Nova and the Dolphin

Amateur astronomers are glowing over the appearance of a nova that is visible to the naked eye. Though the nova is in the eastern sky in the evening, I waited till it was in the west to photograph it. The moon was just past first quarter and bright enough to interfere with photography, so I waited till 3:00 on Thurs morning (8/15/2013) when the moon had set. Below is an annotated photo of the region I took last year with my 8/15 nova photo superimposed. An arrow depicts the nova.

(Tap or double-click to enlarge)

I was going to create an animated version to fade between last year's and this year's photos but had trouble aligning the stars in the two photos. Though both photos were taken with a 28mm lens, last year's image put the region of interest at the edge of the field of view, where the lens's distortion is greatest. My nova photo was centered on the Delphinius, so the stars wouldn't align. However, I found the misalignment revealing. The nova is the only star in this composite that doesn't have the illustion of a motion blur.

All stars that are in both images appear in motion or blurred, but the nova lacks a blurry companion because it appears in only one image. Below is the same composite image with an arrow depicting the nova.

The nova should be viewable at next Saturday's free public star party at Lake Skinner. Details to follow.

jg

4.6 Billion and Counting

I'm working on a presentation for the Julian Starfest (2013) called 4.6 Billion and Counting.  My presentation is about the Nice model (named after Nice, France) that describes how changing orbits of the outer planets in the first 700 million years of the solar system's existence can account for the nature of these planets' current orbits, the Kuiper-Edgeworth belt, the asteroid belt, Jupiter's Trojan asteroids, and the timing of the late heavy bombardment. I'll be including additional research that has come out since the Nice model trio of papers in 2005, such as projections for the long-term stability of the solar system and significant planetary impacts that affect us today,

Orbital resonance. I'm working on a simulation of this, where the planets and orbits move. A work-in-progress can be seen on my website: orbit resonance

These are the pieces for a pending animation showing the modelled results of the collision of planetesimals. What may happen to atmospheres and oceans on such planetesimals may be revealed by computer modeling of impacts, by modelling of planetary orbits, and by observations of gas content in the atmospheres of Venus, Earth and Mars.

A illustration of the early formation stage after the sun as coalesced and started clearing out the inner solar system of volatile elements while large planets beyond the snow line accrete  quickly.

As with all my presentations, this is a discovery process. I reserve the right to make errors, but will correct all that are called to my attention or that I discover long after the presentation.

jg

Rock Weathering Post on Skeptical Science

John Mason of Skeptical Science has written an excellent overview of long term rock weathering and how it maintains atmospheric CO2 levels. I contributed a sketch on the post in which I tried to stuff every relevent component of the long term carbon cycle into a width of 560 pixels. I also created larger versions that are available in the Skeptical Science Climate Graphics section.

jg

Climate Comments

In about 50 minutes, one can read a poorly researched opinion letter asserting that climate change is fiction (e.g., PE letter Climate Change a Fiction), do a google search to find NASA's earth temperature data, download the data into Excel, review the formula for a linear trend, calculate the trends for 10-, 30-, and 100-year time periods, jot down the slope of each, noting that all are positive, and then write a rebuttal, which I did. I'm not the only one who felt a letter in the paper is a minimum provocation for a rebuttal (e.g., PE letter Sacrifice to help stall climate change). And I'm probably not the only one who invests more time researching the topic than the orginal writer of an opinion. In the past, I've regretted capturing a permanent link to such conversations, for the papers sometimes clean their wedsites of old comments and old letters. So, this post is mainly for me to stash a recent ill-informed letter where I and anyone interested may find it.

Upstaged by NASA in Jennifer Francis's Arctic Amplification (Extreme Weather)

Jennifer Francis of Rutgers University has a 1/2 hour talk on YouTube on arctic amplification in which she explains how climate change is affecting our weather. The presentation can be viewed here:
Extreme Weather, by Jennifer Francis

At about 17-18 minutes into the presentation, she uses some animations I created for a post on the jetstream by John Mason, of Skeptical Science. The complete post is here:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/jetstream-guide.html

Both Dr. Francis's presentation and John Mason's article are excellent sources for understanding weather and how long term climate change will affect weather. Specifically, climate change is warming the arctic which changes the behavior of the jetstream which determines our weather.

The must-see item in the presentation, however, is the video she includes from NASA that shows the jetstream in action. This video improves on my schematic, but it was an eerie, pleasant feeling for me to see it after creating animations that depict the same effects.

Unfortunately, the color choice I made for one of the schematics didn't show up well in the video (the animation is projected onto a screen and then captured by a video camera). The original animations can be seen with the Skeptical Science jetstream article (above) and are posted on my website here:

http://www.brightstarstemeculavalley.org/science/jetstream.html

Dr. Francis's video includes the following for more information on climate:

https://www.facebook.com/ClimateState

jg

I had an opportunity to contribute an illustration to Dana Nuccitelli's blog at The Guardian: Climate Concensus - The 97%. Below is a variation of the illustration used, but without the typo.

The illustration in a larger form (also without the known typo) is available from the Climate Graphics section of the Skeptical Science website. I expect to be doing variations of this illustration, as the notion of a consensus is still provocative among those unwilling to face the implications form climate studies. The existence of a consensus, what it is based on, and how that message has been derailed will have to stated and restated if humanity is to unite in time to avert unprecedented rates of global change.

jg



Meteors and Mistakes

I believe it has been ten years since I first started making public presentations on behalf of my astronomy club. My first presentation was at a Lake Skinner star party. The event coordinator, their park interpretor, asked for presentation, so I cobbled together 40 slides that I had taken and made a show. After the show, a family approached me and said their son would like to think me. I looked down, and their 3-4 year old son hugged my leg. Presentations would become one of the worth while activities I'll do.

I recall another great act of gratitude when a child approached me after a show and gave me a quarter. First he said, "here's a nickel" and put it in my hand. Not looking at it, I said, "yes it is". Then he said, "no, I mean, it's a quarter". I looked more carefully and corrected myself. "Yes. A quarter." Then the boy said, "It's for you. Thanks for the show." I accepted graciously. One doesn't turn down a gift or reject a gesture of thanks. At the time, this was the most I'd ever been paid for show, and my friends assured me that I was probably worth every penny.

My one regret in shows is that I don't have an opportunity to correct my errors. I try to present my own photos so that I can show people honestly what I saw, though sometimes I'm mistaken as to what it was. Such was the case with a photo I took on slide film around ten years ago. I was tracking the asteroid Ceres, and on one of the nights, something passed through my field of view (click or double click to enlarge the image):

At the time, I thought that whatever caused the striek (a plane or satelite), I was impressed that it happened to intersect three stars, and I made this comment in a few presentations. Later, I realized my error: the plane or satellite also created the bright white star-like images on the film. Notice how evenly spaced and of similar brightness they are, and that two appear to have a dimmer companion at the same position.

With this lesson in mind, I dismissed a photo taken last month as a result of the same effect.



Faint erratic meteor, or blinking object?

Highlight of area containing meteor or blinking object

Here's a close up. Notice that the striek passes through several stars -- I was very suspicious.

Fortunately, I took more than one image. By switching the view between these last two images, I could see that the stars crossed by the meteor appear in the picture below taken a few minutes later:

It is a meteor!

jg