Open Houses at Peach Mountain have resumed, the next open house will be in March 2023.

 #lowbrowcalendar So far, we of the Lowbrows are still not going to hold open houses as of yet. We await the myriad of changes that will take place in the state as well as the University of Michigan. For now we are still bound to the status quo that the University has told us, stating that all gatherings at Peach Mountain are cancelled for now. 

Why?!? When the state and C.D.C. says it is ok for both vaccinated and unvaccinated alike to gather outdoors without masks?!? 

The simple reason is that this is *not* an all clear stating that the virus has disappeared, or is no longer effective. Many have chosen not to take any COVID-19 vaccines, citing every reason from responses or experiences from being vaccinated for other things, concerns about how they will react to the vaccine, on down to anything negative stated on the internet about the vaccines. Even worse, those who reject the vaccine have also tended to disrespect the potential risks of contracting COVID-19. We are simply in an age where experts are not trusted and it is far more likely to believe a conspiracy as 'fact' or 'truth'. What this truly hides is one thing: fear.

We as the Lowbrows will be faced with navigating this fear as we move forward. What are the possible risks of letting someone look into an eyepiece and being near each other, often well within the 6ft distancing rule? What happens if someone gets sick? What happens if more than one person gets sick at the same time, suggesting that a spreading event is taking place? Is it worth the risk to have such a spreading event possibly lead to positive COVID-19 contractions among those who were at an event we did... and what's the likelihood of that even happening since we've learned that transmission outdoors has a less than 1% chance? Does that less-than-1% chance include any outdoor activities where we will touch surfaces that were just touched by someone else? 

As a science organization, we owe it to ourselves to continue learning the answers to these questions based on C.D.C. guidelines, then we must wait for an official go-ahead from the University of Michigan, before we decide on reopening the open houses. But rest assured, we WILL one day return to bringing out telescopes and sharing our views with the general public. Many of you do not see any real barriers to just doing it now, tomorrow! We respect that; however we also have a healthy respect of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and want to make sure we have taken every single precaution we can, as well as follow the guidance of the University of Michigan. A good number of our membership has been vaccinated in anticipation of change that will very likely come during America's Independence Day (Seems to be set up as a sort of 'Independence against COVID-19 Day' if you ask me!)

I know my musings and ramblings may not be well taken by some who don't see the point and think we should be open now. If you wish to respond, feel free. I'll leave you all with this thought: If you were personally affected by COVID-19, you may be one of the ones agreeing with our stance on the matter. If you have yet to suffer any loss or disability due to COVID-19, you have every reason not to fear it at all. I would wish for you to never have to deal with it, as I have. I have lost friends and family due to COVID-19... and to me, none of them should have left this life as soon as they did. 

 This is a test post. We will be waking up the University Lowbrow Astronomy blogs as a way to communicate to those who follow us. Join us as we navigate the troubled waters of being an astronomy outreach group during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

#lowbrowcalendar The Open House at Peach Mountain scheduled for Nov.2 has been cancelled. Next one scheduled is March 28, 2020.

#lowbrowcalendar The open house at Peach Mountain for September 28 is cancelled due to clouds.

#lowbrowcalendar The Open House at Peach Mountain for September 21 has been cancelled.

#lowbrowcalendar The Open House at Peach Mountain for August 31 has been cancelled.

#lowbrowcalendar The Open House at Peach Mountain for August 24 is a GO. Starts half hour after sunset. Dim red flashlights only.

#lowbrowcalendar The Open House at Peach Mountain for August 3 is a GO! Starts shortly after sunset. No white lights, please.

#lowbrowcalendar The Open House at Peach Mt. for July 27 is a GO.

Sent via the Samsung Galaxy S™ III, an AT&T 4G LTE smartphone

#lowbrowcalendar The Open House at Peach Mountain for July 6 has been cancelled.

#lowbrowcalendar The Open House at Peach Mountain for June 29 is a GO. Starts 1/2 hour after sunset. No white lights. Beware of mosquitos.

#lowbrowcalendar The Open House at Peach Mt. for June 8 has been canceled.

Sent via the Samsung Galaxy S™ III, an AT&T 4G LTE smartphone

#lowbrowcalendar The Open House scheduled for June 1 has been canceled.

Sent via the Samsung Galaxy S™ III, an AT&T 4G LTE smartphone

#lowbrowevents The June and August monthly meetings will be held in 2306 Mason Hall. The July meeting will be at the Eastern Michigan University Planetarium

#lowbrowevents alert test 4

#lowbrowevents alert test 3

#lowbrowevents testing alert system 2

#lowbrowevents testing new alert system

A second gravitational wave event.

A few months ago, on February 11, there was an announcement from LIGO. It had detected a signal from a pair of a black holes - the first direct detection of gravitational waves. The signal was actually detected the previous September, but announced in February.

However there were other events. The process works this way: when an event occurs, computer algorithms very quickly sort events into “probably noise from a terrestrial event such as a truck passing nearby” and “probably a real event from black holes or neutron stars.” If the event is a real event, the algorithm estimates the mass of the black holes or neutron stars involved. For some background information on how these algorithms work see

http://www.black-holes.org/the-science-numerical-relativity/numerical-relativity/einstein-s-equations

When there are “probably real” events, additional analysis is done on the data and this analysis takes time. This is the reason for the delay between the event detection and the public announcement.

Shortly after the February announcement, there were already rumors of additional events. You'll have to forgive me, I was aware of these rumors, but did not report on it until now – nevertheless I had good reason to believe they were almost certainly true. We now have official confirmation they were true. A second event had been detected in December and was announced last week. See this article from New York Times science writer Dennis Overbye:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/16/science/ligo-gravitational-waves-einstein.html

What happens now? Almost certainly there are and/or will be additional events beyond the two we know about, and we should see announcements of these events over time. Also in the near future, additional facilities similar to LIGO will come on line. These facilities will allow researchers to make more precise determinations of the direction the gravitational waves are coming from, possibly allowing the source of the waves to be located.

Unfortunately ground based gravitational wave detectors are limited in the frequencies they are able to detect. For this reason, there have been plans to place detectors in space. The first such plan was LISA. A set of spacecraft in space would perform measurements similar to what LIGO does, but because they are not attached to a solid object (namely the earth), they can respond to a wider range of frequencies, allowing a wider range of gravitational waves to be detected. LISA is now defunct, but the idea was resurrected in a new project called eLisa. For information see...

https://www.elisascience.org/

The first phase of this project called eLisa Pathfinder was launched this past December. It is a proof of concept which will not be able to detect gravitational waves, but will develop some of the technologies needed to detect gravitational waves. The current plan is to launch eLisa in the year 2034.