Monthly Archives: September 2021

An imagedepicting a transient star trail, the Space X Falcon 9 passing by Earths Moon, and a glowing aurora were among the category winners of this year's Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition.

Now in its 13th year, Astronomy Photographer of the Year, which is organised annually bythe Royal Observatory Greenwich in association withBBC Sky at Night Magazine, has grown into a respected international competition for astrophotography.

Photographer Shuchang Dong has been announced as this years Overall Winner for his simple yet striking photograph of a solar eclipse titled The Golden Ring.

As winner, Dong walks away with a 10,000 prize as well as the opportunity for his work to be showcased at the exhibition of winning images at the National Maritime Museum, UK.

Commenting on the winning photograph, judge Lszl Francsics said: Perfection and simplicity, that can lead to a winner image. The square crop has a tension with the mystic ring, and the misty bluish sky is the complementary of the yellow ring. A true masterpiece.

Australian photographers Ed Hurst and Steven Mohr have been recognised as shortlisted entrants in the People & Space and the Stars & Nebulae categories, respectively.You can see their impressive stills below.

Aurorae -Dmitrii Rybalka

Skyscapes -Jeffrey Lovelace

People and Space -Deepal Ratnayaka

Our Moon -Nicolas Lefaudeux

Our Sun -Shuchang Dong

Planets, Comets and Asteroids -Frank Kuszaj

Galaxies -Zhong Wu

Young Astronomy Photographer of the Year -Zhipu Wang

If you're keen to see more of the top photographs, you can view the entire gallery of shortlisted images on the competitions website here.

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Brightest stars: The winners of the 2021 Astronomy Photographer of the Year - Australian Photography

Exploring strange new worlds. Understanding the origins of the universe. Searching for life in the galaxy. These are not the plot of a new science fiction movie, but the mission objectives of the James Webb Space Telescope, the long-awaited successor to the Hubble Space Telescope. NASA is building and launching the Webb in partnership with the European Space Agency and Canada.

The launch, which will propel the Webb to nearly a million miles away, is now scheduled for December 18, 2021. When it fully deploys in space, the Webb will usher in a new age of astronomy, scientists say, and show humanity things it has never seen before.

The Webb represents the culmination of decades, if not centuries, of astronomy, says Sara Seager, a planetary scientist and astrophysicist at MIT. Weve been waiting for this a very long time.

Scientists started thinking about a follow-up even before the Hubble Space Telescope launched in 1990. After more than three decades in space, its unclear how much longer this boundary-breaking satellite will be able to scan and photograph the universe.

The Webb was originally supposed to launch in 2010 and cost around $1 billion. Its price tag has since ballooned to $10 billion, and its way overdue. But the wait will be worth it, at least according to the scientists who expect new and revealing glimpses of our universe.

Were going right up to the edge of the observable universe with Webb, says Caitlin Casey, an assistant professor of astronomy at the University of Texas at Austin. And yeah, were excited to see whats there.

The Webb will surpass the Hubble in several ways. It will allow astronomers to look not only farther out in space but also further back in time: It will search for the first stars and galaxies of the universe. It will allow scientists to make careful studies of numerous exoplanets planets that orbit stars other than our sun and even embark on a search for signs of life there.

The Webb is a machine for answering unanswered questions about the universe, for exploring what has been unexplorable until now. Heres a guide to what the Webb is capable of.

The launch of the Hubble Space Telescope, named after famed astronomer Edwin Hubble, was itself a huge leap forward for astronomy. Here on Earth, astronomers seek out remote mountaintops and deserts to build major telescopes for the best chance of viewing a dark sky away from pollution and bright lights. But their view is still marred by the slight haze and luminescence of the Earths atmosphere. Space is the ultimate mountaintop, as NASA explains. Theres no better view of space than the one from, well, space.

Hubble has meant so much during its 30-year run. For one thing, its sent us unforgettable, jaw-droppingly beautiful images like those of the Lagoon Nebula and the Pillars of Creation.

Its also taught us about the age of the universe, about what happens when stars explode, about black holes. It helped establish many of the boundaries that the Webb hopes to push. Most powerfully, its observations have led scientists to believe the universe is expanding at an accelerating rate, propelled by something so mysterious that scientists simply call it dark energy.

The Webb, named for the man who led NASA in the decade leading up to the moon landing, is set to take all this a step further. What were going to get is a telescope thats about 100 times more powerful than Hubble, says Amber Straughn, an astrophysicist at NASA who works on the Webb.

How?

The Webb improves on Hubble in two key ways. The first is just its size: Hubble was about the size of a school bus, whereas Webb is more like the size of a tennis court. This thing is enormous, Straughn says. Webb is by far the biggest telescope NASAs ever attempted to send into space.

But its not just the total size of the contraption that matters. When it comes to reflecting telescopes, the key component is the size of its curved mirror. You could sort of think of a telescope mirror like a light bucket, Straughn says. The more light you can collect in this bucket, the fainter and farther-away things you can see in the universe.

Hubbles mirror was an impressive 7.8 feet in diameter. Webbs beautiful, gold-hued mirrors combine for a diameter of 21.3 feet. Overall, that amounts to more than six times the light-collecting area.

What does that mean in practice? Well, consider one of Hubbles most famous images, the Deep Field. In 1995, scientists set the Hubble to stare off into a teeny-tiny patch of sky (about the size of the head of a pinhead, held at arm's length from the viewer) and capture as much light as it could from that one spot.

The image that came back was astounding. Hubble uncovered thousands of galaxies in this teensy patch of sky, helping us refine the number of galaxies thought to exist in the universe.

This photograph also revealed Hubbles larger power as a time machine. In astronomy, the farther away things are, the older they are (because light from faraway places takes a very long time to travel to Earth). That means this Hubble Deep Field is not only a snapshot of space: It also contains the history of our universe. Galaxies in this image appear to us as they were billions of years ago.

What Webb will do is take that field and go even further, UT Austins Casey explains. So the tiny specks of light in the background of the Hubble Deep Field will brighten and become more detailed, well be able to see spiral arms, well be able to see structure, and then well get more specks of light even further in the past. Were seeing farther back in time with Webb.

With Webb, astronomers like Casey will be able to see so far back that theyll potentially spot the very first stars and galaxies. Hubble has seen light dating to about 400 million years after the Big Bang, which took about 13.3 billion years to reach us.

Thats far! But Webb has the capability to take us to 250 million years after the Big Bang, explains Casey, who has been approved to work with the Webb Space Telescope. It might not sound like a big difference. Whats a few hundred million years between friends? Actually, its the difference between seeing the first stars that ever turned on [and] arriving a bit too late after the funeral.

Beyond that are barriers through which even the Webb cannot see. Prior to the first starlight, the universe was shrouded by a dense, obscuring fog of primordial gas, as the National Science Foundation explains. Theres no light that reaches our telescopes from this time, which is called the cosmic dark ages.

(There is some background radiation from the Big Bang called the cosmic microwave background, a faint glow that shines to us from before the dark ages. But for the most part, the dark ages is a blank spot in our timeline of the universe.)

Casey and other astronomers hope the Webb will help them understand the end of the dark ages and figure out what caused this fog to lift. Scientists suspect the starlight from the earliest galaxies did it.

If you have a cloud of gas and it encounters energetic light, that energetic light will ionize that gas and disassociate that cloud, Casey says. And so if that light just has turned on, it then hits that gas and really transforms the entire universe from a dark place to a light place.

The Webbs other advantage is the type of light it collects.

Light comes in a lot of different varieties. The human eye can see only a narrow band known as visible light, but the universe contains lots and lots of light outside this range, including the higher-frequency, higher-energy forms: ultraviolet, gamma rays. Then theres the lower-energy light with longer wavelengths: infrared, microwaves, radio.

The Hubble Space Telescope collects visible light, ultraviolet, and a little bit of infrared. The Webb is primarily an infrared telescope, so it sees light thats in a longer wavelength than what our eyes can see. This seems nerdy and technical, but its actually what allows Webb to look further back in time than the Hubble.

Infrared light is often very old light, due to a phenomenon call redshifting. When a light source is moving away from a viewer, it gets stretched out, morphing into a longer and longer wavelength, growing redder. (The opposite is true as well: As a light source grows closer, the wavelengths shorten, growing bluer.) Its similar to what happens when a siren goes by: The pitch increases as the siren approaches, then decreases as it trails away.

Because space is constantly expanding, the farthest things away from us in the universe are moving away from us. And as light travels through space from those distant galaxies, the light is literally stretched by the expansion of space, Straughn says.

Imagine a star thats really far away. The light from that star may start off in the visible spectrum, but it gets stretched on its journey to us. It grows redder and redder. So when we see distant galaxies with Hubble, theyre sort of these little, tiny red nuggets, Straughn says. Eventually, these very distant, old galaxies grow so red that they drop into the infrared spectrum. Webb can see this ancient light that has become invisible to the human eye.

Conveniently, infrared light has other uses as well. Its a really good type of light to use to look at exoplanets. For instance, if you were on a planet that orbits another star and wanted to see Earth, visible light wouldnt be your best bet.

The Earth peaks in the infrared, says Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory astronomer Kevin Stevenson, who plans to use the Webb in his research. So if we want to be able to study an Earth-like planet in another solar system, What we really want to do is observe at infrared wavelengths, because thats where the light from the Earth is being emitted.

Exoplanet scientists like Stevenson are going to use the Webb to analyze the atmospheres of these worlds: The Webb is capable of determining some of the chemicals in their atmospheres. We can detect water, CO, CO2, methane, Stevenson says. While those arent definitive signs of life on their own, they could begin to ask fascinating questions: What created that methane and carbon dioxide? Could it have been life?

We all want to find another Earth, dont we? Stevenson says. The prospect of answering the question are we alone? has been something that weve been asking ourselves for centuries. And I think with James Webb, this will provide us the first opportunity to really answer that question.

Scientists are clearly raring to go, but the Webb revolution has taken a while. One reason for all the launch delays to the launch has to do with contractor snafus. But a big source of all of them, NASAs Straughn says, is the complexity of the Webb itself.

Because its so big, there arent any rockets that are big enough to launch it fully deployed, Straughn says. The telescope has to be folded up to fit inside a rocket, and has to deploy itself in space. So that whole process of building a deployable telescope in space is the source of a lot of the engineering challenges.

Upping the stakes is the fact that while Hubble was launched to around 340 miles above the Earth, Webb will be almost a million miles away four times the distance from the Earth to the moon.

That means once the Webb is launched, it will be unserviceable by human hands if it breaks. Thats scary, considering the history of the Hubble. Shortly after the Hubble launched in 1990, engineers realized there was a problem with its mirror; the telescopes initial images came back fuzzy, and astronauts had to launch a space shuttle to fix it. That wont be possible with the Webb. It just has to work.

It will be far away for good reason. Because Webb is an infrared telescope, it needs to be kept cold. The Earth itself is warm and glows in infrared. Anything warm glows in infrared light, Straughn says. If the telescope was warm, it would just glow and see itself.

Remarkably, any scientist around the world can apply to use the Webb Space Telescope, provided they write up a project proposal that passes peer review. Its pretty competitive. Last year the Space Telescope Science Institute, which operates space telescopes from John Hopkins University in Maryland, put out a call for proposals for Webbs first observing run. About a quarter of the proposals were accepted.

It feels like part of me is still stunned, says Lisa Dang, a physics PhD student at McGill University who was one of the lucky few to get approved to use the Webb. And the other part is having this imposter syndrome like, these data better be really amazing.

Dang is set to study one of the most extreme planets ever discovered: K2-141 b, a planet 202 light-years from Earth and so close to its host star that its surface is believed to be covered by an ocean of lava. If it has clouds, they are likely made out of vaporized rock, which could then precipitate out rock rain. Not much is confirmed about this lava planet, but Dang will use the Webb to study its atmosphere and see whats possible on this extreme world.

Winning the project proposal made me feel like an astronomer for the first time, Dang says. But it also makes K2-141 b very real suddenly.

This is the power of an unprecedented telescope such as the Webb. It will help astronomers like Dang fill in the blank spaces of the cosmos.

Its wild, when you think about it, that were able to piece together the history of what happened before the Earth or the sun even existed, Casey says.

If all goes according to plan, these kinds of breakthroughs could come in a matter of months. Astronomers around the world are waiting for the countdown to begin.

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The Webb Space Telescope is 100x as powerful as the Hubble. It will change astronomy. - Vox.com

Using data from multiple telescopes, scientists have detected clouds on a gas giant exoplanet some 520 light-years from Earth. So detailed were the observations, they even discerned the altitude of the clouds and the structure of the upper atmosphere, with the greatest precision yet.

It's work that will help us better understand exoplanet atmospheres and look for worlds that may have conditions hospitable to life, or biosignatures in their spectra. We're also getting closer to making weather reports for distant alien worlds.

The exoplanet in question is WASP-127b, discovered in 2016. It's a hot and therefore puffy beast, orbiting so close to its star that its year is just 4.2 days. The exoplanet clocks in at 1.3 times the size of Jupiter, but only 0.16 times Jupiter's mass.

This means that its atmosphere is somewhat thin and tenuous perfect for trying to analyze its contents based on the light that streams through it from the exoplanet's host star.

To do this, a team of researchers led by astronomer Romain Allart of the Universit de Montral in Canada combined infrared data from the space-based Hubble Space Telescope, and optical data from the ESPRESSO instrument on the ground-based Very Large Telescope, to peer into different altitudes of WASP-127b's atmosphere.

"First, as found before in this type of planet, we detected the presence of sodium, but at a much lower altitude than we were expecting," Allart said.

"Second, there were strong water vapor signals in the infrared but none at all at visible wavelengths. This implies that water vapor at lower levels is being screened by clouds that are opaque at visible wavelengths but transparent in the infrared."

Figuring out the composition of exoplanetary atmospheres is a tricky thing to do. That's because we can't see most exoplanets directly; we infer their presence based on the effects they have on their host stars. One of these is dimming and brightening when the exoplanet passes between us and the star, the light from the star dims, just a tiny bit.

If it does this enough times, on a regular schedule, then that's one of the telltale signs of an orbiting exoplanet.And we can use this information in other ways, too. When the starlight passes through the exoplanet's atmosphere, wavelengths in the spectrum can be absorbed or by different elements.We call these signatures absorption lines, and we can decode them to see what's in that atmosphere.

Wasp-127b compared to the Solar System. (David Ehrenreich/Universit de Genve, Romain Allart/Universit de Montral)

That's what Allart and his team did, using high-resolution absorption data to narrow down the altitude of the clouds to a surprisingly low cloud layer with atmospheric pressure between 0.3 and 0.5 millibars.

"We don't yet know the composition of the clouds, except that they are not composed of water droplets like on Earth," said Allart.

"We are also puzzled about why the sodium is found in an unexpected place on this planet. Future studies will help us understand not only more about the atmospheric structure, but about WASP-127b, which is proving to be a fascinating place."

The team's analysis also found some peculiar things about how WASP-127b orbits its host star. In the Solar System, where things are orderly, all the planets orbit in the direction of the Sun's rotation, in a more-or-less flat plane around the Sun's equator. This is because of the way the Solar System formed, from a disc of material swirling into the spinning baby Sun.

WASP-127b orbits not just in the opposite direction of its star's rotation, but at a very pronounced angle, almost around the star's poles. The system is thought to be around 10 billion years old, which means something strange is definitely going on in that particular neighborhood.

"Such alignment is unexpected for a hot Saturn in an old stellar system and might be caused by an unknown companion," Allart said.

"All these unique characteristics make WASP-127b a planet that will be very intensely studied in the future."

The research was published in Astronomy & Astrophysics, and presented at the 2021 Europlanet Science Congress.

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Astronomers Have Made an Unprecedented Detection of Clouds on a Far-Off Exoplanet - ScienceAlert

AMHERST, Mass. A twelve-billion-year-old mystery from the early universe; the paradox of a consistently recurring supernova; the unknown process governing how stars grow: these are among the topics recently explored in a remarkable series of papers coming out of UMass Amhersts astronomy department, all of which appear in the Nature family of journalsamong the most prestigious academic journals in the world.

The results published in these three papers address fundamental questions in Astronomy, from understanding the evolution of stars and galaxies at the dawn of the Universe to unraveling how stars, and possibly planets, grow in our cosmic `backyard, says Daniela Calzetti, astronomy department head. This trifecta of Nature papers is both thrilling and amazing.

Why did the growth of some early galaxies stall?

A short time after the Big Bang occurred, 14 billion years ago, some of the most massive galaxies in our universe mysteriously stopped producing new stars. For some reason, says Kate Whitaker, professor of astronomy and lead author of a new paper recently published in Nature, they have shut down. Theyre no longer forming new stars. Astronomers have known that these early, massive galaxies had gone quiescent, but until now, no one knew why.

Using a suite of instruments, including the Hubble Space Telescope and ALMA, the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, Whitakers team, which includes Alexandra Pope, professor of astronomy at UMass, and Christina C. Williams, who received her Ph.D. in astronomy at UMass, Whitakers team discovered that those early galaxies literally ran out of gascold gas, which is what powers galaxy growth.

The galaxies Whitakers team studies are 10 12 billion light years away, which means that the light that the team observed was emitted 10 12 billion years ago. In effect, Whitaker is looking into the deep past of the universe.

The teams findings mean that, within the first few billion years of the universes existence, these galaxies either burned through their energy supplies, or ejected them and, furthermore, that something may be physically blocking each galaxys replenishment of cold gas.

Taken together, the research helps us to rewrite the early history of the universe so that we can get a clearer idea of how galaxies evolve.

The paradox of the recurring supernova

As if solving a 12-billion-year-old mystery isnt enough, Whitaker also recently co-authored a paper in Nature Astronomy revealing a paradox: the recurring appearance of a supernova known as Requiem.

When a star explodes, its called a supernova, so one might think that theres only one chance to see the explosion. But, due to an effect called gravitational lensing, first predicted by Albert Einstein in his general theory of relativity, light can be bent, split, magnified and distorted by immense gravitational forces.

Supernova Requiem is about 10 billion light years away, and as its light travelled to earth, it passed by an immense cluster of galaxies, whose gravity quartered Requiems. The research, led by Steven Rodney of the University of South Carolina in Columbia, predicts that the next viewing of Supernova Requiem will occur in 2037. Though the light will be too faint to see with the naked eye, it should be visible to advanced telescopes.

Revealing how stars are born

It begins with a cloud of dust and gas. Slowly, as gravity works upon the particles, the dust and gas start to cohere, eventually collapsing into a star and an accompanying disc. Next, in a process called magnetospheric accretion, the particles at the inner edge of the disc fall at hundreds of kilometers per second toward the newborn star. When these particles smash into the surface of the star, they produce shockwaves and an enormous amount of heat. A hot spot emerges on the surface of the star where the falling particles converge. These hot spots release radiationwhich a number of astronomical instruments can perceive.

Connor Robinson, the Five College Astronomy Department Education and Research Fellow affiliated with UMasss astronomy department, was second author on another recent Nature paper, led by Boston Universitys C.C. Espaillat, that combined data from Hubble Space Telescope, TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite), The Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope, and SMARTS, which reveals, for the first time, the mechanics of exactly how stars grow.

We now have a better understanding of how the accretion process works, says Robinson, whose team focused on a star called GM Aur. For the first time, we were able to infer the azimuthal structure of the accretion shocks by using multiple telescopes that are sensitive to hot spots with different densities. As the star rotates, these hot spots also rotate in and out of view, which lets us measure the density-distribution of hot spots on the stellar. We already knew that there were low- and high-density hot spots on the surface of the star, but this is the first time that we have been able to map their structure.

It turns out that up to 20% stars surface is covered by hot spots of a lower density, and the highest-density regions make up only about 0.1% of the surface. This is the first empirical proof we have of these azimuthal hot spot gradients on growing stars. It tells us about the young star and the conditions in the inner regions of the protoplanetary discs that will someday grow into solar systems.

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Astronomy Department Launches into New Academic Year with 'Nature' Trifecta - UMass News and Media Relations

The breath-taking Aurora Borealis and Venus rising over the rocky horizon of the Moon are just some of the incredible subjects featured in this year's 'Astronomy Photographer Of The Year' winning images.

Shuchang Dong -'Astronomy Photographer of the Year 13'

Photographer Shuchang Dong with his astounding image of the annular solar eclipse, "The Golden Ring", is the Overall Winner and wins the Royal Observatory Greenwichs title 'Astronomy Photographer of the Year 13'.

The photograph depicts the annular solar eclipse that occurred on 21 June 2020 in a powerful and atmospheric composition thatspellbound the judges.

Dmitrii Rybalka

Winning images from other categories and special prizes include the mesmerising Aurora dance taken from the bridge of a ship by the Third Officer Dmitrii Rybalka (Russia), who was on watch duty that night; Venus rising over the rocky horizon of the Moon by Nicolas Lefaudeux (France); a poignant star trail image taken during lockdown by Deepal Ratnayaka (UK) that captured the essence of the year 2020, restricting but hopeful; and the outstanding image of the Space X Falcon 9 rocket passing the Moon by Paul Eckhardt (USA).

Deepal Ratnayaka

15-year-old Zhipu Wang (China) is taking home the top prize in the Young Competition category for his astonishing composition of the Sun, the Moon and the planets of the Solar System.

Zhipu Wang

Astronomy Photographer of the Year is run by Royal Observatory Greenwich in association with BBC Sky at Night Magazine Now in its thirteenth year, the competition received over 4,500 entries from 75 countries. The best of these exceptional photographs are showcased in the Astronomy Photographer of the Year 13 exhibition at the National Maritime Museum.

You can view last year's winning images here:Astronomy Photographer Of The Year 2020 Winners

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Astronomy Photographer Of The Year 2021 Winners - ePHOTOzine

[imagesource: Nicolas Rolland and Martin Pugh]

Is the universe watching us or are we watching the universe?

Either way, it feels like that smiley in space is trying to tell us something.

These are just some of the things that might cross your mind after seeing the outstanding photographs from this years Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition.

The competition has been running for 13 years out of The Royal Observatory Greenwich, which was founded back in 1675 and has been at the centre of several historic milestones in the measurement of time and space, per New Atlas.

There were 4 500 entries this year, featuring technically masterful photos of distant galaxies. That smiley was awarded highly commended after taking 27,5 hours of total exposure to get right.

This years best photograph was of a solar eclipse taken in Tibet in mid-2020 by Shuchang Dong.

It is awe-inspiring for being deceptively simple:

This image demonstrates both the beauty and simplicity of an eclipse, but also the science behind this astronomical event, says Emily Darbek-Maunder, one of this years judges.

Behold, The Golden Ring:

Chinese photographer Zhong Wus 360-degree mosaic of the Milky Way is an image that blows minds.

It took Wu two years to piece together the image from 1 000 separate shots taken in both the Southern and Northern Hemispheres.

Judge Imad Ahmed said it was one of the most breathtaking entries of this year:

In the Aurora category, Dmitrii Rybalkas haunting shot from a moving ship approaching the Kara Strait in Russia took first place.

Judge Sue Prichard said the image reminded them of an opening scene from a sci-fi movie:

The sun was also a hot contender, featured in two vastly different winning shots by separate photographers.

Theres this by Vincent Bouchama, whose image of the sun sharing its crown with a comet was a runner-up:

Thats quite different to Alan Friedmans take, which shows a curtain of hydrogen bellowing from the surface of the sun.

It received the status of highly commended:

The winner for the Planets, Comets, Asteroids category was Frank Kuszaj for his shot of a colourful Quadrantids meteor taken in Missouri, America:

No idea what is going on there, but I cant stop staring.

Then theres this dreamy shot of a skyscape by Jin Yang, titled Van Goghs Sketchpad and taken in Yunnan Province, China.

It received highly commended status:

Another highlight came via the Stars and Nebulae category with Min Xies The Colour Splash Of Cygnus Loop:

For the other spectacular shots of space, head here.

And if youre going up, you might as well go down and peruse the winning shots of the Ocean Photography Awards.

[source:newatlas]

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Stunning Shots From The Astronomy Photo Awards 2oceansvibe News | South African and international news - 2oceansvibe News

The seasons are changing. The moon is telling us it's time to harvest the crops, and fall officially begins on Wednesday, September 22nd. Also, the annual "Astronomy at the Beach" event is coming up later this week, still virtual due to the pandemic.

WEMU's Lisa Barry talks with local amateur astronomer Dr. Brian Ottum about what to expect from all of the sky watching events now taking place.

Listen to the full interview.

TRANSCRIPTION:

Lisa Barry:The seasons are changing, the moon is telling us it's time to harvest our crops, and fall officially begins on Wednesday. This is Lisa Barry, and with his eyes on the sky all times of year and through all the seasons, we're checking in with local Saline amateur astronomer Brian Ottum. Thanks for talking to us, Brian.

Dr. Brian Ottum:It's great to be here.

Lisa Barry:We're talking about the harvest full moon, which will be visible pretty much all week.

Dr. Brian Ottum:Well, the full moon is this week, and it's going to be wonderful because it's visible all week, because it only comes up a little later each night. So, it's been very helpful for farmers and getting those crops in from the fields. So, they call it the harvest moon because it's this time of year, the harvest season. But it comes up only a little bit later each night, illuminating those fields, so the farmers can get the crops in.

Lisa Barry:Well, weather's been a bit tricky, but you're thinking by Thursday we'll have another good view?

Dr. Brian Ottum:Yeah, it looks like the Tuesday and Wednesday are kind of iffy, but I think that, on Thursday night, it looks like our best chance to see that really amazing harvest Moon coming up in the east. It comes up at about nine or two, and it looks like it'll be clear.

Lisa Barry:We have so many different moon names, depending on the time of the year, and the harvest moon, for me personally, I just feel the season change. Maybe it's because the temperature is changing as well. But how significant in the feeling of seasons does the harvest moon seem to you?

Dr. Brian Ottum:It definitely is a harbinger of the cooler weather. Usually, it's coming if it's clear and the moon's coming up. The temperature is dropping from a warm day to a very chilly night. And maybe that first frost is not far away. And so, that's what you think about when you see that harvest moon coming up in the east. And it's just always a really crisp evening.

Lisa Barry:And fall officially begins on Wednesday, speaking of crisp evenings.

Dr. Brian Ottum:Yes. Yes. And it's also happening this week, which is kind of great to have the two-in-one week. We got the harvest moon, and we got the autumnal equinox, which is the beginning of fall--the official beginning of fall. And what's interesting about that is the sun is setting directly west, and the sun is coming up directly in the east. So, no matter where you live on the whole globe, that's true. And that's only true at this time of year. And then opposite of this is the the spring equinox. And also, you know, we can talk about the physics of it. It's when we cross the plane of our solar system, and we're just lined up very carefully with the sun.

Lisa Barry:And something that we look forward to every year is coming up this weekend. Tell us about that.

Dr. Brian Ottum:Well, Astronomy at the Beach is in its 25th year.

Lisa Barry:Wow.

Dr. Brian Ottum:And it's very exciting. This is an event where us fanatic amateur astronomers love to get our telescopes out and share our passion for the sky with the public. And over these 25 years, we've shown probably 75,000 people views of the sky. Two years ago, we had 70 telescopes out there. And so, it's a wonderful event, but, because of COVID, we're not able to do it in person. We still want to be safe. So, this year, we've switched it to a virtual star party event, meaning people for free can golog on, and they can get live views like of the sun and prominences and solar flares, if it's clear. And then, in the evening, real telescope views. And, myself. I'll be using my remote control telescope that's located in the desert to show things. I'm rounding out the end of the schedule. I don't start until 10:00 PM.

Lisa Barry:What things will you be showing?

Dr. Brian Ottum:Oh, what I'm going to be showing is the tour of the universe. We're going to start with stuff that's close by. We might chase a satellite across the sky. I chased the space station last week and got a video of that. And then, we'll move further out and maybe peek at the moon and then the planets and show the rings of Saturn and moons of Jupiter and then move out to the nearest stars, some star clusters, and then watch a star being born and also watch a star dying. And then, the end is far, far away. Other galaxies and show pictures of, like, Andromeda Galaxy. That's always a winner.

Lisa Barry:How often are stars born and die?

Dr. Brian Ottum:In just our galaxy, it's happening right now. Millions of places.

Lisa Barry: And how do you recognize it?

Dr. Brian Ottum: Well, stars are born out of clouds of gas. And these clouds of gas usually glow. And, to the camera, they glow red. And so, they're rather easy to take a picture of, and that's what I do. Take a quick snapshot, and then show everybody and then kind of narrate what it is. So, yeah, these are clouds of red gas--nebulas. It's where stars are born, and they're all over the sky in pockets. And so, we find these pockets, and we take a picture of them.

Lisa Barry: I'm sparing you my Barbra Streisand joke. If you're a movie watcher, a star is born. Anyway, Astronomy at the Beach is taking place when again?

Dr. Brian Ottum:Yes, I didn't even say. I'm sorry. It's this Friday and Saturday, the 24th and 25th. And our schedule is three p.m. to midnight. Both nights.

Lisa Barry: Both nights. And we'll put links to how people can see that with this interview on our website, WEMU dot org. Brian Ottum. Always a pleasure to talk to you. Thanks so much.

Dr. Brian Ottum: Glad to be your guest. And it's always fun.

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Lisa Barry is the host of All Things Considered on WEMU. You can contact Lisa at 734.487.3363, on Twitter@LisaWEMU, or email her atlbarryma@emich.edu

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It's A Big Week For Sky Watchers With A Harvest Moon, Autumnal Equinox, & Astronomy At The Beach - WEMU