Astronomy - March 2017

EXPLODING STAR! A look back at Supernova 1987A p.
28
MARCH 2017
The worlds best-selling astronomy magazine
THE NEED
FOR SPEED
How hypervelocity stars
escape the galaxy p. 22
TIPS for
observing
edge-on
galaxies p. 50
BOB BERMAN
Going for Oscar gold p. 10
www.Astronomy.com
EXPERT ADVICE BONUS
Vol. 45
How to care for your telescope p. 54

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CONTENT
Issue 3
BETTER COSMIC PHOTOS

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MARCH 2017
VOL. 45, NO. 3
ASTRONOMY: ROEN KELLY

ON THE COVER
Flung out by the supermassive
black hole at the center of the
Milky Way, a hypervelocity star
shoots far outside the galaxy.
CONTENTS
FEATURES
28 COLUMNS
Strange Universe 10
BOB BERMAN
22 COVER STORY 38 54 For Your Consideration 18

JEFF HESTER
How high-speed stars StarDome and How to care for
escape the galaxy Path of the Planets your telescope Secret Sky 20
Astronomers have found RICHARD TALCOTT; It only takes a little time now and STEPHEN JAMES OMEARA
dozens of them on a one-way ILLUSTRATIONS BY ROEN KELLY then to ensure your window to Observing Basics 64
trip to intergalactic space. the universe is working at its best. GLENN CHAPLE
BRUCE DORMINEY 44 PHIL HARRINGTON
The past, present, Astro Sketching 66
ERIKA RIX
28 and future of 58
Supernova 1987A: astronomy in Japan Turn your smartphone Binocular Universe 68
30 years later A rich tradition keeps Japanese into an astro-camera PHIL HARRINGTON
When a blue supergiant star lit astronomy on a path to You dont need a pricey rig to
pioneering new eras.
up the southern sky, astronomers
ILIMA LOOMIS
capture the cosmos. All you QUANTUM GRAVITY
used it to learn how massive stars need is your cellphone and some
explode. LIZ KRUESI inexpensive equipment.
Snapshot 8
50 TOM TRUSOCK Astro News 12
34 Observing on the edge
Ask Astro Galaxies showing their edges 62 IN EVERY ISSUE
Planet Nine effect? expose dust lanes, central hubs, We test From the Editor 6
and other intriguing details you Sky-Watcher USAs
36 can view through a scope. TEXT Astro Letters 9
new compound scope
Sky This Month AND IMAGES BY ROD POMMIER
This 7-inch Maksutov- New Products 67
The Moon hides Aldebaran. Newtonian provides tack-sharp Reader Gallery 70
MARTIN RATCLIFFE AND stars all across the field of view.
Advertiser Index 73
ALISTER LING PHIL HARRINGTON
Breakthrough 74
ONLINE Astronomy (ISSN 0091-6358, USPS 531-350) is

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4 A ST R O N O M Y MA R C H 2017
FROM THE EDITOR
BY DAV I D J. E I C H E R
Editor David J. Eicher
Art Director LuAnn Williams Belter
EDITORIAL
Story of a
Managing Editor Kathi Kube
Senior Editors Michael E. Bakich, Richard Talcott
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supernova
ART
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Adam Frank, John S. Gallagher lll, Daniel W. E. Green, William K.
Hartmann, Paul Hodge, Anne L. Kinney, Edward Kolb,
T
hirty years ago, a provide a far more dramatic elements into heavier ones. Stephen P. Maran, Brian May, S. Alan Stern, James Trefil
massive star exploded sight and better data. But it So as you read the story on
in a nearby galaxy, was an explosive ahem Supernova 1987A, consider Kalmbach Publishing Co.
the Large Magellanic event for understanding that many of the elements in Senior Vice President, Sales & Marketing Daniel R. Lance
Vice President, Content Stephen C. George
Cloud. What fol- how massive stars die. In your body argon, calcium, Vice President, Consumer Marketing Nicole McGuire
lowed over weeks, beginning Supernova 1987A: 30 years chromium, cobalt, iron, Corporate Art Director Maureen M. Schimmel
Art and Production Manager Michael Soliday
February 24, 1987, was a later, Contributing Editor manganese, nickel, silicon, Corporate Advertising Director Ann E. Smith
Single Copy Specialist Kim Redmond
naked-eye object visible in Liz Kruesi describes the dra- and sulfur among them
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the Southern Hemisphere, matic story of Supernova were created in these mas- (888) 558-1544
the dazzlingly brilliant light 1987A and how it rewrote sive stellar explosions. You Advertising Sales Manager Steve Meni
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from a star torn asunder. our understanding of how would not be here except for Dina Johnston, [email protected]
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At a distance of 168,000 liseconds that created a mas- of the astronomy world
light-years, within the LMC, sive explosion. Such an event 30 years ago, as it reminded
Supernova 1987A was not the is among the most energetic us that we are all tied
next Milky Way supernova, known in the universe, save together in the chemistry
the Holy Grail that some for the Big Bang itself. of the universe.
stellar astronomers seek. A As far back as 1954, the
Milky Way supernova could English astronomer Fred Yours truly, Follow Astronomy
be hundreds or thousands of Hoyle proposed that such
light-years away and would exploding stars fuse lighter
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AstronomyMag AstronomyMagazine +astronomymagazine
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Editor
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10. Verbs in the Future & Aorist Tenses
11. First-Declension Masculine Nouns
12. The Root Aorist
13. Third-Declension Nouns
14. Understanding Dactylic Hexameter
15. Practicing Dactylic Hexameter
16. The Middle/Passive Voice: Present & Future
17. Aorist & Imperfect Middle/Passive
18. Perfect & Pluperfect Active
19. Forming and Using Innitives
20. Active Participles
21. Middle/Passive Participles
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TRENDING
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BOOM OR BUST
in Mexico may have

GRAVITY
EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE UNIVERSE THIS MONTH . . .
The Chicxulub impact
been ground zero for

dino-deaths, but it may
also have sheltered
UP, UP, AND AWAY
The GOES-R satellite
launched November
19 into geostationary
orbit to study weather
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JUST ONE LOOK
A group called Project
Blue hopes to directly
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Alpha Centauri A or B.
To date, no such planet
smaller mammalian life. better forecasting. has been confirmed.
SNAPSHOT
A universe
with 10
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TONY HALLAS; TOP FROM LEFT: KEN THOMAS (CREATIVE COMMONS); NASA/NOAA; EUROPEAN SOUTHERN OBSERVATORY
galaxies
A stunning news story
proposes at least 1 trillion
galaxies inhabit the cosmos.
The year 2016 was a big one for

astronomical news. Following
gravitational waves, a planet orbit-
ing Proxima Centauri, and more,
came news that the estimated
number of galaxies in the cosmos
may have been woefully low.
Years ago, astronomers
studied the Hubble Deep Field
and extrapolated galaxy counts
to work out an estimate of per-
haps 100 billion galaxies in the
universe. In late 2016, astrono-
mer Chris Conselice of the
University of Nottingham con- The beautiful face-on spiral galaxy IC 342, lying only about 11 million light-years away, is awash in a sea of a trillion or more galaxies.
ducted a new study of galaxy
densities using newer Hubble galaxies of various masses versus the count comes to at least 1 tril- closer (later) universe, meaning
Deep Field exposures. their distances from Earth. Then lion galaxies, and perhaps that fewer galaxies exist now
Conselice and his team were they multiplied the galaxy count upward of 2 trillion. than did long ago.
able to count galaxies in these to account for galaxies that Of course, as they look farther The astronomers can conser-
fields out to approximately would be too small and faint to out in greater precision, the vatively say that their new num-
13 billion light-years, about a image in the Hubble exposures, larger numbers of galaxies that ber increases the numbers of
billion light-years more distant but that logically ought to exist. existed in the distant (early) uni- galaxies thought to exist by a
than the older estimates permit- In a paper accepted for publica- verse would mostly have merged factor of 10. Now that is a big
ted. They plotted the numbers of tion in The Astrophysical Journal, by gravitational attraction in the story. David J. Eicher
ASTROLETTERS
A sizable victory equally lamentable to the assigned forced
I really enjoyed the article Sizing up credit displacing Fritz Zwicky. The
Space Rocks by Michael Carroll in the advancement of bringing the gravitational
November issue (p. 30). Im an engineer, phenomena of dark matter to light and
and I usually can estimate (and imag- into the modern consciousness of physi-
ine) sizes of things in both systems of cists worldwide would have regardless
units, English and SI, but it is only after been unsealed from the echoes of my
reading this story that I could truly fathers original work in 1933.
appreciate the size of comets and aster- Fritz Zwicky: I consequently engaged
oids. Before this, saying that an asteroid in the application of certain simple general
160 feet across crashed into the Arizona principles of morphological research, and
desert never really struck a chord with in particular the method of Directed
me. Carrolls cleverly scaled photograph Intuition that would allow me to predict
of two asteroids superimposed on a and visualize the existence of as yet
sports stadium was revealing enough, unknown cosmic objects and phenomena.
but the photo on the next page of Comet Zwickys eidolon was realized from the
Hartley in scale with the Eiffel Tower results of his observations and published
really blew my mind! The last photo of in the 1933 article Die Rotverschiebung
an assortment of known asteroids and von extragalaktischen Nebeln in Helvetica
comets on a tablecloth was really quite Physica Acta. Zwicky discovered dark
illuminating. This was an excellent way matter and coined the term dunkle (kalte)
to show how big these things really are Materie (cold dark matter) in this arti-
and the impact they could have. Bob cle. The mass-radial acceleration discrep-
Found, Indian Harbour, Nova Scotia, Canada ancy by measuring the speeds of galaxies
in the Coma Cluster originated with
Zwicky, not Rubin, as using the more chal-
Crediting Rubin is lamentable lenging methodology of the virial theo-
History tells us that prophets are perse- rem, by relating the total average kinetic
cuted during their lifetime, only to have energy and the total average potential
their prescient theorems realized and energy of the galaxies of the Coma Cluster.
acknowledged by the prevailing hierar- He advanced that the virial for a pair of
chy decades or centuries later. The surety orbiting masses is zero, and he used the
for the powers of intellectual obfusca- principle of superposition to craft the
tion are twofold, literary malefic of the argument to a system of interacting mass
prophet or the assignment of credit post- points. Zwicky then used the position and
humously to a masquerader of their time. velocity measurements to determine the
The assignment of forced credit to mass of the galaxy cluster. Barbarina
Vera Rubin as the authentic discoverer of Zwicky, Palm Springs, CA
dark matter (June 2016 issue, p. 26) is not
only errantly untrue but lamentable in
light of the hostile established guard Software solution
advancing this fallacy, that was resistant In the article, Meet the next generation
to my father in his time, advancing liter- space telescope by Korey Haynes in the
ary assaults which became as common as May 2016 issue (p. 52), ways to block the
grains of sand, but were equally unstable, central stars light are discussed. There is
holding no structure and thus becoming an extremely simple way to achieve the Keeping it Beautifully Simple
dissolute with the tide and time. coronagraph effect. Software can be writ- Almost Zero Add-Ons... Robotic right out of the box
To ascribe credit to Rubin as the dis- ten to provide the observer with a virtual, Almost Zero Installation... Takes hours not months
coverer of dark matter pollutes the real steerable, variable-diameter black spot
contribution of her lifes work, which is that would be moved by the observer to
appear to overlay the central star and the
We welcome your comments at diameter adjusted to just cover the star.
Astronomy Letters, P. O. Box 1612, That is a mechanism so that the software
Waukesha, WI 53187; or email to letters@ processing the telescope image would
astronomy.com. Please include your report any pixels within the black spot
name, city, state, and country. Letters as black, and would thereby result in sup-
may be edited for space and clarity. pressing the central stars light. Bryan
Hennington, Oceanside, CA
[email protected]
949.215.3777 www.astrohaven.com
W W W.ASTR ONOMY.COM 9
STRANGEUNIVERSE
BY BOB BERMAN
Going for gold
ERASHOV | DREAMSTIME.COM (STATUE); TONY HALLAS (M78)

What Hollywood can teach us about putting on
a spectacular show for budding amateur astronomers.
A
s we reach Oscar Hollywood perfected the
time late secrets of a good show long
February or ago. They can work for us, too.
early March You want to wow them, teach
the lessons of them, entertain them. In our because theres some the spiral arms or dust
Hollywood come to mind. We smartphone age, fewer and crazy vibe or essence lane, tell them that many
did a big article on this some fewer young people do hands- when gazing directly at it people cant see it, and
20 years ago and felt honored on activities like canoeing or that no photo can capture. teach them about averted
to get praise from famed bird-watching. You are compet- Plan on showing five or vision. Shazam! When
comet hunter David Levy and ing with the universe on their six objects. Then end it. they do see those features,
others. So lets go there again, little screens. Theyve already You want them to go away theyll shout, I see the
with some new suggestions. seen glorious Hubble images. wanting more, craving more dust lane! Theyll have a
The idea is simple. Most Can you top that? (Yes, you astronomy. Leave them a sense of accomplishment.
backyard astronomers excit- can, but you must know how!) little hungry. Without any prep, they may
edly show their favorite celes- Their experience will be a Revolve your menu around instead merely mumble,
tial wonders to family, friends function of what they expect diversity. With, say, an Um, that blob near the
or even visiting school groups. versus what they actually see in 8-inch telescope, your bottom, is that what
Its memorable for everyone, your telescope. For example, greatest wow objects Im supposed to be
and it promotes astronomy. theyve seen astonishing maga- are a globular cluster seeing? and youve
Our issue: Can you improve zine and online images of the like the Hercules blown it.
your telescope show so that Andromeda Galaxy (M31) and Cluster, the Orion Now for that
your visitors are Mars. But Nebula, the Moon change-of-pace
even more turned through your when its between object some-
on to science? If START scope, M31 is a six and 11 days old, thing very differ-
so, it could WITH A BRIGHT smudge, and Saturn, Jupiter, a low-power ent, to keep them intrigued and
change young KNOCKOUT Mars is a tiny treat like open cluster M35, a entertained. Me, I attach a spec-
minds and per- TREAT, LIKE THE jiggling blur. You colorful double star like troscope and show them a
bright star, usually spectral
haps launch a cannot wow Albireo, and one secret esoteric
lifelong hobby, or
MOON OR them with these. goodie, which well get to in a class A, like Vega or Sirius.
even a career SATURN, AND Dont try. They moment. All of these look fine Whoa! Gorgeous super-intense
choice. School PLAN TO FINISH know nothing in less-than-perfect skies, colors unlike anything else.
kids dont get WITH YOUR about astropho- which is probably what you And those obvious black hydro-
telescope tours FAVORITE tographys have. gen lines let you explain that
very often. This
might be the only
OBJECT. advantages, so
theyll merely
Start with a bright knockout
treat, like the Moon or Saturn,
this is how astronomers know
what stars are made of. Their
occasion of their think your tele- and plan to finish with your jaws will drop.
childhood. Make it count! scope is pathetic. Never show favorite object. Thats right, Or you might pass around
Ill be blunt: Most backyard either of those objects, ever. save the best for last. In binoculars and have them look
astronomers offer only an OK (Well, not quite never. If Mars Hollywood, the climax always at the Pleiades. Be sure to nar-
presentation. The biggest mis- is within two months of opposi- has the biggest, most expensive rate it with some of M45s cool
take is showing their favorite tion and you have a rare per- action. Leave them smiling. lore and legend. Then show
objects first, then turning to fectly steady night, go for it. But In between, vary the action. your best object and say good
ever-fainter targets and not thats still essentially never.) At one point you can do a faint night. Theyll be hooked.
wrapping it up until the crowd Instead, choose an object target, but prep them for it And youll have earned that
gets restless. The astronomer theyve never seen. Then your first. If you have a 12-inch Oscar.
might wave goodbye saying, image wont fail due to com- scope, then sure, go for the
Lets do this again sometime! parisons or expectations. The Whirlpool Galaxy or NGC Contact me about
But for most of the kids, its big exception is Saturn. It reli- 4565. But first show them a my strange universe by visiting
http://skymanbob.com.
now, Been there, done that. ably astonishes at the eyepiece photo of it; prepare them for
BROWSE THE STRANGE UNIVERSE ARCHIVE AT www.Astronomy.com/Berman.
2017
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ASTRONEWS MAKING JUPITER. Astronomers tested two different ideas about planetary formation for gas giants and showed that the
bottom-up method seems more likely, based on temperatures predicted by their simulations and observed in real systems.
JACK-O-
LANTERN. Some
stars rotate so fast
that they bulge
at the equator,
earning the name
pumpkin stars.
Such is the case
with KSw71, which
rotates every 5.5 days
and is 10.5 times the
size of the Sun. NASA
PUMPKIN STARS CARVE OUT A NICHE IN THE UNIVERSE

N
ot all objects are created equally periods of rotation. On average, one of be entering their giant phase, when
round. Recent observations by these stars rotates on its axis every 5.5 days. hydrogen depletes and the stars expand
NASAs Kepler and Swift space (By comparison, the Sun rotates every outward, just as the Sun will do someday.
observatories found 18 stars that 24.5 days.) The process creates brilliant Current modeling suggests that these
have taken on the name pumpkin stars, X-ray emissions far outstripping the Suns. stars form when two Sun-like stars are in
thanks to their unusual shapes. The find- At the same time, this rapid spinning such a tight orbit around each other that
ings were published October 25 in The affects the shape of the star, causing it to they become one star, destabilizing the
Astrophysical Journal. bulge at the equator. rotation in the process. Researchers believe
As it turns out, pumpkin stars take on Most of the stars are between 2.5 and 10 160 of these pumpkin stars may have been
their oblong shape because of their short times the size of the Sun. Most also seem to spotted in Kepler observations. John Wenz
THREE DEGREES OF SEPARATION BRIEFCASE

AURIGA JIGSAW
CONSTELLATIONS. JAPANS NEUTRINO DETECTOR
Youve heard of six degrees
Ecliptic TAURUS of separation, the theory
GETS A BIG UPGRADE
The Kamioka Observatory, run by the University of
that everyone on Earth can
Tokyo and the Institute for Cosmic Ray Research,
be connected to anyone
recently received a big computing upgrade that could
Aldebaran else through no more than
serve as an early detector for supernova. Neutrinos,
five intermediaries. Well,
which are small, weakly interacting particles, are pro-
GEMINI how many constellations
duced by supernovae. Since few supernovae explode
do you have to traverse to
per century in Milky Way-like galaxies, an early warning
ORION link with one that the
system can help ensure the observatory can spot the
ecliptic passes through?
Betelgeuse elusive particles.
Thirteen constellations
contain a segment of the
ecliptic, 35 lie one constel-

MICROLENSING EVENT HELPS FIND
lation away, 31 are sepa- AN UNUSUAL FAILED STAR
rated by two star groups, Researchers know of plenty of brown dwarfs
MONO CEROS Rigel and just nine have three a class of objects between gas giants and stars
degrees of separation. The but seeing one is fairly hard, since they give off only a
closest of these to the faint amount of light. But a microlensing event, which
celestial equator is curves space-time so that distant objects temporarily
Sirius ERIDANUS Columba, which has multi- appear nearer, led to the discovery of a brown dwarf
ple paths to either Gemini orbiting a star in an area called the brown dwarf des-
or Taurus. Rich Talcott ert, a distance of 3 astronomical units where no brown
dwarfs to date had been found.
CANIS
MAJOR
LEPUS
FAST
SUBARU TELESCOPE CAN NOW LOOK
FACT INTO EXOPLANET ATMOSPHERES
Thanks to the addition of the Coronagraphic High
Angular Resolution Imaging Spectrograph, the Subaru
Of the nine
C OLUMBA constellations that Telescope atop Mauna Kea, Hawaii, can view nearby
PUPPIS CAELUM exoplanets and characterize their atmospheres, and
require three hops
provide other data about the planets such as refined
from the ecliptic,
mass estimates. This could help in the quest to find a
only two Cepheus truly Earth-like planet. J. W.
and Ursa Minor lie
in the northern sky.
ASTRONEWS RING ORIGINS. Theorists predict that rings around the outer planets are likely due to those worlds capturing Kuiper
Belt objects and destroying them, and that such destruction is common in most planetary systems.
QUICK TAKES
Plutos slushy heart contains a large ocean MOON IMPACTS
The heart-shaped region on Pluto,
Sputnik Planum, holds a secret to The GRAIL lunar mission
a violent past: It may have been studied the detailed gravita-
tional environment around
formed by a head-on collision with
Orientale Basin to under-
a 125-mile-wide object, leaving a stand how the enormous
slushy liquid ocean behind. impact that formed it
Whats more, the incident was so affected the local area and
violent that it tilted the dwarf planet, deformed the lunar surface in
putting the Sputnik Planum area ways normally invisible.
roughly on Plutos equator. This vio-
lent incident may have also shep-
LUNAR ORBIT
herded Charon into its strange orbit. A new model for the Moons
In a paper published November 16 violent formation describes
in Nature, researchers came close to both Earth and the Moon tak-
solving a mystery of Charons orbit. ing on strange orbits, which
Prior to the New Horizons mission, have since smoothed into the
Hubble data provided a rough idea of partnership present today.
Plutos surface topography, including
a smudgy outline of what we now

TEST RUN
know as Sputnik Planum. Sputnik NASA and the Federal
Planum lies directly opposite of Emergency Management
Charon, since Pluto and Charon are Agency teamed up for an
similar enough in size that one side PUSH AND PULL. The Sputnik Planum area of Pluto, a nitrogen glacier floating in a emergency exercise to test
always faces the other. slushy water-ammonia ocean, tugs more heavily than the rest of the surface on Charon, preparedness for an asteroid
The presence of the ocean and its Plutos largest moon. Some astronomers consider Pluto and Charon binary dwarf planets impact. The drill simulated
effect on Plutos tilt helps explain this rather than a planet-moon system. NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI how the agencies would
puzzle. The gravitational interaction share information and
respond to the threat.
between Pluto and Charon also may closest size comparison is the Earth- tidally locked to Charon, with the
help explain how the ocean stays liq-
uid. The barycenter the center of
Moon system, but the Moon is small
enough, at about one-quarter the
same face facing Charon at all times
in its three-day cycle.

BREAKTHROUGH
The collision of the 125-mile-wide The Parkes radio telescope in
mass between the two objects size of its parent body, that the bary-
Australia celebrated first light
exists outside either body, creating a center is within Earths mantle, about object may have been responsible for
as part of the Breakthrough
sort of middle ground in the space 1,056 miles [1,700 kilometers] below the formation of Charon and Plutos Listen project to detect
between the two bodies. This is the surface.) four other small moons, all of which alien signals.
because their sizes are similar enough
to each other to create such an effect.
The Sputnik Planum region also
goes through consistent cycles of
seem to be made mostly of water ice
rather than the nitrogen and ammo-
CREATED EQUAL
Charons diameter is a little more sublimation (solids turning directly nia ices mixed with water on Pluto. Outbursts from the birth
than half that of Pluto. (The next into a gas) and refreezing because its J. W. disks around massive stars
prove that they form in ways
similar to lower-mass stars,
Ive got my eye on you, youre everything I see reversing some previous
ideas.

EARTHLY CLUES
A hot spring in Chile is shed-
M. KAUFMAN; B. SAXTON (NRAO/AUI/NSF); ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO); NASA/ESA HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE
ding light on mineral struc-

tures found on Mars in 2007.
In Chile, the structures arise
partly as a result of biological
processes, so researchers are
questioning whether the
same processes are responsi-
ble for the martian
formations.

FAINT LIGHT
Astronomers found a new
record-holder for the faintest
dwarf galaxy orbiting the
Milky Way: Virgo I. Its discov-
ery hints that more might be
lurking unseen.

WATER ON MARS
Mars Utopia Planitia region
has as much water as Lake
Superior in an underground
LOOKING THROUGH YOU. Long ago and far away, the galaxy IC 2163 merged with portions of another galaxy, NGC 2207, in deposit, according to recent
a fashion similar to storms on Earth. NGC 2207 swept by IC 2163, with the latter object nabbing stars and gas. The materials act like data collected by the Mars
a stellar tsunami, crashing into the galaxy and creating this unique shape. As it slows down, clouds of gas become denser. The galaxies Reconnaissance Orbiter.
are about 114 million light-years from Earth. J. W. Korey Haynes
ASTRONEWS IDEAL SPHERE. Most stars are fatter at their equators thanks to the centrifugal force of their spin. Kepler 11145123
rotates so slowly, it is only 1.9 miles (3km) wider than it is tall a record, as far as astronomers can measure.
The mystery of Beagle 2s failure begins to unravel

We may be one step closer to
knowing what happened to the
European Space Agencys Beagle 2
lander in 2003, after it failed to check
in after separating from the Mars
Express Orbiter.
No one knew Beagle 2s fate until
NASAs Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter
spotted it in 2014 and sent home
eight pixelated images from its HiRISE
camera. Unfortunately, the images
shed little light on what happened.
To figure this out, a team led by
Nick Higgett, leader of the Digital
Research Group at De Montfort
University in the U.K., built a 3-D
model of Beagle 2 and tried to
re-create the HiRISE images. Among
the simulated images, two closely
matched the real HiRISE images.
Its hard to tell which of the two
could be the answer, but both show THE END. Beagle 2 could have been a success for the British space community. Instead,
that everything came agonizingly the lander crashed to the martian surface and wasnt heard from again. A team has built a
close to going right for Beagle 2. 3-D model of Beagle 2 and tried to re-create NASA images showing the landers fate. NASA
While the results dont tell us
exactly what happened to the lander, potential problems. or wiring harness.
they narrow it down considerably. The team first needs to figure out Understanding what causes mod-
Knowing that Beagle 2 landed if the landers fourth solar panel els to fail helps researchers make bet-
successfully but simply failed to opened. If it turns out that all four ter spacecraft designs, so figuring out
report back to Mars Express which deployed properly, that narrows the what went wrong with Beagle 2 may
is the most likely result of the simula- list down to just 25 events that could benefit future missions to Mars.
tions rules out most of the 180 have damaged Beagle 2s electronics Nicole Kiefert
Mercury is shrinking
ESO
A new study of a mercurian valley bolsters the
case for Mercury as a shrinking planet. The
studys authors believe the valley likely formed
Planets
in response to global contraction as the planets
interior core cooled, causing the solitary plate that shape
makes up its lithosphere to contract and bend.
Researchers found the valley using a high-
resolution topographic map of Mercurys southern
parent
hemisphere, made from images taken by NASAs
MESSENGER spacecraft.
disks
The valley is 250 miles (400 kilometers) wide, SPIRAL SIGNS. Three
600 miles (1,000km) long, and about 2 miles (3km) different research groups
deep. It extends into the Rembrandt basin, one of using the European
Southern Observatorys
the largest basins on the planet. Two large fault
Very Large Telescope have
scarps surround the valley and, through Mercurys imaged the planet-making
contraction, ended up becoming large cliffs. The disks around stars in three
floor of the valley lies below the terrain, which sci- different systems. These
THE INCREDIBLE SHRINKING PLANET. Mercury is a weird planet, entists believe was lowered by the same method planets, in turn, shape
and it might be the remnants of a much larger planet. As if that werent that created the scarps. their parent disks, carving
enough, this mercurian canyon shows the planet may be contracting, Although the outcome is similar, the process of out paths in the gas and
becoming even smaller. NASA creating canyons and valleys is different between dust, but astronomers are
Earth and Mercury. Unlike Earths Great Rift Valley still working to understand
the details. The three
385
in East Africa, Mercurys Great Valley is not caused
by the pulling apart of lithospheric plates due to systems pictured here
include young and old
The length of the plate tectonics; it is the result of the global contrac-
tion of a shrinking one-plate planet, said Thomas R.
stars, concentric rings,
and asymmetric spiral
newly discovered Watters, senior scientist at the Center for Earth and
Planetary Studies at the Smithsonians National Air
arms. Understanding the
differences and similari-
million
Vela Supercluster, the and Space Museum and lead author of this study.
Although there are examples of lithospheric
ties between the systems
will help researchers
light-years largest found to date. buckling on Earth, this is likely the first to occur on
Mercury, Watters said. N. K.
understand how planetary
systems form. K. H.
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ASTRONEWS SUBSOLAR CYCLE. Astronomers suspect warm, substellar objects called brown dwarfs may undergo magnetic
activity cycles similar to the Sun and other stars based on the polarization of flare events flipping every decade.
Fast radio burst tells its travel story

Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are well named: They occurrence the radio signal traveled for at
are short, bright blips of radio emission that least 1.5 billion years to reach Earth, putting it
appear without warning and disappear within far beyond the Milky Ways boundary.
milliseconds. They are also powerful, arriving This long journey means that the burst car-
from billions of light-years away, and this long ries imprints of its trip. By studying distortions
travel time means they can tell valuable stories in the FRB, astronomers can glean information
about their journey through intergalactic space. about the terrain it passed through. While
On August 7, 2015, astronomers were using most of space is generally empty, there is an
the Parkes radio telescope in Australia to enormous amount of matter spread thinly in
study a pulsar, a rapidly rotating star that the space between galaxies. This material is
gives off radiation in beams like a lighthouse. too cool and diffuse to study by normal astro-
But in the same region of sky, they happened nomical methods, and yet it can explain a lot
to catch FRB 150807, the most powerful FRB about the overall nature of the universe. So an
glimpsed so far. The researchers, led by FRB that tells this story is invaluable.
Vikram Ravi from the California Institute of After its trip, the light from FRB 150807 was
Technology and Ryan Shannon from Curtin only weakly distorted, meaning the intergalac-
University in Australia, published their finding tic medium it traversed for so long was not
November 17 in Science. very turbulent. This is in line with what astrono-
This newest FRB is only the 18th ever dis- mers originally predicted for the thin material
covered, and astronomers still dont know between galaxies, and puts a firm mark against
RADIO TWINKLE. The fast radio burst FRB 150807
what produces the brilliant outbursts. Most theories that call for more choppy currents in shows a range of radio frequencies, shown here by a
never repeat, leading astronomers to surmise intergalactic space. The measurements of rainbow of longer (redder) to shorter (bluer) wavelength
that some cataclysmic event triggers the FRB 150807 also describe a quiet magnetic emission. Time increases from left to right, showing how
bursts. And because they appear for so brief a environment. This rules out some theories that the burst brightens and then fades. The more detailed
time, even pinpointing where these bursts predict FRBs are produced in extreme environ- structure shows the bursts twinkle as the radio emis-
originate has been tricky. The extraordinary ments with strong magnetic fields, but other- sion encounters turbulence in the intergalactic medium
brightness of FRB 150807 helped astronomers wise confirms again that the space between on its way to Earth, much as starlight twinkles thanks to
determine that it is definitely not a local galaxies is quiet. K. H. turbulence in Earths atmosphere. V. RAVI/CALTECH
77 years
old
John Glenns age when he took his second space flight in 1998.
Glenn, a veteran and former senator, died December 8, 2016.
SO LONG, SOLAR SYSTEM

Voyager 1
Jupiter Pioneer 10
Saturn
Ecliptic
ASTRONOMY: ROEN KELLY; FIGURES FROM: HTTPS://THESKYLIVE.COM AND NASA
plane Voyager 1 Pioneer 10 New Horizons

Velocity: 38,610 mph Velocity: 26,900 mph Velocity: 32,055 mph
Pluto (62,137 km/h) (43,291 km/h) (51,588 km/h)
Uranus Distance: 138 AU* Distance: ~116 AU Distance: 37.2 AU
Pioneer 11 Neptune Declination: 11** Declination: 26 Declination: 20
New Right ascension: Right ascension: Right ascension:
Horizons 17h12m 10.0s 05h12m 38.0s 19h02m 45.0s
Constellation: Ophiuchus Constellation: Taurus Constellation: Sagittarius
Launch: September 5, Launch: March 3, 1972 Launch: January 19, 2006
1977 Nearest stellar Nearest stellar
Nearest stellar destination: Aldebaran destination: currently
destination: 1.6 light- system in 2 million years unknown
years of Gliese 445 in
40,000 years Pioneer 11
Velocity: 25,450 mph The ashes of FAST
Voyager 2 Voyager 2 (40,958 km/h) Pluto discoverer FACT
Velocity: 35,970 mph Distance: ~96 AU Clyde Tombaugh
(57,888 km/h) Declination: 8 are aboard
Distance: 114 AU* Right ascension:
GET OUT OF HERE. The final stages of Pioneers 10 and 11, Voyagers 1 and 2, Declination: 57 18h50m 21.0s New Horizons.
and New Horizons are all on escape courses out of the solar system. However, Right ascension: Constellation: Scutum
Jonathan McDowell of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics says 20h00m 40.0s Launch: April 6, 1973
* As of December 14, 2016
that they arent behind their home vehicles in most cases due to correction Constellation: Pavo Nearest stellar **Degrees above or below
maneuvers made by the probes after separation, as well as outgassing from the Launch: August 20, 1977 destination: Lambda the ecliptic in celestial
Nearest stellar Aquila in 4 million years north or south
third-stage separation and any residual fuel burns. There is no tracking data of destination: 1.7 light- *** Will be approximately
the separated final stage usually, so these differences are not only significant years from Ross 248 in 3 light-years from the Sun
but unknown, he says. J. W. 40,000 years*** at this point
FOCUS ON
The Werner Schmidt Observatory
South Yarmouth, MA
The observatory located on the grounds of the Dennis-Yarmouth
Regional High School is the only public observatory on Cape Cod. It
has generated interest in astronomy. The project was funded by the
Cape Cod Astronomical Foundation and built by the Cape Cod
Regional Technical High School students. The building was designed
to provide people with disabilities access via a CCD camera and
monitor screen. It has been a welcome addition
to the educational community.
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FORYOURCONSIDERATION
BY JEFF HESTER
Oklahoma skies To all the amateurs out there, thanks!
OKIE-TEX STAR PARTY

The grounds of the Okie-Tex Star Party near Kenton, Oklahoma, in the states panhandle, offer a setting just right for camaraderie and sharing the wonders of the sky.
S
ome years ago I was still have an 8-inch mirror that I My first darkroom experience remember my own roots, and
at a party when a guy ground and polished by hand came developing Kodak Tri-X to say thanks.
introduced himself sitting in my office. But that film in the sink and making Thats the point of this col-
and said, Wally 6-inch Newtonian is where I cut prints using a slide projector as umn, as well. Were it not for
told me that you like my teeth as an astronomer. an enlarger. So again, my appre- people like many of the readers
astronomy! A mutual friend That is where I got my first ciation was sincere. of Astronomy magazine, my life
knew that he was an amateur experience with astrophotogra- I was appreciative on a would have taken a different
astronomer and had told him, phy. Instead of a drive motor, the deeper level as well. I never course. When your clubs go
You really ought to talk to Jeff right ascension axis of the tele- would have wound up in astron- out and put on public events
Hester. scope was geared with a crank omy without the guidance and and you let kids look through
Astronomy? I replied, that had to be turned by hand at encouragement of amateurs. I your telescopes, your enthusi-
somewhat puckishly. I suppose one revolution per minute for grew up during the space race, asm shines through. That mat-
I have some passing interest in the telescope to track properly. I and was all about rockets and ters. I know, because it
the subject. have fond memories or at astronauts. But what got me mattered to me.
I recognized the look. My least memories of sitting on seriously hooked on astronomy So there it is. Thank you!
new friend beamed! Maybe he frozen ground in the wee hours was a Merit Badge program Back to the party: My new
would get to talk about his pas- of cold Oklahoma winter nights, offered by the Kirkpatrick friend was clearly enjoying his
sion after all, without his family holding a watch next to the tele- Planetarium and taught by audience. His swollen chest
reading him the riot act for kill- scope and turning the crank to members of the Oklahoma City was almost popping buttons as
ing an otherwise perfectly match the motion of the second Astronomy Club. he confided in me that his
enjoyable party! hand. Steve looked through the That program sparked the setup was the envy of his club!
Ive been there. My own pas- eyepiece and made minor interest of our whole troop. We He couldnt quite hide his
sion began as a kid when I first corrections. even went on to win top honors sense of superiority when he
looked through a 3-inch dime- Sometimes Steve played drive at the state Scout-O-Rama for a finally asked, So, what tele-
store refractor in a friends motor and I kept the guide star booth that featured a home- scope do you use?
backyard. I still recall Steve sit- next to the illuminated cross- made planetarium, a selection of I would like to say that I was
ting there proudly in the dark hairs, but Ill be honest. It was telescopes, some astrophotogra- gracious at that point. I prob-
next to his new window on the his telescope, and I usually phy, and a bunch of kids who ably should have thanked him
universe. And the blurry image wound up with the grunt work. knew their stuff. for all that amateur astrono-
of Saturn and its rings in the So when my new friend at the All of that came back to me mers do and had done for me.
eyepiece of the tiny telescope party began to tell me about his when I was invited to give a talk But alas, Im afraid that I just
was just about the coolest thing 14-inch Cassegrain, I was hon- at the Okie-Tex Star Party last couldnt pass up the
I had ever seen. estly enthusiastic. Time was fall. Amateurs are always a fun opportunity.
Steve, who was a few years when I would have killed for the group to talk to; its nice to have What telescope do I use?
older than me, quickly got seri- setup he was describing! I asked an audience that gets your jokes! Well, mostly I use Hubble
ous about the hobby. He built a the right sorts of questions and But mostly I accepted the invita-
6-inch Newtonian reflector and nodded appreciatively as he tion to hang with a bunch of Jeff Hester is a keynote speaker,
a German mount that we used talked about how far he had amateur astronomers under the coach, and astrophysicist.
to explore the sky. I went on to gotten on the Messier list, and almost obscenely dark skies of Follow his thoughts at
jeff-hester.com.
build telescopes as well, and I the darkroom that he had built. the Oklahoma panhandle to
BROWSE THE FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION ARCHIVE AT www.Astronomy.com/Hester.
ASTRONEWS NEW NAMES. The International Astronomical Union published an official list of 227 common names for stars on
November 24. Most of the names have been in use for centuries, such as Altair, Sirius, and Proxima Centauri.
The mysterious orbit of a pulsar and a white dwarf MIRROR,

When stars die, they have a few MIRROR
options. Sun-like stars become
SPOTLIGHT. Like good
objects known as white dwarfs:
and bad mirrors, each planet
hot, planet-sized balls depleted reflects a percentage of
of hydrogen. But larger stars col- the sunlight that falls on
lapse into city-sized neutron stars it. Astronomers call that
or black holes. reflectivity albedo. Heres
A white dwarf orbiting a neutron how they compare. Michael
star isnt unusual. But research E. Bakich
published November 2 in The
Astrophysical Journal found a case
that thus far denies explanation: A
white dwarf in an eccentric orbit
around a pulsar (a type of rapidly Mercury
spinning neutron star), an astronomi- 10%
cal first.
Often, pulsar-white dwarf duos
are the remnants of stellar systems
that began as binaries and continued
on in this fashion. But according to Venus
current modeling, this object would 65%
need to have begun life as a white STRANGE SIBLINGS. A white dwarf and pulsar make a heck of a pair. They are,
dwarf (rather than being the core of respectively, the remnants of Sun-like stars and of massive behemoth stars. This illustra-
tion shows how each affects the fabric of space-time. ESO/L. CALADA
a small star), which would have taken
100 billion years.
Three explanations have been put quark star (a hypothesized but thus- from the white dwarf, created a disk
forth. In one scenario, a third body far-undiscovered kind of star), throw- of materials that gradually changed Earth
would have destabilized the binary ing off the white dwarf companion. the nature of the white dwarfs orbit. 37%
orbit of the white dwarf, making its Or the pulsar could be a white dwarf This scenario is unproven, although
orbit eccentric instead of roughly cir- that collapsed into a neutron star researchers believe it to be the
cular. In the second, one of the stars after accreting enough mass. mostly likely out of all possible
would have changed from one state Both these explanations seem iffy explanations. For now, it remains a
into another. This could be a neutron compared with the third: The pulsar, weird cosmic mystery waiting for a
star becoming a denser, strange in the act of stealing the material final answer. J. W. Mars
15%
Carina Nebula collapsing

Jupiter
52%
Saturn
47%
Uranus
51%
Neptune
41%
Albedo
ESO/A. MCLEOD
The Moons albedo FAST

is 12 percent, so FACT
STELLAR DESTRUCTION. Astronomers studying the Carina Nebula with the European Southern Observatorys Very Large it reflects about
Telescope observed a clear relationship between the pillars of the nebula dissipating and the ionizing radiation from nearby stars. the same amount
The powerful radiation from the very stars the nebula recently birthed causes a process known as photoevaporation. At an atomic of light as a pine
level, the starlight ionizes the gas, stripping off electrons. This process eventually destroys the gas pillars themselves, which can be forest on Earth.
light-years tall. Astronomers have observed similar destruction in the Eagle Nebula before. K. H.
SECRETSKY
BY STEPHEN JAMES OMEARA
Twice-setting
stars What causes stars to set, rise,
and then set again?
T
his months column Second, Mauna Loas profile
presents a naked-eye (which looks like an over-
celestial mystery. turned plate) covers a few
Its about seeing degrees of sky as seen from This inferior mirage over the English Channel shows an oil tanker with a conjoined
mirror image of the ships tower, exaggerating its height. Note how the more distant
a bright star that Kilauea. So the phenomenon front of the ship has all but vanished from view, leaving but a trace of the real ship
appears to set. OK, nothing so does not occur at the horizon floating on a mirror image of the sky below it. ALL IMAGES: STEPHEN JAMES OMEARA
odd about that. Except in this where one might expect most
case the star reappears briefly weird atmospheric anomalies layer of cold air becomes Suns rays during the day only
about a second or two later to happen, but rather some trapped beneath a layer of to reradiate the heat into the
before slipping beneath the degrees above it. warmer air) is common under atmosphere at night.
western horizon for good. Its trade-wind conditions at Adding to this radiative
a puzzling sight that may have A mirage of sorts? heights between 4,000 and cooling, the mountains slopes
several causes, or combination In October 2016, I was in 8,000 feet (1,220 and 2,440 follow long radial rifts that can
of causes, none of which I am Eastbourne, England, expe- meters). Such conditions can in places emit exceedingly hot
certain are correct. riencing unseasonably hot lead to superior mirages, ones steam into the cool air above
Ive glimpsed these spring- weather. Ships on the distant in which in which an upside them. It seems possible that
ing stars on perhaps three horizon appeared irrationally down image appears above the either of these thermal effects
occasions over a period of enormous while riding above original image. can affect the density of the
20-odd years, so it appears to the waters surface on a cush- But superior mirages also surrounding air and set up
be an uncommon event. The ion of air. can make objects from beyond shifting mirage conditions,
phenomenon always took me At first glance, it looked as the horizon visible and sus- which can bend starlight after
by surprise and caused long though what I was observing pend them in the air. Although the star has set and make it
moments of fruitless ponder- was a classic inferior mirage. In rare, city lights normally out of briefly jump back into view.
ing. To date I have observed this phenomenon, the ship view have appeared floating As always, Id like to hear
twice-setting stars only over seemed enormous because an above the horizon from high your own experiences and
the long slopes of Mauna Loa upside-down image of the ship northern latitudes so why thoughts. Id especially appre-
volcano, as seen from the sum- appeared conjoined and not (albeit briefly) light from a ciate hearing from others who
mit area of neighboring beneath the actual ship. Also, bright star that has already set? have witnessed this or a similar
Kilauea volcano when I was the ships appear separated Although not at a high phenomenon. Send reports to
living on Hawaiis Big Island. from the horizon by a thin northern latitude, Mauna Loas [email protected].
I found the observations band of sky because some of summit lies 13,679 feet
curious for two reasons. First, the sky above the real ship is (4,169m) above sea level. It is
Stephen James OMeara
after seeing the phenomenon, I also part of the mirage in its an active volcano with a dra- is a globe-trotting observer
would wait to see if other set- mirror image. matically sharp and smooth who is always looking for the
ting stars would spring back On the Big Island, a tem- profile one shaped by exten- next great celestial event.
into view, but none ever did. perature inversion (when a sive lava flows that soak up the
This inferior mirage over the English Channel shows a cargo ship with a conjoined mirror image of the ship and sky seemingly sailing above the sea. Note how the wave crests also
seem to form miniature spires above the horizon line.
BROWSE THE SECRET SKY ARCHIVE AT www.Astronomy.com/OMeara.
ASTRONEWS DOWNLOAD COMPLETE. The New Horizons spacecraft, which buzzed Pluto in July 2015, has finished its data
transmissions. It delivered the last of more than 50 gigabits of data October 25.
TRIPLET STARS. ALMA

captured this image of
the three stars in the
L1448 IRS3B system. Two
Hard crash for the ExoMars lander
are visible close together THE CRASH. NASAs Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter
near the systems center, snapped images six days after Schiaparelli hit the planet.
separated by 61 times the The lander itself probably caused the impact feature below.
average Earth-Sun dis- The marks at top right match where the front heat shield
tance. A third star resides impacted, and are likely a mix of debris and impact features.
farther out, at a distance
183 times the Earth-Sun
distance from the center-
most star. BILL SAXTON, ALMA (ESO/
NAOJ/NRAO), NRAO/AUI/NSF
NASA/JPL-CALTECH/UNIV. OF ARIZONA
Radio observatories
spy triple-star system
Astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter
Array (ALMA) and Very Large Array (VLA) radio observatories dis-
covered a triple-star system in its early years. The system is likely
less than 150,000 years old and is answering important questions On October 19, the European Space clearly showed the deployed para-
about how multiple-star systems form. Agencys (ESA) Schiaparelli lander chute, which shifted (likely due to
Known as L1448 IRS3B, the system contains two stars struck the martian surface at over wind) over the course of days. About a
bunched closely together, with a third sibling farther away. The 180 mph (300 km/h). mile (1.5km) away, the heat shield, also
disk of gas that enfolds all three stars shows a distinct spiral. ESA later determined the failure ejected early, appears to have caused
That spiral, as well as the spacing of the three stars, sheds valu- was due to a bad reading from the its own impact features. And the crash
able light on ideas about how stars in multiple systems form. crafts Inertial Measurement Unit, site for the lander itself shows not
All stars form in clouds of nebulous material that slowly con- which tricked the craft into believing only impact scars and signs of debris,
dense into a star-sized ball, surrounded by a swirling disk of it was at a lower altitude, instead of but a larger feature to one side.
gas. When it comes to twins and triplets, some systems form 2.3 miles (3.7 kilometers) above the Mission members speculate this might
with the stars far apart, thousands of times the average Earth- ground. The craft released its para- be a sign of where the unspent fuel
Sun distance. The fraternal twins of the astrophysics world, chute at that point and began follow- tanks exploded.
these stars are born from the same initial cloud and then form ing other landing procedures, which The early stages of Schiaparellis
their own disks independently. resulted in total destruction of the entry and descent had been progress-
But astronomers think that stars forming within just a few lander on impact. ing smoothly, so the science team has
hundred times the Earth-Sun distance within a solar systems Schiaparelli was meant to be the some data with which to work. By
worth of space, give or take are more like identical twins: lander component of the joint ESA- studying the information the lander
They are part of one initial disk that later fractures into multiple Russian Space Agency ExoMars mission gathered in the atmospheres upper
stars because of instabilities. Those instabilities are on display to search for signs of past life on Mars. levels, the mission team can still glean
in the L1448 IRS3B system in the form of the obvious spiral in The Trace Gas Orbiter is still in orbit important details about Mars atmo-
the disk. The multiple stars seem to confirm astronomers ideas. around Mars. The third component is a sphere. And by studying what went
The new observations are the first time astronomers have rover, set to launch and arrive in 2020. wrong during descent, the mission
seen such a triplet-star system still embedded in its formation NASA images revealed the crash team can apply that knowledge toward
disk. The research team published their results October 27 in site as of October 25, and follow-up future landings, like the 2020 rover for
Nature. K. H. images refined the investigation. They ExoMars. N. K.
Astrobabble
From asterisms to Thorne-ytkow objects,
we turn gibberish into English.
Hydroxyl Circumstellar disk >>

A chemical group with one The area around a young star where
hydrogen atom and one ioni- planets, moons, comets, and asteroids
cally charged oxygen atom. form. Disk Detective, a NASA program
The highly reactive compounds to identify young solar systems in the
behave similarly to alcohols. process of forming planets, recently
It was recently detected on found a nearby circumstellar disk in
the asteroid (and possible AWI0005x3s, just 212 light-years away.
planetary core) 16 Psyche.
Parsec
Depleted galaxy A portmanteau of parallax and arcsec-
A galaxy from which the stars ond used as an alternative to light-
in the galactic nuclei have been years to measure distance. One parsec
expelled. This may occur when equals 3.26 light-years. As it is not a
two small galaxies merge their unit of time, Han Solos bold claims
supermassive black holes, the about the Millennium Falcons speed
turbulence of which ejects were lies.
NASA
many kinds of stars. John Wenz, [email protected]
If a binary star system
ventures too close to
the supermassive black
hole at the center of the
Milky Way, the black
holes gravity could
capture one of the stars
and toss the other into
the galaxys halo at
speeds of 1 million mph
or more. Astronomers
think this scenario
explains most of the
Milky Ways two dozen
or so hypervelocity
stars. ASTRONOMY: ROEN KELLY
How
high-speed
stars escape
the galaxy
Astronomers have found dozens of them on
a one-way trip to intergalactic space.
by Bruce Dorminey
S
tars bob and weave in and to break free of the galaxys gravita- luminaries with masses between two
out of the Milky Way Galaxys tional embrace. and five times that of the Sun and
spiral arms like cars speeding Our local solar neighborhood is in surface temperatures above 18,000 F
through rush-hour traffic. But constant motion, participating in a (10,000 kelvins).
a snapshot of the nighttime sky mostly orderly flow shared by the vast Most lie in the Milky Ways outer
makes it appear that these luminaries majority of the stars revolving around halo at least 150,000 light-years from
are as fixed as the great pyramids of the Milky Ways center. But a small the galactic center and move at
Egypt. Of the estimated 200 billion number of fast-moving suns break this velocities of more than 700,000 mph
to 400 billion stars that call our galaxy overall pattern. Astronomers often (1.1 million km/h). Such a star could
home, however, a tiny fraction of hot, find these runaway stars fleeing zip from Earth to the Moon in barely
massive ones stand out. Gravitational youthful clusters. 20 minutes and could traverse 1,000
interactions have revved them up Hypervelocity stars take these light-years in a million years.
to speeds double or even triple that speeds to a new level. Over the And all of them, by definition, have
of the Sun. These so-called hyper- past decade, scientists have dis- velocities high enough to eventually
velocity stars race through the Milky covered a couple of dozen of these escape the gravitational clutches of
Way so quickly that they are destined speed demons. Nearly all are B-type our galaxy. The advent of new
1 Launching a 2
hypervelocity star
Outlying
companion Ejected pair
Captured
companion
Black hole
Binary
pair
Milky Way
Hypervelocity star HE 04375439 could have a complex origin story. Some astronomers think it started as a triple star made up of a tight binary system and
an outlying singleton (1). When the trio approached the black hole in the Milky Ways core, the hole captured the outer member and threw out the binary
at hypervelocity (2). The ejected pair evolved until one component became a red giant and the two spiraled closer (3). Eventually, the duo merged into a
single blue straggler (4). ASTRONOMY: ROEN KELLY
ground- and space-based technology Gravity accelerates these stars to their into helium in their core. Because such
should soon uncover more hyperveloc- phenomenal speeds. The basic explanation stars live no more than several hundred
ity stars and give us a closer look at those is a three-body exchange between a million years, you wouldnt expect to find
already known. binary pair of stars and a black hole, says any on the galaxys fringes.
Brown. The black hole captures one of the These B stars should not exist there,
The first glimpse stars into a tight orbit and slings the other says Brown. Theres no star formation
Theorist Jack Hills of the Los Alamos out of the galaxy. in the outer Milky Way halo. Its a dead
National Laboratory in New Mexico first This gravitational slingshot could region the galaxys halo contains the gal-
predicted hypervelocity stars in 1988, potentially eject stars at a speed that axys globular clusters and old, metal-poor,
but astronomers didnt find one until approaches the speed of light, says Avi low-mass stars. Unless it was ejected there,
2005. Warren Brown of the Harvard- Loeb, a theoretical astrophysicist at you would never expect to see a B star trav-
Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics Harvard University. These stars traverse eling at those speeds in the outer halo.
(CfA) and colleagues stumbled upon cosmological distances and are the ulti- But there they are. The best explanation
SDSS J090745.0+024507 while targeting mate hypervelocity stars. They [are] not yet for their existence involves a binary star
faint blue stars in the galaxys halo. This observed, but we made predictions about that ventures too close to a massive black
particular star lies some 350,000 light-years their abundance as a function of speed. hole, says Hagai Perets, an astrophysicist
from the center of the Milky Way and has a CfA astronomer Scott Kenyon says it is at the Technion Israel Institute of
radial velocity (its speed directly away from unclear how many hypervelocity stars exist Technology in Haifa. The black hole cap-
the galaxys center) of 1.51 million mph in our galaxy. He estimates there are prob- tures one star into a highly eccentric orbit
(2.42 million km/h). It made its way from ably several hundred of them with three to and ejects the other as a hypervelocity star.
the Milky Ways core to the outer galactic five times the Suns mass. We use spectro- A decade after Brown and his col-
halo in only 140 million years. scopic techniques to estimate a distance leagues discovered the first such star, how-
Theorists think that Sagittarius A* (pro- and thus a position in the Milky Way, he ever, theres still a dearth of data on
nounced A-star) the supermassive says. We then compare the radial velocity bona fide hypervelocity stars across the
black hole at the Milky Ways center to the velocity needed to escape the gal- whole sky. Astronomers can measure any
accelerates most of these hypervelocity axy. And all of these stars are on track to given stars radial velocity by examining its
stars, but astronomers also are interested in exit the Milky Way within a few hundred spectrum light spread out into its con-
whether any high-velocity stellar interlop- million to a billion years. stituent wavelengths. If an object is moving
ers exist. Such stars could be making their toward us, its spectral lines shift to shorter
way into the Milky Way in the same way To B or not to B wavelengths; if its moving away, the lines
that others are leaving. And other research- So far, almost all known hypervelocity swing to longer wavelengths. The higher
ers wonder if some hypervelocity stars stars are B-type suns on the main the velocity, the greater the shift.
could be ejected from dense stellar clusters sequence, the period in their lives when Although this sort of spectral analysis is
or by supernova explosions. they produce energy by fusing hydrogen straightforward for nearby stars, it becomes
3 4
Binary pair evolves Merged blue straggler
far more difficult for distant suns in the a hypervelocity star, this means measur- from outside the galaxy. Perhaps they made
Milky Ways outer halo. Even large tele- ing its movement in relation to back- their way into the Milky Ways outer halo
scopes cant gather enough of their light. ground galaxies or quasars, a process in a stream of stars from a tidally disrupted
Thats why astronomer Ulrich Heber of that takes years. dwarf galaxy. Or maybe the Milky Ways
the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in Despite their breakneck speeds, hyper- satellite galaxy, the Large Magellanic Cloud
Germany thinks there are probably several velocity stars have proper motions of less (LMC), ejected some into our galaxys halo.
low-mass hypervelocity stars just waiting than 1 milliarcsecond per year. (One Theres an unbound B star, HE 0437
to be discovered. Although these diminu- milliarcsecond equals 0.000000005, or 5439, thats near the Large Magellanic
tive objects live longer than their B-type the angular size of a dime seen from about Cloud that could either be from the LMC
cousins, they radiate much less light and 2,300 miles [3,700 kilometers] away.) or the Milky Way, says Brown. HE 0437
so cant be seen out to as great a distance. Ground-based surveys are accurate to 5439 is moving away from us, and we dont
Still, they would be easier to detect than only about 5 milliarcseconds per year, so know if its angled our way or to the LMC.
the even fainter white dwarf rem- proper-motion studies for hyper- If this star originated in the LMC, it might
nants of any dead B-type star. velocity stars must be done be the smoking gun for a previously unde-
from space. Thats where tected intermediate-mass black hole that
On the move Los Alamos the European Space ejected the star at hypervelocity.
Once astronomers Agencys (ESA) Gaia Although the source remains elusive,
know a stars radial theorist Jack Hills mission comes in. Brown argues that the star is a remnant
velocity as viewed This astrometric of a binary system ejected from the Milky
from Earth, they can predicted hypervelocity observatory Way. His scenario begins with a trio of stel-
calculate how fast
its moving relative
stars in 1988, but designed to
measure precise
lar companions: a tightly bound binary
pair in orbit with a more-distant sun. The
to the galaxys center. astronomers didnt positions and radial three got caught up in the destructive grav-
But even this tells
only half the story. To
find one until 2005. velocities of some
1 billion stars
ity of Sagittarius A* and paid the price. The
supermassive black hole captured the sys-
directly link a wayward is yielding proper tems outlying member and ejected the
star in the galaxys outer motions accurate to within other two, which remained an intact pair.
fringes to its theoretical point of 0.1 milliarcsecond per year. In As the pair hurtled away from the
origin at the supermassive black hole the next year or two, Gaia should pro- galactic center, the more massive star
in the Milky Ways core, observers also vide superb proper motions for known eventually evolved into a red giant. As it
must determine the stars motion across hypervelocity stars and new candidates. swelled, the two stars spiraled together and
our line of sight. This so-called proper These observations will, in theory, help merged into an even bigger blue strag-
motion is even harder to measure precisely astronomers determine much more about gler. This delayed formation process for
than radial velocity. these stars points of origin. Although HE 04375439 is the best way to get a
Astronomers determine proper motion researchers think most originated in inter- B-type main sequence star to its current
by observing the shift in an objects posi- actions with Sagittarius A*, they still position some 200,000 light-years from
tion relative to more distant objects. For debate whether some might be interlopers the Milky Ways center. Otherwise, this
Hypervelocity stars dont tend to be photogenic because they glow dimly The Large Magellanic Cloud, the largest satellite galaxy of the Milky Way,
due to their distances. The Hubble Space Telescope captured HE 04375439 could be the source of hypervelocity star HE 04375439. If so, a previously
(center), which lies in the constellation Doradus near the Large Magellanic undetected intermediate-mass black hole likely ejected it from a young
Cloud. NASA/ESA/O. GNEDIN (UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN)/W. BROWN (HARVARD-SMITHSONIAN CFA) star cluster. ESO
particular star would have evolved off the in a tightly bound orbit. When the higher- A case in point is US 708, the fastest-
main sequence long ago. mass one reaches the end of its life and its known hypervelocity star with a speed of
Only Sagittarius A* can explain the core collapses, it triggers a supernova that 2.7 million mph (4.3 million km/h). This
fastest B-type hypervelocity stars, says can liberate its lower-mass companion. helium-rich star is spectral type O, and
Brown. Other processes eject different The exploded stars collapsed remnant one of the hottest stars known in the Milky
types of stars at different speeds. either a neutron star or a black hole and Ways halo. Judging by its trajectory, it
the previously bound main sequence star almost certainly did not originate in the
The oddball stars then go their separate ways. This mecha- galaxys center.
Heber, for one, studies some of these spe- nism will work wherever young stars hang Astronomers think it was once part of
cial cases. And he has concluded that out, including inside youthful star clusters. an ultracompact binary system. Its com-
nature has found a way to generate hyper- The neutron star RX J08224300 panion was a massive white dwarf near
velocity stars that doesnt rely solely on is a prime example. In 2012, the limit of what these stars
interactions with the galaxys supermassive astronomers clocked it can weigh. When US 708
black hole. He suggests alternatives that moving at 1.5 million Trajectories evolved into a red giant,
include satellite galaxies disrupted by mph (2.4 million it transferred much of
the Milky Ways tidal forces, binary super- km/h). The explo- of hypervelocity its hydrogen envelope
novae, and ejections from star clusters.
Heber preferentially targets relatively
sion that created
Puppis A a
stars should deviate onto the white
dwarf, eventually
low-mass stars that have evolved into supernova remnant from a straight line triggering a statisti-
bloated red giants. Such stars burn helium
in their cores rather than hydrogen. We
some 7,000 light-
years from Earth in
depending on the shape cally rarer type Ia
supernova that sent
find that most of our candidates are the southern con- and orientation of the US 708 onto a hyper-
unlikely to have been launched from the stellation Puppis velocity trajectory.
galactic center, says Heber. We are launched the stellar
dark matter halo.
eagerly awaiting the Gaia astrometric mea- remnant onto this trajec- Pride of the Lion
surements, which will allow us to trace tory. Astronomers think this You might think that hyper-
their trajectories back to their place of ori- supernova was a lopsided explo- velocity stars would be spread
gin much more accurately, maybe to a stel- sion, and the neutron star headed one way across the sky randomly, but thats not the
lar stream, a cluster, or a spiral arm. while much of the supernova debris went case. One of the biggest puzzles surround-
Right now, says Kenyon, astronomers in the opposite direction. ing current observations is that half of the
have two good models for generating Unfortunately, astronomers estimate B-type hypervelocity stars are clumped
hypervelocity stars: disrupting a binary that they would have to observe some around the constellation Leo, Brown says.
star system that passes too close to a black 10,000 normal core-collapse supernovae Heber thinks this could mean that the
hole, and disrupting a binary during a to find one hypervelocity supernova. galactic center ejected them preferentially
supernova explosion. In the second sce- Scientists dont think such explosions cre- in a certain direction. He says this could
nario, two stars revolve around each other ate all hypervelocity supernovae, however. happen if the ejected stars came from a
stellar disk surrounding the supermassive
black hole.
But the observations of clustering may
just reflect a lack of data. We do not have
a complete survey of the entire sky, says Clumps
of oxygen
Kenyon, so maybe we are seeing a statisti- debris
cal fluke. Surveys of the southern sky
should clarify this issue. In particular, they Explosion
center
will allow astronomers to study north-
south asymmetries and see whether similar
numbers of hypervelocity stars reside in
Aquarius, the constellation opposite Leo. RX J08224300
New surveys with the 1.35-meter
SkyMapper robotic telescope in Australia,
the European Southern Observatorys
2.6-meter VLT Survey Telescope in Chile,
and the 8.4-meter Large Synoptic Survey
Telescope (LSST) currently under con-
struction in Chile will complete the search
for hypervelocity stars in the southern sky.
Once these surveys are finished, astron-
omers can start using hypervelocity stars
to study other features of the Milky Way.
Because [B-type] hypervelocity stars origi-
nate from the galactic center, their trajecto-
ries should be a straight line outward,
says Brown. However, theorists believe
that the Milky Way is surrounded by a A few thousand years ago, a supernova exploded
in the constellation Puppis. The lopsided blast
triaxial [football-shaped] distribution of
sent debris in one direction and the collapsed
dark matter. remnant neutron star, RX J08224300, in the 1999
This means the present trajectories of other. The neutron star now moves at 1.5 million 2005
the hypervelocity stars should deviate from mph (2.4 million km/h). The inset shows the rem-
nants movement from 1999 to 2005. CHANDRA: NASA/
a straight line as they feel the gravitational CXC/MIDDLEBURY COLLEGE/F. WINKLER ET AL.; ROSAT: NASA/GSFC/S. SNOWDEN
pull of this unseen matter, he says. How ET AL.; OPTICAL: NOAO/CTIO/MIDDLEBURY COLLEGE/F. WINKLER ET AL.
much the trajectories deviate, and in what

direction they do so, depend on the shape
and orientation of the dark matter halo. to see if they are moving at high velocities. able to observe. At that stage of cosmic
If astronomers can find 200 or so To extend their reach to smaller and dim- evolution, all the galaxies in our Local
hypervelocity stars distributed all across mer solar-type stars, scientists will need Group will have merged into a single
the sky, says Kenyon, then measuring their the LSST to select hypervelocity candidates megagalaxy. And, assuming that the
precise trajectories could tell us how they based on color and then target these suns Hubble expansion of the universe contin-
decelerate as they travel from the galactic with the next generation of extremely large ues to accelerate under the relentless push
center into the halo. Scientists then could telescopes to get spectra. Finally, the Gaia of dark energy, all the galaxies outside the
use these deceleration measurements as a mission will provide precise astrometric Local Group will disappear beyond our
function of position on the sky to learn data to verify their place of origin and cosmic horizon.
whether the shape of the dark matter halo determine whether they hail from the gal- As Brown has written, The only extra-
is more spherical or if it is flatter at the axys center, stellar streams, or elsewhere. galactic sources of light in the observable
galaxys poles. These solar-type stars become visible cosmic volume will be hypervelocity stars
In principle, Kenyon says, if hyper- once they evolve off the hydrogen-burning ejected from our galaxy. Thus, hyperveloc-
velocity stars spread out nonuniformly main sequence and become red giants. ity stars may become the primary tool for
on the sky, the degree of their asymmetry Such stars shine brightly enough to be measuring the Hubble expansion. And
can tell us about asymmetries in the dis- visible throughout the Milky Ways halo our window on the cosmos at large will be
tribution of matter in the galactic center and perhaps beyond. Future all-sky reduced to those few hypervelocity stars
and inner bulge. infrared surveys conducted from space, that ply space-time wholly unimpeded by
such as NASAs Wide Field Infrared Survey the gravitational bonds of their original
Into the future Telescope and ESAs Euclid spacecraft, host galaxy.
Still, current technology limits observa- should be able to detect these aged hyper-
tions to only the brightest and thus most velocity stars. Science journalist Bruce Dorminey is author
massive hypervelocity stars. Astronomers Hundreds of billions of years in the of Distant Wanderers: The Search for Planets
identify candidates based on their bright- future, hypervelocity stars may be the Beyond the Solar System (Springer, 2001).
ness and color and then they take spectra only objects beyond the galaxy well be Follow him on twitter: @bdorminey.
When a blue supergiant star lit up the southern sky,
astronomers used it to learn how massive stars
explode. by Liz Kruesi
A
stronomy doesnt adhere to humans
and their timescales. Cosmic objects
typically take thousands, millions, or
even billions of years to evolve. But
every so often, the universe gifts us an
exception. A brilliant explosion that
appeared in our sky 30 years ago is
one such present.
This cosmic object, Supernova 1987A, marked
the death of a massive star. The glowing ember
lies 160,000 light-years from Earth in the Milky
Ways largest satellite galaxy, the Large Magellanic
Cloud (LMC). In astronomical terms, thats next
door. This proximity means that our telescopes
can resolve small changes in the evolving super- The tiny purplish splotch (arrow) at the top of this
image marks the site of Supernova 1987A and its
nova remnant, changes that would be invisible if
expanding debris in 2006. The intricate folds of the
the object lay millions of light-years away. Honeycomb Nebula appear at center left. ESO
It changes on human timescales, says Penn
State University astrophysicist Kari Frank. That
uniqueness is what keeps she and the hundreds Scientists cant obtain these types of details for
of other astronomers who study SN 1987A inter- any other supernova, which makes SN 1987A not
ested in this object. just an exciting cosmic object but also one that
Supernovae happen on average once per reveals characteristics of an entire class.
century in a galaxy the size of the Milky Way, After watching the continually evolving glow
although our galaxy is long overdue. So we wel- of SN 1987A in every type of light for three
The first naked-eye
supernova in nearly come our galactic neighbors gift. With observa- decades, this is what we now know.
400 years lit up the tions tracking every step of this supernovas
southern skies in evolution as it transitions from blast to remnant, The historic explosion
February 1987. The
astronomers are piecing together details of the SN 1987A burst onto the scene February 23,
blast occurred in the
Large Magellanic explosion itself and the star that gave birth to it. 1987, when it shone as a brilliant new star in the
Cloud, a Milky Way
satellite galaxy, not
far from the massive
Tarantula Nebula
to its upper left. ESO
W W W.A S T R O N O M Y.CO M 29
This snapshot shows SN 1987As
structure from a few years
Anatomy of Supernova 1987A ago to coincide with images
of the inner ring looking like
pearls on a necklace. The pearls
are dense gas pockets excited
Inner ring Shock wave by the supernovas shock wave,
which since has started moving
1994 beyond the ring. The shocks
collision with the ring created
a reverse shock that is now
heading back toward the center.
Interior
debris
The exploded layers of gas

1998 rushed away from the blast
site at varying speeds, the
fastest moving at about one-
tenth the speed of light. For a
couple of years afterward,
the supernova glowed thanks
to radioactive elements cre-
ated in the explosion that
2001 Shocked gas were scattered throughout
the debris. These elements
Reverse shock Hot spots
decayed naturally, emitting
energy in the process that
heated the gas. But by 1990,
SN 1987As radioactive ele-
southern sky. Many astronomers at first didnt ments no longer powered the growing remnant.
2003
believe the news of a supernova so close to the So, the gaseous leftovers cooled and dimmed.
Milky Way, thinking that colleagues might be By 1997, though, SN 1987As remains had
playing some sort of cruel joke. But over the next started brightening again but not because of
few days, researchers across the globe scrambled radioactive materials. Instead, the high-speed
to observe this beacon and confirmed that it lay gaseous shock front that had rushed away from
in the nearby LMC. Its location couldnt have the explosion site had slammed into surrounding
been much better almost any Milky Way interstellar gas. The collision heated knots in the
supernova would have been heavily obscured newfound material. The heated gas, however,
2004 by intervening dust. wasnt keen on this fresh influx of energy, so it
By comparing photographs of SN 1987As released light in an effort to shed some of the
region taken before and after the explosion, excess. Astronomers first saw this emission,
astronomers soon pinned down which star had appearing like glowing pearls on a necklace, in
detonated. It was a supergiant star cataloged as wavelengths of optical light in 1997 using the
Sanduleak 69202 that held the mass of several Hubble Space Telescope.
Suns and burned so hot that its surface appeared Then, in July 1999, the Chandra X-ray
blue. At this stars core, just like in all stellar cores, Observatory launched. Three months later,
2006 the temperatures and pressures were high enough astronomers obtained their first X-ray view of
Supernova 1987As ring to fuse atomic nuclei into heavier elements. SN 1987A. Roughly every six months since then,
comes alive with hot spots Once the star that led to SN 1987A developed Penn State astronomer David Burrows has cap-
over a 12-year period. The a heart of iron, it could no longer create heavier tured images of the remnant using this telescope.
ring, composed of material
ejected from the progenitor
elements. Its core then began to collapse, and the The X-ray emission appears as a ring Chandra
star some 20,000 years stars outer layers fell toward the imploding inte- doesnt have the angular resolution to make out
before the blast, lights up as rior. When the core reached the density of an the individual pearls of hot gas glowing at
the supernovas shock wave atomic nucleus, it abruptly stiffened and gener- roughly 1 million kelvins.
heats knots of dense gas.
NASA/ESA/P. CHALLIS AND R. KIRSHNER (CFA)
ated a shock wave that blew off the gaseous outer Astronomers now know where this ring of
layers. Astronomers have not yet seen evidence of material comes from: Sanduleak 69202 shed
this collapsed core either a neutron star or a this gas some 20,000 years before the blast. But
black hole making the missing cinder the big- they dont agree on what process led the star
gest remaining mystery of SN 1987A. to cast off a few solar masses worth of star
stuff. Either the star was rotating so fast that it
Although Contributing Editor Liz Kruesi was alive for launched a dense wind of material from around
SN 1987As February 1987 appearance, she wasnt yet old its equator, or two massive stars merged all those
enough for her interest in astronomy to have kicked in. thousands of years ago and flung off the gas.
The Spitzer Space Telescope and Herschel Space Observatory show infrared radiation from stars and dust in SN 1987As vicinity. Inset: ALMA reveals the glow
from cold carbon monoxide molecules (red) at the blast sites center, while Hubble captures hot gas in the surrounding ring. ESA/NASA/HERSCHEL/SPITZER/STSCI/ESO/ALMA
That discarded matter moved more slowly The rings radiation has overwhelmed any
than the explosions shock front, so when the less-intense X-ray light from other regions of
Because astronomers
blast wave hit this pre-existing ring, those
clumps glowed. The knots brightened in Hubble
the remnant. But soon the ring should dim, and
Frank and Burrows expect other regions to start
havent yet seen
image after Hubble image, starting in 1997 and becoming visible in X-rays. Specifically, theyre a central neutron star
ending just recently. looking for material compressed by a secondary
front. When the blast wave slammed into the in SN 1987A, they can
Illuminating inside and out rings inner edge, most of it passed through and
Now it seems as though the blast wave is moving heated the material to ignite the known ring, put limits on how
beyond the ring. Swedish astronomers Claes says Burrows, but part of that shock would have
Fransson and Josefin Larsson have led the recent reflected off the rings inner edge and is now
bright or rather,
Hubble Space Telescope observations of the ring,
and the images show the pearls growing fainter
moving back toward the remnants interior.
Thats called the reverse shock, he says.
faint it must be:
and losing their luster. New clumps of matter Supercomputer simulations by Salvatore Its probably 1,000
outside of the main ring have started to appear. Orlando of Italys Osservatorio Astronomico di
The farther away from the blast site that astrono- Palermo and colleagues predict the reverse shock times fainter than
mers look, the further back in time they can see. should begin encountering the stars exploded
That means that as the shock front moves into debris the ejecta in five to seven years. the Crab Nebulas
this new region, its telling scientists about what
Sanduleak 69202 shed before the 20,000-year- Cool things down neutron star.
old ring of material. As this shock wave continues Supernova explosions release an immense
to evolve, well see more and more of the mass- amount of energy and drive temperatures sky
loss history of the progenitor star, says Larsson. high. Even today, SN 1987As ring glows in opti-
While Chandra doesnt have the resolution cal and X-ray light because the blast wave has
to pick out individual clumps in the X-ray emis- excited the atoms there to temperatures of a mil-
sion, its data also show that the brightness has lion degrees. With so much of the focus during
plateaued. The shock wave is moving past the the past three decades on the ring, its easy to
ring into something else. And thats exciting think that the whole supernova remnant must
because we dont know whats there, says Frank, remain hot. But the ring is the exception the
who works with Burrows on the Chandra data. rest of the remnant is frigid.
Above: ALMA captured radiation from newly formed cold dust (red) in the
interior of the SN 1987A remnant. Visible-light and X-ray emission imaged
by Hubble and Chandra, respectively, reveal where the expanding shock
wave slams into surrounding gas. R. INDEBETOUW ET AL./A. ANGELICH (NRAO/AUI/NSF); NASA/STSCI/
CFA/R. KIRSHNER; NASA/CXC/SAO/PSU/D. BURROWS ET AL.
Left: A three-ring circus gathers tightly around the site of SN 1987A while
wispy tendrils of unrelated gas frame the scene in this composite view from
1994, 1996, and 1997. NASA/ESA/THE HUBBLE HERITAGE TEAM (STSCI/AURA)
For Mikako Matsuura At the center of the explosions site, material Matsuuras team turned to the same tool scientists
has long expanded away, radiating energy and have used for decades: the collected light. They
and her colleagues thus heat in the process. In fact, the remnants knew the materials temperature from the type of
center is now cool enough for atoms to have light it emitted (submillimeter and far-infrared),
next observing project, combined into molecules, and some of those and they knew that a brighter signal equated to
molecules to have conglomerated into dust par- more material. So the total brightness from the
they are using ALMA ticles. The temperatures here range between 20 object can give the total mass, says Matsuura.
and 100 kelvins. (Remember that water on Earth Its simple physics. What isnt so simple, how-
to study whether dust freezes at 273 K.) To study material at these cool ever, is understanding the process that creates all
and molecules mirror temperatures, astronomers turn to less-energetic
light and the instruments that collect it: infrared
that dust or what processes could destroy it.
each other in the telescopes and submillimeter arrays. Mapping the stars guts
The most crucial tool in this work has been The same group of astronomers also is using
SN 1987A remnant. the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter ALMA and infrared instruments to observe mol-
Array (ALMA) in northern Chile. ALMA ecules in the remnants ejecta. Whereas studying
Most scientists think can separate details just 0.05" from one another dust gives scientists limited information, such as
on the sky, which is better resolution even than what type of object can create the tiny particles,
they should, but the what Hubble can achieve. To study SN 1987As molecules give more insight into the physics of
dust, which radiates at these cold temperatures, whats going on. Each type of molecule is made
universe sometimes Mikako Matsuura (then at University College up of a unique combination of elements and
surprises us. London) and her colleagues combined 2013
observations using a still-incomplete ALMA
emits light of specific colors, or wavelengths.
This means that astronomers can figure out what
with 2012 infrared data from the European molecule theyre detecting by measuring the
Space Agencys Herschel Space Observatory. wavelengths of light their instruments see. And
They found that the remnant houses an they can gather an array of additional informa-
enormous amount of dust about one-half tion from the detected molecules: the direction
of the Suns mass. and speed of motion (toward and away from the
The dust that astronomers talk about isnt like telescope), temperature (because certain mole-
the dust that whips around after you drive along cules exist only at certain temperatures), and the
a dirt road. Instead, its similar to the texture amount of the molecule. With all these details,
of smoke. Cosmic dust can range in size from a they can begin to piece together information
few molecules up to 0.1 millimeter across, and it about the exploded stars innards.
radiates at temperatures of only about 20 kelvins. However, it isnt only cold molecules that
Because astronomers cant put the dust lurking astronomers can use to peer inside the ancient
in SN 1987As center on a scale to weigh it, progenitor star.
SN 1987A has now evolved into a supernova remnant. The proof came in this 2011 Hubble image showing a fish-shaped central structure of expanding
supernova debris. This material has started to brighten as it basks in the X-ray glow from the surrounding ring of pre-supernova material. NASA/ESA/P. CHALLIS (CFA)
A specific wavelength of high-energy X-ray says, to a detailed 3-D map of the explosion.
radiation traces a radioactive element that sci- So far, Larsson and her colleagues have mapped
entists know must have been produced in the hydrogen, iron, silicon, calcium, magnesium, DEFINING THE
supernova blast. Using data collected by NASAs and oxygen and these elements are not dis- TRANSITION
NuSTAR X-ray observatory between 2012 and tributed symmetrically.
2014, researchers studied the distribution of With multiple pieces of evidence showing that Even though we still call
the object Supernova
titanium-44. How this element is scattered the SN 1987A blast was asymmetric, perhaps 1987A, most astronomers
across the remnant can reveal how turbulent astronomers will be able to find out more about accept that this is a rem-
the motions inside the progenitor star were dur- how the explosion happened. Most computer nant now, and not a
ing the blast. And it also can show how asym- models fail to produce supernovae they stall supernova. The phrasing
metrical the explosion was. It turns out that out during the blast and cant explode the star. is important, and it relates
SN 1987A was very lopsided. But supernovae occur across the cosmos and to a crucial transition
period that scientists
Larsson, in addition to her Hubble studies of spew their ejecta into the interstellar environ-
dont know much about.
the optical pearl necklace, also has worked on ment. SN 1987A and its resulting remnant make Thats because the transi-
mapping the motions of different elements and for the best constraints that scientists have to tion isnt something they
molecules in the remnant. Shes used Hubble compare computer models against. can test in a laboratory or
and the Very Large Telescope in Chile to get at Astronomers have big goals for their studies see anywhere else in the
these values with a goal of teasing out ever more of SN 1987A and its remnant, and theyll need to sky. They need to make
details of the explosion from its ejecta. continue observing the blast site to reach those out the structural details
of a supernova evolving
Specifically, Larsson is measuring each gas goals. Its a rare opportunity to watch in detail as
into a remnant and
clouds movement toward or away from Earth, a cosmic object evolves, and scientists arent tak- thats possible only with
and from that value she can calculate how far ing this next-door explosion for granted. Until SN 1987A. L. K.
away it lies. Well build up a more detailed the universe provides us with another nearby
view of the three-dimensional distribution of supernova to study with modern tools, SN 1987A
different elements and molecules, she says. will remain the best target. We need to watch it
Combining these data with the molecular infor- while we can, says Frank. It may be our only
mation from ALMA observations will lead, she chance for a long time.
ASKASTR0 Astronomys experts from around the globe answer your cosmic questions.
PLANET NINE
EFFECT?
Q: COULD THE IRREGULARITIES ASTRONOMERS DETECTED
IN NEPTUNES ORBIT HAVE BEEN CAUSED BY PLANET NINE?
Robert B. Ellis, Tucson, Arizona
A: Many people are familiar with remarkably close to Plutos

the fantastic story of the discovery actual orbit, although his esti-
of Neptune. Based on the obser- mate of the planets mass was a
vation that Uranus orbit was not few thousand times too large at
as expected, French astronomer 6.6 Earth masses.
Urbain Le Verrier (and, indepen- Today, we think those early
dently, English astronomer predictions were based on the
John Couch Adams) predicted incorrectly known mass of
Neptunes existence in 1845. Neptune. After Voyager 2s
Le Verrier wrote to German encounter with Neptune in
astronomer Johann Galle at 1989, researchers used telemetry Once the Voyager 2 spacecraft passed Neptune in 1989 and planetary
the Berlin Observatory, who data to revise Neptunes mass, scientists were able to accurately measure its mass, all irregularities
discovered Neptune the night after which there were no lon- in the distant worlds orbit vanished. NASA
Le Verriers letter arrived ger any observed discrepancies
(September 23, 1846), within 1 in Uranus or Neptunes orbit. Q: I AM PLANNING TO Indeed, if you want to experi-
of his prediction. That angle is So, unfortunately, the answer to PHOTOGRAPH THE 2017 ence the level of illumination
about half the apparent width your question is No, because TOTAL SOLAR ECLIPSE eclipse watchers will experience
of a finger at the end of an today we see no perceptible THROUGH A HYDROGEN- during totality, head outdoors
outstretched arm seen against irregularities in Neptunes orbit. ALPHA FILTER. IF I WERE some night when the Full Moon
the sky. I say unfortunately because TO ATTEMPT THIS DURING is in the sky.
Plutos discovery was much many astronomers, including TOTALITY, WOULD THE A Hydrogen-alpha (H) filter
more by chance. There were me, do think there is some evi- CORONA BE VISIBLE IN THE normally is a great way to
many predictions of Plutos orbit dence for an undiscovered planet H-ALPHA WAVELENGTH? observe the Sun. Because it only
prior to its discovery, most of in the outer regions of our solar MY CAMERA HAS A VARIETY passes light with a wavelength
which were not even close to system. The orbits of many of OF ISO SETTINGS AVAILABLE of 656 nanometers, the nor-
giving Plutos actual position. the most distant trans-Neptu- AND MANY EXPOSURE mally dangerous brilliance of
Several well-known astronomers nian minor planets, as well as SETTINGS. our star falls to a safe level. In
contributed predictions, includ- the dwarf planets Sedna and David A. Cater doing so, the H filter acts the
ing, most famously, Americans 2012 VP113, are curiously aligned. Siloam Springs, Arkansas same as a visual solar filter, like
Edward Charles Pickering and One possible explanation for this a #14 welders filter or the card-
Percival Lowell. Lowells predic- alignment is the action of an A: The solar corona our stars board and Mylar eclipse glasses
tion, made in 1914, was as-yet undiscovered planet much outer atmosphere is visible manufacturers currently are
more massive than Earth in the only during the total phase of a producing by the millions.
outer regions of the solar system. solar eclipse. The reason is a Unfortunately, if you try to
Send us your Only future discoveries (or lack contrast effect, really. The Suns view or photograph the much
questions thereof) will show whether the photosphere (its visible face) is fainter corona, the result will be
Send your astronomy predictions of this hypothesized so brilliant that its light com- the same as trying to view it
questions via email to planet are like the many incor- pletely swamps the faint illumi- through eclipse glasses: Youll
[email protected], rect predictions made about nation (along with all the see nothing. So, you can take as
or write to Ask Astro, Pluto prior to its discovery, or delicate details) of the corona. many H images during the
P. O. Box 1612, Waukesha, whether they are more like In fact, the corona glows with partial phases of the eclipse
WI 53187. Be sure to tell us Le Verriers astonishingly accu- only one-millionth of the (when the photosphere is still
your full name and where rate prediction of Neptune. brightness of the photosphere. visible) as you want, but during
you live. Unfortunately, we Chad Trujillo Believe it or not, that output is totality, youll need to use a
cannot answer all questions Assistant Professor more than you might think. camera with no filter.
submitted. Department of Physics and Astronomy What else shines with a similar Michael E. Bakich
Northern Arizona University illumination? The Full Moon. Senior Editor
C YG N U S Deneb CASSIOPEIA
A.D. 10000
CEPHEUS
LYR A
Q: WHAT ARE THE ACCEPTED (300,000 kilometers) in diam-
PROOFS THAT EARTH eter. If an astronomer measures North A.D. 4000
Vega Ecliptic Pole
REVOLVES AROUND THE the position of a nearby star,
URSA Polaris
SUN? WHEN DID THIS and then measures it again six A.D. 14000 DR AC O M I NOR
REALIZATION TAKE PLACE? months later, the stars appar- 2017
Bob James ent position against the back- (North
Celestial Pole)
Las Vegas ground of more distant stars
HOLLEY Y. BAKICH/ASTRONOMY: ROEN KELLY

should shift a tiny amount. 0
A: We had no direct view of Observing this would prove
Earth until the dawn of the that Earth in fact is not station- H E RC U L E S
2000 B.C.
Space Age. Finding physical ary. It wasnt until 1838 that an Thuban BIG
evidence that our planet revolves astronomer finally detected this DI PPER
around the Sun took some clever shift. That year, German astron-
thinking to prove that this omer Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel
10
heliocentric model of our solar successfully measured the par-
system represents reality. allax of the star 61 Cygni.
One of the long-
The idea is ancient. Around And theres yet another proof. term effects of
230 b.c., the Greek philosopher Imagine standing still with rain Earths axis Earths axis
in about 23.5 precession is to
Aristarchus suggested that this coming straight down. To stay of rotation change our North
12,000 years
was the case. He was an out- dry, you just hold your umbrella Star. Currently
standing observer and based this directly over your head. As you Polaris (Alpha []
Ursae Minoris)
idea on careful observations. begin to walk, however, you occupies that spot.
Still, without direct proof that need to tilt the umbrella into Around A.D. 14000,
Earth moves, Aristotles Earth- the rain, even though the rain is however, Vega
centered universe remained the coming straight down. The (Alpha Lyrae) will be
the closest bright
dominant model for centuries. faster you walk, the greater the star to the North
In 1610, Galileo turned his tilt needs to be. Equator Celestial Pole.
new telescope toward Venus. As Earth orbits the Sun, we
To his amazement, he saw the can detect a tilt of incoming
planet pass through phases just starlight. English astronomer
like the Moon. Galileo correctly James Bradley discovered this Q: EARTHS AXIS IS TILTED from the Sun, the Moon, and,
surmised that this could happen phenomenon in 1725 by acci- 23.5 WITH RESPECT TO THE to a much lesser extent, the
only if Venus had an orbit closer dent while he was searching EARTH-SUN PLANE. WHAT planets. Gravity alone, however,
to the Sun than Earths orbit. for stellar parallax! This aber- FACTORS CONTRIBUTE wont do the trick. But it just so
With improved telescopes, ration of starlight, as it is TO ITS WOBBLE OVER happens that Earth has a slight
astronomers started looking for called, is a result of light hav- EXTENDED PERIODS? equatorial bulge, and its this
another proof of Earths motion ing a finite speed and Earths Robert Feingold bulge that gets the gravitational
around the Sun, stellar paral- motion around the Sun. Highlands Ranch, Colorado tug. In other words, if our
lax. Earths orbit is huge Raymond Shubinski planet were a perfect sphere,
some 186 million miles Contributing Editor A: Astronomers call the wobble there would be no precession.
of Earths axis precession. While a top or gyroscope
While most of us are familiar might precess several times
with our planets primary each second, a single precession
motions rotation (spinning of Earths axis takes nearly
once a day) and revolution 26,000 years (25,772 years,
(orbiting the Sun once a year) to be exact). The effects
few are aware of precession. changes in our pole stars, a
To see this characteristic vividly shift in the celestial coordinates
demonstrated, observe a spin- of right ascension and declina-
ning top or gyroscope. Its tilted tion, and a westward drift of
axis of rotation gyrates in a cir- the solstices and equinoxes
cular motion, sweeping out a are so gradual that most
cone-shaped area in the process. changes take decades to be
You can cause a top or gyro- noticed. No wonder precession
scope to precess by gently tap- is one of Earths unknown
You can photograph the partial phases of a total solar eclipse through a
ping it while its spinning. The motions.
Hydrogen-alpha filter, but youll need to remove it if you want to capture tap that causes Earths axis to Glenn Chaple
the Suns faint corona. JIM LAFFERTY precess is the gravitational pull Contributing Editor
SKYTHIS Visible to the naked eye
MONTH MARTIN RATCLIFFE and ALISTER LING describe the

solar systems changing landscape as it appears in Earths sky.
Visible with binoculars
Visible with a telescope
March 2017: The Moon hides Aldebaran

after that. Its still visible passes most nearly between
because it shines so brightly (at the Sun and Earth. The inner
magnitude 4.4 on the 15th), planet then shoots into the
but you might need an observ- predawn sky, where it becomes
ing site that affords an unob- visible by months end.
structed view to the west. Mercury gives an almost
The planets telescopic mirror-image performance to
appearance changes in tandem Venus. The innermost world
with its orbital movement. As passes on the far side of the
Venus approaches Earth, its Sun from our perspective (a
apparent size swells and its configuration known as supe-
phase dwindles to a thin cres- rior conjunction) March 6
cent as the hemisphere lit by before climbing into view after
the Sun turns away from us. sunset. You can start looking
And these changes happen for it around the 20th, when it
quickly. On March 1, the inner lies 6 above the western hori-
world spans 48" and appears zon a half-hour after sunset.
16 percent lit. Mercury shines at magnitude
One week later, Venus mea- 1.2, bright enough to pierce
sures 53" across and shows a the twilight glow even at this
10-percent-lit phase. And the low altitude, though binocu-
A waxing crescent Moon appeared just east (left) of Aldebaran on April 10, week after that (on the 15th), lars can help you to spot it. A
2016, moments after our satellite passed in front of the 1st-magnitude
the disk appears 57" across telescope reveals the planets
star. A fatter crescent Moon occults Aldebaran on March 4. PHILIPPE MOUSSETTE
while the Sun illuminates only 5.7"-diameter disk, which
4 percent of its Earth-facing appears nearly 85 percent lit.
T
his month opens with a morning sky with beautiful hemisphere. By this stage, you Observing conditions
stunning view of Venus Saturn and, in the months should be able to discern its improve quickly. On the 25th,
suspended beneath a final days, Venus on a return large crescent through steadily Mercury stands 10 high at
crescent Moon in eve- visit after having passed held binoculars. the same post-sunset time.
ning twilight. Mars and between the Sun and Earth. Venus reaches inferior con- Although it glows fainter then,
Uranus join these brilliant Our night sky tour begins junction March 25, when it at magnitude 0.9, the added
objects in the western sky after after sundown March 1.
sunset, but the more distant Although the crescent Moon Luna poses with Mars and Venus
worlds pale in comparison. will grab your attention first,
The waxing Moon visits you cant help but see Venus, ARIES
Aldebaran on March 4, block- too. The brilliant evening
ing the 1st-magnitude star star shines at magnitude 4.8 ANDROMEDA
from view across most of the and shows up easily within a
United States. And Mercury half-hour after sunset. It
Moon Mars
begins its best evening appear- remains on view until about
ance of 2017 in late March. 8:30 p.m. local time, offering PEGASUS
PISCES
Jupiter climbs into view more than an hour of observ-
later in the evening, and it ing time after twilight ends. Venus
remains a fine sight until Venus doesnt stick around
dawn. It shares the early all month, however. The inner CETUS
planets orbit is carrying it
Martin Ratcliffe provides plane- closer to a line joining the 10
tarium development for Sky-Skan, Sun and Earth, so it loses alti-
Inc., from his home in Wichita, tude each day. On March 1, it March 1, 1 hour after sunset
Looking west
Kansas. Meteorologist Alister stands 20 high an hour after
Ling works for Environment sunset. That drops to 13 a A waxing crescent Moon stands near brilliant Venus and ruddy Mars as
Canada in Edmonton, Alberta. week later and just 4 a week darkness falls March 1. ALL ILLUSTRATIONS: ASTRONOMY: ROEN KELLY
RISINGMOON
Young and old provide a vivid contrast Kepler and Encke
Its hard to hide the lunar crater bombardment. Debris from the
Kepler. This youthful impact Kepler impact fills its bowl.
scar stands out near the Moons If you return to Kepler a cou- Kepler
equator, near the eastern shores ple of evenings later, youll see
of the vast Oceanus Procellarum. how the higher Sun angle trans-
The deep, 20-mile-wide bowl is forms the roughness and shad- Encke
round and sharply defined a ows into a bright apron with
smaller version of prominent rays. Procellarums dark lava is N
Copernicus to its east. thinner here, and that allowed
Kepler appears half-lit the the impact to gouge out lighter- E
evening of March 8. The low Sun hued rock from below. While
angle highlights the roughness Kepler appears more prominent As the Sun rises above Keplers sharp rim, compare it with the softer
of the debris ejected during the thanks to its rays, Encke has all features of neighboring Encke. CONSOLIDATED LUNAR ATLAS/UA/LPL; INSET: NASA/GSFC/ASU
impact event that formed the but disappeared. Typically, older
crater. Look a bit to its south for craters fade into the background laws of planetary motion in the orbit of a short-period comet.
the similarly sized Encke. This under a high Sun. 17th century. Encke honors the Coincidentally, Comet 2P/Encke
craters rim appears softer and Kepler celebrates the German 19th-century German astrono- lies 10 high in the west an hour
shows the effects from eons of astronomer who developed the mer who first calculated the after sunset in early March.
altitude makes it easier to see. Mars remains an evening

A telescope shows a disk 6.4" fixture throughout March. It METEORWATCH
across and two-thirds lit. crosses from Pisces into Aries
On Marchs final evening, on the 8th and traverses more
the diminutive world stands than half the latter constella- Great views of the elusive zodiacal light
12 above the horizon a half- tion by months end. This
hour after sunset and is still rapid eastward motion keeps Late winter and early spring particles in the inner solar sys-
7 high under a much darker Mars well ahead of the Sun are the best times for Northern tem; they concentrate heavily
sky 30 minutes after that. and visible long after dark- Hemisphere observers to spot along the ecliptic. It appears
The magnitude 0.2 planet ness falls throughout March. the zodiacal light after sun- somewhat dimmer than the
set. Viewing conditions peak Milky Way, so look for it from a
appears 7.5" across and 43 A crescent Moon returns to
when the ecliptic the Suns dark site when the Moon is out
percent illuminated when its vicinity on the 30th.
apparent path across the sky of the sky (March 1428 this
viewed through a telescope. Uranus does not fare as
makes a steep angle to the year) and twilight has faded
Mercury will reach the peak well. It dips into the twilight western horizon. away. The cone-shaped glow
of this apparition its best of glow after midmonth and This soft light comes from stretches from the horizon up
2017 April 1. wont return to view until sunlight reflecting off tiny dust through Taurus.
The early evening skys mornings in late spring.
other two planets, Mars and The Moon calls attention Our dusty solar system
Uranus, put on more-subdued to several planets as it
shows. The two pair up in the parades through the evening
western sky March 1, when the sky in March. But our satel-
Red Planet lies 2 northeast of lite also heralds a few note-
its neighbor and the crescent worthy stars. On the 1st,
Moon stands 4 southeast of attentive observers in North
Mars. All three objects appear Americas eastern half will
in the same field of view see the Moon pass in front of
through 7x50 or 10x50 bin- (astronomers say occult)
oculars. Place the Moon on the magnitude 4.4 Nu () Piscium
fields left side, find magnitude shortly after 8:30 p.m. EST.
1.3 Mars to its right, and then But this is just a prelude The zodiacal light appears as a softly glowing pyramid in the west
search for Uranus 2 directly to the main event March 4. after twilight fades away in late March. STEVE CULLEN
below the ruddy world. Uranus Continued on page 42
glows at magnitude 5.9 and
should show up easily if you OBSERVING Venus telescopic look changes radically. On March 1, it appears 48"
have a transparent sky. HIGHLIGHT across and 16 percent lit. On the 15th, it spans 57" and is 4 percent lit.
N
STAR
DOME
How to use this map: This map portrays the
sky as seen near 35 north latitude. Located IA
inside the border are the cardinal directions H
and their intermediate points. To find R
E
C DR
stars, hold the map overhead and LE
U AC
orient it so one of the labels matches O EUS
the direction youre facing. The NE S MINOR
URSA
CEPH
stars above the maps horizon

now match whats in the sky. Polaris
NCP IS L
DA
AR P
The all-sky map shows LO
how the sky looks at:
BO
10 P.M. March 1 TE
10 P.M. March 15 M81
S
9 P.M. March 31
M
M5
iza
1
r
M82
Planets are shown
at midmonth
CA
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x
lu
LE
l
M44
Po
Den
O
M66
M6
ebo
VIR
5
la
Re
GO
gu CANCER
lu
s n
yo IS
Proc
Jupi
STAR A N R
C INO
te r
MAGNITUDES M
Spic
SE
M1
X HY
Sirius DR
a
TA
04
A
N O
0.0 C
R S
C ER
NO
CO
3.0 A
T
1.0 E MO
RV
4.0 R
US
2.0 5.0
M47 S
NI
CA JOR
STAR COLORS MA
A stars color depends
on its surface temperature. PYXIS
The hottest stars shine blue SE AN Adh

Slightly cooler stars appear white TL
IA PUPP
IS
Intermediate stars (like the Sun) glow yellow
Lower-temperature stars appear orange
The coolest stars glow red NGC 2

477
Fainter stars cant excite our eyes color

receptors, so they appear white unless you VELA
use optical aid to gather more light
38 A ST R O N O M Y MA R C H 2017 S
Note: Moon phases in the calendar vary
in size due to the distance from Earth
MARCH 2017 and are shown at 0h Universal Time.
SUN. MON. TUES. WED. THURS. FRI. SAT.
MAP SYMBOLS
Open cluster
A 1 2 3 4
P ED Globular cluster
IO
SS M
CA O
R Diffuse nebula
D
N 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
A
Planetary nebula
NW
Galaxy
ILLUSTRATIONS BY ASTRONOMY: ROEN KELLY

9 12 13 14 15 16 17 18
86 GC
N
3
M3
4
88 GC
ME
UM
N 19 20 21 22 23 24 25
CA
L
GU N
IA
26 27 28 29 30 31
TR
IES
S
l
go
EU
Al
Calendar of events
AR
S
ER
)
P
ic
l ipt
(e c 1 The Moon passes 4 south of 10 The Moon passes 0.8 south of
p
Ca
un
s
Uranus, 11 A.M. EST Regulus, 6 P.M. EST

ade
S
th e
GA
of
Plei
h
Pat The Moon passes 4 south of 12 Full Moon occurs at
RI
Mars, 2 P.M. EST 10:54 A.M. EDT

AU
M38
M36
CETUS
TAU R U S
Neptune is in conjunction with 14 The Moon passes 2 north of

M35 M37
the Sun, 10 P.M. EST Jupiter, 4 P.M. EDT

Hyades
W 2 Venus is stationary, 9 A.M. EST Asteroid Pallas is in conjunction

M1
Aldebaran
with the Sun, 11 P.M. EDT

The Moon passes 0.8 south of
dwarf planet Ceres, 4 P.M. EST 18 The Moon is at apogee (251,438
miles from Earth), 1:25 P.M. EDT
N
3 The Moon is at perigee

IO
(229,325 miles from Earth), 20 The Moon passes 3 north of

OR
2:33 A.M. EST Saturn, 6 A.M. EDT

se
Asteroid Amphitrite is at Vernal equinox occurs at

eu
opposition, 7 A.M. EST 6:29 A.M. EDT

g
tel
US
Be
4 The Moon passes 0.2 north of Last Quarter Moon

AN
42 Aldebaran, 10 P.M. EST occurs at 11:58 A.M. EDT

ID
M
S
ER
l
ge
SPECIAL OBSERVING DATE 25 Venus is in inferior conjunction,

Ri
4 Observers across most of 6 A.M. EDT

ius S
the United States will see
Sir P
U a nearly First Quarter 26 The Moon passes 0.005 south
LE Moon occult Aldebaran. of Neptune, 4 A.M. EDT
1 27 New Moon occurs at

M4 5 First Quarter Moon 10:57 P.M. EDT
occurs at 6:32 A.M. EST
29 The Moon passes 7 south of
a 6 Mercury is in superior Mercury, 3 A.M. EDT
har SW conjunction, 7 P.M. EST
30 The Moon is at perigee
Asteroid Vesta is stationary, (226,088 miles from Earth),
A
10 P.M. EST 8:32 A.M. EDT
U MB
C OL 8 Asteroid Daphne is at The Moon passes 5 south of
opposition, 2 A.M. EST Mars, 9 A.M. EDT
BEGINNERS: WATCH A VIDEO ABOUT HOW TO READ A STAR CHART AT www.Astronomy.com/starchart.
PATH OF THE
PLANETS The planets in March 2017
CAS DR A Co
Comet Johnson UM a
m
Objects visible before dawn
et
(C/2015 V2)
41
L AC
P
CV N
CYG HER
LMi
LYR BO
CrB C OM Irene
VUL
PEG Asteroid Amphitrite
LEO
reaches opposition
SGE March 3 Metis
EQU
PS C SE R
AQL OPH
Sun SE R VI R
Celestial equator Eunomia
Neptune
AQR Comet SEX
LIB
PANSTARRS SCT Asteroid Daphne
CA P Jupiter
CET (C/2015 ER61) C RT reaches opposition
Path of the Moon March 7/8
C RV
Pluto H YA
Saturn ANT
Ps A
SCL SGR
M IC LUP
CrA SCO VEL
PHE CEN
G RU
Moon phases Dawn Midnight
To locate the Moon in the sky, draw a line from the phase shown for the day straight up to the curved blue line.
Note: Moons vary in size due to the distance from Earth and are shown at 0h Universal Time.
1
28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10
The planets These illustrations show the size, phase, and orientation of each planet and the two brightest dwarf planets at 0h UT
for the dates in the data table at bottom. South is at the top to match the view through a telescope.
in the sky
Mercury Mars Uranus
W E
Pluto
N Saturn
Ceres Neptune
10" Jupiter
Venus
Planets MERCURY VENUS MARS CERES JUPITER SATURN URANUS NEPTUNE PLUTO
Date March 31 March 1 March 15 March 15 March 15 March 15 March 15 March 15 March 15
Magnitude 0.4 4.8 1.4 9.1 2.4 0.5 5.9 8.0 14.2
Angular size 7.3" 46.9" 4.4" 0.4" 43.3" 16.5" 3.4" 2.2" 0.1"
Illumination 47% 17% 95% 98% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100%
Distance (AU) from Earth 0.925 0.356 2.126 3.343 4.549 10.052 20.804 30.921 33.689
Distance (AU) from Sun 0.324 0.719 1.491 2.774 5.456 10.053 19.933 29.950 33.289
Right ascension (2000.0) 1h44.3m 0h36.6m 2h04.2m 2h42.8m 13h19.5m 17h47.7m 1h24.3m 22h54.8m 19h21.0m
Declination (2000.0) 1319' 1053' 1249' 1211' 642' 2205' 815' 752' 2112'
This map unfolds the entire night sky from sunset (at right) until sunrise (at left).
Arrows and colored dots show motions and locations of solar system objects during the month.
C AS
LY N
Objects visible in the evening Jupiters moons
A ND L AC Dots display positions
PER Io
AUR of Galilean satellites at
TRI 4 A.M. EDT on the date Europa
G EM PEG
C NC
shown. South is at the
ARI top to match
Vesta Path of the Sun (eclipt S
ic) the view
Ceres Ganymede
through a W E
Mar
TAU s telescope. N Callisto
Me P S C Venus
rcu
ry
CM I The Moon occults Sun 1
Aldebaran on the Uranus
evening of March 4 2
ORI AQR
MON 3
Comet
CET 2P/Encke
4
C MA
5
LE P Ps A
PYX ER I F OR 6 Jupiter
PUP C OL SCL
7
CA E
PHE 8
Early evening
9 Callisto Ganymede
10
31 30 29 28 27 26
11
12
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
13
14
15 Io
16
Ceres 17 Europa
Mars 18
Earth
Mercury 19
Vernal equinox
Superior conjunction
is March 20
is March 6 20
Jupiter 21
22
23
Venus
Inferior conjunction 24
is March 25
25
26
Jupiter
The planets Uranus
27
ILLUSTRATIONS BY ASTRONOMY: ROEN KELLY
in their orbits Neptune

Solar conjunction
28
29
Arrows show the inner planets is March 1
monthly motions and dots depict Saturn
30
the outer planets positions at mid-
month from high above their orbits. 31
Pluto
Continued from page 37
Ganymede casts a giant shadow
WHEN TO VIEW THE PLANETS S
EVENING SKY MIDNIGHT MORNING SKY Jupiter

Mercury (west) Jupiter (southeast) Venus (east)
Venus (west) Jupiter (southwest)
Mars (west) Saturn (south)
Uranus (west)
W
Ganymede
That evening, our satellite predictions). With a telescope, Io

occults the 1st-magnitude star center your field of view on Ganymedes
Aldebaran in Taurus the Bull. Aldebaran. You probably wont shadow
Observers across most of the see the Moons dark limb lurk- March 17, 3:30 A.M. EDT
United States, except for those ing just west of the star. But as 15"
within shouting distance of the Lunas orbital motion carries The solar systems largest moon appears off Jupiters eastern limb while
Canadian border or in the our satellite to its stellar ren- its large shadow darkens the planets north polar region March 17.
northern half of New York and dezvous, Aldebaran will van-
New England, can see this ish suddenly. It will remain imminent arrival at opposition, Spica. The constellations
event. With Aldebaran bright hidden for up to an hour or the peak of its yearlong appari- brightest star pales in com-
and the Moon only about 45 more (again, it depends on tion, which will occur in parison, however, appearing
percent lit, binoculars will your location) before snapping Aprils first week. And this less than 5 percent as bright
deliver nice views. Of course, back into view. The star means our view of the gas giant as the planet.
a telescopes more-stable plat- returns at the bright limb, in March is close to perfection. The approach of opposi-
form yields the best looks. which makes the reappearance Jupiter brightens from mag- tion also means that Jupiter is
The occultation begins after much harder to view. nitude 2.3 to 2.5 during pulling closer to Earth and
11 p.m. EST on the East Coast Jupiter pokes above the March. Only the Moon and thus looming larger when
and after 7 p.m. PST on the eastern horizon around 9 p.m. Venus outshine the solar sys- viewed through a telescope.
West Coast. Exact times local time in early March and tems largest planet. Jupiter The planets equatorial diam-
depend on your location (visit during evening twilight by appears against the backdrop eter swells from 42" to 44" this
www.lunar-occultations.com/ months end. This early rising of Virgo the Maiden, approxi- month. Its polar diameter is
iota/iotandx to get accurate time foreshadows the planets mately 5 from 1st-magnitude 6 percent smaller, however, a
COMETSEARCH
A close pass by a small (but bright) comet Comet 41P/Tuttle-Giacobini-Kresak
N
By the end of March, Comet 41P/ But 2017 looks particularly 31 o
Tuttle-Giacobini-Kresak should promising. The comet swings
be a decent sight through binoc- within 13 million miles of Earth in Path of 23
28 _ Comet 41P
ulars and might even grow bright late March, its closest approach
enough to see with the naked yet. And it treks through Ursa
eye. Observers typically arent so Major, so it rides high in the sky b p
25
fortunate. It was a faint object for much of the night. The best E
when American astronomer views should come late in the `
a
Horace Tuttle first saw it in 1858. month when the Moon is out of 22 q
After that apparition, it remained the sky. The comet then lies near
e f
hidden until French observer the bowl of the Big Dipper, pass-
19
Michel Giacobini spotted it in ing within 1 of magnitude 1.8 g
1907. But it soon disappeared, Dubhe (Alpha [] Ursae Majoris) r URSA MAJOR
and wasnt recovered until on the evening of the 27th. If March 16 3
s
Slovakian astronomer Lubos predictions hold, it could reach
Kresak stumbled upon it in 1951. 5th or 6th magnitude.
This periodic visitor should glow brightly this month as it comes closer
Astronomers were able to And we may experience a to Earth than at any time since its discovery nearly 160 years ago.
pin down its orbit and realized dramatic outburst. At its 1973
that it revolves around the Sun appearance, 41P brightened by Astroimagers should keep between the Lagoon and Trifid
once every 5.4 years. And yet, 10 magnitudes in one week. It an eye on Comet PANSTARRS nebulae in Sagittarius. And on
people saw it during only three had a five-magnitude outburst (C/2015 ER61) as well. On March 1, the 8th, it passes 1 north of the
apparitions in nearly a century. during its 2001 return. the 7th-magnitude object sits bright globular cluster M22.
Saturn returns before dawn
LOCATINGASTEROIDS
OPHIUCHUS Pollux points the way to Vesta
March offers asteroid hunting at or propping your elbows on the
its easiest. Simply walk outside, roof of your car. Then, use the
point your binoculars at 1st- trio of 4th-magnitude stars
Antares magnitude Pollux, slide half a Kappa (), Upsilon (), and Iota
Saturn
SC ORPIUS field of view to the southwest () Geminorum to orient your-
(lower right), and the second- self and triangulate to Vestas
Shaula
LUPUS brightest dot near the fields position. The asteroid wont
SAGIT TARIUS center will be 4 Vesta. You can move much in the first half of
watch the asteroid shift posi- March but picks up speed later
10
tions relative to the background in the month.
Mid-March, 6 A.M. stars every few nights without The 325-mile-wide space
Looking south-southeast having to set up a telescope. rock fades from magnitude 7.1
Use the StarDome map at to 7.6 during March, but thats
The ringed planet becomes a tempting target for all observers this month
the magazines center to locate still brighter than anything in
as it climbs higher in the morning sky around the onset of twilight.
Geminis twin stars, Castor and its vicinity except for Kappa,
Pollux. On evenings at this time Upsilon, and 5th-magnitude
difference noticeable even Innermost Io orbits fastest
of year, Pollux lies to its celestial 76 Gem. A telescope shows
through small instruments. and thus delivers the most
twins left. Hold your binoculars Vesta more easily, but dont
But the first thing youll events. All North American steady by leaning against a wall expect to see any details.
notice as you focus on Jupiter is observers can see it and its
its richly detailed atmosphere. shadow transit the mornings The celestial Twins harbor the brightest asteroid
The planets cloud tops resolve of March 2, 9, 16, and 25.
into a series of alternating Europa gives a similar show m N
bright zones and darker belts. the nights of March 15/16 and
Turbulence at the edges of these 22/23, and again the morning
bands triggers more-subtle fea- of March 30. For Ganymede, Pollux f
GEMINI
tures. They show up under the biggest satellite and the
good observing conditions, one with the largest shadow,
p
typically after Jupiter climbs the best-timed events occur
30 above the horizon some the nights of March 9/10 and E
26 21 16 116
three hours after it rises. You 16/17. During the latter one, 31
get sharper views then because the shadow touches Jupiters March 1
the light travels through less of cloud tops at 2:36 a.m. EDT. 76 Path of Vesta
Earths atmosphere. The moon itself starts to tran-
Whenever you have Jupiter sit at 4:53 a.m., just 12 minutes 57
centered in the field, you cant before the shadow lifts back g
help but notice up to four pin- into space. 0.5
pricks of light hovering nearby. Callisto orbits far enough Seventh-magnitude Vesta shows up quite easily this month southwest
These are the Galilean satel- from Jupiter that it currently of Pollux in a region with a few bright guide stars and not much else.
lites: Io, Europa, Ganymede, doesnt pass in front of or
and Callisto, in order of their behind the giants disk. The
orbital distances. Because they morning of March 13 provides with the Lagoon and Trifid planets shadow falls on the
circle the planet at different a rare opportunity to see the nebulae (M8 and M20, respec- western side of the rings
rates, their relative positions moon due south of the planet. tively) and open star cluster behind Saturn.
change constantly. While Jupiter dominates M23 less than 5 away. Saturn Venus returns to view in
The moons common the predawn sky during most stands among them shining at the eastern sky before dawn
orbital plane tilts nearly edge- of March, dont pass on the magnitude 0.5. following its March 25 infe-
on to our line of sight, so an opportunity to view Saturn. Predawn views of Saturn rior conjunction. By the 31st,
individual satellite spends The ringed planet lies in and its ring system through a the inner planet rises an hour
most of its time either east or Sagittarius and rises around telescope are sublime. The before the Sun and shines
west of the planet. The three 2:30 a.m. local time on the 1st. planets disk spans 17" at mid- brilliantly at magnitude 4.1.
inner ones, however, pass in All month, early rises will be month while the rings span 38" When viewed through a tele-
front of the planet once each greeted to spectacular binocu- and tilt 26 to our line of sight. scope, it shows a beautiful
orbit and cast a dark shadow lar views of Saturn among the The rings now protrude above 2-percent-lit crescent that
on the jovian cloud tops. Half Milky Ways rich star fields, the planets north pole, and the spans 58".
an orbit later, the moon disap-
pears behind the planet. GET DAILY UPDATES ON YOUR NIGHT SKY AT www.Astronomy.com/skythisweek.
The past, present,
A rich tradition keeps Japanese astronomy on a path to the lunch counter, where we are
rewarded with steaming bowls of
to pioneering new eras. by Ilima Loomis salty, meaty broth.
From imaging exoplanets to
solving a solar mystery, mapping
E
ven though weve spent Trying to quiet my grumbling dark matter to investigating the
the past half-hour dis- stomach, Ive happily accepted Iyes origins of the universe, NAOJ sci-
cussing his research on offer to join him at Cosmos Lodge, entists are taking on some of the
ancient galaxies, at this the cafeteria of the National hottest questions in astronomy
moment, it feels like the Astronomical Observatory of Japan today. And few would make a bet-
most technically chal- (NAOJ). But the plan hits a snag ter lunchtime companion than Iye,
lenging subject Ive broached with when I find myself face to face with whose discovery in 2006 of the
Dr. Masanori Iye today just might the cafeterias vending machine- most distant galaxy found at that
be lunch. style ordering system. Seeing my time gave scientists a picture of the
Iye is one of many astronomers confusion at the panel of mysteri- universe as it appeared nearly
working in Japan; a country that, as ous buttons and kanji, Iye helps me 12.9 billion years ago. He broke his
well soon see, is emerging as an deposit some yen and order noodle own record with the discovery of an
astronomical powerhouse. soup. Together, we bring our tickets even more distant galaxy in 2012.
and future of
The Atacama
Large Millimeter/
Now Ive been defeated by We are just like archaeologists time by observing the stars. The submillimeter Array
another group, he says with a mining fossils to study the history observatory was moved in 1924 to is one of the most
chuckle. But its OK. Its a very of the Earth, he says. We are its current site at Mitaka, a city on powerful radio
observatories in the
interesting competition. using telescopes to mine past gal- the outskirts of Tokyo, and it was world. The National
Iyes breakthrough came in axies to study the history of the reorganized as the National Astronomical
developing narrow-band filters to universe. Astronomical Observatory of Japan Observatory of
Japan helped push
detect Lyman-alpha photons from You might trace the origins in 1988.
the array into the
galaxies at the outer reaches of the of modern-day astronomy in Today, NAOJ still keeps Japans submillimeter
universe. Using these filters with Japan to the year 1782, when the official time and calendar. But with spectrum, allowing
Japans Subaru Telescope in Hawaii, tenmonkata, or official astronomer, observatories located around Japan, it to even more
finely tune in to the
his team completed a detailed sur- was installed by the shogun at as well as tools like Subaru, the cosmos. ESO/S. BRUNIER
vey of primordial galaxies. Their Asakusa Observatory. An observa- Hinode space telescope, the
finding that galaxy density tory was later built for students at Atacama Large Millimeter/submil-
decreases significantly between the University of Tokyo, and the limeter Array (ALMA) radio tele-
12.8 billion and 12.9 billion years Tokyo Astronomical Observatory scope in Chile, and the ATERUI
ago, pinpointing the start of the was founded in 1888, with the mis- supercomputer, NAOJ scientists are
cosmic dawn, earned Iye the 2013 sion to establish latitude and longi- also investigating some of the uni-
Japan Academy Prize. tude, and keep the correct date and verses biggest mysteries.
Above: The Subaru
Telescope, shown
above the cloud Direct observation
line on Mauna Kea, of distant worlds
Hawaii, sits For Motohide Tamura, it wasnt
at 13,580 feet
(4139 meters) enough just to know an exoplanet
altitude. NAOJ was out there. He wanted to actu-
ally see it.
Right: The
arrangement But even though nearly 2,000
of cable wraps exoplanets have been discovered
within the tele- with tools like the Kepler Space
scope allows the Telescope, images of these distant
azimuth to move
freely. DAIGO TOMONO worlds have remained elusive, with
just a handful of extrasolar planets front of its star. For statistical Discoveries included a Jupiter-
observed through direct detection studies, those methods are very like planet orbiting 40 astronomical
to date. Tamura hoped to fill that useful, and to some extent, they units from its star (an AU is the
gap with SEEDS, Strategic can characterize the planet, but average distance between Earth
Explorations of Exoplanets and eventually wed like to see the and the Sun) one of the lowest-
Disks with Subaru. The five-year, planet itself, Tamura says. mass planets with one of the closest
direct-detection survey of giant SEEDS measured thermal orbits yet observed. It has a blue
planets and circumstellar disks emissions from planets and color, compared to the other
dust clouds around young stars disks to create an image of the directly imaged planets, which
from which planets form around objects. The technique paves means . . . the upper atmosphere is
500 nearby stars concluded in the way for astronomers to learn relatively clean or free of dust, and
January 2015, resulting in the more about these worlds than is the temperature of the atmosphere
direct imaging of four planets, revealed through indirect detec- is very cold, says Tamura.
three brown dwarfs, and more than tion, which typically tells scientists Scientists also detected the signa-
30 protoplanetary disks, says little more about a planet than its ture for methane in the planets
Tamura, the principal investigator location and possible mass. Most atmosphere.
on the project. important for direct imaging, we The surveys observations
Other extrasolar planet surveys can measure the color of the offered astronomers a chance to
rely on indirect detection methods, planet, and eventually we can study circumstellar disks as well,
such as spotting the flicker of light do spectroscopy of the planet including the chance to observe
that results when a planet passes in itself, Tamura notes. gaps and tendrils Tamura calls
The SEEDS signatures of an unseen planet
instrument on N N within the disk structure.
board the Subaru GJ 504 b SEEDS isnt the only program
Telescope directly
imaged this planet offering new insights into planetary
around the star formation. Misato Fukagawa is
Gliese 504. The among the NAOJ astronomers tap-
planet is marked ping ALMA at NAOJs Chile obser-
GJ504b, with E E
Neptunes orbital vatory to study protoplanetary
distance shown to GJ 504
disks. The powerful radio telescope
give an idea of its allows astronomers to look beyond
distance from the
star. NASA GODDARD SPACE Neptune orbit Neptune orbit a disks dusty outer surface to see
FLIGHT CENTER/NAOJ the larger masses and structures
20 AU 20 AU
within. One disk Fukagawa studied
The primary mirror
cell is visible from
had the appearance of two numerical simulations because we giving it the capability to perform the bottom of the
bananas encircling a central star cannot see them directly. 1,000 trillion calculations per sec- Subaru Telescope
when it is tilted.
when observed in infrared. But Today, Kokubo is director of ond. The added speed will allow
Temperatures
when she looked at the same object NAOJs Center for Computational ATERUI to serve more researchers, there average 50 F
with ALMA, it had more of a Astrophysics (CfCA), which oper- as well as to take on even more (10 C) during the
horseshoe shape. ates the Cray XC30 supercomputer complex simulations, Kokubo says. day and 32 F
(0 C) at night.
We think that what we saw in ATERUI, the most powerful super- An early achievement for CfCA DAIGO TOMONO
infrared is light scattered by the computer in the world dedicated was its work on a project that simu-
solid particles in the upper surface exclusively to astronomy. Alongside lated the so-called giant impact
of the disk. But with ALMA, we observational and theoretical scenario, showing how a massive
think we can see the density struc- astronomy, Kokubo calls simula- collision with Earth created a disk
ture in the midplane of the disk, tion astronomy the third way of of rock and debris that quickly
she says. From this structure, we astronomical research. formed the Moon. The process had
think a little bit of growing mate- The solar system was formed been theorized in the 1970s as a
rial is distributed in this shape. 4.6 billion years ago. We cannot see model, but had never been tested.
it. But we can set up a virtual uni- From this simulation, we could
Numerical exploration verse in the computer, using laws understand how the Moon is
of the universe of physics, he says. We often say formed from the impact-generated
Astronomer Eiichiro Kokubo was supercomputers are a kind of theo- disk, and also why we have only
also fascinated by planetary sci- retical telescope to see unseen one moon, Kokubo says.
ence, but it led him down a dif- things. More recently, ATERUI was
ferent path. Kokubo wanted to The centers role as a branch used to create a high-resolution
watch a solar system actually tak- within NAOJ gives it a unique posi- simulation of a supernova. This is
ing shape. For that, he turned to a tion to work closely with observa- the most inner part of a supernova
supercomputer. tional and theoretical astronomers, explosion, which we cannot see
Its very difficult to investigate Kokubo notes. Computing time is from observation, he says. The
the formation of planets by telescope available not only to native and simulation was so complex, it
because the timescale is very long, foreign astronomers in Japan, but required the use of the entire
and the planets are very small and also to Japanese astronomers work- supercomputer at once, something
far away, he says. But what we can ing abroad.
do is a numerical experiment. We CfCA completed a major Ilima Loomis is a science writer based
can see how a protoplanetary disk upgrade of ATERUI last year, in Hawaii. She previously covered
evolves with time, or how the plan- increasing performance from near-Earth object characterization for
ets form. We can do this only with 502 teraflops to 1.058 petaflops, Astronomy.
The process had been theorized
but never directly observed,
Antolin says. This work shows it
for the first time in a direct way, he
says. Its the first evidence of a cor-
onal heating mechanism in action.
To get the results, the team used
Hinode to measure the waves side-
to-side motion and combined the
data with IRIS observations of the
waves twisting motion to get a
three-dimensional picture. By run-
ning the results through a simula-
tion in ATERUI, they were able to
show how the movement resulted
in an unusual form of turbulence
not seen on Earth that released
energy into the atmosphere.
Antolin compares the turbu-
lence to a spoon as it stirs milk into
a cup of coffee. Ordinarily, the
spoon creates a small wake that
Above: Chodayu
Nishiura built the would curl back in a half-circle,
20cm aperture and when the spoon stops, so does
telescope CfCA schedules for large projects the turbulence. But the magnetic
observatory
about once a month. turbulence they observed was dif-
in 1921 based
on a design from Kokubo says working with sim- ferent: When a magnetic field line
Tokyo Imperial ulations has allowed him to fulfill stops moving, the plasma around it
University. The not only his scientific ambitions, moves at maximum speed in the
aptly named
20-cm Telescope but also a childhood dream. opposite direction. current research will investigate
Dome is primarily When I was an elementary stu- The finding was an essential whether it occurs in spicules, which
used for sunspot dent, I thought I wanted to be an part of the puzzle, he says. Large are small jets of gas emitted by stars.
observations. NAOJ explorer, he says. When Im look- quantities of energy can pass from I think this is already very
Right: The Subaru ing at the solar system, I cant phys- the magnetic field into the plasma strong evidence that this is happen-
Telescope captured ically be an explorer, but I can do it due to this turbulence. ing all the time, he says.
this gorgeous with supercomputers. Its a numeri- The team observed the phenom-
image of the
Trifid Nebula in cal exploration of the universe. enon in a solar prominence, but Mapping dark matter
2013. The nebula Antolin says theres no reason to Physicist Satoshi Miyazaki still
is believed to be Solving a solar mystery believe it would not be found in hopes to understand the nature
only 300,000 years Like many other solar physicists, other structures of the Sun, and of dark matter someday. But for
old and is 9,000
light-years away Patrick Antolin wanted to figure
in Sagittarius. out why the Suns corona was so
SUBARU TELESCOPE (NAOJ),
hot. While the solar surface is a
HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE,
MARTIN PUGH; PROCESSING:
relatively cool 6,000 C (about
ROBERT GENDLERE 11,000 F), the Suns atmosphere
rises to more than a million
degrees Celsius. Now Antolin and
other NAOJ scientists working with
the Hinode spacecraft may be help-
ing to solve the mystery, in part-
nership with NASAs IRIS mission
and the ATERUI supercomputer.
In August, the team published a
paper in The Astrophysical Journal,
offering new evidence supporting
the theory that the heating comes
from magnetic waves in the form
of resonant absorption, a process in
which two different magnetic
waves resonate with each other,
causing one to get stronger.
The ATERUI
supercomputer
the time being, hes using the little invisible, the gravity created by its number of galaxies, we can get a is the National
thats known about dark matter to mass bends the light passing higher-resolution dark matter Astronomical
Observatory of
help crack an even bigger mystery: through it, like the lens of a magni- map, he says. Japans central
dark energy. fying glass. Suppose theres a dark While the surveys goal is to hub for running
Miyazaki heads the NAOJ proj- matter concentration somewhere shed light on the mystery of dark complex modeling
ect that uses a powerful new cam- between us, the observer, and a far, energy, Miyazaki says his passion of the cosmos and
sifting through
era to make a comprehensive study faint galaxy, Miyazaki says. The has always been to understand large volumes
of how dark matter is distributed shape of the background faint gal- dark matter itself. Now that the of data. MAKOTO
across the universe. The so-called axy is warped by the dark matter survey is underway, he plans to SHIZUGAMI (VERA/CFCA, NAOJ)
dark matter map will offer scien- concentration through gravita- take a closer look at some of the
tists important clues about how tional lensing. If we can measure large dark matter clusters being
the universe expanded, which in the pattern of the warp of the gal- detected, to study how mass is dis-
turn will help explain the role of axy, then that pattern tells us how tributed within the cluster itself. If
dark energy. much dark matter is between the we have a much deeper and much
We sort of use dark matter as a galaxy and us, and how its distrib- finer image of the dark matter
tool to probe dark energy, he says. uted, and where. cluster, that tells us about the
Although dark matter itself is still The five-year dark matter sur- nature of dark matter, he says.
a mystery, we only need a global vey, which began in January 2012, Thats my next target.
feature of dark matter, which is will eventually observe 1,400 With access to powerful obser-
basically the mass. square degrees of sky over 300 vatories like Subaru and ALMA,
To detect the presence of dark observing nights, he says. not to mention the worlds most
matter and measure its mass, The project will run parallel powerful astronomical supercom-
Satoshi and his team designed a with the five-year Dark Energy puter, its clear Japanese scientists
high-resolution, wide-field camera Survey, which launched in 2013, he are poised to play a role in some of
for the Subaru Telescope in Hawaii. notes. But while the U.S.-led project the 21st centurys most significant
With the Hyper-Suprime Cam, will survey a wider field of sky, astronomical discoveries. From
they are able to create a survey of 5,000 square degrees, Miyazaki exoplanets and ancient galaxies, to
galaxies across a broad section of says NAOJs survey has an advan- solar physics and the mysteries of
the sky, capturing extremely pre- tage in the superior sensitivity of dark energy and dark matter,
cise images of even very faint, dis- the Hyper-Suprime Cam, which NAOJ astronomers are investigat-
tant objects. can detect fainter, more distant ing the hottest questions in the
Although dark matter itself is galaxies. If we have a larger universe today.
Observing on the edge
Galaxies showing their edges
expose dust lanes, central hubs,
and other intriguing details
you can view through a scope.
text and images by Rod Pommier
E
dwin Hubbles work on galaxies
is legendary. In 1923 the astrono-
mer, working at Mount Wilson
Observatory in California, proved
that M31, the spiral nebula in
Andromeda, was another galaxy. In
one blow he vastly increased the scale of
the universe. If that wasnt the achievement
of a lifetime, he subsequently showed that
the farther away a galaxy is, the faster it
recedes from us, providing the first direct
observational evidence of the Big Bang.
And Hubble made another major con-
tribution for which we deep-sky observers
will be forever in his debt: a classification
system for galaxies.
The Hubble classification

Hubble published the most widely used
version of his system in 1936, a decade
after his first draft. The system is simple
to learn, following a two-pronged tuning
fork model. The handle and each prong
represent one of three classes of galaxies:
ellipticals, spirals, and barred spirals.
Elliptical galaxies, designated by the
letter E, form the handle. As their name
suggests, these galaxies are roughly ellipti-
cal in shape, but they are further classified
by how stretched and squashed they
appear. Spherical galaxies are designated
E0, slightly elongated ellipticals are E1, and arms and a large central bulge that occu-
so on, with cigar-shaped ellipticals desig- pies a majority of the disk, whereas class Sc
nated as E7. Elliptical galaxies are feature- has multiple open spiral arms, and the cen-
less patches of light without spiral arms or tral bulge is small and inconspicuous.
dust lanes, and they have no active star- Those that fall between the two extremes
forming regions. are designated as Sb galaxies, which have
Spiral galaxies, designated by the letter definite spiral arms and a central bulge
S, form the upper prong of the tuning fork. that occupies a minor, but still obvious,
They have two major features: a central portion of the disk.
bulge containing old stars surrounded by a Barred spirals, designated SB, form the
flat disk with spiral arms actively forming lower prong of the tuning fork. They have a
new stars. Hubble further classified them bar of stars crossing the central bulge.
into three groups: Sa, Sb, and Sc, based on Spiral arms extend from each end of the
the openness of the spiral arms and the bar like streamers from the ends of a bicy-
relative size of the central bulge. Class Sa cle handlebar. Barred spirals also have
shows tightly wound, almost circular spiral three subclasses, SBa, SBb, and SBc, using
the same scheme as the classic spirals. (Our
Rod Pommier is a surgical oncologist in Oregon own Milky Way is a barred spiral, probably
and a longtime, experienced deep-sky observer. an SBb in Hubbles scheme.)
He is a frequent contributor to Astronomy. At the dividing point in the tuning fork
NGC 4565 is a
bright, almost
perfectly edge-
on galaxy in
Coma Berenices.
Its central bulge
occupies about
one-sixth the
diameter of its
disk, so it is a
Hubble class Sb.
exists a special class of galaxies known as Irr, they appear disrupted and exhibit nei- astronomer Gerard de Vaucouleurs in the
lenticulars (lens-shaped), designated S0. ther elliptical nor disk-like structures. 1950s and onward. For backyard observing
These galaxies have a large central bulge Familiarity with this system can be purposes, however, the Hubble scheme
surrounded by an extended disk-like struc- extremely valuable while observing galax- works well because the de Vaucouleurs
ture. However, the disk lacks visible spiral ies. If you know the Hubble classification scheme introduces many more complexi-
arms and is not actively forming any sig- of a galaxy you are observing, then you can ties that are not visible through telescopes.
nificant quantity of new stars. S0 galaxies search for certain structural features char-
are considered a transitional form between acteristic of that class and confirm their Observing on the edge
the ellipticals and the two classes of spirals. presence. On the other hand, when you I recommend you begin trying to classify
Their addition to the system was one of the dont know a galaxys class, you can hunt spiral galaxies by observing on the edge
revisions Hubble made in 1936. Hubble for clues that might reveal the class, and if that is, seeking galaxies that present us
postulated their existence prior to that, but you find them, the entire view will sud- with an edge-on view. With oblique and
the overexposed bright centers of lenticular denly make sense to you. You will gradu- face-on galaxies, a bright nucleus marks
galaxies on earlier, small-scale glass photo- ally learn to systematically check every the central bulge, but its difficult to dis-
graphic plates overwhelmed their extended galaxy for certain structural details you cern the full extent of the galaxys disk. A
disks, rendering them indistinguishable might have otherwise overlooked, making galaxys disk is hundreds to thousands of
from ellipticals. you a better observer. times fainter than the nucleus, and while
Hubble exiled a fourth, nonconformist Professional astronomers have added to the human eye can detect tremendous dif-
class of galaxies from the tuning fork. Hubbles scheme, using a more complex ferences in brightness, only the brightest
Known as irregular galaxies and designated version developed by French-American central portions of the disk will be visible.
from the ends of the ellipse. The center
contains a bright, non-stellar nucleus. They
will also reveal our first equatorial dust
lane, which is remarkable for its extreme
narrowness, visible only across the center.
Edge-on spirals
NGC 7814, known as the Little Sombrero
Galaxy because of its similarity to M104 in
Virgo, is an edge-on Sa galaxy in Pegasus.
It is small, measuring 5.5' by 4.3', and has
a large football-shaped central bulge that
occupies most of the diameter of its disk,
The sky contains many galaxies
with diverse shapes, such as those which continues as thin, dim projections
in this portion of Markarians Chain on either side visible with averted vision in
in Virgo. M86, the large elliptical an 8-inch scope.
galaxy at lower right, is Hubble class
Through large scopes, a thin, dark dust
E3 because it is slightly elongated
rather than spherical. Also shown is not perfectly round. The mild eccentric- lane splits the central bulge perfectly and
are NGC 4438 and NGC 4435, The ity of this galaxy, which is featureless even extends into the disk. The dust lane almost
Eyes, on the left side of the image, through large apertures, earns it a classifi- disappears at its midpoint where it bisects
and NGC 4402, at upper right.
cation of E3. and is nearly overwhelmed by a nucleus
One of the satellite galaxies of the that is brighter on the north side.
These factors make it difficult to judge the Andromeda Galaxy (M31), NGC 205, is a The sky offers two splendid, but con-
size ratio between central bulge and disk. large bright E5. It is so elliptical that it is trasting, edge-on Sb galaxies. NGC 891
To make matters worse, only a handful of twice as long as it is wide, measuring 10' by lies 3.5 east of the beautiful double star
the nearest galaxies have discernible spiral 5'. Visually, it brightens gradually toward a Almach (Gamma [] Andromedae).
arms that permit us to judge how tightly much brighter center, and larger scopes Through small scopes it appears as a faint
wound they are. The final blow is that show a non-stellar nucleus. discus of light measuring 15' by 3.8' float-
SB galaxies, in which a bar is visible, are ing in a sea of foreground stars that pro-
somewhat rare. Lenticulars vides a stunning 3-D effect. The central
With edge-on galaxies, circumstances Having covered the handle of the tuning bulge occupies one-third the diameter of
are much more favorable. The light from fork, we arrive at the branch point, occu- the disk and tapers gradually toward the
the disk and central bulge integrates into a pied by S0 galaxies. A splendid example is tips. NGC 891 has no visible nucleus
single plane, making them brighter and NGC 5866 in Draco. because it is obscured by its perfectly cen-
including nearly the full extent of the disk. This galaxy is small at 6.5' by 3', but it is tered dust lane. An 8-inch scope and dark
The relative sizes of the central bulge and so bright its hard to imagine Charles skies are required to spot the subtle but
the disk are readily apparent, permitting Messier could have neglected it. Many fairly wide dust lane against the slightly
easy classification. The bar in SB galaxies observers think it may be his so-called brighter central bulge. Larger apertures
cannot be seen in profile, and so becomes M102, an entry that originally caused con- will show the dust lane extending farther
irrelevant. The nucleus usually can be seen fusion in the famous Messier catalog; its into the disk on either side.
within the central bulge, so these objects now often referred to as a missing object. NGC 891 appears faint mainly because
offer good opportunities to learn how to An 8-inch scope shows an ellipse with a it lies close to the Milky Ways equatorial
estimate the size of a galaxys central bulge bright center and short pointed tips. Larger plane. That means our galaxys disk of dust
based on the size of its nucleus. This will scopes reveal longer extensions projecting blocks and scatters a considerable amount
help you eventually classify oblique spirals.
Most of all, edge-on galaxies are simply
beautiful to behold. Their symmetry is
striking. Dark dust lanes silhouetted
NGC 205, one
against the equator of a bright edge-on of the two
galaxy provide a striking visual contrast. bright satellite
And if you want to observe galaxies that galaxies of the
Andromeda
actually resemble their appearance in
Galaxy (M31),
photographs, then edge-on galaxies are is twice as long
your best bet. as it is wide,
earning it a
Ellipticals Hubble class E5.
The central, dominant galaxy in the Virgo

Cluster is M87, a giant E0 galaxy. Its easy
to see this galaxy as perfectly round. As a
challenge, look slightly to the west at M86.
Even a small scope will show it definitely
The Cigar Galaxy (M82) is an
irregular galaxy, not fitting
the criteria for elliptical or
spiral galaxies. It is considered
a starburst galaxy heavily
disrupted by star formation
and frequent supernovae,
probably triggered by a recent
merger. The most recent
supernova was SN 2014J,
which appeared in January
2014 in the photo on the right,
but was not visible in the
photo on the left, taken a few
months earlier. The supernova
was reddish due to scattering
of light by the galaxys dust.
of its light. By contrast, the Sb galaxy

NGC 4565 marks the Milky Ways North
Galactic Pole, just as Polaris marks the
North Celestial Pole. We view it perpen-
dicular to the dust plane, providing a view
virtually unimpeded by dust. So, even
though the galaxies are similar in size and
lie at roughly the same distance, NGC 4565
appears twice as bright.
NGC 4565 lies 1.5 due east of the star
17 Comae Berenices and measures a large
20' by 3.6'. Through the telescope, it is a
beautiful sight, appearing as a long, thin
sword of light with a central bulge occupy-
ing only one-sixth the diameter of the disk.
It resembles a flying saucer in science-
fiction movies or two fried eggs placed NGC 891 is an edge-on class Sb
back to back. Even medium-sized tele- galaxy in Andromeda with a central
bulge occupying about one-third
scopes reveal the dark dust lane dividing
the diameter of its disk. It lies near
the central bulge almost equally. A bright the plane of the Milky Ways disk
stellar nucleus beams out from the north of dust, which scatters much of its
side of the dust lane. light. That, and the lack of a nucleus through amateur scopes in early 2014, have
that is obscured by its equatorial
NGC 5907 is a splendid example of an dust lane, contribute to its faintness created superheated winds of plasma that
edge-on Sc galaxy. The combination of its through telescopes. flow out perpendicular to its long axis on
tiny, inconspicuous central bulge and a either side. A 6-inch scope shows a cigar
disk that is flatter than NGC 4565s makes of light with a wedge-shaped, dark dust
it look like a mere splinter of light and hence its nickname, the Needle Galaxy. cloud intruding from the south side. Larger
Through the telescope, youll see a galaxy scopes show three more dark lanes toward
that is amazingly nine times longer than it the east end, mottling on the west side, and
is wide, measuring 12.7' by 1.4'. Scopes bright knots near the center.
8 inches and larger show an elongated
nucleus and subtle mottling from equato- Go observing!
rial dust lanes. The deep sky is filled with galaxies of
diverse shapes, but they all fit into the
Irregulars Hubble classification scheme. Now that
M82 is emblematic of an irregular galaxy. you know the system, use your scope to
NGC 5907 Its nickname, the Cigar Galaxy, suggests observe more elliptical and edge-on galax-
in Draco, also an E7 elliptical, but this object is rich in ies and try to classify them. Check your
known as the
Needle Galaxy,
dust clouds and bright areas of star forma- conclusions against databases and hone
is an edge-on tion. It also appears discoid, but it lacks your skills. Then take your skills to the
Hubble class Sc defined spiral arms. M82 is a system in a next level by trying to classify galaxies. You
galaxy because burst of star formation, probably as a result will start noticing more details than you
it has a tiny,
inconspicuous of a galaxy merger. Numerous superno- thought possible and enjoy observing gal-
central bulge. vae, the most recent of which was visible axies more than ever before.
How to care for your
telescope
It only takes a little time now and then to ensure your window
to the universe is working at its best. by Phil Harrington
When it was operational,

Everstar Observatory,
nestled in a backyard in
Olathe, Kansas, was a great
example of a well-designed
space in which to store
a telescope. MARK ABRAHAM
nlike so many products in our
throwaway society, where built-
in obsolescence seems the rule,
telescopes often outlast their own-
ers. They require little care and
attention and cost nothing to keep.
With a little common sense on
your part, a telescope will return a lifetime
of fascination. But if neglected or abused,
your telescope may not make it to the next
New Moon.
Storing your scope

Nothing affects a telescopes life span more
than how and where you store it when
youre not using it. A good storage place
should be dry, dust-free, secure, and large
enough to get the telescope in and out eas-
ily. Ideally, you should keep your telescope
at or near the temperature outside. Doing
so reduces the cooling (or warming) time
required when you set up at night. If the mirror in your reflector looks like this, cleaning it will enable it to gather more light. It will also
Without a doubt, the best place to keep scatter less of the light it collects and perform much better. ROB HAWLEY
a telescope is in an observatory, which
offers a controlled environment and easy
access to the night sky. Of course, not To avoid the risk of your scope becoming a mildew, take or send it to a qualified pro-
everyone can build an observatory, nor is petri dish, be sure all of its parts are dry fessional for disassembly and cleaning.
one always warranted or desired. before you store it. Tilt the tube horizon- Attempt this yourself, and you may dis-
Closets in unheated garages and tally to ensure that no water puddles on cover that the telescope is much easier to
wooden toolsheds share many of the the lens, mirror, or corrector plate. take apart than to put back together.
advantages of an observatory, although you Contact the instruments manufacturer for
may have to vent them to the outside so air Cleaning your scope its recommendations.
can circulate. Metal, vinyl, or plastic sheds No matter how careful you are, dust will
are not as good because such materials trap contaminate your optics eventually. A Cleaning lenses
heat more than wooden enclosures. moderate amount, surprisingly, has little and correctors
How about an unheated basement? effect on a telescopes performance. But Begin the process by removing all particles
Basements certainly are secure and large if theres a lot of it, or if the optics have that have found their way onto the surface.
enough to qualify. They also provide easy a coating of mildew, images will appear This does not mean blowing across the lens
access if a door leads directly to the out- dimmer and lack clarity. with your mouth; youll only spit all over
side. While these considerations weigh in Consider cleaning an optic only when it. Instead, use either a camel hair brush or
their favor, most basements fail when it stains are apparent; otherwise, leave well a can of compressed air. Some brushes
comes to being dry and free of dust. If a enough alone. Never clean a lens or mirror come with air bulbs that let you
basement is your only option, invest in a just for the sake of cleaning it, because
dehumidifier. every time you touch it, you run the risk of
Regardless of where you store your damaging it.
scope, always cover the optics. Usually, this The methods I describe here are for
is simply a matter of putting a dust cap cleaning outer optical surfaces
over the front of the tube and plugging the only. Unless you really
focuser or covering it with a small plastic know what youre
bag. Do this diligently. If the telescope did doing, I strongly
not come with a dust cap, or if it has been advise against
lost over time, a plastic shower cap often dismantling sealed
makes a great substitute. telescopes (such as A camel hair brush is the
If your telescope or binoculars came refractors and catadi- tool of choice for most
amateur astronomers who
with a case, use it. Not only will a case optrics), binoculars, wish to quickly eliminate
add a second seal against dust, it also and eyepieces. Dirt and visible particles on lenses
will protect the instrument against dust will never enter a sealed tube if you or mirrors. Be sure to flick
the brush clean after each
accidental bumps. store and protect it properly.
stroke to prevent dragging
A dark, damp telescope tube is the per- If an interior lens or mirror surface in a anything across your optics. ALL
fect breeding ground for mold and mildew. sealed telescope becomes tainted by film or PRODUCT PHOTOS: ASTRONOMY: WILLIAM ZUBACK
Pay particular attention to
the bulk cotton or cotton balls
you use to clean your optics.
Expect to use a lot of distilled water, especially when youre cleaning a mirror. The package must be labeled
Its not expensive, so use it liberally. Mix it with dish soap and high-purity sterile. Use a new piece of cotton
isopropyl alcohol for a safe and effective cleaning solution. after each cleaning stroke.
blow and sweep at the same time. If a brush stubborn stain the only pressure should Cleaning mirrors
is your choice, lightly whisk the surface of be from the weight of the cotton wad or When you clean a mirror, take special care
the lens in one direction only, flicking the lens tissue. Then use a dry piece of lens not to damage the fine optical surface.
brush free of any accumulated dust par- tissue to blot up any moisture. The mirrors thin coating of aluminum is
ticles at the end of each stroke. The steps for cleaning the corrector extremely soft, especially when compared
Many amateur astronomers prefer to plate of a catadioptric telescope are pretty to abrasive dirt, and you can gouge it easily.
use compressed air instead of a brush much the same. The only difference is Cleaning a telescopes primary or sec-
because nothing touches the surface. Hold in the blotting direction. Begin with the ondary mirror typically requires you to
the can upright with the nozzle away from damp cotton or tissue at the secondary remove it and the cell that holds it in place
the lens at least as far as recommended by mirror holder, and move out toward the from the telescope. Consult your owners
the manufacturer. If the can is too close or edge. You might want to point the manual for specific instructions.
tilted, some of the propellant could strike telescope straight up when With the mirror lying on a table, use
the glass surface and stain it. Also, best cleaning it. Doing so compressed air to begin the
results come with several short spurts of
air instead of one long gust.
allows you to channel the
excess liquid toward the
! cleaning. Dont use a brush
for this step, to avoid any
After removing the dust, youll want a correctors edge. possibility of damage.
gentle cleaning solution for fingerprints, Follow a spoke-like Next, inspect the mirrors
skin oils, stains, and other residue. You can pattern around the plate, coating for pinholes and
brew one of the best lens-cleaning fluids using a new piece of cot- scratches. A good coating
right at home: In a clean container, mix ton or tissue with each can last 10 years or longer if
3 cups of distilled water, cup of 99 per- pass. As you clean, turn the mirror has been well
cent (or as pure as you can get) isopropyl the cotton or tissue in a cared for. To check it, hold
alcohol, and two or three drops of a mild backward rolling motion the mirror, reflective side
liquid dishwashing soap. to carry any grit away toward you, in front of a
Dampen a piece of sterile surgical cot- from the surface before it light. Its not unusual to see a
ton or lens tissue with the solution. Dont has a chance to be faint bluish image of the light
use most off-the-shelf cotton balls, bath- rubbed against the through the mirror if the
room tissue, or facial tissue. Theyre optical surface. Overlap source is bright, but its image
rougher than you might think. the strokes until the should appear the same
Squeeze the cotton or lens tissue until entire surface is clean. across the entire mirror. If
its damp, not dripping, and gently blot the Again, gently blot dry not, there may be thin,
lens. Never use elbow grease to get out a if necessary. uneven spots in the coating.
If your scope didnt
come with a cover
like the one on the
left (or if you lost
it), a shower cap can Manufacturers sometimes
serve as an effective make Dobsonian mounts
shield against dust. that allow wood-to-wood,
It may not be pretty, wood-to-Formica, or other
but your lens or For squeaky or binding friction contacts. If they bind,
mirror will thank telescope parts, nothing applying car wax (be sure to
you by providing beats a tiny bit of Teflon buff it dry) often will make
better images. lubricant. surfaces move smoothly again.
Any scratches or pinholes in the coating room-temperature distilled water across doesnt move freely, take the mount apart
will become immediately obvious, as well. the surface for a final rinse. and apply a little furniture polish or car
You can live with a few, but if scratches or Finally, rest the mirror on a towel and wax to the contact surfaces. Buff, reassem-
pinholes abound, or if you detect an let it dry. I usually rest it against a pillow on ble the mounting, and try it. You should
uneven coating, youll want to send the my bed. Tilt the mirror at a fairly steep notice the difference immediately. If not,
mirror out for recoating. angle (greater than 45), its edge resting on consider replacing the pads with furniture
If the coating is acceptable, bring the the soft towel to let any remaining water slides, available at most hardware stores.
mirror to a sink. Be sure to clean the sink droplets roll off without leaving spots. Some drives also need an occasional
first and lay a folded towel in it as a cushion When its dry, insert it into the telescope, check to keep them happy. Carefully
just in case the mirror slips. Gently run collimate the optics, and youre done! remove the protective housing and put a
lukewarm tap water across the reflective little light grease between the two meshing
surface. This should lift off any stubborn More tips gears. While the drive is open, put a drop
dirt particles that refused to dislodge them- Other telescope parts also require occa- or two of thin oil on the motors shaft, as
selves under the compressed air. sional attention. For instance, some focus- well. Then reassemble the drive, turn it on,
Next, fill the sink with enough tepid tap ers tend to bind if you dont lubricate them and listen for any noises.
water to immerse the mirror and add to it a occasionally. To prevent this from hap- Most clock drives hum as they slowly
few drops of gentle liquid dish soap. pening, use a little Teflon lubricant on the turn. If yours seems unusually loud or if
Carefully lower the mirror into the soapy focusers small pinion gear or roller. Loosen grinding noises are coming from it, turn it
water and let it sit for a minute or two. the screws (typically two) that connect the off immediately and contact the manufac-
With a big, clean wad of surgical cotton, plate to the side of the focusers housing. turer for recommendations.
sweep across the mirrors surface ever so Squirt a tiny bit of lubricant on the pinion
gently with the backward rolling motion I teeth, tighten the cover plate, and wipe off The bottom line
described earlier, being careful not to bear any drips, as required. Even after lots of use, caring for your tele-
down. Roll the cotton a half-turn back- If a metal telescope mount starts to scope doesnt take much effort. If you show
ward, discard it, and use a new piece. If bind, lubricate the axes bearing points. it even a little love by storing it correctly
stains remain after this step, let the mirror Some manufacturers recommend this be and performing periodic maintenance, it
soak in the water for five to 10 minutes and done at specific intervals, while others will happily show you the wonders of the
repeat the sweeping with more new cotton. make no mention of it at all. If the latter is universe for years to come.
With the surface cleaned, drain the true, then do it once a year.
sink. Run tepid tap water on the mirror The Formica and Teflon materials in Phil Harrington is a contributing editor for
and its holder for a while to rinse away all most Dobsonian mounts require little in Astronomy. He still enjoys using the Criterion
soap. Then turn off the tap and pour the way of maintenance. But if your Dob RV-8 reflector he got for Christmas in 1971.
Turn your smartphone
from making sure you have an acceptable
image, watching your expensive smart-
phone hit the ground is probably some-
thing thats not on your to-do list for the
nights observing session.
Youll also want to look for an adapter
thats easily adjustable or designed for a
specific eyepiece and/or camera setup. The
adapter needs to be strong enough to pre-
vent sag in the system. With afocal projec-
tion, you have to ensure that the image is
AC K
formed directly on the sensor, and exact
M ZU B
W IL L IA positioning can be a little tricky.
O MY:
L: AS TRON
E /CEL
E T T E;
T ELE S
CO P Other points to consider: You may have
PE M O USS
PH IL IP had your telescope and eyepiece collection
W
:
MOON
for years, but the lifetime of a typical
eve all seen the pictures definite plus because it allows you to vary smartphone is a magnitude of order
on social media: lunar and your magnification simply by changing to shorter. An adjustable bracket ensures that
planetary photos taken with an eyepiece with a different focal length. A youll be able to use your smartphone
a smartphone that seem to few years back, if you wanted to find a way adapter with your next smartphone. And
rival what the best amateurs to couple your smartphone to your tele- pay attention to both the maximum
used to achieve with dedi- scope, you went the homebrew route. My dimensions of the adapter and your phone.
cated (and expensive) equipment just a few attempts typically lacked both elegance and Many have an issue with large
years back. Theres no denying that smart- functionality. Fortunately, multiple com- tablet-style phones.
phones are revolutionizing casual astro- mercial options are now available. Here are a few options for you to try.
photography and simplifying outreach. When choosing an adapter, be certain
Unfortunately, Ive never been lucky with that it attaches firmly to both your tele- Tom Trusock is an Astronomy contributor
handheld cellphone/telescope pictures. My scope eyepiece and your smartphone. Aside who often reviews equipment.
handheld attempts tend to come out look-
ing like they were taken by a potato, with
a potato, and of a potato. And all rotten Magnifi
potatoes at that.
It does not have to be this way. $39.99$79.99
Although the camera sensor in modern
smartphones does not hold a candle to a Manufacturer: Arcturus Labs
dedicated astro-camera, its possible Website: www.arcturuslabs.com
and easy to take photos and video Phone compatibility: iPhone 4, 4S, 5,
of the Moon, Sun, planets, and even a 5S, SE
1
few bright deep-sky objects with some Eyepiece compatibility: 2538mm,
proper planning. must be at least 1 inch (25mm) deep
The most important piece of this puzzle so the adapter can slide on far enough
is the smartphone-to-telescope adapter.
Smartphone adapters allow for afocal astro- The Magnifi is designed for specific iPhones. If you happen to have one, a sys-
photography, a type of photography that tem like this has a lot to recommend it. While admittedly not future-proof, it
uses the eyepiece to help focus the image. does allow for quick and repeatable positioning while ensuring the phone is
For lunar and planetary imagers, this is a firmly locked into the adapter.
into an
You dont need a pricey rig to capture
the cosmos. All you need is your cellphone
-camera
and some inexpensive equipment. by Tom Trusock
Manufacturer: Celestron
Website: www.celestron.com
Phone compatibility: iPhone 4, 4S,
5, 5S; Samsung Galaxy S4
Eyepiece compatibility: X-Cel LX or
Ultima Duo
These adapters from Celestron

take a slightly different tack. While
most adapters in this roundup are
generic, these are specific to par-
ticular smartphones and particular
4
eyepieces. While youre out of luck
if you dont have the exact model
2 phone and/or eyepiece, this type of

a design allows for a more complete
optical setup and ensures you easily HookUpz Universal
iOptron Universal get your optical train aligned. Sadly,
because they are phone and eyepiece $44.69
Smartphone Eyepiece
specific, when you move on, theres
Adapter no taking it with you. In addition,
Manufacturer: Carson
Website: www.carson.com
$58 this product has been discontinued,
Phone compatibility: All popular
so you may need to search for this
models except for larger phones,
Manufacturer: iOptron one on eBay or Amazon.
such as the iPhone 6 Plus and
Website: www.ioptron.com
Galaxy Note series.
Phone compatibility: Universal $59.95 Eyepiece compatibility: 2058mm
Eyepiece compatibility: Included
and a depth of at least 14mm
12.5mm Plssl Celestron Smartphone
Adapter Carsons HookUpz is a lightweight,
This unit has all-metal con-
plastic mount designed to con-
struction and fits smartphones
nect most smartphones to nearly
2.28 to 3.77 inches (58mm to
any optical device in seconds. The
96mm) wide and up to 0.55 inch
company touts that the adapter is
(14mm) thick. With the iOptron
designed for use in telescopes, bin-
adapter, a 12.5mm eyepiece is
oculars, monoculars, microscopes,
part of the setup, making that
night vision scopes, borescopes, and
portion of the connection secure.
slit lamps. Its also the only one in
While this makes things a bit
the roundup with glow-in-the-dark
more rigid, it limits your adjust-
rubber (for increased visibility at
ment options somewhat and, of
night). It comes with a case.
course, your eyepiece (and there-
by magnification) choices.
3
Manufacturer: Modern Photonics
5 Website: www.telescopeadapters.
com
Phone compatibility: iPhone 5, 5S,
5C, 6, 6S, 6 Plus, 6S Plus; Samsung
Galaxy S4, S5, S6, S6 Edge, S6
Edge Plus, S7, S7 Edge Plus,
Note 4, Note 5. A generic model
is also available.
Eyepiece compatibility: 1" and 2"
eyepieces (separate adapters)
Modern Photonics takes the prize

7
Explore Scientific for smartphone-specific adapters. SteadyPix Universal
If you have almost any of the recent Smartphone Telescope
Smartphone Adapter
Apple or main Samsung smart-
phones, theyve got an adapter for Photo Mount
$14.99
you. Additionally, they sell a generic $39.99
Manufacturer: Explore Scientific adapter that works within the same
Website: www.explorescientificusa. system and are one of the few com- Manufacturer: Orion
com panies that can offer the flexibility to Website: www.telescope.com
Phone compatibility: Universal work with 2" as well as 1" eyepieces. Phone compatibility: Universal
Eyepiece compatibility: 1" Eyepiece compatibility: 1"
$79$99
The least expensive adapter in this An all-steel and padded solution,
roundup, it will (in theory) fit any Modern Photonics this adapter fits phones up to
size smartphone. Rather than rely Smart Phone Adapter 3.4 inches (87mm) wide, allowing
on an adjustable clamp as many of its use with large phones like the
6
the other adapters do, the Explore iPhone 7 Plus.
Scientific adapter uses a pad of soft
silicone suction cups to secure the
phone to the adapter.
Manufacturer: Snapzoom
Website: www.snapzooms.com
Phone compatibility: Any phone
up to 3.67 inches (93mm) wide
and 0.91 inch (23mm) thick.
Eyepiece compatibility: 2355mm
outside diameter, with 1 inch
(25.4mm) of room to fit the
eyepiece.
Mainly a binocular adapter (in that

it will attach to both eyepieces), the
Snapzoom can be used with spotting
scopes and telescopes in conjunction
with the supplied counterweight
kit. Its specifically designed to hold
the phone in landscape mode to
facilitate viewing photos and video
after shooting. Snapzooms website
contains detailed troubleshooting
instructions along with helpful tips
and tricks.
$74.95
Snapzoom Universal
8 Digiscoping Adapter
The FoneMate is a well-designed
system that uses the Tele Vue
Dioptrix mounting system to Other considerations
quickly, easily, and securely attach
Obtaining focus can be frustrating.
your smartphone to any Dioptrix-
Some experimentation and patience
capable eyepiece. In addition, the
will serve you well here. Youll prob-
companys new Delos and DeLite
ably need to focus both the smartphone
eyepieces offer exceptional perfor-
and telescope. I recommend that you
mance and correction for afocal
leave one fixed at first and observe what
projection. Tele Vue makes the
9
happens when you vary the other. Take
system as easy to use as possible,
some time and play with the zoom on
providing in-depth instructions
your camera and observe the results.
and eyepiece recommendations
When your planetary shots are get-
(see the website) to minimize
FoneMate ting overexposed, its probably because
vignetting and maximize image
your light metering is attempting to
$95 quality. If you already have an
compensate for the dark background.
investment in Tele Vue eyepieces
One solution is to change the camera to
Manufacturer: Tele Vue or are looking to start one, the
spot metering directly on the object
Website: www.televue.com FoneMate is the hands-down best
youre imaging. If your camera app
Phone compatibility: Universal choice. Of the adapters Ive seen,
does not have that option, you can try
Eyepiece compatibility: Dioptrix- this is one of the more polished
experimenting with filters. Often a neu-
compatible eyepiece required systems.
tral density filter (like those used for
lunar observation) will do the trick.
Alternatively, another camera app
might help unlock the full potential of
Manufacturer: Orion the camera. Aspiring iPhone astropho-
Website: www.telescope.com tographers should investigate NightCap
Phone compatibility: Universal Pro, a camera app designed to reduce or
Eyepiece compatibility: 1" eliminate many of the limitations of
traditional smartphone cameras.
The latest and greatest from Most smartphones require a tap on
Orion, this adapter fits smart- the screen or a press of the volume
phones as small as 4.7 by 2.4 inches rocker to take a photo. Touching your
(119 by 61mm) and as large as setup while imaging is a recipe for
8.3 by 4.7 inches (210 by 119mm),
10
disaster. If your phone allows you to
large enough for even the biggest take the photo by pressing the volume
phones on the market. The eyepiece button, try using a set of headphones
mount is adjustable and can be with volume control as a shutter release.
SteadyPix Pro Universal used with eyepieces with 3155mm If not, look for a timer function in your
housing diameters. camera app. Some apps even have a
Camera/Smartphone
Mount voice-activated shutter.
$89.99 Once youve mastered taking basic
$59.99 snapshots of bright deep-sky objects,
SteadyPix EZ you may wish to push your smartphone
Manufacturer: Orion Smartphone Adapter to the limit. Try experimenting with
Website: www.telescope.com video and using something like
11
Phone compatibility: Universal RegiStax to digitally combine the best
Eyepiece compatibility: 1" images in a process called stacking.
Smartphone astrophotography can
An aluminum and ABS constructed be both outreach and a way to record
solution not only for cellphones, those beautiful nights. Its inexpensive
but point-and-shoot cameras as well and does not involve a lot of effort, so
(though not DSLRs) the heavy- why not give it a shot?
duty bracket is compatible with 1"
eyepieces with housing diameters
between 28mm and 45mm. The SEND IN YOUR PICS!
smartphone bracket will fit phones
Wed love to see your astro-camera
up to 3.15 inches (80mm) wide. pictures of the universe! Send them
Length is not a consideration. As a to [email protected] and
bonus, it allows for direct attach- they may be featured on our website!
ment to photo tripods, as well.
WE
TEST Sky-Watcher USAs new
COMPOUND SCOPE
This 7-inch Maksutov-Newtonian provides tack-sharp stars all across the field of view. by Phil Harrington
Sky-Watcher
UNTIL FAIRLY RECENTLY, USAs Maksutov- The Mak-Newts unattainabil- To accommodate photography, the sec-
Maksutov telescopes were not Newtonian ity has started to erode over the ondary mirror has a stated minor axis of
commonly seen at star parties. 190mm is a past few years, with prices com- 2.5 inches (64mm) to illuminate the entire
Amateur astronomers considered 7-inch telescope ing down and availability going field of the sensors used in many popular
that uses both a
them exotic. But that changed in lens and a mirror up. To that end, Sky-Watcher digital single-lens reflex (DSLR) cameras
recent years with the introduction to form its image. USA offers its Maksutov- and CCD imagers. That results in roughly
ALL PHOTOS: ASTRONOMY:
of several lower-priced models. Newtonian 190mm, a 7-inch a 30 percent central obstruction, about the
WILLIAM ZUBACK
Maksutovs come in two basic f/5.3 Mak-Newt that proved to be same as a Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope.
varieties: Maksutov-Cassegrains an outstanding yet affordable Because the secondary attaches directly
and Maksutov-Newtonians. Each uses a example of the breed. to the front meniscus, there are no spider
front corrector plate, or meniscus, and a veins like in traditional Newtonians.
rear-mounted primary mirror to collect The beast within
light and bring it to a focus. Maksutov- At the heart of the 190mm is a spheri-
Cassegrains, in which light passes through cal primary mirror teamed with a deeply PRODUCT INFORMATION
a central hole in the primary out to an curved front meniscus lens. Both are
eyepiece, have become popular among made of low-expansion borosilicate glass. Sky-Watcher USA Maksutov-
todays amateurs thanks to improved mass- Manufacturers prefer this type because it Newtonian 190mm
production methods (and thus lower costs). holds its precise curvature better as the Aperture: 7.5 inches (190 millimeters)
But Maksutov-Newtonians, on which temperature changes through the night. Focal length: 1000mm
the eyepiece is at the tubes front like a tra- Sky-Watcher USA uses an enhanced Focal ratio: f/5.3
ditional Newtonian reflector, have always aluminizing for both the primary and sec- Optics: Fully multicoated
been custom-made telescopes carrying ondary mirrors, resulting in 94 percent Focuser: 2" dual-speed Crayford
hefty price tags. The compound optical reflectivity. The meniscus lens is also fully Finder: 9x50 right angle, correct image
design eliminates two fundamental draw- multicoated with the companys propri- Dovetail plate: Vixen style
backs of the mirror-only Newtonian reflec- etary Metallic High Transmission Coatings Length: 37.5 inches (952mm)
tor: astigmatism (where light rays focus at to maximize image contrast. As I discov- Weight: 27.4 pounds (12.4kg)
different points) and coma (where stars at ered, the results speak for themselves. Price: $1,500
the edge of the field of view have comet- The primary mirrors in all Maksutov Contact: Sky-Watcher USA
like tails). telescopes need to be larger than the stated 475 Alaska Avenue
aperture to work correctly. In this case, the Torrance, CA 90503
Astronomy columnist and contributing editor primary is 8 inches (203 millimeters) across. [t] 855.327.1587
Phil Harrington just loves observing, especially The meniscus measures 7.48 inches [w] www.skywatcherusa.com
when hes using a top-notch telescope. (190mm), the determining aperture.
Therefore, photographs taken through this primary mirror pivots via three Phillips-
scope will be free of diffraction spikes head screws on the backing plate. And you
around bright stars. can change the tilt of the secondary mirror
Inside, the tube has five baffles to help with three screws hidden behind a cover
maximize image contrast. Baffles prevent you can pry off with a small screwdriver
extraneous light from infiltrating the opti- carefully, so as not to scratch the scopes
cal path. The tubes interior is flat black, front lens. Not being a fan of using screw-
but to help improve image contrast even drivers in the dark for this sort of thing, I
further, the manufacturer glued a small am glad that Bobs Knobs offers a set of
square of ultra-flat black material to the stainless steel thumbscrews that
inside wall directly opposite the focuser. can replace those provided.
The 190mms optical tube The telescope aftermarket focuser, Id recom-
Finish and extras assembly (OTA) measures comes with a
2" two-speed
mend you give the stock unit a
The optics sit in an attractive steel tube 37.5 inches (952mm) long and Crayford focuser. good test first. You just may be
that sports metal-flake glossy black paint. weighs 27.4 pounds (12.4kg). The black fine- pleasantly surprised.
The tube comes with white end rings as That put it at the upper limit of focus knob moves Nearby, globular cluster M4
the unit one-tenth
well as a backing plate that covers and the German equatorial mount I awaited. Stellar resolution was
as fast as the two
seals the primary mirrors cell. used for this evaluation. And that silver coarse-focus easy at 150x, and I spotted the
The backing plate protects against dust points to one of the few draw- knobs. clusters unique bar of stars
infiltration, reducing the need to have the backs of Mak-Newts: They are across its core. Other summer
optics periodically recoated. A sealed opti- heavy. Because most amateurs usually pur- globulars in Ophiuchus, Sagittarius, and, of
cal system like this extends cool-down chase only the OTA, make sure your course, the Hercules Cluster (M13) also
time, however, so take that into account mount is sturdy enough for the task, espe- clearly resolved into myriad stars.
when youre setting up. You can attach a cially if you are planning to use it for astro- Tight binary stars were a snap to split,
small fan to the rear plate to circulate air photography. Sky-Watcher USAs own thanks to the superior optical quality of the
and accelerate acclimation. Sky-Watcher EQ-6 mount is a good match. 190mm, and they remained sharp no mat-
does not offer a fan at present, but other The tubes weight makes rotating it in ter where they were in the field of view. I
dealers (like Orion Telescopes) do. the rings a challenge. I had to loosen them purposely moved things around to see how
Standard accessories that come with the fully to move it. The tube is also front heavy good the optics were. Unlike traditional
190mm include a dual-speed 2" focuser, a because of the lens, so youll have to move it Newtonians, where coma blurs stars near
9x50 correct-image right-angle finder back from the center position between the the fields perimeter, stars in the 190mm
scope and mount, white rotating tube rings to achieve balance. remained pinpoints right to the edge.
rings, and a Vixen-style dovetail plate for Summer nights where I live can be
attaching the scope to many mounts. Under the stars damp. And that brings up a second, minor
Unlike some early dual-speed focusers After setting up the scope in my suburban drawback to Mak-Newts (as well as all
packaged with imported scopes, the yard and allowing time for it to acclimate refractors and catadioptric instruments).
190mms unit is well made. to the ambient temperature, I swung it The front meniscus can turn into a mois-
Focusing was sharp toward Saturn, which was in Scorpius. ture magnet once the temperature reaches
and precise. The Despite the planets low altitude, the dew point. Sky-Watcher does not
included 1" adapter the image was sharp and sell a simple dew shield for the scope.
is an unusual sliced clear. The rule of thumb Fortunately, many vendors do. A flexible
design that claims to states not to exceed a dew shield is the minimum youll need. A
keep eyepieces centered magnification of 50x powered dew heater system is even better.
more precisely. It worked per inch of aperture. I
fine for me. easily surpassed that Bottom line
The focuser is low on this steady sum- Issues like dewing and weight can be
profile for photographic mer night. Saturn dealt with. Those minor hindrances
use, but also includes a remained sharp even as aside, I came away impressed with the
built-in extension tube I approached 500x with Sky-Watcher USAs 190mm scope. It is an
that extends 2.13 inches a top-end 5mm eyepiece exceptionally versatile instrument. The
(54mm) for eyepieces that and 2.5x Barlow lens. images were among the best I have ever
require more back-focus. Thats Precise focusing with the seen through any comparably sized scope,
a nice touch that I grew to Although you cant two-speed Crayford focuser regardless of design or price. The 190mm
appreciate during viewing. see it in this photo, was easy, even at a high power is just as adept at visual deep-sky observ-
The test scope arrived well the front of the like the one I used on Saturn. ing as it is for guided astrophotography.
telescope sports
packed in a foam-lined double a meniscus lens And you can lock the focuser But make no mistake, it provides stunning
box. Despite the inevitable bumps that works with the in place to prevent slippage. I planetary views, too. After spending many
and bangs during shipment, the primary mirror at found the lock sufficiently enjoyable hours with the 190mm, I can
the bottom of the
scope arrived in near-perfect tube to produce
strong to hold my DSLR in now appreciate why a growing number of
alignment. When you need to superb images. place. While some owners may amateurs feel that Maksutov-Newtonians
adjust the collimation, the be tempted to upgrade to an are the finest telescopes of all.
Castor (Alpha []
OBSERVINGBASICS
BY GLENN CHAPLE
Geminorum) is the
second-brightest
star in the double
star marathon. Just
2.2" separate its two
bright suns while a
Double star third member of the

system appears
directly south (below)
of this pair. JEREMY PEREZ
marathon redux
A small scope is all you need to track them down.
Porrima (Gamma [] Virginis)
is fairly easy to split today,
when 2.3" separate its
components. In 2008 (seen here),
they were only 0.4" apart. JEREMY PEREZ
O
ne year ago, I the trial run, I couldnt help but can be completed with a small-
introduced the continue. (Once youve tasted aperture scope.
double star mara- one double star, you cant stop.) After being clouded out dur-
thon a double I notched Polaris and then hit ing a stay in Arizona, Oltion
star enthusiasts the doubles in Taurus and returned to his Oregon home,
answer to the annual Messier Orion. I then worked my way where he conducted the double
marathon. Nearly 70 of you eastward, finally stopping at star marathon over a two-night
requested the list, and two 9:50 p.m. with the pretty pair span using a 12.5-inch scope.
Ben Rubel of Framingham, 54 Leonis. My final tally was I got about 85 objects in one
Massachusetts, and Jerry Oltion 43 of the first 46. I missed three night, missing only the ones that
of Eugene, Oregon captured close pairs because of iffy see- were too far to the south for the marathon. Based on last years
all or most of them. ing conditions. site I was observing from and results, it seems the list doesnt
I wasnt as successful. A week I was primed for the main the ones that were too far east need much tweaking. Im look-
prior to the March 1213 event when the bug hit and it when the Moon rose, but I ing for reader help in checking
Messier marathon weekend, I wasnt the double star variety. A picked up the southerly ones the the visibility of doubles setting
did a trial run on the doubles few days after my trial run, I next night from a different site in the west after sunset and
hugging the western horizon came down with a nasty, linger- and wound up with 96 total over those rising in the east before
after sunset. Starting at 7 p.m. ing cold that sidelined me well the two nights, he writes. The dawn. Kane recommends add-
with my trusty 10-inch reflec- into April. It denied me an only reason I didnt pick up all ing Psi1 (1) Piscium (SAO
tor, I whipped through the opportunity to test the visibility 110 was because I didnt stay up 74482), which isnt far from
soon-to-set doubles in of the double stars coming up all night either night. M74 and might be easier to spy
Cassiopeia, Aries, Triangulum, in the east before dawn. My I didnt find any doubles in the twilight glow. As an
Andromeda, Perseus, Pisces, best take on the viability of my that I thought shouldnt be on upgrade to my list, which you
and Eridanus. Once I completed double star marathon list comes the list. There were a few tight can request through my email
from the reports Rubel and ones and a few that were pretty address, Ive taken Oltions sug-
Oltion sent me. low to the horizon, but the gestion and added a section
Rubel tackled the list on two entire list is certainly doable arranging the pairs in a practi-
fronts, using 4.5- and 8-inch from 44 north, he adds. The cal observing sequence.
scopes and a zoom eyepiece. only suggestion I would make A final note: At the time of
I did find it a bit easy for an is to arrange them in the order the Messier marathon, the Sun
8-inch, and most of the stars that a person would most likely is in an area devoid of Messier
were easy in the 4.5-inch, want to observe them, rather objects. This is not the situa-
he says. I did the first half than strictly by R.A. tion with double stars. Next
in close to the order on Several of you asked if it September, Ill look at some
my sheet, and I jumped would be appropriate to use of the best pairs that cant be
around more with the sec- go-to technology to track down seen during the double star
ond half. In all Id say I had the doubles. Why not? Because marathon.
about four hours of break some go-tos identify double stars Questions, comments, or
time during the night, and by their SAO number, California suggestions? Email me at
thats with using two tele- double star enthusiast Phil Kane [email protected]. Next
scopes for each star. The mara- took my list and added SAO month: When does one-quarter
thon helped my appreciation designations. For a copy of equal one-half?
for double stars. his Excel file, contact Phil at
This was the first astronomi- [email protected].
Glenn Chaple has been an
Although binoculars will split Epsilon [] cal all-nighter for the 16-year- This years Messier marathon
Lyrae the famous Double Double
avid observer since a friend
old. His success with a 4.5-inch occurs the weekend of March showed him Saturn through a
into a pair of suns, youll need a
telescope to see that each member validated what I had hoped: 2526, so thats when well small backyard scope in 1963.
itself is a double star. JEREMY PEREZ The double star marathon run the second double star
BROWSE THE OBSERVING BASICS ARCHIVE AT www.Astronomy.com/Chaple.
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ASTROSKETCHING
BY ERIKA RIX
Distorted galaxies
Two relatively large edge-on Youll find the pair nearly Pegged as
galaxies, the Whale (NGC halfway down and a tad south- the Whale
4631) and the Hockey Stick east of an imaginary line for its
(NGC 46567), lie 25 million between Cor Caroli (Alpha [] unusual
light-years away toward the Canum Venaticorum) and wedge shape,
constellation Canes Venatici Gamma () Comae Berenices. it doesnt take
the Hunting Dogs. Because of Youll likely spot NGC 4631 much to imag-
the mass and energy of these first. Shining at 10th magni- ine NGC 4631 as
objects, a weak gravitational tude, its one of the brightest Earths largest mam-
interaction occurs between edge-on galaxies in the sky. mal drifting through the NGC 46567
the two, and it affects their It spans 17' by 3.5' and has eyepiece, with the small ellip-
neighboring dwarf galaxies as a small elliptical galaxy, tical galaxy as its spray. separate designation NGC
well. This force pulls material NGC 4627, hovering 2.5' to its Through an 8-inch tele- 4657. The shaft broadens and
from one galaxy to the other, northwest. Together, they form scope, NGC 4631 is bright and diffuses to the southwest. A
distorting their shapes and Arp 281 from Halton Arps elongated east to west with 16-inch scope reveals a three-
triggering star formation. Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies. tapered ends. Its mottled knotted blade with two more
appearance will become more nestled within the mottled
defined and knotted along its nebulosity of the shaft.
major axis if you view it Because I used a mount that
through a 12-inch scope. You didnt track, I began each
should spot a 12th-magnitude sketching session by framing
star nestled between the Whale the field of view so that a few of
and its companion. A 16-inch the brighter stars were near its
instrument sharpens the edge. Those key stars, along
northern edge, and the with marking the directions as
whales head to the east they drifted through the field,
brightens and bulges became reference points that
before narrowing along let me easily re-center the eye-
the tail. There, a 13th- piece view after I made addi-
magnitude star bal- tions to the sketch.
ances above its tip. Next, I completed the
Once youve had majority of the star field using
your fill of the a set of graphite pencils to ren-
Whale, look 0.5 der their varying magnitudes.
southeast to find As I worked, I made small
NGC 46567, which adjustments to their sizes so
glows at magnitude that each was recognizable
10.4 and covers an area when I compared my drawing
14' by 3' in size. to the eyepiece view. I then
Observers call it the added the galaxies with the tip
Hockey Stick because its of a blending stump that I
two visible parts resemble a coated with graphite. And
shaft and blade. finally, I dotted in the faintest
The Hockey Stick appears as stars to complete the sketch.
a faint, hooked sliver through If you have questions or
an 8-inch telescope, running comments, please contact me
NGC 4631 northeast to southwest. A 10th- at [email protected].
magnitude star glows 11'
The author drew both galaxies while observing through a 16-inch f/4.5 Newtonian northeast of the galaxy. Use a
Erika Rix is co-author of
reflector on a Dobsonian mount. She paired the scope with a 12mm eyepiece for a 12-inch scope, and youll see a
magnification of 152x. She used 8B, 2B, and 2H graphite pencils on white paper to
Sketching the Moon: An
bright knot within the blade at Astronomical Artists Guide
depict the stars and their magnitudes, and used a blending stump to render the
galaxies. She then scanned the sketches and inverted them using Photoshop. Both the northeast tip of the galaxy. (Springer-Verlag, 2011).
sketches show north up and west to the right. ALL SKETCHES BY ERIKA RIX Its this knot that carries the
NEW Attention, manufacturers: To submit a product
PRODUCTS for this page, email [email protected].
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BINOCULARUNIVERSE
BY P H I L H A R R I N G TO N
The star clusters

of Puppis
The winter Milky Way flows to is rich in buried binocular
the east of brilliant Sirius and treasure.
Canis Major through a region First, to zero in on Puppis, The bright open cluster M47 in Puppis makes an easy binocular target. BERNHARD HUBL
of our southern sky filled with focus your attention on Canis
faint stars. Once, those faint Major. If Sirius is a jewel or tag about 40' west of M47. Thats suspended in a starry field. If
stars formed the constellation on the Big Dogs collar, the the variable star KQ Puppis. you own 70mm or larger bin-
Argo Navis, the mighty mythi- profile of its head curves Although they probably have oculars and have good sky con-
cal ship that carried Jason and northeastward using the no affiliation with each other ditions and a pretty good eye,
the Argonauts as they searched 4th-magnitude stars Iota (), (some studies suggest they you just may be able to spy a
for the Golden Fleece on the Gamma (), and Theta () may), the color contrast few faint points peeking out
eastern shores of the Black Sea Canis Majoris. Depending on between it and M47 is eye- through the glow. The bright-
in present-day Georgia. Or so local conditions, you might catching. Defocusing your bin- est star in M46 shines at 9th
the story went. need to use your binoculars oculars slightly will enhance magnitude, but most hover
To commemorate those to see them. the color. below 11th magnitude.
adventures, Ptolemy immortal- Pause at Gamma, and place KQ Puppis is actually a Images of M46 show that it
ized the ship as one of the orig- it at the western edge of your binary system, made up of a is being photo-bombed by a
inal 48 constellations in his field of view through your bin- red supergiant star and a blue- celestial interloper, planetary
work, the Almagest. Like the oculars. Then glance just a bit white main sequence star. Like nebula NGC 2438. The plan-
ship, the constellation was farther east. Youll first see a many similar red supergiants, etary shines faintly at about
huge, covering almost 1,700 knot of 6th- to 8th-magnitude KQ fluctuates slightly in 10th magnitude, so again it is
square degrees, or 4 percent of stars bunched together. Thats brightness, causing the overall just within reach of some giant
the entire sky. open cluster M47. magnitude to change between binoculars. The problem in
Because of this unwieldi- Of the 50 stars that make up 4.82 and 5.17. convincingly seeing the plan-
ness, the 18th-century astrono- M47, I can count up to 11 Open cluster M46 lies just etary is twofold. Not only is it
mer Nicolas Louis de Lacaille through my 10x50s. Four form over a degree east of M47, so it dim, but its also tiny. Thats
divided Argo into three parts, a fuzzy-looking Y asterism in easily fits into the same field of this months challenge: Can
which we still recognize and the middle of the cluster. That view. In reality, they are you spot NGC 2438 through
use today: Puppis the Poop cloudiness is just due to the low nowhere near each other in binoculars? Please email me
Deck or stern; Carina the Keel magnification, however. It space. M47 is estimated to lie your results.
or body; and Vela the Sails. clears up when I examine the 1,600 light-years away, while Incidentally, NGC 2438 is
This month, we will set sail cluster with my 16x70s. M46 is much more distant at not inside M46. It is actually
for Puppis, a small region of Youre bound to notice an 5,400 light-years. much closer, only about
the late winter Milky Way that orange 5th-magnitude star set Like snowflakes and finger- 2,900 light-years from Earth.
prints, no two open star clus- Thinking spatially, its actually
ters are exactly the same. I closer to M47 than to M46.
cant think of anywhere in the We all have favorite binocu-
sky where this is better illus- lar objects. Id enjoy hearing
trated than with M46 and M47. about yours, and possibly fea-
While M47 is a young pup of a ture them in future columns.
cluster, only 78 million years Contact me through my web-
old, the 500 stars that make up site, philharrington.net.
M46 are about 300 million Until next month, remember
years old. that two eyes are better than
Even though M46 is much one.
richer in stars than M47, the
Located near M47, open cluster M46 A close-up of planetary nebula greater distance veils their Phil Harrington is a longtime
is composed of a large number of NGC 2438 shows its bright ring individuality through binocu-
fainter stars. Lying in front of this structure surrounded by a fainter, contributor to Astronomy and
cluster is the ring-shaped planetary older ring of gas. ADAM BLOCK/MOUNT LEMMON lars. Most of us will see M46 the author of many books.
nebula NGC 2438. BERNHARD HUBL SKYCENTER/UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA as a soft, amorphous glow
PACIFIC NORTHWEST NATIONAL PARKS OF AMERICAS
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P28925
READER
GALLERY
1. STARRY MEADOW
The photographer created this
dramatic image of the Milky Way
from 30 separate 15-second exposures
taken from Arches National Park in
Utah. It combines atmospheric clouds
with those from our galaxy, with a bit
of light pollution from the city of Moab
thrown in. Matt Dieterich
2. IM SAILING AWAY . . .
Open cluster NGC 225 in the
constellation Cassiopeia also goes by
the common name of the Sailboat
Cluster. This image captures not only
stars but also reflection and dark
nebulosity. As an added bonus, the
tiny open cluster Berkeley 3 lies near
the right edge. Frederick Steiling
3. THE LION NEBULA
More than 20 hours of exposures went
into creating this image of Sharpless
2132. It has a wider field of view than
most shots, so it captures the dimmer
clouds of hydrogen surrounding
the object. It also contains two tiny
planetary nebulae at left and bottom
right. Brian Peterson
4. SILENT BUT DEADLY

Bailly Crater is the 180-mile-wide (300
kilometers) lunar basin at the bottom
of this image. Since it formed, it has
experienced some sizable impacts,
which have left it scarred. Most
notable is the pair of craters at bottom
right: Bailly B and Bailly A. Brian Ford
3 5. EDGE OF TOMORROW
NGC 891 is a classic edge-on spiral gal-
axy in Andromeda. In addition to this
standout object, however, take a close
look at this image. Can you spot the
dozens of additional albeit much
smaller and fainter galaxies around
the big bright one? Dan Crowson
6. DELICATE DARKNESS
The dark nebula Barnard 343 in Cygnus
doesnt get a lot of attention from
astroimagers. This image shows a bit
of detail in the dust cloud within the
nebula its not just a featureless
blob. Furthermore, close inspection of
the image shows it lies in front of fairly
faint Hydrogen-alpha nebulosity.
Rodney Pommier
B A
4 5
Send your images to:

Astronomy Reader Gallery, P. O. Box
1612, Waukesha, WI 53187. Please
include the date and location of the
image and complete photo data:
telescope, camera, filters, and expo-
sures. Submit images by email to
6 [email protected].
7. HAPPY
HALLOWEEN
This image of
the Witch Head
Nebula (IC 2118) in
the constellation
Eridanus includes
some zoomed-in
sections that
identify objects
usually over- NGC 1779
whelmed by the
reflection nebulas IC 402
brightness. The
blue color comes
from light reflected
from Rigel (Beta []
Orionis). Dave Lane PGC 4683398
NGC 1797
NGC 1720
NGC 1799
NGC 1726
PCG 16553
PGC 3080758
PGC 3080750
PGC 16669
NGC 1752 PGC 16607
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BREAK
THROUGH
Caught in a
spiders web
Deep in the heart of the
Tarantula Nebula a
vast stellar nursery in
the Milky Ways largest
satellite galaxy, the Large
Magellanic Cloud lurks
the massive star cluster
R136. Astronomers recent-
ly used the Hubble Space
Telescope to identify nine
cluster stars that tip the
scales at more than 100
times the Suns mass, the
highest concentration
of such luminaries in the
known universe. Together,
these nine behemoths
shine 35 million times
brighter than our star. And
individually, each of these
suns loses up to an Earths
mass of material every
month due to fierce stellar
winds. NASA/ESA/P. CROWTHER
(UNIVERSITY OF SHEFFIELD)
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SOUTHERN
SKY MARTIN GEORGE describes the solar systems changing landscape
as it appears in Earths southern sky.
May 2017: March of the gas giants

For those with a clear view hours earlier by months end. world appears 38" across and conveniently points to the
toward the northwestern hori- It appears below the distinc- 27 percent lit. By months end, 3rd-magnitude star Porrima
zon, Mars clings to visibility tive shape of Scorpius as the Venus disk spans 25" and the (Gamma [] Virginis). The star
in evening twilight. As May Scorpion climbs higher in the Sun illuminates 48 percent of it. lies no more than 5 northwest
begins, the Red Planet shines east. Officially, however, Saturn Although Mercury pales in of the planet all month.
at magnitude 1.6 and appears resides near the border between comparison with Venus, it puts In mythology, Porrima was
some 8 high a half-hour after Sagittarius and Ophiuchus. on a fine show in its own right. a Roman goddess of prophecy.
sunset. Dont confuse it with The planets westward motion The innermost planet has its Also known as Antevorta, she
ruddy Aldebaran, which stands relative to the background stars best morning appearance of the had knowledge of the future
directly above Mars and about carries it from the former into year in the latter half of May. At while her sister, Postvorta,
twice as high. First-magnitude the latter constellation during greatest elongation on the 17th, knew of the past. Unlike the
Aldebaran is the luminary of Mays third week. Mercury lies 26 west of the Sun majority of proper star names,
Taurus the Bull, and it appears With Saturn at a declination and climbs some 13 high in the which derive from Arabic,
noticeably brighter than the of 22, it is beautifully placed east-northeast an hour before Porrima comes from Latin.
planet. Mars becomes hard in the Southern Hemisphere sunrise. It then shines at mag- The stars main claim to
to see as it drops closer to the sky. It becomes a telescopic nitude 0.5 and is the brightest fame is as one of the skys most
horizon late this month. showpiece once it climbs half- object to Venus lower right. famous double stars. English
Fortunately, two brighter way to the zenith by late eve- The planet brightens as the astronomers James Bradley,
planets come to the fore as ning. The Suns second largest month goes on, reaching mag- who would became Astronomer
Mars exits the evening stage. planet never fails to impress, nitude 0.3 by the 31st. Royal in 1742, and his uncle,
Jupiter dominates the east- particularly when its rings open Mercury puts on an equally James Pound, discovered
ern sky during twilight and as wide as they do now. Even good telescopic show. In mid- Porrimas duplicity in 1718.
grows even more prominent the smallest scope reveals the May, the small world spans 9" Observations over nearly
after darkness falls. The giant worlds 18"-diameter disk and is about one-third illumi- three centuries have helped
planet shines at magnitude 2.3 wrapped in an exquisite ring nated. By the 31st, Mercury astronomers pin down the
against the much fainter back- system that spans 41" and tilts appears 6" across and nearly orbits of the nearly identical
drop of Virgo. It lies about 10 26 to our line of sight. Also two-thirds lit. magnitude 3.5 stars. The two
northwest (left) of the Maidens look for the 8th-magnitude A waxing gibbous Moon made their closest approach to
brightest star, 1st-magnitude moon Titan. Several other occults 1st-magnitude Regulus each other in 2005, when only
Spica, which glows with a dis- moons glow between 10th and on May 4. Observers in New 0.34" separated them. So its not
tinct blue-white hue. 12th magnitude and show up Zealand and much of Australia a stretch to say that I would not
Although Jupiter reached through moderate apertures. can see this event in a dark sky. have written about this star as
opposition and peak visibility While the two gas giant From Sydney, Regulus disap- an interesting telescopic object
in April, it remains a great worlds rule the skies for most pears behind the Moons dark a dozen years ago!
subject to view through a of the night, the two inner limb at 10h13m UT and reap- A recent set of orbital ele-
telescope. And it now appears planets make splendid predawn pears from behind the bright ments the quantities that
higher in the evening sky, sights. Venus rises first, clear- limb at 11h35m UT. define the size and shape of the
which should translate into ing the eastern horizon by Viewers in Madagascar and orbit together with the stars
sharper views. The giant world 3:30 a.m. local time all month. parts of eastern Africa can see relative positions at any given
shows a wealth of detail across Shining at magnitude 4.7 in a second Regulus occultation moment shows that the two
its 42"-diameter disk. Even a early May (and fading just May 31. From Madagascars complete one revolution about
small instrument shows the 0.2 magnitude during the capital, Antananarivo, the each other every 169.1 years.
planets two dark equatorial month), the planet outshines waxing crescent Moon covers The gap between them has
belts and its four bright moons. every other planet and star Regulus at 17h14m UT; Regulus been widening since 2005, and
Jupiter isnt the only gas from then until daybreak. returns to view at 18h26m UT. they now lie about 2.5" apart.
giant planet on view in the eve- A telescope delivers fine An observer with a modest
ning sky. Magnitude 0.2 Saturn views of Venus rapidly chang- The starry sky scope should be able to split
rises around 8 p.m. local time ing appearance as it pulls away While brilliant Jupiter domi- them fairly easily with high
in early May and some two from Earth. On May 1, the nates Virgo this month, it power on a steady night.
STAR S
DOME
NGC 104
THE ALL-SKY MAP
SHOWS HOW THE
SKY LOOKS AT: SMC
O C TA N S
9 P.M. May 1
8 P.M. May 15 TI
RE
US
HYDR
VO
7 P.M. May 31 LU
CU PA
M
Planets are shown DO
LMC MEN
at midmonth DO
RA SA
S 7
SCP APU E 39 6
C
M
20 AL LU
A
PI NGC70 TR GU
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LU O C HA M A E L E ON AU IA N
M
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MUS U
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Sirius
M83
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MONOCER
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M47
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MAGNITUDES
Ca
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Sirius Open cluster LEO

or
MIN
LY OR
0.0 Globular cluster NX
ES
1.0 CAN TICI
Diffuse nebula A
2.0 VEN
3.0 Planetary nebula M51
4.0 URSA MAJOR
5.0 Galaxy
N
HOW TO USE THIS MAP: This map portrays
the sky as seen near 30 south latitude.
Located inside the border are the four
MAY 2017
directions: north, south, east, and
west. To find stars, hold the map Calendar of events
overhead and orient it so a
2 Mercury is stationary, 14h UT 17 Mercury is at greatest western
M
direction label matches the

IU
direction youre facing. elongation (26), 23h UT

P
O
3 First Quarter Moon occurs at

SC
The stars above the

2h47m UT 19 Last Quarter Moon occurs at
LE
maps horizon now

E
0h33m UT
T
match whats
NG 4 The Moon passes 0.5 south of
in the sky.
Regulus, 10h UT 20 The Moon passes 0.5 south of
S
IU
Neptune, 6h UT
R
6 Eta Aquariid meteor show peaks

TA
A

R
M7
T
A
7 Mars passes 6 north of

M8
US
GI
Venus, 13h UT
Aldebaran, 7h UT
I
SA
M6
RP
31
O

2
O
N
C6
M20
The Moon passes 2 north of

SC
Uranus, 5h UT
NG
Jupiter, 21h UT
24 The Moon passes 1.6 south of
rn
Mercury passes 2 south of

S at u
Mercury, 1h UT
res
Uranus, 23h UT
Anta
25 New Moon occurs at 19h44m UT

_
8 Asteroid Juno is stationary, 8h UT

M4
26 The Moon is at perigee (357,207

10 Full Moon occurs at 21h42m UT kilometers from Earth), 1h21m UT
12 The Moon is at apogee (406,210 27 The Moon passes 5 south of
kilometers from Earth), Mars, 2h UT
OPHIUCHUS
19h51m UT
31 The Moon passes 0.3 south of
E 13 The Moon passes 3 north of
LIBRA
Regulus, 17h UT
Saturn, 23h UT
T
PUA
S C
M5
PEN
SER
us
ur
ct
Ar
STAR COLORS:
Stars true colors
depend on surface
temperature. Hot
stars glow blue; slight-
ES ly cooler ones, white;
T
intermediate stars (like
O
B the Sun), yellow; followed
by orange and, ultimately, red.
Fainter stars cant excite our eyes
color receptors, and so appear white
without optical aid.
Illustrations by Astronomy: Roen Kelly
BEGINNERS: WATCH A VIDEO ABOUT HOW TO READ A STAR CHART AT www.Astronomy.com/starchart.

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March 2017: The Moon hides Aldebaran

altitude makes it easier to see. Mars remains an evening

stars above the maps horizon

The hottest stars shine blue SE AN Adh

Lower-temperature stars appear orange

The coolest stars glow red NGC 2

Fainter stars cant excite our eyes color

ILLUSTRATIONS BY ASTRONOMY: ROEN KELLY

Uranus, 11 A.M. EST Regulus, 6 P.M. EST

Mars, 2 P.M. EST 10:54 A.M. EDT

Neptune is in conjunction with 14 The Moon passes 2 north of

the Sun, 10 P.M. EST Jupiter, 4 P.M. EDT

W 2 Venus is stationary, 9 A.M. EST Asteroid Pallas is in conjunction

with the Sun, 11 P.M. EDT