The SBAU Forum

    Hi Tim:

    During fall 2019 I designed and built a new tube assembly for my 10 inch Newtonian optics.  It has some odd but useful features I'd like to share with other AU members who build telescopes. 
     
    Objectives of the design were as follows:
     
    1) Reduce weight and bulk of tube assembly & parts
    2) Make set-up assembly quick & simple in the dark
    3) Reduce tube currents and speed up cooling.
     
    The present configuration is the result of some trial & error.  Instead of a closed tube or open truss design it uses a rigid single-strut optical spar to hold the secondary and eyepiece assembly.   One bolt attaches the spar to the mirror box/altitude bearing assembly.  An adjustable counterweight makes use of a kid's lunch bag. The mirror box closes up to prevent condensation for immediate storage indoors after use on cold nights.  The tube works with a conventional Dob base which can ride on a commercial equatorial platform.  The focuser is a commercial 1.25"/ 2" inch 2 speed Crayford.
     
    Stray light is blocked simply by a removable baffle inserted into the focuser opposite to the eyepiece or camera.
     
    I use this scope with a ZWO CMOS camera operated and powered by a laptop computer.  This takes video clips, which I can stack using Registax, or still photos.
     
    I built this telescope using only hand tools (hacksaw and files) and a drill press. 
     
    Recently I took photos of this equipment set up in my back yard.  One photo is attached; showing the setup in use with the ZWO camera.  I have others showing more details and a stacked lunar image if there are questions.  I'm limited sending pictures with large megabyte contents.
     
    You're welcome to share this email and the photo with other AU members.
     
    Best wishes,
     
    Gail




I want to thank all you out there that are sharing your designs, builds , mirror results , images and everything in between. It is a true pleasure for me to send them along to you all and share. Thanks folks!


Stay safe everybody!!
Tim Crawford
Workshop Notes
Sent from my iPad

Download attached file for complete document with images.  Only the words from pdf file here:

I began my modern day quest in astrophotography about 3 years ago. I decided to buy
a Canon 6D, mkii, full-frame camera to shoot the heavens with. My style is such that I
like lots of stars and I like the variety of colors they have, albeit I like to have their
images small, with tight halos.
I had started out using DSS for pre-processing and Photoshop for processing and just
couldn’t make Photoshop work. I could never get any color in the stars with Photoshop,
nor could I get the color right; I guess I’m just too stupid for it. Dumb people like me
need a method or, if you’re a cook, a recipe and I just couldn’t find one that worked. I
mean no offence to any Photoshop people out there and I’ve seen very good work done
using Photoshop.
I kept looking for solutions and then I found all these pictures with star color, in fact color
galore. These images were done by processing them with software specifically
designed for deep sky astrophotography and one of these, Pixinsight, was the most
affordable solution for me so I went with it and I’ve never looked back since. Pixinsight
gave dumb people like me a method that I can work with.
DSS is another story and I continue to use it to this day as I think it’s a very fine
program and sometimes it works better for dumb people too, since the interface is
relatively straight forward. I used DSS to sample NEOWISE data over Pixinsight
because I couldn’t get a good master out of it; I guided on the comet head, incidentally,
because it was so star-like.
I knew going into using Pixinsight I had a severe learning curve ahead of me but a
method is a method so I decided to stick it out. It’s not like Pixinsight has a manual,
although they have some excellent mouse-over tool-tips so I got a book, called Inside
Pixinsight, by Warren A. Keller; my edition has a date of 2016 but I know there is a later
version so get that one if you’re interested.
So now I’ve got my method. The method always works but there’s always little things
that are different about every image so it’s not just cookie-cutter; you have to put some
thought into it or it wouldn’t be any fun.
If I look at the grand perspective of everything, what would be the hardest part about
Deep Sky Imaging? By far and away it’s the imaging: I’ve got to wait for the lunar cycle
to be right; the weather has to be good; I could be guiding in a troublesome spot for the
mount; something could go wrong during the shoot; I can be pretty stupid. Look, if
you’ve got the desire to go out in the cold, with the wind blowing, wait around until the
sky clears, get all setup just when the clouds arrive, repeat for several days, your well
on your way to being a stupid deep sky photographer like myself. All the advances in
technology, the software hurdles, all that stuff is chump-change compared to imaging.
I currently focus every 30 minutes and keep everything positioned very closely by using
a combination of techniques for dumb people. Once I get on target I record the RA and
DEC, draw cross-hairs on the PHD2 window with a dry ink marker using an overlay, and
take a screen shot of PHD2 in case I get way off somehow.
The first shot I’m going to show you is of the Trifid and Lagoon Nebula region shot with
a Redcat51 over 4 nights, and it’s full-frame, without a crop, giving testimony to my
dumb-people positioning technique. Also, the Redcat is a Petzval so it’s very similar to
Gary’s NP127 but it has a 250mm focal-length instead of 660mm. Notice how flat the
field is on the edges, a characteristic of having a married field-flattener to the optics. All
Petzvals are 4 element scopes and Gary’s 4th element is a doublet.
The next image is an image of one direction I want to go with Gary’s scope; I want to do
mosaicing and this image is my first crack at it. It’s only a 2 panel mosaic of M31 but it
employs a technique known as range compression, which I’ll go into later. The
mosaicing was done with the before mentioned source, Inside Pixinsight, and it was
just another easy method to follow so I’d say don’t sweat it; you need to have at least
20% overlap to do the merging and I think I’ve got about 30% here. The imaging was
done with a 10” Astrograph at f/3.9 over 8 nights. As you can see, the number of nights
just to shoot a couple of panels with range compression is a lot of a lunar cycle. In order to go over lunar cycles, I’m going to need a very staple, unchangeable setup – an
observatory, which is where the NP127 is going.
Sometimes targets have such a range in brightness that if you use a normal exposure
on it, it burns into the image and that part of the image can’t be stretched without some
distortion; such is the case on targets like M31 and M42. In order to do range
compression one needs to do so in processing, which won’t work if you’re already burnt
in, or by taking data with exposures that have decreasing amounts. If the exposure
technique is used, the exposures are blended together in Pixinsight by a process called
HDRComposition. The HDR in the process name stands for High Dynamic Range, a
process that adds the exposures together and re-normalizes them to intensity values
between 0 to 1 – a normal intensity range; the net effect is to bring down the brightness
of the brightest parts, while still allowing fainter parts to get more exposure. Stars will
always become smaller with such a technique because they are bright objects that will
have their brightness lowered, including their halo. This process is not going to yield an
image that’s like a normal image without range compression and I’m still learning and
making some changes as a result of what I now know.
M42 uses range compression similar to M31. I shoot at ISO 800 with the following
exposure sequence for range compression on the 10” Astrograph: 6 minutes, 3 minutes,
1 minute, and 30 seconds. M42 was shoot over 6 nights.
The technique works well on M13 too as you can see. Globular clusters have the
problem that the central stars can’t be resolved because the nucleus becomes a big
blob so this technique works very well with the same exposure plan as mention
previously.
Range compression works on comets and I used it when imaging NEOWISE. These
are 10 second, 20 second and 1 minute exposures in an HDRComposition. The
imaging was done on July 18, 2020. I had some atmospheric and light pollution in this
shot as it was low on the horizon. I had to quit when the scope’s FOV ran into the
fence.

January 25, 2021 SBAU radio hour on KZSB radio 1290AM.
Hosted by Baron Ron Herron (SBAU VP) with President JerryW, Outreach ChuckMcP, and Weebguy TomT.
Agenda suggested by JerryW is below, but download and play the attached MP3 audio file to listen to the actual program.

On 1/23/2021 11:30 PM, Jerry wrote:
>> Radio show of January 25, 2021

> Image.png "When you think about how huge the earth is, and how the earth is just a tiny ball orbiting the sun, which in turn 8is a minscule spec in the universe....it's pretty easy to rationalize eating an entire pie!
>
> This week, while the moon is bright
>    The Red Planet is easy to spot tonight from its perch high in Aries to the south after dark. With a large telescope or video capture capabilities, you may be able to make out features on its 8"-wide disk. The dark Syrtis Major and the large, circular Hellas basin feature centrally on the martian disk around 9 P.M. EST. Keep revisiting the Red Planet as the week progresses — the Moon will remain bright but peel away from the region, offering slightly better contrast with the dark background sky.
>    Just 2° southwest of Mars is the ice giant Uranus. At nearly magnitude 6 and with that bright Moon nearby — just over the border in Taurus — you’ll need at least binoculars to make it out. Look for a grayish “flat” star about half the size of Mars; of course, Uranus is physically much larger, but it sits nearly 20 times farther from Earth than the Red Planet, diminishing its size. Again, revisit this region in the coming days, but know that Uranus will remain a bit harder to find until the Moon’s light is no longer an issue.
>
> Looking at asteroids
> Vesta.jpg
> The large asteroid Vesta was one of two worlds the Dawn spacecraft visited. Dawn took this natural-color image of the rocky asteroid in July 2011.
> NASA/JPL/MPS/DLR/IDA/Björn Jónsson
>    Asteroid 4 Vesta, the second-most massive object in the main asteroid belt, currently shines at magnitude 6.8 in the hindquarters of Leo the Lion. It rises around 9 P.M., but wait an hour or two for the region to climb away from the more turbulent air near the horizon. By 10 or 11 P.M., pull out your binoculars to find Vesta just over 4° southwest of Denebola, which marks the tip of the Lion’s tail.
>    Asteroid 14 Irene is near opposition, rising in Cancer the Crab as the Sun sets, so any time after darkness falls is perfect to seek out the small world. You’ll find it glowing at magnitude 9.4 (a perfect binocular object) less that 2° due west of Iota (ι) Cancri, a fourth-magnitude star in the northern part of the constellation.
>
> Monday, January 25
>    Roughly two hours before sunrise, the Moon has finally set and Gemini the Twins are standing upright on the western horizon. The Twins’ heads, Castor (which appears on the right) and Pollux (left), shine brightly about 20° high.
>    They’re roughly the same magnitude (Pollux is a few tenths of a magnitude brighter) but through binoculars or a telescope, you may notice they’re slightly different colors: Castor appears blue-white, while Pollux is a bit more orange-hued. That’s because Castor is a hot type A star, while Pollux is a type K star and slightly cooler than the Sun.
>    But Castor has another advantage over Pollux: sheer numbers. A small telescope will reveal that Castor appears to be not one, but two stars about 4" apart. Called Castor A and B, both are type A stars. However, the Castor family is larger, still — Castor C, which is visible about 70" from A, is a cooler, dimmer type M star orbiting A and B together.
>
> Tuesday, January 26
>    Tonight, let’s visit Canis Major, which has cleared the horizon by two hours after sunset. Wait a little longer, and it will rise even higher in the sky.
    Again, the bright Moon is nearby, but tonight we’re seeking out a bright open cluster, NGC 2362, also called the Tau Canis Majoris Cluster after its brightest star: Fourth-magnitude Tau (τ) Canis Majoris. This star dominates the cluster’s light; you’ll need to train binoculars or a small scope on the region to see any of its neighbors. Look about 2.8° east-northeast of Wezen (Delta [δ] Canis Majoris), which marks the top of the Big Dog’s hindquarters, to find the cluster. It covers roughly 8' of sky, although some stars may be hard to spot with the Moon’s brighter background light. (So keep this target in mind and plan to return once the Moon’s phase has progressed.)
>    Tau itself is sometimes called the Mexican Jumping Star, possibly because it always remains relatively low in the sky. That, coupled with its relative brightness, makes it particularly susceptible to scintillation, which occurs when starlight is viewed through Earth’s turbulent atmosphere. This can cause a star to change apparent brightness and even color quite rapidly, sometimes looking as if you’re viewing it through a kaleidoscope. Sirius, the Dog Star, is also subject to this effect when it’s low on the horizon.
>
> Wednesday, January 27
>    With a nearly Full Moon in Cancer tonight, only bright stars are easily visible. After sunset, test your eyesight in Taurus the Bull, who hosts the famous Pleiades star cluster, also cataloged as M45. Most observers can see six or seven stars with the unaided eye, and that might be the most you’ll see tonight. But come back in several days on a darker night and you may see as many as 11 stars without optical aid, depending on the quality of your eyesight.
>    The Pleiades is a young open cluster of stars estimated at just a few tens of millions of years in age. Look to their southeast and you’ll find another open cluster of stars making the “v” of the Bull’s face: the Hyades, one of the closest open star clusters to Earth. Among them shines bright Aldebaran, the eye of the Bull, although this star is not actually part of the cluster. It’s also moving in a different direction on the sky than the cluster, meaning Taurus’ v-shaped visage will eventually start to deform over the next several tens of thousands of years.
>    Keep following a line drawn between the Pleiades and Hyades, and eventually you’ll reach Betelgeuse, the famous red giant star marking the shoulder of Orion the Hunter. This star became recently famous as it underwent a strange dimming event that astronomers attribute to a “stellar sneeze,” in which the star blew out a cool cloud of dust, temporarily blocking some of its light. It’s now back to its original brightness.
>
> Thursday, January 28
> Full Moon occurs at 11:16 A.M. PST; the traditional name for the January Full Moon is the Wolf Moon.
>    During Full Moon, our satellite rises just as the Sun is sinking below the horizon and remains visible all night. Aside from bright stars and planets, the Moon is likely the only thing you’ll be able to observe, so let’s zoom in on some of the features visible during this phase.
>    While the entire nearside of the Moon is on display at this time, it’s also directly illuminated by the Sun, which can wash out certain details. Some of the best spots to focus on during Full Moon include the craters Copernicus and its neighbor Kepler. Copernicus is located in Oceanus Procellarum on the left side of the Moon (when viewed unaided); Kepler is a bit farther to Copernicus’ lower left.
>    The huge crater Tycho is also hard to miss, dominating in the southern region of the Moon with long, bright streaks stretching away from it. These streaks, which also appear around Copernicus and Kepler, are rays of ejecta — material that was thrown up from the surface of the Moon when these features were created, flying as far as 750 to 1,200 miles (1,200 to 1,900 kilometers) from their point of origin.
>    Following in the footsteps of its fellow gas giant earlier this week, Jupiter is in conjunction with the Sun at 6 P.M. PST. It, too, will be visible in the early morning by mid-February.
>
> Friday, January 29
>    Rising only 30 minutes before the Sun, Venus makes for a challenging morning target in the eastern sky. Still, it’s bright at magnitude –3.9, increasing your chances of spotting it. If you can catch it through binoculars or a telescope, you’ll see its disk is roughly 10" across and nearly full (97% lit). Do take care when following it in the brightening sky, however — set an alarm for several minutes before local sunrise and call an end to using any optical aid at that time. This will eliminate the chance of accidentally swinging your optics toward the Sun after it’s risen, which can cause severe and permanent eye damage.
>    Venus’ fellow inferior planet, Mercury, is stationary against the background stars at 9 P.M. EST this evening. Before today, it was tracking northeast; now it will make a U-turn and head southwest. Tonight, you can follow this speedy planet in the west for more than an hour after sunset.
>
> Perserverance Rover will land on February 18 in Jezero Crater
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/jpl/7-things-to-know-about-the-nasa-rover-about-to-land-on-mars
 1. Perseverance is searching for signs of ancient life.
>    While the surface of Mars is a frozen desert today, scientists have learned from previous NASA missions that the Red Planet once hosted running water and warmer environments at the surface that could have supported microbial life.
> 2. The rover is landing in a place with a high potential for finding these signs of past microbial life.
>    More than 3.5 billion years ago, a river there flowed into a body of water about the size of Lake Tahoe, depositing sediments in a fan shape known as a delta. The Perseverance science team believes this ancient river delta and lake deposits could have collected and preserved organic molecules and other potential signs of microbial life.
> 3. Perseverance is also collecting important data about Mars’ geology and climate.
>    Context is everything. Mars orbiters have been collecting images and data from Jezero Crater from about 200 miles (322 kilometers) above, but finding signs of ancient life on the surface requires much closer inspection. It requires a rover like Perseverance.
> 4. Perseverance is the first leg of a round trip to Mars.
>    Rather than pulverizing rock the way the drill on NASA’s Curiosity rover does, Perseverance’s drill will cut intact rock cores that are about the size of a piece of chalk and will place them in sample tubes that it will store until the rover reaches an appropriate drop-off location on Mars. The rover could also potentially deliver the samples to a lander that is part of the planned Mars sample return campaign by NASA and ESA (the European Space Agency).
> 5. Perseverance carries instruments and technology that will help pave the way for human missions to the Moon and Mars.
>    Among the future-looking technologies on this mission that will benefit human exploration is Terrain-Relative Navigation. As part of the spacecraft’s landing system, Terrain-Relative Navigation will enable the descending spacecraft to quickly and autonomously comprehend its location over the Martian surface and modify its trajectory.
>    Perseverance will also have more autonomy on the surface than any other rover, including self-driving smarts that will allow it to cover more ground in a day’s operation.
>    In addition, Perseverance carries a technology experiment called MOXIE (short for Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment) that will produce oxygen from Mars’ carbon dioxide atmosphere, for fuel or breathing.
>    Two other instruments will help engineers design systems for future human explorers to land and survive on Mars: The MEDLI2 (Mars Entry, Descent, and Landing Instrumentation 2) package is a next-generation version of what flew on the Mars Science Laboratory mission that delivered the Curiosity rover, while the MEDA (Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer) instrument suite provides information about weather, climate, and surface ultraviolet radiation and dust.
>    Perseverance is also giving a ride to the Ingenuity Mars Helicopter. A technology experiment separate from the rover’s science mission.
> 6. The Perseverance rover embodies the NASA – and the scientific – spirit of overcoming challenges.
>    Getting the spacecraft to the launch pad during a pandemic, searching for signs of ancient life, collecting samples, and proving new technologies are no easy feats. Nor is a soft touchdown on Mars: Only about 50% of Martian landing attempts, by any space agency, have been successful.
> 7. You will get to ride along.
>    The Mars 2020 Perseverance mission carries more cameras than any interplanetary mission in history, with 19 cameras on the rover itself and four on other parts of the spacecraft involved in entry, descent, and landing. As with previous Mars missions, the Mars 2020 Perseverance mission plans to make raw and processed images available on the mission’s website.
>
> The SBAU Tuesday Telescope Workshop is continuing with a growing attendance. To date participants have included: Tim Crawford, Chuck McPartlan, Gary Peterson, Mike Chibnik, Bob Grueneberg, Henk Aling, Joe Doyle, Robert Richard, Chris Ulivo, Farshad Barman, Jerry Wilson and hosted by our webmaster Tom Totton

Our VP and DJ BaRonH had TomT on for 15min to fill in for LadyKZSB at 830am. 
Download and play the attached MP3 audio file to listen in.

Download the attached MP3 audio file to listen to the Santa Barbara Astronomical Unit radio program hosted by the Baron Ron Herron on KZSB radio 1290AM

On 1/9/2021 9:42 PM, Jerry wrote:

> Radio Show Of Jan 11, 2021

> This Week
>    Although the universe is vast, galaxies often meet and interact. Such is the case with Bode’s Galaxy (M81) and the Cigar Galaxy (M82), two nearby spirals located about 10° northwest of Dubhe, Ursa Major’s magnitude 1.8 alpha star. The pair is visible in a small scope, whose low power can capture both in a single field of view — they sit roughly 35' apart. Higher power (or larger apertures) will reveal more detail in each, particularly in M81, whose spiral arms become visible under dark skies and greater magnification. The Cigar Galaxy, which gains its name from its long, skinny appearance, is tilted sideways with respect to Earth, meaning its dusty disk is visible edge-on, hiding its spiral arms.
>    After dark, Ursa Major is already climbing higher in the northern sky, with the Big Dipper oriented so the end of its handle touches the horizon. The Great Bear will continue her upward climb as the night progresses, eventually turning onto her back into the early morning as the stars near the North Pole rotate around it.

> Monday, January 11
>    Mercury passes 1.5° south of Jupiter at 3 A.M. PST. The pair is well below the horizon, invisible to observers.
>    Step outside early this morning before sunrise to spot the Moon and Venus sharing the sky in Sagittarius. Our Moon is a delicate crescent just over 3 percent lit, while Venus, less than 4° to its east, is 95 percent lit when viewed through a telescope. The planet is a bright magnitude –4, making it an easy-to-spot morning star.
>    Look about 23° west of Venus and you’ll find not Mars, but its doppelgänger: Antares, the red heart of Scorpius the Scorpion. This star earned its name because its brightness and color so closely match those of the Red Planet. But Mars is visible in the evenings this month; we’ll visit it later this week.
>    The Moon passes 1.5° south of Venus at 12 A.M. PST By tomorrow it will sit east of the planet, and Venus will rise well before our satellite appears in the sky.

> Tuesday, January 12
>    Today marks the end of the Quadrantid meteor shower, which peaked January 3. However, ambitious observers with dark skies may still be able to catch the shower’s last few stragglers. The Quadrantids’ radiant, located in the constellation Boötes, is high in the morning sky just an hour or two before sunrise. At its peak, the shower produced more than 100 meteors per hour, so some additional meteors above the random background level of seven or so per hour are still likely.
>    While you’re up this morning, look again for Venus, now preceding the Moon in the sky. In fact, our young satellite rises shortly before the Sun, by which time Venus is already 10° high. See how long you can follow it in the morning twilight, but avoid using optical aid of any kind after the Sun has risen to prevent accidentally damaging your vision.

> Wednesday, January 13
>    New Moon occurs at 9:00 A.M. PST. Our satellite less than a day old by sunset, but if you have a clear view of the southwestern horizon, it’s worth trying to see it. (Keep in mind, however, that this is a very difficult observation, and unlikely to bear fruit unless conditions are perfect.)
>    By sunset, our Moon is a less-than-1-percent-lit crescent. Search for it 20 to 25 minutes after sunset, when it will be just 1° above the horizon. Mercury, Jupiter, and Saturn are nearby — Mercury is just 6.5° northeast of our satellite, and the innermost planet is now located to the upper right of Jupiter, nearly 3.5° to Mercury’s lower right. Saturn is another 2.5° west of Jupiter, to the gas giant’s lower right. The three form a roughly straight line. Mercury will continue to pull away from the larger planets over the next several days, as the slowly waxing Moon does the same.

> Thursday, January 14
>    The Moon passes 2° south of Mercury at midnight PST; both are below the horizon at that time. Pluto is in conjunction with the Sun at 6. A.M. PST.
>    Also at 6 A.M. PST, Uranus is stationary against the background stars. The penultimate planet in our solar system is located in Aries the Ram, visible after sunset. You can easily pick out its magnitude 5.8 glow with binoculars or a small scope. Its 4"-wide disk will likely appear as a “flat” gray star.
>    Just 3.3° west of the ice giant is a much brighter planet: Mars, also making its way through Aries, shines at magnitude 0.1. Now 9" across, Mars is moving away from Earth along its orbit outside our own. Over the course of January, it will remain in Aries but shrink another 1" and dim a few tenths of a magnitude. Nonetheless, it remains an excellent evening object this month, readily visible in small and
>    If you return to this region of the sky night after night, you’ll see the Red Planet move noticeably northeast each night, passing 1.7° north of Uranus on the 21st. After tonight, Uranus will also begin inching northeast — but because it is much more distant, it appears to move much more slowly across the sky. The ice giant will remain within 4' of its current position all month, even as Mars flies quickly past.

> Friday, January 15
>    The strangely metallic asteroid 16 Psyche is located near Aldebaran, the red giant eye of Taurus the Bull, all month. It’s already well above the horizon at sunset. As soon as darkness falls, pull out your telescope and look 1.5° north of the bright star to find Psyche. Depending on your location, a 4-inch scope may be enough to spot it in a dark sky. Those in the suburbs might want a 6-incher or larger.
>    To positively identify the asteroid, you’ll want to return to this region again and again, noting which point of light has moved. Psyche travels about 6' per day (24 hours), so coming back day after day will show the most motion. The asteroid is currently moving northwest against the background stars. Around the 23rd, it will reverse course, starting to make its way northeast instead.
>    If you’re observing without a telescope, there’s still plenty to enjoy in the sky tonight. Once you’ve located Aldebaran, just slide your gaze about 14° northwest to spot the sparkling Pleiades star cluster. How many of its brightest stars can you count by eye, and can you make out its tiny “little dipper” shape? (Despite its shape, the Pleiades are not the Little Dipper. You’ll find that in the north, stretching outward from our pole star, Polaris.)

> Fun fact:
>    Asteroids can have rings too. Chariklo orbits between Saturn and Uranus and has two icy rings. Discovered by occultation observation.

> Drive by Star Shot
>    Every 50,000 years or so, a nomadic star passes near our solar system. Most brush by without incident. But, every once in a while, one comes so close that it gains a prominent place in Earth’s night sky, as well as knocks distant comets loose from their orbits.
>    The most famous of these stellar interlopers is called Scholz’s Star. This small binary star system was discovered in 2013. Its orbital path indicated that, about 70,000 years ago, it passed through the Oort Cloud, the extended sphere of icy bodies that surrounds the fringes of our solar system. Some astronomers even think Scholz’s Star could have sent some of these objectstumbling into the inner solar system when it passed.
>    However, Scholz’s Star is relatively small and rapidly moving, which should have minimized its effect on the solar system. But in recent years, scientists have been finding that these kinds of encounters happen far more often than once expected. Scholz’s Star wasn’t the first flyby, and it won’t be the last. In fact, we’re on track for a much more dramatic close encounter in the not-too-distant future.
>    “Scholz’s Star probably didn’t have a huge impact, but there should be many more stars that have passed through that are more massive,” astronomer Eric Mamajek of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, whose 2015 paper in Astrophysical Journal Letters put Scholz’s Star on the map, tell Astronomy.
>    Around Christmas 2013, Mamajek was visiting a friend and fellow astronomer, Valentin Ivanov, at the offices of the European Southern Observatory in Santiago, Chile. While the two chatted, Ivanov was looking at recent observations of a star cataloged as WISE J072003.20–084651.2.
>    The star caught Mamajek’s interest because it was just about 20 light-years away, but astronomers hadn’t noticed it thanks to its dim nature and tiny apparent movement (or proper motion) across our night sky.
>    To him, those two things were a clue. Since it didn’t appear to be moving much side to side, the star was likely moving toward us or away from us at a breathtaking pace. As the astronomers continued talking, Ivanov measured the star’s radial velocity to learn how quickly it was moving toward or away from our Sun. Soon, they had their answer.
>    “Within five or 10 minutes, we had the initial results that this thing came within a parsec [3.26 light-years] of the Sun,” Mamajek says. “It was screaming through the solar neighborhood.”
>    The two astronomers and their colleagues would eventually show that it passed even closer than that. In fact, it passed closer to our Sun than any other known star. This status prompted them to name the cosmic trespasser after its initial discoverer, an astronomer named Ralf-Dieter Scholz, who’s devoted significant time to finding nearby stars.
>    Mamajek has since moved on from studying Scholz’s Star. But in the meantime, other astronomers have also taken up the work. And, thanks to a European Space Agency satellite called Gaia, which is built to map the precise locations and movements of over a billion stars, we now know about other close encounters.
>    In 2018, a team of researchers led by Coryn Bailer-Jones of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Germany, used Gaia data to plot our Sun’s future meet-ups with other stars. They discovered nearly 700 stars that will pass within 15 light-years of our solar system over just the next 15 million years. However, the vast majority of close encounters have yet to be discovered, the team suggests. But they suspect roughly 20 stars should pass within just a couple light-years of us every million years.
>    However, “space is big,” Mamajek points out. “Statistically, most of those stars would pass the outer edge of our solar system.” That means encounters like the one with Scholz’s Star are common, but only a few are close enough to actually dislodge a significant number of comets,
>    Nonetheless, a few stars should still come surprisingly close. And if a large, slow-moving star did pass through the edge of the Oort Cloud, it could really shake up the solar system.
> starsnextdoor.jpg
> Many nearby stars will pass close to the Oort Cloud, but only one will move through it. In about 1.35 million years, Gliese 710 likely will gravitationally perturb millions of comets, sending a sizable number on a potential collision course with Earth.
> Astronomy: Roen Kelly
>    A massive star steamrolling through the outer solar system is exactly what Gaia data show will happen less than 1.4 million years from now, according to a 2016 study. A star called Gliese 710 will pass within 10,000 astronomical units — 1 AU is equal to the average Earth-Sun distance of 93 million miles. That’s well within the outer edge of the Oort Cloud.
>    At half the mass of the Sun, Gliese 710 is much larger than Scholz’s Star, which is just 15 percent the mass of the Sun. This means Gliese 710’s hulking gravity could potentially wreak havoc on the orbits of icy bodies in the Oort Cloud. And while Scholz’s Star was so tiny it would have been barely visible in the night sky — if at all — Gliese 710 is larger than our current closest neighbor, Proxima Centauri. So when Gliese 710 reaches its closest point to Earth, it will burn as a brilliant orange orb that will outshine every other star in our night sky.
>    This event could be “the strongest disrupting encounter in the future and history of the solar system,” the authors wrote in their paper, published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.
>    Fortunately, the inner solar system is a relatively tiny target, and even if Gliese 710 does send comets flying our way, it would take millions of additional years for these icy bodies to reach us. That should give any surviving future humans plenty of time to take action.

> Was the Sun Half of a Binary?
>    Scientist believe that surrounding the generally flat solar system is a spherical shell comprised of more than a trillion icy objects more than a mile wide. This is the Oort cloud, and it's likely the source of our solar system's long-term comets — objects that take 200 years or more to orbit the Sun. Inside that shell and surrounding the planets is the Kuiper Belt, a flat disk of scattered objects considered the source of shorter-term comets.
>    Long-term comets come at us from all directions and astronomers at first suspected their origins to be random. However, it turns out their likely trajectories lead back to a shared aphelion between 2,000 astronomical units (AU) from the Sun to about 100,000 AU, with their different points of origin revealing the shell shape of the Oort cloud along that common aphelion. (An astronomical unit is the distance from the Sun to the Earth.)
>    No object in the Oort cloud has been directly observed, though Voyager 1 and 2, New Horizons, and Pioneer 10 and 11 are all en route. (The cloud is so far away that all five of the craft will be dead by the time they get there.) To derive a clearer view of the Oort cloud absent actually imagery, scientists utilize computer models based on planetary orbits, solar-system formation simulations, and comet trajectories.
>    It's generally assumed that the Oort cloud is comprised of debris from the formation of the solar system and neighboring systems, stuff from other systems that we somehow captured. However, says paper co-author Amir Siraj of Harvard, "previous models have had difficulty producing the expected ratio between scattered disk objects and outer Oort cloud objects." As an answer to that, he says, "the binary capture model offers significant improvement and refinement, which is seemingly obvious in retrospect: most sun-like stars are born with binary companions."
>    “Binary systems are far more efficient at capturing objects than are single stars," co-author Ari Loeb, also of Harvard, explains. "If the Oort cloud formed as [indirectly] observed, it would imply that the sun did in fact have a companion of similar mass that was lost before the sun left its birth cluster."
>    Working out the source of the objects in the Oort cloud is more than just an interesting astronomical riddle, says Siraj. "Objects in the outer Oort Cloud may have played important roles in Earth's history, such as possibly delivering water to Earth and causing the extinction of the dinosaurs. Understanding their origins is important."
>    The gravitational pull resulting from a binary companion to the Sun may also help explain another intriguing phenomenon: the warping of orbital paths either by something big beyond Pluto — a Planet 9, perhaps — or smaller trans-Neptunian objects closer in, at the outer edges of the Kuiper Belt.
>    “The puzzle is not only regarding the Oort clouds, but also extreme trans-Neptunian objects, like the potential Planet Nine," Loeb says. "It is unclear where they came from, and our new model predicts that there should be more objects with a similar orbital orientation to [a] Planet Nine."
>    The authors are looking forward to the upcoming Vera C. Rubin Observatory (VRO) , a Large Synoptic Survey Telescope expected to capture its first light from the cosmos in 2021. It's expected that the VRO will definitively confirm or dismiss the existence of Planet 9. Siraj says, "If the VRO verifies the existence of Planet Nine, and a captured origin, and also finds a population of similarly captured dwarf planets, then the binary model will be favored over the lone stellar history that has been long-assumed."
>    Lord and Siraj consider it unsurprising that we see no clear sign of the Sun's former companion at this point. Says Loeb, "Passing stars in the birth cluster would have removed the companion from the sun through their gravitational influence. He adds that, "Before the loss of the binary, however, the solar system already would have captured its outer envelope of objects, namely the Oort cloud and the Planet Nine population."

Download attached file about attaching a camera to your Dobsonian Telescope for quick astrophotography.
The wording is here, but the attachment has the images also.

Make Your Dobson Newtonian Go Virtual
By Jürgen Hilmer - January 2021
Many are Zooming to share during the current crisis. Turn your Dobson Newtonian telescope
into a zooming scope. Email and share your images with others. The Dobson Newt with its
rocker box mount came around many years ago. To get your Newt to shoot photos of bright
night sky objects and to send them to others (like the Moon and some planets) all you need is a
2X Barlow. If fainter objects are the target, an equatorial platform placed under the Dobson
Newt rocker box mount can be of help.
The 2X Barlow like a Celestron Ultima, unscrewed, works. Install the optical chrome barrel into
a camera (Canon T4i) body cap. Since the optics are closer now to the camera sensor, the
Barlow becomes a 3X. The above process makes it possible to focus on night sky objects
without rebuilding the inside of the telescope tube. No getting the secondary mirror closer to the
primary mirror, or cutting a new hole for the focuser. A scope like a 1500mm f4.5 with a 330mm
(13”) diameter mirror is an example.
To photograph the fainter objects, which need longer exposure times, an equatorial platform is
needed. This platform fits under the rocker box mount. It keeps the target object in the field of
view and on the camera sensor for about 30 minutes. After that, pulling on the platform resets it,
and it is good for another 30 minutes of tracking. The Osypowski equatorial platform and others
are on the used market; kits are sold, and many sites help in building your own.
In a previous article find some helpful information on more scopes, cameras, and sharing
images:  http://www.sbau.org/201219%20Jurgen_Article.pdf  "Share Images Your Telescope Sees With Others" by Jürgen Hilmer, December, 2020
Please refer to the following three sites for some of the best information.
1. The Barlow Lens:  https://britastro.org/node/15666
2. EQ Platform (Link in left panel of page):  http://www.reinervogel.net/index_e.html?/Artikel_e.html
3. Tom Osypowski Equatorial Platform:  http://www.equatorialplatforms.com/

To sit with and contemplate how huge 13.8 billion light years is, and how tiny Planck time is, and
now add a pinch of EPR Entanglement, and all this only known to us for the last 100 years. Ah,
how inspiring a Dobson Light Bucket can be!

Download the attached mp3 audio file to listen to the program.

On 12/26/2020 11:56 PM, Jerry wrote the following possible agenda for the SBAU radio hour:
>
> This Week
>    The Quadrantid meteor shower, which peaks the morning of January 3, has begun ramping up. Unfortunately, there’s a bright Moon in the sky between now and the shower’s peak; however, given its expected maximum rate of 120 meteors per hour, patient observers still stand a good chance of catching bright shower meteors as the peak approaches. This is particularly true as the Quadrantids often produce bright fireballs — meteors that briefly flare to magnitude –3 or brighter.
>    The shower’s radiant lies in another extinct constellation — Quadrans Muralis. Today, that sits in the constellation Boötes, home to the familiar bright star Arcturus. The region rises after midnight and stands highest in the eastern sky before dawn, so early mornings for the next several days will be the best time to hunt down shower meteors. This shower is associated with two parent bodies: Comet 96P/Machholz and the minor planet 2003 EH1. Its particles streak through the atmosphere at speeds of 26 miles (42 kilometers) per second — medium fast, as far as meteors go.
>
> Monday, December 28
>    A week after their Great Conjunction, Jupiter and Saturn are still sharing close quarters in the sky. They’re less than 1° apart, with magnitude –2 Jupiter just east of magnitude 0.6 Saturn.
>    Just like last week, you’ll want to start looking for them low in the southwest as soon as twilight begins to darken the sky because they’re both sinking fast. And just like last week, Ganymede is closing in for another transit across Jupiter’s disk — this one doesn’t start until about 7:30 P.M. PST, however, long after the planet has set for those in the continental U.S.
>    As the gas giants sink below the horizon, look west to see bright Altair in Aquila, now only about 15° high. From Altair, look north-northwest to spot Vega in Lyra; from Vega, gaze east-northeast to find Deneb in Cygnus. These three stars create the familiar Summer Triangle, which gains its name from its position high overhead on summer nights. Now that it’s winter, the Triangle will set earlier and earlier, until its three stars are below the horizon during the cold nighttime hours.
>
> Tuesday, December 29
>    Full Moon occurs at 7:28 P.M. PST tonight. Because our bright satellite washes out much of the sky with its glare, consider getting to know some of the terrain on Earth’s closest neighbor instead.
>    The face of the Moon we see from Earth has several dark splotches visible to the naked eye. These are its maria, or seas, although they were never filled with water. Instead, these dark regions are ancient lava flows. Some of the most easily recognizable are Mare Imbrium and Oceanus Procellarum in the lunar west (the Moon’s left side as you see it in the sky), and Mare Serenitatis, Mare Tranquillitatis, and Mare Fecunditatis in the lunar east (the Moon’s right side in the sky).
>    Near the bottom of the Moon is a large crater — Tycho — with long, bright rays of material stretching almost halfway up the face of our satellite. These are made of material thrown up during the impact that formed the crater, which traveled great distances in the Moon’s low gravity to ultimately sink down to the ground much farther away.
>
> Wednesday, December 30
>    With a Full Moon still lighting the sky, fainter objects remain hard to find. Instead, search out some of the brighter sky treasures, such as the V-shaped Coma Star Cluster (Melotte 111) in Coma Berenices, which appears above Virgo as they rise in the southeast this morning.
>    By 4 A.M., the cluster is more than 60° high. One of the easiest ways to find it is to first find Leo the Lion, then draw a line between his brightest star, Regulus, and Zosma, which marks the top of his hindquarters. Follow that line about the same distance off to the northwest and you’ll hit the Coma Star Cluster. This young, loose open cluster contains roughly 100 stars less than 300 light-years away. The members range in magnitude from 5 to 10, so while some are visible to the naked eye under dark conditions, your binoculars or telescope will bring out many more.
>
> Thursday, December 31
>    Tonight there’s a test for your eyes waiting in the sky. Shortly after dark, Ursa Major is starting to climb her way upward in the sky. By 9 or 10 P.M. local time, her long tail is fully on view; you may recognize this as the kinked handle of the Big Dipper. And right at that kink — the second star from the end — is your challenge. This is the naked-eye binary system Mizar and Alcor. Mizar is magnitude 2, while Alcor is much fainter at magnitude 4. The pair is separated by just 11.8', with Alcor floating slightly northeast of its brighter companion.
>    Many people are able to spot both stars under clear, calm conditions. If you’re having trouble, wait a little while to give the stars time to rise higher above the horizon (where the air can be more turbulent). What’s more, Mizar itself is a binary whose components can be split with a small telescope. Sitting 14" apart, this pair was discovered in 1650. And each of these stars is also a double, although they cannot be visually distinguished.
>
> Friday, January 1
>    Ring in the new year with Earth’s sister planet, Venus. It rises as a morning star more than an hour before the Sun this morning, but clings low to the southeastern horizon as dawn brightens the sky. The planet is now located 12° east of the famous star Antares, and 2.5° north-northwest of magnitude 3 Theta (θ) Ophiuchi.
>    Venus is currently on the far side of the Sun from our vantage point, located one and a half times the average Earth-Sun distance from our planet, but only a little over half that distance from the Sun. Its disk appears 94 percent lit and spans 11".
>    Scan northeast a bit and you’ll see some familiar sights — Vega and Deneb, two points of the Summer Triangle, are now rising in the predawn sky. Along with Altair, the Triangle’s third point, they will traverse the sky during daytime for the next few months, until our planet’s journey around the Sun brings us back to the summer season.
>
> Ryugu and Bennu.
>    The Hayabusa2 mission successfully collected a sample from a near-Earth asteroid and returned it to Earth -- as well as the first gas sample from deep space, according to the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, or JAXA.
>    The sample was dropped off on Earth by a capsule on December 6 in South Australia. Teams from JAXA were able to retrieve the capsule where it landed and conduct some preliminary tests of gas in the capsule before it was sent to Japan.
>    The Hayabusa2 probe accomplished its mission, collecting a sample from the near-Earth asteroid Ryugu and returning it to Earth, according to JAXA.
> The gas was the first step in helping the researchers to confirm that the spacecraft successfully collected a sample from Ryugu in 2019 when the spacecraft visited the asteroid.
>    Researchers confirmed that the gas originated from Ryugu because their analysis of the gas shows that it is different from the atmospheric composition on Earth. Two separate analyses, one in Australia on December 7 and another between December 10 to 11 at the Extraterrestrial Sample Curation Center on the JAXA Sagamihara Campus, helped the teams arrive at the same result.
>    The gas likely came from the collected material on the surface and beneath the surface of the asteroid itself. The researchers will continue opening the capsule containing the sample to understand more about the gas.
>    The team also confirmed that black sand grains are also inside the sample container, further confirmation that there is asteroid material inside the capsule.
>    By the end of 2021, JAXA will share tiny samples from Ryugu to six teams of scientists across the globe. Meanwhile, Hayabusa2 continues on its path after flying by Earth in early December to drop off the capsule and will visit more asteroids in the future.
>    Hayabusa2 launched on December 3, 2014, and arrived at the near-Earth asteroid Ryugu in June 2018. The spacecraft collected one sample from the asteroid's surface on February 22, 2019, then fired a copper "bullet" into the asteroid to create a 33-foot wide impact crater. A sample was collected from this crater on July 11, 2019.
> Then, Hayabusa2 departed the asteroid in November 2019 and journeyed back to Earth.
>    Altogether, the mission's scientists believes one gram of material was collected, but they can't be sure until they open it completely. “One gram may sound small, but for us, one gram is huge," said Masaki Fujimoto, deputy director general of the department of solar system sciences at JAXA, during an online briefing hosted by the Australian Science Media Centre. "It is enough to address our science questions."
>    The agency's first Hayabusa mission returned samples from the asteroid Itokawa to Earth in June 2010, but scientists said that due to failure of the spacecraft's sampling device, they were only able to retrieve micrograms of dust from the asteroid.
>    “Ryugu is linked to the process that made our planet habitable," Fujimoto said. "Earth was born dry; it didn't begin with water. We think distant bodies like Ryugu came to the inner part of solar system, hit Earth, delivered water and made it habitable. That's the fundamental question we're after and we need samples to solve that."
> Asteroids are like leftovers from the formation of our solar system, preserving information about the origins of planets as well as the vital elements that allow life to exist on Earth.
>    The NASA OSIRIS-REx mission recently collected a sample from another near-Earth asteroid, Bennu, that is similar in composition to Ryugu. In fact, based on early data from both missions, scientists working on both missions believe it's possible these two asteroids once belonged to the same larger parent body before it was broken apart by an impact.
> The Bennu sample will be returned to Earth by 2023.       
> Patrick Michel, director of research at the French National Centre for Scientific Research in Paris, is an investigator for both missions.
> "It is really important to realize that no two asteroids are the same," Michel told CNN in October. "Even if Bennu and Ryugu share some intriguing similarities and belong to the same category (primitive), they also have some very interesting differences. And these samples will occupy generations of researchers as a large amount will be kept for future generations that will benefit from the increase in technology and accuracy of the instruments used to analyze them."

Download attached mp3 audio file to listen.

On 12/12/2020 7:29 PM, Jerry wrote:>
> Radio show of December 14, 2020 possible agenda

Monday, December 14
>    New Moon occurs today at 8:17 A.M. PST — and with it comes the last total solar eclipse of the year, visible from Chile and Argentina.
>    The total path length of this eclipse is 9,239 miles (14,869 km), but only 5 percent of this path falls on land. Fortunately, that 5 percent is where the eclipse’s longest duration of 2 minutes 10 seconds occurs, near Sierra Colorada, Argentina, at 4:13 P.M. UT.
    Total solar eclipses occur when the Moon passes between Earth and the Sun, blocking our star from view and allowing us to see its tenuous outer atmosphere, the corona. But another condition must be met — the Moon must be the right distance away from Earth in its orbit to completely cover the Sun. Because the Moon’s orbit is slightly elliptical, if it is too far from Earth when it passes between us and our star, it doesn’t appear large enough to completely block the Sun. When this happens, we see an annular solar eclipse, during which an outer ring of the Sun’s surface remains visible.
>
> Tuesday, December 15
>    The constellation Perseus the Hero is high in the sky several hours after sunset. He’s home to the famous Double Cluster, comprising NGC 869 and NGC 884 (also called H and Chi [χ] Persei). From a dark location — and with no Moon, like tonight — you may be able to spot them with the naked eye. In fact, early observers first cataloged this pair around 130 B.C.
>    Start your search at Perseus’ alpha star, Mirfak, which glows at magnitude 1.8. Look north-northwest of Mirfak to find magnitude 2.9 Gamma (γ) Persei, then north-northwest again to find magnitude 3.8 Eta (η) Persei. The Double Cluster sits about 4° northwest of this star and will likely appear as one or two fuzzy patches to your unaided eye.
>    Binoculars or a telescope will bring out these open clusters’ myriad stars. Each contains several hundred young suns some few million to 10 million years old — extremely young by stellar standards.
>
> Wednesday, December 16
    Look southwest after sunset for a triple treat tonight: The thin crescent Moon lies less than 6° southwest of bright Jupiter and Saturn. Our satellite shares the constellation Sagittarius with the solar system’s largest planet, while Saturn stands just over the invisible border in Capricornus. Look first at the Moon to see if you can spot the earthshine effect — sunlight reflecting off Earth and illuminating the portion of the Moon still in shadow.
>    The Moon also provides a perfect tool for comparison. Tonight, the ringed planet (magnitude 0.6) is just 0.5° from Jupiter (magnitude –2) — that’s the width of the Full Moon in the sky. But they’re going to get even closer. On the night of the winter solstice next week, the pair will form a nearly indistinguishable “star” in the sky as they come within 0.1° of each other. In a low-power binocular or telescope field, you’ll be able to see both in a single view. This is a sight you won’t want to miss, so begin planning your observations now.
>    Later tonight, the Moon will pass 3° south of Jupiter at 8 P.M. PST. Our satellite will then pass 3° south of Saturn at midnight EST.
>
> Thursday, December 17
>    Bright Vega in Lyra is hard to miss in the evening sky, blazing in the northwest after sunset. Although this magnitude 0 luminary far outshines the other stars in its constellation, there are many more reasons to explore the rest of the Harp.
>    One is Sheliak (Beta [β] Lyrae), a multiple-star system that sits 6° south-southeast of Vega. Through binoculars or a small scope, you can easily resolve a magnitude 3.6 primary and a magnitude 6.7 secondary separated by 45". Furthermore, the brighter star, Beta A, is an eclipsing binary (think Algol in Perseus), swinging between magnitude 3.3 and 4.3 in a little less than 13 days as its companion passes in front of and behind it. At maximum, Beta is closest in brightness to nearby Gamma (γ) Lyrae, about 2° to its east. At minimum, it better matches Zeta (ζ) Lyrae, 4.5° north.
>    Zeta is also a multiple-star system, comprising as many as seven stars. Through binoculars, you can easily separate Zeta A and B — A is the brightest at magnitude 4.3, while B is a dimmer magnitude 5.6 and sits 44" away from its companion.
>
> Friday, December 18
>    Zoom in on the Moon today for a look at an interesting crater doublet: Messier and Messier A. You’ll find our satellite low in the south at sunset, but there are a few hours of darkness to observe before it sinks below the horizon around 9 P.M. local time.
>    Look with a telescope toward the Moon’s eastern limb, along its equator. There you’ll find the large crater Langrenus, with its distinctive central peaks. To the northwest of this crater is a small pair of impacts; the westernmost pockmark has a distinctive cometlike trail of debris spreading farther west. These are Messier and Messier A, named for the famous 18th-century comet hunter Charles Messier. The pair’s strange appearance is attributed to a single impact that struck the Moon at a low angle and essentially skipped once along the surface.
>    Bump your magnification up to 100x and you’ll see the Messier doublet is distinctly out of round when compared with its fellow craters. Come back over the next few nights for even better views of its one-way rays, as the changing Sun angle brings them into even better contrast.
>
>
> The Big Show is Coming Up
> The gas giant planets, Jupiter snd Saturn will be in conjunction (appear close together in the sky) on December 21, a week from today, but before our next radio show. But the are worth observing and imaging starting now for the next two weeks. The planets and their moons, the four Galilean moons of Jupiter and at least Titan with Saturn, will all fit in the same telescopic field of view of small telescopes and binoculars. The last time such a close conjunction was easily observable was in 1226. If you want to wait for their next very close conjunction, it will be on March 15, 2080, but only briefly visible in the predawn sky.
>    With the pandemic, the SBAU is not able to host any public viewing events. People who want to see the conjunction should find a spot with a clear horizon to the southwest. Sunset will be around 4:53 PM PST, and at that time Jupiter and Saturn will be visible in the southwest at an altitude of 22 degrees above the horizon, about twice the apparent width of a fist held at arm's length. They will set around 7 PM.
>
> Exo-Planet 9?
>    A planet in an unlikely orbit around a double star 336 light-years away may offer a clue to a mystery much closer to home: A hypothesized, distant body in our solar system dubbed "Planet Nine."
>    This is the first time that astronomers have been able to measure the motion of a massive Jupiter-like planet that is orbiting very far away from its host stars and visible debris disk. This disk is similar to our Kuiper Belt of small, icy bodies beyond Neptune. In our own solar system, the suspected Planet Nine would also lie far outside of the Kuiper Belt on a similarly strange orbit. Though the search for a Planet Nine continues, this exoplanet discovery is evidence that such oddball orbits are possible.
> "This system draws a potentially unique comparison with our solar system," explained the paper's lead author, Meiji Nguyen of the University of California, Berkeley. "It's very widely separated from its host stars on an eccentric and highly misaligned orbit, just like the prediction for Planet Nine. This begs the question of how these planets formed and evolved to end up in their current configuration."
>    The system where this gas giant resides is only 15 million years old. This suggests that our Planet Nine—if it does exist—could have formed very early on in the evolution of our 4.6-billion-year-old solar system.
>    The 11-Jupiter-mass exoplanet called HD 106906 b was discovered in 2013 with the Magellan Telescopes at the Las Campanas Observatory in the Atacama Desert of Chile. However, astronomers did not know anything about the planet's orbit. This required something only the Hubble Space Telescope could do: Collect very accurate measurements of the vagabond's motion over 14 years with extraordinary precision. The team used data from the Hubble archive that provided evidence for this motion.
>    The exoplanet resides extremely far from its host pair of bright, young stars—more than 730 times the distance of Earth from the Sun, or nearly 6.8 billion miles. This wide separation made it enormously challenging to determine the 15,000-year-long orbit in such a relatively short time span of Hubble observations. The planet is creeping very slowly along its orbit, given the weak gravitational pull of its very distant parent stars.
>
>    How did it get there?
>    So how did the exoplanet arrive at such a distant and strangely inclined orbit? The prevailing theory is that it formed much closer to its stars, about three times the distance that Earth is from the Sun. But drag within the system's gas disk caused the planet's orbit to decay, forcing it to migrate inward toward its stellar pair. The gravitational effects from the whirling twin stars then kicked it out onto an eccentric orbit that almost threw it out of the system and into the void of interstellar space. Then a passing star from outside the system stabilized the exoplanet's orbit and prevented it from leaving its home system.
>    Using precise distance and motion measurements from the European Space Agency's Gaia survey satellite, candidate passing stars were identified in 2019 by team members Robert De Rosa of the European Southern Observatory in Santiago, Chile, and Paul Kalas of the University of California.
>
>    A target for the Webb Telescope
>    Scientists using NASA's upcoming James Webb Space Telescope plan to get data on HD 106906 b to understand the planet in detail. "One question you could ask is: Does the planet have its own debris system around it? Does it capture material every time it goes close to the host stars? And you'd be able to measure that with the thermal infrared data from Webb," said De Rosa. "Also, in terms of helping to understand the orbit, I think Webb would be useful for helping to confirm our result."
>    Because Webb is sensitive to smaller, Saturn-mass planets, it may be able to detect other exoplanets that have been ejected from this and other inner planetary systems. "With Webb, we can start to look for planets that are both a little bit older and a little bit fainter," explained Nguyen. The unique sensitivity and imaging capabilities of Webb will open up new possibilities for detecting and studying these unconventional planets and systems.
>    The team's findings appear in the December 10, 2020, edition of The Astronomical Journal.
>
>
> Hubble Catches Rapid Fading Of A Disappearing Nebula   
>    Hubble has revealed the drastic fading of a nebula, capturing it going through unprecedented changes over a 20-year period. When it comes to objects of the cosmos, we’re more used to thinking of changes in terms of millions, if not billions, of years, not decades.
>    The nebula Hen 3-1357, better known as the Stingray nebula, was already an exciting discovery. Hailed as the youngest known planetary nebula in 1998 when Hubble first peeked inside its central star’s final stages of life, now it’s been caught doing something that even the Hubble team are calling “weird”.
>    Photographed by Hubble in 1996, the nebula’s bright blue tendrils and filaments of gas at its center meant it popped against its dark dramatic background, its wavy edges giving it its stingray moniker. Now archival data shows that by 2016, the nebula had dimmed and its wavy edges had almost disappeared.
>
>    “This is very, very dramatic, and very weird,” said Hubble member Martín A. Guerrero in a statement. “What we’re witnessing is a nebula’s evolution in real-time. In a span of years, we see variations in the nebula. We have not seen that before with the clarity we get with this view.”
>    The dimming is down to changes in the light emitted by the glowing hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen being emitted by the dying star at its center. According to researchers, the oxygen emission dropped by a factor of nearly 1,000 over the two decades.
>    “Changes in nebulae have been seen before, but what we have here are changes in the fundamental structure of the nebula,” said Bruce Balick, leader of the new research due to be published in The Astrophysical Journal. "In most studies, the nebula usually gets bigger. Here, it’s fundamentally changing its shape and getting fainter, and doing so on an unprecedented time scale. Moreover, to our surprise, it’s not growing any larger. Indeed, the once-bright inner elliptical ring seems to be shrinking as it fades.”
>    The culprit appears to be the Stingray nebula's central star, SAO 244567, which experienced a rapid rise in temperature, from less than 22,000°C (40,000°F) to 60,000°C (108,000°F), according to a 2016 study based on observations of the nebula between 1971 and 2002. After the star expanded, causing the temperature to drop, the star went through a cooling phase, emitting less ionizing radiation. Hubble effectively caught before and after shots.
>    Now that the star is cooling, it's likely returning to its early stage of stellar evolution that it was experiencing before its temperature jump. It's hard to know what's in store for this nebula with it being so young, but the researchers estimate that at its current rate of fading, it may be barely detectable in just two or three decades.
>    Serendipitously, Hubble was in the right place at the right time to capture the rapid changes which, in cosmic terms, occurred in just the blink of an eye.
> By Katy Evans  > 04 DEC 2020, 17:30

Download the attached mp3 audio file to play.  46 minutes with the advertisements cropped out.  Sorry, between 15-18 minutes in, I mistakenly was playing a video from the Saturday, November 21, 2020 SpaceX launch and recovery of the Falcon 9 rocket, so voices from that are on top of the radio show.  But listen closely to this and you can hear the sonic boom that happened shortly after the rocket 1st stage touched down.   The breaking of the sound barrier was probably 10 miles up, so that would reach the ground about 50 seconds later, after the rocket had landed.  I will post that video at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCU0r4RxzoyT_pwNcfN5aJsA/videos soon.

On 11/21/2020 11:04 PM, Jerry wrote this list of possible subjects to discuss:

>Monday, November 23
>    The Moon passes 5° south of Neptune at 4 A.M. PST, but both are below the horizon at the time. Instead, you can catch the pair after sunset, when they are just over 6° apart in the constellation Aquarius.
>    Neptune, whose dim magnitude 8 glow will require binoculars or a small scope, presents a bluish disk just 2" across. It currently sits less than 1° east of magnitude 4.2 Phi (φ) Aquarii. Neptune is now roughly 30 astronomical units from Earth, where 1 astronomical unit, or AU, is the average Earth-Sun distance, and a fraction of an AU is now doing this show. That means its light takes a little over four hours to reach us here on Earth. Neptune has been slowly sliding southwest against the background stars, but in just a few days it will reach its stationary point and about-face to begin tracking northeast.
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> Tuesday, November 24
>    Starting an hour before sunrise, both Mercury and Venus should be easy to spot in the brightening sky. Mercury, just rising among the stars of Libra, is an easy magnitude –0.7. Venus is impossible to miss at magnitude –4. It’s sitting less than 2° from magnitude 4 Kappa (κ) Virginis and is now 10° due east of bright Spica.
>    Through a telescope, Mercury appears 90 percent illuminated and 5" across. It is just 0.5° from Nu (ν) Librae, whose dim, magnitude 5 glow will fade quickly as dawn approaches. Venus is a much larger 12" across, with a disk that’s 87 percent lit.
>    See how long you can follow the planets into the morning sky, but take care — stop using any optical equipment, including binoculars, at least several minutes before sunrise to avoid accidentally damaging your eyes.
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> Wednesday, November 25
>    The Moon passes 5° south of Mars at 12 P.M. PST. By sunset, our satellite is just 5.2° from the Red Planet. Mars remains in Pisces the Fish, while the Moon is south-southwest of the planet, just over the border in Cetus the Whale.
>    Let full darkness fall, then swing your scope to Mars to observe its 15"-wide disk, which shines at magnitude –1.3. Around 8 P.M. EST, the bright spot of Olympus Mons is visible on the disk; it will rotate out of view over the next two hours or so. The dark swaths of first Mare Sirenum, and later Mare Cimmerium, are also visible south of Olympus Mons.
>    NASA’s Mars 2020 mission is now less than 100 days from its landing on Mars. Recently, mission scientists released audio recorded by the Perseverance rover’s microphones as it travels through deep space. The sound is generated by mechanical vibrations that the microphone’s equipment has turned into an electrical signal. The soft buzz comes from the rover’s heat rejection fluid pump, which maintains the equipment’s temperature even in frigid cold.
> Perseverance Rover's Interplanetary Sounds  https://soundcloud.com/nasa/perseverance-rover-sounds
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> Thursday, November 26
>    The Moon reaches the farthest point from Earth in its orbit around our planet, called apogee, at 4:29 P.M. PST. At that time, our satellite will sit 252,211 miles (405,894 km) from Earth.
>    With our satellite visible all evening, it’s a great time to explore its pockmarked face. You’ll find the Moon in the southeastern corner of Pisces the Fish, now nearly 13° east of Mars. As the Moon travels around Earth, it can look to observers on Earth as if it’s “nodding” back and forth — sometimes areas at the limb are easier to see than others. This motion is called libration and tonight, it makes features normally hard to spot on the Moon’s northeastern limb more accessible. With binoculars or a small scope, look at the upper right portion of the lunar disk for three dark spots. These are Lacus Spei, Endymion, and Mare Humboldtianum (closest to the edge).
>    Come back over the next few nights, and you’ll see Humboldtianum slowly disappear in the last days of the month. By the 30th, Lacus Spei and Endymion will appear at the very edge of the disk.
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> Friday, November 27
>    Since last night, the Moon has crossed out of Pisces and traveled through the corner of Cetus, where it passed 3° south of Uranus at noon EST. By sunset in the Midwest, our satellite is now in Aries, about 4.5° southeast of the ice giant.
>    Uranus, currently magnitude 5.7, is visible in binoculars but may be hard to spot against our satellite’s glare. Just over 14° north-northwest of the Moon is Hamal, the Ram’s brightest star; 9.5° southeast is Menkar in Cetus the Whale. Look east-northeast of the Moon to find the Pleiades (M45); how many stars can you see without optical aid? Most observers can easily see five, but seven are visible for those with sharp eyes or dark skies. For the latter, you’ll need to wait a few more nights to give the Moon time to move away from the region. Some experienced naked-eye observers have seen 10 or more stars in this open cluster under the right conditions.
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> Scientists have uncovered new evidence in the mysterious fluorescent debris of the Blue Ring Nebula that may explain how the strange structure formed.
>    The Blue Ring Nebula is a planetary nebula that harbors a central star, known as TYC 2597-735-1. An unusual ultraviolet ring surrounds the star, which astronomers first observed in 2004 using NASA's now-defunct Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX) space telescope. Until now, the formation of this peculiar ring — which is actually invisible ultraviolet light that has been color-coded blue in the telescope images — has largely remained a mystery.
>    “Every time we thought we had this thing figured out, something would tell us, 'No, that's not right,'" Mark Seibert, an astrophysicist with the Carnegie Institution for Science, a member of the GALEX team and a co-author on the new research, said in a statement. "That's a scary thing as a scientist. But I also love how unique this object is, and the effort that so many people put in to figure it out."
https://phys.org/news/2020-11-mysterious-blue-nebula-scientists-fate.html
>    The Blue Ring Nebula is believed to have formed after a stellar collision, which ejected a cloud of hot debris into space. These emissions appear to form a ring around the nebula's central star, as the outflow of material forms a cone shape and the base of one of the cones is oriented almost directly toward Earth.
(Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/M. Seibert (Carnegie Institution for Science)/K. Hoadley (Caltech)/GALEX Team)
>    Using the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii, researchers found that the blue ring is actually the base of a cone-shaped cloud of glowing molecular hydrogen that extends away from the central star, toward Earth. The new observations also show a second cone-shaped cloud that extends from the star in the opposite direction.
>    The bases of the cone-shaped clouds appear to overlap when viewed from Earth, creating the ring shape around the star, Christopher Martin, a physicist at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and former principal investigator of GALEX, said in a news conference held digitally on Tuesday (Nov. 17), before the research was made public.
>    The scientists behind the new research believe that the clouds of fluorescent debris formed after a sunlike star collided with and consumed a smaller stellar companion only a few thousand years ago. The recent observations capture a never-before-seen evolutionary phase of a stellar collision.
>    The stellar collision ejected a cloud of hot debris into space. As the debris flew outward, it created a shock wave that, in turn, heated up hydrogen molecules in the debris cloud, producing the ultraviolet emissions scientists first observed back in 2004.
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> Scientists are trying to make sense of a physics-altering collision.
>    Roughly seven billion years ago, two monstrous black holes slammed together in a catastrophic celestial event so intense, it shot a pulse of gravitational waves out across the universe. Astonishingly, those gravitational waves only reached Earth one year ago, and astronomers now believe they've spotted the most powerful black hole collision yet: an event they've dubbed GW190521.
>    Researchers at the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) in the U.S. and the Virgo Observatory in Italy first detected the waves—ripples in the fabric of space-time—in May 2019. The two smashed black holes at the heart of the collision were 66 and 85 times more massive than our sun, astronomers report in two papers published last week in Physical Review Letters and The Astrophysical Journal. When they collided, they formed a gargantuan black hole approximately 142 times more massive than our sun.
>    Not only is this likely the most powerful explosion ever recorded, but it proves the existence of a rare class of black holes: intermediate-mass black holes. “Now we can settle the case and say that intermediate-mass black holes exist,” LIGO astrophysicist Christopher Berry of Northwestern University, told National Geographic.
>    A black hole 85 times the mass of our sun theoretically shouldn't exist. It doesn't pair well with the theories researchers have about how stars die. Stars that range from a few times to 60 times the mass of our sun typically burn all of their fuel and eventually collapse in on themselves, forming a "conventional" black hole.
> Stars that are about 60 to 130 times more massive than our sun go out with a bang, but they usually don't become black holes. Instead, they form something called a pair-instability supernova. The heat that occurs during the star's compression is so powerful, all of the material ejected is destroyed. According to the current theory, it simply can't become a black hole. (Supermassive black holes, like the one photographed at the center of M87, form from stars millions to billions the mass of our sun.)

download the attached audio file to play the show (ads removed) ~47:30 length; let me know if it plays well for you.  I amplified this version as it seemed the show was a bit low in recorded volume.

JerryW's agenda for the show:
On 11/7/2020 9:49 PM, Jerry wrote:
> Comet Alert
>    Comet C/2020 M3 (ATLAS) glides between Orion the Hunter’s three-star belt and his left knee, magnitude 0.2 Rigel, tonight. After dark, step outside to find the comet just 1° south-southwest of magnitude 3.4 Eta (η) Orionis. According to the Comet Observation database, ATLAS is roughly magnitude 8 — viewable with binoculars or a small telescope. Its coma stretches about 8' across. For the best visibility, consider staying out overnight and watching it into the early morning hours this week.
>    This comet is moving quickly through Orion from night to night, and it’s headed north for a rendezvous with Bellatrix next week. ATLAS has already made its closest approach to the Sun (October 25) and will make its closest approach to Earth on the 14th, when it comes within 0.4 astronomical units of our planet. (One astronomical unit is the average Earth-Sun distance.)
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Monday, November 9
>    At the feet of the well-known constellation Orion sits Lepus the Hare. Formed by roughly a dozen stars, this dim figure fully clears the horizon just before 10 P.M. local time and is visible even from suburban locations. Some stories depict Lepus as being hunted by the Hunter or his dogs, Canis Major and Canis Minor — and you’ll see the two hounds clearing the horizon shortly after. But alternate tales claim Lepus crouches at Orion’s feet for protection from other hunters that might consider him prey.
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>    The constellation’s brightest (alpha) star, magnitude 2.6 Arneb, is about 9° southwest of Orion’s right knee, Saiph. (His left knee, Rigel, is much brighter.) But through binoculars, magnitude 3.6 Gamma (γ) Leporis might be the most distinct of Lepus’ stars, with a companion star glowing at magnitude 6 just 97" to the north. The two are slightly different colors, with brighter Gamma A appearing yellower than dimmer Gamma B, which looks more orange.
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>    Nearby is M79, a globular cluster that sits a little less than 4° south of Nihal (Beta [β] Leporis). One of the few good winter-sky globulars, this densely packed group of some 100,000 stars may once have been part of the Canis Major Dwarf Galaxy — the closest galaxy to the Milky Way that astronomers have found to date.
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> Tuesday, November 10
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>    Mercury reaches greatest western elongation (19°) from the Sun at noon EST today. The planet is an early morning object, rising about an hour and a half before the Sun. Today, it’s glowing at magnitude –0.5 and is roughly 13° high by 6:15 A.M. local time. Above it, the bright planet Venus is 25° high. With optical aid, you’ll see that Mercury is nearly 60 percent lit and spans 7". Venus, which stretches 13" across, is 84% lit.
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>    We’ll check back in with these planets later in the week, when the crescent Moon joins them. Our satellite isn’t hard to find, though — it’s northwest of the planets, higher in the sky as it floats near the hindquarters of Leo the Lion. The Moon is positioned this morning on a line drawn between Iota (ι) and Rho (ρ) Leonis, both magnitude 4, and sits south-southwest of the magnitude 3 star Chertan.
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> Wednesday, November 11
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>    Even as the Leonid meteor shower is ramping up for a treat later this month, the lesser-known Northern Taurid meteor shower peaks overnight tonight and into tomorrow morning. These meteors are debris left by Comet 2P/Encke; they zip through our atmosphere at about 18 miles (29 km) per second. Observers can expect to spot roughly five to 10 meteors per hour during the shower’s peak. Admittedly, that’s not much more than the average background rate of meteors (seven per hour) this time of year, but bright fireballs are more likely during showers.
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>    The best time to look for shower meteors is late tonight and early tomorrow morning, when Taurus is high in the sky. You’ll find the radiant about 2.5° southeast of the familiar Pleiades (M45). Even if the Northern Taurids put on a poor show, this beautiful open cluster is a rich region to explore with binoculars or any size scope. With the Moon a mere 15 percent lit, it’s also a great night to see if you can spot any nebulosity between the cluster’s brightest stars. This dim, wispy glow comes from gas and dust that reflects, rather than absorbs, the nearby starlight.
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> Thursday, November 12
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>    The Moon passes 3° north of Venus at 1 P.M. PST. A little more than two hours before dawn, eager skywatchers will find them rising in the east, just over 6° apart. Venus is blazingly bright at magnitude –4 and sits very close to magnitude 4.4 Theta (θ) Virginis in Virgo the Maiden. The two are less than 0.5° apart.
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>    Before the sky grows too light, look North of Virgo for the Big and Little Dippers — both asterisms within the larger Ursa Major and Ursa Minor constellations, respectively. This morning, the Little Dipper appears upright, which means the Big Dipper appears nearly upside-down. As you look north, you’ll see the Big Dipper to the upper right of its littler counterpart. Directly beneath the Little Dipper is the twisting form of Draco the Dragon, whose alpha star Thuban (located about 10° south of the right-hand edge of the Little Dipper’s cup) once sat above Earth’s north pole as its pole star.
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> Friday, November 13
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>    The Moon passes 1.7° north of Mercury at 1 P.M. PST. Catch the pair in the hour or so before sunrise this morning in Virgo, where they’re rising in the east, preceding our star. At that time, the delicate crescent Moon stands 5° above Mercury, which glows an easy magnitude –0.7, only slightly dimmer than it appeared just days ago. Mercury now sits just 2° west of magnitude 4 Kappa (κ) Virginis.
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>    Nearby is blazingly bright Venus, now about 1.5° southeast of Theta Virginis. Glance down a bit and you won’t be able to miss Spica, Virgo’s brightest star (magnitude 1). You should be able to follow the scene well into morning twilight.
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> Mysteries Beyond Neptune.
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>    Astronomers have discovered 139 new minor planets orbiting the Sun beyond Neptune by searching through data from the Dark Energy Survey. The new method for spotting small worlds is expected to reveal many thousands of distant objects in coming years — meaning these first hundred or so are likely just the tip of the iceberg.
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>    Taken together, the newfound distant objects, as well as those to come, could resolve one of the most fascinating questions of modern astronomy: Is there a massive and mysterious world called Planet Nine lurking in the outskirts of our solar system?
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>    Neptune orbits the Sun at a distance of about 30 astronomical units (AU; where 1 AU is the Earth-Sun distance). Beyond Neptune lies the Kuiper Belt — a comet-rich band of frozen, rocky objects (including Pluto) that holds dozens to hundreds of times more mass than the asteroid belt. Both within the Kuiper Belt and past its outer edge at 50 AU orbit distant bodies called trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs). Currently, we know of nearly 3,000 TNOs in the solar system, but estimates put the total number closer to 100,000.
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>    As more and more TNOs have been discovered over the years, some astronomers — including Konstantin Batygin and Mike Brown of Caltech — have noticed a small subset of these objects have peculiar orbits. They seem to bunch up in unexpected ways, as if an unseen object is herding these so-called extreme TNOs (eTNOs) into specific orbits. Batygin and Brown — in addition to other groups, like that led by Scott Sheppard of the Carnegie Institution for Science — think these bizarrely orbiting eTNOs point to the existence of a massive, distant world called Planet Nine.
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>    Hypothesized to be five to 15 times the mass of Earth and to orbit some 400 AU (or farther) from the Sun, the proposed Planet Nine would have enough of a gravitational pull that it could orchestrate the orbits of the eTNOs, causing them to cluster together as they make their closest approaches to the Sun.
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>    The problem is that the evidence for Planet Nine is so far indirect and sparse. There could be something else that explains the clumped orbits, or perhaps researchers stumbled on a few objects that just happen to have similar orbits. Discovering more TNOs, particularly beyond the Kuiper Belt, will allow astronomers to find more clues that could point to the location of the proposed Planet Nine — or deny its existence altogether. Of the 139 newly discovered minor planets found in this study, seven are eTNOs, which is a significant addition to a list that numbered around a dozen just a few months ago.
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>    The new TNOs were found by astronomers at the University of Pennsylvania using data from the Dark Energy Survey (DES), which was not originally designed to look for distant minor planets.
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>    Unfortunately, the new objects don’t yet lead to anything conclusive about Planet Nine. The researchers released early results analyzing whether the orbits of the seven newfound eTNOs support the clustering pattern that points to Planet Nine, but so far, they’ve turned up nothing.
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>    “If this were the first dataset that came out, then no one would have come up with the Planet Nine hypothesis because there appears to be no clustering [in the orbits of the new eTNOs],” says Sako. However, he adds that this doesn’t disprove the existence of Planet Nine either. Their method could uncover other eTNOs that do support the proposed Planet Nine — or even spot the object itself.
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> Snoopy, Where are you?
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>    All but one of the Apollo program’s used lunar modules either crashed into the Moon’s surface or burned up in Earth’s atmosphere. Apollo 10’s lunar module, Snoopy, is still out there, drifting aimlessly around the solar system, waiting for some future exo-archaeologist to snatch it up for display at the Smithsonian.
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>    The mission was designed as a rehearsal for the main event on the Moon, but it set records of its own. History glazes over Apollo 10 because of the significance of what followed; however, the crew completed the same tasks as Apollo 11 (minus landing on the Moon).
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>    And they used Snoopy, the lunar module, as well as Charlie Brown, the command module, to travel farther and faster than any humans have before or since.
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>    During the mission, Snoopy was jettisoned into space as planned and would have entered orbit around the Sun. However, its location remains a mystery despite efforts by amateur astronomers to search for it using the last known 1969 orbital coordinates. They identified a number of target sites, but so far they’ve been unsuccessful.
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>    Interestingly, many of the other landers’ exact lunar impact sites — including Apollo 11’s Eagle — are also a mystery that future space explorers may someday find and excavate, like underwater archaeologists uncovering Amelia Earhart’s Lockheed Electra.
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> Seeding Life on Earth?
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>    A meteorite that landed on a frozen lake in 2018 contains thousands of organic compounds that formed billions of years ago and could hold clues about the origins of life on Earth.
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>    The meteor entered Earth's atmosphere on Jan. 16, 2018, after a very long journey through the freezing vacuum of space, lighting up skies over Ontario, Canada, and the midwestern United States. Weather radar tracked the flaming space rock's descent and breakup, helping meteorite hunters to quickly locate fallen fragments on Strawberry Lake in Hamburg, Michigan.
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>    The meteorite held 2,600 organic, or carbon-containing compounds, the researchers reported in the study. Because the meteorite was mostly unchanged since 4.5 billion years ago, these compounds likely are similar to the ones that other meteorites brought to a young Earth, some of which "might have been incorporated into life," Heck said.
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>    The transformation from extraterrestrial organic compounds into the first microbial life on Earth is "a big step" that is still shrouded in mystery, but evidence suggests that organics are common in meteorites — even in thermally metamorphosed meteorites such as the one that landed in Michigan, he added. Meteor bombardment was also more frequent for a young Earth than it is today, "so we are pretty certain that the input from meteorites into the organic inventory on Earth was important," for seeding life.
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> Sent from my iPad