Date: May 7, 2010
Title: Citizen Sky
Podcaster: Mike Simonsen interviews Rebecca Turner
Links: Slacker Astronomy, Citizen Sky
Description: Mike Simonsen interviews Rebecca Turner about the Citizen Sky Project.
Bio: Slacker Astronomy is a light-hearted podcast that wanders the astronomical road-less-traveled. Visit us at http://www.slackerastronomy.org/.
Today’s sponsor: This episode of “365 Days of Astronomy” is sponsored by The Planetary Society, celebrating 30 years of inspiring the people of Earth to explore other worlds, understand our own, and seek life elsewhere. Explore with us at planetary.org.
Additional sponsorship for this episode of 365 Days of Astronomy has been provided by Kylie Sturgess and the Token Skeptic podcast, a weekly show about superstition, science and why we believe – at www.tokenskeptic.org.
Transcript:
Michael Koppelman: Hello again. This is Slacker Astronomy and this is 365 Days of Astronomy. I’m Michael, this is Doug and Mike. Like I said we’re Slacker Astronomy and we have another great 365 Days of Astronomy show for you about Epsilon Aurigae and Rebecca Turner from the Citizen Sky Project. Mike what do you have for us today?
Mike Simonsen: Well, when I was in Cambridge at AAVSO Headquarters I got a chance to pull Rebecca aside and we talked about Citizen Science, Epsilon Aurigae and the project that they’re working on right now – the Citizen Sky Project.
Just basically we discussed an overview of what the project is about and where they’re at right now and the eclipse progressing and some recent news about developments in the eclipse and that kind of thing.
Michael: And Doug, do you have a quick description of what Epsilon Aurigae is and is about?
Doug Welch: It’s a great; it’s a wonderful variable star in that everything happens in slow-motion. [Laughter] It’s a mysterious star that is apparently quite evolved and every twenty-seven years something moves in front of it and cuts its light by a significant amount.
The big question is: what is it that’s moving in front of it and what do they want? [Laughter]
Michael: And I guess Rebecca Turner is here to answer that question for us?
Mike: True or false?
Doug: In part, yeah.
Michael: Cool. Well let’s now listen to the interview. This is Rebecca Turner of the Citizen Sky Project and the AAVSO about the Epsilon Aurigae project.
Doug: Remember that’s Rebecca the former Slacker.
Michael: And someday again Slacker.
Doug: The former and current Slacker.
Mike: Okay, I’m back at AAVSO headquarters. I’m with Rebecca Turner now, project manager for Citizen Sky. We’re going to talk about Citizen Sky and Epsilon Aurigae. I guess let’s just start at the beginning. What is Citizen Sky?
Rebecca Turner: That’s a good question. Citizen Sky is an astronomical citizen science project being run by the AAVSO. We have a three-year National Science Foundation grant to study the eclipsing variable Epsilon Aurigae.
We’ve been up and running almost six months now and we’re open to people with any type of experience. We have some very advanced participants but we also have some participants that have had no prior astronomy experience.
Mike: So why is Epsilon Aurigae so interesting? It sounds interesting but why is it interesting to astronomers?
Rebecca: Well for such a bright object – it is between third and fourth magnitude which means you can look at it with the naked eye or a pair of binoculars even in urban locations, it still has a lot of questions to be answered. It’s been a known variable and studied for over 175 years. You’d think that with such a bright accessible star and so much time we would have figured it all out by now but unfortunately that’s not the case. [Laughter]
As many people know eclipsing binaries are actually made up of two stars orbiting each other and we just happen to be looking at them edge-on so they eclipse each other from time to time. But Epsilon Aurigae only eclipses every twenty-seven or so years so there haven’t been nearly as many opportunities to study this object in eclipse as if it had a period of a few days or a few months.
We know that one half of the system is an F star but the big mystery seems to be revolving around what the other half of the system is made up of. There have been lots of theories on exactly what’s going on. There is an article on the Citizen Sky site that details the history and evolution of some of these theories.
Most of the theories agree at least on the fact that there is a dusty disc surrounding the second star that helps block out the light during these eclipses. The theories and models are being tweaked all the time.
Even in January there was a press conference about Epsilon Aurigae that released some new results. We have a couple of articles on the Citizen Sky site talking about those new results and what questions still remain to be answered about this mysterious star.
Mike: So, as I understand it the eclipse began in August or something, or the whole thing started in August. So, the eclipse is already started. Is it too late to join in? Is it too late to get in on the fun?
Rebecca: No, no definitely not. In addition to having a really long twenty-seven year period the eclipse itself lasts quite awhile. As you said it began back in August of 2009 and it’s going to continue throughout 2010 and will end sometime in early 2011.
So if the way that you want to participate is to learn to observe and contribute data, there is still plenty of time to get in on this eclipse. There are also lots of other ways to join in.
We have some people doing some programming for us on some projects. We have some artists doing illustrations of the system. As the theories keep getting tweaked we have to keep changing our images of what’s going on.
Mike: Right.
Rebecca: You can also get in on the data analysis and scientific paper-writing aspect of the project as well.
Mike: That’s actually one of the ten goals of the end game.
Rebecca: Right, that’s our last stage of the project.
Mike: This all sounds really cool. Where do I go to sign up [laughter] and how much does it cost?
Rebecca: Well, if you go to citizensky.org you can look around, read a little bit more about our project and about Epsilon Aurigae. It’s really simple to sign up, just a quick registration process.
Participation is completely free. There is absolutely no cost. All we’re asking for is your enthusiasm and your skills but we don’t want any of your cash. [Laughter]
Mike: So, how do people get started observing Epsilon Aurigae and maybe some other stars?
Rebecca: Well, if you go to the site under the getting started tab, you will be able to download what we’re calling the ten star tutorials. That’s a document that will guide you step-by-step through the process of making a variable star observation.
It covers ten stars as the title might suggest. The last one on the list is Epsilon Aurigae. Once you’ve learned how to make a variable star observation, you can move on to submitting and viewing your data.
Mike: So how do you submit observations once you’ve taken an observation and written it down on paper or whatever? How do you submit it to Citizen Sky or the AAVSO?
Rebecca: It’s a really simple process. You just go to the website, use the log-on that you normally use. Go to the link which I think is just called “submit observations” and a really simple form will pop up.
You just fill in the basic information about the data point that you collected and click “submit” and your data will go right into the database.
Mike: A lot of people have been interested in submitting data with digital SLRs – digital cameras. Can people submit useful data with their digital cameras? Is there room for those people in here too?
Rebecca: Definitely and that seems to be the new rage I guess. I think maybe because it’s not as much of a specialized piece of equipment the family budget can better justify the purchase of a nice DSLR because you can take pictures of the kids’ birthday parties as well as do astronomy with it.
There are a number of ways to communicate with others on the Citizen Sky site no matter what you’re interested in. We have live chats and forums on a number of topics. We have teams working on specific projects that you can start or join in on.
But getting back to the DSLR question specifically, there are photometry forums on the website and there has been a lot of traffic on the photometry forum having to do with the DSLR photometry.
We have some beginners that have written in asking a lot of questions and we have some people that are more experienced with doing that sort of photometry giving their input. There is also a DSLR team that has formed on the site. They’re focusing on determining the best way to accomplish DSLR photometry.
A tutorial based on their results is about to be posted on the Citizen Sky site. That will be a really great reference for those people that are interested in getting into DSLR photometry.
Science is such a collaborative activity these days I don’t think any big or even small breakthroughs are made by some guy isolated in a room shouting “EUREKA”!
But we really try to establish a scientific community at Citizen Sky so definitely even though the tutorial I think will be a good reference, don’t forget that you can always show up and ask questions on the forums and people will get back to you and answer your questions.
Mike: The DSLR thing and the enthusiasm for it actually is kind of a surprise in a way, isn’t it?
Rebecca: Yeah.
Mike: I don’t think that anybody ever predicted that would be such a big thing and that people would really be getting into that. However, you’re right I get questions and e-mails all the time about it.
Rebecca: Yeah, it’s been the hot topic. [Laughter]
Mike: And it’s cool, you’re right it’s sort of an entry-level thing. You don’t have to spend millions of dollars to get into this and you can use it for as you said, taking pictures of your kids’ birthday parties.
Rebecca: Your spouse will okay the purchase perhaps. [Laughter]
Mike: Yeah, you don’t have to use up all of your spousal permission units [laughter] to buy a DSLR and you can sneak it out and do Epsilon Aurigae.
What happens with this data after it is submitted whether it is DSLR or visual observation or whatever? Where does it go? What happens?
Rebecca: As soon as you click that submit button on the Citizen Sky site your data are immediately entered into the AAVSO International Database which is a stable and really well respected database that goes back over a hundred years. It is very regularly accessed by all kinds of researchers.
We have some students doing science fair projects that access the data but we also have many, many professional astronomers who are doing research or planning observing campaigns that come in and use the data that are in that database.
Since the AAVSO has been around almost one hundred years now maintaining this database you can rest assured that when you submit your data they will be around.
Mike: You can actually see your data plotted in the light for pretty much in real-time.
Rebecca: Right, as soon as you click that submit button you can look at the data either as a light curve or as a table of data points. After that you can move on to analyzing data and writing your scientific papers.
Mike: Sounds great. It’s exciting and interesting. It’s a 175 year-old mystery that some of the biggest names in astronomy have thrown themselves against this problem and bounced right off because it’s really a tough one.
To think that we may be able to actually solve the riddle this time around is pretty exciting. It sounds like a lot of fun and the url is again: www.citizensky.org
Okay, we’ll put some links up on Slacker – thank you Rebecca.
Rebecca: Great, thank you. Thanks for having me.
Michael: As they said, you can get involved in the Citizen Sky project by going to citizensky.org. It’s a great site. There are tutorials and things you can either practice and you can go look at the star yourself from just about anywhere in the world, or at least a good part of the world.
So go check it out – don’t just listen to podcasts, go do some astronomy.
Doug: Many eclipse photons are standing by.
Michael: That’s it from us. This is Slacker Astronomy – slackerastronomy.org. You can e-mail us silly things at info@slackerastronomy.org Many thanks to the folks at 365 Days of Astronomy, Adieu.
Doug: So long.
This transcript is not an exact match to the audio file. It has been edited for clarity. Transcription and editing by Cindy Leonard.
End of podcast:
365 Days of Astronomy
=====================
The 365 Days of Astronomy Podcast is produced by the Astrosphere New Media Association. Audio post-production by Preston Gibson. Bandwidth donated by libsyn.com and wizzard media. Web design by Clockwork Active Media Systems. You may reproduce and distribute this audio for non-commercial purposes. Please consider supporting the podcast with a few dollars (or Euros!). Visit us on the web at 365DaysOfAstronomy.org or email us at info@365DaysOfAstronomy.org. Until tomorrow…goodbye.