Winging It!

Much observational astronomy is done with an itinerary in mind; be it sketches of deep-sky objects, planets, the moon, comets, etc., with time allotted for each object. Along with fellow astronomers, Mike Petrasko and Muir Evenden, I used to do galaxy scans of a number of galaxies, in search of extragalactic supernovae events, or, stellar explosions in other galaxies. This kind of observing requires a conventional star atlas and special galaxy charts at one’s side, along with an array of oculars, a red acetate-covered flashlight, Astro-goggles (dark-adaptation goggles) paper, pencils, and such.

Amateur Astronomer Observing.

But this kind of observing session is for more advanced amateurs, not something the beginning astronomer is looking at any time soon. And that’s alright. There are other ways of doing it. If you’re new to astronomy and have only recently acquired your first telescope - regardless of size - take it out into the backyard and set it up, otherwise equipment-less, if that should be the case (it would be nice to have some kind of atlas with you, for reference, and to save a little time, but it isn’t absolutely necessary).

Point your marvelous instrument toward the sky and just start scanning - randomly. In no time, you’ll be coming across all kinds of things. Look at each, take a mental note and move on. Spend an hour or two, just randomly aiming the telescope, or, do a more cohesive sweep of the sky, somewhat overlapping the field of view of the scope on each pass. Just enjoy the various objects that pop into view, make a mental note and continue.

When you’ve had enough of this, pack it up and go to bed. I guarantee you'll lie there, in bed, that night, running the various sights you’ve seen, over and over in your head. You’ll wonder what it was that had that tail-like thing sticking out of it, what gave that other smudge of light its unusual shape, color, etc.

A few observing sessions like this, and you’ll want to do more, know more, and acquire more in no time. This is how it all started for me, with a 60mm Tasco® refractor telescope on a simple mount, at age 19, all those ages ago.

Dale Alan Bryant
Senior Contributing Science Writer

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Fore!

Though I've never played a game of golf in my life - I used to frequent the Woods Hole Golf Club's course, at Woods Hole, Mass. - in the middle of the night, that is. You see, I'm an astronomer/astrobiologist.

On any given clear night, fellow astronomer Mike Petrasko, and I, used to drive our car and light pickup, equipped with my 8-inch, and Mike's 6-inch, 50-inch long, 70-inch high Newtonian reflector telescopes, up onto a fairway at the golf course, in Woods Hole, to about the course's center.

Woods Hole Golf Course, Woods Hole, MA.

There, we set up the telescopes and connected their motorized clock drives, to our vehicle batteries, with cables and alligator clips; this was necessary so that, as the Earth rotates during the night - and the stars drift slowly across the sky, the telescopes, when aimed at an object, could counter that motion and follow along, defeating any tendency for the object to drift, in the telescope's field of view.

During the winter months, we'd usually arrive at the golf course just before midnight, set up the equipment, and prepare to spend several hours in sub-freezing temperatures - many times, in the single digits. We'd break down the equipment and leave just after dawn. This happened three or four nights a week - regardless of our regular work schedules, of course.

Meade 826C Newtonian  8" Telescope.

We chose that particular observing site because the sky there is relatively dark, free of light pollution, to the north, and absolutely black in the south, over Vineyard Sound. Mike and I had been monitoring a list of galaxies, for possible, extra-galactic, supernovae outbursts.

Extragalactic supernovae are exploding stars, located in galaxies beyond our own Milky Way galaxy, the closest being several thousand light-years away. These outbursts occur, on average, only once every hundred years, or so, in any given galaxy - including our Milky Way. We actually discovered one, one morning, in February of 1989. It is known, today, as SN1989b and is located in the spiral galaxy, M66, in the constellation Leo, the lion. I remember that night very well... - it was 4°F!

One morning, around 4:00am, a local police officer drove up onto the course in his cruiser, with spotlights glaring, and parked next to my truck. In a mock tone of extreme concern, he asked me, what kind of weapon it was that I was using, and what it was pointed at! I told him that, that was highly-classified information and that I could not give him a meaningful answer. He enjoyed the comeback.

After we had explained that we were astronomers, with the SUNSEARCH program, of the Harvard-Smithsonian Observatory in Cambridge, and that the unusual-looking instruments in question were astronomical telescopes, he pointed out that we were not supposed to be there, without express permission from the owner; we could only agree. But, he said, since our activity was benign - and possibly even useful, and since the ground was frozen solid (being February, our tires didn't mess with them, normally, immaculate grass) - that it would be OK, though, he suggested we try golfing there some time, instead.

Some of the finest - and loneliest - hours of my life were spent on that golf course, scanning the universe with my telescope and witnessing, first-hand, many of its mysteries, free of charge. It is where, one night, for the first time, with the use of my Skalnate-Pleso Observatory star atlas, I had experienced a keen awareness of my bearings and my relative position on the Earth, and its position within the solar system, and the solar system's position within the Milky Way galaxy. At that moment, I simply felt like, for the first time, I knew exactly where I was.

It was there, throughout the year, that I did several Mars and Saturn observing sessions, and was witness to a global sandstorm, one night on the red planet. I also made note of any changes, over time, in growth or shrinkage in Mars' south polar ice cap, as Mars progressed through its seasons throughout the Martian year. I've seen Saturn's rings, both in an edge-on aspect and wide open. The interval between those two extremes is about three decades long. Yup, I've been around folks.

Maybe, someday, I'll take that officer's suggestion and play a game of golf there... after I learn how to play, of course... “Fore!”

Dale Alan Bryant
Senior Contributing Science Writer

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Wide-Field Galaxy Imaging

The night sky in the spring is packed with a plethora of galaxies just waiting to be observed and imaged. Recently I was browsing through my copy of Sky and Telescope's "Pocket Sky Atlas" by Roger W. Sinnott. I came across the pages that cover the constellations Virgo and Coma Berenices. After noticing how many "red" symbols were on the page representing galaxies in the area of these constellations, I had the idea of remotely imaging a particular area that would be condensed with some of these galaxies with a wide-field telescope.

Galaxy Group in the Virgo Cluster with NGC 4461 in the Center Image by Michael Petrasko and Muir Evenden

I then accessed the planetarium software on my computer, "Stellarium", to determine the best time to image a cluster of galaxies. After surveying the night sky in New Mexico in the software, setting the time of night roughly an hour and a half after sunset there, I found a grouping of island universes in Virgo that would be worth giving a shot at. I found a galaxy in the grouping that would be the "targeted center galaxy" for the image frame. This galaxy would be NGC 4461, a spiral galaxy in Virgo. I ended up taking a series of ten luminance images over a period of two nights on T14, a Takahashi FSQ Fluorite 160mm telescope with an SBIG STL-11000M CCD camera via the itelescope.net remote robotic telescope network. My associate, Muir Evenden, then processed the raw image files using the CCD image processing software PixInsight. What I found interesting about the results was all of the different types of spiral galaxies that were caught in the image.

This type of data gathering could be a fun and interesting exercise for students participating in astronomy education projects. Students could be tasked with identifying the designations and galaxy types in the image field utilizing astronomy software and/or star atlases as I did.

The galaxies caught in my image are located in the Virgo Cluster. This cluster of galaxies whose center is about 53.8 light-years away in the constellation Virgo. Comprising approximately 1300 (and possibly up to 2000) member galaxies, the cluster forms the heart of the larger Virgo Supercluster, of which the Local Group is an outlying member.

Many of the brighter galaxies in this cluster, including the giant elliptical galaxy Messier 87, were discovered in the late 1770s and early 1780s and subsequently included in Charles Messier's catalog of non-cometary fuzzy objects. Described by Messier as a nebula without stars, their true nature was not recognized until the 1920s.

The cluster subtends a maximum arc of approximately 8 degrees centered in the constellation Virgo. Many of the member galaxies of the cluster are visible with a small telescope. Its brightest member is the elliptical galaxy Messier 49; however, its most famous member is the also elliptical galaxy Messier 87, which unlike the former is located in the center of the cluster.

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