Specola Guestbook: May 4, 1910 – van de Sande Bakhuyzen

Sacred Space Astronomy avatarPosted on by
This entry is part 13 of 15 in the series Specola Guestbook

Since its founding in 1891, many people have passed through the doors of the Vatican Observatory.  A quick perusal of our guestbook reveals several Names, including Popes, nobel laureates, astronauts, actors, and saints. Today’s guestbook entry is from May 4, 1910, when H. G. van de Sande Bakhuyzen made a visit. Next to his name, Hendricus Gerardus van de Sande Bakhuyzen (1838-1923) wrote simply, “Leiden.” He was the director of the Leiden Observatory in the Netherlands from 1872-1923. Most of his research dealt with asteroid observations. He also made the connection between the comet 3D/Biela and a meteor shower. There is a crater on Mars named Bakhuysen in his honor, due to his publication of drawings of Mars made by Johann Schroter.   … Continue reading →

Across the Universe: Clouds from Both Sides

Sacred Space Astronomy avatarPosted on by
This entry is part 84 of 187 in the series Across the Universe

This column first ran in The Tablet in August 2010; we first ran it here in 2016. Saturday, seventeen hours from California, my friend Dan and I land in Australia. We’re looking forward to a week of observing southern stars, researching our latest book, a guide for amateur astronomers. Brother Ian meets us at the airport and leads us to the Jesuit winery and retreat house at Sevenhill, two hours north of Adelaide. Even jet-lag and a partly cloudy sky can’t stop us from pulling out our telescopes that night and peeking at Rigel Kentaurus, our Sun’s nearest neighbor, and Acrux, the brightest star of the Southern Cross. Both are double stars, first split by Jesuit missionaries in the 17th century.  After half an hour, the sky clouds over completely. But not to worry, we have the whole week before us. (A heat wave across North America threatens the lives of the poor and elderly.) Sunday, Ian shows us around the vineyards and … Continue reading →

North of Aristarchus

Sacred Space Astronomy avatarPosted on by
This entry is part 5 of 7 in the series Lunarcy

In the wide channel between Oceanus Procellarum and Mare Imbrium, from Aristarchus to Mairan, are scattered some interesting features worthy of scrutiny. Here you can see Aristarchus (41km diameter) in the lower left corner and Mairan (also 41km) at the upper edge. The diameter is where the similarities between these two ends. Aristarchus the highest albedo of any crater on the visible disk of the Moon. It has been the site of many reports of transient events ever since the time of William Herschel who believe this to be an active volcano, now known to not be true. It is also very young at 175 million years old. Above Aristarchus is a arc open towards the bright crater. This partially flooded crater is Prinz with the Montes Harbinger sparkling in the early morning light farther on. The crater Kreiger (22km) is filled with shadow to the left or west of these mountains. To the east are two more craters in … Continue reading →

In the Sky This Week – August 27, 2019

Sacred Space Astronomy avatarPosted on by
This entry is part 111 of 114 in the series In the Sky This Week

After my presentation at the Warren Public Library last week, a young woman asked if I was scheduled to speak there again. I told her I hadn’t spoken with the library about presenting again, but I do have a ton I could present. She said “I’m going to suggest to them that they get you back – you’re really good!” AwwwWWwwww! How nice! 🙂 I showed several different space software apps, and gave a virtual “Tour of the Stellar Neighborhood” using SpaceEngine; I took the audience over the rings of Saturn, flew like a drone over the surface of the Moon, orbited the Ring Nebula, flew through a gobular cluster, showed the two stars of Polaris orbiting each other in accelerated time, and more! I LOVE giving this presentation; I’m scheduled to give this talk to a bunch of astronomers at the meeting of the Warren Astronomical Society on Sept. 19th! In the continuing saga of “selling my home” – … Continue reading →

Astronomical Impressionism: Images And Ink From My Vacation Journal (Part 1)

Sacred Space Astronomy avatarPosted on by

What are the most challenging questions to answer? From my experience as a science loving priest, I would have to say the easy questions pose the greatest difficulty. When someone asks me, “Father, why did you become a priest?” I often struggle to find an answer that gives the full breadth of meaning the question demands. To simply reduce my answer to feelings from childhood, affirmation from family and friends, or the life experiences that affirmed this feeling, though helpful, doesn’t provide the full spectrum of what I seek to communicate. Put another way, how does one take a 45 year journey and condense it to a 150 character tweet! I experience a similar struggle when someone asks, “Father, why do you love astronomy?” I could talk about my love of the night skies over the family farm, how my college astronomy studies grabbed me, and my first glimpse of Jupiter’s Moons through a telescope. Each answer, however, never leaves … Continue reading →

From the V.O. Faith and Science Pages: Catechism of the Catholic Church – References to Science

Sacred Space Astronomy avatarPosted on by

Today’s featured entry from the Vatican Observatory Faith and Science pages: “Catechism of the Catholic Church – References to Science” (click here for it) [P]aragraphs within the Catechism of the Catholic Church that contain references to natural science, scientists, and scientific research. Some of these paragraphs discuss science directly. In others the reference to science is merely tangential…. The paragraphs here are based on the Vatican English text… [click here to continue]. The Faith and Science pages (F&S) are a unique resource on the web.  The material in F&S is stuff that you will find nowhere else (or at least not without a lot of digging).  Featured areas on F&S include “History of Church and Science”; “Church and Science Today”; “Science and Scripture”; “Science, Religion & Society”; “Life in the Universe”; “Cosmology”; and more.  The level of the F&S material ranges from being accessible to all audiences, with even some material oriented toward young readers, up to material for university specialists. … Continue reading →

Religious Scientists: Fr. Domenico Troili S.J. (1722-1792), Meteoriticist

Sacred Space Astronomy avatarPosted on by
This entry is part 7 of 7 in the series Religious Scientists of the Catholic Church

Today, I get to indulge in a couple topics that are important to me: meteorites and Jesuits. There are a few modern points of intersection of the two topics, including Br. Guy Consolmagno, Fr. Cyril Opeil, and myself. For this entry, however, we go back in time a couple of centuries to Fr. Domenico Troili, who lent his name to one of the most common minerals found in meteorites. Troili was a former pupil of the Fr. Roger Boscovich S.J. at the Roman College. (Boscovich is another religious scientist who will be discussed in a future blog post for his contribution to atomic theory.) He later became the curator of the Este family library in Modena, Italy. He witnessed the fall of a meteorite over Albareto, Italy in 1766. He took pains to document eyewitness accounts and collect specimens of the Albareto meteorite. This makes him the first person to formally document a meteorite fall, in Ragionamento della Caduta di un … Continue reading →

Religious Scientists on Vatican Observatory Faith and Science

Sacred Space Astronomy avatarPosted on by

There is new thing on the Vatican Observatory Faith and Science archive!  We have added a new section—“Religious Scientists”.  We mean “religious scientists” in a broad sense: scientists who are people of faith, believers in God. There are two parts to this new section.  The first part is a listing of different scientists whose work is featured in the archive.  For each scientist, there is a link that takes you to the different entries in the archive related to that scientist.  Some of the scientists in the listing are well-known—Isaac Newton, for example.  Others are not so well known—William F. Rigge, S.J., for example. The second part is a simple listing of religious scientists.  Information about each scientist is limited.  However, the second part includes many more scientists compared to the first part. It is important to understand that both parts are listings of religious scientists, not saintly scientists.  Scientists are not always saintly.  Scientists are also often independent-minded and … Continue reading →

Caucasus triangle

Sacred Space Astronomy avatarPosted on by
This entry is part 4 of 7 in the series Lunarcy

My favorite mountains on the moon are the Montes Caucasus. Seen here as a triangular shaped patch of mountains dominating the right half of this image. The curious large crater at the top middle of the range is Calippus (34km) showing much post impact slumping and infilling. In the upper right corner is most of the large lacus-like crater Alexander (85km) partly cut off by the right edge of the image. Below Alexander on the mare you can just see the dark thread that is Rima Calippus. In the middle of the mountain range is a large flooded east-west pass that may delineate a fault. This pass opens to the west towards the very non-round, some call polygonal, crater Theaetetus (26km). Further south the peaks are more flooded with only their tips showing until at the southern point of the range is the beautiful unnamed “S” shaped ridge. Just to the west of the mountains is the crater Cassini (60km … Continue reading →

Across the Universe: Under the Southern Cross

Sacred Space Astronomy avatarPosted on by
This entry is part 83 of 187 in the series Across the Universe

This column first ran in The Tablet in August, 2009; we first ran it here in 2016 Galaxies whirled before us, their curled spiral arms lit up like Christmas trees with bright infrared dots where young stars were being formed from interstellar clouds of gas and dust. Meanwhile, in their central bulges, streams of similar gas and dust were feeding the maws of  supermassive black holes, emitting high energy radiation in their death plunges. Looking at galaxies ever farther away in space, we could trace out ever further back in time the evolution of galactic clusters from filaments of matter shaped by energies we didn’t even know existed [twenty] years ago, which we must merely label as “dark”. We saw the swirling convection of a collapsing stellar core as modeled by a computer that almost, but not quite, reproduced the explosion of a supernova bursting as bright as any one of those galaxies. Not quite reproduced; because our models aren’t quite … Continue reading →

In the Sky This Week – August 20, 2019

Sacred Space Astronomy avatarPosted on by
This entry is part 110 of 114 in the series In the Sky This Week

I will be giving live demonstrations of NASA Eyes on the Solar System, Universe Sandbox, Kerbal Space Program and SpaceEngine at the Warren Public Library, Thursday August 22nd at 6:00 PM!  I’ve given these demonstrations several times – I frequently hear “I had no idea these even existed!” from audience members. I lectured at this library a month ago, and mentioned I work for the VOF; afterwards, and audience member came up to me and showed me a picture on her phone of her with Br. Guy – taken overseas! Facebook event: [LINK]. Saturn and Jupiter continue to make excellent observing targets in the southern sky after sunset. By midnight, Saturn is high in the south-southwestern sky and Jupiter is near setting in the southwest. The eastern sky has some bright stars and the Pleiades star cluster at 3:00 AM. On Aug. 20th, the Moon is high and lonely in the sky from midnight to dawn. The Summer Triangle sets … Continue reading →

Raising Awareness One Piece of Gum at a Time

Sacred Space Astronomy avatarPosted on by

RAISING AWARENESS ONE PIECE OF GUM AT A TIME Introduction Whether it’s public outreach, informal education, or science-for-non-science-majors, not all learners are necessarily on the same page as their presenters or even others in the audience. Workshop members, students, and the general public have different science backgrounds, expectations, and  interest levels, just to name a few variables presenters need to take into account. The use of ice breaker activities, brainstorming, and cooperative projects not only raises awareness of astronomy-related vocabulary and concepts to be studied, but — especially in a workshop setting — can serve as an introduction of group members to each other and to staff, and can develop a sense of camaraderie. Below are three suggested group  activities featuring uses of astronomy terms in music, local businesses and amenities, and advertising. These activities can, we hope, both entertain and pique the interest of the learners as they begin to think about astronomy.   Astronomy in Song The number … Continue reading →