Tips for a Beginning Astrophotographer By Alan Friedman Special to SPACE.com posted: 08 January 2007 01:31 pm ET

At some point, all who develop a love for astronomy surrender to temptation and try to capture the beauty of the night sky through photography. Some are inspired by the glorious pictures (many taken by amateurs) featured in magazines and on the Internet. Others look to record data for their own amateur scientific research. And some hope simply to share the glorious beauty experienced in the solitary hours of night with loved ones who find this time of day better suited to sleeping.

There has never been a better time to give astrophotography a go. Cameras are more powerful and less expensive than ever before. Getting started, though, can be somewhat daunting. A little self-evaluation of your interests, location, time and budget is a good idea and may help avoid frustration. Taking pictures in the dark of stuff that is a long way away can be the most rewarding and the most infuriating hobby under the sun.

I've tried a lot of stuff. After testing the waters with a cooled CCD camera, film and digital SLRs, I've settled into a photography set-up that is better suited for my life and location. I live in the middle of a moderately large city by the Great Lakes with frequent clouds and bright urban skies that show three stars in the little dipper on a good night. I have young kids and a very full calendar that leaves limited opportunity to travel to a dark sky location. I own some very nice equipment - but it must be put away after each observing session. Rarely do I have the time to do the dead nuts polar alignment needed for long exposure deep sky photography.

A few years back I ordered a color webcam to try my hand at planetary imaging. The tiny camera was cheap (under $100 at the time), light, simple to set-up and allowed me to focus an image in real time on my laptop computer screen. Best of all, it was proving itself to be the tool of choice for the objects visible without compromise from my city backyard - the moon, the sun and the planets.

Consumer webcams like my Phillips ToUcam are still around and in use today - but more powerful tools have emerged. Scientific and industrial camera models made by The Imaging Source, Point Gray Research and Lumenera are more sensitive, less noisy and utilize high speed data transmission to produce better images than consumer versions. These cameras can now be operated from programs dedicated to astronomy and can be run at the long exposures needed for deep sky objects. Most cost $300 and up depending on chip size and features. Companies like Orion Telescopes & Binoculars have branded their own cameras designed for astronomy with similar capabilities.

2007 brings a calendar full of opportunities and special events to record. Saturn still rides high for mid-northern observers and Mars will return. Jupiter will be a low and difficult target but the sun and moon beckon with a constantly changing show. Stay tuned - in future articles I will share some tools and techniques you can use to capture detailed portraits of these magnificent celestial neighbors.

Editor's Note : Comet McNaught (2006/P1) is rapidily evolving into a very bright comet and could become one of the great comets of the 21st century. Bright comets present an excellent opportunity for astrophotography using 35mm film cameras or consumer digital cameras.

Hot on the Trail of Cosmic Rays By Jeremy Hsu Staff Writer posted: 02 January 2008 06:31 am ET

The Great UFO Debate

The good news is that polls continue to show that between one and two-thirds of the public thinks that extraterrestrial life exists. The weird news is that a similar fraction thinks that some of it is visiting Earth.

Several recent television shows have soberly addressed the possibility that alien craft are violating our air space, occasionally touching down long enough to allow their crews to conduct bizarre (and, in most states, illegal) experiments on hapless citizens. While these shows tantalize viewers by suggesting that they are finally going to get to the bottom of the so-called "UFO debate", they never do. That bottom seems perennially out of reach.

So what are the contentious issues here? First off, despite heated discussion by all concerned, let's admit that interstellar travel doesn't violate physics. It's possible. After all, the Pioneer and Voyager probes are nearly three decades into an inadvertent interstellar journey right now. The kicker, of course, is that these craft will take 70,000 years to cover the distance to even the nearest stars (and they're not aimed that way). With the physics we know, it's extremely difficult to substantially, and safely, shorten that travel time. Sure, it might be theoretically possible to create wormholes or some other exotic facility for high-speed cosmic cruising; but that approach is entirely speculative.

And it's not really the point. The problem I have with the claim that strange craft are prowling our planet is not with the transportation mode, but with the evidence. I'll worry about how they got here once I'm convinced that they've really made the scene.

Well, have they? How good is the evidence? In the course of a recent TV broadcast in which I participated, guest experts who have long studied UFOs argued the case for their alien nature by showing photographs of putative saucers hovering at low altitudes. Some of these objects appeared as out-of-focus lights, while others resembled hubcap-shaped Frisbees caught in mid-trajectory.

Since the former are perforce ambiguous, the latter commanded more of my attention. How can we know they're NOT hubcaps, tossed into the air by a hoaxer with a camera? The reply from one expert: "these photographs pass muster." When quizzed on exactly which muster was mastered, the response was that "atmospheric effects give us a limit on the distance, and careful examination has ruled out photographic trickery." Well, the former is pretty chancy, and relies on some assumption about atmospheric conditions (was it a smoggy day in Los Angeles?), and the latter proves nothing. A real shot of an airborne hubcap would, after all, be free of photographic trickery.

Additional evidence that is endlessly cited is "expert testimony." Pilots, astronauts, and others with experienced eyes and impressive credentials have all claimed to see odd craft in the skies. It's safe to say that these witnesses have seen something. But just because you don't recognize an aerial phenomenon doesn't mean that it's an extraterrestrial visitor. That requires additional evidence that, so far, seems to be as unconvincing as the trickery-free saucer snaps.

What about those folks who have experienced alien beings first-hand? Abduction stories are an entirely separate field of study and one which I won't address here, although I must confess that it's intriguing to see photos of scoop marks on the flesh of human subjects, coupled with the claim that these minor disfigurements are due to alien malfeasance. But even aside from the puzzling question of why beings from distant suns would come to Earth to melon-ball the locals, this evidence is, once again, ambiguous. The scoops might be due to aliens, and then again, they could be the consequence of spousal abuse or many other causes.

When push came to shove, and when pressed as to whether there's real proof of extraterrestrial visitation, the experts on this show backed off by saying that "well, we don't know where they come from. But something is definitely going on." The latter statement is hardly controversial. The former is merely goofy. If the saucers and scoopers are not from outer space, where, exactly, are they from? Belgium?

The bottom line is that the evidence for extraterrestrial visitors has not convinced many scientists. Very few academics are writing papers for refereed journals about alien craft or their occupants. Confronted with this, the UFO experts usually take refuge in two possible explanations:

• The material that would be convincing proof has been collected and secreted away by the U.S. government. While endlessly appealing, this is an argument from ignorance (tantamount to saying "we can't show you good evidence because we haven't got it"), and perforce implies that every government in the world has efficiently squirreled away all alien artifacts. Unless, of course, the extraterrestrials only visit the U.S., where retrieval of material that falls to Earth is supposedly a perfected art form.
• Scientists have simply refused to look carefully at this phenomenon. In other words, the scientists should blame themselves for the fact that the visitation hypothesis has failed to sway them.

Not only is this unfair, it's misguided. Sure, rather few researchers have themselves gone into the field to sift through the stories, the videos, and the odd photos that comprise the evidence for alien presence. But they don't have to. This complaint is akin to telling movie critics that films would be better if only they would pitch in and get behind the camera. But critics can compose excellent and accurate evaluations of a movie without being participants in the business of making films.

The burden of proof is on those making the claims, not those who find the data dubious. If there are investigators who are convinced that craft from other worlds are buzzing ours, then they should present the absolute best evidence they have, and not resort to explanations that appeal to conspiratorial cover-ups or the failure of others to be open to the idea. The UFO advocates are not asking us to believe something either trivial or peripheral, for after all, there could hardly be any discovery more dramatic or important than visitors from other worlds. If we could prove that the aliens are here, I would be as awestruck as anyone, however, I await a compelling Exhibit A.

The Great UFO Debate

The good news is that polls continue to show that between one and two-thirds of the public thinks that extraterrestrial life exists. The weird news is that a similar fraction thinks that some of it is visiting Earth.

Several recent television shows have soberly addressed the possibility that alien craft are violating our air space, occasionally touching down long enough to allow their crews to conduct bizarre (and, in most states, illegal) experiments on hapless citizens. While these shows tantalize viewers by suggesting that they are finally going to get to the bottom of the so-called "UFO debate", they never do. That bottom seems perennially out of reach.

So what are the contentious issues here? First off, despite heated discussion by all concerned, let's admit that interstellar travel doesn't violate physics. It's possible. After all, the Pioneer and Voyager probes are nearly three decades into an inadvertent interstellar journey right now. The kicker, of course, is that these craft will take 70,000 years to cover the distance to even the nearest stars (and they're not aimed that way). With the physics we know, it's extremely difficult to substantially, and safely, shorten that travel time. Sure, it might be theoretically possible to create wormholes or some other exotic facility for high-speed cosmic cruising; but that approach is entirely speculative.

And it's not really the point. The problem I have with the claim that strange craft are prowling our planet is not with the transportation mode, but with the evidence. I'll worry about how they got here once I'm convinced that they've really made the scene.

Well, have they? How good is the evidence? In the course of a recent TV broadcast in which I participated, guest experts who have long studied UFOs argued the case for their alien nature by showing photographs of putative saucers hovering at low altitudes. Some of these objects appeared as out-of-focus lights, while others resembled hubcap-shaped Frisbees caught in mid-trajectory.

Since the former are perforce ambiguous, the latter commanded more of my attention. How can we know they're NOT hubcaps, tossed into the air by a hoaxer with a camera? The reply from one expert: "these photographs pass muster." When quizzed on exactly which muster was mastered, the response was that "atmospheric effects give us a limit on the distance, and careful examination has ruled out photographic trickery." Well, the former is pretty chancy, and relies on some assumption about atmospheric conditions (was it a smoggy day in Los Angeles?), and the latter proves nothing. A real shot of an airborne hubcap would, after all, be free of photographic trickery.

Additional evidence that is endlessly cited is "expert testimony." Pilots, astronauts, and others with experienced eyes and impressive credentials have all claimed to see odd craft in the skies. It's safe to say that these witnesses have seen something. But just because you don't recognize an aerial phenomenon doesn't mean that it's an extraterrestrial visitor. That requires additional evidence that, so far, seems to be as unconvincing as the trickery-free saucer snaps.

What about those folks who have experienced alien beings first-hand? Abduction stories are an entirely separate field of study and one which I won't address here, although I must confess that it's intriguing to see photos of scoop marks on the flesh of human subjects, coupled with the claim that these minor disfigurements are due to alien malfeasance. But even aside from the puzzling question of why beings from distant suns would come to Earth to melon-ball the locals, this evidence is, once again, ambiguous. The scoops might be due to aliens, and then again, they could be the consequence of spousal abuse or many other causes.

When push came to shove, and when pressed as to whether there's real proof of extraterrestrial visitation, the experts on this show backed off by saying that "well, we don't know where they come from. But something is definitely going on." The latter statement is hardly controversial. The former is merely goofy. If the saucers and scoopers are not from outer space, where, exactly, are they from? Belgium?

The bottom line is that the evidence for extraterrestrial visitors has not convinced many scientists. Very few academics are writing papers for refereed journals about alien craft or their occupants. Confronted with this, the UFO experts usually take refuge in two possible explanations:

• The material that would be convincing proof has been collected and secreted away by the U.S. government. While endlessly appealing, this is an argument from ignorance (tantamount to saying "we can't show you good evidence because we haven't got it"), and perforce implies that every government in the world has efficiently squirreled away all alien artifacts. Unless, of course, the extraterrestrials only visit the U.S., where retrieval of material that falls to Earth is supposedly a perfected art form.
• Scientists have simply refused to look carefully at this phenomenon. In other words, the scientists should blame themselves for the fact that the visitation hypothesis has failed to sway them.

Not only is this unfair, it's misguided. Sure, rather few researchers have themselves gone into the field to sift through the stories, the videos, and the odd photos that comprise the evidence for alien presence. But they don't have to. This complaint is akin to telling movie critics that films would be better if only they would pitch in and get behind the camera. But critics can compose excellent and accurate evaluations of a movie without being participants in the business of making films.

The burden of proof is on those making the claims, not those who find the data dubious. If there are investigators who are convinced that craft from other worlds are buzzing ours, then they should present the absolute best evidence they have, and not resort to explanations that appeal to conspiratorial cover-ups or the failure of others to be open to the idea. The UFO advocates are not asking us to believe something either trivial or peripheral, for after all, there could hardly be any discovery more dramatic or important than visitors from other worlds. If we could prove that the aliens are here, I would be as awestruck as anyone, however, I await a compelling Exhibit A.

By Andrea Thompson, LiveScience Staff Writer

posted: 09 March 2007 11:37 am ET

Global warming would be substantially worse right now if not for an international agreement in the 1980s that banned the use of ozone-destroying chemicals, a new study finds.

• Also Today - Surprising New Arctic Inhabitants: Trees

Nations around the world signed the Montreal Protocol in 1987 to control the production and use of substances that deplete the ozone layer, which shields the Earth from harmful ultraviolet radiation.

While these chemicals, such as chlorofluorocarbons (formerly used in air conditioners), eat up ozone, they also act as greenhouse gases.

By curbing their use, the pact has also cut in half the amount of greenhouse warming that would have occurred by 2010 had these substances continued to build unabated in Earth's atmosphere, according to the study published in the this week's online issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The amount of warming that was avoided is equivalent to 7 to12 years of an increase in carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere.

"The participants in the Montreal Protocol have done something very good for our climate," says study author and NOAA scientist David Fahey. "While addressing ozone depletion, they also provided an early start on slowing climate change."

The quantity of greenhouse gas curbed by the Montreal Protocol is equivalent to five times the reduction target for the first phase of the Kyoto Protocol, a 2005 international agreement to address climate change, according to Fahey and his colleagues. The United States did not ratify the Kyoto Protocol.

By Angela K. Brown, Associated Press

posted: 24 January 2008 07:52 am ET

FORT WORTH, Texas (AP)—Fighter jets were training nearby the night dozens of Stephenville-area residents reported seeing a UFO this month, Air Force Reserve officials said Wednesday, backtracking on earlier statements.

The announcement did little to satisfy residents of Texas dairy country who swear that what they saw in the sky Jan. 8 was no airplane. Some said it even bolstered their claims, because several people reported seeing at least two fighter jets chasing an object.

"This supports our story that there was UFO activity in that area," said Kenneth Cherry, the Texas director of the Mutual UFO Network, which took more than 50 reports from locals at a meeting last weekend. "I find it curious that it took them two weeks to 'fess up. I think they're feeling the heat from the publicity."

Officials at the Joint Reserve Base Naval Air Station in Fort Worth initially said none of their planes had been in the area, but on Wednesday they said 10 F-16s were there that day. The officials said they were mistaken and wanted to set the record straight "in the interest of public awareness."

Maj. Karl Lewis, a spokesman for the 301st Fighter Wing at the base, declined to comment on the nature of the military training or say whether it took place on other days.

Lewis had said earlier this month that residents might have seen an illusion caused by two commercial airplanes and reflections from the setting sun. On Wednesday, he said he should not have speculated about the reported sightings.

From well-respected business owners to a county constable, several dozen people say they saw a flying object that was larger, quieter, faster and lower to the ground than an airplane. They also said its lights changed configuration, unlike those of a plane.

"I guarantee that what we saw was not a civilian aircraft," Steve Allen, a pilot and freight company owner, said Wednesday.

The planes' training area in the Brownwood Military Operating Area includes Stephenville's Erath County, but Allen said it does not include the airspace where he saw the object. Also, Jan. 8 was not the only day sightings were reported.

Anne Frazor, who owns a fabric store in Stephenville, about 70 miles southwest of Fort Worth, said many in town have seen military aircraft zoom overhead from time to time as part of training operations. But she said that wasn't what she saw Jan. 8.

"I couldn't begin to say what it was, but to me it wasn't planes," Frazor said.

Since the reported sightings two weeks ago, the 17,000-resident city is having fun with the international publicity. Some high-schoolers made T-shirts depicting a flying saucer beaming up a cow with the messages: "Stephenville: the new Roswell" and "They're here for the milk!" Several stores put new messages on their marquees, including "Aliens welcome."

This week Tarleton State University is even hosting a lecture by a UFO researcher on the U.S. government's secret response to UFOs, based on previously classified documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.

The U.S. Air Force says it has not investigated UFO sightings since 1969 when it ended Project Blue Book, which examined more than 12,600 reported UFO sightings — including 700 that were never explained. That program started a few months after the 1947 crash near Roswell, N.M., of an aircraft the government said was a top-secret weather balloon but others have claimed was an alien spacecraft.

"What we want is the government to admit there are UFOs and what they know about them," Cherry said.

By Andrea Thompson, LiveScience Staff Writer

posted: 20 February 2007 03:35 pm ET

UPDATED 4:32 p.m. ET

NEW YORK—Immediate action by the world's governments to mitigate the effects of greenhouse gases is essential to preserving the environment and the global economy, according to a joint statement released today by a group of more than 90 international companies.

"Addressing climate change will be a global action," said Jeffrey D. Sachs, director of Columbia University's Earth Institute at a press conference here. "This is an issue that requires action now, but it is an issue we won't be able to solve immediately."

The cost of reducing greenhouse gas emissions will be far less than the cost of the problems caused by the effects of climate change, said several business representatives of the Global Roundtable on Climate Change, which includes companies such as Air France, General Electric and Volvo.

"The costs are smaller than people fear," Sachs said.

• Video: Goldilocks and the Greenhouse

When asked why Volvo became involved in the agreement, Tomas Ericson, president of the Volvo Group, North America said, "As an industry, we are part of the problem, but we are also part of the solution."

Companies were eager to participate, said Sachs, because they want uniform standards—if different countries and different states have individual rules, they become harder for businesses to follow. One example Sachs cited was that some power companies have wanted to sequester carbon emitted from burning coal, but local laws stipulate that they have to provide the cheapest electricity possible, so they can't implement new technologies that would raise prices.

This call from businesses to establish uniform rules for emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases continues what Ginny Worrest, a senior policy advisor to Senator Olympia Snowe, told LiveScience was a "grassroots" effort to establish caps of greenhouse gas emissions started by many states. Worrest said that such action on the part of business will help push Congress toward establishing federal regulations.

Federal lawmakers have so far resisted the idea of implementing a national cap-and-trade system for greenhouse gases. Separately last month, the chief executives of 10 major U.S. corporations urged President George W. Bush to support mandatory reductions in climate-changing pollution and establish reductions targets. No such action by the White House was taken.

"The politicians are unfortunately behind the business community on this," Sachs said.

By Ker Than, LiveScience Staff Writer

posted: 12 March 2007 07:27 am ET

Earth is heating up lately, but so are Mars, Pluto and other worlds in our solar system, leading some scientists to speculate that a change in the sun's activity is the common thread linking all these baking events.

Others argue that such claims are misleading and create the false impression that rapid global warming, as Earth is experiencing, is a natural phenomenon.

While evidence suggests fluctuations in solar activity can affect climate on Earth, and that it has done so in the past, the majority of climate scientists and astrophysicists agree that the sun is not to blame for the current and historically sudden uptick in global temperatures on Earth, which seems to be mostly a mess created by our own species.

Wobbly Mars

Habibullo Abdussamatov, the head of space research at St. Petersburg's Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory in Russia, recently linked the attenuation of ice caps on Mars to fluctuations in the sun's output. Abdussamatov also blamed solar fluctuations for Earth's current global warming trend. His initial comments were published online by National Geographic News.

"Man-made greenhouse warming has [made a] small contribution [to] the warming on Earth in recent years, but [it] cannot compete with the increase in solar irradiance," Abdussamatov told LiveScience in an email interview last week. "The considerable heating and cooling on the Earth and on Mars always will be practically parallel."

But Abdussamatov's critics say the Red Planet's recent thawing is more likely due to natural variations in the planet's orbit and tilt. On Earth, these wobbles, known as Milankovitch cycles, are thought to contribute to the onset and disappearance ice ages.

"It's believed that what drives climate change on Mars are orbital variations," said Jeffrey Plaut, a project scientist for NASA's Mars Odyssey mission. "The Earth also goes through orbital variations similar to that of Mars."

As for Abdussamatov's claim that solar fluctuations are causing Earth's current global warming, Charles Long, a climate physicist at Pacific Northwest National Laboratories in Washington, says the idea is nonsense.

"That's nuts," Long said in a telephone interview. "It doesn't make physical sense that that's the case."

In 2005, Long's team published a study in the journal Science showing that Earth experienced a period of "solar global dimming" from 1960 to 1990, during which time solar radiation hitting our planet's surface decreased. Then from the mid-1990's onward, the trend reversed and Earth experienced a "solar brightening."

These changes were not likely driven by fluctuations in the output of the Sun, Long explained, but rather increases in atmospheric clouds or aerosols that reflected solar radiation back into space.

Other warming worlds

Others have pointed out anomalous warming on other worlds in our solar system.

Benny Peiser, a social anthropologist at Liverpool John Moores University who monitors studies and news reports of asteroids, global warming and other potentially apocalyptic topics, recently quoted in his daily electronic newsletter the following from a blog called Strata-Sphere:

"Global warming on Neptune's moon Triton as well as Jupiter and Pluto, and now Mars has some [scientists] scratching their heads over what could possibly be in common with the warming of all these planets ... Could there be something in common with all the planets in our solar system that might cause them all to warm at the same time?"

Peiser included quotes from recent news articles that take up other aspects of the idea.

"I think it is an intriguing coincidence that warming trends have been observed on a number of very diverse planetary bodies in our solar system," Peiser said in an email interview. "Perhaps this is just a fluke."

In fact, scientists have alternative explanations for the anomalous warming on each of these other planetary bodies.

The warming on Triton, for example, could be the result of an extreme southern summer on the moon, a season that occurs every few hundred years, as well as possible changes in the makeup of surface ice that caused it to absorb more of the Sun's heat.

Researchers credited Pluto's warming to possible eruptive activity and a delayed thawing from its last close approach to the Sun in 1989.

And the recent storm activity on Jupiter is being blamed on a recurring climatic cycle that churns up material from the gas giant's interior and lofts it to the surface, where it is heated by the Sun.

Sun does vary

The radiation output of the Sun does fluctuate over the course of its 11-year solar cycle. But the change is only about one-tenth of 1 percent—not substantial enough to affect Earth's climate in dramatic ways, and certainly not enough to be the sole culprit of our planet's current warming trend, scientists say.

"The small measured changes in solar output and variations from one decade to the next are only on the order of a fraction of a percent, and if you do the calculations not even large enough to really provide a detectable signal in the surface temperature record," said Penn State meteorologist Michael Mann.

The link between solar activity and global warming is just another scapegoat for human-caused warming, Mann told LiveScience.

"Solar activity continues to be one of the last bastions of contrarians," Mann said. "People who don't accept the existence of anthropogenic climate change still try to point to solar activity."

The Maunder Minimum

This is not to say that solar fluctuations never influence Earth's climate in substantial ways. During a 75-year period beginning in 1645, astronomers detected almost no sunspot activity on the Sun. Called the "Maunder Minimum," this event coincided with the coldest part of the Little Ice Age, a 350-year cold spell that gripped much of Europe and North America.

Recent studies have cast doubt on this relationship, however. New estimates of the total change in the brightness of the Sun during the Maunder Minimum suggest it was only fractions of a percent, and perhaps not enough to create the global cooling commonly attributed to it.

"The situation is pretty ambiguous," said David Rind, a senior climate researcher at NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, who has modeled the Maunder Minimum.

Based on current estimates, even if another Maunder Minimum were to occur, it might result in an average temperature decrease of about 2 degrees Fahrenheit, Rind said.

This would still not be enough to counteract warming of between 2 to 12 degrees Fahrenheit from greenhouse gases by 2100, as predicted by the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report