TGT #31 - The Image of Astronomers; + 5 more [Sept. 15, 2022]
Modern Images of Astronomers and Astronomy + Resource Articles; Equally Spaced Planets in the Evening!; Astronomy in Everyday Life--Wine and Gravity Humor; New Online Sky Events Calendar.
Cover Photo - Astronomers Revered, Reviled, Ridiculed
In This Issue:
Cover Photo — Astronomers Revered, Reviled, Ridiculed
Welcome to Issue 31!
Article: The Image of Astronomers
Article: Resources on Modern Astronomy Issues from Nature Astronomy
Sky Planning Calendar —
* Observing—Plan-et - A Planet in Every ‘House’ on the Block
* Moon-Gazing - Past Mars, Stars, and Vanishing Venus* Border Crossings - Astrology and Astronomy are One
Astronomy in Everyday Life — Because We Need Some Humor
Welcome to The Galactic Times Newsletter-Inbox Magazine #31 !
Yours truly a) took a break for a month….too bad it was not a break and I didn’t get the writing done I *wanted* to do, and b) I am thoroughly and virtually jet lagged from being at the Communicating Astronomy to the Public Conference in Sydney, Australia, where it is Thursday there but Wednesday here as I write this.
A new feature. On the website there now is a calendar for all our Sky Calendar Events (and any other events that happen to be noticed by yours truly)! It can be found on the menu bar. Working on instructions such that you can download the data to your personal Google (or Apple?) calendars.
Some more changes to The Galactic Times are anticipated, starting next month. Stay tuned.
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Publisher — Dr. Larry Krumenaker Email: newsletter@thegalactictimes.com
The Image of Astronomers
Toss Gascoigne is an amazing speaker. A science communicator at the Australian National University, he opened a plenary session at the Communicating Astronomy to the Public conference in Sydney by showing the following headline of an article from several years ago:
Yes, despite all the nice images our probes produce, our image, and that of scientists in general, still hasn’t gotten much past the Frankensteins of the past.
Revered? Well, in some cases. In native Hawaiian culture, pre-White settlers, nothing happened unless the native astronomers said the stars said it was good to go, said Gascoigne (though this sounds a lot more astrology than astronomy to me). In Thailand, the national Science Day is August 18th. Why? Because the 19th century King Rama IV predicted a solar eclipse for that day, and since it happened and kings are revered in that country, that day is now special. But….ask a modern American who is their most favorite astronomer and you get…..Einstein? Maybe deGrasse Tyson? If you are of a certain age, Sagan. Anyone else? <Crickets>
Reviled? Remember Pluto, the ninth planet? Yeah, we demoted that to a dwarf world. Astronomer Michael Brown revels in being the bad guy.
Ridiculed? In many movies, especially older ones, astronomers are usually among the least human, most not-like-us characters there are, if not downright evil. At best, per the US National Science Board (2002) astronomers are “unattractive, reclusive, socially inept white men or foreigners working in unglamorous careers.” At worst, according to Rosslyn Haynes, author of From Faust to Strangelove, Representations of the Scientist in Western Literature:
Ouch.
Why should it matter to we The Galactic Times readers? For one thing, many of us ARE astronomers, or astronomy educators or popularizers. We may be the only representatives of the science that people see. So it matters how we are perceived, and how and why we appear as we do. And it affects our employment.
Some points Gascoigne made:
Image is important! In our Cover Photo is super-serious William Powell looking at Hedy Lamar in an unmemorable movie poster. What Gascoigne pointed out is that the actress playing the dimwitted femme-fatale was no dummy. She had an actual science lab contracted to be in place on the movie lot for her to use! Use it she did. Lamar developed a device during World War II that was used to prevent submarines from being found by the Germans, an early ancestor to wi-fi and bluetooth signalling devices.
Positive Images attract funding, add credibility, and garner support. This has always been a mantra since the first Sputniks, or at least Vanguard satellites. You think those space telescopes—or ground scopes or supercomputers—are cheap? Guess again.
And whatever message you want to get across, whether PR or a lesson or just something new and wonderful someone else should know, the message needs to be tailored to your audience.
What do you want to get across?
What do they want to know?
What could they get wrong?
What is the best method (medium) do reach them (i.e. the one they like)?
Gascoigne’s final words of advice, to get past the images of astronomers he started with (and which definitely did not fit HIM) were: Be accessible, be available, be ordinary, and speak with stories in everyday language.
Resources on Modern Astronomy Issues from Nature Astronomy
Along the lines of the above article and how astronomy fits into this modern world with all its crises, Nature Astronomy’s editor Paul Woods talked about astronomy’s efforts not so much on its image but its effects on the world, and its efforts to improve things. Here are some links to those collections of articles:
The Impact of Astronomy on Climate Change
The carbon footprint of research institutes, observatories and space missions, conferences, and high performance computing. The impact of climate change on astronomical observations.
Astronomy for Development
African projects to stimulate educational, technological and socioeconomic development. Outreach projects to spark science interest. Reports from developing countries on astronomical facilities.
Smallsats and Orbital Pollution
Multiple articles on the impact of satellite constellations on astronomy and on ancestral global commons. Sustainable pathways for space science. Doing astronomy with smallsats.
https://www.nature.com/collections/ieagihbbfh
Sky Planning Calendar
Remember the summer’s dawn Planetary Parade, where all the planets were lined up in order? Well, we have something *like* it, though not exactly, in the evening sky now. Call it…..
Observing---Plan-et….: An Outer Planet In Every ‘House’ on the Block
From Mars to Neptune you’ll find them in consecutive zodiac constellations, from Taurus to Capricornus (East to West), a spread along the ecliptic of 121 degrees, a third of the way around the whole sky. Some you can find as soon as the sky gets dark after sunset, the rest you have to wait for a few hours.
Also interesting is that the four legitimately naked eye outer worlds (that’s all but Neptune, you do have to include Uranus here) are all about equally spaced apart, averaging about 40 degrees! And all of the five worlds (and certainly the three bright ones) are no farther than a degree and a half from the ecliptic so you can ‘connect the dots’ and outline the Sun’s path in the sky for a third of the year—most of the winter and spring months—and which marks the reflection of the Earth’s orbital motion around the Sun.
Here’s their data for September 30:
Planet Brightness Constellation Ecliptic Ecliptic Distance
(magnitude) Latitude Longitude from prior planet
Saturn 0.5 Capricornus -1.2 degrees 319 degrees ——
Neptune 7.7 Aquarius -1.2 354 35 degrees
Jupiter -2.9 Pisces -1.6 3 9 (44 to Saturn)
Uranus 5.6 Aries -0.4 48 45
Mars -0.7 Taurus -0.4 80 32
Saturn was at opposition earlier so it is up before the Sun has even set and is up almost all night, setting a couple hours before dawn begins. It traverses low across the southern sky.
Neptune reaches opposition to the Sun, rising as the Sun sets, setting as the Sun rises, on the 16th of September, at a distance of 4.1 light hours from Earth.
Jupiter reaches its opposition nine days later, on the 25th, at a distance from Earth of 33 light minutes. It far outshines anything natural in the evening sky unless the Moon is in view.
Uranus, while dimly visible to the naked eye if you know where to look, rises after sunset and Jupiter, reaches opposition next month.
Mars rises around 10 PM Daylight Saving Time but will be unmistakable, a red star of magnitude -0.6 and still brightening. Only Jupiter and Sirius, when it rises later, are brighter ‘stars’ than it, and no red giants are at all. Find the Last Quarter Moon near it on the 17th.
What about Mercury and Venus?
Mercury starts to peep out into the dawn, for a somewhat decent morning apparition next month, on the last day of September, otherwise, it is a no-go any time before the 28th. Venus is doing the opposite, dropping down into the solar glare in the dawn, getting too close for easy view by the the 23rd though with a clear horizon and/or binoculars you might catch a glimpse thru the 30th, about 30 minutes before sunrise in the very bright twilight.
And Earth reaches its September Equinox, Autumn in the North, Spring in the South, on September 22, at 8:04 PM Central Daylight Time (in Alabama).
Moon-Gazing
Moon passages by a star, planet or deep sky object are a good way to find a planet or other object if you’ve never located it before.
September 16 The Moon is between Mars and the Pleiades.
September 17 Last Quarter. Find Mars about 4 degrees from the Moon.
September 19 Apogee. A Micro-Waning-Gibbous Moon.
September 20 That star around 4 lunar diameters away from the Moon is Pollux.
September 23 The Moon is to the left of first-magnitude Regulus in Leo.
September 24 The Old Moon, a thin crescent, is direction above vanishing-from-the-dawn Venus some 30 minutes before Sunrise.
September 25 New Moon. In one more month there will be a solar eclipse somewhere. Details in an upcoming issue of TGT….
September 28 The crescent moon is below Alpha Librae, Zubenelgenubi. Say that five times fast.
September 30 The waxing nearly to First Quarter moon is close to and above Antares, in Scorpius.
Border Crossings
Remember that peaceful coexistence between astrology and astronomy in August? It went away after August 23rd. But it resumes in September, that time of year when tradition and astronomy actually sync a bit. Tradition says the Sun is in Virgo from September 23rd and for a month. Actually the Sun is in Virgo from the 16th, and as the largest zodiac constellation it will stay there for 45 days.
Astronomy in Everyday Life
Because we need some humor……
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