Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About The nugget. (Sisters, Or.) 1994-current | View Entire Issue (Dec. 13, 2017)
Wednesday, December 13, 2017 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon 15 Stars over Sisters By Katlyn Linton Columnist There is a group of extremely motivated high school students here in Sisters who work hard to learn skills that may eventually help lead to new discoveries in space. The student branch of the Sisters Astronomy Club (SAC) consists of about 16 students who all share a love for the night sky and a desire to learn more about it. They meet every Wednes- day during lunch to talk about current and upcoming astron- omy-related events, such as participation in star parties, science fairs and other sci- ence projects. These include helping to plan and conduct up to six public star-watches during the spring, summer and early fall, held at Sisters Park & Recreation District. They are often called upon to prepare and deliver PowerPoint presentations to the visiting audience. After the show, one may operate one of the school’s telescopes, alongside other members of SAC who have also brought their telescopes, to show visi- tors prominent objects in the night sky. But the most challenging project is involvement in a citizen science program called RECON, which stands for Research and Education Col- laborative Occultation Net- work. It is made up of over 54 telescope sites run by more than 60 communities extend- ing from Oroville, Washing- ton along the spine of the Cascade and Sierra Nevada mountain ranges, all the way down to Yuma, Arizona. The Sisters RECON team consists of students in the club, edu- cator Rima Givot, and vari- ous adult members of SAC. RECON is a proj- ect, piloted from 2012-14, designed to study Trans- Neptunian Objects (TNOs) which orbit the sun beyond the planet Neptune. Many of these bodies lie within the Kuiper Belt, such as Pluto, discovered by Clyde Tombaugh in 1930, and Eris. Determining the sizes of these objects will help us to understand their composition and formation, which could also tell us a lot of informa- tion about the origins of our solar system. RECON employs the method of stellar occulta- tion in an attempt to mea- sure the size of a TNO. An occultation is an event that occurs when one object is hidden by another object that passes between it and the observer. So when a TNO passes in front of a distant star, the star dims or disap- pears for a short period of time that is proportional to the size of the TNO. Each community in the network locates the proper star field in the sky, then records the event with a telescope and video camera provided by RECON. The collected data is then uploaded to the mas- terminds behind this project, Marc Buie and John Keller and others, for analysis. Periodically, Buie and Keller will arrange a network- wide conference inviting each of the communities to attend. The purpose of these meet- ings is to discuss what is and isn’t going well and generally share experiences. This year the conference was held at the Sunriver Resort in Sunriver, Oregon on October 27-29. There were a total of 14 high school students there, 10 of them being Sisters Astronomy Club members: Katlyn Linton, Rylee Funk, Amy Hills, Holland Hartman, Julia Canyon Creek Pottery Collins-Burke, Sofia Frack, Delsie McCrystal, Grace Maiden, Nancy Montecinos and Ramsey Schar. Teacher Rima Givot and SAC mem- bers Jim Hammond and Ron Thorkildson also helped rep- resent the Sisters team. They spent a great deal of time getting to know the other communities who were in attendance. There were probably 80 people present who are involved in this proj- ect. Each community had an opportunity to speak about problems it was having with any of the equipment. Sisters High School Astronomy Club put together a presentation explaining challenges and triumphs regarding past RECON events, as well as sharing ideas on how to improve student involvement going forward. It wasn’t all just presen- tations though. The exciting 541-390-2449 541 1- 390 3 9 0 0-24 244 2449 4 4 9 Visit our website at CanyonCreekPotteryLLC.com 310 N. Cedar St. Pam’s Lip Laugh Love LipSense is a long-wearing lip color that lasts up to 18 hours! Free to test! Try before you buy — large selection of inventory (no waiting!) 100% satisfaction guaranteed. Call/text 541-480-7425 LipLaughLoveIt@gmail.com www.senegence.com/ LipLaughLove Independent distributor #236767 Come Meet Baby Alpacas Free! at Alpaca Country C o untry Estates Es s t a tes s E Holiday Open House Nov. - Jan., Mon. - Sat., 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. (Open Christmas until noon) Unique alpaca gift s using our alpaca fi ber woven into apparel, rugs & more. Come take a tour of the ranch. AlpacaCountryEstates@yahoo.com 541-504-4226 6 70397 Buckhorn Rd., Terrebonne Just 20 min rs ut ! es from Siste PHOTO PROVIDED The Sisters RECON team recorded this image of the moon at Sunriver with its telescope and camera. part was the club’s time at the Oregon Observatory. For two nights members learned bet- ter techniques to locate and record the proper star field. Overall, it was a great meet- ing with like-minded people from all walks of life. And the food was great, too! The future of our SAC is unknown but it hopes to con- tinue to grow and gain impor- tant members from the high school who share that love for the night sky. The club also wants to involve the commu- nity as much as possible in its project. The monthly star par- ties and every RECON event are open to anyone and every- one to come down to the high school and look at the stars. To find out more about RECON and the project visit: http://tnorecon.net/about-us/ about-the-project.
