Cosmic Evening with Stellar Sustenance UUCB auction event, 1999. Neal McBurnett & Holly Lewis http://bcn.boulder.co.us/~neal/ Catch the tail end of the Perseid meteor shower, a sliver-thin crescent moon, constellations, stars, planets, asteroids, Earth satellites, and more via the naked eye, binoculars and a small telescope. For your mind's eye we'll point out black holes, X-ray sources, newly-discovered solar systems, and bask (as always :-) in the presence of the 2.7 degree K cosmic microwave background radiation from the Big Bang. Friday, the 13th of August from about 8:00 to 11:30 (re-scheduled in case of nebulous or mercurial weather.) We'll drive to a dark spot in the mountains. Your jovial hosts, Neal and Holly, will provide late-night sustenance as well. Gather at church parking lot Hand out reading material: References (this), S&T magazines, Observer's Handbook 1999 (Royal Astro Society of Canada), Astronomical Calendar (Guy Ottewell), The New Astronomy (Henbest & Martin), etc. Moon: sets at about 21:25 (eclipsed 11 UT = 5 MDT on 11th = 40 hours before) Mars: in Libra, right of Scorpius Summer Triangle: Deneb (Cygnus) Altair (Aquila) and Vega (Lyra) Sky is 3-D! Vega, 25.3 light-years away. Deneb, not quite as bright, about 1,467 light-years distant. 3400 times brighter. Would be mag -7.5 at 10 LY: Ten times brighter than Venus. Mag -9.3 at distance of closest star. Meteors if we're really lucky - watch Perseus when it gets later & darker. Watch for Milky Way - thru Cygnus, Sagittarius Double stars in Lyra Nearby stars with planets: Tau Bootis, Rho Corona Borealis, Upsilon Andromadae, 16 Cygni, 51 Peg, 47 Uma, Cygnus X-1 - black hole orbiting red giant star, taking gas from the star that is then is heated up near the black hole so it emits x-rays before the gas is captured beyond the black hole event horizon. Uranus and Neptune, dim at magnitudes 6 and 8, respectively, are in Capricornus Meteors - watch Perseus Andromeda - furthest photons with naked eye, 2.7 m years? X-rays: imagine, body is transparent to x-rays, but atmosphere is not! Hospital-like x-rays get no lower than about 40 km in atmosphere, and even high-energy gamma rays don't penetrate much below 10 km (Mt Everest). First observations (of solar corona with geiger counter) by captured V2 missile in 1948. Now use satellites, like recently-launched Chandra. "X-ray source" is better (broader) than "X-ray star". While the sun's corona does emit x-rays, the bright sources are clouds of hot gas outside of stars at millions to hundreds of millions of degrees. E.g. supernova remnants, neutron stars and black holes in a double-star system, and stars with intensely hot atmospheres. Further out: active galaxies and quasars powered by supermassive black holes. Also clusters of galaxies embedded in enormous tenuous pools of gas millions of light years across. Location: "Univ of Colo Observatory" from USGU topo map, 1980 Lon 105 31' Lat 39 57' 8720' altitude At west end of Magnolia road, go 2 mi south of Nederland on peak-to-peak, turn west on Magnolia ("no outlet") on short dirt road. Turn left after about one mile - sign "14 day camping limit" on gate. Free US Forest Service campground. Used by rainbow crowd. 40 min from Boulder. Or Walker Ranch picnic areas, but they are "closed at sunset" and less dark Jumbo mt picnic area, west of rollinsville, easy to get to (but in valley) Mt alto area, west of gold hill Area on Sugarloaf road. 45 min - 15 from nederland Iridium flares: from http://www2.gsoc.dlr.de/scripts/satvis/satvis.asp?Lat=40.0017&Lng=-105.2431&Loc=Boulder&TZ=MST For univ co obs: 13 Aug 21:32:58 -1 54 85(E ) 30.4 km (W) -8 Iridium 23 780 km orbit moving from the left, under cygnus. flare under right (bottom) wing star between three stars at bottom right of cepheus at 21:31:55 945 km range 13 Aug 22:48:50 -3 17 52(NE ) 41.6 km (E) -7 Iridium 60 Thru Perseus, along lower line of andromeda Flare just past end (Gamma) And. Reddened? Other satellites: SL-16, tumbling 2-3 times per second! Launched from Kazakhstan. 13 Aug 3.6 21:19:47 23 ESE 21:22:00 37 ENE 21:26:12 10 N From right, above Pegasus 21:21:50, past Lacerta and Cassopeia 21:23:30 13 Aug 5.0 22:57:36 18 WSW 22:58:49 20 W 23:02:11 10 NW Satellite Starts Max. Elevation Ends Name Mag. Time El. Az. Time El. Az. Time El. Az. Lacrosse 2 3.9 20:25:00 10SW 20:29:32 47WNW 20:34:04 10NNE Cosmos 975 3.8 20:29:30 10N 20:33:12 71E 20:36:53 10SSE SPOT 3 Rocket 4.2 20:39:32 10S 20:44:42 71WSW 20:49:55 10NNW Cosmos 1378 4.0 20:39:38 10N 20:43:57 71E 20:48:11 10SSE Cosmos 1544 3.9 20:42:23 10S 20:46:38 69E 20:50:53 10NNE Resurs 01 Rocket 3.2 20:44:32 10S 20:49:02 71WSW 20:53:33 10NNW Cosmos 405 4.4 20:45:40 10SSW 20:49:56 74W 20:54:12 10N Ariane Rocket 4.2 20:48:18 10SE 20:53:13 47ENE 20:58:10 10N Cosmos 744 Rocket 3.6 21:14:31 10N 21:17:18 36ENE 21:18:04 30ESE Cosmos 756 Rocket 4.5 21:15:01 10SSW 21:18:29 47WNW 21:21:57 10N Okean-O 4.3 21:16:59 21ESE 21:19:18 35ENE 21:23:26 10N *SL-16 Rocket 3.6 21:19:47 23ESE 21:22:00 37ENE 21:26:12 10N Cosmos 1356 4.3 21:22:47 10SSW 21:27:07 78WNW 21:31:27 10N Meteor 1-6 Rocket 3.2 21:27:38 10SSW 21:30:59 81W 21:34:21 10N Rosat 3.6 22:09:43 10NW 22:13:47 82NE 22:13:50 82NE ADEOS 4.5 22:13:30 39E 22:14:05 40ENE 22:18:59 10N Cosmos 1206 Rocket 4.1 22:25:22 55NNE 22:25:22 55NNE 22:28:39 10NNE Cosmos 1536 Rocket 4.4 22:31:44 10N 22:36:02 74W 22:36:02 74W Cosmos 1602 4.4 22:32:32 10N 22:36:21 70N 22:36:21 70N Cosmos 2082 Rocket 4.5 22:45:48 10N 22:50:54 32ENE 22:51:02 32ENE Cosmos 2151 4.5 22:46:30 61W 22:46:33 61W 22:51:04 10N *SL-16 Rocket 3.3 22:58:08 74NE 22:58:08 74NE 23:03:11 10N Cosmos 2278 Rocket 3.5 23:11:08 70W 23:11:22 72WNW 23:17:05 10NNE Lacrosse 3 4.0 23:36:34 10NW 23:39:30 36NNW 23:39:30 36NNW Extra-solar planet info: http://www.physics.sfsu.edu/~gmarcy/planetsearch/planetsearch.html http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/planets/ http://wwwusr.obspm.fr/departement/darc/planets/everywhere.html http://www.generation.net/~mariob/astro/xtrasol.htm star pc magV 51 Peg 14.7 5.5 RA = 22 57 27.14, DEC = +20 46 04.5 ups and 16.5 4.09 RA = 01 36 48.527, DEC = +41 24 38.71 rho crb 17 5.4 RA = 16 01 03.39, DEC = +33 18 51.5 16 cygB 21.4 6.20 RA = 19 41 51.8, DEC = +50 31 03 47 uma 13.3 5.10 RA = 10 59 29.296, DEC = +40 25 46.09 tau boo 15 4.50 RA = 13 47 17.345, DEC = +17 27 22.31 70 vir 22 5.0 RA = 13 28 26.541, DEC = +13 47 12.43 Star Name Msini (Mjup) Period (d) Semimajor Axis (AU) Eccentricity K (m/s) 1 HD 187123 0.52 3.097 0.042 0.00 72 2 Tau Bootis 3.64 3.3126 0.042 0.00 469 3 HD 75289 0.42 3.508 0.047 0.00 54 4 51 Pegasi 0.44 4.2308 0.051 0.01 56. 5 Upsilon Andromedae b 0.69 4.617 0.059 0.04 73. 6 Upsilon Andromedae c 2.0 241.3 0.82 0.23 54. 7 Upsilon Andromedae d 4.1 1280.6 2.4 0.31 67. 8 HD 217107 1.28 7.11 0.07 0.14 140 9 Rho1 55 Cancri 0.85 14.656 0.12 0.03 75.8 10 Gliese 86 3.6 15.8 0.11 0.04 379 11 HD 195019 3.43 18.3 0.14 0.05 268 12 Rho Corona Borealis 1.1 39.6 0.23 0.1 67. 13 HD 168443 5.04 58 0.28 0.54 330 14 Gliese 876 2.1 60.9 0.21 0.27 239. 15 HD114762 11.0 84 0.41 0.33 619 16 70 Virginis 7.4 116.7 0.47 0.40 316.8 17 HD 210277 1.36 437 1.15 0.45 41 18 16 Cygni B 1.74 802.8 1.70 0.68 52.2 19 47 Ursae Majoris 2.42 1093 2.08 0.10 47.2 20 14 Herculis 4 ~2000 ~3 ~0.35 80 1999-07-30: Iota Horologii 56 light-years away, earth-like orbit, sun-like star, twice-jupiter-sized planet. nova: Try looking at http://www.aavso.org/ but it's not easy to find recent novas! Nova in Aquilla, mag 8.8 1999-07-13 1.5 south of 3rd-magnitude Zeta Aquilae http://www.skypub.com/news/images/990715news01b.jpg 19h 07m 36.90s right ascension, +12 31' 26.2" declination IAU Circular 7223 V1493 AQUILAE down to mag 11.2 by July 18th Nova Vellorum 3rd mag! too far south... 10h 44m 49.5s, -52 25' 35" 1999-05-22 IAUC 7216 Asteroid 1998 KY26 fastest revolution: 10.7 minutes, 30 meters across, 100 m circumference, 0.16 m/s at edge http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/releases/99/98ky26.html Observed 800 Mm from Earth June 2-8, 1998, Tonight's position just above western horizon at sundown near Tau leo. 1999-Aug-14 00:00 *m 11 31 35.72 +03 58 55.3 28.54 95.1 1E-5 1.2075373510 -5.48929 1.9554918197 -1.40327 16.263330 25.6942 Leo n.a. n.a. URANUS and NEPTUNE, dim at magnitudes 6 and 8, respectively, are in Capricornus,