Stars - Observe ON!

[Artemus]

I thought I'd put up a discussion thread about our universe and our backcountry night skies and seed it with this. Consider this thread as kind of a companion to Night Shots and Star Trails. I was recently re-energized, as I am every summer, by the appearance of our Milky Way Galaxy overhead and the black hole at the center of our galaxy, the region of which is now visible right above the teapot lid of Sagittarius. Well the region of the sky containing our black hole is visible but that object itself is not to the naked eye but this is a subject is for a future post....

Many of my friends here ask me about the night sky when I start waxing-on in the backcountry and wonder how I know so much - until they tell me to quit yammering on for so long. Well I have always been curious about the heavens and moving to 7000' of elevation 30 years ago just improved my investigatory powers.

Let's mainly talk here about the backcountry night sky and "naked eye" astronomy - the kind of observation that most all of us are practicing this time of year and hopefully will continue as long as we work to continue to conserve another of our dwindling resource, our dark skies. Many naked eye observations involve knowing what is invisible to the naked eye but in that same region of the sky so no need to limit yourself too much.

Here is a 4 minute video that is maybe a little cheesy but gives you an idea of the scope of the problem of observing the stars in our galaxy and universe around us.

And as the young guy in the video says....

Stay Curious.
~Artemus

 

[Artemus]

One of my "secrets" of knowing my way around the night sky with regards to constellations, asterisms, deep space objects and other nutty tidbits of trivia (I mean crucial cosmological theory) is to practice. Of course. Keeping up at increasing your nights on the ground is crucial. Staying up late enough to actually see any stars is my personal challenge - especially while chasing @lostlandscapes or @AustinCronnelly or @Joey around. I am usually exhausted by the time the twilight sky light has adequately faded. Winter is much easier for me to observe with the naked eye but has its own special challenges like frigid temperatures and a somewhat less spectacular night sky (a debatable characterization).

Here is another way I have been able to improve my knowledge. I use this extremely powerful and energizing tool - the written word. One of many fabulous titles by a hero of mine, Chet Raymo, is called 365 Starry Nights. In this book Chet has given you a brief series of stories about the night sky for each and every night of the year. What is visible that night is featured but the backstory is the thing. What the historical significance of an object in that region, what the history of the name of that constellation is, what deep space object is visible if you had binoculars or a small telescope in your pocket are all the types of descriptions of that night's sky that are included. Each night is only a few hundred words and quick digestion and I try and make it a point to read it in the light and comfort of bed especially the week before a night on the ground. 365 Starry Nights and Chet Raymo. Try it or some other naked eye astronomy reference and you will be surprised at how it piques your interest. It does mine.

I am constantly amazed by the quality of the imagery in the companion thread Night Shots and Star Trails. I am equally amazed that people are so interested in what they have captured.

Stay Curious!

 

[Vegan.Hiker]

Where do I sign up for an Artemus Backcountry Astronomy course? Would love to hear you pontificate on the cosmos under a starry night sky one day.

 

[Artemus]

Where do I sign up for an Artemus Backcountry Astronomy course? Would love to hear you pontificate on the cosmos under a starry night sky one day.

I will put up a web form for you shortly to sign up for an "un-guided" trip when or even before you move to our dark sky state.

I take it back. You have an open invitation without filling out a form and divulging your personal email address....

 

[slc_dan]

Great post, and idea for discussion. I have had the luxury of hearing Art "ramble" on about the stars on a few occasions. If you are so lucky, be careful. There may be a quiz when he's finished I've added the book to my Amazon wishlist. I remember sometime-perhaps on our last Grand Canyon trip, telling me something about a Blog you also follow about the cosmos? I vaguely remember it being written by an older gentleman whose having a harder time now?

 

[Nick]

I want an Artemus star lecture! It must have been too overcast on our stormy Robber's Roost outing.

I've found the app Dark Sky on my iphone/ipad to be invaluable for learning more about the night sky. Especially when I hand it to someone with a longer attention span than myself and they start pointing out constellations I didn't notice.

 

[Gb G]

Thanks for the book recommendation, I will look for 365 starry nights.

 

[Artemus]

The Center - the Black Hole that Anchors our Galaxy.

Our galaxy, the Milky Way, assumes the shape of a spiral with arms when looked at from directly above. That is from the galactic "above". Looking at it edge-on it assumes more of the shape of a dinner plate. This time of year as we observe the galaxy in our night sky we are looking edge-on if we are lucky enough to have traveled to reasonably dark sky. Our star is but a mediocre one of the estimated 200-400 billion stars in the Milky Way and the earth is just one of the now-estimated 100 billion planets.

When we look at this edge-on dinner plate we see a milky river of light. Upon closer examination this milky glow is the accumulated light from near-countless stars. This is dramatically reinforced if you observe the milky way through a common set of binoculars. Try this experiment: point your binoculars at the sky away from the Milky Way and then refocus on the bright region of the milky glow and compare your mental image of the star density.

When observing our Milky Way under a dark sky you can see structure. Bright regions and darker lanes throughout the glow. This structure is mapped and the dark and light features are even named. (I wonder if an interested thread reader could find a map and post it here). The dark regions are not the absence of stars however. They are obscured regions of the near uniform distribution of light emitting stars. The obscuring mechanism is massive clouds of stellar dust. These clouds of dust that block visible light from shining through are also stellar nurseries massing together and birthing new stars.

When you look south in this summer sky you can find the teapot-shaped asterism that makes up part of the constellation Sagittarius, the Archer. This is one of the most feature-rich sections of the sky for a naked eye observer, a binocular observer or a telescopic observer. It is also the home of, right next to the star Sagittarius A, the black hole at the center of our galaxy. We and the happy planet we ride on are revolving ever-so-slowly around this point in the sky.

This black hole is obscured from our vision by dust and debris - at least in the visible wavelengths that our eye can see. Scientists have long known that the infrared wavelengths of light are able to penetrate these dust clouds and have cleverly used this phenomenon to design one of the Nasa Great Observatories, the Spitzer Space Telescope, to peer deep into this dust cloud. With Spitzer we have imaged (photographed) this region to within a few light-minutes of this black hole. With this instrument and various other measurements we have verified that a super-massive black hole anchors our galaxy at its gravitational center.

I was lured into this Milky Way center by a great book called "The Black Hole at the Center of Our Galaxy" written by the astrophysicist "Fulvio Melia" who is especially known for his work on the galactic center. I wholeheartedly recommend this read and we have it at our library.


We have some great naked-eye astronomers here and some great digi-cam photographers that have been posting wonderful galaxy pictures here for some time. The fact that we can image this "river of light" with an inexpensive camera from our backyard is an interesting story in and of itself and could be the fodder for a future post.

Stay Curious,

Art

Further Reading:
The Spitzer Space Telescope
The Galactic Center
The Milky Way Galaxy

 

[tozo]

I was going to post this in the night shots/star trails thread, but I recently ran across this one and thought it would be appropriate since the photo highlights a constellation. I feel super fortunate to have captured this. The photo wasn't planned at all. I was in the Tetons for the Perseid meteor shower and was given an opportunity to camp on some private land next to the Snake River. Since it had a killer view of the Tetons I set my camera up for an all night time-lapse on the river bank.

I recently started playing with the Rokinon 35mm f/1.4 lens. That think can really suck in the light! This is one exposure on a moonless night. There was some moisture in the air which made the brightest stars more spread instead of pinpoints, hence the highlighting of the Big Dipper over the Grand Teton. I pulled this frame from the time-lapse and called the night a success!

 

[Artemus]

I was going to post this in the night shots/star trails thread, but I recently ran across this one and thought it would be appropriate since the photo highlights a constellation. I feel super fortunate to have captured this. The photo wasn't planned at all. I was in the Tetons for the Perseid meteor shower and was given an opportunity to camp on some private land next to the Snake River. Since it had a killer view of the Tetons I set my camera up for an all night time-lapse on the river bank.

I recently started playing with the Rokinon 35mm f/1.4 lens. That think can really suck in the light! This is one exposure on a moonless night. There was some moisture in the air which made the brightest stars more spread instead of pinpoints, hence the highlighting of the Big Dipper over the Grand Teton. I pulled this frame from the time-lapse and called the night a success!

Sweet shot Tozo!
You don't happen to have another looking south at the center of the Milky Way with Sagittarius in full view I can doctor up for this thread do you? I though for sure there would be one in the Stars and Trails thread but while glancing through couldn't find one.

 

[tozo]

Hey Langutah
Here's another of the Grand Teton taken last summer from Mount Moran. I think this was taken in early July. I believe Sagittarius is in there, but it can be hard to tell on these photos. The camera sensor picks up sooooo many more stars than my eyes can. I may have some others, I'll look around.

 

[Artemus]

If you can't find another maybe you could share that with me by PM in RAW and I can dumb it down in post to reduce intensity for the purposes of my building an image for this post.... I would be appreciative and hold it in confidence...

That was the same problem in the Stars and Trails thread - people are going for the river of light and swamping out the bright stars with complexity.

Another great shot!

 

[slc_dan]

A seriously cool tool to look at the largest astronomy image of all time!

http://gds.astro.rub.de/

The image is around 194gb alone. 46 billion pixels!

little info on the image.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/10/151021083342.htm

 

[slc_dan]