CitizenSky Workshop and VStar Software

I attended the CitizenSky Workshop at Adler Planetarium in Chicago from August 5th to 7th 2009. CitizenSky is a collaboration between the American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO), amateur astronomers (or “volunteer astronomers”, as one participant suggested) like myself, professional astronomers, and educators to encourage more of the general public to get involved in Science, to become “Citizen Scientists”.

The focus of the workshop was to communicate the fundamentals of variable stars and the observation of such objects (and of one star system in particular) to participants who could then take what they had learned back to their local schools, astronomical societies and other groups. The particular star of interest is Epsilon Aurigae, a strange variable star system that undergoes an eclipse every 27 years that lasts for about a year and a half. You can find out more about Epsilon Aurigae and the ongoing campaign to study the imminent next eclipse from the CitizenSky website.

It’s not an ideal object from South Australia. In mid-December it will be about 11 degrees above the northern horizon in the late evening, and that’s about as high as it gets from Adelaide. Use a program like Stellarium to determine its visibility from your location, e.g.

Epsilon Aurigae (circled) from Adelaide, South Australia, 19 Dec 2009 at 10:30pm CDT

On the last day of the workshop I demonstrated the latest revision of VStar, an open source, multi-platform (courtesy of the Java programming language) variable star data analysis application I’ve been developing since early May this year. This software is intended to be an easy-to-use variable star data visualization and analysis tool. The initial motivator for VStar is the CitizenSky project.

It all started as the result of a conversation I had with Arne Henden, Director of the AAVSO at the 2008 National Australian Convention of Amateur Astronomers (NACAA) in Sydney. I asked him the same kind of question I ask most astronomers I get the chance to talk with: is there any astronomical software you need developed? I have developed free software (e.g. ACE Basic, PICCLIB, others) since 1991, but for a long time I had been looking for a way to apply my software development experience to benefit of the Scientific Community in my spare time. On the one hand I have an interesting and challenging software engineering day job, while on the other, I have a need to do something more than just contribute to a company’s bottom-line.

Arne said that they wanted to do a Java version of an old Visual Basic tool called VStar. This tool is referenced in AAVSO’s online tutorial material, but AAVSO wanted to replace it with a newer version that could be targeted at multiple platforms, not just Windows, in addition to adding new functionality.

Arne, Aaron Price and I corresponded after NACAA and talked about a number of projects including VStar. Initially AAVSO made the decision to develop VStar internally, but several months ago, we started corresponding again and I took it on as a volunteer effort. AAVSO provided Sara Beck as liason, and for the last few months, VStar has consumed my spare time and lead me to appreciate the benefits of energy drinks. I’ve communicated often with several other AAVSO staff and they’re a friendly and encouraging crew, in particular, apart from Sara, Arne, and Aaron: Richard ‘Doc’ Kinne, Matthew Templeton, Rebecca Turner, and Elizabeth Waagen.

VStar is still very much a work in progress but is being implemented in phases starting with basic features such as:

• input from a the AAVSO International Database, AAVSO download and simple file formats;
• light curve and mean plots;
• individual observation inspection;
• printing, saving.

Much of the above exists and is usable now. There’s a bug list in the project SourceForge tracker that I’m working on currently.

Next will come phase plots, period analysis algorithms, and the intent is to have a plugin architecture so that new algorithms can be added by anyone. Full functionality should be available by around March next year in time for another Citizen Sky workshop at which analysis of data on Epsilon Aurigae will be the focus.

There are no formal releases yet (since VStar is not mature enough yet), but you can download the “bleeding edge” trunk of VStar anytime, or you can download more stable tagged versions. Here are some download options:

To download the latest Vstar archive (tarball):

1. http://vstar.svn.sourceforge.net/viewvc/vstar/trunk/
2. Click “Download GNU tarball”

To download the latest VStar via Subversion, issue this command from a shell or DOS prompt, or use a graphical Subversion tool such as TortoiseSVN.

• svn co https://vstar.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/vstar/trunk vstar

To download a specific frozen (or “tagged”) version such as DEV-17Aug2009 (a post CitizenSky workshop version, before new major changes), use a command like this:

• svn co https://vstar.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/vstar/tags/DEV-17Aug2009 vstar

In each case, the top-level ReadMe.txt file tells you what additional Java libraries to download, where to get them from, and where to put them. I would like to include these on the SourceForge site as part of the download, but we’re still trying to determine the legality of that for each library.

Then it’s just a matter of running a batch file or shell script as described in the ReadMe file.

Ultimately VStar will also be available as a Web Start ™ application on the AAVSO web site. Parts of it may also be used as Java applets on the AAVSO web site.

There is plenty left to do. Testers are always needed, so feel free to help out with that. Michael Umbricht, another CitizenSky participant has done a lot on that front already. He is also keen to improve the currently sparse documentation and write tutorial material. Please let us know if you would like to help with testing, proof reading, or if you would like to get involved in some other VStar development activity.

I look forward to the next several months of VStar development!

Abandoning Infantile Beliefs

Paul Davies made this comment during a radio interview, with which I wholeheartedly agree:

…one should abandon infantile beliefs based on Sunday school stories and embrace the scientific path which reveals a universe which is even more wonderful than you can imagine and a source of inspiration.

NACAA 2008 Impressions

What impresses me about The National Australian Convention of Amateur Astronomers (NACAA) is that it demonstrates how much can be achieved with sufficient motivation and relatively few resources.

NACAA is convened every 2 years. I attended first in 2002 when it was held in Adelaide. In 2004 my family came with me to Hobart, and in 2006 to Frankston. This year the event was held in Penrith,  Sydney.

Some of the highlights this year from my perspective were:

• “Probing Pluto’s Atmosphere with a 10 inch Telescope” by Dave Gault. Along with others in Australia (including Blair Lade at Stockport) and New Zealand, Dave’s observations yielded a light curve from which Pluto’s atmosphere — with a pressure measuring in microbars — could be discerned, using only a 10″ SCT and Meade DSI imager.
• A workshop on light curve analysis using data from automated surveys to look for contact binary star systems. Surjit Wadhwa who ran this excellent workshop also won the best paper award for his work and peer reviewed publications over several years, revealing previously unknown contact binary star systems.
• Ragbir Bhathal’s “45 Years of SETI”, including an overview of recent optical SETI developments. Whether or not you think that SETI is ever likely to lead to positive results, the technology involved is interesting and potentially useful elsewhere. Not to mention the philosophical questions it prompts us to ponder.
• Encouraging words from Arne Henden, Director of the American Association of Variable Star observers, about being an amateur scientist in the 21st Century.
• Entertaining talks such as: giving astronomy lectures on the final voyage of the QE2 (by Ray Johnston), the current state of planetaria worldwide (by Martin George), and examining the possibility that Australian Aboriginals were the world’s first astronomers (by Ray Norris).
• Useful and interesting ad-hoc conversations during breaks and in the corridor.

There were workshops and sessions to suit a wide variety of interests. You can read more about NACAA 2008 here: http://nacaa.org.au/2008/

In short, a very worthwhile event. I plan to be in Canberra for NACAA 2010.

If the bible is literally true then π is 3 and my odometer is wrong

“What is not possible is not to choose.” (Jean-Paul Sartre)

Consider the following:

• “He made the Sea of cast metal, circular in shape, measuring ten cubits from rim to rim and five cubits high. It took a line of thirty cubits to measure around it.” (1 Kings 7:23). See also 2 Chronicles 4:2.
• π is the ratio of the circumference (30 cubits) of a circle and its diameter (10 cubits).
• ∴ π is 3.

Either the bible is literally true, and π is represented as the ratio of the two integers 30 and 10, or π is irrational with a value of around 3.1415926. We recently set up new odometers on our bikes. The manual for the device instructs the user to multiply the diameter of the bike’s wheel by 3.14, yielding the wheel’s circumference. So, for a 700 mm wheel, that’s about 2198 mm for a π of 3.14 and 2199 mm for a π of 3.1415926. But what if π is 3? That circumference becomes 2100 mm.

Now, for say 50 revolutions of the wheel:

• for a circumference of 2.199 meters we have 109.95 meters (if π is 3.1415926);
• for a circumference of 2.198 we have a 109.9 meters (if π is 3.14);
• for a circumference of 2.1, we have 105 meters (if π is 3).

If π is 3, the wheel traverses almost 5 meters less. So is π 3?

Choose

Read more about the π saga than you probably want to in this Gospel of Reason blog entry and follow-up comments.

“It makes sense to revere the sun and stars, for we are their children.” (Carl Sagan)

Consider the following:

• The world was made by God in 6 days (see Genesis), including all living things.
• Massive stars exist for millions of years before exploding as supernovae, the only known means by which elements heavier than iron are created.
• Our bodies contain elements heavier than iron, e.g. iodine.

Either the bible is literally true and the world and us (including heavier-than-iron elements) were really created in 6 days, or the universe really is old.

Choose

“What is not possible is not to choose.” (Jean-Paul Sartre)

The Human Appendix vs Intelligent Design

So you want me to believe in Intelligent Design (ID)? First you’ll have to explain why the human appendix exists.

Mine landed me on an operating table around midnight a couple of weeks before my 4th year High School exams. If left alone, it would have burst, spreading infection throughout my peritoneum. The surgeon showed it to me after I had recovered enough to care; I recall it being black.

The appendix plays a role in cellulose digestion in some mammalian species. If however humans were really created by an intelligent designer, independent of all other creatures, with no evolutionary path between some other species with a useful appendix, and us, one has to ask: why create the human species with a useless and dangerous organ?

As Douglas Theobold has said:

If the appendix does have an important function that we have yet to find, it is a leading candidate for the worst designed organ in the human body. How nice if the appendix would just degenerate away after it is no longer needed, so it could never get infected and kill us needlessly.        

A programmer might say that God ought to have noticed that the appendix was “unreachable code”, and so could be optimised away.

Perhaps ID actually denotes “Incompetent Design”.

It seems to me that we have two explanations for the existence of the human appendix:

1. It serves a useful role in some other mammalian species, and in some of our ancestors, but does not do so in us.
2. God created each of us with an appendix because he/she is not benevolent or not omnipotent.

If the Designer is not omnipotent, why is he/she/it in the business of universe and people engineering?

In Science, just one chink in the armour of a theory can bring it down. Not so for ID?

Luna from Stockport, South Australia

I took this happy snap of the Moon on April 7 2007 from Stockport Observatory, South Australia. The image is unprocessed.

I used a Pentax K100D Digital SLR and eyepiece projection via a Meade LX90 8″ Schmidt Cassegrain for 6/5 second, ISO 200.

Comet McNaught on January 23 2007

I took this image of Comet McNaught from the front of my house on January 23 2007 at about 9:30pm after just having returned from several days in Arkaroola (700 km NE of Adelaide). The orange hue is caused by a streetlight near my house. You can see the striations in the comet’s tail, material left behind as the comet passes through its orbit, away from the Sun. I used a Pentax K100D at ISO 800 for 30 seconds at f 4.5. Some star trailing is evident due to the length of the exposure. After some processing, I’ll also probably post images of the comet I took in Arkaroola.

Here’s a picture that shows the region surrounding the Arkaroola village, along with the village itself. Left of centre you can just spot the white speck of one of the observatory domes, just near the base of a hill that I and a few others spent an hour or so carefully ascending. There’s nothing much else around for many kilometres, but plenty of nature.

Our group was stuck in Arkaroola an extra day due to heavy rains while we were there. Apparently decent rains in that region only occur on average once in 8 years. In any case, it gave us a further chance to explore more of this beautiful part of the Flinders Ranges. It’s a place I’ll want to go back to again.

Comet McNaught (C/2006 P1)

After first seeing Comet McNaught two nights ago from a beach in Adelaide (Australia) with my son Nicholas, my wife Karen and I had a great view of it tonight from suburban Adelaide (after the kids were in bed) starting at around 8:55 pm, eventually peering through a gap in a neighbour’s fence to see it for as long as possible low on the horizon.

The tail was striking whether to the naked eye or in 7×50 binoculars. One particularly beautiful moment was when the coma emerged from under a thin bank of passing cloud, appearing brighter than before and orange-hued.

Comets Hale-Bopp (1997) and Hyakutake (1996) were impressive, but McNaught is something else, truly deserving of being placed in the Great Comet category.

Astronomy & Science Podcasts

Walking to and from the bus before and after work used to be lost time. The same was true for standing sardine-like on the bus. Assuming I can find a seat (less likely during peak times due to people apparently using their car less) I typically break out a journal such as Dr Dobbs or read a book, not so easy when walking, crossing roads or just trying to stand up in a moving vehicle. Enter podcasts…

If you have an Apple iPod+iTunes or some other MP3 player and appropriate software, you’ll find more podcasts (radio programs or Net-only “broadcasts”) than you can keep up with.

Here’s the Astronomy and Science related podcasts I currently listen to:

1. The ABC Science Show
2. Slacker Astronomy
3. Berkeley Groks Science Show
4. Planetary Radio from the Planetary Society
5. Science Talk: The Podcast of Scientific American
6. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory Podcast
7. New Scientist Podcast

On September 14, Slacker Astronomy split into Slackerpedia Galactica and AstronomyCast, since the original team seems to have split.

Although not strictly Science shows, three other relevant ABC Radio podcasts I listen to are:

1. Ockham’s Razor
2. All in the Mind (Psychology)
3. The Philosopher’s Zone

These along with a bunch of programming and software engineering podcasts make otherwise dead walking time into productive ambulatory adventures.

Go to the ABC Radio National Podcast page for the ABC podcasts listed above.

Google will get you to the rest of the podcasts listed.

Finally, here is an article from the San Francisco Sidewalk Astronomers about astronomy and science podcasts, including some of those listed above.

About “Strange Quark’s”…

Thanks for visiting Strange Quark’s. In this first post I’ll tell you what I intend to write about and why I chose that name. In the late 80s I ran a “service” called Quark’s Cosmos on Australia’s Viatel, later called Discovery 40, pretty much the same as the UK Prestel (40 column teletext-style) system. The content of Quark’s Cosmos was focused upon astronomical and space mission news.

It was pre-Internet, so news items were distilled from traditional media along with regular snail mail from space agencies such as NASA, ESA, and occasionally NASDA (Japan) and the agencies of other countries such as Russian and India.

A highlight was that I was able to use the forum to provide up-to-date information about Neptune as seen through Voyager 2’s eyes in 1989 because of previous communications with the Tidbinbilla Deep Space Tracking Network near Canberra.

Quark’s Cosmos also had chat boards for these topics plus Sci-Fi and Philosophy along with running the odd astronomical quiz complete with prizes (books usually). Running Quark’s Cosmos was a labour of love and actually cost my wife and I money. Nevertheless, it was fun, rewarding, and appreciated by a lot of people.

With the advent of the Internet, Viatel and Quark’s Cosmos became less compelling. Competing with the richness of the Net became a zero sum game.

Much has changed in the last 20 years, but from a content and presentation perspective, systems like Viatel 40/Discovery and CompuServe were the ancestors of most of what we see on the Internet today. Long before Internet banking was available, Viatel had it for at least one large Australian bank. IRC, ICQ, blogs, all had some counterpart on these systems. The main difference is that the Internet is unbounded, unlike these older systems (and bulletin boards) hence the need for search engines.

I’ve been considering a blog for ages, and wanted to retain the “Quark” theme, but since I and the world in general are stranger than almost 20 years ago, Strange Quark’s place/blog seemed appropriate.

The main topics of interest to me these days are:

1. Programming paradigms and languages
2. Low-resource microcontrollers such as PIC, TI MSP430, AVR, 8051
3. Amateur astronomy (generally sharing the night sky with others, planetary nebulae, the life & work of Johannes Kepler)
4. Science Fiction books and movies
5. Philosophy (in particular the Philosophy of Mind)

So, these are the topics I’ll mostly talk about. Anything else will be under clearly different categories. I’m doing this not because blogging is trendy but because I need a writing outlet, and believe I have some worthwhile things to share with others.

Finally, here’s a bit more general background about me:

• I’m married (I mentioned Karen above) with a 6 year old son Nicholas and a 2 year old girl Heather.
• I’m a professional developer having worked for Motorola, Freescale, the University of Tasmania, and ISPs (Vision Internet and Internode). Prior to that I was a nurse for the better part of a decade.
• Several years ago I developed and released the ACE Basic compiler (Amiga) and LittleLisp interpreter (Apple Newton).

My long-standing and slightly antiquated website is at:

http://www.users.on.net/~dbenn

My email address is dbenn@computer.org

Stay tuned for more posts on topics such as:

• Astronomy and Science podcasts
• Web-based astronomy software under development
• Java-based embedded systems
• TI MSP430F20xx and PIC microcontrollers and rapid development
• Reflections on personal loss (the odd one out, but something I need to write about).

That’s enough for a first post.