This is from Mike Jefferson.
As part of the Origins Institute’s Public Lecture Series, Dr. Brian P. Schmidt of The Australian National University is going to be the speaker at The Origins Institute at McMaster University this Thursday, June 4, 2009 at 8:00pm. The talk will take place at the Michael DeGroote Building, right behind the McMaster Medical Centre. You can park on King Street for free.
Room 1305/1307
This is from Mike Jefferson.
As part of the Origins Institute’s Public Lecture Series, Christine Wilson is going to be the speaker at The Origins Institute at McMaster University this Tuesday, May 5, 2009 at 8:00pm. The talk will take place at the Michael DeGroote Building, right behind the McMaster Medical Centre. You can park on King Street for free.
This is a LOFAR II Report from Mike Jefferson, who has commented about the lack of flare and sunspot activity on the Sun these days. After all, we’re near Solar Minimum at the time of posting.
Here’s a graph of LOFAR II readings from October 21, 2008:
Brian Chire, the winner of the telescope as a door prize at the June monthly HAA meeting had these kind words for us:
“As the winner of the telescope door prize at the June meeting, I just want to thank the donor of this wonderful prize for his or her generosity. I am absolutely thrilled with my win and will be sure to put it to good use. I have some time off scheduled for this summer and I hope to be going to a dark sky location and trying it out.
Thank you again for having such wonderful door prizes and thanks to all of the members of the HAA for making this club so enjoyable and educational.”
Sincerely
Brian Chire
Brian — You’re very welcome! Enjoy your scope!
Click here or on the blog entry title to read a recent letter to Mike Jefferson and John Gauvreau remembering the late Norman Green.
January 20, 2008
There are 2 chart sets here. Peter did them and feels the second is better than the first. I can’t see a difference. However, the one for Jan. 06 came right on top of the solar magnetic reversal, as indicated by Sunspot 981. It shows the ‘old’ magnetic field right before the sun went into its new cycle. January 20 is 2 weeks later and is reversed. Note how all the lines are ‘opposite’ each other, like opposing, standing waveforms. I have sent this to Stanford and maybe we should wait for a reply as to the analysis.
[LOFAR II data collected and reported by Mike Jefferson.
Chart of LOFAR II data refined by Peter McHugh.]
January 18, 2008
Right now, we have ~ 690,000. As of this time tomorrow night, we will have 700,000+, unless something goes suddenly haywire!! Pray! By next meeting, we should be in excess of 1,000,000 by 2 days’ worth!
January 6, 2008
This chart of January 06/08 UTC is very interesting because of the high voltage levels between the sunrise dip (centre) and the sunset dip (right). Normally the trace would run much closer to the 0-line, slightly above and below it. In this observational log it indicates, not individual solar discharges, but a temporary large increase in solar x-ray radiation – a surge. However, several of the high, intense and dogtooth peaks may be large, individual discharges inside the surge of x-ray radiation. The ionosphere remained quite charged up for several days following. -Mike J. (HAA – observing 24 hr.s/day everyday)
[Chart of LOFAR II data refined by Peter McHugh]
This is a new LOFAR report sent to me by Mike Jefferson:
January 1, 2008
You need to look at GOES and SOHO(UVI & MDI)!!!! There is a huge object of interest @ 8:30 on the solar disc which is developing into a major sunspot group! Would be a great backyard project, except for the clouds! LOFAR II is getting this object as we speak, barring that nothing goes haywire! Right now, we’re getting C-0 radiation and it is not even facing us! Is there no way that some of these graphs can’t be put up on the site? I know it is possible, because the people at the UPS stores can do it for me as you have seen?!? – without printing up 300 pages of data.
To date, after 22 days, we have over 380,000 observations! The cost of this telescope is getting less and less/observation by the minute. Technologically, this is a very sophisticated instrument which is going to lead to some great stuff for HAA. We have a ‘new’ (Merry Christmas!!) fileserver coming online to replace SAL (the Aptiva) which is headed for lesser duties of image and chart processing. That will mean 3 computers having to do with running LOFAR II in some way!
There is NO other telescope/lens doing any astronomy, in this area right now, and there has not been much done at all in the last 3 weeks, except for the LOFAR II project!!!!! This is incredible – we look through the clouds and snow!
-HAA, observing 24hr.s/day everyday,
-Mike
Dear Organization,
On October 19, 2007 at 7 pm (central) Dr. J. Craig Wheeler, renowned astrophysicist and author, will lead an exploration of ideas at the cutting edge of current astrophysics. His extraordinary journey to investigate explosions of supernovae, resulting neutron stars, mysterious black holes, and elusive gamma ray bursts are far from science fiction. (Full summary below)
We would like to invite members of your organization and/or visitors of your website to view our Live Webcast of the lecture, October 19, 2007 at 7 pm (central). If possible, posting a link to this event on your website or forwarding the information to your members who may be interested in this lecture is greatly appreciated. Our webcasts are very high quality, and viewers can submit questions to the speaker through our website and the speaker answers the online questions in real time. The webcasting software we use requires viewers to download a small plugin, but it is very simple and quick to install.
A link to the details of the lecture and the webcast could be found at:
www.esi.utexas.edu/outreach/ols/lectures/Wheeler
What is the lecture about?
Dr. J. Craig Wheeler, renowned astrophysicist and author, will lead an exploration of ideas at the cutting edge of current astrophysics. His extraordinary journey to investigate explosions of supernovae, resulting neutron stars, mysterious black holes, and elusive gamma ray bursts are far from science fiction. These exotic objects in our universe make up the life cycle of stars, are the basis for planets and life, and measure the history and fate of our Universe. Dr. Wheeler_s lecture follows the formation of supernovae, their characteristic shape and its significance, as well as the resulting celestial objects formed by the collapse of a star. Along the way, Dr. Wheeler examines evidence suggesting that the Universe is actually accelerating. He also explains recent developments in understanding gamma-ray bursts – perhaps the most catastrophic cosmic events of all.
Photo submitted by Peter McHugh.
My backyard view of the northern sky somewhere around 10:00 pm a week ago. I’ve marked the constellations and the pole star. I cropped out the house which was on right near the top. Image is 1.7 Megs. I know there is noise; I made no effort to remove it, but it still looks pretty good. It’s not too hard to visualize or imagine where Andromeda is and roughly when it will emerge in the north eastern morning sky – am I wrong?
The image is a very short focal length (14 mm / 28 mm equivalent in 35 mm format ) the stars would probably get lost if the image were to be reduced in size and resolution for our site. If you look closely at the stars nearer the end of the handle of the Big Dipper I have a problem (they are twinned – I can’t account for this; the shot was not perfectly tracked, but that wouldn’t cause the twinning). The effect extends down into the image a little and gradually disappears. Oh well.
Corrections were confined to exposure, curves, gamma, saturation, and gradient filter to reduce the bright glare from the city. My vantage is from the Hamilton Central Mountain area.
Note the very faint aircraft trail through the cup of the little dipper (roughly horizontal). You’ll have to really zoom in to see it.
Hi,
Travelling on the 403 at approx. 20:15 Sunday March 11, we saw a fireball. We were perhaps 1 km east of Garden Ave. We saw it over the course of 6-8 seconds. It burned brightly enough to light up the highway (brighter than a full moon). The flame was as green as a stoplight! Felt so close to us that we were frightened that it would land on the highway. It was travelling almost parallel to the ground. Anyone else spot it? I am no amateur astronomer (other than an astrophysics course at Western when I was majoring in Geophysics there). After today the whole family may be converted!!!
Leslie Josling,
Brantford, Ontario
