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My First Real Astrophoto

I have been studying detectors and image processing in my course lately, and it inspired me to try out an interesting area of amateur astronomy: webcam imaging.  The basic idea is to use an inexpensive webcam to take a video of an object, and to then process only the "good" frames from the cheap camera into a quality image.  I picked up a Celestron NexImage camera to try this out.

Today was the first day I could see the moon at all since I purchased it.  I got in a solid three minutes of observing before the clouds rolled completely over it and began to threaten rain.  This meant that I didn't spend any time playing with the settings of the camera.  In particular, I ended up shooting at low resolution instead of high res.  Just imagine that the image is four times the size...  Please remember that these are "first light" results!

As you can see, there is plenty of work to do!  Out of the 700 frames I took, only 20 ended up being good enough for Registax processing (typically, one would want several hundred).  I dutifully stacked them anyway, and then applied the wavelets and balanced contrast for good measure.  It's a poor quality image, but it's a nice taste of what will be coming in the future!

The two craters near the top are (from left to right) Atlas and Hercules.  Near the middle of the image, you can see Cepheus above the slightly-larger Franklin.

The most obvious paths to improvement: Turn up the resolution, and Don't try to shoot through clouds!

Shot at f/12.1 on 2006-04-02 9:00pm EDT.  Moon at 4.6 days old.  Horrible seeing.

Review: The Republican War on Science

I have recently finished reading The Republican War on Science by Chris Mooney.  The book is a review of the actions of congressional and executive-branch Republicans (such as the president) around a host of issues where science conflicts with their ideology.  Topics include the Environmental Protection Agency, the Endangered Species Act, sex education in the classroom, fallacious links between abortion and breast cancer, and global climate change.

Overall, the book was readable, although I would not call the writing "inspired."  Mooney should be given due credit for assembling the various little bits and pieces that seem like isolated incidents into a clear picture of systematic science abuse.  He convincingly shows how the administration and those in Congress work to undermine science through the "back door."

The tactics taken by some of the Republicans in the book range from the blatant (dismantling the Office of Technology Assessment, which previously provided Congress with independent scientific advise) to the subtle (the Data Quality Act, which raises the burden of proof past the point where anyone could possibly reach it).  The work is thoroughly referenced, which speaks volumes to Mooney's fear of being sued.  I'd say that it's definitely worth a read if you're interested in science policy.

I'll close this post with a quote from the New York Times Magazine:

The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." ... "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality.

Personal Note: Back from Alberta.  Had a great time.  Thanks to all of you who made it so wonderful!  I'll miss you!

A Dedicated Amateur

I have been reading many, many websites lately as I prepare a bibliography of spectroscopy on the web for my course.  I was particularly impressed by Christian Buil's spectroscopy pages.  M. Buil is an amateur astronomer who has dedicated more than 30 years to his craft, and it shows.  The results are impressive, especially compared to the usually terse sites professional observatories often provide.

Personal Update: Work, work, work, work.

University of California Sued Over Creationism

I picked this one up from the Associated Press today...

The Associated Press
Saturday, August 27, 2005; 2:03 PM

LOS ANGELES -- A group representing California religious schools has filed a lawsuit accusing the University of California system of discriminating against high schools that teach creationism and other conservative Christian viewpoints.

The Association of Christian Schools International, which represents more than 800 schools, filed a federal lawsuit Thursday claiming UC admissions officials have refused to certify high school science courses that use textbooks challenging Darwin's theory of evolution. Other rejected courses include "Christianity's Influence in American History."

According to the lawsuit, the Calvary Chapel Christian School in Murrieta was told its courses were rejected because they use textbooks printed by two Christian publishers, Bob Jones University Press and A Beka Books.

Wendell E. Bird, a lawyer for the association, said the policy violates the rights of students and religious schools.

"A threat to one religion is a threat to all," he said.

UC spokeswoman Ravi Poorsina said she could not comment, because the university had not been served with the lawsuit. Still, she said the university has a right to set course requirements.

"These requirements were established after careful study by faculty and staff to ensure that students who come here are fully prepared with broad knowledge and the critical thinking skills necessary to succeed," Poorsina.

Light Pollution in Toronto

I have been working on my course at JCU, and one of our tasks has been to estimate the orientation of the Milky Way with respect to the Earth's orbit.

The obvious way to do this is to look at the Milky Way.  That's impossible in Toronto, and for a LONG way out.  At my home downtown, the limiting magnitude is between 0 and 1, depending on how directly you're forced to look into bright lights.  My home is something of a pathological case, though, as the club just down the street likes to shine searchlights into the night.  A more realistic case would be midtown Toronto (I am using Yonge and Eglinton), where most bright stars can be seen clearly.  The Milky Way is completely invisible, though.

I travelled to the suburb of Aurora, Ontario (about 40km north of the city limit, or one hour of travel by train in rush hour) and the skies were not substantially better than midtown.  You would think that, this far out, in a small city of 40,000 with unbuilt land all around, we would be able to find dark skies.  You would be wrong.  The Milky Way was still invisible to the naked eye and at the very limit of vision in binoculars.

Two interesting sites about light pollution in Southern Ontario:

• A 1976 paper by Richard Berry shows a light pollution map.  Anything within an hour's drive of Toronto is very poor.
• A more modern sky brightness map of the GTA.

Ontario does have several dark sky preserves designed to maintain a few places where human eyes will be able to see the universe.  This is a good start.  What really needs to happen, though, is for cities like Toronto to install simple shades on outdoor lights to keep them directed downward.  If they were reflective, the bulbs could also be replaced with a lower wattage, thus saving energy costs.

Sometimes it's the little things that matter the most.

Mars Polar Lander Found?

Sky & Telescope is running a story claiming that the Mars Polar Lander, which was due to land on the surface of Mars on Dec 9, 1999, has finally been found.  The lander was in contact before re-entry, but never resumed contact with mission control.

The images look quite convincing, especially when examined side-by-side with images of the two Mars Exploration Rovers (Spirit and Opportunity).

The Problem with Astrology

I have recently been quite sick, and I've had a lot of time to catch up on my reading.  One of my current crusades is to go through one of my big undergrad astronomy / astrophysics books (Carroll and Ostlie's 1400 page magnum opus An Introduction to Modern Astrophysics, for the curious) and doing all of the proofs.  I don't get a chance to keep my mathematical skills up at work, and I'm still seriously considering a run at grad school sometime in the mid-future.

Perusing the introductory chapters reminded me of an old topic that has long amused me.  Even if astrologers are entirely correct, and the position of the stars affects our lives, they are wrong.  Why?  Because their horoscopes and birth charts have no relation to the actual position of the stars in the sky.

Take, for example, your "sun sign."  I was born on Aug 5, so mine is supposed to be Leo.  I ran a plot of the sky at the time of my birth in Starry Night (a well known and very accurate all-sky simulator) and I noted something curious.  Click on the image at right and have a look for yourself.

The Sun isn't in the constellation Leo at all.  It's in Cancer.  So I should be a Cancer, shouldn't I?  Why on Earth does this happen?

Don't Repair the Hubble - Replace It!

I was thrilled today to see a proposal for the Hubble Origins Probe, which would be a replacement for the Hubble Space Telescope.  Due to the absurd cost of a Space Shuttle launch (Robert Zubrin estimates, in Entering Space, that one costs approximately $600M USD) this would actually be cheaper than repairing the existing telescope!

The design of the Hubble would be re-used (which itself is just a re-hashed KH-11) and the new intruments that have already been constructed to go up with the next maintenance launch would be included in this new probe.  A new ultra-wide field camera would be added, which would improve the overall science mission at less cost.

Kudos to the HOP team for figuring out this little economic coup.  Now here's hoping that the politicians will listen!