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.

APOD 4.5

APOD 4.5
3 ATs
2012 April 21

 When my eyes read the title, my mind jumped immediately to AT-ATs and Star Wars. Yuri Beletsky warns readers that these R2D2 look-alikes are "not the droids" we're looking for. While not as interesting as a sentient repair robots or All Terrain Armored Transports, these Auxiliary Telescopes do serve a greater purpose; they gather light into a common focal point to act as a interferometer. The three Auxiliary Telescopes are on tracks and shift with another (off camera) telescope to gather enough light for higher resolution stargazing. The picture above was taken in Chile's Paranal Observatory, which makes sense since the Large and Small Magellanic clouds are visible in the southern hemisphere.



APOD 4.4

The Flight Deck of Space Shuttle Endeavour

2012 April 18

Ben Cooper begins his article by imagining how fun it would be to pilot a space shuttle... even though all of NASA's shuttles have been retired.

Smashed dreams of ever being an astronaut go below.

While any hopes I have of taking a NASA shuttle to the moon are dashed, there is always the possibility of new shuttles being built in the future, perhaps commercially. On the other hand, the retired shuttles are to be spread to different museums across the United States; including California, New York, Virginia, and Florida. Luckily, trips to the International Space Station can still be taken aboard the Russian spacecraft, Soyuz

Quarter 4 / Observations #1

Group Stargaze at school service road on April 15th 2012 from 8:30 -10:30 P.M
It had been ages since we have had an astronomy night, but the clouds finally gave way Sunday night and we spring's celestial sky. At first we could only see three out of four planets with Jupiter low in the west and Venus high above it; Venus was in its waning crescent phase. Mars was to the southeast, also its red due to its high concentration of iron oxide. Saturn turned up later that evening in the constellation Virgo, off to the left of Spica. Virgo the Virgin, Corvus the Crow, and Coma Bernices were visible around 10 P.M in the east. Additionally Leo the Lion could be seen with its tail (Denebola) pointing to Virgo. In the south was Hydra, Antlia, Sextans, the ship Argo, Canis Major, Canis Minor, Orion, and Lepus. The west had Auriga with the Kids below Capella. The Hyades in Taurus were visible under the binoculars near Aldebaran. Finally the north featured Ursa Major and Minor, with the Great Bear pointing to Polaris with its pointer stars and its arc pointing to Arcturus. Since we have not had a astronomy night in ages, I managed to learn to recognize a large assortment of new stars.
Total hours gazed at group event = 2 X 2 = 4!

APOD 4.3

A Dust Devil of Mars
2012 April 13

Dust Devils, a metological phenomena that we never see in Florida, occurs regularly on Mars! The HiRISE camera onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter caught this dust devil; it has a diameter of 30 meters and the plume towers 800 meters into the martian atmosphere. This is caused by the sun's warming of Mars' surface, causing winds that pick up dust particles and cause a tornado-like effect. As hot low-pressure air is picked up it circulates and then cools as the air moves upward; the wind speed is usually around 110 km or 68 mph. The dust it displaces leaves tracks in the surface of Mars. The picture taken was of the Amazonis Planitia reigon of Mars, named for the "Land of the Amazons.






Additionally, time on Mars is easily divided into days based on its rotation rate and years based on its orbit.  Sols, or Martian solar days, are only 37 minutes and 22 seconds longer than Earth days. I guess that means there is a unique martian solar year!

APOD 4.2

2012 April 4
Centaurus A

Centaurus A has yet to be featured in a COTW quiz, yet we already know so much about it. The class has already learned that Centaurus A is the closest active galaxy to Earth at a distance of only 11 million light-years away! Active galaxies are known for their black holes and Centaurus A is no different with its black hole in the galaxy's center. The black hole's center is a billion times the mass of the sun. What is truly amazing is that Centaurus A might have been caused by the collision of two normal galaxies! Hopefully the Milky Way is not consigned to the same fate one day, that would suck more than a black hole!
P.S - Pardon my use of "suck" :)

APOD 4.1

The New Moon in the Old Moon's Arms

2012 March 24

"Earthshine" is not the infamous equivalent of "moonshine"; rather, it is the reflection of sunshine off the Earth's surface onto the moon's surface and back again to our eyes. This effect also has the name the ashen glow due to its grayish hue. As the title suggests the new crescent moon pictured here looks like it is cradling the old moon in its "arms". The explanation for this astronomical occurrence was given by Leonardo da Vinci 500 years ago. I wondered why this does not occur more often but further research explained that every 29.5 days the alignment is what causes this effect to occur. When the sun is setting and the moon in crescent, we will have the ashen glow of the moon.

Bok Biography Source

Bok Biography Sources

Strand, Levy, David ." Concise Dictionary of Scientific Biography. By Charles Coulston Gillispie. Vol. 19. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1981. 328-332. Print. American Council of Learned Societies.

"Bart Jan Bok." Science and Its Times. Ed. Neil Schlager and Josh Lauer. Vol. 6: 1900 to 1949. Detroit: Gale, 2000. 501. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 11 Apr. 2012.

Anonymous. "Bok Globules." Science News, Technology, Physics, Nanotechnology, Space Science, Earth Science, Medicine. Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 4 June 2010. Web. 11 Apr. 2012. <http://phys.org/news194877369.html>.

http://planetfacts.org/bok-globules/

APOD 3.8

Solar Flare in the Gamma-ray Sky
2012 March 15
Chapters 21 and 22 of our textbooks deals with extrasolar objects identified by gamma radiation from space: pulsars, black holes, and supernova remnants; however, on March sixth and seventh the sun's solar energy soared and dominated our gamma readings. Gamma rays are the highest energy form of light therefore a gamma ray sky will look drastically different than what we perceive in the visible light spectrum. At one hundred times brighter than the Vela Pulsar, an object that is consistently the brightest source of gamma rays in the sky, a X-class solar flare was captured by the Fermi Space Telescope. Telescopes such as these examine the highest wavelengths: radio, X-ray, and Gamma; additionally, X-class flare are the most massive class of solar flare possible. Below is the imaged captured by the Fermi Space Telescope.

While we know so much about the sun due to its close proximity and its radiation of light across all spectrums; pulsars are harder to study for the exact opposite reasons, they are far and faint. Another contributing factor is the way pulsars spin, if the beam of emission is  not pointed towards Earth we cannot detect it's gamma rays. What is most interesting is the rate at which their neutron stars, located at the center of the pulsar, rotate. One the size of Manhattan can rotate hundreds of times in a second. The fastest recorded rotation rate of a pulsar is 736 rotations per second. Numbers like that... are dizzying.

A Celestial Trinity

Supernovae/ Supernovas

3/21/12
Supernovae at different times in their "life".
Crab Nebula (M1) located in Taurus at SN 1572 and SN 1604. It can be observed by the naked eye in the Milky Way galaxy and is around one thousand years old. The Crab Nebula is a supernova remnant.

"The nebula was observed by John Bevis in 1731; it corresponds to a bright supernova recorded by Arab, Chinese and Japanese astronomers in 1054. At X-ray and gamma-ray energies above 30 keV, the Crab is generally the strongest persistent source in the sky".

"After" and "Before" pictures of Supernova 1987A

Supernova 1987 is located in the Large Magellanic Cloud. The picture taken below came from the Hubble Space Telescope and uses far-reaching ultraviolet technology. While we saw the light in 1987 the actual explosion occurred some 160,000 years ago.

Supernova SN 2006bc is located in the galaxy NGC 2397, 60 million light years away from Earth, a classical spiral galaxy very similar to our own, which allowed Hubble to study individual stars inside it in great detail. The constellation that it occupies is Carina the Sail and the name we know it by is Eta Carinae. The age is undetermined but it is believed that Eta Carinae will collapse into a black hole within a million years.

Supernova remnant Cassiopeia A is located in the constellation Cassiopeia, which is also in the Milky Way galaxy. The colored X-ray image showing silicon ion concentration in the supernova remnant Cassiopeia A (Cas A). These colors represent the intensity of X-ray emission, from green (lowest) through magenta to yellow (highest). Cas A is the remains of a star which exploded as a supernova around 300 years ago. It blew up around the year 1667; the celestial object was not noticed till August. 16, 1680 by John Flamsteed.

APOD 3.6

2012 February 22  
A Sailing Stone in Death Valley 

Death Valley is a desert valley located in California and oddly enough has a very low fatality rate. After doing some research, I found Yellowstone National Park has had 14 more fatalities than Death Valley. In fact, its name stems from the lack of vegetation and life that the oppressive heat causes.


The dried lake-bed known as Racetrack Playa is a completely flat salt flat that features a few large stones (featured above). The "sail stones" are not easily movable by normal, human means; however, Earth uses its natural forces to scoot these 300 kilogram rocks along. Through a combination of wind and a slippery surface, caused by recent rainfall, can shift these rocks on a scale that no human eye can discern. Much like man celestial objects in our nighttime sky, these rocks need additional, non-human equipment to track their motion.

APOD 3.7

Jupiter Unplugged
2012 March 2
I never thought there could a career known as an astronomical artist, but Fred Burgeot and his rendition of Jupiter's turbulent clouds has changed my preconceived notions. I was under the impression that art skills and astronomy were obsolete with modern day imaging: photographs, 3-D models, animations, etc. It is interesting to see a modern day astronomer draw, with better details, the same celestial objects Galileo looked at in 1610; Fred even managed to sketch the original Galilean moons! It is comforting to know that there are some objects, that age so slowly, the passage of time does not change our observations about them.

Galileo and Fred Burgeot comparison ^

Quarter 3/ Observation #3

Saint Patrick's Night (March.17,2012)

Waning Crescent Moon Tonight

9:00 P.M.-11 P.M.

In the western sky Jupiter and Venus can be seen with Venus climbing higher and Jupiter falling into the horizon; Mars and Saturn( the latter not visible with the naked eye) is in the eastern sky. The entire sky has a mixture of spring and winter constellations which coincides nicely with the warmer nights. I can see Gemini's Castor and Pollux along with the constellation Cancer; these are the only zodiacal constellations I happened to notice. Finally I could discern the area where Canes Venatici would be along with the parts of the ship: keel, stern, compass, and sail.

2 Hours Observed

Enjar Hertzsprung

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Richard Fuerst

Mr. Percival

DE Astronomy

2 March 2012

Ejnar Hertzsprung

            Born on October 8th, 1873, a young Dane would be lead away from the field of astronomy; ironically, he would become one of our greatest contributors to the study of stars, this astronomer was Ejnar Hertzsprung. Ejnar Hertzsprung's father, Severin Hertzsprung, had a graduate degree in astronomy but, for financial reasons, accepted a position in the Department of Finances; he advised his son against the financial insecurity of astronomy, therefore Ejnar opted for chemical engineering as a career path. After graduating from the Polytechnical Institute in Copenhagen in 1898 and spent several years as a chemist before he began to study photochemistry in Wilhelm Ostwald's laboratory. During this period he began talking with astronomer Karl Schwarzschild, and within a few years he joined Schwarzschild as senior staff astronomer at the observatory in Potsdam. By 1919 Hertzsprung was the associate director and associate professor of the University of Leiden, and in 1935 he became its director. Hertzsprung retired in 1944 and returned to Denmark, continuing his research until 1966. He died at 94, thirteen days after his birthday.

           

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            What made Ejnar Hertzsprung so important to astronomy? Two words: Hertzsprung-Russell diagram; Hertzsprung work with stars and luminosity yielded the means for determining stellar distances, galactic structures, and distances to other galactic systems. His unique background consisting of photometry and chemistry made him more qualified in the emerging field of spectrometry. Before Hertzsprung contributed to our understanding of the physical nature of stars, we only knew the radial velocities and the spectras of different stars. It was not until 1905 and 1907 that he showed the relationship between the sharp/deep features of absorption lines and a star's luminosity in his papers called Zur Strahlung der Sterne. We could now measure intrinsic brightness with stellar spectra! The Hertzsprung-Russell diagram relates the luminosity of stars with their temperature, so high temperature / luminosity stars occupy the top right and low temperature/ luminosity rest in the bottom left areas of the scatter plot. Most stars are main sequence stars and have a direct relationship between their temperature and absolute magnitude. There are some stars, which Hertzsprung alludes to in his papers, that do not necessary follow the temperature/luminosity relationship. For example, red giants are very luminous yet lack the higher temperatures of their blue giant counterparts. Hertzsprung research was the cornerstone of the later illustration that became the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram. One diagram he did create was one for the Pleiades star cluster in 1906; he also inferred that stars of the same cluster would be approximately the same distance away from Earth. He concluded that this distance was negligible! He also constructed a diagram for the Hyades using this principle. Hertzsprung came up with the method of obtaining distances for binary-star systems and different photographic methods to help gather data on stars. Altogether he made 36,000 estimates of the brightness of variable stars. Finally his determination of the distance to the Small

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Magellanic Cloud ,  the furthest distance determined for that time (10,000 parsecs), earned him the gold medal of the Royal Astronomy Society. 

Hertzsprung Biography Sources

Strand, K. Aa. "Hertzsprung." Concise Dictionary of Scientific Biography. By Charles Coulston Gillispie. Vol. 5. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1981. 350-53. Print. American Council of Learned Societies.


Poulson, Erling. "Hertzsprung." RUNDETAARN. Rundetaarn, 24 Feb. 2012. Web. 24 Feb. 2012. <http://www.rundetaarn.dk/engelsk/observatorium/hertz.html>.

Question of the Day

Question to answer... How are stars formed and what evidence is there of their formation?

The study of star formation is ongoing; however, astronomers do have a theory with supporting evidence. When the Big Bang occurred 14 billion years ago it expelled hydrogen and helium. The gas molecules had mass, ergo they had gravity. Dense gas clusters began to collapse surrounding gases upon itself and grow in mass, eventually the resulting increase in temperature was enough to start nuclear fusion. By fusing hydrogen, heavier elements, like iron, started to enter our universe. Nuclear fusion, creation of heavier elements, and gravity all contributed to the formation of the earliest stars. On a side note, when stars use up all their "fuel" in their cores they slowly collapse upon themselves. Consequently, hotter, denser cores are formed and the outer layers of the star are pushed away, thereby cooling the outer layer. What happens next depends on the star's mass; however,  should the star happen to expel the rest of its matter, it shall be recycled by the universe and make new stars.

"Pillars of Creation"

-Observational Evidence-
+The Rossi X-Ray Timing Explorer has captured telltale X-Ray emissions of gas swirling just a few miles from the surface of a neutron star.
+  The Orion Nebula has young stars that are shaping the nebula to the pillars of dense gas that may be the homes of budding stars. The Eagle and Lagoon nebulae also show this.
+ Binary systems and planets hint that the same condensing gases made everything. Less massive formations became the smaller celestial objects that orbit the larger masses in out universe.

-Physics and Mathematical Evidence-
+ White Dwarfs do not collapse do to the pressure of fast-moving electrons, as dictated by quantum physics.
+ Gravity, nuclear fusion, solar wind, and the  Hertzsprung-Russel Diagram can be explained by what we know about the interaction of atoms, radiation, and the radius-luminosity-temperature relationship.
The Comments Section has the sources.

APOD 3.5

The Rosette Nebula
2012 February 14

In Monoceros there is a nebula that reminds lookers of flora here on Earth, the Rosette Nebula. It carries ionized hydrogen which allows us to see a reddish-hue in the visible spectrum. What is puzzling is why this large volume of gas and dust is not producing stars that are about the same size as its neighbor Orion. Regardless, the Unicorn in the nighttime sky has one of the most beautiful nebulae; the young hot stars radiate nicely in this stellar nursery.

Quarter #3/ Observations #2

Sunday Stargaze (2/12/12)

Location: School

Time: 7-9 P.M.

3 Planes and 2 satellites.

A clear, cold night tends to yield plenty of stars for observation, but the telescopes proved to be the most troublesome aspect in last night’s group stargaze. Different parts of the sky showed three different “seasons” simultaneously: winter in the east, fall in the west, and spring in the north. The south was mainly composed of Eridanus and Fornax with a two specks of bright light, Jupiter and Venus. The constellations in the east were more entertaining. Using Orion’s Betelgeuse, Canis Major’s Sirius, and Canis Minor’s Procyon we drew a “winter triangle” as a frame of reference. From that point we could find Monoceros, Gemini (Castor and Pollux), Lynx, Lepus, and Columba. In the north the Big Dipper was partly visible, and Cancer the Crab could be found a little to the northeast. The west had the Great Square of Pegasus, Cassiopeia, Cepheus, and Andromeda. Directly overhead was Taurus, Perseus, and Aries. Through the telescope we could see Aldebaren sitting in the V-shaped Hyades and the Pleiades with the binoculars. Additionally, Venus was waxing gibbous, Jupiter was in Aries, and in M42 there were four stars visible that formed the Trapezium.

APOD 3.4

Lunation
2012 February 5
Lunation is the mean time of one lunar phase cycle, about 29.5 days. The moon's side that faces Earth never changes, but the manner in which sunlight is reflected off it differs on a night to night basis. Lunar libration is the cause of the rocking motion observed in the moon. There are three different types of libration: longitude, latitude, and Diurnal. The changes in longitude are caused by the moon's elliptical orbit, and the changes in latitude are due to the moon's inclined axis of rotation; however, diurnal libation is caused by the observer's position shifting as the Earth rotates. These three characteristic all contribute to the perceived rocking motion of the moon.

APOD 3.3

The Helix Nebula from the VISTA Telescope
2012 January 31

My main reason for selecting this article was to better remember the Helix Nebula in Aquarius' miscellaneous section in COTW quizzes; details about the nebula will prevent me from forgetting to write it in. Details like the Helix Nebula's being the closest planetary nebula to Earth or that it actually looks like a helix (who would have guessed)! The nebula was created when the original star ,that produced the nebula, exhausted its nuclear fuel and expelled its gases to create a planetary nebula. The Helix Nebula is destined to be a White Dwarf Star one day, but for today we know the nebula as the Eye of God that resides in space. The name was popularized on the Internet when a May 2003 APOD took of picture of the nebula that ended up looking like a giant eye. Even though NASA never referred to it as the Eye of God, many websites titled the image on their respective sites as the Eye of God. On May. 4th, 2008 another "eye" was discovered, Kohoutek 4-55 planetary nebula, located in the constellation Cygnus. The Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA) at the European Southern Observatory's Paranal Observatory in Chile took the above image and the following image is the Kohoutek "eye" photograph.

APOD 3.2

Days in the Sun
2012 January 21

The above image was taken over a six month period at University of Hertfordshire's Bayfordbury Observatory; the camera that captured the movement of the sun was composed of a tin can, photographic paper, and a tiny pinhole. What I found most remarkable was the amount of information that could be deduced from the image. From June to December, as the sun traveled across the sky it would get lower in the sky (thereby drawing lines further down the photographic paper) and trace its summer, winter, and fall routes. Also the brightness of each individual line or "day" tells us the everyday weather, a bright line would indicate a clear, sunny day where as a obscured or dim line would mean the day was cloudy. The most remarkable aspect of this article is that the cameras for solargraphy and the development of the images can all be done cheaply at home!