The new VISTA telescope at the Paranal Observatory in Chile (the Visible and InfraredSurvey Telescope for Astronomy) has captured a great new image of the Sculptor Galaxy(NGC 253), and this video allows you to zoom in for a closer look. The sequence starts with a wide view of the southern sky far from the Milky Way. Only a few stars are visible, but then VISTA brings us in closer where the view shifts to the very detailed new infrared image of NGC 253 provided by the new telescope at Paranal. By observing in infrared light VISTA’s view is less affected by dust and reveals a myriad of cooler stars as well as a prominent bar of stars across the central region. The VISTA image provides much new information on the history and development of the galaxy.

The Rosette Nebula resides some 5000 light-years from Earth and is associated with a larger cloud that contains enough dust and gas to make the equivalent of 10 000 Sun-like stars. The Herschel image shows half of the nebula and most of the Rosette cloud. The massive stars powering the nebula lie to the right of the image but are invisible at these wavelengths. Each colour represents a different temperature of dust, from –263ºC (only 10ºC above absolute zero) in the red emission to –233ºC in the blue. The bright smudges are dusty cocoons hiding massive protostars. These will eventually become stars containing around ten times the mass of the Sun. The small spots near the centre and in the redder regions of the image are lower mass protostars, similar in mass to the Sun.

Infrared image of the Rosette molecular cloud by the Herschel space observatory. Credits: ESA/PACS & SPIRE Consortium/HOBYS Key Programme Consortia

Artists impression of Hot Jupiter around another star

On March 6, 2009, the Kepler space telescope was launched from Cape Canaveral with a primary mission to find Earth sized planets in a habitable zone around stars similar to our own by continuously and simultaneously observes more than 150,000 stars. Kepler’s instrument, has measured hundreds of possible planet signatures which are currently being analyzed. Today it was announced that it has discovered its first five new exoplanets, or planets beyond our solar system.

According to William Borucki of NASA, the principle investigator, “These observations contribute to our understanding of how planetary systems form and evolve from the gas and dust disks that give rise to both the stars and their planets,”… “The discoveries also show that our science instrument is working well. Indications are that Kepler will meet all its science goals.”

So far the planets founds are very hot and orbit close to their stars which is similar to previously found planets. What is very promising is the fact that the discoveries are based on approximately six weeks’ worth of data collected since science operations began on May 12, 2009. Clearly Kepler is likely to make further and more important discoveries before its mission ends in November 2012, although NASA has made a career or extending missions, so it may last longer. The main aim is to find an earth sized planet which orbits in a zone around a star that would allow for liquid water to flow on the surface. This means that the planet would have an orbit of months or longer, so to find such a planet and to verify it would take a couple of years even if a candidate was identified today.

There are a number of techniques used to detect exoplanets, and Kepler looks for the signatures of planets by measuring dips in the brightness of stars. When planets cross in front of, or transit, their stars as seen from Earth, they periodically block the starlight. The size of the planet can be derived from the size of the dip. The temperature can be estimated from the characteristics of the star it orbits and the planet’s orbital period.

The Transit Method for finding exoplanets

According to NASA the 5 planets discovered are known as “hot Jupiters” because of their high masses and extreme temperatures, the new exoplanets range in size from similar to Neptune to larger than Jupiter. They have orbits ranging from 3.3 to 4.9 days. Estimated temperatures of the planets range from 2,200 to 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit, hotter than molten lava. All five of the exoplanets orbit stars hotter and larger than Earth’s sun.

Optical Paths within Kepler

Kepler is watching, nearly continuously about 156,000 stars a little north of the plane of the Milky Way between Vega and Deneb. The satellite will keep watching these stars nearly 24/7 for at least 3½ years, in order to catch at least three transits of any luckily aligned planets that are in wide, Earth-like, 1-year orbits. Its a good start….

Kepler Field of View

A Galileoscope at Christmas

Please note: The Galileoscope is NOT a solar telescope and should NEVER BE POINTED AT THE SUN!

1. Use the online assembly instructions from the web as they are better than the ones in the box. It can be quite tricky to get the eyepiece lens the right way around so pay careful attention to their orientation.

2. There are two eye pieces which can be assembled, the primary 2omm eye piece which gives 25x magnification and a “Barlow” eye piece which effectively doubles the magnification to a 50x magnification. It is very difficult to see objects using the barlow lens you have a very small line of sight, so my advice is to NOT use the Barlow lens. You might even find that you cannot see anything at all or think you assembled the eyepiece incorrectly. So skip step 22 in the instructions.

3. The way to focus the telescope is to slide the back of the telescope into or away from the body of the main telescope. Its not a very accurate process so if you are trying to focus, using the moon is a good method.

4. The telescope is designed for you to be able to use any standard 1.25″ eyepiece. Since I have one already, I replaced the galileoscop 20mm eyepiece with a 26mm eyepiece and it was much easier to see through. The image was clearer and more comfortable to see through. Price for a single eyepiece is about 30Euro.5. The telescope is equipped with a fitting to allow it to attach to a standard tripod. The heavier the tripod the better, but its more the height that you should be looking at. Since you are looking directly through the scope, anything high in the sky will require you to do a lot of bending down. Tripods are cheap starting at anything from 20Euro. Just keep in mind that while you connect to a nut in the telescope it is easy to rip off the telescope if you lean on one end. It happened within 20minutes of my 5year old son being near it. Easily repaired in my case. You can purchase a 90 degree “Erecting Prism”  which will making viewing a little more comfortable.  You should use something similar to the one below which slots into a 1.25″ slot. You can find them on amazon for approx 30Euro.

90 degree erecting prism

6. A Galileoscope is a refractor, this means that images are inverted, this is usually not a problem until you try to do two things. The first is trying to find something on the Moon. You must take into account that what you see through the telescope is an inversion of what you usually see with your own eyes, and what is shown on most maps.  looking at the moon and find anything on it (your standard map is not inverted), and secondly when you try to figure out which of the moon of Jupiter is which. The view through the eyepiece is upside down and right and left are reversed.

7. Don’t forget that there are optics activities also posted on the galileoscope website which look like a bit of fun. There is a full page of downloads to explore.

I’ll start posting on things to see with your new telescope over the next few days. Just remember that there is lots of light pollution in cities, so while you may hear about seeing details in Orion, or possibly the polar caps of Mars, try to be realistic. The telescope in ideal situations may be able to do this, but you have to keep your expectations grounded depending on where you are viewing from. I live in a city, so until I head off to the countryside I won’t see a huge amount of nebula detail. The great thing is that the telescope is so small and light, you can take it anywhere! You can also take pictures of the moon using your telescope, but you need the right attachments. I’ll cover that topic when I find out where to get them and how easy they are to use.

I suggest you start by downloading stellarium a superb method for navigating your way around the sky. Here is an image of tonight’s sky, where you can see Mars, Saturn just rising, and the constellation of Orion.

The device is a squat viewfinder roughly the shape of a brick with a text-capable screen, a rocker and a few buttons along one side. It does not enhance the image in the viewfinder in any way I could discern. But that doesn’t matter. Thanks to GPS and other technologies it knows how it is oriented in space. Combining this with an internal small database of the night sky, the Sky Scout basically knows what you should be seeing when you look through the viewfinder.

Setting up the Sky Scout just involves turning it on and giving it a few minutes alone to find its bearings.  It runs off two AA batteries so no wires apart from the basic headphones supplied with it.

The device has two basic modes: ‘identify’ and ‘locate’.

In ‘identify’ mode, you center the viewfinder on an object of interest and press a button, almost like taking a photo with an ungainly camera. The text display lists the objects you that were in or very close to the center of the viewfinder when the button was pressed. You select an entry (almost certainly the first one in the list) and information about the object is displayed. You can also opt to listen to a description of the object instead using the headphones supplied.

In ‘locate’ mode, you select an object, using a rocker switch and the display and then look through the viewfinder. Small red lights appear in the direction (or directions) in which you should move the viewfinder in order to locate the object (‘up’, ‘right’ etc). The lights provide feedback in real time as you  move the viewfinder in a simple but intuitive way. When the object in question is centered in the viewfinder, all the direction lights flash briefly to let you know.

The Sky Scout has other features too such as a guided tour of items of interest that you can see from your current location, but I have not yet spent much time on them. Being able to very easily identify objects and to find objects in an simple intuitive way is really helping me learn how to find my way around the night sky. Being able to immediately read (or listen to) information about the currently centered object makes the viewing much more engaging than simply being told the object’s name or just admiring an anonymous whitish dot. Objects are not limited to planets and stars but include galaxies, nebulae and constellations.

I have found the device  makes the night sky a lot more accessible for beginners like myself and the relatives and friends I persuade to try it out. The down side is the price. Mine cost a little over 200 euro from Amazon UK.

Now that you know such a thing exists, go check the web for more technical reviews and make up your own mind. Here is a link to the product blurb of the manufacturer.

Regarding the spectorgraphic data, they are being cautiously optimistic despite the lack of a visible plume,  but they point blank refused to make any definitive statements about water. Most of the real science will be done using spectographic analysis and we will just have to keep waiting.

LCROSS Image Crater

What I found was SLOOH a website that I’ve signed up to for a months trial to view the sky from one of thier 3 Telescopes around the world.  Chile, Australia and the Canary Islands. They do “tours” which you can view online and take pictures along the way.  First Mission for me is tonight 8:40 when I’m off to see Jupiter…. I’ll keep you posted.