Category Archives: astronomy

astronomy, Hubble Space Telecope

Hubble and Me

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My Relationship with Hubble Space Telescope

Hubble’s panoramic view of the Orion Nebula, a starbirth region some 1,500 light-years away from Earth. Courtesy NASA/ESA/STScI.

A lot of blogs and Web pages are posting breathless headlines about Hubble Space Telescope and its 25th launch anniversary this week, along with things like the “Five Most Clickbaity Images Hubble Ever Produced”.  I thought about that, and to be honest, at first I, too, wanted a headline like “That Weird Thing Hubble Saw” or “The Most Mind-boggling, Eye-Melty, Ear-Rattling, Rip-snortin’ Image Hubble Ever Created”.

However, the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to tell a simple story about my relationship with this major observatory.  Of course, I definitely have my favorite images. In fact, the one I love the most is the Orion Nebula, shown here. It just speaks to me at so many levels (scientifically and artistically). And, to be honest, I HAVE written elsewhere about the cool images from Hubble, particularly in an article about the 25th anniversary (which has links to other pieces I’ve done about the telescope).

But, this story here is more personal.

Now, I didn’t get to use the telescope to observe something (although my team did—more on that in a bit).  I wasn’t even there when it launched. But, Hubble did turn out to be a big part of my life and my career. Here’s how that happened.

My story with Hubble started when I went back to school in the late 1980s. I was thinking about working toward an astrophysics degree, but I needed to make up some undergraduate course work before I could apply to grad school. So, I went back to the University of Colorado and began taking every astronomy class I could get into, plus geology, chemistry, and physics. I took so much astronomy that one of my advisors told me I could have been qualified to get a BS degree in it (if they’d offered one at the time). Didn’t matter. I just wanted to soak up astronomy!

Upon my return to school, I was offered a job by Dr. Jack Brandt, who is a comet expert, and also was Co-Investigator for the Goddard High Resolution Spectrograph instrument that was onboard Hubble for a few years. He enticed me by saying that if I stuck around, I might get to work on HST results. Well, that sounded okay by me, so I signed on the dotted line and went to work on his comet team first, and later joined the GHRS team.

Continue reading Hubble and Me →

astronomy, International Dark-Sky Association, light pollution

Dark Skies: Do YOU Have Them?

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Would You Like to Have Them?

A couple of years ago, my partner and I produced a video called Losing the Dark to help the International Dark-Sky Association reach out to the public about light pollution through planetariums as well as online. The show has been a great hit, and it’s now in 14 languages. It talks about light pollution, its causes, effects, and—very important here—what we can all do to stop shining light into the sky. I invite you to watch it here, download it here (if you’re a planetarian), and support the International Dark-Sky Association in its work to help people use light safely and effectively.

Among IDA’s biggest outreach projects is International Dark Sky Week. They didn’t start this annual event, it was the brainchild of a high school student named Jennifer Barlow, who started it in 2003. It is now a world-wide event, and is a part of Global Astronomy Month (this month, in fact).

How dark are YOUR skies? Use this chart to figure out how much light pollution is affecting your view. Courtesy NASA.
How dark are YOUR skies? Use this chart to figure out how much light pollution is affecting your view. Courtesy http://wordlesstech.com/2014/04/07/dark-skies-interactive-map/ (Click image to get a bigger version.)

 

The idea behind this special week of dark skies is to remind people that the beauty of the night sky is slowly going missing due to light pollution. The night sky is something people around the world share in common, and if we all figure out ways to mitigate light pollution, that beauty will return to us. Another tenet of the celebration is to help people understand the negative aspects of light pollution: to our health, to the environment—and if that doesn’t convince you—to your pocketbook. It costs MONEY to get the fossil fuels to run the power plants that generate the electricity that powers the lights that wash out the sky—which is silly when you think about it. There are better ways to safely light the areas we need.

So, check out Losing the Dark and learn more about Dark Sky Week, and give a little thought to what you can do (even if it’s just your own back yard or front doorstep) to decrease the light we send upwards. Great beauty is worth the effort!

By the way, this month is full of things to celebrate space-wise, as well: Yuri’s Night is Sunday, April 12th, Earth Day is Wednesday, April 22, Astronomy Day is April 25th, and this entire year is the International Year of Light.