As Simple As That (Show #44)

Castdate: 060228
Title: As Simple As That
Written By: Aaron
Disembodied Voices: Pamela & Travis
Engineered: Travis
Rating: [FF] - Family Friendly

• 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).

Dirty Rotten Snow Balls (Show #43)

Image of Hyakataki from the STScI.

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.

SA Extra: Interview With Dr. Sally Oey

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

A Star, By Any Other Name (Show #42)

Title: A Star, By Any Other Name
Written By: Aaron
Disembodied Voices: Pamela & Travis
Engineered: Travis
Castdate: 060207
Rating: FF

• 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

SA Extra: Chit Chat Show#6

• Bad Astronomy Blog
• Scopereviews.com - A good web site for telescope reviews
• Our AAS and AAPT meeting blog
• Ricky Gervais Show
• NASA Administrator Talk - Michael Brown’s talk about E/PO at the AAS Meeting
• Sky & Telescope list of local astro clubs

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.

SA Extra: Interview With Dr. Steve Howell

Our next regular show will go online next Monday.

• 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)