Author Archive
Neil Parker – “The Isaac Newton Telescopes”
Wednesday, September 7th, 2011
Wednesday 7th September 2011
Neil Parker from Green Witch gave us a talk about the Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes sited on La Palma in the Canary Islands. The ING consists of the 4.2-m William Herschel Telescope (WHT – pictured above), the 2.5 metre Isaac Newton Telescope (INT), and the 1.0 metre Jacobus Kapteyn Telescope (JKT), along with ten smaller instruments of various types. The INT has been in use since 1984 but was originally housed in the Royal Greenwich Observatory in Herstmonceux, Sussex (the author remembers seeing it there during a school trip in the late 1960s). Needless to say, the weather conditions in the UK made it impossible to use the telescope to its full potential.
The WHT is one of the largest general purpose telescopes in Europe and has been involved in the observations that indicate that the expansion of the universe is accelerating. This work led to a share of the 2011 Nobel prize in physics for Saul Perlmutter in UC Berkeley (announced some weeks after this talk). Neil showed us some enticing pictures of the landscape around La Palma as well as the telescopes, and commented on the engineering required to house and operate these huge instruments. A very enjoyable talk from someone with insider knowledge of this impressive collection of telescopes.
Gordon Carter
Wednesday, June 8th, 2011
We are very sad to report the news that Gordon passed away in Addenbrooke’s hospital on Wednesday 25th May. Although he had been ill for several months, he seemed in good spirits and his passing came as a great shock to everyone at the Club.
Newer members may not be aware that Gordon was the person who originally came up with the idea of starting an astronomy club in Papworth and so was effectively the club’s founding member. Gordon kept a detailed chronicle and collection of photographs of the Club’s activities from the very first meeting, which was used to create many of the pages on the Club website.
In addition to being a stalwart member of the astroquiz team (Gordon pictured above holding the Smythe Shield following their 2010 victory), he performed many tasks behind the scenes for the club – managing the finances, booking rooms and making coffee on meeting nights, to name just a few. He never allowed his disability to keep him home – he joined our field trips and was a regular attendee at CAA meetings and other events at the Institute of Astronomy in Cambridge.
Gordon’s funeral will be held today at 11am in St Peter’s Church, Papworth Everard. Donations to the Cambridgeshire Wildlife Trust will be collected in Gordon’s memory at the funeral.
Return to the Vinter Room
Tuesday, April 26th, 2011
That’s not the title of a movie sequel, but the news that we will be returning to the newly re-furbished Vinter Room for our May meeting!
Many thanks to Kevin and Bonita Ward at the Conservatory for their hospitality over the last few months.
The Astronomy Show, 2011
Saturday, April 23rd, 2011
The 2011 Astronomy Show is being held on Saturday April 23rd, at Hastingwood Industrial and Business Park, Birmingham.
The aim of the show is to cater for the requirements of astronomers at all levels, from novice to the ardent star gazer, in a friendly and relaxed atmosphere and hopefully provide something for everyone. There are some fantastic speakers lined up, together with a trade exhibition and displays from other organisations.
It is hoped that this will grow to become an annual event in the astronomy calendar, with plans to expand the event into an even more comprehensive show running over 2 days in 2012.
For more information, visit the Astronomy Show website at;
Dr Nick Achilleos – “The Cassini mission, investigating the magnetosphere of Saturn”
Wednesday, April 6th, 2011
Nick is a scientist at the Atmospheric Physics Laboratory at University College London and kindly spared us the time to come up to talk to us about magnetic fields surrounding Saturn and Jupiter. These giant planets rotate very rapidly for their size and also contain a highly compressed form of hydrogen at their core which is essentially metallic. This means that a magnetic field is generated that extends away from the planet to form a magnetosphere. The intensity of this field is 550 and 18,000 times that of the earth for Saturn and Jupiter respectively, even though the field is still very weak (measured in microTeslas).
The work that Nick described was aimed at understanding how the magnetosphere is kept in place and what influences act upon it. In the case of the latter, certain satellites like Enceladus (Saturn) or Io (Jupiter) have physical characteristics that contribute charged particles to their planet’s magnetospheres. The forces that form the magnetosphere are a balance between the pressure of the solar wind that streams over all the planets and the magnetic field of the planet itself. These forces were explained (fairly gently) in mathematical terms, along with analyses of magnetometer data from the Cassini spacecraft orbiting Saturn. These measurements are freely available from NASA one year after original capture and are used by any group wishing to study planetary physics.
You can find more information about Nick’s work at his UCL homepage (http://www.homepages.ucl.ac.uk/~ucapnac) which includes a more detailed description of the magnetospheres of Saturn and Jupiter;
http://www.homepages.ucl.ac.uk/~ucapnac/lectures/psmp_lec4.pdf
Andrew Pontzen – “The Echo of Creation”
Wednesday, March 2nd, 2011
Andrew Pontzen is a research fellow at the Kavli Institute for Cosmology, in the University of Cambridge.
His talk was an entertaining and informative survey of our current knowledge of the universe based on the theory and observations of scientists from Einstein onwards through the twentieth century. The central theme was the background radiation generated by the Big Bang at the beginning of the universe, which can be simply demonstrated as noise on an analogue TV set. Actually measuring the radiation and showing that that it is not uniform requires more than an old television; the first detection of the microwave background was made by Penzias and Wilson using a radio antenna, and later on a spacecraft showed that it was distributed in all directions. Only when the WMAP spacecraft was launched, was it possible to detect minute (parts in a thousand) differences over a background value near to absolute zero degrees Kelvin. These anisotropies showed that the early universe was not uniform and helps to explain how galaxies form out of primordial material.
A parallel theme of the talk concerned the fact that many of the pioneering scientists in this field were aging males with receding hairlines and glasses. This observation may turn out to provoke as much controversy as the theories that were being debated, such as the steady state universe versus the Big Bang.
As well as undertaking research in cosmology, Andrew is also involved in outreach activities and will be delivering the talk he gave to us in Papworth to the Cambridge Science Festival on 19th March at 4.30pm in the Babbage Lecture Theatre Cambridge. Those who missed it this time round will therefore have an opportunity to hear a talk with a bit more direct human interest than is often the case with scientific talks.
Mike Nichols – “Astro Navigation in Aviation”
Wednesday, February 2nd, 2011
February’s meeting provided another twist on the vast subject of astronomy when Papworth resident, Mike Nichols, talked to us about astro navigation. Mike spent a career in aviation, flying with the RAF and civilian airlines, including a stint with private planes for VIPs. Mike started his career in the days before GPS was invented as a navigation aid.
He began his talk with the story of a plane that got lost over the South Pacific when flying from the tiny island Pago Pago to Norfolk Island off the coast of Australia. The pilot was told to line his clenched fist against the Sun and estimate the number of degrees elevation. In this way, he could give the controllers an idea of his position, and eventually land safely, because of the simple principle behind astro navigation. This is understood by thinking of a light on top of a mast. The closer you are to the mast, the higher the light will appear and when further away, it will appear lower.
The system of astro navigation (initially just for ships of course) was invented in around 1875 by Marc St Hilaire, a French Admiral. Instead of lights on masts, celestial bodies are used instead; these include the Sun, Moon, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, as well as 57 named stars. For navigation on aircraft, the naval sextant has been modified so it remains stable in flight and is heated to avoid being iced up when protruding from the fuselage in a perspex canopy. With a special marker to increase the precision of measuring the elevation of a body, this system proves to be remarkably accurate, perhaps to within a few miles. Mike showed some pictures of instruments used on the Hercules aircraft and the Apollo missions. The advantages of astro navigation over modern GPS are that it is simple, free and emits no signals from the aircraft. Of course it can only work if the sky is clear and the turbulence is light. Rather soberingly, the V bomber nuclear strike force was trained to use astro navigation in the event of approaching Russian targets so as to be “radio silent”. Luckily, they never had to try it out.
February Meeting Reminder
Sunday, January 30th, 2011
Don’t forget that the February meeting is this week, Wednesday 2nd February. Mike Nichols will give a talk called "Astro Navigation in Aviation". Mike learnt to navigate by the stars when he was in the RAF (before GPS was invented!) and he will describe the history and techniques of astral navigation.
Please note that the venue for this (and next month’s) meeting will be the function room of the Conservatory, Chequers Lane, Papworth Everard (see the map above). As usual we will start at 7.30pm.
Prof Alan Aylward – “From Daedalus to Dan Dare to Daedalus: Can we go to the stars and what would we find if we get there?”
Wednesday, January 12th, 2011
The New Year got off to a good start with a talk from Professor Alan Aylward (shown on the right in the photo above) who kindly came all the way from Surrey to visit us. Alan is head of the Atmospheric Physics Laboratory at University College London and gave us an overview of intergalactic space travel coupled with some of his research on the atmospheres of extrasolar planets (hence the atmospheric physics). He started by reminding the older club members about the spaceships used by Dan Dare in the Eagle comics of the 1950s. The idea of travelling the gigantic distances between our planet and other stars seems fanciful, but the comic book rocket actually has features that make it possible to do this, at least in theory. The basic concept involves the use of nuclear detonations to create a massive thrust that propels a spacecraft up to around 12% of the speed of light. This would be sufficient to send astronauts to a nearby star within a fifty year time frame. This idea was seriously considered by the British Interplanetary Society in the 1970s and NASA up to, and including, the present day. The project was seen to be feasible in engineering terms, but the original idea of using nuclear fusion by lasers has been subsequently shown to be impractical (at least for now). There are of course all sorts of unanswered questions, not least those relating to the fate of the astronauts who may be travelling on a one way ticket to the stars.
Other propulsion systems were described, including a giant earth-based laser that would be shone onto a lightweight sail attached to a spacecraft. These and many other ideas are being actively considered by NASA who stipulate that any proposal must keep to the laws of conservation of energy and of momentum; this is apparently something that even the best scientists get caught out with!
So having discussed travel to the stars, Alan described how it might be possible to detect habitable planets around these stars. His research group in London studies the atmospheres around exoplanets (of which most appear to be smaller than Jupiter-sized objects). The number of such planets is increasing on an almost daily basis and it is possible to observe their effects on their parent star even using the venerable telescope at the Mill Hill Observatory in North London. This is quite a testimony to the equipment and data analysis capabilities of the exoplanet research group, since this part of the UK suffers from serious light pollution. Nevertheless, data are being gathered that allow astronomers to make inferences about the types of molecules (including the all-important water) that is present in the atmospheres of possible earth-like planets. The discussion about extraterrestrial life is now getting sensible, as experiments are underway to get real evidence, rather than just rely on speculation about what might be. Maybe this is a good omen for astronomy in 2011.
The meeting was publicised as part of the BBC’s Stargazing Live programmes that were broadcast in early January. We were delighted to see several new faces at the meeting as a result of the publicity and we hope to be able to be of assistance to several members who have bought a telescope for the first time.
Venue for February and March meetings
Friday, December 31st, 2010
Because of the refurbishment of the Vinter Room, please note that our February and March meetings will be held in the function room of the Conservatory, Chequer’s Lane. The location of the April and May meetings will be confirmed nearer the time and posted on the Meetings page, where you can always check the details of the next meeting and find a write up of each meeting after the event. We’ll also continue to post reminders closer to the date on the Club News RSS feed.