Primary Sources

How do we know that the sun is a star? -- and, that we live in a galaxy full of stars?

How do we know what the distances between those stars are?

How did we conclude that the moon and planets are illuminated by reflected sunlight, and, not through their own, intrinsic illumination?

How do we know how big the universe is, and, of what materials it is composed?

By guesswork? By simple reasoning? By concluding what we want to conclude?!

No -- never...

Vintage Engraving, Early Spectroscopy Using Prisms -  Drawing by Luisa Vallon Fumi

The answers to some of those questions come by way of Newton, Galileo, Herschel, the telescope, and the spectroscope - (and, yes - true, genuine, unadulterated genius, at least, in the case of Newton).

To understand these things, one has got to have some grasp, of the long hours of hard work, done by many people - sometimes, extended out, over several generations.

But, all of it was done, methodically, one step at a time. Those steps are preserved in records - written at the time, by the very people who took those steps - and exist in the various university libraries, public archives, etc. These documents, and others like them, are known as, "Primary Sources", or, "Original Sources". One notable example of an original source document, is Galileo Galilei's letter to the Duchess of Tuscany, on what he had observed through his telescope, which, has been, ever since, preserved by the Royal Archives, in Great Britain, and is available for public view. Most any college or university has a Primary Source repository, or access, to one.

One, major distinction, in perusing any primary source, is its wonderful lack of hype, sensationalism, opinions, fake news, and, perhaps, best of all (in my opinion) -- no "pseudo scientists"!

Insight Observatory's network of remote robotic telescopes - ATEO-1, ATEO-2A, and ATEO-3.

Astronomers - professional, amateur, and citizen, alike - are, still, today needed to make observations, visually, or photographically of the night sky. One way to do this is by the use of remote, robotic telescopes and astrographs, like those, here at Insight Observatory.

Dale Alan Bryant
Senior Contributing Science Writer

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Observers Track the Next New Horizons’ Target

January 1, 2019, is still several months away, however, for members of NASA's New Horizons team, it's hurtling toward them like a freight train. That's when the spacecraft will fly past the distant Kuiper Belt object 2014 MU69 at close range.

Astronomers guess that it's between 25 and 45 km (15 and 30 miles) across, but the exact size depends on the reflectivity of its surface — and that's unknown. In fact, they needed the Hubble Space Telescope to discover this incredibly dim speck (magnitude 27½). It's some 6½ billion km (43.3 astronomical units) from the Sun, a third farther out than Pluto is.

The stellar "shadow" cast by 2014 MU69 took about 11 minutes to sweep across Earth,
so from any given location, the star would disappear for no more than about 2 seconds.

"This object has so far proven to be impossible to detect from the ground," laments Marc Buie (Southwest Research Institute). "100% of the data we have directly on 2014 MU69 is from HST, starting with the discovery images and then onward to additional images for astrometry."

To learn more and guess less, Buie and the New Horizons team have turned to an observing technique that can be even more powerful than HST: stellar occultations. It turns out that 2014 MU69, currently drifting among the rich star fields of Sagittarius about 5° northeast of the Teapot, passes directly in front of three stars this year: June 3rd, July 10th, and July 17th. That's good news. The bad news is that these stars are themselves very faint, and (as the maps below show) getting into the predicted tracks presents plenty of challenges.

Read Full Source Article at http://www.skyandtelescope.com/astronomy-news/solar-system/observers-track-new-horizons-next-target/

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Old Dogs and New Tricks

As Mike Petrasko shared in "A Pilgrim's Progress" right here on Insight Observatory, we recently had the pleasure of delivering a talk at a local library, outlining our experiences with amateur astronomy over the last 30-plus years. While composing the astrophotography content of the talk, one thing was glaringly apparent: things have changed!

Celestron 8" Telescope Prime Focus Astrophotography 

Setup Circa 1995 - Photograph by Jefferey R. Charles

So, at the risk of sounding like the old-timer who laments "well, back in MY day....", it might be worth noting the differences between taking an amateur astrophoto before robotic telescopes, and after, now that the process can be entirely automated. Back in the day, unless you were operating a sophisticated observatory telescope, there was no scrolling menu to pick desired objects to observe, no automatic telescope alignment, no automatic correction to telescope tracking errors, etc. Spending an hour or more with your eyeball glued to a guide star while the exposure was underway (to correct for tracking errors) was par for the course. (And of course, this assumes one actually had the object framed in the camera.) Handling film pieces, strips or rolls carelessly could destroy a whole night's efforts.

Modern equipment available to the amateur has streamlined these tasks immensely. With accurate alignment provided by the newer amateur scopes and mounts, one need not even SEE the object. If you have selected an object from the telescope's large library (THOUSANDS of choices), you can be sure the mount has slewed to the correct location. Cameras for astrophotography have kept pace too. No more struggling with accurate focus, loading film, changing filters, monitoring shutter time, etc.

Let's take a look at how an image was acquired in the "old" days, perhaps circa 1995. Start with careful set-up and accurate polar alignment of the telescope. Focus on an available star (sometimes a marathon of frustration in itself!). Acquire the object to be photographed in the field of view, assuming it can be seen (otherwise, just how good are your setting circles?). Find a guide star nearby, bright enough to do the job and center the guiding optics on it. Take a deep breath to let all vibration settle down, then open the shutter with the cable release. Now just, er, relax! Only an hour or so of awkward close monitoring of the guide star with tiring eyes, cross-hairs, correcting motors, and joystick...

Modern Remote Robotic Telescope
For Astrophotography

Well, as satisfying as results could be from those techniques, modern, robotic, and remotely managed telescopes are the rage. How about sitting at a nice warm desk, picking an object from a computer program, kicking off an automated process, hitting the sack, and waking in the morning to find a knockout astrophoto, (or two or more, even of different objects) sitting in your inbox? You can learn how to accomplish dramatic results through Insight Observatory's partnering with iTelescope, using robotic telescopes located in dark skies in the U.S., Spain, and Australia.

Yep, there is a bit of nostalgic romance when doing things the old way. But this Old Dog likes the best of both worlds. I still like to get out under the night sky, but I now leave the cold temps and no-sleep marathon sessions to iTelescope's New Tricks, using world-class gear.

Remote control and remote imaging are here to stay, and the results stand for themselves.

Harry Hammond
Mashpee, MA

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