Event

Watch the Perseids meteor shower with the Hamilton Amateur Astronomers at the Binbrook Conservation Area from 8 to 11 p.m. on Sat. August 16. Admission is free so bring the whole family for a fun evening under the stars. Bring a blanket or lounge chair as lying down is one of the best ways to enjoy the meteor shower.  Weather and clouds permitting.  No rain date scheduled.  

There will also be a meteorite display, night sky tour and members will set-up their telescopes for observing celestial objects.

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A brief look at astronomical history and beyond.

From ancient calculations of the radius of the Earth to the Big Bang, Mario Carr will discuss some major astronomical achievements that have led to an understanding of our place in the Universe.

Mario Carr has been interested in astronomy since he was a child. He has a degree in Physics and is the club’s Director of Publicity. For the last four years, he has been writing a monthly astronomy column for local community newspapers, appeared on CHCH-TV to talk about the night sky and has promoted the club’s meetings and events through the media. Mario runs a public relations and communications business called The Carr Marketing Group.

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The latest issue of our club’s Event Horizon newsletter is now available.

In this issue you’ll find…

• May Meeting Summary
• The Sky This Month
• Scenes From Astronomy Day
• Eye Candy
• Astronomy Crossword

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Sir William Herschel, A Model for Amateur Astronomy

Everyone knows Sir William Herschel is an 18th century astronomer famous for discovering the planet Uranus.  Looking a little deeper finds him an avid amateur observer and recorder who kept in contact with other amateur astronomers and never ceased wondering about the heavens.  Although we are separated from him by two centuries, we may find many similarities in the circumstances and methodology Herschel lived.  I suggest that he is a model for us to follow today.

Dr. Michael Spicer is a life-long amateur astronomer, former Observing Director and Chair of the Hamilton Amateur Astronomers. He has previously spoken at HAA on subjects such as observing Jupiter, Saturn and the Moon, the astronomer Charles Messier and observing the Messier objects.  A retired attorney, Dr. Mike resides with his wife Therese and a few telescopes in Kitchener, Ontario

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The latest issue of our club’s Event Horizon newsletter is now available.

In this issue you’ll find…

• The Sky This Month
• Niceness & 2 nice Nice Models of the Solar System
• Through The Looking Glass
• First Impressions From a New HAA Member
• Plus much more

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Rory Woods will be speaking about welcoming our computer overlords in astronomy. Our society has seen computers become an important aspect in almost every facet of life. Within astronomy, computers are used to control our telescopes, process and analyze our images, and even create entire new (simulated) universes of our own. With every passing year simulations become more sophisticated as they increase in size, resolution, and physical detail, allowing us unique views into any possible history our Universe might have had.

This talk will give an overview of computers in astronomy. I’ll focus on the need for computing in observational astronomy and then on the history of astrophysical simulations. I’ll talk about some of the limits and challenges we face with trying to represent our Universe in a computer, and show some of the failures and successes we’ve had in doing so. I’ll finish by talking about the most recent, cutting edge simulations and about my own research in computational astrophysics.

Rory Woods is a PhD student at McMaster University as well as a presenter at the McCallion Planetarium and the Origins Institute 3D Theater. His research is on computational methods in astrophysics and is applied to galaxy formation.

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This is from Mike Jefferson:

“LOFAR II, for January 21/2011, logged one C-class flare @ 12:00 noon of about 2.5 ‘magnitude’ – not very large but interesting and satisfying after a barren period of weeks.
Today, the sun seems to have regressed back to its recent inactivity – but for how long?
For the 21st, the GOES data shows 5 small C-class, x-ray events, of which we bagged the one most significant. Another occurred during our night period and the other 3 were too small for LOFAR II to detect reliably.
According to NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory, sunspot 1149 in the sun’s northern hemisphere is crackling with these C-class events, is where our event originated, is growing and is poised to possibly develop into an M-class event in the next short while.

HAAers should stay alert to the possibility of a cataclysmic solar event and possibly aurorae!”

— Mike Jefferson

This is from Mike Jefferson:

LOFAR II is up and running – taking solar data and transmitting to Stanford again after a 2-month hiatus for overhaul. It has a new data-slave running on Wndows XP. It logged and transmitted 3.5 hr.s of data on November 19 and should have 24 hr.s of accumulation for November 20. My thanks to Chris Kubiak for all of the programming and configuring he did for this project!

-Mike J.

This chart is new data from the LOFAR antenna, and sent by Mike Jefferson.

On Friday, December 18, 2009, LOFAR detected a C7.6 solar flare in the blue (negative voltage area)

LOFAR Data for December 18, 2009 [24 hour period]

This Announcement / Report is from HAA member Jeff Lillycrop:

JOURNEY TO THE AMNH

If anyone is planning a trip to NYC (aka: the big apple) soon , you are in luck. I was lucky enough to be in New York over the past weekend and took the time to check out the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) and the Hayden Planetarium. The planetarium is just one part of many wonderful earth and space exhibits at the AMNH. I took in the planetarium show ?journey to the stars? which was narrated by Whoopi Goldberg ?! ( she did an excellent job ) and was presented on a 67 foot wide hemispheric dome in a room that held 250 people +/-. The show was supported in a partnership with NASA Science Mission Directorate, Heliophysics Division. It presented information to keep everyone riveted from beginners to full blown space junkies. Here is the description of the planetarium from the web site, to give you a measure of the experience

?The Hayden Planetarium is unlike any other such facility in the world. In the top half of the Hayden Sphere, the most technologically advanced Space Theatre in existence will use advanced visual technology (including a customized, one-of-a-kind Zeiss Star Projector) to create shows of unparalleled sophistication, realism, and excitement. With this high-definition system, the Hayden Planetarium is the largest and most powerful virtual reality simulator in the world.

The bottom half of the Hayden Sphere houses the Big Bang, where visitors will be transported to the beginning of time and space, experiencing a dramatic, multisensory re-creation of the first moments of the universe. From here, visitors continue on an awe-inspiring journey that chronicles the evolution of the universe by following the Harriet and Robert Heilbrunn Cosmic Pathway ? a sloping walkway that takes them through 13 billion years of cosmic evolution

The Digital Dome System takes the astronomical information of the Digital Galaxy and stores it on a Silicon Graphics® Onyx2? InfiniteReality2? visual workstation, one of the largest supercomputers ever dedicated to creating visual simulations and equivalent in power to those used by NASA or the largest military research laboratories. When the Digital Galaxy software is booted, the Hayden Planetarium’s supercomputer generates a three dimensional map of the galaxy that is so realistic that the dome itself seems to disappear. Thirty times a second, the Onyx2 calculates the real location and visualizes the appearance of every star and nebula that is about to be seen by the audience. The Onyx2 has 28 central processing units and can store up to two terabytes (2,000 gigabytes) and simultaneously process 14 gigabytes of data ? the equivalent power of about 200 desktop computers.

The Digital Dome’s computer graphics are composited with the output of several other instruments, including the Zeiss Mark IX star projector and an Omniscan all-dome laser that provides images of superior color and brightness. The central platform, which holds the Zeiss projector, a “2PI” All-Sky slide projection system, and the Omniscan laser, can be lowered to create more space inside the theatre. A state-of-the-art spatial sound system controls the direction of sounds, enhancing visitors’ experiences of moving objects, and subwoofer speakers are wired into each seat giving a sense of vibration and “lift off” at the start of the presentation.?

All I can say is WOW!! I was blown away , but that was just the start of many excellent exhibits offered including:

Scales of the Universe, let?s you investigate the vast range of sizes in the universe.

Cullman Hall of the Universe, let?s you examine how the universe evolved into galaxies, stars, and planets

Gottesman Hall of Planet Earth, let?s you explore how our own Earth took shape over 4.5 billion years ago

And the crowning jewel

Arthur Ross Hall of Meteorites which features Ahnighito the largest meteorite on display in the world , its huge !! weighing in at a mere 34 tons standing 5? tall 10? long, very cool !!!!

And all this was located in Rose Centre for Earth & Space, that is just one wing of this amazing place. I had planned on doing a tour of the entire Museum but spent 4 ½ hours in this wing alone , then they gave us the boot because they were closing. I had completely lost track of time. I highly recommend this experience to everybody , it will not disappoint. The funny thing is that admission is a suggested $28.00 USD but you can pay what you like. The planetarium show is an extra $4.00. It is the best deal in the city.