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IS AMATEUR ASTRONOMY FOR YOU?
Amateur astronomers spend a lot of time exploring the sky. Anyone glancing upward on nearly any evening knows what beautiful
clear skies we have in our little corner of the Southeastern California Desert. We want to share that with you. We'd like
you to wander through the craters, mountain ranges, valleys, and plains of our moon. We want you to experience the glistening
polar caps of Mars. We're offering you the cloud belts and moons of Jupiter, the ring system and moons of Saturn, plus the
occasional comet. You can have the satisfaction of searching for and finding those distant gas giants Uranus, and Neptune,
the first barely discernable, and the second too dim and distant to be seen with the unaided human eye. Even the remote
frigid little globe of Pluto is within reach of moderate sized amateur telescopes.
As you move to objects outside our solar system, you'll see galaxies whose light traveled millions of years to reach your
eye. Within the Milky Way, our own galaxy, objects such as diffuse and planetary nebulae, open and globular clusters, glowing
like extraterrestrial jewels, swim into and through the telescope's field of view. You'll separate close double and triple
stars orbiting about each other. Monitor variable stars whose brightness varies with a regular pattern, or sometimes with
no pattern at all. Examine stars hundreds of times more massive than our sun, and tiny stars so dense a spoonful of their
material weighs 50,000 tons. J. B. S. Haldane once observed, "My own suspicion is that the universe is not only queerer
than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose."
| JUPITER'S LARGEST MOON, GANYMEDE |
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| PICTURE BY ROBERT @ http://www.geocities.com/greenlightsblueskies/outr_limits.html |
Astrophotography is a specialized area of amateur astronomy currently experiencing explosive growth. The advent of CCD technologies
have revolutionized amateur astronomy. Advanced amateurs are now capable of producing results in a few minutes that only
three decades ago the largest observatories took many hours to produce. The modern recording and processing of astronomical
images has opened new paths for the amateur that have only begun to be explored. The graphic above is an image of Ganymede,
Jupiter's largest moon. The image was taken by an advanced amateur, and actually shows not only the moon's disk, but considerable
detail on that disk. It's shown with three images to illustrate the progress as the processing proceeded. Only a few decades
ago the world's largest observatories were incapable of matching this amateur's accomplishment. Please click on the graphic
to enlarge it.
Other advanced amateur astronomers work with spectroscopy, filar micrometry, radio interferometry, photometry, radio astronomy,
and other very sophisticated areas of astronomy. There are few limits placed on the advanced amateur, and those few are limitations
of equipment rather than technique or theory.
| AMATEUR ASTRONOMERS WORKING WITH PROFESSIONALS |
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| PLEASE CLICK ON THE GRAPHIC FOR A REVEALING ARTICLE |
Can amateur astronomers do real astronomy? Can they add to the sum of mankind's knowledge of the universe. The answer is
a most emphatic yes. For example there is a class of stellar objects known as variables. These stars radiate varying amounts
of energy, sometimes with a regular pattern, and sometimes with no regularity at all. There's an organization that studies
this phenomena on an ongoing basis. It's known as the American Association of Variable Star Observers. It's made up of both
professionals and amateurs working in conjunction with each other to understand these important objects.
In May 2005 amateur astronomers were, for the first time, instrumental in discovering an extra solar planet. New Zealand
amateurs at Auckland's Stardome Observatory working in conjunction with professional astronomers discovered the gas giant
about four times larger than Jupiter, our solar system's largest planet, revolving around a distant star. They used a technique
called gravitational microlensing that's based on a part of Einstein's relativity theory. . . another frontier opening for
amateur astronomers.
Many, perhaps most, comets are discovered by amateur astronomers. Have you ever noticed most comets that were visible
in the last century bore the names of amateurs. Why were they named in that way? Because they were discovered by those amateurs,
that's why. Important work is also being done in the fields of meteors and meteorites by amateur astronomers.
Closer to home the Lunar Transient Phenomena Program and the International Bright Lunar Ray Project both have amateurs
working diligently to increase our knowledge of the moon. In fact, the opportunities for amateurs to supplement the work
of their professional brethren with significant contributions are increasing.
We want to share all that, and much more with you. We invite you to attend one of our meetings or star parties. You
won't need a telescope or even binoculars. We'll share ours' with you. There's no charge. All activities of the Colorado
River Astronomy Club are free to the public. We'd really like to meet you.
| THE LUNAR CRATER COPERNICUS |
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| PIX BY FLOIE BARROWS |
The image above was taken August 2, 1967 here in Blythe. A Criterion 6" Dynascope RV6 was used. It's an afocal shot
using ASA 400 film. It's centered on the lunar crater Copernicus (93 km diameter). Below and to the left is the crater Eratosthenes
(58 km diameter). The mountain range extending down and to the left of Eratosthenes is the Lunar Apennines. Astrophotography
such as this is among the easiest to accomplish. It requires no lengthy exposures or expensive equipment. In fact as I recall,
this picture was taken with a Kodak Pony Camera.
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