Supernova Remnant W49B

(Credit: Caltech/SSC/J.Rho and T. Jarrett)

This is from a couple of years ago but I felt like posting an astrophoto today, so this is what you get. The image above shows a supernova remnant known as W49B.

It is a composite image taken by the orbiting Chandra X-ray Observatory and the 200-inch Hale Telescope at Palomar Observatory. It is a false-color combination of X-ray (blue) and near-infrared (red and green) light. The image is 5.7 arcmin on each side.

It is images such as this one that really highlight how ground-based and orbiting telescopes work hand in hand for astronomers as they attempt to unravel the secrets of the universe.

Here's what the Chandra website has to say about the image:

supernova remnant W49B reveals a barrel-shaped nebula consisting of bright infrared rings around a glowing bar of intense X-radiation along the axis.The X-rays in the bar are produced by 15 million degree Celsius gas that is rich in iron and nickel ions. At the ends of the barrel, the X-ray emission flares out to make a hot cap. The X-ray cap is surrounded by a flattened cloud of hydrogen molecules detected in the infrared. These features indicate that jets of hot gas produced in the supernova have encountered a large, dense cloud of gas and dust.

The following sequence of events has been suggested to account for the X-ray and infrared data: A massive star formed from a dense cloud of dust and gas, shone brightly for a few million years while spinning off rings of gas and pushing them away to form a nearly empty cavity around the star. The star then exhausted its nuclear fuel and its core collapsed to form a black hole. Much of the gas around the black hole was pulled into it, but some, including material rich in iron and nickel was flung away in oppositely directed jets of gas traveling near the speed of light. When the jet hit the dense cloud surrounding the star, it flared out and drove a shock wave into the cloud.

An observer aligned with one these jets would have seen a gamma-ray burst, a blinding flash in which the concentrated power equals that of ten quadrillion Suns for a minute or so. The view perpendicular to the jets would be a less astonishing, although nonetheless spectacular supernova explosion. For W49B, the jet is tilted out of the plane of the sky by about 20 degrees, but the remains of the jet are visible as a hot X-ray emitting bar of gas.

W49B is about 35 thousand light years away, whereas the nearest known gamma-ray burst to Earth is several million light years away - most are billions of light years distant. If confirmed, the discovery of a relatively nearby remnant of a gamma-ray burst would give scientists an excellent opportunity to study the aftermath of one of nature's most violent explosions.

The infrared data was observed with the 200-inch Hale Telescope's Wide-field Infrared Camera (WIRC). The individual frames, in very high resolution) from Palomar and Chandra can be found here.

Explore the Stars this Weekend

You can Explore the Stars tonight & tomorrow night on Palomar Mountain from the Cleveland National Forest Service's Observatory Campground (named for Palomar Observatory, but not actually at the observatory).

Lots of amateur astronomers will be setting up telescopes and the views should be great.

Palomar Transient Factory Podcast

Today's edition of the 365 Days of Astronomy podcasts features me talking about the Palomar Transient Factory. You can read & hear it here from the 365 Days of Astronomy website or get it here from iTunes.

Here's another look at Palomar Observatory's 48-inch Samuel Oschin Telescope, where the survey begins.

4 Years Ago Today

Four years ago today, June 25 2005, was our Palomar Observatory Open House. An estimated 4,000 people came to visit Palomar Observatory in just one day.

The lines were epic.



It was immensely gratifying to see so many people know that there are so many people that are interested in the observatory and astronomy. As you might imagine, we are a bit hesitant to hold another such event, as it completely overwhelmed our resources (especially with regard to parking and bathrooms).

Instead we now have a regular program of public tours on Saturdays and Sundays. This makes the situation easier for everyone involved and we still have thousands of visitors each year that get to experience a tour of the Hale Telescope.

Be Careful Out There

The heat of a warm day, contrasted with the cool air inside the dome and our altitude (5,500 feet above sea level) can really hit some people hard. In just the last week we have had 2 people attending tours at the observatory that have needed medical attention.

If you are planning on heading up for a tour, please make sure that you have had a meal and water before your visit and that you are easily able to handle an hour's worth of walking and standing.

We are glad to have the members of the Palomar Mountain Volunteer Fire Department close at hand, but prefer not having to call them over.

Towerman

If you've been to Palomar Observatory you may have noticed the old National Forest Service lookout tower located on High Point.

Here's a view of the tower from right next to it:


The U.S. Forest Service closed the tower back in 1992, but Brad Eells and the San Diego - Riverside Chapter of the Forest Fire Lookout Association, Inc. have recently been leading the effort to restore the High Point Tower and re-staff it with volunteers. Brad just sent me this photo, taken in the 1970s, of the view from inside the High Point tower:

Image credit: Cleveland National Forest

Click to embiggen the photo of Towerman Saenz. Over his shoulder you can see the domes of the 48" and 200" telescopes. The dome for the 200" seems to be open in this shot. To the left of them is the dome for the 18" telescope.

I hear that in a few months there may be a webcam installed on the High Point Tower. If so, I'll post here to let everyone know. Here's my post from last year with a photo taken at High Point looking down at the observatory.

Marine Layer Below = Dark Skies Above

Palomar Observatory's founders made a great choice in picking Palomar Mountain as the site for the 200-inch telescope. We often have clear skies and a stable atmosphere to look through (giving us sharper images of the universe).

What our founders did not anticipate was the almost exponential growth of the population of Southern California. With the increased number of people has come increased sky brightness, what most people call light pollution. Thankfully the founders did choose a site that from time to time has a natural shield from the city lights. When the low marine layer clouds blow in off of the ocean, like they are doing today, the cities and their many lights are below the clouds and the observatory is above them. The result is dark skies, making this site almost as dark as it was back in the 1930s.

The picture above was taken from the catwalk of the 200" Hale Telescope earlier today. Tonight all of lights in Riverside County (and San Diego County too, you just can't see it in this shot) will lie below the clouds. "June Gloom" is gray for those below, but wonderful for astronomers.

Hale Telescope in National Geographic

The July 2009 issue of National Geographic Magazine is now out and (while I haven't seen it yet in actual print) you should be able to find a beautiful image taken by photographer Joe McNally of the Hale Telescope with its laser-guide star. The article, Cosmic Vision, was written by Timothy Ferris and is available on line. The NGS website has an online photo gallery that includes 2 images of the Hale, which is also featured in their interactive time-line.

Here's a taste of what the inside photo looks like:

You'll have to visit one of the links above to see the rest.

UPDATE: I have not yet seen it on newsstands, but got my issue in the mail today (6/24). The image of the Hale Telescope fills 2 pages (134 & 135) and looks wonderful.

Light Pollution Animations

Need-less Light Pollution has some cool animations on light pollution that you can freely add to web pages.



Visit their site for more, I especially like their light pollution simulator which shows off the affects of different outdoor lights.

AMA Endorses the Fight Against Light Pollution

Interesting news reported here:

The American Medical Association, AMA, has officially approved the following lighting resolutions. These resolutions are now official AMA Policy:

Resolutions approved June 15, 2009 by the American Medical Association

RESOLVED That our AMA advocate that all future outdoor lighting be of energy efficient designs to reduce waste of energy and production of greenhouse gasses that result from this wasted energy use, and be it further

RESOLVED That our AMA develop and enact a policy that supports light pollution reduction efforts and glare reduction efforts at both the national and state levels; and be it further

RESOLVED That our AMA support that all future streetlights will be of a fully shielded design or similar non-glare design to improve the safety of our roadways for all, but especially vision impaired and older drivers.

Maybe they are wise to the evidence that light at night is bad for human health.

PTF in the News

The Palomar Transient Factory story has gotten coverage from Astronomy.com, HPWREN, PhysOrg.com, SpaceRef, Space Ticker, Universe Today, and more.

In case you missed it, here's the press release from Berkeley: NERC Helps Expose Cosmic Transients and from Caltech: Unique Sky Survey Brings New Objects into Focus.

And for your viewing pleasure, here is a shot I took of Palomar's Samuel Oschin Telescope two weeks ago:

The Palomar Transient Factory sky survey begins with this 60 year old telescope. In this shot the telescope remained motionless as the dome was turned behind it. If you look closely you can see stars shining "through" the dome (and a few cirrus clouds too). As the dome slit rotated around it brought different sections of the sky into view. It makes for a pretty unique look including the appearance of the "hole" at the top of the dome.

Dark Skies Podcast

Yesterday's podcast from the 365 Days of Astronomy podcasts comes from the International Dark-Sky Association. You can hear International Dark Sky Parks & Reserves – Just in Time for Summer Vacation! from the 365 Days of Astronomy website: here or from iTunes.

High Point Panorama

HPWREN's image of the week for June 13 is a 360 degree view from High Point on Palomar Mountain. You can't tell it is there in this small version, but the Palomar Observatory is clearly visible in the full-sized version. Head on over to see the full ~64 megapixel image.

What Does a Transient Look Like?

What does a transient look like? Here an image sequence from the Berkeley press release on Palomar Transient Factory to show you. Click to embiggen:

Astronomers using NERSC’s Real-Time Detection pipeline uncovered supernova SN2009av-1a in the act of exploding. At left, the image of a galaxy 800 million light-years away was created by layering observations taken by the Palomar Transient Factory camera from February 23-27. Second from left is the image captured by the PTF camera on February 28. Next, using the NERSC pipeline to digitally subtract the earlier image from the new one, scientists exposed this cosmic transient, a supernova. At right, subtracting the previous images from one taken March 2 showed the source getting brighter. Follow-up observations caught the Type Ia supernova, now called SN2009av, at peak brightness. ( Credit: Palomar Transient Factory/Dovi Poznanski, Berkeley Lab)

Palomar Transient Factory Captures the Andromeda Galaxy

Using Palomar Observatory's 48-inch Samuel Oschin Telescope, the Palomar Transient Factory captured M31, the Andromeda Galaxy:


This false-color image of our glowing galactic neighbor, the Andromeda Galaxy, was created by layering 400 individual images captured by the PTF camera in February 2009. In one pointing, the PTF camera has a seven-square-degree field of view, equivalent to approximately 25 full moons. (Palomar Transient Factory/Peter Nugent, Berkeley Lab).

Palomar Transient Factory

Unique Sky Survey Brings New Objects into Focus

Partnership involves Caltech's Palomar Observatory and other world leaders in astronomy

San Diego, Calif.–An innovative sky survey has begun returning images that will be used to detect unprecedented numbers of powerful cosmic explosions–called supernovae–in distant galaxies, and variable brightness stars in our own Milky Way. The survey also may soon reveal new classes of astronomical objects.

All of these discoveries will stem from the Palomar Transient Factory (PTF) survey, which combines, in a new way, the power of a wide-field telescope, a high-resolution camera, and high-performance networking and computing, with rapid follow-up by telescopes around the globe, to open windows of discovery for astronomers. The survey has already found 40 supernovae and is gearing up to switch to a robotic mode of operation that will allow objects to be discovered nightly without the need for human intervention.

The Palomar Transient Factory is a collaboration of scientists and engineers from institutions around the world, including the California Institute of Technology (Caltech); the University of California, Berkeley, and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL); Columbia University; Las Cumbres Observatory; the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel; and Oxford University.

During the PTF process, the automated wide-angle 48-inch Samuel Oschin Telescope at Caltech's Palomar Observatory scans the skies using a 100-megapixel camera. The flood of images, more than 100 gigabytes every night, is then beamed off of the mountain via the High Performance Wireless Research and Education Network­–a high-speed microwave data connection to the Internet–and then to the LBNL's National Energy Scientific Computing Center. There, computers analyze the data and compare it to images previously obtained at Palomar. More computers using a type of artificial intelligence software sift through the results to identify the most interesting "transient" sources–those that vary in brightness or position.

Within minutes of a candidate transient's discovery, the system sends its coordinates and instructions for follow-up observations using the Palomar 60-inch telescope and other instruments.

Soon all of the steps in the process will be completely automated, including decisions about which transients merit a second look. When follow-up observations indicate that candidate transient detections show promise, a prioritized list of candidates is brought to the attention of astronomers from the PTF member institutions. Finally, an astronomer becomes personally involved, by performing detailed observations using telescopes such as Palomar's 200-inch Hale Telescope, a Keck Telescope in Hawaii, or other partner telescopes around the world.

The PTF is designed to search for a wide variety of transient sources with characteristic timescales ranging from minutes to months, giving astronomers one of their deepest and most comprehensive explorations of the universe in the time domain.

"By looking at the sky in a new way, we are ushering in a new era of astronomical discovery," says PTF principal investigator Shrinivas Kulkarni, MacArthur Professor of Astronomy and Planetary Science at Caltech and director of the Caltech Optical Observatories. "Nimble automated telescopes and impressive computing power make this possible."

"No one has looked on these timescales with this sensitivity before. It's entirely possible that we will find new astronomical objects never before seen by humans," says Nicholas Law of Caltech, the project scientist for PTF.

Because it looks for anything changing in the sky, the PTF survey covers a vast variety of different astronomical targets. The wide range of the survey extends across the entire universe. Astronomers expect to discover everything from stars exploding millions of light-years away to near-Earth asteroids that could someday impact our planet.

Much of the survey's time is spent searching for so-called Type Ia supernovae. These supernovae, formed from the explosion of a class of dead star known as a white dwarf, are very useful to astronomers because they can help determine the distance to galaxies located across the universe. Those distances allow astronomers to probe the origin, structure, and even the ultimate fate of the universe.

By operating more rapidly than previous surveys, PTF will also detect objects of a completely different nature, such as pulsating stars, different types of stellar explosions, and possibly planets around other stars.

PTF's innovative survey techniques also have raised astronomers' expectations of finding new, unexpected, astronomical objects.

The PTF already has found many new cosmic explosions, including 32 Type Ia supernovae, eight Type II supernovae, and four cataclysmic variable stars. Intriguingly, PTF also has found several objects with characteristics that do not exactly match any other objects that have been seen before. PTF astronomers are eagerly watching these objects to see how they change, and to determine what they might be.

The quantity and quality of incoming data have astonished astronomers working in the field. On one recent night, PTF patrolled a section of the sky about five times the size of the Big Dipper–and found 11 new objects. "Today I found five new supernovae before breakfast," says Caltech's Robert Quimby, a postdoctoral scholar and leader of the PTF software team. "In the previous survey I worked on, I found 30 in two years."

Images and more information on the PTF survey are available on the PTF website at http://www.astro.caltech.edu/ptf

One of the most intriguing PTF discoveries, the object known as "PTF09dh" (above, right)appeared in a blank patch of sky and brightened as PTF watched from Palomar Observatory. The PTF collaboration is packed with supernova experts, but this discovery already has the team stumped--and excited. "For a cosmic explorer like me, the stream of curve balls served up by the universe makes for good job security. I take this as a sign there is plenty more waiting to be discovered.", said Robert Quimby, PTF's Software Lead.

Credit: PTF Collaboration

Comet 65P (Comet Gunn) as seen by PTF. The moving, and well known, comet was detected as a changing object by PTF on several nights, and was one of the first system verification images.

Credit: PTF Collaboration

AAS Palomar Round Up

Astronomers shared lots of results from Palomar Observatory at last week's meeting of the American Astronomical Society. I didn't get the chance to see it all, but here are the titles of the talks and poster papers that were presented. Hopefully I didn't leave anything off of the list.

The PTF Orion Planet-Search Project

Transients in the Local Universe : Systematically Searching the Gap between Novae and Supernovae

Exoplanet Imaging at the Palomar 5-m: Enhancing the Contrast of the Project 1640 Coronagraph

Observations Of Brown Dwarf Companions With A Small Well-corrected Telescope Subaperture (JPL)

M-dwarf Astrometry With Adaptive Optics

The Host Galaxies of Swift Dark Gamma-Ray Bursts: Observational Constraints on Highly Obscured and Very High-Redshift GRBs

12 New Galactic Wolf-Rayet Stars Identified via 2MASS+Spitzer/GLIMPSE

Active Jet-Sculpting of a Circumstellar Envelope: The Preplanetary Nebula IRAS22036+5306

A Multiwavelegnth Study Of the Galaxy Cluster Abell 1763 and its Starforming Filament

Optical Variability-Based Identifications of Fermi Blazar Candidates

Palomar-Quest Synoptic Sky Survey - Data Release 1

The Palomar-Quest Digital Synoptic Sky Survey: Summary and Initial Results

Type II Supernova Light Curves from the Caltech Core Collapse Project

Edwin Hubble: the Podcast

On June 8 (Yes, I am still catching up) Doug Allen posted Who Was Edwin Hubble? one of the 365 Days of Astronomy podcasts. You can get it from their website or here from iTunes. There are lots of super podcasts on astronomy. Have you been listening?

Lifting the Veil on Dark Gamma-Ray Bursts

Credit: Aurore Simonnet/Sonoma State University, NASA Education & Public Outreach

Gamma-ray bursts are some of the most energetic explosions in the universe. They come in two varieties: long and short. The short bursts are thought to be the result of the collision and merger of objects like neutron stars and black holes. The long burst (those that last longer than 2 seconds!) are the result of the collapse and explosion of a massive star.

While the burst of actual gamma-rays is short they are often accompanied by a flash of visible light that can last minutes to hours. Astronomers use a variety of telescopes to track down this "afterglow". Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are first identified by NASA's SWIFT or other orbiting satellite (gamma-rays do not penetrate our atmosphere). Rapid follow-up observations are often made from ground-based telescopes like the Palomar 60-inch telescope. Through March 2008, the 60-inch telescope conducted follow-up observations of 29 GRBs discovered by Swift. 14 of those bursts were classified as "dark" - meaning there was little or no visible light observed.

GRBs are usually bright enough to be observed from billions of light years, essentially from about as far away as can be observed. Why were these GRBs dark? Astronomers like Brad Cenko and others (formerly with Caltech and now with UC Berkeley) have been checking into the mystery by looking following up on the dark GRBs identified at Palomar with the twin 10-meter Keck telescopes in Hawai'i.

Massive stars live fast and die young. It makes sense that such stars would lie in or near the nebulae from which they were born (like the artwork above). The findings on dark GRBs, announced at the AAS meeting this week, suggest that these GRBs are dark because the massive stars that formed them were hidden in vast, dusty nebulae. These nebulae are dense enough that they absorb much of the light from the explosions that the GRBs.

Read the full story here.

Galileoscopes are coming

I have a tremendous amount of material to post from this week's meeting of the American Astronomical Society. I am pretty short on time right now, so here's a quick note to let people know that the orders of Galileoscopes are finally shipping. That's Rob Sparks posing with one above. Also, they still have some available for order, but they are going fast.

I must admit that for $15 it is a pretty fantastic telescope. I'll post a full review of them when ours arrive.

As soon as I get the chance I will also post some of the Palomar Observatory science findings from the AAS meeting.

Palomar Observatory in Sunday's Newspaper

There was a nice article by Beth Wood on visiting the observatory & taking tours in Sunday's San Diego Union Tribune. Check it out: Skies just part of the prize from trip to observatory.

Book Review: The Day We Found the Universe

I just finished reading Marcia Bartusiak's new book, The Day We Found the Universe. It is a wonderful look at the people and discoveries that led to our understanding of our size and place in the universe.

The book tells the story of the hunt to unravel the mystery of spiral nebulae. Was the Milky Way the entire universe and were the spiral nebulae a just a small part of it? Or were the spiral nebulae individual island universes (galaxies) rivaling our own? The truth came out from the hard work of astronomers at the Lick, Lowell and Mt. Wilson observatories. Marcia Bartusiak follows the efforts (not all of them successful) of astronomers such as James Keeler, Heber Curtis, Harlow Shapley, Vesto Slipher, Adriaan van Maanen, Edwin Hubble and more. The progress of astronomers solving the mystery of spiral nebulae was paralleled by the work of Albert Einstein and led directly to the discovery of the expanding universe by Georges Lemaître.

Bartusiak does an excellent job of weaving together the story of what was a very exciting period in astronomy. For those who want explore the history of this period further, the book also contains an excellent set of notes and bibliography which has already pointed me to some sources that I was unaware of.

The Day We Found the Universe is a must read for anyone interested in the history of astronomy or anyone who wants to know in how we came to understand what galaxies are and our sense of place in the universe.

Palomar in Ads - I

Speaking of cancer, I only just now stumbled upon this old post from Discover's Cosmic Variance blog that ties in a famous Palomar astronomer with an ad for tobacco. Check it out and you'll see a what looks exactly like a famous Palomar telescope selling death sticks. Yikes!

This was not an "official" ad in that it (thankfully) did not mention Palomar Observatory by name. There have been many ads that have done so. From time to time I'll be posting a few of them here.

Light at Night Linked to Cancer?

There has been a lot of recent research linking light at night with an increased risk of breast cancer and other ailments.

On Friday June 19 the New York Academy of Sciences and the Mushett Family Foundation will be hosting a one day symposium on "Circadian Disruption and Cancer". Presentations will look at the relationship between light at night, circadian disruption, and cancer, including information from past and present studies on light at night.

The meeting is endorsed by the International Dark-Sky Association. Here is what they have to say about the meeting:

As we work to become more environmentally and economically responsible, many municipalities are turning to their outdoor lighting, in particular their roadway lighting, as a way to reduce their utility bill and carbon footprint. Promises by LED manufacturers to produce lamps with longer life spans and greater efficacy are being touted as the next big solution to reducing our communities' energy needs. A number of communities are facilitating exploratory committees to examine retrofitting of their existing lighting infrastructure. The reality of the matter is that LEDs are still a relatively new technology and their potential (both positive and negative) has not fully been explored.

Many LEDs being manufactured today have a correlated color temperature (CCT) well over 5500K. Natural moonlight has a CCT of 4100K and the High Pressure Sodium lamp (which most streetlights currently use) have a CCT of around 2100K. Exposure to such a drastic increase in CCT to both wildlife and human life is at this time unknown. IDA is encouraging further research before the widespread implementation of LED streetlights with a CCT over 4100K.

The symposium will provide the latest information regarding the known effects of light at night on circadian disruption and cancer, and may offer valuable information to city managers and planning officials who are considering updating their outdoor lighting plans. Please urge your city officials to attend this event or obtain copies of the proceedings.

More information is available at:

http://www.nyas.org/pdfs/CancerandCircadian_Agenda.pdf

Astro Events this Weekend: IYA visits Pasadena & More!

The public is invited to celebrate the International Year of Astronomy 2009 at the Pasadena Convention Center on June 6. The event includes a variety of fun, family-oriented, hands-on activities and exhibit booths, such as a telescope for observing the sun and a 100-foot scale model of our solar system. Special indoor presentations will be made using a portable planetarium and a digital data immersion environment from the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York. The event is presented by organizations attending the subsequent summer meeting of the American Astronomical Society.

A stargazing party will follow that evening. Saturn, in particular, will be well positioned for viewing. Small telescopes will be provided by the Old Town Sidewalk Astronomers.

WHEN: Saturday, June 6, from 4 to 8 p.m., followed by a stargazing party ending around 9:30 p.m. The telescope viewing and some of the afternoon outdoor activities are subject to weather conditions.

WHERE: Pasadena Convention Center, 300 E. Green St. in Pasadena. Phone number: (626) 793-2122. Driving directions and parking information are available online here. A street map posted on that site includes a rose and purple background, which indicates where the outdoor astronomy activities and bazaar will be held.

More information about the event is online at http://astronomy2009.us/newscenter/.

If that isn't enough the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center will present a cool astronomy talk and book signing this weekend. Author Evalyn Gates will present "Einstein’s Telescope: The Hunt for Dark Matter and Dark Energy" on Sunday, June 7 at 1:00 p.m.

On the Hunt

Here is the view from earlier this week (Tuesday night), with the 200-inch Hale Telescope illuminated by the gibbous moon. Inside the data room astronomers were gathering data, as they do every night (weather permitting), working to unravel more secrets of the universe.

Palomar Planet VB10b makes APOD & Dedication Day!

You saw it here first, but VB10b, the latest exoplanet discovered at Palomar Observatory, is today's Astronomy Picture of the Day. Be sure to click on over, because APOD always has cool links for you to explore.

By the way, today is also the 61st anniversary of the dedication of the 200-inch Telescope. It was a magical day, but the real magic happens each and every clear night at Palomar as the Hale Telescope and the others here continue our mission of astronomical research as we turn starlight into knowledge.

Exoplanet in the News

Our announcement last week of the new exoplanet discovery has gotten pretty good press with coverage from Scientific American, National Geographic, Sky & Telescope, Astronomy Magazine, Space.com, Nature, Centauri Dreams, Bad Astronomy, the BBC, Science News and many more.

It is nice to see that this story has been getting around. Next week there will be another press release to look forward to. Stay tuned.