January 16, 2012
Dear all,
I would like to wish you all a happy 2012. The year of the transit of Venus has started now, and preparations for observing it are now well under way. But in January and February our focus will be on another celestial object providing us an unparalleled educational opportunity: the asteroid Eros.
New video trailer for the transit of Venus
The Transit of Venus is a new four-minute trailer written and directed by Chuck Bueter, with animation and video effects by Patrick McPike, Multimedia Artist and Technical Director at the Adler Planetarium. The video summarises the history and significance of the transit of Venus while preparing viewers for the June 5-6, 2012, spectacle. Starting with Jeremiah Horrocks’ first sighting, the story traces its value from early expeditions seeking to measure the size of the solar system, to similarities with transits around distant stars being detected by the Kepler spacecraft. In the background you hear the original song Morning Star by the band Transit of Venus from New Zealand, the ‘official’ soundtrack of the 2012 transit of Venus. A high-resolution version will soon to be available as a free download in full-dome video for digital theatres. To watch the trailer: http://transitofvenus.nl/wp/2012/01/16/trailer-for-the-transit/
Three new authors for our blog
As of January 2012 there are three new authors writing for our blog. Ágota Lang is a physics teacher form Hungary, who will take her students on an expedition to Finland and Vardø to tread in the footsteps of Maximilian Hell and his assistant Joannes Sajnovics, who made the same trip 243 years ago to watch the 1769 transit of Venus. Ágota will keep us updated on the expedition and the projects she and her students will be engaged in.
Nick Lomb was Curator of Astronomy at Sydney Observatory from 1979 to 2009, was leader of the observatory’s 2004 transit of Venus team and is now consultant astronomer for Sydney Observatory. He recently wrote a new book about the transit: Transit of Venus. 1631 to the Present (Powerhouse Publishing, 2011). Being the only author living at a place where the entire transit will be visible, Nick has a lot of interesting experiences to share with us.
Huw James is leading the Venus Transit Expedition, an eight week educational overland endeavour to the West Pacific rim starting in April 2012, looking to inspire the next generation of scientists and explorers. The group aims to carry out the expedition, view and record the transit of Venus and filter content back to class rooms and living rooms. Huw already introduced his expedition on our blog, and over the next few months he’ll be updating you on the expedition.
Phone app ready by the end of January – available in March
The phone app for the transit of Venus will be ready by the end of January. Then, after it has been approved by Apple, free versions for iOS and Android will be available in March. I wish to thank all of those who participated in the test runs for their valuable feedback!
The Eros Parallax Project
In history, two celestial events were observed all across the world to find the size of the solar system: the transit of Venus in 1761/1769 and 1874/1882, and the opposition of the asteroid Eros in 1901/1931. Coincidentally, both these historical important phenomena happen again this very year, providing an unparalleled opportunity for a unique astronomical outreach project. In 2012, we will be able to measure the distance to the sun from observing the parallax of Eros as well as from the duration of the transit of Venus, and compare the two results with each other and with historical data, all in only a few months’ time. Like the transits of Venus, favourable oppositions of Eros are quite rare: only every 37 or 44 years the asteroid approaches Earth close enough to make accurate parallax measurements.
When Eros is photographed simultaneously from two widely separated locations, the position of the asteroid with respect to the background stars will be a little different on the two pictures due to parallax. If the amount of parallax is found, and the distance between the observes is known, the distance to Eros can be computed using trigonometry.
The Eros Parallax Project runs from January 28 to February 3. On each night you make picture of Eros (either through a telescope or with a telephoto lens) at 7, 18 or 23 UT, depending on your location. Then, using free and online software, you determine the celestial coordinates of Eros on your picture and submit the data to our website. From the data submitted by all participants, the distance to Eros can be deduced.
Participating is easy: take a picture of Eros, analyse the image and submit your data to our website. But is also has great educational value: all data and many pictures will be available afterwards for class rooms to process the submitted figures themselves. Next to enjoying the night sky, developing observing skills and gain understanding of our solar system, students will act like professional astronomers of the 1930s, giving them a sense of what actual scholarly work is like.
For further historical backgrounds and detailed instructions for participants, take a look at http://transitofvenus.nl/wp/getting-involved/eros-and-the-solar-parallax/
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