From: Terrence Redding <tredding@mac.com>

Date: July 24, 2009 5:12:01 PM MDT

To: Astro_IIDC@yahoogroups.com

Subject: Re: [Astro_IIDC] Re: impact on Jupiter...


Milton, your last sentence, before the salutation,  is the essence of my fascination with amateur astronomy, indeed amateur scientist.  Many of the absolute cutting edge discoveries have been made by amateur who pursue science for the love of learning.  Indeed, even when it is a professional that makes the makes the break through discovery, I like to argue that they do so for the shear love of learning or discovering new knowledge.


This November IOTA will embrace a major effort to profile the asteroid Barbara.  The data gathered using small telescopes positioned with GPS accuracy, imaged with the video recorded at 30 frames a second and each frame a date time stamped to the thousandth of a second will allow the profile to be accurate to within a meter.  This profile produced by amateurs will then be used to validate the imaging of Barbara done by the French with the twin radar imaging observatory earlier this year.  The IOTA effort will be self-funded by the amateur astronomers involved and they will if the weather cooperates, produce the definitive shape and size of asteroid Barbara.


I find that amazing and worth pursuing.  I will be there - and plan to make a presentation on how amateur astronomers learn: the critical nature of the amateur scientists.  My small contribution to the international year of astronomy.

Terry - W6LMJ


Terrence R. Redding, Ph.D. RTN

http://olt.net/learningstyle/Site_2/Learning_Style_Research.html

How do amateur astronomers learn?



On Jul 24, 2009, at 6:24 PM, Milton Aupperle wrote:

Hi Terrence;


On 24-Jul-09, at 3:49 PM, Terrence Redding wrote:



Ah, else where I learned that the object that struck Jupiter was to small to be imaged from earth.


Can you quote the source for this?


I've never heard anyone say what the impactor was yet or what size it was, except this guess by Nasa as to it being "several football fields in size":


http://news.cnet.com/8301-19514_3-10295368-239.html


http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/090724-hubble-jupiter-spot.html


Shoemaker Levy 9 was estimated to be 1 to 3 kilometers in size for the "core" fragments..


http://www.isc.tamu.edu/~astro/sl9/cometfaq2.html


comparable images are at:


ftp://seds.lpl.arizona.edu/pub/astro/SL9/images/recent/ALL/LPM_FGH.gif


http://www.isc.tamu.edu/~astro/sl9/cometfaq2.html


Not trying to be argumentative, but I still find it funny that it was an amateur found it and not any government funded groups with vastly greater resources.


Have a great weekend..


Milton J. Aupperle