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
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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.
