero gravity, which can affect vision and intracranial pressure, and must be conquered before a lengthy Mars

mission. Kelly also participated in unique comparative studies done in partnership with his Earthbound identical twin brother,

Mark, also a former NASA astronaut. This last mission was Kelly’s fourth, and with it he achieved the American record for cumu-

lative time in space with 520 days. “Records are meant to be broken,” Kelly said, “I am looking forward to when these records are

surpassed.” He won’t have to wait long. Last month, U.S. astronaut Jeff Williams launched to the ISS for a half-year mission that

will garner him 534 cumulative days in space. Williams, who last visited the ISS in 2010, was the first astronaut to live-Tweet

from space. Kelly embraced social media over his 144 million-mile journey above the Earth, posting over 700 astonishing photos

of the planet on Instagram and Tweeting 2,000 times, including a video where he dressed in a gorilla suit and chased Britain’s Tim

Peak to “Yakety Sax.” “Go big or go home,” Kelly said, “I think I’ll do both.” AMW Sources: nasa.gov; phys.org; nytimes.com.

Hubble Hubbub A Long Time Ago in a Galaxy Far, Far Away

In March, astronomers using the Hubble Space Tele-

scope measured the farthest galaxy we’ve ever seen in the

universe. 13.4 billion light-years away toward the constella-

tion Ursa Major, the very young GN-z11 shined brightly just

400 million years after the Big Bang. “We’ve taken a major

step back in time, beyond what we’d ever expected to be able

to do with Hubble,” said principal investigator Pascal Oesch,

who led the international team in the study. Many astrono-

mers thought that only the new James Webb Space Telescope,

scheduled to launch in 2018, would be able to see galaxies

this far away. With this find, scientists now suspect that many

of the bright galaxies previously imaged in the Hubble Deep

Field may be much further away than thought. The study

used Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 to measure the distance

to GN-z11 with spectroscopy, determining its redshift. Due to

expansion of the universe, the light of distant objects is

stretched to longer, redder wavelengths. “This is an extraordi-

nary accomplishment for Hubble. It managed to beat all the

previous distance records held for years by much larger

ground-based telescopes,” said investigator Pieter van Dok-

kum. Hubble and the infrared Spitzer Space Telescope imag-

es show GN-z11 is a

billion solar masses.

It’s 25 times smaller

than the Milky Way,

but growing 20 times

faster. Only a couple

hundred million years

after the very first stars

were born, this young

galaxy is forming them

astonishingly fast!

AMW Source: nasa.gov.

April 2016

Celestial Selection of the Month Reflection Nebula M78

1,600 light-years away

in the constellation Orion is a

nebula that’s got the blues.

Interstellar dust molecules in

M78 scatter shorter blue wave-

lengths of light from nearby

stars more than longer red

wavelengths, in the same way

that molecules in Earth’s at-

mosphere scatter light to make

our sky appear blue. Dust in

M78 also absorbs light, creat-

ing light-blocking dark streaks.

M78 is the brightest of a group of reflection nebulae found in

the Orion Molecular Cloud Complex, which is one of the

most active stellar formation regions in our night sky. It is

home to 45 low-mass, irregular variable stars of changing

brightness and spectral type. These main sequence stars are in

the very first stages of their stellar lives. 17 outflow sources

called Herbig-Haro objects have also been found in M78.

They form when jets of matter ejected from the young stars

collide with clouds of gas and dust at great speeds. The nebu-

la glows from the light of two recently formed bright, blue B-

type stars of 10th magnitude: “Two large stars, well defined,

within a nebulous glare of light resembling that in Orion’s

sword,” described William Herschel in 1783. He was less

confident about other aspects, saying, “I shall suspend my

judgement till I have seen it again in very fine weather, tho’

the night is far from bad.” M78 was first discovered in 1780

by Pierre Mechain and catalogued later that year by Charles

Messier. It can be spotted with binoculars or a small tele-

scope as a hazy patch a few degrees northeast of Orion’s Belt.

AMW Sources: universetoday.com; nasa.gov; messier-objects.com.

NASA, ESA, P. Oesch, G. Brammer, P. van Dokkum, G. Illingworth

At 13.4 billion light-years in the past, GN-z11 has bright, young, blue stars, but its light has been stretched to longer wave-lengths by the expansion of the universe.

European Southern Observatory

Shorter wavelength blue light is scattered more by molecules in M78, just as it is in Earth’s sky.

NASA/Bill Ingalls

NASA’s Scott Kelly returned to Earth on Mar 2 from his historic

340-day mission at the ISS.

8

A Message from the AAA President

Hello AAA Members:

Spring is finally here! With the warmer weather comes more

observing, and many locations resume this month. Be sure to check

the AAA website for observing session updates and other events at

www.aaa.org/calendar.

It was great seeing many of you at our annual Spring Starfest in

March at Woodlawn Cemetery in the Bronx. Despite the clouds, we

had a wonderful turnout. Many thanks go to all the volunteers and

observers who made the event possible. Thanks also to Jason Kendall

for the AAA AstroAnswers event last month, where he spoke to a great

crowd about the recent discovery of gravitational waves by LIGO.

Don’t miss the next talk in the AAA Lecture Series at AMNH on

Apr 1 with Niel Brandt from Pennsylvania State University presenting

"A Good Hard Look at Cosmic Supermassive Black Hole Growth". This

season's full lecture schedule is available at www.aaa.org/lectures.

And come say hello to your fellow AAA Members at this year’s

NEAF from Apr 9-10 at Rockland County Community College , where

we will have a booth staffed with volunteers representing the club.

Marcelo Cabrera

President, AAA

April 2016

Eyepiece Staff April 2016 Issue

Editor-in-Chief: Amy M. Wagner Copy Editor: Richard Brounstein

Contributing Writers: Bart Erbach, Jason Kendall, Tony Faddoul, Michael O’Gara, Alan Rude, Pietro Sabatino, and Amy Wagner

Eyepiece Logo and Graphic Design: Rori Baldari

Administrative Support: Joe Delfausse

Printing by McVicker & Higginbotham

APRIL 2016

FRI, Apr 1 Next: May 6

Lecture at the American Museum of Natural History, P

@ 6:15 pm – 8 pm

“A Good Hard Look at Cosmic Supermassive Black Hole Growth” pre-

sented by Penn State’s Niel Brandt. Free admission; open to the public.

(In the Kaufmann Theater; Enter at 77th St)

FRI & SAT, Apr 1, 2, 8, 9, 15, 16, 22, 23, 29, 30 Next May 6 & 7

Observing at Lincoln Center – Manhattan, PTC

@ 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm

SAT, Apr 2 Next May 7

Solar Observing at Grand Army Plaza – Brooklyn, PTC

@ 11 am – 1 pm

Observing at Brooklyn Museum Plaza – Brooklyn, PTC

@ 9 pm – 11 pm

SUN, Apr 3 Next May 1

Solar Observing at Central Park – Manhattan, PTC

@ 1 pm – 3 pm

TUE, Apr 5, 12, 19, 26 Next May 3

Observing on the Highline – Manhattan, PTC

@ 7:30 pm – 9:30 pm (Solar Observing begins @ 6 pm on Apr 12)

SAT, Apr 9 Next May 14

Observing at Great Kills – Staten Island, PTC

@ 8:30 pm – 11 pm

SAT & SUN, Apr 9 & 10

2016 North-East Astronomy Forum in Suffern, NY, PT

It’s Pluto Mania at this year’s NEAF! as Rockland Astronomy Club hosts

the world’s largest astronomy expo with vendors, workshops, solar ob-

serving, raffles, and more at SUNY Rockland Community College.

Speakers include New Horizons’ Alan Stern and Alice Bowman, Alden &

Annette Tombaugh, and Kevin Schindler of the Lowell Observatory.

(For tickets visit http://rocklandastronomy.com/neaf.html.)

FRI, Apr 13 Next May 13

Observing at Riverdale – Bronx, PTC

@ 8 pm – 10 pm

FRI, Apr 15

Observing at Carl Schurz Park – Manhattan, PTC Next May 20

Observing at Floyd Bennett Field – Brooklyn, PTC Next May 6

@ 8 pm – 11 pm

SAT, Apr 16

Observing at The Evergreens Cemetery – Brooklyn, PTC

@ 6:30 pm – 9:30 pm

SAT, Apr 29

Observing at Gantry Plaza State Park – Queens, PTC

@ 8 pm – 10 pm

M: Members only; P: Public event; T: Bring telescopes, binoculars; C: Cancelled if cloudy.

For location & cancellation information visit www.aaa.org.

AAA Events on the Horizon

The Amateur Astronomers’ Association of New York Info, Events, and Observing: president@aaa.org or 212-535-2922

Membership: members@aaa.org Eyepiece: editor@aaa.org

Visit us online at www.aaa.org.

Other Astronomy Events in NYC

FRI, Apr 1

@ 7 pm Columbia Stargazing/Lecture Series at Pupin Hall – Manhattan, F

“New Horizons: Pluto Encounter” with Lauren Corlies. Observing follows,

weather permitting. (outreach.astro.columbia.edu)

THU, Apr 5

@ 7 pm AMNH 2016 Isaac Asimov Memorial Debate – Manhattan, F

“Is the Universe a Simulation?” Hayden Planetarium Director Neil deGrasse

Tyson moderates a panel of experts as they discuss a science fiction notion

that has become a serious line of theoretical and experimental investigation.

(This event is sold out, so log on to amnh.org/live to watch the livestream.)

MON, Apr 18

@ 7:30 pm AMNH Frontiers Lecture (Hayden Planetarium) – Manhattan, X

“Gravitational Waves: Messengers from a Warped Universe” with Nergis

Mavalvala at the American Museum of Natural History. Learn how we

search for ripples in space-time and decode the information they carry about

the first moments after the Big Bang. (amnh.org)

TUE, Apr 26

@ 7 pm AMNH Astronomy Live (Hayden Planetarium) – Manhattan, X

“The Force Fields Around Spaceship Earth” with Jana Grcevich and AAA’s

Irene Pease. Discover the invisible fields that protect our planet and make

life on Earth possible. (amnh.org)

FRI, Apr 29

@ 7 pm Columbia Stargazing/Lecture Series at Pupin Hall – Manhattan, F

“The Explosive Origins of Our Elements” with Sarah Pearson. Observing

follows, weather permitting. (outreach.astro.columbia.edu)

F: Free; X: Tickets required (contact vendor for information); T: Bring telescopes, binoculars.

9

April 2016

Talking Next Gen Space Scopes at NYPL

By Rafael Ferreira

“There’s no such thing as a free lunch” when it comes to

black holes, says particle physicist Georgi Dvali. Dvali spoke

to club members and the public on Mar 4 as part of the 2015-

2016 AAA Lecture Series, presenting “The Secret Quantum

Life of Black Holes.”

Most work on black holes reflects assumptions from

classical physics, not taking into account quantum mechanics.

Dvali, a professor at New York University, instead approaches

these objects using particle physics and quantum gravity.

According to classical physics, black holes are featureless,

which means they exist more as a metaphysical object. Noth-

ing, not even light, can escape a black hole. But in the quan-

tum world, a black hole has three definite features: mass, an-

gular momentum, and electrical charge – and if a black hole

has features, then it can send and receive information encoded

in those features. These messages can then be read by an out-

side observer.

Dvali explained that the key to a basic understanding of

black holes is quantum criticality. A quantum critical point

(QCP) occurs when the temperature for phase transition of a

material is suppressed to absolute zero. And at absolute zero,

all of momentum ceases to exist! This notion informs our

understanding of how information is transcribed within a

black hole. Dvali is working on how to manufacture such a

system in his laboratory.

In a quantum world, the Planck length

constant represents the quantum of action, a product of energy

and time or of momentum and distance. Any action greater

than the Planck constant can be measured using classical

physics, but on the Planck scale, the quantum effects of gravi-

ty strengthen.

When we consider a black hole, it’s Gigantic, but it is quan-

tized through quantum critically occurring within it.

Dvali begins by denoting the speed of light as 1 light-second,

To understand such a system, Dvali first denotes that the

speed of light is 1 as to measure it in light-seconds or years

when talking about a Planck length and Planck max. These

two measurements are the two shortest lengths in nature that

are crucial to the understanding of black holes. When we think

of an object, we usually don’t consider the gravitational radius

or Schwarschild radius, M, that that object incurs if it were to

be suddenly compressed within that sphere, but nothing can

escape it, thus creating a black hole. This can be any object

with mass. A human, all the way to a Supergiant star.

Within the quantum world, we have to take into account

Heisenberg’s uncertainty. The uncertainty consists of the more

accurate your reading is for the first variable, the bigger the

price you have to pay for the second variable. For example, if

we want to send a compact message, we have to pay in pro-

ducing more energy just to send that particular message. In the

terms of a black hole, energy gravitates, thus information grav-

itates. If we want to send this information we will have to pay

the gravitational price by increasing the gravity of that system.

So, we have a limit as to the information we can compact into a

message. The planck length becomes a limit because we cannot

send any message shorter than a planck length. This bound is

called the Bekenstein entropy of a black hole, which is a bound

for any given variable state of the particle. This means any

particle of information can be either up or down, switched off

or on, 1 or 0.

Dvali, uses the example of taking a box and feeding it

information. Eventually the density is converted into a black

hole, and it will keep increasing in size the more you feed. The

limit now for this black hole is its gravitational radius, but

since since we can keep increasing the size by inputting more

information into the black hole, the size and information of a

black hole is infinite!

We can characterize a black hole as a spherical surface

with pixels of information on it due to the Bekenstein equation.

Bekenstein’s equation takes the surface area of a black hole

and measures it in Planck area pixels. Now in physics, we love

taking the limits to test how nature reacts under certain condi-

tions. Dveli shows when the planck constant becomes zero, the

planck length becomes zero. Thus the information becomes

infinite, but classical physics says it has no information. Dveli,

says “No assumptions are being made, only well knowledgea-

ble facts about the facts of nature are being used.”

So how can this be? If we consider these two state varia-

ble states as cubics then they can have a possibility of two

states. In a classical manner we have to pay the energy price

for storing information, but within a black hole storing infor-

mation becomes exponentially cheap. This is due to a black

hole taking into account of 1/N possible states dealing with the

sum of the energies. Since black holes pay a minimal price in

energy, and hold an infinite amount of information, they take

an infinite amount of time to decode data from it. This is the

price they pay for black holes consisting of gravitons. Gravi-

tons within the black hole have an attraction towards one an-

other, but this point of attraction is at the critical point. If they

are under or over attraction, then the black hole cannot stay

together. This is the remarkable event that occurs within a

black hole which Dveli is trying to solve in how to produce a

quantum computer, but there will be no free lunch in figuring

out how.

AAA LECTURE SERIES

10

Out of This World An Astronaut’s Final Mission Makes NASA History

In November, NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson, who calculated the flight

trajectories for Alan Shepard, the first American in space; John Glenn, the first Ameri-

can to orbit Earth; and the Apollo 11 moonshot, was awarded a 2015 National Medal of

Freedom from President Obama. Receiving the nation’s highest civilian award, she was

recognized for her critical work in U.S. space history. “Johnson’s computations have influ-

enced every major space program from Mercury through the Space Shuttle,” said NASA Ad-

ministrator Charles Bolden. Johnson joined NASA’s predecessor, the National Advisory

Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), in 1953 as a “computer,” one of the women recruited

specifically for the exacting and tedious work of performing measurements and calculations.

African-American women found openings there beginning in World War II. The success of the “computers” prompted NACA to

keep women on board and expand their employment even after the war, while other industries kicked women out of the workplace

to make room for men. Johnson, who graduated summa cum laude at the age of 18 from West Virginia State College, worked in

the Langley Research Center’s Guidance and Navigation Department: “I said, ‘Let me do it. Y ou tell me when you want it and

where you want it to land, and I’ll do it backwards and tell you when to take off.’ That’s my forte.” Glenn even requested that

Johnson personally check the calculations for his Friendship 7 flight, even though NASA had begun using electronic computers.

This former “computer” successfully transitioned her skills in the computer age, working at NASA until 1986. “Katherine G.

Johnson is a pioneer in American space history,” said Bolden, “She’s one of the greatest minds ever to grace our agency or our

country, and because of the trail she blazed, young Americans like my granddaughters can pursue their own dreams without a

feeling of inferiority.” AMW Sources: nasa.gov; aip.org; whitehouse.gov.

Hubble Hubbub A Long Time Ago in a Galaxy Far, Far Away

ESA and NASA’s Solar and Heliospheric Observato-

ry (SOHO) has illuminated our Sun for 20 years, revolu-

tionizing heliophysics. “SOHO changed the popular view of

the sun from a picture of a static unchanging object in the sky

to the dynamic beast it is,” said ESA’s Bernhard Fleck.

Launched in Dec 1995, SOHO observes the Sun from above

Earth’s atmosphere. Prior to SOHO, flares were thought to be

the only solar event with Earth effects. It revealed the exist-

ence of coronal mass ejections (CMEs), speedy, giant clouds

of charged material with their own magnetic fields, that can

cause geomagnetic storms. Meanwhile, its extreme ultraviolet

images first saw solar tsunamis – waves that ripple across the

Sun’s surface in conjunction with a CME. Their discovery

allows scientists now to predict when a CME is directed to-

ward Earth. SOHO also helped solve a neutrino mystery.

The number of a certain solar neutrino type observed at Earth

didn’t match predictions. SOHO showed they really were

emitted, leading to the discovery that neutrinos can change

their type on their path from the Sun, and to the 2015 Nobel

Prize in Physics. SO-

HO also happens to be

the best comet hunter

around. Last year, it

found its 3,000th comet

– that’s over three

times the number of

comets ever spotted

from Earth in all of

human history. Aver-

aging 200 new comets

a year, SOHO can see

12.5 million miles

beyond the Sun.

April 2016

Celestial Selection of the Month Reflection Nebula M78

Just 577 light-years

away in the constellation

Cancer lies a cluster of a

thousand stars, enjoyed by

observers since antiquity.

Visible to the naked eye, the

open cluster M44, also known

as the Beehive Cluster or the

Praesepe (Latin for “manger”),

is one of the closest to Earth.

With a magnitude of 3.7, only

the Pleiades (M45) and An-

dromeda Galaxy (M31) are

brighter among the Messier objects. Described by ancient

astronomers Hipparchus and Ptolemy, M44 was first viewed

in a telescope by Galileo in 1609. Though its stars are bound

by mutual gravitational attraction, mass segregation has con-

centrated the brighter, more massive stars at the core, while

dimmer, less massive stars are distributed to the outer halo of

the cluster. Most of M44’s stars are red dwarfs, while about

30% are dwarfs like our Sun. In 2012, two exoplanets –

Pr0201b and Pr0211b – were discovered to be orbiting two

different Sun-like stars in M44. Found with the 1.5-meter

Tillinghast telescope at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Obser-

vatory's Whipple Observatory in AZ, the Hot Jupiter gas gi-

ants are massive and orbit very close to their parent stars.

“These are the first ‘b’s’ in the Beehive,” said discoverer Sam

Quinn. M44’s stars are only 600 million years old, so the

planets are among the youngest discovered. The cluster is

also rich in metals, which may act like “’planet fertilizer,’

leading to an abundant crop of gas giant planets,” said NASA

scientist Russel White. Their discovery revealed that

planets can thrive in dense, extreme environments like clus-

NASA TV

NASA’s Scott Kelly returned to Earth from his historic 340-day mission at the ISS on March 2 in Kazakhstan.

NASA, ESA, P. Oesch, G. Brammer, P. van Dokkum, G. Illingworth

At 13.4 billion light-years in the past, GN-z11 has bright, young, blue stars, but it appears red in this Hubble image as its light has been stretched to longer wave-lengths by the expansion of the universe.

European Southern Observatory

Shorter wavelength blue light is scattered more by molecules in M78, just as it is in Earth’s sky.

11

Behold the Moon

By Stan Honda

The Moon is a windfall for night sky photographers:

it’s relatively large and it’s easy to predict where it will be

in the sky. Even for amateurs with modest equipment,

this celestial object offers endless variations. For New York-

ers, it’s also readily visible in our light-polluted skies.

Still, it’s worthwhile to get a glimpse of Earth’s natural

satellite away from town. Last fall, I found myself at Ship-

pensburg University in south-central Pennsylvania, giving

talks about photojournalism, when the planets Jupiter, Venus

and Mars approached each other in the pre-dawn sky. Ship-

pensburg is a small town of about 5,500 surrounded by farm-

land, so I thought I would have a decent chance of capturing

the planets away from the glare of big city lights. I woke up

at 4 AM on Oct 27 to try to photograph the rising trio.

Unfortunately, a thin layer of clouds had moved in over-

night, all but obscuring the view of the planets to the east. I

could only just make out Venus, the brightest of the three,

which showed up only faintly in a few photos I took. Turning

to the west, I was then confronted with the magnificent sight

of the nearly full Moon surrounded by a giant halo. It was

low above the horizon and seemed to hover over the tree line.

A lunar halo forms when moonlight refracts through

hexagonal ice crystals in the clouds, creating a ring with a

radius of about 22 degrees. A variation in the refraction caus-

es the inner part of the circle to be reddish in color and the

outer part to be bluish.

You don’t need an extra-long telephoto lens to take an

interesting picture of the phenomenon. The widest angle lens

I had with me was a 14-24mm zoom. Setting it at 14mm, I

was able to take in a great expanse of the sky and the two-lane

road below it. Since it was the middle of the night, I was able

to venture into the road and stand directly in the middle, with-

out any fear of traffic. From that vantage point, the halo nes-

tled into a dip in the trees, making a nice composition.

My camera was attached to a small tripod, and unlike

with many night sky photos, I chose a relatively short expo-

sure at 4 seconds, with a lens opening of f5.6 and an ISO of

800. In processing the image, I increased the contrast a bit to

April 2016

emphasize the halo, but the final image was still very close to

what it looked like in person.

Earlier in October, I had tried to photograph a crescent

moon in a conjunction with the same trio of planets, again

during pre-dawn hours. From the reservoir in Central Park, I

looked toward the east side of Manhattan as the Moon and

Venus rose from behind the buildings. While waiting for the

other planets to appear, I shot the crescent moon very near the

top of a Fifth Avenue apartment building. I used a 70-200mm

zoom set at 200mm and cropped in close around the building

and the Moon, focusing attention on the pair. As a result, the

Moon became more prominent in the frame and look as if I

had used a longer focal length lens.

Using an exposure of ½ second and lens opening of f4 at

ISO 6400 on my Sony a7S camera, I captured some detail in

the building, but the lit crescent was washed out. However,

the unlit side of the Moon reflecting earthshine showed up

nicely, although no detail on this “dark side” can be seen.

Normally, you can count on a new or nearly new Moon

photo to show off the seas and craters of the lunar surface that

are undetectable when the Moon is brighter around full phase.

But shooting details on a less luminous Moon and on a sur-

rounding landscape or cityscape can be difficult – often you

get one or the other. Luckily, crescent phases are very pictur-

esque, so you don’t need to show much detail on the orb to

make it interesting. If you overexpose the Moon and permit

earth shine, you still get a nice skyline-crescent Moon combo.

Keeping the Moon very low on the horizon helps too,

because atmospheric haze can cut the light down quite a bit.

Another trick is to find an opportunity to shoot a moonrise or

moonset right around sunset or sunrise, which will level out

the exposure difference between the Moon and the fore-

ground. The Sun helps illuminate the terrestrial objects, so

you can concentrate on an accommodating lunar subject.

FOCUS ON THE UNIVERSE

Explore more night sky photography at

www.stanhonda.com.

Submit your photography questions to stanhonda@gmail.com.

Stan Honda is a professional photographer. Formerly with Agence

France-Presse, Stan covered the Space Shuttle program. In his

“Focus on the Universe” column, he shares his night sky images and

explores his passions for astronomy and photography.

Stan Honda

Fifth Avenue Moon: Sony a7S camera with a Nikon 70-200mm f4 lens at 200mm, exposure of ½ sec., f4,

ISO6400 at 4:28 AM.

Stan Honda

Lunar Halo: Nikon D800 camera with 14-24mm f2.8 lens at 14mm, exposure of 4 sec., f5.6, ISO 800 at 4:12 AM.