OASA stargazer september

Online Astronomy Society Stargazer Contents Whats up this month?

Shuttle Programme Clyde Tombaugh, discoverer of Pluto

Whats up?

With the nights drawing in earlier and the winter season fast approaching its a good time to pop out and see whats up Planets Mercury Jupiter Are hidden in the glare of the Sun Venus Is very low in the Western Sky, look for it 20 - 30 mins after Sunset Mars & Saturn Look for both in the western sky in constellation of Scorpius they set fairly early on.

Uranus (magnitude 5.8, in Pisces) and Neptune (magnitude 7.8, in Aquarius) are well up by 11 or midnight in the southeast and south, respectively Source: Sky and Telescope Magazine

Second Quarter Moon taken by Alexander Leith (age 3) Using a Canon DSLR (and with a little help from Daddy)

Chart courtesy of Starry Night Pro

Kids Corner - Constellation spotting Why not get a pencil and paper and sketch some stars as you see them with the naked eye. Draw the little dots.

Then once done with the help of an adult, compare the pattern to a star chart, see which constellation you drew.

What is the name of the constellation?

How many stars can you see in it?

How many can you name?

Is there anything of interest in there? (Nebula, Galaxy?)? If so, what are they called? Can you sketch them too?

Deep Sky Viewing M13, M92 - both in Hercules M27 - Vulpecular

M13 and M92 are both bright globular star clusters visible in the constellation of Hercules. M13 is the brighter (and more celebrated of the two) and easily visible in binoculars.

However its neighbour, M92 is also worth a look but sadly overlooked.

Image of M13 taken by Alastair Leith Lx10 8� SCT Canon DSLR

M27 in the constellation of Vulpecular. It can be seen with binoculars, but better with a telescope. Image Credit - Alastair Leith

Credit - Alastair Leith

Next month we will examine more Shuttle Missions, including the famous STS-31 which put Hubble Space Telescope into Space.

Interested in GCSE Astronomy?

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CLYDE TOMBAUGH Ph.D Clyde Tombaugh 4th Feb 1906—17th jan 1997 At 20 years old, Clyde Tombaugh built his first telescope. Even then, I doubt if he would have had any idea of the path he had set himself on and the discovery of the most controversial object in our solar system , since the sun became a stationary object. Join me on this journey and discover this amazingly clever mans life.

Clyde Tombaugh was born 4th February 1906, near Streaptor Illinois, USA. Little is known about Clyde’s childhood and maybe that’s the way he wanted that to be, private.

He attended high school in Streater, but had to move to a farm in a town called Burdett, Western Kansas. Clyde’s plans to leave and go to college, after the move, were ruined after a massive hailstorm, tornado like weather event, destroyed the farms entire crop for the year. Not deterred by this, he continued with his own education, his passion, mathematics, solid geometry and trigonometry.

Starting in 1926, at the age of 20, Tombaugh built his first telescope, a Newtonian. Determined to perfect his build and obviously unhappy with the first effort, he designed and built two more over the next two years. The lens and mirrors were ground entirely

by Clyde himself, honing his skills further. During his life time, Clyde was to go on and make 30 telescopes by his own hand. He was always unimpressed with the manufactured telescopes that you could simply buy. Having mastered the skill of grinding his own optics, he started to use his handmade mk111 telescope pointed at his most favourite objects, the planets. Over the coming months of observations, he made several detailed drawing of Jupiter and mars, which he believed were worthy of expert analysis. Chancing his arm he sent his sketches to the Lowell observatory in flagstaff, Arizona. To his surprise, they were so impressed with Clydes eye for detail in his observations that they offered him a place at the observatory. He worked there for the next 14 years. It was during his time at the Lowell observatory that he met Patricia Edson, in Arizona, whom he fell in love with, married, and later had two children, Alden and Annette Tombaugh.

Since the erratic orbit of Uranus was discovered, the race was on to find out why, in 1846, they found out why. Through mathematical predictions , Neptune was located. A French astronomer, Urbain Le Verrier, noticed irregularities in the motions of other planets and assumed there must be an eighth planet affecting uranus’s orbit. Using Verrier’s calculations, German astronomer, Johan Galle at the Berlin Observatory located Neptune on the 23rd September 1846. Futher mathamtical mistakes were made, after neptunes discovery, which suggested that a ninth planet was affecting neptunes orbit. Well, they right but also wrong, pluto was the ninth planet but far too small to affect the orbit of any planet. Never the less the race was on to find planet x and clyde was in too. Telescopic power was that great back then especially when trying view something so far away, so the only way is photographic imaging plates taken of the same patch of sky but at diferent dates. Clyde made comparrisons using a device known as “ the blink compactor “ which rapidly flips back and forth between the 2 photographs. Anything that’s moved can be seen.Clyde spent a week studying each pair of photographs which contained 150,000 stars, sometimes double that amount. After a long week, on the 18th of February1930 Clyde Tombaugh booked a place in the history of science with the dicovery of Pluto.

Pluto has an irregular orbit as it crosses inside the orbit of neptune but because of Pluto’s orbital plane, they will never impact. Pluto’s distance from the sun varies so it has an average distance of 3 billion miles from the sun.

The name Pluto (the Greek god of the under world), was suggest, following a competition, by 11yr old Venetia Burney. She told her grand father, who wa the librarian at the oxford library. He then told his astronomer friend who then cabled the Lowell Obser

vatory. They loved it and on the 24th of march 1930, Pluto was officially discovered and Venetia received a five pound reward.

Following the disaster at the farm preventing Clyde going to collage,it was to be put right in 1932. He entered the university of Kansas where in 1936 he earned his Batchelor of science Degree. He continued to work at the observatory when he could, which was usually summer time. After graduationhe returned to the observatory fulltime and in 1938, he received his masters degree from the university of Kansas During his years at Lowell Observatory Clyde discovered hundreds of variable stars, hundreds of new asteroids and two comets. He also discovered star clusters, clusters of galaxies,one is called a super cluster in which is estimated at 29,000 galaxies. Eventually, war broke out and Clyde was called into service and stationed at the Arizona state collage in Flagstaff where he taught navigation to the navy until 1945. After the war, Lowell Observatory was unable to re-hire Clyde due to funding problems so in 1946, he went to work for the US militaryat the ballistics reasearch labs at the White Sands Missile Rang, LA Cruz, New Mexico, where he supervised optical instrumentation, used in testing new missiles. His work took on many challenges and many new instruments were designed, one of which was IGOR, “ Intercept ground optical recorder “, which was in use at White Sand for a futher 30 years. After 9 years at White Sands, it was time for Clyde to move on and 1955, he was awarded the “pioneer of white sands missile range on his departure.

From 1955 until his retirement, in 1973, Clyde Tomaugh served on the faculty at the New Mexico state university in La Cruces. In his later years, Clyde all over North America, giving lectures to raise money for his Mexico State University Tombaugh Scholarship Fund for post doctoral students in astronomy. Sadly, he died at his home on th 17thof january 1997, just missing his 91st birthday.

As Nasa’s space probe, “ New Horizons “, is off exploring the outer edges of the Kuiperbelt, it makes me glad to know the probe carries one ounce of Clydes ashes. It was clydes dying wish that his ashes be taken in to space, so on the 19th of january 2006 Clyde began a 9 year, 3 billion mile journey began. New Horizons flew past Pluto on the 14th of july 2015, bringing a trace of Clyde Tombaugh’s mortal self to the world he discovered and beyond the frontier he opened for us to explore.

Clyde was the most notable astronomer to have actually reported seeing UFO’s, which gave ground the support to the extra-terrestrial hypothesis. He described the UFO, which he saw, near Las Cruses, Mexico, as having six to eight rectangular shaped lights, which had him petrified with astonishment. He also reported seeing unexplained green fireballs apart from other sightings. I hope this account I have penned lends insight into a brilliant man and his work.

Article Credit - Jason James Ives

Childrens Quiz Credit of Jason James Ives

(this is printable) answers end of the magazine