I went to see the press preview of  Hubble 3D at Pacific Science Center’s Boeing IMAX Theater. It’s opening on March 19th (2010) – tickets here. Full disclosure, in case you were unaware, I am employed by Pacific Science Center but my comments here are my own.

I have been looking forward to this film for months, and I was struck by the similarity to some of what I do. So, if you will excuse the conceit, I would like to share a double story with you.

Hubble

Hubble 3D is partially just plain fun: fly-throughs of actual beautiful Hubble images, three-dimensionalized by some very talented folks who worked with some very intelligent astronomers to be as accurate as possible. As much as I love Hubble images, the other part of the movie is what I enjoyed most. The story of how to fix an ailing telescope, 350 miles above the Earth’s surface. I’ll give you some hints – but go see the movie for yourself to get the full story of the repairs to Hubble.

A Day in the Life

Then there’s what I do. In November, the planetarium projector also chose to show its age. On its way down the elevator shaft it slipped the last six inches and refused to budge. This was extremely scary for all of us, and after several calls to the techs in Pennsylvania we decided we needed to winch it up.

Here’s where it gets similar to the Hubble mission. Compare these two pictures:

That’s Astronaut Mike Massimino in the center, with his head stuck up in the bowels of Hubble. Astronaut Mike Good’s  hands are in the lower right, holding a tool that looks like a drill with a long bit.

And this is me. Five feet down an elevator shaft that’s about  three-and-a-half or four feet in diameter, trying to reach down another two and a half feet to unhook a chain.

The astronauts on STS-125 had quite a lot more to contend with, they were wearing space suits, the stakes were higher, their equipment larger and more expensive, but we both succeeded through teamwork, specialized tools, perseverance, and time.

Nemeses

Ah, and then the equipment just seemed to fight back:

Specialized Tools

In order to safely remove small screws in space, and be able to manipulate power tools while wearing gloves, they developed some very specialized tools for the Hubble repair missions.

Well, we were inspired by this – but  Mark made a tool very similar, but with a slightly pointier point. Unfortunately, that tool is at the bottom of the elevator shaft now, so I can’t show you a real picture. (Coat Hanger credit: Demion on Flickr)

Teamwork

This is the team, and this is their poster: I love it.

Well, we may not have a movie poster, but we couldn’t have lifted the projector without the work of a large number of people, not the least of whom were Mark Rogers, Kim Chinn, Sarah Huschle, Chuck Hanna-Myrick, and the planetarians! Gary Kezele made the commemorative sketch.

Want More?

Hubble

STS-125 (the repair mission)

Hubble 3D in IMAX – the newest IMAX space movie.

See it in Seattle (Use this link until March 19th) (Use this link after March 19th)

~ A l i c e !

P.S. All astronaut photos are from NASA. As you might expect.

• When: Saturday, March 20, 2010 at 7:22pm (so come at 6:50pm)
• Where: Solstice Park (or, if you’re not in Seattle, wherever you have a view of the western horizon!)
• Who: Everyone welcome. as usual.
• This event is my part of NASA’s Solar System Ambassadors program, so if you have questions about NASA missions, bring them and I’ll do my best or direct you to somewhere that can answer!

Come watch the spring equinox sunset Solstice Park in West Seattle on Saturday. We’ll see if the sunset lines up with the placed marker. I’ll be there even if it is cloudy because sometimes the Sun peeks through just as it begins to set, but if it is driving rain or sleet I’m staying home with a hot cup of tea.

If you’re interested – here’s the timing of various celestial events on Saturday from Seattle, courtesy of the U.S. Naval Observatory Astronomical Applications Department

Sun and Moon Data for One Day

The following information is provided for Seattle, King County, Washington (longitude W122.3, latitude N47.6):

Saturday 20 March 2010 Pacific Daylight Time

SUN
Begin civil twilight 6:41 a.m.
Sunrise 7:12 a.m.
Sun transit 1:17 p.m.
Sunset 7:22 p.m.
End civil twilight 7:53 p.m.

MOON
Moonrise 8:21 a.m. on preceding day
Moonset 12:11 a.m.
Moonrise 8:55 a.m.
Moon transit 5:02 p.m.
Moonset 1:19 a.m. on following day

Everyone is welcome, see you there!

P.S. Thanks to West Seattle Blog for publicizing the last few! If you don’t know them, they are a great way to keep your finger on the pulse of our not-so-little peninsula.

~ A l i c e !

Check out Carnival of Space #144!

~ A l i c e !

I declare it is time for another last-minute star party in West Seattle. This will be my second event as one of NASA’s Solar System Ambassadors.

• Tonight, Saturday, March 6, 2010
• Start: 9pm – I may leave around 10 or 10:30 unless no one shows up.
• Solstice Park as usual (at the TOP, if you’re by the tennis courts go up)

As always, this is if the weather is permitting. If you can see stars I’ll be there (unless it gets really super freezing cold).

Telescopes – Mars first, Saturn later?

I’ll bring a couple telescopes, you should bring one if you have one. We’ll look at Mars definitely, and maybe Saturn if it comes up over the trees in time.

Unfortunately, we’ll miss seeing the international Space Station, but if you wanted to step out of your house earier, you can see it around 7:47pm, starting West-Southwest.

GLOBE at Night

This would be a perfect opportunity to get your GLOBE at Night observations in. Wait, you don’t know about GLOBE at Night? Well check this out – you can help out on a worldwide science project to determine how stargazing quality is changing around the world. Plus, I’ll be around to help out if you need it (but I don’t think you will). The Lat/Long of Solstice Park is (47.536341, -122.39052).

See you tonight!

~ A l i c e !

March-April 2010 Starmap

Upcoming Events

March 3-16, 2010 – GLOBE at Night

The annual citizen-science stargazing event is back! Go outside any one of the above dates and take a look at Orion – no telescope or binoculars needed. GLOBE at Night wants to know how many stars you can see with just your eyes. But wait! They make it easy – you don’t have to count the stars – just compare what you see to diagrams, and pick the one that matches and submit your observations online. This data will be compiled into maps which will help astronomers track light pollution and how stargazing quality in various parts of the world.
Go to their webpage, download an observation packet, and take your family out to your backyard for some real science!
You’ll need to know your latitude and longitude:
Seattle is at: 47°37’N, 122°20’W

8:30pm Saturday, March 27, 2010 – Earth Hour

All you have to do for Earth Hour is turn off your lights – especially your outdoor lights for one hour at 8:30pm on March 27th. It’s that easy. Earth Hour is about awareness of energy conservation and climate change – with the added benefit of supporting Dark Skies Awareness and making stargazing awesome even in big cities.
You can sign up and get more information, or just turn off your lights. Tell a friend; ask your neighborhood businesses to participate. Anything you do helps.

Constellations and Observables:

Notable Sky Objects

MARS

Mars is high, bright, and beautiful in March and April. Look for a bright reddish star near the zenith – or check the starmap above for more detail. Mars was just at opposition a month ago, so now is still a wonderful time to look at it.

SATURN

Saturn is also high in the sky as the night wears on, rising later than Mars, but visible most of the night.

JUPITER, MERCURY, VENUS

Jupiter, Mercury, and Venus are all too close to the Sun to be visible.

New Constellations

BOÖTES – The Herdsman

SCIENCE: Arc to Arcturus, Speed on To Spica. This is how you find Boötes using the curve of the handle of the Big Dipper – and then that leads you on to Spica in Virgo!
Tau Boötes (sorta Boötes’ left foot) has an extrasolar planet! One of the so-called hot Jupiters. You can see this star just to the right of Arcturus – it’s the crook (corner) star off the little triangle that you’ll see there.
MYTH: The modern myth is that Boötes invented the plow, and therefore farming, and he’s the only “regular person” up in the sky – everyone else is a God, or partially Godlike, or something. I love this myth, because I can explain that Boötes is why we have cell phones and planetariums. It turns out that several different cultures depict Boötes as a herdsman or a farmer: the Saudi Arabians, the Egyptians (to whom the Herdsman is so important he also represents Osiris), the Greeks, and the Christians. Yowsa.

VIRGO – The Virgin (or “Princess”)

SCIENCE: Arc to Arcturus, Speed on To Spica. This is how you find Boötes using the curve of the handle of the Big Dipper – and then that leads you on to Spica in Virgo!
We are part of the Virgo Cluster Supercluster of galaxies – and it’s called the Virgo Supercluster Cluster because to see the rest of the galaxies in our group you look towards Virgo. There’s a bunch of beauties out there by Virgo’s face, so if you’ve got a scope, take a look, and if you don’t, look up some pretty pictures of our group of galaxies – most of them are over there.
MYTH: Worried about talking about virgins in mixed company? Well, princess is a perfectly acceptable way to talk about Virgo, also “girl” is good too. If your audience is up to it, you might mention that this virgin usually represents the Greek goddess of justice – so I wouldn’t try to cross her if I were you.

CORONA BOREALIS – The Northern Crown

SCIENCE: There’s not much too Corona Borealis, but it is a very noticeable grouping of stars, and therefore quite helpful in finding Hercules, especially in our murky Seattle skies.
MYTH: Obviously the Greek myth is about a crown, but the Housatonic Native Americans call this Ursa Major’s cave!

HERCULES – Hercules

SCIENCE: Do not miss M13 – the Hercules Globular Cluster! This is one of the oldest groups of stars in our galaxy – it’s like the old-folks home of stars.

Hercules Globular Cluster by the Hubble Space Telescope

MYTH: “Hercules is one of the oldest constellations, found in the cave drawings of primitive cultures. Not even the Greeks were sure of his origins. We are aware that very early cultures worshipped him, but who and what his starry figure stood for is a mystery.
“About 300 BC the Chaldeans said that this figure was standing victorious on the head of a twisting serpent. They associated these two figures, Hercules and Draco (the serpent) with their sun god, Ishdubar.
“The Chinese called Hercules ‘Titso’ or ‘the emperor’s seat’.” (From Zeta Strickland)

“Tiny” Guys

Going for the Gold? Here’s this month’s itty-bittys.

SERPENS – The Serpent
LYRA – The Lyre (just starting to peek up)
CORVUS – The Crow
CRATER – The Cup
COMA BERENICES – Berenice’s Hair
CANES VENATICI – The Hunting Dogs
LYNX – The Lynx
SEXTANS – The Sextant
HYDRA – The Sea Serpent (Big and dim, so big that it’s close to being biggest Northern Hemisphere constellation)
ANTILA – The Air Pump (Maybe you’ll see it, but it might be too far south)
MONOCEROS – The Unicorn
LACERTA – The Lizard
LEO MINOR – The Small Lion (Between the Big Dipper and Leo)
CAMELOPARDALIS– The Giraffe

Returning Constellations

LEO – The Lion
CANCER – The Crab
CANIS MAJOR – The Big Dog
ORION – The Hunter
TAURUS – The Bull
GEMINI – The Twins
CEPHEUS – King Cepheus
DRACO – The Dragon
URSA MAJOR – The Great Bear
URSA MINOR – The Little Bear
CASSIOPEIA – The Queen

Happy Sky Viewing!

Where’d I Get My Info?

My memory, and Zeta Strickland

~ A l i c e !

… and suddenly it was spring!

Enjoy a picture …

Cherry Blossoms at South Seattle Community College

What? Not “astronomy” enough for you? Astronomy is the REASON we have cherry blossoms in spring!

… and Three Carnivals!

Carnival #142 – with wonderful illustrations, and featuring two of my posts! Check it out.

Carnival #141

Carnival #140

~ A l i c e !

How long does it take to get to Mars? Well, that depends. As per usual I’ll give you the short answer first: 5-7-ish months.

Depending On …

• Energy
  • The faster you go, the more energy you must expend to get there. Energy is expensive.
• When You Leave
  • You could leave any time you wanted to, but if you don’t leave at the right time you’ll just end up chasing after Mars, or doodling around the orbit waiting for Mars to catch back up to you. It’s like catching a bus – you don’t want to wait around at the bus stop too long, but you also don’t want to miss the bus.
• Length of Stay
  • If you’re going to all the trouble of going to Mars, I would think you’d want to spend a little time there. Then, your return journey has to be timed just right

Some Choices

A Hohmann transfer orbit is one of the most common ways to move between orbits. It is energy-efficient without being incredibly slow.

The Classic Choice:

Hohmann Transfer - Image Credit: Gary Kezele

So, if you do a couple of plain Hohmann transfer orbits – one on your way to Mars, one on your way back, you end up with about 7.5 months each direction with a nice long stay of over a year on Mars.

Speed It Up:

Get There Quick - Image Credit: Gary Kezele

Well, why waste all that time en route? If you up your energy consumption you can move between orbits a little faster. This is very similar to a Hohmann transfer orbit, but significantly quicker. Travel time is more like 5 months each direction, and you still get to spend almost two years on Mars.

Early-Return

Early-Return Mission - Image Credit: Gary Kezele

What if you get there and need to come back? What if you’re just not sure what might happen and don’t want to invest a lot in spending time there? If your goal is more to prove that it is possible to go there than to spend time there, you might prefer an early-return mission. You sacrifice a lot on the return mission: it takes almost 10 months to get home. For a “footprints on Mars” mission (similar to our first Moon missions) this gets you just under a month of study-time on Mars. Also, if things start to go wrong early on in a longer mission, you could abandon the remaining mission and return early using this path. Plus you might get to swing by Venus!

Ultra-Slow

There are two more quick options I’d like to mention. The ultra-slow route – spiraling out from Earth’s orbit, eventually reaching the orbit of Mars. The Dawn spacecraft is using an orbit like this and a low-energy ion engine to reach the asteroid belt over the course of six years.

Don’t Come Back

It sure takes months off your travel time if you just go and don’t return. Like the settlers of the American West and all over the world – the people who make a new world their own are the people who set out with that in mind. This is a much cheaper mission – and there are some fascinating arguments for it.

Want More?

http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/mars/marsprof.html
http://image.gsfc.nasa.gov/poetry/venus/q2811.html
http://dawn.jpl.nasa.gov/mission/trajectory.asp

~ A l i c e !

I’m having trouble filtering my RSS feed correctly. Please bear with me, and if you’re not taking my Astr 100 class this term you’re welcome to ignore any posts with the date as the title that may have accidentally shown up in your feed reader.

It will be fixed soon!

~ A l i c e !

P.S. Take advantage of our beautiful sky and go look for Mars, Vesta, and ISS among the stars over Seattle this weekend. Mars and Vesta should be visible anywhere in the northern hemisphere, and you’ll need binoculars for Vesta unless you live somewhere with a lot less light than Seattle’s got.

We saw the crescent moon set beautifully over the Sound from here in West Seattle tonight.

Crescent Moon over West Seattle - Credit: Jason Enevoldsen

Mars and Orion - Credit: Jason Enevoldsen

Jason caught it on film – and he also caught Mars and Orion.

Enjoy!

~ A l i c e !

One of the most basic questions when it comes to Martian expeditions is communication, namely “how long does it take to communicate with Mars?” The simple short answer is 4-20 minutes, depending on where the Earth and Mars are in their orbits. It also gets more difficult when Mars is near or behind the Sun from our point of view.

Interplanetary Internet

You’re probably quite used to looking up the answers to your questions on the internet anytime you want, but with the delay in communication in space, the internet can’t work quite the same way – besides the fact that you’ll be using a connection that feels like a very, very slow modem. The way webpages are designed now that would take forever.

Data Rates

Of the missions currently at the red planet, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) has the ability to transmit the most data. Its data speed to and from Mars is about 6 megabits per second (about twice as fast as the connection I’m currently on), but that’s not continuous – it is only when MRO can “see” Earth. Since Mars is rotating, the rovers are periodically out of contact, and the satellites lose their connection when they orbit to the far side of the planet.

Eeep! We’re using speed in two different ways. Don’t confuse the speed at which the data is transmitted (the amount of data per second) with how long it takes the data to get to Earth. MRO may transmit at 6 megabits per second, whereas Spirit can only transmit directly to Earth at a maximum of 12,000 bits per second (that’s 0.01 megabits per second – like using a very old dial-up modem!), but still both messages will take the exact same amount of time to get to Earth: between 4 and 20 minutes, depending on the time of year.

Relays

Most messages from space missions go through relay satellites, for example the Mars Rovers often send data through MRO. This in itself might make interplanetary internet a reality, if we can overcome some of the blocks – like the delay causing excessive timeouts among many others. There are some folks studying this problem, and there are even proposed solutions.

Incidentally, the International Space Station just got live internet for the first time – really it’s a connection to a computer in Mission Control – and that computer is connected to the internet. That limits the information that really needs to be transmitted to the Space Station.

Would You Like to Receive a Message from Mars?

Would you like to get some tourist snapshots of Mars? The surface of Mars? Well, your chance to point the HiRISE camera at your favorite part of Mars is here.

More Info:

http://deepspace.jpl.nasa.gov/dsn/

http://marsrovers.nasa.gov/mission/comm_data.html

~ A l i c e !