San Diego
Astronomy Association
Celebrating Over 40 Years of Astronomical Outreach
http://www.sdaa.org
A Non-Profit Educational Association
P.O. Box 23215, San Diego, CA 92193-3215
SDAA Business Meeting
Next meeting will be held at:
3838 Camino del Rio North
Suite 300
San Diego, CA 92108
January 14th at 7pm
Next Program Meeting
January 18th, 2014 at 7pm
Annual Banquet
Handlery Hotel & Resort
CONTENTS
January 2014, Vol LII, Issue 1
Published Monthly by the
San Diego Astronomy Association
$2.50 an issue/$30.00 year
Incorporated in California in 1963
Annual Banquet...................1
December Minutes...........................3
February Program Meeting....................5
TDS Schedule.....................5
Januar y Calendar.........................6
S DA A C o n t a c t s. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
AISIG Galler y..............................8
We b O n l y - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Space Place Partners’ Article..........11
AstroShort...........................13
January 2014
Annual Banquet
Date: January 18th, 2014
Speaker: Dr. Douglas Leonard
Topic: Supernovae, the catastrophic explosions of stars, are some of the most luminous events in the universe for the few weeks that they are at peak brightness. Dr.
Leonard summarizes what we have learned about the nature of stars that ultimately
explode as core-collapse supernovae from the examination of images taken prior to the
explosion.
Douglas Leonard is Associate Professor of Astronomy at San Diego State University, having previously served as National Science Foundation Astronomy and Astrophysics Postdoctoral Scholar at the California Institute of Technology and, prior to that, as
a Postdoctoral Fellow with the Five College Astronomy Department in Amherst, MA.
Dr. Leonard received his B.A. in astronomy and astrophysics from the University of
Pennsylvania, and his M.S. and Ph.D. in astrophysics from the University of California,
Berkeley. His publications include over 50 articles in the technical literature. A passionate science educator, his latest endeavors include work on several BBC/Horizon
videos on black holes, cosmology, and the deaths of stars.
Photo by Kelly Calligan / Daily Aztec
Newsletter Deadline
The deadline to submit articles
for publication is the
15th of each month.
Link to BBC/Horizon video on black holes, cosmology, and the deaths of stars.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mx5210jP7yY
San Diego Astronomy Association
You are cordially invited to
The San Diego Astronomy Association’s
Annual Banquet
Saturday, January 18, 2014, 5:45 – 11:00 pm
Handlery Hotel & Resort- 950 Hotel Circle North, San Diego, CA 92108
____________________________________________________________
Speaker:
Douglas Leonard, Associate Professor of Astronomy at San Diego State University.
Topic: Supernovae, the catastrophic explosions of stars, are some of the most luminous events in the universe
for the few weeks that they are at peak brightness. Dr Leonard summarizes what we have learned about the
nature of stars that ultimately explode as core-collapse supernovae from the examination of images taken prior
to the explosion.
Cocktail hour is from 5:45 to 6:45 and dinner 7:00.
Menu
Choice of Entrees:
Pork tenderloin, mint tomato jelly, veggies, apple sage dressing
Cornish game hen with rice & veggies
Chefs choice vegetarian dish
Dessert: White chocolate cheesecake with raspberry sauce
SDAA Banquet Order Form
Use this form or order online at http://sdaa.org/banquet.htm
Name______________________________________________________
Address____________________________________________________
City, State, Zip______________________________________________
Telephone__________________________________________________
Email______________________________________________________
Dinner Selections (Enter number of each)
Pork____ Fowl ____ Vegetarian ____
Check here if requiring
Sugar-free dessert____
Number Attending ____ @ $45 each
Total Payment included $ _________
Mail to:
San Diego Astronomy Association
P.O. Box 23215
San Diego, CA 92193-3215
Page 2
*Make checks payable to SDAA
Orders must be received no later than 01/14/2014
NO TICKETS WILL BE SOLD AT THE DOOR
SAN DIEGO ASTRONOMY ASSOCIATION NEWS AND NOTES, JANUARY 2014
San Diego Astronomy Association
SDAA Board of Directors Monthly Business Meeting Minutes
December 10, 2013-Unapproved and Subject to Revision
1. Call to order.
The meeting was called to order at 7:14 pm with the following board members in attendance: Michael Vander Vorst; President; Mike
Chasin, Vice President; Ed Rumsey, Treasurer; Kin Searcy, Corresponding Secretary; Brian McFarland, Recording Secretary; Jim Traweek,
Director; Mike Finch, Director; Dave Wood, Director.
2. Approval of Last Meeting Minutes. Approved.
3. Priority / Member Business. None.
4. Standard Reports.
Treasurer/Membership Report.
• The report was approved.
• Current membership tally is 497 members. Five (5) new members.
Site Maintenance Report. No report.
Observatory Report.
• The dovetails for the Lipp scope arrived.
• The Board approve the purchase of the following items for the observatory: lamps for the desks, two pairs of binoculars (the
current pair is shot), miscellaneous tools for the warming room, and a 17mm Nagler to fill the gap between the 20mm and the 13mm
(the Mose memorial may help to offset this purchase).
Private Pad Report.
• All pads are paid up and current.
• Eleven pads are available.
• One pad won’t be charged an annual fee due to unfortunate circumstances involving a recently expelled SDAA member.
Program Report.
• Michael Vander Vorst will emcee the banquet and Mike Chasin will assist with the auction.
• Will try and schedule the IDA for May or June to coincide with the science fair winner awards.
TDS Network. Dave W. will troubleshoot the system. We have a limited number of spare parts on hand.
RoboScope. Dave W. will send the draft lease agreement to the BRIEF project for concurrence.
AISIG Report. January will be the planning meeting, and February will probably be a beginner catch-up session.
Governing Documents. Dennis Ritz may take this on.
Newsletter. Great as always.
Website. The webmaster has been adding door prizes/donations to the banquet and banquet donations pages as they come in, and
removed “Roboscope” from the Contacts page and replaced it with “Loaner Scopes” associated with Ed Rumsey.
SAN DIEGO ASTRONOMY ASSOCIATION NEWS AND NOTES, JANUARY 2014
Page 3
San Diego Astronomy Association
Outreach Committee Report.
• The Poway Unified School District (PUSD) imposes far too many onerous rules and regulations on the SDAA for conducting
star parties for their students. Contract signatures, special insurance riders, post party clean up responsibilities, etc., etc. are a few
examples. No other school district imposes such bureaucracy. The SDAA cannot participate until PUSD corrects these issues.
• Kin will be running a Boy Scout Astronomy Merit Badge program at Mission Trails.
Merchandise.
• Michael V. will solicit volunteers to fill the position of Merchandise Chairperson and for help with sales at the banquet.
• Jim T. will assist in gathering merchandise stock from TDS storage to sell at the banquet.
• Will investigate internet solution for merchandise sales.
New Member Mentor. The updated totals for 2013 New Members is provided below. The last group was early this month; so, we
may still have some additional new members that come in December. A final 2013 total will be available in January. We have also
answered many questions that new members have had; and, have sent out “welcome back” packets to several members who were
returning to SDAA after multi-year absences.
2013 SDAA Total New Memberships
Month
January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August
September
October
November
December
Total 2013
Contributing
7
4
2
2
6
2
7
6
3
6
6
Family of
Contributing
4
1
1
51
3
2
3
4
4
2
1
25
Basic
6
3
Family of
Lifetime
Basic
3
1
6
3
4
4
3
1
4
1
32
2
1
3
12
1
Family of
Total per
Associate
Lifetime
Month
20
1
10
3
2
2
20
4
16
14
11
9
14
1
1
2
124
5.
Old Business. Only seven members have signed up for the banquet so far. We need to get the word out.
6.
New Business.
• Spring cleanup will take place on the 17th of May, and there is a lot of work to do so lots of volunteers are needed. The
SDAA will host a BBQ and we will have a dumpster on site for the two weeks leading up to the event.
• North Pad – we need to demo the pad as it continues to deteriorate and is becoming a hazard. We will hire a demo firm for
this. Following the demo, we will seek volunteers with experience in concrete work to see if we can accomplish the reconstruction
in-house (and save lots of $$). A proposal to form a committee to procure all needed repairs was rejected as too expensive.
• Tax Seminar – Ed R. attended a tax seminar for non-profits and brought back a lot of valuable information. There are some
possible areas of concern that need to be researched (nothing too serious). We may be able to reduce our property tax liability, too.
7.
Adjournment. Adjournment at 9:03pm.
Page 4
SAN DIEGO ASTRONOMY ASSOCIATION NEWS AND NOTES, JANUARY 2014
San Diego Astronomy Association
February 19th Program Meeting
Speaker: Dr. Kam Arnold
Topic: The Atacama Cosmic Microwave Background Polarization Telescope
Dr. Kam Arnold is an Assistant Research Scientist at the University of California, San Diego Center for Astrophysics and Space Sciences. He received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley Physics Department working on the POLARBEAR CMB
Polarization Experiment.
Cosmology has transitioned over the past several decades, from a field without many tested predictions, to the cross-checked investigation of a model with percent-level uncertainties on its parameters. An essential component of this transition was characterization of
the intensity fluctuation pattern in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), radiation that has been travelling through the universe
for more than 13 billion years, from a time in the early universe before any stars or galaxies had formed. These measurements are a
cornerstone in our model of a Universe that is geometrically flat, is mostly composed of matter and energy we know very little about,
and began in a hot, dense mystery. The precision with which we have measured cosmological parameters is impressive, but we lack an
understanding of the physics behind them. CMB polarization, as opposed to its intensity, offers a unique window onto cosmology and
addresses some of the most mystifying questions of physics. We built a telescope above 17,000-ft elevation in the Atacama Desert in
Northern Chile to observe CMB polarization. He will discuss CMB polarization science, and the novel instruments that are required
to measure this faint signal.
2014 TDS SCHEDULE
DATE
Dr. Arnold hiking above the telescope in Chile
MOON DATA
SUNSET
JAN 4
25
S- 9:04P 13%
R- 1:22A 36%
4:54P
5:12P PUBLIC
FEB 1
22
S- 7:48P 4%
R-12:13A 28%
5:19P
5:38P PUBLIC
MAR 1
22
29
S- 6:31P 0%
R- 1:05A 57%
S- 6:19P 2%
5:43P
6:59P PUBLIC
7:04
APR 19
26
R-11:56P 81%
S- 5:06P 9%
7:19P PUBLIC
7:24P
May 24
31
S- 3:59P 20%
S-10:15P 7%
7:44P PUBLIC
7:48P
JUN 21
28
R- 2:18A 23%
S- 8:53P 1%
7:56P PUBLIC
7:57P
JUL 19
26
R- 1:00A 36%
R- 6:42A 0%
7:52 PUBLIC
7:48P
AUG 16
23
R-11:42P 61%
R- 5:30A 1%
7:29P PUBLIC
7:21P
SEP 20
27
S- 4:44P 1%
S- 8:51P 10%
6:44P PUBLIC
6:35P
OCT 18
25
R- 3:03A 18%
S- 7:33P 3%
6:08P PUBLIC
6:01P
NOV 15
22
R-12:46A 33%
S- 5:15A 0%
4:44P PUBLIC
4:41P
DEC 13
20
R-11:28P 60%
S- 3:55P 3%
4:41P PUBLIC
4:44P
SAN DIEGO ASTRONOMY ASSOCIATION NEWS AND NOTES, JANUARY 2014
Page 5
San Diego Astronomy Association
Sunday
Monday
January 2014
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
1
2
Friday
3
Saturday
4
Member Night
TDS
New Moon
5
6
7
8
Stars in the Park
12
19
13
20
14
TDS Middle
School
SDAA Business
Meeting
21
15
Lakeview
Science Night
22
AISIG Meeting
26
27
28
Vista Grande
Elementary
Page 6
29
Marshall
Elementary
Jerabek
Elementary
9
10
Bay Park
Elementary
16
Full Moon
23
Stars at Mission
Trails
17
Stars at
Sycamore
Canyon
24
Sherman
Elementary
30
Tierrasanta
Elementary
11
31
Cub Scouts
Vallecito Stage
Station
18
SDAA Banquet
25
Public Star Party
TDS
1
Member Night
TDS
SAN DIEGO ASTRONOMY ASSOCIATION NEWS AND NOTES, JANUARY 2014
San Diego Astronomy Association
SDAA Contacts
Club Officers and Directors
PresidentMichael
Vander Vorst
President@sdaa.org
Vice President
Mike Chasin
VicePresident@sdaa.org
Recording Secretary
Brian McFarland Recording@sdaa.org
Treasurer
Ed Rumsey
Treasurer@sdaa.org
Corresponding Secretary Kin Searcy Corresponding@sdaa.org
Director Alpha
Dave Wood
DirectorAlpha@sdaa.org
Director Beta
-Vacant- DirectorBeta@sdaa.org
Director Gamma
Michael Finch DirectorGamma@sdaa.org Director Delta
Jim Traweek DirectorDelta@sdaa.org
(858) 755-5846
(858) 210-1454
(619) 462-4483
(858) 722-3846
(858) 586-0974
(858) 735-8808
(760) 440-9650
(619) 207-7542
Committees
Site Maintenance
Bill Quackenbush TDS@sdaa.org(858) 395-1007
Observatory Director Jim Traweek Observatory@sdaa.org
(619) 207-7542
Private Pads
Mark Smith
Pads@sdaa.org(858) 484-0540
Outreach
Kin Searcy
Ourtreach@sdaa.org
(858) 586-0974
N. County Star Parties
Doug McFarland NorthStarParty@sdaa.org
(760) 583-5436
S. County Star Parties
Benjamin Flores SouthStarParty@sdaa.org
(619) 885-1291
E. County Star Parties
Dave Decker
EastStarParty@sdaa.org
(619) 972-1003
Central County Star Parties
Kin Searcy
CentralStarParty@sdaa.org
(858) 586-0974
Camp with the Stars
Doug McFarland CampWiththeStars@sdaa.org
(760) 583-5436
K.Q. Ranch Coordinator
MichaelVander Vorst
KQ@sdaa.org(858) 755-5846
Newsletter
Andrea Kuhl
Newsletter@sdaa.org
(858) 547-9887
New Member Mentor
Dan Kiser Mentor @sdaa.org (858) 922-0592
Webmaster
Jeff Stevens
Webmaster@sdaa.org
(858) 566-2261
AISIG
Kin Searcy
AISIG@sdaa.org (858) 586-0974
Site Acquisition
-Vacant-
SecondSite@sdaa.org
Field Trips
-Vacant-
FieldTrips@sdaa.org
(425) 736-8485
Grants/Fund Raising
-Vacant- Grants@sdaa.org
Merchandising
-Vacant- Merchandising@sdaa.org
Publicity-Vacant- Publicity@sdaa.org
Loaner ScopesEd Rumsey
(858) 722-3846
Governing Documents
TBD
TDS Network
Dave Wood
TDSNet@sdaa.org
(858) 735-8808
Amateur Telescope Making
Peter De Baan
pdebaan@hotmail.com
(760) 745-0925
SDAA Editorial Staff
Editor - Andrea Kuhl
newsletter@sdaa.org
Assistant Editor: Craig Ewing
Have a great new piece of gear? Read an astronomy-related book that you think
others should know about? How about a photograph of an SDAA Member in
action? Or are you simply tired of seeing these Boxes in the Newsletter rather
than something, well, interesting?
Join the campaign to rid the Newsletter of little boxes by sharing them with the
membership. In return for your efforts, you will get your very own by line or photograph credit in addition to the undying gratitude of the Newsletter Editor. Just
send your article or picture to Newsletter@SDAA.Org.
SAN DIEGO ASTRONOMY ASSOCIATION NEWS AND NOTES, JANUARY 2014
Page 7
San Diego Astronomy Association
AISIG Gallery
New AISIG member Hiro Hakozaki took this very detailed image of M-45 out at TDS on the 1st of December. Using a stock
Nikon D800 with a Stellarvue 90mm APO for the optics all mounted on a Celestron CGEM, Hiro spent a total of about 3.5 hours collecting the data that created this stunning image.
MEMBERSHIP INFORMATION
Send dues and renewals to P.O. Box 23215, San Diego, CA 92193-3215. Include any renewal cards from Sky & Telescope or Astronomy magazine in which you wish to
continue your subscription. The expiration date shown on your newsletter’s mailing label is the only notice that your membership in SDAA will expire. Dues are $60 for
Contributing Memberships; $35 for Basic Membership; $60.00 for Private Pads; $5 for each Family membership. In addition to the club dues the annual rates for magazines
available at the club discount are: Sky & Telescope $32.95 and Astronomy $34. Make checks payable to S.D. Astronomy Assn. PLEASE DO NOT send renewals directly to
Sky Publishing. They return them to us for processing.
Page 8
SAN DIEGO ASTRONOMY ASSOCIATION NEWS AND NOTES, JANUARY 2014
San Diego Astronomy Association
While Hiro was taking in the night of the 1st at TDS, AISIG member Steve Armen set up in his back yard in Carlsbad and imaged the same object. Steve’s imaging train consisted of a QSI 683WSG Monochrome CCD utilizing an Astrodon gen 2 RGB filter
set with a Pentax 105SDP for the optics all mounted on a Astrophysics Mach 1 mount. Total exposure time is 45 minutes.
SAN DIEGO ASTRONOMY ASSOCIATION NEWS AND NOTES, JANUARY 2014
Page 9
San Diego Astronomy Association
Jim Thommes continues to produce very high quality images. This image of LBN317 was captured out at Blair Valley located
in the Anza Borrego Desert. His optics included a Explore Scientific MN152 Mak-Newt mounted on Losmandy G-11. He used an
SBIG ST8300M to collect the photons.
Page 10
SAN DIEGO ASTRONOMY ASSOCIATION NEWS AND NOTES, JANUARY 2014
San Diego Astronomy Association
Space Place partners’ article
December 2013
The Big Picture: GOES-R and the Advanced Baseline Imager
By Kieran Mulvaney
The ability to watch the development of storm systems – ideally in real time, or as close as possible – has
been an invaluable benefit of the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES) system,
now entering its fortieth year in service. But it has sometimes come with a trade-off: when the equipment
on the satellite is focused on such storms, it isn’t always able to monitor weather elsewhere.
“Right now, we have this kind of conflict,” explains Tim Schmit of NOAA’s National Environmental
Satellite, Data, and Information Service (NESDIS). “Should we look at the broad scale, or look at the
storm scale?” That should change with the upcoming launch of the first of the latest generation of GOES
satellites, dubbed the GOES-R series, which will carry aloft a piece of equipment called the Advanced
Baseline Imager (ABI).
According to Schmit, who has been working on its development since 1999, the ABI will provide images
more frequently, at greater resolution and across more spectral bands (16, compared to five on existing
GOES satellites). Perhaps most excitingly, it will also allow simultaneous scanning of both the broader
view and not one but two concurrent storm systems or other small-scale patterns, such as wildfires, over
areas of 1000km x 1000km.
Although the spatial resolution will not be any greater in the smaller areas than in the wider field of view,
the significantly greater temporal resolution on the smaller scale (providing one image a minute) will
allow meteorologists to see weather events unfold almost as if they were watching a movie.
So, for example, the ABI could be pointed at an area of Oklahoma where conditions seem primed for the
formation of tornadoes. “And now you start getting one-minute data, so you can see small-scale clouds
form, the convergence and growth,” says Schmit.
In August, Schmit and colleagues enjoyed a brief taste of how that might look when they turned on the
GOES-14 satellite, which serves as an orbiting backup for the existing generation of satellites.
“We were allowed to do some experimental imaging with this one-minute imagery,” Schmit explains. “So
we were able to simulate the temporal component of what we will get with ABI when it’s launched.”
The result was some imagery of cloud formation that, while not of the same resolution as the upcoming
ABI images, unfolded on the same time scale. You can compare the difference between it and the existing
GOES-13 imagery here: http://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/goes/blog/wpcontent/uploads/2013/08/GOES1314_VIS_21AUG2013loop.gif
Learn more about the GOES-R series of satellites here: http://www.goes-r.gov.
Kids should be sure to check out a new online game that’s all about ABI! It’s as exciting as it is
educational. Check it out at http://scijinks.gov/abi
SAN DIEGO ASTRONOMY ASSOCIATION NEWS AND NOTES, JANUARY 2014
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San Diego Astronomy Association
Space Place partners’ article
December 2013
The Advanced Baseline Imager. Credit: NOAA/NASA.
Download photo at: http://www.goes-r.gov/spacesegment/images/ABI-complete.jpg.
Page 12
SAN DIEGO ASTRONOMY ASSOCIATION NEWS AND NOTES, JANUARY 2014
San Diego Astronomy Association
AstroShort
AGORA: Seeing the Invisible Elephant
of the cosmic web of large-scale structure in the cosmos. At
small scales, computational models can calculate such details as shock waves from supernova explosions, turbulence,
and chemical composition of gas and dust with a resolution
(ability to discern details) the size of our solar system. At
gigantic scales, cosmological simulations trace the evolution of the cosmic web in volumes hundreds of millions of
lightyears across. At such scale, even the biggest supercomputers have been limited to handling just gravitational interactions of dark matter, if calculations are to be completed in
reasonable time (months) and at affordable cost.
And in the real Universe, both size scales interact: local
star formation within individual galaxies is activated or
quenched by the way galaxies “breathe” in and out the gaseous intergalactic medium. Often computational simulations
do not create realistic-looking galaxies with the right proportion of stars in the central bulge compared with the flat
disk or the right amount of clumpiness.
You know the familiar fable about the blind men trying
to discern the nature of an elephant simply from feeling the
animal with their hands: one at the side of the elephant
thought it was like a wall, one at the trunk thought it was
like a snake, and one at the tail thought it was like a rope.
Each accurately perceived the elephant in part, but their
tactile observations were inconsistent with one another.
Astronomers are much in the same position in trying to
discern the nature of the Universe. Most of the gravitating
mass in the cosmos is cold dark matter—a slowly moving,
weakly interacting elementary particle that holds together
both individual galaxies such as our own Milky Way as
well as entire clusters of hundreds of galaxies. But humans
are blind to it: dark matter does not emit light or other electromagnetic radiation.
Thus, astrophysicists
must rely on two tools to
discern dark matter’s
nature: 1) observations of
visible ordinary matter
(which scientists call
baryonic matter) that
reveal dark matter’s effects, and 2) supercomputer simulations to
“reverse engineer” and
test ideas of how dark
matter might interact
with ordinary matter to
Differences in supercomputer simulations to be compared in the AGO- form galaxies.
Just one big problem:
RA project are clearly evident in this
test galaxy produced by each of nine like the blind men studying only parts of the eledifferent versions of participating
codes using the same astrophysics
phant but whose observaand starting with the same initial
tional results are not conconditions. The goal of AGORA is to sistent for the entire anianalyze such differences to improve mal, astrophysicists have
the realism and predictive power of
been able to model only
supercomputer simulations, and thus
parts of the universe beastronomers’ understanding of astrophysical processes. Credit: Simula- cause of limits to computions performed by Samuel Leitner (ART- tational power. And the
II), Ji-hoon Kim (ENZO), Oliver Hahn
computer models have
(GADGET-2-CFS), Keita Todoroki
been inconsistent. Yet
(GADGET-3), Alexander Hobbs
(GADGET-3-CFS and GADGET-3-AFS), reproducibility is a funSijing Shen (GASOLINE), Michael Kuh- damental principle of the
len (PKDGRAV-2), and Romain Teyssier scientific method: only if
(RAMSES)
a result from an experiment can be independently reproduced by other scientists
can it be regarded as robust.
Now, a new ambitious multiyear international project
AGORA is figuring out how to reveal the entire elephant—
and also discern which of the inconsistencies are due to
complexities of astrophysics versus computational issues.
Further reading: The AGORA website is at https://
sites.google.com/site/santacruzcomparisonproject/. A UCHiPACC press release is at http://hipacc.ucsc.edu/PressRelease/
AGORA.html. A UC Santa Cruz press release at http://
news.ucsc.edu/2013/12/agora-project.html. The flagship paper
preprint “The AGORA High-Resolution Galaxy Simulations Comparison Project,” for Astrophysical Journal Supplement, is at
http://arxiv.org/abs/1308.2669/.
The challenge of scales
One major challenge, for example, has been numerically
modeling astrophysical processes over the vast range of size
scales in the Universe—all the way from the formation of
individual stars to the formation of galaxies to the formation
The University of California High-Performance AstroComputing Center (UC-HIPACC), based at
the University of California, Santa Cruz, is a consortium of nine University of California campuses and three affiliated Department of Energy laboratories (Lawrence Berkeley Lab, Lawrence Livermore Lab, and Los Alamos National Lab). UC-HiPACC fosters collaborations
among researchers at the various sites by offering travel and other grants, co-sponsoring
conferences, and drawing attention to the world-class resources for computational astronomy
within the University of California system. More information appears at http://hipacc.ucsc.edu
Major international collaboration
Now supercomputers are starting to have the computational power to simulate large regions of the cosmos with
sufficient resolution and realism to create galaxies that look
like ones actually observed. AGORA—an ancient Greek
word for meeting place, and an acronym for Assembling
Galaxies of Resolved Anatomy—aims to understand and
resolve inconsistencies revealed among simulations.
AGORA got its start in a kick-off workshop at the University of California, Santa Cruz, in August 2012, under the
sponsorship of the University of California HighPerformance AstroComputing Center (UC-HiPACC). A
second workshop was held at UCSC in August 2013.
AGORA, a collaboration of more than 90 astrophysicists
and computational modelers in over 40 institutions in eight
nations, is described in a flagship paper by Ji-hoon Kim and
45 co-authors that has been accepted for publication in The
Astrophysical Journal Supplement. The collaborators have
set up methodology to compare and contrast the results with
nine variants of different codes (programs for computer
simulations), which numerically handle the physics and the
computation in significantly different ways. Although not
the first comparison of supercomputer simulations of galaxy
evolution, AGORA is the most comprehensive and the
highest-resolution (finest detail). The project is expected to
be completed in 2015 and result in many papers. Stay
tuned! –Trudy E. Bell, M.A.
SAN DIEGO ASTRONOMY ASSOCIATION NEWS AND NOTES, JANUARY 2014
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