PERSONALISED MEDICINE: Use of Personalised Medicine in the prevention of disease and the maintenance of wellness THE ENIGMA OF THE THRACIANS AND THE ORPHEUS MYTH: Journey to the Past Orphic Mysteries , AND THE LORD OF THE NIGHT SKY: Observe top spring objects with a robotic telescope from home

1. ISPECTRUMMAGAZINE
Issue 13/May - June 2015
Personalised
Medicine
Jupiter the Lord of
the Night Sky
The Enigma of the Thracians 13

2. 1
Features
03
Personalised Medicine
Use of Personalised
Medicine in the preven-
tion of disease and the
maintenance of wellness
08 Barriers affecting the availability
of Personalised Medicine
12 Personalised medicine - part of
everyday life
15
The Enigma of the Thra-
cians and the Orpheus
Myth
16 Fighting spirit
18 Journey to the Past
21 Orphic Mysteries
23 The Devil’s Throat
25
Jupiter the Lord of the
Night Sky
Observe top spring
objects with a robotic
telescope
29 Galileo and the Telescope
32 Jupiter the Lord of the Night
Sky
15
29 25
18
CONTENTS
3

3. 2
Mado Martinez
Editorial Director
Editorial Director
Mado Martinez,
madomartinez@ispectrummagazine.com
Art Director
Rayna Petrova
raynapetrova@ispectrummagazine.com
Contributing Editors
Bradley Terblanche
Laura Hayes
Contributing Writers
Ellie Pownall
John Baruch
Images
www.commons.wikimeadia.org ,
www.morguefile.com ,
www.freeimages.com
editorial
Ispectrum
magazine
Dear Readers,
I am really glad to bring you this lat-
est issue which is full of varied topics, all
equally interesting. Our contributor Ellie
Pownall goes into personalised medicine.
In recent years, the path of medicine has
progressed both scientifically and social-
ly; one of these recent developments is
the ideology of personalised medicine.
Personalised medicine is an emerging
practice of medicine that uses an indi-
vidual’s genetic profile to guide decisions
made in regard to the prevention, diag-
nosis and treatment of disease.
Also in this issue, I make my own contri-
bution with ‘The Enigma of the Thracians
and the Orpheus Myth’. The Thracians
are well-known for their exuberant fight-
ing spirit; but the history of a popula-
tion is not just built on its wars and the
exploits of its soldiers and leaders, as is
usually read in encyclopaedias and his-
tory books. Spread across South East
Europe were groups of men and women
who were highly skilled in working with
refined metals, were followers of a deli-
cate mystique that worshipped the moth-
er goddess and had complex funerary
rituals immersed in symbolism.
And to top off the final contents, John
Baruch walks us through Jupiter, the lord
of night sky, and an attractive proposal.
Our computers take us into amazing
worlds where anything is possible but
reality can also deliver the amazing. How
about using computers to take us into the
real world, to control robots that will take
images for us of the far distant reaches
of the Universe?
www.ispectrummagazine.com
Follow Us
admin@ispectrummagazine.com
+44 7938 707 164 (UK)
Published Bimonthly ISSN 2053-1869

4. 3
Personalised
Medicine
Use of Personalised Medicine in
the prevention of disease and the
maintenance of wellness
by
ellie pownall
website
www.ispectrummagazine.com

5. n recent years, the path
of medicine has progressed
both scientifically and social-
ly; one of these recent devel-
opments is the ideology of per-
sonalised medicine. Personalised
medicine is an emerging practice of
medicine that uses an individual’s
genetic profile to guide decisions
made in regard to the prevention,
diagnosis, and treatment of disease.
Scientists believe that this new
approach to medical treatment will
cut costs on the NHS, improve over-
all health and ensure patients have
more urgent treatment and better
facilities with the financial benefits
from this new scheme. An article
from the New England Journal of
Medicine states that “major invest-
ments in basic science have created
an opportunity for significant prog-
ress in clinical medicine ”, reflecting
optimistic views on the future of
the personalised scheme and high
hopes for its impact in basic scien-
tific discovery.
I
4

6. 5

7. 6
Examples of this new social devel-
opment in medicine includes the per-
sonalised medicine summit taking
place in the Life Science Institute,
University of British Columbia , in
partnership with the Personalized
Medicine Initiative, Genome BC and
LifeScience BC on Sunday 7th-9th of
June this year. Professor Terry Allen,
Conference Organizer, describes that
“in many ways, British Columbia
(BC) constitutes an ideal testing
ground for putting a personalised
medicine rogramme into practice,
with its highly integrated single-
payer health care system, its ethni-
cally diverse, well-educated popula-
tion and its advanced expertise in
the development and application of
molecularly-based medicine .” This
scheme aims to use pharmacoge-
nomics and other ‘omics’ analyses to
guide diagnosis and treatment and
manage, interpret and use big data
in a new system of data consolida-
tion to access improving health care
in BC and investment in basic and
translational research to advance
personalized medicine discoveries.
This aims to create a better knowl-
edge of the maintenance of wellness
in the public and eventually create
new development in personalised
medicine beyond what has already
been discovered.
Another example of the progress
and breadth that personalised medi-
cine has reached is in the PMWC
(personalised medicine world confer-
ence) held in Silicon Valley 2014. This
conference provides the entire range
of people involved in personalise
medicine, and each speaker gives a
unique take on the developments of
the future. Brook Byers, senior part-
ner in KPCB (Kleiner Perkins Caufield
& Byers), even goes as far to say
that “this is the best personalised
medicine conference there is today
.” From 400 attenders and 41 speak-
ers in 2010 to 1000+ attendees and
100+ speakers, is it clear to see
there is growing interest in the area
of personalised medicine with more
than 40 companies investing in the
development of the scheme, socially
and technologically.

8. 7
Dr George Church,
HarvardMedicalSchool,
helped to develop the
first direct genomic
sequencing method and
the human genome
project;
he explains the
importance of person-
alisedmedicine:“Ithink
this is something easy
to misunderstand, in
that 100% of the peo-
ple are at risk of some
disease; this doesn’t
mean that everybody
has it, but they don’t
know until they get
genetically tested. As
the price comes down,
it seems an obvious
choice to find out if
you do have a genet-
ic disease, for
e x a m p l e
b r e a s t
c a n -
cer”.
H e
d e s c r i b e s
the process
of testing the
presence of
geneticdiseases:
“genetic materi-
al in your file, not
requiring family histo-
ry, as many people are
the first person in their
family that have dis-
eases, can therefore be
stored until symptoms
present themselves or
doctors can act on the
genetic information
that has been discov-
ered”. This evidence of
new ways to quickly
act upon genetic dis-
eases such as cancer
and therefore decrease
the chance of a moral-
ity. To have access to
this information will
also enable parents to
d i s -

9. 8
will provide a basic net-
work of medical infor-
mation for both doc-
tors and patients to
access, which would
otherwise be difficult to
discover, and thus pre-
vent or become aware
of potential future dis-
eases in both offspring
and relatives.
Indeed, there are
many ethical issues
surrounding person-
alised medicine due
to the open depth of
information about each
patient. Reagan Kelly
is a PhD student at the
University of Michigan
, and he explores the
problems surrounding
personalised medicine
and if these will be
easy to overcome. He
states the three main
issues surrounding the
drawbacks of this new
scientific development
are protecting patient
privacy, protecting
cover the inherited
genetics of future off-
spring and therefore
be able to prepare both
socially and finically to
aid the living standards
of their children such
as the current devel-
opment of medical
care surround-
ing Down’s
syndrome in
infants. The
use of per-
sonalised
medicine

10. 9
patient autonomy and allowing
access to personalised medicine.
In previous years, patients have
always had the right to retain infor-
mation about their health and well-
being from both insurance compa-
nies and the government, yet do
these personal rights also apply to
genetic makeup? What uses are
acceptable for genetic information,
and if a person has this information
collected for use in risk profiling or
diagnosis, should that then auto-
matically commit them to allowing
their data to be used for diagnos-
ing and profiling others? As people
have a right to refuse treatment
and have personal privacy when it
comes to diagnostics, how will this
work when relatives also poten-
tially encounter the same issues?
Cost is also a massive issue in per-
sonalised medicine -- as 46 million
people are without health insur-
ance, how will companies ensure
everyone receives personalised
medicine? And will the benefits of
cost cuts to everyday NHS be spent
on attempting to achieve person-
alised medicine globally? These
outline the fundamental issues in
the personalised medicine scheme
in which many scientists and legal
advisors have worked throughout
the years to address and overcome,
and the article below explains how
they have succeeded.
An article named ‘Personalized
Medicine: Ethnical, Legal and
Regulatory Issues’ explains that
“although tests and companion
diagnostics exist to improve pre-
scribing and care outcomes, phy-
sicians typically do not have the
detailed analyses of clinical infor-
mation needed to select optimal
drug treatments and dosages on the
basis of a patient’s unique genetic
profile, physiology, and metabolic

11. 10
processes. In the absence of what
is needed to know to deliver per-
sonalised medicine, physicians can
easily continue to use a certain
amount of trial-and-error meth-
ods when they evaluate treatment
approaches ”. Along with the sta-
tistics from the Agency for Health
Care Research and Quality (AHRQ)
stating that more than 770,000
deaths or injuries a year are due
to adverse reactions to treatments,
this shows that the benefit of per-
sonalised medicine massively out-
weighs the issues highlighted pre-
viously. These deaths also cost up
to 5.6 million per hospital per year,
which shows that although trying to
implement personalised medicine
around the globe will be expen-
sive, this will massively save on
hospital expenditure and improve
the economics of medical industry.
The article also states that “the
recently enforced regulations of the
Health Insurance Portability and
Accountability Act (HIPPA) could
obviate some contentious priva-
cy battles, particularly those aris-
ing within immediate families, by
requiring all patients to consent to
disclosure of private health infor-
mation and to authorise access to
specific third parties”. This there-
fore reduces the amount of cau-
tion regarding privacy and dignity
within personalised medicine, and
this aids to ensure the treatment
is both fair and continues to offer
patient disclosure in medical prac-
tice. The article somewhat answers
the concerns regarding person-
alised medicine in Regan Kelly’s
work and thus enables scientists
to focus more on developing the
process of the personalised scheme
and eventually put the ideas stated
in the ethnic, legal and regulatory
article into play.

12. 11
An article named ‘the
Future of Coverage
and Payment for
Personalised Medicine
and Diagnostics’ also
states the progress
personalised medicine
has made to modern
day health care. For
example, non-invasive
maternal blood testing.
In the past two years,
non-invasive prenatal
testing for trisomy dis-
orders, such as Down’s
syndrome, has begun
to rapidly replace tra-
ditional amniocente-
sis methods. There
is also multi-analyte
assays with algorithms
(MAAAs). Another tech-
nological achievement
includes the develop-
ment of MAAAs, which
help physicians plan
the management and
in many cases reduce
the overtreatment of
diseases as diverse
as breast, prostate,
colon, ovarian and thy-
roid cancers. Several
of these tests are
FDA approved, which
expands their potential
as widely distributed
platform-based kits.
This table below also

13. shows the newly devel-
oped scheme in which
the American Medical
Association (AMA),
which controls the
standard code set for
the communication of
outpatient and labora-
tory services between
providers and payers,
has developed more
than 100 new codes for
genetic tests and delet-
ed the former ‘stack
codes’ for molecular
test processes. This
enables an easier pro-
cess for both insurance
companies and medical
personnel, which will
aid the transition into
personalised medicine
being global. The mass
progress both medical
and economically sug-
gests that the idea of
personalised medicine
will eventually become
a regular part of every-
day life and there-
fore both reduce the
costs on the NHS and
improve health condi-
tions or disease aware-
ness of a large major-
ity of the globe.
Patrick Conway, MD,
states that “innovation
is happening broad-
ly across the country.
The promise of per-
sonalised medicine and
innovation is amazing,
and we’re already see-
ing dividends ”. He sug-
gests that personalised
medicine is becoming
gradually more popu-
lar and consumers,
although having little
say in health care sys-
tems’ protocol, would
surely be for a physi-
cian to have access to
a diagnostic test to pick
the right, as opposed
to the wrong, treat-
ment. The maintenance
of wellness for patients
will undoubtedly be
much higher, due to a
larger amount of medi-
cal information for per-
sonnel to make deci-
sions regarding both
treatment and diagno-
sis. Of course, the cost
would be worrying to
the average consumer,
12
The mass progress both medical and economically
suggests that the idea of personalised medicine will
eventually become a regular part of everyday life

14. 13
yet the ‘the Future of Coverage and
Payment for Personalised Medicine
’ article states that “from the public
and payer perspective, the margin-
al cost of the benchtop chemistry is
only a small part of the test’s value
to the health care system, which is
measured in years of life extended,
quality of life and the avoidance of
drugs that are not helpful”. It seems
that once the finalised scheme of
personalised medicine takes off, it
is only natural that the tax payer
will feel both strain and benefit over
the new system, as there is a belief
that this new scheme of having
medicine personalised will be over-
all cheaper than the previous ‘trial
and error’ tactics that costs money
for improper medicine usage.
Overall, there is no doubt that the
use of personalised medicine will
improve health and maintenance of
wellbeing due to the ease in identi-
fying diseases at early stages using
genetic information already logged
for medical personnel. Although,
there are some issues surround-

15. 14
ing the price and cost effective-
ness for aspects, such as insur-
ance, hospitals and the tax payer.
Arguably, experts are working tire-
lessly to create a sound scheme
which can work in many different
environments and economic bud-
gets, to eventually make person-
alised medicine a global scheme
where all of the general public will
have the ability to maintain medi-
cal wellness.
1. The Path to Personalised Medicine -- The
New England Journal of Medicine- Margaret
A. Hamburg, M.D., and Francis S. Collins,
M.D., Ph.D.
2. http://www.personalizedmedsummit.
com/ -- Terry Allen, Professor Emeritus,
Conference Organizer
3. http://pmwcintl.com/index.php - Brook
Byers on PMWC
4. Reagan Kelly is a PhD student at
University of Michigan -- Science, Policy, and
Ethics in Personalized Medicine
5. Personalized Medicine: Part 2: Ethical,
Legal, and Regulatory Issues
F. Randy Vogenberg, Carol Isaacson Barash,
Michael Pursel
P T. 2010 November; 35(11): 624-626, 628-
631, 642.
PMID: 21139819
6. ‘The Future of Coverage and Payment
for Personalised Medicine and Diagnostics’ --
The Personalized Medicine Coalition (PMC) ,
Bruce Quinn
7.Patrick Conway, MD Deputy Administrator
for Innovation and Quality & Chief Medical
Officer, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid
Services at the Tenth Annual State of
Personalized Medicine Luncheon hosted by
PMC March 15, 2014
References:

16. 15
he passage of the millen-
nia has brought us traces
of ancient civilisations that
shone enough to make their
cultural glimpses last through the
ages. Humanity itself has featured in
the art, culture and funerary rites of
these civilisations, so whilst from a
mollusc we only find a trace of fos-
silised shell, from a human we find
much more than just remains: we
find pyramids, mounds, sculptures,
coins, tools, weapons, scripts, trea-
sures, houses, palaces, altars and
more.
T
The Enigma of the Thracians
and the Orpheus Myth
by
mado martinez
website
www.madomartinez.com

17. 16
All of this, in light of archaeology,
allows us to know more about our
ancestors. But for some of them,
like the Thracians, what has been
discovered barely casts a shadow
over what is still unknown. There
are many mysteries surrounding
this ancient civilisation that occu-
pied what is now Bulgaria and
some adjoining parts of Romania,
Greece and Turkey.
In archaeological terms, evidence
of civilisation in Bulgarian lands
dates back thousands of years.
Not coincidentally, it was found
in Provadia (Bulgaria) the oldest
prehistoric city in Europe, dated
between 4,700 BC and 4,200 BC,
in a fortified settlement of 350
inhabitants. On the other hand,
we know that for years the world’s
oldest golden treasure was not
found in Sumeria, nor in Egypt,
nor in pre-Columbian America but
in Varna (Bulgaria) and dates from
4,600 BC.
Scientists and archaeologists still
harbour serious doubts about who
the people were that mixed with
the Thracians around 5,000 years
ago, from which Thracian civilisa-
tion itself would emerge. But it is
known that there were some who
came from the North to the Balkans
with their livestock, finding a place
with a bright and attractive culture.
It was the intermingling between
the local population and the new
arrivals that allows us to talk today
of the Thracians.
The Thracians are well-known
for their exuberant fighting spirit;
but the history of a population is
not built only on its wars and the
exploits of its soldiers and leaders,
as it is usually read in encyclo-
paedias and history books. Spread
across South East Europe were
groups of men and women who
were highly skilled in working with
refined metals, who were follow-
ers of a delicate mystique that
fighting spirit

18. 17
worshipped the mother
goddess, and who had
complex funerary ritu-
als immersed in sym-
bolism.
There are many puz-
zles that arise when
we investigate the
ancient Thracians. For
example, they had a
rare ability for discov-
ering and extracting
natural deposits with-
out harming nature.
Archaeologists and
anthropologists contin-
ue to be surprised by
the kinds of advanced
technological practices
that the Thracians were
using. If, as some schol-
ars believe, they were
intermingling with the
people who inhabited
Bulgarian lands since
ancient times, they
presumably exchanged
knowledge, and their
wisdom swelled as they
incorporated the skills,
practices and informa-
tion of the other cul-
ture.
So what mysteries
remain from the first
Old, historical map of ancient Thrace, 1585

19. Thracians over 5,000
years ago? Although
we know of some
Thracian names and
words, apparently they
lacked their own alpha-
bet and came to use
Greek and Latin charac-
ters to perform certain
inscriptions. However,
this Indo-European lan-
guage spoken by the
Thracians is still a mys-
tery and no one has
been able to decipher
it... yet. Some bilin-
gual inscriptions in
Greek characters writ-
ten in Ancient Greek
and Thracian that were
discovered in Northern
Greece could perhaps
shed some light in help-
ing to decipher the con-
tents of the Thracians
texts, something that
certainly would reveal
important informa-
tion about the people
of whom we still know
hardly anything.
The Thracian burial
rite is one of the most
compelling evidences
of belief in the after-
life and immortality of
the soul. The Valley of
the Thracian Kings is in
the region of Kazanlak,
where we can find sev-
eral grave mounds,
making this area a real
route of the funeral ritu-
al (over 500 burial hills).
We are in the realm
of the Odrisios (fifth
century to the fourth
century BC), ruled by
the King III Seuthes.
Their mounds did not
reach the colossal size
of the pyramids of
Egypt, but the Thracian
funeral process had
many things in com-
mon with the Egyptian
one, not least the idea
of resurrection and an
afterlife. We drove to
the ancient necropolis
of the city of Seuthes
III, called in those days
Seuthopolis, and head-
ed to the mound-tomb
of the King himself.
The remains of Seuthes
III were buried with his
horse, his weapons and
a bronze statue of his
own image that had
been placed in a special
chamber of the tomb,
according to the Orphic
funeral practices. Thus,
we are reminded of
Iberian funerary ritu-
als in which the war-
rior was buried with his
weapons but placed in
a way that neutralised
them, rendering them
completely unusable.
Why? The texts of the
ancient Greek geog-
rapher and historian
18
Journey to the Past

20. Herodotus shed light
on this mystery. He
claimed that whatever
was destroyed or made
unusable during funer-
al rites would become
useful for the afterlife.
The logic of this phi-
losophy is overwhelm-
ing and beautiful, from
my point of view. If the
human being whose
life was destroyed with
the advent of death
was meant to revive in
the Hereafter, so the
objects had to ‘die’ to
revive again. Death was
considered to be the
beginning of a new life.
In this passage, the
spirit of the deceased
travelled to reach the
heavenly abode where
they would stay. On
this trip, they need-
ed to carry everything
they would need.
The most valuable
thing for the elite of
the Thracian warriors
was their horse and
their wife, though we
do not really know in
which order! So not
only did they sacrifice
their horse, but also
their favourite wife.
19
Bronze Head of
Seuthes III
(end of 4th - beginning
of 3rd c. B.C.),
Golyama Kosmatka
mound, Kazanlak
Photocredit:ByAnnWuyts[CCBY2.0(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)],viaWikimediaCommons

21. Was it cruel? If, as the
ancients used to say,
the Thracians wept at
births and cheerfully
sang at their deaths, far
from being a cruel act,
the Thracians probably
considered it an honour.
In fact, wives are said to
have argued over who
would have the hon-
our of being the chosen
one. As the Greek poet
Hesiod said: “When a
husband dies, his wives,
which are many for each
one, argue in competi-
tion held by the deter-
mination of those who
are their close friends
and relatives, and claim
them to be the deceased
husband’s dearest one.
The wife who comes out
victorious and honoured
with a judgement in her
favour, which is full of
praise and applause of
men and women, will
be beheaded by a kin
hand over the grave of
her husband and is bur-
ied beside him, while
the ones who lost the
case, that is for them
the greatest infamy,
remain mourning their
misfortune”.
20
Tomb of Seuthes
III– the famous
Thracian ruler of
the Odrysian
kingdom
Photocredit:ByHM-ISKRA(Ownwork)[CCBY-SA3.0(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)],viaWikimediaCommons

22. 21
Orphic Mysteries
Bacchus
The Thracians wor-
shipped Ares, the god
of war; Sabazios, the
sky father god; and had
faith in the Sun, son
of the goddess Bendis,
the incarnation of per-
fection and immortality.
The most popular cults
were the Dionysian
mysteries, which surely
came to Greece from
Thrace, along with the
cult of Orpheus and the
Orphic mysteries.
Following Orpheus’ foot-
steps, I ascended to the
top of a mountain to the
ruins of an abandoned
place called Perperikon
in Southern Bulgaria.
It is a real city temple,
which can still be seen
in the stone altars that
were part of a temple
dedicated to the God of
wine and sexual ecstasy,
known by the Greeks as
Dionysus and Bacchus
by the Romans. It is
the most sacred and

23. 22
The ruins of the ancient city of Perperikon, Eastern Rhodopes
important place dedi-
cated to the Dionysian
cult, which consisted of
sexual orgies and sac-
rifices. But Orpheus,
who according to leg-
end had been a disci-
ple of Dionysus, argued
against these practices
in the name of Apollo,
the god of reason.
According to ancient
legend, this act of defi-
ance resulted in his con-
viction and murder at
the hands of the mae-
nads, the female fol-
lowers of Dionysus.
Some archaeolo-
gists maintain that the
Thracians’ musician
god could have been
a real character who
resided in the Bulgarian
Rhodope Mountains
and would had been
a Dionysian priest who
had access to hidden
knowledge of Egyptian
and oriental sages. His
cult proclaimed asceti-
cism, was against sac-
rifice and taught the
transmigration of souls
and mankind’s capac-
ity to experience the
divine, although they
had to be initiated in
order to learn to break
free and rise in a state
of “happy immortality”.
Without being initiated,
one could not experi-
ence happiness in the
afterlife.
Photocredit:ByRenaud71(Ownwork)[CCBY-SA3.0(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)],viaWikimediaCommons

24. 23
The Greek poet Sappho of Lesbos
wrote a poem referring to a woman
who died without having access to
the Orphic mysteries: “After you
die, you will lie without anyone
remembering or missing you with
sorrow, because you did not enjoy
the roses of Pieria. You will be
ignored, as well, in the house of
Hades, floating wandering among
the dark deceased”. Was Sappho
a follower of the Orphic mysteries?
Possibly yes.
Candidates had to be accepted
into the Orphic mysteries, which
were esoteric and only disclosed to
those who managed to be initiat-
ed. The initiates were required to
then save and protect the knowl-
edge they were taught. Sappho’s
poems speak of reverence to the
Orphic religion on more than one
occasion, for instance, in one she
speaks of rising over the afflic-
tion of death, considering it a sin
to lament at the Muses’ Home,
because as she said: “I’d rather
die listening to this song (Orpheus
with his lyre)…”.
the Devil’s Throat
The Head of Orpheus

25. 24
According to mythology, Orpheus
descended into the underworld to
retrieve his dead wife, Eurydice,
and did so through the Devil’s
Throat, a cave in the Rhodope
Mountains, South East Bulgaria.
The Bulgarian Orthodox Church
follows doctrines explained by the
ancient creeds of the apostles,
where it is described the moment
in which Christ had to descend into
hell to defeat the devil and release
the righteous. Here, we see some
parallels in the accounts of both
Orpheus and Jesus. Both had to go
down to the depths of hell, to “die”
and to come back to life trans-
formed. They both preached that
humans have souls that would be
judged at the moment of death
and would pay for their actions.
They both practiced ceremonies
that included rituals such as turn-
ing water into wine. Furthermore,
the brutal murder of Orpheus was
considered a sacrifice to redeem
mankind for its sins. The similari-
ties are interesting to say the least.

26. 25
An Audience with
Jupiter the Lord of the
Night Sky
ur computers take us into amaz-
ing worlds where anything is
possible, but reality can also
deliver the amazing. How about using
computers to take us into the real
world, to control robots that will take
images for us of the far distant reaches
of the Universe? One such robot is the
Bradford Robotic Telescope, situated
high on the northern side of Mount
Teide on the Spanish island of Tenerife
at the Instituto Astrofisica Canarias
Northern Hemisphere Observatory.
This is one of the few autonomous
robots available on the web:
www.telescope.org. See below for a
free offer code for you to use it with
Ispectrum.
O
John Baruch, Edward Hand, Chris Tallon, Dan Hedges. Bradford Robotic
Telescope. University of Bradford UK.
john@telescope.org
Photocredit:NASA
by

27. 26
OBSERVETOP SPRING OBJECTS
WITH A ROBOTICTELESCOPE
Ispectrum has teamed up with the University of Bradford to
bring you one month of access to their robotic telescope, free
with this magazine.
The Bradford Robotic Telescope is located
in the best observing site in Europe,
8000ft above sea-level on the island of
Tenerife. From this prime location, this
fully-autonomous observatory takes
pictures of the night sky. Unusually
however, its main purpose isn’t academic
research. Rather, it is taking images
for members of the public, for school
children and for amateur astronomers all
over the world, who are able to request
images from the telescope via the website.
These images are scheduled automatically
and taken for you while you’re sleeping.
Log on to the website a few days later
and your very own images are waiting for
you. All the raw data collected is available
and online image processing tools are
provided to make sure you get the most
from your pictures.
HOW TO GETYOUR FREE MONTH’S ACCESS
What you can see
1. Go to telescope.org
2. Enter the access code EUROPA
3. Try out imaging the six objects above for one month
Jupiter
Galileo turned his telescope onto Jupiter
just as you can with the robotic telescope
and was able to see the bright planet
with its tiny family of moons just like the
planets going around the Sun.
The MilkyWay
The Robotic Telescope comes equipped
with two wide-field cameras. The widest
is able to capture our own galaxy in all
its glory. Glowing areas of star formation
and dark obscuring dust show up clearly.
The Moon
A favourite of astronomers for centuries,
take a simple image of our nearest
neighbour up close. Take detailed images
of craters and watch as the moon changes
of the lunar month.
The Andromeda Galaxy
The closest large galaxy to our own,
Andromeda is on a collision course with
our own galaxy. As a result it appears
very large in the sky and makes a great
target for the mid-field camera.
The Hercules Globular Cluster
Global clusters are among the oldest
structures in the galaxy, around 11 billion
years old. This one is thought to contain
around 300,000 stars. Might there also be
a black hole at its centre?
The Dumbbell Nebula
This is a bright planetary nebula: the
remnants of a dying star and a peek into
the future of our own Sun. The red areas
are ionised Hydrogen and Nitrogen, with
Oxygen showing up in green.

28. Tell the telescope
what you want it to
do, and it will service
your request and send
it back to you with-
out any human inter-
vention. It collects all
the requests, and as
soon as it is dark, it
checks the weather to
see if it is safe to open
its dome, schedules its
observing and sets off.
You can do real science
with the telescope and
follow in the footsteps
of the pioneers like
Galileo.
27
Photo:©BradfordRoboticTelescope

29. 28
The Bradford Robotic Telescope is located
in the best observing site in Europe

30. 29
It was Galileo who made the first
telescope following a rumour that
a Dutch optician had built such an
instrument. In his hands, the tele-
scope changed the world. The date
was January 1610. It was already
known that the Earth was a sphere
since Magellan had sailed around
the world and returned in 1522 to be
followed by the Englishman Drake
in 1580. There was also the ter-
rible idea published by Copernicus
in 1543 that the Earth along with
all the other then known planets
(Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and
Saturn) all circled the Sun just like
the Earth, and like the earth by
implication, they could easily have
rivers, mountains, animals and
people. The idea was terrible and
clearly wrong for the guardians of
thought since the Bible was quite
clear. God only tried his hand at cre-
ation once, and it was here on this
special place Earth – but the proof
that the Earth was a sphere, both

31. 30
the Magellan and the Drake expe-
ditions had returned home sailing
only west, unearthed some terrible
implications. Heaven was clearly
up there and hell down below, but
if the Earth is a sphere, then the
centre of the Universe as created
by God was hell.
Copernicus helped get out of this
dilemma showing that ‘down below’
was not the centre of the universe
– the Sun was. But there was the
other terrible implication with the
ideas of Copernicus that were even
more unacceptable: the idea that
there were other similar planets and
Man was not alone in the Universe.
For the Catholic Church this was
too much, and Copernicus was
clearly wrong; they would live with
the hell conundrum. It was clearly
Galileo Demonstrating the New Astronomical Theories at the
University of Padua.
A replica of the earlest surviving telescope attributed to Galileo
Galilei, on display at the Griffith Observatory.

32. 31
very hot just below the
surface of the Earth
since we had found vol-
canoes breathing fire.
Copernicus must be
wrong. Galileo with his
telescope threatened to
turn all this on its head
in two ways. One was
Venus: a clear proof
that the planets did
not go ‘round the Sun
was that Venus hard-
ly changed its bright-
ness, and if it went
around the Sun,
it would sure-
ly be much
b r i g h t e r
when it
was near
the Earth
a n d
f a i n t e r
when it
was far
away; and
a n y w a y ,
it would
have phases
like the Moon.
No-one had seen
anything like phases
with Venus, but Galileo
with his telescope
could see clear phases
with Venus, which also
explained the bright-
ness. When Venus is
near, it is apparently
bigger, but only a small
part of it is illuminated.
When it is far away, it is
smaller and fainter, but
the whole disc is illumi-
nated. The size and the
phase cancelled each
other out and kept the
brightness of Venus
the same as it orbited
the Sun. For the ortho-
dox Catholic view the
unvarying brightness
of Venus was proof that
it did not go ‘round the
Sun, and only when
Galileo could show the
phases of Venus to
everyone did these
ideas change.
Venus

33. 32
Theothermoredramat-
ic discovery involved
Jupiter. After Venus,
the Sun, and the Moon,
Jupiter is the brightest
object in the sky, and
at the moment (spring
2015), it is prominent
high in the sky in the
early evening. Galileo
turned his telescope
onto Jupiter just as you
can with the robotic
telescope and was able
to see the bright planet
with its tiny family of
moons, just like the
planets going around
the Sun. The faint line
of dots of light change
their position every
night sometimes disap-
pearing behind Jupiter
or each other as Jupiter
follows its majestic
journey around the
Sun. You can see these
Photo:©Bradford Robotic Telescope
The four largest satellites of Jupiter are easily seen in a small telescope and were
first observed by Galileo.

34. 33
moons and their daily motion the
same as Galileo did. Ask the tele-
scope to take images of Jupiter for a
few days and you too will see these
tiny spots of light move around the
planet. Check exactly how to do it
by finding images in the image gal-
lery. With a bit of care and by using
different exposures, you should also
be able to see the Great Red Spot
on Jupiter: a giant storm that has
been raging for at least 400 years
and which is big enough to engulf
the Earth. The moons themselves
are uniquely interesting; Io, the
moon nearest Jupiter, is the most
volcanic object in the solar system,
blasting out sulphur with moun-
tains higher than Everest. It orbits
Jupiter in just under 2 days, but it
is Europa that will probably receive
the most attention because it has
oceans under a thin surface of ice,
and the general view is that liquid
water is the best place to look for
life.
With multiple requests to the tele-
scope, you will be able to measure
the orbital time of the moons of
Jupiter with its Great Red
Spot, and Jupiter’s four
largest moons, known as
the Galilean satellites. From
top to bottom, the moons
shown are Io, Europa,
Ganymede and Callisto.
The Great Red Spot, a
storm in Jupiter’s atmo-
sphere, is at least 300
years old.
Source:Wikipedia
Photo credit:NASA

35. 34
Jupiter and with some effort appre-
ciate the first measurements of the
velocity of light, since the time of
disappearance of a moon behind
Jupiter can be measured exactly
and so can the orbital period. We
need to add on the time the light
takes to get to us; the distance
from Jupiter to the Earth varies by
the diameter of the Earth’s orbit:
about 16 minutes in light time as
we circle the Sun. You can enjoy
a foray into the history of science
and much more with the robotic
telescope. For Galileo, he achieved
everlasting fame, but in his lifetime,
he was shown the instruments of
torture and forced to stop looking
at the stars and remain silent about
the motions of the planets around
the Sun. He was pardoned in 1992
by Pope John Paul II. You can have
all these delights for free unless
you decide to subscribe. There are
no instruments of torture… just £5
per month.

36. 35
www . ispectrummagazine . c o m
FREE SUBSCRIPTION
“Orpheus with his Lute made Trees,
And the Mountaine tops that freeze,
Bow themselves when he did sing.
To his Musicke, Plants and Flowers
Ever spring; as Sunne and Showres,
There had been a lasting Spring.
Every thing that heard him play,
Even the Billowes of the Sea,
Hung their heads, and then lay by.
In sweet Musicke is such Art,
Killing care, and griefe of heart,
Fall asleepe, or hearing dye.”
- Shakespeare