Skies to Stars: Nothing Stays the Same
By Ed Downs
The Giant Red Spot on Jupiter. (NASA.gov)This amateur astronomer decided that it was time to dabble in the rapidly expanding field of astro photography and bought a new gadget. Sort of like flying, there is always another accessory to buy. That gadget is designed to hold a simple, digital, point and shoot class of camera in the correct position to actually take photos of distant objects. This is a long way from the more advanced levels of amateur astro-photography, which can challenge Hubble Telescope photos, but it is a fun and cheap place to start.
The timing is also good as a favorite local, Jupiter, is positioned for the best viewing in two years. The gas giant Jupiter and it’s four largest moons, Io, Europa, Ganymede and Calisto make for terrific photos. Even a small telescope will give the amateur a great view, and a telescope such as owned by this writer (12” reflector) will allow one to resolve some surface details on the moons. Yes, these are big moons, the least of which (Europa) is a bit smaller than our moon and the largest (Ganymede) being bigger than the planet Mercury. But why, one might ask, bother taking a rudimentary photo when incredible images are already available from the likes of the Hubble Space Telescope, the Galileo and New Horizons spacecraft plus highly advanced ground based telescopes?
The answer to that question will vary from one person to another. For me, it is to capture a very personal view of this giant planet which, at that moment one takes the photo, may never be seen again. Many think of our solar system as being fairly static and the stars of our galaxy unchanging, having basically been the same for millions, even billons, of years. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Jupiter, for example, may take almost 24 years to make a leisurely orbit around our sun, but it completes a full rotation in less than 10 earth hours. That creates massive centrifugal forces, so much so that Jupiter bulges significantly at its’ equator. Jupiter’s atmosphere is also very dynamic, with wind speeds of well over 200 mph and massive tornado like storms, such as the Giant Red Spot, an anticyclonic storm that is over twice the diameter of Earth. Other storms crop up, presenting an interplanetary opportunity for storm chasers. Even the distinct atmospheric stripes of the Jovian atmosphere constantly change. One can look at Jupiter in a telescope at one moment in time and 15 minutes later look back to see a different view. The personal photos taken by amateurs become a split second in time that will never be seen again.
Jupiter, like all eight planets in our solar system, was pummeled by asteroids and comets millions of years ago. While the rate of this bombardment has diminished greatly over the millennium, they still occur, with two recent strikes on the surface of Jupiter discovered by amateur astro-photographers. This initiated studies that give us Earthling’s important information about the asteroid that is going to head for our home planet at some future time.
While Jupiter’s gravitational influence has pretty much corralled the left over remains of our solar system’s construction site (sort of like the piles of rubble that might surround a major building project) into what we call the asteroid belt, some of those rocks get rowdy and leave their orbits. Knowing more about such events helps us prepare for the asteroid that will eventually head for us.
But Jupiter is not the only celestial object that changes. Variable stars are objects that dim and brighten, sometimes due to internal anomalies, but often because something has passed in front of the star, like a planet. The recent discovery of what is possibly millions of exoplanets in our galaxy was chiefly achieved by looking for things that change. A team of amateur astronomers has now joined in with professional observation facilities (using both visual and spectrographic devices) to look for more changes that may lead us to that one special planet, a veritable duplicate of Earth.
Finally, even those heavenly objects that are millions of light years away are alive and growing. The very recent (January 21, 2014) discovery of a rare supernova in the M82 galaxy (the Cigar Galaxy) by students with a modest telescope is historic. At a distance of approximately 12 million light years, a massive star in M82 actually exploded 12 million years ago, and we are just now seeing the light and radiation from that explosion, which out shines the M82 galaxy itself. Fortunately, it is not close enough to our solar system to do any harm. Now, a super nova within 50 to 150 light years would be a problem, regaling us with deadly radiation. But not to worry, the closest candidates to go supernova, the stars Antares and Betelgeuse, are about 600 light years away. But, when they do go supernova, the flash will be bright enough to see in the daylight and may last for months. Our sky will appear to have two suns!
Okay, so why take pictures? Simply because our solar system, our galaxy and the billions of other galaxies are forever changing with some spectacular, one time views to offer. This writer is old enough to remember the old Kodak Camera slogan that went something like “The world is full of excitement, be sure to capture it in color!” Stay tuned for photos, just as soon as the frostbite wears off and I can click the shutter!
