All Eyes on the Ice Giants, 10.08.2023
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/News-Center/New ... e=20230810
All Eyes on the Ice Giants, 11.08.2023 (in dieser Quelle fehlt noch der Projekt Link)
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/all-eyes-on-the-ice-giants
Uranus und Neptun: Amateure sollen Weltraumsonden bei Forschung helfen, 14.08.2023
https://www.heise.de/news/Uranus-und-Ne ... 43153.html
Die NASA bittet Amateurastronomen und -astronominnen in aller Welt um Hilfe bei einer bislang einmaligen Beobachtungskampagne. Im September soll die extrem weit entfernte Sonde New Horizons parallel zum Weltraumteleskop Hubble die beiden äußersten Planeten Uranus und Neptun ins Visier nehmen. Passend dazu sollen Menschen aus aller Welt die beiden Eisriesen von der Erde aus ablichten und "einen echten Beitrag zur Weltraumforschung leisten". Von der Zusammenführung und Auswertung der so gesammelten Daten erhofft sich New Horizons Chefwissenschaftler Alan Stern neue Erkenntnisse über die Atmosphären der beiden Riesenplaneten und der dort möglicherweise noch schlummernden Rätsel. (...)
Selbst 40-cm-Teleskope von Amateurastronomen können "extrem wichtige" Begleitbeobachtungen liefern, versichert Stern jetzt. Damit gemachte Aufnahmen sollen mit dem Hashtag #NHIceGiants auf X (vormals Twitter) oder Facebook geteilt werden, von alternativen Möglichkeiten zur Weitergabe ist keine Rede. Die US-Weltraumagentur bittet zusätzlich um Angaben zum Aufnahmezeitpunkt und zu den benutzten Filtern. Das Forschungsteam will die Bilder dann auf den Plattformen sammeln. (...)
Link (aus erster Quelle im Text; Fett hervorgehoben von mir):
http://pluto.jhuapl.edu/Learn/Get-Invol ... servations
How Amateur Astronomers Can Help – from Earth!
The New Horizons science team is inviting the global astronomy community to image Uranus and Neptune in support of these observations. Concurrent observations from Earth, even from relatively modest telescopes, can produce images that may reveal atmospheric structure on these distant worlds.
Observations of Uranus could include measuring the current brightness distribution across the planet, as well as the possible presence of discrete clouds. For Neptune, they could include characterizing unusually bright features that provide a better temporal baseline for – and even help interpret – the New Horizons and Hubble Space Telescope measurements.
By combining these data with the information New Horizons collects, the mission science team can supplement its models to reveal how atmospheric aerosols scatter; better constrain the size and optical depth of scattering aerosols; and reduce the number of free parameters in the atmospheric models.
New Horizons will address key science questions for Uranus and Neptune, including:
What are their energy budgets and heat balances, and what roles do water and convection play in their atmospheres?
What fraction of incident sunlight does each planet absorb, and how much thermal energy does each planet emit?
What is the source of energy for each planet’s upper and extended atmospheres?
Baseline Observing Requirements
Results depend on a combination of telescope size, CCD sensitivity, sky darkness, transparency, and seeing. Under clear, stable skies, telescopes as small as 16 inches can collect quality data!
Even observations made within a week (before or after) of the New Horizons and Hubble observations can be extremely useful because they can extend the time baseline for anything the spacecraft observes in detail.
The Hubble images of Uranus and Neptune will be publicly available in late September and can be retrieved from the Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes, or MAST, at archive.stsci.edu. The New Horizons team expects to receive the images of Uranus and Neptune from the spacecraft a few months later, by the end of 2023.
Your Turn!
Once you have images of Neptune or Uranus to contribute, post them on Twitter or Facebook using the hashtag #NHIceGiants.
Include the date and time of all images you post and the filter bandpass used.
The New Horizons team will catalog images placed on these social media platforms using this identifying hashtag.
