It was the afternoon of September 26th, the kick-off of my wife’s birthday weekend (yeah, that’s right… we take it up a notch from birthdays). For those who haven’t experienced birthday weekends before, the short definition is that whoever’s birthday it is, you have to do whatever they want you to do. Of course, this has to be within reason; I’ll be honest, I will not scoop up dog poop with my hands—nosiree. With reason already established in my wife’s thought processes and our two best friends Jessica and Melody joining in the festivities, it was game on for a Star Party at UIS!
We’ve attempted to go to a Star Party before, but were unable to actually attend it as none of us knew how the heck to navigate the interior of Brookens Library; moreover, none of us had the phone number. For those of you who have yet to visit the infamous Brookens Library and its “genius” no-90-degree-angles-anywhere-in-the-building architecture, you quickly feel like a mouse in a maze searching for a big ol’ chunk of cheese.
A word to the wise: Once you arrive at UIS, get your bearings (at least know which way is north). Okay, now… to get to the Star Party, go to the SOUTHEAST corner of Brookens Library. You will eventually see a stairwell marked “Observatory” from outside the building. Now that we’ve got that settled…
It should be known that my wife and I, well, we’re geeks. Geeks are those who are interested in technological/electronic/large-on-a-universal-scale type stuff. Nerds are those who are ridiculously smart. Okay, fine. I’m a geek, my wife’s a nerd. We’re interested in our universe and everything contained therein. Our friends are neither geeks nor nerds, thus I hereby apologize.
*ahem!* On September 26th, we found the observatory and walked up the stairwell, making it to the second story when we ran into a rather large group of people mainly consisting of young children. The walls of the stairwell leading up to this point were absolutely covered with photographs and literature about the universe and the scientific processes used to discover the information (light refraction, the color spectrum, etc.).
There was a guide explaining the information, translating it so that all who were present could understand it, which was wonderful for beginners in the world of astronomy (pun intended, sorry).
We were ultimately led outside to the observatory, which was an outdoor seating area in the shape of a rectangle, surrounded by 7 foot high walls and rather dim, red lights. In the middle of the rectangle stood an array of 3 or 4 telescopes of different sizes and powers. Along the western wall was the “Mother Telescope.”
The guide then told us the reason behind the red lights (sorry, you’ll have to attend to find out), and where the telescopes were pointed. The “Mother Telescope” was pointed at Jupiter, where an interesting phenomenon was occurring: one of Jupiter’s moons was visible, along with its shadow which could be seen on Jupiter’s surface. After being informed, nearly everybody got in line for the “Mother Telescope,” so I decided to check out the smaller telescopes, one of which was pointed toward a group of stars called M15. Through the telescope, it appeared to be very small fuzzy oval. For a second, I questioned my vision, but no—it was actually fuzzy. The guide standing next to the telescope informed viewers that this particular group of stars was, in fact, not a galaxy, but that it was a globular cluster about 30,000 light years from earth. Here’s where I can teach you something.
Light travels at 186,000 miles per second. A light year is simply a measurement of distance that light travels over the course of a calendar year, which is over 5.865 trillion miles. So, if you’re driving 70 miles an hour, it would still take 9,564,579 years to travel only 1 light year. The space shuttle, according to various sources (one being (http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2001/InnaSokolyanskaya1.shtml), can travel about 17,000mph. It would take the Space Shuttle 39,383 years to travel 1 light year.
Because M15 is 33,600 light years from earth (http://www.seds.org/messier/m/m015.html), it would take the space shuttle 1,323,287,671 years to get there. Pretty amazing, isn’t it?
The amazing thing is, M15 is in our galaxy! With that said, it isn’t even close to being the farthest visible object humans have discovered; that distinction belongs to quasars, which are nearly 10 billion light years away (http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/ast99/ast99212.htm).
Between those quasars and Earth, there is a ton of interesting stuff to learn and admire out there: the Super Earth, the sun becoming a red giant and enveloping Mercury, Venus and Earth (not to fear, this isn’t going to happen for billions of years), or my favorite thing: The X Structure at the Core of M51 (my thanks to Louie Giglio)!
We’ve attempted to go to a Star Party before, but were unable to actually attend it as none of us knew how the heck to navigate the interior of Brookens Library; moreover, none of us had the phone number. For those of you who have yet to visit the infamous Brookens Library and its “genius” no-90-degree-angles-anywhere-in-the-building architecture, you quickly feel like a mouse in a maze searching for a big ol’ chunk of cheese.
A word to the wise: Once you arrive at UIS, get your bearings (at least know which way is north). Okay, now… to get to the Star Party, go to the SOUTHEAST corner of Brookens Library. You will eventually see a stairwell marked “Observatory” from outside the building. Now that we’ve got that settled…
It should be known that my wife and I, well, we’re geeks. Geeks are those who are interested in technological/electronic/large-on-a-universal-scale type stuff. Nerds are those who are ridiculously smart. Okay, fine. I’m a geek, my wife’s a nerd. We’re interested in our universe and everything contained therein. Our friends are neither geeks nor nerds, thus I hereby apologize.
*ahem!* On September 26th, we found the observatory and walked up the stairwell, making it to the second story when we ran into a rather large group of people mainly consisting of young children. The walls of the stairwell leading up to this point were absolutely covered with photographs and literature about the universe and the scientific processes used to discover the information (light refraction, the color spectrum, etc.).
There was a guide explaining the information, translating it so that all who were present could understand it, which was wonderful for beginners in the world of astronomy (pun intended, sorry).
We were ultimately led outside to the observatory, which was an outdoor seating area in the shape of a rectangle, surrounded by 7 foot high walls and rather dim, red lights. In the middle of the rectangle stood an array of 3 or 4 telescopes of different sizes and powers. Along the western wall was the “Mother Telescope.”
The guide then told us the reason behind the red lights (sorry, you’ll have to attend to find out), and where the telescopes were pointed. The “Mother Telescope” was pointed at Jupiter, where an interesting phenomenon was occurring: one of Jupiter’s moons was visible, along with its shadow which could be seen on Jupiter’s surface. After being informed, nearly everybody got in line for the “Mother Telescope,” so I decided to check out the smaller telescopes, one of which was pointed toward a group of stars called M15. Through the telescope, it appeared to be very small fuzzy oval. For a second, I questioned my vision, but no—it was actually fuzzy. The guide standing next to the telescope informed viewers that this particular group of stars was, in fact, not a galaxy, but that it was a globular cluster about 30,000 light years from earth. Here’s where I can teach you something.
Light travels at 186,000 miles per second. A light year is simply a measurement of distance that light travels over the course of a calendar year, which is over 5.865 trillion miles. So, if you’re driving 70 miles an hour, it would still take 9,564,579 years to travel only 1 light year. The space shuttle, according to various sources (one being (http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2001/InnaSokolyanskaya1.shtml), can travel about 17,000mph. It would take the Space Shuttle 39,383 years to travel 1 light year.
Because M15 is 33,600 light years from earth (http://www.seds.org/messier/m/m015.html), it would take the space shuttle 1,323,287,671 years to get there. Pretty amazing, isn’t it?
The amazing thing is, M15 is in our galaxy! With that said, it isn’t even close to being the farthest visible object humans have discovered; that distinction belongs to quasars, which are nearly 10 billion light years away (http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/ast99/ast99212.htm).
Between those quasars and Earth, there is a ton of interesting stuff to learn and admire out there: the Super Earth, the sun becoming a red giant and enveloping Mercury, Venus and Earth (not to fear, this isn’t going to happen for billions of years), or my favorite thing: The X Structure at the Core of M51 (my thanks to Louie Giglio)!
"X" Structure at Core of Whirlpool Galaxy (M51)
http://hubblesite.org/gallery/album/exotic_collection/pr1992017a/large_web
Credit: H. Ford (JHU/STScI), the Faint Object Spectrograph IDT, and NASA
The Star Parties teach you quite a bit in a very short amount of time. If you wish to learn astronomy on your own, I highly recommend attending a Star Party and taking notes!
I have been informed by Professor Martin, the Assistant Professor of Astronomy/Physics, that there are going to be two more Star Parties this semester: Friday, October 17th and Friday, October 24th from 8-10pm. They are open to everybody and are F-R-E-E! Of course, they operate on a “weather permitting” basis.
If you cannot make it to either of the two remaining parties this semester, fear not! Traditionally speaking, though not set in stone yet, the Astronomy/Physics Department start throwing Star Parties again after spring break and last up through the end of April.
If you have any further questions about these awesome events, feel free to contact Professor Martin at 217-206-8342.
See you out there.
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