FAU Astronomical Observatory -- Front Page

Welcome to the Observatory's Front Page. Included here are some of the latest news and articles that may be of interest to our visitors. General observatory information, such as location and maps, viewing schedules, Events Calendar, contact information, student class credits, parking and other general information, can be found on the "About the Observatory" page.

We also have a growing coverage about the issue of light pollution, what it is, what it does to the environment, to our wallets and resources, to our security and safety, to the night sky and what you can do about it. This is a man made problem that is prepetuated by a lack of awareness and is something that we all can correct.

The Front Page currently covers:

• General Sky Conditions
• What's Up in the Sky
• The Transit of Venus Expedition - June 5th, 2012
• Humans vs. Robotic Exploration
• Can You Identify This Image?

News of the Observatory

May 14th, 2012 -- IT'S A GO! Deputy Chief Totten of the Florida Atlantic University Police Department has given us permission to use the top deck of the parking garage to hold our on campus expedition to observe the Transit of Venus event for June 5th! Details below at: the Transit of Venus Expedition.

May 7, 2012 -- Scouted around campus today looking for decent sites to witness the Transit of Venus. Still need to talk with some campus officials about taking over a location, but I think I have found the best spot I could find. Stay tuned!

April 18, 2012 -- Our Opposition of Saturn event was a lot of fun! I am amazed how much perserverence people showed last night, while they outwaited the two hour spell of overcast clouds which temporarily halted observations. And even though it was a midweek Tuesday night, we still recorded 82 people looking through our telescope! The views of Saturn were especially good after midnight once the skies cleared out. Because of the Opposition alignment and the very effective backscattering of light from the ice in the rings, the rings looked espceially luminous! This effect is known as the Seeliger effect. Even the normaly orangish Titan seemed to share the effect, looking brighter and whiter than normal! The planet Saturn itself looked even more colorful than it typically does. Its Equatorial zone was a pale yellow. Its North Equatorial Belt and Tropical Zones looked a pale olive green, while the north Polar region looked a pale blue gray.

Thank you to all who stopped by and share in the wonder of our universe!

March 5th, 2012 -- Our Opposition to Mars event was quite successful. Over 97 people came by to the view the red planet. Thanks to all who stopped by!

General Sky Conditions

Solar conditions, atmospheric phenomena and news are reported by Spaceweather.com.

The current sky conditions of Boca Raton are found via the Clear Sky Clock:
And some details as to what this means is mentioned in the Visiting Tips section of the About the Observatory page.

Basic weather conditions for our area are at www.wunderground.com Boca Raton, while our current cloud cover can be found at www.wunderground.com for Boca Raton cloud cover.

What's Up in the Sky?   Check out: the Space Telescope Science Institute's Sky Tonight movie at Amazing Space or to Sky & Telescope's This Week's Sky at a Glance page.

What's Up in the Sky

Evenings this week: Venus begins its Plunge, Mars is overhead, & Saturn is seen later on.

Lunar Phases:

The Sun currently appears in the constellation Aries and has passed Jupiter in the sky (of course it really is that the Earth is moving so swiftly about in its orbit that the others just appear like this is so). Sol now appears in Taurus. On the 20^th of June, the Sun will reach its most northern position above the celestial equator and so mark the start of summer. Note that up til 1975, this event would normally occur on June 22^nd or the 21^st, for several years now it has been occuring on the 21^st solely, and in 2012, it will start to fall on June 20^th. The Sun will stay in Taurus until crossing into Gemini on 21^st of June, the day after the solstice.

Mercury will be at a superior solar conjunction on May 27^th. It now appears in the morning skies in the constellation Aries. On May 22^nd, at 6:37 am, look for it to appear within a half degree away from Jupiter.

Venus is in Taurus just over 1° away from Elnath, the tip to Taurus' northern horn and part of Auriga. This planet seems to have passed its maximal brightness for the year, and is at m_v = -4.47. As the days proceed, Venus will get dimmer as it is starting its apparent sunward plunge. Of course, in reality, as it is closer to the Sun it experiences a stronger gravitationsl pull, orbits the star faster than the Earth, and so it is merely overtaking us in its orbit. On May 22nd, it will appear 5° north of a two day old cresent Moon. And on June 1st, look to see it and Mercury come within a half degree of each other! Venus will be only 6.5° away from the Sun then, so you'll need to have a good clear view of the western horizon to see it!

Finally, and most importantly for us here, on June 5^th, 2012 at 6 pm DST, Venus will cross directly in front of the Sun!!! Such events are called transits and for Venus and the Sun are VERY rare events! The next transit of Venus across the face of the Sun will not occur until Dec. 11^th, 2117, over 105.5 years into the future! (Don't wait up for that one! :-D ) It is such transits of Venus that scientific expeditions, such as Captian Cook's expedition to Tahiti, were sent out across the globe to witness the timings for the first contact point, the when the planet was completely in front of the Sun, how low and the path it took to cross the face of the Sun, the timing of first point of contact when exiting and the timing of the last contact point that astronomers were able to use the timing differences of these distant simultaneous expeditions to triangulate Venus and thereby calculate the distance from the Earth to the Sun! Because of these efforts, we could use a human scaled measurements of distance, such as kilometers or miles, as a baseline to measure the astronomical distance called an A.U. For astronomy, there is very little that is historically more important than an event like a transit of Venus. But there was a surprise for these expeditions and the astronomers awaiting their results, Venus had an atmosphere which blurred the view and made the timing less precise! It wasn't until the invention of radar and sending the radio emissions to bounce back from asteroids in space were we able to finally nail this distance down to the number you remember learning in science class!

We are planning to hold an on-campus expedition to observe the event. Details are below at: Transit of Venus Expedition.

Mars (m_v = -0.93) is getting dimmer. Currently it is in the constellation of Leo and will stay there until June 21^st (the day AFTER the summer solstice!), when it will enter Virgo. On June 28^th, Mars will appear within a quarter degree from the double star Javijava, the outstretched left hand of Virgo. Now, it rises around 2:30 p.m., can clearly be seen in the early evening and is high up in the sky at 9 pm.

Jupiter has passed its solar conjunction on May 13^th, just as it entered the constellation Taurus. On the morning of May 20th, Jupiter will appear in a conjunction with the Sun, the Plieades, Mercury and the new Moon. After then, look to catch Jupiter on the flip side of the night in the morning hours before Sunrise.

Saturn, m_v = +0.38 and getting brighter, offically rises around 5:50 pm and appears in Virgo, between her hip stars of Heze and Spica. Currently it is in a perfect line between Spica and Arcturus. It will stay around Virgo's hip for the rest of the year. On May 31^st, Saturn, Spica and a waxing gibbous Moon will make a nice line up. Around Aug. 13^th 2012, Saturn, Mars and Spica will be 4.5° apart from each other. On Aug. 21^st 2012, it will appear in a nice triangle with the Moon and Mars after twilight.

Uranus, (m_v = +5.91), currently rises in the morning hours before sunrise in the constellation Cetus the whale, which is not part of the zodiac constellations. It will cross this corner of Cetus' boundary and almost leave, but just as it gets to within 2.5 arcminutes of the next boundary on July 13^th, it retrogrades back to where it came from and returns to Pisces on Sept. 17^th.

Neptune at m_v = +7.91. Is residing in Aquarius (how appropriate! :-D ), currently around 3° northeast of Iota Aquarii. It will stay in Aquarius until 2022. Its next opposition to the Sun occurs on Aug. 30^th, 2012.

Section updated: May 14^th, 2012

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Transit of Venus Expedition -- June 5^th, 2012, 6 pm DST until past sundown

On the late afternoon of Tuesday, June 5^th, 2012, the FAU Astronomical Observatory will be holding an on-campus expedition to observe the planet Venus' transit across the face of the Sun. Please come to witness the transit and learn more about it from our presentation about this historically and scientifically important event!

Of the Transit of Venus, Sir Edmond Halley said This sight...is by far the noblest astronomy affords.

Date:	Tuesday, June 5th.
Time:	6:00 pm until past sundown.
Location:	FAU's Parking Garage I (PK 81).
Activities:	Presentations about and Observations of the Transit of Venus across the face of the Sun!
Details:	In astronomy, a transit means that some object crosses or appears to move in front of another object. Some transits are very common, for example, the moons of Jupiter appear to cross in front of the planet almost every day. However, some transits are extremely rare, such as Venus crossing the face of the Sun. On June 5th, the planet will appear as a little black dot in front of the Sun, so in essence, Venus is eclipsing the Sun. Because the Earth's and Venus' orbital periods are rather similar, it takes some time for them to line up again, but because their orbital planes are not similar, it takes a very long time for a transit to be seen. The last transit occured eight years ago on June 8th, 2004. The time before then was 122 years before, and the one that will occur after this year's will be Dec. 11th, 2117, 105 years into the future. No one alive today will see Venus transit again. It was Sir Edmond Halley had realized that these transits could be used to figure out the distance between the Earth and the Sun, so he wrote a letter to the future pleading that they undertake the efforts to observe the Transits. So scientific expeditions were launched across the Earth to achieve these astronomically important observations and the rest is history.
Presentations:	A presentation will provide information about the event, a historical rememberance of failed and famous observation expeditions, and an understanding of its scientific significance.

So please come to celebrate and observe a very rare transit of Venus! This invitation is open to anyone from FAU, the community, their friends and family to come and enjoy. After all, it is their universe, too!

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NOTE: If you are NOT able to get to FAU, there are other local groups that are planning to observe the transit as well. Here is a listing of those that have or are making their own plans for the event. Perhaps one of these is closer to you:

• West Delray: Astronomical Society of the Palm Beaches will observe the transit in West Delray Regional Park, which is located at the western terminus of Atlantic Avenue west of Rt. 441.
• Weston: The South Florida Amateur Astronomers Association & the Fox Observatory in Markham Park will observe the Transit from atop a 20 feet levee at the Southwest corner of Markham park.
• Davie: Buehler Planetarium and Observatory is working out their observation plans.
• Miami: Florida International University will witness the transit from a parking garage.

Clear skies to all!

I thought that I'd try to interest you in a paper I read of an analysis of the benefits of human exploration over robotic exploration. My quick accounting of paper is below, or you can download it from the arvix.org server.

Dispelling the myth of robotic efficiency: why human space exploration will tell us more about the Solar System than will robotic exploration alone.

Source: [Published, with minor modifications, in Astronomy and Geophysics, Vol. 53, Issue 2, pp. 2.22-2.26, April 2012]

Ian A. Crawford

Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Birkbeck College London, London, England

In his paper, Dr. Crawfords argues that while human exploration missions are more expensive than robotic missions, they are NOT as efficient at returning science. He presents analysis of the scientific return on the investment of different missions, whether manned or robotic. One of his data sets involves a comparison of the lunar programs, either the manned Apollo program or various robotic missions, such as the Luna 16/20/24 robots, the Lunokhods or Surveyors. The scientific results of all of the robotic missions have flat-lined, while the Apollo programs ARE STILL PRODUCING NEW PAPERS TODAY. Its numbers are approaching 3000 in the NASA Astrophysics Data System alone, and that is from only 3.4 days of actual EVA time.

He points out that robots will only do what they are programmed to do, while human beings in the field can make serendipitous discoveries, such as Harrison Schmidt's finding of orange soil on the Moon in Apollo 17 or Apollo 15's Dave Scott finding the "Genesis rock". That humans can make on-the-spot & flexible decisions, that even tele-robotic can not do, such what is needed just to move about. Example: the Apollo 17 astrounts covered 35.7 km of distance in just three days of exploration. Compare that to the 34.4 km of distance covered by the Mars Exploration Rover (MER) Oppurtunity in eight years. Human missions come back loaded with samples (382 kg with the Apollos). Compare that to the 0.32 kg returned from the Luna robotic missions. Humans have the capability to make repairs, like the five servicing missions to the Hubble Space Telescope, unlike the poor MER Spirit which had to drag its stuck wheels a couple of years before finally shutting down.

He also points out that while more artifical intelligence can be programmed into future rovers, their costs have not gone down. For in order to get ever greater scientific results, they have to carry ever more analysis instrumentation with them, making them ever larger to function on distant worlds and ever more expensive.

For those interested, his paper can also be found at: http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1203/1203.6250.pdf

Can You Identify This Image?

The image at the right is a map of locations of:

1. southeast U.S. cities seen at night from space
2. inefficiently used energy resources and tax dollars continuously squandered by local city planners
3. local populations who are losing their humbling sense of wonder and awe of the night sky's majesty
4. increased, widespread disruptions to the local natural environment
5. all of the above

Image Credit: NASA -- Expedition 26 on the ISS.