Bring it on Home

Considering the appalling events of the past few days in our country, I cannot in good conscience continue to exist as though I am not part and parcel of the world around me. I cannot pretend that it is possible to isolate myself from what is happening to us. If our "hobby" of amateur astronomy has nothing to say to the terror and pain around us, then to hell with it! But... it has a lot to say, a lot to teach us, a lot to teach the world.

The following is a reposting of something I wrote several years ago for my now defunct blog, Celestial Pilgrimage. It is more relevant now than when I first posted it:

Everywhere I look in the sky, no matter what the direction nor how distant the object, whatever I see is either acting on or being acted upon by something else. It is either orbiting something else, or is itself being orbited. It is either attracting something else, or is in turn being attracted. It is either illuminating its surroundings, or is itself being illuminated. Nothing is alone; nothing exists in isolation. There is a bedrock fundamental something to be discovered here, and double stars are perhaps the clearest visible illustrations of whatever this is to the amateur astronomer.

Albereo

But allow me to digress a bit. I am forever amazed by how much the whole of my subsequent life has been influenced by the relatively short time I spent in the Army (1975-1979). I truly believe that I learned and grew more in those four years than in any other comparable length of time. From insignificant mannerisms (how I stand, what I do with my hands while walking, the fact that I always start off on the left foot) to fundamental ways I view the world, I keep finding bits and pieces of my Army experience down there in my subconscious, nudging (or pushing) me in one direction or another.

One really good example is foxholes. One of the first things we learned in Basic Training at good old Fort Ord, California, was the correct (that is, the Army’s) way to dig one. And if you have some picture in your mind taken from a host of cheesy WWII movies (hole in the ground, head and rifle sticking out) – get rid of it now. What we were taught was the DuPuy foxhole, named after the general who invented it. DuPuy had studied the carnage of Vietnam (remember, I enlisted only about 3 months after the fall of Saigon), and realized that everyone had been doing it all wrong ever since, well… ever since ever. The problem with firing out of a hole in the ground was that an advancing foe could fire right back at you. Thus the high casualty rate on both sides in a defensive battle.

General DuPuy (right) with Westmoreland in Vietnam

What DuPuy came up with was a system of mutually supporting two-man foxholes. “Buddy Teams” of two soldiers would each dig their own pit, piling all the excavated dirt directly in front of the hole, completely blocking one’s view straight ahead. When you were finished, you could fire diagonally to the left or to the right, but immediately in front of you was this great earthen berm, higher than your head. The end result was that, in a line of these DuPuy “Defensive Fire Pits” (to use the official term), each buddy team was responsible for protecting the team to either side of them, while their own defense was left in turn to those teams. To work, the system required complete trust between the teams. You yourself could do absolutely nothing to protect yourself, and concentrated all your attention and efforts on defending your neighbors.

Take a moment to ponder this. There is a really profound principle at work here. One that I think goes to the very core and fundament of our being - of the universe itself. It is the indispensable principle behind How We Must Live. As the poet Charles Williams so beautifully put it:

This abides – that the everlasting house the soul discovers is always another's; we must lose our own ends; we must always live in the habitation of our lovers, my friend’s shelter for me, mine for him.

The consequence of ignoring this is not just selfishness. It is not just missed opportunity or a life sadly lacking in color or meaning – it is a violation of the very nature of reality. To attempt to live for one’s self is an exercise in futility – you will fail.

One of the most awesome passages in the New Testament (for me, at least) occurs near the end of the Gospel according to Mark. Christ has been crucified, and various passersby taunt Him, asking why He doesn’t “save yourself and come down from the cross”. They conclude with the scoffing remark, “He saved others, Himself He cannot save”.

Wow. Read that again. What was meant as a contemptuous dismissal, as a cynical comment on apparent failure, turns out to be the very key to The Meaning of Life itself. We cannot save ourselves – we must rely on others. And it is up to us in turn to save them. This is what it means to be a Human Being. When we fall short of this principle, we fall short of and even deny altogether, our very Humanity.

Think about that, the next time you are admiring a particularly beautiful double star... or the next time someone shoots up a House of Worship out of fear of the "other".

Queen of the Gods!

Our best image of Juno, showing its highly irregular shape. 

Juno is 145 miles across at its widest.

Exactly 2 weeks from today will be your best chance to observe the third asteroid to be discovered (although by far not the 3rd largest) - Juno, named for the mythical wife of Jupiter.

Bottom line on top: This will be Juno's most favorable opposition since 2005, and will not be this close to the Earth again until 2031 (by which date I will either be 79 years old, or dead). This is due to Juno's highly eccentric orbit, worse than Mars, which makes for some oppositions being far more favorable than others. (See illustration below.)

Although assigned the number 3 due to its order of discovery, Juno is actually only the 11th largest asteroid (exceeded by Ceres, Vesta, Pallas, Hygeia, Interamnia, Europa, Davida, Sylvia, Cybele, and Eunomia). Where it does excel, however, is in its high surface reflectivity, which with an apparent magnitude of 7.5 makes Juno (at opposition) brighter than Neptune. No wonder it was one of the first asteroids to be discovered! Juno was even listed amongst the planets for 38 years before being demoted from that lofty status to mere asteroid in 1845.

Although opposition does not occur until the 17th of November, the 11th will be your best chance of actually seeing Juno, due to its near miss of naked eye star 32 Eridani (magnitude 4.46) on that night. Try to spot it on the 10th (weather permitting, of course), and take a second look on the 11th. See which star in 32 Eridani's vicinity has moved since the night before - that's Juno! And if conditions permit, go for the 12th as well. After that, Juno will increasingly blend in with the anonymous mass of similarly looking points of light which are, of course, the background stars.

Useful hint: Sketch the stars near to 32 Eridani each night as accurately as you can. That will aid you immeasurably in positively identifying Juno, since it will be the only "dot" that moves night to night.

Juno will be bright enough to observe this opposition uning only binoculars - no telescope required. In fact, that is my intention - to spot Juno using only my 8X56 binos. If that does not work, then and only then will I resort to a telescopic search.

The Truth, the Whole Truth, and Nothing But the Truth

Science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke once had a character in one of his stories (I wish I could remember which one, but I cannot - believe me, I've tried.) looking in awe at an ultraviolet (or maybe it was an X-ray) view of the Earth as seen from the Moon. Staring back and forth between the image and the actual Earth in the lunar sky above him, he finds himself lost in a philosophical reverie. Which is the Earth's "true" appearance, he wonders.

The fact is, they both would be. What we see with our eyes is indeed a valid picture of reality, but not the only one. Notice I did not say there were two realities - there is only One Truth - but rather there are two (in fact, many) ways of looking at that one reality.

Here is an image of Pluto taken by the New Horizons spacecraft, as seen in "natural color, that is, as it would appear to a hypothetical astronaut reproducing New Horizon's flight plan.

So. That's pretty much what you or I would see, were we ever lucky enough to travel so far. But here is the same image with "enhanced color". That is, the colors are true, but somewhat exaggerated to bring out fine detail.

Is that less real than the first image? Not really. All the person processing the image did was to compensate for the limitations of human eyesight. He hasn't added or subtracted any data - just enhanced it. All those colors were present in the first image. They were just too subtle for the eye to pick up without assistance.

But there are other wavelengths that human eyesight is totally incapable of ever seeing. We're just not constructed for it. But that does not mean those wavelengths are any less real. Below we have a view of Pluto in the infrared. The imager has selected colors that can be seen by us humans to represent those we cannot, and here is the product thereof.

And next is an image where the color scheme is completely arbitrary, each one representing a different type of surface mineral. Scientists use such "false color" images to see patterns which would otherwise be invisible to us.

And how about this image, showing the unlit, night side of Pluto, surrounded by its atmosphere?

But are such global images really the "truth"? Do we need to be close up to see what Pluto really looks like? After all, imagine you were looking at a picture of a person taken from a distance of one mile away. You might be able to make out that it was indeed a person (and not, say, a tree), but could you really say you knew what the person looked like?

Here is a relatively close up image of Pluto, showing its rugged terrain and mountains made of pure ice water.

And here is one of the closest, most detailed images taken by New Horizons, showing features as small as what would be individual buildings on the Earth. (As always, click on the image to get full resolution.)

At this point, you can either throw up your hands and say there is no "true" view of the planet Pluto, or...

... or, you can realize that Reality is damned complex, and the best we can ever do is tug at the edges of it. Now please don't get the totally false impression that somehow what we see with our own two eyes is somehow "not true". Far from it! It is as true as any of the other images we just perused. It's just not the Whole Truth.

Averted Imagination

One of the oldest jokes in amateur astronomy is to (laughingly) accuse someone of using "averted imagination" while observing some really difficult object, such as a super faint galaxy or an impossible to split double star. Heck, I've on occasion accused myself of doing so. But truth to tell, it's often hard to delineate the line between desperately trying to see something and just plain imaging that you are successful at doing so.

Sirius and Sirius B (off to the lower left)

Case in point: last winter I was convinced I had finally, after numerous attempts, seen Sirius B (the white dwarf companion to Sirius) through the eyepiece. It didn't stay in view, dang it, but kind of "popped" in and out - the tiniest imaginable point of light nestled right up against the overpowering glare of Sirius. I even stepped away from the telescope and returned to see whether it was still there. And it was... But alas, when I did some calculations at home later that evening (science ruins everything!), I had to admit that whatever I was seeing could not possibly have been Sirius B - it was on the wrong side! (And yes, I did take into account my telescope's mirror imaged view.) So I sadly had to conclude that I was not only using averted vision to see my mystery object, but averted imagination as well.

So yes, an overactive imagination can be a real problem. It is likely a major component of why Percival Lowell and his contemporaries kept seeing all those canals on Mars. (I myself have seen them twice, despite knowing full well that they do not exist!)

But there may be an equal and opposite error possible.

A City on Mars, as imagined by artist Leslie Carr (1951)

Take a good look at the illustration right above this paragraph. I found this in a most remarkable book by science popularist and science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke, The Exploration of Space (published in 1951, the year before I was born). It supposedly depicts a future settlement on Mars, but when you think about it, what it actually depicts is a quite unremarkable 1950s midwestern American city. Just look at that architecture! In fact, why is there architecture at all? You're under a dome - what need for buildings? And the cars! The dome looks to be all of 400 yards across. Just where are you going to drive? Plus, it would be sheer insanity to waste so much valuable (and limited) real estate on something as useless as roads. Finally, I wish I could see the pedestrians up close. I am sure they would fit in unnoticed in any random crowd of shoppers in downtown Indianapolis.

Now I am not pointing these things out to make fun of the illustrator - far from it! But what I am saying is there was a Failure of Imagination when designing the image. The implications of colonizing Mars were not thought through, and there was a (likely) unconscious assumption that the styles and norms of 1950 would not be out of place in 2150 (or whenever this future city was supposed to be built).

Another and far more glaring example of such a failure of imagination is when the news media inevitably announce every new discovery of an Earth-sized exoplanet as a "Second Earth", neglecting the too numerous to count differences (or possible differences) between said exoplanet and our home body. It seems that all that counts in such reporting is the mass of the planet and the distance from its sun. But there are a myriad of other qualifiers that must be met before we can even begin to speak of an "Earth 2", among them being age, atmosphere and water content, plate tectonics, possession of a moon, a rotating iron core (to create a magnetic field), prevalence of asteroids and comets in the system, distance from gas giants (if any), axial tilt and rotation rate... failure to match in even one of these traits  means we might as easily be looking at a second Venus as a second Earth.

Do we do the same thing when seeing some Deep Sky Object for the first time? Do we assume without thinking about it that "You've seen one globular cluster, you've seen 'em all!" and fail to see that M13 doesn't look at all like neighboring M92?

So we really ought to approach each new object with a mental clean slate - no preconceptions, no assumptions. These are the bad habits that prevent us from seeing subtle differences that ultimately make the difference between one genus and species and another.