Tehachapi Skywatch
by Dale Hawkins

Welcome to the International Year of Astronomy
The new year brings with it many beginnings, commemorations,
and renewals; we have a new president, we are celebrating the City of
Tehachapi's Centennial, and we are celebrating the four hundredth
anniversary of the astronomical telescope.
Until 1609, humanity's knowledge of the sky was very limited.
The daytime was overwhelmingly dominated by the sun, which brought
forth the light and warmth that made life possible. However, no one
could really say what it was. It moved like clockwork across the sky –
indeed, it was the clock – and through thin clouds could be seen to
be round. But that's about all we knew about the sun. Such lack of
knowledge means a mystery, which lends itself to mysticism.
Therefore, many – if not most – cultures considered the sun a god.
The night sky was far more mysterious. The myriad points of
light of varying brightness and color show little resemblance to the
sun. Ancient Greek astronomers speculated that the stars may be
extremely distant suns, but they couldn't prove it and few believed
that. The milky iridescence and dark dust clouds of our galaxy were
similarly inexplicable. And some of the brighter "stars" wandered
around the otherwise unchanging heavens. The common explanation was
that the heavens were fixed and immutable, while the planets were
gods making their way among the stars.
One thing was certain: Everything in the sky revolved around
the earth and, therefore, the earth was the center of the Universe.
Not only was it intuitive common sense, the pope said so – and that
was that.
In fact, the debate over whether the earth was the center of
the universe was challenged long ago. Aristarchus of Samos proposed
that the planets, including the earth, may actually move around the
sun in 270 BCE. The notion didn't gain much support for a variety of
reasons, not the least which being that – assuming circular orbits –
predictions did not precisely fit observations. Then Nicolaus
Copernicus and Johannes Kepler worked out a heliocentric (sun-
centered) model using ellipses instead of circles – which precisely
matched observations – in the 1500's. However, the pope had ruled
such ideas were heresy and so little came of it at the time.
That brings us to 1609 when Galileo Galilee first turned a
telescope on the night sky. His instruments were so crude that one is
hard-pressed to find one of such low quality on the market today. Yet
with it he saw that the moon was indeed a world with mountains,
valleys, and smooth areas that he likened to oceans, seas, lakes, and
marshes (though I doubt that he really thought they contained water).
Galileo studied the Milky Way and resolved its soft light into
countless stars like so many grains of sand on a beach. He discovered
that Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn were round like the sun and the moon,
while the stars were still just pinpoints of light. He reported that
Venus went through phases like the moon, which suggested that it went
around the sun and not the earth. But his most dangerous observation
was that four moons orbited Jupiter, conclusively proving that not
everything went around the earth. This was the first serious crack in
the geocentric (earth-centered) model of the Universe, which would be
shattered in the coming years. It also landed Galileo in hot water
with the Catholic Church. To make a long – but fascinating – story
short, Galileo was sentenced to house arrest for the last eight years
of his life for challenging Catholic doctrine. Had he been free to
correspond with his fellow academicians, it is almost certain that he
would have invented the calculus during those years. Only in 1993 did
the pope grudgingly concede that the church may have erred in
Galileo's case. (On the other hand, Galileo got off light; Giordano
Bruno was burned at the stake in 1600 for his belief in a
heliocentric and infinite universe.)
Until the astronomical renaissance of the 16th and 17th
centuries, astronomy and astrology were one and the same; for what
other possible use could there be in studying the stars if not to
determine their influence on human events? This renaissance forever
separated astronomy and astrology, making astronomy a serious science
while astrology remains in the realm of mysticism. (Indeed, it
disturbs me how pervasive astrology still is in this age of supposed
enlightenment.
It is this more enlightened side of humanity that celebrates
Galileo's accomplishments – and sacrifices – by declaring the four
hundredth anniversary of his first telescopic observations as the
first International Year of Astronomy. First proposed by the
International Astronomical Union, it has been so declared by the
United Nations and astronomical organizations around the world.
The goal of the declaration is to turn the consciousness of
every human being toward the grandeur, splendor, and wonder of the
Universe. We want to get as many people as possible behind a
telescope. The Greater Tehachapi Astronomy Club will be developing a
program to that end. Watch my column for further details; and if you
have ideas, please send them to me at hawk@....
Meanwhile, you can participate just by going outside on a
clear night and marveling at the limitless universe in which we live,
and appreciating how far we've come in understanding what we are and
where we are in this endless sea of space.
In the coming months, I'll share with you some of what we've
discovered in the last four hundred years.

Night Sky Watch
With a new moon on the 25th, the evening sky will be dark for
a time. The moon will occult (pass in front of) the Pleiades on the
evening of February third.
Venus is quickly moving between us and the sun. It can be
seen together with the moon and Jupiter in the morning sky on
February fourth.

Sunrise/Sunset (PST)
January 23rd: 6:59 am/5:13 pm
January 30th: 6:55 am/5:20 pm
February 6th: 6:49 am/5:27 pm


ILLUSTRATIONS

Primary:
Caption: Galileo was one of the most brilliant men of all time – and
he knew it. It was his ego that got him into the hottest water.
Portrait credit: Giusto Sustermans
File: C:\...Tehachapi Sky Watch\Galileo.jpg

Secondary:
Caption: While the mounting for his telescopes were ornate,
Galileo's optics were child's play by today's standards.
File: C:\...Tehachapi Sky Watch\Galileo telescope.gif