NEWS ITEMS

2008 Jul 2 HOU/Spitzer Student Project: Alekzandir Morton and Thomas Travagli presented their research on determining the redshift of S5 0716+714 at the California State Science Fair and were awarded first place in the Senior Division of Physics and Astronomy. They were mentored by SSC scientist Mark Lacy. The students were awarded a $1000 scholarship each. Articles about them were published by the Contra Costa Times and in the Antioch Press. John Michael Santiago, who assisted with the data reduction on the WZ Sge project, received a 4th place award at the Contra Costa Science and Engineering Fair. ---Jeff Adkins [HOU teacher]

2008 Jun 13 Update From: Patrick Miller: We have a list of schools participating in the 2007-2008 asteroid campaigns (plus one pilot supernova campaign). We've changed the name of IASC from International Asteroid Search Campaign to International Astronomical Search Collaborative (still calling it "Isaac"). The plan is to completely develop the supernova search campaign and including search campaigns for Kuiper Belt objects and comets.
Since October 2006 at the start of IASC, 97 schools have participated from 9 countries. The countries include China, Germany, Italy, Japan, Morocco, Poland, Portugal, Russia, and United States.
Students from these schools have discovered 82 asteroids, made 2 comet confirmations, 6 virtual impactor observations, and hundreds of near-Earth object confirmations. As far as the most number of discoveries, I don't have this recorded but I believe the schools from Poland hold this title. Some schools have discovered as many as 4 asteroids, as I recall.

NOTEWORTHY HOU IMAGES

July 2008. Color image of M8 by HOU TRA Glenn Reagan (Astronomy-Physics Teacher - Cordova High School Folsom Lake College - El Dorado Center - Sacramento City College). Camera AP206 was able to resolve the turbulent cloud structure around this star formation region. Telescope: 8" refractor. 3-color composite made using SalsaJ.

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2008 April 18 Patrick Miller reports that so far in the International Asteroid Search Campaign (IASC), concluding Friday, May 2, 2008, students found 6 new asteroids, 6 VIO (virtual impactor observations), 4 published NEO observations, and 26 unpublished NEO confirmations. Congratulations to VIII LO, Katowice (Poland), the UAI Minor Planets (Italy) and students from China Hands-On Universe for the discovery of two new Main Belt asteroids!!

Asteroid K08GB1Z
S. Foglia; UAI Minor Planets (Italy)
B. Lanuszny, Z. Adamus, K.Gibinski, & A.Mucha; VIII LO, Katowice (Poland)

Asteroid K08GB1Y
S. Foglia; UAI Minor Planets (Italy)
M. Zhou; China Hands-On Universe

Dec 2007
International Asteroid Search Campaign

Teachers and students have successfully completed the Fall 2007 IASC search campaigns. There were a total of 38 new Main Belt asteroids discovered, with 2 more waiting to be announced....2007 VSK1 and 2007 WG00. There were 24 schools participating from 7 countries (Germany, Italy, Japan, Morocco, Poland, Portugal, and United States)...15 were high schools and 9 were colleges. The Spring 2008 campaigns start on February 1, 2008, will include a total 9 countries including China and Russia. See more details on the Asteroid Discoverers.

16 July 2007. Gruber Cosmology Prize.

HOU Co-director and founder Carl Pennypacker has shared a prize with members of the team he helped found that led to the discovery of evidence for Dark Energy. Please see:

1. LBNL article that refers to Carl as the Supernova Cosmology Project (SCP) co-founder.
   
2. 2007 Gruber Cosmology Prize Press Release with a list of the SCP tea

May 10-11, 2007. Hands-On-Universe Holds Teachers’ Workshop in Kenya. Excerpt: For high school students in the Republic of Kenya in Eastern Africa, star-gazing was enhanced by Hands-On-Universe (HOU), .... On May 10th and 11th, HOU held an Internet teleconference workshop for nearly a dozen teachers at Kenya High School, a national residency school for girls. This is the first HOU workshop to be held on the continent of Africa.
“There are certain images and concepts that transcend backgrounds and capture everyone's imaginations. Turning a telescope to the sky opens that view to everyone and spurs them to learn more. The HOU program provides an excellent opportunity to continue and spread this activity and interest,” said George Smoot, an astrophysicist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory... who shared the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physics. Full article at Berkeley Center for Cosmological Physics and workshop movie (330 MB)

Spring 2006. HOU teacher Jeff Adkins and students in the Antioch ESPACE Academy at Deer Valley High School (DVHS) have observed Active Galactic Nuclei on the Spitzer Infrared Space Telescope as well as with ground based scopes. Project results are online at http://www.espaceacademy.com (click on the Spitzer Space Telescope picture).
DVHA students also did well at their county science fair. See details on the HOU Teacher News page and the ESPACE press release page. Many thanks to all of the programs from NOAO, the Spitzer Science Center, HOU, and elsewhere that allowed our students to succeed.

March 2007. You are welcome to visit the EU-HOU web site and download the Windows Media movie of the Lunar - Saturn occultation of March 2, 2007. See also Saturn occultation of 22 May 2007 at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3nk6wvnrCA

--Lech Mankiewicz

Kuiper Belt asteroid discovered by HOU students at Northfield Mount Hermon and Oil City High Schools.

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A 3 color composite image of the Eta Carinae nebula (NGC 3372, the Keyhole Nebula) in the southern hemisphere some 7000-9000 LY distant. Image by Glenn Reagan, HOU TRA-Teacher - Cordova High School Folsom Lake College - El Dorado Center - Sacramento City College, using the Tzec Maun Australian telescope, a Takahashi TOA-150 (6") refractor, with a SBIG STL-11000 CCD and filter wheel. Operating the telescope remotely over the Internet, Glen took the images Friday March 1 in Pingelly, Australia (western Australia near Perth). Exposure times (RGB) were 3 min, 3 min, and 5 min. The image was processed with Photoshop CS2 using the ESA FITS Liberator plug-in.

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Kuiper Belt asteroid discovered by HOU students at Northfield Mount Hermon and Oil City High Schools.

Comet McNaught

21 Jan 2007: Kaoru Kimura, HOU TRA from Tokyo reports now we can see comet McNaught in the southern hemisphere after sunset.
The i-Can project team has a web cam (constellation camera called i-CAN) in Chile. Everyone can access our website and watch setting comet McNaught. I did image capture and made web page at http://www.k5.dion.ne.jp/~kaoru07

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Photo shows Judith Goldhaber with HOU founder, Carl Pennypacker, and Stephen Hawking after a reception in his honor that featured the Oakland Symphony chorus performing some songs from "Falling Through a Hole in the Air (by Judith Goldhaber with HOU founder, Carl Pennypacker). Stephen is writing "That was really good!!!" on his eyebrow-activated writing/speaking computer.

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M16 - First light image using the 32" F/4 scope of Astronomical Research Institute (ARI). The exposure time is 4" to keep from blooming the bright stars in the field with the STL 1001E. We expect to put in a 1.5x photographic Barlow field flattener tomorrow to operate at F/6. F/8 is p[ossible using a 2x photographic Barlow. Limiting magnitude should be 21.5 (in 5min). Currently 20.6 (in 30 sec). By Bob Holmes. See ARI website

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