"Star Chart" Android and iOS app

   Odds are, you are already aware of mobile night sky applications. You may even have one downloaded on your device already. If you haven't, and you're trying to figure out which one to download, this is the post for you. Here I'll talk about the night sky app I use, and why I use it. The app is available on both Android and iOS devices.

                                                       Star Chart

    The app is called Star Chart. It contains a thorough catalog of night sky objects, namely, solar system objects, stars, constellations, and Messier objects. The only issue I have found with this app is that, not only do you have to upgrade to get comets, meteor showers, and satellites, those upgrades don't come in one package. You have to buy each upgrade individually(????). I could understand paying a dollar or two to get all those upgrades, but to have to buy each one by itself just seems wrong.

   Let's get right into this. The first and foremost feature I like, is the night mode. It turns the entire app interface a deep red color. This red shading prevents your eyes from loosing their adjustment to the dark, provided you also turn you screen brightness way down. I've found this extremely useful. 

Night Mode allows you to keep your "night vision".

The other feature that holds it's own is the AR mode. This mode uses the gyro and accelerometer in your device to show you what part of the sky your device is aiming at. This is helpful in the event of trying to locate the Milky Way to photograph it, to locate a night sky object, etc. 

    The app also provides detailed information about the object you select. For instance, in the image below I've selected the star Vega. It tells you which constellation it's in, general characteristics such as surface temperature, distance, brightness, and even the coordinates to punch in to your tracking mount telescope. So this is great for somebody wanting to learn details of objects in the night sky.

    The last feature I'll touch on is the visuals. I love how the app interface looks. They've made the sky, the stars, and the Milky Way enjoyable to look at. I know that isn't going to help you with your astronomy, but it definitely adds to the enjoyment of using the app, in my opinion.

    I've only touched on a few of the features here. It can do much more apart from what I brought out, which were just the features that are my favorite. If you're looking for a night sky app to use, give this a try. If you don't like it, try another. There are many to chose from! So pick one, and get outside and have some fun with it!

First Attempt at Capturing the Milky Way

The Milky Way

    After all this time, I finally managed to get my hands on a DSLR camera. It's a Canon EOS Rebel T5 1200D. I'm very pleased with how it performs. So this was my first attempt at getting a clear shot of the Milky Way. It worked out pretty well! I hope to spend more time with the camera in order to get more familiar with it, and as a result, get even better shots.

   This shot was taken at ISO 6400, f3.5, at 30 seconds. You can notice some slight star trailing on the right side of the photo, so my exposure was slightly too long. I'll definitely be having another go at this soon, Ill try a slightly lower aperture to reduce noise, and I also would like to attempt at getting a good star trail image.

Observational Session

   I was able to get the scope out several nights the past week. I was gonna focus primarily on October 26th. What made that night significant was was my success in finding the M13 star cluster. M13 is approximately 145 light-years in diameter, and lies some 25,000 light years from earth. It's said to be composed of hundreds of thousands of stars, the brightest of which is a red giant.

   When I first found M13, it was difficult to identify as a star cluster. It looked similar to M31, Andromeda Galaxy, just a little cloud in the lens, but I was using my 30mm SuperView lens, which gives more of a wide mosaic view. So I popped in a 9mm lens, and I was startled for second. I could see individual stars, just about like this picture here. It was phenomenal.

   Star clusters, or if you want the technical name, globular clusters, are held together by an immense gravitational pull. Astronomers say that there could be about 180 different globular clusters in our own Galaxy, each spaced tens of thousands of light-years apart. The globular clusters are also said to be much older than the open clusters found throughout the arms of the galaxy, and are, of course, much more dense.

Telescopes

Orion xt8i, xt10i, and xt12i intelliscopes

   If you're looking to see a globular cluster in good detail, I'm gonna have to recommend a dobsonian telescope. Dobsonians have the largest aperture of any telescope for the amateur astronomer. A scope with an 8-inch aperture will do great, but at least a 10-inch would be ideal, or if you wanna go further, maybe even a 12-inch. Just remember, the larger the aperture, the more light that is collected. Keep in mind also, a larger aperture means more $$$. These intelliscopes here to the right cost a pretty penny as well. You can get each of these three models without the computerized go-to mount, and save hundreds. The nice thing about having one without a computerized mount is that the telescopes movement is all manual. Which means you have to work to find what you're looking for, and as a result, instead of just memorizing coordinates to punch into a keypad, you actually learn the layout of the night sky. That's what makes astronomy fun right? It just seems so much more satisfying that way. That is, however, just my opinion. If you really want the computerized tracking mount, there's absolutely nothing wrong with having it, in fact, I imagine it would quite fun to use. It's all up to you.

How Big is the Universe?

    Earth is remarkable isn't it? An absolutely beautiful planet we live on. Not only that, it's HUGE isn't it? Well from our standpoint, yes, it is. However, when you think about how much there is out there beyond planet Earth, it's not. Actually, Earth is microscopically, infinitesimally, imperceptibly SMALL, and then some! Was I getting carried away? Not at all. I'll Help you see why. 

    The Solar System

Orbits of the objects in our solar system.

 

 Our Solar system consists of the Sun, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, in that order. How large is the Solar System though? Well, the Sun is approximately 93,000,000 miles from earth. So if you were to hop in a jet plane and fly to the sun, assuming that was possible, it would take you about 17 years to get there. However, we're only the third planet from the Sun. So how far is it from the Sun to outermost planet? Astronomers speculate that it's about 4.5 billion kilometers. That's about 9 billion kilometers in diameter. WOW, right? That's nothing. The universe is so vast, there is no adjective you can use to do it justice. In fact, once we measure distances outside our solar system, we have to start using a unit of distance larger than miles or kilometers... much larger. 

Light-Years

    What is a light year? Simply put, it's the distance light travels in one year. Think about that for a minute. How far can light go in one year? Well, light travels at 186,000 miles every second. So there are 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an hour, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. That comes out to about, five trillion, eight-hundred and sixty-five billion, six hundred and ninety-six million miles, or: 5,865,696,000,000. That's how far light can go in a year. Even measuring distances in space using light-years, however, can be compared to trying to measure the distance between New York city and the island of Madagascar, using milometers.  

Going Beyond the Solar System

    So, how much space is there between the stars? Well the closest star to our sun, Proxima Centauri, is about 4 light-years away. That's just the closest star, however. Other stars are tens, hundreds, or thousands of light-years away. Now, this brings up a very interesting facet of the cosmos. Consider Proxima Centauri, it's 4 light-years away, so it would take a beam of light 4 years to reach it from Earth. Although that is correct, think about it this way: it takes light from the star itself 4 years to reach us. So guess what? If you look at Proxima Centauri, you're seeing what it looked like 4 years ago. That same principle applies to everything you look at in the night sky. You know what this means? When you look into the sky, or through your telescope at night, you're becoming a time traveler! When you look at the star Vega, you're seeing what it looked like some 25 years ago, when you look at the Dumbbell nebula, you're seeing thousands of years into the past, or when you look at the Andromeda galaxy, you're seeing some 2.2 million years into the past.


    Remember all of this as you gaze into the night sky. Like I said before, there is no adjective you can use that effectively describes the size of the universe; it's absolutely unending.

Strange "Hybrid Star" Discovered

Location of the first suspected TZO object, some 200,000 light-years from Earth.
Credit:  Space.com

       

 Astronomers have discovered what can be referred to as a hybrid star, which is a smaller star squeezed into a larger star, and it's likened to cosmic buried treasure. Why? Well since 1975, it's only been a theory, there was no tangible evidence that such an object existed, until now.

 This "hybrid star" is what results when a neutron star is swallowed up by a red supergiant, which is the largest star scientists have discovered. A neutron star is essentially a supermassive star that collapsed into a radius of about 10km due to the force of gravity, after a supernova. 

 These "hybrid stars" are actually called Thorne-Zytkow (TZO) objects. They're theorized to result from the existence of binary systems, which makes perfect sense. You might wonder though, "How could astronomers tell that a neutron star is sitting inside a red supergiant?" Well a TZO looks exactly like a red supergiant, but the fact that there's a neutron star inside it cause it to give off a unique chemical signature, setting it apart from a red supergiant.

 The TZO is located in a dwarf Galaxy neighboring the Milky Way, about 200,000 light-years from earth. It's also said that the evidence of the TZO existing is strong, but not 100%. It perfectly matches scientists expectations, but they're based off models and calculations that are a few decades old. So it seems likely that there'll be new research done as to make up-to-date models of a TZO. Which is most likely going to create new expectations for one as well.

 Just a few months ago, a TZO was considered to be an obscure topic; just a theory. Now, however, they're existence is becoming a distinct possibility.

Observing session, October 6th

    
    I was able to get the telescope out last night, Monday, October 6th, after nearly a week of cloud covered skies and rain. At the time, the moon was out, and was almost full, so it nearly out shone everything else in the sky. Here's a shot I got of it with my phone, I basically just held it up to my telescope eyepiece:

I

I was surprised that I was able to get a decent shot of the Moon here. You can actually see the depth in the craters and a lot of details. I was using a Meade Ma 40mm multi-coated lens, that's actually designed for use with an astrophotography camera mount. 


    Like I said before, the moon made it difficult to find anything else in the sky. I did manage to find M31, Andromeda Galaxy, but it was faint at best. I couldn't seem to locate any nebula that normally I would've had no trouble finding. I had also set out to find M33, Triangulum galaxy, unfortunately to no avail. When I realized it was going to be nearly impossible to find any Messiers given my circumstances, I broke out my Fujifilm Finepix S 4800 and attempted some night sky shots. It isn't a DSLR so it wouldn't pick up a huge amount of starlight, I'm sure the moon played a role there as well, but it did fairly decent:

  

   













    I just recently figured out how to leave the shutter open on the camera for an extended period of time, and at that point I realized it would be possible for me to have a shot at astrophotgraphy, and well, there's the results! Not all that bad really, for a bridge camera. I have a Velbon 9000 deluxe tripod that I received as a gift, but unfortunately, it was missing the plate that the camera mounts to. So I had to order one, and it's on its way. So in the near future I'll be able to use that to get some good shots of the sky. I'm thinking next time I try, I may get better results if the moon isn't out, so I'll see how that goes and keep the blog updated as to that.


   There's a nature preserve near where I live that's hosting an astronomical event this December, and I'm hoping to attend that and take the telescope out there with me. So you'll be hearing from me on that, and I'll keep the blog updated before then as well.

Sky Events 2014: Lunar Eclipse

    

    What's your favorite part of Autumn? Color in the trees? Cool weather? Jumping into a big pile of leaves? Well, this fall we get something extra we can enjoy: a total lunar eclipse. The eclipse starts around 4 A.M. EDT (1:16 A.M. PDT) on October 8th, and will be visible anywhere in North America. However, you won't notice much of a difference in the coloration of the Moon until it passes through the outer part of the Earth's shadow, the penumbra, into the inner part of the Earth's shadow, the umbra, around 5 A.M. EDT (2:15 A.M. PDT).

The mechanics of a lunar eclipse. Showing how the longer red wavelengths are bent around the earth as a result of it's atmosphere, reaching the Moon.

mars.nasa.gov

    

    Once the Moon passes into the umbra, it will be there for about an hour and ten minutes, so you'll have that long before it moves on and out. Once totality approaches, when the Moon is totally obscured from the Sun, no direct sunlight reaches it. So this raises the question, "Why does the Moon look red during a lunar eclipse?" This is where it get's interesting. The Moon appears red because sunlight that hits the Earth's atmosphere is bent around the planet, and strikes the Moon behind it. Why red though? Why not blue? Red has a longer wavelength, whereas blue has a shorter wavelength. So any blue light is scattered throughout the atmosphere, and dissipates. The red light passes on through the atmosphere, and out to the Moon due to it's longer wavelength. 

    People in North America aren't the only ones who can witness the eclipse. Anyone on islands in the Pacific Ocean will also get a fantastic view. For those in Asia, New Zealand, and Australia, the eclipse will occur on the evening of October 8th.