APOD 3.8

SpaceX's Falcon 9 Launches to the Space Station

2012 May 23

CAPITALISM IN SPAAAAAAAACE! Well kinda, on May 23 the corporation SPACEX has made the first step towards space travel by private industries. The corporation's Falcon 9 rocket was attached to a Dragon Spacecraft in order to test the reliability of privately made spacecraft and to resupply the International Space Station. Today marks the day where Dragon will attempt to dock with the ISS, I will update this post later tonight and bring news of its success (or failure).

P.S - School Internet just dropped.

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"Dragon's sensors and flight systems are subjected to a series of complicated tests to determine if the vehicle is ready to berth with the space station; these tests include maneuvers and systems checks in which the vehicle comes within 1.5 miles of the station". This means I was wrong and that SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket will not come in contact with the ISS today. This section give me an opportunity to go over some assorted aspects of the space program that I believe are worth going over. First off, the contract that initially started SpaceX and NASA's joint work efforts, or COTS (Commercial Orbital Transportation Services), was signed back in 2006, meaning this project has been in the works for six years! Additionally, the Falcon 9 launch vehicle is available for purchase for a mere 54 million dollars, if we can convince Pine View to provide the funding then we can have the best stargaze EVER! Overall I support the efforts made to incorporate non-government funded businesses in space exploration, it will hopefully expand the importance of astronomy and facilitate future travels to the stars and beyond. In the words of NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. "The significance of this day cannot be overstated. While there is a lot of work ahead to successfully complete this mission, we are off to a good start." 

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May.25,2012 - Dragon has made contact with the ISS, astronauts rejoice!

Observations #3/ Quarter 4

Observations #3/ Quarter 4

I almost forgot to record my supermoon observations from May 4th; therefore, this set of observations is not in chronological order and does not contain some of the same sky objects as the night I am posting this. With that being said, the supermoon was fantastic! The moon looked bigger than usual, of course, but what I really enjoyed was the moonlight it provided. Even though it was night, the full moon reflected enough of the sun's light to illuminate my entire neighborhood. Unfortunately my pictures are not of good enough quality to upload here and the full moon hid any stars that night by outshining everything else. My night was spent gazing at the moon, and only the moon that night. If there was ever a night to become a lunatic, it was that night.

Total Hours observed = 2hrs

Between 8 PM-10PM on May.4,2012

Bart Bok Bio

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Richard Fuerst

Mr. Percival

DE Astronomy

22 May 2012

Bart Bok

            Bartholomeus Bok or "Bart Bok", for short, is known for his studies that determined the shape of our galaxy and how stars are formed; the dark, nebulous globules that house this star development have been named "Bok Globules" after their discoverer. Before we get into Bok's scientific achievements it is imperative that we explore his upbringing and the factors that would shape this essential figure in our twentieth-century understanding of the Milky Way.

            Bart Bok was born in Hoorn on April. 29,1906, but moved to Haarlem when his father was relocated due to his father's position as a sergeant-major in the Dutch army. The events following World War I saw that young Bok would move from Haarlem to The Hague, an area reknown for its education of  fledgling physicists and  budding mathematicians. It was in  Boy Scouts that Bok acquired his interest in astronomy, which began when he realized he could not identify a single star in the nighttime sky. From then on he started delving deeper into the field of astronomy and entered the University of Leiden in 1924 where he built upon Harlow Shapley's work - an American astronomer who used Cepheid variable stars to show our location was not in the middle of the Milky Way galaxy, but  someplace near its edge. Later, in the summer of 1928,

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Bok would meet two people who would forever change his life at the International Astronomical Union meeting, one was his future wife, Priscilla, and the other was Harlow Sharply himself! Bok offered the former with a marriage proposal and the latter proposed Bok take a new position at Harvard. Only when Bok finally arrived at Harvard did his research into the Milky Way and star formation truly begin.

            The first celestial object to pique Bok's interest was a mass of swirling gases around Eta Carinae. He pondered why some smaller nebulae were strewn apart and dispersed while others were more enduring; to explain this phenomena, Bok reasoned that a rotating galaxy could produce gravity capable of causing waves throughout the Milky Way, tearing small nebulae asunder. Around 1947, Edith Reilly, a technical assistant suffering from multiple sclerosis, asked Bok to study dark nebulae with her. Bok was always interested in dark nebulae and readily agreed to join the young technical assistant. Together the two photographed, cataloged, and analyzed many dark nebulae over the next few years. Eventually Bok postulated that these dark nebulae are the birthplaces of young stars, that the clouds of debris would start to swirl and collapse under their own gravity, causing stellar fusion. Around 1956, when astronomers started using telescopes designed for radio waves they discovered evidence supporting Bok's thesis. Unfortunately WWII stunted communications internationally between members of the astronomy community and the groundbreaking work done by the use of these new radio telescopes were not being shared openly. Bok was not to be discouraged by international disputes and decided to form a international scientific community sub rosa during WWII. This

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organization would evolve over the years and turn into the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). While never discerning the nature of the spiral arms themselves, Bok and Priscilla published Bok's findings for the rest of the scientific community to analyze and "draw" the arms from; additionally, they fostered an appreciation for the Milky Way itself by writing a book together entitled "The Milky Way" . In 1975, before Priscilla died, she said to Bok that she would be watching over him from "their beloved Eta Carinae". Four days later she passed away; in 1983, Bok joined her in their favorite stellar system.

Quarter 4/ Observations #2

Quarter 4/ Observations #2
May.20,2012

Tonight was my first night that I began tracking the disappearance of Venus in the western sky. If a phase can be applied to Venus' phases then I would say it was "waning crescent"; however it was still one of the brightest objects in the nighttime sky( it certainly is in the western sky). Additionally, Venus sat in Taurus the Bull tonight. For my next observation I began looking for other bright celestial objects, and found Sirius shining bright in the southwestern sky. Then I saw Mars in the southwest, located near Regulus in Leo the Lion. Finally I looked further south for Saturn and found it near Spica in Virgo the Virgin. Also the moon must have been "new" since I could not see it.

P.S - I would have started looking at Venus earlier this weekend but Cobalt takes precedence.

Observation hours: 7 PM - 9 PM
2 hours

APOD 4.7

APOD 4.7
M106 Close Up
2012 May 3

Pierre Mechain discovered M106 in 1781 but he referred it to a friend, Charles Messier, who added it to his catalog of celestial wonders that we all know as the Messier Catalog. What really  caught my eye about this article was the term island universe. Excuse me but...

That's right an island universe, but what does this mean? Well apparently the term is less impressive as it sounds; M 106 is not its own independent universe, rather it is a galaxy with a complete misnomer. William Herschel added it to his catalog in 1786 as a galaxy universe, before the true distances of such stellar structures could be appreciated, and made it an island "universe". Additionally the term universe is understood  as the entirety of existence, so the term "island universe" has fallen into disuse. This APOD mislead me, just like the "Star Wars" APODs, only this time "island universe" has me thinking of the movie "Cast Away".

 

APOD 4.6

APOD 4.6
Higgs Boson Explained by Cartoon
2012 May 1

<iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/41038445?portrait=0&amp;color=c8b3df" width="400" height="300" frameborder="0" webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen></iframe>

The Higgs Boson is a tiny particle that may or may not exist, which is why we turn to the Large Hadron Collider for definite data. The  link above is an embed of a short cartoon explaining some of the theory behind the Higgs Boson and the purpose of the LHC itself. Its well known that the LHC is used to smash particles together to discover new ones, but what I found interesting was the importance of energy in the collisions. The cartoon explained how higher energy levels, during the collision, would have a better chance of yielding new particles. Additionally there have been twelve different types of particles found from such collisions, and it is currently impossible just how many more could be out there! Finally, I enjoyed how the cartoon made a brief reference to astronomy in its explanation for running constant collisions in the LHC. By running 40 billion collisions a second they can gather enough information to determine if a theory's mechanics are present in a large set of data; it was stated that a camera pointed towards the night sky works in a similar manner, that the longer a camera is aimed at the sky, "the more you can see". Whether it is the nighttime sky or data on a chart, if we gaze long enough we might be able to see something new and exciting.

Moon Zoo

I am designating abnormalities and craters on the surface of the moon.
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Moon Zoo is becoming easier with practice, dark holed and "flesh-white" craters are easier to spot.
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I checked my progress on how much of the surface I've covered, I feel as though I've barely scatched the surface, literally!
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Note to self: "Gruntwork" is the foundation for insanity.