My wonderful vacation is over and it is time to get back to the grind! I finally have my Celestron C9.25 telescope back here in Ohio and I’m ready to get started on star parties and outreach programs. Right now, I am tentatively scheduled to attend the Cincinnati Observatory’s star party on October 17th at Stonelick State Park in Southwest Ohio. Details to follow, but until then…one of the strangest astronomy stories to hit the presses in quite a while. You see…the sky is full of wonders. From ancient rocks and alien worlds in our own back yard to distant gas clouds and galaxies far, far away; man has been fascinated with the tiny dots that canvas our night sky. I love the reaction on people’s faces when I’m at a star party and explain that the really bright star that has been catching everyone’ s attention is actually Jupiter, Saturn, or some other celestial wonder. Abe Megahed, a photographer in Wisconsin, photographed a different type of celestial wonder on Wednesday, although not one that many would be proud to spot: Space Shuttle Discovery’s urine and water waste.

Yikes.

I’ve seen many things in the night sky that I couldn’t explain and that often is the result of not having my star charts handy. However, it would probably be heartbreaking for me to learn that my new “comet” discovery was…Discovery’s toilet flush.

There’s nothing more to say.

Before I get started on this post, there are new updates from the Mount Wilson Observatory: the fires have passed and the observatory is safe. Fire crews pulled off an amazing feat by control-burning the nearby shrubbery and saving both the observatory and a communications hub used by emergency services throughout the area. Big kudos to the emergency crews that are working through the night to fight the fires. An important part of astronomical history was saved due to their diligence. With that in mind, I promise that tonight’s post is less of an angry, incoherent rant than last night’s.

For anyone who has ever been to a dark sky site and taken a look at a so-called “faint fuzzy”, you’ve probably seen a member of the New General Catalog (NGC) or Index Catalog (IC) list of astronomical objects. The NGC and IC are just a fancy way of cataloging deep space objects much like books are catalogued in a library or DVDs in a video store. Some of the more common star-party NGC objects are the Cat’s Eye Nebula and the Blue Snowball Nebula. There are also a [very] large number of galaxies with NGC and IC designations that you may have been privileged to see. These objects are usually the deep space targets that professional astronomers probe with their telescopes and cameras for years in search of answers to some of the universe’s oldest questions. They also make fantastic challenge targets for advancing amateur astronomers.

Now, thanks to the European Southern Observatory (ESO) and its Wide Field Camera, astrophotographers have taken a new image of the distant galaxy NGC 4945 in the Constellation Centaurus. It is a barred spiral galaxy which many astronomers believe looks very similar to our own Milky Way Galaxy. The picture is very cool although NGC 4945 has been imaged several times before by professional and amateur astronomers. From our perspective, the spiral galaxy appears as a cigar-shaped structure similar to the Cigar Galaxy in Canis Major. Spectrographic analysis of the galaxy’s light emissions have shown that it contains a supermassive black hole at its core just like our own galaxy, but with one exception…it has an active core as opposed to the Milky Way’s inactive core. What does that mean? It means that when many of these black holes reach a size similar to the one at the center of our galaxy, it no longer actively feeds on the surrounding cosmic matter. The core of NGC 4945 is emitting enough energy to indicate that its central black hole is actively feeding and that the galaxy is filled with intense clusters of forming stars.

Those of us in the Northern Hemisphere are out of luck for seeing NGC 4945 with our own telescopes. It rises midday and sets well before the Sun is out of the sky. Southern Hemisphere astronomers can easily find the 9.5 magnitude galaxy in the Constellation Centaurus.

Image Credit: ESO/NASA

I apologize in advance for the angry rant, but it is long overdue. A recent piece in The Guardian and the pathetic Space.com article mentioned below have compelled me to say what most of us are thinking: We need a space exploration project that fulfills our hopes and dreams instead of crushing them under the weight of government bureaucracy. Simple, right? Are you wondering what type of hallucinogens your humble host has been smoking tonight? Well friends, you can relax because I am not hallucinating, I am just getting fed up with stories like this. Congratulations to the group of college students who used a 3D rendering program to design a sub-par add-on module for the International Space Station. You are a credit to space exploration and certainly have inspired many to reconsider their apathy toward low-Earth orbit. I am really saddened by this story because it is not a newsworthy event. Artists design 3-dimensional renderings of space stations, spacecraft, alien cities, solar systems, and other space-related objects every day. Many of these are based on real, modern technology that offer much more than the so-called “hotel in space”.

I am a firm believer that it is stories like these that add to the apathy that exists toward any space exploration endeavors. It seems as though we’re introduced to some “fascinating” new technology or space hardware design every few weeks only to see them disappear without a trace. Bigelow Aerospace and its Genesis modules are the only designs I can think of in the last few years that seemed like complete BS, but were ultimately built and launched. It is much like The Boy Who Cried Wolf. Yes, I know that it is a HUGE cliché to use this comparison, but it must be done. With a new design for a spacecraft or a station released every few weeks, but nothing new in the way of completed contracts or launches, people will naturally begin to assume the worst when it comes to these designs. I am already there. I read this article and already assigned my own opinion to its chances for completion before I was finished: Zero. None. Nada. We’re NEVER going to see this design attached to the International Space Station. It does not matter what the reasoning is, but the fact is that it just will not happen. I am tired of seeing this “marvels” that will “change the way we think about living in space” come and go without changing how we actually live in space! This is nothing new, however. Remember Space Station Freedom (see pic on right)? I think it is time for NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) to start cruising the forums at some 3D art websites for ideas on practical designs for future spacecraft. After all, the terrible design of this little “space hotel” has just as much chance of being constructed and launched to the ISS as a prototype fighter plane from a Gary Tonge painting. Zero. None. Nada.

The Guardian article is on target, but the Space.com article is a waste of time. The sense of wonder and adventure that exploring the stars used to bring to people’s lives is mostly gone. It is, in my opinion, going to take a successful space program of some kind to reignite the dream of reaching the cosmos for many people. Bar charts and 3D renderings are not enough. Give me enough time and I can build you a 3D rocket and a timeline for launching it into orbit. If you want to donate $1.2 billion to this blog, I’ll even make sure that it is repeatedly pushed back until one of my friends convinces me to cancel it and pocket the money. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?

Image Credit: Imperial College of London/NASA