Global Star Party 46

Transcript:

you want to use distilled water okay get all the pollen off of it rain water
I think so we've got pollen we've had pollen for the last month that's been off and on bad and uh I know the mark
Slade remote Observatory telescopes need to be cleaned for the pollen hmm
always a problem always a problem where you have oak trees wow it's really bad
down here in Southeastern Central Texas usually it's in March though uh you know
end of February to the middle of March just green everything gets green it's
amazing how fast the leaves pop out and they just go full bloom on the trees you
know it's like a couple weeks from from nothing to full bloom seems like and if you have a black car and it sits
underneath the oak tree in front of your house you'll go out one morning it'll be kind of this
a yucky yellow color oh yeah oh yeah it's terrible the pollen just and when
you're driving you see it along the hood it looks really yellow you know it's like I have severe allergies so I felt the
pain in all ways um
so countdown going on and uh
we're gonna share this
your mics are hot but you know that's fine you can talk up you know no problem
so now we need to uh edit any further Monty Python jokes
I remember my favorite uh Monty Python sketch was of course The Lumberjack one
ah yes I used to do very I used to love that show
Brian I was kind of getting out of it a little bit but I still go back to the
original and now if it's something completely different from Monty Python that was
like a secret Club I had a little you know I don't know 12 inch black and white Sears TV in my room and it was on
PBS of course back in the day and so you used to be able to fall asleep and
unbeknownst to the parents stay up and watch you know Monty Python's Flying Circus on PBS oh yes yep yeah
exactly yeah in 1977 I think PBS did a live broadcast of
them and uh I think it was Palin was doing something with John Cleese and
they did the dead Paris sketch and they were trying to go through it and uh Palin just could not get through and he
started giggling he started laughing and he's trying to do this thing and finally
Clay's looking at him and he said this is no laughing matter
it was so well done and so good that was a PBS sketch that I saw live with Monty
Python good stuff
now did Monty Python do live presentations like live stage things
they did a few they did a famous uh series of shows that were filmed at the Hollywood Bowl in fact that you can get
I think on on Blu-ray um as live and and I always thought you know it was it's hard I mean that you
saw those original sketches you know so many times filmed in a simplistic way
you know on video and it was kind of hard for them to recapture that same
spark live I thought you know you it was they were so iconic the original sketches you know
but they did some live shows yeah I think it there there were a couple of concerts as well in the 80s to honor the
the prince's trust you remember that in at Wembley and and I think they did some
performances there as well
cool I got to meet John Cleese once and he's
just he's a real gentleman he really was that right I never met him yeah very nice man
why don't you tell us about the time that you actually met Garris and Keeler at the airport oh
now I had seen Garrison Keeler and um you know a Home Prairie Companion at the
uh Egyptian Theater uh that's uh no no it was a Hollywood Bowl it was the
Hollywood Bowl and um just an amazing program to watch that
whole live presentation go down and every everything you know and uh
um uh Charlie Sheen not Charlie Sheen but Martin Sheen was there
um some other regulars on the program so it was just really nice to watch all that and I've always loved Garrison
Keeler but uh uh I am taking one of my business
trips and I end up in uh Minneapolis-St Paul Airport okay and I was wearing I
was wearing a rock and roll t-shirt okay and and I I come up and uh I'm climbing
these stairs and it's just me and him okay and he's standing at the top of the
stairs with his arms pinned at his hips okay looking up at the sky like like a statue
you know kind of like
saw him and I walk up and I said are you Garrison Keeler and he said yes
and I said I said I I just absolutely adore you in the show and everything I said I just
want to thank you for you know all those years of you know smiles and entertainment and all the rest of it and
he just looks down at my shirt he kind of like looks down at his eyes and looking at my shirt and he says uh
Ramones huh and I go yep
that was it that was the that was my honor with Garrison yeah
I guess he was not a Ramones fan you know so Prairie Home Companion is a long bunch
of light years from The Ramones yeah yes it is
yeah it was pretty funny though
foreign I like to share to the dogs and cats of
space and astronomy it's just a great name for a group
our last uh Global star party we had over 100 shares so that's a lot
just on Facebook that's good yeah
yeah that was a record uh turnout and like a mini marathon seven and a half
hours Scott [Laughter]
and I guess the only one that rivaled that was the uh great Jupiter Saturn conjunction that that was in December
yeah that was a big one I remember hearing David
you know on the third round there I was like oh man you guys you guys were real true real Troopers
almost a 24-hour event it was I know that was impressive
it was great we do it again um for the uh I plan to do it again for
the next astronomy Day event uh and I I want to get
um multiple broadcasters to join in together and see how we can do that so
uh I'm gonna be talking to a friend of mine that hit he and I tested it before just
two separate broadcasts and joining them together and um so there may be ways of
you know electronically doing that and there may be ways of just like handing
off you know the next you know saying oh yeah and make sure you guys are going over here and you're going over there
and you know this kind of thing so uh but I'd like to take a loop around the
world from people that do uh broadcasting for astronomy I think would
be really cool I think that would be very interesting
oh absolutely absolutely yeah Karim was excellent
and then uh I think Simon helped you write Scott on that he had a multicast going on and uh so that was that was
really good I think yeah I think that he you know he just pulled in zoomed into
OBS or did exported a virtual camera or something and and made that handshake
happen so I've got an idea how he did it but cool
but I'll pull him in as a tech advisor on that
yeah
yeah hello John it's good to see you down there or up there or wherever you are on me
Zoom tonight Welcome to our to our Global Star Party
thank you thank you
actually I never know where everybody is on their respective screens because you are located right below me
and Jerry Hubble Is three down Cameron Gillis is two down I think it's that it's different for everybody because
for me it goes uh of course myself at the top David
Levy David icker Cameron John Jerry
oh and then after Jerry is Richard Grace then Dawn and Libby so
you guys are listening out there in the audience and I know you are
um please consider sharing uh this event uh
it is an educational Outreach event and um we got some great speakers for you
tonight and you're going to learn about the meaning of life in the universe
how ominous is that so it's really pretty simple
yeah but I'll get to it you'll get to it you boil it down to uh pull it down to
three words yeah protons and neutrons and and uh you know electrons you can boil it down to that
or quarks
I thought it might be something like chocolate ice cream close it's not a bad start yeah
and who do we have watching right now we've got uh
James the astrophotographer Jeff wives he said I would like to learn the meaning of life
um Steve Hauser says hello from Idaho and Andrew corkhill from uh Southern
California um we've got Carol lock
good evening stargazers Gary Alban good evening everybody
um and uh who else is chiming in here today
Adrian Bradley Adrian was a little bit under the weather so he didn't come on to the show tonight
but we're glad you're watching Adrian he says good evening looking forward to
watching the star party this time my cold recovery went much faster than I expected
well there you go consider joining in Adrian later on if
you want uh Gary Alban says hi James how are things going
um and James says not bad Gary [Laughter]
Harold lock says Ramones the melding of real Rock
I like the Ramones because it was just fun rock and roll you know
um Mike Wiesner is watching uh and
um Aaron Thompson's watching Beatrice Hines is watching She's uh
from across the pond there um and uh book Davies is watching
this is a visualization there's no audio here but I think it's awesome
of Steven's Quintet foreign
that's exactly what it sounds like out there
yeah mesmerizing yeah
grazing this galaxy so cool
one of my favorite things is to France quintet might be interesting to note that Stefan is also a comma Discoverer
comma Stefano terma comes back from time to time I really enjoyed watching that comment
foreign photographer is looking at the moon and
being as with binoculars waiting for the darkness
yeah that was an excellent visualization I like that [Music]
[Music]
[Music]
[Music]
well hello everybody this is uh Scott Roberts with explore scientific and the
explore Alliance and it is our 46th Global Star Party the meaning of life
Edition okay in the universe anyhow so I guess that would cover everything
um we have a great lineup of uh regular contributors and speakers and a special
guest here Mr doncell from uh Texas Star Party he'll be joining us here in a
moment to talk about the Texas Star Party um we uh David uh Levy is of course here
with us and he was here with us on Saturday too and um David is the uh honorary president of
the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada the Montreal Center and they were the um
they were the special guest host of the 45th Global star party on Saturday celebrating astronomy day uh I think
that uh you know and this was a this was a marathon Star Party it went seven
seven and a half hours um so that a lot of real star parties don't go that long so
you know where people are up observing and interacting and stuff but uh but it was a lot of fun and um you know I'm
glad that we did it um David uh uh you know was uh you know
incredible as always um I was trying to remember the Pat the
the poem that you had told uh during that star party David do you recall
well I have it here it's um from the uh from the global Story number
45 and I record them all so let's see where we are
and uh Saturday May 5th the global Star Party 45
and uh what I quoted was something simple from Abraham
uh the wonderful comment that he wrote about Einstein nature had spoken to him
to describe Einstein's Joy having uh finally shown
that he understood gravity and he realized he's probably the only person in the world at the time who understood
gravity I don't think there are too many more right now who unders who understand gravity but that was interesting from
last Star Party a little bit different one tonight when when it's my turn yeah it's well it's
it's your turn now oh okay I did want you to know that Kareem Jaffer is uh in
the audience watching so uh and he was uh he was uh one of the uh uh
individuals who uh put together the schedule for that astronomy Day event so
I want to thank him on the air give him a big shout out because he did an awesome job him and um and uh
uh Russell fralich so thanks again well yeah Kareem I think did a beautiful
job last time but now it's our 46 star party yes it is and I wanted to congratulate Scotty for setting up this
wonderful video that we began with showing Stephan's Quintet
and uh when I was looking at it and just wondering the 3D version of the Galaxy's
sort of of Stefan's quintet there and then one extra one that uh that we have and it
was just brilliant and Welcome to our star party tonight and tonight at um as we watch defense
quintet in the sky that brings me back to the time when I used to observe it visually with my own
telescope and also the fact that Stefan's quintet opens one of the
one of the finest movies that I've ever seen and that is what is the name of that
film that we all enjoyed so much It's a Wonderful Life It's a Wonderful Life and that begins
with the scene from us defense Quintet but tonight I'm going to quote as we
watch Japan's quintet I'm going to quote from Shakespeare one of his lesson joint
plays King John and uh this quote from Shakespeare has
to do with meteors there are two quotations from meteors one is from King
John Act five scene two this shower blown up by Tempest of the
Soul startles mine eyes and makes me more amazed than I have seen the Loyalty
top of Heaven figured quite over with burning meteors lift up thy brow
renowned Salisbury and with a great heart heave away this storm
uh meteors come quite often in King John it's actually one of the most famous
meteoric plays and it reminds me when I was looking the other night through my telescope and
explore scientific telescope that I call Eureka and that's one of my favorite telescopes
right now enjoying it and I was looking at actually I was looking at Comet
Palomar last last weekend and it was actually a time when uh
uh Comet Palomar I thought would be impossible to see because it was so fainted 11th magnitude except it was
visible because the comrade was actually a little bit more condensed
than usual so I was able to see it the other thing about it is that the comment was very close to Messier 3. and I was
just able to find Messier 3 move the telescope a little bit to the north and east and there was the comet
and I closed with another quote from Shakespeare's King John no natural
exhalation in the sky no scope of nature no distemper day no common wind no
costume custom defense but they will pluck away his natural cause and call
them meteors strategies and signs abortives percentages and tongues of
Heaven plainly denounced inventions upon John and lovely comets in the sky
so we have lovely comments and comment Palomar which we really enjoyed the
other night as it sailed past so gently Messier three and now back to you Scotty
oh thank you David ah it just it feels good every time I
hear it uh the the star party start with David Levy's um poetry uh and how fortunate we've
been to have this all this time uh you know and and to have
um individuals uh uh such as they are coming on coming on so often and someone
who's given so much of his time as well is the editor-in-chief of astronomy
magazine David eicher David uh it has been awesome it's been a wonderful ride
through the universe uh you know leading all the way up to
the crescendo the the the meaning of life in the universe and uh
um so I'm I'm uh I'm well I I want to tell you just
friend to friend that I've been very very honored to have you on these programs uh uh you've taken
um uh the global star parties to another level many times uh especially uh when
you had the entire editorial staff of astronomy magazine be the special co-host so it's been awesome and I
wanted to give you that special thanks and I will turn it over to you well thank you Scott we'll have to do
that with the staff again they had a lot of fun with that as well but we had limited Ambitions tonight and that was
uh we thought we would talk about the meaning of life in the universe and get that solved
um so nothing drives astronomy like the oldest of all philosophical questions
are we alone in the universe spacecraft missions of course for a long
time now have focused on Mars because of the possibility of either present or
past microbial Life on Mars um the you know the crescendo of all the excitement
in a Sci-Fi way over Mars Came Crashing Down 60 years ago with the first
spacecraft um that went went to Mars close up and showed us that uh Percival was not right
um but it's very possible that microbial life could be there in the subsurface aquifers of the planet and that's
something that the current missions are still working toward finding out about that and and drilling uh down and of
course the growing cottage industry of discovering exoplanets is a big deal and
and what's driving that to a large degree is the feeling that there could be other earth-like planets uh we still
have not found another Earth contrary to dozens of uh exaggerated press releases
over the last 15 years um but we're getting to find uh smaller Rocky worlds out in the nearby us in the
Galaxy now particularly with tests that's in orbit now of course
um but still we only know of one example of life in the universe and that's right here on Earth of course and so the
conservatives with regard to life uh still can can uh point to the fact that
life may be exceedingly rare or maybe even unique on our planet and they point
off into the Fermi Paradox uh that was posed by Enrico Fermi if the universe
contains life where is it uh why hasn't shown it shown up on our
doorstep and that's a legitimate question but let's let's think about what the
universe is just for a moment the universe contains at least a hundred billion galaxies Cosmic inflation aside
Cosmic inflation if if true which probably it is the evidence leans toward
but that would mean that the visible universe is not nearly the entire universe but let's set that aside and
say that we have conservatively 100 billion galaxies um we also have uh evidence that
planetary systems are common around us in the galaxy in the star systems that
we've looked at carefully thus far and consider the number of stars in the Milky Way galaxy that's something on the
order of 400 billion stars we don't know exactly of course because red dwarfs are
faint the most numerous stars but it's several hundred billion stars we have in our galaxy
astronomers believe that most stars from what we've seen maybe about 70 to 80 percent of stars vary conservatively
have planetary systems maybe all stars do if you look at the dynamical models
of how stars form it's not surprising you have a circumstellar disc um so again to play it very
conservatively let's say that we have about a hundred billion stars per Galaxy
so that works out to about ten thousand billion billion stars in the universe
and roughly 10 to the 22nd power planetary systems or 8 000 billion
billion planetary systems um that's discounting inflation and that's being conservative on the
estimates of the numbers so question for our esteemed panelists
here do we really believe that although we don't have the evidence yet do we believe that we're the only planet in
the universe with life no no way I agree with you
I would agree with you the odds would seem to be staggering but of course
we're in our to say that we're in our infancy of being able to detect uh
anything about other worlds is an understatement of course let's consider
uh for one second what life is uh life exhibits uh six fundamental
properties it it's ordered as in the ordered arrangement of atoms in its
molecules it exhibits reproduction life does it exhibits growth and development
living organisms it it shows utilization of energy from the environment
it shows responses to the environment around it and it also shows evolutionary
adaption to Darwinism um as well and this is something that's become clear in more recent times here
uh if you talk to people like Richard Dawkins and others who were leading evolutionary biologists that it appears
that life it's a fundamental property of of organic the organic chemistry of life that darwinian evolution is uh baked
into the way chemical reactions take place so here's another question though to
consider would we recognize alien life if we saw it uh we're we're contaminated and spoiled
and you know treasure the Sci-Fi stories we have from Hollywood which are amazing
because almost always we have bipedal organisms with a pair of human-like eyes
it's just the damnedest thing you know it almost always happens and I'm really
impressed I have to say mostly uh with shows that I loved in my youth like the
original Star Trek because it appeared to me it seems that most aliens uh speak
English which surprised me too um but in reality life in the universe
could be radically dramatically almost unrecognizably different to what we are
used to with our path of our darwinian evolution
right from the last jet oh sorry Scott please you're just making me think of that yeah
very much and um but uh I'll get on I'll I'll ask my
questions towards the end here I I it's some questions we'll just jump in if if you'd like to no no it's okay I don't I
don't want to interrupt go ahead okay but just one one thing I wanted to say is uh are you did you already bring up
the Fermi Paradox yes yes so this you're outlining all of that right at the start
yeah if life exists in the universe where is it why hasn't it shown up on
our doorstep and there's there's an answer to that in part at least yeah
there's something at this point is yes most exciting interest
and I knew Carl very well actually and we talked to spend a lot of time during Shoemaker Levy Nine's impact week
he had a lot of criticism of me but he really adored my mom who was there at
the time because my mom was a geneticist and that was one of Carl's major interests you
know and I was really enjoyed for I remember talking with Mom afterwards I
said well Carl had a lot of he must you might have loved you but he really had a lot of criticism with me and all my mom
would say was yeah well Carl was kind of cute and I really enjoyed him
well and Carl was a huge influence getting me involved in all of this as
well as you know David and and you know as you can talk to Annie about now you
know Carl was one of the original we're talking about the chemistry biochemistry and organic chemistry Carl was one of
the first people to study astronomy aggressively and build his background in
his undergraduate background in chemistry into it in a field in what came to be called Cosmo chemistry which
a lot of people which was thought to be kind of a radical departure at the time when Carl was in grad school so he kind
of bucked the trend and was in really at the ground floor of all of this thinking
of merging astronomy and chemistry together so very important for you to have
brought up Carl David thank you yeah
um okay well from the last generation of scientific evidence uh looking at Life
Hunters and I'm talking about microbes essentially uh because we sophisticated
life is fragile but uh microbes we've seen with research everywhere we've
looked in very hot very cold very uh deep environments it's much hardier and
uh more tenacious than anyone ever would have imagined a generation to go life on
Earth spectroscopy also tells us that chemistry is uniform throughout the
cosmos we know that chemistry works the same way throughout the Universe
temperatures pressures many other local factors uh in the universe would vary
wildly but the elements and the way chemicals combine a Electro uh
chemically our uniform throughout the universe so that's that's a very encouraging thing
about how we understand how the universe works we also know that the building blocks of organic chemistry exist
throughout the cosmos and that they're common for example in the solar system the first sample return Mission uh for
example from a comet that was the Stardust mission that sampled Comet vilt
to and returned the sample in 2006. found a glycine in in that Comet which
is the simplest amino acid of all the amino acids and of course there are many other examples of cometary and
meteoritic evidence of complex Organics in meteorites that have fallen to Earth
as well so it seems highly likely numerically that life is common
throughout the cosmos and even intelligent life civilizations I would
argue but here's the big pause uh the distance scale of the universe is
incredibly almost unimaginably vast even to the nearest stars and we've
talked about this before but let me just quickly say if I'm not going too long Scott
um you know imagine one astronomical unit is being one centimeter you know the distance between Earth and Sun we've
traveled physically as human beings and almost imperceptibly small fraction of
that one centimeter right the physical edge of our solar system
the inner edge of the Oort cloud on that scale is 10 Lambo fields to your right
wow and the nearest star Proxima Centauri is more than four times that
distant that that greater distance than that so the distance Scale of the
Universe this is something even people who are really active astronomy enthusiasts don't really take to heart
or want to remember you think about or care about the distances between
astronomical objects even the nearest stars are almost unfathomably large
right so it may be as car we come back right back
David now to Carl um it may be as our old pal Carl Sagan
used was fond of saying um here that life exists richly throughout the cosmos but it's so
distant that we'll never know about it and that would break the hearts of of
course seti researchers we may know about it you know through unambiguous signals but it's extraordinarily
unlikely if you look at the energy it would take and the time to travel physically very far it would take
significant fractions of the energy in the galaxy to travel to the nearest star
so having alien beings who would have two eyes and walk around and Shake our
hands land in Central Park and take us to dinner at Tavern on the Green probably is not going to happen okay
you know just to cut to the chase even though we've all been weaned on you know enormous amounts of sci-fi in our lives
but we do have the most amazing gift that we can imagine in the universe I would argue and and that I would argue
is the meaning of life because as we've talked about before on this program we're made of star stuff as Carl used to
say the atoms literally the the uh the eight octillion atoms in our bodies
roughly on average each of us um were literally made in Big Bang
nucleosynthesis the two lightest elements in the early history of the universe and mostly the heavier elements
in exploding stars or colliding neutron stars
um so for us to be made out of atoms that were created in stars or in the
early history of the universe and to be sentient and be able to think about this and look out into the universe that made
us the the matter and granted you know a big thanks to your parents as well you
know but but we're made out of the stuff that came from that Universe the universal expansion and stars massive
stars to be sentient to share this to talk
with each other to consider it to look out at galaxies and fly through uh um uh
Stefan's quintet and see that NGC 7320 is in the foreground and the rest of
them are a cluster and talk about that and what it means to us that that's incredible to me that's what the meaning
of life is that we're here in an almost miraculous combination of atoms and we
can share that as friends and think about it and share our love of the sky
and of the stars and our knowledge of the universe so that's to me the ultimate meaning of life and if you
don't like that then I'll just have to offer Michael Palin's definition of the meaning of life to to conclude well it's
nothing very special try to be nice to people avoid eating fat read a good book every now and then get some walking in
and live together in peace and harmony with people of all Creeds and Nations
pretty nice thank you very much so now we can debate and question and
raise anything you like and and so on but my feeling is that there's a whole
lot of Life out there um but it's so vast and so spread out and of course microbial life or simple
life would be fantastically more common than than civilizations would be but there's
nothing unique at all from what we've seen about Earth and the whole history of astronomical Discovery coming out of
what was astrology a millennium ago that's one big lesson that we have every
year since then in the last millennium there's nothing really special about
Earth despite all our you know early pretensions so I would think there's a
lot of Life out there but it is a long long way away and we never may never
really know it and I guess on the flip side maybe no one has detected us either
you know as far as if if the distances are so great but um and you know it's
very you can you know talk to Seth schostak and Jill Tarter at seti and others who were friends with and are
involved in starmas and so and you think well you know you know energy you know moves across the universe
why wouldn't you detect all the life that's out there but but to have the right kind of signal it has to be
pointed at you at exactly the right time and in the right way and you have to be
listening in an unambiguous way and energy does get lost over very long
distances you can't point a flashlight on Earth and still see those photons
right in the Andromeda galaxy it does not happen you know so it's an
exceptionally difficult thing to detect unambiguous uh intelligent life even if
there's a fair amount of it out there
go ahead go ahead I'd like to mention something else something a little bit off on the other side of the question
sure these Robinson said Warrens in the lecture he gave that I've never
forgotten and it also also comes from a Star Trek episode called balance of
Terror ah yes the forest Kelly as Dr McCoy said something that I
thought was very important he said that you talk about the number of stars in
our galaxy and the number of galaxies in the universe and the number of clusters
of galaxies could be more than all the Sands of the uh all the sands in all the
beaches of the world from the grains of sand but of all that and perhaps more
only one of each of us the actual uniqueness of each of us is
really makes us precious and I think Lee said in a speech that I've never
forgotten that we are incredibly unique
and uh so that's a little bit of an opposite way of looking at life in the
universe and that's absolutely true of course there there is no parallel Earth
world or parallel universe that has another David Levy or thank goodness for
everyone else another David eicher you know we are absolutely unique and
individual and and there's no question about that so that again you know a lot of people when they first get into
this hobby you know are overwhelmed by this feeling of looking out at all these things in a telescope and my God this
crashing realization of I'm so tiny in the universe and unimportant but that
point is exactly true David is the Counterpoint there's nothing else in the universe
like you and so you couldn't be more important to the universe you bring up a you bring up a really good point that
when doing Outreach David um that's often the first thing that we hear as people look in the telescope we
are so small and um and it also reminds me uh Carl
Sagan's uh famous pale blue dot image where he decided to have the Voyager
turn around and take the shot and um we're a species that's able to know just
how small we are if you go far enough away you know from the planet you say
you know everything that we're going through including the very reason we're doing this remotely because uh of being
safe of a disease that's on our planet and um and yet it's all contained in something
that you know you can barely see a few Million Miles Away one thing about is
too that you talk about meaning of life to share we've done that with the Voyager probes to where they'll Outlast
us all and who knows we're taking the chance that that they'll still be
able to be their own citizens around the Galaxy that they could be picked up
millions and millions of years in the future even though that we're not here so we're willing even though our
lifespan doesn't travel but maybe a hundred years or less we're still paying
it forward to Future generations and you talk meaning of life you have to think
that and you know me myself having a religious side it's nothing I I tend to
look at the science itself there's of course the it's all about God and then
there's the the science side you know there's just look at it for
yourself do you know do the discovery for yourself look in the telescope um
we're all human beings Adrian yeah and um traveling on this planet together yes
and that last thing you said Dave just be kind stay away from fat there were
like three or four of the things that I was able to say that I successfully did and I'm working on the fourth somewhere
down there but um that's actually a very simple summation of it where we came from we know that
it's formed in Stars there's a lot that we can discover and there's nothing wrong with using our lives to do that
there's also nothing wrong with being kind to one another so it's a there are a lot of lessons you learn absolutely
just by looking at stars we're we're all uh you know a lot of people think about
the differences that people have well they're so incredibly minute
compared to the absolute Commons that we all have together it's ridiculous so so
we do all need to celebrate our lives together and it's funny Adrian you
mentioned that you know this feeling of you know the pale blue dot and how tiny our world is looking back from uh
Voyager but you know it's another thing talk every every to a last man every Apollo astronaut you ever talk to every
single one of them says you know I held up my thumb you know and blocked out
Earth with a thumb you know and just that shivering shaking you know uh
feeling of how tiny and how fragile this world we need to take care of this planet as well as each other it's the
only one we have yeah yep that's our life support system yeah I think so and Adrian you brought
up an important thing and Carl's talking in that final book pale blue dot he
talks about it the other I think the whole chapter in there are billions and billions of course he never said in his working
life billions and billions it was Johnny Carson that kept on talking about the
billions and billions and then in his final book he said I'm going to say it right now okay billions and billions and
uh he really did enjoy that enjoy saying that but the preciousness of life
and the fact that you look at this pale blue dot what it means the fact that every
everything you look at that little image that little blue dot on voyager's picture
every war that's been thought every play that Shakespeare wrote Every
every beautiful thing that you can think of and every ugly thing that you can
think of uh the the took place on this planet
all of that everything that we know took place on that little single Pixel of
light that the the Voyager took in that one picture
I think that's a very powerful image and thanks for being that up Adrian and
thanks David for your wonderful talk yeah very profound
there's some chat here some comments from our audience um and uh ali uh from Ali's Astro says
down in Australia he says I enjoyed a talk that Brian Cox gave here in Melbourne where he said meaning is a
property of human beings um Aaron Thompson mentions he says we do
not come into the world we are we come out of it as leaves from a tree as the ocean
waves the universe people and um
Aaron Thompson goes on to say every one every individual is an expression of the
whole realm of nature a unique action of the total Universe there's a quote from
Alan Watts um yeah I mean this conversation uh really
makes us take a hard look at what we think is of
life and um and our place in the universe and and
and it's something that um that I often think about I I will pause
to think about what what all this stuff that's going on in front of me you know whether it's I'm involved in business or
I'm talking to a friend on the phone or we're doing a global star party or
whatever it is you know I I keep in the back of my mind that we are on this
little planet hurtling through space going through fields and Realms of
energy and and that there's this whole constant birth and death cycle of of the
stars and maybe other galaxies maybe other universes who knows you know
I remember when I was a kid every possibility that we could possibly imagine okay yeah
probably happening somewhere out there I remember when I was a kid I remember realizing I don't know if I was six or
eight years old or something but I had this strange feeling all of a sudden when I thought about why am I here what
is this seriously what is this and that was the first time I'd ever
thought about you know this is really strange when you think about how how do I know how do I you know
basically what is this you know that's basically my question that was my first realization that
something was different or something weird or something you know didn't make sense
yeah the function of the floor for just one more moment uh an interesting phone call last night
I was sitting here in this room enjoying a late night uh episode of Star Trek
from the original series I was watching when the phone rang at one o'clock in the morning and I picked up the phone and of course
when that happens it's sort of you know you don't get a good phone call at one o'clock in the morning
but I but the person at the other end of the line was uh almost unintelligible he
was trying to say something and I just couldn't understand him and I told him I said that I'm going to hang up right now
but the phone rang a second time and I picked it up and uh and I said who are
you and he said he was a member of the police department in Long Island
and he said he was calling to speak with my wife Wendy
about her about her brother Sandy and it was something that turned out
that it took us a while to get into the conversation and we actually had to call
that Precinct to find out that it turned out that they were simply doing their
job and they were trying to find Wendy's brother Sandy who had actually
left the uh home that he was staying at and it was turned out to be a very
interesting thing it turned out that the police department was able to locate Sandy eventually
to bring him back to where he was supposed to be and I was thinking
how interesting that was that uh that this Police Department was actually
trying to do their job trying to bring a member of our family
back to where he belonged and that they succeeded in doing that finally it was actually a very wonderful
conversation that we had with this Police Department we called the police department a lady answered the phone and
right away said okay look this you really are talking to the police department in Long Island
and we're just trying to get Sandy back to where he belongs it was really a very
interesting wonderful conversation and I think on that note I will give it back to you David and back to you uh Scotty
I'm glad that it resolved okay David that's yes worrisome for a moment there
yeah yeah yeah yeah I I just I was like it sounds like a scam at one in the morning but it
turned out to be a real event that and you're glad that you were there
um there's surprises happen all the time
um and sometimes they turn out to be really good ones and um that's that's part of uh
it there's a tie-in to you know life in there somewhere and
and seeing um you're out there looking at the stars and then you see
something that no one else will see something right some bright Media or
something and almost like it was meant for you to see it in no one else just like that call was meant for you
uh David and uh you answered it you were there at the right time to see it and
things like that can really sit in your heart after you've seen those it's like wow you know that's
some is all the things that go on in our universe this thing was unique and it happened just to me
um I've had a couple of meteors I've called out and said okay I'd really love a meteor to go through this shot right
now and then one and then I look away and I look at my and I look in my camera and there's a meteor going right
through my shot so those things happen do happen and Adrian looking at you and
uh surrounded by your Panorama of the Milky Way your beautiful magnificent
photograph behind you it's thrilling to be able to know you
never really know what is what is going to happen in life you get a phone call
or a zoom session or something that totally is unexpected or listening to
David's wonderful presentation about if life has any meaning at all
that we're just able to enjoy it and see it we never know if this will happen
and we never know if the the the presentation of life
will actually bring us something that we will never forget tonight
if I if I could uh just bring a couple of words in to get us back to uh the the
origin of life as well I mean life is a originated it's a natural it was a
natural process well Nature's kind of messy and things don't always go in a
deterministic way and no matter what level you look at it from all the way up
to where we are you know uh intelligent life it's kind of a messy world out
there and uh but the good news is is that even though things sometimes seem
to happen randomly we do get these very good outcomes and I think that has to do
with the fact that we're we're intelligent beings that we have uh uh
emotions that we combine with each other we care about each other and and that
kind of transcends just the messiness of nature even though it doesn't work all the time I think that that's why we get
these good outcomes and life itself is a very positive uh
Force I mean just the fact that it exists and uh and it thrives and
continues to strive and we're obviously striving for the Stars uh as well here
uh both mentally and also physically uh trying to expand our our reach and our
understanding uh through the universe and um actually if I could uh I I'd like
to share my screen briefly uh so David on sure yeah yeah maybe just share my
screen for a second here so on the topic of uh Fermi Paradox
um uh I highly recommend I sent the link in the in the chat
um so maybe um Scott if you can send that to the uh to the bot uh to the to the streams um
this is an excellent I highly recommend you know if you want to really uh dig into what what David went through
um regarding all the different possibilities of of explaining why we haven't discovered
um life yet uh the Fermi Paradox uh Wikipedia page has a beautiful breakdown
of all the uh it's a big makes a very good read and if I could just highlight the uh the context uh sorry the
different types of scenarios so for example uh these are the hypothetical explanations for the Paradox uh if I if
I go through uh the first is Rarity of intelligent life is it you know is it a
rare or non-existent um is it is it is there a periodic
Extinction of that by natural events Supernova or whatever uh evolutionary explanations uh is it is it uh that uh
intelligent alien species haven't developed Advanced Technologies yet is there uh it is or is it in the nature of
intelligent life to destroy itself or is it in the nature of intelligent life to destroy others
uh civilizations are only broadcast detectable signals for a brief period of time they go quiet after they get to a
certain level of advancement uh alien life might be actually too alien as David talked about it might be
completely different than we've always you know that the bipedal uh hominoids uh that we we always put in our sci-fi
um sociological explanation colonization is not a cosmic Norm everyone stays on their home planet uh alien species may
have only settled on part of the Galaxy the alien species may not live on
planets they may live in nebulae or other uh gaseous uh form alien species
may isolate themselves uh from the outside world they might be xenophobic
um the economic explanations lack of resources needed to physically spread throughout the Universe I mean the
planet Earth of course is only so many so many resources we are consuming them uh perhaps to get to the next level uh
there are there is a limit on those types of metals and materials to be able to get to the next stage is it cheaper
to transfer information than explore physically um and and and uh this is the part where
even if we detect life um you know and we detect a we're able to listen and detect it with radio
technology or whichever um we couldn't communicate because of the distances would there was not a
reciprocal um capability discovery of extra pressure to life is
too difficult we haven't listened properly we haven't tuned to the right modulation
um we haven't listened long enough uh we've only briefly I mean electricity uh
has been around for of course we've only discovered and harnessed it for the last
couple hundred years so um intelligent life maybe uh too too far away just uh
like you know the flashlight thing it's it just dissipates you can you cannot uh detect the signal strong enough or the
modulation of the signal or the modulation of the signal but if there's yes a tiny part of a fraction of a
signal and it's separated by a thousand years and then comes the next one you know yes
exactly yeah and now signal that you can see on Wikipedia as well I mean that
that could have been like part of that or something you know so yes we tend to
think of as we always do that uh that everything's like us and that we're kind
of the center of everything you know that's the other thing is you know trees who's to say the trees cannot become
intelligent after you know a billion years yes and their time frames their
time spans are such you know they live a thousand years or ten thousand years maybe I don't know and it depends on
what you mean by intelligence too but I would offer a caution if I could at this
point that Wikipedia may not be an academically authoritative Source first
of all on things absolutely there's a lot of stuff here that sort of that's
superiorly speculative rather than based on any knowledge or research
but the evidence is leaning in the other direction now biochemists would say
about the commonality of life in the universe yes maybe not intelligently you
know we don't know we can't quantify how many civilizations we're throwing darts
at and guessing are out there but it's much easier to get uh life going we now
know than anyone imagined and again Richard Dawkins who outranks Wikipedia
with all due respect and others argue that that darwinian evolution in other
words the path of simple biochemistry uh we we don't know how things go from
proteins and amino acids to RNA and DNA yet but there's a lot of research going
on to bridge that Gap now but once you have self-replicating molecules a lot of
biochemists now will actually argue that it's inevitable it's in a it's an inevitability that things will gain
complexity over time mm-hmm yes you know you know I think we have you know at the entire life of an
inhabited planet with uh you know it for us it took more than two billion years
to go from microbes to things that were more sophisticated because of the great oxygenation event when there was a lot
of free oxygen suddenly available in the atmosphere 2.6 billion years ago that's
what made more sophisticated life more possible on Earth but that's a that's
another way to characterize life if it brings order to chaos in general yeah right yeah and it does
and it's extremely ordered except that the second law of Thermodynamics Has the Last Laugh In The End
for all of us yes of course entropy so life life decreases entropy I guess you
could say we're extremely efficient until we could overcome the second law anymore
only locally right no I appreciate that and I you know
well a lot of these things are are certainly important considerations
there's no evidence uh of that the nature of intelligent life is to destroy
itself for example you know no no scientific evidence necessarily so these are all possible
concerns that could um uh uh you know be posed to suggest
that life is rare relatively then intelligent life is rare and it makes the right context yes and it may be you
know this may all be true but but all I'm saying is that the trend over the
last generation is leaning the other way in the that it's a lot easier to get
life going and to make to complex it up in fact Dawkins has a phrase in his
writings you know uh um Darwinism doesn't need to be magic
into existence it's purely the outcome of and and we say that you know life is
random and there's chaos and everything that's true and in our lives especially but atoms come don't combine randomly
they combine because they're electrochemically attracted to other kinds of atoms in an ordered way which
is why we have diamonds for example and all sorts of other things they they combine in Crystal lattices in an
organized similar way all the time so that again leads to uh deterministic
arguments that would suggest that maybe complex organic molecules are more
common much more common than people would have said 40 years ago when the Fermi Paradox was very much more in
fashion that's all I'm saying yeah just let me uh sure
David but I just wanted I just wanted to say that uh what my my point is and what
what I think is interesting about all this is I believe to your point I mean there is the scientific you know thing
this is just the categorization of different possibilities sure um and and then like you say uh what I believe uh
you know just looking at all this it's a thought-provoking exercise to look at all of them and then and then think
because it's very likely I think just because of the vastness of the universe but
actually all of these are correct all of them are correct and it's just a matter of time if we before we discover uh you
know the distribution of which are the more likely ones uh because we're we're
going through a journey where you know just like any scientific process you come through a number of theories these
are all the possible theories of why we haven't explained but Only Time Will
Reveal the distribution of which of these are actually factual right absolutely absolutely yeah that's the
one thing we can agree on is that our Global star party tonight has touched on
something very very important talking about the meaning of life and the different ideas about existence and why
we are here it's been a very you really touched on something really rather quite Central and quite important
yes well it's sort of the ultimate question and thankfully we've learned that you know uh reading a good book and
you know avoiding fatty foods and getting some walking in are really the ultimate answer
that's true we can sleep soundly tonight you know yes that's right that's right
well uh David thank you so much I mean this is something that uh we're going to
be thinking about for years I think and we'll remember this
Global star party for many years I think um I would like to bring up uh Libby and
the Stars next uh Libby has been uh uh with uh many of our Global star parties
she is in uh an avid amateur astronomer she is uh absolutely convinced that one
day she'll she'll be in uh able to take that uh that trip into space as as other
astronauts have and um uh I I believe in her conviction and her uh focus and um
you know and her bravery in uh in coming forth amongst so many venerable speakers
and people that we have had on these programs to have an 11 year old step up
and give her take on the universe Global star party after global star party so
I'm really happy and proud that she's uh she's done that and um uh you know Libby
uh last time you talked about uh Charles Mercier
and you also talked a bit about what it's like to be a young student uh
enthusiastic about astronomy what's it going to be about tonight
um I decided to talk about Jupiter's red spot so um I have another presentation to
share okay to ensure that and
I've Gotten Good at these because I do these for school too um so tonight I'm talking about Jupiter
is a red spot and um I kind of thought it was funny whenever as so this Jupiter's red storm basically as you can
see in the picture it's off to the bottom left and I thought this is kind of funny because I'm actually getting
some thunderstorms coming soon tonight so of course I'm talking about
thunderstorms when there's a thunderstorm um so what is Jupiter's red spot so it
is a storm on it is a huge storm that's been going on for a couple hundred years
on Jupiter and um whenever I look for your telescope you're able to see it
it's in a lot of the pictures it's like a huge dark reddish and it's a very very
powerful storm and um one time I asked my friend and I um I decided to make it
a trick question I said what is the strongest storm in our universe and she
said well the Joplin tornado and I said no it's a big red it's a big red uh
it's a big red storm I mean I wouldn't say in our universe there's probably even bigger ones but it is a pretty big
storm in our solar system and um it's humongous um Jupiter's huge compared to
what Earth is so there's going a full or
maybe like a quarter of Earth can fit in Jupiter's red spot that's because
Jupiter's ginormous compared to Earth that's how big it is and insane
so this storm is so powerful that it is almost almost two times
um more windier than a category five hurricane so we get a lot of hurricanes
here on Earth and then we get them it's hurricane season almost every year we get some pretty nasty hurricanes and um
the winds go up to 258 miles per hour and so um usually
when you see a hurricane on Earth or a tornado they usually go up to 100 and
then at the most at least 150 and this is going up almost to 300 which is
pretty chaotic um but no one does live on no one nobody lives on Jupiter like
humans so that isn't really there to experience it so um this storm is very very very
powerful um it's been going on for over three thousand not three thousand three
hundred years um so it is definitely a noticeable storm by looking through a telescope so what
we see from space so um when you look at jupiter-free
telescope every single time I've looked at it through a telescope you cannot see
the clouds moving but very much so they are moving
and all of Jupiter's surface is just a bunch of moving clouds around there's a
lot of storms but the big red dot is the most famous of them all because it's the
biggest storm on Jupiter into the little picture over there is Voyager One
going to uh Jupiter and you can see its clouds moving and how fast it is moving
you can just see there's little dots storms just moving across the surface
and so um when when we're looking from our telescope it's just so so we can't see
it moving when we're looking for our telescope I wanted to talk a little bit about
Earth storms too and how they relate with each other because when astronauts go to space I learned a lot about this
when I was in Space Camp last year um I get a chance to go back to space camp this year again but um when I was
at space camp last year um they were teaching us about satellite images so basically a lot of the times
when um they're in space and they see
um they see like they can see a hurricane from um
from the from the International Space Station mostly um sometimes we'll go on NASA and we'll
say like oh we can see the eye of the hurricane and we can see where it's moving and um back when I was at space
camp we had um we all um didn't like a little group project where they showed us pictures of
different natural disasters all the way from space and we had to determine what
they were just by the images so it could be volcano volcano storms you could see
that and definitely hurricanes you can see that you can see the eye of the hurricane and it moving over you can see
storms you can see just regular clouds too so
um Earth storms are almost a little bit by um Jupiter there's just a lot less
storms on Earth than there is on Jupiter and the storms are a little bit less violent here and I know we definitely
don't have almost 300 miles per hour wind blowing storms maybe at 150 at the
most so I wanted to talk a little bit about that so um
thank you guys for having me on today um it was very fun and it's I can't kind
of iconic the time that I'm going to talk about storms and weather
um that it's storming outside I've always loved um I've always loved storms um
I've never been afraid of them I mean unless I had to take shelter but I've
always loved storms and I kind of see that as a cool thing that I connect my love for storms and my love for
astronomy together you can see different there's different weather on all different planets and imagine being an
astronaut going to Jupiter and then just being blown away by the free almost feet
100 mile per hour winds I mean that's just so crazy to think that it's been
going on for so long right now and it's still going on the second I'm talking
about it right now and it's just so crazy because there's more storms on Jupiter too and I've
always loved um all the stormy weather here I've it's I'm like oh Lord oh I'm like
sometimes I'll get in the car and if it's safe outside then I'll storm Chase in my mom's car with her and um
I like to sit out um I like to sit outside and watch terrain and I definitely enjoy the rain a lot so
it's kind of crazy to think that the big red storm that's um like a crazy storm that's still going
on right now in our solar system this second that we were talking about it and having this amazing discussion about it
it's out there in Jupiter right now and it's still there to this day uh free
almost 300 years to and it's still going on it's such a
powerful storm and I think water is something that we could it is definitely something that is very important when
you're sending astronauts to a different planet because you can't send them the Venus or else everything will melt and
you can't send them the Jupiter or else they'll be blown away by this win so um
I definitely think weather is something cool on different planets to research and study about
absolutely absolutely thank you very much Libby that's awesome that's awesome thank you for having me
on yeah and thank you thanks for being on again and we'll see you next time
okay um so uh up from uh Stockholm Sweden is
uh Pekka haltilla and uh Pekka is uh not only been in the audience of uh our
daily shows many times uh he's been featured uh uh on some of our programs
and including the global star party and he has been recently a huge Champion for
dark skies and um so Pekka what what's happening in in
Sweden these days in Stockholm I'm just waiting for the sunrise
okay from the either side International
side I am waiting um to speak the first a little bit
longer um a conversation with the politician here
but right right now they are in the middle of the budget for next year
for the whole big buck shed so she's very busy but she has promised me he's
so enthusiastic to talk with me from point of view from our side
so she will contact me after when she gets some time so it's it's going on I
got my lamps shielded and turned it off and so on so I I throw down the portney
scale maybe one scale maybe two even
so I have a very good opportunities for next season to get
some dsos for real for real yeah for real yes and
um back to view this uh topics today about the wildlife and what this life and so
on my journey that question began when I was very very young and I can say Libby
I can see myself in you when I was in your age I was just hoovering the
information where it was available that time today you have Google you have
Wikipedia you have everything but that day when I was starting we have a very
very small unlimited Library two three books about astronomy and I
borrowed at them and the period to borrow was three weeks I'm I think and I
went back and asked them out if there is somebody who has asked them or are
queuing for them no okay I will take them again for three weeks
so I was making a handwriting copies from those books and so on
and writing down the most important that I have to remember and study again so I
was writing by hand from those books and I did three four times
so I repeat the day long time so the information for for us
who were living in a smaller realities in Finland was not so big as it's today
so you have just you have computers everywhere in your phone you can study
to be an astronomer almost but okay then I began to think about Universe about in
Libby's age for real what is the universe and when
I read a little bit later about the expanding universe and okay then I tips
though okay stop stop stops hold your horses so uh in what it is expanding if
universe is everything and it is expanding it must expand do something
so this there is a boundary there is a grid between the
nothing and universe because it's expanding to something and what is that
something and I I I haven't figured out but when I
studied today you have to look at universe is everything
it it doesn't have boundaries it's so long and so long okay we met a
universe somehow but what is after when universe
stops there must be something because they it
some nothing something cannot expand if there is nothing to expand to
uh David are looking me at okay I will shoot you I will take you down God
you will I know that you will and then I thought okay thank you sober
summer Bob uh but how do you say from uh
soap bubbled it has a sphere inside and it has a thin
thin spare it's fair and it's uh
hovering in let's say nothing and we take off that
small thin layer then you have something in nothing
I don't know if I'm correct but I saw a finish
interview in Finnish YouTube channel it's still there there was three guys
there was a statinary in somewhere in Phoenix wooden
Forest and they have the dinner it was one
cosmologics and theologist he was studying both
and one astronomy and one priest and there was talking about
the universe alien life and how long and
his our knowledge how long can we expand our knowledge
about the universe and everything and the astronomers told that the human
brain is not so at Advanced that
um even if we know what's happening we cannot process that month of the data
so our brain is not made for those huge
data what that reveals to us that our brain will say stop that's now
it's enough and what the fun was this is nothing
against any religion religion or something but
but the the astronomer asked for the theologist with also cosmologics that in
Bible says like this and the astronomers says like this and he told that yeah it has
been proven several times in history that Bible has adapted uh
astronomers events afterwards I'm telling We Told You So in
Bible that this will happen and they had a very
um he's a very very good conversation and
you know but um the conclusion was
how long can we continue to understand universe
that's only our brains uh how long we
can understand the data we get because there is a lot of data Maybe we
can't because now we have dark matter we have dark energy we have black holes I saw a
couple of days ago uh on uh program
and there was a Swedish astronomy because uh he was studying
black holes and they have found now that in the middle of the galaxies
where their hype has been a black hole there is burst
the the warm burst that comes out is known for a couple of years now and
there is a gas around this uh particles that comes out so the the hot
gas helps to make this post but on the other side they found a cold first
hmm so they are studying with the huge
telescopes I don't remember the telescopes Edna I
think could it be like not something like that David
do know that I don't know on the on the name and and of course they are it you
know there's Central supermassive black holes now uh thought to exist in almost all galaxies except for dwarfs yeah
so they're very common and of course the material that is not falling into the
Event Horizon is often being hyper accelerated and shot out and yeah how we
detecting energy from them you know whether it be a quasar in the early universe or a more well-behaved black
hole later on yeah and she was so interesting because they found this cool code first
and that was something they called in what sense uh
it had not gas put gas around the in the burst because
the particle particles is inside and it's surrounding by uh by a hot class and that's what they saw and they have
discovered that the the small particles
uh what they are reading now with radio telescopes that they are
high frequency waves that goes into this particle I don't know I don't remember
the name of the particle but when it's go in inside the particle that particle will transform
the wavelength to longer waves that they can read hmm
so that was very interesting program
and I will follow up what she will make some discoveries but the life there
is a a saying I was just looking if this is the international uh
we think here in Earth that and that we say in Earth that when in Rome do as a
romance do and why don't we think that
on exoplanets the same rules is applied
we are saying that life is when Red Dot
is there and blue dot is there and they are so far away and they are in this
environment that is life but over there
they are not following our rules so maybe they are swimming in in lead
or something in melted lead well and and as as far as
we know the whole history of science physics is physics it's Universe chemistry is chemistry we know that
spectroscopically except what you say now what life the the the the the range
of life could be unbelievably vast and could exist not only in completely
different environments you say swimming in lead but also based on different kinds of chemistries you know it's often
you know Carbon is an extremely uh sexy attractive element for life to be based
on because it combines so easily and it's it you know what I mean but but as
has been written about many many times they're you know silicon-based life there could be living beings even that
are sophisticated with very very different properties to adapt in what
would be extremely hostile worlds to us we'd never be able to live it yeah so yeah I mean that supports what you were
saying I think yeah yeah there is uh I wrote about this read about this couple
of years ago about alien lives uh if they exist
here or somewhere else that our eyes are are working on
one wave lengths and they they body if they don't have body can
Shake in uh one wavelength and we don't
see them imagine living sophisticated living beings that see microwaves yeah and not
the visible spectrum it would almost be absurd statistically in terms of
evolution for lots of other sophisticated beings to also see this
narrow slice of visible light yeah so the exactly yeah so we are if I say
about I came to you and say I have this
uh box the first thing uh human being asked how big
so we have to have measures so we understand what are we talking
about if we just say I am coming with big thing and no questions that would be old
and out there maybe they they have they
don't have measurements I don't know but we have to we we can't we have to look
out of the box before we get crazy we we see things in
our own context we just have to try to take ourselves out of yeah yeah we have
to if we want if we want to understand the big picture of everything yep yes uh
like it's like you know in the uh depths of the ocean by volcanic vents right
that environment uh is is completely hostile to normal life as we know it yet
they're discovering as a whole ecosystem that to David's Point
um a certain environment might make a certain element more more uh likely more sexy to combine
so carbon in its in in the normal Universe steady state of temperature and all that uh carbon tends to to be very
likely to combine however there might be locales like the vents where other
elements are more likely to combine just as well as carbon does in a normal environment exactly this is to your
point of Pekka as well with the lead concept right if if you're around a star that's a super massive or something
maybe the chemical properties change and all of a sudden Life as we know it is
has a totally different likelihood of of forming in a different form and we we
don't know but you know hydrothermal vents would be very dangerous and would
would kill us if we were exposed to them now we're fragile awfully fragile human
beings among the most fragile things we know of but but you know it's we don't know of course but but they're the
likeliest candidate for the original life yeah so that you know probably
undersea hydrothermal events that's probably where we came from and my session with Neil gracious
saying that we human being are
trying to understand uh on the huge picture up there even if
we don't know what we have under our feet
yes it's um there's a an article about arsenic eating bacteria
that was I guess discovered about a decade ago and uh
you know there was I guess just basically what six is it six elements that uh are
commonly thought of to be uh possible for life is that right David
oh six characteristics so carbon of life right oxygen nitrogen
uh oh now you're talking about elements now elements well there are a lot of elements in US but they're a handful
half a dozen or so that are critically important yeah and oxygen is right at
the top of the list for us but we're carbon based if you
will and that we're you know our our chemistry is is based on on carbon
compounds I.E organic chemistry the turn term organic chemistry doesn't mean
you're buying overpriced carrots you know that are the same as the other
carrots it means that we're made out of carbon compounds our bodies
predominantly that's that's the definition of organic chemistry I see that's like hydrocarbons or hydrogen and
carbon based fuel types of flight chemicals exactly and you mentioned that
it's funny you mentioned getting back to comets and asteroids Chon particles you
know carbon hydrogen oxygen nitrogen heavy you know those hydrocarbon uh
compounds are in comets you know the building blocks of amino
acids you know they're out there floating around comets and and
um asteroid impacts and all these things all the ugly things that might have happened to this this planet life would
not have occurred well the late heavy bombardment this was a nasty nasty place
to be you know uh 3.7 to 4.1 billion years ago and probably the evidence is
leaning toward life got going it was it's easy to get it go it probably got going and was snuffed out by the
bombardment quite a number of times yeah um you know and and you know there are
these decades-long debates which are semi-speculative as well that you know
comets are asteroid bombardments um provided organic matter quote unquote
which there's that's those arguments have lost steam because you know everything you need for organic
chemistry he was already in the here where without that contribution but how much water uh how much of the oceans was
was uh donated if you will by Icy asteroids and comets and and that's
maybe something like you know a third to forty percent of the water on Earth came from comets and asteroids
well the oxygen had to has to come from somewhere it wasn't no there wasn't there wasn't a lot of there was a fairly
slight amount of oxygen compared to what we know of for the first uh couple billion almost couple billion years you
know and then as I said by the time microbes you know the earliest life on
Earth is at least um uh you know it didn't take long it's something like 3.8 billion years old
um so life got going pretty relatively quickly after the late heavy bombardment which was a nasty time clearing out all
the planetesimals in the inner solar system you can see the evidence of it on the moon still without erosion you know
but but uh um you know it got going quickly and
then there reached a critical point there were there were almost two billion years where the only life on Earth were
microbes and there was a critical moment as I mentioned it again you can check the great oxygenation event
um the goe that so about 2.6 I'm sorry 2.3 billion years ago now going
backwards um the there was a critical point a Tipping Point that was reached where the
microbes uh on Earth were producing enough oxygen that it basically got
Unleashed free oxygen uh uh atoms in the atmosphere and that exploded the amount
of Life uh that could be made and also tripled the number of minerals by the
way because oxygen likes to combine with things a lot very easily you can you
know if you peel a banana and put it out you know on your table you can see how
oxygen likes to combine with things in a couple of minutes by ruining the banana you know but but so that tripled the
number of mineral species from about 1500 to nearly 5 000 on Earth the ox
free oxygen and it also made more sophisticated life easily possible on
our planet we wouldn't be here if not for the great oxygenation event I think David if we uh
magnetor would uh come true near us
what would happen to the human being there are a lot a magnetar
yeah yeah but to be two ghosts too close we we would have a bad afternoon yes
something and Cameron you were you were kind of alluding to that too you know
there are a lot of risks to life out there that have nothing to do with us being really stupid you know and not
getting along on Earth there are you know there's anti-matter there are nearby supernovae of course they're
um asteroid and cometary impacts although we know that there are no NEOS
that are civilization killer size but still if you have a you know a one
kilometer Rock go in and hit you know as close to a city you know you got a bad
weekend coming you know but yeah yeah
you know they're a radiative terrible problems from from close by
um uh you know energetic stars like magnetars or or other explosive Stars
they don't talk about so much are they so real or
they're relatively rare yeah okay that's the way
near us you know now that we know of and and you know there there are I mean we
saw a muamua you know was a little tiny cigar-shaped you know Comet yeah yep through the solar system you know
certainly they're Interlopers that that don't belong to our solar system that come through fairly frequently probably
before we're aware of tracking them and we'll continue to but there aren't any
dangerous Stars nearby us that we know of in any kind of uh time frame that would concern us as
humans you know if they don't come out it's not lonely Rider
right you know but but probably you know you saw all the nonsense you know
because this had nothing to do with the core the dimming of Beetlejuice no no no no no no no but yeah but so that it was
all completely hyped into the absurdity but within a half million years or so
Beetlejuice will Supernova and that will be bad in terms of radiation you know at
our distance maybe not you know civilization threatening but but there you know there are there are threats out
there and then as we've talked about before you know if we survive all that stuff and get along on the planet we
only have about a billion years or so left until the sun's increasing radiation will boil the oceans off and
at that point it's game over for
bombardment uh that you're referring to David you know I was just thinking when uh Libby was talking about Jupiter of
course Jupiter has a big impact uh and also think about a lot of the double stars out there and trinary stars that's
you can imagine what that does to the Oort cloud and the accretion disk you know as far as the reliability of a
stable you know uh neighborhood in terms of uh debris flying around that's
exactly right and and you know the early history of the solar system was violent in the inner solar system but as you say
those planetesimals got cleared out eventually but Jupiter not only can cast
some toward us a little bit but it mainly has acted like a giant vacuum
cleaner in in the solar system history and sucked up a lot of stuff that would have impacted the solar system but
didn't exactly yeah yeah didn't the moon kind of do that too kind of the last defense for us
yeah and you know it's it's smaller and and you know it it I mean Earth took as
many hits in the in the it's believed in the late heavy bombardment as the moon did and look you know we have a we have
erosional processes that cover all that up very nicely in a whole multitude of ways but I mean look at them you know
Earth's surface looked pretty much like that you know for three almost four
billion years ago we took a lot of hits too but we weren't around
yeah thank you
it's a happy cheery story the story of the solar system yeah we're very
grateful to be alive yes yes we do yes
and um we have to take care of these planets yeah actually because we have to we have
to leave it to the youngest one as we got it at least
not in better shape Libby it's all up to you after we're gone
clean Optimus Libby's going to be off Planet okay
yeah she's going to be our first uh astronaut here
well maybe maybe what happens to Earth in the future is it becomes like an international Park you know and uh you
can you know if you want to work here you have to be like a park ranger or something so you know otherwise otherwise you might
have to be off Planet who knows but um okay so uh are we have our next
speaker coming up here and did I get lost here um I think that we are going to
transition with Richard Grace who's got uh a live image images coming down uh
the Astro beard thank you thank you I figured first I'd
uh see if you guys can guess what I'm looking at by the uh the guide scope here it's in this area
and 51 mm-hmm all right all right let's see
stop sharing start sharing
yeah so how many how many images are stacked
here 26 only two minute images uh I don't know how straight I'm set up
tonight uh it's uh getting dark kind of late but uh it's working
uh we're about to hit the uh the Meridian flip here uh real shortly
uh so I'm glad you got me in here and uh I'm gonna try and find myself another
Target we're uh we're really zoomed up on in this one too right now I mean we're
I got something on my sensor or something but yeah it's we're way up on that
okay awesome great I just love this essential structure really nice clear skies
somewhere here in the in our on our planet so that's you know it's been so cloudy here
um uh as we transition here to Cesar brolo down in Argentina I did want to give uh a shout out uh for David Levy's
uh book it's uh uh autobiography called the night watchman's Journey a road not
taken uh or the road not taken it's a fantastic book a great read
um and uh you know it gives many personal accounts of uh David Levy's wife
um another book we've talked a lot about galaxies is uh David eicher's book on Galaxies this is uh a great um uh you
know so insightful uh on the latest uh findings and going-cons uh with research
on Galaxies um uh and you know really you know just
reading through it really helps help you start to figure out your place in the universe so I think it's very cool
um and um uh you know and also just a you know incredible astrophotography uh
throughout the books a really beautiful beautiful book get the hardcover um I'm not sure if it's in paperback or
not but make sure it's at least in hardcover and uh you can find you can
find the galaxies book on Amazon uh you can find a Night watchman's Journey at
starzona.com and so uh so let's let's go down all the way down to Buenos Aires
Argentina uh where Cesar Brello is out there under the night skies
absolutely yes in the balcony in the balcony in the balcony yes today I don't
have maybe so good sound here um it's so nosy the city that the the
noise of the city is completely annoying for me to understand because today I I
choose don't use the their the earphones but okay
but I can hear you and and I hope that you can hear me too yes
um well um tonight I started to use again
um I access 100 that um receive maybe we are the the only one
people the only one store that we have in stock some ex's 100 because it's
actually it's really difficult to to to found it and
um of course that yeah sure is say yes yeah they're very popular and we're
embraceable for all our customers again one for me because
I am I am how do you say I'm the service
now we'll have a lot more in stock here pretty soon yeah yeah yes and tonight work is is it
a new one because the last one that I had um a customer says
forget salt to me and not to me to my customer
and I I have uh I don't have a mount or
telescope in the in the last month for me nothing actually I'm happy because I
have ex's 100 again for me some stuff for for the customers
um of course that I I um tonight I'm I'm started to use this
one and this I promise that I don't move this from the balcony from my home it's
from anybody so he's there yeah yes absolutely it's the same like your
telescope in your backside hmm yes
come on right because we are we are tell us about telescope dealers but we are fanatic of astronomy too and really we
suffer when we don't have equipment for us this is something that that not all
people think and um technically well I started to use uh
why I started to use with the with the table with a tablet for
um with um with a system of uh that normally we use
that is Explorer but that were really fine
I make a a single [Music]
um a single polar alignment and started to work perfectly and I have
some pictures that I can't of I can show you
because I um today was a little cloudy with a
a tiny layer of clouds now because maybe you can see the color of of the sky well
the colors of the sky in the city are horrible but maybe you can you can see
some light um in any City like Buenos Aires or another
city that like pollution is it's a nightmare of course it's a no not it's a
a not new for everyone uh for everybody sorry
um but it tonight was a little more complicated because I had this this
layer of clouds that maybe in English have a name that I don't know but
um with the with the illumination of the lights this Mega are very bad a very bad
uh combined um but I choose something because in
between the weldings you know me that sometimes I have some targets that are
possible to to take a picture um something that today were properly
really really good was they they go to alignment first of all I used the two
stars that I choose from the catalog something that is is great in in the
Explorer starts when you use when the use or starting to to to make the line I
mean it's that um the catalog turn to that to a catalog
for alignment starts when you with the same it's very easy because when you
choose a menu and choose the option catalog the catalog that after you uh
use to choose it any stars or planet in the starting of the process is a
catalog that do have the option only for alignment stars because maybe in the in
the uh why because um in the alignment stars that that
straw starts Explorer starts uh propose for you in the maybe are beside
um beside a tree a wheel like me and it's very helpful the option to to
choose to start in in a catalog that is only for alignment
um it's very easy it's very fast and of course that I chose today I choose
regulus in the in the in the west and
um and in the South I chose um near the South at the South canopus
work properly in a night where you you don't you don't see the stars very very
bright it's a it's a great helpful to to have a catalog of
um of alignment and was really helpful and easy for me
because um if in an eye where you don't see the
stars or the or some zero objects in the first view because you have this tiny
layer of clouds um trust in the go-to and when you have
this the the object that you find in the in the area of your camera in the sensor
sensor field you can say it's really really helpful then the
go-to was a great a great
helping for for me and this is why some people choose between only a Tracker
mode a Tracker mom and you turn crazy sometimes to to to on your camera with
your mount to the object that you need to to take the picture for example here with a 30
or 300 millimeters of focus the the and the relationship between the
sense of size because this is APS s and the the three three uh sorry 300
millimeters is like it's around like a 400 millimeters it's near to us to on a
small telescope and it's not so easy like a thing to appoint a point uh an
object and if you have about two in in your tracker photography month is really
really a great tool to have more easy and more easy or more great results
I can show you let me let me share the screen
um tonight I choose let me let me uh know
if you can see this open cluster and this is this is like many times you
can see in my pictures sides of the buildings and this is an open open clusters uh
open cluster is um his number is the Missy 25 16 is in
the area of Karina and it's a it's a it's a great a gray
plaster open Blaster uh really open because uh is
um in in the in the farm areas or uh where you don't have a really a huge uh
um a huge uh [Music] light condemnation
um like pollution sorry and uh you can see a naked eye or you can see uh very
easy of course with the binoculars it is very it's very nice because it's it's uh
it's very similar you maybe you can of course
you know the m44 the high clusters and
release is really really is uh like a picture of of the m44 uh
very similar to the to the Naked Eyes and especially when you see uh you watch
uh to the binoculars and it's a cluster that is around 100 stars
um I took this picture that I finished now to take the pictures um foreign
crazy to the to the people I finished now to to
to make the the stack and register and is a medium finish a medium finish
picture of of this cluster is something that I could is the only thing that
I I be able to to take this picture
that's a nice cluster Caesar I I I I love this is a beautiful Rich cluster I
mean you can see it's it's it's almost look like M35 you know it's it's a
pretty good density um right um so it has a nice richness to it and
you're still able to get it in in your light polluted Skies that's that's that's nice must be beautiful
ah thank you thank you and it it's
um it's nice because in the center sorry that I couldn't I couldn't
finish the process but maybe in this area in
in in here here you can see the difference between the colors the red star that is a giant star
giant red star in the center of the cluster and it's really really a a really rich
cluster with the different colors it's around 100 stars and it's at
400 and 400 years and I I I don't remember if it's between
60 and 90 million years they launched the year so that that
have this type of cluster and I think that this that this is around around
this this uh this time maybe I think that this is is the of the
growth of cluster that is with uh 70 uh
Millions years old it's very it's very interesting and it's in this area tonight was not able to to take a
picture of a takarina nebula and really I I was a little worried of Sega Game
the attacker that this is great really but uh this cluster is is interesting
and um uh is uh it's nice and it's something
it's a nice Target from the city to to shoot it's it's really really great uh
multiple colors is really nice I mean and that's a hard that's a hard thing to pull out uh with with a picture I mean
this this is where visually uh you just can't beat it right I mean if you if you see that visually you don't blow out the
stars and you have this beautiful Jewel I can just imagine the multiple colors so just like if you look at the center
of the double cluster there's a nice red star in the middle and it's uh it's it's really nice I I can imagine yeah
behal you have something similar and it's something that when you see one or
another one you remember
in the center and it's very nice this is actually how that are using uh
I can I can show you if um how how is the the in their live view of
live view of uh of this of this let me show you
okay review
this is okay this is a heavier this is started savior look at at uh how is is
the the picture that we are taking the the now the the cluster is
um behind the the the welding in this area and this is
ADR the start that is near to this cluster
and you can see the color of the sky yeah
right yes yes but it's everything is is an adventure
um to to try to to take something of fun time and it's
great really and play around with some filters different filters
yes I I can use well I um of course that that
I I need to think uh this year um after the middle of the year my idea
is is take this some kind of telescope over over this
moment but but I prefer now explore with the camera
with the mount and uh and and actually I we are working in the in
the weekend House of the family um and um yeah you're working on
restoring that telescope too yeah we are changing the the roof you know uh
working working the people working the roof making a new pad and in in this
area that this is not uh it's not a high police pollution area if not we have
maybe a middle middle quantity of light pollution between the city and the farm
areas or mountains and maybe about I don't know maybe two two points or play
less and and [Music]
I I hope to have a a new equipment maybe
novels or September to to use to to return again to a telescope I I
had to start to use and but
um it's a great it's a great opportunity when you have less equipment to to
[Music] start to experiment from from the scratch from yes squeeze
them I squeeze the maximum I don't ever get the maximum whatever everything you have yes yes one equipment that that you
have and I had and it was incredible word for example um the next image not the next Story the
revolution we have we have a revolution 9. 9.25
um but I I feel great and last year with this
moment with an um we done uh
um 80 millimeters uh apocratic expression TV the
fb1 the 100 and I really I really need
to return to this equipment for example for me Big Bill and small amount that
I can guide and they have all no that would be perfect because you
have actually you have seen that almost seen this view right you can you have like a quarter to Sky View from your
balcony right uh you can you have a very good angle like an Autism is might not
be as good right once you polar align this axis 100 um you you can you can leave it there
like you say right and then just just to do it remote and it's nice uh you have a
nice little mini Observatory yes right yes absolutely and this this type of of
uh mounts are really easy to to make a polar alignment and a
[Music]
and normally when you use a maybe Cherry remember
um sharp cam or many programs that have a polar alignment
Assistance or master or if you could see the North Star a lot of these rely on
but I think uh sharp cap you can do an all Sky polar alignment yeah yeah but
you need but in in the rooftop of the welding normally I use this and it's
really fast because you point one Stars another one it's
really fast the program a cap capture
the the rivers in Spanish I don't remember the
name well the the tracking a variable between the gray the variety
polarized alignment and another one is wrong and you you really understand or
where or a website you need to move the the
reporter to the polar axis actually you know it's either I was just thinking you
know uh Jerry had in a earlier session today uh we're talking about the uh you know
the deviations um and one thing that I have to say is think about a polar scope an equatorial
scope compared to an altaz in it okay all you're doing a scope you're you're changing you're
changing the axis right I mean obviously the advantage of a polar line scope is
you only have to track on one axis so that's and you don't have field rotation however however if you're taking short exposure
to like 30 second exposures it's arbitrary you can do an uh you know you
can adjust the the mapping uh you could Point your your polar scope in any
direction arbitrarily right uh if you have a TDM theoretically right Jerry you
you could just pull point it in any direction and it will make adjustments on both axes uh and then you can
optimize the location you know yeah right so so the Explorer stars does a
virtual I call it a virtual alignment when the two and three star alignment when people talk about that's a virtual model based model based alignment which
yes corrects those this drives both axes at the same time hi everyone
all right hey thanks for inviting me again including when Caesar says to get polar
alignment in South hemisphere there is a technique that I learned from
my a professor of physics and that told
me that we had the the Southern Cross okay and with the two stars like a
Crooks and a Crooks with your two fingers you point those
stars and do one two three four times
and health and you approximate Melody you will find the uh yeah
exactly yes
but let's say you're on the equator like Singapore right Singapore you don't have any chance so you basically uh you have
to point in in any direction to minimize the amount of uh declination adjustment
right so you don't have to be exactly polarized you just have to make sure the axis is generally close enough and then
minimize the field rotation and the uh the periodic error but if you have a TDM
and you could be pointed in it technically in any direction right and Jerry I mean
um with the telescope Drive Master corrects a PE uh so but with the virtual
alignment so with the telescope Drive Master you need to have a a good polar line because of the documentations of
that box but in terms of the tracking rate uh but in terms of explore Stars
you can set it anywhere and uh and use a guided scope to correct the PE but
there's also there's a lot of different ways to do things and sometimes you don't want a perfect polar alignment because you want you've got limitations
of the mount where you want to drive the declination axis in One Direction all the time you want the drift to be in One
Direction right so that that loads uh that right that loads the deck axis and keeps you
from going back and forth West McDonald's calls it crossing the river when you go back and forth you got a
little slop in your gear and you're going you're driving it one way and then all you gotta cross the river to drive it the other way you know that's what he
so it gets to be the river that's what he calls it so that's that makes it you know a lot noisier on the deck axis than
you really need to be so there's a lot of different techniques like that you know counterweight you know you the way
you set your counterweight to to bias your counter weight to push against the
gear a certain direction that type of stuff yep there's all those things that you have to think about yep
okay guys we're running a little bit behind uh we have a couple of speakers to get to
um up next is uh Don cell um uh don is um uh from the Texas Star
Party he's also an astrophotographer he's given uh workshops on astrophotography at the world famous
Texas Star Party and uh don I'd like to bring you on now so you could talk a little bit about what's going to be
happening okay yeah thank you very much Scott I appreciate the the invite to uh to come
tonight um the Texas Star Party has been a a a a
a pretty uh major star party in uh in North America
um we we if if it had taken place this year unfortunately we had to cancel it
because of the covet pandemic uh it would have been the third 43rd uh annual
uh Texas Star Party uh it it's held in the Big Bend area of uh Texas and for
those of you who uh uh aren't familiar with Texas the the Rio Grande River uh
makes a big loop uh down uh uh in in southwest
and that's why it gets the name from Big Bend and and it eventually uh bends back
up and uh to the north and out to the Gulf of Mexico well
um it's so it's it's desert area uh and uh it's um uh not very populated so the
Stars the skies are very dark and that was the big uh attraction uh you know 40
some years ago to uh actually get the star party organized uh in a uh and it
and for the last uh 37 or 38 years it's been at uh the same place uh at the at
the prude Ranch in uh Fort Davis Texas uh the prude
Ranch is uh what they call here in Texas a Guest Ranch uh the the the everybody
else calls them dude ranches you can uh go go and uh uh live like a cowboy for
uh for a few days and uh and and and that's one of the nice nice attractions
uh the Big Bend area also is uh kind of an international tourist location uh
there's uh there's a a really awesome National Park uh Big Bend
National Park which is uh uh uh not too far away from Fort Davis and uh uh that
Park gets so over a million uh visitors every year and about half of them are
international uh visitors so it's a it's a good place to come and see
at any rate um because of the coveted uh uh pandemic we actually had to cancel
in-person uh uh star party in 2020 uh
it's the star parties normally held at the end of April the beginning of May and and at least here in the U.S that
was last year was uh the big kind kind of a big lockdown period
um we were very hopeful to get to have face to face this year but again we had uh quite a spike in uh in in cases and
uh we decided to hold off another year on face to face but at seeing the um example
of the winter star party uh doing a virtual Star Party event uh when we
decided that we were going to have to cancel face-to-face this year uh we really wanted to um uh take on the
the challenge of putting on a virtual star party this year so if I can share
my screen real quick I'm gonna uh pop up a quick uh graphic
um this is uh that this is what we're calling the virtual Texas Star Party
2021 um we have a a really nice uh uh group
of uh speakers and this is one of the Hallmarks of the Texas Star Party uh uh
for all of all the years that it's been in uh Fort Davis uh we've always managed
to get quality speakers to come and present to the uh to the
um attendees and that and typically there are are between five and six
hundred attendees every year um and uh so especially on on Friday and
Saturday nights uh uh towards the end of the end of the star party uh we've got
some really quality speakers in speakers uh uh uh give their presentations uh
before it gets dark and at the end of that end of the session some uh one of
one of the moderators gets up and says okay 30 minutes from now dark rules will
be in effect and let's get out there and observe okay so we're gonna try and do the same
pattern here with the virtual Star Party it'll be um held on uh the Knights of
June 10th 11th and 12th uh Thursday June 10th
we uh have actually teamed up with the Fort Bend astronomy club uh in the
that's in the Houston area and uh the Fort Bend astronomy club does
a tremendous amount of Outreach uh uh and and has for for many years uh they
uh uh provide volunteers for the Houston Museum of Natural Sciences George
Observatory every Saturday of the year uh uh rain or shine uh they have the
observatory open uh this year um because of the uh pandemic
they've been learning how to do uh do this uh virtually and um so they're
gonna set up and um we hope to have uh an 18-inch uh Newtonian which is in one
of the domes there uh and then two or three other uh Scopes out on the deck uh that will be uh will
be showing of a variety of uh of uh of uh objects uh similar to what we're
doing here uh we'll we'll take the images on the computer and we'll share screens and and and show you the results
um we'll also have a couple of of things other things going on each night we'll
we have um every night we'll have a uh astronomy themed trivia uh uh contest so
with with prizes by the way so we've found a great piece of software that will allow us to um have people
from all over uh sign into a website um anesthetic uh that that particular
website will it will be dedicated to our uh uh trivia contest you can use your uh
use your uh smartphone to to do the answers and the uh the software keeps
track of who's who's winning it's uh it's really uh pretty amazing and and uh we're gonna have that every
every night and um and we'll have um uh a few other guest appearances and um
some uh door prize uh uh uh drawings as well so um uh just a brief overview of who
the speakers are going to be I mean you all know David uh Levy um uh he he
generously volunteered to uh uh to speak um Stephen J O'Meara
um uh Stephen was a long time um contributor to both astronomy
magazine and science uh uh sky and Telescope magazine uh he's currently
living in Botswana and uh so we'll be uh
his presentation will be pre-recorded but I know he's going to talk a little bit about uh doing astronomy uh in
Botswana um that because we're uh in Fort Davis uh
Tech uh Texas the uh uh University of Texas uh McDonald Observatory is
actually only about uh five or six miles up the road from the prude Ranch and uh uh Texas Star parties had a a
long uh partnership uh with uh with the observatory we typically
um uh every year we'll have uh behind the scenes tours of the uh Observatory
and um Dr Carl Gebhart uh from UT Austin is uh is gonna talk to us about uh the
dark energy uh uh research that's going on with the hobby Everly telescope there
at McDonald Observatory uh Dr geberhart is uh the principal of uh investigator
for for that uh for that project um Larry Mitchell is uh he he's a law
everybody who's been to tsp knows Larry uh Larry does our Advanced observing program and uh and uh his uh talks are
always uh in demand um that people want to get that uh the the tips and tricks uh uh that they need
to uh to complete his observing list in in the week um he's also made it possible we're
gonna actually uh run his observing uh uh challenge as well as uh other
observing lists we have a novice and uh uh uh a a a a a
uh a novice and a uh deep Sky observing uh list uh targets as well as binocular
targets and we'll we'll publish those uh lists and you can uh uh complete those
lists and we'll make sure uh when you do that we'll we'll give you a certificate
of completion so what we'll actually have observing actual observing component of this as well if you can get
out to uh uh uh under the under the skies and there's no clouds uh Stephen Hummel is uh uh with the
McDonald Observatory uh Stephen is a dark sky specialist at uh at McDonald
Observatory and uh for the last uh oh probably uh ten or uh 12 years uh the
McDonald observatory's been working on um uh preserving the dark skies in the
Big Ben region and um over the last uh uh uh year and a half or so uh
there's been a uh a new initiative to set up a very large uh International uh
dark sky Reserve Ida dark sky Reserve it'll it'll be um both on uh the U.S side of the of the
uh Mexico uh U.S border and it and and it'll be on the Mexican side as well
um and it will conform with the Ida uh dark sky reserve requirements uh very
similar to what the state of Utah is except it's almost twice as big as the state of Utah okay so Steven's gonna
talk to us about uh uh the progress that's being made there to get this dark
sky Reserve in place and uh we're really excited about that so um I I hope you all uh will uh be
interested and willing to uh tune in um Scotsman uh very uh generous to uh uh
allow us to uh broadcast uh uh on the explore scientific uh uh website and um
we're we're really very pleased uh and and thankful for the um for the uh
support and um and participation of explore scientific uh uh in helping us
get this virtual event off the ground well thanks thank you Don thank you yes
uh you'll be able to see it on explore scientific.com forward slash live and
also on the explore scientific USA Facebook page
um so uh and we'll do we will definitely do our part to help uh spread awareness
of uh this event um I think it'll be tremendous and uh
you know so um you know all the luck to you guys and everybody that's obviously watching
right now should definitely sign up for the Texas Star Party virtual Edition so
is there anything else you'd like to add Don um oh we're we're there'll be t-shirts
available for sale too I mean you know what's the stock market about a t-shirt right that's right that's right yeah I mean you know what I
will tell you that probably a Texas Star Party virtual t-shirt may become a collector's item
you know because this is a very unusual time and
um so I I would uh highly recommend you get one so the the uh the the the logo
is a state of Texas with a uh a mask over it okay with the Texas Star Party
logo in it just get the t-shirt and it says give me some space there you
go can I order it to Sweden if I can not
make it yes you can thank you we'll be getting the information out uh shortly
about how you it'll be pre-orders and uh and and and we'll and and the uh price
includes the shipping thank you great Dawn I I've known about the Texas Star Party for many years ever
since I was a kid I always wanted to to go and it's it's it's uh I'm really happy to be able to join your uh your
virtual event that's fantastic well I I I'll tell you what I I'm just fortunate
that I ended up uh uh moving to Houston for business quite a while ago and um my
my neighbor two doors down was the president of the Houston Astronomical Society at the time and uh and he's the
one that dragged me into the uh in the amateur astronomy and got me out to Texas Star Party the first time and oh I
I actually uh lived overseas in uh Kuala Lumpur Malaysia for about four years and
every year I lived there I I timed my vacation so I could come back
if if if you have I call it my light bucket list if you have a if you have a
light bucket list uh tsp do it at least once it's a it's a oh yeah really unique
event yeah super dark skies Beauty beautiful Fort Davis is a great place to
hang out in as well it's just right outside of prude Ranch and I've been on
the Main Street of Fort Davis and looked up and saw a beautiful Milky Way I mean
it's just you know you could you could just set up telescopes right there but uh you get out to uh the prude Ranch
area or any of the areas close to McDonald Observatory and you've got
world-class skies I mean it's really cool I I I'm gonna share my screen again real quickly because I want you to
understand this Milky Way behind me there's actually a picture I took
um in the uh uh at the at the Texas Star Party and uh hang on just give me a
second Adrian's got to go there okay um this is actually the right by the
front gate of the prude Ranch yeah I I I I worked on uh trying to get this
Photograph done for about three years before I finally got it um and just so you know I did use a
camera tracker um to uh shoot the Milky Way uh uh so I
got enough exposure to be able to uh uh to uh contrast stretch it as much as I
did so oh yeah it's beautiful beautiful picture thank you but uh
as as nice as that is it's just a whole lot more awesome being underneath that oh yeah the actual Milky Way um yeah you
can the the first time I went to the Texas Star Party I saw uh what I thought
was the Milky Way but I miss I was mistaking uh the zodiacal light for the
Milky Way okay then then as as The Milky Way came I was I was getting bummed out
this is 1983 when I was there and I was getting bummed out because I thought clouds were rolling in okay it was the
Milky Way it was amazing and also in that evening
uh we got to see Mars um and the seeing quality was so good it
had to be sub-arc second because it was the first time that I'd seen features on Mars like that and it was just
incredible and you could tell I mean I was a beginner at that time in 1983 but
I could tell that the very experience because I heard like this this hush come
over the crowd of people as they were observing Mars and I go this is a
special night you know so wow and there's lots of special nights at tsp
and so definitely something you want to go to they're they're and there are a
lot of folks who have uh big Scopes I mean 25-inch Scopes are dabs are are
pretty common there and uh and everybody's pretty uh pretty friendly
and very willing to share an eyepiece uh especially if they've got something special uh to show
um so that's right that's right excellent Don thank you very much oh thank you Scott I appreciate it thank
you there should be a short plane from Europe to Texas style party
because there is no flights from from Scandinavia to us yet oh not yet there
will be hopefully next time yeah yeah thanks Tom
okay so uh up next is uh um uh the one and only John Goss uh he is with us from
the astronomical league and uh uh John are you uh are you there
he was here foreign
well I'll have to we'll have to see if he comes back um uh I think at this time uh we have
kind of run over uh uh and uh we we will
um we'll take a 10 minute break and uh perhaps uh John will be back with us
um otherwise we'll be coming back to uh Jerry Hubble okay and uh so let's take a
10 minute break stretch our legs and we'll be back
says that can we speak Spanish or not
okay okay it's a global Star Party it's okay
okay here's Spanish is foreign
[Music] yes
but let me see in the saturated image yes you have thin clouds and maybe in
your region uh maybe 20 minutes you will have clear sky
obviously you have a light pollution but in the CNN
you will see some Stars yeah
yes yes okay
yes we have a small clouds different um
cloudy typical of the Autumn yeah absolutely
yes and it's not cold right now now maybe no
so-called okay 10 great 10 degrees yes no more than 10 degrees 10
Centigrade degrees Yeah you're going to take some peaks with the
the eclr do you have your telescope outside or no no no it's not now because
tomorrow I have to work and the clouds will
I have no I don't I hate them so no no
no yeah it's impossible I I finish I finish
um I think that I can find
um I I think that I can share okay I know we are in
uh hello
yes I I talked with Scott maybe because I have already
um the picture that I took of a open cluster
um I I processed with serial
now you're in processing with Syria yes
yes he used he used a lot of cereal Fernando
ricardini [Music] it make a many people makes a lot of
different programs and my my idea is explain to the people with only one
problem at one program um because
um Syria have a great a great [Music]
quantity of scripts that you can get to use and to to to
try especially for stacking it's a great it's a great program and the process my
Sona gut team changed some scripts for when you don't have the flats for
example yes work really really good but tonight I I don't I don't feel I
really trust about about my my pictures
and I'm stuck stacked with the typical
the sky starter but but uh
normally I I I'm stuck in the last time I'm stacking with uh with this program
with a different using different scripts you you need only maybe you know you
feel the folders with lights beers darks yeah yes and and the script
make everything yesterday I started in pics inside some pics that I took Saturday night of
M83 Emerson address wow and now and then
maybe later I will show the the five minutes guiding a fix in
here in my and in the bottom of the sky but I have some pollution light
pollution but then I will show you the
they finally process I start almost two hours
I need more information I need more nights and I have some issues with the
scope that I have a little tilt that
makes me the Stars straight and I have a common corrector
and yeah oh yeah yes when we have the things that that appears to in newtonians yes
I've been two months trying to and figure it out
and with every channel I will call the mate but
I couldn't I have a different results and last Saturday was amazing and
everything was fine The Guiding the folk the focus uh the sky there is there was
no wind the night was cold maybe a little thin but very thin or clouds but
that helped me to disincrease the the
thing yeah and the and was very punctual the
Stars very rounded I was very happy
I I have something something a little
I have a little of bands in the pictures of that I took today but
I don't know if I can take more because you know it's impossible to touch more sometimes
I am not a great a gray processing man no me neither
[Laughter] I maybe I try to process a one stack
two or three times to see if I can figure it a difference and
process and some steps I step up and sometimes I do
the first that I do finally and trying to to know the program it's
very difficult but oh yeah sure I I think I only learn
ten percent of all the programs yeah maybe less I think less yeah no no
it's an angle now I am trying to touch the curves stretching the image but it's
impossible from the city is is all time is uh it's uh how do you say it's a name
but my sonal team knows more for example if
you he manage more uh picks inside Maybe YouTube but uh
now I found in cereal and I'm something of
of a great a great program to
to have something more easy for me maybe you know
you will learn you will learn don't don't worry I I see okay because I have
well I have same something that I don't know if I have a
some hot big cell or something but but okay the fun fact is maybe
the microphone is open and the peoples watch the
the hair and the letters and are um this is why you say okay I prefer talking
English because we started talking
okay well hello everybody we're back
um and uh I noticed that YouTube is is
um is back with us as well and so we're uh it's nice to uh
to have uh you know our other channel up and running which is great um
uh we uh will uh I promise that we would
bring on Mr Jerry Hubble uh from The Mark Slade remote Observatory next and so I'll switch over to him
Scott hi everybody uh it's been a great night so far um
I'm gonna share the observatory work uh Workstation
screen and I've been earlier on before the sun
went down I was actually looking at the moon the first quarter moon and um
and unfortunately about an hour and a half ago I went behind some trees at the March Slade remote Observatory if you're
not familiar with the observatory we have a fairly restrictive sky where we're at with the observatory
I mean I can just show you that real quick uh
I'm gonna zoom out here this is the equatorial view of the sky but when I go to Azimuth
view you can see this all this brown stuffer or trees
right and this is the sky we have at the observatory it's about half the sky that
we can observe but at least a big part of it is through the ecliptic and we do a lot of solar system of object
observing so that helps a lot uh and then of course during the year we'll be
we'll get to see most of the sky as it passes overhead as the months go by but uh
but generally um that's what it looks like I'm going to zoom back in and what I'm
observing right now is uh the Virgo
cluster of galaxies with centered on m86 and you can see it right here yes oh yes
on the chart and I'll be able and this is the most recent picture that's showing these
objects so I'm going to try to put them side by side here so you can see compare the chart with the uh
so you can see m86 here in the middle and then you've
got all these other I'm not I I want to specify I'm not a deep Sky Observer per
se I like to take images to test things of the deep sky but I'm not a I'm not a real real good
uh image processor in terms of deep Sky objects in color but what I wanted to demonstrate is this
is what images look like right out of the telescope this is these are three minute images that I'm doing right now
and uh so this is what people that make beautiful pictures start with okay this
is what they look like and you can see the amount of detail that you get with just in a single image
you know with this scope and this is a six and a half inch refractor let me uh let me show you that real
quick nice this is the uh this is the markslade remote Observatory inside
the uh Observatory it's a dome it's a six foot Dome and you can see the refractor right here
you can see there's no Dew shield on them on the instrument because it's
it's long enough just to barely fit into this Dome when it's when it's pointed low so we
have to pull the do Shield off because it's too long otherwise and uh but it's got It's mounted on it
it's a it's our Flagship Ed 165 FPL 53 scope
mounted on a Loz Bandy G11 um
and it works great it's got a telescope Drive master so we don't have to do auto guiding
no Auto guiding I like the on the right there those are those are the eyes they're called the
eyes right here and yeah yeah those are yeah and I like I like that Galaxy
zoomed in on the bottom there no that's really cool add John right there that's beautiful let me let me uh your mini M82
yeah so um let me I'm going to flip this chart over because look at all this this scope
is uh I mean this dead Galaxy is this one right here so let me flip the chart over to match the
yeah and actually if you if you zoom into m86 uh if you zoom into it there's
another galaxy set there's another one right there yep yeah if you have uh Sky Safari Pro uh you you'll see that's
another galaxy last week and I I want to find that that
I have some trees my neighbor with the light let's
you know though my backyard so I I think it's like a 16th magazine magnitude
Galaxy yeah so I think this is a NGC 4425 right here
if I'm not mistaken that one right there that's kind of interesting looking
um it's got good definition oh yeah yeah and uh
let's see what else we can find then you've got and you see 4388 right here
which is kind of cool it's got these dark oh yeah it doesn't dust Lanes so this is a three minute just a single
three minute exposure I mean just think how much fun you can have just with this one image well
that's the thing and and uh taka and me talked about this this is
how you can really do some deep Sky observing without having to do a bunch of processing and just look at the raw
images and see what you can see yes yes um this is always fun to discover and
this is this is really uh probably the way people ought to start when they're deep Sky Observer astrophotography is
just examining the images and see what they can do with the quality of what they're getting and understand the
quality of the image uh when they're first starting out and you have punch of time to watch the
pictures when you have taken those one shot three minutes shot you can
you can really study the picture what you got right and you got the uh very funny
feeling in your stomach when you realize that I just took a picture and I am
looking for billions of years old light right that's really old light
that's right and that traveled and my sense or catched it nobody else is only
mine yep these are my photons yes yeah and those a lot of people that then
have the comment that well why would I take an astrophotograph when you know Hubble's
made so many amazing ones and and uh and not not just Gerald Hubble but
that's right the Hubble Space Telescope uh or you know made by big observatories
but uh Pekka mentioned something that's very very important this this is a personal
record uh that you've made uh you know when you take your own astrophotograph
and um so you can have a rig like what uh Jerry Hubble has at his disposal but
uh uh you know Maxie who's also on the show is kind of on the opposite end of
this he's he shows what can be done with a you know four and a half inch reflector and a smartphone uh camera
sensor you know and it's it's really amazing and you know Maxie I hope you're
able to hang on long enough to show some of your images later on in this process of course yeah great so this is all I
was going to share tonight um uh let's uh
let Maxie show his stuff and uh if you got questions about the
mark Slade remote Observatory I'll post uh I'll post a link to it and you can go
to the website and look and see what we do there I have to say Jerry that's a nice gear
oh yeah oh yeah it's really nice yeah that's right yeah right on me
but even as nice as it is it's it's really an expensive uh with the quality
of the Imaging that it can do compared to other a lot more expensive you could you could have a system that's like a
million or not a million but maybe 150 or 200 000 that that this will rival in
terms of performance and this car this system if you were to build it from scratch I would say it's
probably a thirty to forty thousand dollar system with Manpower and all involved including
the observatory yeah yeah yeah exactly opportunity to do this with Sherry
for a couple of months ago three four months ago and it blowed my mind and that night I decided that
I must have a remote control Observatory I just want to show you something real
quick then not to interrupt I could see the picture it's got a there's a satellite that went through this image just now
you see that yes yep
that's kind of cool [Laughter]
I've had several uh lately where I've had four or five of them at the same time I've photobombed by uh Elon Musk oh
yeah right hey I'm gonna quickly share something uh
let me just uh sorry my screen so this is uh this is uh Sky Safari so of the same field uh Jerry
yeah so that that particular Galaxy that was that we were looking at in uh in uh
m86 is uh is it actually a 16.4 magnitude PCG
40659 16.4 magnitude think about that was a six and a half inch scope yeah six
and a half inch scope for a three minute explosion yeah there you go and that's the board that's like a 20 inch you know
20 or 22 inch Dove to be able to see something like that right right yep yep
understand stop sharing yeah that's cool that's what I like about the Pekka's idea about using this
as a way to observe galaxies instead of just doing astrophotography to gather
data for hours on end before you get a final image right yeah and you can do
direct Vision I mean yeah you know you yeah it's a great enhancement electronically uh assisted Astrid
astronomy to be able to uh I like what pekko is saying just have it on your deck uh actually that's what Caesar's
doing too right I mean just have your little Observatory there and and then you can look direct uh yeah
it changed my life totally the real of doing astronomy
visually it opens so many different doors to do that
yeah you have just it takes me five minutes to read it up everything
so I'm ready to go and I can Sky Safari every night when it's clear nights I
don't I don't have a recession to photograph this and that then I have to have time to do that and do that I just
surfing on these gravity waves yeah awesome yeah
so that's that's uh msro did a very big uh impressive on me
so yeah and also Packer I mean you and I we live in rainy areas right and yeah
and so uh it's nice to be able to capture the images you can have a good night and then you can use the full
night capture a whole bunch of images and then you have you can have you know days and weeks of of picking out all the
faint objects and I just I just like I'm snowing
on program or in cpui or in my hand control I have a Gamepad and I just slew
and look and okay this is nice I memorize it I take a shot and next I'm
just surfing around no no directions just slewing and stop it there okay
the other thing the biggest thing is the workflow as well and and Jerry who really appreciate this is just to be
able to focus on the observation and the rest of sleeping so that you're you're actually it's pure enjoyment and you're
actually taking records as you go yeah um so so that you're it's not
overwhelming right I mean uh it's it's nice to be able to have a digital uh record and then just continue to observe
and know that uh you have all that and you can always go back to it before I had a huge stress to be a uh to
everything about the electronics and the computer systems and uh yes making the
setup ready and so on now mouth is polarized it stays there uh I will
change the door lock to a code the electronics code so nobody gets your own
to balcony when I'm not home so I have told my wife that it's totally
forbidden to enter the balcony where I'm not in-house
yeah because they don't know what's under the tarpaulin
I have a turbulin over yeah and they
don't know they maybe hit the counterweight bar and that's my polar
element your baby yeah it's me it's really my
baby it's yeah I I I I see it like like not an object I see it like a almost
like a living person uh my wife asked me that's a couple of
weeks ago who are you talking with I'm just talking
okay so that's that's all I had uh I put the link out there for everybody
um yeah and I put it in the chat so um yeah definitely visit the nsro and
check it out um uh we um uh have seen some really
amazing stuff come from there and uh you know um we'll have to have the msro team also
uh was a host of global Star Party they'll have to do that again so we can
learn more about what's going on um uh up next is uh Cameron Gillis
um and uh uh he has been steadily uh
educating us on the attributes or the the good points of of reporting your
observations and he's been on a mission to uh personal mission to do this uh Sky
survey but he's observed thousands of objects he's very knowledgeable uh about
uh the sky and um so I'm going to hand it over to you Cameron
thanks Scott so um yeah I'll I'll make it uh short tonight
um basically uh just an update here um let me share my screen
I'm going to reuse some of the stuff from uh Global Star Party 45.
um on the weekend let me just uh
so yeah so I've been using um uh a combination of let me just this is
good enough I think yeah um combination of a wide field ed-80 of
course uh my Mac 102 um and and uh my my
smartphone and uh basically like what Pekka was saying just kind of uh taking
pictures uh you know over the last year and starting to do a survey and uh and
then I also have a an eight inch um um Evolution eight uh C8 with a number
of eyepieces again with the smartphone but the biggest thing is the tablet piece um with Wi-Fi using Sky Safari so
basically uh what I what I've done is I've coupled Sky Safari as my record keeping tool and and
if I open it up if I show you what I was showing you earlier let me just go back
here basically uh with Sky Safari you can actually have
all your observing lists let me just uh looks like it's a little
I'm gonna just zoom out here um I'm using Sky Safari Pro and uh over the
last year I have been basically creating observing
lists um where for every every constellation
and uh down to uh 14 13th magnitude all the objects
for every single one I started with booties um about a year ago
and what I've done is started to look at
each one by one so for example if I open up booties
booties I guess is the proper pronunciation and I highlight the objects
so this is the list of 55 objects that are down to magnitude 13. and out of out
of those uh those objects in booties uh I go I I um object by object
and and then I take a record like in this one here this is a 10th 10.1 magnitude Galaxy
and if I look at the uh the observations
that should be coming up it's a little slow today oops National observations
so this was done in June uh almost a year ago 2020 uh 10 50 in the evening
this is the novel patch so uh I've done uh some and what I've noticed is for
example even though it's magnitude 10 this was a pretty diffuse oval patch and then there would be another one
if I close that oops sorry and what I've done is after I've
observed them all and and I go pretty pretty uh specific to every one I
trianguly I do a visual plate salt so for example on that particular object if I zoom in
I'll just put this Zoom right in what I'll do is I have my field of view
here is my uh nagler 13 millimeter which
gives me 156 power and uh what a half a degree and I'll start you know I'll do my
visual Place elements okay there's two stars here two stars there therefore uh
you know the object is here and I use averted vision and this is a fairly large and diffuse Galaxy even though
it's a it's a nice it's a beautiful galaxy uh if you have probably taken image of it or you have a larger
aperture but with my light polluted skies I wasn't able to resolve it very well so what I did is it didn't make the
cut in terms of uh what I call best and brightest so if I actually now go back
and I go observing this I have my best and brightest which has a
681 objects that I've categorized I'd go I go through after I've went through
everything down to 13th magnitude um I I I go through and I go through the
constellations and I look at all my observations and I start saying okay which the ones do I want to re-observe
that are bright enough uh to be able to see on a smaller scope and you'll you'll
notice that didn't make the cut so this one here ngc5490 made the cut so if I go zoom in
there's a lot of other galaxies this is the fun part because right now this is just an observational survey but I'm
going to extend that survey to include um Imaging I'm going to start taking
Imaging where I'm going to what we talked about earlier you'll start to identify other galaxies in there and
that's the reason why I have the uh the faint reports but what I was able to observe 5490 and let's take a look at
the observation that was also done on June 22nd last year and take a look at them I call it a
distinct oval so that means I can actually see that and in some cases I
might have a distinct oval with a brighter core let's go to another one for example
um let's go up let's try this one here
and we'll go show observations
that was done on Monday the 29th I go to your fairly bright oval so
um that was that's that's a little more a little more distinction and basically what I've done as recently
as as recently as last Thursday if I go
to my observing list I was in um
let me actually go back I look at my observation
my session observations total observations all observations over the last year I've
done 2878 observations and the Very you know whether everything
from oval patch down to beautiful bright oval with you know distinct uh structure
or a dust lane or whatever so I'm trying to find I'm finding all the nuggets as I go through and I browse and I do my sky
survey I start to find some really nice objects so for example
I go down to what I did last week oops
let's move this away and uh let's go sessions
so my last my latest session was a very good one last Thursday
uh I actually made it was a beautiful night before the storms ruled in on the weekend uh but um I got 121 observations
and and the what I was able to do if we look at that I was actually
completing my survey if I zoom back out here you'll notice the big percentage of your
overall population of observations that's that seems like a lot yes it is I mean if you average it out to 28
2800 let's say that you know 26 weeks in a year so that's an average of a hundred
observations per week right roughly is what what I'm what I've been logging on
an average yeah yeah now obviously uh uh what has happened is um in the winter
time here in Seattle you can forget it I mean I might have got 100 observations over four months but but but in but in a
couple weeks ago I was in Virgo as you can see and oh my gosh I had a Heyday
and I had like four consecutive nights where I was able to really and there was
like if you look at Virgo uh the list it was around 300 there's a 300 objects
down to um uh down to 13th magnitude I actually observed them all
um and and out of those uh you can see a lot of them made the cut there's actually a lot of beautiful nuggets and
Virgo usually Virgo overwhelms a lot of people
um because it's it's just so um let me just check something here
can you still hear me yes okay good um so usually Virgo is so overwhelming
you you focus on the big things like markarians chain and some of the messier objects but there's some other very
beautiful galaxies as you start to uh you know methodically uh drill down and
and see some of the uh the brighter objects some of them are actually surprising that Messier didn't discover
them you know uh back in the day but um so it's it's uh it's kind of nice to be
able to to go through that and and then be able to say okay these are really
good candidates for anyone to look at with a small scope so I've done that uh
but I if you if you zoom back out here you'll notice that if I change the time let's go a little
later there's a big gap here over Libra that was a constellation that it was
missing and then I also over here if I zoom in
uh I also had
camo lipidaris um here we are camel epidurus was was is a big goal but what
I what I was with those 120 objects I did on last Thursday I go to observing this
and then I go to camel epidaris scroll down here we go 59 objects and I
I observed them all so if I go to unobserved I saw them all and if I go like this and I go
highlight objects go back
you'll notice that these are all the objects that I observed so I actually knocked off before these guys went into
the Western smog of Seattle I I got them and I kind
of started combing through them gradually as the uh as the Earth course rotate and I managed to get them all
before uh by the mid midnight and then after I did that finish that's
okay
uh Cameron we're losing your audio
hello yeah camera and I think we've lost you
um I think probably
why don't you uh try to get your audio uh fixed again and um we'll uh
transition over to uh Richard Grace at this time
I'll be quick anyway let me get this thing working here yeah
all right huh here we go I'm back uh first YouTube then then Cameron
but YouTube's back online at this point from what I understand so that's good
wow wow nice cluster got a little bit of uh M13 from the
backyard here yeah portal six we got a LED street light a
hundred feet away and uh we're we're making it work you can you can see the propeller a
little bit in here I think that's it right there yeah
I uh ironically went to markarian's chain and it just wasn't working for me uh and good timing for me to switch to
something else too because Jerry already got it for me and that's awesome so just thought I'd uh try this very
cool it's uh I got my are you back can you hear me again yes
yeah yeah okay sorry yeah very good it's getting towards late for me uh so
uh it's probably be my last one and I'll catch you all soon I'll I'll be hanging out but uh Richard thanks very much for
coming back on that's great we missed yeah yeah wow very cool got some stuff
done and I'll see you guys more often now we uh we got a lot of work done up North yeah already I'm gonna stop
sharing and send it back to you guys yeah I'll just I'll just finish my my thing
quickly uh I'm almost finished sorry um let me just uh
so as I was saying uh you can see my screen again yep
okay so yeah so finish with camel epidaris and then and then I actually uh
got into I go to my observing lists again
down to Libra and Libra was the last one
oh actually it's right up here by booties uh there we go Libra
and then basically that constellation has
to go back Libra had only 27 objects
and then so I was able to get and what I've noticed is again even though I did the categorization down at 13th
magnitude where I'm at my latitude I'm 47 degrees north so some of these lower galaxies
um very they're kind of in the mud and so the surface brightness really suffers
from light pollution on the horizon so I really noticed that I have a I have an
altaz goes to and if I go all the way up here to the zenith
where of course is the best the best Clarity uh and minimum of light
pollution right um that that's why I I want to get an equatorial Mount because then I can
really uh start to maximize the uh The View right and start to see the
fainter objects um but but I I I'm still doing my due diligence doing all these um all the
galaxies that are on the horizon but uh but the nice part is you know for anyone
who has more favorable latitudes including of course the southern uh
hemisphere you'll be able to see this and uh if I can catch it in my blue disguise
then there's a good chance that you you'll be able to have a much better View anyhow so um that's kind of the latest
and again just pure observation right now some smartphone on some of the brighter objects and then I'm going to
come through again and do imaging um similar to what Jerry showed earlier
uh more like a sky survey type of Imaging of all these and be able to
um categorized so that anyone can can have their own own list and say okay do I
have a chance of seeing that object or not anyhow so I'll just uh stop there and uh
thanks for letting me be sure thank you Cameron thank you that's great yeah and
so uh tomorrow um uh camera will be back on uh on our
uh program with uh first light Chronicles with uh cam astronomy uh to
uh for you know to learn more about the adventures of Cameron Across the Universe here so
up next is um uh Maxi filaris and he has uh he is a
genius with the smartphone um and in astrophotography and um uh he
was introduced uh To Us by uh Caesar uh which was great and uh so we're glad to
have him back on our on the global star party uh actually it's all yours thank you and good night Scott and
everyone thanks for inviting me again so basically the
um last time we I've been here I was a show
some pics that I did with my smartphone uh doing in some in two ways first of
all like we all do a I use my cell phone
like my eye to put it above the eyepiece and anti-pix with some seconds and then
start to get a guiding and have more seconds to
continue to stack and process the the images and then I
do an experimentation where I suppose that I took out the lens of the an old
cell phone and to do a planetary images doing
videos and with another cell phone I did
some deep space images uh taking almost 30 seconds of images
let me show you some pics that I have in my Instagram so everyone
has one to do or introduced to do astronomy or and very amateras through
photography and maybe can help to start and encourage to
do to do it so let me see I I don't ah
okay so this is the screen
and do you see yes okay
well this is this is not what with this cell phone this was December 14th uh in
the world Eclipse I was a few miles now maybe one mile uh far away from Caesar I
was with another another group and this is a
a real a dream come true okay I I always
want to take a picture and see an eclipse and
this is the I want to show you the uh the 2 of
July in 2019. this is a gift
and that I do with all the images that I took you can see the this is I took with
this set with my smartphone see all the things that I take every
time and I do this animation you got it
oh you can see the Horizon I love that that's cool and they show up and again the sun this is
the two of July well uh some examples that I did with my
cell phone doing my above the eyepiece was the sculpture Galaxy
okay this was the max
102 with I think it is f13
about the 25 IPS and
this is the mintaka star and the flare nebula
this is this is one one of my first images and the the Stars
yeah sorry I I uh no I need that
I need that and this is a very difficult
nice very nice very nice here's the the center of the uh is a
um a dwarf widen right now raising a color in that too that's
that's really good yeah all this I did in my bag here I have portly five
maybe some some nice maybe six and I will some LEDs lights
I think I have some issues okay I'm going to show you my Instagram
I remember the the Saturday Cameron uh
you you um you show us some planetary nebulas
and this is the ghost of Jupiter okay yeah nice
that's incredible the color is nicer you have a nice Bluer my mine is more green
Grinch when I process in in pigs inside I use a
tool that took the green out and gives more reality but it doesn't really
exist the color of reality okay but it's really good it's going okay
this is some pics that I did with my cell phone above the eyepiece
this is a hurricane nebula that's a hard shot yeah I I okay this is not very good
uh pictures but you can you can do astronomy with this you can
show us a you can show to everyone what it's you are looking at
yeah I mean I mean what size that horse had picture what telescope did you use I
use the the maxito the for the foreign oh my gosh so you know you you can if
you're lucky again on a dark sky what do you think uh Scott maybe you need at
least like a 60 an inch or something right to see the um poor said poor said I have
I have from very very dark skies seen the horse head uh with your 13 inch
through an eight inch yeah okay yeah that it takes extremely transparent
extremely Dark Skies I did that from uh Rodeo New Mexico and uh it was
um you know it was the kind of sky where the Milky Way is casting a shadow
yeah so you know just think about those conditions compared to what he took with
what Maxi took right with a four inch right it's like I know wow well this is
the Galaxy Centaurus a a from the southern hemisphere I've always wanted to see this
yes and yes this is a a really good Galaxy hey I can assume
yeah right there yeah excellent and this is West uh with the same
here let me see I got Max 2000. focal
length so
well here's some friends well then in the last year I can
progress with the scope and I turned to a dcrr camera to get more feel to get
more light to everything to progress but I want to show you all this to everyone
who can stars and you can say you can do it you
can look at this a cluster star this is
called a 47th you can in the cell you are seeing a lot of suns compressed
with gravity and density and the light and
grabs you uh here's another name
this is with the uh UHC a filter
and and also the max YouTube okay and
well this is the tarantula here from the south yes
and when I process these pictures the little red
Stars a contrast with the all of the clouds and the
and everything I this is a little dark point right there and this is amazing
wow and well back um doing recording with the video with
the cell phone without the lens no with the eyepiece and I am I am going to show
the difference okay how it see but this is a Saturn with the Maxwell
and the cell phone this is well I know yes
with a Barlow and at primary focus this is without the lens
um well this is the the Moon doing some stacked images
quickly charts and maybe two seconds of shots
stacking it and this is one should be there Saturn
and well some accultations the Saturn the Moon
here's something of the Moon two one the the eclipse so basically this was to 2019.
then I start to to practice uh to do pictures with the
Newtonian 115 nf5 and the Huawei without the lens
so you can see in here I did this with the dclr camera from my backyard okay
but in this case I did this with my cell phone without
the lens look at the zoom and the details of the gloves and colors and
stars you can grab it also I did the trophy nebula with the
cell phone only
the focus so you do you do that the same way you do as an astronomical imager right you
you basically um couple it with a Barlow so that you no no no this this was
primary focus because the Barlow give me more lens uh the cell phone has a little
sensor like a planetary camera
but the program and the sensor helps me to
do 30 second pictures you can do it with your smartphone and
um but the diameter of the telescopes
um and the the assumed that I get it gives you a
less light than a doing a above the bike ocular projection
that's another way okay and I think you are doing that camera right
right I'm using the eyepiece yes yes and I
I did some techniques to get Focus to
put the eyepiece very good above the air cooler and to give you more feel and
less obstructions automatic men of the eyepiece and
everything and reflex I use the clean
lenses [Music]
um
yes very good use a cloth yeah exactly like um all cameras like in the 1960s Century
okay yeah but not me only in the phone about the
phone but very good smart and that helps to
to take a a more clean picture and
I have some issues and practice and headaches
and well everything you can imagine but
at the ends you you can still do astronomy oh yeah very good here's a
Venus that I did with the maxuto because the cell phone well this is my
dogs and this is in the maybe 4 P.M last
year here's my mom that I was showing a Venus
and here's the the max YouTube and here's the the Battle of 2x and the cell
phone so give oh sorry no
Maybe the the focus maybe wasn't so fine and I
have a scene very regular about and remember I'm using a maxi dog with a
very soon area and in the afternoon
but wow okay so basically I still progressed I
captured the last year Supernova in m61
but I was doing I'm still doing 30 seconds of picture because I haven't a
guy scope I have an um and it's available but I I can do some shots of some
comments this is the C 2019 you see lemon
good [Laughter]
she is every time I do I grab the the
telescope she's behind me and then go inside and she's still there doesn't
move she doesn't move so I re the more early I did I told you
that I have about the fact and I'm doing five minutes pictures and this is oh
sorry I wait this is what I get
in every single picture okay it's at five minutes with the uh
with this scope this is a 2000 F4 so the sky looks blown out yes
right okay but when I wait a minute
this is for the Nikon the Saturday the last Saturday night yes
this is the difference what I get when I stacked okay
process yeah good processing very good processing so you must you must have uh
you have like a macro that you've come up with a script Ed to do this or do you do it all
manually no um I've been hours I stuck yes yesterday I
was the first strike that I did with pix inside and then I tried to clean the what the
uh DBA to get more flat the field
and reduce the the noise and everything and in a moment I showed to Cesar and
also the Sombrero Galaxy but I didn't finish it yet but
uh in a bottle file you can still do astronomy and I saw people from Buenos
Aires and some friends from Grand Buenos Aires from the outside of the capital
city that they do uh pictures from very very
back here with liaise lies and a lot of contamination
let me show you a minute wait
I got from the live pollution map
this is where I am from and this is where Caesars is
right now to I don't know where I am it's impossible yeah
I I have the uh I have already the the open cluster picture
but I I keep the program keep tons of
background life Toms
okay my internet is at with a wheel
welcome oh I'm in Africa no way
yeah okay here it goes okay so this is Argentina Buenos Aires
and here's Cesar the middle of the ocean yeah
well and I'm right here hi I'm here so
in this this is a small town Farm
but when I go out maybe 10 kilometers I can still do more pictures and
but I'm also right here I can do only the the North and the
the Northwest and the Northeast the south from my what I'm where I'm right
now is too difficult because I have the all the live pollution of the city
so okay that's it um okay so this is my resume to everyone to
if you want to ask me how to take pictures with the cell phone if you have a smartphone you can talk to a Scott
talk to me and or Cesar I
I encourage everyone to do astronomy because this is fascinating I started
three years ago and wow when I was a kid I was I I always want
to do this I saw the the power pictures I don't know if I show the the cosmos
book but I think I did I don't remember no no I think not
I have this Cosmos book of Kelsey again from my father
and I I like everyone saw all the pictures
of the Galaxy and the neighbors and everything and I saw one time
a picture of m42 and
realized that I did that a few moments later right and and I have
a printed by a friend so that's amazing uh all the the existence
that surround us and today with David you're talking about the the outer space
the the the perhaps of living life all of lies and
uh when I see the the Milky Way for example or see the the stars and the in the farm
a you can I think
the the tiny thing we are and the fortunate we are and we have to be here
right now yeah Okay so
I'm start to share Maxie that's very uh is
um I think that's something that all of us uh share the feelings of you know that are are astronomers and uh you know
it's nice to hear people um express it and uh try to share that
with uh with the rest of the world so thank you very much for coming back on we did have a question uh somebody
wanted to know if you had a photo of uh your cell phone conversion I think you
showed it yes I wait a minute I'm going to wait
um I have a I have this I have did this with a
Samsung S4 to do planetary images yeah okay yeah
I did a PDF show and tell a little story a little
brief briefing uh my appearance let me show you again the screen
and you can text me and I I am glad to to to
to to send it okay so this is the uh
in Spanish
photography with a cell phone modified to primary focus by me his speaker so I
what I did I disarmed in Grass of Parts the cell phone this is the the the the
principal bracket and I don't know if you it says like
that but this is the the part of where's the camera
and here you can a separate from the principal name
so I discern the camera lens okay I really maybe a
little uh not fashion way but doing a little Force to take out this
metal cell and there is the lens of the camera
there's some little balls that give you the the focus when you took the they
touched the the screen the the the camera goes to focus this helps to go
forward and backwards so when I took the the lens you can see
the here you can see the the lens clean
when I started up I thought that maybe I broke so no no I let's try to again in
this scope but I did this case with the silicone protector and the all thin
camera that fits perfect in the eyepiece
so I take I I took a the the scope and you can see this is the max sudo I have
a lot of focus I was trying to get focus and I can see anything and then I see
this what is this this okay but I start to move and and I can see the the block
of my wall and and the tree and no I did that with another you know
the air filter this is why the color of the trees yeah
amazing now this is the um
the the people no the the tree uh a leaf
is a leaf a leaf of the in the autumn and winter when it
was dying is the real color no sometimes when you when you maybe you remove with
the lenses the IR filter and normally when you shoot or when you
shoot a leaf of a tree even see in in color green color if not more more
literally or strong yes or another color but not green
so when I start to when the Night Comes I put it the cell
phone and the maxuto and this is Jupiter so I did with everybody do a a video or
some videos of Jupiter so when I started and process them I can give this
quality is amazing this is what I almost in the opposition
uh the the closest moment uh between the Earth and Jupiter so I can grab some
details some storms today Libby was talking about the degree response and
and this is the amount of IO
and then I did some uh lunar pictures you can see the happening
mountains some creatures
I think this is Plateau no no no no no no no maybe correct me if I'm wrong
all these pictures are with the modified uh exactly yes with the barrel
yeah this is what you're talking about Scott there you go you have to have a a new modified uh smartphone if somebody
that's right you can with the the advantage to use a
smartphone uh obviously not with that one you have
in your pocket maybe with some other smartphone but uh you can share it to everyone
because uh in when you are when you get focused seeing what you're
seeing the moon maybe the sun obviously with a filter um or a planet you can share it in
Facebook you can share it everywhere to uh show everyone
uh what we are seeing in this night
you will see a big giant planet you are seeing maybe a in a position you are
seeing a an eclipse in the in the surface of Jupiter for example
and this is this is amazing this is for example the
um what's the good job mostly inacultation you can see five
five a.m of the morning the Tuesday 16th of July in 2019.
right so um last year I was
progressing with another cell phone and the Newtonian F5 with a barrel 2X and
the Barlow 3x a goblin and no uh
put it together okay so I can have five
eggs of some so when I do when I did a Jupiter I
I can do some animations of the rotation
and let me find if no you can see I have with the the date of
the photographia 2019 18 no 2020
and all the the month uh let me remember
um yes was in so now well this was dark sky now
should be there and the rotor no
or for example with a Mars
so our here this was some videos that I did in Mars
this is last year of Mars in the opposition wow oh awesome
um let me find no oh my God super no this is yes you got some good
records too this is awesome and everything was with the with the
cell phone I don't remember what I did where I put the animation because
there was I mean oh sorry uh maybe it's here
so all the planets uh pictures you use the the Barlow technique right a direct
with no did you use any uh IDs no no no
only the only the barrels and sometimes I use the
um how he how he calls the filter uh the the polar polarization filter
to get a less of brightness because sometimes the cell phone
can't take a lot of the price of the planet and that helps to to see more
details so that's a good technique yeah
no I no this is we in no taking or I
don't remember what I had it but uh here here's some example with Jupiter
with a the the hoken 150
and Barlow 3x and 2x you can see more details in here the
great response some storms here so
I don't know where one Mars I don't know well this is
this l r Galaxy I changed to to get progress but
I enjoy all this trip to get where I am
right now I didn't start with the best telescope with the best gear with the
best camera because you it's like you are in school you you're
starting if first grade second grade and
everything and you're still learning but step by step not everything
okay and I thought you're stopping and smelling the Roses if you're enjoying
the uh the whole journey that's nice yes I I think that's that's the important
part of of the journey all right that's the learning curve because my daughter
was was traveling I don't know turkey or something a couple of years ago and she
when we talked to just it's so it's so exciting and she can't wait and wait and
wait every day is only waiting and I told him told her that stop because that
waiting is third of the whole experience
if you have no waiting and learning or something and you just get everything
immediately you don't enjoy it no you don't enjoy it as much when you are
learning it must have it must have had that hard part before oh yeah there's no
gain there is no game when you and when you think you are expert and you don't
learn anymore anything uh I think the journey is over
you don't have anything to experience anymore because in the astronomy there
is no end of learning no no no always you're still learning I'm still learning a lot of
things every time you look on the sky even if you look you look the same object every time it's a wow experiences
exactly a I don't know if you if you feel the same
but when here in summer we have the Orion constellation and you have the winter
but when start the winter here you see oh man the scorpion look the the galaxy
The Milky Way yes and you were missing
of those constellations and those guys then in September Mary you are a little
uh maybe no no you don't care about you
don't give some importance but when you see again Orion oh the summer Skies oh
yeah it's even driving a car at night time in
Winter I have to almost stop because when I get outside the town it's
so dark that I can Thrive it's impossible to not to look up yeah
and everybody in the car what to work I'm doing backgrounds look at the road
and I am looking upward but you have a rose with two
uh with two roads to go and two rows to
to come here and one yeah
it's very it's very dangerous here yes yes
Tesla Tesla is the solution self-driving Tesla
a bit open with a roof so I can sit in the back seat and just looking yeah
well this is again some single pictures the the eclipse of December
in May the the next week we have the the
moon eclipse yeah here are being 6 a.m
and Tuesday we have um a holiday because it's a patriotic
day here in Argentina but in Wednesday I have to work but I'm
going to wake up maybe 4 AM to go maybe in a little in fact Max a year reading
my mind um I I just finished the announcement poster for the uh next week's Global
star party and it lands on the uh night of the uh 25th in the morning of the
26th I am thinking about um contacting some astronomers that
would like to live stream the total eclipse uh so
um I'm hoping that anyone that's listening here would be who would be
interested in doing that and participating in that uh would uh contact me and um you know it would be
quite early in the morning for me um to broadcast that but I'm thinking maybe of uh of an evening uh pre-show
um you know to get people uh to understand uh how to photograph an
eclipse or you know this kind of thing and then that you know maybe I would take a nap and
then that morning uh early I would start the stream live again and we could see
the eclipse for people who might be clouded out or unable to uh to to
experience it so yes yes and here we
have some issues from the policy because we are with
we can go out at the 8 pm until the 6 a.m of the next day okay for
the cover situation but is in that moment when here the eclipse
starts so Maybe
let's see who how's the weather in in some maybe Monday sure but I don't
know if Cesar has a better uh see because he is up
he's up on his balcony yes but yes but it's it's one that when the
moon uh Rises the rice
I think I don't remember the the position of the Moon for that day
but first of all we are expect rain
weather for uh May 23 my weird day on Sunday uh
24 25 maybe 25 it will be
um and maybe in between 24 25 the rain go
away go it's finished and return uh call
um great weather with clear skies but I
don't know um wow this one is really I don't know what what I
my of course that I I put my picture
after seeing your picture of of the convention I I put my picture in the Box
um [Laughter] that's awesome yeah you got it right now
this is my brother Christian this is me yeah
we go to a road with a farm we put the
gear exactly really flat like Texas nice
that's awesome great great location now for me in many many kilometers for Me
Argentina means food plus we um 1978 and Mario campus
yeah that's Argentina for me yeah
uh this is outside of um a field road like the grab and we put
the gear to to see the the conjunction because it was very at the the afternoon
so here's my brother seeing the the song with the filter of course no no naked I
so I took this picture of him and here's the the conjunction here's the
the two planets here's what I see in the images of the
of the cell phone this is a Huawei without the lens and a Barlow 2x was
with this you can see Saturn and Jupiter on the moons yes
and this is more later the light was of the Moon
but this is bigger the contamination of cities like
[Music] um this is the North
and maybe I don't know no but I can see it oh sorry uh no because if from this way I think
it was um the andromere Galaxy from I don't know if is this I don't
because no for us it's really to the north yeah you can you will have to see
a upside down and maybe you can
see the stuff but this is how we have a picture of some drum and uh yes uh we
went with also with my brother well this is again the photo that I can took
maybe it's not the the excellent picture with the very good gear but you are
doing astronomy and you are capturing this event that happens
a lot of years in in one time life that picture that
that I want to say something I mean the the the trick that you did this is actually an excellent picture simply
because uh it's very hard to get Saturn bright enough
and also the moons because Jupiter usually blows everything out so to be
able to to be able to see the bands the moons and the Rings and that's that's a
feat that's a feed with any instrument so that's a good job thank you thank you
I recognize it's really good well this is a picture
oh now this is a single picture uh when we were I can't wait like that A Farm
this is with the Hogan a Newtonian and I don't know I think was
45 minutes of these pictures from
any third is impossible is
going to post something in the social media of astronomy our favorite math we
are scared about no no and just only in amateur there's a
lot of people maybe our underome I can do it maybe and it's amazing I'm I'm
doing this with passion I'm doing this to everyone to show what is around us
okay Moxie that's not the point uh because I have thought about this a long
time now and when I got to the astrophotography for one year ago I was
blown out about those very professional pictures but I think they are putting
the whole soul for just taking those pictures and the
observation and the real astronomy is the second part
of it because they don't they can't make uh everything
I I think that for me it's it's for me
good and do not do or do
send things quite good so I am doing 10
different things but not really good everything so I can combine everything
because if I just taking a really really really good pictures it
will take my whole time just to take that picture and I had in time for the
rest of just like making wishyally and just start hoping and so on yeah I agree
Becca but I'll also say that it's awesome to have the the
um they I think they really complement each other so I totally agree I'm on the same page as you as far as is the the uh
just taking a lot of like um basic quality um yeah but it's really good that
there's people taking awesome pictures too absolutely absolutely you remember when
we were kids looking through the magazines and looking through it it's like oh yeah oh yes oh yes oh yeah so
it's it's nice to have it's nice to have both actually what I'd like to do Becca and you're probably thinking the same is
is have the same object and take all the different quality right like the basic
right all the way down to the like a Hubble quality right yeah and then and see what kind of detail you can see at
every level and it's it's amazing what you can see with with even basic shots
like you know so to be able to even though it's not a good quality picture you can still for example find the
detail like this Mars picture for example I mean yeah fantastic and you are doing you are doing it with the
thing you have in your pockets yeah everyone I think
I think the most beautiful picture is where there is a small place for your
imagination to pop in and think what else what more could there be what more
could uh if you don't see everything that you can put your image imagination on the on
on the board and think that your gray cells are beginning to to spin and and
you you want to get more you you want to know more that's the passion for me that
the picture has to be something that there is something left to me to imagine
so Maxi you have a lot of pictures of planets near the moon that's impressive that's pretty good I you're really uh
catching the right moments that's that's awesome yeah yes I do I use
um the app the app a job moons that if maybe when I I'm working a little I in
in the season of the planetary images I try to see when
there are some Moon passing by the the surface of shoe bedel
or maybe a closest but I'm right now I'm
trying to do planetary pictures with the the the planetary
camera it's a mono uh it's very difficult it's it's I know a lot of
things to all of this but it encouraged to keep going okay yes yes
and to show to everyone this this is amazing remember the the the day of
Jupiter are nine hours from here uh in one hour goes the rest the great
response to from here to here so oh yeah
exactly and today Libby was saying that maybe when
shows the the it should be there to some people
with telescope you maybe don't see these movements because you can see it right
now but if you see a right now well in a moment but in 30
minutes wait to see you again you see oh it moves and this was Say by
um Galileo yes
you know that's that's a very interesting you know just the rediscovery right I mean knowing that
you know hundreds of years ago you know with very primitive instruments
much much more much less than four inch Max it off right I mean I mean it's uh
that's a premium I mean and to be able to see what they saw and the kind of experience ReDiscover it right for
yourself it's a it's a wonderful feeling well this is this my sky from here in
Chile guy but I now I have some uh this is a Mercury lights that's why it's
orange okay but look at Orion I love the angle
yeah it's uh southern hemisphere view yeah yes it's it's different you know
when some people are saying yeah that's Orion that's the the bells of Orion but
where's the hell exactly so exactly no the hill is here
no but I see here the hell no but this is the so I see this like an arm
because I see it like that and also the Moon the Moon
when you see well this is some
let me show you when I went uh this year to La Pampa to
uh let me tell you a little story this night uh
it was from Santa Rosa La Pampa it was my uh
my girlfriend's mom lived there and we went because her birthday but a days
before it no the this after that
um I want to see the the to take pictures
in a place quietly but without dangers and everything so a friend of my
girlfriend told me a place in the North Road you can do you can stay and
everything okay so I put I give me I go with my gear
but I didn't realize I see a door open a
big door open and it was in a university I think maybe I I go inside nothing in
anyone ask me anything and not anyone bother me
so I put my gear and when I start to
guiding the Night Comes now it comes this friend
who's going to be with me send me send me a WhatsApp and tell me
Maxi here's a Elder clothes what
I he sent me the photo of the the door
closed with a a chain and everything oh God I'm sung here
I was in private property I I I'm I
couldn't go anywhere so I did overnight yes I I found my girlfriend so her honey
and I'm not going tonight with you maybe I I can go to jail
I I have full I have my car I can be warm uh
but okay so I took some pictures and this is what I get that night
it really worth it let me show you with some because I have here
three
beautiful unbelievable yeah I was with a a half moon
um [Music]
because it appears to 3 A.M Maybe or less
and that's that's the little story this is also that night
Morelli the third helmet I have it here in the battery you had
enough battery eh I have the uh 12 volts uh seven amps to
to connect the camera I have the S6 volts 11 amps to connect the the mount
and I have the the the battery of the car
to connect the computer to start guidance so
I have foreign [Music]
this is the knights so
this is the finally look at all the stars that I get
this was amazing wow wow that's a hard object to take for us
yes and I think it was only one hour of Stack only yeah one hour that's really
good I have two up size 32nd 30 second chunks and no no no this was the this
year with in five minutes in one hour yes at ISO 800.
and excellent then I do M1 and let me show you this what do you use
for stacking I use this SS uh deep Sky stagger yeah
that's what skin is using right yes perfect oh wow the one
never seen it like that before that's really neat yeah
it is amazing and uh well the the trio of Leo
and I did NGC 1368. but I didn't like the results
I but okay it's a in issue of me a little
TLC okay and here we passing by and
it is right there you can see they see some of the painter
galaxies in the background that's what's really neat you see those ones there a couple there if you zoom in up there
yeah there's one for the right yes and uh yeah I like the double bar on the uh on
the Galaxy that's really nice yes when you see maybe you you see this yeah oh
really nice I like that in the in the exposition of pictures it
comes out the the rest of the Galaxy yeah and here's another ones yeah a
little tiny very far far away here's maybe another and yes it was an amazing night and
see this is the the the pictures
uh crude uh you can see the the amp glow of the noise but this is the night at
five minutes it was very very good night oh yeah that's five minutes and it's not
even blown out that's amazing exactly guiding good guiding yeah good guiding
too I was with the 200 F4 and Too Many
Lights goes on there um well this is that night and this no
this is a few months ago when I came back here I
was crying okay bring me back to Santa Rosa
for example yeah yes and brown brown Pizza well this is this
somebody doesn't trying to do it again great but you can see the data yep uh
let me show you last weekend I did Sombrero two I clean up the the stack because I didn't like
it but in this case was look at this
it's very because you can see somebody here but it's very
is that the last night that you have to process yes exactly uh I actually
continued let me show you sorry since I'm going to show you to show our chat
yeah I like this this is oh this is what I I stuck it but
I didn't like how stuck it so I delete it and I'm going to sell again but I
want to see how it goes the core you can see is very light tightening and
I don't want to do like that but what uh maybe I can try again
the Stars I liked when the stars go right there where I had some issue with economy should I explained today so I
fixed it I think I figured out how was the problem
um okay uh sorry for the long chat no sorry
at all this is awesome this is good stuff wow really nice but this is a an example
I that I calculate uh the the size of the flares of the Sun
taking the diameter of that day in Photoshop using a regular a matter for
example and doing the calculations of the picture and take into the earth
size so I figured out that
one thing you should do actually you should all your all those pictures of the planets by the moon you should take
some of the planets and put them by the sun
yeah per scale for scale right I mean just uh you know we're obviously an impossible picture but but at least it
would give you some scale that'll be cool yes yes I probably do that yes I
only have a venus and mars job Asado hey
I don't have Neptune Uranus because they are far away and Mercury only uh when
was the decryption that we have in last year
um where it was I saw here the 4th of November
yes good shot good shot that's hard those are hard to take yeah yes yes
maybe in 2013 too
no yes I can we can see here again and Venus no I missed it up in 2012.
I I don't I I wasn't
doing a astronomy in those years so maybe
Caesar saw it I don't know sorry
the passing by of Venus in 2012.
yeah and uh um yes I was in the in the in the
Mercury transit in Mendoza in
uh I don't know 2013 maybe I don't remember
um I have I have a ready if you like to see the picture of offer
25 and and a NGC 25 16.
if you'd like to see maybe any southern hemisphere object theater yes yes
let me show you where
maybe here
it's a lie of course because I I I I
you got the color yes yes no I used to I'm using um for
you Maxis is the same that I tell you about serial serial s-i-r-i-l
um it's it's a free software uh that have the particularly of of and can make
stacking process um well now the the screen is Photoshop
because I I took the cures of light a little more but
um the the 90 of the process was made with a cereal this this siren I
don't know how this rules
it's a good program really it does really good job and it has uh uh ready
uh how to say uh Macross good example for DSLR yes yes you just put the button
and it does everything sure well I think
the the color corrector yes I put for
for the plate salt I put the the number of NGC and start to to find
um and work properly because the the color corrector is the right color for
this object yes this is very interesting because we of course my objective is
very cheap and the quality is hard and more it's nothing
[Music] single uh
ultrasonic or something like that from the 90s brand from Canon I assume as soon object
100 to 300 and have a lot of operation
more of uh the first thing that I need to do is
close a little bit of the Via Frank um at 7.1 maybe it was much better if
today I tried to use uh maybe the f-stop
number eight much better than seven but because you can see some operation here
horrible but okay it's bad yeah but that's yeah it's uh it
looks really good though I miss my my my 80 April
APO this is
right I know you you and I are on the same boat yeah yes score do you never loved
him in this table please
no no is it the emptiness of telescope is incredible we don't have
we received telescope to to repair all dates and come on today today I I
prepare an 11 inches for to send to a crime to the customer sorry and yeah
no no it's but this may be well it's a punish for me
make maybe use this cameras only so Caesar this this picture here uh how
did you get it is this the same picture you showed us earlier that was yes while we are talking I put the picture
that I show you when I start my presentation today yeah
yes and I brilliant here um I'm finished to stack and I show you do
you remember that I have open actually the picture let me share the screen
again yeah yeah that'll be good before and after yes you do here here you can you can see
the the side of the wheel there yeah and at least the first thing that
that normally we we uh I talk with the people is that don't
take don't don't [Music]
remove the the curve the lights the luminance with this program and use
another one because it's it's a little complicated
it is I every time I try to play with this it it it messes it up
so what you've done is how did you make it so black like you you took out the
it's it's so good like you took out all the light pollution absolutely and I don't know if I'm
sharing okay and but yes it's um the distraction for for the for the
background
sorry my pronunciation about this is a mistake for me but
um but uh have for example one of the the
things that they have that you can write your own Scripts
write me for me uh changing the things and it's great
without Flats because with objective I I don't have flats I I need sometimes but
you know it's not like a telescope um well I use this script for stacking
tonight like I don't make a great polar alignment
I prefer use uh deep Sky stacker Because deep Sky stacker is more
I hope you say for forgive forgive you your your wrong alignment if you have if
you have a no good alignment uh normally this guy stacker uh say okay okay you
your alignment is wrong but for today I can I forgive you and I'm stuck in your
horrible alignment picture and yes
you know that have more could you say have more
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it's more like uh for for wrong
alignments and if you if you have uh
um a wider wider guided pictures you can
start with cereal or um it's inside that make a great great
work and especially Cyril because Cyrus is free it's a freeze
software and a fixing site is wonderful but the price is
especially in Argentina is really hard to hear people
because here to 200 Euros is amount it's
a little bit it's a little expensive yes
I thank you for my for me I have to go get some sleep
before it's okay it's a dinner time it's breakfast time is over already here
okay so next next is lunch time but I I'm taking that yeah okay thank you it
was a very nice episode today and it was a pleasure pleasure to join and thank
you Scott thank you thank you okay if you guys go before you guys go I
am already planning for the next Global star party uh which will be the 47th
event uh we'll be in two parts uh we will have an evening event like we're
having now on the evening of the 25th of May uh they'll start at 8 p.m Central or
zero 100 UTC and then the uh then I will
come back on very early in the morning um so I'm trying to predict that but I
think it's going to be about 3 30 in the morning Central and which will give
people time who want to live broadcast the
um uh you know the lunar eclipse that will happen that morning so
um I'll send everyone um uh that's in our group the um the
information and uh you know I'm hoping that those of you that might be listening the audience that would like
to partake in this it is an early morning Eclipse here in the across the United States
um I think it's an evening Eclipse uh um uh you know in Asia so if you're
listening over there that would be cool um but uh it is it's the only
um uh total lunar eclipse of 2021 and it's a super moon uh total eclipse so
it'll be special and uh it should be beautiful good because you don't cheat so I like
to see it yeah live yeah so so that would be very good okay all right thanks
guys thanks everyone Thanks for uh joining us and
um uh we'll be back next week uh with the super moon uh total lunar eclipse
event take care thanks everyone thanks everyone have a good night
yeah we're going on close guys there's guys all right
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thank you
foreign
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[Music] thank you