Sky & Telescope

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80mm APO
Photo by: Bryan Cogdell

Image taken with Series 6000 80mm APO | DSI-IV Monochrome | LX85 mount
INTRODUCING
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MERCURY: DEEP SKY: MESSIER 77:
Return to the Iron Planet Flying Through Pegasus Spotlight on a Seyfert Spiral
PAGE 22 PAGE 54 PAGE 60
THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO ASTRONOMY
Monster
Scopes Astronomers’ Next Eyes
on the Skies PAGE 14
NOVEMBER 2018
David Malin and the Best Aperture for

Perfection of Color Seeing the Planets
skyandtelescope.com PAGE 30 PAGE 52
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Background: IC1396 (Elephant Trunk Nebula)
Imager: Jerry Gardner
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CONTENTS
THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO ASTRONOMY

November 2018 VOL. 136, NO. 5
FEATURES
Cover Story:
14 Monster Scopes
Astronomers and engineers are
boldly building a generation of
telescopes like none that has gone
before. By Govert Schilling
22 Return to the Iron Planet 30

An ungainly stack of satellites is set
to double the number of spacecraft
that have visited Mercury. OBSERVING S&T TEST REPORT
By Emily Lakdawalla 41 November’s Sky at a Glance 66 iOptron’s CEM120
Equatorial Mount
30 When Color Came from 42 Lunar Almanac & Sky Chart By Dennis di Cicco
Down Under 43 Binocular Highlight COLUMNS / DEPARTMENTS
Astronomy had to wait some By Mathew Wedel
100 years before one astronomer 4 Spectrum
popularized the color of the 44 Planetary Almanac By Peter Tyson
universe. By Antonio Peña
45 Under the Stars 6 From Our Readers
By Fred Schaaf
34 In Search of 7 75, 50 & 25 Years Ago
Extragalactic Globulars 46 Sun, Moon & Planets By Roger W. Sinnott
What’s the farthest star ball you can By Fred Schaaf
see with an amateur telescope? Start 8 News Notes
your hunt outside the Milky Way. 48 Celestial Calendar
12 Cosmic Relief
By Steve Gottlieb By S. N. Johnson-Roehr
By David Grinspoon
52 Exploring the Solar System
60 Spotlight on a Seyfert 70 Astronomer’s Workbench
By Thomas A. Dobbins
The author takes a close look at By Jerry Oltion
the nearest and brightest Seyfert 54 Deep-Sky Wonders
72 Gallery
galaxy through a 48-inch telescope. By Sue French
By Howard Banich 83 Event Calendar
57 Going Deep
DAVID M A LIN
Find us on By David Tosteson 84 Focal Point
Facebook & Twitter By Douglas Ray Nelson
ON THE COVER ONLINE
PRODUCT VIDEOS BUILD COMMUNITY INTERACTIVE SKY CHART

Watch hands-on interviews with Seeking fellow astronomy enthusi- Find out what the sky looks like for
equipment manufacturers and asts? Find local clubs in your area, your time and place. You can also
vendors by Dennis di Cicco. or add your own to our listings. print the chart as a handout.
skyandtelescope.com/ skyandtelescope.com/ skyandtelescope.com/interactive-
product-videos astronomy-clubs-organizations sky-chart
SKY & TELESCOPE (ISSN 0037-6604) is published monthly by Sky & Telescope, a division of F+W Media, Inc., 90 Sherman St., Cambridge, MA 02140-3264, USA. Phone: 800-253-
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2 N OV E M B E R 2 018 • SK Y & TELESCOPE

Since the USSR launched Sputnik in 1957, Earth-orbiting satellites have played
an ever-increasing role in global communications. Today, thousands of satellites
and hundreds of thousands of pieces of “space junk” orbit our planet. The field
of Space Situational Awareness (SSA) is devoted to monitoring the space
environment and protecting our satellites from debris by detecting and mapping
space junk.
For the last three years, Celestron engineers have been hard at work behind
the scenes, collaborating with SSA professionals to produce a fast-focal-ratio,
wide-field instrument capable of detecting small pieces of space junk traveling
at extraordinarily high rates of speed. The result is the Rowe-Ackermann
Schmidt Astrograph 36 cm (RASA 36 cm), an ultra-precise f/2.2 astrograph.
Installed in Earth-based observatories, it can detect debris in orbit measuring
less than 1 meter.
Our team of optical experts in Torrance, CA, has worked round-the-clock for months
to produce RASA 36 cm telescopes to meet overwhelming demand from SSA
organizations. But now, we’re prepared to make this incredible telescope available
for another exciting application: advanced astroimaging. RASA 36’s breathtaking
astroimages speak for themselves; it’s an astrograph unlike any other.
ABOUT RASA 36 cm
• A breakthrough 36 cm aperture, f/2.2 optical system designed for imaging applications that require both a
wide field of view and high resolution.
• NEW Ultra-Stable Focus System – six precision sealed ball bearings virtually eliminate focus shift.
• 4-element lens group utilizes extra-low dispersion (ED) glass for images free of false color, coma, field
curvature, and astigmatism.
• 60mm optimized image circle maintains pinpoint stars to the far corners of the largest available sensors.
• Extended spectral range takes advantage of sensor response in the 700-900nm range,
allowing more light entering the telescope to be in sharp focus.
RASA 11 revolutionized astro-imaging when it was

released to critical acclaim in 2014. After its smash
success, Celestron engineers adapted the design,
culminating in the release of RASA 36 cm in early
2018. Now, our new RASA 8 joins this prestigious
family. Celestron’s most compact and affordable
astrograph, RASA 8 makes fast, wide field imaging
accessible for everyone.
Learn more at celestron.com/RASA 8” F/2.0 RASA CGEM II 11” F/2.2 RASA CGX 36 cm F/2.2 RASA CGX-L
NGC7000 by © C.Kaltseis taken with RASA 36 cm
B&H Photo – 800.947.9970 – bhphotovideo.com Astronomics – 800.422.7876 – astronomics.com Adorama – 800.223.2500 – adorama.com
High Point Scientific – 800.266.9590 – highpointscientific.com OPT Telescopes – 800.483.6287 – optcorp.com Focus Camera – 800.221.0828 – focuscamera.com
Optics Planet – 800.504.5897 – opticsplanet.com Woodland Hills – 888.427.8766 – telescopes.net
SPECTRUM by Peter Tyson
Supersize Me The Essential Guide to Astronomy

Founded in 1941 by Charles A. Federer, Jr.
PROFESSIONAL ASTRONOMERS, just like amateurs, suffer from that and Helen Spence Federer
widespread affliction known as aperture creep. If only we had a scope
EDITORIAL
twice that size, they fantasize, think what we’d discover. Editor in Chief Peter Tyson
Chile’s Las Campanas Observatory already hosts the twin Senior Editors J. Kelly Beatty, Alan M. MacRobert
Magellan Telescopes, each bearing a 6.5-meter (21-foot) mirror. But Science Editor Camille M. Carlisle
News Editor Monica Young
soon it will boast the Giant Magellan Telescope. This behemoth will combine
Associate Editors S. N. Johnson-Roehr, Sean Walker
seven 8.4-meter mirrors for an effective aperture of 24.5 meters (80 feet). The Observing Editor Diana Hannikainen
two 10-meter Keck telescopes atop Mauna Kea in Hawai‘i do phenomenal sci- Project Coordinator Bud Sadler
ence. Yet astronomers hope eventually to add another telescope just steps away Digital Content Strategist Janine Myszka
with a mirror effectively 30 meters in diameter. Senior Contributing Editors

European pros might have the most pronounced aperture creep of all. The Robert Naeye, Roger W. Sinnott
four unit telescopes (8.2 m each) that make up the European Southern Obser-
Contributing Editors
vatory’s Very Large Telescope have conducted groundbreaking astronomy for Howard Banich, Jim Bell, Trudy Bell, John E. Bortle,
more than a decade. But the ESO is now building the Extremely Large Telescope Greg Bryant, Thomas A. Dobbins, Alan Dyer,
(39.3 m). If European astronomers had had their way, the ESO instead would be Tom Field, Tony Flanders, Ted Forte, Sue French,
Steve Gottlieb, David Grinspoon, Ken Hewitt-White,
erecting the Overwhelmingly Large Telescope (100 m).
Johnny Horne, Bob King, Emily Lakdawalla,
I’m not making these names up. One wonders what they’d dub the next Rod Mollise, James Mullaney, Donald W. Olson,
iteration: The Astronomically Large Telescope? The Unimaginably Large Tele- Jerry Oltion, Joe Rao, Dean Regas, Fred Schaaf,
scope? Suitable adverbs would run out long before their lofty notions. Govert Schilling, William Sheehan, Mike Simmons,
Mathew Wedel, Alan Whitman, Charles A. Wood
This ever-bigger tendency is not limited to single-object observing. Large sur-
vey projects like the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (2.5 m) will pale, at least in terms Contributing Photographers
of total data collected, beside next-gen survey instruments like the Large Synop- P. K. Chen, Akira Fujii, Robert Gendler,
Babak Tafreshi
tic Survey Telescope (8.4 m). The SDSS total data volume is about 40 terabytes;
LSST will gather 15 terabytes of raw data every night (S&T: Sept. 2016, p. 16). ART & DESIGN
Nor does “bigger is better” confine itself to optical and near-infrared Art Director Terri Dubé
Illustration Director Gregg Dinderman
astronomy. The Arecibo Observatory (305 m), for instance, recently ceded
Illustrator Leah Tiscione
the distinction of world’s largest single-dish radio telescope to China’s Five-
hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope, or FAST (500 m). Even space ADVERTISING
VP, Advertising Sales Kevin D. Smith
telescopes creep. The James Webb Space Telescope (6.5 m) will explore far more Advertising Sales Director Tim Allen
deeply than is possible with either the Spitzer Space Telescope (0.85 m) — which Advertising Coordinator Connie Kostrzewa
focuses on the infrared as JWST will — or the Hubble Space Telescope (2.4 m).
F+W MEDIA
Creep is a good thing for astronomy, of course. Those three monster optical Chief Executive Officer Gregory J. Osberg
telescopes alone — the Giant Magellan, the Thirty Meter, and the Extremely Chief Financial Officer Kenneth Kharbanda
Large — will revolutionize our understanding of the universe. So huge are they SVP / GM — F+W Fine Art, Writing, Outdoors &
Small Business Group Ray Chelstowski
in significance that we’re devoting two articles to them. The first, on page 14,
Managing Director — F+W International
describes the telescopes in general; the second, in next month’s issue, goes into James Woollam
their instrumentation and the key science questions they’ll help us address. VP, Consumer Marketing John Phelan
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VP, Human Resources, Customer Service & Trade
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FROM OUR READERS
More Balloon Astronomy $23 million — a seemingly large sum,

given our collective experience with
Laura Fissel’s “Science in the Strato- Unfortunately, two problems professional and military drones as
sphere” (S&T: Feb. 2018, p. 14) brought resulted. First, the vertical speed the basis for a machine that wouldn’t
to mind another noteworthy balloon was well over 1,000 feet per minute, need much customization to operate
fl ight. On May 6, 1958, astronomer which took them to the target eleva- in Mars’s environment — harsh for
Alfred Mikesell and Navy pilot Mal- tion of 40,000 feet in just 30 minutes, sure, but not deep space by a long shot.
colm Ross ascended in an open gondola much too fast for making scintillation That’s 4 pounds of hardware for an
to measure he twinkling of stars to measurements at intermediate eleva- eye-watering $6 million per pound.
determine where in the atmosphere tions. Second, the balloon rose in a I won’t discount the rigorous test-
this phenomenon occurs. Mikesell spiral that twisted the support straps, ing that both sets of hardware must
thought it occurs at the tropopause which in turn caused the 2,500-pound undergo to become space-rated. Still,
rather than in the stratosphere. To gondola to revolve like a giant tor- the helicopter’s development cost
prove this idea he brought a photoelec- sion pendulum throughout the entire seems disproportionately high. That
tric photometer attached to a small 12-hour fl ight. It was impossible to aim money could pay the salaries of 40
telescope with an electronic recorder. the telescope at a star long enough to engineers, technicians, machinists,
They began their fl ight from an record data. and so forth at over $100,000 a year
open-pit iron mine near Brainerd, Even though the primary purpose each for five years. So how is it that
Minnesota. Launching below ground of the mission failed, Mikesell made equipping what is essentially an off-
level let them avoid the strong after- an important discovery that would the-shelf device with faster motors and
noon winds while fi lling the balloon later benefit the space program. He larger rotors can be so costly?
with helium. As an extra precaution, and Ross were wearing standard-issue Howard L. Ritter, Jr.
Ross overfi lled the balloon to ensure a Navy cold-weather clothing with lots Fuquay-Varina, North Carolina
rapid vertical ascent out of the pit. of fabric layers. Previously they had
worn this clothing in a test cham- David Dickinson replies: I asked
ber down to temperatures of –77°C
(–107°F), yet the instant they reached
“ space-policy expert Casey Dreier
(The Planetary Society), who said that
the stratosphere they felt cold far more the $23 million was provided for fiscal
intense than they had encountered in year 2018, and another $15 million was
the test chamber. At that altitude, their appropriated in FY 2017, for a total of at
suits couldn’t adequately prevent the least $38 million. But since off-the-shelf
heat loss from their bodies. Research- hardware can’t be assumed to function
ers later discovered that a thin layer of flawlessly on Mars, it’s a technology dem-
aluminum covering the fabric signifi- onstration project, and that means a lot
cantly slows the loss of body heat. Thus of testing and validation (and engineering
we have the familiar shiny suits worn hours), not to mention the processing and
by today’s astronauts. planning to integrate the helicopter onto
Darryl Davis • Albany, Oregon the rover itself.
p Sixty years ago, Navy pilot Malcolm Ross
(pictured) and astronomer Alfred Mikesell lew
a balloon into the stratosphere to study the For more details about this flight, visit Staying Cool
scintillation of starlight. www.mikesell.info. I would imagine that binary stars
exist within globular clusters. I’ve
read where some binaries can be close
enough to be touching. Binaries can
Costs of Mission Hardware ing that its 360-kg mass probably has also be rather far apart and still be
I was struck by the contrast in cost- many components for which no prior gravitationally related.
effectiveness between the Mars heli- technology or off-the-shelf hardware When you get out into space the
copter described in David Dickinson’s existed to draw on. That’s 800 pounds temperature is quite frigid. So my
News Note (S&T: Aug. 2018, p. 8) of custom-designed, purpose-built, question is: In globulars, where stars
and the Transiting Exoplanet Survey ultraprecise scientific hardware meant are close together, is there a lot of heat
Satellite (TESS) reported in the same to operate for 20 years in space, fabri- between them, or are they still far
section by Elizabeth Howell. cated at a cost of $250,000 per pound. enough away from each other that it’s
JOHN MIK ESELL
TESS was reported to have cost By contrast, the 1.8-kg drone heli- still cold in between?
under $200 million to develop and copter for the Mars 2020 rover mis- Bill Schultz
build, which seems a bargain consider- sion is stated to have been funded at Cincinnati, Ohio

Monica Young replies: That’s an Star Reporter Expanding Vocabulary
“ interesting question to ponder
when you see those thousands of stars
Regarding the online article “IceCube
Neutrino Offers New Eyes on the
Camille Carlisle’s excellent article,
“Near the Pit” (S&T: Sept. 2018, p.
within your telescope’s field of view! Both Cosmos” by Ben Skuse (posted on July 22), introduced me to two words with
light and heat follow the inverse-square 23rd), I’ve lost count of all the articles which I was not previously familiar:
law, which means they decrease at a rate about this result that I’ve read, from peribothron and bumfuzzling. Now I
proportional to the square of the distance sources ranging from world-class news just have to fi nd a way to use them in
from their source. So even though stars media to top-shelf physics and math conversation.
are immensely hot, their heat and lumi- publications. But — as is so often the Mark Holm
nosity fall off quickly. Even in the tightly case — Sky & Telescope’s is by far the Monroeville, Pennsylvania
packed centers of globular clusters, where most in-depth and explanatory of the
there might be up to 1,000 stars per cubic lot. It’s not just a cut-and-paste of the
parsec (a cube 3.26 light-years on a side), press release, and it manages to avoid FOR THE RECORD
the average distance between stars would getting bogged down in intellectual • The large observatory pictured at far left
still be 0.1 parsec, or about 21,000 astro- weeds without dumbing down to the atop Haleakala- (S&T: Aug. 2018, p. 66) is
nomical units. Compare that to the size of point of scientific-sounding fluff. not the Advanced Electro-Optical System
our solar system, which is typically given I’m continually impressed with how Telescope, which actually sits inside the
as 100 a.u. or so. often your science reporting is the best squat silver enclosure at center right as
So, long answer short: Yes, stars in of the bunch, and not just on stories part of the Air Force MSSC. The structure
globular clusters are still far enough apart dealing directly with astronomy. looming over the Pan-STARRS telescopes
for it to be cold between them. (Or as Glen Stephan houses the newly constructed 4-meter
Douglas Adams writes in The Hitchhiker’s Estes Park, Colorado Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope.
Guide to the Galaxy: “Space is big. Really
big. You just won’t believe how vastly, SUBMISSIONS: Write to Sky & Telescope, 90 Sherman St., Cambridge, MA 02140-3264, U.S.A. or email: letters@
hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is.”) skyandtelescope.com. Please limit your comments to 250 words; letters may be edited for brevity and clarity.
75, 50 & 25 YEARS AGO by Roger W. Sinnott º November 1968 º November 1993
Lunar Transients “[Near] Las Magnified Quasars “Our view of
1943 º November 1943 Cruces, New Mexico, is Corralitos the very distant universe is dis-
Wartime Astronomy “A cablegram Observatory, operated by North- torted by gravitational lensing a lot
from K. Lundmark in Sweden was western University with NASA more than anyone thought, accord-
received at Harvard, asking for support for the primary purpose ing to two University of Washington
observations of both the Diamaca of detecting transient changes on astronomers. Liliya Rodrigues-Wil-
comet and the Hoffmeister nova. the moon. J. Allen Hynek [reports] liams and Craig J. Hogan studied
Astronomers [here] had heard the results of three years system- the distribution of quasars brighter
about the comet, but what nova atic surveillance . . . with a 24-inch than magnitude 18.5, and between
and where? Cassegrain relector in conjunction redshifts 1.4 and 2.2, in various
1968 “Further telegraphic procedure with an image-orthicon tube. The areas of the sky. They found that if
then brought the news [that] C. observer sits in a room below the there’s a galaxy cluster in the fore-
Hoffmeister, director of the Sonne- telescope loor, seeing an area of ground . . . it boosts the number of
berg branch of the Berlin-Babels- the moon on a monitor screen. . . . quasars seen in the background by
berg Observatory, had discovered “More than 3,000 hours of lunar a remarkable 70 percent. In effect,
a 12th-magnitude nova in the surveillance have been logged the combined gravitational ield
constellation Aquila. . . . Searching [but] no localized lunar events were of the cluster’s galaxies acts as a
earlier photographs of the region, detected. . . . This negative result is giant magnifying glass. . . .
he found that the star had attained in sharp contrast to the numerous “This inding may come as a
a maximum brightness of about reports by amateur astronomers in rather hollow vindication to the
1993 supporters of astronomer Halton C.
7th magnitude between April 13th recent years of bright lashes, col-
and May 2nd, nearly ive months orations, and large-area brighten- Arp and others who have claimed
before. . . . ings lasting a few seconds.” for years that high-redshift quasars
“In view of events abroad, it is Reports of such changes are cluster around low-redshift galax-
a bit surprising that it should have still controversial, but occasional ies. . . . It appears they really do.”
been a German astronomer who flashes due to meteoroid impacts Gravitational lensing can also
irst discovered [Nova Aquilae have been confirmed by indepen- produce multiple images of a single
1943].” dent observers and videos. remote quasar.
sk yandtelescope.com • N OV E M B E R 2 018 7
NEWS NOTES Surface South Polar
Layered Deposits
SOLAR SYSTEM
Water Lake Discov-

ered on Mars Bright radar
echoes suggesting
THE SECOND-OLDEST OPERATIONAL water
Mars orbiter, the European Space
Agency’s Mars Express, has discovered
evidence of stable, present-day liquid
p An example radar proile for one of 29 orbits over the 200 × 200 km study region in the south polar
water on Mars.
region of Mars shows layers of ice and dust to a depth of about 1.5 km. The bright horizontal feature
How is this discovery of water on at the top corresponds to the icy Martian surface. The brightest relections from the base layer —
Mars different from past announce- close to the center of this image — are centered around 193°E / 81°S in all intersecting orbits, outlin-
ments of the same? For one, the data ing a 20-km-wide anomaly that Roberto Orosei and colleagues interpret as a pond of liquid water.
come from a different instrument
examining a new location on Mars. But deposits, layers of dust and water ice and pure liquid water can’t exist at such
most importantly, it’s the first time the that exist at both poles. More recently, low temperatures. On Earth, where
observations support a present-day body the instrument team picked a region subglacial lakes in Antarctica can have
of water that stays liquid. of the southern deposits where the temperatures as low as –13°C, the freez-
The results, which appear in the surface looks especially bland, making ing point of their water is depressed by
August 3rd Science, come from the it easier to study the base of the deposits the presence of large amounts of salt
Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface in detail without interference from — much more than is present in Earth’s
and Ionosphere Sounding (MARSIS) overlying features. MARSIS scanned this oceans. Mars has salts of sodium, mag-
instrument. This radar sounder emits region intensely from May 29, 2012, to nesium, and calcium, not to mention a
radio waves using a pair of 20-meter- December 27, 2015, collecting 29 criss- plethora of chlorine-based perchlorates,
long (66-feet-long) booms that extend crossing radargrams. all of which — if concentrated enough
on either side of Mars Express and In one particular location, where — could depress the freezing point
measures the time it takes for the radio many radargrams cross over a region of water to as low as –75°C. So it is
waves to travel to Mars, bounce, and about 20 km wide, the scans kept hit- physically possible that a very salty lake
travel back to the spacecraft. ting an especially bright bottom-most persists beneath the southern polar cap.
The long radio waves from the boundary about 1,500 meters beneath Higher-resolution data would help
instrument’s 40-meter antenna can the surface. This unusually reflective confirm the lake’s presence: The radar
penetrate as far as 5 kilometers (3 spot, which persisted over a period of images’ resolution is about 5 km,
miles) down. Subsurface boundaries three years, suggests a material very providing a fuzzy look at the 20-kilome-
between layers with different properties different from the ice above it or the ter width of this putative lake. Future
each reflect the radio signal, so MARSIS rock below it. Roberto Orosei (National missions could more precisely map its
may detect multiple echoes from each Institute of Astrophysics, Italy) and contours — and perhaps discover detail
pulse. As the instrument tracks along colleagues argue that the most likely beyond the capabilities of MARSIS.
the ground, it builds up a 2D slice of the explanation is a briny lake (or a layer of There’s every reason to think we could
subsurface called a radargram. very sludgy, liquid-water-rich sediment). discover many more such briny spots
For many of its 15 years at Mars, Why is it briny? The predicted tem- deep underneath the Martian south
MARSIS has detailed the interior perature at the base of the southern polar cap.
structure of the planet’s polar layered polar layered deposits is −68°C (−90°F), ■ EMILY LAKDAWALLA
The ExoMars
Trace Gas
Orbiter captured
this view of part
of Mars’s south
polar ice cap on
May 13, 2018.

EXOPLANETS cludes that PDS 70b orbits its star every
First Direct Image 120 years. The result will appear in
Astronomy and Astrophysics.
of Newborn Planet In a follow-up study to appear in
ASTRONOMERS USING A NEW instru- the same journal, the team went a step
ment on the Very Large Telescope further, taking additional observations
(VLT) in Chile have directly imaged the to examine the planet’s atmosphere.
youngest planet known to date. The data Applying several models to the observa-
suggest that giant planets come together tions, the team found a temperature
quickly and, once formed, regulate fur- in the range of 1000–1600K (1400–
ther growth of their host star. 2400°F) and a high likelihood of clouds
The star PDS 70 is only about 5 mil- p The SPHERE instrument on the Very Large
of evaporated metals and minerals.
lion years old and is still growing, Telescope in Chile imaged PDS 70b after block- The young planet is still slowly accu-
accreting mass from a surrounding disk ing the light from its host star (dark central disk). mulating material, but new observa-
of gas and dust. Within the gaseous tions with the 6.5-m Magellan Clay
swirl, researchers had previously found SPHERE adaptive optics system, discov- Telescope, to be published in Astro-
a dark gap. But while disk gaps are often ering a point source dubbed PDS 70b physical Journal Letters by Kevin Wagner
taken to be the signature of a newborn within the disk’s gap. The astronomers (Steward Observatory) and colleagues,
planet, other processes can create gaps, estimate the object to have an upper show that it has probably already
too (S&T: Oct. 2013, p. 12). limit of 5–14 Jupiter masses. Revisiting acquired most of its gas. The planet may
To explore further, Miriam Keppler observations taken in 2012 with the have cleared out the wide gap during an
(Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Gemini South telescope’s Near-Infrared earlier period of runaway gas accretion.
Germany) and colleagues used VLT’s Coronagraphic Imager, the team con- ■ JULIE FREYDLIN
SUN
point for the first time, scientists will
Parker Solar Probe Launches to “Touch the Sun” explore the solar wind’s origin, hope-
TOUTED AS THE “mission to touch the The majority of the probe’s four instru- fully improving space weather fore-
Sun,” the Parker Solar Probe is the first ment suites will remain behind this casts. Close-in measurements will also
to be named after a living person, solar shield, where temperatures will be a help scientists find out what heats the
physicist Eugene Parker (University of comfortable 85°F. But a couple of key million-degree solar corona.
Chicago, emeritus). The spacecraft will pieces — namely, the Solar Probe Cup ■ DAVID DICKINSON
carry a suite of instruments to study (SPC) and the niobium-alloy antennas
N ASA / JPL / ASI / UNIV. RO ME / R. OROSEI E T A L. 2018; PA RK ER SOL A R PROBE: N ASA / BILL ING A LLS;
the origin of the solar wind and the of the FIELDS experiment — will extend
POL A R L AY ERED DEPOSITS: ESA / ROSCOSM OS / CASSIS / CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO; R A DA R PROFILE: ESA /
dynamics of the solar corona, looping past the shield to directly examine the
around the Sun 24 times in its seven- Sun. The SPC will scoop up samples of
year mission. charged particles in order to measure
After its launch on August 12th, their flux and flow, while the FIELDS
the probe is due to swing by Venus on experiment will measure the electric
September 28th, entering an initial, and magnetic fields around the Sun.
150-day-long orbit around the Sun. Visit https://is.gd/ParkerSolarProbe
Passing 34.7 solar radii from the Sun on to learn more about the instruments
November 1st, it will complete six addi- the probe carries.
tional Venus flybys to further decrease The probe will be the first mission
NE WBOR N E XOPL A NE T: ESO / A . M ÜLLER E T A L.
its period to 88 days. Ultimately, the to go past the Alfvén point. Within this
spacecraft will reach it closest approach, boundary, Alfvén waves — oscillations
passing within 9 solar radii of the Sun’s of charged particles and the magnetic
surface, on December 19, 2024. fields they travel along — tie the solar
Engineers designed the Parker Solar wind to the Sun’s surface, but particles
Probe to survive temperatures that beyond it escape into the solar system.
can reach 1600K (2500°F). To take Studying the plasma within the Alfvén
the heat, the craft is equipped with a u NASA’s new solar probe launched August
heat shield made of reinforced carbon 12th from Cape Canaveral aboard a Delta IV
composite 11.4 cm (4.5 inches) thick. Heavy rocket.
NEWS NOTES
PARTICLES t The neutrino recorded on September 22,

2017, smashed into Antarctic ice, creating a
IceCube Neutrino Linked muon that left the track shown here. Color
to Cosmic Source encodes the time of arrival (red is sooner, blue is
later), and the size corresponds to the bright-
FOLLOW-UP OBSERVATIONS ACROSS ness recorded by individual sensors.
the electromagnetic spectrum have
helped scientists pinpoint the source have been many claims for which such
of a single high-energy neutrino — a a level of significance eventually went
barely-there particle that has no electri- trino detection and the flare of TXS away,” he explains. “Definitely, we need
cal charge and almost no mass. The 0506+056 to be only one in a thousand. more events to establish that blazars are
IceCube collaboration announced the Still, Kohta Murase (Penn State) urges sources of neutrinos.”
probable birthplace of the neutrino, caution: “If we look at history, there ■ BENJAMIN SKUSE
dubbed IceCube-170922A, in the July
13th Science.
MARS
The neutrino ghosted through our
planet on September 22, 2017, before Source of Present-Day Dust on Mars Found
crashing into an atom in the Antarc- NEW RESULTS SHOW that the Medusae Fossae Formation (MFF), a set of
tic ice. The collision produced a heavy broad and enigmatic plains straddling the planet’s equator, has provided most
cousin of the electron called a muon, of the fine dust found everywhere on the Martian surface.
which left a track of dim, bluish light By one estimate, some 3 billion tons of dust cycle between the planet’s
in the IceCube detector. Backtracking surface and atmosphere each year. These particles must be extremely small to
from the muon’s trajectory, a computer become airborne, microscopic motes no more than 50 to 100 microns across.
cluster calculated the source’s location For decades researchers have struggled to find geologic processes on Mars that
on the sky and sent an automated alert operate efficiently enough and long enough to generate all that silty grit.
to telescopes around the world just 43 Now, researchers think they know the answer: Ever since the MFF’s forma-
seconds after the event. tion after a supervolcano erupted 3 billion years ago (S&T: Oct. 2018, p. 11),
Within hours the space-based Neil its gradual but incessant erosion has created most of the present-day dust on
Gehrels Swift Observatory had identi- Mars, say Lujendra Ojha (Johns Hopkins University) and colleagues. Ojha’s
fied the particle’s possible source: the team explores this possibility July 20th in Nature Communications.
blazar TXS 0506+056, whose light and Unlike on Earth, where bodies of water trap most dust, Martian dust floats
particles travel 3.8 billion light-years to in the atmosphere or settles on the ground. Data collected by Mars rovers
reach Earth. This supermassive black show that all this dust, if spread out evenly around the planet, would create a
hole sends out twin jets of high-energy layer about 3 meters thick.
radiation, one of which happens to be Ojha’s group finds that the MFF might originally have covered 2½ times
aimed at Earth. The Fermi Gamma-ray more of the Martian landscape than it does now. Wind-driven erosion of such
Space Telescope reported that this blazar extensive plains could have produced enough dust to mantle the whole planet
was flaring at the time of the neutrino to a depth of 2 to 12 meters, in agreement with the actual 3-meter thickness.
event. Observations from more than 20 The kicker comes from chemistry: Previous rover data have shown that
telescopes confirmed the flare across the Martian dust is extremely rich in sulfur and chlorine, with a distinct sulfur-
electromagnetic spectrum. to-chlorine ratio. When Ojha’s team used a gamma-ray spectrometer on
With a known object for reference, NASA’s Mars Odyssey orbiter to deduce the MFF’s chemical composition, they
IceCube scientists searched the archive found the exact same abundances. No other region on Mars has these same
and discovered that the blazar was chemical characteristics.
associated with a larger-than-expected ■ JULIE FREYDLIN
NEUTRINO DE TECTION: THE ICECUBE COLL ABOR ATION;
number of neutrinos detected between MEDUSA E FOSSA E: N ASA / JPL / UNIV. OF A RIZON A
2014 and 2015. Both the neutrino

energies and the light collected from
the blazar are characteristic of a cosmic
particle accelerator.
Oddly, scientists haven’t detected
neutrinos from flaring blazars much
Streamlined features and
closer to Earth, such as Mkn 425
isolated mesas show the
and Mkn 501. However, the authors extent of wind erosion in the
calculate the chance of a coincidental Medusae Fossae Formation.
alignment between the single neu-

GALAXIES IN BRIEF
Andromeda’s Encounter with a Galactic Sibling Small Satellite to Answer
OUR NEIGHBOR GALAXY tion 2 billion years ago, Big Question
ran into a large compan- when the merger ended. HaloSat, a CubeSat deployed from the
ion billions of years ago, M32 It could also have ripped International Space Station on July 13th,
astronomers claim July away M32p’s disk, creating is on the hunt for the universe’s missing
23rd in Nature Astronomy. the giant stream of metal- mass. While the identity of dark matter
Richard D’Souza and rich stars in Andromeda’s remains a mystery, even “normal” baryonic
Eric Bell (both at Uni- halo and explaining M32’s matter isn’t all accounted for: Astronomers
tallying up stars, planets, galaxies, gas,
versity of Michigan) compact structure.
and dust only come up with about half of
examined independent, p The oddly compact satel-
But Puragra Guha- the expected mass. Some of this missing
large-scale simulations to lite galaxy M32 might be the Thakurta (University of matter may reside in million-degree gas
understand how Androm- remnant of a past merger. California, Santa Cruz), that surrounds galaxies, but the tempera-
eda-size galaxies form. To who wasn’t involved in tures are so extreme that observational
reproduce our neighbor’s massive and the study, doubts M32’s involvement. signatures are faint. HaloSat detects X-rays
metal-rich stellar halo, the simulations If M32 were the remnant of a major with energies between 400 and 2,000 elec-
tron volts, which enables it to ind emission
require a major collision within the past merger, then it ought to have a stream
from ionized oxygen associated with su-
5 billion years, with disrupting effects of tidal debris both ahead of and behind perhot halo gas. With a 100-square-degree
continuing until 2 billion years ago. it, he says — but while a giant stream of ield of view, HaloSat will eficiently survey
The researchers conclude that M32, stars and gas trail the satellite, nothing the entire sky to determine the extent of
Andromeda’s satellite, is the most likely lies in front of it. the Milky Way’s gaseous halo. The satellite
remnant of the encounter. The parent Nevertheless, D’Souza and Bell will avoid a major source of noise, created
galaxy, dubbed M32p, was likely similar maintain that their work makes a as the solar wind interacts with Earth’s
atmosphere, by only taking observations
in mass to the Milky Way. strong case that something massive
during its 45-minute passes over Earth’s
The collision explains many of the interacted with Andromeda. More nightside. HaloSat is expected to operate
galaxies’ characteristics, D’Souza says. A observations of stellar motions and for a year. Read more about the mission at
gravitational encounter could have trig- composition might help bolster the case. https://is.gd/halosat.
gered Andromeda’s bout of star forma- ■ ELIZABETH HOWELL ■ DAVID DICKINSON
STARS
structure more like the Sun’s, with Sea Meteorite Recovered
Gap in Gaia Data Reveals a convective envelope surrounding a On the evening of March 7th, a ireball lit
up skies along western Washington and
Stellar Interiors denser, radiative core.
Oregon. The object responsible, later
Most theoretical models of stellar
estimated to be 2 metric tons, broke apart
ASTRONOMERS WORKING with data structure don’t predict this hiccup. Yet
some 25 km (16 miles) off the coast of
from the European Space Agency’s Gaia James MacDonald and John Gizis (both Washington state. Now, a team of scien-
mission (S&T: Aug. 2018, p. 9) have dis- at University of Delaware) suggest in tists has announced the possible recovery
covered a new feature due to a change the October 21st Monthly Notices of the of fragments from the fall. The irst sonar-
in the structures of low-mass stars. Royal Astronomical Society that the gap is based search effort with Exploration Vessel
Astronomers often use the century- a feature of existing theory. Nautilus didn’t turn up anything, but the
team had better luck with a seven-hour
old Hertzsprung-Russell diagram to The gap, they explain, comes from
visual search using a pair of remotely oper-
determine stars’ properties based on changes in the efficiency of the stars’
ated vehicles named Argus and Hercules.
their color and brightness. Now, a power source. The boiling motions in Using a suction hose sampler, magnetic
A NDRO MEDA A ND M32: TORBEN H A NSEN / CC BY 2.0
team of astronomers led by Wei-Chun the cores of lower-mass stars help mix plate, and sediment scoop, the researchers
Jao (Georgia State University) has intermediate products of fusion reac- attracted and sorted out meteoritic debris.
announced the discovery of a narrow tions, allowing them to fuse hydro- A preliminary analysis by Marc Fries,
but distinctive gap in this diagram in gen more efficiently. When the core Cosmic Dust Curator at NASA’s Johnson
Space Center, revealed two small frag-
the July 1st Astrophysical Journal Let- becomes too dense for convection, that
ments characteristic of the smooth fusion
ters. While most stars follow a smooth steady increase in efficiency stops. This
crust that forms during a bolide’s plunge
continuum, a tiny hiccup appears in the sudden change creates a dearth of stars through Earth’s atmosphere. If veriied, the
luminosities of low-mass M stars. at a particular brightness; however, ind will mark the irst meteorite recovery
The gap in luminosities corresponds some questions remain. Clearly, the HR from the sealoor after an observed fall.
to the mass where M stars transition diagram still has secrets to reveal. ■ DAVID DICKINSON
from a fully convective interior to a ■ MONICA YOUNG
COSMIC RELIEF by David Grinspoon
energy sources exist there, even liquid

water in the form of concentrated
sulfuric acid. Also, there are some
stubborn riddles concerning the clouds
and upper atmosphere that make us
wonder. These include unidentified
structures inside some of the larger
cloud particles, and unidentified mate-
rial that absorbs most of the solar
energy striking the planet, both of
which could conceivably have a biologi-
cal explanation.
Thanks to the discovery of extremo-
phile organisms on Earth, which thrive
in strong acid, along with the per-
sistence of those cloud-deck myster-
ies, interest in the life-in-the-clouds
proposal has increased lately. When
NASA or another space agency next
launches a mission to explore Venus’s
atmosphere, astrobiological prospect-
ing surely will be among the goals.
One compelling reason to explore
Venus and to reconstruct its past is to
A Nebulous p Ultraviolet
image of Venus
taken by the
understand the far future of Earth.
This is true about climate: If we
can grasp the mechanism and tim-
Existence
Pioneer Venus
Orbiter
ing of the runaway greenhouse that
destroyed Venus’s surface oceans, we’ll
know better what lies ahead for our
For both Venus and Earth, life’s world when the Sun inevitably warms
last refuge might lie in the clouds. it to the point that Earth can no longer
hold its water (S&T: Oct. 2017, p. 22).
It may be true about geology as well:
BEFORE THE SPACE AGE, it was com- bly outward. Some time in the remote Plate tectonics, so vital to the func-
mon to regard Venus as a planet stuck past it swept past Venus, and her seas tioning of our home world, seems to
in a state resembling Earth’s deep evaporated. Some time in the future have ceased on Venus (if it ever oper-
past — perhaps a carboniferous swamp the same thing will happen to Earth. ated there at all). We’re not sure why,
world with tree ferns and giant rep- What became of Venusians (if any but it might have to do with the drying
tiles. Now we know that our nearest existed) when the oceans vanished out of the interior that accompanied
planetary neighbor is actually a vision and the surface became too scald- the loss of surface water.
of our likely future. ing for organic life? Is it possible that Finally, Venus may even give us a
When Venus and Earth were both some organisms found sanctuary up glimpse of our planet’s old age in terms
young, their surface conditions were in the atmosphere? For more than of its biology. If life on a dying oceanic
probably very similar, sporting warm, 20 years I’ve promoted the plausibil- world can migrate to the clouds, as
organics-rich oceans and active geol- ity of a cloud biosphere on Venus. My might have taken place on Venus, then
ogy. They were the kind of places mentor Carl Sagan floated this idea that might be the long-term fate of
where we think life could easily have even earlier, and some colleagues have Earth’s biosphere. The clouds may be
formed, if our current understanding elaborated upon it in a recent paper our planet’s final habitable zone.
of both the origin of life and of Venus published in the journal Astrobiology
are correct. (see https://is.gd/venusclouds). ■ DAVID GRINSPOON is author of Venus
Yet the Sun gradually brightens as Conditions in the cloud deck are Revealed: A New Look Below the Clouds
it ages, causing the inner edge of the moderate — roughly the same tempera- of Our Mysterious Twin Planet (1997), in
habitable zone, where surface water can ture and pressure as at Earth’s surface. which he irst hypothesized about micro-
N ASA
exist on rocky planets, to slide inexora- Moreover, plenty of nutrients and bial life in Venusian clouds.

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EXTREMELY LARGE TELESCOPES, PART I by Govert Schilling
I
was driving a sturdy 4WD pickup truck up a steep and whelmingly Large). I remember team leader Roberto Gilmozzi
winding gravel road in the Chilean Atacama Desert. It was bluntly stating: “There are no known technological showstop-
hard to keep the car under control on the bumpy track. My pers. We could start building this right away.”
passengers must have been terrified at every hairpin curve. Well, it turned out there were financial showstoppers, and
Only by stopping the truck every now and then could I enjoy the OWL Telescope never materialized. But right now, three
the surreal beauty of the surrounding landscape, with the smaller monster telescopes are taking shape, set for first light
white enclosures of the European Southern Observatory’s in the 2020s. International partnerships led by U.S. institu-
(ESO’s) Very Large Telescope on the horizon, some 20 kilome- tions are planning the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) and
ters away. Our goal: the barren summit of Cerro Armazones, the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT). Meanwhile, most of the
a conical mountain in the Sierra Vicuña Mackenna range. original design studies for OWL found their way into ESO’s
The day before, we had been filming at the Very Large Tele- ELT. Together, these three instruments are destined to revo-
scope (VLT) for the ESO documentary Europe to the Stars. But lutionize our view of the universe. We are really standing on
we also wanted to take a look into the future and to show the threshold of a new era of astronomical discovery.
viewers the site of the organization’s next monster instru-
ment, the 39.3-meter Extremely Large Telescope (ELT). At the New Technologies
time — more than six years ago now — the summit of Cerro Just over a century ago, on November 1, 1917, the 100-inch
Armazones carried little more than a weather station, some (2.54-m) Hooker Telescope at Mount Wilson Observatory
site-testing equipment, and a microwave communications near Los Angeles gathered its first light. Using this revolution-
antenna. Driving up the mountain was a challenge. ary instrument, noted cosmologist Edwin Hubble (after whom
Standing at the summit, I couldn’t help thinking back to the Hubble Space Telescope is named) discovered the true
the spring of 1999, when I attended an international work- nature of “spiral nebulae” — individual galaxies comparable to
shop on future telescopes at Bäckaskog Castle in southern our own Milky Way — and the expansion of the universe. For
Sweden. The 10-m Keck II Telescope at Mauna Kea, Hawai‘i, more than 30 years, the Hooker Telescope remained the larg-
had only been in operation for three years, and the European est in the world. When the 200-inch (5.1-m) Hale Telescope
VLT was still very much under construction. But at Bäckaskog, at Palomar Mountain in southern California was dedicated
ESO scientists and engineers bravely presented the design of on June 3, 1948, many astronomers believed that they had
a humongous 100-meter telescope, called OWL (for Over- reached the limits of technical feasibility.
Astronomers and engineers

are boldly building a generation
of telescopes like none that
has gone before.

In two feature articles, S&T
Contributing Editor Govert
Schilling looks into the future
of optical and near-infrared
ground-based astronomy. This
month’s story describes the three
next-generation telescopes that
are planned for the 2020s; next
month’s article will focus on
instrumentation and science.
EXTREMELY LARGE TELESCOPE This illustra-

ESO / L . CA LÇA DA
tion shows the upcoming European behemoth in

operation. Lasers will create artificial stars high
in the atmosphere to reveal turbulence patterns,
enabling adaptive optics to compensate.
Extremely Large Telescopes, Part I
In subsequent decades, however, most of the limiting fac- for in a technique known as adaptive optics (S&T: May 2016,
tors in constructing much larger instruments have been over- p. 30). Evidently, the venerable 200-inch Hale Telescope was
come. One of the developments that made this possible was not an end point, but just another milepost along the road
the return, in the late 1970s, to small and relatively cheap to astronomy’s ever-larger eyes on the skies. The same is now
alt-azimuth telescope mounts, as opposed to the bulky, asym- true for Keck and the VLT.
metric equatorial mounts of the past. The big advantage of an
equatorial mount is that the diurnal rotation of the night sky Seven-Eyed Magellan
can be tracked by rotating the telescope at a constant speed If you want to see an example of what’s next, you need to
around just one axis, parallel to the axis of the Earth. But drive to Arizona Stadium in Tucson, home field of the Arizona
today’s computer-controlled stepping motors no longer have Wildcats. Unknown to most of the visiting football fans (and
an issue with moving a huge telescope around two axes at probably to quite a number of players), the University of Ari-
the same time, with continuously varying speeds, as required zona’s Richard F. Caris Mirror Laboratory is located under-
for a much more compact alt-azimuth mount. A smaller and neath the stadium’s east wing. Here’s where five of the seven
more symmetrical mount leads to huge cost savings for both thin 8.4-m mirrors for the future Giant Magellan Telescope
the telescope construction and (GMT) have already been
the enclosure, which can also spun-cast in a giant rotating
be much smaller. oven (S&T: Mar. 2014, p. 24).
Even more important was The first segment has been
the advent of thin-mirror tech- polished to its final surface
nology. Older generations of accuracy, while the next four
mirrors had to be thick enough mirrors are currently being
to withstand gravity, wind worked on.
load, and temperature changes “With a focal length
without losing their shape. But precision requirement of 300
thanks to active support by microns, it’s a big challenge,”
computer-controlled actuators, says GMT Organization vice
which compensate for possible president Patrick McCarthy
deformations by these envi- (Carnegie Observatories), “but
ronmental changes, today’s we steadily keep on moving
telescope mirrors can be as forward.”
p FUTURE ELT SITE Taken in early 2018, this image shows the
thin as 10 to 20 centimeters early foundations for the dome and telescope structure of ESO’s
At Cerro Las Campanas in
without losing their required Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), which will perch at an altitude of northern Chile, construction
curvature stability. Moreover, some 2,500 meters (8,300 feet) on Cerro Armazones in the Chilean work for the new telescope
telescope builders successfully Atacama Desert. started earlier this year. The
started to experiment with mountain’s summit was
large, jigsaw-like mirrors, consisting of relatively small inter- already leveled in 2012, and when Miguel Roth (who was the
locking hexagonal segments, which are easier and cheaper to observatory director at the time) drove me up to the plateau
produce (and transport!) than a single monolithic mirror. in the spring of 2013, the outline of the GMT enclosure was
As a result of these new technologies, quite a number of marked with white boulders. Since then, the road has been
8- to 10-m class optical telescopes are operational right now, graded, and residence buildings for construction workers
including the twin 10-m Keck Telescopes at Mauna Kea and have been erected. “The site is big enough to accommodate
the four 8.2-m Unit Telescopes of ESO’s VLT in Chile. By a second GMT,” Roth proudly told me. Who knows what the
ESO / G. HÜDEPOHL
using laser-produced artificial guide stars in the upper atmo- future will bring? The W. M. Keck Observatory on Mauna
sphere, wavefront sensors to precisely measure the incoming Kea also consists of two identical telescopes, and the Las
light, and thin, rapidly deformable mirrors in the telescope’s Campanas Observatory is already home to the twin 6.5-m
light path, even atmospheric turbulence can be compensated Magellan Telescopes.
Megascope Partnerships
EXTREMELY LARGE TELESCOPE GIANT MAGELLAN TELESCOPE
European Southern Observatory (ESO) member states: Arizona State University Astronomy Australia Limited Australian National
Austria Belgium Czech Republic Denmark Finland University Carnegie Institution for Science FAPESP: the São Paulo Research
France Germany Italy The Netherlands Poland Foundation (Brazil) Harvard University Korean Astronomy and Space Science
Portugal Spain Sweden Switzerland United Kingdom Institute Smithsonian Institution Texas A&M University University of Arizona
University of Chicago University of Texas at Austin

APERTURE AMBITION Limited only by their imaginations (and budgets),
astronomers have developed increasingly gargantuan telescopes, exem-
pliied by this selection of primary mirrors from the last century. Dotted Hooker (100”) Hale (200”)
California California
circles indicate effective collecting area. In 2000, a single mirror replaced 1917 1948
MMT’s six smaller ones, and the Keck Interferometer operated from 2003
to 2012. The cancelled OWL’s segments are excluded for clarity.
Large Altazimuth Multi Mirror Hubble Space Keck Hobby-Eberly

Telescope Telescope Telescope Telescope Telescope
Karachay-Cherkessia Arizona low-Earth orbit Hawai‘i Texas
Republic, Russia 1979–1998 1990 1993 / 1996 1996
1975 & 2000
Very Large Telescope Gemini North Subaru Telescope Gemini South Magellan Telescopes
Cerro Paranal, Chile Hawai‘i Hawai‘i Cerro Pachón, Chile Las Campanas, Chile
1998–2000 1999 1999 2000 2000 / 2002
Southern African Large Binocular Gran Telescopio Canarias Large Sky Area
Large Telescope Telescope Canary Islands, Spain Multi-Object Fiber
Northern Cape Province, Arizona 2007 Spectroscopic Telescope
South Africa 2005 Hebei Province, China
2005 2008
GREGG DINDERMAN / S&T, SOURCE: CMGLEE / WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
CC BY-SA 3.0; BACKG ROUND TE X T URE: LESIK VIT / G E T T Y IM AG ES
Large Synoptic Survey

Telescope
Cerro Pachón, Chile
2020 (planned)
James Webb Giant Magellan European Extremely Thirty Meter

Space Telescope Telescope Large Telescope Telescope
Earth-Sun L2 point Las Campanas, Chile Cerro Armazones, Chile Hawai‘i?
2021 (planned) 2024 (planned) 2024 (planned) 2028 (planned)
Overwhelmingly Large Tennis court and human

Telescope at the same scale
THIRTY METER TELESCOPE
(Cancelled)
California Institute of Technology Department of Science and Technology (India) National
Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences National Institutes of
Natural Sciences/National Astronomical Observatory of Japan National Research Council
(Canada) University of California Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy
0 5 10 m
(associate member) Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation (observer) 0 10 20 30 ft
GIANT MAGELLAN TELESCOPE However, for now, building just one Giant Magellan Tele-
scope is challenging enough. The instrument explores a novel
design, never before used in a large professional telescope.
Surrounding a central parabolic 8.4-meter mirror — the larg-
est monolithic blank the Arizona Mirror Lab can produce —
are six similar-sized asymmetric siblings, each weighing more
than 15 metric tons and all mounted on the same telescope
structure. Together, the seven mirrors constitute a giant
24.5-m paraboloidal primary. Because of the gaps between the
individual mirrors, the GMT has the light-gathering power of
a 22.5-m telescope. By 2024, astronomers hope to put the first
mirrors in place and achieve first light.
Just like the primary, the secondary mirror of the GMT,
with an effective diameter of 3.2 m, will consist of seven
smaller (1.1-m) mirrors. These concave ellipsoidal mirrors
are an integral part of the GMT’s adaptive optics system.
Six sodium lasers will be used to create artificial guide stars.
Hundreds of times per second, atmospheric wavefront distor-
tions will be measured and corrected for by subtle “shape
shifting” of the ultra-thin (2.4-millimeter) secondary mirrors
by means of 672 actuators per segment. Eventually, the plan
is to produce one additional segment for both the primary
and secondary mirrors: That will enable astronomers to
continue observations when one of the mirrors has to be
removed temporarily to be recoated.
Thanks to financial commitments from a long list of
partner institutions in the U.S., Australia, Brazil, and South
Korea, about half of the necessary $1.05 billion has been
secured, according to McCarthy. “Fundraising remains one
t MOPPING UP Arizona mirror lab staff clean the glass for GMT’s fourth
mirror after opening the oven.
q CREATING GMT’S PRIMARY MIRROR Lab staff member Linda War-

ren places the last piece of glass into the mold for the GMT’s ifth mirror,
which was cast in 2017 and is now cooling.
of our many activities,” he says. In 2024, the Giant Magellan 18-story building. Known as a calotte dome, it has a tilted mov-
Telescope may start science operations as a half-grown giant, ing structure and a large circular opening.
with a primary made up of only a few “eyes” instead of the At almost 700 square meters, the light-collecting area of
full seven. That would hardly compromise the angular resolu- the TMT will be some 80% larger than that of the GMT. Of
tion of the observations, but it would of course reduce the course, the Thirty Meter Telescope will also be outfitted with
sensitivity of the instrument: With four mirrors, for example, adaptive optics, using multiple lasers. Unfortunately, just as
the GMT would have the same light-gathering power as an with the GMT, the necessary funds — estimated at some $1.4
imaginary 17-m telescope. However, barring unexpected set- billion — are not yet fully secured, says TMT International
backs, McCarthy remains confident: “No way the GMT will Observatory (TIO) board member Thomas Soifer (Caltech),
end as a four-mirror telescope.” despite a generous $200 million grant from the Gordon and
Betty Moore Foundation. “We really need a major new part-
Thinking Big ner, like the National Science Foundation,” he says. A descope
For the Carnegie Institution for Science, a founding part- plan is available, if necessary.
ner in the GMT project, it made a lot of sense to construct
the new telescope close to where they already are operating Pacific Protest
the two original Magellan Telescopes. After all, GMT could There have been many issues regarding the TMT’s location.
be described as Magellan on steroids. Likewise, the Thirty A planned groundbreaking ceremony on October 7, 2014,
Meter Telescope (TMT) is a pumped-up version of Keck, and was disrupted by Native Hawaiians who protested against
it should come as no surprise that the California Institute of yet another large telescope on the summit of their sacred
Technology (Caltech) and the University of California want mountain. “It was a surprise,” recalls TIO’s executive direc-
to build their new monster telescope at Mauna Kea, Hawai‘i tor Edward Stone (Caltech). “We had spent eight years on
— close to their original 10-m Keck twins. environmental impact studies and listening to the com-
The Thirty Meter Telescope is going to be huge. While munity.” In late 2015, the Hawaiian Supreme Court vacated
the primary mirrors of the two Keck Telescopes consist of the original building permit on procedural grounds. After
just 36 hexagonal segments (a design pioneered by the late many public hearings, the state’s Board of Land and Natural
astronomer Jerry Nelson), TMT will have no fewer than 492 Resources granted a fresh construction permit in September
segments. Together, they constitute a 30-m wide hyperboloi- 2017, but opponents filed a notice of appeal with the state
dal mirror. Measuring 1.44 m across, each segment is stiff Supreme Court. “You’ll be amazed by all the things lawyers
enough to resist deformations due to gravity, wind load, or can do,” says Soifer.
temperature changes. Still, active support systems are needed Meanwhile, the TIO board started to develop Plan B, just
to keep the segments precisely positioned with respect to one in case. Instead of building the TMT at Mauna Kea, the new
another under all circumstances. instrument could find a home at the Roque de los Mucha-
Because of the overall shape of the TMT mirror, the seg- chos Observatory, on the Spanish island of La Palma, off the
ments come in 82 different types (six of each), their asym- coast of Morocco in the Atlantic Ocean. La Palma already
metric curvature depending on the distance from the center. hosts the 10.4-m Gran Telescopio Canarias — a near-identi-
They are produced using a technique known as stressed mirror
polishing. Carefully calculated external stresses are applied to
THIRTY METER
each mirror blank, so that it can be polished into a spherical
TELESCOPE
shape, which is much easier than changing the techniques
to match 82 different shapes. Upon release of the external
forces, the mirror springs back to the desired off-axis, asym-
metric shape. Every work day, two of the 492 segments will
G M TO CORPOR ATION (3); T M T: T M T IN TER N ATION A L OBSERVATORY
be recoated in a giant coating plant next to the telescope,

switched out of the primary with spares every two weeks.
After about a year, each and every segment will have received
a new reflective layer (probably silver).
The TMT’s 3.1-m convex secondary mirror is also a hyper-
boloid. The secondary is 20% larger than the primary mir-
ror of the Hooker Telescope, which was the world’s largest
reflector until just 70 years ago. Even the flat tertiary mirror
is larger, with a 3.5-by-2.5-m elliptical shape. Thanks to its
optical design, the TMT has a surprisingly large field of view of
almost 20 arcminutes, two-thirds of the apparent diameter of
the full Moon. Another impressive feature of the telescope is
its elegant, spherical enclosure, which will reach as high as an
cal copy of Keck. “Mauna Kea has always been our preferred
choice,” says Stone, “but La Palma is an excellent alterna-
tive.” Nevertheless, he admits that the lower altitude and the
higher average temperature make it a less ideal site for study-
ing the longer-wavelength part of the infrared spectrum,
which is important for many astronomical research topics,
from the origin of stars and planets to the evolution of the
first galaxies in the universe.
In the fall of 2017, after three years of delay, the TMT
board decided it really needed to start constructing the
telescope in the spring of 2018. “We were wrestling with how
many additional years — and money — it would be worth it
p HAWAIIAN CONCERNS TMT opponents gather in 2015 to pray atop
to be at Hawai‘i,” says Soifer. “We want to achieve first light
Mauna Kea, which native Hawaiians consider sacred. Preschool teacher
in 2028.” But as this issue went to press, a formal decision Kaho’okahi Kanuha (at right) told Hawai‘i Public Radio at the time,
had not yet been made. “We continue to assess the ongoing “Curiosity should not supersede the values and the traditions of the host
situation,” said Stone in a prepared statement in April. The people and the host culture.”
board still remains hopeful of court decisions that will allow
construction to resume on Mauna Kea. One concern is that Cerro Armazones in northern Chile was selected as the
Japan — a major partner in the TMT project — has always location for the ELT in April 2010 (the site had also been
been opposed to moving the telescope to La Palma, given the considered for the TMT). Road construction commenced in
country’s special astronomical connections to Hawai‘i. June 2012, a few months after I drove my pickup truck up the
As for the financial issues: In May 2018, the National Sci- old gravel track. The mountaintop was leveled in June 2014,
ence Foundation’s National Optical Astronomy Observatory and on May 26, 2017, Chilean president Michelle Bachelet
(NOAO) announced the development of a U.S. Extremely Jeria ceremonially laid the first stone for the future observa-
Large Telescope (US-ELT) Program, together with both the tory. Armazones is close to Cerro Paranal, home to ESO’s
GMT Organization and the TMT International Observa- Very Large Telescope. As a result, the ELT will be able to make
tory. By working together in one program and by focusing use of much of the same infrastructure, including the control
on complementarity instead of competition (after all, one room and residential and technical facilities.
instrument is in the Northern Hemisphere and the other in Originally, the ELT was designed as a 42-m giant. Not so
the Southern Hemisphere), the hope is that NSF will eventu- much because 42 is “the answer to life, the universe, and
ally cough up the necessary funds. everything,” as in Douglas Adams’s cult science-fiction book
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, but because (the rumor
Going to Extremes goes) it would give the European project exactly twice the
Financial issues appear to be relatively minor, and location light-gathering power of the Thirty Meter Telescope. However,
issues non-existent, for the third — and largest — monster the original plan had to be descoped in 2011. Paring back
telescope, ESO’s 39-m Extremely Large Telescope (ELT). from 42 to 39.3 meters doesn’t sound like a big difference, but
According to former ESO Director General Tim de Zeeuw the number of 1.45-m segments could be reduced from 984 to
(Leiden University, The Netherlands), the project is on sched- a “mere” 798. Their precise positions are measured and con-
ule for completion in 2024. “Construction costs will be high- trolled by 4,608 edge sensors and 2,394 actuators.
est in 2019 and 2020,” he says, “but ESO’s member states have The ellipsoid primary is made up of 133 different types of
given the Board permission to take out a loan, if necessary.” segments (six of each, just as in the case of the TMT). Com-
PYRAMIDS OF THE 21ST CENTURY

The buildings that will shield the 100 m
GMT, TMT, and ELT rival in size a 80 m
20-story building. Shown are the three
enclosures’ heights compared to 60 m
that of the Pyramid of the 40 m
Sun (66 meters tall) in
Mexico. 20 m
0m
Pyramid Extremely Large Thirty Meter Giant Magellan

of the Sun Telescope Telescope Telescope

bined with the telescope’s extremely convex 4.2-m second-
ary and a slightly concave 3.8-m tertiary, it provides the ELT
with a perfect image quality over its 10 arcminute field TMT
of view. Laser guide-star adaptive optics will be per- (Plan B)
TMT
formed using a 2.4-m flexible mirror, consisting of six (Plan A)
“petals.” At just 2 mm thick and controlled by some
8,000 actuators, this will be by far the most complex
adaptive optics mirror ever produced. Finally, there’s a
thin elliptical, 2.6-by-2.1-m flat mirror. This fifth mirror
n
stabilizes the image and steers the beam towards the science
Pa
ea
cifi
Oc
instruments.
ELT
tic
In the telescope’s first construction phase, with a price tag
Oc
lan
GMT
ea
of some $1.3 billion, the inner five rings of segments (210 n
At
in total) will remain empty, compromising the ELT’s overall
sensitivity. Additional funds for the second and final phase
would have already been available if Brazil had become ESO’s
16th member state by now. However, in the spring of 2018 it
became clear that the accession agreement, which had already
been ratified by the Brazilian Congress in May 2015, will not scope. The double shutter of the enclosure measures 45 m in
be signed by the president. “But,” says de Zeeuw, “Poland — width, and at 74 m, the giant 5,000-ton dome is higher than
home country of famous astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus — the ancient Pyramid of the Sun near Mexico City.
did join ESO in 2015, and Ireland will probably follow in late Astronomy has come a long way since Galileo Galilei
2018. Moreover, Australia has entered a strategic partner- trained his small, home-built telescope at the Moon, the
ship with ESO in July 2017, and I’m confident that they will planets, and the stars. Some four centuries ago, his observa-
become a full member eventually.” tions ushered in a whole new view of the universe we live
It’s hard to imagine how impressive the Extremely Large in. The same will no doubt be true for the GMT, TMT, and
Telescope will be, when completed. At almost 1,000 square ELT, which are by far the largest eyes on the sky ever built
meters (over twice the size of a basketball court), its main by humans. I can’t wait to take in the revolutionary cosmic
mirror will be larger than all previous professional tele- vistas they are going to yield.
scopes combined. The ELT has a total moving mass of more
than 3,000 metric tons. The Nasmyth instrument platforms ¢ S&T Contributing Editor GOVERT SCHILLING lives in The
on either side of the huge telescope structure will be large Netherlands but has paid multiple visits to most major astro-
enough to accommodate a single 8.2-meter VLT Unit Tele- nomical observatories worldwide.
Monster Telescopes at a Glance

PROTESTORS: M OLLY SOLO M ON / H AWAI‘I PUBLIC R A DIO; SIZE CO MPA RISON: SCOPES: ESO,
Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) Extremely Large Telescope (ELT)
Partnership International partnership International partnership European Southern Observatory
PY R A MID: DA NIEL CASE / CC BY-SA 3.0; M A P: LE A H TISCIONE / S&T, SOURCE ESO
(U.S., Australia, Brazil, (U.S., Canada, China, (15 member states,

South Korea) India, Japan) see page 16 for list)
Aperture 24.5 m 30 m 39.3 m
Primary mirror design Paraboloid Hyperboloid Ellipsoid
(seven 8.4-m monoliths) (492 1.44-m (798 1.45-m
hexagonal segments) hexagonal segments)
Total moving mass 1,500 metric tons 1,430 metric tons 3,000 metric tons
Enclosure Cylindrical Calotte dome Shuttered dome
(56 m diameter, 63 m high) (66 m diameter, 56 m high) (86 m diameter, 74 m high)
Location (altitude) Cerro Las Campanas, Chile Mauna Kea, Hawai‘i (4,210 m) or Roque Cerro Armazones, Chile
(2,520 m) de los Muchachos (La Palma, Canary (3,050 m)
Islands), Spain (2,400 m)
Estimated cost $1.05 billion $1.4 billion $1.5 billion
First light 2024 2028 2024
Altitudes rounded to the nearest 10 meters (3,000 meters is about 10,000 feet).
EXPLORING MERCURY by Emily Lakdawalla
:M\]ZV to
the
8TIVM\
An ungainly
stack of satellites
is set to double
the number of
spacecraft that
have visited
Mercury.
G R EGG D IN D E R M A N / S&T, G LO B E M A PS: N ASA / JH U A PL / CA R N EG IE IN ST. FO R SCIE N CE
M E RCU RY: N ASA / JH U A PL / CA R N EG IE IN ST. FO R SCIE N CE / JASO N PE R RY; D I AG R A M S:
p IRON PLANET This 66-image

Messenger mosaic is roughly cen-
5-:+=:A 0.01° 58 –223°C to 427°C
(Earth: 23.5°) million km (coldest in shadowed polar craters)
tered on the rayed crater Kuiper, FAST )`QIT (0.39 astronomical unit) (Earth range: –88°C to 58°C)
just south of Mercury’s equator.
\QT\ 5MIVLQ[\IVKM ;]ZNIKM
Long rays striate the globe, many FACTS u NZWU;]V \MUXMZI\]ZM
tracing back to Hokusai along the
limb at upper right.

I
t’s small and gray and covered with craters — and, no, productive orbital mission from 2011 to 2015 (S&T:
it’s not the Moon. At first glance, Mercury looks a lot Apr. 2012, p. 26). Messenger’s data upended scientists’
like Earth’s natural satellite. Both have lava plains theories for how the planet formed and left scientists
and rugged cratered terrain, with bright streaks radiat- grappling with its results. In October or November of
ing out from powerful impact scars on their drab, airless this year, the joint European-Japanese BepiColombo
surfaces. But the Sun-scorched innermost planet is a very mission will launch to pick up where Messenger left off,
different place, from its inside out. beginning a 7-year journey to the innermost planet to
In contrast to the Moon’s puny core, Mercury’s iron solve some of Mercury’s persistent mysteries.
heart takes up some 80% of the planet’s radius. It’s still
at least partially molten and generates a weak, global Under New Scrutiny
magnetic field. Moreover, the planet’s ongoing, slow Mercury hasn’t been as high a priority
solidification affects its surface: As the core freezes, it for exploration as other places, such as
shrinks, and the crust wrinkles like a drying plum, creat- Mars. That’s partly because it’s harder
ing ridges that cut right across big craters. to put an orbiter around Mercury than
Look closely at those craters, and you’ll find some it is to get to Pluto: The tiny planet is
have inexplicably dark rays, rather than bright ones. deep in the Sun’s gravity well, and it
The floors and peaks of others appear to be moth- takes numerous flybys of Earth, Venus,
eaten, with “hollows” of missing rock. Mercury’s and Mercury itself to reduce a space-
dayside might be baked by the Sun to temperatures craft’s velocity enough to settle it into
reaching 427°C (800°F), but even that isn’t hot a Mercurian orbit.
enough to evaporate its surface rock.
These hollows, like so many other features
of Mercury, remain an enigma. All of what we q ALL HEART Mercury’s solid-iron inner
know about this world comes from Earth- core and liquid outer core of iron, sulfur, and
based observations and a couple of space- silicates together dominate the planet’s inte-
rior. In comparison, Earth’s inner and outer
craft. More than 50 years into the age of
cores take up far less of our world’s total
interplanetary travel, only two missions volume. Cutaways are roughly to scale.
have targeted Mercury: NASA’s Mari-
ner 10, which flew past the planet three
times in 1974 and 1975, and NASA’s
Mercury Surface, Space Environment,
Geochemistry, and Ranging (Messen-
ger) spacecraft, which also zoomed by
three times before settling into a highly
Earth
Solid
inner
core
Mercury Liquid
outer
Solid inner core core
Mantle
Liquid outer core
Mantle
Crust
Crust
460%–1060% of Earth’s
1,300% of Earth’s
98% of Earth’s
15% of Earth’s
38% of Earth’s
38% of Earth’s
6% of Earth’s
3.3 x 1023 74.8 4,879 3.7 5.43 6,272 – 14,448 0.21

kg million km2 km m/s2 g/cm3 watts/m2
5I[[ ;]ZNIKM ,QIUM\MZ ;]ZNIKM 5MIV ;WTIZ 7ZJQ\IT
IZMI OZI^Q\a LMV[Q\a QZZILQIVKM MKKMV\ZQKQ\a
Exploring Mercury
t MESSENGER VS. BEPICOLOMBO BepiColombo’s components will

follow polar orbits, as Messenger did, but they won’t ly as far from the
Magnetopause planet and will be oriented differently to the planet’s spin axis.
Bow
Shock MMO
400 km to
accumulate enough data for quality compositional maps.
12,000 km
The result: Mercury’s crust is about 5% sulfur by mass. This
is roughly 100 times sulfur’s abundance in Earth’s crust
Solar Plasma Sheet
and was totally unexpected. The crust is also 1.4% carbon.
Wind The abundance of these two elements directly contradicts
formerly favored ideas about how Mercury’s bulk composition
could be so very metal-rich.
Sulfur and carbon are both relatively “volatile” elements
MPO and were not expected to condense in the hottest, innermost
400 km to portion of the solar nebula as our solar system formed. Prior
1,500 km
to Messenger, some scientists had hypothesized that modern-
Messenger day Mercury is little more than the core of a preexisting
200 km to
15,200 km larger planet whose mantle was blasted off by a large oblique
impact, or perhaps that its lighter materials were blown away
by an early, hot Sun. But sulfur and carbon should have been
scarce in the aftermath of either scenario. Their abundance
Two space agencies are taking on the challenge together. confounded mission scientists.
ORBITS: LE A H TISCIONE / S&T; CA LORIS BASIN: N ASA /

Their joint mission will deliver two spacecraft into orbit at Messenger did confirm ground-based studies that the sur-
JHU A PL / CA R NEGIE INSTIT U TION FOR SCIENCE

Mercury: Europe’s Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO), and face contains little iron or titanium. These are the elements
Japan’s Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (MMO, nicknamed that make the Moon’s basalt-filled maria dark, and without
Mio). The pair will loop around Mercury in polar orbits, as them, scientists had difficulty explaining why Mercury’s sur-
Messenger did, but with crucial differences that will give the face is so dark. The unexpectedly high abundance of carbon
BepiColombo mission a much more thorough view. offers a clue: It might be that graphite (a crystalline form of
Unlike Messenger’s path, which took it close to the north carbon), not iron, darkens Mercury, mixed among the silicate
pole and far from the south one, MPO’s orbit will be nearly rocks of its crust.
circular and close to the planet, giving its imagers and spec- Mercury has patches of what’s been dubbed low-reflectance
trometers a detailed look at all latitudes. MMO will follow a material that’s even darker than the usual crust. It’s gener-
more elongated orbit that takes it out farther than MPO to ally exposed by impacts, which dig into the crust and exca-
sample more regions of the magnetic field. Both spacecraft
will always orbit in the same plane, enabling scientists to
coordinate observations.
The set of instruments that BepiColombo will bring to
bear at Mercury is broadly similar to Messenger’s, only more
capable. MPO has color cameras, infrared spectrometers, a
laser altimeter, and particle detectors. MMO has a magne-
tometer, two instruments to study plasma in the magnetic
field, plus an exosphere imager and a dust monitor. What will
these spacecraft learn that Messenger could not?
Dark Surface, Light Elements

The most surprising discovery made by Messenger is Mer-
cury’s surface composition. It took the orbiter’s gamma-ray
and neutron spectrometers until the end of the mission to
u CALORIS BASIN This mosaic of Mercury’s signature, 1,500-km-

wide impact structure combines enhanced-color and topographic data
to reveal differences in geologic features. Lava lows appear orange.
Several smaller, subsequent craters have punched through the surface
lava to expose what geologists term low-reflectance material (blue).
This material is likely part of the original basin loor (see close-up in
center). Based on the craters, the volcanic layer appears to be between
2½ and 3½ km thick.

vate deep material, throwing it onto the surface. Mercury a major “resurfacing event” at some point early in its history.
likely once had a magma ocean, as the just-formed Moon did Geologists intentionally employ the bland word “resurfac-
after its violent birth (S&T: Aug. 2018, p. 26). But whereas ing” to avoid attributing a cause, because we don’t know if
the Moon’s magma ocean developed a crust of floating the resurfacing was caused by volcanism, impacts, tectonism,
low-density silicates, some planetary scientists suggest that some combination, or none of the above.
Mercury developed a crust of buoyant graphite. After more Of particular interest are the relatively flat plains inter-
than 4 billion years of impacts and volcanism, that primor- spersed between the large craters (called, appropriately,
dial crust is now buried or disrupted (perhaps, blending with intercrater plains). They appear to be volcanic flows, but are
other crustal rocks to darken them). But surviving patches they? Are they all the same age, or is there a lengthy history
occasionally make themselves known when impacts punch recorded in the rock? Messenger couldn’t tell. Maybe Bepi-
through to a remnant. Colombo will. It will deliver much finer-scale pictures of
The surface’s low iron content hampered Messenger’s much more of the planet, particularly the southern hemi-
ability to discern the composition of Mercury’s rocks in fine sphere. The more smaller craters that geologists can count,
detail. Near-infrared spectroscopy relies on the presence and the better they can estimate the ages of small surface areas
positions of spectral features associated with iron to separate — and the finer distinctions they will be able to draw between
rocks by composition. So BepiColombo’s instrument suite the histories of different parts of the surface.
includes a thermal emission spectrometer, MERTIS, which is Higher-resolution pictures will also enable geophysicists
more sensitive to variations in surface composition beyond to track Mercury’s global shrinkage to smaller scales. Mer-
iron content. The hope is that MERTIS can determine exactly cury shrinks because it has a partially molten interior that is
what Mercury’s enigmatic dark material is. The instrument’s slowly solidifying, and solid rock is denser than liquid rock
ability to see in the dark — imaging the surface using the heat and thus occupies less volume. Mariner 10’s distant images
emitted by its rocks during Mercurian night — will produce a of Mercury showed scarps that recorded 1 to 2 kilometers
whole new kind of data for the planet and reveal some of the (about 1 mile) of planetary shrinkage. After Messenger, we
secrets of its poles. And, maybe, better compositional infor- now think that all of Mercury contracted by as many as 9 km
mation will help scientists solve the mystery of why Mercury’s (6 mi). If there are more scarps at finer scales than Messenger
N ASA / JHU A PL / CA R NEGIE INSTIT U TION FOR SCIENCE (2)
core is so disproportionately big. could see, there may have been even more shrinkage. Mercury
is still cooling, so there should still be compression along
Puzzling Geology
Planetary scientists determine the ages of surface units by q SHRINK MARKS The giant thrust fault Carnegie Rupes slashes
counting the numbers and sizes of craters that they have through the 132-km-wide crater Duccio, the wall it creates rising nearly 2
km above the lower terrain. Scarps like these form as Mercury’s interior
accumulated, but geologic processes can reset that clock. Mer-
cools, causing the planet to contract. By tallying up all the planet’s
cury has fewer small craters than the Moon does, suggesting known scarps, researchers calculate that the planet’s circumference has
shrunk by at least 7 km — and perhaps 2 km more before its crust was
q MYSTERIOUS DARK STUFF This enhanced-color mosaic shows
solid enough to form wrinkles.
three craters within much larger Caloris Basin: Munch (left), Sander, and
Poe. Sander, the smallest of the three, is about 50 km across. They’ve
excavated low-reflectance material, oddly dark stuff that might be rich in
graphite. The same craters lie toward the top of the image at left.
Exploring Mercury
those faults even today. Can BepiColombo find evidence The Moon also has polar ice deposits, but they are patchy
for geologically recent fault motion? Can it map different and impure. So why are these two worlds’ polar ices so differ-
amounts or types of crustal crumpling in rocks of different ent? Could it be that Mercury’s ice looks cleaner because it’s
ages to discover how Mercury shrank with time? fresher, delivered recently in a single impact event?
If that’s the case, then the impact should have left a crater
A Hot Planet’s Ice we can see. You can tell which craters are relatively young on
We know that the planet closest to the Sun has deposits of Mercury (or the Moon, for that matter) by the presence of
nearly pure water ice at its poles. This seems outlandish, given bright rays. And there is no more impressive rayed crater in
how strongly the Sun beats down on Mercury’s surface (up the solar system than Mercury’s Hokusai, a 114-km-wide scar
to some 10 times more intensely than at Earth). Even more near 60°N with bright rays stretching across the face of the
amazing is that we first discovered that polar ice in 1991 planet, making Mercury look like a gray watermelon.
using radio telescopes on Earth, which detected deposits near A team led by Carolyn Ernst (Johns Hopkins Univer-
the pole that looked bright in radar images (S&T: Jan. 1992, sity Applied Physics Laboratory) has calculated what kind
p. 35). Messenger proved that the round radar features near of impacting body would create Hokusai. Observing its
the north pole all lie inside deep impact craters whose floors horseshoe-shaped peak ring and the large volume of for-
and north-facing slopes never see the Sun, and whose interi- merly molten rock that fills its floor, they calculated that a
ors plummet to about –200°C (–330°F). reasonable-sized comet or asteroid impactor (25 km) traveling
Later in the mission, Messenger scientists commanded its a reasonable speed (less than 30 km per second) could have
camera to shoot long-exposure images of those permanently produced Hokusai and easily delivered sufficient water to
shadowed crater floors. Using light reflected off the sunlit account for everything now at Mercury’s north pole.
south-facing rims, the spacecraft was able to reveal the radar- As for the south pole, recent Arecibo observations suggest
bright deposits. Unexpectedly, these images showed some of that radar-bright deposits there cover roughly double the area
them to be as black as coal, while others are bright. The inter- that their northern counterparts do. Moreover, the southern
pretation: The cold, shadowed craters contain ice deposits pole region is more heavily cratered. We don’t know what
that are tens of meters thick at most, mantled with a varying surprises might still hide there, but BepiColombo will get the
amount of dark, carbon-rich material. first close views of this region.
How does this stuff get to Mercury’s poles? Water and
most carbon-containing organic molecules are both highly Embedded in the Stellar Wind
volatile at Mercury — once delivered by asteroids or comets, Much of Messenger’s mission focused on the environment
they don’t sit around on the hot surface; instead, they turn around the planet — particularly its magnetic fields and the
into gas and float off. Gravity might bring them back down, charged and neutral particles residing there. No other world
but they can’t remain stuck to the planet’s hot surface. How- in the solar system has the intense relationship with the
ever, any volatile molecule floating in Mercury’s thin atmo- Sun that Mercury does. At Venus and Earth, the solar wind’s
sphere that happens to touch down on the incredibly cold interactions are primarily with their ionospheres, far above
surface of a permanently shadowed floor can become trapped the ground. But at times the solar wind can interact directly
there forever, unless it’s disturbed by an impact. with Mercury’s rocky surface. One bizarre implication is that,
THERE’S ICE IN THEM CRATERS Radar

observations made from Arecibo Observatory
reveal bright deposits (tinted yellow) in several
shadowed craters at Mercury’s north pole, which
have been revealed by long-exposure Messenger
images. Scientists suspect that these deposits
consist of fairly pure water ice.

u HOKUSAI During a lyby of Mercury in 2008, Messenger recorded
this prominent 114-km-wide crater and its bright splash pattern. The
impact that created Hokusai might have delivered water that migrated to
the planet’s poles and formed ice deposits on the loors of permanently
shadowed craters there.
while aurorae appear high in the atmospheres of Earth and

Venus, there could be aurora-like emissions at ground level on
Mercury, at least at X-ray wavelengths.
Mercury’s churning molten outer core generates a global
magnetic field, albeit one that’s only 1% as strong as Earth’s
at the surface. A weird (and still unexplained) aspect of
Mercury’s magnetic field is its offset toward the north pole
by roughly 500 km, some 20% of the planet’s radius. The magnetic field and particle environment at two points simul-
planet’s weak magnetosphere can hold off solar radiation — taneously. MPO will operate at a distance where the planet’s
sometimes. But when coronal mass ejections blast toward influence is stronger, while MMO will explore a region where
Mercury, the incoming plasma can compress the field drasti- the solar wind takes over. Together, they’ll watch how the
cally enough to let solar radiation smash directly into Mer- whole system responds to solar storms.
cury’s surface. The south pole gets bombarded more because
of the northward offset of the field. BepiColombo’s Odyssey
When solar wind particles slam into Mercury’s surface, To get MPO and MMO to Mercury, ESA built a third space-
they knock atoms from surface rocks and into Mercury’s craft, the Mercury Transfer Module (MTM). The MTM has
tenuous exosphere. It’s not a proper atmosphere — individual huge solar arrays to power ion thrusters that will accomplish
atoms rarely encounter each other, so it has no wind or the hard work of setting up BepiColombo’s rendezvous with
weather — and spacecraft like Messenger and BepiColombo Mercury. This is the first time that ESA will use solar electric
can fly directly through it unimpeded, tasting atoms that propulsion on an interplanetary mission. MTM employs the
until recently were part of the planet’s surface. full power-generating capability of its solar panels only when
Solar wind, intrinsic magnetic field, and neutral and it’s farther from the Sun than Venus’s orbit; once it passes
charged particles are all interlinked and dynamic on very inside Venus’s distance, it has to tilt its solar panels at an
short time scales. For example, when the solar wind’s mag- angle to the Sun to avoid overheating and also to limit dam-
netic field lines connect with a planet’s dayside magnetic age from solar energetic particles.
field, the latter’s field lines peel back around to the planet’s
nightside, where they reconnect. On Earth, this process takes
about an hour; on Mercury, magnetic field lines can shift
from one side of the planet to the other in a matter of min-
utes. It’s so dynamic that it’s difficult to understand all the
interactions with only one spacecraft in one location at one
time, especially because many of the relevant measurements
are performed in situ, with the spacecraft directly measur- Day 176
Day 2 orbits
ing field strength or ion composition. With two spacecraft Day
0 3 rotations 132
in different orbits, BepiColombo will be able to measure the
0.47 AU 0.31 AU
Day
Day 88 Sun 44
N ASA / JHU A PL / CA R NEGIE INSTIT U TION FOR SCIENCE (2); ORBIT
A ND DAY DIAG R A M: SUE LEE / THE NE W SOL AR SYSTEM, SOURCE:
1 orbit
*MXQ +WTWUJW \PM 5IV 1½ rotations
/Q][MXXM ¹*MXQº +WTWUJW ! _I[ IV 1\ITQIV

UI\PMUI\QKQIV IVL MVOQVMMZ _PW LQ[KW^MZML \PI\ \PM
\QUM Q\ \ISM[ 5MZK]Za \W ZW\I\M IZW]VL Q\[ I`Q[ Q[ \_W
\PQZL[ I[ TWVO I[ Q\[ aMIZ *MNWZM PQ[ _WZS I[\ZWVWUMZ[
ROBERT STRO M (UNIV. OF A RIZON A)
PIL \PW]OP\ \PM XTIVM\¼[ LIa _I[ \PM [IUM TMVO\P I[

Q\[ aMIZ LIa[ 0M IT[W XZWXW[ML X]\\QVO 6);)¼[ p A DAY ON MERCURY The innermost planet takes 58 Earth days to
5IZQVMZ [XIKMKZIN\ QV I LIaTWVO [WTIZ WZJQ\ turn once around its axis, and 88 Earth days to orbit the Sun. But as
seen from the planet’s surface, the Sun takes far longer — 176 Earth
\PI\ _W]TL JZQVO Q\ XI[\ 5MZK]Za ZMXMI\MLTa MVIJTQVO days — to return to the same point in Mercury’s sky. Thus the planet
\PM UQ[[QWV¼[ \PZMM ÆaJa[ experiences one “day” every two “years.”
Oct 2020
Dec 2024 Launch

Oct 2018
June 2023
Arrival
Dec 2025 Sep 2024
Sun
Oct 2021
Mercury Mercury Jan 2025
Transfer Planetary June 2022
Module Orbiter
(MTM) (MPO)
Aug 2021
Apr 2020
Mercury
Magnetospheric Earth lyby Coast phase
Sun Orbiter
Shield (MMO) Venus lyby Ion-propulsion phase
Mercury lyby/capture
p COMBO SPACECRAFT Top: Artist’s impression of BepiColombo in p SCENIC ROUTE? To reach the innermost planet, BepiColombo has
cruise coniguration. Bottom: An expanded view of BepiColombo’s com- to lose orbital energy — a lot of it. The spacecraft will use gravity assists
ponents. The Mercury Planetary Orbiter and Mercury Magnetospheric with Earth, Venus (twice), and Mercury itself (six times) to slow down
Orbiter (nested in the sunshield) will ride to the innermost planet with the enough to gently enter orbit around the iron planet in 2025.
ion-powered thrust of the Mercury Transfer Module.
Spacecraft propulsion alone won’t be enough. BepiCo- thrust direction and solar-panel orientation dictate the direc-
lombo will perform one flyby of Earth, two of Venus, and six tion that the spacecraft points, so there’s no possibility of
of Mercury to tweak the shape, size, and orientation of its pointing instruments to do observations — except when the
heliocentric orbit before settling in at Mercury in Decem- engine is off and the craft is coasting (see diagram above).
ber 2025. The MTM will be dropped two months before the The next seven years will not just be a waiting game,
combination craft enters orbit. On arrival, MPO will hit the though. BepiColombo’s science teams are particularly eager
brakes so that Mercury can capture the paired craft. After to test their instruments at Venus. MPO’s remote-sensing
many smaller maneuvers, the duo will reach MMO’s desired instruments mostly have their eyes pressed firmly against
orbit. MMO will separate, and MPO will drop to its own low- the transfer module, but a couple of instruments (notably
altitude circuit of the planet in March MERTIS) have sideways-pointed chan-
2026. The science mission is planned to nels that will be able to take some data.
begin shortly thereafter. And measurements of fields and par-
Unfortunately, the stacked spacecraft ticles — by the magnetometer, neutral
structure limits BepiColombo’s science and ion spectrometers, radio science
capability during the long cruise. MMO experiment, accelerometer, and others
HOLLOWS: N ASA / JHU A PL / CA R NEGIE INSTIT U TION FOR SCIENCE

in particular will be hidden beneath a — can be made even while the spacecraft
BEPICOLO MBO AT MERCURY: ESA / ATG MEDIA L A B; TR A JECTORY

DIAG R A M: LE A H TISCIONE / S&T, SOURCE: BEPICOLO MBO TE A M;
European-built heat shield and unable remain stacked. Perhaps, when BepiCo-
to employ its instruments. It won’t be lombo passes Venus, it will be able to do
able to do any science at all until it’s coordinated observations with another
been captured by Mercury, where it Japanese mission, Akatsuki, training its
will jettison the shield and spin up to a senses on one enigmatic world en route
4-second rotation period, using that spin to another.
to deploy its booms and redistribute heat
so that it can bear the high temperatures p HOLLOWS Strange pits pockmark Mercu- ¢ S&T Contributing Editor EMILY LAK-
close to the Sun. ry’s surface, sometimes appearing in clumps DAWALLA is Senior Editor and Planetary
several kilometers across. Individual hollows
The use of ion propulsion also con- Evangelist for The Planetary Society, and
can be as small as a couple of hundred me-
strains science observations during the ters wide. Scientists think that the vaporiza-
author of the recent book The Design and
voyage. The engine has to operate nearly tion and escape of volatile compounds in the Engineering of Curiosity: How the Mars
continuously for months on end. The surface might explain the marks. Rover Performs Its Job.

Condensed Path Pendant Spiral Galaxy Opal Ring
Meteorite and Pietersite Ring Lapis Orbit Ring
IMAGING HISTORY by Antonio Peña
COLOR FROM B+W The three

spectroscopic plates at left
recorded with the UK Schmidt
Telescope on B, V, and R
spectroscopic film were com-
bined to produce the color
image of the Rho Ophiuchi
nebula complex below.
When Color Came

from Down Under
Astronomy had to wait nearly 100 years before one
astronomer popularized the color of the universe.

he Internet makes it easy for us to
T enjoy impressive images of planets,

nebulae, star clusters, and galax-
ies with just a few mouse clicks. Virtually
any Messier or NGC object can be found
online, usually shown with plenty of color
and detail. But it wasn’t always so easy.
After Henry Draper and others pioneered
astrophotography in the late 1800s, it took
nearly a century before one individual
developed a reliable technique for producing color astro- p GOOD OLD DAYS Left: David Malin is seen in the prime focus cage
photographs that still is in use in the digital age. of the 4-meter f/3.3 Anglo-Australian Telescope. Right: The AAT with its
massive horseshoe equatorial mount.
New Eyes Down Under

Since most of the planet’s population lives north of the equa- and Australian astronomers. A new window to a relatively
tor, it’s not surprising that many of the world’s largest tele- unknown area of the sky had been opened.
scopes were located there until the end of the 20th century.
By the 1960s, huge instruments such as the 200-inch Hale South of the Equator
Telescope were in regular use studying the northern skies, In November 1974, the journal Nature published an opening
while gems of the Southern Hemisphere such as the Magel- for staff at the AAT, including a photographic specialist. At
lanic Clouds and the most interesting areas of the Milky Way that time, the Englishman David Malin was working in the
were inaccessible to first-class telescopes. chemical industry with optical and electron microscopes.
The need for a large telescope to scrutinize the southern Malin obtained many beautiful images of crystalline materi-
skies was clear, so in 1967, the UK and Australian govern- als while developing his photographic prowess. When denied
ments agreed to join forces to build a 4-meter-class telescope the position to head the lab at what was then the Geigy
at Siding Spring, Australia. The cost to construct the Anglo- Company, Malin took note of the classified listing in Nature.
Australian Observatory (AAO) was shared by both partners, Despite being woefully ignorant about the techniques of
and when in operation, the telescope would be shared equally astronomical photography, he applied for the position. There
between astronomers of the two countries. was enough overlap between microscopy and astrophotogra-
To save on development time and cost, the design of the phy that he was offered the job. He accepted and moved his
Anglo-Australian Telescope (AAT) was based on the 150-inch family to Australia to work as scientific photographer at AAO.
telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona. In The first two years at the AAT were mainly focused on
1969, the AAT’s 3.9-meter main mirror was cast in the U.S. setting up the photographic support facilities. Malin was also
and was polished one year later in the UK. The mount that
q PLATE REGISTRATION Malin constructed a custom superimposition
would support the telescope was a huge equatorial. Today, it
frame to precisely align the individual color plates under the enlarger.
remains one of the largest equatorial mounts in the world. A print is attached to the hinged lid to act as a positional reference for
Officially, first light for the AAT was on April 27, 1974, each image, which is projected through it and combined onto a sheet of
but the first “good” plate with the telescope was made earlier unexposed ilm or photographic paper beneath.
when Ben Gascoigne took a 60-minute exposure of Omega
Centauri before the mirror was even aluminized. Gascoigne
was responsible for much of the telescope’s optical design
and, later, its commissioning.
The AAT commissioning continued for more than a year,
and, while there was still much to be done, it was declared
ready for observing in early 1975. Routine, scheduled opera-
tion began in June.
While the AAT was in development, another instrument,
the UK Schmidt Telescope (UKST) was built at Siding Spring
in 1973, as an updated copy of the Palomar (now Oschin)
A LL PHOTOS BY DAVID M A LIN
Schmidt Telescope in California. The UKST is essentially an

f/2.5 wide-field telescope with a focal length of 3 meters
and an aperture of 1.2 meters. It was operated by the Royal
Observatory, Edinburgh, until 1988, when AAO took over.
The availability of these two instruments under the south-
ern sky had been a dream for generations of both British
Imaging History
responsible for establishing the film-hypersensitizing processes obtaining color images. But telescope time for these experi-
(already initiated at the UK Schmidt) to improve the sensi- ments was difficult to find. He first tried to jury-rig a Has-
tivity of the photographic plates. Hypersensitization reduces selblad roll-film holder at AAT’s prime focus in May 1976. Two
reciprocity failure of photographic materials. Reciprocity months later, he stuck large sheets of color negative film onto
failure is a well-known characteristic of photographic emul- blank glass plates to make color exposures.
sions, which can be understood as the effective speed of the Unfortunately, color film had some characteristics that
emulsion falling dramatically during long exposures. When made it inefficient for astronomical use — the lack of contrast
exposure times are in minutes (rather than the fractions of and non-uniform spectral response being the most obvious.
a second for snapshots), raw film does not record double the Also, color films intended for daylight snapshots suffered from
photons on the negative if it’s exposed for twice the time. In reciprocity failure and did not work well with long exposures.
the late ’70s, this failure was found to be reduced by baking The tests with color film were interesting, but the low
the plates in an oven for a few hours in nitrogen gas and then contrast and weird color balance convinced Malin that this
soaking them in hydrogen gas. Once hypersensitized, the was not the correct approach. The solution, it turned out, had
plates acquire a brief shelf life and have to be exposed as soon already been proposed more than a century earlier.
as possible (within just a few hours!) and developed quickly In 1861, the Scottish scientist James Clerk Maxwell had
to obtain optimum results. presented the fundamentals of color synthesis and photog-
During the mid-’70s, professional observatories collected raphy in a famous lecture at London’s Royal Institution. In
most of their photons using photographic plates, though some trying to understand the process of color vision, he showed
electronic detectors were used for recording spectra. These that color pictures could be made by registering three posi-
plates, manufactured by Kodak, were glass sheets coated with tive, monochrome images on a screen that were projecting
a thin emulsion layer that was sensitive to a broad wavelength through the same color filters used to take the images. The
range, making them suitable for astronomy. They were very most realistic images were those taken and projected through
rigid and stable, though expensive, and didn’t curl or buckle red, green, and blue filters. Maxwell had established the basis
during long exposures like commercial film acetates. Their of both color photography and color vision, and is considered
large size allowed them to cover 6.6° × 6.6° on a 356-mm (14- to be the father of color photography. Now Malin had to
inch) square plate when exposed in the UKST. The AAT used apply it to astrophotography.
smaller plates covering one square degree of sky.
Once exposed and developed, the plate became a nega- Tricolor Photography
tive image where the stars appear as black dots, galaxies and Malin realized that the most promising option to extract
nebulae are gray smudges, and the sky background is a uniform color from the objects in the universe was to use a modifica-
gray. Astronomers preferred to study original plates, as creating tion of Maxwell’s additive three-color process in the astro-
a positive image does not add scientific value to an exposure, nomical arena. This required three plates of the object (and
and any additional process tends to degrade
the original quality. Additionally, human
vision can pick out faint structures more eas-
ily on a negative image than on a positive.
All this work occurred in the black-and-
white domain, but sometimes filters were
employed to isolate a particular region of the
visible spectrum. In general, however, the
main purpose of photography with a large
telescope was to study faint objects. Exposing
plates directly at the focal plane of a telescope
created nice monochrome images with very
little information regarding an object’s color.
From his earliest days working with
the AAT, however, Malin was interested in
u TECHNICOLOR GLORY Before the 1980s, color

photographs of deep-sky objects were a rare treat to
come across. It wasn’t until David Malin perfected the
technique of combining B, V, and R spectroscopic
plates as blue, green, and red images that dazzling
color pictures of objects became possible, like this
portrait of the Zeta Orionis region in Orion captured
with the UK Schmidt Telescope.

three times more telescope time than what was required for a processing. Then, the three copies were overlaid sequentially
monochrome image). As this was unachievable with the lim- by projection on color-sensitive photographic paper using an
ited telescope time available, Malin decided to use as much enlarger with red, green, and blue filters for the appropriate
archival material as possible. This approach took advantage exposures. A simple frame permitted aligning the projections.
of monochrome plates made for photometric work using the The process could be performed in less than 15 minutes.
standard astronomical B, V, and R photometric system to Malin successfully applied Maxwell’s tricolor composition
create a realistic RGB color image. The decision enabled the technique using monochrome plates from one of the best
acquisition of plates to fit into the normal routine of the tele- astronomical telescopes in the Southern Hemisphere. And he
scopes. This meant that plates obtained for variable-star pho- did it more than 100 years after Maxwell presented his theory
tometry or supernova studies could also be used to produce about color photography.
color images. As a bonus, there were already many previously The technique allowed Malin to create a number of images
exposed B and V plates; only an additional R-band plate was from the late ’70s through the mid-’80s when he had access
required to complete a color composite. These could often be to the AAT and plates from UKST. Nebulae and galaxies were
obtained in twilight at both ends of the night. shown in their natural colors, and a chromatic explosion
The original plates were obtained using Kodak spectro- began appearing in magazines. Color images also made it pos-
scopic emulsions and Schott glass filters. Going forward, all sible to visualize some astrophysical processes for the first time.
the plate batches were tested to characterize their long-expo- The photographs were not only useful for science, but
sure sensitivity to establish the best exposure time for each also in promoting the beauty of astronomy. Color psychology
color band, typically between 40 and 60 minutes for each did its work, and suddenly, everybody wanted color photo-
type of hypersensitized photographic emulsion. graphs of the universe. People unconnected to astronomy
After some time experimenting with darkroom procedures, felt attracted to those images, combining familiar color and
Malin established a technique to distant splendor.
make positive copies of the plates by All this extraordinary dynamism
controlling contrast, density, and of color developed in the analogue
dynamic range during the chemical processes of chemical photography
in the late ’70s, converging just
u GALACTIC FIREWORKS Because before an emerging technology rose
many B and V plates were recorded for
to the forefront. The charge-coupled
spectroscopic studies, the R (red) plates
needed to complete the color set were
device (CCD) and computerized
often recorded several months or even image processing were on the hori-
years later. The B and V exposures of this zon, which together would change
photograph of Centaurus A were recorded photography and astronomy forever.
shortly after the discovery of a supernova
Chemical processing, glass plates,
in its dust lane, but poor weather delayed
the exposure of the red plate until long
and a lot of hypersensitization gear
after the star had faded, resulting in the were leaving observatories as the
odd blue-green star. digital age ushered in a new order
where color images are much easier
to obtain and process.
However, some things haven’t
t COLOR EXPLOSION changed. Tricolor imaging through
Recorded over several red, green, and blue filters is still the
months in 1979 with the preferred system for recording the
UKST, this deep image of best deep-sky images by amateur
M20 (top), M8 (right), and
astrophotographers and professional
NGC 6559 (left) was the
best natural color photo of astronomers alike.
the ield at the time. Malin’s images played a big part
in popularizing astronomy in the
late ’70s and ’80s thanks to the enigmatic attraction of color
over all of us. This is one major legacy of his work.
¢ ANTONIO PEÑA is an engineer working in the European

aerospace industry. In his free time, he images the night sky
with a Ritchey-Chrétien telescope and DSLR camera with
lenses. He is grateful to Dr. Malin for his help and support while
researching this article.
OUTSIDE THE BOUNDS by Steve Gottlieb
In Search of
Extragalactic Globulars
What’s the farthest star ball you can see with an amateur telescope?
Start your hunt outside the Milky Way.
T
he Milky Way is home to roughly 160 globular clusters, Scottish-born astronomer James Dunlop spied
spread around the galactic halo and toward the cen- NGC 1835 in 1826 using his homemade 9-inch speculum
tral bulge. These densely packed stellar spheres formed metal reflector at Parramatta, near Sydney, Australia. He
roughly 10 billion years ago and contain tens to hundreds of called it “a small round pretty well-defi ned nebula, bright at
thousands of gravitationally bound stars. As ancient relics of the centre.” Dunlop’s copper-tin alloy mirror was equiva-
the Milky Way, they offer important astrophysical clues to lent in light-gathering to a modern 6.5-inch telescope, but
stellar evolution and dynamics, as well as to galactic for- his description applies to most of the LMC globulars — they
mation and later accretion events. And, of course, they’re appear compact and unresolved, with strongly concentrated
among the most breathtaking sights in the sky. cores and faint smooth envelopes. NGC 1828 and NGC
The number of globular clusters in a host galaxy cor- 1830, both smaller and fainter open clusters, lie in the
relates strongly with the galaxy’s luminosity. The supergi- same field of view, a common occurrence in the LMC.
ant elliptical M87 boasts an estimated 12,000 clusters Eight years later John Herschel began a monumental sur-
while ubiquitous low-luminosity dwarf galaxies contain vey of the southern sky from Cape Town, South Africa, and
at most a few. Within the more than 100 nearby galaxies discovered NGC 1916 along the central bar of the LMC.
that comprise our Local Group, M31 commands the largest This compressed globular sports a prominent central hub
collection, with more than 500 confirmed globulars. But and a 40″ halo.
how many of these can you see with an amateur scope? Although relatively bright, NGC 1916 is outclassed by
Let’s head outside the Milky Way and explore some of the NGC 1903, a gorgeous open cluster just 8′ to its northwest.
globulars in our galactic neighbors. NGC 1903 masquerades as a globular cluster, but studies
A few words of caution: Extragalactic globulars lack the yield a relatively youthful age of less than 100 million years.
optical impact of familiar ones in the Milky Way so are best A 24-inch scope revealed a 20″ blazing core encased in a 1′
appreciated with your mind as well as your eyes. Consider halo studded with nearly two dozen glittering stars. North-
M13, arguably the Northern Hemisphere’s finest globular. If west of NGC 1903 is NGC 1910, a large star cloud contain-
it were located at the distance of the Andromeda Galaxy, it ing S Doradus, the prototype of a class of extremely mas-
would appear as a 16th-magnitude speck! sive, highly evolved stars called luminous
So as you observe, take time to contem- blue variables. With a mean magnitude of
plate the astrophysical importance and approximately 9.5, S Doradus is the single
true grandeur of these globulars — it will brightest star in the LMC.
make the hunt much more enjoyable. Argentinean astronomer José Luis
Our first stop is the well-studied Sérsic discovered the Reticulum Cluster
Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), which in 1973 on plates taken with the 0.7-m
lies at a distance of 165,000 light-years. Maksutov camera of the Cerro El Roble
It boasts 16 ancient metal-poor globu- Observatory in Chile. He described it
lars along with 100 “intermediate-age” as a “Dwarf in Reticulum, probably a
N ASA / ESA / H U B B LE LEG ACY A RC HI V E
(1–3 billion years) massive clusters. member of the Local Group.” Later pho-
You’ll need to observe these from the tometric investigations demonstrated it
Southern Hemisphere, but if you have p SMALL SPARKLER In amateur was a highly extended, low-luminosity
the opportunity, exploring the cluster- scopes, extragalactic globular clusters globular. The LMC holds a tenuous grip
like NGC 1835 remain unresolved. This on the Reticulum Cluster as it lies at
and nebula-rich fields of the LMC is an
Hubble Space Telescope image reveals
unforgettable experience. My observa- the 11th-magnitude cluster’s core. NGC
the extreme limits of its halo. One day
tions were made under dark transparent 1835 is the brightest globular in the Large it may be snatched by the Milky Way’s
skies in rural Australia. Magellanic Cloud. gravitational pull.

P. H O R Á LE K / ESO
OUTLOOK CLOUDY As this view captured in the Atacama

Desert of Chile shows, it’s worth a trip to observe in the Southern
Hemisphere. The Large and Small Magellanic Clouds are at the
right of the frame. The bright star Canopus blazes above them.
Outside the Bounds
Observing with a 14-inch scope, I found a large 3′ glow

with a terribly low surface brightness and no noticeable
concentration. As a bonus, the cluster is situated 1.3° west-
northwest of NGC 1672, a showpiece barred spiral that lies
far in the background at 60 million light-years.
NGC 121 is the only classical globular cluster in the Small
Magellanic Cloud, though its age is at least two billion years S Doradus
younger than its counterparts in the Milky Way and LMC. In
1998 it became the first extragalactic globular in which blue
stragglers were detected by the Hubble Space Telescope (HST).
These unusual stars are both bluer (hotter) and brighter than
stars at the main-sequence turnoff point and are thought
to be the result of a binary merger or mass transfer with a NGC 1903
companion star.
Shining at a respectable 11th magnitude, NGC 121 stood
out well through a 12-inch scope, with a 1′ oval halo that
intensified to a conspicuous core. I found it nearly impossible,
though, to pry my eyes off the spectacular globular 47 Tuca- NGC 1916
nae (NGC 104), just ½° south in the same low-power field.
This duo provides a dramatic depth of field, with 47 Tucanae
fifteen times closer than NGC 121!
Our next stop is the Fornax Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy
p SERPENTINE SETTING N119, a twisted swath of ionized hy-
(Fornax dSph), a Milky Way satellite at a distance of 470,000
drogen associated with the star cloud NGC 1910, contains several
light-years. It escaped detection until 1938, when Harlow luminous stars, including S Doradus, the brightest star in the Large
Shapley noticed it on a 24-inch Bruce astrograph plate taken Magellanic Cloud. Globular clusters NGC 1916 and NGC 1903
at Harvard’s Boyden Station in South Africa. Although the shimmer nearby.
Dorado
Reticulum
Cluster
NGC 1672 ε
Reticulum
α δ
N119 : ESO; R E TICU LU M CLUSTE R: A K IR A FUJII
ON THE EDGE The

sparsely populated Re-
ticulum Cluster is one
of the oldest globular
clusters in the Large
Magellanic Cloud. It
lies on the outer edge
β of the galaxy’s halo
Large Magellanic Cloud
and may one day be
absorbed by the Milky
Way Galaxy.

integrated magnitude is an impressive 8.0, don’t be misled; and population indicate it’s a legitimate globular coinciden-
the light is spread out over ½° of sky and its anemic surface tally in our line of sight to the center. I noted a hazy 20″ patch
brightness, along with a low elevation (declination –34.5°), rising suddenly to a small, brighter core.
conspire to make the Fornax Dwarf a formidable visual tar- In the late 1950s Paul Hodge (University of Washington)
get. My only convincing view was from the Southern Hemi- added the outer halo globulars Fornax 1 and Fornax 5 using
sphere when the galaxy was high overhead. Even then, I only plates taken in South Africa with the Armagh-Dunsink-
noticed a subtle brightening confirmed by tracing around the Harvard (ADH) Baker-Schmidt telescope. Fornax 5 resembles
galaxy’s periphery. Fornax 4, with a tight luminous core and a thin fainter halo.
The galaxy itself may be barely detectable, but four of Look for it 13′ west of 7.3-magnitude HD 17060 and 10′
its five globulars can be seen through a 10-inch scope (my northeast of a string of four stars that point the way to the
comments are based on the view through a 13-inch). John globular. With a visual magnitude of 15.6, Fornax 1 is easily
Herschel found NGC 1049 (Fornax 3), the brightest and most the most challenging of the five globulars. Good luck!
massive cluster, 103 years prior to Shapley’s discovery. He Legendary observer E. E. Barnard swept up NGC 6822
reported seeing an object “pretty bright; small; round; like a (Barnard’s Galaxy) in 1884 using his 5-inch Byrne refractor.
star 12th magnitude a very little rubbed at the edges, a curious The galaxy gained fame in 1925 when Edwin Hubble dis-
little object and easily mistaken for a star, which, however, it covered 15 variable stars in it, including 11 Cepheids. Using
certainly is not.” That reads pretty close to my own notes at Henrietta Leavitt’s relationship between the period and lumi-
166×: “moderately bright, small (about 30″ diameter), very nosity of Cepheids, Hubble announced NGC 6822 as “the
small bright core with a faint halo.” Look for this 12.6-magni- first object definitely assigned to a region outside the galactic
tude globular 15′ north of 8th-magnitude HD 16690. system.” Extragalactic astronomy was now firmly established.
While examining additional plates taken from Boyden Sta- Modern studies place the distance at 1.6 million light-years,
tion, Shapley also discovered the globular clusters Fornax 2 making it an isolated member of the Local Group.
(visual magnitude 14.1) and Fornax 4 (13.6). Fornax 2 is an While examining NGC 6822 Hubble also found 10 nebu-
easy 25′ star hop to the southeast of 5.8-magnitude Lambda2 lous objects (five giant emission nebulae and five compact
(λ2) Fornacis, but it only appeared as a gauzy 20″ spot of uni- objects) that he labeled with Roman numerals I through X.
form low surface brightness. He doubted any of these were globulars, but later studies
Fornax 4 is a strange beast. Although ancient stars domi- proved Hubble VII, buried near the center, was a bona fide
nate the other clusters, Fornax 4 is younger by 2 to 3 billion 16th-magnitude globular with an age of 10 to 11 billion years.
years. Furthermore, its central position suggests Fornax 4 may It took a painstaking search in 2010 using my 18-inch
be the actual core of the Fornax Dwarf, but its radial velocity reflector in superb conditions just to glimpse Hubble VII as
NGC 121: N ASA / ESA / HST / STEFA NO CA MPA NI; 47 T UCA N A E: ESO / M.-R. CIONI / VISTA M AG ELL A NIC
CLOUD SURV E Y / CA MBRIDG E ASTRONO MICA L SURV E Y UNIT
p BLAZES OF GLORY Left: The only classical globular cluster in the Small Magellanic Cloud, NGC 121 glitters with an abundance of hot, blue stars.
NGC 121 lies about 200,000 light-years from Earth in the direction of the constellation Tucana. Right: Visually, the globular cluster 47 Tucanae appears
to be a close neighbor to NGC 121; only ½º separates the pair in the sky from our point of view. But in fact, with a distance of about 13,500 light-
years, 47 Tucanae is some 15 times closer to us than NGC 121.
Outside the Bounds
Fornax 3
(NGC 1049)
Fornax 1
Fornax 4
Fornax 5
FO R N A X G A L A X Y: ESO / DS S2; NGC 10 49, FO R N A X 2 , A N D FO R N A X 5: N ASA

/ ESA / S . L A R S E N (R A D BO U D U N I V E R S IT Y )
ANCIENT NEIGHBORS The Fornax Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy is a satellite of our own Fornax 2
galaxy. Recent studies have shown that the stellar populations of Fornax 1, Fornax 2,
Fornax 3, and Fornax 5 are dominated by metal-poor stars more than 10 billion years
old, while Fornax 4 is formed of younger, metal-rich stars.

a dim smudge. I thought Hubble VII would be my last globu- In 1932 Hubble charted 140 nebulous objects in M31
lar sighting in the galaxy. But in 2011 a wide-field imaging found on 100-inch Hooker telescope plates and tentatively
survey with the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT) identified these as globulars based on “their forms, struc-
uncovered four new halo globulars in NGC 6822 designated ture, colors, luminosities, and dimensions.” Hubble missed
SC1–SC4. Two years later, three more globulars (SC5–SC8) G1 (also called Mayall II), the most luminous globular in
were identified using archival CFHT/MegaCam data. New the Local Group, as it resides in M31’s halo, 2.5° southwest
globulars and a new challenge! of center at a projected separation of 130,000 light-years.
SC7 (not to be confused with Hubble VII) lies outside A kinematic study of G1’s nucleus in 2002 using the HST’s
the visual boundary of NGC 6822, 22′ northeast of center, Imaging Spectrograph provided strong evidence that it houses
making a positive identification much easier. At 375× in my a 20,000-solar-mass black hole.
24-inch, I immediately noticed a swollen 15th-magnitude But is G1 a true globular cluster? With more than twice
“star” about 6″ to 8″ in diameter. The globular could be held the mass of Omega Centauri (the Milky Way’s heftiest globu-
steadily and seemed to have a brighter stellar nucleus. lar), G1 may be the remnant core of a stripped dwarf galaxy
SC6 is over a half-magnitude fainter than SC7 and a that was digested by M31 earlier in its history.
much tougher catch due to a brighter 14th-magnitude star at I’ve seen 13.8-magnitude G1 with only an 8-inch scope,
its north edge. I needed 500×, good seeing, and a healthy dose though two 14th- to 15th-magnitude stars on the west edge
of patience to tease out an occasional stellar sparkle. confuse the view at low power. Using 323× in my 18-inch, G1
Hunting globulars in M31 is a popular project for seasoned was easily visible as a 10″ puffball punctuated by a star-like
deep-sky observers. I’ve tallied 45 (mostly with an 18-inch) nucleus, and the two nearby foreground stars form a cute pair
along with 10 open clusters. Three of the brightest — G76, of “Mickey Mouse” ears.
G78, and G280 — are close to magnitude 14.3 and readily Recently, astronomers have found a cache of new globulars
accessible in a 10-inch under dark skies. Contributing Editor in the extreme outer halo of M31. Martin-GC1 (MGC1) was
Alan Whitman covered these and many more in his article on discovered in 2006 during a CFHT/MegaCam survey, a whop-
M31 (S&T: Nov. 2013, p. 58). ping 8.6° south of M31 in the constellation Pisces! A 2009
Extragalactic Globulars & Friends

Galaxy Galaxy Type # of GCs GC Mag(v) RA Dec. Notes
LMC Irr 16 NGC 1835 10.2 05h 05.1m –69° 24′ Milky Way satellite
NGC 1916 10.4 05h 18.6m –69° 24′
NGC 1903 11.9 05h 17.4m –69° 20′ Open cluster
S Doradus 8.6–11.5 05h 18.3m –69° 15′ Variable star
Reticulum Cluster 14.7 04h 36.2m –58° 52′
SMC dIrr 1 NGC 121 11.2 00h 26.8m –71° 32′ Milky Way satellite
Milky Way SBbc 160 47 Tucanae 4.1 00h 24.1m –72° 05′
Fornax Dwarf dSph 5 NGC 1049 12.6 02h 39.8m –34° 15′ Milky Way satellite
Fornax 2 14.1 02h 38.7m –34° 49′
Fornax 4 13.6 02h 40.1m –34° 32′
Fornax 5 13.6 02h 42.4m –34° 06′
NGC 6822 dIrr 8 SC 7 14.8 19h 46.0m –14° 33′ Local Group Member
Hubble VII 16.3 19h 44.9m –14° 49′
SC 6 15.3 19h 45.6m –14° 41′
M31 Sb > 500 G1 13.8 00h 32.8m +39° 35′ Local Group Member
Martin-GC1 15.5 00h 50.7m +32° 55′
PAndAS-53/54 15.5 01h 18.0m +39° 15′
WLM dIrr 1 WLM-1 16.1 00h 01.9m –15° 28′ Local Group Member
Sgr Dwarf dSph 4 M54 7.7 18h 55.1m –30° 29′ Milky Way satellite
Angular sizes and separations are from recent catalogs. Visually, an object’s size is often smaller than the cataloged value and varies according to the aperture
and magniication of the viewing instrument. Right ascension and declination are for equinox 2000.0.
Outside the Bounds
M31
M110
M32
RELATIVELY NEXT-DOOR NEIGHBOR

G1, also called Mayall II, is the most
luminous cluster in the Local Group. p CRYPTIC CLUSTER G1 is the brightest
From our point of view, it’s still a dim, globular cluster in the Local Group. It consists
14th-magnitude target, but it’s well of more than 300,000 stars. Current research
located, 2.5º southwest of the Androm- G1 suggests that G1 could be a remnant galactic
eda Galaxy’s center. core and may have an intermediate-mass
black hole at its center.
study using the Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph found Visually, WLM is a challenging low-contrast galaxy.
MGC1 was the most isolated globular in the Local Group at a Sweeping 1° northeast of 6.3-magnitude 1 Ceti with my
galactocentric distance from M31 of 650,000 light-years. 18-inch, I found a large, very diffuse oval, extending 10′ × 5′
Last year I tracked down this 15.5-magnitude globular north to south. At high power a 15.5-magnitude Milky Way
using my 24-inch reflector at 260×. Upping the magnifica- star was superimposed on the center, and just northwest lay
tion to 500×, I held it continuously as a fuzzy 8″ glow. It a tiny H II region. The globular WLM-1 is situated just off the
was barely smaller than G1 and had a slightly bright pip at west edge of the galaxy and 40″ south of a 14.6-magnitude
the center. field star. At 16th magnitude, I found it a difficult quarry
In 2014 the Pan-Andromeda Archaeological Survey even through a 20-inch scope, though in rock-steady seeing it
(PAndAS) announced the discovery of 59 new outer halo seemed slightly soft, a few arcseconds in diameter.
denizens of M31, primarily by visual inspection of CFHT/ If observing such faint extragalactic globulars is daunting,
MegaCam images. PAndAS-53 and PAndAS-54 form an consider instead M54, which is visible even in 50-mm binocu-
exceptionally close 2′ pair, uncovered 7° east of M31. Both lars. M54 is embedded at the center of our closest neighbor,
are quite dim at 15.5- and 16.0-magnitude and barely non- the Sagittarius Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy (Sgr dSph), which
stellar in my 24-inch. These twin globulars either formed was discovered serendipitously in 1994 during a spectroscopic
together at the fringes of M31 or more likely were captured study of the Milky Way’s bulge. The Sagittarius Dwarf lies at
M31 FA MILY: N ASA / ESA / DSS2 / DAVID DE M A RTIN; G1 CLOSE-UP: MICH A EL RICH / K ENNE TH MIG HELL /
JA MES D. NEILL (COLU MBIA UNIV ERSIT Y ) / WENDY FREEM A N (CA R NEGIE OBSERVATORIES) / N ASA / ESA
from an accreted dwarf galaxy. a distance of 80,000 light-years on the far side of the galactic
Our most remote target is in the Wolf-Lundmark-Melotte center, covers a vast area of sky, and is in the process of being
(WLM) Galaxy, discovered by German astronomer Max shredded by the tidal strain of the Milky Way Galaxy.
Wolf on a plate taken in 1909 at the Heidelberg-Königstuhl Three dim globulars — Arp 2, Terzan 7, and Terzan 8 — are
State Observatory. Knut Lundmark and Philibert Jacques members of the Sagittarius Dwarf, while NGC 5634, Palo-
Melotte independently found this dwarf galaxy 17 years mar 12, and Whiting 1 are associated with two tidal streams
later on Franklin-Adams plates and described it as “strik- of stars encircling the Milky Way that were ripped from the
ingly similar” to Barnard’s Galaxy. WLM is located in dwarf. M54 has been proposed as the actual nucleus of the
western Cetus at the outskirts of the Local Group, 3.1 mil- galaxy, but a 2008 investigation using velocity and metallicity
lion light-years away. As a result of its isolation, the stellar data concluded M54 formed independently and plunged to its
population is probably in a pristine state, uncontaminated current location at 87,000 light-years distant due to dynami-
by galactic mergers and interactions. cal friction. The Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy is much too large
In an early campaign to determine the Hubble constant, and dispersed to see visually, but M54 gains new luster once
Milton Humason, Mount Wilson Observatory’s mule-driver- you know of its extragalactic origin.
turned-astronomer, measured the radial velocity of WLM
as well as a nearby cluster with a similar velocity, WLM-1. ¢ Contributing Editor STEVE GOTTLIEB is willing to explore
In 1999 Paul Hodge obtained a color-magnitude diagram well beyond our galaxy’s limits to bag the best star clusters.
for WLM-1 using the HST and established it as a massive
globular more than 13 billion years old. WLM-1’s formation FURTHER READING: For a complete list of globular clusters in
is surprising given the dwarf’s very small intrinsic mass and the Local Group, as well as links to recent research on the topic,
low luminosity. see https://is.gd/extraglobs.

OBSERVING
November 2018
3–6 EVENING: Mars glides 14 DAWN: Find the bedazzling pair 29 MORNING: Regulus, Leo’s front
past Delta (δ) Capricorni these four of Venus, the Morning Star, and Spica, paw, will be about 2° lower right of the
evenings, brushing past the star a mere the brightest star in Virgo, in the east- Moon, just shy of last quarter, in the
½°° away on the 4th. Follow the Red southeast before sunrise. Only 1° will hours before sunrise. Closer to dawn,
Planet this month as it passes from separate the planet and the star. Venus is retreating from Spica, but is
Capricornus into Aquarius around the still only 5° left of Virgo’s brightest star.
10th and thereafter climbs farther into 15 EVENING: After sunset, look south
the Water Bearer. to see the just-past-first-quarter Moon 29–30 NIGHT: Algol shines at
hang 3° lower right of Mars. minimum brightness for roughly two
4 DAYLIGHT-SAVING TIME ENDS at hours centered at 10:04 p.m. PST
2 a.m. for most of the U.S. and Canada. 17 ALL NIGHT: The weak Leonid (1:04 a.m. EST).
meteor shower peaks in the early
11 DUSK: Look toward the southwest evening, but best chances for seeing Stephan’s Quintet, a group of galaxies in
Pegasus, is a bit of a misnomer: NGC 7320,
to see Saturn and the waxing crescent meteors are in the early morning hours.
the spiral in the upper left of the image, is a
Moon, less than 4° apart. foreground galaxy some seven times closer
23 EVENING: The Moon, just past full, than the other four.
12 EVENING: Algol shines at and Aldebaran rise less than 3° apart NASA / ESA / SM4 ERO TEAM
minimum brightness for roughly two in the east-northeast. The distance

hours centered at 8:10 p.m. EST; between them grows as they rise
see page 51. higher into the sky.
NOVEMBER 2018 OBSERVING
Lunar Almanac
Northern Hemisphere Sky Chart
D G
Va oub ala
O ria le x
Di pe ble sta y
24 G ff n s r
Pl lob use clu tar
23 an ul ne ste
et ar
ar clu bul r
y a
ne ste
bu r
la
Yellow dots indicate

which part of the
Moon’s limb is tipped
the most toward Earth
by libration.
N ASA / LRO
11
November 10
MOON PHASES
SUN MON TUE WED THU FRI S AT

1 2 3
4 5 6 7 8 9 10
11 12 13 14 15 16 17
18 19 20 21 22 23 24
25 26 27 28 29 30
NEW MOON FIRST QUARTER
November 7 November 15
16:02 UT 14:54 UT
FULL MOON LAST QUARTER
November 23 November 30
05:39 UT 00:19 UT -1
DISTANCES 0
Apogee November 14, 16h UT 1
404,339 km Diameter 29′ 33″ 2
3
Perigee November 26, 12h UT 4
366,620 km Diameter 32′ 35″

Planet location
FAVORABLE LIBRATIONS shown for mid-month
• Oken Crater November 10 USING THE NORTHERN HEMISPHERE MAP
Go out within an hour of a time listed to the
• Marinus Crater November 11 right. Turn the map around so the yellow
• Galvani Crater November 23 label for the direction you’re facing is at the
bottom. That’s the horizon. The center of the
• Xenophanes Crater November 24 map is overhead. Ignore the parts of the map
above horizons you’re not facing.

e
+
h
CASSIOPEIA
c
i
j
7686
ie w
rv
la
o cu
s h 5° bin
ANDROMEDA
g
f
Binocular Highlight by Mathew Wedel
Look Beyond
H ere’s a pretty puzzle to contemplate: the
maybe-not-actually-a-cluster NGC 7686, in
the far northwestern corner of the constellation
Andromeda. Look for the short arc formed by the
stars Iota (ι), Kappa (κ), and Lambda (λ) Andromedae.
If you follow the arc to the north-northwest, about 3°
past Lambda Andromedae, you’ll find NGC 7686.
The first thing you’ll see is a bright star with a
slightly dimmer companion. The brighter one is
HD 221246, a 6th-magnitude K-type orange-red
giant, and its unrelated neighbor is HD 221203, an
eighth-magnitude G-type yellow-orange giant. The
two stars lie 900 and 1,300 light-years away, respec-
tively. NGC 7686 lies behind them, about 5,000
light-years away. With a visual magnitude of 5.6, the
cluster is brighter in total than both stars combined,
but its light is spread across ¼°, or half the diameter
of the full Moon. Depending on sky transparency and
your level of dark adaptation, it might take a few min-
utes for NGC 7686 to swim into view. When it does,
you’ll see a halo of faint light centered on HD 221246,
spangled with dimmer stars. Many of those apparent
cluster members are in fact nearby field stars, less
than 100 light-years away.
As for the “cluster,” its reality is in doubt. There’s
definitely a gaggle of stars lurking out there beyond
HD 221246, but it may just be a chance grouping. Still,
NGC 7686 looks enough like a cluster to have caught
the eyes of generations of professional astronomers,
WHEN TO
so we shouldn’t feel bad for taking a look. At the very
USE THE MAP
least, it gives us the opportunity to unpack some
Late Sept Midnight*
space in our heads while we behold something pretty,
Early Oct 11 p.m.*
and that’s a win in my book.
Late Oct 10 p.m.*
Early Nov 8 p.m. ¢ As much as he wants to understand the structure
Late Nov 7 p.m. of the cosmos, Contributing Editor MATT WEDEL is
*Daylight-saving time still a sucker for a nice view.
Planetary Almanac
PLANET VISIBILITY Mercury: hidden in the Sun’s glow all month • Venus: visible at dawn all
month • Mars: visible at dusk, sets near midnight • Jupiter: visible at dusk through November 7th •
Saturn: visible at dusk, sets early evening
Mercury
November Sun & Planets

Nov 1 11 21 30
Venus Date Right Ascension Declination Elongation Magnitude Diameter Illumination Distance
h 23.5m
Sun 1 –14° 15′ — –26.8 32′ 14″ — 0.993
30 16h 22.6m –21° 33′ — –26.8 32′ 26″ — 0.986

h 52.0m
Mercury 1 –22° 51′ 23° Ev –0.2 6.0″ 74% 1.121
11 16h 35.4m –24° 45′ 23° Ev –0.2 7.2″ 52% 0.929
21 16h 41.1m –23° 22′ 14° Ev +1.5 9.2″ 15% 0.729
30 30 15h 58.5m –18° 46′ 6° Mo +3.8 9.7″ 3% 0.693

16 1 Venus 1 h 42.8m –16° 09′ 10° Mo –4.2 60.6″ 1% 0.275
Mars 11 13h 30.9m –12° 22′ 23° Mo –4.6 55.3″ 8% 0.301
21 13h 33.6m –10° 10′ 33° Mo –4.8 47.8″ 17% 0.349

1 16 30
Jupiter
30 13h 47.2m –9° 45′ 39° Mo –4.9 41.4″ 25% 0.403
h 36.3m
Mars 1 –16° 42′ 103° Ev –0.6 11.9″ 86% 0.788
16 22h 09.9m –13° 07′ 96° Ev –0.3 10.5″ 86% 0.895
30 22h 42.6m –9° 27′ 91° Ev –0.1 9.3″ 86% 1.001

16 h
Jupiter 1 44.1m –19° 04′ 20° Ev –1.7 31.3″ 100% 6.290
Saturn
30 16h 10.7m –20° 24′ 3° Mo –1.7 31.1″ 100% 6.344
h 20.3m
Saturn 1 –22° 47′ 56° Ev +0.6 15.7″ 100% 10.577
16 30 18h 32.4m –22° 42′ 30° Ev +0.5 15.2″ 100% 10.903
Uranus
Uranus 16 1h 50.1m +10° 44′ 156° Ev +5.7 3.7″ 100% 18.959
Neptune
Neptune 16 23h 00.6m –7° 25′ 110° Ev +7.9 2.3″ 100% 29.584
10"
The table above gives each object’s right ascension and declination (equinox 2000.0) at 0h Universal Time on selected dates,
and its elongation from the Sun in the morning (Mo) or evening (Ev) sky. Next are the visual magnitude and equatorial diameter.
(Saturn’s ring extent is 2.27 times its equatorial diameter.) Last are the percentage of a planet’s disk illuminated by the Sun and
PLANET DISKS have south up, to match the
the distance from Earth in astronomical units. (Based on the mean Earth–Sun distance, 1 a.u. is 149,597,871 kilometers, or
view in many telescopes. Blue ticks indicate the
92,955,807 international miles.) For other dates, see skyandtelescope.com/almanac.
pole currently tilted toward Earth.
+40° 14h 12h 10 h 8h 6h 4h 2h 0h 22h 20 h 18 h 16 h

RIGHT ASCENSION GEMINI
Castor Vega
+30°
D E C LI NAT I ON
+30° Pollux CYGNUS

BOÖTES Pleiades ARIES
LEO PEGASUS
+20° HERCULES +20°
27 PISCES
Arcturus TA U R U S ECL
30 IPT Uranus
+10° CANCER Nov 22 – 23 IC +10°
Regulus
VIRGO Betelgeuse OPHIUCHUS
0° Procyon
0°
ORION E Q U AT O R 18 Neptune AQUAR IUS
Venus Rigel AQUILA
–10° –10°
Spica Sirius Nov
CORVUS CETUS 14 Jupiter
ERIDANUS 11 Saturn
H Y D R A
LIBRA CANIS
MAJOR Fomalhaut Mercur Antares
–30° CAPR ICOR NUS
SAGITTARIUS –30°
LOCAL TIME OF TRANSIT SCORPIUS
–40° 10 am 8 am 6 am 4 am 2 am Midnight 10 pm 8 pm 6 pm 4 pm 2 pm – 40°
The Sun and planets are positioned for mid-November; the colored arrows show the motion of each during the month. The Moon is plotted for evening dates in the Americas when it’s waxing (right
side illuminated) or full, and for morning dates when it’s waning (left side). “Local time of transit” tells when (in Local Mean Time) objects cross the meridian — that is, when they appear due south and
at their highest — at mid-month. Transits occur an hour later on the 1st, and an hour earlier at month’s end.

Under the Stars by Fred Schaaf
ν Aqr
μ
ν α
δ
Doubles γ
θ β
and More in
Capricornus ζ
We continue our exploration

of the celestial Sea Goat —
ω
you might stumble upon some
unexpected inds. Capricornus
L ast month in this column we

explored some surprising facts about
the constellation Capricornus, the Sea
p THE SEA GOAT Look for the globular cluster M30 around 3¼° due east of Zeta (ζ) Capricorni
and the planetary nebula NGC 7009 some 1¼° due west of Nu Aquarii.
Goat. There’s much more to learn, so
let’s continue with our survey. is known as Dabih. Both Alpha Capri- and is now in Aquarius — where Mars
The paired (and paired paired) corni, the pair, and Alpha2 Capricorni, will catch up to it for a close conjunc-
stars at the ends of Capricornus. The the star, are known as Algedi (or Giedi). tion next month.
most fascinating sector of this constel- But there are further wonderful com- Consolation for the dearth of
lation is the western end. It features plications. As star expert Jim Kaler says deep-sky objects in Capricornus. If
Alpha (α) Capricorni — a naked-eye so well: “Less than a degree east-south- you need some help in locating Capri-
double star a few degrees from Beta (β) east of Alpha (Algedi), actually pointed cornus, just extend the line from Vega
Capricorni, itself a yellow-orange and to by Algedi’s two stars, lies fifth-magni- to Altair about one more of its own
blue double for low-power binoculars. tude (4.8) Nu (ν) Capricorni, the prox- lengths onward — this brings you right
Alpha Capricorni consists of two yellow imity with Algedi making it ridiculously to Capricornus. But there are also sights
stars of magnitudes 4.3 and 3.6 that are easy to find.” Nu Capricorni even has a Capricornus itself can help you locate.
about 6.3 arcminutes apart. The fainter proper name of its own, Al Shat. The constellation’s only relatively
star is Alpha1 as the numbering here Delving deeper for details with a famous deep-sky object other than its
is based not on brightness but on right good telescope, you might note that double stars is the globular star cluster
ascension; the more easterly (though Alpha2 has a 9th-magnitude companion M30, a respectably bright (7th magni-
brighter) star is designated Alpha2. The 7 arcseconds away, and Alpha1 has an tude) and interesting object. But the
same naming system is applied to Beta 11th-magnitude companion 45 arcsec- stars of Capricornus provide a conso-
Capricorni; here again the dimmer star onds from it. lation in guiding you to neighboring
is designated Beta1. What about the eastern end of deep-sky objects. The marvelous Saturn
What’s really marvelous about Alpha Capricornus? Here we find, just a few Nebula (NGC 7009) is next to Nu (ν)
Capricorni is that it’s an optical double degrees apart, Delta (δ) Capricorni Aquarii but is almost due east of Alpha
— that is, two stars at greatly different (Deneb Algedi) and Gamma (γ) Capri- Capricorni. About 11° from Deneb
distances that just happen to be along corni (Nashira). Deneb Algedi shines at Algedi is that other famous planetary
the same line of sight. The fainter star, magnitude 2.9 and Nashira at 3.7. The in Aquarius, the Helix Nebula (NGC
Alpha1, is 685 light-years from Earth two gain special attention this month 7293). Lesser objects just beyond the
whereas the brighter star, Alpha2, is 108 as vastly brighter Mars passes less bounds of Capricornus include the
light-years from us. than 1° from Nashira during October globulars M75 and M72 (the latter near
The components of Beta Capricorni 31–November 3 and again less than 1° the asterism M73 and not far from the
appear about half as far apart as those from Deneb Algedi between Novem- Saturn Nebula) and the elusive Bar-
of Alpha Capricorni. Shining at magni- ber 3–5. Back on September 23, 1846, nard’s Galaxy.
tudes 3.1 and 6.1, they require at least Neptune was discovered only about 4°
slight magnification to split and to see northeast of Deneb Algedi, close to Mu ¢ Contributing Editor FRED SCHAAF
A K IR A FUJII
both components for observers with (μ) Capricorni. Since then, Neptune has welcomes your letters and comments at
typical human vision. Beta Capricorni completed a little more than one orbit [email protected].
Sun, Moon & Planets by Fred Schaaf
To ind out what’s
visible in the sky
from your location,
go to skypub.com/
almanac.
Brilliance at Dawn
Venus blazes as the “Morning Star” this month.
T he evening sky is draining of bright

planets. In October Venus left the
evening, and now Jupiter is visible very
degrees high 30 minutes after sunset
— and then becomes lost from view on
its way to conjunction with the Sun on
Mercury is less than ½° from Jupiter, but
the two are only about 1° from the Sun.
low in the dusk only the fi rst few days of November 26th. DUSK AND EARLY
November before it too is gone. Mercury Mercury appears higher than Jupiter EVENING
becomes lost to those observing from and more than 8° to the latter’s left Saturn begins November by setting
northern latitudes. Saturn is moderately when it reaches greatest eastern elonga- more than 3 hours after the Sun but
low in the southwest at nightfall. Only tion of 23° from the Sun on November ends the month setting 2 hours after.
Mars is still well-placed, shining at its 6th. But this is a low (shallowly angled) The planet glows in the southwest,
highest in the south just after the end apparition of Mercury for viewers at upper right of the setting Teapot pattern
of astronomical twilight, but it contin- mid-northern latitudes. On November of Sagittarius. Its magnitude brightens a
ues to fade and shrink in telescopes. 8th and 9th, zero-magnitude Mercury bit this month from +0.6 to +0.5.
Fortunately the dawn sky now wel- shines only about 2° from 1st-magni-
comes Venus, which leaps ever higher tude Antares — but the star and planet DUSK TO MIDNIGHT
and brighter during November. will be hard to see so low in the Sun’s Mars transits the meridian around 8
bright afterglow even with optical aid. p.m. daylight-saving time on November
DUSK ONLY In the following ten days or so, Mercury 1st and around 6 p.m. standard time
Jupiter sets only about an hour after becomes much dimmer and lower and on November 30th. Between these
the Sun for viewers around latitude 40° is lost from view. The swift planet goes dates Mars dims from –0.6 to –0.1, and
north as November starts. By the end through inferior conjunction with the its apparent diameter decreases from
of the first week Jupiter is just a few Sun on November 27th. On that day 12″ to 9″. These are therefore the final
q These scenes are drawn for near the middle
Dusk, Nov 4 Dusk, Nov 10–12 of North America (latitude 40° north, longitude
1 hour after sunset 1 hour after sunset 90° west); European observers should move
Mars each Moon symbol a quarter of the way toward
b Cap the one for the previous date. In the Far East,
move the Moon halfway. The blue 10° scale bar
Less than is about the width of your ist at arm’s length.
1° apart! Moon
10° Nov 12
Dusk, Nov 14–16
1 hour after sunset
Moon
Nov 11
Mars
Saturn Moon Moon δ Cap

Fomalhaut Nov 16
Nov 10
Moon
S A G I T TA R I U S Nov 15 Moon
Nov 14
Fomalhaut
Looking South-Southeast Looking Southwest Looking South, halfway up

weeks that multiple surface features
of Mars are likely to be visible on clear December
solstice
nights with good small- to medium-size
Earth
telescopes. Can you detect that Mars
Mars
looks slightly gibbous now that the Uranus
Venus
planet is near eastern quadrature (90°
east of the Sun)? Mars sets near mid- March Sept.
equinox equinox
night standard time all month. Jupiter Mercury
Sun
Campfire-colored Mars starts
Neptune
November in the vicinity of the two Saturn
fairly bright stars at the eastern tip of
Capricornus, Delta (δ) and Gamma
June
(γ) Capricorni. It shines within 1° of solstice
the brighter star, 3rd-magnitude Delta,

from November 3rd through 5th. ORBITS OF THE PLANETS
Then Mars glides on to pass deep into The curved arrows show each planet’s movement during November. The outer planets don’t
change position enough in a month to notice at this scale.
Aquarius during the rest of November
— and heads toward a close December
7th conjunction with Neptune. DAWN AND PRE-DAWN November 1st, the globe of Venus is
This month, Neptune is highest Venus was at inferior conjunction more than 60″ wide and less than 1%
about 2 hours after the end of astro- with the Sun on October 26th. The lit. By November 10th, the planet is
nomical highlight. Brighter Uranus, steep angle of the zodiac relative to the less than 56″ across and more than 7%
retrograding in Aries to the Pisces eastern horizon at autumn sunrises illuminated. On November 30th, Venus
border, is highest in late evening. Finder helps Venus rocket up into the dawn is down to 41″ wide and 25% lit.
charts for Neptune and Uranus appear and even the pre-dawn sky during the Venus passed 1.2° from Spica on
in the September issue, pages 48–49. course of November. For viewers around September 1st, but this month its ret-
latitude 40° north, Venus precedes rograde motion brings it back to linger
ALL NIGHT the Sun by only about 35 minutes on less than 1.5° from the star for the
Asteroid 3 Juno reaches opposition at November 1st but by a whopping 3¼ mornings of November 12–17.
magnitude 7.4 on November 17th — a hours on November 30th. The altitude
day after Juno’s closest approach to of Venus at sunrise jumps from almost MOON PASSAGES
Earth in the period 1980–2060. See 6° to about 34° during November. In The Moon is a thin waxing crescent in
p. 48 for details. this period, the Morning Star brightens the west-southwest on November 10th
from magnitude –4.2 to its stunning at dusk, some 8° lower right of Saturn.
Dawn, Nov 17 peak brilliance of –4.9. How long after The next evening, it’s a little more than
1 hour before sunrise sunrise can you follow blazing Venus 3° upper left of the ringed planet. A
with your naked eye? waxing gibbous Moon is about 3° lower
γ Vir Venus is also fascinating in binocu- right of Mars at nightfall on Novem-
lars and telescopes this month. On ber 15th. The just-past-full Moon is
2½° left of Aldeba-
Dawn, Nov 29 –Dec 1 ran after dark on
CORVUS November 23rd, and
1 hour before sunrise
the waning gibbous
γ Moon is less than 2°
upper left of Regulus
Spica LEO
on the night of
Venus Denebola
November 28–29.
11/2°
apart Moon Regulus
Nov 29 ¢ Contributing Edi-
tor FRED SCHAAF
Moon
Nov 30 had the 10-mile-
wide asteroid 7065
Moon Fredschaaf named
Dec 1
after him in Novem-
Looking Southeast Looking South, very high in the sky
ber 2016.
Celestial Calendar by S. N. Johnson-Roehr
An Asteroid
Pays a Visit
This month offers ideal
viewing conditions for
asteroid 3 Juno.
A steroid 3 Juno makes its clos-

est approach to Earth at 8:00 UT
(3:00 a.m. EST) on Thursday, November
16th, and reaches opposition at 22:00
UT (5:00 p.m. EST) on the 17th. For
mid-northern latitudes, the rocky body
culminates around local midnight on
the night of opposition, 45° above the
southern horizon. If you’re more of an
early riser than a night owl, look for
Juno about 25° above the southwest
horizon before daybreak.
As the chart on the facing page
shows, Juno is well placed for observing
in Eridanus in November. About twelve
days before opposition, the asteroid
edges past the 5.3-magnitude star 35
Eridani. Juno’s about 1° from 4.5-mag-
nitude 32 Eri on the 16th and just a
ARTIST’S CONCEPT: DAVID A . AGUIL AR (H ARVA RD -SMITHSONIAN CENTER FOR

bit farther away from the same star on
ASTROPHYSICS); JUNO IMAGES: SA LLIE BALIUNAS (HARVARD -SMITHSONIAN

the 17th. After these encounters, the
asteroid travels across a fairly sparse
star field, but 21 and 22 Eri serve as
CEN TER FOR ASTROPH YSICS) / M OUN T WILSON OBSERVATORY

good signposts in early December. Look
for the dimming asteroid near 10 Tauri
in mid-January.
Juno orbits the Sun every 4.4 years,
and from our point of view, it offers its
q Images of Juno captured with the 100-inch

Hooker telescope at Mount Wilson Observatory
at four different wavelengths reveal the aster-
oid’s rugged form. The possible 100-kilometer-
wide crater — a region of low relectivity — is
visible in the lower left quadrant of the 833 nm
and 934 nm images.
Asteroid 3 Juno’s irregular

shape, as shown in this
artist’s concept, is probably
the result of a collision.
500 nm 700 nm

best oppositions every 13 years or so.
Juno’s distance from Earth at opposi- 4h 10m 4h 00m 3h 50m 3h 40m 3h 30m
tion depends on where it’s at in its 31
orbit, i.e., at aphelion or perihelion; i 29 +6°
we get better looks when it’s nearer 45 40
Oct 1
perihelion. During last year’s closest
approach, Juno was a relatively distant 5 TAURUS
2.090 astronomical units (313 mil- +4°
lion km) from us. On the 16th of this 9
month, Juno will be 1.036 a.u. away, or Feb 2 12
only half as distant. And that’s a tick 13
closer than Juno came in 2005, when it 29
17 +2°
slipped through the sky at a distance of 25
1.063 a.u. The next most favorable clos-
21
est approach falls in 2031, when Juno 21
will be just 1.044 a.u. from Earth.
25 17 10
Do these distances matter? Indeed 0°
25
they do. Juno has a high albedo — it’s 29 13
more reflective than we’d expect a stony
Star magnitudes
3 24 9
asteroid to be — which bumps up its Nov 2 35
4
intrinsic magnitude. But proximity also 5
5 6 –2°
affects visibility. Last year, Juno had
6 Jan 1
an apparent magnitude of 9.8 during 10
7 32
opposition. This year? A predicted 7.5. 28
14
The asteroid’s reflectivity and bright Pat
18 h of 24
apparent magnitude during perihelic ERIDANUS Juno 20 –4°
22
oppositions likely aided in its discov- 26 16
30 Dec 4 8 12
ery. German astronomer Karl Harding 29 17
22
picked it up on September 1, 1804, 30
while observing from Johann Schröter’s
pu The date ticks on
observatory near Bremen, Germany. Juno’s path are plotted 6h 5h 4h 3h
On that evening, Juno was on its way for 0h Universal Time TAURUS +10°
to a September 27th closest approach (on the evening of the
of 1.17 a.u. and a visual magnitude of previous date in the
Americas). Interpolate Path of
7.6. This might explain why Juno, only Juno
to put a dot at the date
the 11th-largest asteroid with a mean and time you plan to 0°
ORION
diameter of 233 km, was the third to observe, star-hopping
be discovered. there from Orion or
Sallie Baliunas (Harvard-Smith- Taurus. Juno dims from
ERIDANUS
sonian Center for Astrophysics) and 7.5 to 8.2 by December
–10°
31st, and drops to 8.8
colleagues took photos of Juno in 2003 by the end of January.
at four different wavelengths using the
100-inch Hooker telescope at Mount
Wilson Observatory. The resulting of it by an impact (indeed, some of the captured over a single 4.4-hour inter-
images led the science team to believe silicate meteorites found on Earth may val, but it takes more than 7 hours for
that the asteroid had a “bite” taken out have originated from the collision). the asteroid to rotate completely. Only
This damage shows up as a region of 60% of the body’s surface was revealed
lower reflectivity in near-infrared wave- by the ALMA survey, which means we’ll
lengths. Temperature contrasts revealed have to wait until a complete rotation
in images of Juno captured by the Ata- of Juno is imaged to decide the matter
cama Large Millimeter/submillimeter more conclusively.
Array (ALMA) in October 2014 don’t
exactly confirm the presence of an
833 nm 934 nm
• FIND YOUR CLUB:
impact crater, but neither do they con- skyandtelescope.com/astronomy-
tradict it. The ten ALMA images were clubs-organizations.
Celestial Calendar 4h 00m 3h 30m 3h 00m 2h 30m 2h 00m +30°
_
_
M45
ARIES `
b
16 +20°
A Hyperactive b1
a
a TAURUS
Comet on a h
M74
Chaotic Orbit 13
j
k h +
k
+10°
IF ALL GOES AS PREDICTED, Comet

46P/Wirtanen will come into visual i PSC
range in the middle of November, i
_
climbing northward in Fornax before
a
crossing into Cetus. Early Decem-
ber finds 46P slicing swiftly through M77 b
10
Eridanus, on its way to a mad dash 0°
across Taurus. Observing conditions
are optimal for this apparition. Because
46P is near opposition on the date of its CETUS
Pa
closest approach to Earth, the comet’s
th
visible most of the night for both 7
¡
of
Northern and Southern Hemispheres. b d c
Co
On December 16th, less than four days –10°
me
after the gassy ice ball reaches perihe-
2
Star magnitudes
t 46
lion, 46P will be just 0.078 a.u. (11.5
3 a
million km) from us. ERIDANUS
P/W
4 o
4
With an effective radius of 0.56 km,
5 irta
46P’s nucleus is modestly sized. How-
6 o1
ever, it’s also what astronomers con-
nen
sider hyperactive: The nucleus releases Dec 1 –20°

material at greater rates than similarly p
sized nuclei. This hyperactivity keeps 28
46P fairly bright for its size. Optimistic
predictions have the comet’s brightness
25
reaching magnitude 7.5 or even blos-
soming into a naked-eye object. Some _ 22 i
FORNAX
models project a brightening to mag- 19 –30°
nitude 3, but magnitude 8.5 is a more ` Nov 16
realistic hope, even taking into account 46P/Wirtanen
possible outbursts and heightened
coma activity as the comet approaches
perihelion.
With Comet 46P comes a chance
for advanced amateur observers to f –40°
contribute their data to a study led by CAE e
_
a
u The date ticks on the path of Comet 46P/ PHOENIX
Wirtanen are plotted for 0h Universal Time (on
the evening of the previous date in the Ameri- b HOR
cas). Look for it to be within binocular range g
near mid-November.

astronomers working at the Planetary 1972, then to 1.08 a.u. in 1984. Future northward past Gamma (γ) Fornaci in
Science Institute. The 4*P Morphol- encounters with Jupiter are predicted to November. Even if it doesn’t brighten to
ogy Campaign (psi.edu/41P45P46P), increase the orbital period and perihe- a naked-eye object, it will remain well
which kicked off in 2017 with the lion distance, however. In 2042, 46P placed for the Northern Hemisphere
close approaches of Comet 41P/Tuttle- should come within 0.56 a.u. of Jupiter. through the New Year and into March
Giacobini-Kresak and Comet 45P/ Subsequently, the comet’s orbital period 2019. By then, however, it will have
Honda-Mrkos-Pajdusakova, is also will stretch to 5.78 years and its perihe- dropped back down to a 16th-magni-
collecting images of the 2018 appari- lion distance to 1.22 a.u. tude target. The Southern Hemisphere
tion of 46P. The science team invites With luck, 46P will be within can expect to lose sight of the comet as
observers to submit unenhanced, good binocular range when it starts moving early as mid-to-late December.
signal-to-noise CCD images of the head
of the comet (near-nucleus field) taken
with professional and amateur scopes
equipped with R, V, or specific nar-
Moon Hides Star
rowband filters, as well as images taken THE WANING GIBBOUS MOON , about 97% lit, occults Xi1 (χ1) Orionis on
with a clear (or no) filter. An analysis of the evening and night of November 24th for North America. Western Europe
such images may lead to a better under- will see it in the early morning hours of the 25th. Observers in the eastern
standing of the coma’s water and dust half of the United States and Canada can try to spot the 4.4-magnitude star
properties, the chemical composition of as it disappears behind the Moon’s bright limb and reappears at the dark limb
gasses in the coma, the rotational state some 45–55 minutes later. Those on the western side of the North American
of the nucleus, and more. It’s possible continent will see only the reappearance of the star, and even then, the Moon
some of this data will reveal the causes will still be quite low.
of 46P’s hyperactivity in more detail. Complete timetables for the event for cities and towns along the path are
Visit the project website for instruc- available from the International Occultation Timing Association (lunar-
tions on contributing your images to occultations.com/iota/iotandx.htm), but these will get you started:
the campaign. Anchorage, reappearance 7:20 p.m. AKST; San Diego, r. 7:52 p.m. PST;
Although the 4*P Morphology Denver, r. 9:05 p.m. MST; Chicago, disappearance 9:21 p.m., r. 10:17 p.m.
Campaign is focused on 46P’s coma, CST; Toronto, d. 10:31 p.m., r. 11:27 p.m. EST; Washington, D.C., d. 10:36
equally intriguing is the comet’s chaotic p.m., r. 11:13 p.m. EST; Montreal, d. 10:40 p.m., r. 11:37 p.m. EST; Boston,
orbit. Like those of other Jupiter-family d. 10:44 p.m., r. 11:29 p.m. EST; Halifax, d. 11:57 p.m., r. 12:44 a.m. AST,
comets, 46P’s orbit falls under the influ- November 25th.
ence of Jupiter’s gravity. Astronomers
have observed every apparition of this
particular comet since its discovery by
American astronomer Carl Wirtanen in
1948 (except for the one in 1980, when Minima of Algol
it was too close to the Sun at perihe- 29
Oct. UT Nov. UT
lion), so its orbit and period are well
18 1 0:58 1 13:54
known. However, both orbit and period 30
change thanks to 46P’s proximity to PERSEUS 3 21:47 4 10:43
Jupiter at aphelion. In the past 70 years, 38 6 18:35 7 7:32
46P has experienced two particularly Algol 21 9 15:24 10 4:21
close planetary passes, the first in 1972,
12 12:13 13 1:10
when it came within 0.28 a.u. of Jupiter,
15 9:02 15 21:59
and the second in 1984, when it came
within 0.47 a.u. 18 5:50 18 18:48
TRIANGULUM
While 46P moved closer to Jupiter, 34 21 2:39 21 15:37
the planet’s gravity perturbed the com- 23 23:28 24 12:26
et’s orbit, reducing both its perihelion 26 20:17 27 9:15
distance and orbital period. The 1972 p With autumn returning, Perseus is rising into
29 17:05 30 6:04
visit shortened 46P’s period from 6.7 the northeastern sky. Every 2.7 days, Algol
(Beta Persei) dips from its usual magnitude 2.1 These geocentric predictions are from the
to 5.9 years, and the 1984 Jupiter-kick recent heliocentric elements Min. = JD
to 3.4 and back. Use this chart to estimate its
reduced it to an even more modest 5.5 brightness with respect to the comparison stars
2445641.5540+ 2.86732400E, where E is
any integer. For a comparison-star chart
years. Similarly, the perihelion distance of magnitude 2.1 (Gamma Andromedae) and and more info, see skyandtelescope.com/algol.
dropped from 1.61 a.u. to 1.26 a.u. in 3.4 (Alpha Trianguli).
Exploring the Solar System by Thomas A. Dobbins
How Much Does Size Matter?

The optimal aperture for viewing the Moon and planets is surprisingly modest.
M any years ago I attended a star party

conducted on the grounds of a local
university observatory. An imposing
in temperature, they also differ in index
of refraction, so they act like lenses that
change the focal position of the image
p Telescope aperture determines the smallest
planetary features you can resolve, but only
under the best conditions. Christopher Go’s
image of Jupiter (left), taken under near-perfect
dome housed a massive 36-inch Casseg- in a telescope by bending incoming rays conditions with a 14-inch SCT on March 21,
rain reflector that dwarfed the host of of light differently. Although these cells 2017, resolves many of the same features cap-
portable amateur instruments set up on can vary enormously in size, atmo- tured by the Hubble Space Telescope on April
the surrounding lawn. As twilight fell, spheric physicists have determined that 3, 2017. Large land-based telescopes rarely
outperform 12- to 16-inch aperture instruments
the mammoth telescope was trained on at most locations most of the time they
due to the limits of our turbulent atmosphere.
Jupiter. When I took my turn at the eye- range in diameter from 4 to 8 inches.
piece, I was greeted by the disappointing When the aperture of a telescope is
sight of a dazzlingly bright, shimmering sufficiently large that it receives light small ones . . . The visible errors of the
blur devoid of any markings except for that has passed through a multitude of atmosphere are, I believe, generally
a pair of washed-out equatorial belts. air cells, the result is a blurred, tremu- in proportion to the aperture of the
Much to the chagrin of the observatory lous image. When the aperture of the telescope.” With a 9-inch aperture, he
director, many of the smaller instru- telescope is smaller than the diameter noted that “seasons of tranquil sky may
ments nearby were providing very satis- of the passing air cells, the image is be found when its errors are scarcely
fying views of the planet. relatively unblurred, although the focus appreciable,” but with 24 inches of
Well over a century ago, lunar and changes subtly as individual cells drift aperture “difficulties become truly
planetary observers realized that a across the light path. The larger the aper- formidable.”
big telescope is no guarantee of better ture, the less likely it is that the air mass William Frederick Denning (1848–
performance, even if its optical qual- over it will be optically homogeneous. 1931) was one of the most accomplished
ity is beyond reproach. Large apertures William Lassell (1799–1880), one and influential amateur astronomers
are disproportionately handicapped by of the leading observers and telescope in Victorian England. Renowned for his
RIG H T: N ASA / ESA / A . SIM ON (GSFC)
atmospheric turbulence. “The atmo- makers of the 19th century, constructed observations of Jupiter, in 1885 he wrote
sphere,” lamented the French astrono- impressive 24- and 48-inch reflectors that for showing markings on a bright
LEF T: CHRISTOPHER GO;
mer André Couder, “is the worst part that he transported to the island of planet “apertures of 6 to 8 inches seem
of the instrument.” Seeing is caused by Malta in search of an observing climate able to compete with the most powerful
moving cells of air at altitudes ranging superior to that of his native England. instruments ever constructed.” Noting
from roughly 100 meters to more than He found that “large telescopes are that “separating power [resolution] is a
16 kilometers. Because these cells differ proportionately less powerful than function of aperture,” he conceded that

very minute planetary detail can only “. . . a 10- or 12-inch instrument of high quality is capa-
be discerned “by the high powers which
may be used with large instruments.”
ble of revealing at least 75% of what can be seen on the
However, he argued that, “What the Moon or brighter planets through even the largest Earth-
minor telescope lacks in point of light it
gains in definition. When the seeing is
based instruments.”
good in a large aperture it is superlative
in a small one. When unusually high of meters overhead. Small wonder that not marked, but with good seeing it is
powers may be employed in the former, Thomas Romney Robinson (1792–1882), most striking.”
far higher ones proportionately may be who used the 72-inch “Leviathan of Today fans are integral components
used with the latter.” Parsontown” reflector for many years, of many commercial telescopes. But
Harvard College Observatory reported in 1871 that “any differences of even with the aid of fans, it is difficult
astronomer William Henry Pickering temperature between the speculum and for a mirror of more than 50 mm (2
(1858–1938) founded an observatory in the air in the tube is capable of injuring inches) thickness to closely “follow”
the hills of Jamaica where the modest or even destroying definition, though falling evening temperatures. That
diurnal temperature variation routinely the speculum be absolutely perfect. thickness is typical of the thin mirrors
made the humid atmosphere more Hence there are few hours in the year of modern 16- to 24-inch reflectors that
tranquil than at sites at high eleva- when the 6-foot can display its full pow- must be supported by elaborate flotation
tions in the Andes Mountains. Despite ers.” One of Robinson’s colleagues com- cells to keep their optical figure from
the often superb conditions, Pickering plained that during a two-year interval distorting under their own weight.
alleged that 11- to 15-inch instruments he enjoyed only three hours of excellent So, for lunar and planetary observers,
showed finer detail than larger ones on definition through the great reflector. how much does telescope size matter?
nine nights out of ten. Even on the very The use of fans to provide a laminar Instruments with apertures smaller than
best nights, “Nothing was to be gained current of air that sweeps away the 8 inches are certainly capable of provid-
by using more than 20 inches.” warm boundary layer and accelerates ing very satisfying views, but they are
Many large telescopes are even more cooling was pioneered in the 1920s by less than optimal in terms of resolution
handicapped by their own thermal Pickering. He reported that “with poor and lack the image brightness required
properties than they are by atmospheric seeing due mainly to currents in the to reveal the muted pastel hues of many
turbulence. At most locations the upper air the resulting improvement is planetary markings. Based on five
temperature on a clear evening decades of observing through
falls at a rate of 2°C to 3°C Incoming a vast array of telescopes,
per hour. In still air a glass starlight I’d venture to say that under
primary mirror 30 mm (1.2 excellent conditions, a 10- or
inches) thick cools at a rate Undistorted light wave 12-inch instrument of high
of about 3°C per hour, but a quality is capable of revealing
Turbulent atmosphere
76-mm (3-inch) thick mirror at least 75% of what can be
cools at a rate of less than 1°C seen on the Moon or brighter
per hour. Assuming that its Distorted planets through even the larg-
light wave
thickness-to-diameter ratio is est Earth-based instruments.
held constant, the mass of a Small total The larger apertures required to
Large total
mirror (corresponding to its distortion distortion see the remaining 25% involve
heat capacity) increases with Large
rapidly diminishing marginal
the cube of its diameter, but its Small aperture returns. Many of the finest
aperture
surface area (corresponding to images of the Moon and plan-
its ability to transfer heat to its ets have been captured using
surroundings) only increases Large angular Small angular 12- to 16-inch instruments.
displacement displacement
by the square of its diameter. It’s no coincidence that this
Large mirrors are very p The effects of atmospheric seeing on small and large telescopes
is the same size “sweet spot”
inefficient at shedding heat. are shown here. A light wave arriving from the target (a planet or star) determined by so many visual
Convection produces a thin, is distorted by the turbulent atmosphere. When the distorted wave- observers generations ago.
turbulent boundary layer of front enters a telescope, its average “tilt” determines the target’s
LE AH TISCIONE / S&T
warmer air just above the position, while the total range of distortion inluences the blurriness ¢ Contributing Editor THOMAS
of the view. A small-aperture telescope sees a large displacement,
surface of the optic that can but not much distortion, so the target appears relatively sharp but
A. DOBBINS currently observes
blur the image every bit as dances around, while a large telescope displays a blurry view while the planets using a 10-inch f/8
much as turbulence thousands remaining relatively still. Newtonian relector.
Deep-Sky Wonders by Sue French
t At approximately 12 billion years of age,

M15 is one of the oldest globular clusters
known. The cluster contains more than 100,000
stars. Deep astroimages, such as this one
based on data gathered by the Hubble Space
Telescope’s Wide Field Camera 3, reveal the
cluster’s hot blue and cooler yellow stars.
regions east and west of the core, which

flaunts a brilliant center.
In 1927, M15 became the first globu-
lar cluster found to host a planetary
nebula, now known as Pease 1. Ameri-
can astronomer Francis Gladhelm Pease
discovered the nebula on an image
taken with Mount Wilson’s 100-inch
Hooker telescope, which celebrated its
100th birthday last year. Pease con-
firmed its nature with two spectrograms
taken the following year.
Carefully following the star charts
available at https://is.gd/Pease1, I
hunted down tiny Pease 1 with the
15-inch scope. At 284× I spotted the
little clump of stars that holds Pease 1
but couldn’t tell which object was the
pint-size planetary. However, adding
an O III filter left only Pease 1 stand-
ing. Sharp-eyed observers report success
with narrowband filters and scopes as
small as eight inches in aperture.
Soon as the stars adorn the azure skies, Only 1.8° east-northeast of M15’s
You’ll see the head of Pegasus arise; heart, we find the ghostly planetary
He sprung, they tell us, from Medusa slain, nebula NGC 7094. My 10-inch reflec-
Pegasus The bloody spots appear upon his mane;

Above the clouds, he could the sky survey,
tor at 187× reveals a very faint, round,
1½′ glow with a 13.6-magnitude
Arise! And with wing’d-feet cut his aethereal way;

But curb’d too much, low droop’d his falling wing,
When with his heel he made th’ Aönian spring;
central star. It marks the pointy end
of an isosceles triangle formed with a
10th- and 11th-magnitude star 6½′ to
Look high to Now heav’n his further wand’ring flight confines, the north. The nebula’s western rim is
Where splendid with his fifteen stars he shines. somewhat brighter than the rest, and a
discover the glories —Ovid, Fasti, translated by narrowband filter makes it stand out a
of the Winged Horse. William Massey, 1757 bit better. My sketch shows the view of
NGC 7094 through the 15-inch scope
at 216×. It appears unevenly brighter
O vid’s verse tells of the grisly birth

of Pegasus, his creation of the
spring on Mount Helicon, and his
in this constellation, with the exception
of some notable stars. M15 is briefly
described in my July 2018 column as
around its periphery with a narrowband
or O III filter, and perhaps slightly flat-
tened along its southeastern edge. The
ascent into the heavens. But at this seen through small- to medium-size central star remains visible. Although
time of the year, we don’t need to wait scopes, and beautiful though it is, the a 16th-magnitude star dots the nebula
for Pegasus to finish rising. Our winged view is even more spectacular in a northeast of its central star, I was
horse is already present in all his glory large scope. Through my 15-inch scope unable to capture it. Can you?
at nightfall. at 216×, its countless wealth of stars Images of NGC 7094 and similar
The globular cluster Messier 15 is spreads across 11′. The southern reaches planetary nebulae exhibit intricate fila-
N ASA / ESA
the unrivaled jewel of Pegasus, far out- of its bright interior are cracked by inky mentary structure that earns them the
shining all the other deep-sky wonders dark lanes. Dark patches also invade the fittingly descriptive name of Galactic

Soccer Balls or Galactic Footballs, the u The exceedingly faint
latter in areas of the world where soccer NGC 7094 lies about 1.8º
east-northeast of M15.
is more commonly referred to as foot-
While images reveal the
ball. Other Galactic Soccer Balls include nebula’s ilamentary struc-
Abell 43 in Ophiuchus and Kronberger ture, in the eyepiece it will
61 in Lyra. look like a ghostly round
Moving 1.1° south-southwest of M15 glow. Use an O III ilter to
increase the contrast.
takes us to the nicely matched stars that
form Struve 2799 (STF 2799 or Σ2799).
uu The view through a
Through my 130-mm refractor at 102×, 15-inch relector at 216×
these 7.4-magnitude twins are close but reveals the dim 13.6-mag-
attractively split. They are also similar nitude star at the center of
in hue. My first impression was that the planetary nebula NGC
7094.
the eastern star shone yellow, while the
western one was closer to white, but
then they seemed to switch colors as I as closely as STF 2799. Both stars emit 2′ long and two-thirds as wide, aligned
concentrated on one star and then the a golden sheen, with the attendant east-west. It’s composed of a faint halo
other. I usually trust my first impres- perched northwest of its primary. surrounding a large, fairly bright, oval
sions, but look for yourself and see what Although the orbital period isn’t well interior. At 164× the core brightens
you think. STF 2799 is a binary star known, it appears to be well over toward the center, where rests a brighter
whose current separation is a tight 1.9″, 10,000 years, so the separation changes nucleus. In my 10-inch scope at 207×
and it won’t widen another tenth of an at a glacial pace. the core looks tilted with respect to the
arcsecond until the year 2040. One of the brightest galaxies in Pega- galaxy’s long axis.
You can see a much wider binary in sus, NGC 7177 resides 2.5° east and 27′ Recent redshift-independent mea-
1 Pegasi, whose components are gener- north of 13 Pegasi. Seen with my 130- surements place NGC 7177 about 80
ously separated in the 130-mm scope mm scope at 37×, this spiral galaxy is a million light-years away from us. Two
even at a mere 37×. This is fortunate small oval glow at the east-northeastern supernovae have been found in NGC
because the companion glows five end of a 4′-long arc of three faint field 7177, the first by Milton Humason dur-
magnitudes dimmer than its primary stars. At 102× a fourth star appears just
and would be tough to spot if huddled south of the galaxy. The oval is about 23h 50m 23h 45m 23h 40m
7742
22h 20m 22h 00m 21h 40m 21h 20m
+20° 77
1 7743 +10°
5
9
7177 13 PEGASUS
+15°
PEGASUS
Star magnitudes
3 +8°
4 7094
5 AG 5
Star magnitudes
M15
NGC 70 94 IM AG E: STEFA N BINNE WIES / JOSEF PÖPSEL;
6 6
7 Σ2799 7
8
+10° ¡ b 9
10
PISCES
EE
EQUULE US
+6°
f
SK E TCH: SUE FRENCH
`
e V
7
_
+5° i
Deep-Sky Wonders
p Left: The subtle spiral galaxy NGC 7177 lies east-northeast of 13 Pegasi. Look for an elongated haze with a brighter core at the east-northeastern
end of an arc of three 12th- to 13th-magnitude stars. Right: Little more than an oval patch of light in the eyepiece, the faint fuzzy NGC 7743 looks its
best in deep-sky images. Finely formed spiral arms wind tightly around the barred galaxy’s bright central core.
ing the 1960 Palomar Supernova Search In the 10-inch reflecting telescope A recent redshift-independent
at a photographic magnitude of 16.0. at 213×, NGC 7743 shows itself as a measurement places NGC 7743 at a
In 1976 Justus R. Dunlap (Northwest- fat oval, about 1.7′ long, exposing a distance of 66 million light-years. The
ern University, Corralitos Observatory) core pinned by a brilliant, minuscule latest such value for NGC 7742, 72 mil-
reported the second feebly shining at nucleus. NGC 7742 wears a faint lion light-years, is from R. Brent Tully’s
visual magnitude 16.5. fringe that stretches its diameter to 1988 Nearby Galaxies Catalog.
Slightly dimmer than NGC 7177, the 1′, and a starlike nucleus dwells in its On a star-filled night while Pegasus
photogenic galaxy NGC 7743 lies 28′ heart. Turning the 15-inch reflector is yet arisen, be sure to sample some of
south-southeast of the red-giant star 77 toward these galaxies, NGC 7743 grows his mixed bag of deep-sky treats.
Pegasi. Images show two spiral arms, to about 2′ × 1½′ and NGC 7742 to
each of which tightly wraps itself three- roughly 1¼′. NGC 7742 boasts mark- ¢ Contributing Editor SUE FRENCH
fourths of the way around the galaxy edly higher surface brightness than its chases the Winged Horse and other ce-
from its apparent wellspring at the core. neighbor. lestial wonders from upstate New York.
Through the 130-mm refractor at
48×, NGC 7743 is easily visible in a
fall of faint stars tumbling southwest
from a widely spaced, bright pair. North
Peak Pegasus
of NGC 7743, NGC 7742 shares the Object Type Mag(v) Size/Sep RA Dec.
field of view, the duo forming a squat
Messier 15 Globular cluster 6.2 18′ 21h 30.0m +12° 10′
isosceles triangle with 77 Pegasi. NGC
7742 is also easy to see, but smaller Pease 1 Planetary nebula ~14.1 2.5″ 21h 30.0m +12° 10′
than its companion. At 102× NGC 7743 NGC 7094 Planetary nebula 13.4 94″ 21h 36.9m +12° 47′
NGC 7177: DOUG WHEEL A ND; NGC 7743: POSS-II /
becomes a 1½′-long, east-west oval with Σ2799 Double star 7.4, 7.4 1.9″ 21h 28.9m +11° 05′
STSCI / CA LTECH / PA LO M A R OBSERVATORY
a bright center and a very faint star

1 Pegasi Double star 4.2, 9.3 36″ 21h 22.1m +19° 48′
crowding its south-southeastern edge.
Less than 1′ across, NGC 7742 is round NGC 7177 Spiral galaxy 11.2 3.1′ × 2.0′ 22h 00.7m +17° 44′
with a relatively large, bright interior NGC 7743 Spiral galaxy 11.5 3.0′ × 2.6′ 23h 44.4m +09° 56′
and a faint star near its east-southeast-
NGC 7742 Spiral galaxy 11.6 1.7′ 23h 44.3m +10° 46′
ern edge. This mist-filled crystal ball’s
Angular sizes and separations are from recent catalogs. Visually, an object’s size is often smaller than
nickname, the Fried Egg Galaxy, stems the cataloged value and varies according to the aperture and magniication of the viewing instrument.
from the golden color of its core in a Right ascension and declination are for equinox 2000.0.
famous Hubble Heritage Team image.

Going Deep by David Tosteson
Depth
Afield
Plunge into Pegasus and see
how many faint galaxies you
can spot with your scope.
I n the Greek myth of the white, winged

horse Pegasus and his rider, Bellero-
phon, the duo fight the Chimera and
perform other heroics. On their journey
to Mount Olympus, Zeus dismounts the
haughty equestrian but places ascending
Pegasus in the heavens, where he rises
in the clear autumn air as the thun-
derbolt-bearer of the gods. Crisp, dry
October evenings offer a fine time to
dig deep into the treasures of this rela-
tively rich patch of sky. In the middle of
the month, the constellation’s northern
region arcs nearly overhead at midnight.
The hours on either side of late evening
allow for a long and deep look into the p MAGNIFICENT SPIRAL NGC 7331, a galaxy in the northern reaches of the constellation Pega-
area around its brightest galaxy. sus, is watched over by numerous smaller companions.
NGC 7331 is a 9.5-magnitude spiral
located 4.4° north of Eta (η) Pegasi. But this magnificent spiral doesn’t tances. Scattered across the image were
The galaxy, first observed by William sit alone when observed in moderate- dozens of galaxies ranging to beyond
Herschel in 1784, is 10.5′ × 3.5′ in size, to large-aperture instruments. To its magnitude 20. To me, it appeared like a
around 45 million light-years away, immediate east is a quartet of galaxies Hubble Deep Field for visual observers.
and tilted 15° from edge-on. For many nicknamed the Fleas. In “The Winged My friend and amateur astronomer
years it was considered a “twin” to the Horse” (S&T: Nov. 2007, p. 74), the Larry Mitchell has spent thousands of
Milky Way Galaxy, but we now appreci- sharp-eyed Sue French spotted all the hours compiling the Mitchell Anony-
ate several differences between the two: Fleas in her 4.1-inch refractor except mous Catalog (MAC) of more than
The Pegasus galaxy has no apparent for magnitude-16.8 NGC 7336. Most 125,000 objects, most of which are
bar, the inner 5″ of the bulge counter- amateurs stop there, unaware of the rather faint galaxies surrounding bright,
rotates with respect to the disk, and it’s treasures populating the depths beyond. well-known objects. In a hierarchy of
a flocculent, multi-armed spiral. Listed Let’s board a quest train to view the ascending difficulty for visibility in deep-
at number 30 in the Caldwell Cata- distant galaxies of Pegasus. sky catalogs, MAC targets come after
logue, it can be spotted in binoculars. Within a few years after Russell Cro- Messier objects and those listed in the
In progressively larger apertures detail man took up astrophotography, he was New General Catalogue (sources prefi xed
can be appreciated in its outer arms. producing some of the finest images of with NGC) and other familiar catalogs,
Images show a small, bright nucleus deep-sky objects. A visit to his web- such as the Uppsala General Catalogue
and a bulge that extends just beyond the site (www.rc-astro.com) displays the of Galaxies (UGC) and the Catalogue
edge of its minor axis, obscuring our marvelous detail he’s captured in many of Principal Galaxies (PGC). In the case
view of the more distant, eastern spiral targets. His image of NGC 7331 in of NGC 7331, Mitchell identified more
M ASIL IM AGING TE A M
arms. At the 1996 Texas Star Party, my Sue French’s article caught my eye not than 50 MACs in a 1° field centered
25-inch reflector showed the galaxy to only for the almost three-dimensional on the spiral. In addition to the MACs,
be 11′ × 3′ with a 5′ bulge, with granular depiction of the large spiral, but also for there is a slew of formerly “anonymous”
detail in its outer arms. the galaxies layered at progressive dis- objects, presently being registered by
Going Deep
their coordinates in the Sloan Digital

Sky Survey and similar databases.
On October 7, 2007, I spent several
hours using my 32-inch f/4 reflector to
observe the 28′ × 21′ field of NGC 7331.
After taking time to enjoy the beauty of
the central galaxy, the first step in the
image’s distance ladder was the group
MAC 2237+3437 of galaxies to the east, easily seen with
direct vision. These are the 13th- and
14th-magnitude objects NGC 7335,
NGC 7337, and NGC 7340, with
the slightly fainter and more distant
NGC 7336 to their north. If the three
brightest galaxies have been bestowed
NGC 7326
with several names, including the Fleas
or the Deer Lick Group, then NGC 7336
might be called Ixodes, the Deer Tick.
NGC 7325 I easily saw these five galaxies in my
15-inch reflector from a dark site in
NGC 7336
central Minnesota, including the faint-
est, NGC 7336, at magnitude 14.5.
NGC 7335 For comparison, take a look at
Stephan’s Quintet, 30′ south-southwest
of NGC 7331. The four concordant-
NGC 7340 NGC 7331 redshift galaxies in the Quintet lurk at
eight times the distance to NGC 7331.
The foreground galaxy of Stephan’s
NGC 7337 five-member group is NGC 7320.
Although it’s at a similar redshift to
MAC 2237+3421
NGC 7331, it’s six times smaller and
MAC 2236+3422
4½ magnitudes fainter.
The magnitude-15.7 spiral NGC 7326
that’s 11.5′ northwest of the center
of NGC 7331 is readily visible in the
32-inch scope as an elongated feature-
less object angled northeast-southwest.
A string of stars connects NGC 7326
to the core of NGC 7331, and three-
quarters of the way out along this string
is another galaxy, NGC 7325, similar in
MAC 2237+3415 brightness to NGC 7336 on the other
side of the spiral.
I observed five galaxies from Mitch-
MAC 2236+3413
ell’s catalog. Observations of the MACs
and other faint galaxies were done using
my 32-inch f/4 reflector with a 5-mm
Nagler Type 6 eyepiece at 650×, seeing of
7/10, and transparency 8/10. The first,
MAC 2237+3421, is a 17.5-magnitude
galaxy 3.6′ south-southeast of NGC
M ASIL IM AGING TE A M
7340. MAC 2237+3437 is the largest

p HOW DEEP CAN YOU GO? The main observing targets are all marked, the brighter galaxies
labeled with their names and the “anonymous” galaxies by the small, white circles. Starting with
of the MACs at 0.8′ × 0.5′ and lies 13.1′
the galaxies with NGC in their names, move on to the MAC targets, and then the “anonymous” almost directly north of NGC 7331’s
galaxies. How many can you spot in your scope? center. In Croman’s rendering it holds a

pinpoint core, a halo tilted in a north- Many correlate with objects in the of light-years away, a significant frac-
west-to-southeast direction, and curious U.S. Naval Observatory’s USNO-B1.0 tion back toward the dawn of galaxy
3′ extensions to the north and south. Catalog, and the faintest I was able to formation. The original Hubble Deep
In the eyepiece it is a small, round glow see that night was magnitude 20.3. The Field offered professional astronomers
less than 0.5′ in size. galaxies’ magnitudes were either taken a glimpse into the earliest views of
Continuing clockwise around from the catalog, or I estimated them by that process, and with diligence and
NGC 7731, 3.3′ southwest of the large interpolating between stars of known effort we may travel in that direction. I
spiral lies MAC 2236+3422, which brightness. Only one galaxy in the list, have often dreamt of what the Hubble
could be held with direct vision. of magnitude 17.1, is associated with an Space Telescope might reveal to a visual
MAC 2236+3413 is 12.5′ south-south- already-named source (in the 2 Micron observer. Imaging and catalogs are
west of NGC 7331. Its elongated nature All Sky Survey Catalog). All the anony- improving so rapidly in accuracy and
can be appreciated in the eyepiece, and mous sources listed below except for coverage that the days are likely not
it appears the same brightness as the the five brightest were seen with averted far off when all-sky, real-time imaging
previous MAC. The last of the MACs vision, and all were less than 0.5′ in with drop-down menus of copious data
I observed was MAC 2237+3415, a size and very faint. will be at our fingertips. Automated,
15.9-magnitude smudge 9.5′ south of For the intrepid observer, a paper large, and fast reflectors will quickly
NGC 7331. I missed MAC 2237+3427, by Johannes Ludwig and his team slew to our targets with a voice com-
which should have been visible but was published in the November 15, 2012, mand. But the challenge will still be,
overshadowed by NGC 7335 some 32″ Astronomical Journal announced the dis- “How deep can we go?”
to the east-southeast. Neither the Palo- covery of four dwarf galaxy candidates
mar Observatory Sky Survey nor Cro- orbiting NGC 7331, along with a 2′ long ¢ DAVE TOSTESON has been an ama-
man’s image reveals MAC 2237+3427, tidal stream at its southeastern corner. teur observer for more than 30 years.
and its nature remains unknown. Amateurs have a rich variety of When he’s not working as a family physi-
I also observed 18 “anonymous” gal- resources to help them explore the deep cian just north of St. Paul, Minnesota, he
axies (their coordinates and magnitudes sky. The galaxies portrayed here take us keeps busy by traveling to regional star
are listed in the table below at right). from our own neighborhood to billions parties and solar eclipses with his wife.
NGC 7331 and Companions “Anonymous” Sources

RA Dec. Mag(v)
Object Mag(v) Size RA Dec.
22h 37.7m +34° 17′ 17.2
NGC 7331 9.5 10.5′ × 3.5′ 22h 37.1m +34° 25′ 22h 37.3m +34° 24′ 16.9
NGC 7335 13.4 1.3′ × 0.6′ 22h 37.3m +34° 27′ 22h 37.7m +34° 33′ 18.7
22h 37.3m +34° 33′ 19.7
NGC 7337 14.4 1.1′ × 0.7′ 22h 37.4m +34° 22′
22h 37.7m +34° 34′ 20.3
NGC 7340 13.7 0.9′ × 0.6′ 22h 37.7m +34° 25′
22h 37.1m +34° 34′ 18.3
NGC 7336 14.5 0.8′ × 0.4′ 22h 37.4m +34° 29′ 22h 37.1m +34° 32′ 19.5
NGC 7326 — 0.8′ × 0.4′ 22h 36.4m +34° 33′ 22h 36.9m +34° 30′ 19.1
22h 36.7m +34° 31′ 19.5
NGC 7325 — — 22h 36.6m +34° 30′
22h 36.7m +34° 33′ 19.1
MAC 2237+3421 17.3 — 22h 37.8m +34° 21′
22h 36.6m +34° 33′ 18.8
MAC 2237+3437 — — 22h 37.2m +34° 37′ 22h 36.5m +34° 21′ 18.4
MAC 2236+3422 15.5 — 22h 36.9m +34° 23′ 22h 36.8m +34° 19′ 17.1
22h 36.8m +34° 18′ 19.1
MAC 2236+3413 16.5 — 22h 36.7m +34° 13′
22h 36.7m +34° 17′ 18.6
MAC 2237+3415 15.9 — 22h 37.2m +34° 15′
22h 36.8m +34° 17′ 19.8
Angular sizes and separations are from recent catalogs. Visually, an object’s size is often smaller than 22h 36.7m +34° 17′ 19.1
the cataloged value and varies according to the aperture and magniication of the viewing instrument.
Right ascension and declination are for equinox 2000.0. 22h 37.0m +34° 17′ 19.6
MESSIER 77 by Howard Banich
The author takes a close look

at the nearest and brightest
Seyfert galaxy through a
48-inch telescope.
F
rom mid-northern latitudes, Messier 77 and
Messier 74 must be the first two objects to
observe during a Messier Marathon. They’re
visible only during a narrow window of opportunity
as their precipitous plunge toward the onrushing
western horizon competes with the slowly darken-
ing twilight, which at best barely allows them to
be glimpsed. The potential for frustration is high,
because if neither galaxy can be seen there’s no
hope of observing all 110 Messier objects during the
one-night marathon.
This race against the horizon and twilight makes
the first phase of the marathon pretty hectic, so
even just barely detecting these two galaxies is an
exciting achievement that sets up the rest of the
marathon for success. But there’s no way to get
a good look at either galaxy under these condi-
tions, no matter how clear and transparent the sky
may be. They’re both beautiful spiral galaxies and
deserve to be seen at their best when high in the
autumn sky, so let’s focus on what the remarkable
M77 looks like through one of the largest amateur
telescopes in the world.
My best chance to observe M77 came in October
2016 when I had four nights to observe it through
Jimi Lowrey’s 48-inch f/4 telescope. The first obser-
vation of the series is doubly remarkable because it
was the next object after Arp 284 and the quasar
2333+019 (S&T: Oct. 2017, p. 62). Not only that,
Jimi and fellow observer (and S&T Contributing
Editor) Steve Gottlieb graciously stepped aside to
give me 30 minutes of uninterrupted observing and
sketching time on the 48-inch, and to repeat this
privilege for three more nights. Thanks to them, I
was like a kid in a candy shop!
That makes M77 the only object I’ve had more
than a few minutes to sketch with the 48-inch.
The detail I was able to see with a combined two
N ASA / ESA / A . VA N D E R H O E V E N
hours of eyepiece time over four nights is a personal

observing highlight. As always, the longer I looked,
and the more I sketched, the more I saw. Sketching
at the eyepiece is a powerful observing tool.
Even better, there are some remarkable similari-
ties between M77 and 2333+019 that make both
objects even more compelling.

CLOSE AND BRIGHT Also
known as Arp 37 and NGC
1068, M77 is the closest
and brightest Seyfert gal-
axy, a type of galaxy with
unusual emission lines irst
described by the astrono-
mer Carl Seyfert in 1943.
M77 has become one of
the most studied galaxies
in the sky because of its
proximity and brightness.
North is up in all images.
on a
Seyfert k yandtelescope.com • N OV E M B E R 2 018 61
Messier 77
As always, the more I looked, and the

more I sketched, the more I saw.
M77 Is Rather Special As a consequence, Seyfert galaxies are clearly visible along
From our frame of reference, the photons from quasar with their AGNs, while a quasar’s host galaxy can be detected
2333+019 took approximately 10 billion years to reach our eyes only with great difficulty because the direct brightness of
and form a faint starlike dot. M77’s relatively brand-spank- its AGN jet overwhelms the surrounding galaxy. Curiously,
ing-new 47 million-year-old photons were arrayed in stun- quasars are all far away in spacetime while Seyfert galaxies
ning spiral galaxy detail. I don’t know of a single word that are much closer, which suggests an as-yet-unproven AGN
adequately describes how big the universe is that also includes evolutionary process.
the nonintuitive way expanding spacetime and relativistic It’s analogous to looking at a flashlight. The bulb looks
distances interact, but it felt like I had seen a glimpse of that progressively brighter the more directly it’s aimed at your
fun-house-mirror-immensity-time-insanity in 2333+019. That eyes. Try this — point a flashlight about 50° away from your
made the comparatively huge apparent size of nearby M77 feel eyes (M77’s AGN is tilted 51° from our line of sight) and
like it was practically elbowing its way out of the eyepiece. then gradually point it more directly at your face. The light
As different as they appear, these two objects have a lot in gets brighter very quickly as the beam gets closer to your eyes.
common: They’re both galaxies that have an active super- M77’s AGN — defined as the region around its supermas-
massive black hole in their cores. Even if it’s the closest and sive black hole that produces emission lines from highly
brightest Seyfert galaxy, we don’t see M77’s core as extraor- ionized elements — has been measured at approximately
dinarily bright as a quasar’s for two reasons, though: Its 1,000 light-years in diameter. M77’s overall diameter is about
black hole isn’t consuming enough matter, and its beamed 170,000 light-years, so this is a tiny area to produce as much
outflow jet isn’t pointed directly at us. But essentially, it’s visible light as the rest of the galaxy.
the same kind of object as 2333+019, just less powerful What’s clear is that a supermassive black hole at the center
and viewed at a more oblique angle. Specifically, the com- of quasars and Seyfert galaxies powers their AGNs, and what
pact active galactic nucleus (AGN) of a quasar is 100 times we see, or don’t see, is at least partially dependent on how
brighter at visible wavelengths than its host galaxy, while a active the supermassive black hole is and how closely aligned
Seyfert galaxy’s AGN is typically about as bright as its sur- its jet is to our line of sight.
rounding galaxy. A substantial difference, but one seemingly As the supermassive black hole actively consumes mat-
of degree rather than of kind. ter from its accretion disk, it drives the AGN to create two
regions, one that produces broad emission lines, and another
that produces narrow emission lines. The broad-line region
3h 00m 2h 30m is closer to the black hole, while the narrow-line region is
+ farther out, along the jet. Type I Seyfert galaxies are oriented
h j2
more face-on to our perspective, so we detect both narrow
and broad emission lines from them. Broad lines can be
Star magnitudes
3 used to measure the speed of rotation of the accretion disk

i because, as the diagram on page 64 shows, the broad-line
4 +5°
CETUS
5 _ a region is located in the vicinity of the supermassive black
6 hole and the accretion disk.
7 Type II Seyfert galaxies like M77 show only narrow line
emissions because they’re tilted farther from our line of sight,
b
M77 0° hiding the broad-line region. The orientation of their AGN
seems to make all the difference.
M77 is classified as a Type II Seyfert because its 51° tilt ini-
k tially allowed only narrow emission lines to be detected. Broad
emission lines were later observed by looking at polarized light
ERIDANUS –5° from the AGN region, so if M77 were oriented just a little
more face on to us it might be categorized as a Type I Seyfert.
However, none of this was going through my mind while
observing M77 with Jimi’s 48-inch scope because I was too
d busy enjoying and sketching the incredible view.
So, what did I see?

079, 080, 084
p SKETCHING AT u H II REGIONS
THE COLOSSUS EMERGE No ilters were 065
038
The author’s inished used in this sketch of
pencil drawing shows the H II regions in the
M77 as seen through spiral arms of M77 as 033
Jimi Lowrey’s 48-inch seen with Jimi Lowrey’s 037
telescope, combining a 48-inch telescope. The
total of two hours over numbers are from EKS 023
019
four nights of observ- 96 H II catalog (Evans et
ing from Lowrey’s West al. “An Atlas of H II
Texas observatory. Regions in Nearby
Banich used magni- Seyfert Galaxies.” ApJSS
HOWA RD BA NICH (2)
ications from 286× July 1996). Note that

to 812×. Sky Quality EKS 079, 080, 084, and
Meter readings ranged 065 are almost equally
from 21.36 to 21.67 spaced and in a straight
across the four nights. line with the AGN.
Messier 77
M77 through the 48-inch

Jet
Four main structures make up the visual extent of M77,
and they all fit nicely in the 286× field of view produced by
a 17-mm Ethos eyepiece. The outer part of M77 is a broad,
Accretion Supermassive indistinct oval ring that’s faintly connected to the much
disk black hole brighter central spiral arms. The central bar is surrounded by
Torus the spiral arms, and the AGN sits in the middle of it all. Let’s
Seyfert II
Broad-line work our way inward to it.
region
Outer Ring
This is an extensive, faint oval ring that surrounds the
Narrow-line much more obvious parts of M77, and my views through the
region 48-inch are the only times I’ve seen this outer ring. I didn’t
Seyfert I
detect it with my 28-inch scope under similar observing con-
p DEEP INSIDE The main components of a Seyfert galaxy are highlight- ditions, so it was quite a surprise to see this huge structure so
ed. The broad-line region is situated close to the black hole and accre- well. It was a direct-vision object with the 48-inch, and after
tion disk, while the narrow-line region is farther out along the cone of the a couple of nights I was even able to detect slight brightness
jet. Orientation dictates whether we’re seeing a Seyfert I or a Seyfert II.
variations within the ring.
At first it looked like a wide, smoothly illuminated oval
that is disconnected from the spiral arms within it. I didn’t
see the faint extensions of the two spiral arms connecting
to the outer ring’s inner circumference until the third night,
when we had the best observing conditions. Even then, I only
detected them with averted vision. They linked what other-
wise looked like a faint bull’s-eye to the much brighter inner
regions of the galaxy.
Central Spiral Arms

There are two sets of arms here — the wide arms that envelop
this bright region, and the even brighter inner arms closest
to the central bar. They’re separated by two fairly prominent
dark lanes. The arms form a bright oval that’s rotated about
40° to the outer ring. At first, I sketched the two ovals as
having the same major axis, but after a couple of nights it
became apparent that they were skewed quite a bit — 375×
gave a good view of this.
The arms showed several small H II regions, and most
remarkably what appears to be a collection of super star
clusters and H II regions in the northeast portion of the arms
(EKS 079, 080, and 084).
Spiral detail was almost like a texture as every magnifica-
tion up to 812× brought out more detail. EKS 019 and 023
DIAG R A M: LE A H TISCIONE / S&T; CO MPOSITE: N ASA / CXC / MIT /

highlight the broad southwestern arm and also looked like a
C. CA NIZ A RES / D. E VA NS / N ASA / STSCI / NSF / NR AO / V L A

mixture of super star clusters and star-forming H II regions.
Off the southwestern end of the central bar there’s a short
and bright spiral arm that arcs north to south and is stud-
ded with three H II regions: EKS 033, 037, and 038. Interior
to this spiral arm are two shorter arms oriented in the same
direction. The one closest to the AGN curves around to the
t PROBING DEEP Composite images are useful for unveiling the differ-
ent components in these sources. The spiral structure is revealed by the
X-ray and optical data, while the radio data trace the jet powered by the
supermassive black hole. Data from the Chandra X-ray Observatory are
shown in red, optical data from the Hubble Space Telescope in green,
and radio data from the Very Large Array in blue.

GLORIOUS GALAXY This inverted
version of the inished pencil sketch of
M77 presents a more natural view of the
galaxy. The outer ring has been slightly
enhanced to make it more easily visible.
northeast portion of the bar. And oh my, what a sight it all The AGN’s 51° tilt to our line of sight effectively hides it
was at 812× when the seeing would cooperate and momen- from our direct view, though. Buried somewhere in there is
tarily settle down! the 10 million-solar-mass supermassive black hole that makes
M77 a Type II Seyfert galaxy. It puts out enough radio energy
Central Bar to be listed as 3C 71, and enough X-rays to be cataloged as
M77’s central bar is crooked, asymmetrical, and not all that Cetus A. Makes me wonder how M77 would be classified if its
barlike. The southwestern portion, which is narrow and AGN jet was pointed right at us.
doesn’t visually connect to the bright, well-detached inner The direction of the short spray of material that’s con-
spiral arm, seems to begin at the southern end of the AGN. nected to the starlike point is aligned with the stream of
The northeastern bar is broader, longer, and almost visually X-rays beaming from the AGN, as seen by the Chandra X-ray
connected with the weak beginning of the northeastern arm. Observatory. Even though I didn’t draw it at exactly the same
A magnification of 812× gave an outstanding view of this angle — it’s pointed a bit west of north in my drawing rather
region on the best night. than a bit east of north as shown in the photos — I’m tempted
The northeastern bar doesn’t directly flow from the star- to think I saw the visual manifestation of the AGN beam. It’s
like AGN of the galaxy either — it was displaced north of the certainly in the right place and pointed in nearly the right
core and links to it with a bright spray of material. One of the direction. The thought that I might have seen a bit of M77’s
two brightest H II regions is EKS 065, due east of the end of AGN outflow gives me a delightful case of goosebumps.
this bar and just barely in contact with the rest of the inner And even if I never find out for sure, I can always savor the
region. Great stuff. possibility. At the very least it’s a far cry from barely seeing this
extraordinary galaxy a few degrees above the western horizon
AGN — 3C 71, Cetus A during the frantic first moments of a Messier Marathon.
The integrated visual magnitude of M77 is 9.6 while the
AGN’s magnitude is 8.9, so the galaxy and AGN are indeed ¢ Occasionally observing with Jimi Lowrey and his colos-
roughly as bright as each other. At 812× the AGN is a star- sal 48-inch telescope really aggravates Contributing Editor
HOWA RD BA NICH
like dot that’s obviously the brightest part of the galaxy. It’s HOWARD BANICH’S semi-permanent case of aperture fever
located at the south end of a short spray of bright material — but thank goodness he doesn’t mind. You can reach him at
pointing almost due north. [email protected].
S&T Test Report by Dennis di Cicco
iOptron’s
CEM120
Equatorial
Mount
This heavyweight in iOptron’s
growing line of telescope mounts
offers lots more than just a big
payload capacity.
iOptron CEM120
Center-balanced
Equatorial Mount
U.S. Price: $3,999 (tested with p iOptron’s new CEM120 Center-balanced Equatorial Mount is the company’s current heavy-
optional $899 Tri-Pier 360) weight, with a rated load capacity of up to 115 pounds. It is well suited for portable use in the ield
ioptron.com or permanently installed in an observatory, where it’s capable of fully remote operation.
What We Like was that it would be good. But was I ian. The CEM120 can move a maximum
Excellent mechanical reacting to its size or to the fact that of 14° (approximately one hour) past
performance
I’d always been impressed with previ- the meridian or start this much before
Highly versatile cable- ous iOptron mounts I’d tested? Maybe the meridian with the telescope on the
management system it was both. But after dozens of nights east side of the mount. But depending
Capable of fully remote testing the CEM120 last summer, I on the length of the telescope tube and
operation found it was indeed a superb performer the declination that it’s pointed to, this
packed with versatile features and even angle can be even less. This limitation
What We Don’t Like a few surprises. is not unique to the CEM design. Many
Limited astronomical The CEM120 is the third in iOptron’s commercial German equatorial mounts,
information in hand- family of center-balanced mounts. The especially ones in the CEM120’s capac-
control databases
unusual positioning of the declination ity class, have significant restrictions on
axis near the middle of the polar axis straddling the meridian.
BIGGER IS BETTER. Right? At least helps keep the mass of a setup (mount, There’s no need to waste space here
that’s what the advertising wizards on telescope, and counterweights) roughly giving a laundry list of the CEM120’s
Madison Avenue have been drilling into centered over the base of the mount, specifications, since they are readily
us for as long as I can remember. From unlike a conventional German equato- available from iOptron’s website at
cars to TVs and just about everything in rial that is typically very off balance ioptron.com and are also in the instruc-
between, we’ve been led to view size as toward its celestial-pole end. As such, tion manual that can be downloaded
A LL PHOTOS BY DENNIS DI CICCO
a mark of quality. Rationally we know the CEM design is noteworthy for its for free. It’s worth adding that the
this isn’t true, but the concept lingers rigidity despite its weight-to-load ratio. instruction manual, quick-start guide,
subconsciously and often affects our At 57 pounds (26 kg), the CEM120’s and various instructions for updating
first impressions of a product. Such equatorial head weighs only half of its the mount and hand-control firmware
was the case with iOptron’s CEM120 recommended 115-pound load capacity. are unusually detailed and very clearly
Center-balanced Equatorial Mount. My The only drawback to the design is a written — kudos to their creators.
gut reaction to this new heavyweight limited ability to track past the merid- The CEM120 we borrowed for this

review is the basic model with stepper- sive, there’s only a limited amount of
motor drives on both axes. There’s also astronomical information about the
the CEM120EC ($5,500) with a high- objects. This isn’t usually a handicap
resolution encoder on the polar-axis for me, since I create my observing lists
drive that’s spec’d to deliver a periodic from other sources and only used the
error smaller than 0.15 arcsecond, and hand controller to select my targets
the CEM120EC2 ($6,998) with encod- from the appropriate database and oper-
ers on both axes. The mount I tested ate the mount’s slewing and pointing.
came with documentation showing that Furthermore, today many observers
the polar drive had a measured periodic connect their Go To telescopes to com-
error of about ±2 arcseconds during a puters, tablets, or even smartphones
4-minute rotation of the worm gear. running planetarium software. And the
Nevertheless, the tracking logs from my CEM120 has a robust set of options for
autoguider typically showed the periodic doing this. You can connect the mount
error to be even smaller and often only to an external device via serial (RS-232)
±1 arcsecond. or USB 2.0 cables, as well as through a
Using the supplied Go2Nova 8407 V2 standard Ethernet (LAN) connection to
hand controller, the CEM120 is a stand- a computer network. And, if you want
alone mount having all the features to go wireless, the mount offers built-in
we’ve come to expect with any mod- Wi-Fi. I tested them all successfully but
ern Go To telescope mount. I spent a typically used the USB option since I
number of nights operating the CEM120 wanted to keep my laptop’s Wi-Fi avail-
for visual observing with only the hand able for a link to my home network and p As described in the text, the author tested
controller. Despite allowing access to access to the internet. the CEM120 for visual observing and CCD
what at first might seem like a bewil- I briefly tried the CEM120 with its imaging with a Meade 14-inch Schmidt-
Cassegrain optical tube assembly itted with
dering number of set-up and control supplied Windows software iOptron
accessories that brought the total load weight
functions, the hand controller is among Commander. But it only offers simple to about 85 pounds.
the most intuitive I’ve tested. Most users motion control of the mount and
will easily master the basic functions therefore isn’t particularly useful as an to the latest versions before I could get
on their first night under the stars. The observing tool. Fortunately, the mount the ASCOM connection to work.
CEM120 comes with a GPS receiver, is fully ASCOM compliant and thus
which never failed to quickly sync with easily connects with many planetarium Getting Outside
the GPS satellites and automatically set programs that can control the mount. Mounts with the capacity of the CEM120
the date, time, and my location in the This worked well for me with TheSkyX typically end up permanently installed
hand controller’s set-up menu. from Software Bisque. But I first had to in observatories. And it would be right at
While the hand controller’s internal update all of the mount’s firmware and home in such a situation, though I put
catalogs of celestial objects are exten- also the ASCOM platform on my laptop the mount through its paces from my
p Even with the CEM120 fully loaded with the telescope and 66 pounds of counterweights, the mount’s calibrated azimuth (left) and altitude (right)
controls worked very smoothly for polar aligning the mount.
S&T Test Report
suburban driveway using iOptron’s new available to use with a standard Pole-
Tri-Pier 360 (an $899 option). And this Master (reviewed by Alan Dyer in the
provided one of the surprises I men- July issue, p. 62). Neither the custom
tioned earlier: The mount was extremely camera nor the adapter was available
easy to set up and use in the field. The at the time of my testing, so I made my
heaviest piece is the equatorial head, own adapter for a regular PoleMaster.
but it comfortably balances on the top As an aside, I agree with Dyer’s con-
of the pier during assembly with no fear clusion that the PoleMaster is a great
of it toppling off even if you’re willing alignment tool, and most evenings I
to heft it with the added weight of the achieved accurate polar alignment in
10½-pound counterweight bar attached. just a few minutes.
But the real reason the CEM120 The biggest challenge I faced testing
was such a joy to use in the field is its the CEM120 as a portable mount was
smooth polar alignment altitude and attaching a heavy telescope to it. To
azimuth motions. Both adjustments give the CEM120 a reasonable work-
are accomplished with calibrated hand out, a friend lent me a Meade 14-inch
knobs that are nice if you use an align- Schmidt-Cassegrain tube assembly fit-
ment routine that spits out the neces- ted with a Losmandy-style dovetail bar.
sary corrections as angles. The CEM120 Even stripped of accessories, the scope
also has provision for a custom, built-in weighed more than 65 pounds and was
QHYCCD PoleMaster alignment cam- very awkward for one person to slide
era, and there’s an optional adapter into the mating dovetail channel on
the CEM120’s saddle. Fully loaded with
q In addition to various connections on the
finderscope, electric focuser, and CCD
mount’s base for powering and controlling
the CEM120 via the hand control or with an camera, the scope weighed more than
external computer, there’s a sophisticated 85 pounds and required three 22-pound
internal cable-management system that con- counterweights. Eventually I jury-rigged pp The worm gears on both axes can be dis-
nects power and communication ports on the a furniture dolly and rolled the entire engaged from their worm wheels with a simple
mount’s saddle plate with outputs on the non- lever “switch” (left), which is useful when
setup as a unit in and out of my garage balancing the mount. It’s also a good idea to
moving end of the polar-axis housing. See the
text for details. rather than hassle with the nightly disengage the gears when transporting the
issues of getting the scope on and off mount. There are strong locking pins on both
the mount. Despite the full load of the axes that engage at several ixed locations.
tube assembly and counterweights,
p The optional built-in QHYCCD PoleMaster
the altitude and azimuth adjustments polar-alignment camera wasn’t available, so the
worked beautifully during polar align- author made an adapter for his PoleMaster —
ment. This is a real plus. an alignment tool he highly recommends.
Cable Management mentioned earlier, but here’s an over-

An incredibly versatile cable-manage- view. There are four USB 2.0 ports on
ment system built into the CEM120 is the saddle that feed out to a single port
especially noteworthy. Virtually any on the Input Panel. These will easily
electronic equipment attached to your handle a CCD camera, filter wheel,
telescope can be powered and con- electric focuser, and guide camera. But
trolled through internal wiring that these USB ports are not powered, so
runs from ports on the telescope saddle they aren’t useful for low-power devices
to connections on the lower, non- that are normally powered through
moving end of the polar-axis housing their USB connection (for example,
that iOptron calls the Input Panel. some autoguiding cameras and small
This means that just about any imaging planetary imagers). For those there’s a
setup can be configured without having separate, powered USB 3.0 connection,
wires dangling from the telescope that which is backward compatible with USB
might snag when the mount is slewing 2.0 equipment.
and tracking. The saddle has a pair of 12-volt DC
You’ll find detailed specifications for ports and a single 5-volt DC port that
these ports in the instruction manual are rated for a maximum current draw

p Not a single one of the thirty 10-minute exposures used to create this view of the small emission nebula Sh2-112 west of Deneb in Cygnus was
rejected because of poor tracking with the CEM120 setup pictured on page 67.
of 1 ampere each, and all derive their and autoguider. And this will be true resume observing without having to be
power from the same 12-VDC source of most equipment that you’ll want to re-initialized to the sky. But the mount
that powers the mount. There’s another power from these ports. can also be sent to a so-called Zero
pair of ports rated for up to 5 amperes Position from a “cold” start (or after
DC each that connect to a single port Performance interruptions such as power failures
on the Input Panel. The voltage for these One word can summarize the perfor- or computer crashes). This position is
is simply determined by whatever you mance I experienced with the CEM120 accurate enough to allow resuming
feed into the port on the Input Panel, — flawless. Everything worked perfectly. operations without a person having
and this is very useful if you have The mount proved to be solid, quiet, and to be present at the mount. And that’s
equipment that runs on special power reliable for visual and imaging applica- key for any mount intended for remote
sources such as 24 or 48 volts. Lastly, tions. The picture of Sh2-112 above operation. While my testing was always
there’s a single port with DIN-422 con- is a good example of the CEM120’s done with me sitting only a few feet
nectors on the saddle and Input Panel. performance as an imaging platform. from the mount, I could easily have
This is the same connector used for the Captured with the 14-inch Meade been half a world away.
power source for Finger Lakes Instru- operating at a focal length of 3,375 mm, The CEM120 continues iOptron’s
mentation’s CCD cameras. it’s a stack of thirty 10-minute expo- track record of developing innovative
While this cable-management sures made on two consecutive nights. telescope mounts that offer lots of
system can likely handle any imaging Not a single image had to be rejected performance relative to their cost — in
setup that I can think of, it may require because of poor tracking. Indeed, of the other words, mounts that are a great
custom cables to make it a plug-and- dozens of exposures I made of various value in today’s marketplace.
play setup. For example, I needed short objects during my testing, none was ever
cables with male coaxial plugs on each degraded by tracking errors. ■ DENNIS DI CICCO has been covering
end to feed power from the saddle As with most Go To mounts, the astronomical equipment in the pages of
ports to the inputs of my CCD camera CEM120 can be parked and later Sky & Telescope for 45 years.
ASTRONOMER’S WORKBENCH by Jerry Oltion
The section containing the Sun

through Mars is in a grassy park within
the city of Coleman. The straight section
of trail ends there, allowing Bob to place
the Sun off the trail but still directly in
line with the extended centerline.
All of the planets were placed within
their orbits’ eccentric limits, but Bob
did have to adjust their positions a bit.
Mercury had to be placed close to peri-
helion to avoid putting it in the middle
of a cross street. Pluto’s position at the
trail head in the Village of North Brad-
ley 9 kilometers eastward places it well
outside Neptune’s orbit, but as Bob says,
“It will be in perfect agreement with the
real Pluto’s position in a few decades.”
Each planet sculpture is mounted on
a three-feet-high by four-inch-square
stainless steel pedestal so each sphere
A Scale Model
p Robert Mass
poses with Saturn can be easily spotted. At each end of
on the Pere Mar- the system are information signs with a
quette Rail Trail. table of trail and solar system distances,
Solar System The Sun is visible

at the far end of
the trail.
a photo of the conjunction of 1980,
Copernicus’s heliocentric model of the
solar system, and a map of the trail.
This project is literally far out. Another volunteer, Henry Hellmann,
co-authored the design of the signs and
I LOVE BICYCLING TO PLUTO and Eugene’s Sun is 4.5 feet in diameter, developed QR codes, which are affixed to
back. My wife and I do it several times for a 1:1 billion scale. Bob’s is 7.5 feet the sculptures. These codes take smart
a month along the scale model solar in diameter, for 1:600 million scale. phone users directly to a NASA site for
system in our hometown of Eugene, That puts his Pluto 5.6 miles (9 kilome- detailed astronomical data.
Oregon. Now, thanks to Robert Mass, ters) away. There was a perfect stretch The planets, rings, and stems were
people can do the same in Midland of path for that between the towns made of stainless steel so should be
County, Michigan. of Coleman and North Bradley. It’s care-free for decades. The Sun was
Bob’s scale model got its start nearly arrow-straight, so you can see the entire fabricated of steel and painted at the
38 years ago. He remembers: “I had length of the solar system at once. With Gladwin Tank Factory (and Bob reports
taken my young children, Kathy, Phil, a small telescope, you can even see the that “It just cleared the utility wires on
and Andy, to an open field north of Sun from Pluto. (And yes, since this is its 26-mile trailer trip to Coleman.”)
town to see the great conjunction of a scale model, seeing Pluto from the The gas giant planets are hollow spheres
the planets in 1980. As the last rays of Earth is every bit as difficult as spotting purchased from Sharpe Products of
the Sun disappeared, we and everybody the real thing.) New Berlin, WI, but the smaller plan-
around the world could see the five ets were made
ROBERT M ASS: CH A RLES BONH A M, BONH A M PHOTOG R A PH Y;
naked-eye planets form a very short arc in Bob’s own
in the west.” More recently, he has been machine shop,
keeping track of Saturn and Jupiter’s using a custom
relative position in anticipation of their sphere-turning
conjunction in 2020. That led his son lathe attach-
SUN A ND PL A NE TS: BEN TIER NE Y
Phil to mention the Eugene model laid ment that he also

out along 3.7 miles of river path, and made himself.
together they calculated that they could
t All the planets were
do an even larger model along the Pere
gathered for a group
Marquette Rail Trail, an old railway photo next to the
right of way turned into a paved walk- Sun before their inal
ing and bicycling path. installation.

✦ Design ✦ Manufacturing ✦ Installation ✦ Retrofitting ✦
Bob reports that “Many winter days
were spent sanding, polishing, drilling
anchoring holes, and drilling and tap-
ping the holes for the planets’ labels.”
Most of the $21,000 financing for
the materials and contracted fabrication
came from the Midland Area Com-
Precision Control,
munity Foundation. The Rail Trail is
part of the Midland County Parks and
Recreation Department, whose mem-
Optimum Performance
bers were a major part of the design,
construction, and now maintenance
of the scale model. They celebrated the
project’s grand opening in May of 2017.
The Rail Trail public park is always
open and free to visit. Hiking or biking
photo: NASA,ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)

is the best method of touring the solar
system, but parallel roads and cross-
roads provide easy access and view-
ing. The trail area is mostly wooded,
with occasional homes and farms with DFM Engineering, Inc.
1035 Delaware Ave., Unit D
blocks of fields. It’s hard to imagine a Longmont, CO USA 80501
Phone 303-678-8143
more pleasant way to get your exercise Fax 303-772-9411
and contemplate your place the universe [email protected]
www.dfmengineering.com
✦ Optical Servicing ✦ Upgrades / Repairs ✦ Observatory Design Consulting ✦
p Bob made a sphere-cutting tool for his lathe

so he could make the inner planets himself.
at the same time. As Bob says, “Many of

us parents and grandparents have had a
joyous time explaining to the next gen-
erations the vast differences in sizes and
distances to our neighboring planets.”
To locate a solar system model near
you, visit https://is.gd/ss_model.
For more information about
this project, contact Robert Mass at
[email protected].
■ Contributing Editor JERRY OLTION

hopes to bicycle Bob’s scale model
ROBERT M ASS
someday, too. If you’d like Jerry to con-

sider your project for this column, send
him your ideas at [email protected].
GALLERY
u OVER-UNDER ECLIPSE
Renato Langersek
The Moon is seen on the evening of
July 27 shortly after entering the lon-
gest lunar eclipse of the 21st century.
South is up, as the Moon normally
appears when seen from the South-
ern Hemisphere, in this case Bris-
bane, Australia.
DETAILS: Canon EOS 5D Mark II
DSLR camera with 1,000-mm lens at
f/10. Total exposure was 0.5 second at
ISO 1600.
RED PAIR RISING

Dong Han
The eclipsed Moon and Mars (right) rise over
the bright lights of Cologne, Germany.
DETAILS: Sony Alpha 7 II DSLR with 28-to-
70-mm zoom lens at 52 mm. Composite of
several images, each exposed for 2 seconds.

EXPLORE. OBSERVE. DISCOVER.
Images courtesy of Bruce Waddington (centre) and Suavi Lipinski (main image & right above and below).
QSI has resumed production and development of

its award-winning cameras and continues to utilise
the same compact and performance-driven design.
By integrating both a precision off-axis guider and
a filter wheel directly into each of our cameras, we
have earned our place as the go-to place for the
astrophotographer’s camera of choice.
If you want quality, you want QSI.
www.QSImaging.com
GALLERY
u COMPACT GAL A X Y GROUP

Richard S. Wright, Jr.
Hickson 44 in the sickle of Leo contains several interest-
ing galaxies, including NGC 3193 (left), NGC 3190 (cen-
ter), NGC 3187 (right), and NGC 3185 (bottom right).
DETAILS: Sky-Watcher Quattro 300P Imaging Newtonian
with Starlight Xpress Trius-SX694 CCD camera. Total expo-
sure: 6.8 hours through Baader LRGB filters.
p RING FLOWER
Luigi Morrone
This deep image of M57 in Lyra
displays the dying star’s faintest outer
shells, resembling the petals of a rose.
DETAILS: 10-inch Newtonian reflec-
tor with Atik 383L CCD camera. Total
exposure: 7½ hours through color filters.
u ONE-ARMED SPIR AL
Keith Quattrocchi
NGC 4725 in Coma Berenices is a
large spiral galaxy about 40 million
light-years distant that has a single
spiral arm riddled with pinkish star-
forming regions.
DETAILS: 16-inch RCOS Ritchey-
Chrétien telescope with SBIG STL-6303
CCD camera. Total exposure: 102/3
hours through Astrodon LRGB filters.

GALLERY
THE BUT TERFLY

Stacey Fox
Just east of the bright star
Sadr (right) lies the large
emission nebula IC 1318,
which is bisected by the thick
dust of LDN 889.
DETAILS: Stellarvue SV70T
refractor with ZWO
ASI1600MM Pro CMOS
camera. Total exposure: 5 hours
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Woodland Hills Telescopes. . . . . . . . . . . . 29
FOCAL POINT by Douglas Ray Nelson
Cosmic
Entanglement
A brush with death brings home the profound
connection we all have with the universe.
I COULD NOT HAVE BEEN more than told thousands of

eight years old. “Look into the eye- children, “There
piece,” the astronomer said. “You’ll see is no reason to
Saturn.” I knew Saturn from pictures be afraid of the
— the planet with rings — but I’d never dark. In fact, the
observed it with my own eyes. I peered nighttime sky has
into the eyepiece and perceived a small so much to be
dot encircled by white rings. “Some of excited about. Let’s take a look!”
those nearby stars that you see are actu- In my forties, I climbed to the top of
ally Saturnian moons.” I was hooked. the world. Well, maybe not the top. But
In my teens, I knew the names of from a steep hill surrounded by Wyo-
the brighter stars. During that time, ming grassland, I watched my first total
on a bitterly cold night in 1986, I stood solar eclipse. The Moon ate the Sun and p Beloved objects in the author’s life, clock-
wise from above: Saturn taken by Voyager 2
on a dark street in a small town and both became a single hole in the sky in 1981; Halley’s Comet shot by the Kuiper
made out a smudge low in the sky. It darker than pitch and crowned with a Airborne Observatory in 1986; a starscape fea-
was Halley’s Comet. Very faint, but blazing halo. turing Cygnus; and the 2017 total solar eclipse.
there. It would make a better showing The climb that day took every bit of
in 2061. I’d be 90. “See you later,” I strength I had. I barely made it. The How many stargazing nights do I
whispered to the comet. same was not true of my companion. have left? I don’t know, but the number
In my twenties, I sat atop a lad- He didn’t think the climb was a big is finite. Each session is a gift from the
der and gazed into an enormous tube deal. I felt like it had nearly killed me. universe, an opportunity to observe
with a mirror on the bottom. Comet Indeed, it had. where I came from and where I am
Shoemaker-Levy 9 had fragmented and A couple of months later, during an going. You see, we are entangled, the
smashed into Jupiter. Dark plumes the annual checkup, my doctor discovered cosmos and I. It is part of me, and I am
SAT UR N: N ASA / JPL; H A LLE Y’S CO ME T: N ASA;
CYG NUS A ND ECLIPSE: SE A N WA LK ER / S&T
size of Earth marked the impacts. Night a heart murmur. A cardiologist found part of it. This is the way it has been
after night, I tracked Jupiter until it heart disease, and I soon had open- and, even after I’m gone, the way it
sank below the horizon, knowing that heart surgery. It saved my life, and I’m forever will be.
I would likely never view such a rare still in recovery.
event again. Facing death, I reevaluated life. Had I ¢ Las Vegas–based DOUG NELSON
In my thirties, I worked as a plan- lived well? What would I change? Which blogs at confessionsofastargazer.com.
etarium curator and star party host. were my favorite memories? Time and He’s not afraid of the dark, but some-
“Welcome to the stars,” I said to the again, my mind drifted to nights under times he does wonder if a monster is
crowds. Over years of school shows, I the stars. Each had been time well spent. hiding under his bed.

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