Herschel's First Science Results, Eagle Nebula

davecl writes "Over the next three days, many new science results will come out from Herschel. The first of these, a view deep inside the stellar nursery of the Eagle Nebula, finds a huge amount of activity, revealing new stars and filaments of dust that could not have been detected by previous telescopes. Also open today is OSHI, the online showcase of Herschel images where all the new science images will be found. Herschel news also available on the Herschel Mission Blog."

Comments

I'm excited

[Kingrames]

Ever since I saw the pictures of the w5 star forming region in the soul nebula, I've found myself eager to learn more about the birth of stars.
Also, let me be the first to say this thread is useless without pics.

Re:I'm excited

[TrisexualPuppy]

I had to refresh myself a bit on the mission. This is really good info and of course this is as well.

Re:I'm excited

[cmiller173]

I had to refresh myself a bit on the mission. This is really good info and of course this is as well.

I think you meant this. The William Herschel Telescope is a ground based scope built in the 80's.

Can this be used to avoid dark matter?

[master_p]

If Herschel can can find matter previously unseen with other telescopes, can this be used to avoid the dark matter theory?

Re:Can this be used to avoid dark matter?

[Anonymous Coward]

I always thought "dark" was taken to mean "beyond detection with our current instruments" ... i.e. a handy compensating factor to fix theoretical equations when those equations don't match observation.

If a new instrument still fails to detect dark matter, then it just means "dark" is "darker" than we thought.

Re:Can this be used to avoid dark matter?

[qinjuehang]

No. It has unprecedented resolution for far-infared, but definitely not the first IR space telescope. Enough matter to account for dark matter would form huge structures due to gravity (assuming nebulosity), and thus if they are detectable at Herschel frequencies, they would haven been detected.

Re:Can this be used to avoid dark matter?

[rho]

Once they sort through all the science images, that might happen.

Those science images, is there nothing they can't do?

I bet they've got a science pole, too.

Re:Can this be used to avoid dark matter?

[radtea]

If Herschel can can find matter previously unseen with other telescopes, can this be used to avoid the dark matter theory?

Short answer: no.

Long answer: there are multiple dark matter problems on multiple scales. Galactic dark matter, which is the only kind Hershel might be able to see, may be baryonic (made up of the same sorts of elementary particles as everything else we know about.) Even that is doubtful, based on dynamical analysis of galactic collisions, which strongly favour a non-baryonic component even on galactic scales. And the thing about non-baryonic dark matter is that whatever it is, it doesn't interact electro-magnetically, at least not to a significant degree. If it did, it would be scattered off ordinary matter and be detectable and visible and have pretty much the same spacial distribution as ordinary matter, which it observably does not in the case of galactic collisions.

On larger scales, we know with as much certainty as we know anything that dark matter must be non-baryonic, and therefore almost certainly won't be visible. The reason we know it must be non-baryonic is because the ratio of hydrogen to helium in the early universe, which we can calculate quite precisely based on the universe we see today, puts a strict limit on the amount of baryonic matter, and the extra-galactic dark matter exceeds that limit by a factor of ten or more.

Finally, "avoiding the dark matter theory" is a funny way of putting things, as if somehow dark matter was bad and it would be a good thing to avoid it. Dark matter is a perfectly sensible explanation some peculiar phenomena, and although it is not the only one, it has proven consistent with the experimental and observational tests that have been used to investigate it, particularly the galactic collision analysis mentioned above.

Re:Can this be used to avoid dark matter?

[Gogogoch]

"unseen" in TFA = obscured by dust, that's all

Re:Can this be used to avoid dark matter?

[Chris Burke]

I always thought "dark" was taken to mean "beyond detection with our current instruments" ... i.e. a handy compensating factor to fix theoretical equations when those equations don't match observation.

That's literally all it means... dark matter is matter we haven't observed directly, yes. But it isn't really a compensating factor to fix a theoretical equation. It's something that the extremely well tested and verified equations of gravity strongly suggests must exist. We've used the exact same theory to find other things we were unable to see directly, like exoplanets, that were then subsequently imaged directly. The exoplanet wasn't a 'fudge', it was an experimental prediction.

But the kink that is thrown in the "dark matter is just matter we haven't seen yet" definition is that given the amount of dark matter that should be out there (and we even know where a lot of it should be), it seems unlikely that we wouldn't have seen it already if it was 'normal' matter, like clouds of hydrogen gas or what-not. Cus we can see those. So that would suggest that it isn't 'normal' as in Baryonic matter, and this is what gets some people in a huff because now it seems like the physicists are just making things up. There is precedent for this kind of matter, namely neutrinos which are quite real but very hard to detect. Dark matter would have to be similar, but more massive, so it is true that it is speculative. Which isn't the same as 'made up'. Plenty of particles have been inferred from theory, then later verified by experiment. Like neutrinos.

Re:Can this be used to avoid dark matter?

[Hurricane78]

My last information is, that the dark matter theory’s problems are already explained with conventional models, for at least a year.

And about dark energy: There is a very simple solution for it:
If you theory predicts a value, and measurements in nature show a different one, then...

FIX YOUR DAMN THEORY!

Seriously, I have never seen a bigger epic fail in all of science. It’s pulling us all in the same dirt where stuff like the “electric universe”, “creationism” and “cube time” reside in:

The ignorance of standing by one’s own beliefs, even in the face of utterly crushing facts, blatantly ignoring them or calling nature “wrong”.

In a way, it’s like saying that gravity doesn’t exist, because you choose to believe otherwise.

In psychology, such thought patterns are known as the start of what could become a schizophrenia. (Modern psychology can also see groups of people as some kind of “individual”/“lifeform”, as the same behaviors and properties can be seen in them (and partially higher or lower sets of the fractal that is the universe).)

Re:Can this be used to avoid dark matter?

[master_p]

The reason we have speculated about dark matter is because we can't account for the gravity we observe, isn't it so?

If so, then how come dark matter can interact with non-dark matter via gravity? in other words, if dark matter can distort spacetime like normal matter, then dark matter is normal matter, by all accounts and purposes.

Then why can't we detect it?

Re:Can this be used to avoid dark matter?

[Chris Burke]

The reason we have speculated about dark matter is because we can't account for the gravity we observe, isn't it so?

Yes in the same way we couldn't 'account' for the wobble of a star, so we speculated that there were planets around it.

If so, then how come dark matter can interact with non-dark matter via gravity? in other words, if dark matter can distort spacetime like normal matter, then dark matter is normal matter, by all accounts and purposes.

No not exactly, because there are "accounts and purposes" of matter other than having mass. All the "normal" matter around you is Baryonic, and in addition to having spacetime-warping mass, interacts with the strong, weak, and electromagnetic forces.

In contrast, neutrinos only interact with the weak force, and thus can pass through large amounts of normal matter with ease -- it's EM forces that prevent this with normal matter. It also means we can't detect them from a distance, since the weak force is short range and their masses are extremely small. However, if there was a large enough cloud of them (or similar particles), we could infer its existence via the gravitational effect on other masses.

Then why can't we detect it?

Simply put, because all of our direct detection methods involve electromagnetism, so if the dark matter doesn't interact with EM, then it's literally invisible to those methods.

Dark matter?

[BadAnalogyGuy]

I found this statement very interesting:

Such dark nebulae were once thought to be 'holes in the sky', empty areas of space where there are no stars and so our view was out into the void beyond. We now know that this is not the case and the dark nebulae are dense, dusty clouds that obscure our view of the stars beyond.

If what we think is a vast expanse of nothing is actually full of dust and other "real" matter, I wonder if this could account for the gravitational effects of so-called "dark matter".

Re:Dark matter?

[qinjuehang]

Problem is, not enough dark nebulae has been detected to accound for dark matter. However, there are a class of dark matter candidates, "Massive Compact Halo Objects", that are made of "normal matter", just harder to detect than most.

Re:Dark matter?

[chris mazuc]

Current theories suggest that dark matter does not interact with baryonic matter except through gravity, which is why we can see its effects on other matter but can't actually see it. Personally I think the theory is crap, but its the best we have right now.

As a side note, I really hope Einstein was horribly horribly wrong; what kind of sick joke would it be to be given this mind bogglingly gigantic and beautiful universe, destined never to venture further than a few light years from the star that gave us life, lest we condemn ourselves to never seeing our home again. We know he was wrong, just not in the ways he needs to be.

Re:Dark matter?

[John Hasler]

> ...destined never to venture further than a few light years from the star
> that gave us life, lest we condemn ourselves to never seeing our home again.

If you are so timid that you cannot bear the thought of never seeing "home" again you deserve to be so condemned as it will be only your own weakness confining you.

Re:Dark matter?

[khallow]

As a side note, I really hope Einstein was horribly horribly wrong; what kind of sick joke would it be to be given this mind bogglingly gigantic and beautiful universe, destined never to venture further than a few light years from the star that gave us life, lest we condemn ourselves to never seeing our home again. We know he was wrong, just not in the ways he needs to be.

No offense, but we'd probably already know if he were horribly, horribly wrong. And we already know that if we go a few billion years in the future, the Sun won't be there any more (unless there's some sort of fancy solar-scale engineering you can do to spruce up the Sun like somehow replenish the hydrogen in the Sun).

Re:Dark matter?

[John Hasler]

> unless there's some sort of fancy solar-scale engineering you can do to
> spruce up the Sun like somehow replenish the hydrogen in the Sun

That would require either a solar-scale source of hydrogen or an equally boggling supply of energy (in which case, why bother to restart the Sun?). More plausible (if solar engineering can be plausible) would be redesigning the Sun to burn helium and/or other fusion byproducts.

Re:Dark matter?

[thijsh]

Just wait until one of those MACHO type Halo's blows... It won't be called dark matter anymore.

Re:Dark matter?

[Tekfactory]

Can't discover new lands if you never lose sight of the shore and all that...

But there are people that don't leave, don't take chances, have kids, plant their crops and tend their herds. That is probably a good thing, because without them you can't have a society. We can't all be pioneers and explorers.

Its the same way we need to have police to have a society, but not everybody has the mindset to put their life in danger for the common good.

Thankfully for those people we can build robots, I mean that in both ways, robot explorers so our good human explorers don't travel light years to a planet with no chance of sustaining them, and robotic farmers to tend crops/livestock while our explorers are finding water and mineral deposits, or at least verifying the findings of the previous robot explorers survey.

At some point in the future when spacetravel is far more routine the homebodies will travel to the colonies on vacation to see mile high waterfalls, and other exotic attractions.

Re:Dark matter?

[Gilmoure]

Ah, it's invisible but leaves foot prints. Can likely also peek in to the women's showers.

Re:Dark matter?

[Gilmoure]

There's a couple ways to work with Einstein constraints.

Generation ships are the easiest to engineer, as the tech is nearly there.

Another way would be figuring out a way to backup people, ship their records and a genetic engineering factory ship to another star, and then download people in to some kind of life form once there. Not sure if we'll ever be able to really scan a person in to some kind of storage buffer, though.

I guess one could also ship viable sperm/egg and try to run some kind of automated test tube process, followed by machine raising children and such. That one would make an interesting story. How well could machines raise a basic crew of a gene ship, who would then be charged with raising wave after wave of colonists.

Re:Dark matter?

[chris mazuc]

I would gladly give up my little blue planet to get a glimpse at the rest of the universe. You shouldn't lash out at people unless you understood what was written, because you clearly did not comprehend my post.

Since I need to spell it out for you, here goes:

What is the point of sending people into the universe never to return if we can never get useful data out of it during our lifetimes? Even if you are willing to wait for longer than humanity has existed the trip would still be futile. It would be a hell of a ride... and that is about it. Utterly pointless from a scientific perspective. And who cares if we can colonize the universe if we can never communicate between colonies? Assuming we colonized the entire universe, the result would be millions if not billions of independent civilizations with very little if any bi-directional communication beyond the edges. Not completely pointless, but our progress thus far is based on mutual cooperation and learning from others. What about a civilization on the other side of the universe? By the time we got over there, said hi, and came back we would be visiting yet another alien civilization, the remnants of our own. Yes you can have personal knowledge about what is out there, but humanity as a whole can not.

Re:Dark matter?

[chris mazuc]

No offense, but we'd probably already know if he were horribly, horribly wrong.

I'm confused by this. Are you saying we already know everything about physics? Please elaborate.

And we already know that if we go a few billion years in the future, the Sun won't be there any more

I'm not saying it is pointless to leave, and I sincerely hope we make it out of our solar system without killing ourselves first. It just saddens me that all those colonies of humanity (or whatever we are at that point) will never be able to communicate with each other on a reasonable time scale. Who cares if there is life out there besides our own if we can never see it, or if we do see it, we wouldn't have anyone like us to tell about it by the time we got back.

Re:Dark matter?

[Gogogoch]

Read his post again, dumbass. If you are so illiterate as to misunderstand his lament then ... go off and be condemned to be a computer programmer or slashdot reader or something.

The real shame, by the way, is that we are unlikely to even get outside our solar system - it being so mind bogglingly big, the nearest star so enormously far away, and our lives being so depressingly short.

Re:Dark matter?

[Gogogoch]

I think this is a good hypothesis. Let's assume our machines become at least as capable as humans, and designed with similar psychological and cultural values. It would be reasonable to think that a human crew could be brought up by them - and might shine an interesting light on the nature/nurture question of human behaviour.

Of course, an even more likely scenario - given the assumption of intelligent, capable, machines - is that they go off and explore the galaxy leaving us behind. Humans are just too much trouble to transport and support.

The human form is a terrible design for space travel: physically frail, requiring a gaseous atmosphere with a narrow band of temperature and pressure, susceptible to damage from radiation, requiring chemical inputs (O2, H2O, food), and producing chemical excreta. It's been said that where ever we go we'll be "taking our plumbing with us", dealing with piss and shit no matter how advanced we become. Whereas a vacuum-capable, radiation-hardened, indefinite-lifespan machine would feel much more at home.

My sad assumption is that 1,000,000 yrs from now there might be a dynamic, galactic, civilization of machine intelligences living near and between the stars who look back fondly at their human precursors and progenitors.

So let's hope there are many manipulable loopholes in a yet-unknown deeper physics that we can use for FTL travel (one way or another), and that (in a way) Einstein is wrong.

 

Re:Dark matter?

[Gogogoch]

I apologise - we all get the wrong end of the stick from time to time.

Re:Dark matter?

[Gilmoure]

Yup, meat bags kinda suck off Earth. But if there was a way to copy our consciousness to some kind of hardware exploration vehicle, oh man, I'd love to lend a copy.

Another variation I thought of would be a generation ship that would only need to support a maintenance crew. Wouldn't have to have a large population as you could raise new crew members from test tube. I guess there would need to be some minimum number of folks to make a working society, though. Once they got to a candidate system, would have to then start expanding the population, so that in a few generations (how many kids can one person raise and not go crazy?), colonists could start hitting dirt. Or living in an asteroid belt.

Re:Dark matter?

[Chris Burke]

I'm confused by this. Are you saying we already know everything about physics? Please elaborate.

No, he's probably just saying that any revisions/replacements to Einsten's theory are much more likely to be minor corrections rather than complete reversals. I'll refer to The Relativity of Wrong, and say that revisions to Relativity are most likely going to be like going from the theory that the earth is an Oblate Spheroid to it's actual, more complicated but still extremely Oblate Spheroidal geometry, not finding out that the earth is actually a cube or a torus. The Oblate Spheroid theory was wrong, but it wasn't horribly, horribly wrong. It was extremely close to precisely correct.

It's possible that Einsten's theory is wrong in such a way that FTL travel is possible. However it is highly doubtful that it's wrong in such a way that FTL travel is easy, or even possible via conventional means. For example the Relativistic Kinetic Energy equation is extremely well verified, any post-Relativity theory is likely to only add a couple significant digits to the end of it, so achieving FTL with a rocketship is still going to be out of the question.

Einstein is almost certainly wrong, but it's very very doubtful that he's "horribly, horribly" wrong.

But I'm still hoping for FTL travel. :)

Re:Dark matter?

[Tekfactory]

I am in high hopes that we'll have quantuim entangled bits acting as telegraphs between the colonies by the time that becomes a problem.

Maybe we should send some to Mars on the next launch and see if the bits flip when Time Delay says they should have or not.

Re:Dark matter?

[chris mazuc]

No, he's probably just saying that any revisions/replacements to Einsten's theory are much more likely to be minor corrections rather than complete reversals. I'll refer to The Relativity of Wrong, and say that revisions to Relativity are most likely going to be like going from the theory that the earth is an Oblate Spheroid to it's actual, more complicated but still extremely Oblate Spheroidal geometry, not finding out that the earth is actually a cube or a torus. The Oblate Spheroid theory was wrong, but it wasn't horribly, horribly wrong. It was extremely close to precisely correct.

My point is that I hope that the speed of light isn't the ultimate speed limit of the universe, not that everything about relativity is wrong. Please correct me if I am mistaken, but it is my understanding the biggest issue known (until the late 19th century) with classical mechanics was the precession of Mercury. It took a very long time for our understanding of related fields to become expansive enough to see the holes in classical mechanics. I never suggested we should be using rockets anyway, just that I am hopeful some undiscovered physics will enable us to build FTL capable vessels. I completely agree that rockets are useless for exploring the universe.

It's possible that Einsten's theory is wrong in such a way that FTL travel is possible. However it is highly doubtful that it's wrong in such a way that FTL travel is easy, or even possible via conventional means. For example the Relativistic Kinetic Energy equation is extremely well verified, any post-Relativity theory is likely to only add a couple significant digits to the end of it, so achieving FTL with a rocketship is still going to be out of the question.

Einstein is almost certainly wrong, but it's very very doubtful that he's "horribly, horribly" wrong.

Hence my lament. Perhaps that was a poor choice of words, but my point stands.

Re:Dark matter?

[amorsen]

You'll probably be quite disappointed by quantum entanglement then. There are no signs that it can be used for FTL communication. You might as well have high hopes for really fast twinned pigeons.

Re:Dark matter?

[khallow]

I'm confused by this. Are you saying we already know everything about physics? Please elaborate.

No, we don't know everything. But his theory has been validated to a considerable degree. My view is that FTL is almost surely not possible. There are several experiments that have measured the speed of propagation of various events (particle accelerators, astronomy observations, and quantum information experiments). So far, we have not found a way for information to travel faster than the speed of light. I think it's pretty good coverage of the possibilities too.

FTL is not the only way to skin the cat however. Wormholes are another way. If you can build a vastly shorter path between A and B, then you're golden even with speed of light as the restriction.

I'm not saying it is pointless to leave, and I sincerely hope we make it out of our solar system without killing ourselves first. It just saddens me that all those colonies of humanity (or whatever we are at that point) will never be able to communicate with each other on a reasonable time scale. Who cares if there is life out there besides our own if we can never see it, or if we do see it, we wouldn't have anyone like us to tell about it by the time we got back.

You'll just have to live longer. Then the time scales will become more reasonable.

Re:Dark matter?

[Chris Burke]

My point is that I hope that the speed of light isn't the ultimate speed limit of the universe, not that everything about relativity is wrong.

Well, the thing is that unless just about everything in relativity is wrong, then c most likely is literally the ultimate speed limit. Just about everything in the theory both depends on and implies this -- see the relativistic energy equation, which says that anything with mass traveling at the speed of light has infinite energy. So, that seems like a pretty sure thing to me.

Now I do mean literal speed limit, as in magnitude of velocity. All the old sci-fi concepts of FTL travel like Warp Drives and wormholes aren't explicitly excluded by relativity, and in fact relativity inspired many of them. Basically some method to get "effective" FTL without actually ever having speed greater than c. But there is a pretty strong argument based just on Special Relativity and time dilation that regardless of the method, FTL travel or communication would let you "go backward in time" and violate causality.

Which doesn't mean it's necessarily impossible... Newton's big assumption was that time was the same for all reference frames, which was pretty logical and mostly true in our daily lives. Einstein (okay Newton too) assumed we live in a causal universe. But maybe the universe only appears causal under "ordinary" circumstances. I sure not willing to speculate on what that might mean; a universe where time flows differently for different people is weird enough. One where effects don't necessarily follow causes? *makes gibbering noise, is dragged off by men in white coats*

But hey, that could be the universe we live in.

Re:Dark matter?

[chris mazuc]

It has been a while since I studied physics (as is plainly apparent at this point), and I thank you for your informative response. It just crushes me to think that if we ever got our shit together and got off this rock, it wouldn't matter anyway because humanity (or whatever) will still live a fragmented existence of "nations". Except then it would be fundamental properties of the universe holding us apart, instead of our own greed and stupidity.

Re:Dark matter?

[Chris Burke]

Yeah, one of the most fascinating yet at the same time depressing concepts in relativistic physics is the "light cone", whose volume represents all possible positions in space-time that you could occupy. Ever. If it is outside your light cone, it is outside your feasible future. You can't even communicate with someone outside your light cone.

Believe me, there's a big part of me that hopes Einstein is wrong, too.

Though I'm not sure I'm ready for him being wrong about the whole causality thing... ;)

Bought My Kids A Telescope For Christmas

[quangdog]

I'm not much of an astronomy geek, but I bought a telescope for my kids for Christmas - and can't wait to haul it out into the backyard and see the wonder in their eyes when they first get to see what is really out there. I also think it's great that we have such easy and ready access to the images produced by Herschel.

Anyone have any recommendations for what I ought to show my 6, 4, and 3 year old in the night sky? We're in the pacific northwest of the US.

Re:Bought My Kids A Telescope For Christmas

[xmundt]

Greetings and Salutations....
Well, it depends on how big a telescope you have. Aperture is everything, alas.
However, even the cheapest scope will show good images of the moon and some level of detail of the planets.

Also, you should be able to see how double stars that appear to be a single point of light when we look at them with the naked eye actually consist of several stars in close proximity.

bigger scopes can show the nebulae and other, dimmer items.

Go check out http://www.skyandtelescope.com/ for many observing suggestions, etc.

Re:Bought My Kids A Telescope For Christmas

[Anonymous Coward]

It depends on how dark is your sky. If your sky is awfully polluted by light, then you're limited to planets, separating binary stars and the moon. Of course it's also not a problem to observe the sun but you'll need a special aperture filter (and don't forget to remove the seeker or to filter it to) for that. Anyway, I wouldn't let child that young observe the sun: I'd be afraid they'd remove the filter.

If your sky is dark, then you can try to observe fainter objects such as galaxies.

Re:Bought My Kids A Telescope For Christmas

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone have any recommendations for what I ought to show my 6, 4, and 3 year old in the night sky?

Jupiter is visible in the early evening in the southern sky, and is pretty easy to find. Turn the telescope in that direction. The four moons of Jupiter are pretty easy to see, even in the most humble telescope. Jupiter should also appear as a disc.

Re:Bought My Kids A Telescope For Christmas

[east coast]

Depending on what the scope is you might just be best off with the normal jazz; the moon, planets, galaxies in the local group.

6, 4 and 3 are kind of young but if you're interested in this as well you might want to consider joining your local amateur astronomy association. You'd get a lot more input as to what's good to find for the backyard astronomer, some access to better scopes and you'd probably learn a great deal about astronomy with it. Space.com's NightSky is also a good resource for things that people can see without hardcore equipment and it's kept up to date. I also recommend people with a basic interest in astronomy to subscribe to the AstronomyCast podcast. It's highly informative and a step above any of the crap you find on Discovery or The Science Channel.

The nice thing about astronomy is that there are a ton of resources for all levels of interest, resources and abilities. It's probably the cheapest science you can learn on your own because of the vast number of resources available. Not to mention that it touches on so many other areas of science. It's really a great intersection of scientific disciplines that just about everyone can appreciate. There aren't many other fields of science you can say that for.

Re:Bought My Kids A Telescope For Christmas

[coastwalker]

For a small telescope - say 1.5 to 2 inches and 10 to 100x magnification. The double cluster in Perseus - its below Cassiopeia the W thing and looks like two balls of stars, very pretty at low magnification. The Orion nebula - often called the Sword of Orion, its below the three stars of his belt and is a ghostly greenish mist that you need to zoom a bit more in to see. Dont forget to look at the moon, especially when you can see less than the full moon because the mountains and craters along the line of the shadow look really three dimensional, you can crank the magnification up as far as you like on these, bearing in mind that you have to follow the thing across the sky. Take a look at the website of magazines like Sky and Telescope or Astronomy for more info on what to look at and what it is you are seeing. The Orion Nebula for example is the nearest stellar nursery where new stars are being born. If you want to see pictures of the quality that Herschel produces then download the APOD or Astronomy Picture Of the Day application for a new one each day on your desk top - or go staight to the APOD website which google will find for you.

Re:Bought My Kids A Telescope For Christmas

[Anonymous Coward]

Constellation Goatse is pretty big.

Re:Bought My Kids A Telescope For Christmas

[qinjuehang]

Depends on your skies, more location, how late you are willing to stay until, and of course your scope. For starters, try Pleiads and Orion nebula. If my guess of your position is close enough, you should be able to see both just after the sun sets completely, together with Jupiter. Mars and Saturn should come up much later. If you are feeling adventurous, try Double Cluster, M44 (Beehive), and Andromeda. Those objects I mentioned are typically visible in Binoculars, so should pose no problem for a telescope. The last 3, however, may or may not be naked-eye visible (again, depending on various factors, such like light pollution), and even if they are, might require experienced observers to pick out, so might be hard to find.

Re:Bought My Kids A Telescope For Christmas

[qinjuehang]

It's new moon right now!

Re:Bought My Kids A Telescope For Christmas

[qinjuehang]

Aperture is everything, alas.

Tsk tsk... You saying a 6" Schmidt would beat a 3.5" Apo? It really depends on what you are looking at.

Re:Bought My Kids A Telescope For Christmas

[Flying Scotsman]

The four moons of Jupiter are pretty easy to see

And by "four moons of Jupiter," read "four most visible (Galilean) moons of Jupiter."

Re:Bought My Kids A Telescope For Christmas

[BadAnalogyGuy]

Anyone have any recommendations for what I ought to show my 6, 4, and 3 year old

Yes. Show them this post in about 15 years. Think back about how much wonderment you expected them to have when you unwrapped that expensive laundry rack and took them outside in the bitter cold to fight with each other over control of the eyepiece only to have it break off in the 3 year old's greasy hands. Then regale them with the story of how you tried to fix it right there in the snow while they shivered and whined and tried to go back inside the house but you wouldn't let them because, dammit, there is so much cool stuff to see and just wait a damned minute while you put that goddamn eyepiece back on the.. Oh fuck, now you've cut yourself on the plastic shards of the broken socket. And everyone can laugh as you all remember together the Christmas daddy spent in the hospital getting stitches and treatment for frostbite.

Re:Bought My Kids A Telescope For Christmas

[meringuoid]

For starters, try Pleiads and Orion nebula. If my guess of your position is close enough, you should be able to see both just after the sun sets completely, together with Jupiter. Mars and Saturn should come up much later.

Oh, and here's a tip:

Saturn is worth staying up for.

Re:Bought My Kids A Telescope For Christmas

[smooth wombat]

Without the use of a telescope you could show your kids the surface of the sun by creating your own pinhole box.

Get as large a rectangular box as you can manage which has its ends as large as possible. Affix a large piece of white paper on the inside of one end, close the box then tape all the seams so light can't enter. Take a pin and punch a hole in the end opposite of the one you put the paper on.

Finally, cut a hole in the side of the box near the end where the paper is. When you look into this hole, you should be looking at an angle down towards the white sheet of paper. Start with a smaller hole and keep making larger until you have the size you need.

Finally, point the end with the pinhole towards the sun then look in the hole in the side of the box. When you align the box correctly, you should see an image of the sun projected onto the white sheet of paper which is perfectly safe for your kids to look at. If you're really lucky, you might see a sunspot or two.

Keep this box so when there is a solar eclipse viewable in your area, your kids can have a great view without having to stare at the sun with funky glasses on.

Re:Bought My Kids A Telescope For Christmas

[BadAnalogyGuy]

Without the use of a telescope you could show your kids the surface of the sun by creating your own pinhole box.

Yeah, but with a telescope, they could get an even better view of it.

Re:Bought My Kids A Telescope For Christmas

[JLDohm]

I absolutely have to second the Pleiades. They look absolutely spectacular at low magnification. Most any open star cluster will be pretty impressive. The same goes for planets and the moon.

Unfortunately, to kids desensitized by pictures from Hubble, galaxies and nebulae seen through a telescope are pretty disappointing. In my mind, the best part about finding some of the dimmer objects is actually finding them. Learning your way around the sky is truly a challenge. I think that kids that young would have a hard time appreciating the significance of viewing another galaxy, so you should stick to things that are visually stimulating.

Re:Bought My Kids A Telescope For Christmas

[Chris Burke]

Tsk tsk... You saying a 6" Schmidt would beat a 3.5" Apo? It really depends on what you are looking at.

Well sure, you can't directly compare aperture sizes between reflectors (like a Schmidt) and a refractor (like APO) and assume the bigger one is better. But within those broad classes of scope, "aperture is everything" is a pretty good first order rule of thumb (even if e.g. a Schmidt has disadvantages vs a similar sized Netwon)

But as far as seeing the dimmest objects, then yes I'd take the 6" Schmidt over a 3.5" APO any night, since it has 3 times the light collecting area.

But if you want to look at Jupiter or Saturn, those refractors can be bad-ass.

Re:Bought My Kids A Telescope For Christmas

[qinjuehang]

I'm particularly bad in his aspect...the first proper scope I ever used was...a 14" observatory Dall Kirkham. But desensitized? No. Seeing them through a real telescope is just...different. It is never like looking at pictures, no matter how good the pictures are. But I do have to agree, part of the fun of star gazing comes from the satisfaction of finding a difficult object...I can still remember finding Ring nebula through a 5" for the first time!

Re:Bought My Kids A Telescope For Christmas

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't Saturn's current angle such that its rings aren't visible?

Re:Bought My Kids A Telescope For Christmas

[JLDohm]

I agree that there is a quality about seeing them through a telescope that is not present in pictures, but I think it has more to do with the idea that light has been traveling for millions of years and is ending up in my eye. I tend to forget about that when I look at pictures.

In any case, the first time I saw a nebula through a telescope, with a fair amount of light pollution, I was ready to see something like the "pillars of creation" picture of the eagle nebula. All I actually saw was a patch of the sky that was a bit brighter than the background. I was about 8, and thankfully someone moved on quickly and showed me Jupiter and its moons. :)

Re:Bought My Kids A Telescope For Christmas

[coastwalker]

And for extra podcast enjoyment look out for "Slacker Astronomy" http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/ and The "Jodcast" http://www.jodcast.net/ with added astronomer humor. I find AstronomyCast http://www.astronomycast.com/ a little bit too greasy and slick myself, but all three podcasts are chock full of interesting information.

Re:Bought My Kids A Telescope For Christmas

[Gilmoure]

The middle star of Orion's sword is the Orion nebula. It might resolve to a reddish smudge or might actually look nebulish.

The Pleides, in the shoulder of Taurus looks very pretty in a small scope as well.

Re:Bought My Kids A Telescope For Christmas

[east coast]

How do you mean "greasy and slick"?

Re:Bought My Kids A Telescope For Christmas

[coastwalker]

Please do not suggest looking at the Sun through a telescope even as a joke, it will blind you. You can buy special filters to put over the end of a telescope at the opposite end to the one you look through, which can make a telescope safe to use. But you had better know what you are doing because even a pin hole in the filter will let in so much light that you will blind yourself. If you have ever seen someone set fire to something with a magnifying glass then you should be pretty wary of putting anything glass between your eyes and the sun. I have been using a telescope to look at the night skies for years and have not yet got around to looking at the sun with anything more than a pinbox because of the danger, I'll keep my eyes safe thanks :-)

This is not a case of "ooh you had better wear a crash helmet in case you fall off your bike". You only occasionally fall off your bike. If you look at the sun through a telescope or binoculars it will blind you - first time, every time. This is why a pinhole box is so cool because you can see something that is literally dangerous to do any other way.

Re:Bought My Kids A Telescope For Christmas

[Anonymous Coward]

Depends on where the observer lives, obviously.

Re:Bought My Kids A Telescope For Christmas

[qinjuehang]

That was months ago. Also, it takes a decent scope to see detail on saturn, such as a C5. A department store scope would never be able to.

Re:Bought My Kids A Telescope For Christmas

[qinjuehang]

I've also been looking through a 14" at the Sun for year. It isn't dangerous, you just need a solar filter, and make sure its in good condition.

literally dangerous to do any other way.

Quite false...

Re:Bought My Kids A Telescope For Christmas

[z4ns4stu]

I still remember going to Yosemite as a kid and my uncle dragging out his telescope. We set it up in what is probably one of the darkest spots in the US and he showed my cousin and me the moon, the rings of Saturn, and the moons of Jupiter. We also looked at Venus and could see its phases, and at Mars and could see great detail.

Re:Bought My Kids A Telescope For Christmas

[ArcherB]

Who knew? Bad Analogy guy has kids!

Re:Bought My Kids A Telescope For Christmas

[Anonymous Coward]

Umm... no?

Everyone on earth is looking at pretty much the same part of the moon, so it's in the same phase everywhere on earth at a given time.

Re:Bought My Kids A Telescope For Christmas

[coastwalker]

AstronomyCast doesnt quite hit it with me. Its hosted by two people who do the question and answer routine on a topic each week and I'd rather just hear one of them talk about the subject instead of one of them pretending to know nothing about the subject and asking questions. Its all a matter of taste but I find it a bit too packaged and distracting. Like it was trying to be a conversation but came out awkwardly like a script. The information is always top notch and interesting stuff but the style of the show is not my cup of tea. The Jodcast recently asked its listeners whether they wanted the "objects in the sky for the upcoming month" to be read as a question and answer thing and they voted for one person to talk about it. As I say its a matter of taste so I pointed out a couple of other shows, in case the one I wasn't so keen on, put people off podcasts - theres a big sky out there and there's lots of different podcasts too.

I could mention a few more in addition to
AstronomyCast http://www.astronomycast.com/ top quality show with different subjects explored in depth with a teaching mission that will leave you much better informed than anything on tv ever will. The pedogogic style doesnt suit me but thats just my taste.

"Slacker Astronomy" http://www.slackerastronomy.org/wordpress/ Practising astronomers interviewed and in-depth subjects discussed by enthusiastic experts, they crack abysmal jokes about technical things which might seem a little silly (or incomprehensible) but the unscripted enthusiasm appeals to me.

The "Jodcast" http://www.jodcast.net/ Science staff from Manchester Universities Joderal Bank radio telescope bring us astronomy news, a themed mini drama, the night sky this month, topical discussion and an oft repeated desire for their theme tune to be redone in a heavy metal version. Well connected on Facebook et al, join in the fun.

there are

NASA Blueshift http://astrophysics.gsfc.nasa.gov/outreach/podcast/wordpress/ A bit slick the last time I listened, with soundbite interviews instead of a bit more detail from a single person. Most NASA stuff is a bit "wow look at that" without too much depth so I only come back to it infrequently. However it is probably perfect for the younger listener and they will probably be hooked by its friendliness.

"Astronomy a Go Go" http://astronomy.libsyn.com/ is the best observing podcast on the net bar none with Alice Few. It may prove a little intimidating to newcomers but the website is also the best general resource for amateur astronomers who want to do observing IMHO. Alice is so thorough and easy on the ear that you could easily play this one three or four times to get yourself fully up to speed on what might be worth doing in the coming month with your observing time. Solid gold this one.

Planetary Radio http://www.planetary.org/radio/ from the Planetary Society is great if you are into rockets and the exploration of the solar system as opposed to deep space. Always an interesting listen with news features, an opinion spot from the self styled "Bill Nye the planetary guy" and loads of enthusiasm for exploring.

365 days of astronomy http://365daysofastronomy.org/ has a few days left to run with a choice of 365 short programs from this The year of Astronomy - The ones from this year best heard now by browsing through the programs to find ones on subjects you are interested in, but the good news is that they are set to carry on with their volunteer generated 5 to 10 minute programs in 2010. Head on over and make a program for them yourself!

The Silicon Valley Astronomy Lectures http://www.astroso

Re:Bought My Kids A Telescope For Christmas

[ogre7299]

That was months ago.

Also, it takes a decent scope to see detail on saturn, such as a C5. A department store scope would never be able to.

While you might not see color bands, even a cheap telescope will let you see the rings. Heck, Galileo could sort of see the rings and he had optics much worse than a department store telescope!

Re:Bought My Kids A Telescope For Christmas

[coastwalker]

Oh I agree that it is perfectly safe if you are aware of the dangers and the precautions that you should take. But this is a public forum where the caution is appropriate before the knowledgeble chip in with their experience and knowledge. So I agree with you, but did you mention that you have a personal checklist or mehod whereby you ensure your safety? Like do you remove the optical finder and replace it with a safe sunfinder before you slap on the filter, or that you pick up the filter and check it for pinholes every time before you attach it to the business end of your seriously good scope. Would I be wrong in assuming that you had a more than casual interest in observing with what could be an expensive instrument, most likely not your first. So I'm sorry if I came across with the grumpy sounding warning but I am sure that you would agree that a random post has to have a full exploration to make sure that its not taken at face value. Clear skies!

Re:Bought My Kids A Telescope For Christmas

[east coast]

Ok, I hear you on that. The "Fraser" contributions are annoying to me as well but I think that we're might likely be a bit above the target audience. I think it's a great transition from the TV science programs and I would have to say that, from that aspect, the question/answer format makes a bit more sense. Maybe we can petition them to kick Fraser from the show.

Thanks for the other links.

Re:Bought My Kids A Telescope For Christmas

[xmundt]

Greetings and salutations...
          I do not care to get into the holy war between the refractor and reflector camps (*smile*). I would certainly agree that a refractor with top quality glass can provide breathtaking performance. On the down side, they tend to get really expensive really quickly, which tends to make them bad for amateurs just getting their first scope. One can get a good Dobsonian light bucket for not too much money at all, and, have enough light coming in to support some fairly high powers and still get good views. On the down side, you do lose some of that snappy contrast, and, perhaps, some ease of use, thanks to the increased size and alt-azimuth mount.

          Which gets us back to the fact that it would be quite helpful to have a few more details about this telescope...is it one of those $60 walmart refractors, or is it a $1800.00 SkyQuest XX14i, or somewhere in between?
 

Re:Bought My Kids A Telescope For Christmas

[AP31R0N]

Bah! Nothing that a little Lasig surgery couldn't fix!

Eagles are cool and all

[Anonymous Coward]

But I prefer the falcon punch.

"Scientific rights"? WTF?

[John Hasler]

From the article:

The scientific rights of these Herschel observations are owned by the consortium of the Gould Belt Key Programme

I knew about "moral rights", but "scientific rights"? "Owned"? Is this meant to imply that I can be sued in Europe for studying these observations without the permission of the "Progamme"?

Re:"Scientific rights"? WTF?

[davecl]

The actual numbers that go to make up these images are needed to do any science with them - only a fool would try to do science with a JPEG image, but this does happen. The 'scientific rights' refer to the use of the raw numbers for these images in scientific papers. These rights apply for about 1 year after the observations are taken so that the team that has spent years building the instrument and sorting out its science can benefit. This data then becomes completely public.

Note to self.

[Anonymous Coward]

Herschel doesn't sound like Hershey.

Herschel *Telescope*

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, how hard would it have been to say Herschel *Telescope* instead of just "Herschel"?

Not the Eagle nebula

[Anonymous Coward]

The image is not the famous Eagle nebula, but another area inside the constellation Aquila that is utterly boring in visible images. Compare dec. of M16:-13 50, dec. of Herschel image: -02 11.

The real story...

[Cookie3]

The real story is the massive STFC spending cuts that impact their group. Those spending cuts were announced the same day, and are being blogged about by the same folks:

http://herschelmission.wordpress.com/2009/12/16/so-here-it-is-physics-doomsday/
http://herschelmission.wordpress.com/2009/12/16/blood-on-the-floor-for-uk-physicists/

20% cuts here, 15% cuts there, and soon enough you won't have enough money to fund anything at all.

Conventional images

[DJRumpy]

I wish the web site would show conventional images and contrast that with what Hershel see's. Being a laymen, it's hard to gauge exactly how exciting this type of news is when you don't have a basis to compare with.

Re:Conventional images

[xednieht]

Very true, mod parent up +10 hopefully someone from OSHI is reading this.

Oh yeah and take your scientific rights and shove em where the sun don't shine. God created the universe and owns the rights. Your infringing on divine Intellectual Property.

Re:Conventional images

[momerath2003]

OSHI---

It's not the Eagle Nebula

[Trapezium Artist]

The new Herschel image shows part of the constellation of Aquila, meaning the Eagle. However, this is not the Eagle Nebula or M16: that is in the constellation of Serpens which is, coincidentally, nearby. To make matters more confusing, perhaps, the two blue parts of the image are star-forming regions, similar in principle to the Eagle Nebula. I believe that the left-hand one is Westerhout 40 and the right-hand one is Sharpless 62.

Re:It's not the Eagle Nebula

[Anonymous Coward]

very good. thanks. :)-

Bathmate

Re:It's not the Eagle Nebula

[coastwalker]

Thats the great thing about science, its not just the soundbite, its an onion with layer upon layer of history and undersanding that changes only slowly over a lifetime. So we see the sky with our eyes, we learn that radio waves are like light and we look at the sky with different wavelengths or frequencies of light and it looks different at different wavelengths, we see things near the Eagle nebula that we see with light at much longer infrared wavelengths through the Herschel telescope that we could never see with our own eyes because the dust hides the visible light. Its like a playstation, press the button and you play games, but tool up with the right software and you have the guts exposed through a command prompt. Beneath the simple view that the casual observer sees are layers of complication that are there for you to play with once you have understood what lies beneath the visible exterior. Herschel is no different to hacking your favourite appliance, inside a computing device and nearbye what we can see with our eyes are hidden depths which we can explore that are just as real as what we see at first glance but have the fascination of the hidden. Unlike science there are no hackers guides to politics philosophy and religion, if you could come up with one that lasted more than a momment it would be pretty handy, meanwhile hacking through science is deeply satifsying by comparison because it makes you feel like you are understanding the world. Try asking an Economist if they feel that they have a useful understanding of their field at the moment! Herschel is great because it encourages us to think that we might develop enough understanding to do stuff, something that is sadly lacking in some other learned disciplines. I say thats why even if we never go to the stars its worth learning about them - the process gives us hope that we can make things better closer to home. We have four years to learn how the solar system formed by looking at proto planetary systems in the Eagle nebula or the Orion nebula before the liquid helium runs out. Hurrah! for all the wonderful things we will discover.