2019-08-01_Sky_and_Telescope

ºAugust 1944

Moon Rockets? “There are many

experts who believe... that the

day may not be far distant when we

shall be exploring outer space in

person — possibly 500 years from

now, possibly in 1,000 years. Some

think it may come even sooner than

that, after the war perhaps, when

men’s minds will turn once more to

the peacetime utility of rockets and

rocket ships. Perhaps, they say,

before some now alive have died,

rocket-liner trips to the moon may

be a common daily performance.

This is wild supposition, not scien-

tifi c statement. But there are those

who believe it.”

Marian Lockwood was an early

columnist for Sky & Telescope and

its predecessor, The Sky.

ºAugust 1969

Gravitational Waves “If the

results of a delicate experiment by

Joseph Weber of the University

of Maryland have been correctly

interpreted, gravitational radiation

reaching Earth from space has

fi nally been detected.... He uses

two or more detectors [600 miles

apart, each being] a one-ton alumi-

num cylinder about fi ve feet long,

with piezoelectric crystals bonded

to its surface....

“Dr. Weber’s report covers an

81-day monitoring period. During

this interval, more than 17 signifi -

cant coincidences were recorded.”

Weber’s results were never

confi rmed, but many astronomers

credit him with founding the fi eld

of gravitational-wave detection. He

died in 2000. The fi rst true waves

were picked up in 2015 from the

faraway merger of two black holes,

probably in the south-circumpolar

sky. (See also a related item, next.)

ºAugust 1994

Gamma-Ray Bursts “About once

a day an explosion somewhere in

space produces an intense blast

of gamma rays that is detected

by Earth-orbiting or interplanetary

spacecraft. We don’t know what

causes these bursts or where they

are produced. They do not appear

to generate radiation in any other

energy range.... Gamma-ray

bursts remain among the most baf-

fl ing phenomena in astronomy....

“There are good reasons to

reject all of the proposed solutions

to the gamma-ray burst enigma.

Adherents of any one model fi nd

it easier to critique rival theories

than to defend their own. Most

researchers remain agnostics,

awaiting some observation or theo-

retical development that will crack

the case.... It is humbling that we

do not know the distance scale of

the burst sources to better than 10

orders of magnitude.”

Charles Meegan was lamenting

more than two decades of failed

efforts to understand gamma-ray

bursts (GRBs). But his Compton

Gamma Ray Observatory team

fi nally, in 1997, linked them to

potent explosions in remote galax-

ies. In 2017 a GRB coincided with

gravitational waves detected when

two neutron stars merged in Hydra.

1944

1969

1994

75, 50 & 25 YEARS AGO by Roger W. Sinnott

Before purchasing a commercial Bar-
lowed laser collimator, I had been using
a cardboard laser collimation target I
would slip over the bottom end of the
focuser tube. As it turned out, I had
forgotten to remove it and was trying
to view the Double Cluster with an eye-
piece stopped down to 6-mm aperture!

Steve Emert
White Bear Lake, Minnesota

Found in Space
Great article on Alpha Centauri (S&T:
Apr. 2019, p. 34). This star and the
1960s television show Lost in Space —
the Robinsons were headed there — were
what fi rst got me interested in astron-
omy. I tried to fi nd out all I could about
it, which wasn’t easy back then. But in
the Army and on guard duty one night
on the Big Island of Hawai‘i, I spotted
it. That was the only time I’ve ever seen
it. I’d love to see it through a telescope,
but at this point in my life, that looks
unlikely. I hope you’ll keep us posted on

SUBMISSIONS:Write to Sky & Telescope, 90 Sherman St., Cambridge, MA 02140-3264, U.S.A. or email: letters@

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FOR THE RECORD

• While Juno was the fi rst spacecraft to
  image Jupiter’s poles (S&T: May 2019, p.
  16), other spacecraft have come close to
  its polar perspective. Ulysses fl ew on a so-
  lar polar orbit, so it too fl ew over Jupiter’s
  poles, though at a greater distance and
  without a camera. The Pioneer mission also
  fl ew by but at a more oblique angle that
  prevented seeing the poles themselves.

skyandtelescope.com • AUGUST 2019 7

any planet discoveries in that system.

We may need to send the Robinsons out

there someday if we screw up Earth!

Ed Bailey

Daniels, West Virginia

Another Amateur Discovery

Congratulations to Giuseppe Donatiello

on his discovery of a dwarf galaxy (S&T:

Mar. 2019, p. 9). His keen-eyed observa-

tion reminds me of another amateur

who has, more recently, also discovered

a previously unknown galaxy.

In 2017 Rick Steiling, a member

of my local club, the Astronomical

Society of Eastern Missouri, discovered

a faint smudge on one of his images of

the NGC 2655 fi eld. With the help of

fellow club member Dan Crowson and

much sleuthing, Rick was fi nally able to

verify that he had discovered a hith-

erto unknown low-surface-brightness

galaxy. He and Dan published a paper

in Research Notes of the AAS (Apr. 24,

2018), which became one of the most

downloaded papers in American Astro-

nomical Society journals in 2018. For

the article, see https://is.gd/steilingfi nd.

To read a discussion of the potential

importance of Rick’s discovery, see

https://is.gd/mzs5Zk.

Bill Sheehy

Chesterfi eld, Missouri