Mountain Views News          Saturday, August 9, 2014

B2

THE WORLD AROUND US

Mountain Views-News Saturday, August 9, 2014 


LASER-WIELDING ROBOT PROBES EXOPLANET SYSTEMS

An international team, including Dr. Christoph 
Baranec of the University of Hawaii at Manoa’s 
Institute for Astronomy, is using the world’s 
first robotic laser adaptive optics system—Robo-
AO—to explore thousands of exoplanet systems 
(planets around other stars) at resolutions 
approaching those of the Hubble Space Telescope.

 The results, which shed light on the formation 
of exotic exoplanet systems and confirm hundreds 
of exoplanets, have just been published in the 
Astrophysical Journal. The design and operation 
of the unprecedented instrument has just been 
published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.

 Laser adaptive optics systems are used by 
terrestrial telescopes to remove the image-
blurring effects of Earth’s turbulent atmosphere, 
thereby capturing much sharper images than are 
otherwise possible from the ground. Baranec, 
Robo-AO’s principal investigator and lead author 
of the Astrophysical Journal Letter, led the 
development of the innovative Robo-AO system 
on the Palomar 1.5-meter telescope. It is the 
world’s first instrument that fully automates the 
complex and often inefficient operation of laser 
adaptive optics.

 “We’re using Robo-AO’s extreme efficiency 
to survey in exquisite detail all of the candidate 
exoplanet host stars that have been discovered by 
NASA’s Kepler mission,” said Baranec. “While 
Kepler has an unrivaled ability to discover 
exoplanets that pass between us and their host 
star, it comes at the price of reduced image 
quality, and that’s where Robo-AO excels.”

 In fact, analysis of the first part of the Robo-
AO/Kepler exoplanet host survey is already 
yielding surprising results. “We’re finding that 
‘hot Jupiters’—rare giant exoplanets in tight 
orbits—are almost three times more likely 
to be found in wide binary star systems than 
other exoplanets, shedding light on how these 
exotic objects formed,” said Prof. Nicholas Law 
(University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s 
College of Arts and Sciences), Robo-AO’s project 
scientist and lead author on the Astrophysical 
Journal paper. “Going further, Robo-AO’s unique 
capabilities have allowed us to discover even 
rarer objects: binary star systems where each 
star has a Kepler-detected planetary system of its 
own. These systems will be uniquely interesting 
for studies of how the planets formed—and for 
science fiction about what life would be like with 
another planetary system right next door,” added 
Law.

*******

“AUGUST MOON MOST BEAUTIFUL.” In the 
1956 movie “The Teahouse of the August Moon,” 
the wise Okinawa elder tells the American 
soldiers, “All moons beautiful, but August moon 
most beautiful.” 

 I have always remembered that sentence, and 
over the years I have found there is something 
especially beautiful about the moon in August, 
perhaps because it is so often surrounded 
and framed by the altocumulus clouds that 
accompany the moist, monsoonal flow of air 
typical this time of year in Southern California.

 This year’s August moon will be full on Sunday, 
August 10. Unfortunately, the full moon will 
brighten the sky and so interfere with seeing this 
year’s Perseid meteor shower, which will be at its 
peak on the nights of August 11 and 12. 

 Still, a few bright meteors may still be seen, 
and it’s well worth “looking up” for this, the 
best meteor shower of the year. Caused by left-
over grains of dust from Comet Swift-Tuttle, this 
shower takes its name from the constellation 
Perseus, which is the part of the sky where the 
meteors seem to originate as they streak across 
the sky. The most meteors are usually seen after 
midnight, though I have seen a beautiful Perseid 

fireball as early as ten o’clock. Happy viewing!

You can contact Bob Eklund at: 

b.eklund@MtnViewsNews.com.


PYRACANTHA (Pyracantha angustifolia):

A common urban hedge with edible berries – more or less… By Christopher Nyerges

Pyracantha 
is a common 
hedge plant 
in the urban 
landscape, and 
it does quite well 
in the desert and 
under drought 
conditions.

 You tend to not notice it unless it’s in fruit with 
the striking red-orange fruits (occasionally they 
are very red). Or you don’t notice it until you 
trip or get pushed into the hedge with its many 
thorns!

 The fruits resemble little apples, and I recall my 
mother telling me never to eat the fruits of this 
bush that grew along the driveway of our home. 
She said they were poisonous, and the evidence 
of this was that supposedly birds have been noted 
to eat the fruits and then fly around erratically. 
Really? Had my mother actually seen such a bird? 
Well, no, she told me, but she’d heard about it and 
was sure that others had seen that too. 

 Think about it: is observing what animals eat 
a good clue to what humans can eat? No, it’s 
not! Certainly anyone and anything can eat the 
edible foods in nature. But some of the mildly 
to very toxic plants can be consumed by some of 
the fauna of nature without sickness. Plus, how 
do you know that the animal you just observed 
eating the questionable leaves or fruit didn’t just 
walk off or fly off and die?

 Someone may have observed a bird fly erratically 
after they believed the bird ate a pyracantha fruit. 
A bird expert told me that he wasn’t sure about 
the story, but that he’d heard this happens mostly 
after a rain when the fruit is wet and swelled up. 
It is entirely possible that someone somewhere 
observed an erratically flying bird that had just 
munched on lots of pyracantha berries. But so 
what? It doesn’t have any relevance to humans.

 When properly prepared, humans can eat these 
fruits with no after-effects of flying erratically.

 Raw pyracantha berries are not particularly 
flavorful. They are dry and astringent. Squeeze 
one and it will reveal the somewhat dry insides. 
Occasionally you might find one that is better 
than average raw. So if you’re going to eat these, 
you’re going to cook them and prepare them into 
sauces, jams, and jellies.

 In the old, now defunct Desert Magazine, 
they used to publish recipes that you could 
make from plants that were common in the 
desert. Pyracantha was a common landscape 
plant because it required so little care, and is 
drought-resistant. I would not consider planting 
it if I wanted an edible landscape, but if it already 
grows on your property, you might as well try it 
in various recipes.

 To make jams or jellies, you pick and wash 
the fruits, and then cook them, changing the 
water at least once. Then you add the sugar, and 
cook some more until the desired thickness is 
obtained. If you don’t wish to use white sugar, use 
some other sweetener like honey, or molasses, or 
even maple syrup. Or if you want to make your 
own sweetener, try adding the boiled juice from 
the native palm’s little fruits, or grape juice, or 
apple juice. There are a lot of possibilities here.

 I’ve had some of these fruits simply dried, 
and used as a trail nibble. They are OK, nothing 
really exceptional, but you might have a different 
opinion.

 

Pyracantha, also known as Firethorn, is a 
member of the Rose Family. The Pyracantha 
genus contains 10 species world-wide and at 
least 3 in California, all introduced. Pyracantha 
angustifolia is perhaps the hardiest species and 
can sometimes be found in the wild, having gone 
feral.

 

RECIPE

 In the February 1976 issue of Desert magazine, 
Helen Peterson describes her experiments with 
making pyracantha jelly until she came up with a 
recipe that all her friends liked. 

 Peterson first collects three quarts of the 
berries, and washes them. She puts them into a 
pot with 3 cups of water, and boils for 20 minutes.

 Then she adds the juice of one grapefruit and 
the juice of one lemon, and strains it all through 
a jelly bag to get rid of all the pulp. This 
results in about 3 ½ cups of juice. Then, add one 
box of powdered pectin, and bring to a boil. Add 
4 ½ cups of sugar and a pinch of salt and bring to 
a full boil for three minutes. 

 Then pour the rosy pink jelly into sterile jars, 
which Peterson seals with paraffin.

 Nowadays, everyone is concerned about the 
use of white sugar, which has no nutritive value. 
So, since this is so heavy on the white sugar, you 
might experiment with other sweeteners, such as 
honey, or maple syrup, or even date sugar.

[Nyerges is the author of “Guide to Wild Foods 
and Useful Plants,” “Foraging California,” “How 
to Survive Anywhere,” and “Foraging Nuts and 
Berries” (2015). He has led wild food outings since 
1974. He can be reached at www.SchoolofSelf-
Reliance.com, or Box 41834, Eagle Rock, CA 
90041.]

 


BROKEN CONCRETE…

REUSE IS THE BEST RECYCLE!!

Saturday, August 9

10am-12Noon / Palm Room

Laramee Haynes, Instructor

$25 Arboretum members; $30 non-members (includes Arboretum admission)

Please call 626.821.4623 to register or pay at the door

 Make beautiful paved areas for walking and relaxing in your garden by using recycled materials 
such as broken concrete, local rocks, old bricks and stepping stones. These materials can also be 
used to build small walls for soil retention or a garden feature. The workshop will cover projects 
that you can do yourself with a little muscle, a little planning, and a little art. 

 Laramee, owner of Haynes Landscape Design, will also bring material examples, photos of 
projects and a handout to help guide you through your first project. 

Laramee Haynes is a Pasadena-based landscape contractor and designer with ten years of field 
experience. Prior to purchasing his father’s landscaping business, Laramee worked as a mechanical 
engineer in manufacturing. He has also designed innovative and wonderful gardens at Pasadena 
Showcase houses and the LA Garden Show. www.Hayneslandscaping.com 

http://www.latimes.com/home/la-hm-broken-concrete-20140802-story.html