Astronomy_News_20_05_2021
Astronomy_News_20_05_2021
This months research Papers 20_05_2021
RASNZ_20_05_2021
Further links and discussion can be found at the groups/links below
Astronomy in New Zealand - Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/groups/5889909863/
Astronomy in New Zealand - Groups.io
https://groups.io/g/AstronomyNZ
Google Group
https://groups.google.com/g/nzastrochat
Astronomy in Wellington
https://www.facebook.com/groups/11451597655/
Blogger Posts
http://laintal.blogspot.com/
Reddit
https://www.reddit.com/user/Edwin_Rod_NZ
Quaroa
https://www.quora.com/q/astronomyinnewzealand
Twitter
https://twitter.com/Laintal
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Research papers
Discovery of an Extremely Short Duration Flare from Proxima Centauri
https://arxiv.org/abs/2104.09519
Detectability of Artificial Lights from Proxima b
https://arxiv.org/abs/2105.08081
Formation of Earth-sized planets within the Kepler-1647 System Habitable Zone
https://arxiv.org/abs/2104.11628
High contrast imaging at 10 microns, a search for exoplanets
https://arxiv.org/abs/2104.13032
Venus
Appearing today in Nature
The Arxiv version https://arxiv.org/abs/2103.01504
The average sidereal day on Venus in the 2006-2020 interval is 243.0226 ± 0.0013 Earth days (1s). The spin period of the solid planet exhibits variations of 61 ppm (~20 minutes) with a possible diurnal or semidiurnal forcing. The length-of-day variations imply that changes in atmospheric angular momentum of at least ~4% are transferred to the solid planet.
ALMA observations of doubly deuterated water
https://arxiv.org/abs/2104.13411
The Breakthrough Listen Search For Intelligent Life Near the Galactic Center I
https://arxiv.org/abs/2104.14148
The 10 parsec sample in the Gaia era
https://arxiv.org/abs/2104.14972
From the SpaceX Starlink megaconstellation to the search for Type-I civilizations
https://arxiv.org/abs/2103.07227
Probing the icy shell structure of ocean worlds with gravity-topography admittance
https://arxiv.org/abs/2105.02790
Grid of Pseudo-2D Chemistry Models for Tidally-Locked Exoplanets
https://arxiv.org/abs/2105.02245
Mass-radius relationships for irradiated ocean planets
https://arxiv.org/abs/2105.01102
The science case for spacecraft exploration of the Uranian satellites
https://arxiv.org/abs/2105.01164
In Search of Subsurface Oceans within the Uranian Moons
https://arxiv.org/abs/2105.06087
The Atmosphere of Uranus
https://arxiv.org/abs/2105.06377
Impacts of Water Latent Heat on the Thermal Structure of Ultra-Cool Objects
https://arxiv.org/abs/2105.07000
Variable Irradiation on 1D Cloudless Eccentric Exoplanet Atmospheres
https://arxiv.org/abs/2105.08009
Joint Analysis of Multicolor Photometry
https://arxiv.org/abs/2105.08223
The Earth-like Galactic cosmic ray intensity in the habitable zone of the M dwarf GJ 436
https://arxiv.org/abs/2105.09251
Non-thermal escaape of the Martian CO
https://arxiv.org/abs/2105.09789
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Interesting News items
Colorado River
https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona-environment/2021/04/23/snow-and-shrinking-flows-colorado-river-shortage/7294203002/
Cool flight video
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/nasas-ingenuity-mars-helicopter-flies-faster-farther-on-third-flight
Matariki
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/441384/christchurch-to-light-up-the-sky-for-matariki
Australias Mammals
https://theconversation.com/meet-5-of-australias-tiniest-mammals-who-tread-a-tightrope-between-life-and-death-every-night-159239
Mercury
https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucedorminey/2021/04/30/tiny-mercury-was-likely-our-inner-solar-systems-lone-survivor
Proxima
https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/proxima-centauri-releases-powerful-flare/
https://theconversation.com/massive-flare-seen-on-the-closest-star-to-the-solar-system-what-it-means-for-chances-of-alien-neighbors-159991
Venus
http://spaceref.com/venus/parker-solar-probe-discovers-natural-radio-emission-in-venus-atmosphere.html
One interesting Moon
https://astronomy.com/magazine/2019/08/what-lies-beneath-tritons-ice
Sky Glow
http://spaceref.com/astronomy/the-natural-brightness-of-the-night-sky.html
Mars subsurface
https://www.brown.edu/news/2021-04-22/subsurface
Double Stars
https://blog.frontiersin.org/2021/04/15/researchers-identify-five-double-star-systems-potentially-suitable-for-life/
Desert Fireballs
https://theconversation.com/where-do-meteorites-come-from-we-tracked-hundreds-of-fireballs-streaking-through-the-sky-to-find-out-160096
Dark Skys
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/saturday/audio/2018796547/prof-john-hearnshaw-dark-skies-and-light-trespass
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Updates from Andrew B,
Mars.
Imaged: Thursday 22nd April 2021. Sol 61.
Ingenuity experimental helicopter second and third full colour images from five metres above the floor of Jezero Crater using the High Resolution Colour Camera. These from the second flight of Ingenuity.
Rose roughly ten times it's own height.
Taken 12:34 HRS LMST.
Local Mars Standard Time in Jezero Crater.
Jezero Crater, Syrtis Major Quadrangle.
Ingenuity Colour High Resolution Camera.
Text: Andrew R Brown.
NASA / JPL-Caltech / ASU / MSSS / LANL / CNES / IRAP. Mars Perseverance Rover. Mars Ingenuity Helicopter.
Imaged: Sunday 25th April 2021. Sol 64.
New image.
Ingenuity exprimental helicopter conducting third flight.
Reaching much higher than before, I reckon about 10 metres. Also a vastly longer horizontal flight. The take off point was out of the frame to the left.
Ingenuitity can be seen in front of the Jezero Crater delta whilst flying.
Second image shows Ingenuity landed in a new loration with the Neretva Vallis (former river valley that flowed into Jezero Crater about 3.5 billion years ago) and Jezero Crater delta in the background. Ingenuity flew for 50 metres.
third image, downward looking monochrome Navigation Camera image during third flight.
Taken at 12:34 & 13:30 HRS LMST.
Local Mars Standard Time in Jezero Crater.
Jezero Crater, Syrtis Major Quadrangle.
Navigation Camera. Ingenuinty Navigation Camera.
Text: Andrew R Brown.
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RASNZ
Royal Astronomical Society of New Zealand
eNewsletter: No. 245, 20 May 2021
Affiliated Societies are welcome to reproduce any item in this email newsletter or on the RASNZ website www.rasnz.org.nz in their own newsletters provided an acknowledgement of the source is also included.
Contents
1. 2021 RASNZ Conference and Annual General Meeting
2. Call for Papers for 2021 RASNZ Conference
3. Call for Notices of Motion
4. Past Conference Photos Sought
5. Lunar Eclipse May 26
6. Stardate Southland June 11-13
7. The Solar System in June
8. Variable Star News
9. Astronomy Talks on YouTube
10. Aotearoa Astrotourism Academy
11. New Zealand Astrophotography Competition
12. Dr Rangi Matamua FRSNZ
13. New Zealand Dark Sky Handbook
14. Gruber Cosmology Prize 2021
15. How to Join the RASNZ
16. Quotes
1. 2021 RASNZ Conference and Annual General Meeting
The 2021 RASNZ Conference and Annual General Meeting will take place in
Wellington this year, 100 years after the first Annual meeting of the
Astronomical Society of New Zealand (ASNZ) which was also held in
Wellington. Last year's cancelled face to face conference would have
celebrated the Centenary of the formation of the ASNZ/RASNZ.
The Wellington Astronomical Society are again hosting this year's
conference which will take place over the weekend of 9th to 11th of July
2021. A Dark Sky Workshop is planned for the morning of Monday 12th of
July. The Conference will be held in the Wharewaka Function Centre,
situated on Wellington’s waterfront near Te Papa.
Registration
An on-line registration form is available by following the link to the
conference page from
https://www.rasnz.org.nz/groups-news-events/rasnz-conference
<https://www.rasnz.org.nz/groups-news-events/rasnz-conference>. A
downloadable registration form is also available at the same link. Final
date for registration is the 27th of June 2021.
Conference fees are as follows:
$275 (Members)
$305 (Non-members)
$155 (Saturday only)
Dinner: $100 per person
Dark Sky Symposium $ 30
Paper submission
The organisers invite and encourage anyone interested in New Zealand
astronomy to submit oral or poster papers for the conference programme.
Please note that those presenting
papers must also register for the conference. An on-line submission form
is available by following the link to the conference page from
https://www.rasnz.org.nz/groups-news-events/conf-next
<https://www.rasnz.org.nz/groups-news-events/conf-next>. Titles and
abstracts are due by 1 June 2021
The RASNZ Council and Conference Committee and the Local Organising
Committee look forward to catching up with you all after a longer than
normal break between conferences. We have a lot to celebrate and will
have a strong group of Students With A Passion for Astronomy present to
help RASNZ move into its second 100 years.
--Steve Butler, President, RASNZ
2. Call for Papers for 2021 RASNZ Conference
It is a pleasure to announce that the next conference of the Royal Astronomical Society of New Zealand (RASNZ) will be held at the Wharewaka Function Centre on Wellington waterfront over the weekend of 9 - 11 July 2021. This year the Fellows’ Lecture will be given by long standing Society member and past president John Drummond. The guest speaker will be Dr Heloise Stevance from the University of Auckland. Titles and abstracts for these talks will be released when they are available.
The conference will be followed by a Dark Sky Workshop on the morning of Monday 12 July. The workshop will consist of short talks on relevant key local and international dark sky updates and discussion/demonstration on topics such as sky quality measurements and dark sky friendly lighting.
The RASNZ Standing Conference Committee (SCC) invites and encourages anyone interested in New Zealand astronomy to submit oral or poster papers, with titles and abstracts due by June 27th or until such time as the SCC deems the conference programme to be full. The link to the paper submission form can be found on the RASNZ Conference website http://rasnz.org.nz/groups-news-events/rasnz-conference. Please note that you must be registered for the conference to give an oral presentation, and for your convenience a link has been provided if you wish to do this when you submit a paper. The time allocated for each speaker is 20 minutes, including time for questions
We look forward to receiving your submissions and seeing you at the conference. Please feel free to forward this message to anyone who may find it of interest.
For further information on the RASNZ Conference, registration details and associated events please visit the conference website at http://rasnz.org.nz/groups-news-events/rasnz-conference.
-- Warwick Kissling & Steve Butler, RASNZ Standing Conference Committee
3. Call for Notices of Motion
If anyone has notices of motion for either the 2021 Annual General Meeting or the 2021 Affiliated Societies’
meeting, please send them to the Executive Secretary, by Friday 28th May 2021.
Rule 71 - Notice of all motions for any General Meeting of Members and Affiliated Society representatives other than motions emanating from the Council must be given in writing to the Executive Secretary at least six weeks before the date of that meeting. The AGM is planned for Saturday 10th July 2021, at the Wellington conference.
-- John Drummond, Executive Secretary.
Email: kiwiastronomer@gmail.com . Phone: 0275 609 287
4. Past Conference Photos Sought
I am preparing a Powerpoint for the upcoming RASNZ conference which will show Conference Group photos from over the years.
I have a number of the recent conferences but need quite a few earlier ones if possible. Scanned images are welcome.
What I would like to receive Conference Group photos for:
• Anything from prior to 1974
• 1976, 1978, 1986, 1996, 1997, 1999 (Auckland - I have a low res version of this)
• 2000, 2001, 2002 (Invercargill - I have low Res of this)
• 2004, 2011, 2015, 2016.
Please email copies to president@rasnz.org.nz
Thanks. See you at the conference.
-- Steve Butler
5. Lunar Eclipse May 26
There is a brief total eclipse of the Moon on May 26. The Moon begins to enter the outer part of Earth's shadow, the penumbra, at 8:47 pm NZST. It won't darken much till it meets the inner shadow, the umbra, at 9:45. By 11:11 the Moon will be fully in Earth's shadow. Its bottom edge is closer to the penumbra so may be a little brighter than the top edge. The Moon begins to leave the umbra at 11:27 and is fully clear of it by 12:53. It leaves the penumbra at 1:50 a.m. It has become fashionable to call a lunar eclipse a 'blood moon' as the eclipsed Moon is often deep red. However the colour can be anything from orange-brown, like a dried apricot, to dark bronze. It all depends on how much light is being refracted around the Earth by the air and how much cloud there is around Earth's edge, as seen from the Moon.
6. Stardate Southland June 11-13
The Southland Astronomical Society is pleased to announce the first ever event of this type to be held here. Stardate Southland will be held over the weekend of June 11th - 13th at our rooms in Invercargill. We have assembled a list of guests who will be speaking or running workshops over the weekend:
Associate Professor Karen Pollard
Dr Stephen Voss
Dr Ian Griffin
Steve Butler
Amadeo (Bangs and flashes for the kids)
Damian McNamara
For further details please visit our Facebook page, "Southland Astronomical Society" https://www.facebook.com/SouthlandAstronomicalSociety/events/
or go to eventbrite.co.nz for booking details,
https://www.eventbrite.co.nz/e/southland-stardate-2021-tickets-143407929979
We look forward to seeing as many of you as possible, and although we have little control over the weather down here, we can guarantee you a warm welcome from our society.
-- Phil Burt.
7. The Solar System in June
Dates and times shown are NZST (UT + 12 hours). Rise and Set times are for Wellington. They will vary by a few minutes elsewhere in NZ. Data is adapted from that shown by GUIDE 9.1.
The winter solstice is on June 21 at 3.33 pm
THE SUN and PLANETS in JUNE, Rise & Set, Magnitude & Constellation
June 1 NZST June 30 NZST
Mag Cons Rise Set Mag Cons Rise Set
SUN -26.7 Tau 7.34am 5.02pm -26.7 Gem 7.45am 5.04pm
Mercury 3.2 Tau 8.40am 5.56pm 0.9 Tau 6.01am 3.50pm
Venus -3.8 Tau 9.00am 6.06pm -3.8 Cnc 9.24am 7.00pm
Mars 1.7 Gem 10.44am 8.04pm 1.8 Cnc 9.47am 7.41pm
Jupiter -2.4 Aqr 11.08pm 12.41pm -2.6 Aqr 9.16pm 10.48am
Saturn 0.6 Cap 9.35pm 11.52pm 0.4 Cap 7.35pm 9.55am
Uranus 5.9 Ari 5.09am 3.28pm 5.8 Ari 3.22am 1.38pm
Neptune 7.9 Aqr 12.57am 1.32pm 7.9 Aqr 11.04pm 11.39am
Pluto 14.5 Sgr 8.05pm 11.04am 14.5 Sgr 6.08pm 9.08am
June 1 NZST June 30 NZST
TWILIGHTS morning evening morning evening
Civil: start 7.06am, end 5.31pm start 7.16am, end 5.33pm
Nautical: start 6.32am, end 6.05pm start 6.42am, end 6.07pm
Astro: start 5.58am, end 6.39pm start 6.08am, end 6.41pm
JUNE PHASES OF THE MOON, times NZST & UT
Last quarter: June 2 at 7.24pm (07:24 UT)
New Moon: June 10 at 10.53pm (10:53 UT)
First quarter: June 18 at 3.54pm (03:54 UT)
Full Moon: June 25 at 6.40am (June 24, 18:40 UT)
THE PLANETS in JUNE
MERCURY is at inferior conjunction between the Earth and Sun on June 11. At conjunction the planet will be just over 3° south of the Sun.
Before conjunction as an evening object Mercury will be too low for observation. Following conjunction it is a morning object rising nearly 100 minutes before the Sun by June 30. It will then be briefly visible, very low, an hour before sunrise at 6.45 am. The planet will be just over 6° above the horizon in a direction some 30° to the north of east.
VENUS is an evening object and moves further out from the Sun during June. It will be visible low to the northwest shortly after sunset getting a little higher as the month progresses. By June 30 it will be some 8° above the horizon at 6pm, an obvious object in the northwest sky.
On June 12, at about 5.45 pm, when the Sun is about 9° below the horizon, Venus will be only 5° up, the moon as a very thin crescent may be seen even lower, some 2.5° below the planet.
MARS is also a low early evening object in June, setting about 3 hours after the Sun on June 1 and about 20 minutes less on the 30th. Mars moves across the Beehive star cluster (M44) on the 23rd and 24th. As seen from NZ, the planet is closest to the centre of the cluster on the latter date.
The crescent moon will be just over 5° to the right of Mars early evening on June 14.
JUPITER will be a reasonably placed, late evening object by the end of June but, especially early in the month, remains best observed as a morning object. It is stationary on June 21.
The moon passes Jupiter twice in June. At midnight on June 1/2 the moon, near last quarter, will be 4° to the right of Jupiter. Then on the morning of June 29, the moon will again be 4° from Jupiter. The two are closest a little after sunrise.
SATURN rises about 90 minutes before Jupiter, so is becoming well placed for viewing in the late evening sky.
Saturn is a little under 4° to the left of the moon on the 27th. The two are closest late evening.
URANUS and NEPTUNE move further up into the morning sky during June, Neptune being the higher. The moon passes the two planets during daylight hours on the 7th and 4th respectively.
PLUTO, still in Sagittarius, rises fairly early evening by the end of the month.
POSSIBLE BINOCULAR ASTEROIDS in June
June 1 NZST June 30 NZST
Mag Cons transit Mag Cons transit
(1) Ceres 9.2 Cet 10.15am 9.2 Ari 9.01am
(4) Vesta 7.5 Leo 6.51pm 7.8 Vir 5.30pm
(6) Hebe 9.6 Aql 3.45am 8.8 Aql 1.41am
(12) Victoria 9.9 Aql 4.16am 9.3 Aqr 2.27am
CERES in the morning sky, rises at 4.40 am on the 1st an hour earlier by the 30th. It moves from Cetus to Aries on June 20.
VESTA, an evening object sets at midnight on the 1st. It sets at an hour earlier on the 30th.
On the late evening of the 17th, Vesta lies on a line between the moon, and the magnitude 2 star beta Leo. The asteroid will be just over a quarter of the way from moon to star.
HEBE brightens during June to magnitude 8.8 by the 30th. It rises at 9.16 pm on the 1st and just over 2 hours earlier on the 30th.
VICTORIA rises at 9.43 pm on the 1st, when it is in Aquila about 8° from Hebe. Victoria moves into Aquarius on the 6th. By the 30th it rises at 8.12 pm. By then Victoria is 12° from Hebe, having been stationary on the 20th.
-- Brian Loader
8. Variable Star News
One of the binary stars monitored by Variable Stars South, V777 Sagittarius, has been observed going into eclipse starting 29th April 2021 (source Mark Blackford). These eclipses only come around about every two and a half years. The eclipses of the small companion by the larger primary are relatively long and egress is expected around June 23rd. During the eclipse continual close monitoring of the magnitude of the star is recommended, and during egress several times per night. For updates on the status of the eclipse refer to the VSS Google Discussion Group (thread Re: Imminent eclipse of V777 Sg). Information on the star is given in articles by Stan Walker in the VSS Newsletters 2021 (1) January pp 15-17 and 2019 (2) April pp 13-15.
V777 Sag is a supergiant (spectral class K) and while most red giants are variable this star isn’t; in addition it has a small, hot companion, and thus one of only a few stars known with this combination of properties and thus important to study. The light curve of a binary star system can be analysed to determine the radii and mass of the stars in the system and the size of the orbits. Because of the size of this star, if good data is obtained on the egress, it may also be possible to model the supergiant’s atmosphere. The estimated times of ingress and egress are short, slightly less than a day for ingress and 34 h for egress and the magnitude change is small, slightly more than 0.3 magnitude units. There is obviously a need for widespread distribution of observers to capture this event.
Some AASO Webinars
Remaining in May
Saturday the 22nd May, at 18:00 UT at https://aavso.us10.list-manage.com/track/click?u=3ad9dedd265a0351968ebddee&id=876f6a7f76&e=e75acde184
Trevor Dorn-Wallenstein (Univ. Washington):“Solving the Red Supergiant Problem with a New Class of Pulsators"
Plus Dr. Burçin Mutlu-Pakdil (Univ Chicago): "The Faintest and Smallest Galaxies"
June Titles:
For Abstracts refer https://www.aavso.org/2021-webinars-abstracts
# Richard Berry, "Your First Observatory, Keep It Simple!"
# Dr Dan Milisavljevic of the Supernova Early Warning System (SNEWS) Team), “Observing the Next Galactic Supernova: Will you be ready?”
# Tom Calderwood, "A Romp with Betelgeuse"
Upcoming CHOICE courses:
• How to Use Vstar (May 31–June 25) (Registration is open)
• Visual Observing Basics (June 21–July 16) (Registration is open)
For more details or to sign up see https://aavso.us10.list-manage.com/track/click?u=3ad9dedd265a0351968ebddee&id=329b31bda9&e=e75acde184
Note: here is a charge for CHOICE Courses.
-- Alan Baldwin
9. Astronomy Talks on YouTube
The Institute of Astrophysics of the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile is in the midst of its blockbuster series of talks — and they’re all on YouTube for us all to enjoy. This year, the series includes Nobel laureates Roger Penrose and Reinhard Genzel, and straight-talking theoretical physicist Sabine Hossenfelder. All will have Spanish translations, too. The full schedule is here.
The YouTube link is https://nature.us17.list-manage.com/track/click?u=2c6057c528fdc6f73fa196d9d&id=63081c5f02&e=09a5bd5644.
The full schedule is at https://nature.us17.list-manage.com/track/click?u=2c6057c528fdc6f73fa196d9d&id=eec6d912e3&e=09a5bd5644
-- Marilyn Head
10. Aotearoa Astrotourism Academy -- September 10-12
John Hearnshaw and Nalayini Davies announce the launch of a new enterprise, Aotearoa Astrotourism Academy, AAA.
The primary goal of AAA is to offer educational courses for current or aspiring astro-tourism night-sky guides, or for anyone interested in navigating the dark night sky.
We have assembled a small team of dedicated and expert instructors, and the plan is to offer a custom-tailored course over two and a half days (from 3:00 pm Friday afternoon to 5:00 pm Sunday afternoon) on all aspects of night-sky guiding. We hope to impart some of the basic skills and knowledge considered essential for those working in the fast growing astro-tourism industry.
The inaugural course will be in Lake Tekapo village from Friday 10 September 2021 to Sunday 12 September 2021. The venue will be the Godley Hotel, SH8, Lake Tekapo. This will be an intensive course comprising lectures, practical sessions (weather permitting for evening observing) and plenty of interactions between instructors and participants.
The content of the course will be as follows:
• Overview of dark sky places and astro-tourism in New Zealand -- Nalayini Davies
• Astro-tour stargazing (weather permitting) -- Gareth Davies and Alan Gilmore
• Coordinates and time in astronomy -- John Hearnshaw
• Our place in the Universe -- Nalayini Davies
• Principal objects to look at for astro-tourists -- Alan Gilmore
• How binoculars and telescopes work and how to use a telescope -- John Drummond
• Deep field astro-photography -- John Drummond
• Naming of stars and celestial objects -- John Hearnshaw
• Wide field astro-photography and time-lapse videos -- Fraser Gunn
• Notes for astro-tour guides -- Alan Gilmore
• Useful books, publications and apps for night sky guides -- John Hearnshaw and Nalayini Davies
Further details of the Academy and the course offered by AAA are to be found on the website www.aaanz.org. The website should be live very soon during April. We plan to include a guided visit to Mt John Observatory on the Friday afternoon.
Registrations can be made on-line at the website above. The registration fee of $500 covers participation in the course as well as morning and afternoon teas/coffees and lunch on the Saturday and Sunday. It is anticipated that participation will be limited to about 24.
For enquiries please email john.hearnshaw@canterbury.ac.nz or nbrito@vinstar.co.nz
11. New Zealand Astrophotography Competition
The 2021 New Zealand Astrophotography Competition is now open for entries.
This year's competition will be judged by Robert Gendler, Robert is arguably one of the top deep sky astrophotographers in the world, he specializes in images of deep sky objects with very long exposure times.
For more information on our judge please take a look at his work on his website at http://www.robgendlerastropics.com/
The competition has three main categories deep sky, nightscape and solar system, last year we introduced a new time-lapse category but this year we have decided to tweak the rules of this new category so make sure you read over the rules and conditions of entry before submitting your entries. See below.
As in previous years the competition is sponsored by the Australian Sky & Telescope magazine, with a free 12 month subscription to their fine magazine to the winners of the nightscape and deep sky categories, as well as having their images printed in the magazine.
We are also lucky to be sponsored by Celestron Australia who are providing a $500 Celestron Australia Voucher to be spent on the Celestron Australia Website for the winner of the Deep Sky Category.
And sponsorship from Sky-Watcher Australia who are sponsoring the overall winner of the competition with a $500 NZD Sky-Watcher Australia Voucher to be spent on the Sky-Watcher Australia Website.
Astronz are sponsoring the Solar System category with a $300 Astronz gift voucher, Astronz is easily New Zealand's best known and most trusted supplier of Astronomical equipment.
The Auckland Astronomical Society will also provide a cash prize for each category winner.
The competition cutoff date is the 21st of September and the competition awards will be announced at the annual Burbidge dinner which is the Auckland Astronomical Society's premier annual event, keep an eye out on the society website for details on the forthcoming Burbidge dinner.
Conditions of entry and entry forms can be downloaded from the Auckland Astronomical Society website here at https://www.astronomy.org.nz/announcing-the-2021-new-zealand-astrophotography-competion-for-the-harry-williams-trophy/ "
-- From Jonathan Green, Director of the RASNZ Astrophotography Section, for the Auckland Astronomical Society.
12. Dr Rangi Matamua FRSNZ
Dr Dr Rangi Matamua of Waikato University was recently made a Fellow of the Royal Society of NZ. The citation reads:
Dr Rangi Matamua (Tuhoe) is a pioneering Maori scholar who has revolutionised understandings of Maori astronomy, and in particular Matariki. His research has been ground-breaking in terms of its contribution to matauranga Maori; he has enlightened both national and international populations on the matauranga of astronomy. He is renowned for his role communicating his research in an accessible and engaging way, and reaching both academic and non-academic audiences.
Rangi is both the author of the bestselling book Matariki: The Star of the Year (published both in English and te reo editions) and presenter of the award winning te reo Maori web series Living by the Stars. He has challenged widespread misconceptions about Maori astronomy and has enhanced our understandings of a Maori world view of the stars. His research is situated at the interface between matauranga Maori and Western science and he is helping to reconnect people with maramataka – the Maori lunar calendar – and the environment. Rangi is also part of a wider movement, reclaiming Indigenous astronomy as part of a continued process of decolonisation. He has won the 2019 Prime Minister’s Science Communication Prize and the 2020 Callaghan Medal for science communication from Royal Society Te Aparangi.
From https://www.royalsociety.org.nz/news/researchers-and-scholars-elected-to-academy/#Rangi 13. New Zealand Dark Sky Handbook
This is to announce a new book by John Hearnshaw, Emeritus Professor of Astronomy at the University of Canterbury.
The New Zealand Dark Sky Handbook is a comprehensive manual for all those who are interested in the fast growing topic of dark skies protection and the abatement of artificial light at night.
The book is in eight chapters, covering the following topics:
Chapter 1: Why protect dark skies?
Chapter 2: Properties of light and good lighting practices
Chapter 3: Measuring light
Chapter 4: The eye and human vision
Chapter 5: Lighting ordinances and dark sky organizations
Chapter 6: Dark sky places in New Zealand
Chapter 7: Island dark sky places in the world
Chapter 8: Astro-tourism and stargazing
Index
The NZ Dark Sky Handbook is richly illustrated, with many figures in full colour, numerous tables of useful information, and explanations of complex topics in light measurement, physics, astronomy and lighting technology.
This is a highly multi-disciplinary subject. It calls on physics, astronomy, photometry, lighting technology, aesthetics, tourism, legal matters, human physiology, endocrinology, ecology, astrophotography, public outreach, geography, education and economics.
The NZ Dark Sky Handbook fills 230 A4 pages. It is self-published by the author. To obtain a copy, the purchase price is $28 (NZD) plus the costs of postage and packaging, if required ($8.60 for mailing within NZ, more for overseas). To order a copy, please email john.hearnshaw@canterbury.ac.nz or john.b.hearnshaw@gmail.com. Payment may be made by direct credit to the author’s bank account at Westpac Bank: 03 1706 0010432 00.
The NZ Dark Sky Handbook is available from late June 2021.
ISBN 978-0-473-57462-8
14. Gruber Cosmology Prize 2021
The Gruber Cosmology Prize, which is co-sponsored by the International Astronomical Union (IAU), recognises scientists whose contributions have driven fundamental advances in our understanding of the Universe.
Itis awarded annually to leading scientists and cosmologists who have made ground-breaking discoveries that change or challenge our understanding of the Universe.
This year’s prize goes to Marc Kamionkowski, Johns Hopkins University, Uroš Seljak, University of California at Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and Matias Zaldarriaga, Institute for Advanced Study, for their contributions to the study of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) and the early Universe. The CMB is the ubiquitous radiation left over from when atoms first formed, releasing radiation that remains as the Universe’s “background noise”. The three recipients of the prize developed techniques to use observations of the CMB to derive information about the early Universe.
The CMB provides an image of the Universe when it was just 379 000 years old, but it represents an observational limit — direct measurements of the Universe before this time are not possible. However, Kamionkowski and, independently but simultaneously, Seljak and Zaldarriaga developed a mathematical technique to use the CMB radiation to infer what’s on the other side of this limit, all the way back to the first fraction of a second of the Universe’s existence. That method uses the property of polarisation — the degree to which an oscillating wave, bouncing up and down relative to the direction of travel, diverges from a strictly perpendicular orientation.
In 1997, their work was published in two papers side by side in Physical Review Letters. (Kamionkowski shared authorship with Albert Stebbins, Fermilab, and Arthur Kosowsky, University of Pittsburgh.) The impact of the papers was seismic and enduring. In the words of one nominator to this year’s Gruber Prize, “The significance of this work for cosmology cannot be overstated.”
By observing polarisation in the CMB, cosmologists can match theoretical predictions of early-Universe properties using data that would otherwise be inaccessible. Among the observatories that have been used to make those polarisation measurements are the WMAP and Planck satellites (whose principal investigators and teams received the Gruber Cosmology Prize in 2012 and 2018, respectively). Those measurements have allowed cosmologists to determine that the Universe is 13.8 billion years old and comprises roughly 5 percent ordinary matter, 26 percent dark matter, and 69 percent dark energy.
Polarisation continues to be an essential tool for filling in our picture of the Universe; it is now inspiring a new generation of research programmes that will detect — or not — the final piece in that reigning cosmological model: inflation, a theoretical moment at the very beginning of the Universe’s existence when space would have undergone an expansion of almost unfathomable proportions. (The theorists who independently created that idea, Alan Guth and Andrei Linde, received the 2004 Gruber Cosmology Prize.) The two 1997 papers by Kamionkowski, Seljak and Zaldarriaga identified a signature in the CMB polarisation that would render a verdict on the existence of primordial gravitational waves — a key prediction of inflationary theory.
Although the 1997 papers are two of the seminal works by Kamionkowski, Seljak, and Zaldarriaga, the 2021 Gruber Prize also recognises their career-long contributions to cosmology.
Even before writing their 1997 paper, Seljak and Zaldarriaga had already created a code that made the study of certain aspects of the CMB thousands of times faster, named CMBfast. Because they made the code available for free it dominated CMB research for years to come. Today it endures as the foundation for every code analysing CMB polarisation. Over the decades, singly and together, they have continued to perform influential mathematical analyses and to create new theoretical interpretations in such areas as inflation, gravitational waves, and the use of general relativistic effects (weak lensing) on light from distant sources to infer the characteristics of the dark matter in individual galaxy halos as well as in the large-scale structure of galactic formation.
Kamionkowski is also well known for his work on cosmological-parameter determination and parity-breaking effects in the CMB, and he has over the years made important subsequent contributions to the study of CMB polarisation. He has also done significant work in many other areas of cosmology, including dark matter, inflation, the acceleration of the expansion of the Universe, cosmic phase transitions, and gravitational waves.
In addition to the cash award, US$167 000 each, each recipient will receive a gold laureate pin and a citation.
For details and images see https://www.iau.org/news/pressreleases/detail/iau2103/?lang
iau2103 — Press Release
15. How to Join the RASNZ
RASNZ membership is open to all individuals with an interest in
astronomy in New Zealand. Information about the society and its
objects can be found at
http://rasnz.org.nz/rasnz/membership-benefits
A membership form can be either obtained from treasurer@rasnz.co.nz or
by completing the online application form found at
http://rasnz.org.nz/rasnz/membership-application
Basic membership for the 2021 year starts at $40 for an ordinary
member, which includes an electronic subscription to our journal
'Southern Stars'.
16. Quotes
"I don't need time, I need a deadline." -- Duke Ellington, quoted in the Week.
"It's bad luck to be superstitious." -- Andrew W Mathis.
"It is possible to store the mind with a million facts and still be entirely uneducated." -- Alec Bourne.
Alan Gilmore Phone: 03 680 6817
P.O. Box 57 alan.gilmore@canterbury.ac.nz
Lake Tekapo 7945
New Zealand
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December Celestial Calendar by Dave Mitsky
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Minor Planet Occultation Updates:
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Further links and discussion can be found at the groups/links below
Astronomy in New Zealand - Groups.io
https://groups.io/g/AstronomyNZ
Astronomy in New Zealand - Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/groups/5889909863/
Google Group
https://groups.google.com/g/nzastrochat
Astronomy in Wellington
https://www.facebook.com/groups/11451597655/
Blogger Posts
http://laintal.blogspot.com/
Twitter
https://twitter.com/Laintal
Reddit
https://www.reddit.com/user/Edwin_Rod_NZ
Quaroa
https://www.quora.com/q/astronomyinnewzealand
Groups.io
Astronomy in New Zealand
https://groups.io/g/AstronomyNZ
AstronomyNZ@groups.io
Wellington Astronomers
https://groups.io/g/WellingtonAstronomers
WellingtonAstronomers@groups.io
AucklandAstronomers
https://groups.io/g/AucklandAstronomers
AucklandAstronomers@groups.io
North Island Astronomers
https://groups.io/g/NorthIslandAstronomers
NorthIslandAstronomers@groups.io
South Island Astronomers
https://groups.io/g/SouthIslandAstronomers
SouthIslandAstronomers@groups.io
NZAstrochat
https://groups.io/g/NZAstrochat
NZAstrochat@groups.io
NZ Photographers And Observers
https://groups.io/g/NZPhotographers
NZPhotographers@groups.io
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Please note:
My standard caveat that these are the views of a learned amateur, not a professional in the sector, applies as always.
The above post/email/update represents my own words, views, research and opinions, unless stated otherwise the above work
represents my own writing. I’ll give credit or thanks if I have used or represented other people’s words and/or opinions.
The links and references listed below represent the work and research of the respective author’s.
Questions and constructive criticism are always welcome, however I don’t believe anything written here by myself is any reason for impolite behaviour.
Thanks for your time and I hope you have enjoyed reading.
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