Monday, October 31, 2016
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The ‘doughnut diet’ taking the internet by storm – but will YOU be tucking in? [bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]
But what if there was a diet that allowed you to eat cakes, biscuits and doughnuts – and still shed the pounds?
Social media is abuzz over the new ‘doughnut diet’ and even Time magazine has written about it, profiling “the incredibly fit guy who eats burritos every single day”.
The official name for the diet is IIFYM – or If It Fits Your Macros.
You don’t cut out food groups but instead have to stick to a personal calorie count, and a macros target.
‘Macros’ refers to macronutrients – the three main nutrient groups of proteins, carbohydrates and fats.
With an IIFYM plan, you are given a calorie allowance and a macro target to follow.
The plan was launched by Anthony Collova, an American bodybuilder.
Explaining why he decided to share the plan with the world, Anthony wrote on the site: “With so much hype and confusion created around dieting, I wanted to launch a website that promoted a nutrition plan that is not only easy to comprehend, but easy to implement at well.
“Something based on science, and intuition, rather than hyperbole and hope.”
To start the plan, users must enter their weight, age, height and daily activity level, after which they are given their total daily energy expenditure.
They then choose what kind of weight loss they want – from burning fat to getting shredded, to “leaning out”.
The site then calculates how many calories a day dieters can consume.
But this is not just a simple calorie counting approach, as the diet tells users exactly how they should be consuming these calories via a “macronutrient target”.
So a dieter will be told the percentage of their daily calorie intake that should be coming from each food type – from fat to protein to carbohydrates.
It is then up to them to work out what that means for their meal plans.
Sadly, this leads to complexities that puts many would-be dieters off the plan – not least because they are then required to weigh and measure everything they eat.
So it isn’t really as simple as stuffing down a doughnut and carrying on with your day – but hopefully the plan may be refined to make it more simple to follow in the future.
The ‘doughnut diet’ comes as experts reveal how to reclaim your waistline after piling on the pounds during a holiday.
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[bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]The ‘doughnut diet’ taking the internet by storm – but will YOU be tucking in?Thursday, October 27, 2016
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Monday, October 17, 2016
Black Holes’ Cosmic ‘Choir Singers’ Finally Identified [bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]
The blue dots in this field of galaxies, known as the COSMOS field, show galaxies that contain supermassive black holes emitting high-energy X-rays.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
The frenzied feeding of gigantic black holes fills the universe with powerful X-rays, creating ever-present background “music.”
Although this music’s melody is easily identified by scientists, the individual singers have long remained obscure. Now, new data from NASA’s Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) spacecraft has begun to identify some of the voices.
“We knew this cosmic choir had a strong high-pitched component, but we still don’t know if it comes from a lot of smaller, quiet singers, or a few with loud voices,” study co-author Daniel Stern, NuSTAR project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, said in a statement. “Now, thanks to NuSTAR, we’re gaining a better understanding of the black holes and starting to address these questions.” [Gallery: NuSTAR, NASA’s Black Hole Hunting Space Telescope]
As black holes’ powerful gravity pulls in surrounding gas and dust, some of this material is heated and accelerated to nearly the speed of light. This process unleashes powerful X-ray bursts that sing across space, creating what astronomers call the cosmic X-ray background.
Artist’s illustration of a supermassive black hole emitting a jet of energetic particles. Such black holes are also strong emitters of X-ray light, which is apparently reflected off gas and dust in the surrounding “accretion disk.”.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory has managed to identify many of the black holes carrying the melody, but the most energetic objects with the highest-pitched voices have continued to blend into the crowd.
That’s changing, however, thanks to NuSTAR.
“We’ve gone from resolving just 2 percent of the high-energy X-ray background to 35 percent,” Fiona Harrison, NuSTAR principal investigator and lead author of the new study describing the findings, said in the same statement. “We can see the most obscured black holes, hidden in thick gas and dust.”
Most (if not all) galaxies contain supermassive black holesat their centers. Although the Milky Way’s black hole is relatively quiet today, it must have gobbled up a great deal of “food” in the past to grow to its present size — about 4.5 million times the mass of the sun, previous observations found.
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Black holes are so bizarre, they sound unreal. Yet astronomers have found good evidence they exist. Test your knowledge of these wacky wonders.
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The new study, which has been accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal, will help astronomers understand how black hole feeding patterns change over time, the researchers said.
NuSTAR is the first telescope capable of probing the high-energy X-ray songs of black holes. It has revealed a black hole bounty since its 2012 launch.
“Before NuSTAR, the X-ray background in high energies was just one blur with no unresolved sources,” said Harrison, a professor at the California Institute of Technology. “To untangle what’s going on, you have to pinpoint and count up the individual sources of the X-rays.”
Follow Nola Taylor Redd on Twitter @NolaTRedd or Google+. Follow us at @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com.
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[bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]Black Holes’ Cosmic ‘Choir Singers’ Finally Identified[bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]
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[bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]Sunday, October 16, 2016
Will the Great Attractor Destroy Us? [bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]
An ultraviolet image of a small area of the Virgo Cluster of galaxies, which consists of more than 1,300 galaxies packed into a dense clump only 65 million light-years away.
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SSC
Paul Sutter is an astrophysicist at The Ohio State University and the chief scientist at COSI Science Center. Sutter is also host of the podcasts Ask a Spaceman and RealSpace, and the YouTube series COSI Science Now.
Somewhere, in the deepest reaches of the cosmos, far from the safe confines of our home galaxy, the Milky Way, lies a monster. Slowly, inevitably, it is pulling. Over the course of billions of years, it draws us and everything near us closer to it. The only force that acts over such immense distance scales and through cosmic periods of time is gravity, so whatever it is, it’s massive and unrelenting.
We call it the Great Attractor, and until recently, its true nature has been a complete mystery. Note that it’s still a mystery, just not a complete one.
The Great Attractor was first discovered in the 1970s when astronomers made detailed maps of the Cosmic Microwave Background (the light left over from the early universe), and noticed that it was slightly (and “slightly” here means less than one one-hundredth of a degree Fahrenheit) warmer on one side of the Milky Way than the other — implying that the galaxy was moving through space at the brisk clip of about 370 miles per second (600 km/s).
Even though astronomers could measure the rapid velocity, they couldn’t explain its origin.
[Watch: I explain the discovery of the Great Attractor in this video.]
The Zone of Avoidance
First, why is there a mystery in the first place? Astronomers are fantastically good at looking at stuff in space — it is, after all, their one job. So you’d think by now someone would’ve pointed a telescope in the direction of our motion and … well, figured it out. But there’s a problem: whatever the Great Attractor is, it lies in the direction of the constellation Centaurus, and the disk of our own Milky Way cuts right through our view that way. Our galaxy is full of junk — stars, gas, dust, more gas — and all that junk blocks the light from the more distant universe.
So we’re fantastically good at mapping most of the large-scale structure of the universe, except where we’re forced to look through our own galaxy. Ever the dramatic bunch, astronomers have called this region the Zone of Avoidance.
And dang it, the Great Attractor sits right back there, deep in the Zone, difficult to characterize. Thankfully, that’s been starting to change, as X-ray and radio astronomers have peered through the murky depths of the Milky Way and begun a hazy, uncertain sketch of that hitherto unknown patch of universe.
Go Big and go home
To understand what’s going on with the Great Attractor, we need to look at the big picture. And I mean Big: The biggest picture of all. Beyond our Milky Way galaxy is our nearest decent-size galactic neighbor, the Andromeda Galaxy. A little over 2.5 million light-years away, it’s practically down the street at the scales I’m talking about.
The Milky Way, Andromeda, the Triangulum Galaxy, and a few dozen hangers-on form the Local Group, a gravitationally bound clump about 10 million light-years across.
The Next Big Thing down the way is the Virgo Cluster, the Downtown of our local patch of universe: More than 1,300 galaxies packed into a dense clump only 65 million light-years away. The Virgo Cluster is gravitationally bound, too, which means about what you think it would mean: Its member galaxies tend to hang out near each other, tied up by their mutual gravity.
Going bigger than that and it gets a little fuzzy, in terms of defining extra-galactic structures. There are enormous collections of galaxies called “superclusters,” and for a long time they were loosely defined as “Eh, it’s larger than a cluster, but smaller than a universe.” They got sweet names, too, based on what constellation we looked through to map out the structure, or named after old astronomers: Virgo Supercluster, Hydra-Centaurus Supercluster, Shapley Supercluster, etc. That definition worked fine until we needed to start getting serious work done; e.g., figuring out what the heck is going on with the Great Attractor.
Go with the Flow
We live in a hierarchical universe. That is, over the past 13-and-change billion years, matter has been accumulating into small clumps, which merged into bigger clumps, which merged into even bigger clumps. The party came to a stop, however, about 5 billion years ago when dark energy started to dominate … but that’s the subject of another article.
Our universe has already formed galaxies, groups and clusters. Our own Local Group is condensing, with the Milky Way and Andromeda headed for a collision in about 5 billion years. The Local Group itself, along with some other groups and smaller clusters, are cruising along the gravitational highways to the downtown Virgo Cluster, which is at the center of the conveniently-named Virgo Supercluster.
And all the nearby stuff — including the Milky Way, Andromeda, the Virgo Cluster, and environs — are heading toward the Great Attractor. A combination of more sophisticated (read: any) surveys within the Zone of Avoidance, and a more sophisticated (read: any) understanding of what exactly is a “supercluster,” have begun to unravel the mystery of the Great Attractor.
Instead of just being a “large blob of galaxies,” studies of the velocities of galaxies in our local neighborhood of the universe have led to a better working definition of “supercluster:” a volume of space where all the galaxies in that space are “flowing” to a common center. And this definition has reworked our understanding of the local universe. The Virgo Supercluster isn’t an isolated object, but just an arm (to be fair, a tremendously huge arm) of an even larger structure: the Laniakea Supercluster.
The Not-So-Great Attractor
Looking at super-galactic structures through the lens of flows of matter, it’s easy to see what’s going on with the Great Attractor. We live in a hierarchical universe, with small structures assembling like galactic Lego blocks into larger ones. The Milky Way and Andromeda are headed toward the center of the Local Group as it condenses. All the stuff in the Virgo Supercluster is falling toward its center: the Virgo Cluster.
And all the stuff in the Laniakea Supercluster is falling toward its center, currently occupied by the Norma Cluster, which is the accumulation of all the gas and galaxies that already beat us there.
[Watch: I describe the Laniakea Supercluster in this video.]
So the Great Attractor isn’t really a thing, but a place: the focal point of our patch of the universe, the end result of a process set in motion more than 13 billion years ago, and the natural result of the flows and buildup of matter in our universe. How did this process begin? Well, that, too, is another article….
And before I go: The Great Attractor won’t stay that Great for long. In fact, we’ll never reach it. Before we do, dark energy will rip the Norma Cluster away from us. Clusters will stay like they are, but superclusters will never live up to their names. So take comfort in that: we have nothing to fear from the Great Attractor.
Learn more by listening to the episode “What is the Great Attractor?” on the Ask A Spaceman podcast, available on iTunes and on the Web at http://www.askaspaceman.com. Thanks to Jone L. for the question that led to this piece! Ask your own question on Twitter using #AskASpaceman or by following Paul @PaulMattSutter and facebook.com/PaulMattSutter.
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[bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]Will the Great Attractor Destroy Us?Venus Will Soon Unleash Its Brilliant (Evening) Star Power in the Sky [bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]
Venus is low in the sky now, but it’s preparing to put on quite a show. Venus is pictured here as seen by the Magellan spacecraft, a NASA mission of the 1990s.
Credit: NASA
Currently, the planet Venus is visible very low in the western evening sky right after sundown. Those with obstructions such as trees or buildings toward the west may not be able to see Venus yet due to its very low altitude. But this current evening apparition of Venus is going to evolve into a very good one in the coming days and weeks, so let’s get into a fuller explanation of what is to come.
Venus passed superior conjunction, when it appears to go directly behind the sun as seen from Earth, back on June 6. Initially, it was mired deep in the brilliant glare of the sun. Nonetheless, in the days that followed it moved on a steady — albeit very slow — course toward the east and gradually pulled away from the sun’s vicinity.
And now, as we make the transition from July into August, Venus has finally begun climbing up out of the sunset glow in earnest and is about to reclaim its role as the brilliant “evening star,” a title it has not held since one year ago. Look for it now by scanning with binoculars shortly after sundown very low in the western sky. Venus will stand about 10 degrees high in the western sky at sundown (your clenched fist held at arm’s length is about 10 degrees wide) and will touch the horizon about 50 minutes after sunset, giving less-experienced skywatchers the chance to get a good glimpse. [Skywatching In 2016: The Year’s Must-See Events]
During August, it will be interesting to watch as Venus and Jupiter converge on each other in the evening sky. In contrast to Venus, Jupiter is now fast departing into the west after sundown. Venus is even lower in the sunset than Jupiter for most of August. However, Venus is nearly eight times brighter and is working its way slowly upward as the weeks go by. Venus and Jupiter move 1 degree closer together each evening until reaching a very close conjunction on Aug. 27, when they’ll be less than 0.1 degrees apart as seen from the eastern half of North America. This event will be worth a special trip with binoculars to someplace commanding a scenic view of the western horizon.
The location of Venus (as well as Mercury and Jupiter) on the western horizon during the early evening sky of July 30, 2016 is shown in this sky map from Starry Night Software. This view shows Venus’ location as it appears from mid-northern latitudes.
Credit: Starry Night Software
During September Venus should become a bit easier to see. By Oct. 1, it will set about 30 degrees south of due west nearly 75 minutes after sunset. Venus will continue to swing east of the sun as the fall season progresses, and it will become plainly visible in the southwestern evening sky even to the most casual of observers by Thanksgiving.
Appearing as a brilliant silvery-white star-like object of magnitude -4.3, our sister planet will set almost four hours after the sun by Christmas Day. In fact, if the air is very clear and the sky a clean, deep blue, you might try looking for Venus shortly before sunset. As the sky darkens, it will seem to swell from a tiny white spark to a big, almost dazzling Christmas-season star.
During the winter of 2017, Venus will perform like a sequined showgirl, calling attention to herself each evening. Viewed in the western twilight, this planet always appears dazzlingly bright to the unaided eye, and more so in binoculars. Venus reaches its greatest elongation — its greatest angular distance — 47 degrees to the east of the sun on Jan. 12. It will appear at its brightest in midwinter as it heads back down toward the sun, reaching its greatest brilliancy for this apparition on Feb. 15 at magnitude -4.6. The planet will be most striking then; it will shine nearly twice as bright as it does now. Venus will then slide back toward the glare of the sun, but because it will appear to pass more than 8 degrees north of it when it passes inferior conjunction on March 25, a most unusual circumstance will take place for a few days around that time: Venus will be visible as both an evening and morning object, glowing low in the west right after sunset and also low in the east just before sunrise. It finally — almost reluctantly — will vanish for evening viewers by the end of March. [Best Telescopes for the Money – 2016 Reviews and Guide]
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Planet Venus is often likened to Earth but with a runaway greenhouse problem. The 2nd planet from the sun is hot shrouded with deadly clouds. Those are hints. Now test your knowledge of Venus facts.
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Between now and the end of March, repeated observation of Venus with a small telescope will show nearly a complete range of its phases and disk sizes. Currently, the planet appears almost full (96 percent sunlit on Aug. 1), and through the first half of the upcoming fall season will display nothing more than a tiny, dazzling gibbous disk. It will start becoming noticeably less gibbous by early December. In mid-January 2017, Venus reaches dichotomy (displaying a “half-moon” shape). Then, during February, it shows us an increasingly large crescent phase as it swings toward Earth. Indeed, those using telescopes will note that while the Earth-Venus distance is lessening, the apparent size of Venus’ disk will grow, doubling from its present size by Christmas Eve. When it has doubled again in size on Feb. 19, its large crescent shape should be easily discernable even in steadily held 7-power binoculars.
But even after it passes through inferior conjunction on March 25, our Venus show will not yet be over, for it will dramatically reappear as a dazzling “morning star” low in the eastern sky at the beginning of April. Then a repeat performance will begin, with the evening sequence of events happening in reverse, continuing right to the end of 2017.
Editor’s note: If you snap an awesome photo of the moon that you’d like to share with Space.com and our news partners for a potential story or gallery, send images and comments in to managing editor Tariq Malik at spacephotos@space.com.
Joe Rao serves as an instructor and guest lecturer at New York’s Hayden Planetarium. He writes about astronomy for Natural History magazine, the Farmer’s Almanac and other publications, and he is also an on-camera meteorologist for News 12 Westchester, New York. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.
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[bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]Venus Will Soon Unleash Its Brilliant (Evening) Star Power in the SkyBarbie Goes Cosmic in ‘Star Light Adventure’ This Weekend [bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]
Barbie and friends venture to space in ‘Barbie Star Light Adventure,’ playing this weekend in select theaters.
Credit: Fathom Events
Mattel’s Barbie is headed out of this world. This weekend, in a feature playing in select theaters, Barbie will set out on a mission to save stars across the universe.
“‘Barbie Star Light Adventure’ features cosmic princess Barbie in her first intergalactic mission,” representatives from the production company Fathom Events said in a statement.
“Alongside her adorable pet sidekick, Pupcorn, Barbie teams up with new friends to keep the twinkling stars from dimming out and slowing their dance in the sky,” the statement continued. “During her action-packed adventure, Barbie soon discovers she may be the leader the whole universe has been waiting for.” Information about screening and tickets are available at FathomEvents.com. [Barbie in Space: Iconic Doll’s Astronaut Looks (Photos)]
The new film coincides with the launch of a whole line of “Star Light Adventure” toys, including a remote control quadcopter (the Barbie Star Light Adventure RC Hoverboard, which hits stories this fall at $59.99) styled like the one she uses in the show. We checked the gadget out — along with Barbie’s flying pet cat — at New York’s 2016 Toy Fair. Other smaller accessories and figures are available in Target and Toys R Us stories now, according to Mattel.
As Barbie fans know, this isn’t the first time the famous doll has put on a spacesuit.
Earlier this year, Mattel released a “Star Trek”-themed 50th anniversary collection with the likenesses of Nichelle Nichols (who played Uhura in the original series), William Shatner (Kirk) and Leonard Nimoy (Spock) with a phaser and a tricorder.
In August 2013 — the first anniversary of when NASA’s Curiosity rover landed on Mars — Mattel released a Mars Explorer Barbie. The doll was packaged with a cardboard Mars Science Laboratory featuring pink highlights.
The very first astronaut Barbie was released in 1965, at the height of the space race between the United States and Russia. The first Soviet female cosmonaut (Valentina Tereshkova) flew in 1963. The first U.S. female astronaut, Sally Ride, didn’t fly in space until 1983.
Another astronaut Barbie was released in 1985, and a “Star Trek” Barbie and Ken set came out in 1996.
Follow Elizabeth Howell @howellspace, or Space.com @Spacedotcom. We’re also on Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.
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[bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]Barbie Goes Cosmic in ‘Star Light Adventure’ This WeekendSaturday, October 15, 2016
The Ultimate in Astronomy Gadgets: GOTO Telescopes [bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]
GOTO telescopes take a lot of the work out of your observing sessions by finding and tracking celestial objects of all kinds.
Credit: SkySafari App
So far, the mobile astronomy column has been all about apps. But we cover astronomy gadgets, too — and at the top of that list are computerized GOTO telescopes. In this column, we’ll cover how they work and what to consider when shopping for one. In the next column, we’ll cover hooking them up to your PC (and why you’d want to do that), operating your telescope hands-free using your smartphone or tablet, and even how to equip your manual telescope with a GOTO capability.
GOTO telescope basics
The stars and planets in the night sky are predictable, and what you see depends on where on the globe you are observing from and the time and date. In the same way that mobile astronomy apps can show you a sky map as you point your device skyward, many modern telescopes contain computers and motors that permit these scopes to find and follow objects in the sky. The common term for those smart telescopes is “GOTO.” Nearly all models have a handheld control pad with buttons for moving the telescope and for selecting objects, and most also feature an illuminated readout to tell you where the telescope is pointed and give you object information.
The GOTO telescope’s hand controller provides arrow buttons for telescope motion and a numeric keypad to access the object database. The LED readout displays information about the target, the status of the telescope and more.
Credit: Meade Instruments
GOTO telescopes offer several attractive benefits. After being calibrated for your sky (more on this later), they can locate objects that are difficult, if not impossible, to spot with the naked eye. For example, my earlier columns on Discovering the Treasures of Hercules and Hunting for Alien Exoplanets list many interesting objects your GOTO telescope can find for you, even under light-polluted city skies. [101 Best Night Sky Photos by Stargazers]
A GOTO telescope can help you learn the sky, too. Using a simple star chart or your astronomy app as a starting reference, you can use your telescope to observe all the major stars and deep-sky objects (nebulas, star clusters, galaxies, etc.) in a given constellation. Or you can simply wander around the sky. While most telescopes will display an object’s distance and visual magnitude, SkySafari or another app can augment this with many more details, including folklore.
Finally, a GOTO telescope is essential if you wish to capture images of objects, either afocally with your smartphone, or by mounting a DSLR camera to the telescope. We covered the basics of this in How to Snap Awesome Photos of Night-Sky Objects with Your Smartphone.
Strictly speaking, it’s the mount (consisting of the tripod, motors and electronics, and mounting brackets for the telescope’s tube) that does the pointing and tracking. This is an important distinction: While many telescopes are sold as one unit, serious amateur astronomers often purchase the mount and telescope separately, allowing these users to pick vendors that specialize in each device. This also allows them to upgrade one component or another as their interests evolve.
Shopping considerations
The price for GOTO telescopes and mounts varies with the build quality (i.e., metal instead of plastic), the accuracy of the motors and the size of the onboard object database. The databases of low-end consumer models, which have lightweight and somewhat wobbly mounts, commonly contain a few thousand objects, divided among solar system objects (including major asteroids), prominent stars and the brighter deep-sky objects. While those telescopes work, most astronomers will suggest investing in something more substantial. At some point, the frustration of taking the trouble to find an object, only to have a gust of wind shake the telescope or someone’s foot catch a tripod leg, means your little telescope will sit unused in the closet.
The better models are heavier and have databases containing tens of thousands of dimmer stars and galaxies. These models also usually allow for connection to a PC, so you can operate the telescope remotely using a sky-charting program and update the telescope with the latest comets and new discoveries, such as stars with exoplanets.
Some GOTO telescopes allow you to track the sun. At public outreach events, the author uses his modified Skywatcher HEQ5 Pro mount, shown here carrying a Coronado Personal Solar Telescope and a solar filtered Celestron 80mm refractor. Caution: Never point your telescope at the sun unless it has already been equipped with a special solar filter.
Credit: Chris Vaughn
Most of the top telescope vendors, such as Celestron, Meade and Orion, make entry-level and high-end all-in-one models as well as stand-alone mounts. Popular vendors that specialize in telescope mounts include Skywatcher and iOptron. Dave Brody’s review of the Best Telescopes for the Money includes some GOTO models.
Telescopes with large apertures (greater than 10 inches or so) are capable of showing you dim, distant galaxies or nebulas, but these scopes are too heavy for entry-level GOTO mounts. Beginners interested in these objects are usually steered toward the sturdy, manually operatedDobsonian-type telescopes. On the other hand, dim objects can be readily photographed with long exposures using a DSLR camera attached to a small telescope, and a good-quality GOTO mount will find and track your target while your camera works.
As objects cross the night sky, they slowly rotate clockwise at the same time. Equatorial mounts match the motion, allowing for long exposure imaging. They are trickier to align perfectly, but dedicated astrophotographers soon learn how.
Setting up a GOTO system
To set up your GOTO telescope, you’ll need to know your location, the time and date, and where geographic north is. The more sophisticated models have onboard GPS receivers and compasses to get this information. Otherwise, use an app such as Polaris Navigation for Android or Commander Compass Lite for iOS to retrieve the information and type it into the control pad when directed to do so.
For your GOTO telescope to accurately find targets, it also needs to be calibrated, or aligned, to the sky. This is usually done by leveling the tripod, then slewing to several bright stars and manually centering them in the field of view of your eyepiece. For this reason, it’s important to set up your telescope on a level place with plenty of open sky. The more expensive systems (the Meade LightSwitch Series and the Celestron StarSense Module) have auto-align features that incorporate a small camera that takes pictures of the sky and calculates the alignment for you.
Once everything is aligned, you’ll want to ensure that no one bumps the telescope out of alignment. My favorite preventatives for this are Astrogizmos’ Kick-Me-Not’s: blinking, red LEDs that attach with Velcro near the bottom of each tripod leg.
Astrogizmo’s Kick-Me-Nots are small red LED blinking lights that you can affix to each tripod leg via Velcro strips. They are handy for preventing mishaps around the telescope, and for finding your setup in the dark.
Credit: Astrogizmos
Now you are ready to start calling up celestial objects using the telescope’s hand controller. Objects that are below the horizon will not be available, and will generate a message to that effect. This is one way to learn which planets are visible at a given time.
Some GOTO telescope caveats
While GOTO systems are fantastic, here are some things to keep in mind, although nothing here is a deal breaker. Star-aligning your telescope can’t be done until the stars come out, so you may be waiting a while during the long summer evenings. Some systems can be manually pointed at the moon or bright planets while you wait for darkness.
The telescopes require continuous power to operate. Many models will take disposable batteries and deplete them fairly quickly if you do a lot of slewing around the sky. An alternative is to power your setup with a heavy-duty rechargeable battery, such as a car jump-starter. Nearly all telescope systems will happily work on 12-volt DC, and will last many evenings on a charge. Be sure to have the correct-diameter power pin for your telescope, and take care to match the polarity of your setup. Most telescopes use center-positive, but double-check or risk frying your electronics!
Finally, like any computer system, your GOTO telescope can occasionally freeze up or get confused. A simple restart should sort it out. And just as you wouldn’t randomly mash the keys on your PC, your GOTO telescope works best with patience — particularly from the “junior astronomers” in the family.
Fear not. There are plenty of online resources where other owners share their experiences and where you can pose questions. The Astronomyforum.net and CloudyNights.com websites are exceptionally good, and your local astronomy club will likely have members willing to help you get started.
Going Beyond
A GOTO telescope system opens the doors to much more than simple stargazing. You might decide to observe all 110 objects in Charles Messier’s famous list of deep-sky objects, or hunt down the hundreds of other objects he omitted. And while your telescope keeps the target in view, you can practice sketching objects at the eyepiece. (Use a red LED headlamp to let your eyes stay adjusted to the dark.)
While your GOTO telescope smoothly tracks an object, you can take your time to sketch it at the eyepiece. In this wonderful image, amateur astronomer Stu McNair has rendered a small area of the moon in pencil. His process is to make a first draft at the eyepiece and take notes used later to produce a final version. Under dark skies with large aperture telescopes, nebulas, star clusters and galaxies can be all readily be sketched.
Credit: Stuart McNair
Using mobile astronomy apps or online resources, you can research which eye-catching double stars are visible, and GOTO them. Or, you could try your hand at variable star observing, where you estimate the brightness of particular stars from time to time and submit your observations tothe American Association of Variable Star Observers. The sky’s the limit!
In our next mobile astronomy column, we’ll cover controlling your GOTO telescope mount with your PC and operating the mount hands-free using your smartphone or tablet. I’ll also talk about a gadget that grants GOTO capability to binoculars and manual telescopes. In the meantime, keep looking up!
Editor’s note: Chris Vaughan is an astronomy public outreach and education specialist, and operator of the historic 1.88-meter David Dunlap Observatory telescope. You can reach him via email, and follow him on Twitter as @astrogeoguy, as well as on Facebook and Tumblr.
This article was provided by Simulation Curriculum, the leader in space science curriculum solutions and the makers of the SkySafari app for Android and iOS. Follow SkySafari on Twitter @SkySafariAstro. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.
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[bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]The Ultimate in Astronomy Gadgets: GOTO TelescopesFriday, October 14, 2016
‘Star Trek: Discovery’: Is the New Starship Named for NASA’s Space Shuttle? [bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]
The USS Discovery will re-launch “Star Trek” onto television in 2017. Is the new starship named after the NASA space shuttle?
Credit: CBD Television Studio
Four years ago, the Smithsonian swapped space shuttles at the National Air and Space Museum: NASA’s prototype orbiter Enterprise was rolled out and the space shuttle Discovery was rolled in.
Now “Star Trek,” which inspired the earlier shuttle’s name, has done the same.
“The U.S.S. Discovery [is] the newest Starfleet ship for the franchise’s return to television,” CBS officials announced in a July 23 release. “The ship’s name will also serve as the official title for the highly anticipated new series.” [‘Star Trek’ Starship Enterpise Evolution in Photos]
“Star Trek: Discovery” is set to premiere on CBS in January 2017, before moving to the network’s subscription service, CBS All Access.
The choice of “Discovery” as the fictional starship’s name has drawn speculation that it might be inspired by the real NASA orbiter now on display at the National Air and Space Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Virginia.
“I’m hoping someone will find out for sure if CBS intended the name as a tribute to the space shuttle,” Jim Banke, a veteran aerospace writer, posted on Facebook. “I hope we will see a picture of a shuttle Discovery launch somewhere in the new ship!”
Adding to the conjecture was the starship’s registry. On the original “Star Trek” TV series, which debuted 50 years ago this September, the Enterprise had the registry NCC-1701.
As revealed in a teaser video for the new series, the USS Discovery has the registry number NCC-1031.
NASA space shuttles Enterprise, left, and Discovery meet nose-to-nose during their transfer at the Smithsonian in April 2012.
Credit: NASA/Carla Cioffi
“It’s meant to commemorate the space shuttle Discovery’s registration number of OV-103,” a commenter speculated on StarTrek.com. “Discovery undertook some of the most dangerous and famous flights in the shuttle program and returned America to flight after the two shuttle losses.”
If the new “Star Trek” ship was indeed named for the NASA winged vehicle, it would be a reflection — and a reversal — of the roles played 40 years ago. In 1976, fans of the science fiction series organized a grassroots letter-writing campaign to convince the U.S. space agency to name its first shuttle orbiter after the show’s starship.
“It certainly would be a nice nod to the most flown of the space shuttle orbiters to name this fictional vehicle after it,” said Margaret Weitekamp, the curator for the National Air and Space Museum’s Social and Cultural Dimensions of Spaceflight collection, in an interview with collectSPACE. “There is some nice symmetry to the way that the original test vehicle was named ‘Enterprise’ after a ‘Star Trek’ ship to now name a ‘Star Trek’ ship after a very successful, real space shuttle orbiter.”
NASA’s space shuttle Discovery flew 39 missions, logging a total of 365 days in space between 1984 and 2011. Like its sister shuttles that launched into Earth orbit and glided back, OV-103 was named after past vessels of exploration — primarily HMS Discovery, one of Captain James Cook’s ships that led to the discovery of the Hawaiian Islands.
“Whether or not this new ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ starship is named specifically for the space shuttle orbiter, it certainly is following a rich pop culture tradition of tapping into the long existing history of exploration and then extrapolating that to a possible science fiction future.”
CBS declined to comment when asked if the new ship was in fact named for the space shuttle Discovery, but released a statement from Bryan Fuller, the executive producer of “Star Trek: Discovery,” from his recent appearance at San Diego Comic Con.
“Discovery is so intrinsic as a concept to the philosophy of ‘Star Trek,’ it felt like it was a beautiful way to acknowledge that spirit,” said Fuller.
“There are so many reasons why we settled on Discovery,” Fuller said with a smile. “But the chief one amongst them was that I couldn’t think of a more ‘Star Trek’-themed name for a ship than Discovery.”
Watch “Star Trek: Discovery” executive producer Bryan Fuller describe what the name Discovery means to the new series at collectSPACE.
Follow collectSPACE.com on Facebook and on Twitter at @collectSPACE. Copyright 2016 collectSPACE.com. All rights reserved.
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[bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]‘Star Trek: Discovery’: Is the New Starship Named for NASA’s Space Shuttle?Thursday, October 13, 2016
The Hunt for Exoplanets Turns to Earth’s Backyard [bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]
TESS will look at the nearest, brightest stars to find planetary candidates that scientists will observe for years to come.
Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center
NASA’s next planet-hunting mission will take a census of Earth’s cosmic neighborhood.
The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite(TESS), which is scheduled to launch to Earth orbit in 2017 or 2018, will observe at least 200,000 relatively nearby stars during its two-year mission, and it should end up finding thousands of alien worlds, NASA officials said.
“The cool thing about TESS is that, one of these days, I’ll be able to go out in the country with my daughter and point to a star and say, ‘There’s a planet around that one,'” TESS project scientist Stephen Rinehart, of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, said in a statement. [Gallery: The Strangest Alien Planets]
That’s noteworthy, because most of the 3,400-odd exoplanets discovered to date lie thousands of light-years away, in the tiny patch of sky studied by NASA’s Kepler space telescopeduring its initial planet hunt from 2009 through 2013. (Kepler is still searching for alien worlds, but on a more limited basis as part of a new mission called K2.)
TESS, by contrast, will observe stars located within a few hundred light-years from Earth, in all parts of the sky, NASA officials said. One of the major goals is to find potentially habitable worlds close enough for follow-up investigation by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope(JWST), which is scheduled to launch in late 2018.
The $8.8 billion JWST, which is billed as the successor to NASA’s famous Hubble Space Telescope, will be able to search for oxygen and other possible “biosignature” gases in nearby exoplanets’ atmospheres, agency officials have said.
Like Kepler, TESS will hunt for alien worlds via the “transit method,” searching for the tiny brightness dips that planets cause when they cross, or transit, the faces of their host stars.
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Based on the nature of these dips, TESS scientists will be able to tell how big the newly discovered exoplanets are, and how long they take to orbit their parent stars. Other information about these worlds could conceivably be gleaned by JWST or powerful ground-based instruments, NASA officials said.
TESS will cover most of the sky during its two-year mission, by studying 26 different swathes known as “tiles.”
“The spacecraft’s powerful cameras will look continuously at each tile for just over 27 days, measuring visible light from the brightest targets every 2 minutes,” NASA officials said in the same statement.
“TESS will look at stars classified as 12th apparent magnitude and brighter, some of which are visible to the naked eye,” the officials added. “The higher the apparent magnitude, the fainter the star. For comparison, most people can see stars as faint as sixth magnitude in a clear, dark sky, and the faintest star in the Big Dipper ranks as third magnitude.”
Though TESS will be a planet hunter first and foremost, the satellite will also observe black holes, supernovas, and a variety of other cosmic objects and phenomena via a “guest investigator” program.
“We hope the broader science community will come up with many unique science ideas for TESS, and we hope to encourage broad participation from the larger community,” said Padi Boyd, director of the Guest Investigator Program Office at NASA Goddard.
Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com.
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[bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]The Hunt for Exoplanets Turns to Earth’s BackyardNew Space Boots Vibrate to Help Astronauts Navigate [bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]
NASA astronaut John W. Young, commander of the Apollo 16 lunar landing mission, is pictured here with the American flag on the surface of the moon. The low-gravity environment allowed him to leap from the lunar surface.
Credit: NASA
Walking on the moon is no bounce in the park, but new space boots created by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology might make working outside a spacecraft safer for astronauts who have to maneuver around pesky moon rocks and rough terrain in bulky spacesuits.
A NASA spacesuit — also known as an Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU) — is decked out with various gadgets that provide life support and technical assistance to astronauts during missions where they have to leave their spacecraft. Even without those gadgets, the suit’s 14 layers of protective material alone make it pretty heavy and difficult to maneuver when walking around in a low-gravity environment like the moon.
Most astronauts fall because spacesuits limit their ability to both see and feel the terrain around them, according to the MIT researchers who created the new boots. If an astronaut trips, they risk puncturing their spacesuit and may waste time and precious oxygen reserves trying to get up. [Gallery: The Most Memorable Spacewalks in History]
However, the new space boots from MIT have built-in sensors and tiny motors that vibrate based on the terrain to help the wearer navigate safely around or over nearby obstacles, the MIT researchers said in a statement debuting the new shoes.
While the new space boots are still in the early stages of development, the researchers from MIT’s Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AeroAstro) and the Charles Stark Draper Laboratory have conducted preliminary tests to assess where the sensors should be placed on the shoe to provide the best navigational clues to the wearer. Based on their findings, the researchers are working to develop a boot with motors at three locations: the toe, heel and the front of the outside of the foot.
The new space boots with have sensors near the toe, the heel and the front of the outside of the foot, in order to best alert the wearer of nearby obstacles.
Credit: Jose-Luis Olivares/MIT
“This study helped inform the language we will use to map the vibration signal to the information on obstacle location and navigation direction for the astronaut,” Leia Stirling, an assistant professor of AeroAstro, told Space.com in an email. “Providing this information to the astronaut may make them more confident and efficient during extravehicular activities and may decrease their injury risk due to trips and falls.”
New and more flexible spacesuits are already in the works to meet the demands of future Mars missions, and these boots may help astronauts better navigate the Martian surface, where the gravity is one-third of Earth’s. The new boots may also find broader use elsewhere, such as helping the visually impaired.
“Trying to provide people with more information about the environment — especially when not only vision but other sensory information, auditory as well as proprioception, is compromised — is a really good idea,” Shirley Rietdyk, a professor of health and kinesiology at Purdue University who studies the neurology and biomechanics of falls, said in the statement. “From my perspective, [this work could be useful] not only for astronauts but for firemen, who have well-documented issues interacting with their environment, and for people with compromised sensory systems, such as older adults and people with disease and disorders.”
Follow Samantha Mathewson @Sam_Ashley13. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.
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[bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]New Space Boots Vibrate to Help Astronauts NavigateSpaceX Closer To Reusing Rocket After Test Firing | Video [bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]
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[bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]SpaceX Closer To Reusing Rocket After Test Firing | Video