Astronomy Cafe – Mar 28, 2022

Posted by as Astro Cafe

Transcript video of meeting

Robotics for the Ocean Worlds – Vickie Siegel of Stone Aerospace

Vickie spoke to us about underwater exploration using remote autonomous vehicles. Vickie is a system designer and also directs the robotic field operations for testing prototypes in analogous terrestrial environments. She has been with Stone Aerospace since 2005. They are working on prototypes for NASA, such as Sunfish, with the goal of exploring ocean worlds like Europa.

  • Ocean worlds found in the Solar System: Europa, Enceladus, Callisto, Ganymede, Trion, Titan, and possibly other moons and Pluto.
  • Europa
    • Ice shell, liquid ocean, rocky core, possible water plumes
    • Mission would look for possible life
    • Mission could include
      • Lander
      • Cryobot
      • Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUVs)
    • 14 – 30 kms of ice
  • Cryobots
    • Nuclear power is the only option – Compact Fission, Large RTG, GPHS Stack
    • Valkyrie – original laser cryobot
      • Steerable, ice sampling, spectrometer
    • Archimedes
      • 5 kW direct laser penetration
      • 22 metres /hour
    • Sub-surface mission environments
      • Suface
      • Cold ice
      • Obstacle avoidance, targeting
      • Warm ice
      • Breakthrough to ocean
      • Ocean
    • Thor
      • High voltage AC
      • To be tested on an ice lake in Iceland, drilling down to a subterranean lake
    • DEPTHEX – Mapping Cenote La Pilita in Mexico
      • Cenote Zacaton is the biggest sinkhole in the area
      • Testing underwater mapping, water chemistry to detect life
    • ENDURANCE –  Taylor Glacier in Antarctica in 2009
      • Measurements on 100 metrre grids
      • Sub-Chemocline mapping
    • ARTEMIS – Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica in 2015
      • 100-1,000 metres
      • Based from McMurdo Station
      • Sonar sensors
      • Size of a minivan
    • SUNFISH – much smaller robot
      • Peacock Springs, Florida
      • chooses it’s own route through the labyrinth of caves
      • Dragon’s Breath Hole, one of the largest underground lake in northern Namibia
      • Will deploy to Devon Island in a couple of years
  • Q&A
    • Communication pucks to help transmit through deep ice from the bot to the surface
    • Financing model? NASA research grants and other institutions. SUNFISH Inc is a spinoff company for inspection jobs.
    • How about a documentary?
    • Dealing with fear in underground/underwater environments. Focus on mission, not emotions.
    • Europa Clipper – measuring the depth of the ice with ice-penetrating radar – critical to subsequent missions
    • Tom Swift and the Atomic Earth Blaster – 5th book in the series (book cover) – Peter Jedicke
    • What about not drilling, but using the cracks in the ice or the plume holes?

Member Reports and Discussion

  • Lunar Sketching – Randy Enkin
    • Lunar sketch on March 20th – observed an occulted star appear just past the terminator!
    • Stadler 2mm sketching pencils for Randy’s birthday
  • Vancouver Island Regional Science Fair – Dorothy Paul (email)
    • Speciality judges needed – 8 subject areas of interest to astronomers
    • Fun to talk with 5th to 9th grade students this year about their posters and studies
  • Council meeting tomorrow – Randy Enkin
  • Astronomy Day on May 7th – Randy Enkin & Lauri Roche
    • RASC participating with FDAO
    • Volunteers needed
    • Daytime program at the Royal BC Museum – RASC
    • FDAO has sent a request for a public event in the evening on Observatory Hill
  • Astronomy Cafe – contact Randy Enkin (email) or Chris Purse (email)
    • Hybrid model requires some volunteers
    • Hosting involves room setup and hosting Zoom
    • New room at Fairfield complex
  • Edmonton Astrophotos – Dave Robinson
    • NGC 2022 – challenge object for Edmonton Centre members
  • Astrophotos – Dave Payne

President’s Message – Mar 2022

Posted by as President's Message

What is it that links our community together? Every year, we recognize a few members of the Victoria Centre and present them awards of appreciation and excellence. We announced the recipients at the Annual General Meeting. I had the pleasure last week of driving around Victoria handing out their framed certificates. I enjoyed seeing these stellar members of our community in their home settings. It is one of the great privileges of being president. Everyone was proud and delighted, and often surprised at the recognition. We are far greater than the sum of our parts. These members have gone an extra length to make our community stronger and more active. Thank-you!

Awardees (clockwise from top left): John McDonald, Chris Purse, Alec Lee, Bruce Lane, Barbara Lane, Cameron Burton.

We have a wide range of backgrounds and interests. We spend our time with a variety of aspects spanning the range of amateur astronomy. I particularly like the feeling of connection with people around the world and throughout time. Some are interested to produce the best image of an astronomical object. Some are keen to know their way around the constellations.

There is a huge hunger for astronomical knowledge out there in the bigger public. This was made very clear this last week with front page articles and television features about our friend and astro- buddy Sid Sidhu; on the occasion of having an asteroid named after him. Sid has been central to our public outreach and society in- reach activities over a period of decades!

What is it that links our community together is that the wonders of the sky fill us with awe and with pleasure.

Look Up,
Randy Enkin (email)

Astronomy Cafe – Mar 21, 2022

Posted by as Astro Cafe

Video transcript of the meeting

Deborah Lokhost presented to us about the Dragonfly Telephoto Array. She is an Instrument Science Research Associate at the NRC Herzberg Astronomy and Astrophysics Research Centre in Victoria, BC. During her PhD in the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of Toronto, she worked with the Dragonfly Telephoto Array to observe and study galaxies. She designed an upgrade to Dragonfly and built a pathfinder telescope based on this design which she then used to study gas in the surroundings of galaxies. She is currently leading the construction of a full-scale upgrade to the telescope which has the ultimate goal of imaging gas in the “cosmic web” of dark matter.

Dragonfly Telephoto Array

  • Reasons for Dragonfly
    • Large galaxies with low luminosity (surface brightness)
    • Light scattering is the main problem
    • Reflecting telescopes don’t help, since they scatter light
    • Refractors have a limit in size
  • Design
    • Canon using nano coatings to reduce light scatter for their long telephoto lenses
    • Using 48 Canon EF 400mm f/2.8L – split between two Paramounts/observatories
    • Mexico Skies Observatory – site
    • Astroplanner – mission planning and execution
    • Been in operation for 6 years
    • Comparison between Dragonfly and Sloan Digital Sky Survey
    • Diffraction Limited SBIG CCD cameras
    • Intel stick computers talk to a master computer for data collection
    • Filter 1/2 G and 1/2 R (Sloan clone)
  • Science
    • Main target is galaxies
    • What is Dark Matter? 90% of the Milky Way is Dark Matter
    • Dark Matter first detected by Vera Rubin
    • Ultra Diffuse Galaxies – new discovery by Dragonfly team
    • Looking for Globular Clusters in these ultra diffuse galaxies
    • First field images – Coma Berenice cluster of galaxies
    • NGC 1052 diffuse galaxies – very little Dark Matter – unusual!
    • Modified Newtonian Galaxy – alternate theory to Dark Matter
  • What about outside galaxies? – Deborah’s main study
    • Detecting faint gas emissions using ultra-narrowband filters
    • Simulated Ha observations from EAGLE cosmological simulation that should be possible using Dragonfly
    • Mounting the ultra-narrowband filters in front of the lenses would improve the result, and tilting the filter improves performance
    • Discovered a new Ha shell around M81/M82
    • 0.8nm filters will be used on new array
    • 30 new lenses to start with for testing and fine tuning

Members Reports & Presentations

  • Edmonton astrophotos – Dave Robinson
    • NGC 4565 Needle Galaxy with many tiny galaxies in the field – Denis Boucher
    • Comet C/2020 L3 (Atlas) – Alister Ling
    • NGC 281 emission nebula – Tom Owen
  • Galactic Atmospheres gallery – Jim Hesser
  • SIGs – David Lee
    • Astrophotography – Wed
    • Makers – Thu – using Arduino microprocessors
  • Gov’t of Canada Citizen Science Portal – David Lee
  • James Web Space Telescope update – Chris Gainor
    • Pointing, focusing and alignment of the mirrors is complete
    • Now aligning the various instruments and guidance sensors
  • “Not Yet Imagined” History of Hubble – printed book now available from Chris Gainor (email)
  • Next week’s Café on March 28 – Jeff Pivnick
    • Invited a guest speaker. Vickie Siegel of Stone Aerospace who will be speaking about exploration using remote autonomous vehicles.
    • Crybots and AUVs intended for exploring Europa’s subsurface seas

Astronomy Cafe – March 14, 2022

Posted by as Astro Cafe

Video transcript of meeting

  • A printed copy of the Hubble history book “Not Yet Imagined: A Study of Hubble Space Telescope Operations” written by Chris Gainor can be requested from NASA by email for no cost. Kindle, ePub and PDF electronic versions are also available for free download.
  • Locating Endurance– Randy Enkin
    • Shackleton’s exploration ship Endurance in Antarctica has been located on March 5, 2022
    • Crew manned a lifeboat from Elephant Island to South Georgia and all crew were eventually rescued
    • Review of navigation in that era
    • Refer to: On the Location of Shackleton’s Vessel Endurance by Lars Bergman and Robin G. Stuart, published in  the Journal of Navigation: 29 July 2021 
    • Endurance had 24 chronometers!
    • Chronometers were referenced to occultations that happened along the route at the time
    • Ship was found 6.4 km south of the original reported position of the sinking
    • The just-completed National Geographic mission was privately funded – about $20 million
    • The Perfectionists by Simon Winchester – describes Harrison’s chronometers – Martin Gisborne
  • Report on construction of new 32″ telescope for Edmonton Centre by Roman – Dave Robinson
  • Astrophoto of NGC 2264 Cone Nebula in RGB – Brock Johnston
    • May use narrowband next time to tease out more detail
  • FDAO Star Parties – Lauri Roche
    • March 19th 7-9PM presentation “Direct Imaging of Exoplanets” – Garima Singh, NRC/HIA
      • Zoom link will be sent out to RASC members
    • April 16th – 2 presentations
      • ARTEMIS mission – speaker from Canadian Space Agency
      • Plaskett’s Star by Dennis Crabtree
  • May 7th – Astronomy Day national events – Lauri Roche
    • Launch of Chris Gainor’s book “Not Yet Imagined: A Study of Hubble Space Telescope Operations” on the Hubble History
  • Astrophotos – Martin Gisborne
    • Rosette Nebula – with and without star reduction – Nikon D850 dSLR
    • Flame & Horsehead Nebula
    • M51 galaxy – first attempt using his new big telescope
    • M81 galaxy – small refractor photo from last year
    • M101 galaxy
    • Astronomy book reviews
  • Cone Nebula and Plaskett’s star location – David Lee & Randy Enkin
  • Two photos from the RASC Plaskett night (Mar 5th) processed and posted by Dan Posey – presented by Joe Carr
  • Painting of a tiny Arctic plant by Marjie Welchframe
  • Fr. Lucien Kemble – Roman Catholic Franciscan priest well-known as a visual observer from Alberta and Saskatchewan. Kemble’s Cascade, chain of stars in the northern sky. Photo by Charles Banville – Bill Weir
  • Speaker for Mar 21 Astro Cafe: Deborah Lokhorst will be speaking about the Dragonfly Telephoto Array 

Astronomy Cafe – March 7, 2022

Posted by as Astro Cafe, Uncategorized

Meeting video transcript

  • Intro – Chris Purse
    • Upcoming speakers
    • Working on hosting Astro Cafe in-person at the Fairfield Gonzales Community Association facilities
    • Welcome to new members
    • Garry Sedun, new VP
    • Dave Payne, new VP2
  • Edmonton Astrophotos – Dave Robinson
    • Orion Nebula, Virgo Galaxy Cluster and other galaxies – Tom Owen
  • Recent Astrophotos – Brock Johnston
    • M78 reflection and dark nebula east of Horsehead
    • M106 galaxy and satellite galaxies
    • Horsehead & Orion Nebulae widefield, starless version
    • Brock’s online gallery
  • Comet 19/P Borrelly is passing by the California Nebula (chart) – March 23-27 – Bill Weir
  • Recent Astrophotos – Dan Posey
    • From recent Plaskett Photography 12-hour session for RASC Victoria Centre members – Horsehead Nebula, more later (data available from Dan through Astrophotography SIG)
    • M81, M82 – VCO Takahashi & Canon Ra
    • Dan’s downtown deck – telescope & CCD
      • Horsehead Nebula, Lagoon Nebula, Swan Nebula – starless versions
      • Thor’s Helmut Nebula
      • Dan’s online gallery
  • Horsehead Nebula – best astrophoto using Garry Sedun’s astro gear
  • Recent Astrophotos – Martin Gisborne
    • Markarian’s Chain of galaxies – 80mm refractor and Nikon D850 unmodified dSLR
    • Rosette Nebula
    • Horsehead & Flame Nebulae with Iridium flare
    • Flaming Star Nebula IC 405 using 8″ SCT
  • Chris Gainor
    • No news with JWST mission
    • We are probably coming to the end of Russian collaboration with the ISS due to the Ukraine war
  • Congratulations to Sid Sidhu on local press coverage for his recent IAU asteroid naming
  • FDAO – Lauri Roche
    • March 19th Star Party
    • April 16th – Artemis Mission speaker
    • May 7th Astronomy Day – may open the Centre of the Universe for a public event
  • Interest in Citizen Science group? – contact David Lee (david@victoria.rasc.ca
  • Any interest in staging a Messier Marathon? – Chris Purse (membership@victoria.rasc.ca
  • The Last Stargazers book by Emily Levesque – recommended by Martin Gisborne and others