Category Archives: Astronomy

Astronomy

Amateur astronomer captures images of giant Gamma Ray Burst

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Amateur astronomer Patrick Wiggins captured images of the visible light from the largest gamma-ray burst ever recorded.  GRBs are seldom bright enough to be seen with amateur telescopes but this one was especially energetic across the spectrum and for several hours.

Brilliant gamma-ray burst

This animation from NASA shows, before and after, the patch of sky
where GRB 130427A appeared on April 27, 2013. The image was produced
by the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. Here is a larger view.
Credits: NASA / DOE / Fermi LAT Collaboration
Astronomy, Space Radio

Grote Reber inducted into Inventors Hall of Fame

A reader points me to the news that Grote Reber, a ham radio operator and amateur astronomer, has been inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame for his invention of the radio telescope:

From the induction description:

Grote Reber (1911 – 2002)
Navigational Instrument
Patent No. 2,519,603
Radio telescope

Reber, a pioneering radio astronomer, built the first substantial radio telescope dedicated to astronomy. Radio astronomy allows for the detection of objects and phenomena not possible with optical astronomy, utilizing a radio receiver that can amplify faint cosmic signals, making the waves strong enough to be recorded and charted.

More about Grote from the History of Radio Astronomy | Susquehanna Astronomical Society:

[…] the U.S. Radio Engineer and Amateur Radio Operator, Grote Reber (W8GFZ) (b.1911-d.2002) built the first radio telescope at his home in Wheaton, Illinois. His design was considerably more advanced than Jansky’s, consisting of a parabolic sheet metal mirror 9 meters in diameter, focusing to a radio receiver 8 meters above the mirror. The entire assembly was mounted on a tilting stand allowing it to be pointed in various directions, although not turned. The telescope was completed in 1937.

Reber’s first receiver operated at 3300 MHz and failed to detect signals from outer space, as did his second, operating at 900 MHz. Finally his third attempt at 160 MHz was successful in 1938, confirming Jansky’s discovery. He found that the radio radiation came from all along the plane of the Milky Way and from the Sun. Reber turned his attention to making a radio-frequency sky map, which he completed in 1941 and extended in 1943.

Reber later donated his telescope to the NRAO in Green Bank, West Virginia, and helped supervise its re-construction at that site. The telescope was then mounted on a turntable, allowing it to be pointed in any direction. Reber helped with a reconstruction of Jansky’s original telescope as well.

Activism, Astronomy, Space participation

Looking in on the Zooniverse citizen science space projects

A scan of of what’s happening with the space related citizen science projects at Zooniverse:

Update May.9.13: Here is a report by Katy Maloney about a recent Zooniverse workshop held n Chicago at the Adler Planetarium :

Astronomy, Space participation

Search for Space Warps in new citizen science project

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A new citizen science project from Zooniverse is titled Space Warps.

This project is a gravitational lens discovery engine. Large astronomical surveys can use Space Warps to find gravitational lenses in their data through the collaborative efforts of citizen scientists.

Here is an animation of the gravitational lenses effect:

More information about the project is described here: New Project: Join the Search for ‘Space Warps’ – Zooniverse

Gravitational lenses – or ‘space warps’ – are created when massive galaxies cause light to bend around them such that they act rather like giant lenses in space. By looking through data that has never been seen by human eyes, our new Space Warps project is asking citizen scientists to help discover some of these incredibly rare objects. We need your help to spot these chance-alignments of galaxies in a huge survey of the night sky. To take part visit www.spacewarps.org.

Gravitational lenses help us to answer all kinds of questions about galaxies, including how many very low mass stars such as brown dwarfs – which aren’t bright enough to detect directly in many observations – are lurking in distant galaxies. The Zooniverse has always been about connecting people with the biggest questions and now, with Space Warps, we’re taking our first trip to the early Universe. We’re excited to let people be the first to see some of the rarest astronomical objects of all!

The Space Warps project is a lens discovery engine. Joining the search is easy: when you visit the website you are given examples of what space warps look like and are shown how to mark potential candidates on each image. The first set of images to be inspected in this project is from the CFHT (Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope) legacy survey.

[See above video.]

Computer algorithms have already scanned the images, but there are likely to be many more space warps that the algorithms have missed. We think that only with human help will we find them all. Realistic simulated lenses are dropped into some images to help you learn how to spot them, and reassure you that you’re on the right track. Previous studies have shown that the human brain is better at identifying complex lenses than computers are, and we know at the Zooniverse that members of the public can be at least as good at spotting astronomical objects as experts! We’re going to use the data from citizen scientists to continuously train computers to become better space warp spotters.

This is a really exciting project and you can read more on the Space Warps blog. As with our other projects it can also be found on Twitter (@SpaceWarps), on Facebook and you can discuss any interesting objects you find on Space Warps Talk. We’re really excited about this project and think you’ll be able to make some amazing discoveries through it.