• Max=Plack-Institut fur Radioastronomie Press Release
• Pre-print of Astronomy and Astrophysics journal article
• Wikipedia on Isaac Asimov’s The Last Question

This is a neat image comparing the size of the moon to the size of Andromeda. This image was taken by Nigel Sharp, a group of REU students while using equipment and time supplied by NOAO/AURA/NSF.

We kid you not, this is the boiler in Pamela’s new house. Please have mercy on her soul.

• IAU press release
• A talk about the issue will be streamed here on August 22, 12:45-13:45 CEST.
• Sky & Telescope article

The conclusion to this show will have the nitty gritty details. In short, there are 12 planets, which are divided into sub categories: classical and pluton. Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune are the classical planets. Pluto, Charon and UB313 are the Plutons. Ceres is the 12th planet.
I’m especially happy about seeing Charon get her props!

UB313 will get a name at a later date. This proposal has to be voted on by the entire IAU General Assembly on Aug 24. If approved, then the process of assigning a name to UB313 wil begin.

Personally, I like this proposal a lot and hope it passes. The buzz has been positive, although the discoverer of UB313 doesnt like it.

Castdate: 060802

Written By: Aaron

Disembodied Voices: Pamela, Travis, Rebecca

Engineered: Travis

Rating: [FF] Family Friendly

• Transcript
• Absract and paper via ArXiv
• AAVSO observing charts for EF Eri
• Wikipedia entry
• SA Extra interview with Steve Howell
• The Love Boat

R.I.P.

Show Notes:

• Link to preprint of Astrophysical Journal Article
• ESA Press Release
• Funny Bad Astronomer Blog entry on this article

• NASAWatch
• SpaceRef.com
• Mars On Earth – the Haughton Mars Project
• Keith’s Bio

from Doug: “Regarding the M81 question, it would be worth mentioning that none of
foreground stars that adorn all in-Milky Way based images of external
galaxies would be visible to the observer sitting in intergalactic space!”

The blazar: 2 oz vodka, 4 oz OJ, 1 oz grenadine…

• Transcript
• NASA’s announcement that Cassini reached 2 years
• CICLOPS July 5 announcements about the Double-Banded E and a Persistent Arc
• NASA press release on Enceladus Rolling Over

And now for some pictures…
Saturn’s double banded E-Ring (credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute)

Persistent Arc at the edge of Saturn’s G-ring. (credit: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute)

And in finally ….

Dancing Moons

• Transcript
• ESA Press Release
• XMM Newton Home
• Istituto di Astrofisica Spaziale e Fisica Cosmica (IASF) of the Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica
• Earlier XMM Newton X-Ray Image of RCW 103 April, 2003
• Bad Astronomy Discussion Thread
• The Azzurri

Show notes:

• Transcript
• Spitzer Space Telescope Press release

From the Spitzer website: “The dust factory, also known as supernova SN 2003gd, is shown at the center of the two small insets from Spitzer’s Infrared Array Camera (IRAC). A white arrow points to its exact location. The yellow-green dot shown in the July 2004 inset (top) shows that the source’s temperature is warmer than the surrounding material. This is because newly formed dust within the supernova is just starting to cool. By January 2005, the dust had cooled and completely faded from IRAC’s view. However, it was still detected in January 2005 by another instrument aboard Spitzer called the Multiband Imaging Photometer (MIPS). The MIPS image is not shown here.

The images are false-color, infrared composites, in which 3.6-micron light is blue, 4.5-micron light is green, and 8-micron light is red.”

• Transcript
• Squirt by Fluke
• Penn State Press Release
• SDSS press release
• The science paper
• Scientific American – good summary

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa007&articleID=00054F9D-371E-146A-B71E83414B7F0000

• How to build a real Tardis

To the right is the SA seal by Sheala Bacon. Thanks, Sheala!

• Here is a link to a digital video feed of Mario’s flight (3MB WMV format)
• Badastronomy.com
• Skepticality podcast
• The Vomit Comet via Wikipedia
• Mobile Broadcast Network – listen to Slacker Astronomy on your cell phone

A rough order of things we covered:

-Listener Survey/Seal of Approval
-Exoplanet Discovery
-Mobil Broadcast Network
-WGBH
-Mario Garcia
-Derek
-Story Follow-ups
-Phil
-Listener Mail, Etc…

Skepticality…

And Phil…

• Transcript
• Univ. Rochester Press Release
• PhyOrg article – This has some really cool animations and explainations of how it works.

  Really cool graphics based on Data:

  Backward light pulse propagation
  
  

In April, 2005 we visited WGBH’s studios in Boston and recorded a joint show with Tony Kahn of the Morning Stories podcast. The idea was that we’d just chat for a bit and each of us would record and edit the material as we see fit, but put it online at the same time. Things got a bit busy…. okay VERY busy… but finally the long lost material sees the light of day.

On May 19th, WGBH’s podcast Morning Stories (the first public radio podcast) released an episode about various science topics and they included a snippet of the chat in the show. So now we are putting online our version – which is a complete recording of the 1 hour and 5 minute chit chat. Check it out! But remember that we were still only about 2 months old at the time – so a bit raw and unpolished.

Don’t forget to susbcribe to Tony’s Morning Stories podcast either. When Aaron first got the idea for Slacker Astronomy, he downloaded ipodder and the first podcast he subscribed to was Morning Stories so it has a special place his my heart. You never forget your first!

• Direct link to the Morning Stories show MP3 (after the segment about the 17 year cecada)
• Morning Stories Main Page

Aaron, Pamela, Travis, Tony Kahn, & Gary Mott in the studio.

Travis and Pamela being bathed in an eerie blue light. They are now sterile and we plan to sue.

• Transcript
• First views of monstrous stars being born Spaceflightnow.com
• Article via physorg.org
• ISOPHOT home page
• First data from the ISOPHOT FIR Serendipity Survey – their first paper

ISO’s slew map:

• Personal Web Page Check out his wonderful photos!
• European Space Agency
• Spacetelescope.org
• FITS Liberator – use Photoshop to analyse HST images
• International Virtual Observatory Alliance
• Tycho Brahe Planetarium

Lars is the Head of Communications for the Hubble Space Telescope and the James E. Webb Space Telescope. He is responsible for many of the press releases and imagery which we’ve covered in this show. Before that he was head of a planetarium in Copenhagen for ten years. This is the last of our interviews from the 207th meeting of the American Astronomical Society.

• Transcript
• Article via PhysicsWeb.org
• The paper by Stanek et al.
• Stars rich in heavy metals tend to harbor planets – Berkeley news release
• Nature.com discussion of Population I, II and III stars (and their metallicity)
• Mass Extinction Events Wikipedia
• Original discovery image of the Yucatan crater

Sorry for the week off. All three slackers were busy at a meeting last week.

• Transcript
• Article ABC News Online
• Article via PhysOrg.com
• The Lunar Atmosphere
• Albuquerque Isotopes

The first footprint on the Moon. Imagine the dirt Neil dragged in.

Thanks for joining us, Doug!

• Doug’s Home Page
• Doug’s Blahzko Animation
• AH Leo AAVSO Variable Star of the Season
• Supernovae & the Zwickyman The earlier SA show about the Supernova Light Echo
• Super Earths that really aren’t! (read with skepticism)
• McMaster University
• Sky Quality Meter by Unihedron
• Astronomy A Go Go!
• Supermassive Black Holes
• Gemini Observatory

Doug and his posse’:

• Transcript
• Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie Press Release
• Universe Today’s coverage of Sterile Neutrinos
• New Scientist story on Sterile Neutrinos
• Wikipedia’s Entry on Neutrinos

And Now for Something Completely Different . . .

NASA and ESA have recently gotten two, count them, TWO different space probes safely into orbit around two (count them again – TWO) different planets. When the science is out, we will report. For now, enjoy some pretty pictures.

From Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

From Venus Express

One odd side note for those of you who have clicked through this far. Read the lable on the cookie below. I found it in my Girl Scout provided lunch. This was just too funny not to photograph and share with you wonderful souls. (click it to see a larger version)

It is really difficult to describe the importance of ADS to astronomy. It not only saves time, but opens it up to so many who otherwise didn’t have access to astronomical research. This includes – but is not limited to – those in small or rural colleges, underdeveloped countries and amateur astronomers. As a result, astronomy is rapidly becoming more internationalized than many other sciences.

Guenther is somewhat of a quiet person, so this interview is short. It is also heavy in detail as I wanted to know all about the story behind ADS and the team that runs it. So this interview may not be as interesting to non-astronomers. If so, rest assured we have more interviews in the can and a chit chat show coming soon..

• Transcript
• Press Release via Universe Today
• Space.com
• Slush Puppies!
• Mikey Likes It

The image used in above and below comes froma PowerPoint presentation given by Jill Marshall and depicts women trying to make it through the academic pipeline and periodically deciding to fight their way free.

The low numbers of women in science is something that is getting studied by several people, and the links below will take you to studies based statistics and interviews instead (as seems to be preferred by at least one former Harvard president) guesswork and conjecture.

Castdate: 060328
Title: Lite Brite
Disembodied Voices: Everyone
Written By: Pamela w/Something Else segment by Aaron
Produced: Travis
Rating: [FF] Family Friendly

Show Notes:

• Transcript
• NCAR Press Release
• Maybe Water Didn’t Make Gullies on Mars

• Transcript
• WMAP press release and background info
• 
  WMAP results — cosmology makes sense! via Cosmic Variance Blog
• The 2003 press release
• About WMAP Space.com
• WMAP APOD
• The Twinkies Project – get to the source!

WMAP’s version of the content of the Universe. Looks like the dark side is winning.

Twinkie the kid says, I’m the source for cosmic inflation (of the wasteline)

• Transcripts
• Info on the Gamma-ray Burst Sky Map
• AAVSO GRB Notice
• Science News story
• Penn State Press Release
• NASA Press Release
• Supernova – Gamma-Ray Burst Connection and SN 1998 BW

GRB060218 is located at: 03:21:39.71, +16:52:02.01 (2000)

• Transcript
• press release via Cassini-Huygens
• Methane via Wikipedia
• Titan with a nice shot of its atmosphere
• Lakes Found on Titan – THIS IS NOT TRUE and is dated 2003 – but it makes for interesting reading and is an illustration of the scientific process in action. Scientists make bold statements and get into the journal Science, yet are later proven incorrect. The surface of Titan is dry as a bone.

True color photograph of Titan’s upper atmosphere.

When we were done, I got out to take some pictures. Other people did the same and soon we had about 10-15 strangers outside in a group taking pictures and goofing off. It was actually pretty cool…

• US Naval Observatory Flagstaff Station
• Lowell Observatory
• About the discovery of Pluto at Lowell Observatory
• Flagstaff, Arizona
• Meteor Crater

Some pics…

The USNO 1.6m

The USNO 1m R/C

Percival Lowell’s Crypt

Lowell Observatory’s 24-inch Clark Refractor – the scope that discovered the expansion of the Universe

The Chalet, where we stayed. It’s a converted roll-off observatory.

Aaron & Matt on I-17

The interstate…

• Transcript
• RS Oph – AAVSO Variable Star of the Season
• Latest pictures and spectra of this outburst
• RS Oph – Sokoloski’s RXTE X-Ray observations telegram
• A 1990’s survey and report on gender equity in astronomy
• Study showing increasing numbers of female astronomers – among 18-23 year-olds women are in the majority
• Buddhist Sand Mandala via Wikipedia

At right is RS Oph in outburst. Image by amateur astronomer John Chumack in New Mexico, USA.

Above is a light curve of the 1985 outburst. Vertical axis is brightness (5 is naked eye from dark locations, 7-10 requires binoculars and 10+ a telescope) and horizontal axis is time (approximately 2 years).

Title: Dirt Rotten Snow Balls
Written By: Pamela
Disembodied Voices: Pamela & Travis
Engineered: Travis
Castdate: 060216
Rating: FF

• Transcript
• Keck Press Release on Patroclus
• Marchis’s page on Patroclus
• UC Berkeley’s Press Release on new extrasolar Kuiper Belts
• STScI Release on new extrasolar Kuiper Belts
• STScI Release on Tiny Icy Extrasolar Planet
• Wikipedia Entry on Lagrange Points

Wikipedia Entry on Gravitational Lenses

Image taken from Wikipedia. Each of the Lagrange Points (L1-L5) represent places where the gravitational tug from the yellow sphere and blue sphere are balanced, allowing a third object to (at least temporarily) corotate with the system.

• Dr. Oey’s homepage
• A biography from the Hubble Heritage Project
• University of Michigan Department of Astronomy
• Annie Jump Cannon Award – Wikipedia

• Transcript
• Press release
• Paper via ArXiv
• Article from Yahoo/Space.com
• OBAFGKM Mneumatic Fun
• Stellar Classification
• Stars so lonely they were tossed out of our galaxy – HubbleSite

This show describes a pretty fundamental change in our knowledge of the galaxy. But is it real, or just a question of classification?

PR caption: This artist’s conception shows a rocky planet orbiting around a red dwarf star. Such planets may be more common than astronomers realized, since single red dwarfs are the most abundant stars in the galactic disk. Credit: ESO

Pamela talks about the physics teachers meeting, we answer some listener mail, then Phil Plait joins us for a bit of talk about the AAS meeting and NASA responsibilities for education and public outreach. Then we talk about good starter telescopes for under US$300. Aaron and Pamela duke it out over dobsonian mounts and mutually reach the same conclusion that our listeners reached years ago – we’re both clueless.

Enjoy.

• Steve’s home page at NOAO
• WIYN Observatory
• Online interview with Steve about cataclysmic variable stars
• Leap Second via Wikipedia
• Mount Union College
• University of Amsterdam – Institute of Astronomy

Steve’s office: (the WIYN observatory @ Kitt Peak)

• Transcript
• Press release spaceref.com
• Slashdot discussion
• The paper (preprint)
• Green Acres

From the press release:

“The map shows the view from far away above the galactic plane.

The dashed line shows the position of the plane containing debris from the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy that is being cannibalized by the Milky Way. While its proximity to the new structure suggests that perhaps the two may be related, the known Sagittarius debris is located about four times further away.”

Green Stars (with apologies to Green Acres):

Antartica is the place for me. I get sunburned in the sea. I just adore the aurorae view. Keep the tropics and send me to the frozen blue.
Puerto Rico is where I’d rather stay. Beach volleyball I like to play. Polka dot bikini’s so far and wide. Keep your penguins and send me a mai tai.
The snow men!
Sand castles!
Frosbite!
Mosquito Bites!
You are an astronomer…
I’ll go where the NSF sends me!
Grant committees, we are yours!

Show Notes

• Louisiana State University Press Release
• New York Times Article
• Wikipedia explanation of Cosmological Constant
• SA Extra interview with Dr. Schaefer

TalkDate: 060109
Title: Thieving Tendy Tech
Author: Pamela
Engineering: Aaron & Travis

Shownotes:

• Transcript with complete PowerPoint Presentation [LARGE FILE: 63.1Mb]
• Wordpress
• iPodder includes history of podcasting and the original aggragator software
• Pew Internet and American Life Project
• MIT Student Podcasts
• Podcast Alley Podcast Directory
• MIT Educational Studies Program
• MySQL Server
• Database Design 101
• MediaWiki
• The IRAF Wiki
• PHP BB bulliton board forum

Please note – Due to technical difficulties, we can’t present this talk in its entirety. As near as I can tell, after I set up my equipment on the podium, someone went up and went “Oh, strange electronics,” and picked up my iRiver and disconnected my mic in the process. Thankfully, Dave Tytell of Sky & Tel was kind enough to share his audio, which was recorded from the audience . I had to edit out some private audience comments, and I shortened extremely long bouts of applause/laughter. Enjoy.

The Players:
Person who does introductions: AAS President Robert Kirshner, Harvard University
Main Speaker: NASA Administrator Michael Griffin
Person asking questions on behalf of astronomical community: AAS President-Elect Craig Wheeler, University of Texas

Read Pamela’s review of it here

Castdate: 060109
Title: Echo and the Zwickymen
Written By: Aaron
Disembodied Voices: Pamela & Travis
Engineered: Travis
Rating: [OF] Office Friendly

• Transcript
• Press release from NOAO
• SuperMacho web page about the light echos – SuperMacho’s web page describing the light echos is excellent. Check it out!
• The SuperMacho Team
• The Macho Man

Light Echo Bands (Dec 8, 2005)

Burns’ attempt to block da Sun…

…you know some corporation, somewhere has at least discussed it!

Topics (in order):
Listener Mail/Questions
Pamela at AAPT
AAS Meeting Info
OPT Sponsorship
Survey Requests
iTunes Reviews
Seal of Approval
Katrina Auction

And the seals of approval sent to us by listeners:

I hope this seal bought that at OPT… (by Larry K.)

This seal looks like he’s been around the block a few times… (Stephen U.)

The seal on acid, now that’s slack! (Tom C.)

• Transcript (PDF)
• Press Release from Harvard
• The science paper HTMLized by Google
• Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) Satellite F13
• Monday Night Football

(01:02 – fixed mp3 link – thanks ozastro and danny)

• Greg’s personal site
• Transitsearch.org
• Systemic

Lagrange point diagram from Systemic:

T’was the day before Christmas, and all through the dome
Not a GUI was stirring, not even gnome.

But I heard him exclaim, ere he fled out of sight,
“Next Christmas I’ll observe Santa only at night!”

We’d like to wish all of you a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Joyful Solstice, Best Kwanza Wishes, and may the Pasta be with you.

Please share the love and laughter and pass this story on to others!

• Transcript
• ESA’s summary of Huygen’s Results
• U-Arizona’s press release about Huygen’s landing site
• Link to HUGE HUGE HUGE 300MB(!!!!!) .avi descent animation from the Huygens Probe (don’t say we didn’t warn you)
• U-Illinois Press Release titled “Rivers on Titan, one of Saturn’s moons, resemble those on earth”
• Astrobiology.com paper on the NASA GSFC press release titled “Titan’s Mysterious Methane Comes From Inside, Not The Surface”
• U-Michigan Press Release titled “Titan gives clues to Earth’s early history”
• Link to the paper titled “The Abundances of Constituents of Titan’s Atmosphere From the GCMS Instrument on the Huygens Probe”

River Channels on Titan.

• Transcript
• HST Press Release on Crab Nebulae
• Chandra Press Release on SN 1970g
• PPARC Press Release on Dark Energy

For those of you wanting to find the Crab Nebulae with your own telescope, the finder below (click on it to get a hi res finding chart) shows 1) The constellation Taurus (lower left) photographed by the avid astrophotographer Akira Fujii. 2) A two-colour image (right) shows the surroundings of the Crab Nebula. It was composed from Digitized Sky Survey 2 images, and 3) The new NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image (upper left) of the entire Crab Nebula in super high resolution.
Credit: Akira Fujii, Davide De Martin (http://www.skyfactory.org) and NASA, ESA & Allison Loll/Jeff Hester (Arizona State University) Quoted from the HST site

Also discuseed was Supernova 1970g, in M101. While SN 1970g is not optically visible in a backyard scope, M101 is.
Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/GFSC/S.Immler & K.Kuntz; Optical: NOAO/AURA/NSF/G.Jacoby, B.Bohannan & M.Hanna

(Sorry for the clicks from 01:06 – 01:30!!)

Castdate: 051207
Disembodied Voices: David Levy & Aaron
Rating: [FF] Family Friendly

• Jarnac.org – personal web site
• Let’s Talk Stars – his radio show
• Shoemaker-Levy 9 via Wikipedia
• Adirondack Astronomy Retreat
• David’s Amazon.com book list
• Deep Sky Objects: The Best And Brightest from Four Decades of Comet Chasing

• Transcript
• Press Release & Cornell web page
• Scientific paper abstract
• Cassini-Huygens web site at NASA/JPL
• VIMS How the isual and Infrared Mapping Spectrometer works on Cassini
• MC Hawking
• A bad 90’s movie

VIMS:

• Transcript
• Spitzer Podcasts
• Images & Press Release
• JPL Press Release
• M32 its neighbor galaxy
• Infrared Astronomy Tutorial from Spitzer
• Gene Roddenberry’s Andromeda

Real:

Fake:

• Transcript
• Sky & Telescope coverage
• NASA press release
• Eta Car Variable Star of the Month from AAVSO
• HST Treasury Program from The University of Minnesota
• Eta Car’s Cocoon 2003 ESO Press Eelease
• What is a Homonculus
• Pigs In Space
• Map of Slacker Astronomy Listeners – Add yourself!

It’s been 3 months since our last one so we kind of flew through it. Loads of listener e-mail, some promos, an audio quiz, some gossip and Simpsons clips. We hope to do another one sooner…

• Lolife Podcast
• Simpson’s Season 6 DVD from Amazon
• Comedy 4cast – podcast in 4 minutes or less

• Transcripts
• HETE-2 Press Release
• ESO Press Release
• NASA Press Release
• University of Hawaii Press Releasse
• GRBs and Nuclear Bombs
• Vela Satellites
• Real-time map of recently detected GRBs
• Related New Scientist Article
• Related Space.com Story

• Slides of the talk in PDF form. Follow along as you listen. (2MB)
• Amateur Telescope Makers of Boston
• Bad Astronomy
• Universe Today
• Wikipedia
• MSNBC Cosmic Blog
• Blogcritics.com
• Skepticality
• Spitzer podcast
• Astronomy Ireland radio show podcast
• ArXiv preprint server (astro-ph)
• ADS paper search server

• Transcript
• New Horizons Discussion Forum unmannedspaceflight.com
• New Horizons info Wikipedia
• New Horizons official site jpl

Thanks for being patient with us for taking last week off. We really needed it! More new scripts and SA-Extra bits are coming soon…

Note: This was originally posted as 2 parts, but a friend showed us how to get around the Garageband 30 minute limit so we reposted a single MP3 on 051007.

• Connecticut Star Party wrap up and pics from the organizers
• Visual Slides From Talk in PDF format
• AAVSO
• AAS Working Group on Pro-Am Collaboration

The first 15 minutes of the show are a walkaround of the observing field. It is followed by my talk which ran about 45 minutes. I’m distorted in the beginning but the sound gets better quickly. I recorded a summary and outtro but the dangummit 30 minute limit of GB prevented me from adding it.

Some pics Aaron took:

Da field:

Two nice scopes of different generations:

Confirming that the Sun is still there:

No star party is complete without its minstrels:

Kids learning scale and also how to make impact craters with cocoa:

An inflatable planetarium:

• Transcript
• Math Unites Celestial & Atomic press release
• Ground Control to Niels Bohr journal article – free registration required
• Gravitational Slingshot Wikipedia
• Evangelists Refute Gravity With Intelligent Falling Theory from the Onion

Just in case you didn’t know (or are currently stoned, drunk or tired from a Desperate Housewives marathon). A reminder:

• Transcript (pdf)
• Blue stars point to supermassive black hole hiding in Andromeda: Hubble Europe Press Release, Hubble U.S., McDonald Obs. Press Release
• Quasar sits naked near scene of accident: Hubble Europe Press Release, ESO Press Release
• MISSING STORY – Swfit catches most distanct Explosions ever: NASA Press Release, ESO Press Release

This ESO image shows two Hubble images of quasars from a sample of 20 relatively nearby quasars examined by a team of European astronomers two of the most powerful astronomical facilities available, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and the ESO Very Large Telescope (VLT) at Cerro Paranal.[quoted from press release]

• Transcript (pdf)
• What the Ground Telescopes Saw During Deep Impact from UniverseToday.com
• Deep Impact probe shows a fragile, empty comet Reuters
• NASA’s Deep Impact Team Releases First Snapshot Of Comet Tempel 1 Science Daily
• Deep Impact probe shows comets are fragile snowballs Pravda
• Deep Impact Web Page JPL
• Videos and Animations JPL
• Bart Discovers a Comet in The Simpsons

We begin our new ratings system with this show. It is explained at the end of the show (and in the script). In short:
FF means Family Friendly (no curse words or adult humor or innuendo).
OF means Office Friendly (maybe some curse words but not many and no adult humor).
JF means Just For Fun (anything goes).

Ratings will show up in the MP3 ID3 tags, the XML title and in our Show Notes. These are just guidelines to help, it is up to you to determine what shows are appropriate for you to play for other audiences.

Now on the Deep Impact, some great news and results from NASA…

Hubble Space Telescope image of Antennae Galaxy

Show: 25
Castdate: 050905
Title: The Propeller Population of the Universe
Written By: Aaron
Disembodied Voices: Travis & Pamela
Engineered: Travis

• Transcript coming soon
• AAVSO Press Release About AE Aqr
• AAVSO Web page About AE Aqr
• Observing Chart

Show #24
Castdate: 050831
Title: Vicious Little Specks
Written By: Aaron
Disembodied Voices: Pamela & Travis

• Transcript
• Summary of the recent microblazar papers ScienceWeek
• Are Ultra Luminous X-Ray Sources Microblazars? A paper
• Very Energetic Gamma Rays From Microblazars from journal Science
• The original (regular) blazar, BL Lac
• Star Blazers

Take our survey, please, please, please.

Links:

• Transcript
• Gemini Observatory Press Release
• ESO Press Release
• Wikipedia definition of Parallax
• Wikipedia definition of Angular Size

A simulation showing the formation and evolution of a ‘disk galaxy’ like our own Milky Way Galaxy. Credit: Jesper Sommer-Larsen, Martin Goetz and Laura Portinari (Theoretical Astrophysics Center, Copenhagen), and Martin Laursen (Copenhagen Observatory).

A tiny meteor 10 microns across. Looks harmless. But at 40 kilometers a second you better duck.

• Transcript
• Our SA Extra Persieds Sound Seeing Tour
• Meteorobs mailing list
• International Meteor Organization
• North American Meteor Network
• Perseids report from Sky & Telescope.
• American Meteor Society
• Gif Animation of Leonid Fireball
• Sound of a meteor shower via radio
• One of Aaron’s recordings – And another.

Leonid meteors seen from above from the International Space Station.

The show ends abruptly because our battery died and technical problems prevented the use of our music. A banana for anyone who can ID where the closing sound comes from.

Castdate: 050818
Disembodied Voices: Pamela, Aaron, Anton, whispers from Matt
Engineered: Aaron
Subjects: Meteors, weather, lots of stream of consciousness

• International Meteor Organization
• Meteorobs Mailing List
• Antonshevchenko.com
• Halibut Point (Google Maps)
• DEET

Castdate: 050808
Title: To Be or Not To Be
Written By: Aaron
Disembodied Voices: Pamela & Travis (and a snippet from the Trujillo interview)
Produced By: Travis

Show Notes

• Transcript
• Our Full Interview With Dr. Trujillo
• 2003 UB313 via Wikipedia
• Brown’s web page
• Gemini’s Spectra
• Universe Today planetary evolution podcast

With minor planets in the majority, its a good thing for Pluto that the solar system isn’t a democracy.

SA recommends “Planet Fnord.”

Listen online here.

Castdate: 050802
Title: Neutrons play Hide and Quake
Written By: Pamela Gay
Disembodied Voices: Pamela Gay, Travis Searle
Engineered By: Travis

• Transcript
• UCSD Press Release on Neutron Star Quakes
• ESA Press Release on Norma’s Shy Neutron Star
• Map and info on Norma

The folks at UCSD kindly provided an NSF movie on their website. Check it out here.

Links:

• Battlestar Galactica
• Slacker Poster at AAS (HUGE FILE)
• iTunes 4.9!
• A Brief Brief History of Time
• Skype!
• Astronomical Naming Conventions
• Phil Plaitt’s Bad Astronomy
• Operation Clambake

We had a blast doing this and Pamela and Travis drank a wee bit too much while celebrating our happiness on a Friday night. Can you guess how much red wine they drank and at what point Pamela’s brain stopped computing smoothly?

What happened (Pamela refuses to write a transcript for this one):

• Recaped life since last show: It was hot, we didn’t get naked
• Discussed Battlestar Galactica
• Mentioned AAS and our Poster at AAS
• Annouced new site design (Please send us comments!)
• iTunes 4.9!
• Change is bad – stay tuned cause we’re not going anywhere (and then Aaron leaves)
• Queen Nell’s “A Brief Brief History of Time” as narrated amazingly well by Aaron as he races out the door
• Jorge joins us from Europe
• Answering some e-mail
• Updates on old shows
• Travis leaves in some audio Pamela and Phil thought would be editted out!!!!!
• Phil Plait (the Bad Astronomer) rants about Scientology and “War of the Worlds”
• Slacker Astronomy Newsletter! Subscribe!

Castdate: 050725
Title: Sharin’ Charon
Written By: Aaron Price
Disembodied Voices: Pamela Gay, Travis Searle, Bill The Roommate
Engineered By: Travis

• Transcript
• Animation of the Occultation
• Space.com coverage of the 1999 Pluto/Charon imaging

Here is a snippet from IAUC #8570 which announced the results of the recent occultation:

OCCULTATION BY PLUTO I (CHARON)
    L. A. Young, C. B. Olkin, and E. F. Young, Southwest Research
Institute; and R. G. French, Wellesley College, report their
observations of an occultation on July 11 of the star 2UCAC
26257135 by Pluto I (Charon).  E. F. Young and K. Shoemaker
observed with 0.2-s integration times using the visitor instrument
PHOT (unfiltered) on the 4.2-m SOAR telescope at Cerro Pachon.  C.
Olkin, C. Ruhland, and L. A. Young observed via a 240-s I-band
exposure trailed at 1".5/s with the 4-m Blanco telescope (+ Mosaic
II camera) at Cerro Tololo.  R. French, B. Gregory, L. A. Young,
and R. Galvez observed via 0.5-s I-band exposures using the 0.9-m
SMARTS telescope (+ Tek2K No. 3 CCD camera) at Cerro Tololo.  All
three sites report durations of 55.3 +/- 0.2 s.  The chord length
is 1179 +/- 4 km, which serves as a lower limit on the diameter
from these telescopes.  No obvious atmosphere was detected.
Immersion and emersion times (+/- 0s.01) at SOAR were 3h36m16s.19
and 3h37m11s.26 UT.

Artistic rendering of Pluto/Charon sharing an atmosphere:

• US Naval Observatory
• Paul’s Navy Bio

There is a 2 second gap around 25 minutes into the recording. No audio was lost, that is just an artifact of a lazy method we used to get around the Garageband 30 minute limit. We could edit it out but, eh..

Castdate: 050718
Title: Breaking the Superwind
Written By: Aaron
Disembodied Voices: Pamela & Travis
Engineered: Travis
Subjects: superwind, supernovae, galaxies, moon hoaxes

• Transcript (left at home, link coming soon)
• Physorg.com article
• Spaceflight Now older PR about a superwind image
• SAURON web page

Chandra image (X-Ray blue superimposed on optical) at right is of a superwind bubble in a nearby galaxy (NGC 3079).

Question for our learned audience (thou who art still awake): could Earthlike life on an Earthlike planet survive in a superwind front?

• Transcript
• Spitzer Cas A Press Release
• ESA Press Release on Supernova N 63A

• Transcript
• BBC News Story
• Oxygen Ions Observed Near Saturn’s A-Ring paper abstract
• The Discovery of Oxygen Kα X-Ray Emission from the Rings of Saturn abstract
• Saturn’s A-ring Ionosphere as Observed by the Cassini Ion and Neutral Mass Spectrometer
  abstract
• Alphabet Soup of Saturn’s Rings from the Planetary Society
• Cassini Photo Contest

One of Aaron’s favorite painters is Francisco Goya. Here is one of his more lighthearted pieces titled Saturn Devouring His Son. Better his son and not our Sun!

Anyone want to redraw this as “Saturn Devouring His Rings”?

This is the 2nd of 3 interviews from the AAS meeting. At the Herschel booth and amidst free ice cream we interview Dr. Steve Lord followed by Dr. Babar Ali.

• ESA’s Herschel Page
• JPL’s Herschel Page
• Steve’s web page
• Babar’s web page
• William Herschel via Wikipedia

• Transcript
• Press Release on Nature of Bombardment

We’d give you more, but no one seems to have posted anything on this story!

CONTEST!
There will be no winners, but we’re asking you to play anyway.

At left there is a picture of the full moon. Please download it and draw on what you see. Post your image in the comments below, and we’ll all give ourselves a good laugh.

• Transcript
• Spaceflight Now
• Active Galaxies Newsletter #98 (abstracts of both papers)
• Quasar & AGN Illustrations

• Transcript
• National Geographic.com
• AP
• V’Ger’s Golden Record
• ST:TMP Director’s Cut
• Audio interpretation of the termination shock passage
• Solar Sail Interview via Universe Today

We promise to never say “Dude” again. That was just… bad.

Dr. Kevin Marvel is Deputy Directory of the AAS. He is
heavily involved in the astronomical community on many
levels. Among his responsibilities is public policy, which
often sends him to Capital Hill to advocate for astronomy.
He is also an active researcher of Water MASERS, including
making observations with the VLA and VLBA.

• American Astronomical Society
• Write Your House Rep
• Write your Senator
• Kevin’s web page (Water MASER movies are there)

Some topics mentioned (in rough order):

The AAS
The greater astronomical community
Women in astronomy
Minorities in astronomy
Public policy
Current political support for science funding
Lobbying
MASERs and the VLA

Links

• Transcript
• Chandra Press Release
• U-Calgary Press Release

And Orion, You’ll be a Dentist… (so sings the Dentist in Little Shop of Horrors).

REPREZENT! Official members of the ACoD:

• Singularity
• Skepticality
• The Universe Today
• Radio Frontier Channel
• And us: Travis, Aaron and Pamela.
• Many others have been invited and said they will try to join us for the next show…

The rules were simple. We met via Skype. Everyone could use as much or as little of the show for their own podcast. So visit the other sites to see what they have put online (if anything – no one is obliged to post a thing).

The goals of the Council of Doom are 1. to have a fun time and 2. to build a sense of community among the astronomy podcasters.

This was our first show so was a little formal in the beginning as we got to know each other, but by the end everyone was comfortable annd things were rockin’ and rollin’. Travis was in charge as the MC and made sure everyone had a chance to weigh in.

Talking points:

• Bush’s Moon & Mars directive
• Manned vs. robotic exploration
• Catastrophe Astronomy stories, science or entertainment?
• Favorite hard science, sci-fi movies and TV (and the worst)

We hope to do this again in the summer. But until then download it via our Slacker Extra feed!

File Size: 12885500
Time: 53:37

Links

• Transcript

• MOST PR on Planet with atmophere
• MOST PR on Tidally Locked Planet: HD 209458a
• Spitzer PR on HD 209458a

Now say Tau Boo B ten times fast

Show #9
Title: Battle Royale: Miras vs. The Magic 8 Ball
Castdate: 050525
Written By: Aaron Price
Disembodied Voices: Pamela Gay & Travis Searle
Engineered: Travis Searle
Subjects: Red giants, Mira, X-Rays, acccretion discs, stellar fusion, white dwarfs, Magic 8 Balls.

• Transcript
• Chandra Press Release
• Nature.com
• The Magic 8 Ball
• Magic 8 Ball: An Introduction to Divination – Virtual Chaos

Was this a good show?
(SHAKE)
Magic 8 Ball says: Not likely.

Everyone’s a critic.

• Bad Astronomy
• Goodnight, Moon
• May 4 Astronomy Picture of the Day
• Anthony Leikens amateur astronomer
  illustrators discussion group and gallery
• MC Hawking
• How to Destroy the Earth

We actually had a lot of fun with this one. And we hope it shows. Slowly but surely we’re learning how this new fangled teknowledgy works. Plug in the cables, press the buttons and watch the pretty lights go blink, blink, blink…

What happened:

The Space Show with Harry Carry
Phil Plait (the Bad Astronomer) talks about image faking and astrology
Answering some e-mail
How To Destroy The Earth(tm)
Where to find MC Hawking

• Transcript
• ESA Press Release
• PhysOrg.com coverage
• MARSIS instrument web page
• Sky & Telescope article on Mars Polar Lander
• Malin Space Science Systems press release & images

If they can see Mars this well,
imagine what they can see on Earth. And these are the civilians!

Jupiter is on the left, the rocket is the moving speck on the right. Images are roughly 10 seconds apart. Pictures by Aaron.

Title: Slacker Extra Interview With Jonathan McDowell
Disembodied Voices: Jonathan McDowell and Aaron Price
Engineered: Aaron Price
Subjects: Space exploration, rockets, orbits,satellites, spy agencies, chandra, dark matter, amateurs

Our new mics and iRivers are here and we’re testing how to use them best. Jonathan sounds great, Aaron is just a bit quiet. But he has nothing to say anyway!

• Aaron’s animation of satellite separation (500K) It is very faint but look closely to the right 1/3 of the frame for a starlike object moving then dissapearing in a fan shaped spray.
• Jonathan’s Space Report
• Jonahan McDowell’s Home Page
• Chandra X-Ray Center
• Heaven’s Above
• Hobby Space- Satellite Watching

Here is a list of topics in order as they appear:

 Aaron explaining what he saw
 The Titan IV launch summary
 Explanation of different orbits, launch tactics
 Scared canadian oil platforms
 Explanation of Titan IV launch and boosters in detail
 Spy agencies
 Importance of spy satellites through history
 What the Titan IV launched
 No secrets
 Importance of amateurs in satellite tracking
 More orbit talk
 Jonathan's Space Report
 Building an open international community of trackers
 Day job: Chandra X-Ray Observatory
 Virtual Observatories
 PhD's, population 3 stars that don't exist and Olber's Paradox

• Transcript
• Subaru Observatory Press Release
• Australian National University Press Release
• Michigan State University Press Release (Go Spartans!)
• SpaceRef.com Story

The images come from the Subaru website. The top graphic shows the location of HE 1327-2326 and the lower image shows a color image of the star above a stellar specta of HE 1327-2327 and the Sun. The humps and dips in the spectra represent the presence of different atoms. The more lines, the more different types of atoms are present in the star.

• Transcript
• NASA Press Release
• Space Today
• Universe Today
• Asteroid Belt by Wikipedia
• BBC
• Spitzer’s Innovative Orbit

No, Pamela doesn’t really like the Yankees. She really doesn’t care for sports at all. This is what she gets for being on a show with 2 guys.

As promised, the color of dust:

Pamela, Travis and Aaron interviewed Dr. Bryan Gaensler in the courtyard of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Bryan is an Assistant Professor of Astronomy at Harvard and was the 1999 Young Australian of the Year. He works with Pamela and Aaron took a class from him once. Their verdict? All around nice guy and smart! (i.e., not one of us).

Pix:

Pamela, Bryan, Travis (Aaron is the invisible one in the middle)


The Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics Concord Ave. entrance.


Parking ticket Aaron and Travis got for parking during the interview. Want to help pay for it? Donate!

• Transcript
• Spaceflight Now article
• ESO’s 1996 press release
• AAVSO’s Variable Star of the Season: Sakurai’s Object
• BBC on diamond stars

Kudos to anyone who can place the reference for the show’s title…

When she walks she’s like a samba that,
Swings so cool and sways so gentle,
That when she passes
each one she passes goes a-a-ah!…”

…oops, sorry about that. It’s summer time and I’m getting carried away. Back to the Show Notes.

Show #5
Title: The Big Bad Astronomer
Subject: Skepticism, interview
CastDate: 050412
Written By: Slacker Astronomy & The Bad Astronomer
Disembodied Voices: Pamela, Aaron and Phil Plait
Engineered: Pamela Gay

• BadAstronomy.com
• Bad Astronomy Book
• Lyrics from the Girl From Impanema by Antonio Carlos Jobim

Don’t forget that the entire unedited interview is available on the Slacker Astronomy Extra Feed.

Pamela und Phil:

• Transcript

Episode #2
Title: “Gone With the Wind”
Subjects: VLA, radio astronomy
CastDate: 050329
Written By: Aaron Price
Disembodied Voices: Travis Searle with clips of Pamela and Aaron
Engineered: Aaron Price

• Transcript
• The Very Large Array (VLA)
• QuickTime Video of a scope moving (40MB!)
• Pamela & Aaron
• A panoramic of the VLA from the observing deck

We had a good time on the tour but our mics failed us. Travis did a great job of providing a last minute narrative. Below are some pics. Oh Yeah, the VLA is at around 7,000ft. Did you hear Travis’ freudian slip at the beginning of the show?

In a few days we will launch our 2nd feed for our non-news shows. Then the main SA feed you are currently subscribed to will only be used for news shows.

Next week back to our regular shows…

Jabba the hut courtesy Dr. Matthew Templeton.

We fly back Sunday night so next week’s show may go up Tuesday. See you then!

Episode #1
Title: “Black Hole In the Corner Pocket”
Subjects: black holes, gravitational lensing
CastDate: 050314
Written By: Aaron Price
Disembodied Voices: Travis Searle & Pamela Gay with special guest appearance by The Grinch.
Engineered: Travis Searle

• Transcript
• Press Release
• Nature.com
• Gravitational Lensing explanation by NASA’s Imagine the Universe
• Einstein’s Cross via HST (image at right)