Steve Bevan's Night Skies

It's Aurora Season!

Image Credit:  SOHO

This picture of the sun was taken by the SOHO space observatory and shows what is known as a "Coronal Hole".  Basically, it's an area where the magnetic field doesn't loop back into the sun but extends out into space along with the solar wind continually streaming from the sun.  This process allows charge particles to escape and travel with the stream.  Why is this important?  Well when these particles reach Earth's magnetic field there's an interplay that may result in a show of the Northern Lights.  If you have a chance tonight and tomorrow night take a look outside around midnight.  If you are looking northward and have dark skies you might just be rewarded with nature's light show.

End of an Era

The David Dunlap Observatory was one of the world's leading facilities in Astronomical Research.  Situated in Richmond Hill, it provided Canadian researchers the ability to explore the universe since the 1930's.  A lot of real scientific discovery went on at the 74 inch reflector telescope, once considered a Goliath.  Now, it is a victim of progress.  Light pollution from urban growth coupled with more advanced and more capable designs made the DDO less and less important.  It's hard to justify spending $800,000 per year to operate something that now offers minimal returns.  The shame here is that we could have had gone further with the present facility if the political will existed on all levels of government to use better municipal lighting.  Still, it had to happen eventually.

The facility was a gift to the University of Toronto from Jessie Dunlap in memory of her husband.  The university recently announced that it has reached an agreement with the grandchildren of Jessie and David which allows the closure of the facility and sale of the lands and equipment.  A new facility built with the proceeds will be called the Dunlap Institute.  It will support future astronomical research from the U of T's St. George Campus.  Final vote is expected in early October.

It is sad that this jewel will go missing from Richmond Hill.  A piece of history will be lost.  Progress is like that though; some good with the bad.

The Eye of God

Picture Credit:  NASA, ESA, C.R. O'Dell (Vanderbilt University), M. Meixner and P. McCullough STScI

This is a picture of the Helix Nebula as taken by the Hubble Space telescope.  What you are looking at is the remains of a star the puffed off it's outer atmosphere as it collapsed in on itself and died.  You see this picture fairly often with the heading "The Eye of God". 

Picture Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ J. Hora (Harvard-Smithsonian CfA)

Here's the same object taken in infrared light by the Spitzer Space Telescope.  Spitzer is a companion telescope to Hubble. Details which are hidden by dust in the visible light spectrum are revealed by Spitzer's Infrared abilities.  It's a fine compliment and equal partner to Hubble.

Beautiful eye isn't it?