| I'm in heaven with my telescope Hubble, Kepler and sophisticated ground-based telescopes are all very well, but for Stephen Curry nothing matches the elation of seeing the stars and planets with his own eyesStephen writes the Reciprocal Space blog"The Earth is too much with us; late and soon, getting and spending we lay waste our powers; little do we see in Nature that is ours," wrote Wordsworth of the commodification of the natural world by the industrial revolution. The poet's lyrical sonnet mourns the loss of intimacy between Man and Nature, a privation I recognised last month when I lugged my telescope on holiday to Cumbria, Wordsworth's birthplace and home.My shiny eight-inch Newtonian reflector, a prized possession of just a few months, had till then only scanned the night skies of London. Though the view was dimmed by light pollution, I revelled in my first magnified sightings of the star-studded heavens. I saw the cratered moon, tracked down most of the globular planets and, on one memorable night guided by my daughter's sharper eyesight, the Orion nebula; to say nothing of the swarm of new stars made visible by my telescope.I was giddy with an amateur's love but knew there had to be more. So I dismantled and packed the instrument for our trip to the darker night skies offered by the Cumbrian countryside, my wife looking on with a mixture of bemusement and pity."You're not serious?"But I was. And this city boy was richly rewarded for his efforts with two clear nights in that August week. Further north, the skies didn't darken until about 10pm but when they did, what magnificent illumination was made visible. I stood and gazed and grinned at the feast of light: stars galore, everywhere I looked – even with the unaided eye – and, stretched across it all, the luminous swathe of the Milky Way. The sense of superfluity was heightened by the sight of stars seemingly flung wastefully to Earth as the planet blundered through the Perseid cloud, its rocky fragments igniting as they shot through the upper atmosphere.With my telescope I was in heaven. Old friends produced new wonders. I got my clearest view yet of Jupiter and could discern for the first time the banded pattern of clouds on its surface. Triangulating by the stars nearby I got my first fix on – my first fix of – Uranus, too dim for me to find from under London's orange canopy. Beneath bright Vega, halfway between its starry partners Sulafat and Sheliak, I saw the ghostly halo of the Ring Nebula (M57). And there, towards the west, was the elliptical glow of the great galaxy of Andromeda (M31). It is the most distant object I have ever seen. Far outside our own galaxy, its light took two and a half million years to reach me.My simple observations are nothing compared with the work of professional astronomers, who have access to the latest instruments. Of these, the Hubble Space Telescope has probably grabbed the most headlines, with its spectacularly detailed images of nebulae and galaxies. But last week, it was the turn of the Kepler spacecraft and the European Southern Observatory to dance in the limelight, as reports came in of the first discoveries of multi-planet systems orbiting distant stars – solar systems something like our own.These reports filled the newspapers because our precious sun has been demoted. It is no longer unique in its possession of planetary satellites. But despite my astronomical interests, the stories didn't grab me. In part, the revelations were hardly surprising, since our understanding of planetary formation made it inconceivable that planets would not exist elsewhere among the myriad stars in the universe.But there's something else. A curious aspect of the Kepler and ESO results is that the planets that have been discovered have not actually been seen. Instead, they were detected indirectly. For over six years the ESO group recorded the wobbles and subtle colour shifts of HD 10180 due to the gravitational pull of its invisible planets and deduced that the star is orbited by five Neptune-sized objects. Kepler, by monitoring the incremental dimming of the light from a star now called Kepler-9 as its planets passed in front, detected two Saturnine gas giants and tantalising evidence for a third Earth-sized object. These results are outstanding feats, both of measurement – the disturbances of the stars by their planets are minuscule – and the complex analysis needed to decode the composition of each star system. I have no doubt that the scientists involved rejoiced in their discoveries. But the results, as presented, are numerical. For those outside the project there is nothing to see. Or to feel.So, as exciting and dramatic as these new breakthroughs may be on the wider stage of astronomy, for me there is nothing to compare with the elation felt as I leaned time and again into the eyepiece on those Cumbrian nights, to discover new things about the night sky, not for the world, but for myself.Those scientific nights let me see more of nature and bolstered a connection that would surely earn Wordsworth's approval. On the first clear night after my return to London I was disappointed with the dim and dismal prospect above me, the Milky Way washed out and so many newfound stars veiled by the electric glow. But all is not lost. The sky is friendlier to me now; we are better acquainted and I look forward to deepening that relationship.Stephen Curry is a professor of structural biology, not astronomy, at Imperial College and writes a regular blog at Reciprocal SpaceAstronomySpaceguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Amateurs make an astronomical impact A new study has confirmed amateur astronomers recorded a pair of small meteors impacting with the planet Jupiter, highlighting the growing value of amateurs to the field of astronomy. abc.net.au |
Obama on Climate Change Strategy A shift in energy policy may have to be legislated in "chunks" rather than through a comprehensive bill, the president says. feeds.nytimes.com |
Deep dive: new fish discovered in ocean trench A new species of snailfish is discovered in one of the world's deepest ocean trenches, which was previously thought to be devoid of fish. news.bbc.co.uk |
Mystery Bird: Long-tailed Cormorant, Phalacrocorax africanus This African mystery bird is a member of a family of birds that are often persecuted by fishermen as competitors because these birds also eat fishLong-tailed Cormorant, also known as the Reed Cormorant, Phalacrocorax africanus (formerly; Halietor africanus, and Microcarbo africanus), photographed at Kilombero River Valley, Tanzania, Africa. Image: Dan Logen, 9 January 2010 [with binoculars].Nikon D300, 600 mm lens, ISO 320, f/7.1, 1/1000 sec. This African mystery bird is a Long-tailed Cormorant, Phalacrocorax africanus, a member of a family of birds (Phalacrocoracidae) that are often persecuted by fishermen as "competitors" because these birds also eat fish. Unfortunately, the fishermen's problems with dwindling fish stocks is because of their own rapacious behaviors, not due to the cormorants' behaviors. If you have bird images, video or mp3 files that you'd like to share with a large and appreciate audience, feel free to email them to me for consideration.GrrlScientistguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |