Photographing Extra-Solar Planets

Despite forecasts for bad weather last night, we got some relatively good skies and views of M3 (a globular cluster of stars), Alcor & Mizar (a binary pair of stars in the Big Dipper), and Saturn. There was a wonderful lecture by Anand Sivaramakrishnan, the chief instrumentation engineer at the Museum of Natural History, on the topic of directly imaging extrasolar planets using interferometry. He discussed a new way in which to observe with modern optical and infrared telescopes which provides more information about planetary companions of stars than other methods. This new technique is currently being used on the Gemini telescope and will soon be used on the James Webb Space Telescope, Hubble's successor.

To follow up on the lecture, we showed a couple of short films on various aspects of stars, including the new program: "Journey to the Stars." Additionally, we had a few informal lessons from Jia Liu and Jennifer Weston regarding "Stars" and "Comets and Meteor Showers" to celebrate the Eta Aquarids meteor shower going on last night. There was some NASA poster swag for everyone to take.

Thank you to the 8 volunteers and 75 attendees last night!

April 23: Public Lecture and Stargazing

A beautiful clear night encouraged nearly 100 people to venture to Rutherfurd Observatory where we first hear from Prof. David Helfand about reconstructing cosmic history, atom by atom. Dr. Helfand's talk detailed how the nuclei of atoms could be used to track events in prehistory from the changes in our planet's ecosystem to the very origins of the universe. This engaging talk was a condensed version of his popular Teaching Company series of lectures.

After the fantastic lecture, we heard from graduate student Jana Grcevic about the 20th anniversary of the Hubble Space Telescope. The skies were clear and we got great views of the moon, Mars, Saturn, M13, and other targets that are often difficult to see from Manhattan without the aid of a telescope. All in all, a spectacular evening.

Sidewalk Astronomy in Harlem

On Tuesday evening a small group of astronomy students set up telescopes outside the Magic Johnson cinema at 124th & Douglass Blvd. Amidst the mild weather we had an easy time surprising people on the sidewalk with close-up views of the Moon, Mars, and Saturn. About 150 people stopped for a look over the course of two hours. The above photo, taken by Laura Vican, shows Jennifer Weston pointing out Saturn to a new stargazer. The organizers aim to repeat the success of this outing once a month.

Radio Astronomy Lecture at Pupin Hall: Friday April 9.

The public lecture event from 8 to 10pm on Friday, April 9th, was both informative and entertaining. About 70 people attended the lecture by Grad Student Destry Saul entitled "Hearing Cosmic Static: The Accidental and Amateur Birth of Radio Astronomy". Destry explained how Carl Jansky at AT&T's Bell Labs serendipitously made the first detection of radiowaves from distant galactic sources while conducting telegraph R&D. He also explained why astronomers were slow to grasp the importance of this new sub-field of astronomy and how it took a decade after for a radio enthusiaist, Grote Reber, to reinvestigate Jansky's findings and properly establish the field of radio astronomy. The different interests that Reber maintained, in addition to radio, and the scientific fervor that he brought to his studies really reflected the true spirit and enjoyment that scientists have when they love their work. Finally, Destry was nice enough to show us some cutting edge radio research that he and his team at Columbia are working on.

Unfortunately, the weather was uncooperative so it wasn't possible to observe but our 13th floor classroom was once again pressed into full service with Ryan Jong, a post-doc, running our 3-D wall. He showed a number of 3-D animations and simulations of galaxy mergers, formation, and of the cosmic web of galaxies in the universe. Our lecture was also followed up by tours of our observatory and telescopes and by a couple of slide shows in the lecture hall.

Public Lecture and Stargazing: March 26, 2010

Tonight's event from 8 to 10pm on Friday, March 26th, was a great time for everyone. Over 60 people attended a lecture by Grad Student Yuan Li entitled "Shaping Galaxies with Supermassive Black Holes". Yuan discussed first what a black hole is, and then explained how SMBHs are almost always found at the center of galaxies. She explained the M-sigma relation in an amazingly understandable way and provided some ideas about what might cause this correlation, including a great movie of a galaxy merger. Yuan's lecture was interesting and elicited a huge number of questions from the people in attendance.

The weather was hazy, with views of Mars and the Moon. Later in the evening it cleared up a little more, and Mizor and Alchor were observed as well. The 13th floor classroom was put to new use with a movie screening by Lia Corrales of Tyler Noerdgen's investigation of the night sky in national parks. A compelling section of his work, called "Sky Above, Earth Below" , which details light pollution at so-called dark sky sights, was shown.

We got some press coverage of last night's event. Read it now in the Columbia Spectator.

March 5, 2010: Gamma-ray bursts

We had an exciting evening on Friday March 5 from 7 to 9 pm with about 60 visitors to Pupin Hall and Rutherfurd Observatory. John Ruan, a Columbia College Senior in the Department of Astronomy (going on to graduate school next year) gave a fantastic lecture about gamma-ray bursts. Among the most amusing anecdotes he gave was the number of Coca-colas all of humanity would need to drink over the age of the universe in order to equal the amount of energy given off by one gamma-ray burst. The answer was a number too large to count in your lifetime!

Although it was hazy, the skies were clear enough to get a peak at Mars. The Red Planet is on a close approach to the Earth right now (an event that happens approximately once every two years) and so our view of it is getting to be pretty good. Even a small pair of binoculars can reveal that it is a disk and a moderately powered telescope can resolve the white polar ice caps! Definitely worth a look.

Exoplanet Hunting Techniques!

Summer Ash gave an amazing talk last night entitled: "Galactic Planet Hunting." She discussed the different techniques astronomers are using to find planets outside of our solar system, from looking at the wobble of the planet's host star, to looking at the drop of light that occurs when a planet eclipses its host star, and finally to looking for the planet directly. Additionally, we gave away some NASA swag, we had the 3D wall show and a flythrough the Solar System, and we had a few slideshows (Astronomy Picture of the Day and the discovery of water on the Moon).

Unfortunately, the weather was uncooperative. It was clear when the lecture began but quickly became totally overcast for the observing period. However, we were able to give several groups of people a tour of the telescopes along with some history and background as to how they work.

Thanks to the 100 attendees and several volunteer graduate students!

--Cameron