Amateur Astronomers Make First Sighting of 2003 UB313

http://mcdonaldobservatory.org/news/...2006/0220.html

20 February 2006

Amateur astronomers make first sighting of '10th planet' through
McDonald Observatory telescope

FORT DAVIS, TEXAS - A group of amateur astronomers has used the
2.1-meter (82-inch) Otto Struve Telescope at McDonald Observatory to
make the first "through-the-eyepiece" sighting of the so-called tenth
planet, an object orbiting the Sun in the Kuiper Belt, far beyond
Pluto.
The group includes members of the St. Louis and Rockland Astronomical
Societies, and a few others.

The object's official designation is 2003UB313. Its discoverers, led by
Dr. Michael Brown of Caltech, have nicknamed it "Xena." The actual
discovery and confirmation of the object were made by mining images
taken by sensitive electronic imagers mounted on a telescope, called
CCDs (charge-coupled devices).

According to Louis Berman of the St. Louis Astronomical Society, Brown
confirmed to the group of amateur astronomers before their attempt
that,
to his knowledge, they were the only people in the world attempting to
see "Xena" through the eyepiece of a telescope.

In terms of brightness, "Xena" is what astronomers would call a 19th
magnitude object. That means that it's about five million times dimmer
than Polaris, the North Star, which is sometimes difficult to see with
the unaided eye. "Xena" is just at the limit of what can be seen with
the human eye through the Struve Telescope.

The sighting took place on October 9, 2005, at 1:08 a.m. CDT. The first
sighting was made by Keith Murdock of the St. Louis Astronomical
Society. Confirmation occurred at 1:15 a.m. when Louis Berman, also of
the St. Louis group, located the object. Eight more members of the
group
saw "Xena," in addition to two McDonald Observatory staffers, Kevin
Mace
and Frank Cianciolo. The observers followed a strict protocol and kept
detailed records to verify their observations.

McDonald Observatory's Frank Cianciolo recalls the event:

"Since UB313 would not be high enough to observe until roughly 1:30
a.m.
or so, the group planned to observe a number of other object prior to
the 'Xena' attempt. The views of these other objects indicated that
while we had reasonable conditions, we didn't have the excellent
conditions the group had thought we may need to acquire UB313, so there
was a bit of tension as the viewing window approached.

"At the proper time, the guys from St. Louis worked with Kevin [Mace]
to
get the telescope pointed to the coordinates where they had calculated
UB313 should be at that precise time. Fortunately, there were no bright
stars in the field of view that would cause glare and possibly ruin any
chance of seeing the object. Due to some confusion about sky
orientation
in the eyepiece, Keith [Murdock] spent several long minutes not
recognizing the field he expected to see. Once that confusion was
cleared up and a small correction to the telescope's point were made,
however, it didn't take long for Keith to announce that he believed he
could identify, conclusively, UB313.

"After Keith's sighting, it took each observer several minutes to
properly understand the orientation of the field and then to hop from
brighter stars to fainter stars and finally to see 'Xena.' At the
staggering distance of roughly 90 AU [that is, 90 times the Earth-Sun
distance], an object the size of UB313 essentially displays no
measurable size. Due to this, it was no easy task to actually identify
the incredibly faint fuzzy dot as anything but a star at the very limit
of visibility through the 82-inch [Struve Telescope]."

The object, Berman says, "was a very dim, pointlike source that could
only be seen through averted vision. If you looked straight at it,
you'd
never see it."

McDonald Observatory's Mace agrees. "It looked like a faint star," he
said. "A little difficult to pick out against the field stars. It's not
visually stunning."

However, Mace continued, "how many people on the planet have seen this?
Pretty much just our group."

Cianciolo credits the sighting with the group's early preparations.
"Had
it not been for the excellent charts and CCD images which the St. Louis
group spent weeks preparing, there would have been no way to
conclusively identify UB313," Cianciolo said. "It is a testament to the
incredible skill and dedication some amateurs show to their passion of
astronomy that the folks on the dome floor that night are, to anyone's
knowledge, the only humans on the planet to have seen UB313 at an
eyepiece.

"Truly this has to go down as 'extreme astronomy,'" he said.

These days, it is unusual for large telescopes at professional
observatories to even have eyepieces. The astronomers at McDonald don't
use the eyepieces for their observations - images are recorded onto
computers. But the eyepiece capability makes three of McDonald's
research-grade telescopes accessible to the public a few nights each
month. The Struve, as well as the 2.7-meter (107-inch)Harlan J. Smith
Telescope, may be the largest telescopes in the world available for
public observing sessions. McDonald's smaller 0.9-meter (36-inch)
telescope is also used for special public viewing programs.

- END -

Additional contacts:

Frank Cianciolo, Sr. Program Coordinator
McDonald Observatory Visitors Center
The University of Texas at Austin
432-426-3640;

Louis Berman
St. Louis Astronomical Society

wrote:

http://mcdonaldobservatory.org/news/...2006/0220.html

20 February 2006

Amateur astronomers make first sighting of '10th planet' through
McDonald Observatory telescope

FORT DAVIS, TEXAS - A group of amateur astronomers has used the
2.1-meter (82-inch) Otto Struve Telescope at McDonald Observatory to
make the first "through-the-eyepiece" sighting of the so-called tenth
planet, an object orbiting the Sun in the Kuiper Belt, far beyond
Pluto.
The group includes members of the St. Louis and Rockland Astronomical
Societies, and a few others...

Great story -- thanks for posting it (and the other good stuff that you
post from time to time.)

I haven't met any of the St. Louis observers, but I met a number of the
Rockland folks at the 2004 NEAF. They're a highly dedicated group --
/serious/ observers!

Davoud

--
usenet *at* davidillig dawt com