Southwest Montana Astronomical Society

APOD of Interest

Take a look a this Astronomy Picture of the Day from the 20th. It is a tour of the known Universe and as the camera moves away from the Earth, it shows limit of all radio transmissions from humans.  I found this very interesting and pertinent to Dr. Larson’s lecture last night.

Thank you Dr. Larson…

The SMAS Winter Lecture Series is always a hit and last nights lecture, Connections to the Cosmos: The Search for Life Beyond Earth presented by Dr. Shane Larson of Utah State University, was no exception.

The question whether there are others like us or are we alone in the Universe has been asked since there has been someone to ask it.   Dr. Larson’s deep insights into this question, and the questions that it leads to, helped me to make some sense of these profound and fundamental issues.

This was a wonderful presentation and I was very glad to see a large turnout at the Hager Auditorium at the Museum of the Rockies for the event.  A big thank you to Dr. Larson for coming up here on short notice and presenting this lecture and thank you to the Museum of the Rockies and the Montana Space Grant Consortium for their support of the Winter Lecture Series.   Thanks also to SMAS and it membership for making this all happen.

I am really looking forward to next month and the next lecture in the series when Mike Murrary, Programs Manager of the Clark Planetarium in Salt Lake City, will present Seeing in the Dark: Tales of an Amateur Astronomer.

Winter Lecture Series: Shane Larson of Utah State Univ.

Dr. Shane Larson of Utah State University will deliver a lecture discussing ‘CONNECTIONS TO THE COSMOS: The Search for Life Beyond Earth’. This event will be held in the Hagar Auditorium of the Museum of the Rockies on the evening of Friday, January 29th. Shane’s lecture will begin promptly at 7PM, and this presentation is free and open to the public.

Presentation abstract:

One of the most profound questions for modern scientists is whether or not Earth is unique in all the Cosmos.  Are there other worlds that may bear matter organized into patterns we call “life”?  Will such worlds be similar to our own or extraordinarily different?  In modern astronomy there are two distinct avenues of inquiry into this question: first, do other Earth-like worlds exist, and how might we detect them, and second, if there is life on other worlds what might it be like and how might we communicate with it?

In this talk we will examine these questions.  Our conversation will range from how we are looking for other worlds that might harbor life, to imagining what strange forms that life might take on, and lastly exploring the scientific principles that would be employed to enable a conversation with other intelligent entities in the Cosmos, our neighbors on another world.

Funding for the Winter Lecture Series is provided by SMAS, MOR, and MSGC.

Fred Birk, Past President of SMAS to speak on VLA

Fred Birk, Past President of SMAS will give us an update on activities at the Very Large Array in New Mexico during the March 26th. meeting of SMAS.

Winter Lecture Series: Mike Murrary – Clark Planetarium

Mike Murrary, past member of SMAS and now Programs Manager of the Clark Planetarium in Salt Lake City, will give the second Winter Lecture at the Museum of the Rockies at 7:00PM Feb. 26th. His talk is titled: “Seeing in the Dark: Tales of an Amateur Astronomer.”
Mark your calendar for this outstanding speaker!!

John Bogard to talk Friday, Oct.30 at SMAS meeting

John Bognar, past director of MSU’s high altitude scientific balloon program (BOREALIS,) will talk about the current status of high altitude ballooning.
John has a company (Anasphere) that has developed some radiosonde kits that let students gather their own atmospheric data with sensors they launch on small helium balloons. Their web site anasphere.com summarizes most of the educational work and outreach.

NASA’s Mars Phoenix Mission P.I. to give special SMAS presentation on October 8th.

Dr. Peter Smith of NASA’s Mars Phoenix Mission will deliver a lectured entitled “Phoenix in Winter Wonderland” during a special meeting of SMAS that will be held on October 8th. This event will be in the Hager Auditorium of the Museum of the Rockies, and will begin promptly at 7:00PM. This event is free and open to the public.

Dr. Smith’s abstract for the presentation is as follows:

Phoenix recently completed a five-month-long investigation of the Martian arctic and found water ice just beneath the dry surface soil. Comparing Antarctic dry valleys with the Martian polar plains leads to the conclusion that liquid water helped create the minerals in the soil. Snow has been observed falling from overlying clouds and frost is seen on the surface. Water is clearly part of the climate cycle and leads to the question: Is this a location where life is possible on Mars?

MSU’s Littenberg to give September 25th SMAS lecture

Dr. Tyson Littenberg of MSU’s Physics Department will deliver a lecture entitled “Revealing Einstein’s Universe: The Gravitational Wave Detection Problem” during our September 25th general meeting. This event will be held in the Redstart Classroom of the Museum of the Rockies and will begin promptly at 7:00PM. As always, this event is free and open to the public.

1 Moon Sets, 3 Moons Rise

Ha, My son Matt & I set up the 13 inch Gorsky scope on the driveway just as our earths moon was setting.  We turned the scope to Jupiter and proceeded to watch 3 moons pop out from around Jupiter within 25 minutes.  I noticed on the Sky & Telescope Jupiter’s Moons program that this was going to occur and was glad to see it happen live.  As Europa cleared the planet it was visible as a little bump on Jupiter….So we called it a ”Zit”.   Jupiter only appeared to have 1 moon for a time before the acne problem developed.

On September 2nd at  10:45 pm or so, Jupiter will appear to be without any moons for 1hr & 45 minutes till 2 moons appear within 10 minutes.  This is something else I want to see.  Kinda funny that on this night, Our moon Luna, will be darn near full, and right next to Jupiter in the sky….(Apparently).

The web site to track Jupiter’s moons is: http://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/objects/javascript/jupiter#

Jupiter appearing moonless is a rare event that happens only about 20 times per century, and we have front row seats.

Happy Gazing!

Stars Over Yellowstone – August `09

We had yet another great weekend in Yellowstone with Jim Manning, executive director of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, presenting two wonderful talks even through we were somewhat clouded out on Saturday night.

Friday night was spectacular and we had the telescopes set up in the parking lot rather than down in the meadow below the amphitheater and this worked out quite well overall.  The turnout for Jim’s first campfire presentation was large and we had a huge crowd at the telescopes into the night.  Jupiter was rising as the Sun set and was high in the sky as Jim’s presentation was over and the crowd moved up to the telescopes.  Of course, everyone got to view Jupiter and the Galilean moons,  M14 The Hercules Cluster and many other jewels of the summer sky.

On Saturday, Charlie, Dr. Sabo, Eric and Ester, and our friends from YVAA, Kevin Bebbe and Rich McCellan, were at Old Faithful for solar observing throughout the afternoon.  Burt Rutan and his wife Tonya stopped by and Eric, Charlie and I got to visit with them for a few minutes about SMAS, commercial space flight, and science education among other topics.  What a pleasant surprise and honor to meet and visit with these good folks.

Jim’s campfire presentation Saturday evening, Galileo’s Universe, was wonderful and a large crowd turned out.  Duncan and I had decided to return to Bozeman after Jim’s presentation and so we missed the observing session but a great weekend overall.  I really can’t think of a better way to spend a weekend.  Cheers…