On Thursday, May 10, 2012, Keck Observatory hosted a live webcast of an astronomy talk by Dr. Brian Siana of the University of California at Riverside. Below is the recording of that talk, which was delivered to a live audience at the Kahilu Theatre in Kamuela-Waimea, Hawaii.
The first galaxies had an extraordinary impact on the young universe. Their ultraviolet light destroyed nearly all of the atoms in the cosmos. This process, called reionization, had severe consequences for galaxies trying to form thereafter. Unfortunately, we have no idea how it happened. In galaxies today ultraviolet light cannot escape, so the first galaxies must have been very different from those we see today. Dr. Siana will describe the quest to detect these first galaxies and their impact on the early universe.
You remember haiku? Three lines, the first line with five syllables, a second line with seven syllables, and a last line with five syllables. It may be poetry, but this is easy poetry to write, a short verse with an elegant cadence.
For an AstroDay activity, Keck held an astronomy haiku project. We have a stack of entries we are just now getting a chance to read. Winners are not yet decided, but I have found a few that are wonderful, and worth giving some recognition to.
I should be clear, these are my favorites! Not necessarily the contest winners.
NGC1976 or M42, the Great Orion Nebula
Telescopes are great
They make you see very far
I love telescopes
-Madison Kobayashi (age 9)
Stars shining brightly
I look to them for comfort
In them I find you
-Lacey Siweila
Lacey is over 18 and not eligible for a prize in the contest. She knew this and enters a poem anyway. You have to love that!
The Moon is so bright
The stars help light up the night
Let’s lay out tonight
– Micah Timbresa (age 7)
Tonight’s Keck lecture looks to be an interesting one, discussing the very early ages of the universe in the few million years immediately after the Big Bang. I will be there, I hope you can be there as well.
Dr. Brian Siana
How Stars Destroyed Most of the Atoms in the Universe
The first galaxies had an extraordinary impact on the young universe. Their ultraviolet light destroyed nearly all of the atoms in the cosmos. This process, called reionization, had severe consequences for galaxies trying to form thereafter. Unfortunately, we have no idea how it happened. In galaxies today ultraviolet light cannot escape, so the first galaxies must have been very different from those we see today. Dr. Siana will describe the quest to detect these first galaxies and their impact on the early universe.
There is no charge for admission to any events in the Makana series.
Presented by W.M. Keck Observatory. This event will also be streamed live on the Keck Observatory website.
I have not had a bad cold in quite a while. Wednesday last week I felt the first symptoms, a sore throat beginning. I expected it, Deb had been suffering for a couple days by then. Thursday morning it was inescapable, I called in sick to work. I hoped it would be over by the weekend, I had promised to help out with Astroday and present a lecture on behalf of Keck at the Mauna Kea VIS. This would be the second run across island to Hilo in as many weeks, after almost a year without visiting Hilo, funny how that works.
By Saturday morning things were better, but not great. So off to Hilo I went, a good dose of decongestant improving the situation. I may not have been at 100%, but I had commitments to keep.
David Lynn manning the Keck table at Astroday 2012Astroday is always fun, everyone from the astronomy community setting up tables and educational exhibits throughout the Prince Kuhio Plaza Mall in Hilo. At this point I know so many of the folks there, even the guys from Hilo I only meet a few times each year. The event is really designed for kids, with plenty of activites and a little education mixed in.
I manned the Keck table for a couple hours until David relived me. We did the Astro Haiku contest again. Not bad, but it was a repeat of last year. We really need to get some science experiment bling for our table next year. I have some ideas for that.
This is your last chance this lifetime to witness a Venus transit! On June 5th the Earth, Venus and the Sun will line up correctly so that earthbound observers will see Venus cross the disk of the Sun.
Mercury transiting the face of the Sun, 6 Nov 2006Venus transits are relatively rare events, that occur in pairs1, with the paired events separated by eight years. Each pair is separated from the next pair in a predictable pattern, alternating 105.5 or 120.5 year gaps. The first transit of the current pair was in June 2004, with the 2012 event completing the pair. The next pair of events will begin in December 2117. Given the century long separation between events Venus transits have only occurred seven times since the invention of the telescope (1631, 1639, 1761, 1769, 1874, 1882 and 2004)2.
For Hawai’i the event will begin at about 12:10pm with the Sun high in the sky, mid-point will be about 3:26pm and will end about 6:44pm, just before sunset. These times are only approximate, exact times will depend on the observer’s location and can vary by several minutes across the islands.
Keck Observatory will be making an extra effort for this transit as Mauna Kea is perfectly positioned to observe the event. We will be webcasting the transit from a small telescope located at the summit. The webcast can be seen on your computer, or come over to our headquaters in Waimea to see the webcast and a live view in a solar telescope if the weather cooperates. there will be extra staff on hand to answer your questions.
Stay tuned to DarkerView for further details as the transit draws near.
A view of the Earth compiled from nighttime shots from the DMSP satellites, image credit NASA/Goddard Space Flight CenterHere on the Big Island we are fortunate to have very dark skies. Skies from which the stars shine brightly. This is not the case for so many, people who live where city lights have drowned out the glory of the universe in a haze of artificial light.
So often I talk to visitors who come from places where they might see a mere handful of stars. To live in or worse, to grow up in a major metropolitan area, is to lose the beauty that is our night sky. To lose the view of our universe is to reduce that vast universe to just our everyday world. You lose the imagination and sense of wonder that can change everything.
Maybe I am weird, I make a point to get out and spend nights under a dark sky. With a telescope I pass the night looking into the vastness of space. With that experience comes a broader understanding of the scale of our universe and our place within it. To see the galaxies, to know what they are, to gain a glimmer of understanding, it changes your view of who and what we are.
To me this is precious.
Light pollution may be an issue few understand. It has many consequences… Vast amounts of wasted energy and money, impacts on our health and the health of our natural environment. There are many reasons to minimize the impact of artificial lighting. Of these reasons, it is the loss of the starry night sky that can sever our connection to the universe.
This week is International Dark Skies Week. Take a moment to look up at the night sky and understand what you may have have lost.
A quandry… Our regular astronomy club meeting was the same night as Keck’s evening with astronomers lecture. These invitation events are presented to donors, featuring a lecture from a professional astronomer beneath the palm trees of the Fairmont Orchid resort. A number of our members go to both events and faced a choice of which event to attend.
A solution was proposed… Cancel the club meeting in Waimea and head for the lecture down at the resort instead. To cap the evening we would bring along a few telescopes to share the sky.
The club setup five telescope ranging from Purrcynth’s 80mm refractor to Cliff’s 24″ Dobsonian. It was an impressive line of telescopes. I setup next to Maureen with her new 10″ SCT, a nice match for the 11″ NexStar I use for public work. Arriving before the guests we had a line of telescopes setup and ready for viewing well before dark. As Venus and Jupiter appeared in the sunset we began providing views to the early arriving guests.
Maureen sharing her telescope with guests at Keck's Evening with Astronomers
The lecture was presented by Dr. Chris Martin of Caltech, covering a subject that is often overlooked, the environment between the galaxies, vast expanses of space that are anything but empty. Here can be found enormous reservoirs of gas, accounting for the majority of normal matter in the universe, something astronomers call the intergalactic medium.
I enjoyed the lecture. Having a somewhat more than average astronomy education, I find so many public lectures a bit repetitive, I have heard it before. Not this night! Dr. Martin covered a lot of material I had never previously encountered. How the universe is filled with streamers of moving gas, influenced by the gravity of dark matter the gas streams into the galaxies and clusters of galaxies, allowing the formation of new stars in an extraordinarily dynamic process. It was a view that has altered the way I see the universe.
Public awareness of a unique astronomical event, the Transit of Venus, is appearing. While avid sky-watchers have been anticipating this event for years, the general public is mostly unaware of the event.
This seems to be changing… A number of articles have appeared in the mainstream press this last week, from MSNBC to Fox News, providing information about the transit.
Yes, it is the same article on all of the sites, all apparently picked up from the Space.com site. There is some lesson here on the nature of corporate news today. In any case it is nice to see an astronomical event getting coverage. Any opportunity to get more astronomy onto the public stage is to be taken advantage of.
A transit is a less spectacular event, not exactly a total solar eclipse. It is quite interesting from an astronomical and historical standpoint. There are other articles, the transit is getting more press as the date approaches. In the run up to June 5th it will be interesting to see just what the public response to this event will be.
Here is the stream for tonight’s Keck lecture. Nothing to see if you stop by early (or late). Come by at 7:00pm HST to see Dr. Richard Wainscoat of the University of Hawai’i Institute for Astronomy, “City Dark: Search for Night on a Sleepless Planet.”
Better yet… drop by the Kahilu Theater in Waimea to see the talk in person.
